#loamsome

[planet4546b]

Numbers 27 and 43 on your wrapped :)

what is hell to the god that you pray to? either way tell the devil ‘just trust us’ don’t expect anybody would’ve saved you bloodlust tastes a little like justice

bloodlust, left at london

a distant galaxy dangling in the dark hope that floats above the deep and the only way out is where we fell in but i can’t swim.

waste, david vertesi

[onenicebugperday]

Have you seen calligraphy beetles. Lil works of art

Yes!!! The russet alder leaf beetle is my fav:

It looks like it’s stained with the blood of its enemies even though we know it is much too nice to have enemies.

But honorable mention to the globemallow leaf beetle:

And Calligrapha rowena:

Photos by fynkynd, flecksy, and berkshirenaturalist

[squidbroom]

Sleepover Saturday!! Do you have a favorite fun fact?

did you know bumble bees are (1) native to north america (honey bees are from europe) and (2) they live in annual colonies? basically in spring the queen will get out of hibernation and find a nest site like an abandoned burrow and then makes these wax pots to store nectar and pollon and incubates the eggs. then the bees that emerge do the foraging, and in the autumn there are new queens and male bees. then the rest of the bumble bees die and the queens go into hibernation.

[planet4546b]

Hiiii hi I would love to know more about the mar tbh! Fucked up caves my beloved :)

erika take my hand we’re going to the mar!!!! fucked up cave world yay!!

the mar is a…place? supernatural effect on the world? miasma? conceptual realm? physical fallout? something like that. that exists side by side (or above/below) the ‘physical’ world in west faraday. the two are concurrent everywhere, but there are places where the mar is ‘more concentrated’ (for example, the synapse to the east of lariat) and places where it’s ‘less concentrated’ or ‘stabilized’ (such as the areas around most major cities). what the mar is, actually, is a lot of things at the same time: a realm of sheer chance and probability, a preserved history of the world that used to be, a possible future, an impression of thought, the conceptual made real. it’s a place built by the impressions and perceptions of itself. its the shadows on the cave wall in plato’s cave if the shadows were the true things and the things casting them were false.

which is to say. it’s weird in there!

functionally, it looks a lot like a cave and acts a lot like a cave because, like a cave, it is 1. difficult to navigate 2. easy to die in 3. bends your understanding of how the world should work 4. is often familiar enough to be compelling but unfamiliar enough to be dangerous 5. dark 6. removed from, but still a part of, the world around it 7. has a lot of historical context in the way different people over time understand, interact with, and use it. it is also (like a cave) just as often stunningly beautiful and shockingly revelatory, and there’s a very good reason that the people who dive in it are often compelled to keep going back.

it is very likely a leftover effect of the very very first apocalypse that destroyed this world, but that was like 400 apocalypses ago so that’s a hard maybe. it’s also very commonly thought to be the source of subsequent apocalypses, which is probably sometimes true but not always.

it’s confusing and contradictory on purpose, but it’s also my best friend!!!! the mar yay we love the mar!!!!

[planet4546b]

Elaborate on the ping pong balls

ohohoho you people are enabling me to talk about sponges aka my favorite beasts ever so THANK YOU. MUAH

this is the aptly named ping pong tree sponge (or chondrocladia lampadiglobus)!!! it's found in the deep sea and while most sponges are filter feeders, these ones catch and eat small crustaceans using modified spicules, which are essentially what makes up the (very disordered and weird, not at all connected, not actually a skeleton) skeleton in other sponges. the systems + cells that most sponges use to pull in and filter water are used to inflate these ballons in this group!! whats super cool is that the entire genus chondrocladia has over 30 species in it and all of them are carnivorous deep water sponges, some of them from the antarctic deep water, which is completely insane.

heres another one in the same genus, the harp sponge (chondrocladia lyra)!! all of the long thin spires in this one are COVERED in barbed hooks to catch crustaceans. wild!!

also weve only known that sponges COULD be predators for something like 30 years, and yet theres entire families that have specialized to be just that in some of the harshest environments on earth!!!! thank you for letting me talk about sponges sponges are so cool

[planet4546b]

🎵 :)

[image id: a rough sketch of isabel lovelace leaning casually against a car door and smoking. a relaxed look is on her face. end id]

paradise valley - honey and the sting

paradise valley means an excuse to draw post canon lovelace straight chillin!!!

[planet4546b]

Omg I've just been getting into The Books, I'd love to hear about 41 on the signoise playlist :)

41: free translator by the books

wait omg erika this is actually the only books song i know if you have other fave books songs lmk!!!! this song is on here completely because of the concept behind the song, its the lyrics of subterranean homesick blues bob dylan put through a series of online translators until we get the lyrics that are here!! the nonsense of the lyrics themselves, as well as knowing that we got there because of multiple levels of interpretation and translation, is incredibly signal to noise in concept. the placement on the playlist is in the sort of first half of their journey through the synapse, i think that it sort of reflects the way that this place functions and the way that there can still, at this point, be a fascination with it and wonder for it. i like a lot that it ends on a repeated 'and i see' :)

[planet4546b]

👻🍧 Samiraaaaa and one of your choice!!

im gonna do birddog for my other choice hehe!!

👻 GHOST - do they believe in ghosts? what are their “ghostly experiences”, if any?

oh phenomenal question. like functionally samira Has to believe in ghosts because the reson she's doing all of this is like stupid desperate hope that the synapse will show her a vision of her dead sister. which isnt how the synapse works but its what she needs so bad. however she has never had any ghostly experiences, and i dont think she ever will!!! i always go back and forth on if ibtihaj's ghost actually shows up during the course of signoise or not but right now im firmly in 'no'.

i think the definition of 'ghost' is weird for birdie - both her and most of the people she knows are able to physically come back to life, so seeing them again after death isn't abnormal for her. i think if she saw something that she understood as a ghost she would be DEEPLY unsettled

🍧 SHAVED ICE - do they still have any objects from their childhood? what significance does it have to them? what would their reaction be if they lost it?

i dont think samira does!!! the amount to which samira is outright dismissive of, cagey about, and has disregarded her own history is notable for the fact shes a historian and also a thing she's specifically thought about. she is so interested in keeping records that she knows very well that she does not want to leave one of her own for someone else to find and interpret. the act of being interpreted is so frightening to samira (HYPOCRITE!!!!!)

i think that before the plot of dogstar begins, birddog keeps hold of a piece of the 'sail' of the ship she used to go through the eye + into this world. its significant because it was her moment of heroics + a part of her identity she really held onto until it got worn away. theres a chance she finds this again sometime along her journey, its meaing warped so that now it represents the thing she has to destroy (but still represents the same stupid heroics!