One month away, and *sigh* COVID is still here. Sorry, the big parties are all cancelled. Please celebrate ULTIMATE MEGA TWOSDAY at home in your own way.
Well, if we can’t have big parties, at least we can celebrate ULTIMATE MEGA TWOSDAY in the time-honored Tumblr tradition: with stupid gifs.
Tags:
#the big party is *not* cancelled #however‚ hazmat suits *are* mandatory attire #you will receive some festive food to take home #here is an almond-cheddar biscuit shaped like a numeral 2 #Twosday #illness tw? #food? #(I have not actually made 2-shaped biscuits) #(but I did make heart-shaped biscuits for Valentine’s Day) #flashing gif?
I just learned that about 10% of Aramaic incantation bowls, with the spiral text and little demons in the middle, are fake. Not modern forgeries, but contemporary scams where a mesopotamian potter would scribble something that looked vaguely like aramaic on a bowl and sell it to illiterate customers.
Imagine coming home for rosh hashanah and having to smile politely while grandma rebekkah tells you all about how she’s gotten really into incantation bowls, and then whips out the 5th century equivalent of a resin and glitter orgone crystal she bought on etsy.
(The paper is “Two Pseudo-Text Incantation Bowls from the University of Pikeville,” authored by Craig A. Evans and Scott Stripling. You can find a pdf on google.)
still thinking a lot about how I want sci fi and fantasy to coexist in more settings… mainly cause I want a warrior girl who goes into battle on the back of a dragon but can take also take apart and upgrade said dragon because it’s a masterpiece of bio-engineering technology and she’s a brilliant mechanic in addition to being a warrior
the dragons’ memories, skills, and bonds with their riders are stored in their brains, which are gemstones that grow to sizes that make them virtually priceless as the dragons grow and age. no matter how badly a dragon is wounded, if the gembrain can be saved and installed in another body its essence will live on.
transporting the gembrains is dangerous as hell, though. as soon as word gets out that a dragon fell, the pirate ships start descending from orbit to try and steal the brain away.
whomst do you sell them to, though? because obviously if the citadel that grows/builds/raises (???) the dragons catches you, they’ll come down on you like a ton of bricks, and you know there’s got to be a lot of political power there as well. only those living on the edges of society would chance it – witches living on isolated moons, warlocks whose towers drift, unplottable, among the stars
there’s this image haunting me of a dragon under construction. it’s not a machine, and this part is vital – it’s a living thing, jewel-colored blood racing through its veins even as it hangs, suspended, with most of its body exploded for examination. its head has been opened so the brain can be recalibrated but it watches the dracomancers work with calm, intelligent eyes, bred to accept this handling as calmly as a horse to a saddle. if you stand in the right place, you could look up right into its cavernous chest and watch its beating heart.
and if I could circle back for a second to the far-flung warlock towers
these terrifying towers turned free-wheeling independent of any orbit. the interiors are managed by entities that tread the line between AI and household spirit – both, neither, something else altogether. they grow sharp and dangerous under their dark masters’ direction, creating ever-shifting patterns of rooms that swallow unwanted visitors alive. open the wrong door and you find yourself staring into the maw of a black hole.
when the most feared warlock in the galaxy is deposed, the gallant warriors from the citadel are able at last to force their way into her tower. it comes easier than they expected, disconcertingly so, and it isn’t until they reach the tower’s heart that they understand why: the AI wanted them to come inside.
the warlock left behind a child, you see. a small boy who’s been alone in the tower, cleaned and fed and tucked into bed by the AI’s black tendrils extended from the walls, who has learned to fall asleep to lullabies sung in an eldritch approximation of a human voice.
the boy is healthy, as far as the gallants can tell, if a little skittish. he has no idea how unconventional his upbringing is. but the AI has been downloading tomes on human development, and it is very aware that it is not a sufficient caregiver. the boy needs the light of a sun, the touch of human hands, companions his own age.
the gallants agree to bring the boy back with them. it is advantageous, they reason. if the child has inherited his mother’s prodigious talent for magic, he will need watching. perhaps he can be trained in the ways of heroism, to use his power for the good of the galaxy. and if not, well, then that venomous rose will be easily nipped in the bud.
or perhaps not. the AI wants the boy to go, yes, but not alone. it leaves behind its any shifting rooms and tendrils and instead uploads itself into an archaic suit of armor, one that will become the boy’s constant companion in the citadel to ensure he’s never mistreated. the gallants are reluctant, but on this point there is no compromise. (good negotiation tactic: wait until you’ve them in the very middle of your murder tower to make your demands.)
they go fly away on their ship, and the tower falls dormant behind them, locking itself tightly away behind a layer of perfectly smooth ebony scales. despite the best efforts of countless gallants, fortune hunters, and rival magi over the next two decades, it will remain sealed. it waits for the boy, to come home and do with his mother’s power what he will.
a couple months ago someone sent me an ask asking if I’d ever heard of Boquila trifoliolata and I was like ‘no way. this can’t be real’ and i looked it up and it was and I forgot about it until just now when my supervisor and I got sidetracked and I looked it up again to prove to her that it’s real and found out that not only does this plant vaguely mimic the leaves of whatever plant it’s vining on, it does it when it climbs on fake plants too so any theories about how it does it that include gene transfer or chemicals or touching it in any way are just out the window and those were like, the only theories the original researchers had about how it might be doing it. so anyway I am screaming and crying and whatnot
Here’s a link to the paper discussing their phenomenon. It really seems like Boquila trifoliolata might be able to “see”, since it’s apparently capable of mimicking the appearance and structure of plastic plants.
Like these are images from the paper I linked above
The one labeled “A” is a normal leaf, the one labeled “B” is Boquila attempting to mimic, the second pic shows what the fake leaves looked like, and the last pic is full mimicry
You are not free of sin simply because you judge yourself to be. It doesn’t matter who aimed the gun, you still chose to shoot knowing what it would cause. You say you are not a murderer because time would kill me anyway? You are a fool.
I’ve been wearing my respirator for a while now and I put on a normal trifold mask because I need to do a lot of talking and I forgot how hard it is to get a seal on these things. I keep on adjusting it because I breathe and get a jet of air in my eye.
right? that’s the worst part imo
Have you tried putting a strip of medical tape (or a band-aid) over the top edge?
It’s still more annoying to seal than an elastomeric, but a lot less annoying than trying to seal a mask *without* tape.
andmaybegayer replied: “@brin-bellway haven’t tried that, I’ll have to keep a roll in my bag of masks”
Tags:
#conversational aglets #illness tw #the more you know #recs
Brinens and Things 