STICKS & STONES, PART III

Don’t be that guy.

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I’ve got at least one more of these planned for now, and then probably will revisit the series in the future - there’s plenty of material!

So, a belief I see that pops up among a lot of New Agers, is that life and health are the default state of being, and death/decay are aberrational and unnatural.

Believing this requires such a gross amount of ignorance. The thing is, death/decay aren't the byproduct of a fallen or degenerated existence; they're an integral part of the cycle of life. Lifespans are hardcoded into organisms' DNA, and are heavily influenced by the organism's environment and lifestyle. When organisms die, they provide nutrients for other organisms so they can grow and thrive. Like, for example, growing organic produce is very dependent on a lot of things decaying so your plants can have actual nutrients to absorb. That's why people make compost piles. Death and decay is a feature, not a bug. The way these New Agers talk about becoming crystalline and living in a world where there is no death and decay... it almost makes me wonder if some primal part of their brain wants to go back in time before life evolved and just be mindless rocks or something, lol.

Was reminded of something from back in high school just now:

So it was Biology class and we were going over food webs. I asked the teacher where decomposers like fungi fit in, and what kind of nutrients would they have?

This woman looks me in the eye and says that, since fungi aren't part of the food web, mushrooms have no nutritional value whatsoever. I already had suspected she was a sadistic authoritarian idiot in grandma costume, but that cemented it for me.

Oh and a year later she got forced to retire early because she blocked a kid from leaving to use the bathroom during class, kid ended up with food poisoning shits in their pants in the classroom.

So yeah fuck that bitch.

a good start of the week😘😘😘

ngl the multitasking is gonna make me fail

if I had been in Bella's position I would not have survived. like literally. I would've picked at my lip or scratched off a scab because Texture and then boom fresh blood and welp he drinked me. we would not have made it to new moon without an incident

Here's the thing about geology as a science: 90% of what you learn in school is vocabulary. You aren't learning about things. Chemistry and physics and mathematics theoretically taught you The Tools and how to use them.

Geology is about being able to describe the world around you in shorthand. Chemists look at CuFeS2 and say "copper-iron (III) sulfide" and they'd be correct. I look at CuFeS2 and say Chalcopyrite because "copper-iron (III) sulfide" is a lot to say; but more importantly, Chalcopyrite can also be a copper-iron (II) sulfide. Bornite (Cu5FeS4) is also a "copper-iron (III) sulfide".

However, when you look at Chalcopyrite (Cpy) and Bornite (Bn) in the ground, they look very different and they behave differently too when you try to get the copper out. So geology shorthands their chemical formulas to names.

I really love this cuneiform diagram because it illustrates the fundamental need of geology: that back in 2000BC the Babylonians and Dilmuni had the same challenge creating words that described ore (desired rock coming out of the ground), copper (the element), and copper minerals (what would produce copper).

(Metallurgy in Antiquity, Forbes, 1950)

The same thing happens in structural geology and geomorphology. You can say, for example, that a "fault zone" is where the earth has fractured, but you immediately want to know how. "Normal fault" or "Thrust fault" can describe the direction of movement and relative angle into the earth. But if you say "Graben" to a geologist, they immediately know sense of shear, angle into the earth, and location you're referring to in that system.

Radfems: we want to dismantle gender roles

Also radfems: males are whores by their biological construction

Creature design also born from me avoiding responsibilities. Inspiration from horses, armadillo, and rhinos

I'm also failing biology. Please have mercy

im so sorry have a jingyi

he is also failing biology

I think the most scary part of hard sci-fi settings is that there wouldn’t be bread.

Like no planet besides earth would have actual yeast. Wild yeast can be found in the atmosphere, and unless it’s introduced in ridiculous amount another planet just. Wouldn’t have it. Even if introduced it might not be able to thrive.

And like, one obvious work-around is having a yeast equivalent on the planet; which is pretty feasible since fermentation is such an easy way to produce energy. A LOT of things use it in real life and alien life almost certainly would too. But in hard sci-fi where there’s a lot of realism, there would be very little chance that any alien yeast equivalent would be good for bread. If the yeast doesn’t live for long enough, if it doesn’t rise fast enough, or if it’s just. Not safe for humans to eat. It wouldn’t be good for bread

The other work around would be really good trade routes transporting packaged yeast. And every other material for bread.

BUT if you’re going slightly less hard sci-fi and you DO have edible equivalents for flour and uh. Buttermilk. You can just make bread with baking soda. Because you can mine baking soda, apparently. It’ll be denser and taste different from regular yeast bread, but it’s still bread.

A Brief Look at the Flatlander Motor-Circulatory System

I would like to begin this post by clarifying that I have no idea what I'm doing- I put words together and they vaguely make sense to me and I run off with them. These might not make sense to you- much less if you're some Planiturth Science Knower. Pardon me.

Flatlanders don't have flesh in the sense that creatures of Spaceland and Planiturth do. Underneath their hard perimeter there is only liquid and the organs' perimeters, that easily break apart when the bones are split and their balance is broken.

Blood courses through the body, performing its functions, transporting nutrients, oxygen, etcetera. Its movement seems to keep the organs together somehow.

An additional and important function of it is movement, hence the name "motor-circulatory" system.

Blood travels through a vessel at each angle where a Flatlander's bones should conect, as it cannot pass through the bones themselves. This vessel connects the insides of the Flatlander with the skin/muscle. The vessel is a "zipper" organ. Zipper organs are inspired by The Planiverse (a great book!).

Blood passes from the insides to the skin through the vessel, and runs through the skin to wherever it is needed (whether one side in general, all sides, or a specific point in one side!). Different volumes of blood focused in different manners affect a Flatlander's weight.

Focusing on one point on one side, tensing the skin/muscle at that point, allows a Flatlander to hold an object.

(Same image as the second, but AAGH! THEY'RE HOLDING A GUN!)

Holding things with their sides tends to be a little hard, but it isn't impossible, and unlike the use of their beaks, does not render them blind.

Focusing blood (tensing the muscles) on the entirety of their sides makes them heavier, and drawing it away makes them lighter.

By contracting the muscles on their sides rhythmically, kind of like gripping the ether, they are capable of achieving movement, somehow. It makes sense in my brain.

Art done by @rosetta222

Ree! My All Tomorrows oc! She looks so good.

Giving@rosetta222 a shoutout for this lovely piece! Give her a dm if you want a commission as well.

People who believe in reptilians are like “they’re evil beings because they’re carnivorous - absolute pure predator instinct, no love or compassion in them whatsoever” and then turn around like “cats and dolphins are such high vibrational beings! ^-^”

chemistry once again🥲🥲 (i swear if i fail i'm gonna drop out)

Who made this guys . i would Never draw something like that *runs away*

The fact that I’m literally drowning under my exams and forgot that my 3-year-anniversary was actually on November 13 nearly a week ago…