under a moonlit sky

the contents of my brain - mostly cars, birds, writing, or science

[headlessteacup]

Art credits of course go to carmical_art who did these beautiful commissions (find on insta)

[headlessteacup]

Writing for the Long Haul

So I've been writing a book for ten years and now—finally—it's published, out there, in the world. (Check out my pinned post!)

For the longest time writing was a hobby for me. A thing I did on my own time and feared sharing with anyone. I took creative writing classes in high school, in college, and in that time I still wrote while thinking it was 'just a thing' that didn't have to go anywhere. And the strange thing to say here is that really changed that for me, that made me believe in publication, was that I dabbled in writing fan fiction.

There was a joy I discovered that came in really sharing my stories. Writing other creator's characters with my interpretation of them, working to maintain them as something consistent without warping them out of frame. It was a strange situation where my writing ff informed my og writing, and my og writing gave me skills for story structure and execution.

That all goes to say-- I'm going to be yapping here about the process. In part because I'm always ready to talk about ff, but the skills I gained over the years in practice and how I apply.

[fluffygif]

Ducklings’ first swim!

[amoebasisters]

We imagine mutations to be a little bewildering to chromosomes…

[psychosquads]

       They’ve taken his soul. To these gods you cannot pray.

[mechecolomar-archive]

The darkness is coming. It yearns for life, hungers for it - like a pack of wolves on a hunt. But she’s not stopping. Not this time.

[art-of-thomas-elliott]

Something had been digging up the graves and consuming the cadavers. A travelling monster slayer offered his services to kill the beast. As the bats screeched and the mist cleared he realised this wasnt going to be an easy job. 

[i-homeostasis]

dude seeing these Mega high quality images of the surface of mars that we now have has me fucked up. Like. Mars is a place. mars is a real actual place where one could hypothetically stand. It is a physical place in the universe. ITS JUST OUT THERE LOOKING LIKE UH IDK A REGULAR OLD DESERT WITH LOTS OF ROCKS BUT ITS A WHOLE OTHER PLANET? 

[i-homeostasis]

LIKE THIS JUST LOOKS LIKE IT COULD BE A PERSON’S BACKYARD. LIKE YEA A LITTLE DUSTY MAYBE THERE WAS A SANDSTORM BUT THAT’S COOL I’M JUST GONNA WALK DOWN TO THE STORE P S Y C H YOU’RE ON MARS BICH!

[schro-dingus-deactivated2023030]

i hate to be rude and intrude on this post but we have decent pictures of the surface Venus too! 

[jumpingjacktrash]

#venus has a low render distance

[thecraftychemist]

See also below Saturn’s moon, Titan. Mars has a blue horizon at sunset so it looks even more Earth-like in this image:

Source

Also: Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko

[ultraviolet-divergence]

So it’s not quite snowing on Churyumov–Gerasimenko, unfortunately; the white specks are artifacts of cosmic rays impinging on the CCDs in the camera, as well as a rotating starfield in the background (since the comet is spinning). A few specks could be dust. But, holy shit, that’s the surface of a comet. That’s a spot you could in theory cling to for dear life sit down on. The Cliffs of Comet 76p are a place. 

If that isn’t the neatest shit I don’t know what is.

[fuckyeahfluiddynamics]

Birds generate extra lift with their tails, according to new measurements of gliding owls and raptors. Also, look at these gorgeous wingtip vortices! (Image and research credit: J. Usherwood et al.; video credit: Nature News; submitted by Jorn C. and Kam-Yung Soh)

[art-of-thomas-elliott]

The villagers came to him, pleading to do something about the tundra trolls. His fee wasnt cheap. 

[etchif]

Something i've been thinking about: permian synapsids. Specifically what they looked like

Sure we have paleoart of them

But if you think about it, this is literally exactly what these "if todays animals were shrinkwrapped" things look like

Like-

This

Is a drawing of an Inostrancevia (i think)

And this

Is a drawing of a shrinkwrapped lion I did (It's very poorly and lazily drawn but the point is that is NOT what a lion looks like).

Like they look the same!!! They're literally identical!!!!

And that's been really bothering me for some reason!!!! Did these synapsids have manes? Did they have other features that were a keen feature of their species??? We will never know and that infuriates me

I know shrinkwrapping is also just as present in dinosaurs but reptiles and birds usually don't look drastically different when they're shrinkwrapped but mammals sure do!! (Not counting the missing feathers)

[antigonick]

“I kept being alive when I should have been burning: I was Joan, I was Lazarus.”

— Louise Glück, excerpt of “Saint-Joan”, in The Seven Ages

[art-of-thomas-elliott]

It stood in the street for days. No one knew why. 

[dappermouth]

Springtime landscapes in Yellowstone National Park

[arsanatomica]

I think it’s incredible how seals experience the world.

Many of the deep-diving seals can go blind during their lifetime and live just fine.

Round whiskers flap around in the water and create their own turbulence, but the specific whisker shape they have cancels turbulence, so they can pinpoint trails of turbulence from prey. Other places to see my posts: INSTAGRAM / FACEBOOK / ETSY / KICKSTARTER

[archaeos]

I spent two years at a top university, was taught by some of the finest modern archaeologists, and THIS is what I learned. 

[ripe]

sumbapumba on ig