#you don't have to consume the stuff you don't like

[illegiblewords]

Look at bees and termites!

Worker bees are all female and have stingers. Queens are cultivated and fed special 'queen jelly' food as larva and are capable of reproduction. Pretty sure workers can't reproduce. There are logistics behind when multiple queen larva are made and I think workers sometimes deliberately kill queens and set up new queens when they deem it necessary? Would need to double check, it's been a bit. Also think queens have stingers but also can't remember for sure. Drones are male bees. Their eyes are massive because their only real purpose is to mate with the queens on their mating flights. No stingers, larger than workers. IIRC they usually die after mating or kicked from the colony to die because all they do is consume resources outside their necessity to mating. (This is not intended as bashing drones disclaimer, bee colonies are just ruthlessly pragmatic.)

These are not adequately nuanced pictures of what different termites look like--queens are waaaaay bigger, their abdomens are ENORMOUS and very squishy looking. Website I double checked says the following:

Queen The king and queen are the breeding types of termites. The alates emerge from an existing nest, spread their wings and fly to another place. Once there, the queen sheds her wings and she and the male burrow into the ground where they start to reproduce. The Queen’s only job is to reproduce! A queen can lay an egg every 15 seconds for many years, sometimes thousands in a single day. They are the largest in size and weigh several times that of worker termites. King The King’s only job is to reproduce with the Queen to build a colony. The king termite lives next to the queen, creating a very close existence for the two of them. They are buried deep within the center of the surrounding termite nest, making them the hardest to find and see. Soldier A soldier’s job is to protect the colony at all costs by fighting off invaders such as ants. They fight off their predators with a front pair of mandibles in a pinching motion. They are considered the protectors of the colony. These unwanted guests can vary greatly in appearance from other members of the termite colony. They have been seen to have darker heads and larger mandibles than the workers. Worker The workers make up the majority of the colony and are responsible for damage to structures. They feed on structures to provide a food source for themselves as well as bring the food source back to the other colony members. In most colonies, workers are wingless and soft-bodied and are the largest single group in most termite colonies. One thing that most people don’t know is that the workers take care of the eggs and immature termites (nymphs). They also take care of the building and maintenance of the colony structures. Swarmer These winged flying termites do not cause any termite damage. Their job is to swarm out, mate and return underground to start a new colony. They have a very short life span outside the colony, which is why you see many dead during swarm season. Termite swarmers emerge from tubes built by worker termites. They range in color – from yellow to black – depending on the species. These insects are often noticed around exterior lighting and window sills.

For termites worker and soldier termites are sterile but can be either male or female. The extreme dimorphism is in queen vs king particularly.

The soldiers can have differently shaped heads depending on species too. Saw some with a single protruding horn.

Eusocial insects get wild with this stuff though imo, and eusociality gets examined with aliens occasionally so worth exploring!

Also though when it comes to boobs, I raise the point that if you are going to stress them as being part of dimorphism it may be worth considering how many boobs there are. Think I remember mammals typically have double the number of nipples as expected offspring (though platapi don't have them and just sweat milk), but also mutations/display purposes are a thing. If you want to make a succubus it might be worth making rows of boobs down the abdomen instead of just a single pair at the chest.

“There are no female aliens in our game because we don’t know how to make a female version of this alien” You know that alien you just designed? That male alien? Give it a female voice actor and have characters refer to it as she. That’s it. That’s literally all you have to do 

Make her shorter if you must

Make her BIGGER if you aren’t a coward 

[strangebiology]

So I understand that it is extremely difficult to know which type of fur is more ethical/sustainable/less damaging to the environment due to bias coming from basically all sides of the discussion, however, what would you recommend for consumption of fur products? Do you have any "best practices" for trying to reduce one's impact in general? I rarely buy fur, I mostly get it second or third hand if I get it at all and use scraps and such as much as possible. Overall I'm not a big consumer, but if I need fur for crafts or something similar, do you have recommendations on how to cause the least harm? Thank you for your contribution to the overall discussion. I think this is important.

Thank you for asking openly! Unfortunately I don't have a clear answer, except #1 below:

The one you have I feel confident that "the most sustainable coat/car/whatever is the one you already own." But, obviously, sometimes you need a new one.

Thrifting Second to that, I figure thrifting is probably best. Or making sure you take what you want when Grandma dies and you clean out her house. Logically, thrifting either one--whichever you find that fits you and your needs--should have a fairly minimal impact. And there are tons of clothes out there that are just about to hit the landfill. (Nice coats, though? Might be a little harder. Probably not too hard.) There could be issues with second-hand stuff, of course. I read in The Scavenger's Manifesto that there was a time when vintage clothes were so popular that demand outstripped supply, and companies just started manufacturing vintage-like clothes. I could imagine a world in which items become so commonly thrifted that it's close to the same price to just buy something new, and that props up the new-product industry. I wonder if Poshmark is popular enough that people are just shipping clothes around and polluting via transportation without really wearing them enough, but all in all, I think second-hand is probably second-best (to the one you already own.)

More sustainable real fur options? I did profile someone who had a roadkill-fur business. But: a simple fox-fur ruff for your coat was thousands of dollars because the economies of scale weren't there, and the company went out of business anyway. If you know and trust someone or can do something like that yourself, great! But that's not a really accessible option for the average American.

More sustainable faux fur options? Not all faux fur is made of microplastics, companies like GACHA and Savian. But...I don't really know how accessible those are, nor have I seen environmental assessments on them.

Sooo...honestly I won't judge what you buy or wear. I'll say that second-hand anything is probably very low-impact, sustainably.

I have to admit there are reasons to buy new. If you buy something on clearance, is it possible you're saving that from a landfill, too?

Once, I spent a whole bunch of Saturdays in a row biking around to garage sales, trying to get a second-hand lamp. So many hours wasted. I found a dirty one for $10 and couldn't get it home on my bike. One weekend my roommate took me in her big car to Walmart and we got a new lamp in a box for $7. No shopping around, no hoping to get lucky, just "there it is, and I can return it if it doesn't work." So...while secondhand is almost certainly more sustainable, I also won't blame anyone who wants to just buy new.

Another sustainability thing: I also recommend trying to ensure your coat fits your parameters really well, like your size, do you want hoods and pockets, do you think it looks good, so you don't get in the habit of stuffing it in your back closet because you don't like it and buying another.

Sorry I don't have a simple answer!

EDIT: I now realize I have written this as though Anon was asking about a coat, but their ask is more about crafts. Uuuuuuummmm gosh, I don't know. Faux fur can be so much cheaper and easier to find than real. And not everyone has a thrift store nearby. I know I don't, except that little store that sells used things for 150% of the new price. If I was doing a craft...I'd probably start with the fur someone gave me for free and then if I needed more I'd probably just order faux so I don't have to drive 150 miles to risk it at a thrift.

[marshmallowprotection]

I keep seeing headcanons and imagines about us/self-inserts being like..;;; always on Unknown's lap or being held there by him as like a comfort thing (I think?) or just to chill there with him

But like ;;;

I wholeheartedly know that they're are all just requests and stuff and it seems to be an idea accepted by so many people and how they like to imagine being with Unknown

But like;;

Me personally, I just. I just...don't like it..(??)

It just makes me uncomfortable for some reason and actually kinda scares me a little, the thought of being just;; grabbed and held? And;; on his lap??

It wouldn't be something I'd want to do, I mean. ;;

So I guess

Is there like..;; anything else I could do with him that wouldn't involve being so close?

See, when I thought of that concept years ago and I started working with it in my writing, it wasn't meant to be perceived as a comfort in the beginning. It was a power play. It was meant to make you feel as uncomfortable as it sounds. Unknown took you from the apartment as a knee-jerk reaction to the fact that you didn't know how to listen to him.

What's the very best way to make you feel uncertain of yourself in a situation where you have no control?

Well, in Unknown's rationale, that's to make you see what he's doing with no escape. This can be particularly even more unsettling if you were close to the RFA. Unknown's not a morally sound person, he's driven by apathy and revenge, and there's a reason why he's not the one with the route. To be able to capture his heart would take you a long time, and that kind of story arc isn't one you can complete in a mere cycle of 11 days, even for a game like MM which does it best to speed-run what would take months already.

This isn't meant to be seen as a good thing, not by any means. I don't always write the unsettling parts because I like to focus on the parts that come later once his walls are down, but this is just one of those things that people like to talk about with Unknown. What would he do in a situation where he has his assistant? He won't do what Ray does. I can affirm that. Ray wanted you to be with him and Unknown didn't want you like that.

The concept changes when we explore the foundation of these ideas.

It's not supposed to sound appealing at first. Though, it becomes a point of comfort for many people because not only does this make you vulnerable, it forces Unknown to be vulnerable as well. You can hear the sound of his every heartbeat, the way his hands twitch, and feel how his body strains itself every step of the way. At some point, it's impossible for him to maintain the air of unsettling fear. You're first when it comes to witnessing this man at his worst.

I understand that it makes you feel uncomfortable, though. That's not everyone's cup of tea. I hope you know that this is just one concept a lot of Unknown fans lot to navigate but it's not a definitive of who he is as a person. We don't know what Unknown would do with someone as his assistant, and there's just things that we've agreed on as a fan collective over the years that have shaped how we write him as your boss.

Just because some fans write him doing this doesn't mean you have to write him doing that, and it certainly doesn't mean you have to imagine something that makes you uncomfortable.

I'm glad you reached out to say something because you're afraid that this concept means Unknown would pointedly make you feel bad and that's not good when you're hunting for fluff. You don't have to like it. That's down to personal preference! You should request stuff from us imagine blogs with the things you're into! I know that my mutuals will be more than happy to write you stuff like I am.

The last thing any of us wants to make someone feel left out.

When it comes to Unknown's proximity, it's hard for me to tell you that he'll leave you with your own personal space. Even in the game, his voice is a whisper that gets louder the closer he gets to you, and that implies that he will get closer to you if he thinks it would be to his benefit to cage you like an animal. But, by that, I mean, the worst you can deal with is him whispering in your ears, pushing you against the wall to laugh at your fear-stricken face, or circling you when you try to explain how you did something.

He doesn't have to pin you to his lap to prove that he's got the upper hand.

But, if you're looking for a comfort thing as opposed to trying to find something that doesn't unnerve you like the lap stuff, I suppose you could be subjected to hand-holding. He's not big on cuddling or stuff like that. But, let's see, I don't think he's immune to holding your hand while you sit on opposite ends of the couch. He hates proximity until it benefits him somehow. Sitting with you is a big thing for him, so if it brings you comfort, he'll stargaze with you when he's got time for a break. Apart but together.

This kind of overlaps later on with him as SE Saeran pushes away most physical contact outside of parallel play and sitting together. Because SE Saeran is just Unknown after the Secret Ending. They hold onto the same ideals, the only difference is that there's no more elixir and anger to drive his ideals.

[pelicanoctopus]

This is so real. Y'all. If you have never paid more than $100 USD for a pair of jeans, your jeans are fast fashion. If you have never paid more than $50 USD for a shirt: your shirts are fast fashion. Unless you buy graphic tees from a company that is loud and proud about their non sweatshop textile/garment sourcing? You better believe that's fast fashion too.

For years and years and years the only non fast fashion garments I owned were underwire bras and bathing suits that were hand made in Germany and I paid over $100USD for every single one because there were no other options for the tig ol biddies I was sporting at the time. It took so much of my budget that I bought practically no other new clothing for over a decade.

Most people cannot afford to buy clothes that aren't fast fashion. Like OP, I'm not going to judge anyone for having a fast fashion wardrobe (the majority of mine still is), because it's very much a Samuel Vimes Theory Of Boots type problem. You need clothes to cover your body, so you buy what you can afford. The clothes you can afford aren't as good for the planet or the people who made them and they're not going to last as long as something made both sustainably and well, but you need clothes to cover your body, so you buy them anyway.

And then on top of that, there's also the problem of: having paid $$$ for jeans/shirts is not actually a guarantee that the garments you own are not also fast fashion. The garments might have been made by hand or in an ethical workshop, but with fabric that came from a sweatshop mill. Or they might be straight up sweatshop work from start to finish & cost $$$ because of the brand label on them.

Or they could be "sustainable" and "ethically sourced and produced" and just absolutely garbage quality because the "fair wages" they pay aren't high enough for the garment workers who have actual skills and experience.

Yes, it is better - for the environment, for the people making your stuff, and for your budget (if you're a pleb like me who can't get by without one) - to buy less and take good care of what you own than to buy a bunch of clothes and only wear each garment a single time. But more likely than not, even with your best efforts, even if you spend $$$$, you're going to end up with a wardrobe that is at least partially "fast fashion" because that's 90% of what's available to the average consumer.

So do better if you can, but yeah. Unless you're wealthy enough to have all of your clothes made bespoke with ethically produced fabric? Don't delude yourself into thinking you're not participating in/wearing fast fashion, because there's a 99% chance you are. Like OP said: words mean things.

I love nonfiction that I simply cannot relate to at all. "it's easy to get addicted to buying fast fashion! I used to spend thousands of dollars on it a year!" okay. you're a space alien.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

got a worm nibbling my brain. can someone help me find a piece of obscure media?

webcomic/indie comic from the 2010s. basically a sci-fi short story about a young girl (with red hair?) who was being raised by scientists as part of an experiment. she receives a haircut/has her head shaved, in preparation for her annual brain scan/testing. it is revealed that while her body is human, her "brain" is artificial, made of computer implants throughout her skull and spine. at some point her biological mother (also a scientist on the same campus?) encounters her and is repulsed, viewing her as a machine who has murdered her daughter.

it was very poignant and it bruised my heart and i can NOT find it anywhere

[p1ctur3]

@octdl-lee

Random captive TDL au lore dump and some behind the scenes stuff since you asked so nicely :]

Dark in captivity

victim did use dark as a way to train and get the mercs and him used to the box

victim and agent (i would probably explore their dynamic in this au also, mitsi would haunt this narrative because yes)

some behind the scenes things

additional art

[wilddragon]

Hallo!!! I got tagged!!!

Last Song: The Moon Will Sing by the Crane Wives

Favourite Colour: Orangey Yellow & Royal Blue

Last Book: Wings of fire Legends — Darkstalker by Tui T. Sutherland

Last Movie: Howl's Moving Castle

Last Show: I don't watch those, man... I guess it was like 6 episodes of Wednesday???

Sweet/Spicy/Savoury: Depends what I'm feeling. I have an unusual need to consume Berry Bliss Tictacs so I guess sweet.

Relationship: You don't need to know!!!

Last Search: People doing Poses (for failed anatomy practice, I ended up drawing bird wings and stuff...)

TAGGING: @c0smicp0wder @w-ggish

get to know your moots!!!!

thanks for the tag @goldenjuniper ! ^^ googling executive dysfunction is such a mood, i feel you,,,

last song: Deliver Us (Opening Song) from Prince of Egypt !! :D i love love love that movie and recently started listening to the soundtrack and watching clips of it again, by far my favourite song

favourite colour: hrmmm, none really but i’ve been leaning more to warm colours like yellow and orange right now! very pretty

last book: i haven’t really picked up a book in a while (cough fanfics cough) but the last one i remember which was like. a week ago, was the Aeneid by Virgil! such a fun readdd, i get giddy reading it

last movie: still sonic 3 ^^; haven’t watched any movies recently

last show: House MD . noo elaboration,, i want to finish it

sweet/spicy/savoury: spicy!! savoury is a very close second. i just can never rlly taste and enjoy food unless there’s a ton of flavour and when it’s sweetness with a ton of flavour i can’t handle it well ^^;

relationship: no romantic ones! but my friends,, my friends make me smile and laugh and feel happy every day just thinking of them,, (looking very specifically but not limited to at @teshiee )

last google search: how long does it take for popsicles to freeze. i made popsicles today! :D wanted to see how long they’d take until they were done

tagging my moots (no pressure): @teshiee @st4rriseri @vvictorik @deadbaguette @0scarxa

[summergoodwife]

"If you want well-written women/queer representation/nuanced character arcs/less wish fulfillment/etc. just consume something other than shounen" completely misses the point of the original complaint. Like no, I don't just want representation. I want representation in shounen, the genre that I otherwise love but that never seems to respect people like me. And shounen can have representation. The idea that there's somehow a contradiction between those two things may come from a different place when it's shared by underrepresented people themselves, but it ultimately arrives at the exact same conclusion as anti-woke dudebros who think trans people and women existing is an assault. I have had too many other marginalized folks recite anti-representation, anti-diversification, pro-identity-based-gatekeeping arguments to me word-for-word without seeming to realize the logical end of what they're saying.

[ask-artsy-oncie]

I think, what I've just never understood when it came to shipping wars, and how I think you can identify someone who's Taking Things Too Seriously, is when someone cannot even bare to acknowledge canon friendships between characters because they feel it actively threatens their ship somehow. When someone goes out of their way to explain that "these characters aren't actually friends, of course. If you read between the lines you can tell." or "actually this friendship is toxic so naturally they'll break it off soon for their health. They just don't belong together, yknow?" or "oh yeah I'm writing an AU. Yeah. Of course in this AU it's circumstantially impossible for these two characters to be friends. How sad. Oh well."

It honestly fucking gives insecure controlling partner vibes, and every time I see it I just know the person in question is getting into the most vile discourse I've ever heard of lol. Genuinely, do you even like these characters (or one of the characters or whatever) outside of the context of shipping? Do you even enjoy the source material? What's wrong with friendships?

[facelessxchurch]

I'm still weeping about how fcking ugly that figure is. Skul looks like he will fall over or run against a pole. Also, why the glossy finish?? Gloss shows like ALL your mistakes while matt hides it somewhat, plus suits ain't glossy. It makes it so obvious he doesn't really understand folds.

And then he demands such a high price?? I get that the other figures are from video games which make more money and have a bigger audience, but if you are gonna take such a high price for a figure at least make sure your customers get their money's worth!

Why is this random ass youtuber doing it more professionally than a 'globally bestselling' author that has HarperCollins, one of the biggest publishers in the world, backing him??? Instead, he goes the nepotism route because he's cheap. Sorry, but his brother is not a good sculptor and he's a worse concept artist and his paint jobs ain't great either. Landy would only have to cough up the money for the concept art up front, then he could do a Kickstarter again and use that to pay the sculptor and the production and box art.

And then this sets me off even more, because what the fck kind of backwaters hillbilly operation is this, why is he packing them in a fcking shed

The only thing he is committed to is being cheap!

I love figures so much and watching this is just killing me on the inside 😱 it's just a card box. Does he not know that the boxes that figures come in can be displayed too?? I certainly do for most figures I got!

Jinx Arcane Figure

Lilith Borderlands Figure

Luigi Figure (this bad boi is made with LEDs)

[alicornze7]

-EMERGENCY INTERRUPTION POST/hj-

idc if it’s 4 days late have this April Fools special!!

this took longer than it should but it’s more of a treat for myself so win-win

I don't actually have an official persona so have this lil’ guy I made in 6th grade instead (he's gonna represent me until I design my actual sona)

Close-ups :

this drawing single-handedly destroyed my workflow

-we will return to our regular posting schedule shortly-

[quatregats]

I did kind of enjoy the first chapter of Parkinson's Hornblower "biography" because it offered some things that I had either been wondering about or which I thought were delightful little headcanons, but I have to say that since then it has just been making me hate Hornblower an unbelievable amount and/or occasionally go he would not fucking say that

[hollowwish]

I like live streams but I wish they were not the main form of mcyt content. Or at least not starting to become that. Like it....really is not a sustainable way to do every single smp you ever make. A lot of people don't have time to catch streams and barely have time to watch vods as well (and most people only watch 1-5 streamers. Imagine watching MORE.) LIFE SERIES is a challenge for me and lots of others to get through, let alone several 2-7 hour long livestreams.

Plus some people are gonna stop watching because they're only there for the lore and they'd rather save time than skim through several streams just to find it yk? After a certain point condensing them down into 15-30 (maybe 40) minute videos and making lore summaries is a necessity or your gonna lose viewers. (ESPECIALLY if you have a large cast meaning more characters to impact each other and the plot)

Idk I follow a lot of streamers and there's like...less than 10 who I have ever/would sit through a full stream from them, lore happening or not.

[margindoodles2407]

i. wow. i am. so lonely

[wellnoe]

the selective way jujutsu kaisen makes possession suggestive is really interesting to me. like yuji's possession by sukuna is, imo, not depicted as suggestive at all, where megumi's definitely is. the dynamics of possession are very flexible.

[volcanicsleep]

we watched all* turtle media! here's our ranking list!

*we would watch shows from the beginning until we lost interest, then we'd jump ahead in the series and repeat until we had a good overall impression of the show (we mostly cared about characterization and relationship dynamics).

the rankings are not indicative of objective or subjective quality. it's just based on how much we enjoyed them

the rise movie

rottmnt

tmnt (1990) + tmnt II: secret of the ooze [watch together. its a complete experience]

TMNT (2007)

tmnt (1987)

turtles forever

tmnt (2003)

tmnt batman movie

first bay movie

tmnt flash forward

tmnt III [nigh unwatchable]

tmnt (2012) [had to drop it after 4th episode for mental health safety]

honorable mention: turtle odyssey