#humanity will survive

[lyss-butterscotch]

The art of violence

[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?

[chloesimaginationthings]

Michael Afton draws FNAF tape girl for Vanessa,,

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

real talk having the 2nd worst new years eve yet 🤢🤢🤢 (throat infection, twisted neck, banged-about-foot, ego AND the rest o' me all bruised like misjuggled peaches 🍑🍑🍑)

im bent outa shape and suspectin the universe owes me 8 buck if anyone wannsa chip in

[tawnysoup]

the fritter (frin critter)

[lilybug-02]

Dewi wouldn’t hurt a fly…usually.

Bug Fact: The African Cicada is the loudest bug in the world reaching up to 107 decibels (about the same as a car horn).

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Masterpost

[thatpunnyperson]

According to NBC here in the US, the missing titanic sub has been found. As debris. Off the bow of the Titanic wreckage.

And it looks like the sub suffered what we all suspected, and what was undoubtedly the more merciful of the two options: a catastrophic implosion from the pressure.

Also, more info has come to light about the fishing trawler with the hundreds of migrants that sank cataclysmically off the coast of Greece, indicating that the greek coast guard knew about the vessel AND how much trouble the vessel was in, and were towing it at a speed that made it capsize, at which point they unhooked the tow line and watched the trawler sink without helping the passengers to safety. Despite a bunch of other ships trying to help as well throughout the whole ordeal.

So a lot of people are dead, all because of regulations (and the lack thereof) regarding sea-faring vessels and rescue protocols. People shouldnt be allowed to make a business charging a ton of money for a ride on an uncertified, unsafe, un-seaworthy ship going deep into the ocean with no distress beacon or tether to the mothership. People also shouldnt be allowed to enact laws that criminalize the ferrying of refugees, which then force the refugees to hitch rides on fishing trawlers, and which also prevent people from helping those fishing trawlers full of refugees due to fear of legal consequences.

Hopefully BOTH of these events spark changes on an international scale in terms of what is legally allowed to be sailed, who is legally allowed to be the passengers, and what the rescue protocols are in the event of disaster for any seafaring vessel, illegal or not. It shouldnt be just the global 1% who get 24/7 search parties and remote-operated submersibles helping rescue them.

[kaidatheghostdragon]

Good reveal au, where after learning phantom's identity and realizing the atrocities that the GIW have committed (or alternatively, ethical science au, where they find out the GIW plagarized them), the fenton parents decided to create the 'ultimate ghost-ending weapon' and sell it to the agents.

They go absolutely overboard, describing to the agents in meticulous detail how it evaporates any ghost it hits near-instantly and describing it quite ruthlessly in the blueprints, and soon the GIW have raplaced all their main weapons with the new gun.

Except it doesn't actually kill ghosts. It's the Fenton Bazooka. You know, the one that creates a portable portal to suck the ghost back into the ghost zone? What they actually did was retool it slightly to make it look more grusome than it actually is. They even added a beacon in Phantom's Keep, which all Fenton Bazookas will target when they open a portal, so the ghosts are always delivered to the keep.

From there, Phantom stationed an emergency medical team at the keep to treat the many injured and ragged ghosts that the GIW 'destroyed,' and to explain what just happened.

What they didn't anticipate was that now that the GIW have a mass-produced weapon that they believed would effectively eradicate ghosts, they would go on the offensive. They have a number of cities they've been monitoring but didn't want to get involved in without better tools.

One of those cities is Gotham.

And the Bats are ectocontaminated enough to register as ghosts.

Batman witnessed several of his children get evaporated by green energy weapons within mere moments of each other. He's absolutely gutted. Devastated. They didn’t even stand a chance.

He'll get his revenge, and it's frighteningly easy to track the weapon to private subcontractors. The Doctors Fenton, in Illinois. Their research calls for the genocide of all ghost kind, and apparently, that war started by killing his own children.

His children will not die in vain.

He gets to Amity Park and finds the Engineer's Nightmare of a building that is Fentonworks, but that night, before he can hack through the security and break in, one of the windows opens.

It's one of his kids that he had watched evaporate before his very eyes. They give him a silent signal of one of their identifying security codes and gesture for him to come inside.

Is it a trap? A prank in poor taste? Utterly genuine?

He goes through the window.

All of his dead kids are there, wearing borrowed pajamas and only their dominoes to conceal their identities. Daniel Fenton (son of the Fentons, this is his bedroom, has voiced a few arguments against his parent's views, but still an unknown) is among the crowd of teens and young adults, twirling on an office chair and obnoxiously sipping a capri sun.

"First thing you need to know, Bats," Daniel says after finishing his drink, "is that my parents are absolutely NOT genocidal ectophobic scumbags, and that is the reason why your kids are still alive."

[byjove]

Actually people with this condition didn’t ‘just die’ in the past! They probably suffered immensely and lingered on for a while, maybe even long enough to reproduce. Then they died.

[pinyatapix]

how i imagine Minecraft Alex's personality to be like vs how i imagine Minecraft Steve's personality. duality of minecraft

[plutonious]

throwing my hat into the twin dragons ring

[meirimerens]

youtube shorts is just tiktok without being on the app the amount of "i'm a [qualification] and [misinformation]" could make one turn their skin inside-out in protest. "i'm a board-certified OB-GYN & it's only been about the last hundred years that women have actually experienced menopause. We didn't live long enough to experience it" how can you be so incredibly wrong about something so integral to your practice. King of the Hittites Hattusilis III was told in 1250 BCE that his sister was too old to reproduce at age 50+. Aristotle wrote in the 4th century BCE that women stopped menstruating between ages 40 to 50, common menopause ages today still. i cannot begin to tell you how 4th century & 1250 BCE don't really count as "the last hundred years" unless that -s is doing a lot of heavy lifting. waiter waiter more misinformation laws.

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF movie Mike and Michael compare nightmares,,

[bet-on-me-13]

Ghostly Host AU

So! Ghosts need a physical Anchor in the living world, or they are liable to fall apart and fade away if they stay for too long.

In Amity Park, this usually isn't too much of a problem. Sure most Ghosts can't stay for a week without a Host, but the ambient Ecto-Levels in Amity Park are enough that they can stay for a few days or so at a time with little worry.

This changes however, during Reign Storm.

When Pariah Dark awakens, Tens of Thousands of Ghosts use the Fenton Portal to escape the Rule of Pariah Dark, running away into the Human Realm.

If Amity Park had stayed where it was, this would have been fine. They could have stayed in the Living Realm for a few days, and maybe the Weaker ones would need to find a temporary Host, but that was fine since Amity was filled with thousands of Liminals.

Unfortunately, Pariah Darks first move was to suck Amity Park into the Ghost Zone, alongside all of the Ecto-Energy that had accumulated there.

Now left trapped in the Living Realm with no way back to the Zone, thousands of Ghosts suddenly needed Hosts or they would start dying off by the Hundreds. In a Panic, they spread out across the Planet in search of viable Hosts.

Any normal Person wouldn't do, they needed a Living Being that could actually handle their Power, or someone who matched their Soul. Preferably both. Liminals were the best since they had a durable Body and a Malleable Soul, so any Ghost could use any of them as a Host.

But outside of Amity Liminals were very rare, and finding someone who matched their Soul was time-consuming and hard. Thankfully, in recent years the population of Aliens, Metahumans, Enhanced Soldiers, and even extra durable baseline Humans had spiked across the world.

All across the planet, People suddenly found themselves stuck with a new Passenger in their Bodies.

Those new passengers thankfully weren't malicious, for the most part, but it was still annoying. The only good thing was that they now had new Powers, which neat.

They could summon the Ghosts in their Body outwardly, and then command the Ghost to use their Powers in whatever way they wanted. Only other Hosts could see another person's Ghost, which meant they looked very awkward to normal people when they fought. Generally, Hosts seemed to act more strangely after getting a Ghost, as if they lost a few of their Inhibitions.

Why did they feel the sudden need to strike a flamboyant Pose? Or over dramatically scream?

[c-rowlesdraws]

/blows off a cassette hand-labeled "headcanon Tali" and slams it into the tape deck

if the boy quarians at least get to have those cool bundles of cables coming out of the backs of their helmets, surely the girl quarians have something similar under the hoods they wear. The way I draw Tali and her people might be stubbornly different from canon in some ways, but I can believe it's not too far off.

[bunnieswithknives]

Obsessed with his brain