I'm exhausted of living in hell, so I spend my time building blueprints for heaven. He/him | 26 | aspec | ASD Worldbuilding Projects: Astra Planeta | Arcverse | Orion's Echo | Sphaera The Midnight Sea | Crundle | Bleakworld | Pinereach
Heya! I'm Spyglass, but most folks just call me Spy.
he/him
adult (not very good at it yet)
autistic
I am a creative polymath, existential nihilist, science nerd, wistful wannabe-futurist, and –most importantly– AWARD-WINNING WORLDBUILDER! I contain multitudes. Check out my other internet haunts here. Make sure to skim the Realms Overview to familiarize yourself with my various worldbuilding projects. And if you'd like to support me monetarily, I have a Ko-fi page!
I don't really do fandoms, ergo I don't reblog any fandom stuff (with rare exceptions, which are tagged appropriately). If I reblog anything nsfw it's exclusively because it's funny; e.g. the odd dirty jokes and shitposts (which will be tagged as such for easy filtering). Consider this blog PG-13 with a big ol' asterisk and footnote. I try my best to ensure this blog is a safe space for all flavors of marginalized folks. Thanks for stopping by! :)
Link system
Links are color-coded! This is for my own reference as well as reader convenience.
Green links are links to this blog or my other sites
Red links are links to YouTube specifically
Blue links are links to any other sites
Tag system
In no particular order. Tagging is a little haphazard, so I may have missed some things in my archive, but this covers the bulk of the content you'll see here.
Personal tags:
#spyglass' realms - My worldbuilding stuff, also typically tagged with #worldbuilding. Further organized into world-specific tags; see the overview post.
#spy writes - My writing, of all sorts but usually fiction. Typically also tagged with #spyglass' realms and relevant world-specific tags.
#spy arts - My visual art, both digital and traditional. Typically also tagged with #spyglass' realms and relevant world-specific tags.
#spy has thoughts - Tag for posts where I think out loud or when I add significant commentary to reblogs.
#spy answers asks - The internet asks me things, and I answer. Usually. Don't be a creep in my inbox, please.
#my life is a sitcom and i am my own laugh track - Funny stories from my own life. Random factoids about my life go under #new spy lore unlocked instead.
#spy is funny - Haha! Comedy. Meant to tag posts where I'm making a joke, usually in a reblog, but I sometimes forget to use it.
#spy's smash hits - Posts (and reblogs) of mine that have over 500 notes, plus a few personal favorite posts too.
Categorization tags:
#shitpost rb - Reblogs of stuff I find funny, usually without any commentary. My most used tag... to my great chagrin. Variant companion tags are #advanced shitposting for particularly high-brow science-based funnies and #coprolitepost for specifically palaeontology-related funnies.
#important post - Stuff I think is important: activism, life advice, mental health, the like. Usually mental health posts are also tagged with #mental health post (go figure).
#science - Cool science posts. Always tagged with the specific field(s) of study involved; most frequently #space science, #biology, and #palaeontology.
#speculative biology - Usually accompanied by #specbio, #specevo, and #speculative evolution. Speculative biology is the imagining of fictional life forms and ecologies that could exist elsewhere in space and time –a scientifically-minded creative exercise in "what if." It is both a science and an art, and a key aspect of high-end worldbuilding. It's also one of my chief interests and I made a large in-depth post about it here!
#worldbuilding. - Worldbuilding stuff in general, both mine and others! I reblog a lot of my friends' work that gets tagged with this.
#art reblog - Cool art, either from my friends or just random stuff that's crossed my dash. Art that I think is really cool gets the additional tag #rad art, and I also have additional tags for #space art and #paleoart.
#we are a continuum - My special tag for posts celebrating the unity of the human species across time. I love humanity so very much. We are one people forever. Often accompanied by the similar tag #humans are humans for posts that celebrate our wonderful weirdness in general.
#tabletop stuff - My catch-all tabletop gaming tag; not always D&D specifically, but most of the time. Often accompanied by #absolutely horrible dnd ideas that i must try out asap -my tag for, well, what it says on the tin.
#videogames - Dude, I could be gaming. What it says on the tin; always tagged alongside the specific game tags like #the elder scrolls, #no man's sky, #minecraft, and #pokemon. I reserve the videogames tag for specifically game-related stuff, so there may be posts like fan art or funnies with the specific game tags and not the videogames tag.
#toddposting - Okay, this one is really specific and I'm including it here for fun. Toddposts (also sometimes tagged with #tesposting) are funny posts about The Elder Scrolls games –usually Skyrim– and memes about Todd Howard. Sorry Mr. Howard but it's still fun to dunk on you.
#beaſt - Animals doin' animal things. Largely of the mammalian variety, but I do love and reblog all manner of beaſts!
#Glock function - I was funny on the internet one time!! ONE!!! The whole saga can be found in this tag. Stars, what a week. No, I didn't make it up. Apollo, please have mercy and stay thy dodgeball.
Thermonuclear hewwo - I was funny on the internet a second time, because apparently I didn't learn my lesson.
[Audio transcript: Ben Galpin voicing Jonathan Harker from Dracula by Bram Stoker. He says, "There was no lethal weapon at hand, but I seized a shovel which the workmen had been using to fill the cases, and lifting it high, struck, with the edge downward, at the hateful face," followed by a cartoon "bonk" and the Wilhelm scream. End transcript]
Abstract. Evolution has produced an astonishing array of organisms, but does it have limits and, if so, how are these overcome and how have
An interesting paper (Vermeij, 2015) on the "empty phenotypic space", i.e. the forms and adaptations that we do not see in the living world, possibly relevant to the convergence vs. contingency debate.
Some examples:
Wheels: some curled-up arthropods can roll around, and bacterial flagella and some parts of weevil legs rotate on their axis, but macroscopic wheels with a free axle do not exist, probably because smooth surfaces on which they'd be useful are rare and it would be difficult to grow them through embryonal development.
Animal-provided pollination and dispersal do not exist in water, with the possible exception of one species of fish-pollinated seagrass (which is a descendant of terrestrial plants). Presumably water is already good enough at carrying gametes and propagules that buying the services of an animal is a useless expense.
Mineral reef-building does not occur on land nor, more surprisingly, in freshwater. The reason for the latter is not clear, since there are enough mineral ions in freshwater to build shells. Boring of rock, shells, and wood in freshwater is also extremely rare though common in the sea.
Gelatinous plankton like salps or jellyfish (with few exceptions of the latter) is also not found in freshwater, probably because they can't survive dispersal between separate water bodies.
Endothermy ("warm blood") is generally not found in small aquatic animal, probably because water leeches away heat much faster than water, so aquatic endotherms (tunas, sharks, seals, whales) need to be bulky. On land, however, endothermy is found among tiny vertebrates and even insects.
There is no passive air-floating plankton, since air is not dense enough to support living tissue or dissolved organic matter by buoyancy. For that reason filter-feeding is also rare outside of water, while carnivorous plants are not found in the ocean (the water already carries enough nutrient). Aquatic plants do not produce wood as buoyancy is enough to keep them upright.
Large terrestrial animals do not specialize as scavengers (all mammals famous for scavenging also hunt actively); large carcasses are too spread out. All specialist scavengers on land are either very small, or flying.
Herbivory is rare among active fliers, because plant matter has a low energy density and takes a long time to digest. Herbivorous birds and insects are poor fliers or flightless, and the best fliers, like geese, are the ones that can take shelter in water.
Many more examples are only excluded from specific groups (e.g. live-bearing, despite being very common in reptiles, never appeared in birds, probably because the bird egg-shell is too mineralized to be retained in the womb as transition toward full live-bearing).
Even though the author calls them "forbidden phenotypes", only some of them are actually impossible (because they cannot evolve in the first place, or because they cost more energy than they're worth), and others simply never happened to evolve. At the end of the paper there is a list of phenotypes that would have been "forbidden" in the aftermath of the Cambrian Explosion and Ordovician diversification, but which appeared later, and they include
cutins, suberins, lignins, flavonoids, alkaloids, vascular systems, roots, leaves, rigid frameworks of stems and branches, nutrition complemented by animal matter, and basal growth in land plants; nitrogen-fixing symbiosis on land; animal-mediated dispersal/pollination; silk-producing, sound-emitting, flying, eusocial, terrestrial herbivorous, wood-boring, terrestrial shell-bearing and endothermic animals; embryos nourished within the body of an animal or plant parent; mineralized phytoplankton; and rock-excavating marine herbivores. [...] photosymbiotic and chemosymbiotic molluscs, the bivalved condition in gastropods, terrestrial life in gastropods and vertebrates, complex septa within the phragmocone of externally shelled cephalopods, internalization and loss of the shell in cephalopods, cementation to the substratum with a glue of calcium carbonate and organic matrix in several animal groups (gastropods, brachiopods, bivalves and barnacles), spines on shells of several groups (brachiopods, bivalves and brachiopods), mineralized tubes in polychaete annelids, mobility in bryozoans and pelmatozoan echinoderms, jaws and teeth in vertebrates, and vascular systems in brown and red algae. A vast diversity of potent venoms also lay in the future as part of the defensive and aggressive arsenal of many gastropods, cephalopods, aculeate Hymenoptera, vertebrates and land plants.
He also mentions phenotypes that were lost, but every listed adaptation seems to have survived in some group (e.g. complex spiny shells disappeared among cephalopods but survived in gastropods).
My wife @aorryn47 is reading Kushiel’s Chosen right now. For any unaware the series follows a courtesan/spy and her adventures and it’s very spicy with lots of sex scenes.
As my wife and I have embarked on book writing and two smut scenes currently exist my wife and I are needing to find acceptable words for various genitalia.
“Cock” is my favorite for penis, “phallus” is both of our least favorite. Vagina and labia are trickier as there just isn’t a very good stand in. “Folds” is okay, “clit” is fine, “pussy” made my wife laugh themself sick when I gave up on finding a nicer word.
But my wife has very strong feelings about what they feel the worst option is.
The concluding passage of Always Coming Home by Ursula K. Le Guin never fails to make me teary. When I first read it a long time ago it healed something deep within me.
When I take you to the Valley, you’ll see the blue hills on the left and the blue hills on the right, the rainbow and the vineyards under the rainbow late in the rainy season, and maybe you’ll say, “There it is, that’s it!”
But I’ll say, “A little farther.”
We’ll go on, I hope, and you’ll see the roofs of the little towns and the hillsides yellow with wild oats, a buzzard soaring and a woman singing by the shadows of a creek in the dry season, and maybe you’ll say, “Let’s stop here, this is it!”
But I’ll say, “A little farther yet.”
We’ll go on, and you’ll hear the quail calling on the mountain by the springs of the river, and looking back you’ll see the river running downward through the wild hills behind, below, and you’ll say, “Isn’t that the Valley?”
And all I will be able to say is: “Drink this water of the spring, rest here awhile, we have a long way yet to go and I can’t go without you.”
I can't go without you. I can't. There's something about the way it's phrased. It's not "please come with me." It's not "I won't go without you." It's the simplicity of fact. "I can't go without you." I need you to come with me. I need to share this with you. I don't know how to continue without you, and I wouldn't be able even if I knew. I need you, and I will wait for you as long as you need me to. We are going together. And that's a promise.
reminder to myself, and to anyone else who needs to hear it: asking for help is NOT admitting defeat. it is actually deciding to use the single most powerful tool in the human arsenal. the one that got our kind over every hurdle we've ever faced. our greatest strength is each other.
we're highly social animals; helping each other is our number one survival strategy. humans are clever enough individually but put a bunch of us together and, well... that's how we got all the way to global civilization.
so ask for help when you need it. put your fear of judgement aside by acknowledging that you are employing exactly the same strategy as all of your ancestors before you: circumventing your own limitations by seeking out others whose knowledge and skills differ from yours. asking for help is the human way.
We grew up alone. My god, it was hard. It still is. Hell, even now –especially now– we're fighting tooth and nail to be a semicolon in history rather than a full-stop. But them? They don't have to.
We can see plain as day they are on the brink of sapience. They're so much like us that it hurts. And it's not just corvids– orcas, elephants, octopi... all of these genera exhibit remarkable intellect and even signs of conscious thought. We are slowly learning that the human mind is not the only mind with that quintessential spark.
I know very well that we have too many problems of our own to deal with. But for the sake of strange kinship, for the sake of primordial kindness, I think we ought to look out for them too. I think we will. I think that it's in our nature.
I hope if we make it, we don't make it alone. I hope we can safely cross the rest of the gap between hell and heaven and then turn around to help them across too. For two million years we've had to guard our own crib and wipe our own tears. It wasn't fair, and we know it. We have the chance to become the people we once needed most on that long climb from the mud to the stars. I want us to take that chance.
I want humanity to take our kin gently by the talon, by the paw, by the trunk, by the fin, by the suckered arm. And I want us to tell them: "We didn't do this just for ourselves. We did this for you, too. It's okay. We're here. You don't have to grow up alone."
On June 27th @ 6:00 PM CST, I'm doing my first charity stream!
POKEMON SHINY HUNTING FOR YOU: CHARITY EDITION, raising funds for Lambert House, a LGBT+ youth center, as apart of Pokemon Pride's campaign!
THE GOAL: $250!
THE INCENTIVES:
I will be doing https://pkmnquiz.com/ in a bonus stream! Every $1 raised will force me to name 2 unique Pokemon in this quiz! Hitting $250 means I have to name 500 unique Pokemon. I get no hints.
Naming Bidding War: When we find a shiny, the highest bidder with a name in the comments becomes that Pokemon's name!
being in your early twenties is like [grocery shopping alone] [having instant noodles for dinner] [remembering random details about that one friend you haven't spoken to in five years] [feeling overwhelming guilt for every purchase that isn't strictly "necessary"] [having midday naps] [finding out through facebook that the girl who was mean to you in high school has a husband and a baby] [falling a little in love with every stranger on public transport] [pretending you're not afraid of being alone] [wondering when you'll feel like a fully realized person] [listening to bands you liked in middle school] [blinking and it's suddenly december] [failing to imagine yourself ten years from now] [feeling like you're running out of time]
Today, the world's most powerful microscope has photographed in real color the core of a single atom. The nucleus of an atom is like the delicious yolk of a hard boiled quantum egg, containing protons and neutrons (red) as held together by gluons (tan filaments). All known substances are made of atoms with nuclei like the one seen above.
The atom used was a Thulium atom because of its highly photogenic traits, bright coloration, and nice atomic number. According to microscopy professor Minnie Lewker, "Atoms have been photographed before but never in real color. They usually look almost like waves of light and dark instead of real, tangible objects as they are."
The same microscope team was also able to take the first known photograph of an electron:
my favorite comprehensible math fact is that 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32... all the way on, forever, equals exactly 2. and i love it because it sounds totally mystical and then you see the proof for it and its just like a little drawing that makes you go, oh, right, duh. like all you need is a square that you have decided has an area of 2, and then you just start coloring in.
i see what you're referring to, but that "never get that final block in place" thing is what infinity is for. the infinity is kind of for the moment when you do the final thing in a never ending pattern. its the last number. there is no last number. its there. you can see it. you cannot get there. but what if you did? then you'd be at two. you are at two. you measure the corners of your house. its a little bigger on the inside than the out. hm.
