I Was Scrolling Through My Phone And Absentmindedly Scratched My Face. I Moved My Hand Away And A Layer

The Green Sky of my Xenoplanet

The original reasoning for making the sky of my Xenoplanet green was so it would contrast against the magenta plants. This worked for me at the time, but now I realize that green is not a natural color for a sky to be, even on an alien planet. The solution to this problem? Sky Plankton!

The atmosphere is filled with photosynthetic microorganisms that have the ability to float in the air.

They do this by having an extremely large (relatively speaking) surface to glide on. They also have a very low mass when compared with other microorganisms due to the small size of their “body”.

Members of this microorganism species tend to be about 120 micrometers long. There is little variation among the species as their balance in the air is extremely delicate. The slightest change can result in them toppling to the surface. Notice how small the body is, taking up almost a sixtieth of the total area. This makes them much less complex than waterborne microorganisms. Also, that is not a nucleus in the center of the organism, as this is a prokaryotic species. Instead it is the one and only photosynthesizing organelle.

To perform cell division the single parent cell begins to thicken its gliding surface and body. It also duplicates its photosynthesizing organelle. Soon after this, the cell will perform mitosis. The cell will horizontally split in the middle, ensuring that both of the daughter cells have a sufficient gliding surface. This process is fairly unreliable and will potentially result in the parent cell or one/both of the daughter cells tumbling to the surface. However, this method is their only option. This species has not gone extinct because the amount of bacteriophages and other predators of the organism are extremely infrequent in open air when compared to water. Because of this, the net reproductive rate is positive.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, I hope you enjoyed it! Also, sorry I disappeared for a bit. Virtual school just started and it has been a rough adjustment. I’m doing okay though, thanks to my glorious friends. How many? Four :)  Do they text me often? No :)  Ugh, I need to stop whining. Sorry for venting; if you stopped reading here I do not blame you.

Next time I’m planing on creating more flora and fauna for the surface of my planet. I’m very excited to talk more about these microorganisms in the future, especially how they impact the environment of the planet. I think it will be extremely interesting to talk about how the surface organisms respond to the constant “snow” of dead and living sky plankton, which represent a source of energy. However, in the meantime I’m going to focus on smaller stuff (well, not literally). Please feel free to comment. Thank You and Goodbye :)

i feel obligated to talk about this bc i am egyptian and one of the central reasons people from gaza have been fundraising is because of egypt's border policy, which is no longer active since the rafah border was destroyed

i know nothing gets people more heated or self-righteous than the idea that they might be getting scammed, and i know the gofundmes here can be overwhelming in your inboxes and i know for many people in the west who want some kind of reliable process this can seem sketchy but palestinian bloggers on here (and palestinians across platforms including on gazafunds.com) don't want you to be scammed any more than you want to be scammed, and they have put in an extraordinary effort to verify information literally in the middle of a warzone

the truth is you all have no idea how difficult this entire process is from top to bottom, tech companies and fintech companies literally hate anything that passes through this area. i'm banned from uber and doordash because i used an egyptian credit card while travelling and it flagged their automated fraud systems and they never reinstated it lol like that's how arbitrary it is. and egypt is one of the better-connected countries in the area.

the entire reason people in gaza are relying on gofundmes is because the barriers to entry and exit are not accidental—they're deliberate! this is literally what being occupied and middle-eastern means. it means you don't have easy access to bank accounts, you don't have easy access to fundraising, you don't have easy access to your own records, and you are automatically mistrusted by the world at large of how thoroughly dehumanized your language and your people have been during a genocide where you are being bombed and living in a tent. this is also part of what it means to be a refugee from the global south or to be a refugee from the global north, where these processes are expedited (as they were for ukrainian refugees, for example) precisely because they are part of the structure of a war.

like just to explain to you guys how difficult it was for me (someone with access to networks across the world) to get money to a friend in gaza, because egypt's also going through an economic crisis and transferring usd here is close to impossible: to get 15k usd (enough to get 3 people out of gaza) to the office in egypt that registers people for evacuation, that family needed

a stable internet connection to communicate with us (they were only able to get in touch briefly every other day)

first-degree relatives in egypt to register for them

people from abroad who could raise the money for them (which they did; they were family friends who knew them)

an egyptian with a usd bank account and a foreigner coming to egypt who could carry usd in cash to divide it among themselves because there is no other way to receive that amount of money here at once

we managed to get the money to their relatives here, they managed to register them, and then the rafah border was destroyed. so now the are just waiting while being bombed and displaced from one area to another. and this is a family who had every connection needed. imagine how it is for people where only one of these links are dropped?

that's why the work the palestinian bloggers do here to support palestinians in gaza is necessary, because they fill in for people who don't have good language skills, who don't have friends abroad to fundraise or vouch for them, who don't have relatives in egypt who can receive money for them, etc

does this mean every fundraiser is 100% reliable? no. this is why the verification list exists! the things i would be wary of would be if someone sends you a false or phishing link, or if someone who is running the campaign from abroad decides to scam the palestinians they're raising it for and refuse to send the money, both of which i've witnessed personally

but the likelihood of someone faking being from gaza and getting onto the verified list is much smaller because the verification process is rigorous and like i said, palestinians themselves don't want to be promoting scams. but also most of these gofundmes protect your donation, meaning if someone disputes it you get your donation back. they are paranoid to the extent that they will sometimes refuse to pay out people in gaza even after the campaign goal is reached for no reason except that anything from the middle east is generally regarded with suspicion. i've seen paypal also refuse to do the same

as a matter of fact from a tech standpoint it's so, so much easier for someone located in the west to create a fake gofundme/phishing scam than for a palestinian to do so, but by that token it's more difficult for someone in the west to convincingly fake being from gaza. which is why the verification list and other initiatives (like again, gazafunds.com) are so important

i have tried to get gofundmes on gazafunds before and i can promise you their process is rigorous. you might not see a lot of the paperwork behind a specific campaign but i know they don't add campaigns unless they verify their IDs personally or through a network of trusted references. the bloggers on here are a volunteer network working independently, of their own effort, and they are doing their best in what is a genuinely horrible situation. the border is closed now but people in gaza have worked out alternate ways to receive money raised online (again, often via relatives transferring to each other outside gaza or other means) and aid hasn't been coming in for months and those regulating the aid were killed, which means extremely limited supplies and high inflation, so money raised and received now is literally survival money that goes wherever it can, and people are very desperate to raise as much as possible as things get more dire. there is no employment in gaza right now. people have been living off their savings for ten months.

is that simple to convey to some blogger on tumblr donating 5$ to a gofundme? is it simple to understand? no. and that's part of the structure of genocide. you aren't going to be able to venmo someone and get a receipt like you do if you're donating to an org, so volunteers are doing their best to fill in the gaps for that by making sure you know how your money is helping real human beings while relieving the pressure on these humans, in a genocide with limited internet, to constantly post about themselves.

the fact of the matter is that your risk of being scammed by a gofundme from the verified list or gazafunds dot com is extremely low, but the damage of of assuming (and even worse, claiming) these campaigns are a scam is extremely high

if you don't trust a campaign, don't donate to it. if you notice a red flag you feel like the bloggers verifying might have missed, alert them to it. if you notice someone impersonating one of the verified campaigns on here (also common) alert people to it. i often have difficulty identifying which blogs are legitimate because they are deleted and remade so frequently, so i just try to reblog posts from the verified list or promoted by palestinians bloggers as i donate to them.

don't cast doubt on the process if you don't understand it, and don't be cruel about a situation you should pray you never experience—and odds are, if you have a US passport and a US bank account, you never will.

Here’s every ceasefire deal and hostage exchange Hamas has offered Israel since October 7th, 2023, courtesy of BreakThrough News.

I spent way too long on this, as per usual. Hope it makes y’all laugh. Comments welcome and appreciated. Thank You! :)

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Fucking hate every punk bitch posting splat 3 story mode spoilers on youtube

The game isn't out for another 5 days why couldn't these bastards just

WAIT

Made this to celebrate beating a level of Celeste that I started in fall of 2019. Sad, I know, but it’s finally done :) . Feedback and criticism are appreciated as always. Thank you!

I feel I should specify when I talk about the vast majority of Israelis supporting this genocide it's not to call for violence of them or even to demonise them. It's to call attention to Israel having a genocidal education system which dehumanises Palestinians from the moment Israelis start school. Ilan Pappé did a study in 1994 of the Israeli education system and raised the alarm that it would raise a generation who are even worse than those who first colonised Palestine in 1948. We're seeing the truth of that now.

I raise this point because we're seeing this attempt by politicians and the media to claim that it's just Netanyahu who is to blame for this genocide and not a systematic problem that requires boycotting, divestments and sanctions to push them to correct. This lie is being pushed because they do not want to change the status quo which allows for Israel to steal Palestinian land and homes and keep Palestinians under military occupation.

Friend: (Discussing plans) Maybe we could hang at your place?

Me: Yeah, my place works; but I warn you, for IT IS A DUNGEON. Only four may enter at a time, and if you leave the area ALL PROGRESS WILL BE LOST. Additionally, you may enter multiple times for the chance to earn additional loot, BUT ONLY IF YOU SURVIVE.

the most depressing part is that it's not even kamala's stance on genocide that is costing her the elections. i wish it were. it's people genuinely shifting for trump. but it's the pro-palestine movement that's going to get the blame for it.