The Light Fluxtastic

Above: Eusphaeropeltis sp. (top/bottom left) and Ceratocanthus aeneus (bottom right), two different species of pill scarab beetle

Beetles of the Ceratocanthinae subfamily (also known as pill scarab beetles) rely on a unique form of conglobation to conceal themselves. As the beetle tucks its head down and folds its legs up against its belly, the plates on its head, thorax, abdomen, and legs all come together to form a solid shield; the plates on its legs even have grooves and corresponding ridges that allow them to neatly interlock.

As this blog post explains:

Above: Ceratocanthus sp.

The Ceratocanthinae subfamily contains many different genera/species, and they are all collectively known as pill scarabs. Many of them have a colorful, metallic appearance; they may be green, red, blue, brown, black, or multicolor.

Above: Germarostes globosus

Sources & More Info:

What I like about ART and Murderbot is that they both think THEY’RE the reasonable one in the relationship.

ART is always patiently (or “patiently”) helping MB to accept perfectly logical and inevitable conclusions like “we are friends” or “you should let me perform experimental surgery on you” or “you need trauma treatment.” Sure MB resists these ideas at first, but that’s just MB for you - it’s just lucky that it has ART to help it along.

Meanwhile MB is throwing its arm protectively around lesser bots and reassuring them that the “big mean transport” won’t hurt them - and/or stopping them from doing something that would get them deleted by an overbearing and overreactive ART. Sure you can’t take ART anywhere but that’s just ART for you - it’s just lucky it has MB to help it along.

For all that they both have immense processing power, they simultaneously somehow have only one brain cell between them and I love that for them.

was tаlking with a friend about how some of dunmeshi fаndom misunderstands kabru's initial feelings towards laios.

to sum up kabru's situation via a self-contained modernized metaphor:

kabru is like a guy who lost his entire family in a highly traumatic car accident. years later he joins a discord server and takes note of laios, another server member who seems interesting, so they start chatting. then laios reveals his special interest and favorite movie of all time is David Cronenberg's Crash (1996), and invites kabru to go watch a demolition derby with him

this:

is functionally identical to the human experience of not looking both ways, getting clipped by a speeding semi, and being sent flying through the front window of the 7-11 across the street (except that the semi doesn’t turn around and eat you afterwards)

So first of all, the orca weighs the same as between two and three minivans. See? And it can reach speeds of 35 miles per hour. So. Basically anything it does to you at speed is going to completely wreck you or almost any other creature alive on the planet

But then! look at this gif of an orca doing the specific tail yeet that was mentioned

full the force required to launch a seal like that is probably lethal by itself. Right? but then the seal reaches an estimated 80 feet (24 meters) ! at which point the surface of the water itself is often lethal to humans falling from that height, so, idk about seals but i bet the fall itself is basically like getting hit with the same truck a second time.

here you can see the relative size of an adult orca and the seals they hunt this way

this is like if a soccer player kicked a house cat full force.

bonus: here’s a gif showing what the tail slap would look like from underwater, and, idk about you, but this one creeps me out. Like, it’s super cool, but also, goosebumps

may i remind you: weighs the same as three minivans. Moves as fast as suburban traffic. Hyper carnivore all meat diet, develops special unique hunting techniques for murdering many many different kinds of animals in all sizes, lots of them mammals - from bite-sized otters to the biggest whales. Close to same intelligence as a human.

okay but there is something disquieting about this urge to cast fan writers as altruists. they give us all this for free!! well, no.

they’re sharing

it’s a key difference in perception. fic isn’t given. it’s shared. it’s part of a fandom community— in which readers are also an integral part.

it’s probably inevitable mission creep from the increasingly transactional nature of the internet and fandom-as-consumerism, which was always gonna happen after corps worked out how much bank there is to make from those weirdo fan people

but like. fandom is sharing. i think we’ve lost that somewhere.

[Image ID: Reply by auberginesdonthavelimbs

Mar 20 [In photo: 18 h ago]

fandom is a potluck. you can come and eat the food even if you didn't bring anything, but if you just take food and leave and don't interact with anyone that's kind of weird. the point of the potluck is to hang out. End ID]

As someone in and around their 30’s it has been INSANE to see feminism in popular media descend through

Like obviously demonizing and belittling stereotypically feminine interests and occupations isn’t the answer and that’s not what I MEAN, I just see the argument going from

btw being excessively nonconfrontational is NOT a positive trait. it does not mean u are “too nice” or just too kind to hurt people, it means u have a problem communicating and you need to work on it.

There are people in the notes saying that the alternative reason is that they’re doing it because of trauma and i gotta say that

1) same. I did have this same problem and reason for doing it.

2) this is not actually an alternate reason. You guys also have a problem communicating and while you can trace exactly WHY you have trouble communicating that doesn’t mean it’s okay to treat everyone like they’re potentially your former abuser and that you DO still need to work on this.

‘This behavior comes from trauma’ and ‘This behavior is harmful to you, to others and to your relationships with others’ are two truths that can co-exist, and that do co-exist quite frequently.

i do think we need to start treating spraying harmless "weeds" in your lawn as utterly absurd princess and the pea level of obsession with needing the world to revolve around your every whim, like.

Okay a flower grew out of the ground outside and you can't cope with it. Do you need to sleep on thirty feather beds as well

in my meeting with one of the people who is over grounds on my college campus i was told that when the college stopped spraying weeds, they would actually get calls from people. complaining about the dandelions

and I was sitting here like okay this is why I shouldn't be in a public facing job because i would be the rudest motherfucker imaginable about that.

what, are you some kind of spoiled child monarch who drinks out of a golden sippy cup? Do you have a retinue of servants at home to dispose of anything and everything that you might arbitrarily dislike? have you considered leading a life where you might encounter something that could be described as a real problem? do you call the weatherman to complain when it rains?

I honestly can't even imagine what must happen inside the kind of person that would do that. "Hello I have an urgent problem, you see, I visited your campus recently and there was a flower." "yes?" "I didn't like the flower." "Uh huh..."

What a sad way to live, honestly, that the sight of a little flower could ruin your day so much you have to call someone to complain.

The Dungeons & Dragons paladin is objectively the funniest class because at first glance it seems like an artefact of an earlier age of the fantasy genre for which contemporary inspirations are thin on the ground, but then you dig into its thematic core and realise there are contemporary popular media characters who almost perfectly fit the mould, but like 80% of them are deeply unwell teenage lesbians.

Finding out there's a full Genius.com page for the poem portion of Pale Fire but the annotations are literally just random people making comments and are not the actual annotations from the novel is making me so mad! MISSED OPPORTUNITY FOR A MULTIMEDIA REFORMATTING OF PALE FIRE!!

Well. I added all the annotations, now you can read all of Pale Fire via genius annotation

*gripping the sink and staring into the mirror* it’s a pointless endeavor to correct every person in fandom joking about a character being a “kin”. You don’t need to do it. No one will like you.

Being the token alterhuman in a fandom

[Image description: The "They don't know" or "party loner" meme line drawing, showing a person wearing a conical party hat standing alone in a corner at a party, while two other couples are having fun. The meme text says, "They don't know that's not what it fucking means."]

Rainbow milkshake

[Image ID: Art of an anthropomorphic deer in pastel rainbow colors. End ID]

From a while back, a bit experimental

[Image ID: Art of a brow-and-whote anthropomorphic canine. They have blue eyes, and are licking their lips while looking at the viewer.]

Sketch from today

“Etymologically,” she explained as she drew her sword along the whetstone, “the word ‘paladin’ means, ’an officer of the palace’.”

She tested the blade’s sharpness, and bisected a single hair plucked from behind his crown, before adding, “a monarch is not himself the palace, of course.”

hello fellow non-Black tumblr users. welcome to my saw trap. if you'd like to leave, please name one (1) Black woman author who is not Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, bell hooks, Octavia Butler, or N.K. Jemisin. bonus points if she's published a book in the last five years.

For my own future reference, and for anyone else who wants it, a list of authors mentioned in the notes. (I cannot promise this is comprehensive, there are a lot of reblogs and I might have missed some.) I've included a link for each author, where possible I've tried to find one that leads you to their books, prioritising own websites/publishers, falling back on wikipedia otherwise.

If you find any mistakes in the links let me know and I'll edit. This post will be in two parts, because I literally broke tumblr with how many authors there were. I think it's about a hundred and fifty.

And here's part two:

Hi. Rick here. Going to go over the various flesh tornado subtypes today.

First we have "mostly human but I'm antsy" where Walter has sort of a normal face but he's wriggling anyway. Many examples of this but here's two.

Next we have swirling mania where his face starts to lose its form and create numerous holes in its place. Still sort of put together but less so.

Then we have ANGER EXPLOSION which is dynamic and harsh. It makes it look like his face is suddenly launching itself inside out.

As a bonus we have the FORGET special! Gaslight your friends and steal their memories. I find it interesting that Walter is usually looking directly at the reader when he does this. Maybe eye contact is essential for it to work.

And lastly we have my favourite: ULTIMATE ANGER TORNADO MODE where Walter fully loses his human body and becomes a mash of flesh (and angst). These two images also show that he can become extremely large, even bigger than a building, which isn't scary at all! 😋