#Life and Limb

[nyxtalksmusic]

Hey, we want our violence doubled (No, but really in a loving way)

[holiday-graves]

{twenty four hours 'til we disintengrate}

[stylistic-nightmare]

Napalm Death - Life and Limb

[plesiosaurys]

getting emotional over footage of an amateur scuba diver interacting with a coelacanth. they are hunted by large deepwater predators, and here comes a large creature bearing the brightest lights it's ever seen, making strange noises, but it does not shy away. it hovers, calmly, as the diver reaches out and trails a hand down its back. im strongly against the anthropomorphizing of real life animals but the stupid emotional part of me loudly insists this is because it recognizes us, the alternating movements of its four paired limbs matching the diver's four paired limbs, & it is thinking, "hello, cousins, we missed you these 66 million years, it's so good to see you again. welcome back, welcome home."

[shepscapades]

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [PART 6] [Part 7] [Don’t Let it Reach the Heart]

[This comic is part of my dbhc au, following the chaos and panic that ensues after Doc and Xisuma try to get Etho back online at the start of s9 after a very rough s8 finale that leaves him a little. broken. It's set to the vibes of Joywave's Destruction!]

[planariaareneat]

How The Nocturnal Bottleneck and Nipples Make Us Human

Almost every post here considers what humans do have, really. It’s a little tiring; realistically every world has its harsh environments and vicious species and a sophont to match. We probably wouldn’t be unique for our adaptability or our persistence or even adrenaline

But our evolution is fucked up as hell, to put it lightly.

Mammals went through what’s been dubbed the nocturnal bottleneck essentially since the start of the mesozoic right up until the Cretaceous ended the archosaur’s exclusive hold over the daylight. We lost a lot of things from every mammal spending most of its time in either a cramped, suffocating burrow or scrounging around in the faint hours of nighttime. Our blood cells lost their nuclei to hold more oxygen while we spent time deep underground, we lost protections against ultraviolet rays in our skin and eyes, we can’t even repair our own DNA using the light of the sun. Most aliens probably wouldn’t have such traits unless their evolution followed a very similar path to ours. They’d be able to see ultraviolet and wouldn’t have to worry about sunburn and all the wonderful privileges essentially all fish, birds, amphibians, and reptiles enjoy as we speak. 

There’s also what we gained from spending so much time in the dark.

Brown fat is only found in mammals, it’s a special type of fat which bear cells with several oil droplets and are utterly jammed with mitochondria. This lets it make heat, a lot of it, fast. We don’t even need to shiver to induce this heat generation from brown adipose tissue - factor in our downright hyperactive mitochondria, and we can warm up quickly. Sure, it doesn’t have too much use in adult humans, but it keeps our infants warm and still provides a little boost the whole run we have in this universe.

Unless aliens also went through a time where their small ancestors had to face cold nights, they’d have to produce heat the old fashioned way when chilled. Aliens might have to shiver the whole time they’re in a cold room while the human watches in confusion, quite literally unshaken, and wonders if the room is a lot colder than the thermostat set to 60 says. The aliens stare at their companion in confusion, it’s just a normal temperature to shiver at after all, how is the human sitting so still?

Our small ancestors spending all their time out foraging at night is also why we have such a good sense of touch, smell, and hearing. They were more important senses than vision (we’re lucky to have even redeveloped basic color vision, frankly) at the time and place and simply ended up continuing to serve us well. Birds and reptiles rarely have acute senses of smell and the latter especially are lucky to have acute hearing, and birds rarely have impeccable hearing themselves either. Our skin is free of scales and honed to sensitivity, and our external ears and complicated ear bones provide an immense range of hearing (from 20 all the way to 17,000 hertz!).

Aliens might not be able to pin down the chirp of a cricket or the light click of a lock being picked. The human might be the only one on board a ship that can pick out the finer sounds of the engine’s constant thrum and know the critical difference between when everything is fine and when something is wrong. The human could probably pick out the sounds of an approaching enemy’s careless footsteps - they’re only as light enough for *them* to stop hearing them, after all - and be the one to see the horrified expression (well, more on that later) on their face when we get the drop on them in spite of their perceived stealth. 

But perhaps the most versatile, convoluted, amazing, and utterly unique trait we have is right on your face this instant. Lips.

Lips in most animals are a simple seal to hold in the mouth’s moisture and protect the teeth, even if they’re supple they’re NEVER muscular except in mammals, and we have only one thing to thank for it; milk and nipples. Lips evolved exclusively to allow babies to suckle, it required a vacuum to be created in the mouth, and with no other animal having anything like a nipple it never happened in other animals. Many animals make milk, to be frank, but no other animal has nipples.

Your cheeks and lips are a marvel among tetrapods, no other animal can suck like mammals can. Aliens wouldn’t have straws or even be able to sip from the edge of a glass, they’d have to have a proboscis or simply tilt the whole thing back. Aliens likely won’t have woodwind instruments or balloons you can blow into. We take so much about our lips for granted. Hell, our muscular faces are vital for expressions, we’re probably absolute facial contortionists among a cast of creatures with mandibles and beaks and expressionless scaly maws. Aliens might find us ridiculously easy to read, if anything, compared to their own kind (all the better to deceive them) - or perhaps they’d find us hard to decipher anyways, with our lack of color-changing skin or erectable crests of bright feathers. Baring teeth might not be seen as a sign of aggression in most of the universe, smiling would be all too distinctly human. 

Perhaps with how infectious we are sometimes, that’s what we’d contribute to the universe; others might have to make do with opening their mouths just enough to show their teeth or splaying their innumerable mouthparts with just the right curve, but perhaps we’d teach the galaxy to smile, one ally at a time. 

Wouldn’t that be amazing?

[desire-mona]

the time jumps in i saw the tv glow make me so fucking insane and i can never let it go. 2 years, 8 years, then 20, each jump taking more and more out of owen as we watch him decay into a painstakingly unvariable excuse of a protagonist. no matter how big of a jump in time, we never really feel like we've missed out on anything at all. the only real change we experience is what monotonous, yet colourfully and visually overstimulating job he's trudging through, all to live the unfulfilling life he feels is the most safe. no known ambitions, no known lasting relationships, even the family he says he loves more than anything feels less like a feat, and more like a giant step back in the journey we know he needs to go on.

3 decades pass in the span of an hour and 40 minutes, a speed that would seem overwhelmingly fast, yet we stay tuned into the comfortability of that perpetual survival. we know what's going on, and we dont need to play catch up if there's nothing to catch up on. yet despite that comfortability of knowing where and when owen's stuck, it is killing us to know that the potential of what he could be and experience goes unacknowledged through the painstaking amount of years. and it's made all that much worse when we're forced to remember that the slow death we're watching is all the more real, both literally and figuratively, to owen.

[snifsnoof]

i am always begging people to draw more toy/living doll jimmy 🙏

hes one of them wind up dolls

[i-stan-my-toxic-blorbos]

With M&Ms putting out more ads due to Halloween coming up, I would like to casually make sure everyone is aware...

The Peanut M&M is voiced by the same guy who voices Ford Pines and Cave Johnson.

...Do with that information what you will

[cy-cyborg]

Limb difference vs amputee

I've been seeing a rise in people using the term limb difference and also rise in (what I think are well meaning) folks shouting "Amputee is not a dirty word, stop talking over disabled people, just say amputee" and while I love the energy, that's not what's going on here lol.

Amputee refers to anyone who has lost a limb or was born without one/multiple of their limbs.

Limb difference is a broader umbrella term to refer to anyone with a physical disability the effects the person's limbs specifically, usually (but not always) in ways that are visible to others to some degree. It can refer to amputees, but also people with single-limb paralysis, people who's limbs didn't develop properly (even if it's not severe enough to be considered an amputation) and more!

All amputees have a type of limb difference, but not everyone with a limb difference is an amputee.

As far as I'm aware, the term actually started in congenital amputee circles (people who were born without a limb) because they felt the word amputee didn't really fit them properly. amputee implies they had the limb but it was removed, but they never had it to begin with. It eventually spread to become an umbrella term, but it was created by and for disabled people.

I do understand some people's hesitation with the word, it does sound kind of similar to "differently abled" but I promise, it's not.

[tsukk1]

holding the sun 

[lloydfrontera]

the webcomic can have one (1) funny "earnest moment interrupted by comedy" joke. as a treat. but also because it is so in character for them ajkshdjkas

yes they will say the most earnest shit to each other and then immediately try to cringe out of their own bodies. they are best friends but they would rather jump out of a window before admitting it. they are incredibly devoted and grateful to one another but you could not water board that out of either of them.

the only thing that can get either of them to admit how much they care for each other is if the other is in life threatening danger and not a second before aakjshdks

[mamawasatesttube]

kon is especially fun to me because while obvs ymmv where it comes to figuring out a preferred amalgamation of his backstories, i think of him as a kryptonian with a metagene. as in, to fully depower him, you'd need both kryptonite/red sun and a metagene suppressant of some sort. he is a fucked up and op little freak of nature science.

[urlocalwhumper]

living weapon whumpee who's never known anything but pain and violence.

their existence hurts. they were made to be effective, not happy, and their masters decided that keeping them in constant pain provided better results. they're wilder, more unpredictable, and the pain keeps them from thinking straight enough to question anything.

they're only given painkillers, only allowed a respite from their seemingly endless suffering, after a successful mission. it keeps them loyal, and most importantly, teaches their brain to associate acts of violence with relief and rewards.

everyone they've ever met has treated them as a tool, a monster, or both. they don't know how to be anything else.

that is until they're rampaging through a village, destroying, killing, whatever their masters demand of them. whatever will give them a few blissful hours of numbness.

one of the villagers steps out of a ruined building and looks them straight in the eyes. whumpee expects fear, hatred, disgust, the things they see in the faces of every person who's ever crossed their path. but they see something completely different.

compassion.

whumpee is so stunned, they don't think to move or do anything at all as the villager steps closer, gently reaching out a hand to cup whumpee's face.

"oh, poor thing." they murmur, taking in the creature in front of them - part human, part animal, part machine. "they've done a number on you, huh?"

whumpee blinks at them. pain continues to course through their body, but the gentle hand on their cheek distracts them, even if just a little. all the indistinct noise in their foggy, addled mind finally goes quiet.

caretaker had stepped out in front of the being destroying their home with the intention to get through to it or die trying, and the expectation to absolutely die trying.

they did not at all expect the seemingly feral mishmash of metal, fur, and flesh to lean so heavily into their touch that they nearly collapsed into caretaker's arms.