I Knew Having Redditors Cross-train On Tumblr Would Produce Weird Fucking Magic.

i think that killing a dragon should have catastrophic nuclear-fallout level environmental consequences tbh. their blood should scorch and wither the earth with fire and poison, the toxic fumes released as they decay should choke the land and all nearby living creatures, and the entire landscape where they fell should be transformed into a blighted wasteland where bleached leviathan bones loom upwards out of the ground as a warning that can be seen from miles away, the boundary markers of an exclusion zone.

European garden spider (Araneus diadematus)/korsspindel. Huddinge in Stockholm, Södermanland, Sweden (August 18, 2013).

son we pray to the Pork Clock in this household

I do genuinely believe that the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (and arguably the Zelda franchise as a whole, though i myself have played literally none of these games) is closer to fitting the description of ‘Tolkien-esque Fantasy’ than most other movies/shows/games/books etc that claim that label

Like, compare this post by tumblr user wufflesvetinari, which makes an important point about Tolkien’s worldbuilding, and also lives in my head rent free:

and then these quotes from Jacob Geller’s “Every Zelda is the Darkest Zelda”

and his conclusions about the messages in Zelda games are thematically very similar to the through-lines about friendship and love in LOTR, and what a lot of authors miss about what makes a fantasy story personal and memorable:

“A world without joy and humor isn’t a compelling world to fight for” is exactly why there are so many pieces of fantasy media out there that just feel like carbon copies of each other (i’ve seen many posts that explain this better than I can though I can’t find any specific ones at the moment, just know that I didn’t invent this thesis). You’ve got the cool swords, you’ve got the wizards and the spells and the battles, but first and foremost you need the LOVE.

Wasps so tiny you will question everything.

Imagine being so teeny tiny that you are an endoparasite on *leafhoppers* Leafhoppers are already in the "so small they go unnoticed" category, and you're just a little pest on a minuscule thing.

Of course the group that's most likely to choose this life? The wasps Wasps are some of the smallest insects. There are "fairy flies" that are parasites of the eggs of certain insects.

They are so small that air is "thick" to them and their wings have feathered edges are are oar shaped.

Some fairly flies are so tiny that their neurons are cells without nuclei. They got rid of them to save space. They can still think though... presumably the tiniest little thoughts.

Photo by Alexey Polilov, 2012

They lay their eggs inside of the eggs of 1-2mm long crop pests.

And... read the article to see what the males are like... they are even smaller somehow, but it's ... disturbing.

today the girl ringing me up at the gas station said “ok, have a nice day. i love you” and i said “what” and she repeated “i love you” with better diction

paintin’

No fucking way

Wake up, slut! New spider just dropped!

Hello everyone. It is my honor, and privilege to formally introduce you too: Hotwheels sisyphus.

This, lovely specimen, is named after the fact, it's genitalia resemble a Hotwheels track! The second bit, of its name, of course comes from the ancient legend of Sisyphus, a man who is forever cursed with rolling a boulder, up a hill. This divine punishment, reminded the researchers Bo Liu and Feng Zhang, who discovered it, of the circular copulatory tube, of the spider, which is basically like a spider uterus. It has only been found in China, and it was discovered this year! They are the only species in the genus Hotwheels. And they are a sort, of ground spider! Unfortunately, not much is known about them, since they are a relatively new species.