#ITS ABOUT THE CIRCULATORY SYSTEM

[autisticaradiamegido]

day 291

so i dont have time to finish this one today but hey. lets consider living aradia with anatomical heart imagery shall we

[chainsawder]

is this not the creepiest thing ever, why are they holding hands like that. stop that!

[geneticcatalyst]

my phone says it feels like 118 out??

[belligerentbagel]

hhhhhh. there's . a . lot. going on here (this is a joke rant. mostly)

The foot, bizarrely, appears to be anatomically accurate — correct number of phalanges, metatarsals, and tarsals.

I'm not going to fucking talk about the articulations at all because my brain's going to melt. The monster who designed this is on a level beyond Victor Frankenstein. They've never seen a ligament or joint cavity before. They're slapping together bones with the confidence of a British paleontologist. This is the Magdeburg Unicorn of household objects, but you're not going to receive a Snopes dot com article for acquiring this creation held together with magical bone gunge and hubris.

Ramrod-straight spine, for some reason. You got the tarsal count down, but couldn't be arsed to put a bit of curve into the vertebral column? We're going to generously approximate this as a section for lumbar curvature, which would have made a lovely aesthetic handle/grabbing point, but. nah. you saw the structural need for "vertical section connecting a base to an arm" and thought "spine," but failed to consider the other features of the organ. Fucking put even a rib-clavicle-scapula combo in there, which would have given a much nicer transition into the —

Horizontal long bone glued to the superior aspect of the spine, with vertebral spinous processes growing out of it like a machine-generated bastardisation. I s2g the manufacture process for this had to be 1) enter "bone sewing machine" into midjourney. 2) Take the first design it spits out. 3) Uncritically fabricate the design, without making edits to consider how things could articulate with & fit neatly into each other. As ever, the enemy of science is capitalism.

Horizontal long bone gets a second bullet point, because there is so much happening. The long bone would have been perfect as the vertical aspect, because tada your foot already has two lower leg bones naturally articulating with it; AND the spine would have been great for for the "machine arm" because you can slap the thread spools onto the spinous processes! BUT NO. You're gluing an unidentifiable long bone with blurry nonspecific landmarks to 1) the top of a spine (hooooo. I'm breathing out. I'm not going to engage with this again) and 2) the side of a skull (THE SIDE?? WHERE THE EAR GO??).

The skull. Jesus Jod and Jary I don't have the blood left for this. The distal??? end of the long bone is rammed into the side of the skull because heaven is empty and nobody was left to think logically about how to attach a long bone to a skull (spoiler! this DOES NOT WORK. the skull forms a joint with the vertebral column, but -oh, shucks - this spine already got co-opted into attaching to the foot). 

I appreciate the spidering "cracks" from where the long bone meets the skull, as a nod to the agony of constructing this agglomeration — I guess cracks? because they sure as HELL aren't getting the skull sutures right. TWO sagittal sutures that are bogglingly straight & parallel like a headband, with none of the pleasant squiggles of a genuine suture (you should also only have ONE sagittal suture) and a random suture over the right eye? why???? WHAT bony plates are fusing here after the trauma of 1) birth and 2) viewing this aberration

Now, this is different- a skeleton sewing machine for your goth or Halloween decor.

[peachesofteal]

Simple Math / Part Eighteen

Simple Math masterlist

Ghost/Soap/female reader - AO3 - 3.1K words Tags: 18+ mdni. nurse!reader. Sexual content. Pregnancy and things that come with it. Brief mention of options in relation to termination of pregnancy. PTSD. Heavy emotions. Graphic descriptions of domestic violence and miscarriage, suicidal ideation. This is mostly inner monologue. Feelings of anxiety, despair, fear. This part is a little shorter due to its emotional nature.

There’s no oxygen.

No room for your lungs to expand, nothing for you to suck into your chest and relieve the ache blooming in your bones.

You drift, unmoored, a sailboat with no rudder, no engine to save you in an ocean without a breeze. All you can do is follow the current, the one leading you back to the dozen HCG strips buried in the bottom of a trash can, faint pink lines buried in the membranes and the matter of your brain.

The midwife that squeezed you in confirmed it all with a blood draw.

“You have options.”

“I know.”

There are resources, and education for you…  though I know you’re probably aware.”

“Yup.”

“Depending on your decisions, we’d like to see you in about two weeks for an eight-week ultrasound.” You gulp. The air is tragically thin in this room, and the paper crinkles under your uneasy weight.  

“Okay.”

When Simon appears in the main lobby for the usual trek home, you barely hold back the urge to vomit all over his shoes. Your legs are weak, trembling with each step forward, and you hold his hand so tight, your bones ache.

Sensitive as always, he lingers alongside you in the quiet, biding his time before slicing through your silence. “What is it sweetheart?”

“Huh?” You’re already on the front doorstep, memory of the entire trip evaporated.

“Do you still not feel well?”

“Oh, yeah.” The lie is toxic, sludge stuck in your bloodstream, clogging your capillaries until they burst like fireworks. “It’s my stomach.”

“Pen’s still under the weather too.”

“Poor thing.” The words are numb. Your mind is numb. Your body is a livewire and exhausted, all at once, the push and pull almost knocking you onto the floor. In the kitchen, Johnny wraps an arm around your waist, leaning in for a kiss, but nothing registers.

“Maybe you should get some rest.”

“Yeah.” Autopilot. That’s the gear you’re in. Going through the motions, trying to hold yourself together, keep your head above water.

Is this real?

Is this happening?

What will they say?

What will they think?

“Bunny?” Johnny’s thumb is on your carotid, where your pulse beats. Where your heart pushes blood through your circulatory system, flowing to a presence now fluttering inside you.

One plus one equals two.

“Sorry, yeah. Think I’m gonna go up, take a nap.”

“Yell if ye need anything, aye?” All you can do is nod.

You gravitate towards the guest room before you can stop yourself. It’s as you left it, bed made, sheets crisp, remnants of your things separated into easily sorted piles. In the nest of blankets, it’s easy to pretend. Easy to imagine the bed as a cloud of cotton candy, so high in the sky, above the earth, above this… this thing that is happening.

An embryo. Something two millimeters long, siphoning its existence from yours.

That tiny sliver of hope is nowhere to be found, replaced now with logical, realistic questions.

Can you sustain a pregnancy, after the damage inflicted during the last one?

Can you carry one to viability?

Can you mentally, emotionally, physically handle a pregnancy?

An infant?

And what about them?

What about you?

You think about the times you wanted to die. The moments you sat in the shower, streams of red running to the drain, a clump of cells you never knew draining from your body with each second.

A loss you never knew you’d mourn. Something stolen. Something slipping through your fingers, handfuls of sand blown away by a sea breeze.

The overwhelming feeling of drowning every time you laid on the floor in a broken heap, synapses misfiring, making wrong connections, desperately trying to latch onto anything normal, anything sane. Staring at the ceiling, slow flow of blood dripping down your throat, left wondering if this will be it, this will be the moment it goes too far. Your spine will snap. You’ll take a blow to the head strong enough to render you unconscious, permanently. Your windpipe will be crushed, closing in on itself, starving your brain of oxygen. In those moments, you could only hope.

You’re grateful, at least, that you don’t feel like that now.

In a cocoon on a cusp of hazy sleep, you’re cradled to a chest, jostled lightly until blankets are tucked back up around your shoulders and snuggled between two warm bodies, a gentle hand cupping your cheek.

“Our sweet girl,” Simon murmurs in the dark, “we’re here. Whatever it is, we have you.”

A dream.

You sleepwalk through life. One week turns to two, and then three. Three weeks turn to four, and more, before you know it, you’re twelve weeks pregnant, still going through the motions, robotically making your way through each day. You’re shoving the waterfall of feelings and emotions so deep, so far away, they’re likely to never see the sun again.

You lock them in a box.

You bury it in a grave, six feet under.

At work, you’re grateful you know your job inside and out, because you’re mostly just going through the motions. The only time you show any sign of life is when your boss tries to float you to the NICU. When you dig in your heels, repeatedly denying the request, she finally gives up and moves onto a new unsuspecting victim.

Better them than you.

At home, its worse. You don’t know if you’re imagining the tension or if its truly there, eggshells crumbling beneath your feet, words turned to ash. You’re a marionette, fate pulling the strings, tearing the joints of your limbs in a million directions.

They can tell. They read you too well, but you’re not so easily swayed. Simon tries to coax it gently; Johnny tries to bluntly force it out. Both tactics fail, but they themselves stay steady, and true, holding you in the night, soothing you with touch and whispers, loving you through it all.

During the day, they coddle you. Johnny massages your shoulder, tips your chin back until your skull rests on collarbone, dots kisses all over your skin. He tugs you onto the patio, curls up on the outdoor loveseat with you under a big blanket, your head in his lap, telling you stories about his childhood, his parents. He makes you giggle by reminiscing of all the times he chased Simon around at work, how Kyle fell out of a helicopter, how they had to wear suits for an undercover op one time and Simon's ripped right down the ass.

Simon cooks, all your favorites, things you forgot he pays attention to, and spoons you on the couch, big arm like a safety net stretched across your chest to keep you close. He brings tea to bed, reading until your eyes close, calming your mind enough to lull you to sleep.

Even at night, they treasure you like glass. Johnny lays on his stomach, thumbs rubbing circles into your thighs, parting them, backs of his knuckles tracing over the seam of your pussy, coaxing your arousal, taking his time. He licks your clit so slowly its torture, all the while Simon tugs your knee as wide as he can, hand fisted in the mohawk, kissing you from shoulder to neck, over and over.

You beg them to fuck you hard, harder than you’ve ever asked for it before. Johnny jumps at the idea, but Simon kills it immediately.

“No,” he traces a line over the curve of your ass to the creases of your thighs, “that’s not going to happen, sweetheart. Not until you tell us what’s going on.” You opt to bury your face in his chest instead and ride Johnny’s hand as Simon coaches, telling you how good you are, how lucky they are, how much you mean to them.

If only they knew. Would they still feel the same?

It’s more than you deserve, you think. More than you know how to handle. The guilt piles onto your shoulders. You’re carrying a life, a life you created with them, a life they should know about.

The decisions waiting in the wings haunt you at every turn.

What should you do? What will you do?

You should tell them. They should know.

Why are you keeping this a secret?

The time is passing too fast, and with it, your panic increases, forcing your back to bow, hands clutching at your legs, head hanging heavy to the floor. At work in the closet, at home the moments you’re alone, the agony steals your breath, heart shredding to pieces. It overcomes you, floods your nervous system until the world spins.

In the shower, you fall apart, truly, knees slamming into tile, your shoulders slumped against the wall.

It’s hard to tell you’re crying with water streaming over your face.

You lose your shit the day Penny crawls across the couch to cuddle you.

She pulls herself up onto your belly, her head resting on your chest, chubby hands fisted in your shirt.

“Bunny wead?” She wants a story, a routine the two of you enjoy together, turning the pages of a children’s book and acting out all the voices. She’ll squeal with glee, her laughter full of excitement, and you’ll tickle her sides while pretending to eat her foot.

It makes you both happy, but today, it splits your soul in two.

You burst into tears. She jolts back, looking up into your face, little brow furrowed in confusion, mouth shocked into a circle.

“Bunny.” She pats your cheek, alarmed, and you skim your nose across the top of her head, breathing her deep, anchoring your arm around her back. She’s starting to get upset, too perceptive, too empathetic, already expressing the traits of both her parents. You try to soothe her distress.

“It’s alright.” Your voice cracks on the promise, her nose pressed to your throat. “It’s alright, Penny. I’m sorry. Everything’s okay.” Johnny’s unmistakable gait sounds on the stairs, still slightly off balance, and you hastily wipe your face, forcing your eyes to his as he approaches the couch.

“What’s wrong?” He sees it immediately, and you shake him off with another lie, so many little white ones rotting into blinding despair.

“I had a bad day at work yesterday, that’s all. Just still trying to process it.” His head cocks.

“Ye sure?”

“Yeah, promise. I’ll be fine.”

The tide changes at work.

A man lies in a medically induced coma, barbiturates keeping him in the dark, a suspended state of uncertainty. His wife waits, and waits, fixes her too keen eyes on you every time she sees you, waiting for an update, good news, anything. Anything that could bring her peace.

On the second day of your work week, your steps stutter at the sight of her sitting bedside, a baby in her arms, gentle words floating between them.

“We’ve moved onto ba now, for a bottle, which is just crazy,” she murmurs, a hand under her cheek, wiping away tracks of tears, “and I think he’s too big for me to carry around at this point.” There’s a wet chuckle, and the baby tips forward, smacking his hand on his dad’s. “Is that daddy?” She bounces him, quiet as he babbles and gurgles, his eyes wide at the sights and sounds in a hospital room.

You clear your throat. She startles.

“Oh god, sorry… I didn’t see you there.”

“It’s okay,” Intruding on private moments is not uncommon, though here it feels different. “I just need to check on some things and then I’ll be out of your hair.” She nods, and outside of the baby’s noises, the room is silent until she breaks it with a whisper.

“I know there’s probably no chance he can hear me,” her fingers stroke through his hair, a pained look on her face, “but I like to believe he can.”

“There’s no definitive research that he can’t,” you tell her softly, carefully going about your work to avoid disturbing them.

“I hope he can hear the baby. He’s… he’s missed so much already, you know?” She sniffles, tears freely falling, and your heart clenches. “We’re broken without him; I’m broken without him. He’s my family, my everything. I can’t… we’re not supposed to be apart. This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

You have thick skin. You’ve seen countless people die. Consoled hundreds of family members. Held hands with patients taking their last breath.

This shouldn’t bother you. It shouldn’t affect you in any way, but when you look at your patient, and his partner, and his child-

All you can see is your boys and their unconditional love. Simon sitting vigilant at Johnny’s bedside. Johnny’s tears when he finally woke up. The fear in Simon’s eyes when Johnny seized, the trust he placed in your promise to take care of him. Penny in his arms as soon as he was strong enough to hold her. Their resolve to hold their family together, their dedication to you through it all. The three of them, a family, now yours, spun together with string stronger than steel, connecting the four of you for the rest of your life.

You’ll make it through. You’ll all make it through. You have their love shining down on your face. The love strong enough to hold you tight, rock you through your nightmares, encourage you to grow, to be yourself, to let it all go.

And they have you. Your love. Something you never thought would exist again, fostered and enticed forward, magnified for them. For the first time, you’re able to give to someone, to comfort them, care for them the way they have for you, hold them tight through their pain, their fears. It’s never felt so…

right.

It’s not one plus one. It’s five. Five hearts, making a family.

You know, without a doubt, they’ll love this baby. They won’t leave your side. They’ll take care of you, they’ll nurture you both, they’ll be solid, and supportive, and patient through it all.

You don’t need them to say it, and you don’t need to be scared.

Their light soothing your despair, healing the deep embedded scars, their warmth of the sun-

The little sunbeam growing inside you.

“You’re a few weeks late.” The midwife shakes her head as you settle on the exam table. You showed up in a whirlwind again, convincing her to fit you in between appointments.

“I know, I… I was struggling with it, but I feel better now. I’m… ready.” Your lips quirk at the corners, and she smiles in return.

“Should we take a look then?” You nod with a deep breath.

The jelly is cold, and she purposefully keeps the screen turned away from you, clicking, measuring, assessing in silence. It's standard policy for any employee or medical professional. Though you're not an ultrasound tech, it's not outside the realm of possibility that you could read the image on the screen before she can tell you gently that something is wrong.

Your past haunts you, taunts you, convinces you this has all been for nothing. You’re too damaged for this. Your body is broken. He took too much.

Still, you hope. You cling to a future, a vision, Penny holding the baby with Johnny’s arms supporting her, Simon half asleep with a burp cloth on his shoulder, little one asleep on his chest.

“Alright,” she turns it back for you to see, her expression colored with kindness. “Everything looks great, honey.”

“Everything?”

“Yes. Placenta is in optimal position, and baby is right on track developmentally for twelve weeks.” She twists a knob, the volume, filling the room with sound of galloping hoofbeats.

The heartbeat.

“Oh my god.” Your hand clasps over your mouth and you desperately try to bring air in through your nose, filling your diaphragm, staving off a river of tears unsuccessfully. She hands you a tissue.

“I’ll get you some printouts, okay?” You can’t do anything but choke on a thank you.

You slip away after your appointment, crossing through the halls leading to the out-patient wing where you’ll find Johnny in physical therapy, Simon in a chair scrolling through his phone just outside. The smile stretches across your face naturally, joy bursting at the seams.  

It's a new day, a new moment to turn away from the darkness and step into the sun.

You’re nearly skipping, heart so full, overflowing with hope, with happiness, your hands trembling, pictures of the scan clutched in your fingers. You hold them so tight, close to your chest, afraid they may disappear, be lost.

In hindsight, the crippling agony and fear you’ve been holding in seems so foolish now. It’s easy to curse yourself for the doubt, for the despair, but the path you took to get here, to be present in this moment, moving forward, was worth it.

They love you, and they’ll love little sunbeam. Penny will be the best big sister. You’ll make new memories, together, build the beginning of this life into a forever. Everything will work out; you can feel it now. You’ve shed the dented armor, the walls, the fence topped with barbed wire. The girl in the mirror, gone. It’s all crumbled down. With Johnny. With Simon. Your family.

A family of five.

You round the corner with your hands knitted together, a flimsy effort to still them, elated and barely able to hold your secret in. You won’t be able to do a cute announcement, won’t be patient enough to do something special like get Penny a shirt that says, “best big sister” even though you’d like to.

You’ve kept it from them for long enough. You need them to know.

You look for Simon first, expecting him to be waiting outside the door, but when he's not there, you glance around, and then peek into the observation window to find the physical therapy room empty.

Where are they? Where-

They’re at the end of the hall, talking to someone out of sight. Simon has his arms crossed, his body angled partially in front of Johnny, who shifts his weight onto his good leg. They’re both wearing serious expressions, Simon’s the most severe, and then Johnny’s lips twist into a grim sort of smile.

Whoever they’re talking to steps forward, and your heart burns into ash, falling through the floor to bottomless depths of darkness.

Phillip.

[grison-in-space]

Listening to Artificial Condition again, it strikes me how much Murderbot uses empathy reflexively as a survival skill. Look at this bit.

Upon meeting it, ART allows it on board and then announces that it knows that Murderbot is rogue. Then ART threatens to destroy it if it hacks ART's own systems. Murderbot is immediately terrified and shuts down all inputs, gives serious thought to spending the entire three month journey unconscious, and then considers the potential avenues of damage from ART's drones. ART, not realizing why Murderbot had suddenly gone silent, tells it to quit sulking, which understandably pisses off the still-terrified Murderbot. It dumps a bunch of memories of coercive treatment into ART's feed, and ART goes silent.

Then this happens:

Then it said, I’m sorry I frightened you. Okay, well. If you think I trusted that apology, you don’t know Murderbot. Most likely it was playing a game with me. I said, “I don’t want anything from you. I just want to ride to your next destination.” I’d explained that earlier, before it opened the hatch for me, but it was worth repeating. I felt it withdraw back behind its wall. I waited, and let my circulatory system purge the fear-generated chemicals. More time crawled by, and I started to get bored. Sitting here like this was too much like waiting in a cubicle after I’d been activated, waiting for the new clients to take delivery, for the next boring contract. If it was going to destroy me, at least I could get some media in before that happened. I started the new show again, but I was still too upset to enjoy it, so I stopped it and started rewatching an old episode of Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. After three episodes, I was calmer and reluctantly beginning to see the transport’s perspective. A SecUnit could cause it a lot of internal damage if it wasn’t careful, and rogue SecUnits were not exactly known for lying low and avoiding trouble. I hadn’t hurt the last transport I had taken a ride on, but it didn’t know that. I didn’t understand why it had let me aboard, if it really didn’t want to hurt me. I wouldn’t have trusted me, if I was a transport. Maybe it was like me, and it had taken an opportunity because it was there, not because it knew what it wanted.

The thing about Murderbot's survival is that it clearly involves quite a bit of negotiating with other constructs and bots. That's how it talks its way onto cargo hauler bots in the first place. It uses empathy--envisioning the emotional and cognitive context of the individuals it encounters--to work out what different kinds of people want, so that it can offer them fair trades. It also uses empathy to consider what humans might be looking for, so it can practice blending in and hide.

Murderbot would never have survived so long if it wasn't capable of assessing the individual desires of the people--human, bot, and construct--around it. It thinks about ART's probable fears and motivations so that it can consider whether ART is inherently an ongoing threat or a potential ally.

When your survival depends on evading detection, you get really good at assessing perceptual biases so that you can shape yourself to fit into them. People talk about murderbot being radically empathetic as a choice it makes, or as a feature of its personality that makes it a good person. But I think murderbot would be the the first person to tell you that this empathy is part of its threat assessment suite, a skill that was developed out of necessity in order to allow you to survive.

It is also a trait that makes murderbot a good person, of course: it chooses very carefully to try to survive by doing as little harm as possible and by offering things, like media, that buy it access to things it needs. But it started as a survival skill. It's part of hypervigilance.

I think one of the strengths of this series is that so many of the things we love about SecUnit are traits developed for survival in an inherently threatening world. The shape of its mind and heart have been changed by the trauma of its origin--but they don't make murderbot less good for being altered, even if that skill was developed in a traumatic context.

I like that.

[bindibites]

Its done!!! Bunch of rambles and stuff under the cut :) (its long, but I hope you guys enjoy!!!)

-> General Stuff Petra is built like a rectangle with enough muscle to make you experience regret swifter than you may have ever thought you could.

Rips in her clothes aren't super uncommon and she isn't usually super quick to mend them unless its basically ruining the garments. Carabiner. This woman is GAY. If you don't know the full meaning go look for it :) Easy attachment to weapons and tools, Miss Butter is probably akin to a prized possession everything considered; With as much as she's used having mending was a must, but truth be told she's probably about as kitted out as you'd expect end-game diamond gear to be. That sword is never going anywhere if Petra can help it. Especially after the stint with Stella basically stealing her. She has a lot of scars, from a lot of different sources between smaller bumps and scrapes, explosions, enemies... the Wither Storm. Petra's wither sickness in particular was almost deadly, and the damage it'd done to her body never fully went away. The veins in her arm remained discolored around the scar, and the arm is mildly weaker than it would've been pre-withered though through steady use is basically back to being good as new. Petra's lungs also never fully recovered, a mild chronic cough left in its wake, though gets worse whenever Petra is sick and her body is weak again. Speaking of... -> Wither (Sickness) Wither typically enters the body through a physical wound and spreads through the circulatory system. Affecting the blood, it attacks and weakens the inflicteds organs and continues to be spread further by the heart simply doing its job. Variant Two is caused by contact to the Wither Storm (See: What happened to Gabriel.) The wither storm is not the only way to get sick with wither, but is the worst and long lasting. From weakest to strongest: Wither roses - Wither Skeletons - The Wither - Wither Storm. Injuries from all but the Wither Storm will eventually run their course as it doesn't have a consistent source to keep pulling from; thanks to its use of the command block, this does not apply to the Wither Storm. Wither acts similarly to being poisoned, though it acts slower, its side effects and danger are far worse, and dying cannot be ruled out of possibilities even for the weakest source of it. Untreated wither will kill the inflicted if they become too weak before the body can get it out of its system. -> Relationships Generally Petra is very much a provider, she cares intensely for people she's close to and enjoys doing acts of service for them. Her relationships mean a lot to her, and it tends to lead to her putting all of herself into the people she cares about; sometimes for better or for worse. Lukas and Petra have been friends for awhile, well before either of them knew about Jesse and his friends. While not exactly childhood friends, they've known each other long enough to know each other and certainly act the part.

Petra and Stella didn't always have a strained relationship, in fact when they'd first gotten to know each other things were great. Stella respected Petra's capabilities, found her affinity for exploration and her skill in combat to be amazing. Though over time, it became less admiration and more of manipulation, Petra was an easy source of loot Stella both couldn't and didn't want to get on her own... and who better to turn to than the explorer who loved her. Things did not end on good terms between the two, and ended very bitterly given even after Petra gave her another chance she was subjected to getting tricked into doing work all over again. (S2) Petra has a fond admiration towards Olivia, though believing at most that the girl could use a bit more guts and trust in her own abilities; after all she's done things most of the rest of the group couldn't even with all the time in the world! Really a brains and brawn type situation, and the two often bounce off of each other a bit. Olivia appreciates having the company, and someone who even if she doesn't fully understand whats going on is intent to help get the materials to make it possible if need-be, in return Petra has been able to pick up bits of knowledge, the way redstone works at least in its bare minimum and some of the internals of more machinery in Redstonia. ...While the she might never fully utilize that knowledge, it makes Olivia happy to have someone else in the group be attentive and care about what makes her happy. Petra and Jesse have also been very close, though it did take some time for her to warm up to the way Jesse was so... enthusiastic to even be recognized by her sometimes. Though, through everything the two know they can rely on one another to have each others back. Though neither of them could ever see each other romantically, it's still an undeniable how fundamentally close they'd become. It's definitely more than just a friendship, but neither of them could probably concisely tell you anything about their relationship on a level past "Well, we aren't dating..." Even in light of the others having different responsibilities to tend to, Jesse was still there; The adventures didn't have to end, and they didn't, and Petra wasn't alone because of Jesse's willingness to go with her on whatever excursion she needed to, or wanted to. - If you read all of this ur a real one... three thousand wither storms upon you as thanks 💜

[vidavalor]

Yes, Crowley's expression here is hilarious and always worth a post in its own right 😊 but I thought I'd share something about what he's doing with his hand for anyone who is unfamiliar with that particular gesture, as it has a name and a purpose that goes along with a few other scenes in the series. It's also a good strategy in real life for anyone experiencing anxiety and might want another tool in their toolbox for it.

TWs: anxiety; trauma; PTSD; brief, indirect mention of SA.

For a lot of people who get something on their hands and are exploring the texture of it, the inclination would be to rub together the thumb and the index finger. Crowley's unique use of his fingers isn't just a sorcery thing, though, as what he is doing in this scene-- touching his thumb to his middle finger-- has a name amongst us humans.

It's called shuni mudra.

If you meditate or practice yoga, you have likely heard of mudras, which are different ways of positioning the hands to use the fingers to create a seal that directs prana-- aka energy flow-- in different ways throughout the body. Shuni mudra is done to generate a sense of calm and patience-- especially patience with the self. It is a hand gesture done as a way to help regulate the heart, circulatory & nervous systems and is most commonly used to counter anxiety. Like with any mudra, you don't have to do it in the midst of a yoga or a meditation session but can make the gesture just whenever you feel the need, as Crowley did in the scene above. If you give it a try, you'll probably find that it is surprisingly relaxing for such a simple gesture.

Crowley's outsized startle response to getting hit with the paint is very funny but it is also pretty typical of someone with PTSD-- especially someone who has it as a result of bodily autonomy violations, as is the case with Crowley. People who have experienced non-consensual loss of control over themselves tend to have a jumpy response to sudden, unexpected stimuli in their environment.

Even though Crowley flailing dramatically is hilarious to watch because he's so over-the-top with it, beneath the humor in the scene is also that being unexpectedly hit with something out of nowhere is a very common thing that can trigger anxiety in people with PTSD. Good Omens is very good at finding some humor in dealing with darkness and a comparable scene in tone to this is Gabriel bouncing off the walls when the angels show up at the bookshop in S2. What is very amusing "books are keen!", fly-chasing zaniness is really, underneath, unconscious anxiety manifesting, as part of Gabriel's mind knows that the angels are a threat to him and is reacting with panic at them in his bookshop safe space.

Ironically, reacting with panic to an angel perceived as a threat being in the bookshop safe space is also Crowley's S2 plot, as if he and Gabriel didn't already have more in common than Crowley is ready to admit...

But, back to the hand gesture thing...

There is evidence that things like shuni mudra are effective simply because they help to create a pause that interrupts anxious and self-critical thoughts, which then allows space for calming the mind and body. Used in the way that Crowley is using it here, it's very similar to the Five Things/5-4-3-2-1 strategy for staving off or stopping an anxiety attack, in that both pull people back into the present moment by creating a sense of concentration on something besides the feeling of panic.

That Crowley does this pretty intuitively in the paintball scene as a response to having something anxiety-inducing happen to him indicates he likely does it pretty frequently. Crowley automatically going to shuni mudra while he takes a breath and figures out what, exactly, has happened, is indicative of someone with an awareness of their anxiety and PTSD and who has and uses strategies to help manage them, which goes along with things we've seen in other scenes as well.

Crowley and Aziraphale are inhaling places and food with a clear devotion to trying to live mindfully. You don't need to have experienced trauma to do that but mindful living is prescriptive for virtually every sort of mental health struggle that exists so Crowley and Aziraphale seeing it as therapeutic, as well as enjoyable, seems likely.

In the bookshop, they have a lotus flower rug. The lotus flower has long been a symbol of trauma recovery. You might have heard of the saying "no mud, no lotus", referring to how beauty and health can be made in the wake of horrible experiences. The lotus flower originates in the mud at the bottom of a body of water and travels through it to bloom above the surface, which is at the root of it being symbolic across different cultures for things like enlightenment, purity, strength, and recovery. Its resilience and ability to literally wade through struggle to come through into the light and bloom makes it a metaphor for getting through different forms of trauma.

That Crowley and Aziraphale have this rug in their World of Carpets that is the bookshop, when combined with these other scenes, show how they're dedicated to working through their stuff together and trying to be the best trauma-informed partners they can to one another.

It's also on the lotus rug that Crowley and Aziraphale put Gabriel to perform the miracle to protect him and, when they do, their magic is done with both of them using another hand gesture-- gyan mudra, the seal of knowledge-- to complete the miracle.

I think if you take all of this together, you could make the case for either or both of Crowley and Aziraphale using yoga and/or meditation to help manage the effects of trauma. For those who think that Crowley has chronic pain, there's also that both of these things have been helpful for managing that in many people, so that might be another reason for Crowley, in particular, to practice them.

The lotus rug in the shop might not just be symbolic but also a meditation/yoga spot. Do we think The Serpent always starts with Snake Pose, just because? 🤭

[velnna]

The more I learn about your comic... The more I fall in love with it. Especially your bugs! Like can you explain more about them? I'm really curious about them (from the full bugs to the hybrids and anything else that comes to mind).

Anyway your art is wonderful and I adore seeing it on my dash. And you can info-dump too. If you want ofc.

Thank you!

The worldbuilding is a work in progress (as it always is, but the first chunk of the comic itself is pretty self-contained so we've been slowly tinkering at the rest of the world and creatures as we go without affecting it much), so we mostly have loose rules and ideas for the bugs as a species. Or anything in between for that matter.

For all intended purposes, bug people are all the same species and can usually cross-breed within mechanical constraints, as well as mix with the elves we threw into the mix. Genetics? Don't know her. We operate on Sims logic here.

A full bug has roughly a human lifespan, with some variation depending on the type of bug it's closer to and some type-specific quirks. The one we've explorer the most, as it pertains to Ashton and the latest batch out of the oven, is the ability that some types might have to undergo metamorphosis, usually at the expense of lifespan. This is Ashton btw

And this is Ashton pre-metamorphosis:

Something like this isn't super common tho! So despite me drawing a bunch of butterfly or moth people they generally don't get to that point and stay looking more like funky lizards with many arms

Bugs can have many arms or legs or eyes, funky colours, exoskeletal bits, antennae, or look pretty close to your average human/elf with hidden bug features. Dahlia for instance is a vaguely spidery bug but can easily hide a bunch of her eyes and secretes venom thru hidden glandes so you could mistake her for an elf

Meanwhile it'd be very hard to mistake someone like this guy for anything other than a horned bug

If u catch my drift.

Some bugs are small! Some are huge. Some are out there committing atrocities

Some dont look like bugs at all

They're generally not as physically strong as the average elf but more resilient in a cockroach kinda way. They can have a chaotic range of circulatory systems and internal organs that sometimes just make them really hard to kill and its also pretty hard to keep track of every variation of the species and their quirks.

That being said in a lot of places they're super common and coexist with elves just fine, mix up and it's also not super uncommon to have half breeds like our man Staeve (the ThUG edition). The closer you get to elf the longer you live and less "non human" traits you have. There's also a bunch of different types of regular ass elf and it all falls under the elf category unless we decide to name them something else down the line.

Then you've got a smaller category of super elves that have been isolated for so long they never blended with anything else, are more attuned to magic and in general have a sort of mythical status amongst everyone else. They also have the longest lifespan at around 250 ish years.

That's sort of the TL;DR for now! Ollie and I have started to put all the info we've got into a single repository and do want to start sharing it (probably as patreon posts for now) because comics are slow and the scope might not encompass that much of what we want to explore of this world. And the chaotic idea machine never stops

Here's a metamorphosis meme for ya

[nerdykorgi]

GRIMWALKER BIOLOGY & ANATOMY STUDIES [pt 1 / ?? ]

(aka, my ideas and thoughts on how these bad but sad boys work!)

with pictures :D !

ok for starters! I tried my best to make real life connections with actual biological stuff and yeah but there are some things ima have to bullshit lol

i hope yall like rambling

[ ^ Basic ideas ]

Lets talk about anatomy!

From what i can tell from the grim walker ingredient book they have some pretty ... interesting ingredients...

GALDORSTONE:

Heart and Power apparently. What i can make of this is that the Galderstone not only powers and animates the non-organic materials but acts as a circulatory system, flowing blood and nutrients to keep the body stable by creating magical pulses of pressure that makes the blood flow. Blood is kind of ideal for homeostasis and living and om pretty sure we've seen hunter bleed at least once... Perhaps the Galderston can create an artificial vascular system to carry oxygen, magic, and nutrients throughout the growing body instead of just making veins from scratch. I want to say the Galderstone can generate energy for the grimwalker but that would mean they wouldn't need to eat, and I don't think that's true. I think its main purpose is just activate the magic materials and is like the generator to a car, keeping it running. If the Galderstone were to break or fail, the grimwalker probably come unglued and fall apart to its components (which would be pretty horrifying)

ORTET BONE:

Very key component! The ortet bone kind of helps form the blueprint for the species of the grimwalker, as well as supplying blood, a skeletal system, and components of DNA. The most basic definition of the word ORTET is as follows: the original plant from which the members of a clone have descended. Fun fact: since were using cloning terms, Hunter is to Caleb as Ramet is to Ortet (Ramet is an individual clone) I did research for cloning and as it turns out you kinda need a complete genome for cloning but for bullshitting reasons (which will be explained) we can clone with incomplete DNA and make synthetic dna from scratch! I hypothesis that the reason grims can look different from the ortet instead of just straight carbon copies is due to the bone that is used and how much of i there is. Like example a grimwalker made using just a toe phalange is going to look A LOT less like the ortet compared to a grimwalker made from something like the cranium and bigger bones and such. Basically smaller bones dont carry as much dna info and leads for room to fill in the blanks. Sadly this means alot of Grimwalkers had A LOT of health problems (this can range anywhere from immune system problems to liver failure which is quiet typical in clones, that and it is often that clones appear different from the ortet due to enviromental factors and influences)

[ As the image above shows, subject #103 has a very close resemblance to the ortet due to the bones that are used ] There are pros and cons to using bones! Pros being that they can hold DNA for much longer than tissue, but the thing is bones can degrade really easy if not preserved, and i don't think belos had a bottle of hydrogen peroxide laying around that he could dunk Caleb in, so let's just assume he made sure his brother's corpse was well cleaned and kept. Biggest con is the human body only has so many bones (about 206) I believe that the reason Grimwalker can generate organs is by using the ortet and making the stem cells created from bone marrow. Stem cells are very important because they can turn into different types of cells like blood and tissue cells as well as repair tissue. I believe the process of growing grimwalkers is kind of like "Self-renewal" the process in which stem cells divide and make more of the body

STONESLEEPER LUNGS:

Im just gonna assume stone sleeper had very small lungs because aint no way those t rex lungs fit in a teenage boy. I originally thought The reason that Grimwalkers can stay underground for so long is because the lungs, similar to how a stonesleeper hibernates for centuries (kind of like how wood frogs can basically cryo-hibernate) by petrifying but a grimwalker IS growing and therefore needs resources to grow, like how a baby does in the womb. So it has to be actively getting said resources so it cant be petrified. I now think the reason that grimwalkers have these lungs is because theyre easily compatible to the galderstone, which needs oxygen for the blood and that they can be easily harvested and stored in stone form. But that does give room for cool adaptations like self-petrification! (which i will get into next time :D )

PALISTROM WOOD:

Ok its says that the wood is used for keratin, which is a fiberous protein which can make all kinds of things like scales, hair, nails, feathers, horns, claws, hooves, and skin! And since its also a plant means it can grow 4 times as fast as normal keratin can! This explains why hunters hair grew so ridiculously fast in season 3, was because his hair can produce its own carbohydrates and nutrients on its own... This means his skin and surface wounds can heal quite fast! (down side is it might give him something similar to PSS (Peeling Skin Syndrome ) ...) I think Palisman is very important becasue of several reason! 1 Like palisman, it can "animate" if you will, more or less help pull off the illusion that he is alive. 2 Like mentioned before, Grimwalkers need nutrients to grow and I believe the palistrom wood aids in that! Using a process called cellular diffusion, the grimwalker can take in nutrients from the ground around them (which i theorize to be highly fertilized) through THEIR SKIN! and into the veins and flesh of the grims 3 I believe that in the process of forming, the galderstone "activates" the palistrom wood, forming into skin or hair but this process of rapid growth leaves the skin all undone and fragile because a proper cutaneous barrier was not formed yet (which is useful for being malleable. This is why Hunter's ears are so 1 .god blessed big because they are fake and molded to look like that. Its also why The grimwalker Belos possessed fell apart so easily, like he said "It wasnt ready")

SELKIEDOMUS SCALES:

This one kind of confused me because... well why do we need the seal flesh when the ortet can just regenerate it?? I think its kind of like the stuffing if you will, it also speeds up the process of producing flesh by a lot! Especially if you want to make grown grimwalkers! Im thinking that Grimwalkers don't have a set "age" theyre just as big as however many materials they are given to work with. Even though the book says they can start as babies, if you look closely there is a check mark towards the more adolescent figure, so im thinking that they are not ready to be unearthed until they reach a certain growth ima guess around the age of over 10-ish?? We don't know how young Hunter was pulled out of the floor but it seems like he was fairly young, or atleast younger. This means while Hunter appears to be 16, he might have only been living for around 5 years or so.

Now typically normal seals have a lot of blubber which is a thick layer of fat, also called adipose tissue, directly under the skin of a marine mammals. Its used for insulation. The thing is tho, it says Selkiedomus Scales, not flesh... Dont worry there are mammals that have scales like Pangolins but i dont know if these scales are like thick plated or small and stretchy. Magic bullshitting time, Im goin to assume Selkiedomus scales refers to a layer of scale-like flesh that protect the creature from boiling but is also highly malleable and easy to work with. Maybe the reason they can withstand such heat is due to unsaturated bonds of butadiene molecules mixed into the blubber that are highly heat resistant Selkie domus flesh is molded and into the relative shape of desired body and using the DNA of the ortet the flesh is reshaped and reused into the desired muscles shapes. The vascular system created by the galderstone spreads throughout the flesh and binds with it. healing together and becoming flesh, kind of like a speed up version of skin graft maturation! This is useful for growing them quickly because they don't have to grow an entire adult body from scratch so this speed up the process by eeeerrm 20 years or so lol

Thats only the basics for now, sooner or later i shall get into the more fun stuff, like adaptaions of Grim walker, the growing process, ad more!

Hope you guys enjoyed my ideas, if i got anything incorrect let me know, my research isnt exremly searched through.

last question ill leave you all with, it kind of stumped me while i was working...

i have a theory but i wanna know your thoughts...

(i worked hard on all this btw, i really hope people read it lol /lh.)

[adaginy]

The Big Guide to Humans: Skin

First: Yes, it is true that humans have whole-body stripes that not all species can see. Yes, it is also true that they themselves cannot usually see them. They are an artifact of pre-natal development and are present from birth. They usually have no significance, though some skin abnormalities may follow their usually-invisible path (or may make them visible).

See body art for questions about deliberate skin markings.

--- Human skin is a soft yet durable covering made of stretchy proteins. It provides protection from water loss, pathogens and UV radiation, insulates their body against external temperatures, synthesizes a chemical they use to make their skeleton, and is home to humans' abilities to feel touch and to cool themselves.

The skin is made up of layers, further divided into more layers, and the different functions are distributed within them. The details of these layers are not necessary to know for working alongside humans; suffice it to say that the topmost layer may noticeably flake off in very dry environs and this is mostly harmless but irritating to the human, oozing a clear but yellow-tinted liquid (see immune system) represents a minor but disproportionately painful injury of having scraped off the uppermost layers, and bleeding (oozing or gushing a red opaque liquid, see circulatory system) means the injury is deeper still.

Skin that has been damaged can usually repair itself over time, although it may take assistance (externally binding the wound shut, for example). Deeper wounds are likely to scar, that is, to be repaired with a tougher skin of different appearance. This is not the same thing as a callus, seen on the base of human feet and sometimes on the fingers, in which the skin grows thicker and tougher to resist pressure injuries.

It is normal for tiny hairs to be present in the skin over most of the human's body, regardless of sex or gender. Both sexes may have prominent hair on their faces or torso after puberty (see lifespan and development), but it is much more common with men.

If the human is warm (likely if ambient temperature is above melting point of gallium) or has been exerting themselves, they may "sweat." Salt water will leak in small amounts from all over their skin, concentrated on the forehead/under their hair, in the soft socket under where their arms meet the body, and around the external genitalia, to make use of evaporative cooling. They may begin to smell strongly; they usually find this smell unpleasant. If the human is cold, or in some scary situations, the tiny hairs may stand up instead of laying flat. This is an evolutionary artifact from ancestors with thicker fur and no longer helps to keep them warm or frightens predators.

Humans' sense of touch is very sensitive, especially on their hands, but outside of their hands it is sometimes not precise. You could lay one of their hairs on a surface and ask them to find it by feel, and they would be able to do so with their hands even if the surface was not smooth. If you dropped a single hair on the bare arm of a human, they would feel it, but they would not be able to pinpoint its exact location without seeing it.

!! Due to tiny dangerous creatures on their home planet, humans will usually immediately attempt to remove the source of an unexpected small light touch, often by swiping at it with a hand or by jerking their body. If you are fragile or tiny, and this would damage or dislodge you, get their attention before physical contact. !!

While humans can only see a narrow portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, they can sense somewhat beyond that band with their skin. Infrared can be sensed as heat, especially at short distances. Ultraviolet can be sensed over time, as specialized molecules in the skin cause cells to sacrifice themselves to prevent it from penetrating farther into the skin. However, by the time the human has noticed the feeling of this cell-sacrifice, the skin is likely to be damaged enough that it will darken and/or become red and sensitive soon (within the timespan of a human sleep cycle). Humans with naturally darker skin can generally withstand ultraviolet radiation for longer periods of time before becoming damaged. When the darkening or reddening has passed, small brown marks called "freckles" will often remain, usually for the rest of the human's life. If the skin has reached the red stage, as the color returns to normal the damaged skin may come off in thin sheets as though the human is molting. Do not offer assistance with removal unless they ask.

Human skin is covered in bacteria, viruses, and fungi that are mostly harmless to them. This is covered in more detail under microbiome with some pertinent points under mating.

[weirdmageddon]

the new zeltik video finally pushed me over the edge and made the connections between the bunch of details i noticed throughout totk seem more significant than i already thought they were. by myself i was hovering around these connections i came upon like “is this anything?” for a while, but after the video i was like “ok this is something”

alongside the theme of hands, i also noticed a secondary and more minor theme of blood and siphoning/circulation

most importantly

rauru rips into ganon’s chest with his bare hand like a badass to bind ganondorf’s heart, suck away and purify his dark magic. (btw and Not importantly ganondorf still has rauru’s finger holes in him and it’s pretty funny)

gloom seeps out from organically branching root-like structurs in the depths. if you watch closely you can see gloom slowly move inside them. they all seem to lead back to gloom’s lair where ganondorf is absorbing them. this is very evident in the cutscene where you finally make it to ganondorf himself and they show a close-up of this through thicker branches of these “gloom vessels”

gloom sucks away vitality from a person. fittingly, whenever a heart container is damaged due to gloom, you hear a heartbeat. gloom hands visibly siphon this vitality in more of a physical way. if you watch them they will sort of grotesquely pulsate when sucking the Juices out of link

is gloom ganondorf’s dark-magic infused blood? when the edge of the master sword cut mummydorf’s face, instead of blood it oozed gloom which boiled after making contact with a chip of the sword. rather than being magenta gelatin like malice, gloom is red and flat, staining surfaces like a liquid

phantom ganon is made entirely out of gloom. the compendium says it’s made from “the demon king’s own flesh and blood”. the dark clumps left behind from the gloom spawn/phantom ganon (with the depths talisman on them i guess to turn it into gloom antibodies lol??) also pulsate like monster guts

my idea is that this all goes back to those roots that pump this back to ganondorf to revitalize him. he was siphoned by rauru, now he siphons others to revitalize himself. there’s a lot of details put into this no way it isn’t connected

btw i didnt notice it at first but the landing pad for gloom’s lair is shaped like a heart like actually. it shouldve been stupid obvious

the gloom system is like a reverse circulatory system. instead of nurturing the periphery from a central location, it drains the periphery and delivers the nutrients to a central location. so like, oops! all veins. apparently after writing this i found an identical point from a forum post made ONLY YESTERDAY

“real world cardiovascular systems deliver vitality to the rest of the body from a centric location, while Gloom drains vitality from its surroundings and delivers it to a centric location”

and this “nurturance” line of thought made me remember how I thought at one point that the lightroots look a bit like hearts and the big roots are like the vessels. it wasn’t really a significant thought at the time until I made these newer connections. if we put them into my analogy, they would be the opposite to the gloom vessel system since they deliver light from the surface and emit it to the periphery (the surrounding area). i associate light with rauru, and he healed/nurtured link, so there’s just parallels and another reason that made me think of the lightroots. also the lightroots heal gloom-damaged heart containers

there are more minor but supplementary details such as

the sound of a heartbeat is featured very prominently in the E3 2019 teaser, and is literally the first noise in the game itself as the opening screens play. so it’s literally the first experiences we have with the game, both the game itself and in the meta about the game.

gaining an essence from a goddess statue, the heartbeat was not in botw (and of course neither was the miasma emitting from link’s entire body every time)

the gloom in link’s body reacts to every shrine of light blessing he absorbs into his arm and the joycons themselves pulse using the haptics

probably more shit i missed lol

the whole thing doesn’t really mean anything significant to the lore at all but neither does the hands theme. but it’s just definitely a pattern, potentially a minor theme, and deliberate choice in setting tone. i think it’s Something. im not a heavy zelda theorist tuber or anything but i’m very observant of patterns and i like to share them for deeper appreciation and contemplation/discussion

[play-now-my-lord]

fun fact about stomach acid, postnasal drip, and headaches

when food enters the stomach, parietal cells respond by producing hydrochloric acid. as you'll remember from chemistry class, it's not exactly possible to produce any chemical from nothing; in stomach HCl's case, the reaction produces two products - hydrochloric acid, which goes in the stomach, and sodium bicarbonate (aka baking soda), which goes into the blood. under normal conditions, this isn't particularly dangerous. the mucus lining of the stomach is dissolved by acid way slower than the stomach secretes mucus. but if your stomach contains a large mass of something that HCl is bad at dissolving - say, postnasal drip - this can result in a sort of acidic spiral where the stomach tries to produce more and more acid, possibly producing heartburn and ulcers, but more importantly the blood has to sink more and more NaHCO₃, which constricts blood vessels, causing pain and distress (especially headaches, general feeling of malaise) and in unusually extreme cases can hurt your organs. if you've had really bad postnasal drip and have a headache, try having about an ounce of lemon or lime juice or cooking vinegar - they're better at eating through mucus than HCl is, and will more importantly cause the acid-producing reactions in the stomach to slacken, giving your circulatory system precious time to neutralize its pH. as someone who has had a lot of sinus infections, i cannot emphasize enough how tremendous the relief is from having a small amount of something suitably caustic in my stomach after a night of filling it with bullshit

[nyoomerr]

How about half demon SY fic? Maybe with some Cinderella-esque elements?

I can easily imagine Airplane making another half demon (of the non-heavenly variety) as a character foil for Binghe.

The original version was regularly mistreated by his full demon relations, saw them sucking up to the also half-demon emperor (maybe even trying to marry off a bratty full demon half-sister), and in his rage set up some dramatic ‘revenge’ plot that ended in his death.

Of course, with Shen Yuan in the role (and not wanting to die like the OG-version), he somehow bungles the whole thing into a seduction instead.

i'm not sure about cinderella-esque, but here's some half demon sy taking pity on things he really shouldn't be taking pity on, lmao

---

Luo Binghe was not the only half demon in Proud Immortal Demon Way, of course. Between cultivators that wanted to get a little freaky with it (weird) and demon lords who took human women as war prizes (downright terrible), there were plenty of occasions for mixed breeds to be born. 

Luo Binghe was, however, the only successful half demon.

His spiritual pathways developed perfectly suited to balance demonic and spiritual qi without getting the two energies tangled, and none of his demonic traits interfere with his human ones as so many other half demons experience. His demonic teeth sit without discomfort in his human mouth, he has no extra demonic appendages that struggle to reconcile with a human circulatory system, and his claws don’t even bleed when he retracts and extends them in a way that would cause any other half demon to be crippled with pain.

Perhaps it’s a result of his miracle healing blood parasites working overtime to keep his body from sabotaging itself; perhaps it’s simply the protagonist halo at work.

Either way, the less fortunate half demons of Proud Immortal Demon Way had every reason to despise Luo Binghe. Most of them did, or at the very least started off that way - several partly demonic women had of course been won out in the end by charming smiles and the discovery of just what other benefits Luo Binghe received from his successful mixing (read: his monster dick).

Shen Yuan had not transmigrated into a woman, though, and the character he had landed inside of had been one of the less fortunate half demons Luo Binghe ever stumbled across. 

Shen Yuan’s body had tried to grow both human and demonic ears alike, one on top of the other, warping each other and resulting in permanently impaired hearing. His pupils were stuck in the large, open shape of the sorts of demons that live almost entirely in the dark, but his human retina was not similarly adjusted, and Shen Yuan suffered near constant migraines whenever he went out in the sun. His teeth were made of rows of sharp needles, but his diet had not adjusted to allow him to eat as much - or as raw of - meat as his demonic ancestry had prepared him for, to say nothing of the way the sharp points of his teeth always left his mouth bleeding.

It was miserable. 

Even the good parts - the interesting parts, the things like the way his hair looked iridescent in the light or the general increase in energy and durability that Shen Yuan got to experience - did not seem to make up for the downsides of his mixed blood. 

And that was all before taking into the account the way that Shen Yuan was nearly entirely shunned by both demonic and human cultures alike, too.

Ah, it was unfair!! What kind of transmigration experience treated its host so poorly?! What kind of shitty wish fulfillment left the victim so deeply unfortunate?! Shen Yuan wanted a refund, damn it!!

If there was one saving grace to the situation, it was that Shen Yuan was not beholden to the plot in any way. The original host Shen Yuan had taken over had, in the later chapters of PIDW, been one of the prominent figures at the head of an attempted coup. His resentment towards his own life had burned and burned until he’d redirected it at Luo Binghe, a symbol of unfair success that he would never see, and he’d gotten himself barely half a paragraph in PIDW to describe his vengeful death for his troubles.

Shen Yuan refused to be such a small footnote in Luo Binghe’s life. If he was going to suffer by living in this world, then he’d wring every bit of joy he could from the world that causes that suffering. 

Naturally, the only good thing that this world offers is Luo Binghe himself.

“My Lord,” Shen Yuan demures, his tone hushed as he bends to refill Luo Binghe’s goblet. 

He had not been able to win a direct audience with Luo Binghe; outside of Luo Binghe himself, no half-breed is considered of good enough standing to be allowed the emperor’s time in such a way. Instead, Shen Yuan had taken a job as a servant in the Underground Palace, carefully biding his time and working his way towards this very moment, where he’d get to lean in close to refill Luo Binghe’s drink during a meal.

Luo Binghe cuts a sharp glance at him, then at the drink Shen Yuan has poured him, but says nothing.

“My Lord,” Shen Yuan says again, wetting his lips nervously. “The cursed mirror you seek is in the Fire Grass Marshes.”

Luo Binghe hums, his expression unreadable. “And how does a little servant know of such a thing?”

Shen Yuan swallows thickly. ‘I read it in a story about you in another world,’ isn’t exactly the sort of answer that would cut it, here. He can’t just brush it away as rumor, though, either; Shen Yuan needs to prove that he is uniquely useful to Luo Binghe. A usefulness that will both excuse his impudence in approaching Luo Binghe this way, and will allow Shen Yuan to remain close to Luo Binghe in the future.

Shen Yuan will not lose this gamble.

“This lowly one is a half demon like my Lord is,” Shen Yuan says, voice hushed. “My Lord is blessed; the rest of us are -”

Shen Yuan’s words catch in his throat. He’s only been in this body for a little under a decade, but it’s still - the hardships he’s had to endure, and the discrimination, and - Shen Yuan swallows again, trying to steady himself.

“In general, half breeds are not accepted in either culture,” Shen Yuan finally says, voice still low and deferential. “We have had to find livings in places that are not generally hospitable.”

“And you’ve lived in the Fire Grass Marshes as a result, then?” Luo Binghe asks.

Shen Yuan nods. The rest of the dining room has fallen silent by now, watching closely as Luo Binghe considers the daring little servant that has approached him as such. It makes Shen Yuan sweat, just a bit, but then again…

Their attention is not nearly as heavy as the single-minded focus of Luo Binghe himself. 

“The Fire Grass Marshes may not be worth the trouble to retrieve such a small item,” Luo Binghe says after a long silence, turning his gaze away from Shen Yuan at last. “There are other artifacts this Lord can use instead.”

Shen Yuan… maybe panics just a bit. He didn’t make this much of an effort to have Luo Binghe’s attention only to be dismissed outright like this, as if it isn’t worth the bother, ah!!

“Of course, my Lord wouldn’t have to fetch it himself!” Shen Yuan rushes to say. “That is, this lowly one can - if it pleases my Lord, I mean - for you -”

“If you’d offer to fetch it yourself, why didn’t you simply bring it with you now?” Luo Binghe asks blandly. Then, a bit more dangerously, he adds: “Don’t waste this Lord’s time, little servant.”

“If the mirror isn’t good enough, this servant can fetch something else,” Shen Yuan tries. “This lowly one knows much about lands that aren’t usually fit for exploration, so -”

“Why?” Luo Binghe interrupts, turning back to once more fix Shen Yuan with his full attention. “The only reward you will receive is your life, should I decide to spare you for the insolence.”

Shen Yuan swallows thickly, once, twice. He needs to fix this, or else his life - if he manages to keep it - will only end up more miserable than it was before. 

He refuses to go back to that, not now that he’s managed to be so close to Luo Binghe.

“This lowly one only wishes to help spare my Lord of unnecessary suffering -”

Luo Binghe stands suddenly, his chair tipping behind him and the dishes on the table falling and spilling at the sudden jostling movement.

Shen Yuan doesn’t much notice, what with the way Luo Binghe has wrapped a single large hand around his throat and begun to squeeze.

“Do not dare to speak of my suffering,” Luo Binghe snarls, his teeth inches from Shen Yuan’s face. “Do not dare to presume to know what I can and can not tolerate.”

Shen Yuan gasps, scrambling with his stupid, defective claws at the hand around his neck.

“I’m sorry,” he manages to choke out, “I’m sorry, but - but regardless of what you can tolerate, you shouldn’t have to suffer at all, it’s -”

Luo Binghe’s grip tightens, and Shen Yuan falls silent, focusing on trying to breathe. 

He does not break eye contact with Luo Binghe, though.

Because this is the truth of it: Shen Yuan’s mixed breed body sucks ass, and he’s suffered for it, and he’s been humiliated for it, and even the cool, kickass parts of transmigration have been kinda lame for it. He kind of hates it. He more than kind of understands the resentment that the original goods had harbored.

But Shen Yuan has the insight of a PIDW reader, and he knows that despite his perfect biology, Luo Binghe has suffered far more than most half breeds have. 

Shen Yuan and his kin are shunned, but they are not outright beaten or discarded or starved or pushed into the Abyss. They may be given shitty jobs, but they are given jobs; they’ve never had anyone try to sabotage their cultivations or been forced to overturn the demonic hierarchy just to find a safe place to sleep. Most people dislike them, but those that do care for Shen Yuan and other half breeds like him can be trusted; their regard is honest, as it can not be motivated by any sort of desire for power or influence.

Shen Yuan has suffered, but he has also experienced luxuries that Luo Binghe has not. 

He’s suffered, and he’s hated this stupid fucking transmigration, but - 

But in the end, he could have found ways to enjoy it that didn’t involve walking up to the protagonist and offering to help. He could have used his meta knowledge to get rich and powerful enough to explore the world on a cool vacation, instead of trying to use it to bargain for a spot at Luo Binghe’s side.

“Binghe should have someone looking out for him,” Shen Yuan wheezes. Maybe wheezes. Maybe he doesn’t say it at all. His vision is spotty and his brain is a bit foggy and he certainly wouldn’t have dared to say such a thing if he was fully conscious. 

Luo Binghe’s grip slackens all at once, and Shen Yuan crumples to the ground, coughing. 

“You’ll get only one chance,” Luo Binghe warns him. It’s very clearly a threat.

When Shen Yuan manages to look up at him, though, his expression is not as cold and dangerous as it had been a minute ago.

It looks hungry.

[learnyouabiology]

Fun Fact: Starfish get around using a hydraulic system!

I want to start off by saying: you may have heard that starfish have sea water instead of blood! This is not true!

Before I explain, let me point out this little dot that every starfish has (and I SWEAR that this is relevant)

(It’s like they all have lil’ buttons on! 1, 2, 3)

This little spot is known as a madreporite, from Italian madre (”mother”) + Latin poro (”pore”). 

What is it? Well, to over-simplify:

The madreporite is basically a pressure valve for the insides of the starfish. It lets water in and out of its water vascular system as needed. In order to prevent debris and sea life and other non-desirables from getting inside the starfish, the madreporite filters the water that it takes in.

this is what the madreporite looks like up close:

(Name origin: apparently someone saw that and thought “huh, that kind of looks like madrepore coral, but tiny! They... weren’t wrong.)

Now, you may look at the name “water vascular system” and think “hey, I know ‘vascular’! That's related to blood!” This is a reasonable misunderstanding.

While in humans, the circulatory system is part of a vascular system (along with our lymphatic system) in the starfish’s water vascular system, seawater is NOT analogous to blood in a circulatory system. Or, well, it’s complicated, because it does do some things that are similar to a mammalian circulatory system, such as transporting certain types of immune cells, but still (source: Ferguson 1966)

Instead, these seawater-filled tubes are used for things such as the movement of starfish arms (and their little tube feet), which in turn allows them to move around their environment, find and consume food, and stick to surfaces. Mammals generally don’t use their circulatory systems in this way (if I am wrong about this, PLEASE let me know, as that would be absolutely WILD).

(diagram of a starfish’s water-vascular system, revealing the starfish’s final form: some sort of fidget toy, I think)

I admit that “starfish use seawater instead of blood” is a much more attention-grabbing headline, but it’s not true, and it’s also kind of sad, because the water-vascular system is really cool without the misinformation!

(before you ask, yes, this entire post was prompted by one (1) person saying something that was WRONG, and that person may or may not have been related to me 😤😭😭😭😭😭)

The water-vascular system is, essentially, a hydraulic system. By adding and expelling water, as well as opening and closing internal channels via muscle contractions, starfish can create positive and negative pressure within their bodies. This allows them to “flex” their tube feet in surprisingly complex ways, among other functions.

(these^ are a starfish’s “tube feet”. They are little structures with suckers on the ends. If you’ve ever held a starfish in your hands, you probably felt these feet holding onto you. They have a surprising amount of strength!)

You can imagine this sort of like how a whacky inflatable tube man uses air pressure to straighten up and fall down, except with hundreds in one connected, complex system (and also the pressure is more tightly controlled in order to prevent all that flailing, and also to allow fine control required for things like ripping open a mollusc shell).

(I always imagine this when looking at starfish tube feet. And now, maybe you will too! join me. 1, 2)

The confusion regarding starfish blood being seawater is understandable, but in the end it’s essentially a misunderstanding.

Plus, starfish have coelomic fluid, which is honestly more analogous to blood.

Coelomic fluid is, basically, the fluid that fills the starfish’s body cavity between all of its organs and such, facilitating nutrient transport, gas exchange, and overall being more blood-like than the water-vascular system in general (Andradre et al. 2021).

And ok, technically the liquid part of coelomic fluid comes from seawater, ultimately, but that would be like saying I, a human, use tap water for blood. And, ok, yes, there is water in my blood, and that water came from the tap, but no one would say that I have tap water instead of blood! Except my brother but he also says trigonometry doesn’t exist so we will be ignoring his opinion at this time.

(a more detailed diagram than the one before. The coelomic fluid is found in the coelomic cavity! Also, as a bonus, you now know where a starfish’s anus is! Enjoy this new knowledge next time you look at a starfish! source: x)

Starfish aren’t the only animals with a water vascular system and a madreporite. They can also be spotted in other echinoderms, such as sea urchins, sand dollars, and sea cucumbers (although in the sea cucumber the madreporite is inside the animal, so you probably won’t see it in the wild).

That said, starfish have my favourite madraporites, because I think they look like little badges. They all win the award of being lil friends (and also keystone species that are essential to many marine ecosystems. So.)

This has been Fun Fact Friday, telling you all about wacky lil friends who have funny little feet and DO NOT HAVE SEAWATER INSTEAD OF BLOOD!

I will do battle with my sibling later, as is tradition

Sources under Read More:

Andrade, C., Oliveira, B., Guatelli, S., Martinez, P., Simões, B., Bispo, C., ... & Coelho, A. V. (2021). Characterization of coelomic fluid cell types in the starfish Marthasterias glacialis using a flow cytometry/imaging combined approach. Frontiers in Immunology, 807. 

Ferguson, J. C. (1966). Cell production in the Tiedemann bodies and haemal organs of the starfish, Asterias forbesi. Transactions of the American Microscopical Society, 200-209.

Mao, S., Dong, E., Zhang, S., Xu, M., & Yang, J. (2013, July). A new soft bionic starfish robot with multi-gaits. In 2013 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (pp. 1312-1317). IEEE.

[y-rhywbeth2]

D&D Vampire Lore Dump #2

"Biology" Their "metabolism" and their physical body, their senses, why they're not aging and "vampires actually make fantastic torture victims, if you're a monster: vampire healing and how to inflict scars on them."

OBLIGATORY DISCLAIMER FOR FIRST TIME READERS: There are two things to note about the lore presented here: First, while the standard stat block in the monster manual is the default, in terms of lore vampires have this annoying tendency to be incredibly, stupidly varied. They are magical monstrosities ruled by the power of symbolism and superstition above anything else.

The next is that D&D is decades old, spans five editions, several settings and hundreds of writers. One guy establishes a piece of lore, and then the next picks it up goes "nah" and writes something else. I collected info from four different source books, all from different editions, which naturally don't entirely agree on how vampires work. Lore never stays consistent and may contradict itself. You may see information somewhere else from a source I don't have that contradicts what I wrote here. If you read this and like some of this stuff but not other bits, take the good and ditch the rest. Larian themselves have not written BG3 totally compliant with some established D&D lore or the original games.

Basically, in D&D, canon is what you decide it is.

Feeding | "Biology" | Hierarchy | Weaknesses and Cures | Psychology

The transformation into a vampire causes little physical change, except for the fangs, and the fact that their facial features seem take on a permanent hardened expression, appearing more "feral" in a way that is likened to a starving wolf. Spawn moreso than freed vampires, and in 5e they have claws despite the fact that freed vampires don't. Rarely a vampire's eyes turn red upon changing, but this doesn't usually happen. Their eyes do start glowing red when they're angry through.

Most of the vampire's five senses are sharpened by undeath. They can see perfectly in the dark, for example, and are very hard to catch off guard. The only one that gets duller than it was when they were alive is the sense of touch - "a blunt, phantom sense of touch, more mechanical than biological. It is a pale, crude approximation of a real tactile sense." They don't feel the effects of physical exertion and their ability to feel pain is dulled (but not nonexistent). They're not particularly bothered by high or cold temperatures unless they're at extremes (like frostbite levels, or "standing by a lava pool" levels). They're also largely unbothered by electric shocks.

They don't breathe, though they do actually have a heartbeat as their blood still gets pumped around their body. It doesn't provide any biological need of a living circulatory system, but is possibly part of keeping the body animated via magic.

Vampires do not produce body heat and tend to be room temperature to the touch unless they've fed within the last 24 hours, in which case they appear alive.

Lacking brain activity on account of being dead, vampires are immune to mind effecting spells and psionics. The fact that Astarion is affected by the tadpole is likely due to Netherese magic. The parasite is canonically modifying his undead state to its needs and has shut down his vampiric abilities, as he observes in one banter.

Their physical abilities massively increase. They have superhuman strength, speed and reflexes and are far more durable than the living.

Vampiric blood looks like humanoid blood at first glance, but takes on a golden sheen when held up to a light source. Also if the vampire it came from is still alive, then that blood can have strange magic properties… which are random! Maybe it burns like acid, or puts you under mind control if you touch it, or explodes into flame when exposed to sunlight! You won't know 'til you find out, it could do anything or nothing.

Vampires are capable of siring partially-undead children with the living (Dhampirs). Dhampirs are alive but as they grow up and their undead heritage starts to manifest they begin to share their vampire parent's cravings and feeding habits and are not terribly fond of said parent, as a rule.

Vampires are the only undead that require sleep. That turned out to be a very long topic of its own though, so maybe I'll focus on the details another time. Short version: Vampires have an instinctive knowledge of how close sunrise is. Some vampires can chose to sleep much like humans, others will immediately shut down the second the sun appears over the horizon and be dead until the moment it next sinks below said horizon, at which point the vampire is 1000% aware and awake again. They are bound to soil from their grave/homeland and must sleep on/in that or be destroyed. In BG3 specifically, looking at Cazador, elves still reverie (trance) in undeath. (In reverie, elves relive their memories of years gone by in vivid real time instead of dreaming. It's how elves avoid forgetting their own lives while living 700+ years) Vampires also hibernate, where they chose to go into a deep sleep for an unknown and uncontrollable length of time reaching centuries in length. Usually due to depression.

A vampire's body is frozen in time, and they will always have the same appearance they had when they died. The magic that keeps the vampire frozen in time, unageing, also gives them regenerative properties as it tries to reset them. Within minutes of receiving a wound, the wound has closed itself as if it were never there. "Wounds close, broken bones reform themselves, even missing limbs regenerate…" Reducing a vampire to 0 hit points also does not kill them, but that's for a later instalment. If one were to torture a vampire one could get both incredibly creative and make it last indefinitely.

They also can't get new tattoos or piercings, as the body heals them over again and pushes out the ink/metal. On the same logic if they had body modifications before they died then they'd never be able to get rid of them - if you scrape off the skin a tattoo is on or tore off a pierced lobe, the skin that grows back will still have the tattoo and the ear will have the hole for the earing still there.

However, there are forms of magical damage that inflict permanent marks on a vampire, which are called stigmata. Sunlight, holy water, holy symbols and the like are known to leave a scar. A silver plated blade might also do it.

There are two energy planes: Positive and Negative. Also known as the Planes of Life and Death, whose energies infuse the Prime Material Plane (which contains worlds like Earth and Toril). Living creatures are powered by positive energy (also called "radiant"), while the undead are animated by negative energy ("necrotic"). It's actually theorised that the undead somehow exist on the Prime Material Plane and the Negative Energy Plane simultaneously, though this seems gets into a lot of planar lore and conflicting information that I'm not going into. Traditionally, due to this difference, the undead are healed by spells made of negative/necrotic energy such as Inflict Wounds spells, but in reverse would be harmed by healing spells. 5e has not included this detail, that I've seen.