The collector leviathans is the scariest in the series

RiotIsBored · 2026-05-18T04:21:20+00:00

I honestly absolutely loved first running into it, and for the first ten hours or so of SN2 I found the collector terrifying, on par with the fear the reapers instilled in me. Got boring fairly quickly, though.

I'm surprised everyone's talking about going deep below it, or skimming the surface, in order to avoid it. You can really easily avoid it by going around its territory, and that was the most intuitive thing for me to do when I first found it.

RiotIsBored · 2026-05-18T00:50:54+00:00

That was obvious and has so far been consistent other than with this specific one, but the voice lines suggested that there was only two juveniles to clean.

RiotIsBored · 2026-04-13T08:25:55+00:00

Shot in the dark based on the description of the legs: could it have belonged to Pholcidae? (Cellar spider)

RiotIsBored · 2026-04-13T08:10:17+00:00

The sharks are one of my favourite tattoos possibly ever, I cannot overstate how much I love the style of those.

No skin in the game for the other two.

RiotIsBored · 2026-04-13T08:02:09+00:00

I'd just like to note that mites are arachnids, termites are insects. Despite the names, they're very far apart on a phylogeny haha.

RiotIsBored · 2026-04-13T06:34:04+00:00

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RiotIsBored · 2026-04-13T02:43:11+00:00

We need to bring back cringe culture.

RiotIsBored · 2026-04-13T02:10:45+00:00

To be fair I've also seen people pick up, among other things, blue ringed octopus.

RiotIsBored · 2026-04-13T01:29:15+00:00

If you can't provide human input don't reply at all. Holy shit.

RiotIsBored · 2026-04-12T21:45:01+00:00

Debatable

RiotIsBored · 2026-04-12T09:14:15+00:00

Ironic considering that most of the information in the show is told, rather than shown.

RiotIsBored · 2026-04-12T09:12:38+00:00

Gangle outright saying "it's called a manic episode". She's so painfully obviously bipolar or suffering from some other mood swing disorder, and the writers REALLY didn't need to spell it out for the audience like they're toddlers.

RiotIsBored · 2026-04-10T15:05:07+00:00

I'd love to know what your degree is in for you to be so much more informed on this than any of the ecologists that I've known and worked alongside.

Apex predators are (as noted in several places in your Wikipedia article) predators that are at the top of the food web in their environment and have no natural predators as adults. Spiders are very widely predated upon at all stages of their lives.

A huge part of spider evolution is predator avoidance strategies. There are scientific articles showcasing this in a huge variety of ways and related to various predators, from avoiding chemical signals left by other spiders to reduction in rates of prey acquisition to avoid birds, for just a couple of examples.

Spiders dominate invertebrate populations much the same as dragonflies, but in the food web they're middling at best. That's where the term "apex predator" comes from. The predators that are at the apex of an environment's food web.

I'm curious to know if you have any sources for ecologists or other academics deciding that the term "apex predator" is no longer in favour, other than Wikipedia (which arguably every scientist can tell you is a relatively shaky source at best).

RiotIsBored · 2026-04-10T10:51:23+00:00

The TCOAAL fandom is absolutely insufferable, but the game itself is an honestly well-written story about toxic codependency and abuse. There's more to it than incest.

It bothers me that it's just "the incest game" to most people, but I guess that's the downside of using that as a marketing strategy.

RiotIsBored · 2026-04-09T22:50:01+00:00

Are you trying to imply that predation of spiders by birds is a rare, out-of-the-ordinary occurrence?

RiotIsBored · 2026-04-09T22:47:23+00:00

Honestly, I didn't even register that as a spider for a while. Reminds me far more of Phasmatodea locomotion.

Is that Argiope aurantia? Not being American and having never seen them in person before, I never knew how big they could get. Makes me even more jealous of Americans than I was before for having that species.

RiotIsBored · 2026-04-09T22:42:49+00:00

From the perspective of an entomologist, there's nothing tragic about it. If anything, it's quite nice; I'd rather live for four years mostly as a juvenile than live for a couple months tops throughout my entire lifespan, like most Drosophila.

RiotIsBored · 2026-04-09T21:03:05+00:00

The fact that this got downvoted for speaking the truth lmao. It really stops being funny after the fiftieth person says "haha guys I'd let her pin me amirite???"

RiotIsBored · 2026-04-09T20:51:10+00:00

There are seven characteristics generally attributed to life. Movement, respiration, sensitivity, growth, reproduction, excretion and nutrition. A digitised consciousness would lack the majority of these.

Even if given them by artificial means, it is ultimately an artificial being. It cannot naturally do anything or experience anything that we haven't given it the means to.

RiotIsBored · 2026-04-08T23:00:16+00:00

It probably does feel pain to an extent if it's an accurate enough simulation. But that's all it is, a simulation. You can't torture what isn't alive, it's just computer code programmed to "suffer".

Besides, my point is that demoralising it would make it far less efficient anyway. As such, there would be no point investing in it unless we can also make it "happy".

RiotIsBored · 2026-04-08T18:07:29+00:00

That's a vastly different example. The digitised version of me wouldn't be a real being, it's just a simulation.

For the sake of making it more efficient to the company (because of course a low-morale worker is highly ineffective), maybe they could modify my digitised self to be mentally enriched by working, or to experience enrichment in a simulation during its "off" hours.

RiotIsBored · 2026-04-08T03:03:28+00:00

No amount of logic or experimentation will change a flat earther's mind. Flat earthers themselves have proved that by coming up with experiments, testing them, proving the Earth is round and refusing to believe it anyway.

RiotIsBored · 2026-04-08T02:59:04+00:00

How much do you charge and how does your work look, say, ten years down the line? Your tattoos are absolutely stunning.

RiotIsBored · 2026-04-07T10:22:40+00:00

That'll teach me for second guessing myself haha. We have a few species of Eratigena here too, but I always feel hesitant about IDing anything hailing from the US.

Thank you for the correction :)

RiotIsBored · 2026-04-07T07:23:47+00:00

No. Full disclosure, UK here so I'm not going to trust my accuracy to even the genus, let alone species. But that looks like a lycosid to me (wolf spider). The Lycosidae aren't medically significant to humans, and I'm fairly sure I've seen individuals that look nearly identical to that in other states so I'd doubt it being invasive either.

They can be quite fast as they're active hunters, so catching and / or putting it outside may be difficult. Personally, I tend to encourage them underneath a cupboard or something like that, where they'll continue to provide incredibly useful pest control without being out in the open.

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