A redraw of this art from 2021👇

he's an apostate. he's a grey warden. he's on the run from the law. he's bonded body mind and soul to a spirit of the fade. he practices one of the rarest and most taxing magical diciplines known to mages. he's a cat dad. he was put in solitary confinement for a full year. he saves lives daily and asks for no payment. he's a massive bitch. he's personal friends with the hero of ferelden. he hates the church. he's hopelessly in love with you. he writes and distributes his own manifesto. he was forced to kill his own ex boyfriend. he doesn't see a way out. he's fucking blonde.

I submit to you that the most iconic feature of any animal is either unlikely or impossible to fossilize.

If all we had of wolves were their bones we would never guess that they howl.

If all we had of elephants were fossils with no living related species, we might infer some kind of proboscis but we’d never come up with those ears.

If all we had of chickens were bones, we wouldn’t know about their combs and wattles, or that roosters crow.

We wouldn’t know that lions have manes, or that zebras have stripes, or that peacocks have trains, that howler monkeys yell, that cats purr, that deer shed the velvet from their antlers, that caterpillars become butterflies, that spiders make webs, that chickadees say their name, that Canada geese are assholes, that orangutans are ginger, that dolphins echolocate, or that squid even existed.

My point here is that we don’t know anything about dinosaurs. If we saw one we would not recognize it. As my evidence I submit the above, along with the fact that it took us two centuries to realize they’d been all around us the whole time.

XKCD

So that people don’t need to go through the notes:

- We have fossils of spider webs

- Paleontologists have reconstructed the larynx (voice box) of extinct animals and we have a pretty good idea what vocalizations they were capable of

- Fossilized pigments have been found in a variety of taxa

- Soft tissues fossilize more often than you think; we have skin impressions for like 90% of Tyrannosaurus rex’s full body (shoulder blades and neck are the only bits missing)

If pop culture is your only window into extinct animals, then you do not remotely understand how much we know.

We know the entire lifecycle of a tyrannosaurus. We know from the sheer amount of remains we have, from every stange.

We know exactly how other dinosaurs look, down to colors and patterns, because bones are not the only information that is preserved.

The Sinosauropteryx is one such dinosaur. Because pigmentation molecules were preserved in the feather impressions, we know it’s colors, and it’s tail rings (which one would argue would be it’s “iconic feature.”

(Art credit Julio Lacerda)

Microraptor is another! We know from feather impressions that it had four wings. We know from pigmentation that it was an iredecent black, like a raven.

(Art credit Vitor Silva)

This is not limited to dinosaurs, or feathers. We’ve found pigmentation in scales and skin. We’ve completely reconstructed two extinct penguins, colors and all. We’ve figured out the colors of some non-avian and non-feathered dinosaurs. We can identify evidence of feathers existing on animals without feather impressions.

We have feathered dinosaurs preserved in amber.

We can defer likely behavioral patterns through adaptations we see in bones, and from the environments they were found in. We can see how certain movements evolved through musculature attachments (yes, how muscles attached is often preserved). We know avian flight likely evolved by “accident” by the way early raptorforms moved their arms to strike at their prey.

We also understand behavior in extant animals and can easily speculate likely behaviors in extinct animals. (A predator running for it’s life is not going to exhibit hunting behaviors)

We learn and understand way more from “rocks” than paleontologists are given credit for. And if you watch a movie like Jurassic World, which has no interest in portraying anything with any sort of accuracy, and your take away is “We can’t possibly know anything about these animals,” then you don’t understand science.

As for shrinkwrapped reconstructions, we understand how muscles attach, and how fat works. Artists who lean into shrinkwrapping are are not generally concerned with scientific accuracy, or biology. They’re only concerned with Awesombro.

If true paleoartists tried to reconstruct a hippo, while they naturally would not get every bit correct, it would certainly look like a real animal, and not that alien monster that tumblr is so fond of using as “proof” that paleontologists don’t know anything (an art piece that itself was extreme and satirical, and a condemnation of the particular subset of paleoartists I mentioned earlier)

Every time paleoblr tries to show you how extinct animals actually looked, all we get is a chorus of “thanks i hate it” and “stop ruining dinosaurs!”

Loosing my shit at the knowledge that T-rexes nursed their loved ones back to health

@lusus–naturae​

Disclaimer: I’m a little drunk and don’t feel like citing sources.

we (and by “we” I mean people much smarter than me) know oviraptor, a small(ish) theropod, not only constructed its nests and arranged its eggs carefully, we know they died guarding their nests often enough that many parents were fossilized right on top of their eggs. Originally it was popularly thought that they were subsisting on and stealing eggs so much that they were fossilized in the act, hence the Latin name that basically means “egg thief,” but later analysis of the eggs shows they were oviraptor eggs. Iirc articulated skeletons show that oviraptor would sit* on its eggs to incubate them like a modern bird.

We know modern birds 1) are endothermic, 2) have a bald patch on their chests to make skin-to-egg contact for greater heat transfer, and 3) do a silly little dance to rotate their eggs through the nest so every baby gets equal amounts of warmth. From all this, we can deduce that oviraptor probably engaged in similar behaviors and had similar traits. We know this gigantic turkey thing loved its babies. And this is mostly from bones and the contexts we find them in.

Related: the closest living relatives to dinosaurs are birds (which ARE theropod dinosaurs) and crocodilians (which are not). Both birds and crocodilians are disproportionately more likely to be “smarter” than most reptiles and more protective of their young than most reptiles. We can’t know for certain and there were probably exceptions but i think it stands to reason that many dinosaurs were similarly intelligent and, for lack of a better word, loving.

We know velociraptors (obligatory “they were only knee-high” remark) fought, possibly preyed on, protoceratops. We know protoceratops would use its beak to defend themselves; they would bite attackers. We found a pair of mostly complete articulated skeletons, a velociraptor and protoceratops, eternally preserved in battle against each other. Geologists think the two in that single fossil were buried suddenly in a sand dune collapse, hence why they were preserved articulated and tangled up in each other.

We also know there’s a lot we don’t know. Squids basically never fossilize because of their habitat and a quirk of their biochemistry. Most living things in general get eaten rather than fossilized. Swamps and bogs have notoriously acidic soil which can preserve things in the right circumstances and can completely dissolve things under other circumstances. Geology destroys fossils. Humans destroy fossils, sometimes on purpose and sometimes on accident.

But there’s a lot we do know. There’s dinosaur mummies, animals that were mummified when they were still fresh and then the mummified soft tissues fossilized along with the bones and other hard tissues. These mummies often preserve pigments and skin textures and other small details. We have tracks. We have dung. We have pollen and spore samples. We have a LOT of people who are full of love and passion and patience who have dedicated their lives to understanding this stuff, to being lights in the darkness.

Btw. These same people are how we know megalodon is definitely zero question extinct, how we’re pretty sure there’s no equivalent large predators we don’t already know about. The reason we know they existed is the same reason we know they don’t anymore: all the teeth we find are millions of years old. Also: we also know Mokele-mbembe isn’t a fuckin dinosaur and that’s just white people being weird and racist about rural African culture. And there’s nothing in Loch Ness besides tourists. Etc. there’s a lot we don’t and can’t know but there’s a lot we do and it’s because of people who are much better at explaining it than i am.

The collection is complete!!! This series of portraits took so long 😭 but I am happy with how they turned out 🥲💕

These will all be available as prints when my shop launches on Friday! And, if you’re interested in a giveaway for the whole set, check out my instagram (same username!) where we’re celebrating 15k 🥰

Day 4 of #Veiltober - Lucanis The perfect Disney princess, the Beauty and the Beast.

I'm obsessed with this.

I cannot wait to make my canon-dovergent Alistair and let him finally have his romance with a sweet Antivan crow 🥹

THESIS: the real reason that people stay on this hellsite is not “chronological order” or “the drama” or whatever (per se), but is instead linked to how tumblr, unlike most social media, is not optimised to give content as short of a half-life as possible, but instead is optimised to let content continue to cycle for months, years, even decades. this has in turn led to a more consistent centralised site “culture” in which there is more coherent linkage among different areas of the site, thus also explaining why its content permeates so thoroughly throughout the internet.

So I heard this video got deleted from YouTube and people have been looking for it. Well it just happens I had it saved to my camera roll so if you are dying to watch it or want to watch it again and again here you go. THIS IS NOT MY VIDEO! ALL CREDS GO TO THE CREATOR OF IT ! Enjoy :)

Have seen this so many times, never gets old

Last year, I spent so much time looking at other people's art and being genuinely amazed, not at just what they make, but at what they're willing to share. This year, I'm going to try to follow their lead by not just making more art, but by experimenting as well. So here's a study I did, combining the flat arts style of mid century animation and the birds of Arizona

Okay so this is a big deal

To me, and to a significant subset of Sir Terry's fans (including most of you who've found this by the tags), his writing is serious commentary on the human condition - politics, prejudice, self-control, revenge vs. justice, religion, idealism, faith in people vs. cynicism, and more - dressed up with fantasy settings and a hefty leavening of humor to make it fun to read. And it is WILDLY fun to read, actual laugh-out-loud or at least a snicker averaging about every page.

But there's this common idea among the "important literature" people that fun and funny books are not also worthwhile or important in the same way.

This is a Discworld book being released WITH ACADEMIC COMMENTARY and AS A PENGUIN CLASSIC. That's a HUGE amount of recognition.

@thebibliosphere

Oh, I’m about to tear up. I had to fight so hard to do my thesis on Pratchett because the university didn't like what they considered pop culture being studied as literature and this is just... Existing. 🥹

the moon

When I see a conversation or quest marker on any of my companions:

Just a bunch of Useful websites - Updated for 2023

Removed/checked all links to make sure everything is working (03/03/23). Hope they help!

Sejda - Free online PDF editor.

Supercook - Have ingredients but no idea what to make? Put them in here and it’ll give you recipe ideas.

Still Tasty - Trying the above but unsure about whether that sauce in the fridge is still edible? Check here first.

Archive.ph - Paywall bypass. Like 12ft below but appears to work far better and across more sites in my testing. I’d recommend trying this one first as I had more success with it.

12ft – Hate paywalls? Try this site out.

Where Is This - Want to know where a picture was taken, this site can help.

TOS/DR - Terms of service, didn’t read. Gives you a summary of terms of service plus gives each site a privacy rating.

OneLook - Reverse dictionary for when you know the description of the word but can’t for the life of you remember the actual word.

My Abandonware - Brilliant site for free, legal games. Has games from 1978 up to present day across pc and console. You’ll be surprised by some of the games on there, some absolute gems.

Project Gutenberg – Always ends up on these type of lists and for very good reason. All works that are copyright free in one place.

Ninite – New PC? Install all of your programs in one go with no bloat or unnecessary crap.

PatchMyPC - Alternative to ninite with over 300 app options to keep upto date. Free for home users.

Unchecky – Tired of software trying to install additional unwanted programs? This will stop it completely by unchecking the necessary boxes when you install.

Sci-Hub – Research papers galore! Check here before shelling out money. And if it’s not here, try the next link in our list.

LibGen – Lots of free PDFs relate primarily to the sciences.

Zotero – A free and easy to use program to collect, organize, cite and share research.

Car Complaints – Buying a used car? Check out what other owners of the same model have to say about it first.

CamelCamelCamel – Check the historical prices of items on Amazon and set alerts for when prices drop.

Have I Been Pawned – Still the king when it comes to checking if your online accounts have been released in a data breach. Also able to sign up for email alerts if you’ve ever a victim of a breach.

I Have No TV - A collection of documentaries for you to while away the time. Completely free.

Radio Garden – Think Google Earth but wherever you zoom, you get the radio station of that place.

Just The Recipe – Paste in the url and get just the recipe as a result. No life story or adverts.

Tineye – An Amazing reverse image search tool.

My 90s TV – Simulates 90’s TV using YouTube videos. Also has My80sTV, My70sTV, My60sTV and for the younger ones out there, My00sTV. Lose yourself in nostalgia.

Foto Forensics – Free image analysis tools.

Old Games Download – A repository of games from the 90’s and early 2000’s. Get your fix of nostalgia here.

Online OCR – Convert pictures of text into actual text and output it in the format you need.

Remove Background – An amazingly quick and accurate way to remove backgrounds from your pictures.

Twoseven – Allows you to sync videos from providers such as Netflix, Youtube, Disney+ etc and watch them with your friends. Ad free and also has the ability to do real time video and text chat.

Terms of Service, Didn’t Read – Get a quick summary of Terms of service plus a privacy rating.

Coolors – Struggling to get a good combination of colors? This site will generate color palettes for you.

This To That – Need to glue two things together? This’ll help.

Photopea – A free online alternative to Adobe Photoshop. Does everything in your browser.

BitWarden – Free open source password manager.

Just Beam It - Peer to peer file transfer. Drop the file in on one end, click create link and send to whoever. Leave your pc on that page while they download. Because of how it works there are no file limits. It’s genuinely amazing. Best file transfer system I have ever used.

Atlas Obscura – Travelling to a new place? Find out the hidden treasures you should go to with Atlas Obscura.

ID Ransomware – Ever get ransomware on your computer? Use this to see if the virus infecting your pc has been cracked yet or not. Potentially saving you money. You can also sign up for email notifications if your particular problem hasn’t been cracked yet.

Way Back Machine – The Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites and loads more.

Rome2Rio – Directions from anywhere to anywhere by bus, train, plane, car and ferry.

Splitter – Seperate different audio tracks audio. Allowing you to split out music from the words for example.

myNoise – Gives you beautiful noises to match your mood. Increase your productivity, calm down and need help sleeping? All here for you.

DeepL – Best language translation tool on the web.

Forvo – Alternatively, if you need to hear a local speaking a word, this is the site for you.

For even more useful sites, there is an expanded list that can be found here.

Photography by Jorge Saenz

MAY THE DREADWOLF TAKE YOU

everyone says join your local mutual aid groups and build community, but uh, what do you do if a lot of them seem to have dissolved and the other ones don't have consistent recurring meetings.

this is real, and it's a thing that a lot of people are going to run into in the face of calls to "get involved," especially if they're people who haven't been deeply involved in their communities before. so here's what I can share: