#look what your children are doing now

[a-scary-lack-of-common-sense]

My Great Grandma who loved her babies very much

Reference that I used for the face!

[notbecauseofvictories]

I've seen that "the immortal loses their loved one but not their loved one's family; what if the immortal stayed close, followed them down the generations?" post a dozen times, and I understand it's intended to be sweet---but every single time I see it, all I can think is that it's straight-up the beginning of a horror story.

[captious-solarian]

This is so cool

(Guy who has only ever seen protists voice:) Getting a lot of protist vibes from this. You get wildly different strategies, from basically-plants to parasitic to predatory to changing by life stage.

SpecBio concept #4: Plantworld

A planet resembling Earth in its late Archean state (higher temperature, no free oxygen, dense atmosphere, extensive salty oceans, thick coat of carbon dioxide), perhaps more tectonically stable, extensively seeded with Earth plants and bacteria. Not a single animal or fungal species is brought.

The first green settlers struggle to get a hold on the barren continents, in absence of fungi to erode bare rock and worms to aerate the ground. But some ground is more hospital than other, the first layer of debris provides soil for the survivors, and eventually plant life starts to grow properly.

For many millions of years the plants thrive, thanks to the abundance of carbon and water, the higher temperatures, and the lack of oxygen to interfere with carbon fixation; but eventually oxygen starts piling in the atmosphere, gigatons of carbon are locked into wood and buried debris (to be released in pulses only when wildfires burn out uncontrollably), and the diminished greenhouse effects starts to cool down the planet sensibly. The forests start to shrink.

There’s an obvious niche to be exploited there. Parasite plants without chlorophyll exist on Earth right now, such as the very unfortunately named broomrape. They’ve always thrived on Plantworld in many lineages, with the bounty of hosts to exploit, but now they can do one better: they find out how to secrete acids and enzymes to break apart cellulose, much like fungi did on a forgotten planet, and start consuming the vast dead biomass.

The decomposer plants scatter their pollen and seeds to the wind (no animal disperser to exploit), gliding away on wing-blades like maple seeds, but why stop there? If they gather enough energy, they can manipulate osmotic pressure inside the seeds to move the blades, until they can flap them like wings. This consumes enormous amounts of sugar and oxygen: each plant can afford very few seeds. The strands of turgid cells become analogues of muscles, and soon Planetworld’s forests are abuzz with little flying seeds, flying as far as possible from the mother plant to avoid competing against their own kin.

Each incremental improvement to fitness suggests others. If you sharpen your chemical senses, you could detect the places were there is fewest competition… if you steal back some photosynthetic pigments from your prey (which are but light detectors, after all) you can repurpose them into crude eyes to look for better ground… if you can move your wing-flaps, you can move them on the ground to place yourself in a better germinating position.

Absorbing matter through roots is agonizingly slow for these increasingly energic parasites. It would be much quicker to take food in bulk. The flying seeds secrete powerful saliva-like enzymes to degrade the matter on which they germinate; they use their osmotic muscles to grind shell-plates against each other like tiny jaws; they develop internal specialized glands… And eventually they discard the roots at all, which have lost their use. Why bother growing into a plant form? You can just stay a flying seed all your life, and sprout your flowers directly there. Actually, now that you’re so nimble, you can just seek out your mates directly.

Half a billion year later, Plantworld has a rich biosphere full of animal life; swift-footed grazers and silent ambush predators, swarming minute plankton and giants feeding on them by the millions, industrious hive-builders and devious endoparasites; and perhaps some creature with inquisitive brains and dexterous hands who is in for a big surprise or two when they finally chart the history of life on their world.

SpecBio concept #3 (children falling from the “sky”) SpecBio concept #2 (liquid brain, chemical memory) SpecBio concept #1 (double silicate biosphere, one hot, one cold)

[sukibenders]

The way people are becoming anti-children nowadays is really sad. And I'm not talking about people not wanting to have kids of their own, that's fine and something that shouldn't be shamed nor up to someone else to debate. No, I'm talking about the people who adamantly hate these little humans for simply existing, wanting to ban them from spaces due to them having emotional reactions that they are still learning to understand (you know, the kind of lessons that everyone had to learn and figure out at one point). It's gotten to the point where I've even seen these types of people genuinely support children being harmed and deny their hurt under the consensus of "Well then maybe they shouldn't be there," in your average public space. Like, imagine thinking hating on children, people who need assistance and guidance, is something to be proud of.

[leonardalphachurch]

putting up some decorations for all the ppl coming back to the rvb fandom

[lokh]

damn. remember the young avengers

[soullessjack]

boycott fatigue is actually the stupidest fucking thing ever because how in the ever loving fuck are you experiencing “fatigue” from not going to Starbucks. how is not watching rushed cgi on disney+ and not eating a breaded slime nugget at McDonald’s “fatiguing” you. genuinely how fucking dare this even exist as a concept. entire bloodlines, children, newborns are dying slow and bloody and all of these companies are giving Israel the money to do that. they’re using YOUR fucking money to do this. and look, practically every war has been funded out of our pockets by a means we can’t fight around. almost all of the food and drink we have in the states is owned by some large corporation that makes it fucking impossible to not give them money because they are the sole providers. I understand there are some things we can’t boycott because of our own needs. but this isn’t basic needs that we are being asked to boycott. it’s fucking Disney+ and McDonald’s and Starbucks and a whole slew of luxuries that you’re not only capable of living without, but would actually be better off entirely without.

there’s been a lot of talk about how privileged we are to only be witnessing this human rights atrocity through phones or news and being able to get away from it with a button click and that’s entirely real, but the fact that somebody out here just felt soooo inconvenienced by not going to a drive thru for overpriced garbage that they literally coined the phrase “boycott fatigue,” is probably the biggest load of privileged dog shit I’ve seen in the past few days. do you want to know who’s actually experiencing fatigue right now? the millions of displaced families in Gaza without homes anymore. without any clean water to drink because it’s either been poisoned by the Israelis or contaminated with their peoples’ blood. the children without enough food to get by, or without any food at all. the injured and sick and disabled Palestinians who don’t have access to any medical aid for themselves because their hospitals and fuel trucks are being bombed. these people who have absolutely nothing but each other, and not even that in the worst circumstances, who can only keep walking for days on end, hungry and thirsty and in pain and unable to do anything about it. that is real fucking fatigue.

I understand we’re all seeing war crimes and death and atrocities that nobody should ever have to see and yes it’s difficult to process, but the people of Palestine are experiencing these atrocities in real time, every day, every hour. every ten fucking minutes a child dies. They aren’t even asking for help anymore. They’re only asking to be witnessed and remembered and for us to stop going to places that actively fund their deaths and you’re saying you just can’t because you’re exhausted by not going to that place? I know we’re all born and raised in a consumerist hellscape but you seriously need to get a fucking reality check if offering the bare minimum support to a dying people is ‘fatiguing’ to you. Jesus fucking Christ.

[lesbiansanemi]

My roommate did, in fact, quit her job

[nobodysdaydreams]

Giving a complicated tragic childhood backstory to your favorite character is all fun and games, until you realize you need to account for how old all the other adult characters would have been at the time and realize that scenes that would work perfectly if one character was twenty three and the other was fourteen stop working when you need other characters who are played by adult actors clearly younger than they are to be in college at the same time so your story beats line up thematically.

[hauntingblue]

making a collection

making another collection with a threatening aura

[donttouchtheneednoggle]

don't mind me just dethorning the bramble in my stick insects' cage because a CERTAIN beautiful old lady

managed to snag her wing on one and got stuck there until I saw and detangled her and I am not eager to repeat the experience!!

ALSO I finally managed to get a picture of the whole family as it is now :DDD

1 adult Indian stick insect, 1 adult Pink Winged stick insect and three Pink Winged stick insect nymphs at various stages of development

(I also have an Indian stick insect nymph but she lives in a separate enclosure at the moment and is so tiny getting her out would be way to stressful for both her and me)

[sysig]

You could stay forever, if you wanted (Patreon)

[savage-rhi]

Fuschia/Magenta?

[tues-dayy]

some pre-canon v. post-canon twin shenanigans

[comixandco]

my favourite part of season 5 is still the reveal that Gabriel and Tomoe thought Adrien and Kagami made the perfect pair and wanted them to be together because it completely flips their relationship

Kagami and Adrien sneaking around and finding the slightest gaps in their schedule and giving their bodyguards/parents the slip to spend time together and feeling so clever that they’ve gotten away with it their parents don’t suspect a thing

only to smashcut to Gabriel and Tomoe doing an evil pound it because their ship is canon

[tenwhiteandalusians]

pertaining to the idea of tenax’s band of strays i do think it’s touching that the kids are the ones who saved him and waited outside the door to make sure he’s okay. for all tenax claims to be harsh and cruel it’s a fine indicator of his character that the kids won’t rest without him and are there every time he’s in danger.