Entwined With You

So my buddy ol' pal might have gotten me into RWBY. It mashes surprisingly well with my Sonic obsession. It's like they're harmonizing!

Nora's the best, change my mind, you can't.

Organization 13 mini paintings- pt 1 Demyx

Quick, before dragon appreciation day ends

(Did I mention I play Flight Rising? This is my boy WésnCmíé)

Oscar Pine lays down a Salem diss track, leaves immortal witch shocked and dismayed at his based accusations

(+He had some help from Professor Ozpin)

I’m right out here for you, just let me in

"She's Gloreth's monster"

relief prints of the scroll from Nimona (2023), 21 x 13.5 in, printed 12/16/23

Hand-drawn and cut on MDF. Here's some pictures of the original woodblock before and after its print run

Vox

Birds have co-opted our anti-bird weapons in a genius counterattack

Humans install spikes so birds will go away. Birds steal them and do this instead.

Humans are so cute. They think they can outsmart birds. They place nasty metal spikes on rooftops and ledges to prevent birds from nesting there.

It’s a classic human trick known in urban design as “evil architecture”: designing a place in a way that’s meant to deter others. Think of the city benches you see segmented by bars to stop homeless people sleeping there.

But birds are genius rebels. Not only are they undeterred by evil architecture, they actually use it to their advantage, according to a new Dutch study published in the journal Deinsea.

Crows and magpies, it turns out, are learning to rip strips of anti-bird spikes off of buildings and use them to build their nests. It’s an incredible addition to the growing body of evidence about the intelligence of birds, so wrongly maligned as stupid that “bird-brained” is still commonly used as an insult...

Magpies also use anti-bird spikes for their nests. In 2021, a hospital patient in Antwerp, Belgium, looked out the window and noticed a huge magpie’s nest in a tree in the courtyard. Biologist Auke-Florian Hiemstra of Leiden-based Naturalis Biodiversity Center, one of the study’s authors, went to collect the nest and found that it was made out of 50 meters of anti-bird strips, containing no fewer than 1,500 metal spikes.

Hiemstra describes the magpie nest as “an impregnable fortress.”

Pictured: A huge magpie nest made out of 1,500 metal spikes.

Magpies are known to build roofs over their nests to prevent other birds from stealing their eggs and young. Usually, they scrounge around in nature for thorny plants or spiky branches to form the roof. But city birds don’t need to search for the perfect branch — they can just use the anti-bird spikes that humans have so kindly put at their disposal.

“The magpies appear to be using the pins exactly the same way we do: to keep other birds away from their nest,” Hiemstra said.

Another urban magpie nest, this one from Scotland, really shows off the roof-building tactic:

Pictured: A nest from Scotland shows how urban magpies are using anti-bird spikes to construct a roof meant to protect their young and eggs from predators.

Birds had already been spotted using upward-pointing anti-bird spikes as foundations for nests. In 2016, the so-called Parkdale Pigeon became Twitter-famous for refusing to give up when humans removed her first nest and installed spikes on her chosen nesting site, the top of an LCD monitor on a subway platform in Melbourne. The avian architect rebelled and built an even better home there, using the spikes as a foundation to hold her nest more securely in place.

...Hiemstra’s study is the first to show that birds, adapting to city life, are learning to seek out and use our anti-bird spikes as their nesting material. Pretty badass, right?

The genius of birds — and other animals we underestimate

It’s a well-established fact that many bird species are highly intelligent. Members of the corvid family, which includes crows and magpies, are especially renowned for their smarts. Crows can solve complex puzzles, while magpies can pass the “mirror test” — the classic test that scientists use to determine if a species is self-aware.

Studies show that some birds have evolved cognitive skills similar to our own: They have amazing memories, remembering for months the thousands of different hiding places where they’ve stashed seeds, and they use their own experiences to predict the behavior of other birds, suggesting they’ve got some theory of mind.

And, as author Jennifer Ackerman details in The Genius of Birds, birds are brilliant at using tools. Black palm cockatoos use twigs as drumsticks, tapping out a beat on a tree trunk to get a female’s attention. Jays use sticks as spears to attack other birds...

Birds have also been known to use human tools to their advantage. When carrion crows want to crack a walnut, for example, they position the nut on a busy road, wait for a passing car to crush the shell, then swoop down to collect the nut and eat it. This behavior has been recorded several times in Japanese crows.

But what’s unique about Hiemstra’s study is that it shows birds using human tools, specifically designed to thwart birds’ plans, in order to thwart our plans instead. We humans try to keep birds away with spikes, and the birds — ingenious rebels that they are — retort: Thanks, humans!

-via Vox, July 26, 2023

On April 16th 2025 the US federal government has proposed to change the interpretation of the endangered species act so that it no longer protects habitat.

This is open for public comment until the end of May 19th. Please comment and make your voice heard.

Wildlife need their habitat. If the ESA redefines harm so that habitat is no longer protected, the implications for wildlife would be catastrophic.

the stuff going on at columbia campus rn is genuinely incredible

Is that ASGARD in my FROZEN??? (unsubtle rainbow bridge) Is that Ymir's shadow hunting them?? Are we making Atohallan = Muspellheim??? :0 Is Elsa a Vanir in 2027???? HELPPP (we are SO getting a complicated second layer to where her powers come from)

+no shot, if anyone sneaks canon comparisons between Elsa and Fenrir into this, I'll need to be fettered

I know we explore Norse mythology plenty in the Frozen expanded material. We get Skøll as Hans' heartless in KH3, draugr in Polar Nights, and viking constellations in Forest of Shadows (they also pull Aren's mythical sword out of a viking dragon-ship and use it to fight a giant nattmara wolf, so). Usually a lot of the viking-age Scandinavian legend, such as creatures mentioned in the Eddas, are tied to specifically Arendelle's history though.

This promo seems to imply that the Enchanted Forest has some connection with Asgard (I am assuming it is Asgard for now). Or at least we are geographically taking off from there.

Which could come at the expense of Northuldra story? Diff culture. Not every fairytale race is related to the Enchanted Forest, or needs to be-- we have the trolls in the Valley of the Living Rock and Huldrefólk at Miner's Mountain. Although! Nøkk is a more Norse legend as well, yet acts as Northuldra's respected water spirit, so: not unlikely that the Northuldra may honor the existence of Norse spirits. (They may not even appear much at all.)

ohhh fuck. i can smell the magnus chase crossovers three years away. what have you DONE /lh

but I'm just so so excited. What if the crystals from F2 were runic and Anna learned galdr so she could have a moment like Gerda's magic prayer in the Snow Queen? What if we had magical ravens, like the talking ravens in the Hans Christian Andersen fable? What if Elsa argued with the Nornir about destiny, or Olaf bantered with Heimdall and unintentionally caused Ragnarok? What if Kristoff accidentally used Andvari's ring for the vows and gave us the most glorious Disney dragon moment since Maleficent? And come on, Anna with a battleaxe and bloodlust?!

Ironically, first seeing this was the direction after F2, I felt unfavorably about stacking on brand new lore, thinking it might rehash the "newfound community arc" which would make it infuriatingly harder to develop old and new relationships from previous movies (for weak reasons)

This is because Elsa's new power from Frozen II wasn’t really something magical: she still has ice, she’s always had ice, and it’s not like her ice got any more OP than it already was. (F1 already proved she can bring snowmen to life, build entire castles in less than five minutes, and freeze a whole ass fjord. I don't think stopping the flood or talking to a sentient glacier topped all that.) What she gained was fellowship with other magical beings and people who understand magic-- a community to help. Not to mention the closure in knowing that her mother would have accepted her, affirmation that she has a purpose, and freedom to assume new roles.

I do want the new movie to spend time using the new lore to steady our characters though, not the other way around. Can't always become something new to move forward, yknow? Gotta nurture what she has instead of breaking the absolute ceiling eventually.

but seeing them break the absolute ceiling is liberating every time so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

actually wait. who's running arendelle right now?

First piece of concept art for Frozen 3 (2027) by Brittney Lee revealed at D23 Expo 2024