#believer in biology

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Colette Colfer

Published: Jan 17, 2024

A slow-burning religious revolution is transforming Ireland. The Catholic Church has waned to a smidgin of its former significance and much of the enormous space it once occupied in the Irish psyche has been vacated. A gap has appeared. We need to mind this gap.

At the same time as Catholicism is declining in importance, a new belief system centred around the concept of gender identity is gathering momentum, thrusting roots deep into the cultural fabric of Irish society, and filling parts of the expanse previously occupied by Catholicism.

This new belief system has implications for all sectors of Irish society including education, sports, legislation, and the media. It also influences popular individual understandings of the self.

‘I am large, I contain multitudes’ wrote Walt Whitman (1819 – 1892) in his famous poem Song of Myself. The kaleidoscopic complexity of the individual is often eclipsed when those espousing gender identity theory magnify gender identity out of proportion to other facets of the self.

Although the idea of gender identity is considered secular in nature, there are many religious parallels. A certain level of faith is required to believe in the existence of the scientifically unfalsifiable intangible internal essence that is the gendered self. This disembodied sense of self, elevated in importance above the body, mirrors ideas about the soul. Sacrificial rites involving the removal of healthy organs assert the primacy of gender identity that is bestowed with a sacred quality.

There are echoes of holy days and religious seasons in new calendars listing dates associated with gender identity. These include Agender Pride Day (19th May), Non-Binary Awareness Week (in July), International Pronouns Day (20th October), and Transgender Awareness Month (November). There are also quasi-religious symbols, priest-like leaders, slogans that sound like mantras and compulsory articles of belief including that sex is ‘assigned’ at birth, that everyone has a gender identity, and that social transition and affirmation are the path to finding one’s true self (or salvation).

Societies are always changing. When 108-year-old Florence Pannell was interviewed on UK television in 1977 about growing up in Victorian England, she was asked what had changed most during her lifetime. Florence responded: ‘Everything! Nothing is the same! Everything is changed!’ To be alive is to be caught in a web of change. The rate of religious change in Ireland is happening faster than the rate of population change. The Irish population rose 46% from 3.5 to 5.1 million between 1991 and 2022. During the same period, the number of people with ‘no religion’ increased by over 1,000 per cent.1

Ireland in the 1900s was steeped in Catholicism. Church steeples punctured skylines symbolising the highest societal value and pinpointing the geographical locus of the community. Streets and remote country roads were dotted with grottos of the Virgin Mary. Silhouettes of huge crosses were visible on hills and rocky outcrops. Weeks revolved around Sunday mass. People’s entire lifelines were patterned with religious rituals.

Catholicism in Ireland reached its peak in 1961 when Roman Catholics made up a phenomenal 94.9 per cent of the population. Since then, however, the proportion of Catholics has been in decline. By 2022 it had dropped to 69% and since then, the tide of Catholic belief has been receding further still.

Receding tides require attention. In 1907, a tidal wave resulted in the deaths of 70% of the inhabitants of Simeuleu in Indonesia. Survivors told the story of an earthquake followed by a receding sea and then a tidal wave. They referred to the sequence of events as smong. Stories of smong were passed down through the generations in popular lullabies and poems.

When a devastating tsunami in the Indian Ocean on the 26th of December 2004 killed an estimated quarter of a million people, the island of Simeuleu was an anomaly in the region as there was only a minimal loss of life. Just seven victims were recorded from the population of almost eighty thousand. The high survival rate was accredited to the stories of smong. Islanders had recognised the signs of the retreating sea after an earthquake and had rushed to higher ground.

Declining religious adherence has potentially important implications. Sascha Becker and Hans-Joachim Voth point out, for example, that: ‘As the role of religion in public life declined from the late 19th century onwards, new ideologies and totalitarian world-views spread’. Becker and Voth mention that the ideologies of both Communism and Naziism were more popular in highly secularised areas of interwar Germany.

The decline of Catholicism in Ireland and the concomitant increase of those with no religion warrants careful consideration. Catholicism has faded significantly from the public sphere, scarpered from centre stage to a quieter corner in the wings. The stage is now peopled by those proclaiming the new gospel of ‘equality, diversity, inclusion’ and the stage is festooned with sacralised Progress Pride flags signalling the adoption of gender identity theory. The ideology of nationalism has more recently made a notable public appearance side stage and new belief systems or older ideologies could also emerge and rise to prominence.

Ireland’s National Census of 2022 indicates a religiously heterogeneous society with over fifty separate categories of religion outlined. This compares to the National Census of 1981 when just eight separate categories of religion were recorded and all the Christian denominations combined constituted 99.4% of the total population. A look at just some of the 2022 categories and numbers of adherents gives an indication of the level of religious change: Islam: 81,930; Hindu: 33,043; Taoists: 200; Scientologists: 132; Satanism: 189; Jedi Knight: 1,800, Jehovah’s Witness: 6,332; Buddhist: 9,053. A low-key online campaign in the run-up to the 2022 Census encouraged those with concerns about gender identity theory to identify their religion on the census form as ‘Believer in Biology’. Although the official census data did not publish details, a Freedom of Information request showed that at least 163 of the 8,064 in the ‘Other stated religion’ category identified their religion as ‘Believer in Biology’.2

Minding the gap vacated by traditional religion that is currently being filled, at least in part, by gender identity theory involves paying careful attention to the latest top-quality research on gender dysphoria, following best medical practice, developing guidelines based on evidence rather than ideology, allowing space for a diversity of beliefs and for healthy civil discussion that allows open conversation and respectful dialogue about the implications of gender identity theory on wider society including on single-sex spaces, sports, and children’s psychological and physical well-being.

The highest point in the urban skyline of Ireland today is the satellite pylon rather than the church steeple. This signals a switch in societal values and the locus of community formation. Social media is where new belief systems are promulgated and where younger generations are most likely to seek and find meaning. The trains of communication in the internet era are fast-moving. Mind the gap.

-

According to the National Census, 66,270 people had no religion in 1991. This rose to 736,210 in 2022 – a difference of 1,011% ↩︎

The numbers for ‘Believer in Biology’ only include records processed after November 2022. ↩︎

==

This speaks to the "Substitution Hypothesis," which suggests that as traditional religions decline, other quasi- and religious-like practices fill the void to satisfy human tendency towards religiosity.

[hawkpartys]

i think of this image approximately every day of my life

Magellanic Penguin (Spheniscus magellanicus) observation by kiwikiu

[great-and-small]

Wow! Look at all those sticks! That’s exactly what I need for my nest and they’re all perfectly sized omg. How lucky they just fell on that big log like that! Just gonna grab these bad boys for the nest and hop on ov-

[frownyalfred]

As someone from the Midwest I can tell you there’s no way Clark escaped the litany of Dads smacking him on the shoulder/chest as a young adult and going “Dang, you start working out or something?” to an awkward Kryptonian Clark who has never touched a weight in his life and thought he could get away with wearing baggy shirts and pants.

Now he has to construct an elaborate gym routine lie to satisfy the curiosity (and minor jealousy) of every dad who sees his arms flex a little too much at church on Sundays.

[weddelledseals]

recent scribbles

[sciderman]

this isn't THRIVING... this is FALLING APART... with STYLE

[thechekhov]

I've just had a very trying time in the comments section and I need to know.

[fishyfishyfishtimes]

Me in my mind: Do you ever wonder what it’s like to be a fish? What it’s like to inhabit the aquatic world? Fish literally exist inside their element. Do you wonder how it feels to breathlessly suck in the water too thick for our lungs, enjoy the feeling, revel in the fresh cool water washing over your gills? Wander the world around you in perfect three dimensions, no longer restrained by gravity. Watch the sunlight ripple through the waves, dancing on the bottom. Even the darkness of night and winter is no longer frightening, as you can feel every movement of your fellow kin and the environment around you. Inches apart, never touching, yet you feel it all. How does it feel to fill your swim bladder with gas and rise from the deep dark muck motionlessly like a regal ghost ship from the fog? How does it feel to caress the weeds and reeds with your fins, jump briefly from the waves into a world so unlike your own, of thin atmosphere and dry air? And to think, we were fishes once, our ancestors. Look at how far we’ve come from home! We have different coating on top of our skin which harms the ray-fins’ mucus, our scales adapted into hairs long ago, we posture ourselves like seahorses with no tail, our hands are made for holding onto things. We’re so different now, and yet, so similar. Every time I look into the eye of a fish I see understanding: a fellow traveler of the Earth whose circumstances brought her and me together. Her eyes study my body and my surroundings. Does the fish look at me, through the same glass, and wonder about the other world like I do? Does she imagine what it’s like? What does she feel?

Me out loud to my family: damn can you believe fish are real

[theladart]

Rapidash/Rainbow Dash ponymon fusion: Firestorm!

Inspired by @pinxpony‘s Pinkie Pie/Flaffy fusion, Flaffy Taffy (hope you don’t mind the tag :P)

Edit: Found out that the rapidash pic I got for reference is a fakemon mega evo designed by CaseyDeanFakemon on Deviantart

[bekolxeram]

Comparing the act of being hung up on your first same sex relationship to a drug addiction feels kind of familiar to me...

Ah yes.

It reminds me of that time when my civics class teacher told me dead in the eye that queer people didn't need rights or acceptance, they needed conversion therapy to manage their sinful urges.

Not saying the show did it on purpose, but carefully crafted story my ass. Good representation my ass.

[just-your-average-cryptid]

most of us have heard of the red car game. you’re on a road trip, you’re bored, you start looking for red cars to do something.

and then they’re everywhere. you notice them nearly every few minutes.

there aren’t suddenly more red cars now, of course. you were seeing them already, but you weren’t noticing. you weren’t looking.

I am noticing things.

there is a plant I notice everywhere now, a small bushy plant in suburbs, along streets, by shops on the highways. dwarf umbrella bush is what the internet tells me when I look for it’s name. I did this because I wanted to know why,

every time I ever saw it, every place,

it was always dying. always the leaves turning yellow, the branches small and scraggly. inside out - nitrogen deficiency. their soil drained.

I am noticing how many of these landscaping plants are yellowing, how small and sickly they look in just a few years. I am noticing how often the grass outside the house is replaced when it once again turns brown and dry, how the type never changes and the cycle starts again. I am noticing how the unmowed, unkempt spaces on lakesides and roadsides look more alive than this. how the preserve I grew up next to was miles of “messy” unmanicured nature and the ground was covered in leaves instead of grass and there was life.

I am noticing the birds that come by the lake. there was a flash of blue wings and red chest - eastern bluebird, male, relatively common. I had never seen one before. there is a family of ducks that appear every spring; i cannot say if it’s successive generations or different ducks, but I can always look forward to ducklings. there are little brown birds with white heads whose names I do not know - are they some kind of piper? why don’t I already know?

why is it so hard to learn about my native plants (accurately, that is)? why are so many gardening sites littered with people who think a plants value is based on how pretty or useful it is to them, who think a tree shedding leaves is “messy”?

why is knowing about the world we live in so… odd? why is it a hobby and not vital knowledge? I learned about polar equations. I taught myself about mycorrhizal networks and species of insects.

(did you know there are shiny green bees? a special species of wasp pollinating figs? that white flowers bloom at night for moths? do you know? have you looked?)

I cannot look at a lawn and see life anymore. it is a wasteland, devoid of life, dying slowly itself. everywhere is grass, grass, doused in water that runs over into storm drains, soaked in fertilizer and pesticides and a hundred other poisons and sending one clear message:

this is a place of death. life is not welcome here.

I do not think I could live in a city. too loud, yes, too busy, yes, too many people, yes, but the plants would bother me. a tree allotted only a convenient square, surrounded by dead stone and metal.

a forest cleared for this, for burning asphalt streets and racing cars and shops whose bathrooms are “for paying customers only”.

this is a place of death. life is not welcome here.

and now I am noticing.

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

misunderstanding

[orengejoshi]

I can not believe im asking you this but I saw a post about flug having eggs or something? Is that like mpreg? I kinda know what it means bc I've seen sans au x sans au before. But whats with the eggs? Im not offending you its just idk that much in mpreg and i also don't draw any of it. (This is not to offend anyone im just curious.)(also love how you draw flug Hes my favorite character.)

Haha yeah it kinda is! I made a few arts this year where Flug takes care of eggs.

Don't worry you're just curious, that's cool💛 I don't feel offended

there's no other thing I get as many requests for as for mpreg with Flug so I feel like it's a good time to say:

I know it's called mpreg in fandom terms, but I for one don't even think of it as that inherently suggestive trope; I genuinely just think it's cute and silly. pregnancy is a beautiful thing in my eyes, and not a kink for me personally. there's no issue with it, but I'm saying that's just not my motivation. I headcanon Flug is a transman who still wishes for an own baby, like me. it's kinda coping for me to draw Flug going thru smth I wish for irl as well. I relate to him bc he's taken on such a good parent role for 505

this reasoning is gonna be super rare, most people who enjoy/draw this explicitly do NOT want children irl. idk why others draw it tbh... but this is just me.

so the reason I usually always choose eggs is bc I mostly draw the paperhat ship... and since Black Hat seems to have more reptile or insect features I figured his offspring would probably grow in eggs instead of live. he's basically an alien, right

you can canonly have Black Hat's offspring! in the old orientation video on youtube "Los casos perdidos del futuro" exactly at minute 7, Demencia hints to the fact that by drinking his saliva you can have his spawn.

they never actually showed anyone doing that but I'm just assuming they'll come in eggs.

his spawn does not look like this^, Alan has drawn it in a livestream; it's just an eldritch clump of eyes, teeth and tentacles on the floor. in reality Black Hat is the only one of his species and he's unable to create another independent sentient creature like him.

so I drew what I imagine them looking like if he could (a lot of people asked for that anyway)

Thank you for loving my art💜

[giulliadella]

Speculative Biology of Euclydians (and Bill Cipher) part 2

Part 1

Part 3

So this part is what you've all been waiting for, it took so long, but you'll quickly understand why. This part is:

The Biology of Bill Cipher

As always, this analysis is based on two assumptions:

Before Bill Cipher became a demigod, he was a biological, living organism and so were the rest of his species.

Even after Bill Cipher became a demigod, he still retained some physical characteristics of his biological form.

And a fair content warning: This contains anatomy illustrations. This isn't anything gory, but there are people who are squeamish, so you've been warned.

Click on the images to get better quality!

And without further ado, let's begin.

External structures

Euclydians are animals with a very specific shape. They have a shell in a form of a geometric shape and four limbs. Bill is an equilateral triangle, so my analysis will be just on triangular Euclydeans.

They have bilateral symmetry. This type of symmetry is characterized by having a left and a right side placed like mirror images of each other. Humans and majority of Earth’s animals also have this feature.

Bilaterally symmetrical organisms usually have a distinct head region, because of a process known as cephalization. This process moves the animal’s brain and sensory organs towards one end of the body – the head. Euclydians have a head. It’s the “tip of the pyramid” on Bill and that’s where the eye and other sensory organs and brain are located.

Finally, Euclydeans are segmented. Their segments are clearly visible as those weird brick lines on their body. Bill also often separates his body into three segments. This is a part of his god powers, but it tells us that Euclydeans have three major body segments, I’ll call them the tip, the middle and the base. Each segment contains specific organs.

Euclydeans are invertebrates. And yes, I know this image exists, but this is just Bill’s trolling. He’s making fun of human classrooms where we often find skeleton models. That skeleton wouldn’t even be functional, because it doesn’t have any joints in arms and legs, so it wouldn’t be able to move. And it has a hole where the brain would be, so you know, the fucking brain would fall out.

It was outright stated that Bill has an exoskeleton. Having both external and internal skeleton would be a big waste because you have two systems that do the same thing. Besides, the way Bill's limbs move is much more similar to an invertebrate. His shell is also somewhat bendable which would not be possible if it was made of bone. And the eye-mouth complex that Bill uses to eat would also be completely impossible with a set of vertebrate jaws.

Euclydean shell (or exoskeleton) is nothing like anything here on Earth. It’s most likely made out of silica combined with proteins. I say this because Bill turned to stone when he died and he also likes to eat glass, which is pure silica.

The exoskeleton is made out of several parts. It has a front (ventral) and back (dorsal) part. Both the front and the back part of the exoskeleton are made out of head region (the tip) and three layers of “bricks” which are just segments of the exoskeleton.

The front tip is probably made of more protein and elastic tissue than the back, because Bill has a very expressive “face”. This means that he also has quite complex facial muscles. The back of the head is probably the hardest part of the exoskeleton because it protects the brain. Bricks are in the middle since they have a very important role in speaking and breathing, but also allow the shell to bend.

Can Euclydeans change color, or is it just Bill Cipher using his god powers? Well, since he changes his color on instinct, I think they could! Bill can change color to black, yellow, red and blue. This means that he has a complex system of chromatophores – cells that contain little sacs full of pigment. When the sacs inflate, the body appears to be the color of the largest sac, whilst those deflated are invisible. Color changes depending on the pigments contained in inflated sacs. In Bill, the pigments are red, blue and yellow. Yellow is the standard color, it signifies neutral or content emotional state. He turns red when he's angry or wants to look intimidating and blue might signify fear, despair and cry for help. Black is the color of Euclydean’s skin, so when they look black, it’s because all pigment sacs have deflated and the transparent shell allows us to see the skin underneath.

And yes, Euclydeans have black skin. I know some people say that Bill wears thigh high boots and long gloves, but to me, that doesn’t make any sense. Like, that image of him in Theraprism is showing him with clothes over his supposed gloves and boots. Why would they make him wear sneakers over boots? And why baby Bill has yellow hands? Well, that’s something I’ll tell you in the next part where I’ll talk about babies.

Anyways, the skin is black, but we have no idea what it feels like. Seriously, so many people shook hands with Bill and nobody wrote down how his skin feels like! But we know that he has fingerprints. That means that he has very sensitive fingertips and that those little paws were made for grabbing things. Also, Bill doesn’t have any growths on his skin: no nails, hairs, scales etc. I know a lot of people love to draw Bill with claws, but he doesn’t have claws, not even in his most eldritch form. His fingers always remain small and soft. The legs have no fingers and the skin of the sole of their feet is probably thick.

Internal Structures

Coelom

Coelom is one of the most important organs, that you probably don’t know you even have! It’s a fluid filled cavity whose role is to separate internal organs from the muscles of the body wall. This allows organs to move and grow independently of your muscles and it also protects and cushions them against impact. In humans coelom is complex and it’s made out of pericardial cavity (around the heart – allows heart to pump blood), pleural cavity (around lungs – allows lungs to expand while breathing) and peritoneal cavity (around digestive system – allows for expansion and movement of digestive organs).

I believe that Euclydeans also have some form of a coelom. Coelom is even more important in invertebrates, as that’s where their immune system is and it can also serve as a supportive hydroskeleton. Since Euclydeans have a hard shell, they need the protection around their organs. Every shelled animal on Earth has coelom for that reason. They also need room for the food they eat, since the shell can’t expand and their limbs can enter the shell, so they need room for that too.

2. Nervous system

Euclydeans have a vast range of emotions, capability to communicate using speech, body language and even color shifting. They are as intelligent, or more intelligent than humans. They have a highly developed eye and other senses and all of this requires a nervous system. We saw Bill’s optic nerve when his eye got pulled out during Weirdmageddon, so he does have a nervous system, but I can't tell you how exactly it looks like.

There’s one part of Bill that I bet is similar to human - it’s his brain. Bill claims that he can take control over any being a long as they have neurons. This is his god like power, but then, why just beings with neurons? Well, most likely, because he has neurons too and kind of understands how they work. Maybe his brain even produces similar neurotransmitters as ours, so we’re easy to control with them. The brain is in the tip of the pyramid, slightly above eye and it likely has a lot of neurons and a very complex structure. I can’t tell you how exactly is his brain organized, but since he's bilaterally symmetrical, it’s very likely that it has hemispheres. He likely also has two neural cords, like most invertebrates, and those run down the dorsal (back) side of his body

3. Senses

Euclydeans have camera lens type eyes. Now here I can only speak of Bill, since we haven’t seen any other Euclydian. Bill’s eye is large, placed in the center of his “face”. It has eyelids with “eyelashes” (more on them later) and produces tears (Bill cries after his break up with Ford). The pupil is slit and vertical and there is no iris. However, there are muscles that can change the shape and dilation of the pupil. The eye looks similar enough to human that I can confidently say that he has cornea, lens and sclera. The eye is filled with refractory fluid and has some form of retina in the back. Bill’s eye changing color and being used as a projector or to shoot lasers are all parts of his god powers, however, it is possible that his species has a tapetum lucidum, a reflective layer of cells which help animals see in low light conditions and also makes the eye glow in the dark. Bill has color vision and he claims that he can see every part of the electromagnetic spectrum, but I think that's a part of his god powers. However, Euclydeans definitely could see in color, since their alphabet was basically a color code and they also use colors to express emotion.

Since Bill has fingerprints, we can confidently say that his fingers are the most sensitive part of his skin. Bill can feel through his shell too, just like every shelled organism ever (that's why he used Ford as a backscratcher). Tactile senses are very primitive, so Eucliydeans could feel cold, heat, pain, pressure, vibration and everything else just like we do.

Bill has a sense of smell and he even says which scents he finds attractive. This could mean that sense of smell plays a big role in reproduction of Euclydeans, but where is it located? Well, on the eyelashes. Except, those are not eyelashes, they are antennae. Bill has total eight of these antennae, 4 on lower and 4 on upper eyelid. They are very soft and sensitive, so he can retract them inside the eyelid. He does that when he feels threatened, so it’s probably a fight or flight response. His lashes get longer and he flutters his eyelid more near Ford, probably because he enjoys his smell. They are also located close to the mouth, so that’s how he samples the scents of the food.

Euclydeans have great hearing. They communicate vocally, sing, Bill can play the piano, so obviously, they hear. But I have no idea what they use to hear. It could be the bow tie, since it does look vaguely ear shaped, but it's possible that the bow tie isn't actually an organ. In that case, they could have an unknown structure inside them or they could just use their thin exoskeleton to catch sound vibrations.

They taste using their long tongue.

4. Muscles and movement

We have seen Bill’s muscles and they are striated skeletal muscles like mammals and insects have.

As the shell is kind of bendy, there is a lot of muscles underneath it. Those are the muscles of the body, they also move the face and bricks while speaking. The limbs have muscles too and two kinds at that.

When Ford shoots through Bill’s hat (which also a part of him) it is shown that inside of it are strange bone-like structures. These are not bones, since they aren’t articulated, but muscles do connect to them. They kind of remind me of echinoderm ossicles, but they don’t really look like them. This is another fully alien structure and I’ll call them anchors.

You know how Bill’s limbs can both bend just like human arms and legs, like he has elbows, wrists, knees and ankles, but they also bend like goofy rubber-hose cartoon anatomy? Well, that’s because there are two types of muscles in them. There are muscles attached to the anchor points and subcutaneous muscles.

Anchor points are located in the same places as joints in humans. Muscles that attach to them are long and strong and they are used for regulated, precise movement. The subcutaneous muscles (the one we see in his Weirdmageddon image) are used to bend the limbs in every other manner. They are not attached to anchors, but to the skin, so they resemble muscles of octopus arms. They are shorter and less strong, but when they act together they move the limbs in coils. These muscles are also responsible for squishing the limbs inside the shell when they are hidden.

Bill has incredible control and dexterity of his muscles, especially in arms and fingers. Even though his paws are soft and small, he can use them pretty much as efficiently as humans use their hands.

Possibly the strongest muscles in Bill's body are his jaw muscles, so let's talk about those jaws.

5. Eye-mouth complex and the digestive system

Having your eye used for feeding seems wild to us, but this adaptation is seemingly common in fictional geometric shaped people, as it has convergently evolved in Flatland’s inhabitants as well. And, speak what you like, but Euclydeans can’t choke on their food, so they have it better than humans.

I don’t know what Flatlanders eat, but Euclydeans are definitely predators. Now, I know that Bill sometimes depicts himself with human like teeth. The guy has a thing for teeth, especially molars, but he doesn’t have mammalian teeth. In every image where he opens his mouth that was not made by him, we see that he has cone shaped sharp teeth, like a predator. These teeth are great for biting and subduing prey, but they suck at chewing. Euclydeans can’t chew, so they they feed by swallowing chunks that they bite off, or swallowing their food whole if it’s small enough.

Here I depicted how this “eye-mouth complex” functions:

Euclydeans have a stomach in the middle of their body, but I have no idea what goes after it. My best guess is that they have a branching intestine. Our flattest organisms (flatworms, sea stars and brittle stars) all have this type of intestine. It basically means that, instead of just going like a tube, the intestine branches into different parts of the body. I also have no idea whether they have an anus and if it’s just one. This is just something I can’t tell you.

Since Euclydeans are capable of eating a lot of various things, I expect that they have accessory digestive glands (that’s liver and pancreas in humans). Strangely, despite the fact that his anatomy indicates a predator, Bill likes eating starch (pasta, empanadas, sandwiches etc). Most carnivores are unable to digest starch, so I went with god powers, but he ate sandwiches when he was a kid and had no god powers. So, we have two options. Either Euclydeans are omnivores (which, with those teeth, I doubt) or the animals on their planet store their excess calories as starch, not fat, so predators evolved the ability to digest it. If the second one is true, then Bill eating pasta is like your cat eating pure butter. It’s probably not healthy for him, but I don’t think he’s a guy who would give a single crap about that.

6. Breathing and speaking

In The Book of Bill, Bill says that “dumb trapezoids and rhombuses were sucking up his rightful oxygen”. This means that Euclydeans are aerobic organisms – they breathe oxygen. Their skin is dry, so they don't use it for breathing and they also speak, laugh and sing. All of this tells me that they have lungs.

I believe that their lungs are located near the base where the bricks are. The gaps between bricks have little tracheae that lead to the lungs. Bill most likely breathes in from his back side and breathes out from the front. The air is probably forced to travel through small crevices inside the lungs so that it can exchange the oxygen with blood. We don’t know whether Euclydeans exhale carbon dioxide, but they probably do, since they can eat our food, so they probably have similar metabolism to us Earthlings.

Since Euclydeans can speak and laugh, they probably have some kind of a diaphragm. In fact, I think they have two! Their voice has an echo, which means that, most likely, their lungs don’t always expel air at the same time. Air expelling causes the bricks to vibrate which produces sound. That’s why Bill seems to glow when he speaks – he’s actually vibrating. This action is also controlled by muscles. Depending on which row of bricks is vibrating and how many of them are involved, Bill changes the pitch and tone of his voice.

And the growling noise? Well, when Bill uses his demonic voice, he is doing one of two things. He is either using his god like powers to modify his voice, or that’s just how Euclydian vocal fry sounds. If you don’t know what vocal fry is, it’s produced when the vocal chords are vibrating slowly and they become out of sync. This produces a very specific sound and that sound can be made voluntarily. That’s how Mongolian throat singing works. Similarly, Euclydeans could slow down the rate at which their bricks vibrate and make them out of sync to produce that menacing “demon voice” as a threat display.

7. Circulatory system

We know how Euclydean blood looks like. It’s silvery and kind of seems like it glitches. It also contain chemicals that can make humans sick. This means that Euclydeans have much different blood from animals on Earth, but it certainly serves the same function. It’s used to transport nutrients and oxygen through their body.

Since the agents from The Book of Bill were able to draw his blood, it’s clear that Bill has a circulatory system and a closed one at that. The closed circulatory system means that blood vessels end in capillary nets and don’t open inside the body cavity like they do in molluscs and insects. If the agents used syringe to pull Bill’s blood and he had an open circulatory system, they could actually collapse the entire thing as they would pull his organs as well. That’s why I believe that he has a closed circulatory system.

Closed circulatory system requires a heart and I believe that Bill’s heart is located between his lungs, like ours. I have no proof that his heart looked anything like in the illustration, but I looove cardiology, so I did all this just because I wanted to draw a weird heart. I don’t think Euclydeans have a super complex four chambered heart like we do, they most likely have two or three chambered heart. The heart separates lung and body circulation and regulates their blood pressure.

The capillary nets are all located in important places: lungs where they exchange oxygen, intestines where they absorb nutrients and brain where they feed the neurons. Euclydeans have a rather large brain, so it probably uses most of their calories and oxygen.

8. Other systems

I can’t tell you anything abut Euclydean excretory system. I don’t know whether they produce urine or not, if they have kidneys, nephrocytes or something completely different. I genuinely have no idea.

They have to have an immune system because they are multicellular. Every single multicellular organism including sponges and plants has some form of an immune system. I believe Euclydeans have something similar to coelomocytes - a very common type of immune cells in invertebrates which reside in coelomatic cavity.

I'll talk about reproductive system in Part 3!

Are Euclydeans warm or cold-blooded?

This was a very tough one, because they could be both, but I am leaning more towards cold-blooded. They have very little muscle mass and heat is produced within the muscles via trembling or metabolic heat (heat released in various chemical reactions in the body). When an animal has very little muscle it isn’t used for that. Even mammals like sloths who have significantly reduced muscle mass become dependent on the surrounding temperature. Also, Euclydean flat shape can easily distribute heat they absorb, so they wouldn’t need to waste energy making their own. On top of that, Euclydeans don’t wear clothes, which can be a cultural thing, sure, but they could also not wear clothes because they need their skin exposed so that it could absorb heat.

Here's how Bill Cipher's complete inner anatomy looks like:

There, I hope you enjoyed this! I'll see you hopefully next week to tell you about Euclydean reproduction and development.

Thank you @ok1237 @unoriginal-starwalker and @chrystalitar for your support :D

(Also, I hid Ford Pines in one of the anatomy illustrations. Can you find him? Click on the images for better quality!)

[inkrivelbr]

How shameless!

It's not news to Liu Qingge that when he goes on missions, he ends up listening to the famous "Resentment of Chunshan".

But now, it's stranger than usual to hear this obscene song, as he is being courted (even if secretly from the public) by the couple.

Liu Qingge tried his best to ignore the music as he ordered tea at the store.

— Dear listeners, the beloved song has been updated, I hope you like it.

The song continues but halfway through, the singer says.

Liu Qingge was surprised.

— I hope they didn't make it any more obscene.

The singer returned to singing and...

A hot-blooded but loyal man.

A man known for his battles.

Once an enemy, now a friend.

The couple managed to win the heart of the handsome warrior.

Liu Qingge the warlord.

He is certainly the only one with enough resistance and strength.

To handle Xin Mo and Xiu Ya at the same time.

Liu Qingge spits out all the tea, ignoring the indignant scream of the person in front of him.

The music continued but Liu Qingge couldn't help but pay attention to it.

W-what did he just hear??

How did you find out they were courting you??

Why the hell in the song is he portrayed as a blushing virgin maiden?!

Yes he was a virgin before sleeping with them, but that doesn't matter now!

And what is this about holding both at the same time?!

He never...

Binghe is already too big...

B-both...at the same time...

Is this humanly possible?

He can already handle Luo Binghe...what would be more-

Embarrassed by his own thoughts, Liu Qingge pays for the tea and leaves the store.

______

Liu Qingge was panting, with his legs spread as wide as possible so that Luo Binghe could go deeper inside him.

— Qingge is very needy today, you know that whatever you want, just ask.

Says Shen Qingqiu while stroking Liu Qingge's hair as he was lying on Shen Qingqiu's lap.

Liu Qingge blushes, it is very shameless what he wants.

— Shishu, we will not refuse.

Seeing both of them being so kind to him, Liu Qingge finally confesses.

— I-I want you both... at the same time

A silence passed through the room before the couple, with renewed desire, made Liu Qingge's wish.

Liu Qingge actually endured Xin Mo and Xiu Ya at the same time.

The entire night in the Palace was filled with the moans of the Demon Lord and Peak Lord Qing Jing future husband

The servants clapped for Liu Qingge's resistance.

As expected of Bai Zhan's God of War!

[fungusqueen]

I took a 2-part online Seaweed Class through Backcountry Press, and our instructor sent us a class resource page. I revisited it for the book recommendations but I saw that she included some websites of small business that sell ethically harvested seaweed products.

This Sea Vegetable Sample Kit from Main Coast Sea Vegetables is quite charming! I've been searching for dried seaweeds at my local Korean market but the packaging rarely lists the species type, so the scientific names give me reference for my own culinary research.

Ugh! And this Kelp Krunch bar is kind of adorable. I have no idea how it would taste but I think I might like it. I also feel like this is the type of snack that would scare the wrong people away, if that was your goal. Like if someone is in your space or won't leave you alone, you can pull out the Kelp Krunch and start crunching and say, "sorry, I hope my seaweed breath doesn't bother you!" and they'll promptly leave and think it was their idea. I am super curious about the kit/this snack and I might want to get it for myself for Christmas.