WELCOME TO THE BEGINNING!

aka: my old promethea "intro" post was kind of bugging me, so im making a new one.

promethea is the name of my story/speculative biology project. the story is divided into 4 parts, a prologue and 3 acts. this post will be an overview of the prologue, as well as the introduction to promethea as a whole.

promethea starts with 3 gods: daksari tamman, cadaver, and cinder. daksari and cadaver are the original 2, they have been there since the beginning of time. cinder is daksari's daughter, one of many. all gods are born with the power of creation and free range over the universe to do with it as they please. cinder created a gas giant, ouranos, and abandoned it.

billions of years later, though, she returned to find that not only did ouranos had moons, but one contained life. lonely and curious, she decided to stick around, eventually copying someone else's homework and creating humans to live on it. for a while cinder and her creations existed like this together.

until daksari found out.

all gods are born with the power of creation and free range over the universe to do with it as they please... almost. gods are not supposed to interact with their creations. in daksari's eyes, it's demeaning. you can play with your toys, but they aren't your friends. it's weird, it's embarrassing. cinder knew this and disobeyed anyway. for her punishment she was locked beneath the surface of cassandra, forever. never to speak again.

when i get to writing acts 1-3, they'll be linked down here :)

I actually really like the thing when you're starting to get the hang of a new language, enough to understand and say simple sentences but you gotta get creative to get more complex thoughts across, like a puzzle. I remember a time in the restortation school when a classmate who wasn't natively finnish and did her best anyway dropped something and sighed, telling me "every day is monday this week. I have had four mondays this week." And I understood.

I don't think I speak much of spanish anymore, but in the nursing school training period I did there, I did manage to get by with making weird Tarzan sentences. I got a nosebleed at some point and startled another nurse. Not knowing the words "humidity" or "stress", I managed to string together: "This is ok. It is hot, it is cold, I have a bad day, I am sad, I have blood. This is normal for me." And she understood.

And sometimes you just say things weird, but it's better than not saying it. One time, I was stuck in a narrow hallway behind someone walking really slowly with a walker, and he apologised for being in the way. I was not in any hurry, but didn't know the spanish word for "hurry", but I did know enough words to try to circumvent it by borrowing the english "I have all the time in the world."

The man burst into one of those cackling old man laughters that they do when something in this world still manages to surprise them. He had to be somewhere between 70 and a 100 years old, and I guess if there was one thing he wasn't expecting to hear today, it would be a random blond vaguely baltic-looking fuck casually announce that he is the sole owner and keeper of the very concept of time.

I’ve mostly learned Chinese in school, so I know a lot of academic vocabulary while having the language skills of a toddler in some basic areas. Once, I forgot the word for sad, which is a really dumb thing to forget. A bunch of the ways to say sad in Chinese are literally just “not happy”, but I also momentarily forgot how to say happy. So instead I said “there is an economic downturn inside my brain”.

When my wife and I were in Japan we went to an izakaya on our first full night in the country, and when it was time to pay we weren't sure where to do it, at the table or at the counter up front? Our waitress didn't speak much English, so I threw myself on that conversational grenade with, "Okane ga koko desu ka? Okane ga asoko desu ka?" Literally translated that's, "Money is/goes/should be here? Money is/goes/should be over there?"

She very gratefully confirmed that "Money goes over there," and we paid and left.

This is exactly what I was taught to do when I took Spanish (and I took a decades' worth, and my main teacher was amazing). He always tried to get us to tell him what we wanted or needed or was trying to say in the best way we knew how, because that is how people actually use language. Rather than have it be a barrier, he taught us above all to keep communicating. He never really told us why, or how valuable a skill it would be, he would just pretend he couldn't understand us anyway when we asked for a word we didn't know, and basically forced us to do exactly that. So it became completely normal to just...do that when we didn't know something.

Later, when I was in college and/or in the real world and I didn't know a word or couldn't remember or didn't have the words for a concept, I would I automatically do what I always did, what had become normalised: I would talk around it, which is what my teacher always called it. I even had one of my professors compliment me on getting what I needed that way, and she said that she'd never had another student do that and how helpful it was for her to be able to help me. I know that when I encountered others in my job with whom I had to speak in Spanish, and I couldn't communicate with them in the "proper" way, I could still get what I needed, or they needed, and there was always a sense of delight that even though my grammar was far from perfect, and I didn't always use the right words, that we all accomplished what we were there for. Most people don't care if you get it "right." They just want to be able to communicate effectively. (Can't speak for the French, though. 😉)

I also highly recommend doing this in your native language if you forget a word or blank on something. When I have conversations with people and they tell me they're blanking or can't think of something, I always, always ask them to describe it. Most people don't because they think it's weird and so either they don't get their point across or the conversation simply stops. But if they were more willing to keep communicating, we might get there. So I'm subtly trying to train everyone around me to do the same thing.

it's so much less frustrating and more funny when you can forget the word for windows and just say 'the doors for light to come in the wall' and if you forget the word for noodles you say 'you know the bread worms? from soup?' and if you forget the word for tiger you say 'those big assholes in the jungle, with stripes, they're orange.'

genuinely people love it when you do this. it makes the rest of the conversation so much more fun.

official linguistics post

In a monumental discovery for paleontology and the first of its kind "Mummy of a juvenile sabre-toothed cat Homotherium latidens from the Upper Pleistocene of Siberia"

Abstract The frozen mummy of the large felid cub was found in the Upper Pleistocene permafrost on the Badyarikha River (Indigirka River basin) in the northeast of Yakutia, Russia. The study of the specimen appearance showed its significant differences from a modern lion cub of similar age (three weeks) in the unusual shape of the muzzle with a large mouth opening and small ears, the very massive neck region, the elongated forelimbs, and the dark coat color. Tomographic analysis of the mummy skull revealed the features characteristic of Machairodontinae and of the genus Homotherium. For the first time in the history of paleontology, the appearance of an extinct mammal that has no analogues in the modern fauna has been studied. For more read here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-79546-1

I always knew it was possible, but I never dared to hope.

OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH LOOK AT THIS WE HAVE A SABERCAT MUMMY AAAAAAA

We now have concrete evidence for what saber-toothed kittens (well, at least one species) looked like in real life, and that can in turn help inform what the adults looked like!

To summarize the main points from the paper:

In conclusion, this is the most exciting thing I've seen all year and I NEED to find the time to draw a mama Homotherium caring for her babies in the middle of winter

Results from the Flocking #paleostream

Gojirasaurus (totally valid), Gryposaurus, Iniopteryx and Desmodus (stocki).

Dinovember 3: Chilesaurus diegosuarezi

everyone knows that space is very very cold, and the sun is very very hot. so i assume there's a bit of space kind of near the sun which is just right. balmy space

Yes, that’s. That’s where we are.

Archovember 2024 Day 4 - Preondactylus buffarinii

Preondactylus buffarinii was a tiny pterosaur native to Late Triassic Italy. The holotype had a wingspan of 45 cm (1.48 ft), though a second referred specimen had an estimated wingspan of 1.5 m (4.9 ft), which would mean the holotype is likely a juvenile. However, it is debated that the second specimen may not be the same species. Preondactylus had single-pointed teeth, and likely preyed on fish, arthropods, or both. It is known for its short, “primitive” wings, though it was still considered a capable flier. Some consider Preondactylus to be the most basal flying pterosaur, and it may be the oldest known.

America has a weird relationship with cults where they’re terrified of small cults (or organizations they think are cults) but completely normalized massive cults that hurt many more people (eg: LDS Church, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Amish, Scientology, most Megachurches)

To anybody asking if the Amish are a cult, the answer is yes, very much so.

They’re a high control group that isolate you from society. The cult decides how you dress, how you behave, who you marry and how. They control what you know, blocking all information from the outside world. They control how you feel and what you’re allowed to think with threats of both social and supernatural harm. They’re a cult.

The best method to determine if a group is a cult, in my opinion, is Steven Hassan’s (cult expert and former cult member himself) BITE model.

BITE stands for Behavior Control, Information Control, Thought Control, and Emotional Control.

The more points a group “scores” on the model, the more of a cult it is.

I think this model is the best one for several reasons:

This is a great example of Thought Control used by cults whenever they’re confronted with criticism.

#you might notice that there are a lot of similarities between cult techniques and those of abusive partners#and that is an important thing to be aware of

yah that goes in the post

The creator of the BITE Model considers abusive relationships to be two-person cults.

It’s important to note that almost every sect of evangelical christianity in the US today fails the BITE Model.

This was the post that lead to breaking my JW mindset. Been a while since I seen it.

I’m glad I could help in your deconstruction, if only a little bit. I wish you all the luck in your journey moving forward.

Puritanism is getting worse around the globe and conservatives and fascists will absolutely be first going harder against porn, then use that against queer people. You HAVE to realise this and oppose anti porn measures and laws, be in solidarity with sex workers, and listen to them when they call this shit out. It's going to be vitally important.

Reminder that keeping porn legal means that pornstars have legal protections that they will lose if porn is made illegal. Reminder that keeping porn legal means there are legal standards that can be put in place and enforced which results in better safety for all who are involved in porn's creation.

Reminder that porn will never stop being a thing. It just won't. If it's made illegal, then it will continue to be created and distributed - its just that it will now be done under the table, and with no safety regulations or protections for anyone.

Yes, the hard-right's ultimate plan is to use porn as a gateway from which to attack queer people, but even if that wasn't their plan, you should want to protect the legality of porn anyway.

Keeping porn legal means that the chances of sexual assault on those who work in the industry are reduced, and means that victims of assault are able to pursue legal action against their attackers. Keeping porn legal means that human trafficking is decreased, and it gives victims of human trafficking a legally supported escape route that would be lost if porn were made illegal.

Keeping porn legal means that anyone who is involved in making it - regardless of whether theyre making it simply because they want to, or because they're financially desperate -- is granted a measure of protection that they otherwise would not be. People love to raise the "but porn is made by desperate people who sell their body to survive," but a) some people make porn because they like it, and b) someone who is desperate enough to sell their body will do so regardless of whether it's legal or not. But when it's legal, that desperate person has far more protections and is less likely to be taken advantage of than when it's illegal.

Keeping porn legal protects people. Making it illegal will harm people. It's that simple.

"But it's demeaning!"

That's a you problem. No, really - it's your opinion is that sex work is demeaning, but I've had some really demeaning jobs that were legal and "proper". Just because a job involves sex doesn't mean it has less value than being a salesperson, or an accountant.

To quote the great John Waters.

It should also be noted that, much like how miscarrisges get prosecuted under abortion laws, laws that criminalize being in porn will mean that instead of our current laws punishing people for *distributing* revenge porn, it will punish the people non-consensually *in* revenge porn.

The Daily Times, New Philadelphia, Ohio, July 9, 1924

ppl are rlly trying to defend being on your phone during a movie in the theater what is going on

using your phone in a movie theater is a symptom of long covid

the defense of being on your phone in a movie theater is who cares? by your own admission, you should be paying attention to the movie. so why do you care what other people are doing? you’re meant to be paying attention to the movie.

A catalogue of Akkrazaran dog breeds, found inside of a reference bestiary