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sayitaliano · 2 months

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Ti posso chiedere di raccontare/spiegare questa parte del monologo di Teresa Mannino sulla linguistica? Spero che ci sarà un video tagliato del suo monologo qui ma intanto sono sicura di non aver capito tutto

Ciao! Più che altro non ho idea di cosa sia successo perché sono andata a dormire praticamente dopo Russell Crowe lol Cerco di farmi un'idea su Raiplay (x) e poi vedo cosa dirti.

Provo a farti un riassunto, poi mi dici se c'è qualcosa su cui devo soffermarmi di più, se ti serve?

To start with, after a few jokes, she says that mentally we are stuck into the 5th century bc. In fact, as a philosopher back then, men (mankind) believe that everything that exists is for them. She then compares the word uomo (man) with donna (woman): in Italian "uomo" can be used both for mankind and male/masculine gender. So she asks "why man? (perché uomo?), we could say human kind or human animal" and states we're animals as well. We also have our DNA for the 70% similar to bananas and for the 98% to monkeys and primates in general (other jokes in between).

(I think this is the point of your question but anyway let me know) As humans, since we speak languages to communicate (while other animals/plants have other methods), we feel superior. And she basically says: "that's the same feeling that we Sicilian people have when someone from the North (Milan/Piedmont...) comes to Sicily, we speak to them in Sicilian and if that person doesn't understand we think that they're stupid: but it's not so, this person speaks another language. So we keep repeating the same sentence in Sicilian hoping the northerner will understand suddenly". She adds a sample sentence in Sicilian (don't ask me to write it cause I have no clue I speak another language as she said but it could be something like "cuccu cammini co' e arance 'n terra" BUT IDK what I did for sure I wrote it wrong) and says: "Even if we translated this sentence, it has no meaning anyway" and then asks Giletti (tv host, from Biella, Piedmont) to translate it (he asks for help to someone near him). She explains that sentence: "cu ccu" are two words that have different meaning just to confuse everyone better, and they mean "with whom" (con chi) and asks Giletti to repeat to help him learn Sicilian. The sentence translated sounds like "Con chi cammini con le arance che stanno per terra?" (with whom you walk with the oranges that are on the ground?). And indeed generally has no meaning but for Palermitani (people from Palermo), it means "with whom you walk with oranges that are fallen cause are rotten" -> who do you hang out with, rotten oranges = bad people? So she adds "It's pretty complex to get and one can understand it only if they have done a thesis on Camilleri (famous Sicillian author/writer who created Il Commissario Montalbano), but even with this background, we say that that person from the North is stupid".

She goes back speaking about the other ways of communication that plants and animals use and focuses on baboons that in order to cheer each other, they squeeze each other's... masculine genitals. "They acquire all the infos they need through that 'it's young' 'they will collaborate' (adds more fun stuff)". Then speaks about ants (formiche tagliafoglie= cutleaves?), and adds they're the smarter of all: "they pick up seeds as we used to do and have huge nests in which they cultivate mushrooms. They have been farming for 50 millions of years and didn't ruin anything we've been farming for 10.000 and have destroyed our planet. They were here when there were dinosaurs and survived the meteorite". So she says "Let's copy them, how does their society works? They're basically all female with a "mother queen" and a bunch of males. The "mother queen" decides the gender of the new borns and it's basically all females, except for a male or so every year for continuing the specie and nothing else." She adds a bunch of fun notes on this, how useful it is for them when it comes to exes and how happy male ants may be. "On the contrary, human animals prefer power ON other humans, men, women, childeren, nature... I like power too, but power OF laughing, making people laugh, dressing how I want, dancing on the street even if I embarass my daughter..." and ends by saying something like "if some stories/situations are still present maybe it's not time to ignore them and move on".

#traduzioni #sanremo #sanremo 2024 #italian language #languages #it #sanremo2024 #langblr #italian #italian langblr

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wizardfamiliarchan · 4 months

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> crow's character bio | main menu

Operator Note: The text below is not required reading, but if you want to know more about Crow, read to the bio section and stop. The wizard tower and trivia section are super not-required.

WIZARDBLR LORE SHEET: CROW, THE HELPFUL FAMILIAR

Name: Crow (see bio for full name)

Age: Unknown (looks middle-aged)

Species: Qhuvois (half-familiar (changeling type), half-qhunqroiks)

Appearance: Crow, in her base form, has pale skin, no nose, and two large orbs that seem to function as rudimentary "eyes". These eyes on their own cannot move, so she has to physically move her head in order to look around. Her head, which floats just above her body, is a shade darker than her skin, and her "eyes" sit directly in the middle of her face. She has no nose, just two small slits underneath her "eyes", and no mouth, as she speaks telepathically with those she comes across. She has long, thin fingers and toes, each of which has webbing in between them, and a long, thin tail. Her entire body is covered in a thin slime, but as it is not waterproof, she cannot swim, despite having webbed fingers and toes. No images of her in this form have been found, but many artists have tried to replicate this, though to no avail.

In her common human form, she has white skin, long hair, and dark brown eyes. Her hair is often hidden underneath a flowing headpiece, upon which she attaches things such as small lanterns, charms, and ropes. She never shows off her hands, as she prefers to wear gloves. She has a slightly-crooked nose in this form, and her mouth is often painted in a shade of dark red. The headpiece she wears is styled after the traditional hairstyles of her people, and she rarely ever takes it off.

In her other common form, she takes on the form of a large crow. She has dark purple-black feathers, a long beak, and beady eyes. She cannot fly, as her wings have been clipped, but she refuses to anyway, even if she could. In this form, she is unable to speak, though she understands human words better than in either of her other forms.

In all of her forms, she is recognizable by the red Binti-like dot on her forehead, though in her human form, she hides it under her headpiece. She is also easily recognizable because of her height, as she stands at a formidable six feet, seven inches, the average size for her people, though this only applies to her human and base forms. In her crow form, she is just slightly larger than average.

Powers: Despite being biologically a familiar, she possesses all the standard wizarding abilities, such as minor spellcasting and "animal control" abilities. However, each ability comes with a price. In order to cast spells of any kind, she must recite a haiku that relates to the spell she wants to cast, something she can often do silently. She cannot control any animals that she cannot change into, so this means she cannot have a familiar of her own that isn't either a primate, ghost, or a bird of any kind. Because familiars cannot go to wizard school, she has learnt everything she knows on her own, and, as such is adept in grimoire-reading. She is able to speak three languages, though she rarely ever does. She is also able to understand the animals she turns into, something that has proven useful several times throughout her life. She has a constitution of fifteen, a wisdom of seventeen, and a charisma of fourteen, though despite these high stats, she prefers to be alone rather than use them for the greater good. She cannot manipulate any sorts of elements or spaces, no matter how hard she tries. She cannot cast anything unless she has a wand in hand, and she uses a dragon-forged wand made of brightsteel to accomplish this.

Companions: Despite her love of being alone, she has two companions, a howler monkey named Khan and a ghost familiar of her own named Ashaya. Ashaya is the exact opposite of her, and Khan is extremely loyal, though this wasn't originally the case. She met her companions while working for a former wizard in the city of [REDACTED], where she had lived for four years at the time, when she left the city to go on a "gathering mission" for her boss.

Bio: The earliest known appearance of Crow in any known historical records has her listed under the name "Mlinf", a word in the ancient Onynyoft language that means "wicked". At the time, she was working for a teacher at the Shtiwi-Hwany School for Alchemy and Wizardry, a school that, despite her being employed there (through proxy), she could not attend due to her race. Her boss, the well-endowed-financially Thuahh Nalwo, was the principal (or Headmaster, depending on where you're from) at the time, and, as such, she was the first familiar Vice-Chaplain (yes, chaplain; they stick to their religious private school roots hard) at the school in its seven centuries of operation. Because of this, despite being treated with respect by the students, she was often bossed around by her superiors, as the school was, and still is, known for its anti-familiar ways. During this time, because most people she encountered could not pronounce her name, she started going by the name Crow, a name derived from her real name, C'Fawkaal'wotdiar Dashengan Mall-Kotmà, a name only a select few knew in full at the time, and took up a semi-permanent residence in the school library, where she could often be found reading the latest books or researching the newest mysteries. However, after a house fire four years later, she was kicked out of the establishment, with which she had spent her entire working life at the time, as everyone seemed to believe the fire was her fault (it wasn't. Someone had accidentally used a fireball spell on the wooden walls of the mess hall). Following this, she moved halfway across the country she called home, taking up residence in the city of Bankyoji. She lived there for two years before moving of her own accord, during which time she went fully vegan. She spent eight years in [REDACTED], then moved to Mezhyni, where she lived for twelve years as a member of the city's world-famous quintalix team, the Firebulls. Following the end of her quintalix career, she moved to K'xalm, where she lives to this day.

Wizard Tower: Crow's wizard tower is a rather antiquated work of "art", as she calls it. It's a large, castle-like building, itself reminiscent of the castle towers of old, but everything about it screams "goth". It is fifteen stories tall, and each story has its own use. There is a garden behind the tower, and she can often be found tending to it. The first five floors of her tower are all libraries, each one dedicated to a certain subject and only that. The first floor is a science library, the second social studies/history, the third English literature of old, the fourth law, and the fifth spells/all things magical. The next five floors are all in various state of mess, though the bottom-most of the set is perfectly divided into several guest bedrooms. Crow's room takes up the entirety of the seventh floor, and both her familiar Ashaya and her howler monkey Khan live on the eighth floor. The ninth floor is a potion-making laboratory, and the tenth floor is a fully-functioning shop from which she sells customized robes and hats she ships by rented dragoncart. The eleventh floor is a "weapons" room of sorts, as it is where Crow trains to better her health and improve her skills. The twelfth floor is an art gallery, where Crow shows off the robe and hat test swatches she makes as well as art pieces she buys, and her roommate, Luna, lives on the thirteenth floor. The fourteenth floor is the top of a giant elevator that spans the entire tower, as it is bespelled to block any and all teleportation spells. The fifteenth and final floor is a porch of sorts, as it allows her to look over the city if she so chooses. Flags line the walls, and there are two large windows positioned seemingly at random on the front face of the tower. Her bedroom is full of spellbooks, and several large maps can be found laying on her floor. A large, almost-regal-looking canopy bed sits next to a wall, black curtains pulled shut over a black bed covered in light gray sheets. There are dragons carved into the bedposts, and there is a bookshelf opposite the bed. She has a computer on a desk next to the bookshelf, but it is turned off, as it isn't plugged in. It is believed she stole this computer from a junkyard, but only her tight-lipped roommate knows the truth about this. She has a lute hanging above the bookshelf, which was given to her by her roommate Luna, and a pencil holder on her desk in the shape of Julius Caesar's back. It is believed that the pencil holder used to be a coffee mug, but nobody can confirm this. She has many stuffed animals scattered across her floor, though this is because she refuses to pick them up as she has too many to carry at once.

Trivia

She is aroace.

She hates swimming. Ironically, she lives on a lake.

Her favorite food is tofu.

She is colorblind, as changelings see the same colors as dogs.

Her favorite thing to do is watch quintalix matches.

Before settling down in K'xalm, she was a professional quintalix player herself. She played for the Mezhyni Firebulls.

When she lived in [REDACTED], she was forced to wear boyish clothes, as it was seen as sexist for a man to have a female servant of any race (and it still is).

She now adores dresses and refuses to wear anything else.

She is lactose intolerant.

She uses she/her, king/kingself, and it/its pronouns.

Of her entire family, she only gets along with two people: her parents.

As they were not allowed on the quintalix field and were not commonplace when she was a child, she hates wearing shoes and will not go anywhere that requires them.

She refuses to drink elixirs unless she knows about and can pronounce every ingredient in them. This means there are only three things she drinks: tea, water, and almond milk.

She is a twin.

Her birthday falls on the Tsîksyù, a holiday celebrated amongst the chimaera familiars that is often confused for Christmas despite being celebrated in March.

She has a twin brother. They do not talk much.

Her favorite game is Call of the Wild, a board game a close friend made several years before she (Crow) joined the Firebulls.

She has seven fingers on each hand and five toes on each foot.

In her human form, she has longer nails than most. This is supposed to make up got the length of her hands in her base form.

King hates watching people play games. She'd rather play them itself.

She is the longest resident of K'xalm, having lived there for eighteen years as of the present.

She is immortal. It is unknown when she was born.

The languages she can speak are Qur’ashath, Pandemonic, and English, though she is only fluent (not native) in one of them. She is a native speaker in one, and learning another.

She is an avid reader.

She doesn't like heights unless she's walled in.

She has a Scottish accent. This accent changes every time she "dies".

She cannot truly die, as she gets reincarnated within seconds of it.

Every time she gets reincarnated, she retains all memories leading up to her death, but not the death itself. She also does not remember the event that caused it.

She loves coffee. But just the smell.

Despite her name, crows are not her favorite animal. Her favorite animals are ravens and wolves. She chose her name because it was easy to pronounce.

Like most changelings, she rarely ever uses her real name. This is because it is seen as extremely rude to do so. For this reason, she rarely shares her real name.

She loves caramel.

Has several candles in her bedroom.

Prefers to walk places and teleport short distances as opposed to using public transportation or driving places, but will if must.

Is very friendly. Luna and Ashaya are not.

No-one knows what a qhunqroiks is. Crow is the main reason why. (She refuses to talk about her family, but people know there are two qhunqroiki in it.)

She often refers to her most prized grimoire as "book" (as she looks up to the Sanderson Sisters, rather well-known goddesses in her world that bear little resemblance to the human creations of the same collective name) and her wand as "Melody", the name it was given by the merchant she bought it from.

She is the honorary mayor of K'xalm. The city doesn't officially have one, but she pretends to be so they don't get fined by the Regents Council.

She is extremely protective of her tower. Like so much so king could get hurt if it isn't careful.

It loves to eat tofu pot pies, and is good at making them.

Her favorite possessions are her prized grimoire and her dragon-forged brightsteel wand.

She loves piano ballads, yet doesn't like to play piano.

It has taken to sharing its full name now that her species is going extinct, as king believes this will do more good than harm...contrary to what her roommate and ghost familiar believe. She only shares her full name with those she trusts.

Has not traveled since she moved to K'xalm. Unless she has to for work.

Loves fae-made foods.

Does not like most tattoos. She thinks they're too permanent. (The only tattoos she likes are Luna's two.)

Thinks script/word tattoos are stupid, but understands why people would get them.

"Familiars are rather elusive creatures, as only a select few people have ever been able to catch a glimpse of them. There are five known types: Chimaera, Changeling, Summoner, Construct, and Ghost. Each type has their own strengths and weaknesses, but none more so than the changeling breed, if you wish to call them as such. [...] The changeling breed is known for their uncanny ability to mimic the appearance of anything they come across, though this ability only extends to living creatures. Alongside this, they are said to be the rarest type of familiar, with employment rates ranging between 1.5-3.3% as of my last foray into the Forbidden Forests."

- Kingston Brass, Guide to the Magical World IV: Familiars and Apprentices

Crow is a character I have created solely for this blog! She is a new character, but one I plan to flesh out as time goes on. She has her own loreset, and all of the colors she uses in her posts have specific meanings.

Red: spells

Purple: crow form

Black: base form/dialogue/*roleplay text*

Green: healing/shifting

Orange: monkey form/all other forms

Blue: telepathy

This blog, to keep it consistent with the lore, is run by three different entities, the Qhuvois Crow, her roommate Luna (a half-orc), and her ghost familiar, Ashaya, all characters within the world of Crow. You can find information about my blog under the cut, as well as my DNI.

Welcome to my blog! I'm Crow, but you can call me Kalmiya, Diphda, or Leona; I'm fine with any of those names, though I prefer Crow for this blog specifically, and either Leona or Kalmiya for my others.

I have a main blog over at @crowstar-in-a-hat, a couple side blogs over at @littlebunnydiphda and @voidromantic-culture-is, to name a few, and this one. They're all dedicated to different things, so be sure to check them out! I haven't posted on them in a while though...(to see a full list, go here!)

(DNI ID: transphobic, TERF/radfem, homophobic, anti-Mspec, racist, pedo (MAP/NOMAP) or supporter, supportive of incest, sexist, ableist, ace/arophobic, anti-non-binary, anti-microlabels, anti-neopronouns, anti-xenogenders, and/or an exclusionist. END ID)

#blog lore #wizard lore #wizardblr lore #wizard island island #not wizard posting #not wizard posting but wizard LOREPOSTING #loreposting #lore #lore post #i wish i could shapeshift #i wish i was a changeling sm #changelings are cool #changeling

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askthedoa · 4 months

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Y'know, people talk about how parrots & songbirds can talk

BUT DID YOU KNOW CORVIDS IN GENERAL CAN MIMIC SOUNDS TOO.

CROWS AND RAVENS CAN TALK, BRO

Corvids in general are amazing

I already talked about how Ravens train wolves but crows & Ravens can also recognize faces. They can bond with humans. Crows hold funerals.

They're amazing, aren't they!!! I should get one to bring to the doa, I'm sure Fedya would respect its intelligence!

Sibling crows will often help their parents raise newborn chick's! They're literally families.

Also apparently they compare in intelligence to primates. They've also recognized how traffic lights work to not get run over...they use tools, hide food, is there nothing they can't do?

#bungou stray dogs #bsd #bsd ask #bsd asks #nikolai answers #nikolai gogol

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ultrawhalnar · 2 months

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first of all, there is already a precedent for creatures previously thought to be mythical turning out to be real. krakens exist. they're called giant/colossal squid. and i don't believe fairies exist, but in this scenario that we are positing, wherein it is revealed that they are real, then "combination of small primate and weird bug" is in the same category as "combination of beaver and duck" to me. if the humble platypus is allowed to exist, then sure, fairies can too, I guess. whatever. and i live in florida, so "combination of small primate and weird bug" might as well live here, which leads me to my next point,

location is a big factor in the walrus vs fairy thing. if you live in a colder climate, and especially if you live close to the water, then yeah, a walrus showing up at your door is plausible enough. hell, if you live relatively close to a zoo it can be rationalized. but for a walrus to show up at my door, it would have to have either left its natural habitat to come here, escaped a zoo, or survived a zoo transport crashing in such a way that unlocked/busted open the door to its enclosure, possibly swam through various waterways without getting eaten by gators or bull sharks, shuffled along the hot asphalt for MILES without being tranquilized and hauled away by animal control, approached MY HOME SPECIFICALLY and banged its head against the door. and the more landlocked/hot you get, the more shocking this scenario becomes. can you imagine some poor motherfucker in arizona finding a walrus on their doorstep? this isn't even mentioning people who live in apartment buildings, or on mountains, or what have you.

and thirdly, walruses are one of the most surprising wild animals. fairies are one of the least surprising mythical creatures. this partly depends on location too, like if an alligator moseyed on up to my door and thwacked its tail against it my worldview would not be challenged at all. but if a gator showed up at the door of someone in, like, canada, they'd probably be surprised. and fairies have a lot of folklore behind them from a lot of different places, so not only are there people who already believe in them because they are an integral part of various cultures' superstitions, but also there's the "well I may have thought these weren't real but there are recorded sightings of these things popping up and fucking with people dating back a Long Fucking Time so sure, this might as well happen" factor of it all. so the scenario posited cannot be framed as simply "something that exists vs something that doesn't exist", because the options we have been presented with are "giant fucking marine mammal with a very specific natural habitat that sure as shit is not my neighborhood vs a creature generally conceptualized as sentient and humanoid and thus capable of going wherever it damn well pleases and knocking on someone's door." like, this isn't dog vs dragon. this isn't woodpecker vs griffin. this isn't even kangaroo vs mermaid. this is walrus vs fairy. it's "thing that I know for a fact logistically should not fucking be here vs thing that hasn't been studied by scientists yet and therefore has more wiggle room in where it shows up and what it does." it's "GIANT ANIMAL WITH TUSKS AAAAAAA vs tiny thing with wings."

and i don't even understand the framework of the "seeing a fairy would fundamentally shake my understanding of the laws of physics/the universe/whatever" argument. like. what? magic is just science we don't understand yet. what's so earth-shattering here? that it's flying? hummingbirds hover in place with their wings. that it's tiny and has a proportionally small brain and yet seemingly has human-esque intelligence? yeah that is weird. i can't wait to find out how this thing works. octopi break out of their enclosures in aquariums and know to do it when humans aren't around so they don't get caught. crows can use tools. isn't biology magical? isn't the world amazing? what fucking nebulous "laws of the universe" do you hold so dear? tardigrades exist. fuck you.

#my traitorous brain wants to think about this instead of schoolwork so here y'all go #walrus vs fairy #nobodycareslilly

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gardenergulfie · 2 years

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Ok so in advance, i have a habit of talking like im writting an essay when i know more facts abotu something sooo i apologize in advance lol.

To start with, crows are highly intelligent. They're up there with monkeys and dolphins to give you an example. They can manufacture tools, spontaneously solve novel problems, use tactical deception and can learn from other crows. In fact, there is increasing evidence that they independently evolved brains and associated cognitive abilities similar to those of primates.

They also have larger brain to body ratio. this is mostly because of their mesopallium and nidopallium regions being larger which are in charge of cognitive stuff like working memory and context thinking.

I for one hail our new crow overlords.

#asks

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selfshipstorm · 2 years

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Howdy Bear!! I really enjoyed reading through your different s/is- I like how there are basic similarities between them all and then some minor differences like eye colors and hair texture; I wanted to ask, which of your s/is would you say are most like you and which are different?

Would they all get along if you put them in a room together?

If you were to assign each one an animal companion that truly reflected each individual s/i, who would get what animal and why?

I'm looking forward to your answers!

Clover @tex-treasures

howdy! glad to know you enjoyed reading through them! they were definitely fun to write. also, this answer got a bit longer than i thought it would. in regards to my 'meet my s/i' intro bits! as for your questions : which s/i am i most vs least like. there's a few similarities physically with a couple of them. zigzag, rebecca, dorothy, margaret, ophelia, and elizabeth all share my body type, considering i'm not the skinniest person out there. they share variations on my boring dark hair and slightly less boring hazel eyes. personality-wise, i'd be closest to rebecca, dorothy, or ophelia. dorky young adult, small friend group, 'nerdy' interests. outside of tumblr, i'm not very talkative to folks outside my friend group of maybe half a dozen. as far as least similar? the fight-y types like minerva or brielle. they're more than happy to throw down, i am not. they're outspoken and loud. i am not.

second question : do i think they'd all get along? it'd definitely be interesting. i played with this idea already, but there's a few more s/is added after that. i feel like some would get along almost immediately. rebecca and dorothy would definitely get along, considering they're from the same universe. they'd also presumably get along rather well with morrigan, considering that the three have the same era, all being from the 80s. the one who would bridge the gap between the vintage group and the modern group would be margaret, bouncing around to play some sort of in-betweener considering she has lived through both eras. minerva and brielle bond over similar experiences. ophelia and dorothy bond over a love of 80s slashers. i think everyone would get along rather well, but it'd take a while for the various cliques that would form to start mixing.

as far as animal companions... oh boy. zigzag gets a housecat. specifically a norwegian forest cat. ( more specifically, one of mine. daphne. ) laid-back + chill most of the time but will not hesitate to claw your face off if provoked enough. prone to napping. norwegian forest cats are gentle giants. plus, I feel like zigzag would like a cat. brielle would be some sort of crafty little primate. monkeys can prove to be extremely intelligent, and are also quite playful, happy creatures. bri is a bit of a planner when it comes to things regarding libertad, as well as being the happy-go-lucky, jokester-y kind of person. she definitely enjoys taking time to entertain others for their own sake. she's knee deep in a war and knows that keeping spirits up is a good goal to have. rebecca is a dog. hands down. specifically something like a golden retriever or a similarly overly friendly breed. loyal to a fault, friendly, kind, willing to follow her friends into danger. dorothy is also a dog, but this time, she'd be more of a german shepherd. still with the same kindhearted qualities as rebecca, but dorothy has more of a penchant for getting down and dirty when it comes to help her friends. minerva would be a bear. which is kinda funny, considering one of her animal friends already is a grizzly bear named cheeseburger. the bear is the symbol of power, believing in yourself, keeping your head up. natural born leaders. they're similar beasts. margaret gets a corvid. raven, crow, take your pick. most corvids have connections to magic, which are fitting for a witch. they also tend to represent adaptability, which fits her story considering you'd have to adapt living over 100 years. corvids also represent intelligence and cunning, and for a girl who's talked her way out of more scrapes than she can count- it fits. morrigan gets a wolf. i know, i know. wolves tend to represent loyalty, curiosity, protection, all things that can tie back to morrigan. the loyalty and the protection aspects can apply to both her family and her boys. curiosity is a major factor in her everyday life and was one of the reasons why she didn't run for the hills upon hearing that the boys she'd grown quite fond of were vampires. ophelia would get either a butterfly, or a squirrel. a butterfly due to the symbolism around change and transformation. a squirrel die to the connection to hard work and preparation. the butterfly connects back to the change she goes through after meeting billy and stu. they help her out of her shell a bit. the squirrel to hard work and preparation, namely owing to the fact that her and billy tend to be the brains of the operation, as well as the fact that ophelia's presence helps their plan to go off without a hitch. elizabeth would have an owl. a bit of a loner of a creature, which matches well with elizabeth's self-isolation after being sent away by mother miranda. owls are traditionally a symbol of intelligence, and that is a trait which elizabeth posesses, considering she did most of the experiments to discover the extent of her abilities herself.

Thanks for the ask!! @tex-treasures

#opening the mailbox #tex-treasures #i feel like i need an 'all my s/is' tag #i'll deal with that later #🕹️ || s/i : zigzag #🏖️ || s/i : brielle #🖌️ || s/i : rebecca #🎙️ || s/i : dorothy #🧨 || s/i : minerva #🔮 || s/i : margaret #🐺 || s/i : morrigan #🎟️ || s/i : ophelia #🌲 || s/i : elizabeth #making these s/i things was kinda fun so thank you for actually showing interest!!

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vincentaureliuslin · 2 months

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did you know that corvids (crows/ravens/jays/rooks etc) are some the smartest types of birds, and are the only known creatures other than primates that make tools in order to make other tools

YESSS i aspire to be a crow someday

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ohheyidothat · 1 year

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Authors Notes:

1. [Hello! My brain wandered itself on a very wonderful adventure!

It starts in the Galápagos Islands, with a little songbird holding a stick in its beak. It is not a castaway New Caledonian crow, or any corvid, or even parrot. It is a tanager.

Along the way, the story dwells with beavers and passes by the predators of Yellowstone. The journey’s end left me adrift in space, feeling alone, yet feeling haunted by the idea of what might one day view me as company.]

2. [I’ll stew over the conclusion and, after a few day of pondering, either seem my conclusion is worth considering, or realize fatal flaws in it and thus accept it as a fun story I told myself.

But I can’t wait until then to share it :3

So here is my adventure! Unedited, uncertain, unprepared, the exact way I experienced it :3 ]

:readmore:

Whoaaaa

So you know that some corvids are famous for using tools? (A lot of documentaries on animal intelligence features corvids, especially the hook-making New Caledonian crows.)

There’s another bird known for using sticks in a similar way! It’s not even a corvid :0 or a parrot :0

It’s. A. ~Finch~

They happen to share the exact same niche with New Caledonian crows—and, importantly, woodpeckers!

Woodpeckers are kinda funny because you don’t see many animals use their brain-casing as a jackhammer, for reasons such as “brains are not designed to be impact weapons.” They evolved some fun anatomy that reduces the impact—they’re fine. They are so fine, in fact, that they developed a social communication based on their ability to peck wood. And they are so good at eating bugs in wood! They are so specialized for it, and they’re found almost worldwide, because anything specializing in “can get secret snacks out of the trees” is going to find food wherever it goes—even if it learns to work with cactus.

Where aren’t woodpeckers? New Caledonia. And other nearby Australasian places. And also, one very distant place, on the other side of the Pacific Ocean: The Galápagos Islands!

With no woodpeckers, wood-living bugs are an untapped resource (pun intended)! And the Galápagos Islands are a famous example of the power of empty niches. Galápagos finches perfectly display the way a single type of finch evolved to fill many specific niches available, with their beaks evolved for highly specific purposes such as seed-cracking, insect catching, etc etc.

But they didn’t evolve to jackhammer their way into the wood! The anatomical and physiological changes just didn’t evolve—not before another strategy filled the niche. The ‘woodpecker finch’ uses tools, and never evolved to use their beak to peck wood.

The same is likely the cause for New Caledonian crows learning to use tools! The same untapped niche—one off the coast of South America, and one near Australia—allowed a species to develop the cleverness needed to bypass the evolution of specific anatomy!

Isn’t that COOOOOL 😍 Social* creatures, like corvids, parrots, dolphins, primates, etc, benefit a lot from having a detailed memory and problem-solving skills. They survive better if they remember how everyone behaves and who will share their resources. Knowledge becomes hereditary, not by sexual reproduction, but by observation and imitation. They can develop non-intuitive communication from abstract signals.

*speaking colloquially. Eusocial creatures not necessarily included.

So it isn’t as surprising when a social creature discovers a tool. They have memory and problem solving skills. Birds and dolphins have a leg-up for spatial comprehension (arboreal animals, such as primates, may similarly have a distinct comprehension of 3D spaces, but humans have very explicit shortcomings with that skill.) because they navigate a 3D space, unlike many terrestrial animals (such as a turtle or a boar), which rarely need to think of the world beyond a 2D plane.

But the Galápagos finches learned to use tools! In that fascinating island chain, where nature accidentally conducts semi-controlled experiments due to isolation, the Galápagos finches developed to use tools, not their face.

If this were an experiment done by a human, the data would be inconclusive until accuracy and precision established validity via repeat experiments. It is, after all, just a single example of a non-social species developing tool-usage.

But how exciting, that it happened at least once! At least once, intelligence was easier to evolve than physical adaptations! Is this why humans are so -bare- in terms of physical capabilities? We aren’t exactly strong nor weak, not aquatic nor entirely terrestrial, not adapted to extreme heat or cold or specific diet. We are almost wonderfully generic! Ready to wear clothes or hold a spear or invent rope or boats or cultivation of food!

And a mesmerizing thought takes up residence in my brain. I find myself dwelling on the ecological damage experienced when a keystone species is removed. If beavers ceased to exist in North America, eventually their dams would break and lakes would revert to rivers and tons of lake-specific species would perish (or evolve fully into other niches, rendering their lake-dwelling species extinct).

Dam-building has only evolved once as far as I know—in beavers. No other animal carves up entire regions and creates biomes as part of its survival.

Except humans lol. Animals can deplete or destroy a biome, but it isn’t intended, and they do not create new biomes for their own benefit—not within one lifespan, anyways. It is common for a species to develop the behaviors needed to maintain, expand, or contribute to their biome. Big cats and small cats hunt even if they are provided food, which provides organic matter to several levels of their own food chain, supporting bacteria and fungus that will go on to support small animals and then larger ones; and supporting larger decomposes that either feed into the higher levels of the food chain or provide crucial disease-management (vultures are wonderful at this). But it’s rare for an animal to have so much power, that a single individual is can usurp one biome for the sake of creating their own ideal biome. Termites build mounds, but a single termite can’t. Buffalo grazing tends to their habitat, but a single buffalo can’t create a plains biome to support its progeny. But a beaver can throw together a dam and birth an entire lake over the previous biome and create a habitat that might be maintained for generations.

If beavers vanished, it would be a miracle for another species to adopt their niche. Rather than filling a specific niche, they construct their own. But, many other keystone species simply occupy a niche they stumbled upon and then specialized in. The niche of the Yellowstone wolves was never filled, but in the right conditions, would mountain lions have developed large social groups, filling the same niche as African lions? If pollinator species go extinct, there is a slight chance of another species taking on their role—but it would have to evolve quickly, within a fraction of the lifespan of the plant involved, before the plants became doomed by reduced genetic variation and population isolation.

I think that specific niches can be inherited by different species, even if it seems impossible for a different species to convergently evolve the same adaptations, through a route I’ve never considered before: evolution of intelligence. If the case of the finches isn’t a virtually impossible outcome, then it means that evolution of intelligence can be favored over physical adaptations—and it means that intelligence is not virtually impossible to evolve.

It means that intelligence is an inevitable consequence of evolution.

What is definition of “life?” I propose a new definition, one that is functional rather than categorical. “Life” is something that adapts (not just acclimates) to the space around it. It can build upon these adaptations, accumulating adaptations as the environment either continues exerting its constant pressure or as the environment changes to exert new pressure, and become more specialized for a specific strategy of continued existence.

I propose this definition is valid, because it contains all the components required for the inevitable evolution of intelligence.

Hauntingly, I am forced to reconsider my self-soothing belief that viruses are not living. Rather than debating the definition of “genetics” and “inheritable” and “metabolism,” my definition is honed on one single thing:

Could this thing become sentient?

#ohheyisaidthat

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