🐸🚨New Frog Just Dropped!🚨🐸

Meet the ✨Most Beautiful Tree Frog✨, Guibemantis pulcherrimus, a new species described by my colleagues and me in the journal Zootaxa this week. The scientific name 'pulcherrimus' literally means 'most beautiful'. It's a close relative of Guibemantis pulcher (just 'beautiful', ha!), but has more little spots and less pronounced lateral blotches. It's found in the northeast of Madagascar, where it lives in Pandanus screw-palms.

more dinovember friends :)

People: Disney's quick/three day romances aren't realistic.

Me, inwardly: Neither are mermaids, genies, fairies, talking animals, magical transformations, ice powers, or magical healing hair. Maybe it's not always conveyed the best but it's escapist fantasy and not meant to be idolized, just enjoyed with the knowledge that it's fantasy.

Me out loud: Watch something other than Disney then.

Damn now I want to read a fic where Toritsuka just keeps draping himself over Saiki in new and various ways and Saiki just puts up with it and doesn't think anything of it because Toritsuka is going on about some bullshit and it's kinda nice so whatever.

Toritsuka's not doing it on purpose either, he's just internalized that Saiki is free real estate and he does not think.

Culminating in them getting confused for boyfriends because they're practically snuggling in public LOL.

EDIT: it is written....

We're working on getting Devito'd today

Happy Birthday Hyungwon!!! 🎂

I♡U

Shrek the third princesses but with their Disney dresses?

AURORA BLUE DRESS SUPREMACY

[My art]

tagged by the beloveds @leviiackrman & @risingsh0t to make some of my ocs in these three picrews – thank you both so much, this was so fun and i live for symbolism and motifs! ♡

🐍 diana wesker (resident evil) / 🌻 mehlia tabris (dragon age) 🚁 dani haines (resident evil) / 🐺 ithrenil (the elder scrolls) 👑 reina (saints row) / 🪦 tereza ionescu (resident evil)

tagging: @aartyom @aceghosts @aelyosos @brujah @calenhads @cultistbase @denerims @druidgroves @faarkas @florbelles @girlbosselrond @indorilnerevarine @jendoe @leopardmuffinxo @lightwardens @liurnia @malefiicarum @morvaris @nadineross @nocticulas @nuclearstorms @phillipsgraves @shadowsofrose @solasan @swordcoasts @steelport@veisshaupt @voerman @wrymbloods & you! apologies for so many tags... as always, no pressure and let me know if you'd prefer to not be tagged in these things! ♡

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LUNAAAA!!!!!!!

I hope you've been having an amazing day so far and that it gets even better going forward!❤️❤️

Would you like a little drawing of one of the boys?? I'd love to gift it to you for your bday present❤️

Thank you Oma :D I would love that! My day is going hoppingly so far. The grass seems pretty green. My service dog has his tongue out. Kind of like a... f r o g

Bad Taste

I was looking at a list of the worst Doors songs ranked, and you'd never believe what I saw!

My two favorite songs ranked in the top 5!

My favorite song being placed at no. 5 (interestingly lower than the arguably much better no.3. Then again this was only one person's ranking- clearly lacking in taste)

See how even the description doesn't make it sound bad! Dreamy! Creakiest and crooniness! How is that an insult?!

But even worse is this gorgeous track. What'd you do to be placed at 3rd worst?? Methinks this author simply despises all things heartfelt and romantic.

It is true that I like their outlier songs more than their general sound, but I don't see why this should mean that true fans only enjoy their typical tunes! Who are they to hate on a perfectly lovely wistful summer serenade? Who are they to resent a band's attempts to branch out? They're not even bad!

But again, this is but one person's take. I feel it may be wise not to go looking for other people's rankings in case this is the norm and not the outlier...

For my media analysis class we had to watch The Princess and The Frog (2009) and I no-joke just full on sobbed in the study center because of that stupid firefly Ray who’s in love with the Evening Star “Evangeline” like goddamn you Disney you got me again

I feel. honored. Amazed. Happy. Content. This is it. These are my subjects. My loves. Everything. I feel seen.

sick and twisted that stephen SONDHEIM did an arrangement for "fear no more" but i don't even like it. everything in the world is so fucked up

It's that time of year again where Mari Lwyd starts to be talked about and shared around and an INCREDIBLY misleading post gets shared a lot. As someone who grew up with Mari Lwyd I wanted to clear some things up.

Also hello, if you are unaware who Mari Lwyd is. This is about the Welsh tradition of the horse skull who visits houses during the Christmas to New Years period in Wales asking for alcohol.

First off and probably the most important one:

Mari Lwyd is not a cryptid!

I can not emphasise this enough. She. Is. Not. A. Cryptid. There is no story or mystery about a ghost or zombie horse roaming the Welsh valleys. She's not even supposed to be a ghost or a zombie. It's just a horse skull on a stick with a guy under a sheet. She's a hobbyhorse and a folk character used to tell Welsh stories and keep songs alive. When people spread the misinformation that she's a cryptid, it's the equivalent of saying Kermit the Frog is a cryptid.

She is actually only one character in a wider cast of characters who go door to door or, in more modern times, pub to pub. The cast of characters can change town to town and village to village but there are some common ones I see time and time again. The Leader, the Merryman, The Jester and The Lady are just some I see regularly. Punch and Judy used to be more popular a few years ago but I haven't seen them in a while as their tradition has mostly fallen out of popularity. In most cases, almost the whole cast will be played by men. Even the characters are considered and referred to as female. Though this again depends and varies by which group is partaking in the Mari Lwyd tradition.

This point also goes onto my second point,

Mari Lwyd does not rap.

I think this comes from a very common misunderstanding of what rap is vs spoken word. Rap is a very specific style of music originating from the African American communities of the USA and has it's own structure and motifs unique to it. It's a lot more complex than people give it credit for as a style of music and just flippantly assign anything similar to it as being rap. If someone is talking fast or reciting poetry, it is not rap. Or anything that is an exchange of words between two people is not a rap battle. Mari Lwyd does not do rap, actually something that gets left out of these posts is the fact Mari Lwyd does not even speak. It's actually the Leader, who does all the speaking and song based banter between the house/pub owner for entry. Mari Lwyd just clicks her mouth, bites people and bobs her head around.

I think Mari Lwyd is a really beautiful and unique part of Welsh culture. She's not actually as wildly celebrated as a lot of the posts make her out to be. Actually, I think most Welsh people themselves learn about Mari Lwyd through the internet as well. Her popularity is increasing thanks to the drive of local groups wanting to keep the traditions alive and a renewed desire to document Welsh traditions before they're gone. Which is why it's such a shame that she's turned into something she's not to earn horror points on the internet. I think this is why it bothers me so much to see the misunderstandings of the culture and the folk tradition. Mari Lwyd's origin is very hot debated as well as how long it's been going on for. But I think it's thanks to a lot of traditions like this that the Welsh language and our stories weren't lost forever. Welsh culture is recovering as is the language. But it's still in a very fragile place. I think it's why it's important to document and correct information when it's spread.

Anyway, if you want to see the tradition in action, here's a lovely video from the Cwmafan RFC going to one of the pubs for charity. It includes the song exchange with the pub owner for entry and the whole pub singing and joining in once Mari Lwyd and the rest are inside.

As well with another video from St Fagan's showcasing the more traditional and door to door form with the larger cast.