#i have chloroplasts

[supermilkshakebanana]

do you photosynthesis

Yes :)

[fazedlight]

something something organelles something chloroplasts…. sulfates…

*nodding along* yes talk science to me damn

It was so hard to write that chapter of Even Though You're Kryptonian, and try to figure out what the audience would need to know (assuming that most of the audience didn't have biology fresh on their minds). I ended up summing it to "okay, the audience needs to know that blood is important, and that the trait is maternally passed" and also "the audience needs to know this comes down to quantum information, which can't be cloned". When Nia says "skip the science", that is because I took out full paragraph explanations that were originally written there when I went back to editing 🤣 Buuuut this is tumblr, so I'll summarize here!

Quantum cloning is actually impossible (and would break the universe if it were possible), which Lena notes. On the TV show, they say they need Kara's DNA, and then get really sad when it's destroyed... but Lena is a scientist, replicating DNA is super easy, she definitely would've done that before loading the device!! So in my fic, we're going with quantum signatures, because the sadness around needing to reset the device to fight the phantoms makes sense.

The stable marriage problem (also called the "stable matching problem") is an actual thing in algorithms, with applications in economics. It's not specific to marriage - you can use similar algorithms to optimize which schools students attend, for instance. And it's always solvable, given certain conditions, with one of those conditions being that the two groups are distinct (like colleges are group 1, students are group 2 - a college can't attend a college & a student can't attend a student). If you don't have distinct groups, it turns into the stable roommate problem, which is not guaranteed to be solvable.

So basically my headcanon is that Krypton would look at algorithms and say "We can't have gay marriage, that's not algorithmically efficient!" because Krypton is the type of screwed up society that thinks everything should be done by algorithm.

Chloroplasts are organelles in plants. (Organelles are just organs for cells - instead of hearts and livers and kidneys, cells have things like mitochondria and nuclei and endoplasmic reticula.) Mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell? Well, so are chloroplasts (in plants!).

Lena at some point on the TV show tells the group that Reign's cells are more like plant cells, which Kara confirms as how kryptonians convert sunlight to energy (which is what a chloroplast does). But I say they're not quite chloroplasts because they have to use a different dye - kryptonians aren't green. Lutein is a yellow dye in plants (think fall leaves) that could probably be masked by the natural melanin in human skin. So that's what I made as the thing that causes kryptonians to give off a quantum signature - the conversion of sunlight to power.

Organelles really are passed from the mother (egg) to the child. Sperm doesn't have room for much besides DNA. (Though for reasons not yet explained, kryptonian biology is going to work a little differently than Lena expects.)

As for sulfates, that's just a category of salt, and they're plentiful in the ocean. I needed something that killed libido... unfortunately, most of the real stuff that would kill libido are things like alcohol or opioids, and I didn't want kryptonian kids running around stoned all the time. But salt can contribute to high blood pressure, which can lower libido - sooooo let's just pretend that kryptonians are particularly likely to experience this side effect, while not being killed by blood pressure. Their biology is different anyway!

[fleur-dans-la-nuit]

I know this isn’t what I normally post, but I am very proud of this.

A project for biology required me to hand draw a cell for marks, so I suffered. It turned out alright, but I did mess up the first time. Pro-tip: do NOT use markers if you want fine line art to show up; I had to redo the whole thing because I had made that mistake.

CLICK FOR BETTER QUALITY

My phones camera quality decides to quit whenever I try to take a picture of the whole page. I ended up just splitting it into parts so the quality isn’t compleate garbage.

[readyfreddy]

sometimes university is crying over the existence of numbers, other times it's discovering the the plant kingdom is wild as hell, sometimes it's debating emailing your prof if you can quote My Immortal (yes, that piece of fan fiction). Right now its watching Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 2001 analyzing minute differences.

[chronically-enthusiastic]

Revise for my assessments in a few weeks or draw concept art of chloroplasts?

[aners-v]

I think I’ll never finish this drawing so imagine that this green haired man is looking at a phone ⚰️

[caffeine-high]

This just in; local idiot has to hand in a short essay, got obsessed with the topic and now needs to figure out how to edit down 1800 words to 600🤡

[bepisconsumer]

The year is 1794. I am sentenced to death by the guillotine in revolution-era France for my crimes.

"Any last words?" says Robespierre (in French), who has personally come to perform my execution.

I flash him a toothy grin, and say nothing.

"Well, at least you'll continue to smile in the afterlife" he says as he releases the blade and it crashes into place with a sickening thud.

My head drops into the collection basket. My smile only grows wider.

"You fool. I have not met my end. You have merely freed me."

Robespierre whirls around, his already pasty white face draining of what little color it had.

"H-how are you... What... That's... Not possible" he stammers, trying to make sense of what he's seeing.

With a flourish, I rip off my mask to reveal that I was a Sacoglossan slug all along. Robespierre falls over dead from being owned so hard and I scurry off to go steal chloroplasts from some unsuspecting algae.

[ecruvian]

I love Tumblr - especially modern Tumblr - because it's totally built on fandom. Any given fan blog gets the same Thoughtful Discourse, the same Shitposts, the same Dumb Asks, the same Inside Jokes.

But not just, like, My Little Pony fandom or Marval fandom or anything so limited.

Everything is fandom.

EVERYTHING.

Do you have an impassioned essay about bitchiness in medieval Centos? You want people's headcanons about the evolutionary origins of chloroplast? Hahahaha, welcome to Hellsite

Examples include but are not limited to

@cryptotheism

@botanyshitposts

@amtrak-official

[hellsitegenetics]

just professing my love to the broad category of cephalopods, with octopuses and specifically blanket/dumbo octopuses under there getting extra love. thanks for being at my core, something that is more recognizable as "me" than any name i've been called.

also thank you blue ringed octopus for having tetrodotoxin in your body. if i were to die from it, that would be my best way to go out. not that i plan on it but DAMN thats a cool neurotoxin. also found in a bunch of other things like some pufferfish!

happy valentines day to the entire order Cephalopoda. and to Grimpoteuthis, who got me here and started this journey. xxxx

(i literally named myself bc it sounded kinda like octopus. this isnt even an exaggeration. im so normal about them)

String identified:

t g t t a catg ca, t ct a cca at/ ct t gttg ta . ta g at c, tg tat cga a "" ta a a ' ca.

a ta g ct ag ttt . t t, tat t a t g t. t tat a t t A tat a c t. a a c t tg !

a at a t t t Caa. a t Gtt, gt a tat t .

( ta a c t a ct. t t a aggat. a at t)

Closest match: Knoxia roxburghii chloroplast, complete genome

[tanadrin]

very goofy of life on earth to find itself getting locked into certain kinds of metabolism and then having to recruit helper organisms to diversify into new ecological niches. eukaryotes don't directly produce energy; they had to recruit chloroplasts (and even mitochondria) to become their symbiotes. mammals realized much too late that hey, maybe being able to digest cellulose would be good, actually. they had to recruit microorganisms to digest the cellulose for them. most light-emitting animals are really regular animals + a colony of light-emitting bacteria that live inside them.

i guess it's easier for simpler, single-celled organisms to reconfigure basic chemical pathways than big, complicated eukaryotes? but it's still very dumb. lazy-ass plants can't even photosynthesize on their own! they gotta get these wish dot com cyanobacteria to do it for them! not that we're any better--we'd be useless without our gut microbiome.

[danielcain]

Ripe

In retrospect, I should have gotten fitted in-person for a pair of rubber boots. Ordering shoes online is always a crapshoot. The ones I had on were too big, they just collected water like a rain barrel and waterlogged my socks.

The texture was horrible. A disgusting sensation.

The foyer’s carpet squelched with every step I took. It didn’t help that I was carrying 120 pounds of dead woman.

“This always happens during the honeymoon phase,” said my friend Dan.

“You won’t want to leave the house. You’ll want to be with her all the time. The modern age enables this. Work from home, order from home, live from home, die from home…” He began to rant about how modernity. He always goes there, and I always tune him out. He married a female cop from the sheriff’s department. She came off gay when I met her. Funny.

I‘ve tried to explain my marital problems to Dan before. I had to leave out a few key details. I told him my wife was depressed, in bed all day, not contributing financially. He said wives “tend to do that” and that I make enough money, anyway. Not quite the issue.

The trouble was harder to explain; I’ve only been married to Liana for six months, and she’s killed and replanted herself seven times.

I trudged up the staircase in the loose boots. The way I carried her, the soil from her body fell before us, laying a trail like rose petals.

Creaking wood drummed up anxiety in my chest. I am not a large man. I usually make but a negligible amount of noise when I move throughout the house. That’s something she commented on when we first moved in. The word she used was unobtrusive. She liked this about me. She said we had that in common. In a lot of ways, we really were alike.

Unlike me, her cells interlocked with tightly-woven cellulose walls. She had organelles not found in over 99% of human beings: chloroplasts. When I first met her, her skin had a milky green hue. The first time I touched her, I balked. She was not hot to the touch like others. Not cold, but not hot. Her breasts, thighs, cheeks… remarkably, they had the tautness of an unripe vegetable.

I laid her down in the bathtub. The plumbing was sensitive, not terrible, but sensitive. An old house. Wood and cobblestone on the outside. Folksy, I’m told through clenched smiles of guests trying to be complimentary. Yeah, right. It looks better suited to house a coven of child-stealing hags. I tried to fix it up, stay on trend. Liana convinced me not to hire contractors. She convinced me to buy, too. “I’ve always wanted a house in the woods…”

Now I know why.

The replanting process is nothing short of a natural miracle. I will be the first to admit, it attracted me to her further. Liana could change herself at will. All it took was a little patience, two days of waiting, a 6 foot deep ditch in the backyard, some sleeping pills and vodka. I didn’t understand the science of it at first. What exactly she needed to do to push out the roots and reform her mass. When I finally found out, I was too embarrassed to admit I didn’t know she had to physically die each time.

She was always shy about the details, embarrassed, like it was some sort of bowel syndrome. I did not press her for details, but as her husband, I should’ve researched the condition. I did eventually. But not before telling her she would look good blonde. Telling her she would look even hotter upping her bra size by a letter or two…

She started to wake up.

First, the rattle. A great exhalation and inhalation. It always took me by surprise. Her facial muscles were always the second thing reanimate. Her nose twitched. Her eyes opened. They looked so dry. Matte. “Liana. This is getting dangerous.”

A couple seconds’ delay. Then, she smiled mawkishly. During this stage of regrowth, her skin is taut and verdant like the day I met her. (I once called her belle pepper as a pet name. She either didn’t get the pun, maybe.) With every hour, she begins to flush to her desired shade. She switches it up from time to time, never too dark or too white for most to notice, but I do. She carries Pantone swatches in her wallet.

She moved her lips, but couldn’t speak yet. I said nothing further. I picked up the detachable showerhead. The gentlest setting. I rinsed her body, avoiding the tender roots that twitched and protruded from the tips of her fingers and toes. I read somewhere that touching them at this stage feels like a pressing on a pinched nerve.

“I know why thish bophers you shoo much,” she gurgled, throat half-asleep. Her mouth was filled with soil and rainwater. It seeped from her firm, bloated lips.

I turned away. Washing her feet. She continued, most of the earth and excess sap that gagged her having dribbled onto her nightie.

“You like me like thish.”

I averted my eyes. I continued to bathe her, and stared at the peel-and-stick mauve tile accent above the tub. I had put it there the previous month to cover a stubborn decomposition stain.

“I like you all the time, Liana.” It felt like someone was slowly lacing my throat shut from the inside.

I didn’t have to look at her to know she was smiling.

“Buh you like… thish.”

[lilacgaby]

prologue.

~1.4k

chapter select!

this wasn't how her mission was supposed to go.

[name] was on a patrol, with her mentor mirko, who had picked her out to help with her style of working because of the 'compatibilities between their quirks.'

[name]'s quirk was called chrysanthemum stone. she could manipulate, grow, or decay plants and rock. this included all subsections: concrete, soil, flowers, roses, vines, you name it and [name]..

might be able to work with it.

the only huge drawback of her quirk was that she was a human plant. literally. she used photosynthesis to eat, and had retractable chloroplasts on her skin for the sun. this is what led to her hero name: flora.

back to the mission at hand.

"mirko, this city is literally deserted. why is there some new uprising group thing if there are no people to target?!" [name] said, frustrated. they had been scouting in a mundane, wack city for what seemed like hours.

"no people means nobody to give specific details. that's why we have such a huge area to cover." mirko replied, oddly profesional.

"still this is beyond stupid. we couldn't have got hawks to do this mission instead? we're not cut out--"

"you're not cut out for this. don't group me in with your weak ass."

"don't call me weak bunny wabbit!"

"wabbi-- do you wanna go?!"

"wait! shut up!"

"don't tell me to shut up! man i hate high schoolers!"

"no im being serious shut up! don't you feel that?"

surely enough, as soon as they focused, both of them could sense the huge group of people coming their way. mirko through her heightened senses, and [name] through the vibratons in the ground.

"let's go closer, c'mon." mirko replied in a low voice. [name] trailed her as they walked across the roof of a building. mirko only looked back to put a finger over her mouth, signaling to keep quiet.

the only things heard were the excited voices of the new group, who had only done direct attacks on local citizens.

"did you see the look on that girl's face? 'please i'll do anything! don't hurt me!" one of them said before the group bursted out laughing.

"these people around here are too much man! the whole city fled, and not a single hero came for them!"

"i could've swore i heard one call for endeavor, hah!"

as the group laughed along, the sound soon echoed off the building where mirko and [name] stood in hiding. one man from the group, who had physical bat traits, suddenly looked back at the building.

"shit, echolocation?" [name] muttered under her breath.

"what?" mirko whispered.

"i think--"

she was cut off by the bat-man's booming voice.

"whoever is hiding up there, come out now. maybe we'll spare you idiots."

the group heard his words, and quickly got into offensive stances.

he must be the leader. [name] thought.

now, we have to be smart about this. we have no information on their quirks so they really could hurt us if we go in chargi-

and mirko jumped down. [name] smacked her forehead in frustration.

"hey blood-sucker! i'm not scared of any of you! so come at me!" mirko yelled.

[name] hopped down and assumed a fighting stance. with a single glance at eachother they knew the plan.

four on four. got it.

while mirko expertly ran in, disarming a guy with a gun quirk, and three others who barely had a chance, [name] noted that one of the guys with a strange glow about him was running off.

"hey, your buddy is ditching you." she called out to the three, using the small distraction to her advantage as she grew the foliage around them to chain them to the ground.

while it successfully kept two down, one of them had a chainsaw quirk. he was ripping the vines open and charging, while [name] yawned.

she dodged his attacks, before landing a punch in his stomach, and using the concrete around her to throw a huge chunk at his chest.

the guy couldn't dodge in time and took the hit.

he got up slowly, but way too slowly, because she had already manipulated the concrete into restraints, attaching him to the floor.

"now.. about that other guy." she thought aloud. she took a second to look over at mirko, who already knocked everyone out. she was busy celebrating so, she didn't see the glowy creep sneaking up on her.

"mirko!" she ran before she could process it, she knocked her out of the way, and took the hit from the glowy man.

"[name]! why you--" the man didn't have time to react before mirko had him tackled on the floor, bruised and broken.

meanwhile, [name] was dealing with the strange afterglow of the quirk.

that guy's punch was really weak. so, it wasn't a strength quirk, but what did it do to me? [name] pondered.

"what did you do to her freak?" mirko yelled, gripping the guy by the collar.

hey, that's what i thought! [name] mused.

"don't hurt me more, please!" the guy yelled, his nose was dripping as he started crying almost instantaneously.

"tell me what you did!"

"o-okay! my- my quirk is called truth bomb. it makes anyone who's hit by it tell the truth, no matter what. you-- you can't even cover your mouth or stay quiet, if you're thinking something, it'll be said!" the man hiccuped.

"for how long?"

"a week!"

a moment of silence passes, mirko looking thoughtfully at the sobbing mess.

"really? how'd you become a villain with such a quirk?"

"i- i wanted to expose the truth of the world. of hero society! i wanted to make everyone know the truth- and heroes are all liars and upholders of the patriarchy!"

"huh, okay."

mirko knocked him out and helped her up. she dialed a collection agency to pick up the villains all over the floor.

"so... who's your favorite hero huh? is it me?"

"it's you." [name]'s eyes widened and her hands shot over to her mouth. "how the.."

mirko practically squealed.

"oh my god! really? since when?"

"since i found out about you." [name] tried to stop, but it was like word vomit.

"since my debut? you super fan!"

"yes, since your debut."

a moment of silence passed.

"oh, this next hour is gonna suck for you."

"shut up!"

✧˖*°࿐

and suck it did.

mirko didn't let up, asking question after question.

"who's your hero crush?"

"am i the prettiest hero to you?"

"you got a private instagram?"

they were five minutes away from the school. just five more minutes and [name] would be free.

"hmm, i'm running out of ideas here!"

"good, don't ask anything then."

"hmm.. oh! do you have a crush at U-A?"

no. no no no no n-- "yes."

mirko grew a devious smirk on her face.

"oh really, well.. who is it then? tell me."

stop. stop. oh no, the word vomit. it was flowing out-

"bakugo katsuki."

her hands flew to her face in embarrassment.

oh she really could just die right now. she could hear the bells chiming, the gospel singing, her passed loved ones coming down one by one to greet her--

but her peaceful departure was cut off by mirko's laugh.

"no- no fucking way!" she managed between laughs. she literally couldn't breathe. "you like blasty? oh-- no way! i didn't raise you this way [name]--" she was cut off by her own laughs. her stomach was burning by the end of it.

meanwhile [name] was sure this was what seat was. her face was hot, her hands clammy. she felt exposed, disgusting, a los--

"so anyways lovebird, want me to tell your class what's up with you?"

"no."

"and are you going to be responsible and confide in your friends?"

"no. i'm just gonna wait it out."

mirko sighed. "man, this really is the real deal."

"you didn't think it was the real deal when you started questioning me an hour ago?!"

mirko sighed again. "yeah, well this was fun. see ya soon. don't let your secret out--" she walked away, creepily laughing.

[name] fell on the floor in front of the dorms. she'd contemplated death five times in that single five minute interval. it can't get worse.

"hey flower freak, the hell you doing on the ground?"

oh it can.

next!

[plant-taxonomy-showdown]

Phylum Round 1

The Other Kind of Gymnosperm vs Red Algae

Gnetophyta: I don't really know what's going on with these plants. They're gymnosperms (like pine trees -- seeds yes, flowers no) but there's only 70 species in three genera, and all three genera look pretty different from each other. And I'm not the only one scratching my head here, according to Wikipedia, "Unlike most biological groupings, it is difficult to find many common characteristics between all of the members of the gnetophytes." The phylum includes vines, shrubs, and less commonly trees. Welwitschia mirabilis (shown above) lives in the Namib desert in Africa and can grow up to 4 meters or 13 feet in diameter.

Rhodophyta: Arguably not a plant, sometimes a seaweed (the seaweed used in sushi is a red alga.) Over 7,000 known species. Most live in the ocean. No chloroplasts, but they can be green anyways, or pink or brown or purple or almost black, or of course red. Most red algae are multicellular and can be seen without a microscope, and they mostly reproduce sexually. As with many plants they often have alternation of generations, but may have three stages rather than two. A distinguished member of the phylum is corraline algae, which is essential in forming coral reefs.

[arkiwii]

could i request kirsten putting a blanket on a sleeping mumu?

"Some leaves have been found containing Originium in their chlorophyll cells, precisely inside the chloroplasts... But why the leave doesn't die? It should prevent the thylakoid from processing the photosynthesis... Unless the leave uses the Originium to cast Arts? Hehe, a tree caster... Yawn... Mh... I wonder what Saria and Kristen are doing now... It's been a while since we went stargazing..."

[flowerishness]

Impatiens hawkeri (New Guinea impatiens var: "Painted Paradise Lilac")

The species named Impatiens hawkeri honors Lt. Hawker of the British Royal Navy, who collected the plant in Papua New Guinea in 1884. This species of impatiens was only introduced as a bedding plant in the 1970s but since then, dozens of new cultivars have been produced. This particular variety has variegated leaves with a yellow interior and a green fringe.

The green part of the leaf contains chloroplasts and their green pigment is the secret sauce of photosynthesis. However, the yellow part of the leaf contains no chloroplasts and this would seem inefficient. Why go to the expense of building a bigger leaf if the new tenants don't pay rent?

Variegated leaves must offer some advantage because many types of plants produce them. Some botanists think that variegation is the result of two species forming a hybrid somewhere in the distant past and something went terribly wrong. I have a different theory. The underside of variegated leaves have a normal density of stomata, the lungs of a plant. Maybe at some point in Earth's history the sunshine was so intense, it made perfect sense to put on a light colored t-shirt. But hey, even on a sunniest day, you still need to breathe.