#we're not very good at taxonomy at all

[thereareeyesinsidethetrees]

ae had no idea how many birds were passeriformes until now. turns out it's...most of them probably

[maniculum]

Bestiaryposting Results: Basekhwa

Interesting one this time, in that we've got a lot of details, but not a lot of specificity as to what it looks like. The most we get is phrases like "with a tap of the hoof" which can cue us into the fact that it has hooves. Mostly we hear about things it does. So, before we see what people did with that, the obligatory links.

If you are confused as to what this post is about, please see https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting. The specific entry this week's artists are working from can be found here:

And now, art below the cut in roughly chronological order.

@sweetlyfez (link to post here) got hers in first this week, and it's a really charming creature. I think the colored-pencil medium gives the drawing a little extra something. A really clever interpretation here, I think, is that it has a trunk for catching snakes -- which makes sense if you think about it. The first thing we're told about them is:

Basekhwas are the enemies of snakes; when they feel weighed down with weakness, they draw snakes from their holes with the breath of their noses and, overcoming the fatal nature of their venom, eat them and are restored.

If an animal is luring snakes out by putting its nose against their hidey-holes, it seems entirely sensible to have the nose do double duty as an appendage for dealing with the snakes when they come out. I also enjoy the long flappy ears and the tapir-like coloration. This one, it seems, has been shot -- the entry does say they're an easy mark for archers -- but that's what the snake is for. (And thank you for the alt text.)

@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) notes that a creature that is mentioned to have both hooves and horns is surely an ungulate. I don't know enough about taxonomy to comment, so sure! They've picked a couple different ungulates to mix together for this design -- for details on that, see the linked post -- and given it a horn structure that's ideal for scooping up snakes from the ground, which I like. They describe it as turning out quite "feral unicorn-esque", which I can definitely see.

@cheapsweets (link to post here) brings us another detailed pen drawing. In their laudable drive to incorporate as much of the material as possible, we can see that they have found a creative way to show us additional scenes in this animal's life: in little vignettes on the Stylized Tree. Another fun nose on this one, too -- CheapSweets notes that it's inspired by the saiga antelope. All of this is very good, and the baby hidden in the bush is adorable. For detailed discussion of this art and how it relates to the entry, please see the linked post. (And thank you for the alt text.)

@pomrania (link to post here) regrettably was unable to do a final version, but posted their doodles. Given that I'm tagged in the post, I assumed they were meant to be put here. I kind of like the glimpse here into their process, with all these different scenes from the entry being brought in to toy with. Also I think the one labelled "frozen" is quite funny, and I enjoy that one is labelled "baby".

@strixcattus (link to post here) gives us this rather chimeric creature that kind of makes me think of an okapi if you turned the "different fur patterns in the front and back" thing up to 11. What I really like here is the horn asymmetry -- there's a little of it in CheapSweets's entry, in the middle vignette if you look close, but Strixcattus is taking it to another level. Both artists seem to have been inspired by the same part of the entry, i.e., this sentence:

Of their horns, the right-hand one is better for medical purposes.

If one horn is better medicine than the other, it's pretty reasonable to think they might look different. What I think is interesting here is that CheapSweets decided the medicinal horn should be the longer one, but Strixcattus made it the shorter one. Much to think about. (Oh, and the way it's posed so that the horns frame the sun is also really cool in my opinion.) As usual, please check out the linked post for Strixcattus's modernized description of this beast; I think this week's is particularly interesting actually.

Side note: I did a quick google to make sure that the okapi was indeed the animal I was thinking of and this was the first suggested question in the results (note that I just searched "okapi", no other words) :

... oh dear. The way search results are changing really is going to be a problem, isn't it?

@coolest-capybara (link to post here) has drawn something I find delightful. (And not just because I like her medieval-inspired style.) I actually laughed out loud seeing this one just because it's such a fun take. Here we have a Basekhwa "weighed down with weakness" and "draw[ing] snakes from their holes with the breath of [its] nose." I think everyone else went with "the breath is a lure and then the Basekhwa grabs/stabs/stomps/bites them", but Coolest-Capybara decided that it's not exhaling, it's inhaling, and it just hoovers the snakes out. I love it. Both the tired-looking Basekhwa and the rather panicked-looking snake are amazing. (And thank you for the alt text.)

Anyway, to the Aberdeen Bestiary:

... um.

Yeah, there are a few of these -- I think this is the second we've seen so far. Someone cut out an illustration at some point. So we're going to look towards the "sister manuscript", the Ashmole Bestiary:

So this one is... a deer.

I didn't know any of that stuff about deer, did you?

Not much I have to add here, but let me share a folk etymology I redacted for this entry.

The offspring of the deer are called hinnuli, 'fawns', from innuere, 'to nod', because at a nod from their mother, they vanish from sight.

I just... I don't think that's true.

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

I have a question about the abandonment of the Linnaean taxonomy, please. Under the clades system, do we still use genus and species? You know, for nomenclature and such?

Sorry to be one of the ignorant people asking what is probably an obvious question.

you're fine! I don't mind honest questions. It's when people assume they know things and try to correct me in my notes that drives me up the wall.

in my master's degree, I took multiple classes about all of this, including one where we discussed different species concepts and whether or not species are even real. fun fact, they are not - they are us trying to describe nature in ways we can all understand. but they're still us putting boxes around that which cannot be boxed.

Genus and Species are sticking around primarily bc they're THE names we have for organisms. if we got rid of them, we'd have no way to talk about anything.

in an ideal world, we would redefine species to be the smallest independent evolutionary unit. but we don't live in an ideal world.

in living organisms, animals you'd never expect are able to hybridize, completely fucking up reproductive isolation as a way to figure out independent evolutionary units. plants are constantly cross pollenizing, birds and mammals have extensive hybrid zones, and then there's whatever the fuck ray finned fish can do.

bacteria ruin everything even more with horizontal gene transfer, essentially preventing us from being sure we know their lineage at all

then, when we look at the vast majority of species that have existed - ie, everything that is extinct - we can't even figure out reproductive isolation to any degree because they are very, very, very dead. if a species is older than 2.5 million years - so, most species - we don't even have DNA to look at. so we have to use their shapes, which can often lead to us not realizing a species is actually a juvenile form of another (see dracorex and pachycephalosaurus), or that they're different sexes of the same species (see what we thought moa were before we could sequence their genomes - the size disparity between male and female moa lead to them being considered separate species). Morphology and context behind it is all we have, but it's like using a 1990s computer today - good enough, but we know we're missing a lot.

so, yeah. genus and species are staying around purely because we need them, but species are being defined as clades. genera... look, I'd love for genera to be clades, but then that means that nothing ever leaves them, right? so everyone's classification would just be lists of genera. but having them be paraphyletic feels weird. I don't know. we'd have to come up with a whole new naming system. At least for the other linnaean ranks, we can just determine which are real clades and assign those names to those clades, and throw the other names out. but with this... we either have to accept paraphyly, or come up with a new system. or make them be clades, and suddenly genera names are like last names in Spanish-speaking countries...

[savefrog]

Dude the human body is crazy

That post about T giving you too much blood, and how thats a genetic condition passed down mainly through cis men (hemachromatosis). And how its a risk for going on T because someone can have inherited the gene but not know until going on T triggers the issues. I need to do more research, because I cant find a lot of information on how it reacts to T (besides it often resulting in lower T), but it almost looks like the body gets T and is like "Oh cool we're going dude mode now, heres that condition you were missing!"

Makes me think of how people who have had a hysterectomy can still experience the menstruation cycle even without a Uterus. Like PMS and the soreness and bloating associated with cramps. And its hard to find research on because its a newly recorded phenomenon with a lot of bias against it, but trans women on E may also experience a monthly cycle (PMS and the soreness and bloating associated with cramps) even without a Uterus as well. The body gets estrogen and is like "oh sick i know what to do with this! Pain!!!!!"

Like it really drives in how the human body is made of analogous structures. The reproductive system is all the same parts, just given different instructions. The clitoris can get erections! Hormones can change BONES even though its limited! (Horomonal changes also affect the bones during menopause for example, something archaeologists or forensic scientists can notice)

And speaking of, that whole thing about "when archaeologists see your skeleton THEN they will know" is bullshit! (ON SO MANY LEVELS)! Sex determination with bones is typically based on the measurement of literally ONE bone. And the field of archaeology has, for quite some time, acknowledged how innaccurate this can be. (And honestly, this assumption shows a lack of science knowledge in general, where in my experience researchers like to lean more towards "probably" rather than "definitely" when making ANY kind of assertion about something because there are ALWAYS EXCEPTIONS!)

Thanks to X-rays, we have classifications for different types of pelvis shapes. Do you know what may cause someone to have a C-section???? Having an Android (or "male-shaped") pelvis. Yes. A cis woman LITERALLY GIVING BIRTH, may have a pelvic shape that is labeled as having a masculine shape. AND IT IS NOT THAT RARE!!!! (A brief search says 20% of cis women)

But consider that people usually only get X-rays or other scans when absolutely needed. There could be so much more overlap that we arent even aware of. Things that are "rare instances" may not be that rare. We arent analyzing the dna of every person in existence, we only see what we are looking for and research has only just opened up past our cultural biases towards gender!

We know from studies of the brain that a lot of gendered assumptions (women are good at sorting colors because they were gatherers, etc) are not well-defined AT ALL. A lot of it may be learned during development. There are some stereotyped trends, but they're just small percentage trends such that its impossible to look at a brain and 100% say "yup thats male!", only at the most "well, statistically, its Slightly More Likely male" and still be very wrong. Exceptions are the NORM.

(And that whole evolutionary psychology thing of "women are better at colors because gatherers?"...based on what ancestors?!?!?!?!? Different groups of ancient people had different gender norms!!! There wasn't just one big caveman family for the entire paleolithic!!!! There are SO MANY recorded remains of what are most likely female hunters!!!!! Why would they not take advantage of having MORE HUNTERS during a hunting season?!?!!)

"Its simple biology" is quite possibly the most ignorant statement one can make, its a paradox. Biology is INHERENTLY complex, varied, and difficult to categorize. If you say it's simple even just for the sake of categorization, you are literally admitting to not knowing SHIT. Ask anyone into taxonomy. Categorizing animals seems easy if youve never actually done it, and meanwhile there are appparently heated debates on river dolphin teeth and whether or not river dolphins with no visible differences except slightly different teeth are different species or not. Birds are reptiles!!! Everything is a fucking fish!!!! Rigid thought based on societal bias is antithetical to science (though it has SURE affected science!)

Its that bias where the less you know about something, the easier you think it is. Someone may think they already know everything about a topic if they never actually researched it because they dont know whats out there. Whereas someone actually knowledgeable in that field KNOWS that its complicated and feels LESS like they know everything about it. Cis people who have never thought deeply about gender THINK it is simple because they lack any experience. They THINK its the same as they believed in preschool because they never challenged it - when everything else you learn in grade school is obviously simplified!!!

Its so blatantly apparent how little transphobes want to actually consider facts. Its all "just ask a biologist" until real biologists tell them its complex, then its "science is woke". They'll talk about gender all day and yet mock anyone actually studying it. It's all about rigid definitions, until someone tells them the literal definition of gender makes it seperate from sex. They pretend to care so much about the literal definitions of words and what you can and can't call something due to biology...but still call a seastar a "starFISH".

The WORLD is amorphous! Words are merely tools! Biology hates rigid categorization! EXCEPTIONS ARE THE NORM! live your damn life!

[failing-to-write-again]

Can pure-blood vampires survive in outer space? We already know they can withstand being in freezing temperatures and underwater when Karlheinz dumped Shuu at the North Pole for failing school and Subaru into the sea for breaking his statue of himself. Learning about this information I have to admit, Karlheinz has top notch parenting anyone should follow. (Jk ofc)

ohhh intresting question.

SPACE VAMPIRES!!!

So being in space we gotta figure out what minimum standards we gotta say they hit to maybe be able to vibe in space. If you have any other thoughts or think I've missed something lemme know and I'll edit the post or make a part 2!

Low O2

They can survive asphyxiation...maybe. They "don't have heartbeats" so we know they don't have a human circulatory system maybe I think there's something there maybe just too low to be detected by humans. The Mukamis didn't grow new organs so they must do something. We know everything has a transport system even your cells and I've thought about what could work for a vampire with what I know. You can't have even a single celled organism (e.g bacteria, viruses, yeast) without something in them to move nutrients and waste about. When it gets to multicellular organisms like vampires or humans they can't just drink blood and vibe that blood has to be broken into parts to be used for different things and has to go to different areas....do full-blooded vampires have asses or do they just have urethras because liquid diet? Question for another day.

Diaboys bleed. Full stop, they do it's part of certain changing methods apparently and very obvious in Cordelia's death scene. They can bleed and bleeding is bad for them. We know they die from things other than silver to the heart wounds but revival is more likely to work in those cases. I think we've seen either Laito, Reiji, or both point out how absurd some of the rumours on how to kill vampires are as that would kill anyone. Either that or I'm thinking or Hotel Transylvania. They have to have something moving shit around and the fact the founders had a disease that killed them and the full-blooded vampires have blood, means they use it. And blood can't move off spite there is something moving it. So why could their heartbeat not be heard? It's smaller or slower or in a different position. In my opinion anyway.

If it's smaller that's entirely possible but has some issues. I have yet to look up the minimum size a heart could be to move blood through a 6ft tall dudebro, maybe they have a lot of valves? Not my favorite theory on it's own. Slower has a good backbone. The heart would be large enough to pump effectively but wouldn't need to due to their cells not demanding as much O2. Maybe they're yeast or something and can use CO2? Different position...no. I really don't see this being the case with how you can kill em but I wanted to list it, rule of three and stuffy. For the sake of my headcannons we're going to mix the smaller and slower theory. This doesn't necessarily mean they need O2 at all they could use CO2 already inside their bodies.

So the O2 deprevation may not kill them, unless they need some level of it. BUT pressure.

Pressure (pushin' down on me)

So, first biggy we can't explain off is pressure for two main reasons. Assuming you're human (sorry for assuming your taxonomy like that) when you first are released into space any and all gas in your body expands to match your inside pressure to your outside pressure. Then you go boom basically. If you survive that then the fluid in your body will literally evaporate due to the pressure, swelling you up like you're Violet Boregarde. I don't believe this is survivable for a vampire.

They have blood, they have tissue, they have cells. They aren't super dense metal they're made of tissue, more durable sure but tissue. So their bodies would burst. But what if they were in a pressurized suit, well then they ain't surviving outer space but I'll get to that at the end sit down.

RADIATION!

So vampires don't get cancer, they have advanced healing meaning they are way less likely to get cancer. All healing is, is cell growth. Cell growth that's too fast is where DNA copying mistakes are made hence cancer, basically. So vampires cells have something to prevent mutations better then us like the bacteria Deinococcus radiodurans. Radiodurans has a increased DNA stability to radiation so radiation can't kill the cells as easily as it takes much more of it to effect the DNA. And these dudes survive radiation worse then what's already on earth so it is probably not to survive radiation, more so to prevent DNA damage. In theory these bacteria will survive low orbit in space.

So vampires could have this in a stronger form and survive the radiation further out like that maybe? But it's also the burns that could maim or kill them but that's not concrete to me yet.

Temperature

The reason the cold is bad for you is that it slows the enzymes in your cells, an enzyme is what speeds up chemical reactions in your body to a speed that allows you to live so if they go you go.

Shu can survive the North Pole, so he can survive with reduced enzyme speeds which lines up with the slower heart beat thing. But space is colder than that. I don't think they could survive becoming a popsicle or if they do, it's not exactly thriving more so not dying yet.

But space is also HOT, get too close to the sun it's hot, or too close to a planet and gravity pulls you in and you start burning up in the atmosphere. We know heat kills these fuckers via Richter's presumed death and Cordelia's first death shows it.

So they dead on this front to.

So no space suit they're dying. But what about just long term space life in the ISS or something?

Astronaut Vampires?

One of the many reasons humans can't do space forever is largely due to your tissue losing density and getting too weak. With the diaboys faster healing they wouldn't be losing cells and replace them fast. But, the lack of gravity also plays a part in reduced density (I think, my boyfriend does physics so if I've sent this to him after posting I'm gonna be so embarrassed if I'm wrong).

The gravity part is what stumps me. They would lose some level of bone density but how fast? They must be denser to be able to smash in walls like Subaru. So maybe they can lose more before being too damaged?

Plus they still need blood. As much as they'd probably hate to admit they do actually need to somewhat rely on humans.

hmm... I went into this thinking they could live in a space station permanently. But I don't think even that's possible.

Point is space makes everyone their bitch except space bears basically.

[nedlittle]

genuine question: what is wrong with the peyton beachdeath lma trans thread? I know…too much about peyton himself so we don’t need to revisit that, but i’d love to see you rip into some shoddy scholarship and ways to (mis)understand historical queerness

oh god...

i mean aside from people taking the word of a notorious clout-chasing liar and conspiracy theorist at face value...peyton just doesn't understand or even really care about history when it does not directly benefit him. full disclosure i have not read the thread since it was first posted but it is burned into my memory unfortunately, i also don't know a lot about lma as a historical figure

aside from cherry picking quotes from lma's diaries there were no actual sources. nothing from her biographers, no secondary scholarship at all. it was just peyton presenting quotes purposefully stripped of their context in order to further a point that he wanted to be right.

this should be like. queer history for pre-schoolers but people in the past who were or may have been queer understood themselves and their queerness differently than people do today. peyton is incapable of looking at queerness outside of his very specific 21st century lens. could louisa may alcott have been a trans man? possibly! could she have also been cis and/or gnc? sure! could she have simply been writing in both her private and personal lives about how suffocating the experience of being a woman in the 19th century was? yeah. we have no way of knowing which of this could be true, and whether they overlapped at all. queer history exists in shades of possibility. in some cases (and we're going to use trans men contemporary to lma), like those of albert cashier and charley pankhurst, we can pretty definitely say that they were both men; that being a man was essential to their continued survival, that they would have wanted to be remembered as men. in other cases, it's more slippery because the taxonomy we use nowadays to classify ourselves and especially our differentiation of gender identity vs sexual acts is SO recent that it does a disservice to classify all historical queerness with it.

it's insane that there are MULTIPLE notable 19th century trans men in american history at the time lma was living and he still was like no this is not good enough for me i can only emotionally relate to something if i can force my own image onto it. that's really the problem here, not the shoddy history and the deliberately misleading language, but the fact that peyton is seemingly incapable of enjoying or relating to a piece of media or a person if he cannot find a direct comparison to his own life. he did the same oh "(x) was 100% absolutely a trans man if you tell me wrong you're transphobic" thing with katharine hepburn (iirc??) a few years back and this is a personal gripe but having read a 600+ page bio of hepburn that was very generous to several queer readings of her life: lol. lmao even. his insistence of flatting the experience of anyone with a moderately fucky gender into "you're either Like Me or your not" is so purposefully stupid.

like, do all the trans readings of little women you want! i myself made a deranged little women trans post a few weeks ago. but lma isn't a fictional character who you can apply different literary lenses to! she was a real human person whose relationship with her gender we will never fully understand because we were not there. at some point you just have to accept that it is not your business. why are you so desperate for any shred of historical representation that you are willing to exhume the dead in order to out them?

peyton relates to jo march, so he insists that reading jo as a trans man is the only (morally) correct reading. he likes little women but has to make it fit the public view of transness that he is made his personal brand. i actually followed him for longer than i'd care to admit, and it's a trend with any piece of media that he is publicly into that he has to make a character a trans man in order to relate to them.

he also has this deranged idea that any author writing with emotional depth about the """opposite sex""" must have been trans. see the article he wrote for the niche about how must have been a trans man because he gave dido's emotions and the collapse of her marriage to aeneas the same "dignified treatment as any sprawling, epic battlefield scenes." [direct quote] the article is literally called " vergil had a pussy and i'll prove it." no further comment.

one of his "proofs" is that lma was called "lou" by her family, which he then proceeds to call her for the rest of the thread. lou is....a very normal nickname for louisa both now and then. you know what else was a 19th century nickname for louisa? wheezy. imagine that same thread but he calls her wheezy alcott. thank you, good day.

[ambyandony]

Monster AU - Monster Taxonomy [P1]

[P1: what the fuck is taxonomy and why does it matter in a monster AU]

OUTDATED

short answer it doesn't. you dont have to care butgod i fucking love classifying things an d making up names. and also there are some intricacies that taxonomy can help elaborate on when it comes to species.

Taxonomy is the scientific practise of ascribing names, categories and classifications to living things based on characteristics both individual and shared between different creatures. There is a taxonomical hierarchy that goes as follows, from least to most specific: domain, kingdom, phylum (sometimes division in botany), class, order, family, genus, and species (plus subspecies). Most things you think of as living fall under the domain Eukaryota, so you can assume everything I talk about belongs to Eukaryota unless otherwise stated. A part of taxonomy is binomial nomenclature, by which species are given a scientific name consisting of two parts, the genus and the species.

Vulpes vulpes, the red fox, is the species vulpes in the genus vulpes and Tyto multipunctata, the lesser sooty owl, is the species multipunctata in the genus tyto. Any normal person will call these 'the red fox' and the 'lesser sooty owl' or just 'the fox' and 'the owl' but taxonomically, they both have a very specific classification.

From kingdom to species, the red fox is: Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Carnivora > Canidae > Vulpes > Vulpes vulpes the lesser sooty owl is: Animalia > Chordata > Aves > Strigiformes > Tytonidae > Tyto > Tyto multipunctata.

See, they share a kingdom and phylum; Animalia and Chordata; more or less because they are both animals with spines. But then they diverge as their characteristics differ; in this case, the difference between mammals (mammalia) and birds (aves) is their morphology and reproduction; mammals have mammaries (breasts) and give live birth, and birds have no mammaries and lay eggs. Each further specification on the taxonomical hierarchy indicates a more specific list of shared traits between creatures in that classification.

Taxonomy helps to identify species that are related or have common traits. And why does it matter? Simply because monsters aren't human (Okay, well, on that front it's a little complicated) and there are many different kinds of monsters that fall under a single umbrella label; for example, seafolk. They are commonly widely miscategorised as 'mermaids' no matter what they actually are, but there are countless actual 'kinds' of 'mermaids'. Squalo, a Merrow, is fundamentally different from a Siren or a Selkie. Werewolves are a bit of a special confusing case, but I'll get into that later.

In other words, monsters aren't Homo sapiens and the term "monsters" is a catch all term, not an actual class or genus; and while some monsters are human adjacent, not all of them are, and even those who look human adjacent might belong to entirely different classes. (hint, theres a nonzero entirely likely chance that polymorphs don't belong to the phylum chordata)

And I'm a sucker for coming up with names and being silly. Realistically, monsters wouldn't have any taxonomical classifications because most people don't believe in them and those who do believe in them want them dead a good amount of the time. But we're talking biology here! Perhaps a biologist with an interest in cryptozoology would want to classify monsters and perhaps that biologist is hypothetically me (not a biologist) and I'm going to come up with scientific names and figure out some classifications for my Monster AU.

Stick around if you're interested and leave if you dont give a fuck i dont care i fucking love rambling about my monster au. ill update this post with more related posts and ill make a monster taxonomy tag

Monster Taxonomy Page 2:

[autisticempathydaemon]

For the redacted match-ups~ this is my first time participating in something like this so I'm really excited! I hope you're not too overwhelmed by the amount of asks I'm sure you're getting.

Okay so, at the moment I'm fixated on a bunch of Lacuna coil songs, but if we're talking about songs that represent me, we'll need to go back to my month-long fixation on the Bocchi the rock! soundtrack that only faded a week ago. "Guitar, loneliness and the blue planet" has made me cry multiple times. Specifically the end of the bridge towards the last chorus "Even if it's just this moment now! / Hear me… listen to me! / I am here! I am here! / I'm alive at this moment right now! / I try to scream out loud but not even a scribble of sound ever escapes from my own mouth". This is just the English translation, I promise it sounds better in Japanese.

Anyway, for the enneagram, I've taken a couple of tests and have gotten 3-4 different types, none of which I feel describe me. If it helps, my MBTI is INFP which I've gotten multiple times when taking the test and heavely identify with.

My imaginary friends were the Disney princesses. I'd imagine them sitting in my room and we would hold regular council meetings. After I moved countries it became plants instead. I imagined I could talk to them and used to vent to them a lot.

I moved to another country when I was little and no one could pronounce my name so I kinda grew up hating it and always wanted to change it. I love my name now and if I had to change it, it'd still be to something from my culture instead of something easier to pronounce. I'd either name myself Vasiliki (meaning royal) just because I think it suits me, or Agne (pronounced ag-nee with stress on the last sylable, meaning pure) because it is indirectly tied to the name I have now.

I don't care about Aaron and Ollie. I'm not attracted to men, I like Redacted for the plot and they have no plot. I only watched their videos because I ran out of other videos to watch.

A (queer)platonic relatioship with Camelopardalis fill with me joy. I want to hug him, kiss him, and I want to sit in silence with this man while we each do different things.

I am (sometimes literally) unable to talk when I'm tired, let alone ramble. But when I have the energy (and feel comfortable enough) to do so, I will overexcitedly talk about my latest fixation for hours if nothing stops me. My friends say it's like listening to a podcast. First I had fairies for most of my childhood, and mythology (and stars by extension) was the theme for the last two years. Now it's plants :3 I found out that a lot of things that don't look like roses belong to the rose family and naturally I had to map it out. But, of course, I can't just start at the rose family, so I mapped out the taxonomy of plants until the rose family. That mind-map has grown a lot, and I go between periods of research to add new plant families, and just staring at the map and smiling. Seriously, that thing makes me so happy. I haven't had the chance to go through it with my friends yet, but I will be unstoppable once I get the chance to start talking.

I'm so sorry for making this so long. I wanted to talk more about plants, but it wouldn't even be relevant so I had to stop myself. I look forward to seeing your interpretation of all this, but please don't pressure yourself!

P.S. I use pet-names for everyone. One time, when I had misunderstood something and was really stressed someone who was consoling me called me "honey" and "sweetie". It was so so comforting and I decided to start calling people things like that to make them feel good. I completely forgot that words like "baby" are usually used romantically. I'm already a very physically affectionate person so people constantly ask me if I'm dating any of my friends or trying to flirt with people. I'm not. I just like calling people cute things :')

Well, you’re just a silly-billy if you think you can go on an adorable rant about the taxonomy of roses and the flowers that are roses but don’t look like roses and not expect me to pair you with Huxley, our favorite earth elemental!

He’s so loving and friendly and patient that he’d love your fixation-of-the-day podcasts, even the ones that aren’t about roses! That’s just one of the many things I think Huxley would find absolutely charming about you. (Other things would be your unique, lovely name and your sweet, giving shows of affection!)

Another perfect thing about the two of you is that I can easily, easily picture Mm Huxley adopting plants as his confidantes and friends after he moved to Dahlia just like you did. It would such a lovely and domestic scene, the two of you living together and introducing your little flora found families to each other.

Song:

And I've heard of a love that comes once in a lifetime/ And I'm pretty sure that you are that love of mine/ 'Cause I'm in a field of dandelions/ Wishing on every one that you'll be mine, mine

You gave me too much fun plant imagery to work with! I’m stuck on it, because it’s just too cute! This is also just one of my favorite love songs, because the imagery of pining and wishing on dandelions or, conversely, being pined over and wished for us just so sweet.

Runner-Ups:

INFP’s are characterized as sensitive, creative people with deep wells of empathy, which makes it sick SO much that Regulus is… you know, all that he is. Thankfully, Anton is all that he is: kind, quiet, and the type of man who would get adorably flustered when you call him “sweetie” or “baby”

Note: you don’t have to apologize for this being long; it was lovely getting to peek inside your head, and it was very helpful 💖

Want a match-up of your own? Read this post, and tell me about yourself! ����

[octalsoft]

What is ETMF: An Introduction to Octalsoft’s eTMF Solution

A content management system used to capture, organize, exchange, and retain operational and study information, known as an electronic trial master file (eTMF), has become an essential tool in current clinical research operations. Good Clinical Practice (GCP) guidelines necessitate a trial master file for the review of trial conduct. 

Fully integrated eTMF system

At Octalsoft, we consider trial master file technology to be an integral component of the data collecting and study management experience, which can be readily integrated into your existing workflow. 

But what does this imply for users, and why is it advantageous? To begin, it consolidates all papers into a single location, saving you the time you'd otherwise spend hunting for what you're looking for. Instead of storing critical papers in two or three distinct databases, a platform like Octalsoft’s eTMF can collect and store them alongside study data.

Furthermore, structured data from EDC or ePRO can be saved straight to eTMF inside the same platform. When setting the study, Octalsoft allows study builders to map any provided form to eTMF. All of this adds to a cleaner and easier audit trail, which reduces the burdens associated with inspection time.

Granular management of documents and their associated tasks

Octalsoft’s eTMF is very adjustable and flexible, much like the rest of the Octalsoft platform (EDC and eSource, ePRO/eCOA, eConsent, CTMS, RTSM, and so on). It was thoughtfully designed to enable research experts' capacity to truly micromanage data and documents, as well as the duties related to them, in an ultra-efficient manner. The folder structure and hierarchy can be customized to meet the needs of the host or the study, and folders and their contents can be simply copied for quick reproduction.

Account administrators can also control who has access to different components of eTMF. For example, you could offer users access at a granular level (file per file), or you might grant access to all files.

Our goal was to create an eTMF that adapts to our clients' studies rather than forcing studies to adapt to eTMF, and we're thrilled to offer a solution that does just that.

In summation

Octalsoft's eTMF software solution provides a digital platform and strategy for electronically capturing, organizing, sharing, and storing all critical documents, photos, and artifacts that develop over the course of a regulated clinical trial. The system includes the DIA TMF Reference Model, which enables users to organize their content according to a known taxonomy and structure. Built-in checklists and milestone tracking capabilities enable you to actively assess the completeness and compliance of any material in real time.

Learn even more about Octalsoft eTMF here. Do you have questions or are curious about how to leverage it in your studies? Book a Demo with us today!

[lilmackiereads]

A TAXONOMY OF LOVE (2018) BY RACHAEL ALLEN - SPOILER-FILLED REVIEW

For the review WITHOUT SPOILERS, click here. To continue WITH spoilers, begin reading after the cover photo.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I am actually surprised with myself for giving this such a high rating as I am easily very bored with the teen romance novels. Of the few YA romance that I have read in the last year this has been my favorite which was a total surprise! I actually almost gave up reading it in the first 50 or so pages because I found the initial few chapters from Spence’s point of view unrealistic. For some reason I just didn’t feel like the dialogue and thought processes going on in this 13-year-old boy’s head felt accurate to the tween boys I’ve known growing up. There wasn’t enough swearing or boyish grossness. For instance, I feel like he needed a bit of a sprinkle of yucky (belching/ nose-picking/ farting/ name-calling) like the boys in Stephen King’s “The Body” aka Stand by Me (1986), The Sandlot (1993) or Stranger Things (2016) because many boys at this age are generally just pretty gross and obnoxious in my experience. (I grew up tween to teen between 2008-2018 and babysat lots of kids and now I work with middle school and high schoolers…)

HOWEVER, I think Allen did nail Spence’s dorkiness, which is why I ultimately kept reading because he is pretty adorable and his taxonomies are pretty funny.

Unlike John Green (The Fault in Our Stars, 2012 and Turtles All the Way Down, 2017) and Becky Albertalli (Simon vs the Homosapien Agenda, 2015) who are two of the best teen writers that can accurately display the minds of the opposite sex in my opinion, I feel like Allen struggles a bit with writing Spence’s point-of-view. I found Hope’s p-o-v more realistic (and relatable) as a female, but I think that Spence became more realistic as the book progressed from age 13 to 19. Especially once he hit puberty, I think the romantic stakes and thoughts were more accurate to a teenage boy. Haha. But what do I know? I’ve never been a teenage boy.

Hope reminded me a lot of myself because I’m generally happy-go-lucky, but I had a major emo-phase in high school that really warped my attitude at the time (and admittedly comes out to play occasionally as an adult.) I wish we had more chapters from her perspective. I was bummed out when her sister died. It's hard to lose someone so close to you, especially when they're so young. The only thing I didn't like about Hope was her last name, Birdsong. I think it was just a little too on-the-nose. If we're really going for the "girl next door" she could have just had a basic last name like Smith or Miller.

I really liked all the little parties the characters through for the holidays and the references to Hamilton (2015), Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), Grease (1978), and Pokémon. Jayla and Spencer's Pikachu and Ash costumes sounded adorable. I feel like Hope’s transition over the story is actually a lot like Sandy’s! Also, the two girls at the Halloween party who were Sandy before and after, such a cool costume idea!

Jayla and Dean were both kind of annoying at times, but ultimately, I think they had good hearts, but were just a little too self-involved for their own good. I really appreciated after Dean went to college and grew up a little and started to stand up for Jayla and Spencer.

I also like that the book goes over some important topics like racism and the Civil War, disability awareness, bullying, mental health, and using sexual situations as a coping mechanism.

My top three favorite parts are:

The Vice Principal’s Surprise -- I mean DICK CONFETTI? How much better can it get?

2. The Tree Stand in the Rain -- My little heart at all the romance:

3. The Lightning Bugs -- Just such a sweet and magical moment.

Would I Read this Book Again?

Low key kind of want to read it again right now! I hope they make a movie of this!

[acornsinmypocket]

@oy-to-the-world This got too long to be a reply, so I had to reblog it. Honestly this feels like a very appropriate issue for a halacha discussion.

So if you count the water dragon as a fully aquatic creature, legs aren't a disqualification for being kosher. So long as the water dragon has both fins and scales it's kosher.

The issue here is more about whether or not a water dragon can be considered a fish at all. (In halachic law, modern scientific taxonomy isn't what we're here for)

Going by Maimonides, things that live in water are classified as fish if they're kosher and as "sheratzim" (read: "Creepy sea crawlies" ) if they're not. *but* Going by Nachmanides, sea creatures are only fish if they don't have legs that they walk on like animals. Which leads us to ask first "Does the sea dragon have legs?" and if so- "How is it using them?" I'm going out on a limb here being a random internet person and not a fully certified Jewish scholar, but I'd say that if your sea dragon is more the east-asian type water serpent with legs that are clearly not suitable for actual walking, you're still good to call it fish and eat it. Proceed carefully since I couldn't find a cannon image of a d&d water dragon, so you could easily fall on "Marit ayin" here. (Halachic principle saying you should avoid doing things that are legal if an onlooker could easily confuse it with something illegal cause they might be dumb enough to think whatever illegal shit is cool now. Or they might gossip about you.) All that being said, I've noticed on the D&D wiki water-dragon page that their int is 14. This is crucial to this question since in Jewish scholarly debate there's a clear distinction between animals and "speaking animals" which includes all sorts of intelligent mystical creatures and is generally the concept of sapience. General sentiment in the halacha regarding those is: "If it's intelligent enough to be your dinner guest, it's too intelligent to be your dinner."

Hope this helps!

Ok Jumblr, we’ve done this before and I’m sure we can do it again—does anyone know if water dragons would be considered kosher? It has the scales, but some of them have legs, and idk if they’d have gills or not.

My instinct is to say no, because it’s still a lizard, although it could also be a situation like the leviatan, but feel free to add your own thoughts and reasoning.

(Ran into this hypothetical during dnd)

[flagellant]

anon here from the question about the fae and learning. sorry if you were the wrong person to ask (saying this because i don’t understand the response), i just remembered you reblogging stuff about the fae in the past so i figured you were a good person to go to. if i was wrong, im really sorry. i saw your response to my ask and im guessing that means you didnt want that ask, and for that im sorry.

It was a genuine response, if you know anything about my practice and experience with the fae, you know I interact with them as an ecologist and an anthropologist, not as a witch. I find more use examining and interacting with them through the lens of that rather than trying and failing to flail around in the dark separating UPG and Christiana Intepretatio from any real originating beliefs, and I find the idea of "trickster spirits aligned with the natural world or otherworlds" to be such an archetypal aniconic acultural concept that needlessly acting as though they're a spirit endemic to Ireland is shooting yourself in the kidney solely because you aren't willing to examine why you're interacting with them the way you're interacting with them.

So, again. Read up on taxonomies and why humans categorize species where we do, and who placed where what, and the difference between genetic phylogeny and physical morphology. Ask yourself what you think the fae are and why you think that, and ask if that makes logical sense. Ask yourself what you think defines what a faerie is. Ask what others have defined them as, what traits they've had. Ask if you've seen those traits in other places. Ask questions. Keep asking them. Keep trying to find answers. Don't bother ever trying to settle on one for very long, they're going to disappear the moment you blink.

But keep finding the answers anyway because while you have your eyes on them you're finding value, and you take pieces with you as you go.

If I didn't want to answer the question, I would have not answered the question, Anon. This is occultism we're talking about here. It's not as simple as handing you a shopping list and now you're a level 6 spiritualist with licenses to do spells of summoning, banishing, and binding. The only way we're all in this together is that we all seek out the occult.

[heartoferebor]

for the fic ask meme: 2, 13, 17

2: Do you focus on attention to detail when you read fics? Are you more or less attention to detail focused when you write fics?

Depends on which details we're talking about. I'm usually not really a stickler for exact numbers or years when reading fics and can overlook a lot. But other stuff I pay attention (mostly things I have a special interest in or that were part of my degree) - for example animal taxonomy (if you call a spider an insect I WILL close the tab no matter how good the fic).

When writing I usually try to pay attention to details such as timelines, years, etc., but to be honest, I'm just human and sometimes things just don't work out how you want them to. I do like detailed descriptions of situations etc though, something I very consciously rein in a lot when writing because it just bores people otherwise haha.

13: Do you prefer writing multi-chapter fics or single-part fics? Do you prefer reading multi-chapter fics or single-part fics?

The boring but honest answer is - both? I need a healthy mix.

I like having at least one multichapter fic in the works at most points in time because it forces me to write most days to keep to my self-set release schedule (usually once a month, e.g. the first Saturday of the months like Every Little Scar right now). But only writing multi-chapter stuff would quickly become overwhelming and some ideas don't NEED multichapter things. Sometimes I just wanna write a nice lil 3k PWP. Or 5k of torture p*rn. Or 3k of softness. You know? Not every meal needs to be a 5 course dinner. Sometimes cheese & crackers does it just as well.

Same goes for reading - I love getting stuck into a nice big longfic that I read over the course of weeks, but I also love nice, self-contained little one shots, especially when I have no energy for longer stuff. A couple of weeks ago I was so stressed and drained from my job that I couldn't read any fic longer than 20k, for example.

17: What has been the proudest moment for you so far since you started writing?

I once won a writing competition when I was younger, that was fun haha. In terms of fic, I always love it when I get 'I hadn't considered this pairing before but reading your fic for them made me ship it." THE BEST FEELING, HONESTLY.

There are also a number of very personal and very sweet comments that I've received on various fics - I treasure every single comment I ever get so much but there are some that have hit a lot deeper, like people telling me that reading my fic has helped them through a personal loss and helped them grieve and heal, for example. Like, dang. The power of words ❤

Also, and this is gonna sound so stupid, but I'm really proud of how my writing has evolved over the years? I started writing fic almost 20 years ago (if you don't count the 4 page sequel to The Neverending Story that I 'wrote' when I was like 7, lmao) and quickly got a point where I was fairly happy with my stuff in my native language. But then I emigrated and found a different life in a different country and I struggled super hard at the beginning to write in English, because English and German prose are veeeeeery different and my style in German didn't translate at all (also, I have no gift whatsoever for languages. I have a maths and science brain. English was my second worst subject at school lmao)! It's only been in the last...2 or 3 years, I think, that I feel like I've gotten somewhere good with my writing and it's kind of an awesome feeling. It's not perfect and never will be but hey, I can make words go and do things, and make people feel stuff, how cool is that.

Ask me about fic writing!

[159potterhead]

Yayy!! Our duooo🤩🤩 (sorry for being late. And this one is long so hold tight)

***

I have eyes on your list👀👀

I would like to see a mix of rat and Hamster but babe this can't happen. I've to go into heirarcy and taxonomy of classification all that to explain this. Do you wanna go there?

Yayy!! You were right!!

Idk when it will stop. It's always happening in all animals so we can be better and better and chances of survival increase. Babe rat and Hamster are different. Okay I'll tell this real quick hope this will clear up your doubt. Okay so when we classify organisms we do it on based on similarities/common trait so at the top we have Domain then Kingdom—Phylum—Class—Order—Family—Genus—Species. But we also have sub ranks over here. We have superfamily, family, subfamily and so on with genus and species too. So Rat and Hamster are from same Superfamily but when we go down they both belong to different family and subfamily, and they are also from different genus and species. Okay? Rat and Hamster look very much alike coz they are from same Superfamily which means they share every common characteristics that comes before superfamily. (That means they both belong to same kingdom, same phylum and same class, same order. So all these characteristics for rat and Hamster are same. But when we go into “family” where there are 3 sub rank. So for rat and Hamster superfamily is also same but family and subfamily are different.)

😂😂yeah there no animal doctor. They didn't cared about compatibility coz even before they had the choice animal had sex with each other that time too. They were pretty much compatible even with their siblings coz they didn't care who they are doing it with. And in choosing part they incline more towards what males are doing to get the attention. I think it's that alpha male kind of thing where the males will try to show their alphaness saying the female to "pick me" they might growl louder to convey I'm strong or maybe sometimes if they live in packs they fight off other males to show they are superior. These things happen animals. And like I said in peacock there is showing off there wings that something males do to. It's their way of saying “pick me”. Females can choose their mate by things the male do to convince them that they are good mate.

In evolved part they say that the size of human brain has increased with evolution. And also they say that pinky toe is getting smaller and smaller coz evolution think it's of no use and maybe one day it will disappear. Also we have four lobe in brain, you don't have to know the name but there's this frontal lobe it's like in the forehead region so that one is like new evolved part. It was like 1.9 or 2 million year ago. But we consider it as new.

How did we get here? Okay I just wanted to tell this that the brain evolved in upward direction. Remember the pic I told you to see. The spinal cord--brain stem---brain, that one. So evolution goes upwards. And this frontal lobe is new evolved part. Okay. And the "want/desire" thing in love. That one is very primitive thing coz all animals have sex so the stimulation of "want/desire" is down there in the old parts of brain. Coz wanting to have sex is a basic thing. I hope you got this much. This is what I wanted to tell you about evolution and the “want” part of love. That's why I told you to see the image. Hope you got it.

(I think we were talking love and idk where we went off taking about Hamster 🤔🤔.)

***

Yeah. Sure why not. I like the idea. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!! 😉 You have any other date you can shoot me up.

(Aaah!! This song Haven't heard in a while. I'm gonna listen it now. Thank for reminding me :) )

🎶You've been havin' real bad dreams oh oh, you used to lie so close to me oh oh, there's nothing more than empty sheets between our love, our love. Oh our love, our love, just give me a reason, just a little bit's enough, just a second we're not broken just bent and we can learn to love again🎶

yeahh✨ (dw babe. and ooo let’s see!)

***

okay but I don’t see why not, you know? hmm. is it gonna confuse me? if not then go for it.

no actually they’re not different. the king of ramsterland called me last night and told me that rats and hamsters are the same thing🤷🏻‍♀️ well yeah I know that. and aren’t rats and hamsters in the same family? ok mice and hamsters???? what on earth is a superfamily… this sounds like comic stuff istg. I love it. wait wait… so there’s a family and subfamily AND superfamily… can’t they just have… family? this is so confusing.

NO! that’s a bummer😞 ANIMALS CRAVE ATTENTION TOO??? oh daaamn this is getting more and more interesting. so it’s basically a showing off contest, and whoever seduces the female, gets to do it with her? ok… humans and animals are so alike woah

WHAT???????? I mean I hate stubbing my toe as much as the next person, but to have it just disappear??!!!! wth???? so wait that part didn’t exist in the first humans?? that’s insaaane!

honestly I would really like to know so proceed. ohhhhhhh! that makes sense. but why upwards tho? okayyy. okay yeah I get it. so that want/desire thing is part of the OG brain trio? suddenly everything makes sense. yep I got it! thank you so much for this entire thing!!! it was insane and I loved it!!! keep going istg i’m learning more than I have in school.

(honestly I’ve already forgotten at this point but i’m so on board the “hamsters and rats are one” train)

***

oh yeah baby;) I don’t think I do🤔 do you?

(ikr! It was on vh1 the other day!)

🎶no blinding light or tunnels to gates of white, just our hands clasped so tight, waiting for the hint of a spark. if heaven and hell decide that they both are satisfied, illuminate the "No"s on their vacancy signs. if there's no one beside you when your soul embarks, then I'll follow you into the dark🎶💕

[liskantope]

I've had too many other things going on this past week to spend much time on Tumblr, but I've gone back and forth in my head about whether it makes sense to respond to this post where you reblogged me arguing that it doesn't make sense to insist on the claim that "there are two biological sexes". I either don't like or don't understand some of your arguments there, but I suspect that we're mostly just talking past each other on this question, that it's somehow a matter of different philosophies about how to prioritize what's technically true and what's taxonomically convenient, that there may not really be any substantial daylight between us on what matters most here. Maybe a brief version of my response would be that I can't really blame conservatives* for harping on "but there are two sexes and that's just science and common sense" as long as liberals appear to be using "actually it's kind of a myth that there are two sexes" (to various degrees, the most extreme of which is the "colonialist cultural construct" one, and another more common of which is to vaguely oppose using the phrase "biological sex" to mean anything at all) as a talking point: there is a big difference in the context of discourse between making that kind of claim and saying "If we want to be maximally precise and correct about it, 'two sexes' is just a convenient taxonomy but there are a bunch of ways to be intersex as well".

So I guess I decided not to respond to that, and just now I kind of did, but anyway. This slightly more recent OP above spurs me to just clarify something, both with regard to my own positions and maybe towards sharpening the conversation as a whole: the question of how many biological sexes there are has absolutely no bearing on the main Trans Issue at the center of today's culture wars. I mean, gender is proposed as being a separate thing from sex, right?

For the purposes of figuring out trans rights, we shouldn't care how many people fall into the biological categories of male and female and how many alternatives to these two there are. Suppose we lived in a world where exactly 100% of humans satisfied either a list of male sexual traits (including having a Y chromosome) or a disjoint list of female sexual traits (including not having a Y chromosome): would that at all change the validity of gender identities that don't match up to sexual characteristics at birth or the rights issues that come with that reality? Suppose on the other hand we lived in a world where a good 10% of humans had intersex characteristics and couldn't be classified as male or female, and it really looked like a smooth spectrum: would that really change anything about trans issues and the primary arguments coming from both sides? I would say no. (As a qualification, there are some concrete issues that are indirectly affected by this: like obviously how near-precisely we're all divided into males and female affects sporting categories and thus the whole trans women in sports issue.)

When conservatives keep going on about "But there are only two sexes!", they are mostly gesturing at a red herring. At worst, they are being deliberately obtuse about the other side claiming that gender is a different thing from sex, or deliberately making no effort to understand what the other side means by gender, in order to remain ignorant and dismissive of trans rights causes. At best, they are either sincerely struggling to understand what gender is even supposed to mean (which I've admitted that I myself struggle with) or are very genuinely hung up on the phenomenon of definitions of common words changing as language and culture evolves (we shouldn't underestimate how much of a true stumbling block this seems to be for many overall intelligent people: I highlighted Norman Finkelstein as one rather stubborn and extreme example and encountered another example in person just about a week ago!). But either way, when they bring this up as an attempted justification of their conservative position on trans issues, they are arguing fallaciously.

One of my issues with some of the liberal rhetoric on this, however, is that liberals are also often bringing up the fuzziness of biological sex categories as if it somehow adds strength to their position, which I also think is (mostly) fallacious. Like I said in my most recent post interacting with you on this, and like I argued two or four paragraphs above, bringing up "well actually you can't even really say there are two biological sexes" seems neither here nor there as far as defending the concept of gender identity goes, and acting so insistent on this claim does come across as a determination to defy common sense.

Some of the time, liberals are making a point that sounds like this only because conservatives brought the sex thing up ("There are only two sexes, so all claims of transgenderism are denying basic reality!"), and in that context I have much more sympathy with liberals' choice to bring it up. On the other side, sometimes conservatives are bringing up the point about biological sex in response to liberals who seem committed to harping on it and needlessly trying to muddy the common-sense two-sexes taxonomy, and this is what I was defending conservatives' desire to do in my last post on this.

But in any case, the biological sex category issue strikes me as a pointless distraction for the most part. And I understand that a lot of intersex people are tired of being used as part of this distraction as a talking point.

*For the purposes of these discussions, I'm generally going to refer to the people on each of the main sides of this culture war issue as conservatives and liberals, even if they may not be or identify as such on other issues.

Basically I see no way to believe *both* of the following:

There are only two genders

Gender is a straightforward description of observed biology

One contradicts the other.

There are, very obviously and demonstrably more than two arrangements of sexual characteristics.

And once you go, "Well, yes, but we just ignore those fuzzy edge cases for most purposes" you are admitting that you are doing something else other than "straightforward description"; you are in fact explicitly *ignoring* certain biological realities in order to preserve the taxonomy.

And that's kind of *all* I'm saying. There might be perfectly good reasons to use a taxonomy that is not a straightforward description of biological reality. Even if you throw up your hands and go, "Fine, you pedant every intersex condition is its own gender" that really doesn't say much at all about whether trans identities are valid or good or whatever.

I just think it would be nice to make arguments that *don't* start on a foundation of total incoherence.

[vicshush]

[Text ID:

Twitter user franz, crab content (@franzanth) writes

"Hello, artist. Nice art you have there. You know what would make it better? Crabs. But crabs are hard to draw, you say. I agree. That's why I teamed up with @jopabinia & @JaviPaleobiovto make this cheat sheet so you too, can #InsertAnInvert into your artwork with confidence."

Instructional art poster titled "How to crab"

To the left of the central image is an introduction : "A visual guide for people who want to draw crabs, but can't figure out which part goes where.

Can't blame you, really. They have too many parts and they're all over the place.

"Crabs" refers to two groups of animals, the true crabs (Brachymura) and false crabs (Anomura).

This guide covers the "typical crab" body shape from both groups.

However, there are many outliers, like the frog crab, a brachyuran, or the hermit crab and mole crab, both are anomurans.

And many others. Many, many others. Really. Crabs are weird."

The central image is a multi-colored, simplified, segmented anatomy drawing of a crab, arms arcing over its head. The main body shows a dividing line down the center with the explanatory text labeling the halves "seen from Above", where the shell hides roughly the first quarter of the legs, and "seen from Below", where all of the small, initial leg segments are fully visible.

Beneath the central image are the citations, "References : - Davie, P. J., Gguinot, D., and Ng, P. K., 2015. Anatomy and functional morphology of brachyura. In Treatise on Zoology-Anatomy, Taxonomy, Biology. The Crustacea. Volume 9 Part C (2 vol.) (pp. 11-163) [artist-added commentary on this work =] Brill. - Wolfe, J. M., Luque, J., and Bracken-Grissom, H. D., 2021. How to become a crab : Phenotypic constraints on a recurring body plan. BioEssays. DOI 10:1002/bies202100020."

To the right of the central image are the credits : "Put together by Franz Anthony, crab drawer for hire ; Dr. Jo Wolfe & Dr. Javier Luque, actual crab scientists (yes, they both have a PhD in crabs). Funding by NSF-DEB #1856679.

Version 1.0 published 2 April 2021

tweet @franzanth for updates

This guide was published as part of the #InsertAnInvert project where we encourage artists to put unsolicited crabs in their artwork. Because everything looks better with inverts in it."

Left sidebar:

"Arm parts. In a crab claw, only one finger is movable. The other, fixed finger is fused to the "palm".

[Pincing range of the claw is illustrated, with the claw closed and opened.]

These segments [two of three chunks that make up the main part of the crab's arm are highlighted in dark blue] function like our arm but without the elbow. The wrist [final chunk of the crab arm is highlighted in dark green] is flexible and helps the crab swing its arm around.

The first segment [a small gray square of a segment] attaches the whole arm to the body. Not visible from above."

Right sidebar:

"Leg parts. The first segment [a small gray square of a segment] attaches the whole leg to the body. Not visible from above.

Three segments [highlighted in red] that don't bend very much. Usually only the big one [the segments are two small squares and a rectangle roughly three times their combined length] is visible from above, like our thigh.

Two segments [highlighted in orange, visible in the central image as angling off the prior leg segment at about a 20-degree angle] that don't bend very much. Think of our lower leg.

The tip of a limb [segment highlighted in yellow] usually pointy."

Two circles below illustrate the bending of the crab's 'knee'.

"All parts of a crab's legs can bend. However, in most" typical-looking" crabs, the joint between the red and orange segments is the only one that can make acute angles like our knees. Disclaimer: there are so many exceptions to this rule, because crustaceans like to make things overly complicated."

Bottom bar:

"Body parts. The carapace or back shell comes in many shapes and forms. It's often spiky to protect the crab from predators. Having a wide, flattened carapace is one of the characteristic features of carcinized crabs. [A variety of crab shell shapes meeting this description are shown in a line.]

The pleon, which looks like a flap, is the same structure as the abdomen or "butt" in insects or shrimps. Having a pleon that's folded under the carapace is one of the characteristic features of carcinized crabs."

Bottom right sidebar:

"True or false?

True Crabs [a crab head, four short silver lines between the eyes] :

Two short pairs of antennae between the eyes.

False Crab [a crab head, two long silver lines framing the eyes, two short silver lines between the eyes] :

A pair of (usually long) antennae outside the eyes, another shorter pair between.

True Crab [four crab legs] :

Four pairs of visible walking legs.

False Crab [three crab legs and a red 'x' where a fourth isn't] :

Three pairs of visible walking legs, the fourth pair is usually tiny and hidden."

Following the art poster are two more replies from the original poster:

"If you decided to put a crab in your artwork, @ us and use the hashtag #InsertAnInvert! We're also committed to making this a month-long learning opportunity, so we'll be tweeting crab art resources throughout April 2021 a.k.a #CrabMonth. Ask us questions if you're stuck!"

"If you feel like drawing crabs, check out Crab Database for inspiration. The site has lots of photos showing all sorts of weird crabs, it's a good site for procrastination [procrastination]. https://crabdatabase.info/en/crabs"

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