the thing about "birds are dinosaurs" is it forces people to confront the idea of dinosaurs as like a part of natural history, a biological animal clade that really for real lived and breathed and were sometimes strange and sometimes small and sometimes peaceful and sometimes ugly, and not as Cool Monsters or a metaphor for Progress. and people don't like that. they say no, actually, when i use dinosaur i mean "weird stupid extinct giant lizard lizard monster" and birds aren't part of that category. and i say. you shouldnt use dinosaurs that way. go suck a baculum.
oh absolutely @phosphoenolpyruvat, there's a whole thing with gender (dinosaurs as Boys Toys vs feathers and birds as Girly and Weak) and also race and culture! (the first fossils of feathered dinosaurs- and still the majority!- are coming from China, which of course people in my country the US have a vested interest in seeing as duplicitous and effite)
but also when i mention that birds are dinosaurs i'll so often get people respond "yeah technically they are, but, y'know, that's not what i'm talking about when i say dinosaur." and that's also, like, something i want to challenge! the word was coined for a scientific clade! these aren't movie monsters! also the idea of history naturally and inevitably moving from Violent Brutish and Stupid to Enlightened Safe and Healthy is incorrect and bad and dangerous!!





















