warriors fans: that scene where WomanWhisker was verbally berating GuyHeart was so hard to read, I’m honestly happy that GuyHeart finally stood up for himself, WomanWhisker is such a bitch

The scene they’re talking about: She let out a snort and leaned in closer, a teasing look spread across her face. “Well then oh great and powerful GuyHeart! How’s the whole ‘proving your strength’ thing been going for you? Oh oh! Lemme guess! You finally managed to beat a sick squirrel in a fight!” WomanWhisker jokingly cooed at GuyHeart, a cheeky mrrow following suit.

GuyHeart felt a surge of boiling blood pulse throughout his body, burning hot rage and fury pricked at every last hair on his pelt as he withheld a hateful spit and sneer. Immediately his mind filled with urges to tear right into WomanWhisker and claw that snarky grin right off of her horrible face and rip her whiskers clean off. His body violently shook with rage as memories of her snarky words echoed in his mind, about not catching a squirrel, about his strength, about his family. If GuyHeart kept digging his claws into the ground, they’d surely snap off from his rage. Then I wouldn’t have anything to teach you a lesson with, he thought to himself as he glared at WomanWhisker

"DNI: Standard DNI criteria" is so funny, like anyone checking if they should interact is gonna be familiar enough with dni's to know the standard redundant options. really exposes the purpose of them, they signal an in-group to other people with the same DNI rather than actually being a warning for potentially unwanted interactions.

me when im a self-identifying Bad Person and someone says not to interact: "oh, thanks for letting me know, i'll be off"

character playlists aren’t for songs a character would listen to they are for songs that remind me of the character

“x wouldn’t listen to this” yeah no shit this is for when i want to listen to my shitty songs and think about my favorite little characters

Speak for yourself. I think Rouge the Bat would love my Rouge playlist. Every time I found a smooth jazz, acid jazz, nu jazz, or jazz house song that fit her style, I thought “damn Rouge would love this,” and added them to a playlist, specifically for her to listen to.

Okay. Well Rouge the Bat isn't real. So I don't think she's gonna listen to that.

the word 'swim' is doing a lot of heavy work here

Not half as much as the audio is

I do have a piece of writing advice, actually.

See, the first time I grew parsnips, I fucked it up good. I hadn't seen parsnips sprouting before, right, and in my eagerness I was keeping a close eye on the row. And every time I saw some intruding grass coming up, I twitched it right out, and went back to anticipating the germination of my parsnips.

But it turns out parsnips take a bit longer than anything else I'd ever grown to distinguish themselves visually. It's just the two little split leaves, almost identical to a newly seeded bit of kentucky bluegrass when they first come up, and they take a good bit to establish themselves and spread out flat before the main stem with its first distinctive scallopy leaf gets going.

I didn't get any parsnips, not that year, because I'd weeded them all out as soon as they showed their faces, with my 'ugh no that's grass' twitchy horticulture finger.

The next year, having in retrospect come to suspect what had happened, I left the row alone and didn't weed anything until all the sprouts coming up had all had a bit to set in and show their colors, and I've grown lots of parsnips since. They're kind of a slow crop, not a huge return, but I like them and watching them grow and digging them up, and their papery little seeds in the second year, if you don't harvest one either on purpose or because you misjudged the frost, so it's worth it.

Anyway, whenever I see someone stuck and struggling with their writing who's gotten into that frustration loop of typing a few words, rejecting them, backspacing, and starting again, I find myself thinking, you gotta stop weeding your parsnips, man.

reading this post be like

If you try to say anything to me today that's not about my flying fish pepper shaker from the antique store, I will beat the shit out of you. I'm so serious.

Yaaaaaay everybody frow up and die because you're not me 💚

creating a new OC. He's a doctor who treats weird kink furries. his bit is that every patient who comes into his office he has to figure out how to complete the checkup while working around some weird toon-logic contrivance. He's like the doctor house of kink because he's the only one in his field capable of getting results. He's massively overworked and he's been IP banned from the e621 forums.

His name is Doctor RJ Yiphman and he's one wrong move away from getting fired.

Doctor Yiphman treats more patients

Yiphman's back

How The Nocturnal Bottleneck and Nipples Make Us Human

Almost every post here considers what humans do have, really. It’s a little tiring; realistically every world has its harsh environments and vicious species and a sophont to match. We probably wouldn’t be unique for our adaptability or our persistence or even adrenaline

But our evolution is fucked up as hell, to put it lightly.

Mammals went through what’s been dubbed the nocturnal bottleneck essentially since the start of the mesozoic right up until the Cretaceous ended the archosaur’s exclusive hold over the daylight. We lost a lot of things from every mammal spending most of its time in either a cramped, suffocating burrow or scrounging around in the faint hours of nighttime. Our blood cells lost their nuclei to hold more oxygen while we spent time deep underground, we lost protections against ultraviolet rays in our skin and eyes, we can’t even repair our own DNA using the light of the sun. Most aliens probably wouldn’t have such traits unless their evolution followed a very similar path to ours. They’d be able to see ultraviolet and wouldn’t have to worry about sunburn and all the wonderful privileges essentially all fish, birds, amphibians, and reptiles enjoy as we speak. 

There’s also what we gained from spending so much time in the dark.

Brown fat is only found in mammals, it’s a special type of fat which bear cells with several oil droplets and are utterly jammed with mitochondria. This lets it make heat, a lot of it, fast. We don’t even need to shiver to induce this heat generation from brown adipose tissue - factor in our downright hyperactive mitochondria, and we can warm up quickly. Sure, it doesn’t have too much use in adult humans, but it keeps our infants warm and still provides a little boost the whole run we have in this universe.

Unless aliens also went through a time where their small ancestors had to face cold nights, they’d have to produce heat the old fashioned way when chilled. Aliens might have to shiver the whole time they’re in a cold room while the human watches in confusion, quite literally unshaken, and wonders if the room is a lot colder than the thermostat set to 60 says. The aliens stare at their companion in confusion, it’s just a normal temperature to shiver at after all, how is the human sitting so still?

Our small ancestors spending all their time out foraging at night is also why we have such a good sense of touch, smell, and hearing. They were more important senses than vision (we’re lucky to have even redeveloped basic color vision, frankly) at the time and place and simply ended up continuing to serve us well. Birds and reptiles rarely have acute senses of smell and the latter especially are lucky to have acute hearing, and birds rarely have impeccable hearing themselves either. Our skin is free of scales and honed to sensitivity, and our external ears and complicated ear bones provide an immense range of hearing (from 20 all the way to 17,000 hertz!).

Aliens might not be able to pin down the chirp of a cricket or the light click of a lock being picked. The human might be the only one on board a ship that can pick out the finer sounds of the engine’s constant thrum and know the critical difference between when everything is fine and when something is wrong. The human could probably pick out the sounds of an approaching enemy’s careless footsteps - they’re only as light enough for *them* to stop hearing them, after all - and be the one to see the horrified expression (well, more on that later) on their face when we get the drop on them in spite of their perceived stealth. 

But perhaps the most versatile, convoluted, amazing, and utterly unique trait we have is right on your face this instant. Lips.

Lips in most animals are a simple seal to hold in the mouth’s moisture and protect the teeth, even if they’re supple they’re NEVER muscular except in mammals, and we have only one thing to thank for it; milk and nipples. Lips evolved exclusively to allow babies to suckle, it required a vacuum to be created in the mouth, and with no other animal having anything like a nipple it never happened in other animals. Many animals make milk, to be frank, but no other animal has nipples.

Your cheeks and lips are a marvel among tetrapods, no other animal can suck like mammals can. Aliens wouldn’t have straws or even be able to sip from the edge of a glass, they’d have to have a proboscis or simply tilt the whole thing back. Aliens likely won’t have woodwind instruments or balloons you can blow into. We take so much about our lips for granted. Hell, our muscular faces are vital for expressions, we’re probably absolute facial contortionists among a cast of creatures with mandibles and beaks and expressionless scaly maws. Aliens might find us ridiculously easy to read, if anything, compared to their own kind (all the better to deceive them) - or perhaps they’d find us hard to decipher anyways, with our lack of color-changing skin or erectable crests of bright feathers. Baring teeth might not be seen as a sign of aggression in most of the universe, smiling would be all too distinctly human. 

Perhaps with how infectious we are sometimes, that’s what we’d contribute to the universe; others might have to make do with opening their mouths just enough to show their teeth or splaying their innumerable mouthparts with just the right curve, but perhaps we’d teach the galaxy to smile, one ally at a time. 

Wouldn’t that be amazing?

cc @sith-shenanigans @marlynnofmany

Ooh, this is new information! Innnteresting.

just had an absolutely atrocious thought

Notes are in complete agreement

Today's Seal Is: Cha Cha Cha

That’s literally jiji

well, cathedral is going back to its roots. instead of a webcomic, it is going to be an illustrated novel! i rediscovered my love for writing through my script and i’m very excited for this change. i plan on publishing when it’s complete, either through a company (which could be difficult considering how niche the genre is) or myself. thank you for your support over the years! i hope you all get to hold this story in your hands.

Unique coat colors on cats 🖤

Warrior cats OCs be like