stavvers, 1 year ago imitation seawater (too long to fully alt-text, screenreader users can enjoy the whole thing here: https://elodieunderglass.tumblr.com/post/673574124323586048/derinthescarletpescatarian ) derinthescarletpescatarian: #are you telling me#humans are just sentient aquariums? Buddy if anything is living in your blood (except for more parts of you) in detectable amounts then you have a serious microbial infection and need to go to the hospital. Humans are seawater wastelands kept sterile of all but human cells, with microbial mats coating their surfaces. badwificonnection: #the inside of your intestine is outside of you #just like the inside of your lungs and stomach #although the mucuses and stomach acids are partly made of filtered blood | auess Thank you that’s...very disturbing derinthescarletpescatarian: It’s not my fault you’re human. apatheticshipwreck: Ok but “It’s not my fault you’re human.” Is the best comeback ever. derinthescarletpescatarian: You can use it against anyone except children that you biologically helped to create. ' derinthescarletpescatarian: #/blood is imitation seawater/ is the part that’s confusing Picture this: you are a Thing That Lives In The Ocean. Some kind of small multicellular animal a long time ago, before proper circulatory systems existed. “Wow;” you think, metaphorically, “it sure is difficult to diffuse chemicals across my whole body. Kinda puts a hard limit on the size and distance of what specialised organs | can have. Good thing I have all this water around me that's the same salinity as my cells (they have to be that way so | don't explode or shrivel up) so | can diffuse and filter chemicals with that.” “Wait a minute;” you say a couple of generations later, because you're not actually a small animal but an evolutionary process personified and simplified to the point of dangerous inaccuracy for the purposes of a Tumblr post, “instead of losing all these important chemicals to the water around me, how about | put it in tubes? | can keep MY water separate from the rest of the world’s water! Anything | want to keep goes in my water! Anything | don’t, | dump back into the outside water! I'm a genius! An unthinking natural trial-and-error process that's a GENIUS!” “Wow,” you think a great many generations later, “being able to have such control over such high concentrations of important chemicals is S0 great. Ea elodieunderglass Follow Well, there’s another few steps, of course. Because at some point, operating along lines of logic that worked out perfectly so far, you did decide to be a mammal. Amammal is a machine for adapting to Circumstances. A mammal is atremendously resilient all-terrain life-support system, with built-in heating, cooling, respiration, and incubators for reproduction. Mammals internalise everything (grudges, eggs) and furthermore are excessively, flamboyantly wet internally. Sure, everyone’s a bag of chemicals; but mammals sfosh. Mammals took the concept of an internal ocean and took it in an unnecessarily splashy direction, added aftermarket mods and a climate-control system, and just to show off, you leaned across the metaphorical gambling table and said: “my internal ocean is so good- *“Bullshit,” said the shark, keeping it salty (ha) “My internal ocean is so brilliantly resilient, more so than any of YOURS;” you said, holding their attention with a digit held aloft, “that for my next trick, | shall artistically recreate the ballad of evolution as a performance. | shall craft a complex chemical ballet depicting the origin of multicellular life - using some of my own material, of course-” “Oh, ANYONE can lay an egg,” yodel the fish, and the ray adds: “ontogeny does NOT recapitulate phylogeny!” And you're like, “yeah no, it’s an artistic rendition, not a literal thing. Basically P'm going to take some cells and brew them up-" “Like an egg.”
imitation seawater (too long to fully alt-text, screenreader users can enjoy the whole thing here: https://elodieunderglass.tumblr.com/post/673574124323586048/derinthescarletpescatarian )
derinthescarletpescatarian: #are you telling me#humans are just sentient aquariums? Buddy if anything is living in your blood (except for more parts of you) in detectable amounts then you have a serious microbial infection and need to go to the hospital. Humans are seawater wastelands kept sterile of all but human cells, with microbial mats coating their surfaces. badwificonnection: #the inside of your intestine is outside of you #just like the inside of your lungs and stomach #although the mucuses and stomach acids are partly made of filtered blood | auess Thank you that’s...very disturbing derinthescarletpescatarian: It’s not my fault you’re human. apatheticshipwreck: Ok but “It’s not my fault you’re human.” Is the best comeback ever. derinthescarletpescatarian: You can use it against anyone except children that you biologically helped to create. ' derinthescarletpescatarian: #/blood is imitation seawater/ is the part that’s confusing Picture this: you are a Thing That Lives In The Ocean. Some kind of small multicellular animal a long time ago, before proper circulatory systems existed. “Wow;” you think, metaphorically, “it sure is difficult to diffuse chemicals across my whole body. Kinda puts a hard limit on the size and distance of what specialised organs | can have. Good thing I have all this water around me that's the same salinity as my cells (they have to be that way so | don't explode or shrivel up) so | can diffuse and filter chemicals with that.” “Wait a minute;” you say a couple of generations later, because you're not actually a small animal but an evolutionary process personified and simplified to the point of dangerous inaccuracy for the purposes of a Tumblr post, “instead of losing all these important chemicals to the water around me, how about | put it in tubes? | can keep MY water separate from the rest of the world’s water! Anything | want to keep goes in my water! Anything | don’t, | dump back into the outside water! I'm a genius! An unthinking natural trial-and-error process that's a GENIUS!” “Wow,” you think a great many generations later, “being able to have such control over such high concentrations of important chemicals is S0 great. Ea elodieunderglass Follow Well, there’s another few steps, of course. Because at some point, operating along lines of logic that worked out perfectly so far, you did decide to be a mammal. Amammal is a machine for adapting to Circumstances. A mammal is atremendously resilient all-terrain life-support system, with built-in heating, cooling, respiration, and incubators for reproduction. Mammals internalise everything (grudges, eggs) and furthermore are excessively, flamboyantly wet internally. Sure, everyone’s a bag of chemicals; but mammals sfosh. Mammals took the concept of an internal ocean and took it in an unnecessarily splashy direction, added aftermarket mods and a climate-control system, and just to show off, you leaned across the metaphorical gambling table and said: “my internal ocean is so good- *“Bullshit,” said the shark, keeping it salty (ha) “My internal ocean is so brilliantly resilient, more so than any of YOURS;” you said, holding their attention with a digit held aloft, “that for my next trick, | shall artistically recreate the ballad of evolution as a performance. | shall craft a complex chemical ballet depicting the origin of multicellular life - using some of my own material, of course-” “Oh, ANYONE can lay an egg,” yodel the fish, and the ray adds: “ontogeny does NOT recapitulate phylogeny!” And you're like, “yeah no, it’s an artistic rendition, not a literal thing. Basically P'm going to take some cells and brew them up-" “Like an egg.”