loneliness punctuated by hope

another outer wilds fanatic; may also talk about 17776/20020 and obra dinn aroaceagndraphantanaural

[nodoorintothemansion]

Projecthail mary but. The travellers are the blip a crew and a group from a modern nomai clan are on the hail mary

Who would be most interesting as the sole survivor? Hatchy would be most on par to canon. Riebeck's balancing out their excitement at meeting a nomai with their paralyzing fear of the situation. Gabbro's gotta lock in in a way they never had to/could in the loops. Chert knows stars, yes, but biology? That's the main thing they're dealing with. Feldspar could pull through time go fishing easy but when it comes down to lab stuff,,,,.... Esker's not a scientist OR a pilot, they're only there as the Repair Guy /gnc!! How are they supposed to figure out astrophage???

[itsammolite]

this raises the critical question: who would be more helpless, hatchling as first contact to an eridian to investigate the petrova line or grace stuck in a supernova-induced time loop

[itsammolite]

okay it turns out that the way juice is written by jon bois is pretty much accurate to the real world as far as “sentient space probe shitposter” goes

[itsammolite]

does anybody have any characterization for the one nomai that gets exactly one line and disappears

MITIS: This is true; however, it’s knowledge we have little hope of recovering. It would be best to relearn, I think.

[itsammolite]

unfortunately i’ve been really distracted, but i’m working on drawing riebeck i promise. in the meantime, what’s the most underrated outer wilds song? we all like timber hearth and travelers but i feel like nobody talks about End of the Wilds and the sound of the universe’s last heartbeats right before heat death

[itsammolite]

oh great, looks like i’m out of the drawings i already had prepared. i struggled enormously with gabbro here and i don’t exactly know why that was (the legs). shockingly, freehanding the perfect ellipse that is chert was magnitudes easier than gabbro’s lanky splayed out askew limbs; i hope it doesn’t look too unnatural. riebeck is up next and i’ve been hoping that posting an unfinished set to the internet will pressure me into getting it done sooner. thanks in advance

also it’s crazy to me that i’m getting double digit likes for a bunch of ~1.5x3 cm pencils drawings. seriously, how are these any amount of popular? is it my handwriting? it has to be

[itsammolite]

for anybody who wants to hear the quantum moon distilled into classical music form, queue up Bulb by Donnacha Dennehy and afterward describe to me your mental journey in the ensuing eleven minutes. you’re weeellllcoooomeee

[goblins-in-a-teapot]

Heathian Specbio HC - Skin

What makes a hearthian's skin blue? 

Before I get into exactly how they’re blue, allow me to elaborate a tiny bit on some other head canons about their skin. My hearthians have amphibian like skin that is around the same thickness as a human’s. They are endothermic (warm blooded) and have sweat glands to help regulate body temperature. And their skin is iridescent, pointy head to toe, all year long. 

This is why they are blue, but how? One word: chromatophores. 

Chomatophores are cells that produce color and are typically only found in ectothermic (cold blooded) animals. Their cells house these pigments in a stable structure– as opposed to chameleons and cephalopods, which have the ability to move these structures around to change their skin’s color. The pigments found in a Hearthian’s are:

Melanophores - black/brown pigments that can be found at the base of the of the cell structure.

Iridophores - iridescent crystalline plates that reflect blue light found in the middle and upper layers of the cell structure. 

*Xanthophores - yellow pigments that are found in the upper layers of the structure. 

*Eyrthophores - red pigments that are also found in the upper layers.

*Not every Hearthian has these chromatophores. 

The melanophores are responsible for the depth of their skin tone, much like how melanin is for human skin. Concentrations of this pigment cell can typically be found in their markings. The iridophores above in the next layer are what makes their skin and markings appear blue. What about the other chromatophores, you ask? Those are involved in special cases. The blue light reflects off the iridophores and filters through either xanthophores or eyrthophores causing the Hearthian with these pigments to appear more green or purple. 

Here is the extra speculative part to my head canon. Hearthians who have vitiligo or albinism will still looks slightly blue. While the pigment may be destroyed over time or nonexistent from the beginning, iridophores are not pigments but crystal like structures, as mentioned above. So this might mean they would appear more white than pink (they would still be a little pink where their skin is thinnest). 

[itsammolite]

yesss hearthian spec bio is exactly what i wanted. i’ve gone back and forth on copper-blue blood, but this is a compelling alternative

[itsammolite]

i’ve always wondered why there aren’t any permanent nomai settlements on timber hearth, the only planet without an existential threat just hanging around at all times and which already supports life, and instead the nomai only use it for mining. is there a biological reason to avoid it in the long-term, or have they just not bothered moving from ember twin and brittle hollow?

you know what, in the middle of writing this i’ve decided it’s because of oxygen toxicity. good talk, me

[itsammolite]

it’s the one and only! there is absolutely no conceivable way that the maiden feldsparring of trashmoon (né attlerock) didn’t involve some kind of aeronautic incident, so this is my interpretation of events

[itsammolite]

i recently criticized the -ite suffix for hearthian OCs and realized that i should try to be constructive and supply some alternatives (that, conveniently, i happen to already have written down) (did i use this keep reading thing correctly):

Schorl: a variant of Tourmaline, which is itself a perfectly good hearthian name but i just find Schorl so phonetically pleasing. 10/10 Clase: aha i’ve replaced one greek suffix for another. this one is much cooler than -ite and can even stand alone, but 7/10 for a repeat offense of hypocrisy Horst & Graben: a result of specifically avoiding latin and greek is that you get a lot more germanic. these two come with the stipulation, however, that they absolutely must come as a set, like as identical twins or something. 18/20 Cinnabar: brilliantly red. mercury mineral. fantastic name. 10/10 no notes Realgar & Orpiment: arsenic is less interesting than mercury but the names are still great. again, these two are a package deal. 17/20 Kaolin: an ingredient of porcelain, a generally excellent thing. 10/10 BIF: this one is just funny. it stands for banded iron formation, actually really important stuff, but i can’t get over the idea of a hearthian named BIF. all caps are obligatory. 0/10

honorable mentions: Amphibole, Bluff, Fumarole, Natron, Schist, Skarn, Trona

[itsammolite]

okay next. i'm sorry esker i have nothing interesting to say about you, so i'll just share something about myself instead. as an agender fellow who has both intentionally and unintentionally set things on fire and destroyed them, and routinely has had nightmares of the universe ending growing up, i identify with the hearthians on a deeply personal level and would really appreciate being one if anybody out there happens to have that authority

[itsammolite]

i know this is hypocritical, but i’m not a massive fan of the -ite suffix for hearthian OCs because i find it largely uninteresting and generic. i’d actually spin this into a wider critique about the english language being much too formulaic when naming things. cmon we don’t have to use all these ancient greek and roman suffixes for everything, we don’t owe anything to those pricks. just throw sounds together, it’s 2026

[itsammolite]

don’t really know what i’m doing at all, but i need a place to offload my surplus outer wilds thoughts and amateur art and i’ve been told this is the place for it. so here’s a chert, about whom my favorite thing is that assuming private property doesn’t exist for hearthians, their insistence on everything being their property is particularly obstinate