I wrote about two half articles, one with Ariel Pink chords (turns out I'd gotten Artifact wrong, though, so no harm no foul, I guess, whatever that means) and one as a reaction to something Tricia (some girl who likes dinosaurs, art, and dinosaur art whose blog I read when I can) saying that, even though dinosaurs have feathers, they don't have TOO MANY feathers, which is a damn lie and you know it. Peacock. End of story.
But as I was driving back from not finding the location of the shoot for Preacher's Daughter, I was starting to feel really uncomfortable. We're shooting out in Alvin, which is a little podunk hick suburb where they still fly confedrate flags. Now, I'm omnigendered (as in, all of them), and to the Nth degree at that, and while that may not seem like a very big deal in a time when most people are well-adjusted, multi-faceted, complicated individuals with copmlex feelings and personalities that can not be represented by a shallow, superficial system such as gender roles that haven't been updated since the 1950's, it does make me a tomgirl. Hillbillies, you may have heard, are among the last remaining people who give a shit about these things, and they don't like it. So, driving 10 miles under the speed limit because of a spare an hour away from home in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere is disturbing to me. Of course, with all those extra genders, I can hide the feminine crap without pretending to be something I'm not... but having friends who can't hide things from the crazies (such as the black people, yeah, you forgot there were still racists didn't you? Yep, they're still around, just not in public anymore) doesn't make me sleep any easier.
And then I started thinking about the word "tomgirl." No one uses it. Why? It's like, one of my favorite words. You know tomboy, right? You probably had a best friend in elementary school who was a tomboy, right? Weren't they kick ass? Everybody loves tomboys. Tomgirl is like that to me, as it makes more sense than "trap," but still has a really positive connotation. I just... like it. But why isn't it ever used?
Then I was poking around on google and found this neat little blog called accepting dad, and a year old post with comments as recent as two months ago. It's called Tomgirls vs. Thing Without a Name, and it explains why tomgirl never really caught on... something I'm glad I didn't notice as a kid. But it also got me thinking about this same sentiment I keep HEARING (note: I'm hearing the sentiment only, keep this on file for later) but never seeing in... anywhere.
There is this idea among all us normal, non-crazy people that the crazies have infiltrated every aspect of society, that they control everything, and we all must bend to their unflinching hateful will. Turns out, this is dead wrong. Let me explain what I think happened to make everybody believe this with an analogy:
Let's say we have a group of 10 normal, sane people with different personalities, viewpoints, and whatever, but who all respect each other's right to be who they are. They are all holed up in this bar, and outside are like, 50 guys who hate all of our 10 bar guys for various reasons. 10 of the people outside manage to get into the bar. They start spouting all this hate, and things get tense. One of our 10 guys politely explains that, even though the 10 people in the bar are different, they get along with each other just fine, and they have no ill will towards the people on the outside either, but rather the conflict between them was entirely conceived by the people outside the bar. Moved to tears, 8 of the intruders decide to stay inside the bar, while the other 2, unable to tolerate any human being different from them in any way, storm outside to gather more of their hate-mongering army.
The score:
Drinking and having a good time and sharing ideas in an accepting atmosphere
18
Stubborn assholes who want to lynch anyone different from them
42
Now this goes on for a while. Gradually, it gets to the point where most of the people inside the bar can actually go outside and talk to the assholes, because they have been accepted for so long, or perhaps, were once part of the crowd of crazies, that the line between who is and isn't acceptable begins to blur. Now we have 42 people in the bar, and 18 people outside. Of the 42, 30 of them are free to wander without prejudice between the two groups. The jerks outside can no longer tell the difference, and for many of them, if they could, they wouldn't care. This leaves 12 people in the bar who are still paranoid about going outside, because a slightly larger group of people outside will be immediately able to tell that our 12 are part of the "unacceptable" group.
The score:
People inside the bar who will be immediately persecuted by the jerks outside
12
People who have an easy truce with the crazies, and/or can slip by them unnoticed
30
People still clinging to guns and religion
18
The parallels should be obvious, but this isn't the end. It turns out that about a third of the crazy people outside the bar are secretly just like the 12 who refuse to leave. Under the ruse of going into to get the infidels, these 6 go into the bar with no resistance whatsoever, admit everything, have a good cry, are immediately accepted for who they are by 42 other people, and of that group, 3 still decide to go back outside and continue to live a lie.
The score:
People who are staying in the bar to avoid prejudice, including the ones you just came in
15
People who are completely removed from the conflict at this point
30
People outside who really are fucking psychos
12
People who are pretending to be psychos because they are afraid of how their psycho buddies would react if they knew the truth
3
Now things get interesting. Our 15 people who would not leave the bar suddenly grow a pair, and with the protection of 30 (secretly 33) other guys, leave the bar, catch some flak from crazies, but go on and do other things with their lives. The 12 true psychos enter the bar, and the 3 pretenders say they'll catch up later. Now what happens? Well, those intolerant assholes are still out there. So, the 48 sane people (3 in cognito) get together in a park with a live band and have a big festival celebrating acceptance. It's kind of a gay party, but the band is good, so people enjoy it. One of the prominent leaders of the "sane-ies" gives a speech. He says he's proud of all these people who embrace who they are and refuse to comprimise, and that even though they all get alot of crap from the people around them, and it's hard to even go outside anymore, remember to stand tall and never back down from who you are, and all this other shit. Everyone agrees. People are jerks, but stick with it, and together we'll give our children a better future, or some nonsense.
Do you see what I'm getting at? These people all had to deal with being around the crazies for a good portion of their life, and, to them, jerks were always the majority. But the problem is we have have 48 of this sample group of 60 all in the same room talking about how they are not excepted by... 12 drunks in a bar who nobody likes.
And I'm not trivializing this, if you are one of those 12-15 people the other 12 simply can not tolerate, they will not be nice to you. But, remember, all you have to do is avoid one bar that, and I can not stress this enough, NOBODY goes to. Nobody.
I'm fully aware that in the bustling metropolis of Pieceofshitville, South Carolina, population 4, all kissin' cousins, there will be hell to pay if you are one of those 100 things that crazy people don't like. Thing is, I live in Houston, a pretty big city that's in south Texas. Yeah, Texas. So where the fuck is the discrimination? The looking askance? The unfair judgement of character based on any number of superficial criteria? It simply isn't here.
Because what's happened now is that we are all a huge population of completely sane people who don't bash each other for unimportant nonsense, but rather we are ALL so concerned about the rednecks under the bed that it actually unifies us. We hate those boogeymen, all of us, in the entire city. You know, wherever they are.
And I've given the jerks plenty of chances to make themselves known. Plus, I don't have the ability to associate with people of any type of crazy. Religious people, 9/11 conspiract theorists, racists, sexists, whatever-ists, Tea Partiers, drama professors, whatever, I can't deal with those people, so I walk away. I've met them, I know they are out there, but even then these people keep these feelings to themselves, so that you really need to befriend someone for a period of time before it comes out that they are actually unbalanced, because THEY are the ones who are discriminated against.
But what happens to me when I'm wearing a tomgirl outfit? Do I get called a fag by everybody and their dog? No, of course not. Most boys at school have a crush on me, true story. But I'm not saying this to brag, I'm getting to another point here, and it's about why the word "tomgirl" isn't used in the first place.
Now let's say you come across a tomgirl, and you assume that their life is an endless nightmare of persecution and you want to make sure you treat them with the respect any human being deserves (except, of course, drama professors). How do you address them? Who knows? Don't ask me, I certainly have no clue. Actually, no one does. What is considered polite? Further, with so many uneeded distinctions about why any given individual fills any given gender role or identity, how do you know the polite way to refer to that person?
We know that if it's a transexual, you use the pronouns that apply to the sex that person feels that they are. But then we already have subtle sexism at work, because why does a feminine gender role become the only diagnostic factor in identifying someone as a MtF transexual? That's fucking sexist right there, just because they feel as though they are a certain sex, doesn't mean they have to fill an outdated gender role based off of it.
But what if they do? Are they trying to hide their sex? Are they wearing a choker to conceal an adam's apple, or just because they thought it was pretty? Is it just an ugly woman? Or a hot woman with an unfortunate shoulder width and a sharper looking face? How can you tell? Can you ask them? Is that impolite? Should you assume they want to be female, or is that sexist too? Can you complement them on their outfit, or is that sexual harasment? Wow, if they're hot, were you gay for dudes this whole time?
And it's neat because you can actually see the wheels turning in people's heads as they struggle with how they are supposed to treat you, what's considered "right" and "wrong." The truth is there is no right or wrong yet, and the revelation that genders are fucking stupid in the first place has only started working into the mainstream public for the past 20 years or so. People aren't being rude on purpose, they just truly don't know what to say.
Because of this, "tomgirl" never gets used, or even thought of. It's funny, though, because there are no terms for primarily neutral or androgynous people. What would that even be? Tomperson for neutral and... tombowie? I don't even know. Plus, except for maybe connecting andros with hermaphrodites, N & A were not based on a sex, so EVERYONE who has a N/A gender identity or role is a tom-whatever.
And what about me? Sure, I've got an outfit for each one, but that just ignores the fact that I'm all of them depending on what mood I'm in. What do you call that? Tom-everything? The answer: you would ONLY come up with different nomenclature when I'm wearing a skirt + heels, because for some reason, being neutral, masculine, and androgynous doesn't really seem to warrant a special name, and THAT'S sexist.
But that's where we are right now. We are just now feeling our way around in a pretty murky area, and no one really knows the right way to handle it. Fine with me, because I don't really care about pronouns or whatever, but it creates an illusion of a cold an unfeeling world that refuses to accept who you are when the reality couldn't be further from that.
And really, that's the best kind of sexism. The I'm-so-nervous-I-don't-know-which-pronoun-to-use kind.
And one last thing: I don't want to make it seem like I'm ignoring the fact that some transgendered people (which, again, is EVERYONE, you neutral bastards) do live in the vicinity of genuinely crazy jackasses. They are out there, and they are Complete Monsters, but those people are in an unlucky situation, rather than me being in a lucky one. That's got to be a terrible situation, and believe me when I say that everyone (again, I do mean everyone) is on your side, and you need to get the hell out of there before you get hurt. But those people are the ones we need to be careful with our rhetoric with and do everything in our power to protect. Not me, I'm fine. It's the other guys who get put in a bad situation that you need to be helping.
And this is the last fucking time I'm doing this. I mean, really, it's over. The well meaning people are the only ones you can run into in your daily life who make shit look harder than it needs to be. Thanks for making a huge deal about nothing, but please, leave me the fuck alone. You're smothering me with your "well-meaningness." I ain't gay for dudes either, so no means no, you pig.
...I'm exaggerating in that last paragraph, but you can see what I'm getting at, right? You're making a mountain out of a molehill, and I'm not the one who wants to hear how "brave" you think I am.
Next time: Who the fuck am I kidding? Like I can keep track of junk.
Showing posts with label gender. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gender. Show all posts
10.01.2010
9.18.2010
Words That Are Not Used Correctly
4. Amphicoelias (Ken C. resized him in '06, bigger than Godzilla MOST of the time)
3. Kelenken (Fuck the Mesozoic, take that Argentavis, Carnosaurs are overrated)
2. Balaur (duh)
1. TIANYULONG!!!!!!!!
Let it never be said that Tianyulong didn't change everything...
because, my god, Tianyulong changed everything... the world is so different now. Everytime I open my eyes now, the world just seems so... uninportant, you know? It's like, I already know the meaning of life, so what else is there? Only in this situation, the consequences are far more dire.
It's like... I don't know. I've never felt this way about an Ornithischian before. The emotions are just beyond my ability to deal with. I'm in a very vulnerable place right now, ever since Tianyulong changed everything forever.
I'm actually not being melodramatic. Tinayulong yanked my heart around like sheltered manchildren are confused by people like Mana and cartoon characters that are male but painfully attractive (because in a cartoon you can just fudge it). Which brings me to why I am suddenly motivated to write right now. (hehehe)
Pop Quiz: What does the word gender mean?
a. I don't know
b. more polite way of saying sex
c. social and cultural constructs
d. the basis for all sexism
It's actually (d) as far as I'm concerned, but, of course, the real answer is (c). Now, next question:
What does sex mean?
a. Present tense sexual reproduction
b. Which end of that whole process you are on (male or female)
c. both of those
d. all of the above
The answer, of course, is (d). If you picked (c) you got it wrong. Sex applies only to sexual reproduction. As in, "gettin' it on." In this "whole process," you get two types of sex: ZW for female and WW for male (XY system in mammals, but who gives a shit about non-dinosaurs?), and the two have "interlocking" parts that bring all those nifty little gametes together and babies happen. There's more to the story, but I'm working towards a point here.
Sexual reproduction is great because, unlike the other kind, the chances for mutation are through the roof. Literally anything can go wrong at any time, and I'm not just talking about how the offspring have a combination of the genes of both parents, I mean the whole fucking system is just flimsy. I mean, really magnificently easy to produce mutant babies from beyond the grave. Like, having ZWZ and WWZ kids and shit, just a paper-thin disguise for a non-functioning system.
And just like the male and female ends of a RCA wire, there is always going to be some inherent sexual dimorphism. This is a simple unavoidable fact of life as a screwing organism. Dinosaurs, of course, don't stop there. Male dinosaurs are typically (haha, I mean always, I was just joking) dainty, gorgeous, and singularily attractive. The females are huge, drab, ugly, protect the kids, and are attracted TO the males, because they are all so fucking bueatiful. I humans, it is generally considered to be the opposite, although as I understand it, males can be attractive in their own way. I don't believe this, but I've heard sentiments that echo this sort of thing.
Okay, so what is gender then? Is your gender male or female? No, that's your sex. Just think back to buying cables at a Best Buy, male and female refer to different "parts," and the dinosaur fashion slaves are just born that way, but that isn't the rule for all sexual dimorphism. Sagittarius. 'Nuff said.
Is your head bleeding from the exposition hammer yet? Because if someone who doesn't know this is reading, I need to make sure people of all comprehension levels can understand what I'm saying.
Now, in humans, sexual dimorphism is very faint. Female's breasts get much larger at puberty because they are mammals, and thats where the milk goes. In mammals, the females have the milk, but, pay attention, before they reach puberty, they have the same chest as a male. The hips are also wider, because they have to squeeze a whole working womb in there. Beyond the stuff that absolutely has to differ in order for each sex to play out their role, the difference is so subtle that it isn't even worth mentioning here.
So everything you have been conditioned to believe in your culture, what the social norms are, fashion, personality, stereotypes, everything is created entirely BY that culture. Females aren't born wearing heels, that is something that is created by these cultural expectations, and this is what we call a "Gender Role" or "Gender Identity." Gender meaning which "role" or "identity" and individual posesses or identifies with.
It is commonly agreed that there are four accepted, basal, "component," or whatever the fuck you want to call them, genders. Masculine, Feminine, Androgynous, and Neutral/Asexual. Mas. and Fem. are the basis of sexism, they are stereotypes created by a specific culture that each sex is expected to conform to in order to be properly a "man" or "woman." Androgynous is sort of a mix of both, but with it's own set of rules, and neutral is, well, removed from the whole affair in the same way that atheists are removed from religion: instead of just saying "I don't have one," they say they are "neutral" because they fell that they have to check a box regardless of whether or not they support that system in the first place.
Now, this is all backstory. This is the year 2010, which was considered the future in early Megaman games. Genders are outdated, ridiculed, ignored, taken for granted, and played with. They no longer mean anything to the average person, because the average person is not a sexist, and has no reason to expect others to conform to a gender role because of their sex. There are, of course, crazy people, as well as the aforemention confused nerds who simply can't deal with a male being presented in a feminine way, not because they are sexist, but because it makes them question their own sexual orientation, which I think is hilarious, but I know plenty of people who don't share my affection for Mana.
Me? I don't want to have to pick, but I'm neutral. I say neutral and not "I don't have one" because I'm actually all of them to aproximately equal degress. I'm a future person (P.C.), and those things are beneath me. But genders are a big deal to me because I find them extremely interesting. Not as neat as dinosaurs, or course, but worthy of further study nonetheless.
And so while it is probably a good thing for the progression of civil rights, equality, and cultural respect that the word gender actually lose it's meaning altogether, but, like I said, this is kind of important to me. What is sad is that it's the year 2010, and I still see forms with "gender" being a field, and the answer choices being male or female, not actual genders. I rant about this all the fucking time, and so here I am, doing it again.
I have another thing I want to cover, but let me close this by saying that for the past hour or so I've been reading these blogs by weeaboos talking about some girls-only club that happened in 2008 or so. The consistently used the word gender and not sex, but the context was so flimsy that it could've gone either way. There were a couple of guys who would not disclose their "gender," confusing fans and foes alike, and sparking guessing games that are so full of obscure references to things I hate that I had a hard time understanding what the hell they were talking about.
What I did get from it is that, even though this clique is pretty shallow on the surface, not a one of them really gives a shit about what sex the others are. What they seem to be mildly interested in, you might have guessed, is what they call "traps," which are feminine males who squick out heterosexuals that can't tell the difference between a male and female. I actually read this one post where I guy actually went full on girly for a day (or so, whatever) in the interest of becoming a "trap," which some of the readers actually encouraged. This is fantastic, and if these are the males that culture breeds, then I want it to survive forever.
I'm going to post the link to what I'm talking about, but be warned that if you are easily squicked by tomgirls, you should not look at this. I'm extremely serious. It's a cool little thing, but please, one guy that I noticed is "following" me (fucking stalker) and whoever else stumbles on to this, click at your own risk. It might actually be NSFW, but it's probably just "gross." It's here.
And for the record, that's not how it works. Skirts are supposed to "puff out" on the side, not the front. You're fucking doing it wrong, poser. Plus, I hate your shoes, you don't to call yourself a "trap" if you're wearing flats, you moron. Flats suck = science fact. The socks are cool though. Plus, other than the obvious, it does come off as really pretty. So, good job.
Now, enough crap. What you really came to here me bitch about is cladistics, isn't it? Here are some of my least favorite words: bird, reptile, fish, and bug. What do these words mean? Nothing, and thats the problem.
Let's get one thing straight: words that have only one meaning, that is, words that are defined by one academic discipline can not be given some arbitrary new meaning by someone who doesn't understand that discipline. What a word means, of course, is different from both connotation and popular phraseology, and this is where these words piss me off EVEN MORE that confusing gender and sex. I saved the best for last.
I'll close on dinosaurs, so I'll start outside Deuterostomates.
BUG
This word is my least favorite, even more than bird, because unlike the others, this word NEVER MEANT ANYTHING EVER. What is a bug?
Oh, you know, like insects and stuff.
Insects... and stuff? So, we're talking about out to Hexapods? Bug is a common name for hexapods?
Um... what? No, like creepy crawlies, you know, spiders and...
SPIDERS?! I though you said insects?
Yeah, those too.
So, spiders are... arachnids, then... shit, grouped up with myriapods, right? My arthropod tree is a little rusty, but I'm pretty sure you're telling me that "bug" is synonymous with "Arthopod."
No, creepy crawlies.
You're an idiot, now prepare to die.
Bottom line, polyphly doesn't even begin to describe this word. It means nothing. Next.
FISH
Fish and reptile are in the same boat, but fish has it worse, because "Pisces" hasn't been used in LINAEAN taxonomy since... like, the fucking 1700's or some shit. Now we have Chordates. "Fish," working backwards, would need to cover every animal that has "fish" in it's name that is actually a chordate, then. Because of hagfish, then, this goes to... Agnathans? Cephalochordata? Pretty far. I'm not a fish guy, so I don't know, but it covers far more than what you would think. But that's okay, because those guys are, essentially, fish, so it works out. The paraphly here is unbelievable, though. It's so thick you can taste it. I'm reasonably certain calling a tetrapod a "fish with legs" is pretty common, but the further you take it the more people you lose. I snuck up behind this lepidosaur and took it's legs, and then he's all "I'm a fish with legs," and I say "snake, you don't even HAVE legs!"
Like that. But fish has no agreed clade name, so, really, it's perfectly natural to question naming dinosaurs as fish, because, really, fish doesn't mean anything. It COULD be a real clade, but it isn't really used in any such way, and if it were, the connection would be tenuous, because, again, nothing even close to fish is used as a name early enough to catch the whole clade.
REPTILE
Reptile is a little different, because in the first Mortal Kombat, he had both Scorpion and Sub-Zero's moves, an attribute that was later adopted by Chameleon, who is not officially even labelled as a Zaterran.
Up until (very) recently, reptile was a real thing, and for what it's worth, it is still used (debateable, no one uses Linaean taxonomy) in that thing I just said. Of course, this is classically defined as turtles, lepidosaurs, crocodilians, and a number of extinct forms (including some, but not all, dinosaurs). The only way to make this work is to set reptile to the last common ancestor of all of these groups, which makes all tetrapods more derived than "amphibians" reptiles. Basically, Diapsids, Synapsids, and Anapsids.
And this means dinosaurs and mammals are reptiles. When humans looked at this transcribed cladogram, they had somehow decided that by some miracle, they don't count. So, for no fucking reason, reptiles are now "Amniotes," and mammal-like reptiles are not actually reptiles anymore, although I've always thought that name is redundant.
So they took reptile away, leaving it with a linaean (as in "not real") meaning. Obviously, it's paraphyletic. Hence, it means nothing, and isn't a real group. This pisses me off because the only reason the name changed is because a bunch of humans got their panties in a bunch because they don't like the CONNOTATION of being a reptile. The reptile clade is totally solid, it's just not called reptiles anymore. Doesn't make any damn sense.
BIRD
As a dinosaur (and I do mean theropod) guy, this one pisses me off the most. I'll preface this by saying that, despite all the bullshit, this word DOES have a stable and genuine meaning. Crown group dinosaurs are birds, but nothing else is.
Quick! What are the defining traits of a bird? Flight and feathers? Okay, since protofeathers, O-quills (a name I just invented) and pycnofibres are all essentially the same thing, does that mean all Ornithodirans are birds?
Nah, let's be fair. None of us where prepared for Tianyulong, so lets take it down a notch. You mean flying dinosaurs. Okay, thats paraves. Paraves covers it all. Problem is, "bird" was in use long before we had this shit sorted out, and paraves was very long in the making. Good news is, it has, most of the time, always included another maniraptoran group, and has included all of them at least once. So, should we back it up to maniraptoran because Oviraptors have a pygostyle? No need. Modern paraves fits our description pretty well. The most popular "non-bird birds" were always Deinonychosaurs anyways, and it's because they are, well, related.
But calling Troodon a bird is very sketchy. I mean, don't get me wrong, Deinonychosaurs get called birds all the fucking time, but it is not taken so literally, and a more conservative definition is preferd by the people doing the actual work, and like I said, they get to decide what the definition of a biology term is. So what is it a common name for?
Aves. Aves = Birds. Great starting place. Now, where do we put aves? The original definition is crown group + Archaeopteryx, but, as you should be aware, Archaeopteryx is just a basal parave that was never really held up to modern standards because suggesting it is anything other than a bird is heretical... even though it has a long tail, and no keel. This puts us back where we started, so we have to ignore Archaeopteryx.
Now we get to Avialians. This is already the name of the clade, and it means "bird-like," so not all Avialians can be birds. That's cool, because Scansoriopterygids have long bony tails, unlike true birds. This is the most acceptable crown group plus usage of bird, and many times Aves will be used as the clade that combines Confuciusornithes with all more derived Avialians.
And what is that group? Ornithoraces, Ornithuromorphs, Ornithurines? Doesn't have a name, it changes depending on who you ask. It contains Enantiornithes and all more derived pygostylians, which is the actual name for "aves." Thats right, aves doesn't go where we put it, because that clade already has a name.
So what if we just use crown groups? That puts us at "neornithes," an outdated term that only exists because we at one time needed to include Archaeopteryx in linaean aves. However, because aves has become an orphaned child crying to the winds for it's parents, Neornithes has, genuinely, taken it's place.
Really, then, there IS no place for a clade named "aves" because all appropriate clades are already named, and a handful actually have several overlapping names, like the aforementioned ornithoraces, ornithurines, and ornithuromorpha. But birds DOES have a meaning. At the very least, we know it means cg dinos, and it has a clade name equivalent for which it is the common name counterpart.
So... what? In order for aves to become a clade, we need to replace a preexisting word, which seems extremely likely, because aves will predate any extinct clade name, and take priority of wherever we decide to put it. Agreement is a joke. My advice? Just dump Neornithes, since thats what birds actually means anywhicways.
But for the love of Godzilla, please reach some sort of consensus. I can't read papers about Avialians because I never have any idea what the fuck they're talking about. They use the same words in different contexts without bothering to tell you. It's fucking retarded.
And if birds = pygostylians? You've wasted a pretty kickass clade name for nothing. Nothing really makes as much sense as "pygostylians." Birds or no, there is no clade quite as solid as "Avialians with a pygostyle." It's like, BAM, you know? No one ever asks what a pygostylian is. It's in the damn name.
Also, Confuciusornis is fucking gorgeous. You know that picture of Mana up at the top? That guy is ultimate pug fugly like Beth's face compared to Confuciusornis.
But then, that's not really fair, because male dinosaurs are born bueatiful. They don't have to use giant sunglasses to create optical illusions with their face. Not that I do, I'm just saying.
...sure does pay off, though. In cinematography the other day, Jordan (the girl who played Mr. Cameo in... you're not gonna know, forget it) told me I have "nice lips," which was a first. I'm WW, in case you couldn't tell. I guess that makes me a "trap." Because, of course, why would a male be feminine other than as a part of some cruel joke? Surely one wouldn't be un-ironically THAT girly.
I'm being sarcastic, like the jackass masculine Maddox fanboy that I am. Has your head exploded yet? How about PRO-gress and CON-gress!?.
Progress being what John Maus is afraid of. Also, being in the presence of a living legend.
I'm just kidding, Maus is pretty cool. In fact, you could say he's a fucked up maniac. I wouldn't, but you can. Gary War is better any day of the week, and I'm Tim Koh's biggest fan.
Maybe I should just cut here and do a Ariel Pink post later.
3. Kelenken (Fuck the Mesozoic, take that Argentavis, Carnosaurs are overrated)
2. Balaur (duh)
1. TIANYULONG!!!!!!!!
Let it never be said that Tianyulong didn't change everything...
because, my god, Tianyulong changed everything... the world is so different now. Everytime I open my eyes now, the world just seems so... uninportant, you know? It's like, I already know the meaning of life, so what else is there? Only in this situation, the consequences are far more dire.
It's like... I don't know. I've never felt this way about an Ornithischian before. The emotions are just beyond my ability to deal with. I'm in a very vulnerable place right now, ever since Tianyulong changed everything forever.
I'm actually not being melodramatic. Tinayulong yanked my heart around like sheltered manchildren are confused by people like Mana and cartoon characters that are male but painfully attractive (because in a cartoon you can just fudge it). Which brings me to why I am suddenly motivated to write right now. (hehehe)
Mana is a hot mess. My one complaint: what the fuck is up with those shoes? He always wears like, 5 inch mary janes with a stupid looking three inch platform. It's like, it looks okay, but really, why bother? I like this her picture because he can rock that flat chest like nobody's business. His music, however, is somewhat okay at best.
Pop Quiz: What does the word gender mean?
a. I don't know
b. more polite way of saying sex
c. social and cultural constructs
d. the basis for all sexism
It's actually (d) as far as I'm concerned, but, of course, the real answer is (c). Now, next question:
What does sex mean?
a. Present tense sexual reproduction
b. Which end of that whole process you are on (male or female)
c. both of those
d. all of the above
The answer, of course, is (d). If you picked (c) you got it wrong. Sex applies only to sexual reproduction. As in, "gettin' it on." In this "whole process," you get two types of sex: ZW for female and WW for male (XY system in mammals, but who gives a shit about non-dinosaurs?), and the two have "interlocking" parts that bring all those nifty little gametes together and babies happen. There's more to the story, but I'm working towards a point here.
Sexual reproduction is great because, unlike the other kind, the chances for mutation are through the roof. Literally anything can go wrong at any time, and I'm not just talking about how the offspring have a combination of the genes of both parents, I mean the whole fucking system is just flimsy. I mean, really magnificently easy to produce mutant babies from beyond the grave. Like, having ZWZ and WWZ kids and shit, just a paper-thin disguise for a non-functioning system.
And just like the male and female ends of a RCA wire, there is always going to be some inherent sexual dimorphism. This is a simple unavoidable fact of life as a screwing organism. Dinosaurs, of course, don't stop there. Male dinosaurs are typically (haha, I mean always, I was just joking) dainty, gorgeous, and singularily attractive. The females are huge, drab, ugly, protect the kids, and are attracted TO the males, because they are all so fucking bueatiful. I humans, it is generally considered to be the opposite, although as I understand it, males can be attractive in their own way. I don't believe this, but I've heard sentiments that echo this sort of thing.
Okay, so what is gender then? Is your gender male or female? No, that's your sex. Just think back to buying cables at a Best Buy, male and female refer to different "parts," and the dinosaur fashion slaves are just born that way, but that isn't the rule for all sexual dimorphism. Sagittarius. 'Nuff said.
Is your head bleeding from the exposition hammer yet? Because if someone who doesn't know this is reading, I need to make sure people of all comprehension levels can understand what I'm saying.
Now, in humans, sexual dimorphism is very faint. Female's breasts get much larger at puberty because they are mammals, and thats where the milk goes. In mammals, the females have the milk, but, pay attention, before they reach puberty, they have the same chest as a male. The hips are also wider, because they have to squeeze a whole working womb in there. Beyond the stuff that absolutely has to differ in order for each sex to play out their role, the difference is so subtle that it isn't even worth mentioning here.
So everything you have been conditioned to believe in your culture, what the social norms are, fashion, personality, stereotypes, everything is created entirely BY that culture. Females aren't born wearing heels, that is something that is created by these cultural expectations, and this is what we call a "Gender Role" or "Gender Identity." Gender meaning which "role" or "identity" and individual posesses or identifies with.
It is commonly agreed that there are four accepted, basal, "component," or whatever the fuck you want to call them, genders. Masculine, Feminine, Androgynous, and Neutral/Asexual. Mas. and Fem. are the basis of sexism, they are stereotypes created by a specific culture that each sex is expected to conform to in order to be properly a "man" or "woman." Androgynous is sort of a mix of both, but with it's own set of rules, and neutral is, well, removed from the whole affair in the same way that atheists are removed from religion: instead of just saying "I don't have one," they say they are "neutral" because they fell that they have to check a box regardless of whether or not they support that system in the first place.
Now, this is all backstory. This is the year 2010, which was considered the future in early Megaman games. Genders are outdated, ridiculed, ignored, taken for granted, and played with. They no longer mean anything to the average person, because the average person is not a sexist, and has no reason to expect others to conform to a gender role because of their sex. There are, of course, crazy people, as well as the aforemention confused nerds who simply can't deal with a male being presented in a feminine way, not because they are sexist, but because it makes them question their own sexual orientation, which I think is hilarious, but I know plenty of people who don't share my affection for Mana.
Me? I don't want to have to pick, but I'm neutral. I say neutral and not "I don't have one" because I'm actually all of them to aproximately equal degress. I'm a future person (P.C.), and those things are beneath me. But genders are a big deal to me because I find them extremely interesting. Not as neat as dinosaurs, or course, but worthy of further study nonetheless.
And so while it is probably a good thing for the progression of civil rights, equality, and cultural respect that the word gender actually lose it's meaning altogether, but, like I said, this is kind of important to me. What is sad is that it's the year 2010, and I still see forms with "gender" being a field, and the answer choices being male or female, not actual genders. I rant about this all the fucking time, and so here I am, doing it again.
I have another thing I want to cover, but let me close this by saying that for the past hour or so I've been reading these blogs by weeaboos talking about some girls-only club that happened in 2008 or so. The consistently used the word gender and not sex, but the context was so flimsy that it could've gone either way. There were a couple of guys who would not disclose their "gender," confusing fans and foes alike, and sparking guessing games that are so full of obscure references to things I hate that I had a hard time understanding what the hell they were talking about.
What I did get from it is that, even though this clique is pretty shallow on the surface, not a one of them really gives a shit about what sex the others are. What they seem to be mildly interested in, you might have guessed, is what they call "traps," which are feminine males who squick out heterosexuals that can't tell the difference between a male and female. I actually read this one post where I guy actually went full on girly for a day (or so, whatever) in the interest of becoming a "trap," which some of the readers actually encouraged. This is fantastic, and if these are the males that culture breeds, then I want it to survive forever.
I'm going to post the link to what I'm talking about, but be warned that if you are easily squicked by tomgirls, you should not look at this. I'm extremely serious. It's a cool little thing, but please, one guy that I noticed is "following" me (fucking stalker) and whoever else stumbles on to this, click at your own risk. It might actually be NSFW, but it's probably just "gross." It's here.
And for the record, that's not how it works. Skirts are supposed to "puff out" on the side, not the front. You're fucking doing it wrong, poser. Plus, I hate your shoes, you don't to call yourself a "trap" if you're wearing flats, you moron. Flats suck = science fact. The socks are cool though. Plus, other than the obvious, it does come off as really pretty. So, good job.
This is accurate. It makes me feel all wierd inside, because, like, in my time (Cenozoic::Quarternary:Anthropocene), ALL dinosaurs are covered in feathers. We get skin impressions from dinosaurs much larger than the ones alive now, and science says that the "Elephant Effect" must be true. But, because of my frame of reference, this, an accurate rendering of a sub-adult Triceratops, just feels so wrong. I can't remember the artist's name, but it's on deviantart, so... there.
Now, enough crap. What you really came to here me bitch about is cladistics, isn't it? Here are some of my least favorite words: bird, reptile, fish, and bug. What do these words mean? Nothing, and thats the problem.
Let's get one thing straight: words that have only one meaning, that is, words that are defined by one academic discipline can not be given some arbitrary new meaning by someone who doesn't understand that discipline. What a word means, of course, is different from both connotation and popular phraseology, and this is where these words piss me off EVEN MORE that confusing gender and sex. I saved the best for last.
I'll close on dinosaurs, so I'll start outside Deuterostomates.
BUG
This word is my least favorite, even more than bird, because unlike the others, this word NEVER MEANT ANYTHING EVER. What is a bug?
Oh, you know, like insects and stuff.
Insects... and stuff? So, we're talking about out to Hexapods? Bug is a common name for hexapods?
Um... what? No, like creepy crawlies, you know, spiders and...
SPIDERS?! I though you said insects?
Yeah, those too.
So, spiders are... arachnids, then... shit, grouped up with myriapods, right? My arthropod tree is a little rusty, but I'm pretty sure you're telling me that "bug" is synonymous with "Arthopod."
No, creepy crawlies.
You're an idiot, now prepare to die.
Bottom line, polyphly doesn't even begin to describe this word. It means nothing. Next.
FISH
Fish and reptile are in the same boat, but fish has it worse, because "Pisces" hasn't been used in LINAEAN taxonomy since... like, the fucking 1700's or some shit. Now we have Chordates. "Fish," working backwards, would need to cover every animal that has "fish" in it's name that is actually a chordate, then. Because of hagfish, then, this goes to... Agnathans? Cephalochordata? Pretty far. I'm not a fish guy, so I don't know, but it covers far more than what you would think. But that's okay, because those guys are, essentially, fish, so it works out. The paraphly here is unbelievable, though. It's so thick you can taste it. I'm reasonably certain calling a tetrapod a "fish with legs" is pretty common, but the further you take it the more people you lose. I snuck up behind this lepidosaur and took it's legs, and then he's all "I'm a fish with legs," and I say "snake, you don't even HAVE legs!"
Like that. But fish has no agreed clade name, so, really, it's perfectly natural to question naming dinosaurs as fish, because, really, fish doesn't mean anything. It COULD be a real clade, but it isn't really used in any such way, and if it were, the connection would be tenuous, because, again, nothing even close to fish is used as a name early enough to catch the whole clade.
REPTILE
Reptile is a little different, because in the first Mortal Kombat, he had both Scorpion and Sub-Zero's moves, an attribute that was later adopted by Chameleon, who is not officially even labelled as a Zaterran.
Up until (very) recently, reptile was a real thing, and for what it's worth, it is still used (debateable, no one uses Linaean taxonomy) in that thing I just said. Of course, this is classically defined as turtles, lepidosaurs, crocodilians, and a number of extinct forms (including some, but not all, dinosaurs). The only way to make this work is to set reptile to the last common ancestor of all of these groups, which makes all tetrapods more derived than "amphibians" reptiles. Basically, Diapsids, Synapsids, and Anapsids.
And this means dinosaurs and mammals are reptiles. When humans looked at this transcribed cladogram, they had somehow decided that by some miracle, they don't count. So, for no fucking reason, reptiles are now "Amniotes," and mammal-like reptiles are not actually reptiles anymore, although I've always thought that name is redundant.
So they took reptile away, leaving it with a linaean (as in "not real") meaning. Obviously, it's paraphyletic. Hence, it means nothing, and isn't a real group. This pisses me off because the only reason the name changed is because a bunch of humans got their panties in a bunch because they don't like the CONNOTATION of being a reptile. The reptile clade is totally solid, it's just not called reptiles anymore. Doesn't make any damn sense.
BIRD
As a dinosaur (and I do mean theropod) guy, this one pisses me off the most. I'll preface this by saying that, despite all the bullshit, this word DOES have a stable and genuine meaning. Crown group dinosaurs are birds, but nothing else is.
Quick! What are the defining traits of a bird? Flight and feathers? Okay, since protofeathers, O-quills (a name I just invented) and pycnofibres are all essentially the same thing, does that mean all Ornithodirans are birds?
Nah, let's be fair. None of us where prepared for Tianyulong, so lets take it down a notch. You mean flying dinosaurs. Okay, thats paraves. Paraves covers it all. Problem is, "bird" was in use long before we had this shit sorted out, and paraves was very long in the making. Good news is, it has, most of the time, always included another maniraptoran group, and has included all of them at least once. So, should we back it up to maniraptoran because Oviraptors have a pygostyle? No need. Modern paraves fits our description pretty well. The most popular "non-bird birds" were always Deinonychosaurs anyways, and it's because they are, well, related.
But calling Troodon a bird is very sketchy. I mean, don't get me wrong, Deinonychosaurs get called birds all the fucking time, but it is not taken so literally, and a more conservative definition is preferd by the people doing the actual work, and like I said, they get to decide what the definition of a biology term is. So what is it a common name for?
Aves. Aves = Birds. Great starting place. Now, where do we put aves? The original definition is crown group + Archaeopteryx, but, as you should be aware, Archaeopteryx is just a basal parave that was never really held up to modern standards because suggesting it is anything other than a bird is heretical... even though it has a long tail, and no keel. This puts us back where we started, so we have to ignore Archaeopteryx.
Now we get to Avialians. This is already the name of the clade, and it means "bird-like," so not all Avialians can be birds. That's cool, because Scansoriopterygids have long bony tails, unlike true birds. This is the most acceptable crown group plus usage of bird, and many times Aves will be used as the clade that combines Confuciusornithes with all more derived Avialians.
And what is that group? Ornithoraces, Ornithuromorphs, Ornithurines? Doesn't have a name, it changes depending on who you ask. It contains Enantiornithes and all more derived pygostylians, which is the actual name for "aves." Thats right, aves doesn't go where we put it, because that clade already has a name.
So what if we just use crown groups? That puts us at "neornithes," an outdated term that only exists because we at one time needed to include Archaeopteryx in linaean aves. However, because aves has become an orphaned child crying to the winds for it's parents, Neornithes has, genuinely, taken it's place.
Really, then, there IS no place for a clade named "aves" because all appropriate clades are already named, and a handful actually have several overlapping names, like the aforementioned ornithoraces, ornithurines, and ornithuromorpha. But birds DOES have a meaning. At the very least, we know it means cg dinos, and it has a clade name equivalent for which it is the common name counterpart.
So... what? In order for aves to become a clade, we need to replace a preexisting word, which seems extremely likely, because aves will predate any extinct clade name, and take priority of wherever we decide to put it. Agreement is a joke. My advice? Just dump Neornithes, since thats what birds actually means anywhicways.
But for the love of Godzilla, please reach some sort of consensus. I can't read papers about Avialians because I never have any idea what the fuck they're talking about. They use the same words in different contexts without bothering to tell you. It's fucking retarded.
And if birds = pygostylians? You've wasted a pretty kickass clade name for nothing. Nothing really makes as much sense as "pygostylians." Birds or no, there is no clade quite as solid as "Avialians with a pygostyle." It's like, BAM, you know? No one ever asks what a pygostylian is. It's in the damn name.
Also, Confuciusornis is fucking gorgeous. You know that picture of Mana up at the top? That guy is ultimate pug fugly like Beth's face compared to Confuciusornis.
But then, that's not really fair, because male dinosaurs are born bueatiful. They don't have to use giant sunglasses to create optical illusions with their face. Not that I do, I'm just saying.
...sure does pay off, though. In cinematography the other day, Jordan (the girl who played Mr. Cameo in... you're not gonna know, forget it) told me I have "nice lips," which was a first. I'm WW, in case you couldn't tell. I guess that makes me a "trap." Because, of course, why would a male be feminine other than as a part of some cruel joke? Surely one wouldn't be un-ironically THAT girly.
I'm being sarcastic, like the jackass masculine Maddox fanboy that I am. Has your head exploded yet? How about PRO-gress and CON-gress!?.
Progress being what John Maus is afraid of. Also, being in the presence of a living legend.
I'm just kidding, Maus is pretty cool. In fact, you could say he's a fucked up maniac. I wouldn't, but you can. Gary War is better any day of the week, and I'm Tim Koh's biggest fan.
Maybe I should just cut here and do a Ariel Pink post later.
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