#but stuff like. ecology

[willczek-art]

Concepts for Illustration class!

Prompt: GET ANGRY focused on how the previous generation ruined our planet

[sickvacuum]

“thought about Teru” this “thinking about Teru makes me sad” that, WHAT ABOUT SHOU?? Dudes dad is abusive and a terrorist, his mom left him with said abusive terrorist to save her own skin and to hopefully make touichiro ‘realize he was doing something wrong’ while ignoring her SON’S wellbeing, then Shou ran away and lived with a bunch of other claw runaways because his mom seemingly didn’t take him back, all while he’s burdening the responsibility of feeling like he’s the one that has to stop his dad and keep him in check. That kid has issues too :( I love him. I used to not but now I’m obsessed

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Bitterthorn

gothic fairytale

set in an imaginary German town where every generation, the monstrous witch in the woods steals someone away to be her companion, never seen again

follows the daughter of the duke, lonely and grieving her mother, who offers herself up as the witch’s newest companion

she assumes she’s destined for something horrible, but is mostly left alone in the old castle, and tries to find out more about the mysterious witch & what happened to the previous companions

eerie and atmospheric

[aroaceleovaldez]

i mean it when i say we've gotta bring back askblogs. bring back making character chat posts with poor choice text colors over random backgrounds. bring back blogs dedicated to what outfits you think characters would wear.

fandom is an ecosystem, not a numbers game. these types of blogs/posts/etc still exist in concept, because people still want to make them and they're a great way to get your thoughts of an idea out in a simple format, but most people make them on like tiktok or instagram reels and that's where the problem lies. Those videos don't go anywhere. The format doesn't allow for the discussion to spread through the community and they're less likely to be engaged with in general. And to make them most people have to either show their face or figure out editing software, so the barrier to entry is higher (editing) and/or they have to forfeit an amount of privacy.

those types of posts/blogs are the first rung of the ecosystem. they're the perfect environment for younger members of the fandom to begin safely interacting with the larger community and putting their own thoughts and ideas out there. roleplay is the other major spot for that and those communities are diminishing as well, honestly (if you know of an rp forum board site, cherish it. and if you can make one, make one). they allow younger fans to begin engaging with the source material on a different/deeper level, but still at a very low barrier to entry, and begin conversations with other fans, which also helps them build skills which in turn may encourage them to pursue other avenues within the fandom (fic writing, other formats of askblog - which itself usually leads to art, cosplay, also fic writing, etc). Without those places to build those skills, they might feel discouraged from trying to begin when surrounded by curated people who have built their skills up for years.

And those conversations they foster also in turn help the community, by offering ideas to artists or fic writers to extrapolate on or building community jokes. And that text/blog format specifically is extremely beneficial, because it allows younger members of the fandom to remain anonymous and keep their privacy without concerning themselves with having any platform or having anything attached to them (very important for young fans figuring themselves out and navigating online community spaces for the first time, since they can remove themselves from spaces easily if they decide they don't like it and they're protected, rather than PUTTING THEIR FACE ON THE INTERNET). And those posts they make will spread a lot more into the community since they're in a significantly easier format to be reposted (few people are gonna be reposting tons of random short-form videos versus spamming their instagrams with reposts of 10 random fandom images yoinked from tumblr, or reposting to pinterest or something). Like, don't repost art, at the VERY least don't repost without credit, but also I am not ignorant to the fact that my art is not just the first google image result for "pjo pride" and related searches, but also the 4th, the 6th, the 9th, the 10th, the 11th, etc etc., and pops up in the search results before the official ReadRiordan does simply because people reposted my work more (most with credit, thankfully).

For fandom to be a community, it needs to perpetuate itself. There needs to be engagement with one another and conversation. If that bottom rung is cut off, then new fans won't be able to grow into the other niches of the fandom, and the fandom will be solely reliant on the source material and die out extremely quickly, and there won't be a community. There's no conversation! There's no reason to stay beyond the original material! But if you don't have points of entry for new fans, they won't have any way to build the skills needed to move into those niches, or engage with the community in a healthy way.

tl;dr: Bring back askblogs and character-based text post blogs. They are vital to fandom ecosystem.

[bitsbug]

Getting myself weirdly worked up about the common misconception that 'purpose' is a thing that exists with regards to evolution.

Like, I get it, niches can very well seem like some designed role, crafted to further along the Divine Machine of Nature. When confronted with an organism you don't like, the first question is "What purpose does it serve? Is it insignificant enough to be eradicated?"

But this very much isn't how the natural world works; evolution isn't a planned process. It's a bit more like.. y'know those videos of an algorithm being trained how to walk through trial and error? It's like that, but with a million more variables. And much like the algorithm, there is no forethought involved in evolution - it's only the immediate ''reaction'' to (aka whatever works to survive against) environment circumstances. There's not even the "goal" of survival, it's just that things which don't survive are unable to pass on whatever made them not survive, while things that did survive do.

Now imagine this process happening billions of times in parallel, all interacting with eachother, and all changing themselves in response.

The conditions a population experiences most, and the other populations it interacts with most, will inevitably affect its 'algorithm' for continuing to exist. This friction will pressure it to become more specific in how it functions, and it will come to rely upon how the things around it function. In turn, its environment starts to rely upon how it functions, however indirect that may be. It's all separate systems pressed against eachother, morphing so they align in a way that fits.

So, you can see how this can be so easily mistaken for a purpose. But the distinction is very important, because a species' entire *being* is the thing its ecosystem has molded to, not just one aspect of its lifestyle. Fleas and mosquitoes both take blood from larger animals, but they absolutely aren't interchangeable - their method of feeding, prey choices, life stages, and even movement are completely different, and something else in their respective ecosystems WILL rely on these traits for its own survival. Removing even that one thing will daisy-chain across the system, hindering the survival of everything involved.

That's why vying for killing entire species willy nilly is a bad thing, even if evolution is a morally neutral process with no true meaning behind it! And also why 'purpose' is a bogus concept to apply to this extremely complex system!

[aplpaca]

fun fact that bc of one of their claws being Obnoxiously Fucking Huge, male fiddler crabs literally can't eat with it. Which means they spend like twice as much time eating as females, since females can shovel food into their mouth with both claws but males can only do it with one

This relates to the concept of "honest/costly signaling" in ecology, which contains the idea that traits that attract mates can be an accurate display of an individual's fitness/capability due to said trait actually having disadvantages (ex. long attractive tails in some birds making moving more difficult, large claws making it harder to eat, being brightly colored making you more visible to predators, etc). The idea being that if certain attractive traits are actually disadvantageous, then an organism thriving and being overall healthy despite said traits is evidence that said organism is Good At Surviving, and therefore a good potential mate.

So while bigger claws do have the benefit of giving a male fiddler crab an edge in fights with other males, which play a big role in female mate choice, a male being healthy while having his bigass claw in the first place also serves as indirect proof that he's good at successfully obtaining enough food to survive

but like. look at this dude. he can't eat with that thing. he's got one functional food shovel bc the women think him having a one-purpose bigass muscle arm is Good Baby Material. and they're not even technically wrong

[bonefall]

Have you thought about collabing with the creators of Clangen?

It would be cool? But from what I know, Clangen really tries to stick close to canon, moreso than I do. They wouldn't be looking to add my clan culture expansions or spirituality overhauls.

So like, sure, if they/a mod maker approached me with an idea or request. Otherwise I'm not sure what we'd collaborate about?

[ty-isnt-there]

my honest reaction when opening aqa higher bio paper 2 after spending hours learning about the brain, the eye, protein synthesis + all the practicals:

[falmerbrook]

Every once in a while I am overcome with the gentle urge to make another youtube channel where I talk about tes things. But then I remember what the tes fandom is like on yt and what my voice sounds like and I rethink things.

[luxiiien]

i'm going to bed at 3am because i was busy making shitty canva mockups of my dream creature collection nature app

[hasellia]

Brain please I'm begging you.

You LOVE oysters. You LOVE research. You WANT to rehabilitate the local river system. You LOVE enviroscience. You LOVE ecology.

Why is a 700 word report freaking you the fuck out so much?

[yvoi]

I want to post more art here so.......... dancing toads for you

[elftism]

more video games need bestiaries methinks. And not just ones that give you enemy stats, weaknesses, resistances, I mean ones that give you a description of the enemy with some nice flavor text

[six-legged-sea-leopard]

cool kairoh facts because i worked hard on her design: she is technically afab, but her most distinctive features, her handsome mane and her massive stature, are actually male-associated phenotypes for her species! her long, thin canines on the other hand are a female-associated phenotype. kairoh is an intersex lesbian and uses she/her👍

[wyrmsweven]

me walking into ecology class every tuesday and thursday: wow i can't wait to learn about the natural environment! I love mother earth :)

me walking out of ecology class every tuesday and thursday: we are all going to die and we deserve it

[impossible-rat-babies]

what gets me sometimes w the idea of the calamity is that there are probably places in the deserts of thanalan where the fire of bahamut turned the sand to glass and it’s just. a few handfuls of sand there are layers of glass