According to Heaven, Andras Martinez should have never existed. Born of the unholy union between a witch and a demon, the halfling was either doomed to die by Heaven's hands or destined to transcend into a demon himself. Instead of teaching Andras how to protect himself until he could transcend, his mother Gabriela raised him as a normal New England kid. That didn't stop Andras from practicing magic behind her back. He promised himself he would quit using dark magic to win poker matches once he started his freshman year of college.
Then his mother died. Now that Andras was eighteen, he had to pay her debts if he wanted to keep his childhood home. His absent father wouldn't rise from Hell to help him anytime soon. On the night of Gabriela's funeral service, a mysterious figure came to collect the grimoire they lent to her almost twenty years ago.
Only a fool would make a deal with a demon, but how could Andras refuse the silver-tongued stranger when they offered to pay off his million-dollar mortgage (and keep him safe from Heaven's executioners)? All it would cost Andras was indefinite servitude to the great king Asmodeus, Lucifer's left hand and the notorious master of gambling.
Our fossil is a rare new witness. It comes from roughly 80-million-year-old rock in São Paulo state, Brazil. We named it Tametara mirim, meaning “adorned” and “small” in the local Indigenous language.
(Photo: Agustin Martinelli)
The new fossil of Tametara mirim reframes how we understand snake evolution.
(Photo: Agustin Martinelli)
Life reconstruction of the burrowing stem snake Tametara mirim which lived alongside now-extinct stem-birds and sauropod dinosaurs.
(Illustration: Gabriel Ugueto)
The bones of Tametara show it had the skull of a burrower. CT scan volume-rendered with VGSTUDIO MAX.
(Image: Roy Ebel)
One theory about how snakes evolved suggests lizards went underground, lost their limbs and elongated their bodies.
(Illustration supplied - Roy Ebel)
80‑million‑year‑old snake fossil sheds light on why lizards lost their limbs and started slithering
Snakes are everywhere in our legends and mythology. Yet for most of us, our blood runs cold whenever we encounter these strangely undulating, scaly tubes of muscle slithering through the leaf litter.
The loss of an arm or leg poses a challenge. Yet snakes do perfectly well without all four of them. This makes them suspect. It also leaves us unable to fathom how this radical transition produced one of the most successful vertebrate body plans.
More than 4,000 species of snakes are alive today, on every continent except Antarctica, from thread-thin burrowers to massive pythons, on land and in the sea. We have studied them since antiquity, and still the oldest question about them has no answer: what turned snakes into snakes?
We have long suspected their peculiar, limbless body plan is explained by how the earliest snakes lived. In a new study, published today in Nature, my colleagues and I describe a small, exquisitely preserved fossil that brings us closer to an answer than ever before.
By Roy Ebel
Research Officer Herpetology, Museums Victoria Research Institute, Australia
The Conversation - July 23, 2026
Snakes lost their limbs millions of years ago to become undulating, scaly tubes of muscles. Scientists are finally figuring out why.
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Fig. 1: Holotype (MPM 420) of T. mirim.
a, Photograph of the whole specimen with the articulated skull and postcranium in dorsal view. Ant, anterior; Bl, block number; Ce.V., cervical vertebrae; Do.V., dorsal vertebrae; Post, posterior; Sk, skull. b,c, Photographs of the skull in lateral (b) and dorsal (c) view. CB, compound bone; F, frontal; Oto, otoccipital; P, parietal; PFr, postfrontal; Pro, prootic; Ptg, pterygoid; Q, quadrate; Soc, supraoccipital; St, supratemporal. d–g, 3D renderings of an anterior precloacal (‘cervical’) vertebra in lateral (d) and anterolateral (e) views, and mid-precloacal (‘dorsal’) vertebra in dorsal (f) and left lateral (g) views. h–j, 3D renderings of the skull in the right lateral view (h) and with exposed brain endocasts in the right lateral (i) and dorsal (j) views. Mes., mesencephalon; Rho., rhombencephalon; Tel., telencephalon. Scale bars, 100 mm (a), 5 mm (b,c,h–j) and 1 mm (d–g). Specimen photos were taken by A.S.H.
Exceptional brain and ecological diversity in the earliest snakes
Understanding the ecological origin of snakes has remained a century-old challenge, hindered by an extremely sparse early fossil record and conflicting interpretations of fossil ecologies.
Here we describe an exceptionally preserved Cretaceous fossil snake, Tametara mirim gen. et sp. nov., from Brazil, representing one of the earliest-diverging stem snakes. High-resolution micro-CT scans reveal unprecedented details of cranial nerves, inner ear and brain anatomy, enabling the most integrated reconstruction of stem snake neuroanatomy to date. Quantitative and qualitative endocast analyses demonstrate that Tametara had a brain morphology distinct from both other stem and extant snakes, revealing substantial early neuroanatomical disparity — and probably sensory functions — in snake evolution. Independent evidence from telencephalon shape and bone microstructure converges on a fossorial lifestyle for Tametara and non-fossorial for another stem snake: Dinilysia.
These results indicate that major ecological transitions occurred early in snake evolution, and that known stem species do not represent the ancestral condition of crown snakes. Early snake evolution thus involved complex shifts in habitat use and sensory ecology, revealing greater ecological and neuroanatomical diversity than previously thought.
By Tiago R. Simões, Gabriela Sobral, Simone Macri, Roy Ebel, Thiago S. Fachini, Augustin G. Martinelli, William R. Nava, Giovanna M. X. Paixão, Luis M. Chiappe, Nicolas Di-Poï, & Annie S. Hsiou
Nature - 22 July 2026
A well-preserved fossil snake from the Late Cretaceous of Brazil shows early ecological and brain shape disparity in the group.
You and your spouse have been married almost a decade. Your spouse has several bank account, credit cards, and small investments that they haven't shared with you. your finances are separate, save for a groceries account they mete out specific amounts into. You didn't agree to this arrangement, you just didn't really get a say. You've had chronic illness for a while so work has been patchy. You're struggling to cover your cell bill and bus fare in slow months. Your spouse wants to solve this by giving you an allowance ($65/mo). This kind of financial arrangement in a marriage is:
Wow. I was not expecting the massive response this post got, but thank you to everyone who's been filling out this poll and/or commenting on it! I feel like maybe I should give some clarification or context?
I posted this poll because my spouse thinks the above arrangement is reasonable and their prerogative. They feel that what is theirs is theirs, and they don't have to share it with their spouse, and wouldn't expect me to share what's mine with them if the tables were turned. I deliberately avoided using language in the poll that made any of the responses leading, because I didn't want to influence the results. When my spouse and I have arguments about how few of my basic needs they meet, and how vulnerable I feel, they tend to dig their heels in and insist that defining what a partnership looks like is up to the individuals and it's ok to deviate from the norm (which I agree with in principle, but only if both parties agree to the arrangements and can do so freely, not through coercion), and sometimes I genuinely feel like I'm crazy for thinking that there's a basic standard we get to expect from each other mutually, not in this one-sided way, and that my partner is being being both neglectful and controlling at the same time. I posted this poll because even when my spouse makes me feel like I'm being unreasonable, I know in my gut I'm not (not least of all because we very much did talk about our expectations of each other in both the best and worst potential situations, and what they promised me is not what I'm living now).
To see how many people have responded by straightforwardly calling this financial abuse, and to see how few people see this as normal, is validating to say the least. I've begun the process of building myself a life raft out of this situation, and I think I needed to see this feedback - so many strangers responding to what I hope is as neutral a summary of the situation as I intended it to be, and still calling it like I see it.
What I didn't put in the above poll is the even crazier stuff: A few years ago I ended contact with my abusive family, and my spouse promised to take care of me. Not long after they stopped giving me emotional support and asked me to seek it from my friends instead of them. When my computer, my main work tool, suddenly stopped working, they would only help me pay for a new one if I paid them back for it (they put me on a payment plan, but it was better than a bank loan because there was no interest and they let late payments slide). I also contracted a serious chronic illness because my partner was careless and ignored my existing health issues which made me vulnerable, and they failed to take care of me to the point I wasn't even eating properly while in bed with a fever, and for months after. Any support they gave was won at the cost of arguments I didn't have energy for, and reluctantly, but to friends and family my partner presented themselves as a caretaker.
I've struggled to work steadily and most of my limited income went to repaying the cost of my computer, so I depleted any savings I had left after the pandemic. As a result I sometimes couldn't even afford basics like toiletries or even clothes (I once showed up half an hour late to a doctor's appointment because the zipper on my only jeans broke and I had to wear a skirt in the freezing cold), and my partner, while expressing sympathy verbally, didn't take any action to offer tangible support, ie. buying me a new pair of jeans. I didn't have my family to rely on for safety and support. Anything I want or need, whether it's a necessity or something like a trip to visit family or friends who all live far away, I have to meet my partner's parameters since they're the one footing the bill. It took many arguments and detailed explanations of my difficulties and expectations before they would give me basic support like a one-off clothing purchase, and even more negotiation for it to be given in a way that allowed me autonomy in decision making (ie. they handed me a limited budget instead of going shopping with me or asking me to run purchases by them first).
I've given my partner a lot of leeway because they're struggling with several simultaneous neurodiversities and they tend to be passive observers in most situations, rather than active participants. I can see the ways in which they struggle to understand my experience because of their NDs. It has also been several years now since their diagnosis, and they use their ND as an excuse, but won't seek support for it. I have to do the emotional heavy lifting for us both, and if my expectations of them feel reasonable to me, it doesn't matter because if it's outside of their comfort zone, even the simplest things become contentious and they get the final say, since they're the only one in the relationship who have financial independence right now. I have no access to, nor do I get updated on, any of their bank accounts or savings (worrying in case of an emergency), except for a debit card which has a set amount on it at any given time and is only for groceries and recurring bills.
My spouse will give me information on their financial standing occasionally if I ask, but they are very hesitant and reluctant. I have a bank account of my own, and my spouse has asked to see my monthly earnings for the purpose of understanding my needs, but I'm hesitant to show them because of how much of my trust they've compromised, and how private they've always been about their financials (not to mention that it indicates they don't trust me to state my needs reasonably and reliably). I believe that everyone in a marriage should have at least one personal bank account, but our finances aren't shared at all, save for the one shared groceries/bills account. That account does, however, include medical costs, and as long as my spouse approves the spending, I can use it for things like amenities.
I don't know if I will show my partner this poll, but it's really good to have in case I would like to. It shows what I've been saying to them for a very long time, which is that my expectations are based in widely socially accepted ones that most people are aware of, and while I want to respect that my partner's ND may preclude them from having understood this, I also feel it's reasonable to ask that they accept that I'm not unreasonable in having these expectations (especially since they had justified this with commitments they made when we got married and have since broken).
It's been well over a year since this post and I wanted to add an update:
I never did show my spouse this poll, but what I did do was go to
A lawyer
A domestic abuse non-profit
A government agency
and had all three confirm that the situation was economic abuse. It took me several months but I scraped together enough to have a consultation with a divorce lawyer and learned what my options were. I wasn't expecting to get much - even though they'd have to either sell our home and give me half of what he got for it, or buy out my half, I didn't think they'd be willing to do the former or have the money for the latter, but I could at least get alimony and I could take care of my needs and my health problems better and get away from the stress of the marriage. So I asked my spouse for a divorce.
The divorce process itself was... illuminating. I found out that my spouse had several massive savings accounts they had conveniently forgotten to tell me about. And what was lucky for me, they didn't seem to understand that in a marriage all things are legally shared. They seemed to think that if something was only under their name, it was theirs exclusively - like putting a label in your clothes for summer camp. So they didn't secure any of their accounts, and most of them consisted of funds accumulated during the marriage. Not long after that came to light, they moved out (their ND includes being severely conflict averse and you can imagine things became... tense). It took a long time until I could start to relax and feel like I could be safe again.
In the end I walked away with enough to have a safety net. I bought an apartment that meets my disability needs, and have enough to live on for a few years while I get back on my feet (though hopefully it won't take that long). Moving, and doing all this on my own was really hard, but luckily I've had wonderful friends who've helped me and been incredibly supportive. I still feel like I'm putting myself back together and finding myself, but am doing worlds better.
Thank you to everyone who commented and reblogged and added tags - that massive and unapologetic naming of this situation as abuse was so so validating and meant the world to me. I was significantly luckier than most people facing a similiar situation and found a way out. I hope you'll consider donating to one of these domestic abuse non-profits if you're able to, to help others who are struggling:
If you want to volunteer with domestic violence nonprofits, make donations, fundraise for them, or gather information, this can be the ultim
Do YOU wish there were more ways to express yourself with a Stick Eridian? I SURE DO!
INTRODUCING
THE HASTILY MADE STICK ERIDIAN EMOJI COLLECTION 1
Featuring 20 Eridians (Featuring Rocky) for all your emotive needs!
No more need for STUPID LEAKY FACE EMOJIS
All Eridians! All the Time!
(Just right-click and save whichever one you want! Credit if someone asks! Have fun! More to maybe come???)
can you imagine tho if Eridians discovered radiation years and years after the Blip-A left
and they're just absolutely horrified because now they know why the Blip-A never returned, they sent them all to die, now to save their sun they have to redo the entire program all over again and Adrian is devastated -
and then three Eridian years later Rocky shows up with his pet alien and a ton of taumeoba all I LIVED BITCH
i’m sick of ppl trying to equivocate that claudia could’ve been that hateful and mad at louis without the racism. no she wouldn’t be. the entire thing is out of character for the iwtv canon, stop trying to give an inch when none of it even matters anymore. even in the books it’s clear that it’s not fully claudia and louis was shittier to her there. or accepting that he was a pimp after all even if that’s not ~all he was. no he wasn’t. we have long since traced back to the exact real life brothel owner the s1 writers transferred 1:1 to louis. missing and honoring the black writers who made iwtv also means respecting the story THEY wrote, and we don’t have to concede some bullshit about louis having been selfish or cruel or equally at fault for claudia’s abuse. it’s still victim blaming to say the seance was right that louis didn’t change bc he’s taking the abuser back. it’s victim blaming to equivocate that he and armand equally couldn’t consent to the bdsm and that louis was a bad dom even if he still didn’t need to apologize to armand. that antiblack torture scene has nothing to do w louis’ relationship with armand, it has no basis in canon at all, they just wanted the nbpoc to torture louis bc of the optics bc why the fuck would fareed even be there lol? don’t internalize this white supremacist revisionist bullshit, this show used to mean a lot to jacob for a reason, he and delainey came back for a reason, and we know they were lied to. louis was never selfish or a pimp or cruelly culpable for withholding to the powerful men who hated and battered him, that’s not softening his agency for perfect victimhood. claudia came back to see him because she loved him and loved him until her very last breath. we know what we saw
(tags via @greedydemands) this is another important point bc while folks have rightly pointed out the palpable sense of resentment and contempt the nonblack writers room seems to have for louis and claudia, it's important to think about how this show did have some black writers working on it during s1-s2 and it was an intentional choice to remove all black talent from the writers room and how white creatives often have a chip on their shoulder about their work being popular with a marginalized audience they didn't intend or feeling like their own work and ideas are being outshined by the work of black collaborators. iwtv s1-s2 was loved by black viewers and was praised largely as a black show, with louis and claudia (despite their unpopularity among nonblack viewers and in predominantly nonblack fandom) being celebrated as iconic figures in the small but beloved pantheon of black vampires in pop culture in less than 4 years. omar benson miller and jack o'connell (who knows jacob) cited and recommended iwtv on the sinners press tour and as the original post points out, iwtv s1 was clearly a visual and conceptual reference for ryan coogler when he was making sinners. (and sinners was both a box office and awards success despite the antiblackness of the industry so anyone justifying amc's efforts to distance tvl from iwtv as a purely business/financial decision is being seriously bad faith.) reddit and tumblr, and we know rolin lurks on both, might have been shoulder-deep in antiblack abuse apologia to excuse fan favorite nonblack characters, but iwtv was entering pop culture as a black show, as centering and valuing blackness. and we see now more clearly than ever that none of those aspects of the show- not the compassion and nuance for louis and claudia, not the immersive and lyrical dialogue and narration, not the thoughtful engagement with themes of race, racialized violence and domestic abuse- came from hannah or rolin. they wanted to make a "everyone is evil and nothing matters" vampiric-violence-excuses-all ironic shlockfest where any gesture toward sincerity gets undercut by a self-aware quip and where compassion is only reserved for nonblack people. and the seeds of that are there in the earlier seasons, like hannah always writing episodes that are extremely, disproportionately detailed about the brutalization of black bodies, but there was just enough care, thought and interest in the black leads to make the show seem like it was critiquing the nature of this kind of violence instead of punitively reveling in it. and that part came from the black writers (and likely also some of the nonblack women who worked on s1-s2 but were fired before s3, bc while the show has always been misogynistic, it wasn't cartoonishly misogynistic where every single woman is reduced to a one-note stereotype) and the nonblack writers and producers likely deeply resented them for it.
think of how black fans are often framed as dour killjoys who hate fun and are trying to ruin the essence of fandom itself for centering black characters and talking about antiblackness in shared online spaces, even if we do it in a kind, gentle and conciliatory way. how black fans' analysis of media will be hated or ignored but embraced if a white fan makes the same points, including in discussions of racism. how black creatives often have their work copied or emulated by nonblack creatives who'll villainize the original creator even as they play in their sandbox. the iwtv subreddit is a great example of that where nonblack fans regularly screenshot, copy and repost analysis or even just silly memes made by black fans while the racist mods consistently ban or remove the posts of any black person who wants to talk about antiblackness there or share opinions deemed too sympathetic toward the show's black leads. fandom, even allegedly liberal fandom, is like this bc it's a microcosm of how society treats blackness and black people- there's no reason to think a cable tv writers room also populated by nonblack liberals would function any differently. people talk about the obvious antiblack spite behind a lot of choices this season and expressing concern for what the bts working conditions have been like for the black leads, and we should keep talking about that, but it's also important to consider how the antiblack backlash is likely also directed toward the black writers who used to work there and the white creatives wanting not only to overwrite their work but make a pop cultural impact that's completely disconnected from blackness, to make the show "their own" instead of sharing creative air with blackness. and in doing so ironically they've made sure this season will have a longterm legacy (like sleepy hollow, like the vampire diaries, like the star wars sequel trilogy- all were critically and fannishly beloved at first and now they're synonymous with racism and creative cowardice in pop culture) that's still all about blackness, remembered for embodying the mid-2020s whitelash in usamerican culture and for not adapting the book it was supposed to adapt in their quest to do a whitecentric rewrite of everything good or depthful or compelling about s1-s2.
the best way i can think to describe the experience of reading moby dick is you’re in line at the dmv and this guy behind you very loudly says “well who HASN’T had a gay experience” and then proceeds to tell you every detail about his life in between anecdotes about how great sperm is and how ropes work and sometimes he’ll say the most poetic shit you’ve ever heard in your life and them jump RIGHT back into explaining how a whale is a fish because 1) it swims in water and you’re still only like halfway through the dmv line
For those wondering about the fox. Grace has a subtle motif with this animal throughout the movie, but especially this shot where they pack this toy fox with his belongings on the Hail Mary. The pose of it looked a little haunting to me, thus prompting this illustration.
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(Small/large prints are also available on my etsy ❤️)
small town diner waitress voice: Omelas? Oh, oh no, easy mistake, you're in oh - MAY - las right now, with an A. Plenty' people get the name mixed up. Nope, no utopia here, just our small little town. *face gets really grim* We do still.. Okay well we do still have a kid that we... I mean it isn't working but- well- You know. It- It's fine. I'm sure it'll start working soon.
