#that's supposed to be class btw

[meebssketches]

have had no time to finish any drawing; here are doodles from my notes for one of my classes

[foxspritez]

not enough mermaid aus in this society

[difeisheng]

thinking about cryptid little forensic anthropology professor li lianhua who wears cardigans with converse and shows up 10 minutes late with a matcha latte every class, but will then proceed to sit on the desk swinging his feet and drop an absolute banger of a lecture without notes or looking at slides (he does have slides, and amazingly they're both legible and genuinely informative). baby future archivist fang duobing is in his class, and Technically this is outside of his focus in the anthropology major he's doing to get there but hey, counted credits are counted credits, and he may as well apply the time he's spent watching elementary and listening to true crime podcasts to something. except all he actually ends up doing is develop a massive infatuation on his cute sweet professor who intersperses all his lectures with pictures of his dog, and his friends are stuck hearing about it because "don't you understand the struggle, guys, going to office hours won't get anywhere because it's really hard to find an opening to flirt when the topic being covered this week is trauma analysis of cranial fragments". it doesn't stop fang duobing from showing up to them anyway, though, because getting li lianhua to go on about some niche and random topic over the tea he always offers, just the two of them, is a beautiful thing. even the pictures of him and his admittedly stunning husband crowded on his desk can't take down the smile fang duobing has on whenever he leaves. sure it really is a puppy crush but hey a boy can dream

[mymp3]

Runaway Thought Process

[knightsickness]

serving the king even when the king was evil (believe god will punish tyrants) was impossibly central to the medieval chivalric cult and part of the reason why everything jaime does that is good or makes sense makes him a terrible knight. when reading grrm’s work i often like to guess what historical texts he’s read that inspired specific plot points and if he hasn’t read the history of william marshal (exceptionally rare contemporary biography) i’d be surprised. remembered it because i’m having a criston cole phase and marshal was a relatively lowborn (needed a sponsor to have horse and armour to compete) tourney knight who elevated himself to regent/protector of the realm but also it makes me think about aerys’ kingsguard because marshal is praised for serving evil king john loyally, it’s a mark of what a good man he is. the text has an agenda but it’s obviously also drunk the kool aid so it’s to a modern reader to unpick morality when the code of morals mainly exists as a tool of class stratification

[dykefaggotry]

global strikes really cannot feasibly be done without support and safety nets for the working class in place. the working class drives the economy and if you are asking people to take off an entire week off work with 4 days notice, you are asking the working class to get fired from their jobs. they are not going to do that. and they are the majority of the people that need to strike to have any kind of economic impact. middle class people who can afford to strike for a week and lose future vacation time aren't going to dent it, esp bc they're still making money bc they're salaried.

like yall it's just..... it's not feasible. you have to plan months, sometimes years in advance to make sure you can successfully carry the working class during a strike.

saw someone refer to a week long strike w 4 days notice as "the bare minimum" you can do and I'm sorry but it's not. you are asking people to give up a quarter of their monthly income and lose their jobs. you need to be cognizant of that.

[ms-scarletwings]

New (Cursed AF) Invader Zim Headcanon:

Barring the potential for major acute blood loss, Irkens can actually survive a full decapitation.

And I brought substance to make the case with.

Cockroaches, one of the most infamously durable of real life animals, can live for several days, sometimes even weeks without their head. And for the most part, they still even act like normal roaches- crawling about, reacting to touch, standing around, etc. it seems the only reason this eventually catches up to the critter is because no mouth = no way to keep bringing necessary food and water into the body. If that were bypassed, however, it stands to reason the little zombie could thrive just as much as a headed roach.

Almost disturbingly, the head itself can actually last a surprising amount of time solo as well. Experiments with decapitated roaches show that after body separation, roach heads can still move their antennae for hours before succumbing- much longer even if kept refrigerated and supplied with nutrients.

One of the neat things about roach bodies that makes such a feat possible is how their nervous system is set up- simplified ref against what yours looks like below

Now, anyone who has ever said a roach can survive for a while without its brain is not being entirely accurate. Functionally, they actually have two sort-of brains: the main point of nerve centralization is contained in the head, which for the most part is a primary brain responsible for movement coordination, certain technical functions, interpreting stimuli that comes in from the antennae, and more. The second main point of interest in this system is a series of nerve clusters running down the insect’s abdomen known as ganglia (singular: ganglion). These bundles of neurons are not exactly brains in their own right, but they do function as an extended CNS that handles the control over the digestive tract, reacting to stimuli, leg movement, and other more basic bodily functions. These can operate the body on a primitive level after the loss of the main brain, up until thirst/starvation begins to run the wind out of the sails.

You know what sort of creature actually DOES have two entire complete brains? One up top, and an auxiliary backup a little further down?

If you were nodding along and saying “irkens!” Then you would be correct! One peanut and five more days in the bunker for you 🥜 ~

As is obvious to anyone familiar with the show, the PAK is an essential cybernetic addition to Irken biology, holding their gear as well as an entire digital backup of their personality and memories. While it serves many functions to the user, the first and foremost priority of one is to protect the existence of the meaty entity it needs in to carry itself around.

To that end we’ve seen some autonomous acts from time to time with Zim’s close calls. If you recall “Plague of Babies”, he… kind of died for a moment there, caught up in a wave of GIR’s lethally amplified stupidity. In response, his PAK appears to resuscitate him with a quick jolt. The would-be events of “10 Minutes to Doom” emphasize the necessity of the PAK for any Irken’s survival beyond several minutes, which directly implies PAKs facilitate a major biological process their natural bodies are no longer capable of alone. Personally, I think it might be something either neurological or related to respiration, on a hunch.

Well, whatever it is, they are toast without it in swift manner, and the PAK doesn’t prefer to be without its other piece anymore than the body does. Dib’s revelation about the technology described their relationship with its body like that of driver and car, but I think he’s missing something. The PAK is actually more than capable of carrying itself around without the body… at least for a time.

When I think about those things, a little dilemma pops up in my head concerning how they.. well, how they’re powered. It is never explained or demonstrated that they are given time off of the body in order to charge; however, irkens are probably advanced enough to have some smaller and sci-fi wildly potent and small energy source up their sleeves, but actually, that wouldn’t quite make sense here. Because Irken bodies still produce their energy the same way every other lifeform in the known galaxy does, with food. Lots of food, actually. They can mow through snacks at about the same rate as Augustus Gloop. PAKs don’t need to produce their own independent energy source, they just need to efficiently make use of what this organism is already evolutionarily fine tuned to do naturally. Now that’s smart engineering.

And so, like any respectable auxiliary life support feature, they hold some of that energy in a reserve for those crisis moments like in “Plague of Babies”, and also in a deleted scene made for “Abduction”!

Fun trivia fact, but originally that episode was supposed to feature a sequence where Zim nearly game overs again. He takes a gnarly hit and a literal plunge through open flames that knocks him out in a free fall.

Despite his incapacitated state, the PAK extends its spider legs in order to catch a walkway railing, both saving his life and proceeding to keep carrying his limp body to a safer location, until of of course, he comes to about a moment later and carries on.

And neither of these are the only times it’s sprung into action the moment it detects something has gone horribly wrong. When accidentally detached from its own host, an emergency response will be triggered within the PAK in an attempt to reattach with its body. Failing that, it attaches instead to… well, whatever it can find.

In “10 minutes to Doom”, this was unfortunately Dib, an incompatible match (or maybe it just picked an improper attachment site), and in the comics… things got interesting at a point or two.

So, I already know what happens when you separate an Irken from their spinal brain, but what about the cranial one?

Because, they actually don’t seem on the same level of urgent necessity? Now that I think about it?

The time machine kerfuffle and the brain eating parasite escape were both events this guy evidently survived, albeit not comfortably or ideally until the problem was fixed (I have to assume in part with GIR’s or the Computer’s help). Now that I think about it Zim’s incredibly fortunate that most of these more serious mishaps happened inside of his base. But it’s theory time.

So, we do this, to a hypothetical green bug bastard

For fun let’s say, hypothetically again, like the hardy earth roach, he blood clots quickly.

Well, first and foremost, that higher up nervous system blackout is probably going to cue the PAK in to begin the following protocol:

1. Activate an emergency response to quickly access the situation.

2. Immediately scurry the body the hell away from whatever manner of threat just shaved a little too much off the top, engaging in all possible defensive measures if necessary.

3. Devote the entirety of its remaining backup power (of which it would have much more stored within the headless body than if it were itself detached) into making a beeline for the coordinates of the nearest Irken source of assistance. On the homeworld, or any fully colonized planet, this would be a cut and dry matter of finding the nearest theoretical space clinic or whatever those freaks have (maybe those dbz regeneration tanks? Idk that would be cool wouldn’t it?). For the lone invader… home base is the next best alternative, being a secured location with plenty of resources and advanced technology at the ready. I would bet my own head that situations like this are a huge highlight to the prime value of a personal SIR companion.

Now, best case scenario for what this help looks like depends on whether we can save and bring the head along too. Reattachment and repair at that point should be a pretty simple matter at the tech level we are working with, afterall. But that’s again, the ideal case scenario. Could they just… regrow the head eventually? We don’t really have a clear answer on what the limits and capabilities of what the Irken healing factor is, but I want to at least guess that having a personal lab and assistant on hand is going to help. Bare minimum, a solution can get worked out to supply the body with needed blood sugars again to buy more time.

The PAK itself retains a pretty much perfect digital backup of its body’s memories, experiences, and identity, so it’s not like information has been permanently been lost with primary brain damage. Replacing the primary brain entirely might be as easy as backing up your iPhone and downloading everything into some shiny new hardware. Hell, it may not even need be Irken hardware!

Do you know the real disturbing things from “Dark Harvest” NOBODY brings up are???

Why the fuck was an instantaneous organ-swapping device already just something Zim was carrying around in his toolset?

And

Zim’s morphology was horrifically receptive to those dozens of xenographs.

Those human organs were actually beating, pulsing, absolutely redundant and unnecessary in his body, but completely still functional and healthy in the name of selling his act to the school nurse. He didn’t just clumsily cram a bunch of offal into himself, he competently integrated them into his biology and somehow wasn’t suffering like… the tons of complications you’d expect from trying a stunt like that.

And in the comics, there’s this other fella I just adore for how skrangly he looks, and believe it or not, his actual fucking name is Skrang.

He’s a smart guy, though. Don’t be fooled. And I mean like, a smart guy. And it’s all thanks to a little help from a little upgrade he’s been fitted with :)

So, I hope you take all the implications I’ve been building here and make what you will of them. I genuinely think an Irken has a decent chance of making it out of a beheading alive to seek sadistic vengeance another day. Do I think ZIM could do such a thing? Tbh, I think he’d have to rely on GIR to come in clutch, and we may know that’s a complete roll of the dice in any case.

Wow, this got morbid, but, par for the course really.

[send-me-a-puffalope]

why did my teachers think it was okay to give us like one single weekend to finish all of our midterm projects and study for our tests.

[gumjester]

trying to remember how 2 draw.... ft power couple about 2 go wrong. and their kid who frankly asked for none of it!!!!!!

[databent]

doing long diviison for fun will have people asking "what the fuvk is wronw with uou" and well cant a guy havea little numbers. my numbers hobby. a special long division treat for me

[snobgoblin]

the near 4.0 GPA in highschool to 2.0 GPA in college pipeline......... besties I'm doing BAD (and at the rate I'm going apparently will not graduate until 2026.........)

[chrono-art]

A very sketchy and experimental resh'an I did about a month ago ⌛️

[perenlop]

thinking about the animal literature class i took last spring that was pushed as a class all around symbolism but it ended up being an ARA focus and my professor and i were talking about my black beauty paper and she said something like “you dont think of all the ways the author is actually promoting animal harm though… like why doesnt she criticize the use of carriage horses at all? does she think its ethical for animals to work for humans instead of alternative means?”

well besides the obvious bullshit there… THIS BOOK TAKES PLACE IN THE 1800s!!!!!! THERE WERE NO CARS!!!

[shiroselia]

Also to put some context straight because I realise I might make it sound like Alex's writing Right Now is bad. It's not, it's been bad since Elizabeth's death.

It's not gross only because of the real world circumstances. Alex's writing is bad disregarding how the real world looks right now because turning your own character into a meme one-liner machine as soon as she's served her narrative high point in the story is just bad writing all around. (Not to say that she didn't have one-liners before but after Elizabeth's death it's been her Only narrative purpose.) And Alex being the (in-game context here, this is not true for Helena's canon where Anne has a broken family and Lisa is queer too, but I'm not giving SSE credit for what Helena has built and neither should you, because they're separate canons) only queer rep, working class rep, and character with an (actually shown) broken family dynamic makes everything about her flanderization gross no matter what. It reads incredibly fucking gross no matter what. Because it's really fucking interesting how SSE is so hellbent on turning their very (and only) marginalized character with some very real struggles into a fucking joke. The fact that we're currently in an economical recession and that SSE had the perfect opportunity to show a working class character having a very real struggle many young people (and also adults) face of hating their job and struggling with a system not made for them and also hates you and wants you to continue in your misery that often isn't your fault is just salt on the wound. (Which is another point, Alex is VERY easy to read as neurodivergent and the questline, as I've gotten informed, has some Really unfortunate "yikes you think Differently and not like everyone else?" dialogue that is already tired and unnecessary but is extra Yikes when you remember this.)

Alex's writing is bad because SSE refuse to treat her as a character, it's just even worse when you look at the real life circumstances.

Alex should not only be a character when certain people write her. Alex should not only be well-written when she's written by people who relate to her. She should be well-written all the time because some standard sense of character consistency is WRITING BASICS.

As I've been saying, calling it tone deaf doesn't even begin to cover it, but it is being nice about it.

[jodefrostwallart]

Ham Ham and the Prince

[noisytenant]

i spent a semester at art school at the height of covid lockdown as like a "study away" type experience because i missed being around ppl who were interested in technique and wanted more critical feedback. did a lot of interesting things and met some interesting people but mostly realized that being a professional illustrator would be a unique form of torture for me. unless i could make like magic the gathering cards that would be dope