Multicolored question, do the cards with a single color casting cost and off-color activation have a name in design? Are they considered a separate category from cards like Kird Ape that care about a 2nd color but don't have to have it to function.

We call them off-color activations.

I noticed on the Kird ape style uncommon cycle in fate reforged had their theme in the wrong clan. Is this part of that "I'll explain why the clans aren't centered around the enemy later" thing you were talking about?

Once again, there is a method to our madness.

Question for the Un-Rules Manager: as of M14, the old card City in a Bottle received functional errata so that it hits every card originally printed in Arabian Nights regardless of the printing of the card in front of you (so City will still answer a ninth edition Kird Ape). Does World-Bottling Kit work the same way?

Nope. World Bottling Kit looks for the expansion symbol. The change in the black bordered rules is because cards can no longer functionally care about expansion symbol. That’s not a problem in silver-bordered land.

Thanks for reading. I am a biologist first and a Magic player second (if those were the only two things), and it hurts me to see dinosaurs called lizards. I don't expect creature types to perfectly match biological understanding. I accept, for instance, that Thalia and Kird Ape together receive no boosts from a Coat of Arms. But dinosaurs and lizards are barely even related! You might as well call Sanctuary Cat a boar. What is the chance we see the return of the dinosaur creature type?

What you fail to realize is that in the Magic multiverse, dinosaurs are lizards.