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Yuuki Anzai - Devils Line

How did I dooo?

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the paralyzed cicadas I picked up from a failed cicada killer nest are the perfect material to show off some cool features of insect anatomy! (although the wasp’s venom would keep them alive for her larvae to eat, I froze them to make sure they’re fully dead for dissection).

cicadas are powerful, fast fliers, and all of their thorax is taken up by a bulk of reddish, stringy flight muscles, which I’ll talk more about later. this cicada is a female, so her abdomen is full of white, elongated eggs that she will insert into tree bark with the bladed ovipositor at her rear.

the male cicada’s abdomen, however, is almost entirely empty, and that air-filled space is used as a resonator for his loud calls. the biggest structure visible there is a curved pair of muscles that deforms the tymbals, producing a click with every contraction.

here's a view of the complete muscle, and the tymbals themselves which look like overlapping plates on his belly. if you're curious what the white frosted appearance is, some Neotibicen have a coat of waxy powder or pruinescence; this male N. tibicen is particularly pruinose.

onto the flight muscles:

powered flight is a pretty complex mechanism in any organism, and is never so simple as just flapping wings up and down, but most insects power their flight in a really unintuitive way (at least for us vertebrates): they contract muscles in their thorax that aren’t even attached to the wings!

this method of flight is called indirect flight, in contrast to the direct flight of the dragonflies and mayflies where each of four wings is directly attached to a muscle and can flap on its own.

instead, most insects have a longitudinal (image 1 above, d below) pair and a vertical (2, c) pair of muscles that deform the shape of abdomen, pulling the upper segment of the thorax (notum) up and down, and this moves the wings which are attached to the notum. useful indirect flight gif from wikipedia found here

even if compressed manually, the dead cicadas "flap" their wings due to the motion of the notum:

insect flight is a lot more complicated than this simplified look at them, but I think these cicadas offer a pretty good look at how most insects get around essentially by squishing themselves internally!

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any of yall watch キングオブザヒル

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You Have Beautiful Eyes by Cascuda

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vilde-chaya - Student, General Artist | DeviantArt

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Sometimes your heart heals in such a specific way from something as small as closure.

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To The Substitute Art Teacher - Jordan Bolton

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Some fae/sprite creatures based on various fungi

Left to Right: Ink Cap, Bridal Veil, Toadstool, Destroying Angel, Devil’s Fingers, Puffball

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how do you live?

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I had surgery today, I remember being terrified of going under. I had never had anesthesia before. However, of the few memories I have I remember right after having my breathing tube removed I woke up in recovery. Take On Me was playing. It filled me with joy as I began singing along while feeling as if I were on a cloud. My tonsils had been removed as well as parts of my nose. And I remember singing with all the gusto of being in the shower, not a care in the world.... Looking back the only concern I had was knowing I couldn't hold his one long note towards the end. So apparently knowing this I held off. What I had not considered is how the poor surgical nurses probably had to hear the saddest, gravelly screeched rendition of Take On Me by a very drugged up patient that only vaguely gained consciousness.

#medical stories #surgical stories #silly stories #take on me #aha #take me on #singing #small moments #make you smile

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I keep doing rewrites....

#creative writing #writing #vampire #literature #fiction #editing #read

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"There were only fifteen thousand polar bears in the world, and five billion of me. To let one of them devour my all-too-common flesh would, if only slightly, help adjust the grievous imbalance." - Lawrence Millman

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these are actually so stunning!! might be some of my new favorite artworks, the details are insane and also so beautiful <3

artist @giannyfili on instagram!!

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past lives (2023), dir. celine song

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Back again

And look who came crawling back, I know! I’ve not used Tumblr in a hot minuet. Hi everyone

[sidchan]

"Go." The word was a whisper, a plea. "I'm not leav-" "𝘗𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦." His voice was shaking, heat rippling his hair like a breeze, and when he looked over his shoulder at her, the bones of his face were glowing white hot, while his eyes were turning darker, black pressing in the flames.

I re-read some of my favorite moments from This Savage Song last weekend, and I felt the urge to draw my boy August once again- 😔👌 -ˢᶦᵍʰ- ᴵ ˡᵒᵛᵉ ʰᶦᵐ

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~ Please, do not edit or repost my art ~