Are you a fan of moss? Want to find out what Bryophytes even are? Well, here’s a link to 5 books published by the author for free, no paywall and no sign-up necessary! You can even view in the browser. And there’s cute pics :-o

“Bryophyte Ecology is an ebook comprised of 5 volumes written by Janice Glime, Professor Emerita of Biological Sciences at Michigan Technological University. Chapter coauthors include Irene Bisang, S. Robbert Gradstein, J. Lissner, W. J. Boelema, and D. H. Wagner. If you are a returning visitor, be sure to refresh your browser in case there have been recent updates.”

Want to curl up in the moss and never come out? Garden your own, make art, close a wound, or make human proteins by genetically engineering moss?

Why are bog bodies preserved so well? Sphagnum occupies 1/3 of the land on our planet, where can you see some? Mosses can be dead and alive (and another secret third thing).

What are mosses, why are they so much weirder than you thought?

Mosses, fish, frogs, slugs (and more!) and a checklist of bryophyte-dwelling salamanders just in case.

What you can do for mosses, how to curate your own archive, collect, identify and donate them to an herbarium so mosses can be protected! Seriously, you can’t get more mosscore than that.

Once I ID the specimen in this photo I’ll add the name : )

I've edited these clips into gifs. Do with these what you will

I should've been doing my homework . Did another limited color palette drawing instead (with more colors this time though. Tbf. This is a bigger drawing)

I want to be an artistic generalist but it’s so unrealistic for me rn!!

old LGBT sci-fi spreadsheet update: officially at 100+ books now baby!

You really will find your passion. Even if it’s not something typical, even if others don’t understand it. There’s something in the world calling to you, and when you find that joyful thing follow it! It’s so easy to tell ourselves we just don’t have a passion, but you do! It doesn’t have to be about work, or success. If it makes your heart light up, that is enough.

The Boys are Back in Town

Most of the X-Wing series focused on either Wraith or Rogue squadron in their full capacities and on standard missions. That is NOT this book. This book focuses on Wedge Antillies, Wes Janson, Tycho Celchu, and Derek "Hobbie" Klivian as they slide inexorably from a diplomatic mission to something that Padme Amidala would unquestionably describe as "aggressive negotiations." Let's talk Starfighters of Adumar.

When you have a planet that has evolved outside of either imperial or republic influence that reveres pilots to an arguably unhealthy degree and you can't drag Luke Skywalker out of whatever he is currently doing, you get Wedge "I blew up two Death Stars, you don't scare me" Antilles. Wedge then puts together a crack team of his three best pilot buddies to hammer out a treaty between Adumar and the New Republic (I'd be LYING if I told you I was picturing anything other than Adam Sandler casting his best friends and taking them on epic vacations and incidentally making a movie for this bit).

As per usual, things go pear-shaped basically before they even get boots down on Adumar, because among its other problems, Adumar loves the HELL out of dueling. To the death. Usually with starfighters. Some asshole decides to try to increase his personal clout by shooting Wedge down as they fly in. This doesn't work, but hot damn does it set the tone...

The toxic dueling culture is not limited to snubfighters, however. Cheriss ke Hanadi (the undisputed queen of duels with blastswords) guides Red Squadron through the twists and turns of Adumari culture. That does not stop Wes from getting in a duel at the diplomatic reception, though. This duel is incredible because it's Wes giving an object lesson in how to humiliate the living hell out of an overly cocky opponent with a blastsword while functionally unarmed. This fight is glorious, and it's a beautiful follow-up to the "getting ready for the ball" scene our boys get to have where Wes lights up like a kid at Christmas when he discovers that blastswords are basically "blaster[s] that you have to hit people with."

Cheriss gets done a wee bit dirty by this book, because she basically develops a crush on Wedge, and when she finds out that he and Iella have gotten together, she sets herself up to get murdered by fighting a stupid number of duels in a row. The rest of Red Squardon steps in though, and as an added bonus, the New Republic medics give her a medication for her chronic vertigo to allow Cheriss to become a pilot. This series literally is not here for anyone who isn't a New Republic pilot, so I don't love Cheriss's arc, but honestly it could have been a lot worse, so I'm not complaining too hard.

The draw for this book though, is unquestionably the character work in our four protagonist pilots. The plot of the novel is pretty simple, all things considered, so Allston takes the opportunity to really dig into character for our boys, and getting to follow them on a somewhat nontraditional mission and using their skills as best they can is just FUN. As a friend says, this book is delicious candy fluff, and the characters are the candies.

Even when the mission goes directly to hell and Red Squadron has to run the gauntlet for their lives, the choices and twists and turns are largely character-driven. That makes what could have been a run-of-the-mill climactic escape into a really tense, well-constructed series of choices and consequences that are just FUN because of the characters who have been dropped into the situation.

There's objectively not too much substance to this book, but it ties Wraith Squadron as my favorite X-Wing book because of the character work and focus on the top four New Republic pilots. Plus, it's a little adorable that this is where Wedge and Iella really get together, and I am HERE for legends continuity legacy families.

*ahem * *picks up notes *

Leo is strategy smart

Donnie is science smart

Mikey is emotional smart

Raph is support smart

In this essay I will-

For those interested in the life of me…

I also like to build model rockets, and today I finished my 4” LOC Goblin. It’s themed after a Nuka Cola Quantum pop bottle from the videogame series Fallout. And yes, the rocket glows just like the irradiated pop!

Now to pack everything up, get a final weight, run a final sim, then drill the motor to set the delay. I present the “Quantum” rocket. Trying for my L1 HPR certification here in a few weeks time.

Wish me and the “Quantum” good luck! If it survives I can use it for my L2 cert down the road. 😬🚀

At long last, I’ve finished the Gang Lookout and Rogue Doc!

They took longer than expected to paint but I really enjoyed working on all the little details. And as always, I had great fun painting the bases. This time I tried a pale turquoise colour for the decking to get that industrial look once it had been weathered up.

Very pleased with the end results, and these two will be right at home in both my Necromunda collection and Genestealer Cult army.

Happy Hobbying

Dave

I love looking too deeply into things that were clearly meant to be jokes and not serious in any shape or form. Today on the list: Kian’s relationship with Donna. Under the cut to avoid filling people’s feeds

Now I think most people will agree that Kian’s relationship with his own parents probably wasn’t great. I mean I’m just saying if my parents didn’t give me a last name I probably would just assume they didn’t want me or something. It’s one thing to support your child if they want to change their name but it’s a whole different thing to not even give them the choice to keep the name you gave them.

Now this plays pretty interestingly with Donna considering the fact that she’s without a doubt the best parent we see in the campaign. And we don’t know exactly how old Kian was when he and the others became friends, my personal headcanon is like 12-13, but if you have a child and they make a new friend who’s parents are probably known to be in a cult and also hippies and also didn’t bother naming their child? I’d grab that child so fucking fast and try to treat them as my own. Show them some love and support they wouldn’t get from their own parents.

And so like I find it extremely reasonable to assume that when they were younger Donna probably would have been very caring towards Kian (and obviously Rolan as well but this post isn’t about him). And I find it pretty reasonable to assume that if Kian’s parents were neglectful he would probably have just clung onto that care from an adult because he just needed some fucking paternal support.

But the thing is. I find it very easy to headcanon Kian with some major abandoment issues that honestly even rival Rand’s. Because I mean Rolan left them, Becky left him and he waited for her for fifteen fucking years, we can assume Rand wasn’t exactly emotionally available because he had his own issues (can’t really blame him for that but still), his parents were probably shit, and judging by the fact that Kian is very clearly a huge romantic who literally waited for his high school girlfriend for fifteen years, and yet in his introduction it’s made extremely clear that he doesn’t seem to do like serious relationships anymore? My guess would be that he had a lot failed relationships in his like early twenties and when none of them worked out he eventually just gave up and settled for one night stands.

Now this works alongside something else that is of course very notable about Kian: his looks. Like we don’t know their stats exactly I don’t think but he is canonically extremely attractive and probably has his highest characteristic in appearance. Because he’s a grizzly character. Of course he does (/lh).

But I find it very reasonable to assume that if someone had pretty bad abandonment issues and was extremely attractive and aware of that, it would become very easy for them to assume that people could only want them or care about them for their looks. And if we assume that, we can probably also assume that they would heavily lean into that and use their looks to get even some kind of affection and care from others even if it’s extremely surface level.

And bringing this back to Donna: if we assume that all my reachings in this post are correct (they are not, i am looking too deep into things because it is my favorite hobby) then it really just puts Kian’s relationship with Donna into an entirely new and way sadder light. Because suddenly it’s not just an extremely flirty person flirting with his friend’s mom for fun, but instead someone who’s been lacking any kind of paternal affection for his entire life trying to make himself sexually appealing to the one person he might have received it from because at least that way she’d care for him on some level.

And the thing is I don’t know if Kian would even be like… aware that’s what he’s doing. Or if he’d really just removed any possibility for platonic or familial love from his own life that he couldn’t even recognise that that’s what he really wants.

And maybe it’s even worse that it works. That Donna is attracted to him. That he can get that affection and love from her, someone who probably knew him as a kid, who might have practically raised him, and wouldn’t that just make him even more sure that he’s right? That the only way anyone could ever truly love and care for him is if he makes himself sexually appealing to them?

(Sorry for long post. I am. Thinking about him every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every-)

jaws (1975)

ca n we all agree that human bonnie would not be a baker btw

play sims because u enjoy it and its a game and if u dont like it u shouldnt play it just for notes on a silly little website check

making my own sketchbook for my art and ecology class and hoping no one thinks I'm silly for it

One of my favourite things to do is take cute, innocent-looking craft projects and turn them into something… less so.

This is a gift I made recently for a friend. As soon as she started opening it she said, “Is it sweary?”, and was SO excited when she discovered that yes, indeed it was 😄

This is the first time I’ve done some of these stitches since I was at school (I’ve had an extremely long break from embroidery), and some are my first attempt ever. It’s far from perfect (and fyi metallic thread’s a fkg nightmare to work with!), but I think that makes it all the more special 😅

Tags: @manda-panda-monium my partner in craft @jamdoughnutmagician bc you said it was ok to tag you in literally anything so here you are reaping those rewards lol and @joejoequinnquinn bc I hope it will make you smile