i tend to be cautious about bothering cats but I think it's important to remember that some pretty extreme cat bothering is still within the typical bounds of cat social life

oh yeah have i ever told yall of the academic war i have been an unwilling soilder in for the past two years

okay SO. i have two professors that both teach this one subject, but different classes. they have different last names, so i didnt know this at first and espically since they are academic RIVELS at my school, but they are MARRIED. but for the past 8 years they have been in an academic WAR of geospatical sciences data. more accurately, the raster vs vector data debate. i am personally on the side of "both have their pros and cons and can be utalizied to the utmost efficency" but both professors are like, DEADLOCKED in insistanting one is better then the other

so, professor A is my mentor. i like him a lot, and he was the main person that taught me the most abotu Eris and ArcGIS. professor B is a professor i had one for class, and shes nice and knows a lot of little tricks about Eris programming but mostly relies on arcMAP because shes the raster data professor.

and THESE MOTHERFUCKERS. have written no less then 30 papers that is basically like a "re: re: re: re: re: re: vector data is better then raster fuck you" but like, Professionally. and they leave stupid notes in the footnotes that read "Reguardless of Professor A's opinions reguarding the efficency of Vector data, Raster data has a more efficant polygon computing rate and is the most commonly used program on interplantaring mapping" and its HILARIOUS

ive read all of their papers, and its basically like reading an email chain between a married couple arguing over the colors of the kitchen backsplash for their new home. its HILARIOUS. but obviously, because of their differnet last names and because they act like they HATE each other, NOT VERY MANY PEOPLE REALIZES THEYRE MARRIED

until like LAST WEEK

professor B publishes a paper that casually drops the word "husband"

and obviously all the students are like "oh i didnt know u were married!" because we read that shit like how white suburban mothers read People Magazine

and shes like "yeah, its Professor A"

and we all FLIPPED. THE FUCK. OUT

we thought the framed picture of the two of them on professor A's desk was ironic because hes that type of guy

like, you gotta undestand. these two have gotten into YELLING matches in hallways. these two refuse to go onto trips with each other. but apparently they have a system where they quite LITERALLY leave all of their work at work and drive home in seperate cars and literally NEVER mention work at home. it is SO funny

Gerald Moira, “The Silent Voice", ca 1898

Saw this tweet and had to collect Ryan Gosling’s best PR quotes for Barbie

Hey uh brand new addition

there should be more hype for pingu in the little guy hello kitty snoopy moomin community

hes just a sweet kid

As promised, welcome to

Fun biology in TOTK’s designs

I'll keep this post updated as I go through the game. I'm going to skip the more general identifiable things like apples (they're based on apples!) because there are tons of more unusual species to talk about.

Overall, the really interesting thing I've noticed is that many of the more unique Earth-based lifeforms in TOTK are super ancient, like predating dinosaurs ancient, which is a really cool tie-in to the overall time-hopping plotline of TOTK. Specifically, they're found in the new areas (caves, depths) while the surface remains a bit more normal.

(There will be no plot spoilers in this post, and also I've barely gotten into the plot because I'm spending all my time wandering, so shhh no spoilers in the tags for like a month please.)

PLANTS

Bryophytes my beloved. Bryophytes are among the earliest land plants, waaaay predating flowers and even seeds. In our world, they’re small by necessity—they lack vascular systems to help move water around like other plants, so they have to stay small and moist (hence their frequency in caves in TOTK—though they do need some light in real life.)

In TOTK they’re quite large and I think that’s very sexy and art directors should give us big bryophytes more often

Anyway, there are three types of bryophytes: mosses, liverworts, and hornworts. Left image is a moss, right is a liverwort. Those red-brown and palm-tree-like structures, respectively, are their reproductive structures.

Not yet spotted: Hornworts! Did they forget the third bryophyte sister :(

I think these next guys are probably lycopods (specifically club moss, which is not a true bryophyte moss, thanks science.) Very old, but vascular, so they're a bit more evolutionarily recent than bryophytes.

All the enormous curly-topped trees in the depths: Ferns! Another very old plant, though younger than bryophytes and lycopods.

Brightblooms and some of the other giant plants in the depths: Possibly based on a cycad? Again, a very ancient plant lineage. At this point, evolutionarily, they've developed seeds—that giant cone in the center is called a strobilus, and that's the seed structure.

These next few plants are angiosperms, meaning they produce flowers. Angiosperms are a more recent evolutionary lineage—still many millions of years old, but it took a while to develop flowers as a reproductive tactic.

Sundelions (left) are a fun recolor of a lily. I wanted to point out that the artists did a nice job with the overall accuracy on the shape and parts—though they only have 5 stamens instead of the lily's characteristic 6, but hey, fantasy. There are also some scenery lilies in various places—I found these (right img) in the depths but near a lightroot (which gives them literal and thematic connection to the surface.)

These next ones are Peruvian lilies/alstroemeria, just used as a scenery plant but a very fun inclusion. Fun fact, not true lilies, so they're not deadly to cats like true lilies are.

Real photo © Dick Culbert, Wikipedia

Plum trees: These are also called out as plum trees in game! There's a journal in Kakariko that refers to the plum orchards.

Okay I'm a little proud of figuring this one out. Bomb flowers blend a few botanical references. Superficially, the fruit resembles a type of seed pod called a capsule—specifically it's very similar to a poppy capsule. The little red thing in the center is a nice addition to resemble both a flower stigma (reproductive part that leads to the ovary) and a bomb fuse. Now, poppy capsules disperse their seeds via wind, but there are other plants who do explode their seeds outwards as a dispersal tactic! This is called explosive dehiscence.

There is one tree in particular called the sandbox tree, AKA monkey-no-climb or dynamite tree (yes, really.) Their capsules look more like little pumpkins, but are known for violently exploding when ripe—they can launch seeds at 150 miles per hour (250 km/h) and spread them roughly 200 feet (60 m) away. The photo comparison is a poppy capsule but you should def go look up dynamite tree videos.

Real photo © PommeGrenade, pixabay

Fire fruits (and the other elemental fruits) grow on the same generic plant that looks kind of like it has grape leaves. Fire fruits resemble a specific botanical thing too though—the black netting is a papery calyx (part of the flower) seen in a nightshade genus, Physalis (golden berries, tomatillos, etc.)

Real photo © Helene Rogers, Alamy

MISCELLANEA

Cup lichen! Lichen is not a plant, but a symbiotic structure of an algae + a fungi. Cup lichen is just a type of lichen formation that has a kind of vertical cup-like structure.

ANIMALS

Sticky lizards: Based on Diplocaulus, a very early (now extinct) amphibian! Their skulls are wacky. We're not sure whether the long sides stood out separately or were smoothly connected to the body by skin flaps, but the separate arrow-like shape is the most popular rendition.

Deep firefly: Might be a stretch because it could just be a multi-winged fantasy critter, but I think the "wings" and antennae are very reminiscent of anomalocaris, an ancient aquatic arthropod.

That's all I've got for now! Will add more as I keep playing.

character design tip: get his fucking tits out

the urge to bite while feeling overwhelming affection is completely normal. sorry if you don’t experience that but it’s not my business. get help

love DOESN’T make you want to sink your teeth in? Okaaaaayyyy. weirdo

Bro I fucking love the DB Cooper case nothing about this whole situation sounds real. None of the passengers on the plane realized they were being hijacked until the plane landed two hours after it was supposed to and the fbi showed up with suitcases full of money. The note about the bomb almost went unnoticed because the flight attendant thought she was being sexually harassed so she didn't read it. One of the main suspects was the first trans woman in Washington to have a sex change operation. A reporter who was so dead set on his suspect that he brought him to court was so upset about being wrong that he went catatonic and was treated with electroshock therapy and it WORKED. There's been multiple "I'm DB Cooper" death confessions. He never even SAID his name was DB Cooper. Either he got away with a million bucks in today's money and the most iconic and harmless crime American history or he impaled himself on a pine tree while falling a zillion miles an hour in the dark while clutching duffel bags full of cash and either option is equally hilarious. He wore a clip on tie. He committed an act of sky piracy. What in the fucking looney toons

Someone mowed a willy onto the coronation party site in Bath, UK.

genuinely very funny that not only is biden running in 2024, he’s also probably going to win. our billion zillion million year old methuselah from the bible old as fuck president

he went to the beach that makes you president

Givenchy Spring/Summer 1999 Couture

lord the women you put on earth to enjoy media are being forced to log in to outlook and microsoft teams