otherworldly is my aesthetic

commonplace diary. Find me on letterboxd, storygraph and serializd @nomdelune

[nomdelune]

Intro

I don't post my own stuff very often, but when I do I masterpost it here.

Masterposts: Everything I wrote on this blog part 1 (Feb 2019 - March 2024) Everything I wrote on this blog part 2 (April 2024 - Jan 2026)

[sosuperawesome]

House Incense Burners // Memento Incense

[stinktube]

some loser: humans are innately selfish creatures

my psych book:

[khfanforall]

[archxangels]

vintage stamps

[thatsonemorbidcorvid]

Can’t reblog the post going round containing these two screenshots:

So I’ll put my addition here:

This also applies to women who complain about feminism requiring them to work, rather than being ‘ladies of leisure’. Women equivalent to them in the past always worked - who do they think were the maids, housekeepers, cooks, nannies, wet nurses, governesses, washerwomen, spinners, weavers, seamstresses, nurses, midwives, etc - and today’s equivalent of the past’s ladies of leisure can afford to be ladies of leisure now. Feminism fought for women’s work to be acknowledged, valued, and fairly paid, and that fight is still ongoing.

[atlantis-lore]

The gang is all here

[nwmo]

NEW FISH JUST DROPPED

[cannibalcaprine-deactivated2024]

I KNOW that playing God is morally wrong, but holy HELL, it looks fun.

[ninjakittenarmy]

Why is it playing God? We aren’t violating any natural laws. God set the parameters of the universe to allow these things. There’s nothing wrong with it, there’s no hubris in learning more about how to manipulate the universe around us.

[cannibalcaprine-deactivated2024]

We made a whole-ass fish.

[ospreyonthemoon]

The reason this was accidental BTW is because they used paddlefish eggs as a negative control group for a breeding experiment on sturgeons because the scientists, quite naturally, assumed that they were SO unrelated it would be genetically impossible for them to mate. Like. I cannot stress enough to you how these creatures last related ancestors were

140 MILLION YEARS BACK.

If you don't know how far that is, that's basically the start of the cretaceous. Let me simplify that for you even further. Chimpanzees and humans seperated, what, 5 or 6 million years ago?

This is basically like if humans could hybridise with THESE THINGS.

This is the sort of thing that should be impossible. They used those eggs to be ABSOLUTELY 100% SURE NOTHING WOULD HAPPEN.

And then THEY GOT FISH OUT OF IT.

Like. You can quite clearly understand why they didn't think anything would happen. WE ARE MORE RELATED TO BLUE WHALES THAN THESE THINGS.

THE AMERICAN PADDLEFISH AND THE STURGEON ARE SO COMPLETELY UNRELATED THAT THIS IS NOT PLAYING GOD. IF ANYTHING THIS IS AN ACT OF GOD.

THE SCIENTISTS HAD NO BLAME IN THIS BECAUSE NOTHING LIKE THIS HAD EVER HAPPENED BEFORE

It sort of goes against the rules of genetics a bit.

[ospreyonthemoon]

Oh i forgot to add

THESE THINGS, FOR HYBRIDS, HAD A REALLY HIGH SURVIVAL RATING. LIKE 70% OF THEM SURVIVED.

To put that into perspective, getting a blue whale and a squirrel and trying to hybridise them is more sensible, and that wouldn't produce anything but getting you banned from science. Most animals that aren't plants can barely hybridise two degrees away from each other.

BUT THESE TWO ENTIRELY UNRELATED FISH create PERFECTLY HEALTHY HYBRIDS.

the scientists literally had to do the tests AGAIN just to be like "okay this is real right. This is actually like, not a fluke, this works right" and it worked again. They just Can!

[jackofacetrades]

So for those who don't know what the original fishes look like, this is an American Paddlefish:

And this is a Russian Sturgeon:

So honestly, saying the hybrid is "weird looking" is a bit fort de café when you see its parents. I think the sturddlefish looks cute.

[marlinspirkhall]

"these creatures last related ancestors were 140 million years back"

(glances at fish)

Yeah that's exactly what I thought you'd look like, you Mesozoic fuck

[thriceandonce]

#Holding a red squirrel in my left hand and a blue whale in my right desperately hoping to make a purple squale (via @dykepuffs)

[kedreeva]

placental mammals (eutheria) diverged from marsupials around 100 million years ago. whales and squirrels (rodents at least), being both placental animals, would have diverged at or after that time, meaning sturgeon and paddlefish still have 40 million years more separation.

before the sturddlefish, a purple squale would have seemed more likely- and since that's ridiculous and obviously no one would think that's possible except as a joke, that should speak to HOW impossible this situation seemed, and why they thought obviously this will be perfectly fine. If you took squirrel eggs (the gamete) and tried to use whale sperm to fertilize them, you could reasonably expect that to not work. That should be a good control. The eggs would definitely not actually be fertilized, and even if sperm somehow made it into the egg and some kind of development started, you would expect them to not make it to term and definitely not make a whole ass new animal that's perfectly fine actually.

And yet there is a purple squale in your fish tank, in fact there's like 100 of them and everyone is saying you played god but this was not what should have gone down, this was never the plan. This isn't you playing god, you think, this is god having a laugh at your expense.

[rat-detector]

[1five1two]

Benjamin Wolf.

[mahoganyamore]

more than a thousand different lifetimes

[rainbowhyperfixation]

This is a big thing that I continue to work on unlearning/relearning

[softwaring]

[sirfetchd]

this is the vibe for july

[petaltexturedskies]

I want to sleep with you, fall asleep and sleep. That magnificent folk word, how deep, how true, how unequivocal, how exactly what it says. Just-sleep. And nothing more. No, one more thing: my head buried in your left shoulder, my arm around your right one-and that's all. No, another thing: and know right into the deepest sleep that it is you. And more: how your heart sounds. And - kiss your heart.

Marina Tsvetaeva, from Letters Summer 1926

[imanbenerrabeh]

wednesday what’s in my bag

[wiigiwaamcore]

I find it so deeply fascinating that there are medieval and possibly even ancient texts (I can't remember specifics rn but I definitely saw one from early medieval Europe recently) that are like "oh if only I lived in an earlier age when there was literal magic in the world"

I feel like nowadays people project that back ONTO the middle ages, but even back then they were like "there used to be magic and now it's gone"

its magic turtles all the way down etc etc

[wiigiwaamcore]

temporally universal complaints (traced back at least 2000 years):

"kids these days just aren't working hard like they used to"

"young women sure are dressing skimpier than when I was growing up"

"it's so sad the age of magic in the world has passed"

[hope-for-the-planet]

Global mangrove forests rebound, offering hopeful sign for climate and coastal resilience

A new study from Tulane University researchers has found that after decades of loss from deforestation and coastal development, mangroves ar

Mangrove forests used to be considered one of the world's most threatened ecosystems. However, recent analysis of satellite data shows that mangrove forests are no longer in decline and in fact the global coverage of mangrove forests has been increasing over the last 16 years due to restoration and natural habitat expansion.

The health of mangrove ecosystems is particularly relevant in the era of climate change, since they place a crucial role in protecting coastlines from storms and erosion in addition to storing carbon.

[paintinginlife]

Hello! I made a dress from scratch for the Renaissance Faire. It took me six months to make the chemise, hoop skirt, under skirt, over skirts, French knot embroidered bodice, crown and jewelry. I am very excited to wear it this year despite how serious I look in the photos!