#it feels more natural

[acoraxia]

yknow while i do understand that shipping shouldnt ruin your enjoyment of things

the fact that we see a lot of shipping content and very little enjoyment of certain things without bringing ships or pairings into said scenes says a lot

[shallowseeker]

My turn for Friendly Friday! a) Which character would you resurrect in later SPN seasons, if any?; b) Which writer would you hire to helm an SPN sequel?

Ooo, thank you!

OG Kevin Tran. There was the perfect opportunity for it to happen when Donatello got brain-melted. Say, Cas tries to heal Donatello, and through the power invested by someone else's soul or other, Donatello comes back with a BANG, but he's no longer a prophet. The power rebounded all the way back and resurrected The Kevin Tran, but very crucially, he doesn't want to help The Winchesters anymore, and that causes Big Tension. Jack will argue in his favor, because he failed to protect AU Kevin from AU Michael.

Writer for the sequel? I know everyone and their brother would insist on Robbie Thompson for his love and care, but I actually...love his themes more than I love his dialogue, which I found rather clumsy in both his OG run and in The Winchesters. I also don't think he has a good ear for Sam or Cas, so... I'm choosing Ben Edlund, the wryest Cas to ever Cas (more “lost in translation” style than “stupid duck” style) and who can tap into Sam's inner asshole even when Sam's trying to play nice. This second in command can be Meredith Glynn, because I like how she structures scenes, and that's just how my heart feels today. The heart wants what it wants.

I’ll happily trust Robbie with Dean and creating annoying-but-eventually-kinda-endearing side characters + world building + big plots. But I just don’t think he has the chops for quite hitting what I need with Sam and Cas, respectively, and a sequel would need to be so heavily Sam-driven, no offense. 🙏 (Besties, don’t kill me. I could be wrong. I don’t actually study the writers in depth.)

[jojaxcola]

"no one told me back then that i was in the glory days."

[ jojamart mockumentary #14 ]

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[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?

[notbecauseofvictories]

I'm re-reading the Discworld series for reasons, and honestly the most relatable part of reading these as an adult is how many of the protagonists start out being tired, used to their little routine and vaguely disgruntled by the interruption of the Plot. Sam Vimes wants to lie drunk in a gutter and absolutely doesn't want to be arresting dragons. Rincewind is yanked into every situation he's ever encountered, though he'd much rather be lying in a gutter too. (Minus the alcohol. Plus regretting everything he's ever done said witnessed or even heard about fourth-hand in his whole life.) Granny Weatherwax is deeply suspicious of foreign parts and that includes the next town over; Nanny has leaned into the armor of "nothing ever happens to jolly grannies who terrorize their daughters-in-law and make Saucy Jokes"

Only the young people don't seem to have picked up on this---and that's fortunate, because someone has to run around making things happen, if only so Vimes and Granny and Rincewind have a reason to get up (complaining bitterly the whole time) and put it all to rights. Without Carrot, Margrat, Eric, etc. these characters don't have that reason; they're likely to stay in the metaphorical gutter and keep wondering where it all went wrong or why anything has to change.

............well, that's not quite true. You get the sense that Vetinari knows how much certain people hate the Plot. And as the person sitting behind the metaphorical lighting board of Ankh-Morpork, he takes no small pleasure in forcing the Plot-haters specifically to stand up, and say some lines.

[nikkinelson1313]

so cozy 🖤

[bixels]

Happy post-relationship Sunset.

[hinamie]

alongside someone like you

[zivazivc]

Like a completely normal adult person, after watching the new trolls movie, I obsessively started putting together the brothers' backstory, the deeper reasons for their separation as well as how that all took place without disregarding the fact that they were trapped in the troll tree, which of course evolved into a fic in (forever) progress... yeah

Anyway, even though they aren't actively in the story much, i needed to design the parents, so uh meet Rosiepuff's daughter, Tulip, and her husband Branch.

I designed them based on the brothers' adult looks and in Tulip's case also on her mom's.

bonus baby branch:

[lucabyte]

On autonomy, and what it means to be Obliged to Help.

Bonus:

[grabyourpillow]

I've been thinking about the moment Lawrence tells Bellini about his papal name "John. I would choose John".

On one hand the words of Conclave writer Peter Straughan bounce around in my head like a windows xp saving screen: "Lawrence admits he has harbored that ambition, that he has prepared his name. It's true what Bellini said about him. It's true about all of them -- except for one person, of course."

And on the other hand it's such a tender little moment. Lawrence could just, not say it and retain the moral high ground literally forever. And as always, always, he chooses to step down, and comfort his longtime confident and friend by looking at him, holding his hands and telling him "look. I'm down here in the muck with the rest of you. With you." And also, perhaps even more importantly "you did not read me wrong. You do, know me."

Going insane

[glassedplanets]

truly one of those zs top hits moments

[puppppppppy]

horrible truth bomb dropped on my head 20 min ago

[bluegiragi]

debrief.

early access + nsfw on patreon

[extrashortshorts]

Do you ever wonder... what is going on up there...

[nonasemporium]

Gideon would not be some suave fuckboy picking up chicks like skittles and somehow having Harrow as the person that settles her--Gideon has been starving for home and belonging since before she was born, Gideon doesn't know how to interact with strangers even if she barks out something aggressive or recites some line she's read, Gideon nearly blacks out when a girl she finds pretty implies the most minuscule of interest in her.

Gideon is also, without question, submissive when it comes to her relationships, and while she spits like a startled cat at Harrow (rightfully so, I will point out, as their relationship before Canaan House was violent and cruel and oppressive), she responds immediately and desperately to even the faintest taste of approval.

Even when we're in her head, even when we see her make some brazen statement or thought, even when she lashes out and tries to be bigger and bolder than she feels, we still see how awkward she is. She's an unsocialized teenager without peers. She's an absolute mess with no experience. She's the isolated teen who learned everything from material marked as too explicit for her a bit too young and took the scripts of them and then nearly choked on the reality of talking to a pretty girl who wasn't beating the shit out of her in a circumstance she could rightfully resent.

She sat there wanting Harrow to kiss her so bad, Nona dipped down to offer her relief that fell hollow as soon as Gideon knew it wasn't from her morbid mistress of bones. She's a performative little shit. An anxious, floundering, helpless butch who is quite literally dying to have someone use her, want her, and who doesn't know what to do with it other than artlessly throw up her feathers.