#alkarinque

[bassacaglia]

@alkarinque

nature things that a lot of people don't know about and weren't even taught about adequately, but they're actually really fundamental and important to know about

how rivers work. Where do they get started? how do they decide which way to flow?? what makes one river muddy and the other one clear?

[They flow downhill. Always. If a river is flowing a Way, that way is Downhill. They start with rain flowing or soaking downhill until it forms into a little trickle through a channel like a gully or drainage ditch, and the farther it flows the more other trickles flow into it from the land around it, until you have a stream, and the streams all flow downhill until they run into each other, and eventually you have a river which finally reaches the ocean. Rivers never flow FROM the ocean because the ocean is the most downhill you can possibly go. I don't think rivers usually split in two—a fork in a waterway is usually two rivers joining together.]

[On the subject of pollution, rain is usually supposed to soak slowly through the layer of leaves, roots, and dead plant material that covers most biomes. But if you tear up the plants and leave bare mud, or replace a forest with a muddy cow pasture, there's no filter, and mud and contaminants wash into the river. Just plain mud can be pollution.]

how soil works. What makes different soils different? Why are some soils good for growing a garden and others terrible? Does it need more fertilizer?

[The sand, silt, clay diagram is very simplified and only deals with one aspect of soil. Roots, soil animals, fungi, and dead plant material are all part of soil and affect its structure, making it spongy and full of holes and passages for nutrients, water, and new roots. Tilling can break hard soil, but tilling doesn't make soil light, fluffy, and permeable—disturbing the soil as little as possible, protecting it with a layer of plant material, and allowing the natural life forms of the soil develop their networks and tunnels and slowly break down the plant material layer does. This is also very simplified. Soil is COMPLICATED.]

what fungi are, and whether they are dangerous.

[fungi cannot harm you unless you eat them or unless they're growing inside your house and you're inhaling their spores in a concentrated space. There's like, one species in Japan that causes skin irritation. You can touch any other species without any harm whatsoever. *Most* of them don't harm your garden either—in fact, most plants connect their root systems to the fungal mycelium in the soil and receive nutrients from the fungus in exchange for the products of photosynthesis.]

Whether lichen harm trees

[no. They're just hanging out. But a LOT of lichen on a tree might be a sign that the tree is dying. It's not the lichen's fault though.]

What moss is??

[it's a plant, but a very simple plant that doesn't have any vessels for transporting water, so it has to live somewhere damp and soak it up like a sponge. There are hundreds of species of moss, and different species live on the side of a boulder vs. the top, or a living tree trunk vs. a fallen dead tree trunk!]

where bugs go in the winter? I straight up had a book as a kid that told me that they just die, without explaining how the species doesn't go extinct if the winter kills them all.

[Tl;dr they're usually hibernating in fallen leaves and dead wood and plant material. Some do this as eggs or larvae/caterpillars; in this case the adults do die, but their children sleep peacefully through the winter to awake in the spring. And still others hibernate as adults. This is why you don't clean up your flower beds until late spring.]

How Many plants there are

[WAY more than you think]

How ecosystems work apart from "everything is out to get everything else and take resources from other organisms."

[Competition and cooperation are both important in ecosystems! Weeds are competitive and they can choke out other plants, but they also protect the soil from erosion and harsh sunlight, keeping it moist and helping organic matter to build up. A lot of plants, when they're young, need to be sheltered by other plants that protect them from dryness, heat, and herbivores. This isn't even getting into how some plants will send nutrients to seedlings or to understory plants in a forest! Before industrial agriculture made monocultures dominant, people used and were familiar with cooperative relationships between plants a LOT more.]

The range of creatures that are pollinators, and how important the variety is.

[Bees, wasps, butterflies, moths, flies, ants, beetles, hummingbirds, and bats are all pollinators, and flowers are usually shaped and colored and scented to attract particular pollinators. Bees can't do everything, and honey bees are only one kind of bee. Red flowers and long tube shaped flowers are often for hummingbirds, pale-colored flowers that open at night need moths, and flowers that give off strong foul odors often attract flies. It gets WAY more complicated than that—sometimes a flower is only pollinated by a single species of bee or wasp or beetle.]

How many bees there are besides honey bees

[LOTS. And you've probably never seen most of them, if you don't regularly spend time around native plants! There are 140 species of longhorn bee alone, and most people haven't even heard of longhorn bees! There are well over a hundred bumble bees too! Bees come in bright, metallic green, blue, and pure gold. In the USA where I live, some of the most endangered bees are the adorable, fluffy bumble bees—the American Bumble Bee is threatened, and we have some species, like the rusty-patched bumble bee, that are critically endangered.]

[Please, please, please do not use pesticides on plants unless it is a necessity, and please do a LOT of research on the specific pesticide you are using and its effects on non-target insects. If there is any alternative, Do Not Do It. ESPECIALLY not pesticides that come in dust or powder form, ESPECIALLY in the USA, because regulations are so loose here that regular people can buy pesticides in dust form that are horribly toxic to bees.]

[How horribly toxic? A pesticide like Sevin dust will cling to the fuzz on every single bee that visits your plant—like pollen—and those bees will probably die. And in social bees, before they die, they will take the poison back to their hive (like pollen) and potentially kill the entire hive.]

[sleepnoises]

shaun tan? pangolins? your favorite kind of tree? you only have to pick one of these i was overwhelmed by possibility and figured i'd throw the choice to you

SPOILED FOR CHOICE!

shaun tan: i love his colors. i love his sense of form, especially when he builds a form without being really precise about it (thinking of his streetscape paintings). i love that he jumps between styles depending on how he wants to convey a mood. i love the consistent sense of wonder with lingering melancholy. love that he makes things and i get to look at them!

pangolins: perfect posture. that’s also how i walked around most of the time as a child. hands clutching an invisible little purse.

favorite kind of tree: quercus agrifolia leaves WILL stick in your feet with their little pointy edges. this teaches you humility. also they consistently have huge arching flailing exploratory branches which is the perfect shape of tree to be

[gurguliare]

ok i'm actually desperately curious about plot elements ghost trick has in common with nif

1) Ostensibly dead cat steals a face to right wrongs and commit heroics*

*read: stupid court intrigue

2) Ostensibly dead cat instantly confronted with death row inmate* who is REALLY FUCKING JAZZED ABOUT HIS IMMINENT DEMISE

*read: “literally Faramir, if for Faramir Chapter IV of the Return of the King had lasted twelve years”

3) There are SOME pigeons.

4) Goofy color-coded foreign provocateurs

[akitania]

aw i want to ask about ghost trick but i am. SO far from done with ghost trick, so instead: cass!

PLEASE talk to me about ghost trick as soon as you’re done. in the meantime: fish.

favorite thing about them - THEIR LEGACY SUCKED SO MUCH THEY CHANGED THE CONNOTATION OF A GENDER? thanks road to season six

least favorite thing about them - see above. and their music taste.

favorite line - it’s been so long since i listened to c/w that i can’t remember many specific lines but PROBABLY their entire last phone call. i will not be looking it up because i don’t feel like making myself sad for no reason on a wednesday night.

brOTP - cass and aria, obviously, and. maxine.

OTP - i... don’t have any strong feelings about any cass pairings...

nOTP - i don’t have any strong feelings about any cass pairings???

random headcanon - their favorite hieron character is adelaide

unpopular opinion - i didn’t listen to c/w until quite a while after it finished so i have no idea what people talked about then!! what is a popular opinion!! i think they sometimes get overlooked by the fandom because their teammates have catchier characterization, but that might just be my persecution complex.

song i associate with them - was it emma who first songcalled accidntel deth? because i’ll never get over that

favorite picture of them

[magictavern]

♬ 15 22 23 and can i ask for 3 but a song for each season?

a song that is a cover by another artist

the man with the x-ray eyes - black canary it’s a cover of a bauhaus song but god it’s so good. the black canary eps are the single good promotional stunt that a comic book company has given me

(Into the borrowed course // Under the dreadful birds // Under the singing soil and all those guilty clouds)

a song that moves you forward

pull it together - the greeting committee this is The Song that i put on full blast whenever i want to mope in bed and not do things but i really ought to do things. it’s got such an infectious beat and i really adore it

(I’m gonnapull it together // Talk me down until I get better // You knowI’m gonna pull it together // Shake me out, I wanna get better,but I don’t know how)

a song that you think everybody should listen to 

*will smith poses next to old town road pony mashup by pomplamoose* i really wanted to give a serious answer to this question but this mashup is just. it’s really delightful. i’m not quoting lyrics from it though. 

(serious answer would probably be crying at the wawa by chris gethard and mal blum because NEVER has a song spoken to me more. especiallty the bit that goes “You're feeling feelings, and that's real // And maybe you're feeling judged by these soft-pretzel eaters // But sometimes you gotta cry in public, even if it makes a bunch of people in a Wawa // REALLY uncomfortable” and the whole song is kind of a reminder that hey!! you’re gonna have negative feelings and its good to work through them since it’s better than feeling nothing at all)

songs for the seasons

summer: sonsick - san fermin OR homecoming serf - sidney gish they both really just get at that quiet loneliness that summer brings

(All dressed in my Sunday best, when I solve your love // Maybe find a place where we could rest // When we're old enough)

(i know this quiet life, it used to hurt // but now we're dancing round and laughing in the dirt)

fall: all die young -  smith westerns it’s just got a very soft somber feel to it that is PERFECT for gray autumn days

(I wanna grow old before I grow up // I wanna die with my chin up // And definitely maybe I will live to love)

winter: a bit on the nose but january hymn - the decemberists. it’s perfectly designed for winter, intentionally.

(Hail the winter days after dark // Wandering the gray memorial park // A fleeting beating of hearts)

spring: new soul - yael naim. it’s just. got that energy. i wish i could explain better, but alas.

(But since I came here, felt the joy and the fear // Finding myself making every possible mistake)

[whispy]

gabriel reyes vs efi oladele         

[nautilics]

DUDE i love your matsuhana comic so much?? it's completely gorgeous wow

AAAA thank you so much for saying so, and also for telling me!! i put a lot into it so i’m really pleased to hear this

[tealdragon]

ah! your adventure zone shirt is awesome! can i ask what service you used/how you printed it?

yeah!! I designed it myself and then used redbubble! It’s good quality and lets you post things privately so I was able to just order a shirt for me :D 

[liliesanthology]

ooh as inspiration: david wiesner's flotsam is one of my favorite wordless picture books (his sector 7 and tuesday are also wordless). and sara goetter's comic in the valor anthology (smgoetter @ tumblr /post/138995738670) does have sound effects, but does a really cool thing with speech bubbles!

Thank you for the recommendations! 

Wiesner’s work is really  gorgeous and has great environments. 

You’re right that Mom Knight does use sound effects and text in parts, so doesn’t fit the Lilies v3 textless requirements for submissions, but the way Goetter uses speech bubbles IS really inspiring - take a look, fellow Lilies! 

http://smgoetter.tumblr.com/post/138995738670/lady-tilda-and-the-dragon-or-mom-knight-which

and feel free to share what inspires you to create silent comics for volume 3!

[rynezion]

alkarinque

  I want to make some more comics like the last one...

qUEENS THIEF SERIES!! your favorite scene​(s)? gen stealing sth then lying to someone’s face as he wears the thing? attolia & eddis hanging out as gen does sth stupid in the background? costis being roped into one of gen’s schemes OR a group effort to prank gen back?

GASP these are so good!!!! I haven’t even thought of doing book stuff!

[attilarrific]

alkarinque:

there's also a "[handwave] science!" explanation for the bombs here (https://edge.alluremedia.com.au/m/k/2017/12/26132580_10213445493585843_1068896617_o.jpg) which i'm generally fine with since so much of star wars is "[handwave] science!"

obsidian-stardust:

I've given up on applying actual physics to Star Wars space battles because they're all based on WWII dogfights so there's just too many things that go wrong when you move from an atmosphere to a vaccuum but you keep all the vehicle movements and reactions the same. At least the battles are pretty. :)

...Yeah, okay, works for me! It was very pretty, and at least they came up with some explanation, so sure, okay, I’m down.

@alkarinque:

it gets even more stupid because poe found out half her plan ("you're using the transports? they have no defenses!") and instead of filling him on the rest (he ALREADY knew half of it!!) she just let him run off with enough information to ruin everything ("all the rebels are going to be on the transports!") but not enough information for him to trust her

I didn’t even think of that, but yeah, I agree! At that point, everyone in that room knows enough to get them fucked over by the First Order--knows the amount that does get them fucked over by the First Order eventually, because I assume the Bad Thief (whose name I don’t remember, sorry) got the information he sold from Poe’s communication with Finn and Rose as opposed to, idk, from thin air or doing some scan while arrested. And all Poe knows at that point is that they’re fueling up the transports, not why or how or whatever else. So literally just this piece of information is enough to fuck them over if you don’t trust the people in this room, so you might as well just tell everyone everything, because at that point they’re less likely to mutiny. You’re so right, is my point, and I so agree that that was Dumb Writing.

@obsidian-stardust:

Oh, we are totally in agreement about Poe. I love Poe. He's one of my top favorite characters. I also love the idea of a stormtrooper rebellion but I think it would've undermined the theme to have any of the Poe/Finn/Rose plan succeed. I think the true success was in the character development because they learned from their mistakes so I didn't see the movie as a waste of time (although I totally see why not everyone would be happy with that).

Yeah, everything Holdo does makes perfect sense from a writing standpoint of fooling the audience but I agree that the in-universe reasoning is weak (which is why I keep trying to find ways to justify her actions because I like Holdo :P). Hmmm, given the way Poe reacted to the plan, I understand why she didn't tell him in the first place because I definitely wouldn't want to explain and defend my plan to an insubordinate captain who clearly doesn't respect me...

...yes, I like this explanation of Holdo's actions, so maybe I'll just go with that.   

"Why doesn't she just explain the plan to everybody?" is harder to justify though... I'll have to think about this some more...

Yeah, I completely understand why she wouldn’t single Poe out to be told, but the fact that she doesn’t tell anyone there’s a plan bothers me. And the thing is that I also really like Holdo, so I really want this to make sense! But I feel like I’m doing mental backflips to convince myself she’s a competent leader, which is not what I want, because she’s actually a really cool character and (in theory) I like what they were doing with her. I just wish they’d fixed this, because it really does feel like it would’ve been easy, and then I could love this plotline unreservedly.

Belated thoughts on The Last Jedi (it takes me a while to get my thoughts in order), so SPOILERS under the cut:

Keep reading

[door]

TAG PEOPLE YOU WANT TO GET TO KNOW

BETTER!

Tagged by @klmt1

Favorite color: i enjoy combinations of colors more, and right now it’s sage green and mustard yellow

Currently reading: A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland and Everyman's Castle: The Story of Our Cottages, Country Houses, Terraces, Flats, Semis and Bungalows by Philippa Lewis

Last song: something on my halloween playlist!

Last movie: The Innocents (1961)

Sweet, spicy, or savory: savory or sweet, depending on mood

Currently working on: uhhhhh getting through the days. willing the weather to turn cold and stay that way. catching up on correspondence

I will tag: @powpowhammer and @alkarinque ! do or ignore as you feel

[sleepnoises]

@geddyqueer tagged me in a meme. thank you i love to meme

last song: last song i searched was "wetsuit" by the vaccines because "thumbs" by lucy dacus came on and i have a playlist where those two are sequential that has fused them together in my mind. they have nothing in common

last movie: the introductory scene of megamind. last whole movie: either bros or beetlejuice

last show: the great pottery throwdown baybeeeee i stan AJ!! when the show revealed they had a regular D&D game i howled "yeah i bet you do" at the screen

currently watching: see above. i also watched a try guys video on Drifting today. does that count. it was good

currently reading: i cracked open Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years today & then texted my weaving teacher family friend because it reminded me of her :') and i asked her if she had textile history recommendations and she recommended Women's Work right back to me. then she suggested "Jacquard's Web" for the connection between looms and computers.

currently working on: tomorrow i will go drop some ceramics off to be fired & glaze a few & pick some up. and then this weekend hopefully i will take some pictures of them!

favourite colour: yellow

sweet/savoury/spicy: sweet.... or cheese......

coffee/tea/cocoa: hot chocolate or hot water with honey and ginger. or cider (good) as opposed to cider (bad)

craving: a little switch in my brain that lets me get back into real-world tangible habits instead of internet escapism without--and this is crucial--me exercising any willpower. also warm soft socks. also teleport portal

i tag @alkarinque @blotthis @door @ YOU. if you're reading this

[gurguliare]

alkarinque replied to your post: Anyway, hi, I’m extremely jetlagged and I’ve run...

most…. anticipated partizan feature?

I look forward to simply never understanding what Art is saying in the preview. Also, horribly, Keith aristocrats.

[akitania]

revolutionary girl utena!! (please, thank you)

aw yeah aw yeah

Favorite character: is it... nanami? or utena or anthy, but i try to maintain my brand as a supporting antagonist liker when i can

Least Favorite character: it feels weird to say akio since i think he’s such a wonderful villain but it’s also true

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): utena/anthy, juri/shiori, my well immediately runs dry... i do think variations on utena/wakaba and utena/nanami are very funny. nanami/kozue.

Character I find most attractive: idk they’re all children or terrible. and/or terrible, i mean

Character I would marry: SEE ABOVE

Character I would be best friends with: i would happily almost knock utena out a window any day!

A random thought: i keep seeing people talk about the musicals on twitter!! i want to see them!!! (there's literally nothing stopping me)

An unpopular opinion: i’m sure this isn’t unpopular among, like, the circle of utena fans i know, but i still see people saying the Weird nanami episodes are purely comic relief/don’t mean anything/are incomprehensible but OBVIOUSLY THEY ARE WRONG?

My canon OTP: uteanthy 4ever and ever

Non-canon OTP: i guess nanami/kozue but i’m not sure i feel that strongly about it. i say that on the assumption that juriori counts as canon?? right??

Most badass character: i mean, anthy

Pairing I am not a fan of: what if i said touga/saionji just to spite roe ldkjflk roe probably isn’t reading this

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): only taking the anime into account, not the manga “epilogues,” i’m not sure i’d say there are any... i’ve always thought it was weird that juri’s arc almost never touched on her family, but what do i know

Favourite friendship: utena and wakaba, but i also love 🏸🏸🏸badminton bros🏸🏸🏸

[witchyseamonster]

TAG PEOPLE YOU WANT TO GET TO KNOW BETTER!

from @alkarinque (❁´◡`❁) aah thank u for tagging me, this looks fun💖🙏

Favorite color: i can never decide, but im really into jewel tones i general i suppose =w= some highlights are mustard yellow and dark teal

Currently reading: the last couple of Dungeon Meshi chapters have been SO good, the body horror is simply exquisite 😘👌

Last song: Cry for Judas - The Mountain Goats

Last movie: last movie I saw at the cinema was Everything, Everywhere, All At Once and it permanently broke me and now i cant stop crying, 10/10 👍

Sweet, spicy, or savory: Savory, gimme some soup and roasted veggies!! it is the season!!! 🙌🥣🥘🥔

Currently working on: being kinder to myself, making a video game, figuring out why my cat wont stop pissing all over my bed, also getting up from the computer and make food. i should do that now.