unreality cw

Science and Ideological Bias

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

retroactivebakeries:

Much of science has, to date, been concerned with the pressing issue of lycanthropy, or as it is known to the layperson, “werewolfism.” Chemistry, biology, physics, astronomy, and suchlike have made much pretense of tending to other matters, offering up such developments as “medicine” or “computers” or “spaceflight” to justify their existence as ordinary, legitimate, non-werewolf-oriented fields of study. Vaccination? Smallpox was a convenient excuse, but we can all see that the real aim of that project was developing antigens to whatever bacteria might be involved in the werewolf process. The Large Hadron Collider might smash tiny particles into tinier particles on a day-to-day basis, but if you press hard enough into CERN’s encrypted blueprints you’ll find the secret designs for loading it with a massive payload of molecularly unstable silver, enough to take out an entire small West European country in the event that it fell to a widespread outbreak of lycanthropy or a swift lycurgarchic coup. The moon landing? It speaks for itself, one should think. How else could NASA mine the moon with a nuclear payload capable of tearing it apart in a worst case scenario? The average citizen might simply accept the fruits of so-called scientific progress, idly enjoying the comforts of smartphones and hot pockets and downloadable pornography, but the truthseer dares to ask question. He dares to ask, why would anyone invent the telescope, if not to keep track of the coming werewolf threat? Why would mankind dare slip the surly bonds of gravity in magnificent flying machines, if not to rain down silver-tipped hell on the strictly terrestrial wolfpeople? Why the waffle iron, if not as a weapon of war?

Of course, the existence of a world-spanning conspiracy spending billions of dollars and untold amounts of labor every year to eradicate a small minority of genetic deviants does nothing to exonerate the persecuted werewolves. It has been well known since the times of Imhotep and Euclid that the danger posed by a transformed lycanthrope is sufficient to overwhelm any number of armed persons that might be sent into combat with it, necessitating the development of a technological advantage to leverage untransformed humanity into superiority over the wolf-headed monster. Likewise, the contagious aspect of werewolfism elevates it from a mere danger to life and limb to an outright existential threat, one that would have long since rendered humanity an extinct species trammeled in the wake of homo lupus if not for scientific counteradvances. The danger of werewolves is obvious. But what we must ask ourselves is, if we ordinary people are mere sheep to be preyed upon, then who—or what—lies behind science? What masters drive the engines of human progress? Vampires, obviously. Ancient enemies of werewolfkind, on account of there being only so many necks to go around, they have stockpiled the treasure troves of Mansa Musa and fallen Carthage to fund scientific progress, throwing the scraps to ordinary humanity while keeping the ultrasonic repulsor smartphone apps, silver-projectile railguns, and anti-solar battle mecha to themselves. Every scientist, from the white lab-coated goons of the centrifuge mills to the celebrated celebrity wunderkind of the modern media are held in a vampire’s thrall, whether through their dread hypnotic gaze, or by virtue of being a vampire themselves. Galileo? Vampire. Ada Lovelace? Vampire. Einstein? Double vampire. The trend is undeniable. 

Caught, as it were, between a rock and a hard place, the rock being the rock that orbits are planet on a monthly basis and transforms a significant percentage of our population into slavering man-beasts, the hard place being the white tips of a vampire’s fangs against our species’ collective jugular, we have but one choice. In our darkest hour, in the last ragged gasping of humanity’s hope, we must turn to the allies who have been within us from the dawn of time, must draw strength from something we see every day and yet never contemplate. Skeletonkind, our saviors, will rise from the earth, and fight side by side along the “skinfolk,” as they call us, to drive the bleak regime of wolfmans and draculas out of their fortified towers and into the fiery pits of hell. Do your all for mankind. Grab a bottle of milk, and build a strong, deadly skeleton. 

Tags:

#anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #unreality cw #vampires #werewolf

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

an-gremlin:

spacecrobat:

Is it just me or does the frame rate get higher when you step inside a Costco

It’s because everything comes in bulk there and costco has really good object instancing so it only has to construct the VBO for each kind of product once and then reshade it for individual instances, which gets you a big framerate improvement over the parking lot where one million unique cars are in view at any given time

Tags:

#unreality cw #I didn’t actually laugh aloud but it still amused me enough to reblog

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

tilt-me-just-right:

conversations-across-the-rainbow:

You know, I think one of the most sheltered things about being blue is how we are not taught to openly appreciate the simple pleasures in life. Often It’s all about posturing and about how *this* expensive place is the *best* and how much money you can spend to splurge on a dessert made by tired kitchen workers that ultimately are just good at making things look fancier instead of tastier and then charge ten times the price. (Not, to say there aren’t very talented cooks out there.)

Anyway, I’m enjoying an egg-salad sandwich that is really good. How about you guys?

The presentation/tastiness tradeoff is a bigger deal than I think a lot of restaurant-goers realize. Especially when you wind up with food that looks nigh architectural; they have to do wacky things to it to make it look like that. I know no one likes to eat beige glop, but once you’ve gotten past “beige glop” there’s not a lot of efficient frontier in pretty food that doesn’t sacrifice any flavor or texture for it.

Tags:

#Amenta RP #food #I didn’t actually laugh aloud but it still amused me enough to reblog #(I’m amused because I’m literally ooc-ly eating beige glop right now) #(and it is very likeable) #((I prefer to mash up my apple crumb pie before I eat it)) #((so that the filling and the topping are blended together))

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

shitifindon:

shedoesnotcomprehend:

shitifindon:

shedoesnotcomprehend:

(i)

A side effect of my sleep disorder is that I have lots of really vivid strange dreams, which I remember well when I wake up.

Last night I dreamt that something inexplicable/apparently paranormal (details not important) happened, and that I posted to tumblr saying “hey, so this really weird thing happened, and I can’t come up with a mundane explanation for it, does anyone have any ideas?”

In the dream, I got several replies to the post, offering potential explanations. I posted again thanking people for their input and saying that, as it happened, none of those could apply in this case.

“Obviously,” I added, “from your point of view, the most plausible explanation at this point is ‘some random person on the internet is lying.’ But I’m curious what the most reasonable explanation is from my point of view, given that I know it really did happen.”

At which point I woke up, making the answer immediately clear: the most reasonable explanation was that it did not, in fact, happen, because I was dreaming – even if I was quite sure it had happened.

(ii)

A while ago I had another dream along the same lines.

In that dream, something had happened that could happen in real life, but happens much more frequently in dreams – I don’t remember what it was, but something like “leaving the house and then realizing you’re not wearing pants,” or “finding out you’re signed up for a class you haven’t gone to all semester.”

Within the dream, I noticed this, and turned to the person next to me. “You know,” I observed, “if I were being strictly logical, I should now conclude that this is all a dream and none of it is really happening. Just goes to show how silly and impractical that kind of thinking is.”

Whereupon, of course, I woke up, and subsequently felt very silly indeed.

(iii)

I’m pretty sure my subconscious is trying to tell me something.

I’m a little concerned that what it’s trying to tell me seems to be “you’re living out Inception; wake up.”

But then, that would just be ridiculous.

huh!

This is fascinating to me because, while I do (very rarely) sometimes consider in a dream whether or not I’m dreaming and come up with a “no”, when I do that while awake there is an experiential/intuitive factor present that makes the answer *super obvious* and that is consistently missing in dreams. (It’s just that in dreams I don’t always retain the information “hey, if you can’t feel The Thing That Means You’re Obviously Awake Right Now, you probably aren’t”.)

And like, MOST of the time, if I’m dreaming and it occurs to me to wonder whether I’m dreaming I can notice the absence of The Thing That Means I’m Obviously Awake. Or if not that I can pick up on another blatant sign, such as having a super hard time visually focusing on objects, or the stubborn refusal of bathrooms to continue having walls when I’m in them, or my mother being alive.

Do you not have a thing like that, or what?

I definitely don’t have a Thing That Means I’m Obviously Awake. (A fairly common experience for me is picking up on environmental/mood cues that correlate with being-in-a-dream, and going “oh shoot I am totally dreaming right now aren’t I? great, the jump scare is coming any second,” and then it turning out that I am in fact awake.)

I do have a good reliable check I can perform, though (like you) I often forget it exists in dreams: I don’t feel pain in dreams, so I’ll bite the side of my hand, and if it hurts a little I’m awake and if my teeth go straight through painlessly I’m asleep. (As a kid I assumed everyone had this and that was what the “pinch yourself to see if you’re dreaming” thing was about.)

Unfortunately, though, this really only works while I’m doing it, because (I don’t know if other people experience this?) dreams don’t just give me invented current-experiences, they often come with fictional memories. This can range from “ah yes I have been searching for this mystical artifact for years” to “I can remember clearly the day I learned to fly” to “oh yeah I’m definitely awake because I checked just a little while ago.” (I first consciously noticed this phenomenon after Inception came out; I tried the remember-how-you-got-here thing, and discovered that my brain was cheerfully willing to spin out vivid memories of how I got there.)

(“Try reading a book” used to also be a good check for me; in a dream, I was never able to. Then one time I tried to use it and my brain cheerfully generated pages of made-sense-at-the-time text, and I concluded I was awake, and was quite startled when I woke up. These days, my second-best check for dreaming is that I can never type in dreams, especially not dialing phone numbers; I constantly hit the wrong keys, and then backspace too far, and then hit the wrong keys again…)

Weeeeeeird. Brains, man!

(If I had to describe The Thing That Means I’m Obviously Awake, I’d say it’s something like… a solidity and concreteness and embodiedness of experience? Dream experiences hit all or most of the right highlights, but fall down on the really minor stuff like ‘this table is at the exact same height every time I touch it’, and the framing stuff like ‘I have functioning vision, hearing, taste, smell, and proprioception all of the time, but cannot ever see the events of my life from a third-person perspective’.)

I think I’m in between the two of you. One of my big differences in dream-vs-real experience is that my sense of touch (and related senses, like proprioception and nociception) keeps running in the background when I’m awake, but when I’m dreaming I only feel touch/pain/position-in-space if I’m paying attention to it.

This is similar to your experiential/intuitive factor of Obvious Awakeness, yet is almost completely useless for dream testing because of pink-elephant problems. If you try to actively determine whether your sense of touch keeps working when you’re not paying attention to it, well, now you’re paying attention to it.

(I suspect it might be the reason why I pretty much never get false *positives* on dream tests, though (with only one exception I can think of). If I’m seriously wondering whether I’m dreaming, I almost certainly am. But dream!me generally doesn’t find that line of reasoning convincing *enough* to bet on it (do things that will go badly if I turn out not to be dreaming), and I can’t say I blame her.)

I don’t currently have any tests that consistently or even near-consistently work, just some that work sometimes.

—

Somewhat tangential, but kind of related: after watching the Doctor Who episode “Extremis”, I found myself occasionally performing shadow tests in dreams and failing them. I thought it was weird while watching that episode that everyone leaps from “we’re part of a simulated reality” to “we must be a training ground for aliens preparing to conquer the alpha-reality Earth”, without considering other reasons you might be part of a simulated reality, and it seems my subconscious agrees.

Tags:

#is the blue I see the same as the blue you see #reply via reblog #unreality cw #embarrassment squick #dreams #Extremis

{{next post in sequence}}

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

steel-kun:

Name a conspiracy theory superior in raw power to “there are no actual forests on Earth”

 

dream-cassette:

imma need some context on that cause WHAT?

 

steel-kun:

“forests” = minuscule form of what trees on Earth can be, basically saplings
“mesas” = not landforms, but petrified ancient tree trunks
IIRC the theory goes that all forests on Earth were destroyed ages ago and it takes them ridiculous times to regrow, with those giant mammoth redwood trees just being the oldest ones that have grown the most

 

maxeth:

evidence 1:

tumblr_inline_osul982lpy1ri6lfo_540

 

big-bird-nerd:

Who/what cut down the trees to make them mesas, for what purpose, and with what tools?

 

nahiri:

I’ve actually looked a little deeper into this, and the short answer is that humans cut them down with future tech. This theory is a sub-theory of flat earth, as it makes use of a lot of the same basic assumptions about the world, most importantly that our entire worldview is a construct created by the elite that controls our world from the shadows. By keeping knowledge from us, they can treat us like sheep without expecting resistance. Part of this theory is that we had advanced machines and supercomputers way back, even in the ancient times, and that all history older than about 100 years is a lie crafted by this elite in the wake of a nuclear war in the 1800s.

 

big-bird-nerd:

What would we use all that wood for, and where did it go?

 

nahiri:

Rock is wood. Or rather, wood becomes rock as it grows and the trees reach massive heights. They essentially mined the trees for useful minerals and metals, and for the construction of whatever secret structres they use to control us.

 

sidisi:

Steal dnd settings from conspiracy theorists every day bc this shit is too good

Tags:

#unreality cw #conspiracy theories #story ideas I will never write

Image ~ ~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

{{previous post in sequence}}

comparativelysuperlative:

brin-bellway:

elodieunderglass:

scavengedluxury:

Simon De Montfort, having been defeated and killed by Royalists, his body mutilated and his extremities distributed among his enemies as trophies, faces the final indignity: T.K. Maxx. Leicester, April 2017.

This will cause an extra parallel-universe cognitive glitch for my American friends, and I am excited for that to happen here

I’m amused to see Elodie’s addition, because yes, that is exactly what happened.

(Me, upon seeing this picture: ”–wait what? What???”

Me, upon scrolling down just enough to see the original caption: “You mean that’s not even what the picture is supposed to be about?”)

But why would they even–

‘The company modified the name to T.K. Maxx to avoid “confusion with the established British retail chain T J Hughes (which is not affiliated with TJX)“‘

Ah, okay.

(…wait, but if it’s not called that in Britain, why is there a bit in a Jasper Fforde book that goes like this:

“You imprisoned her in a clothing store?”

“It’s not really a clothing store; that’s just the cover story. Temporal Jail, Maximum Security. Didn’t you ever wonder why it was called TJ Maxx?”)

Because the rest of that acronym was “Temporal-J Maximum Security.” I always wondered why the “J” didn’t stand for anything!

And of course it would be entirely on-theme for a Thursday Next book to have editions with slightly different text.

>>And of course it would be entirely on-theme for a Thursday Next book to have editions with slightly different text.<<

Yeah, I wondered if maybe that just wasn’t in the original, but I’m not sure how cleanly you could excise the TJ Maxx joke given that a plot conversation takes place there. Was Aornis stuck at the checkout of a different store in the original, possibly one with an impenetrably British joke? (But a reference being impenetrably obscure has never stopped Jasper Fforde before.)

Does anyone have a British copy of First Among Sequels they can check?

—

>>I always wondered why the “J” didn’t stand for anything!<<

I did some Googling and at first it looked like you were thinking of a bit in The Woman Who Died A Lot, which I haven’t read yet. I was thinking of First Among Sequels.

But then I went and looked at my copy of First Among Sequels, and that doesn’t specify what the J stands for, either.

I mean, I might have just filled it in from context, but it kind of looks
like we have a Berenstain situation on our hands in more ways than one.

Tags:

#reply via reblog #Thursday Next #unreality cw

{{next post in sequence}}

Image ~ ~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

shantrising:

 

captoring:

this is from a store in los angeles called The Echo Park Time Travel Mart, and it’s pretty much the coolest place

Time Travel Mart 1
Time Travel Mart 2
Time Travel Mart 3
Time Travel Mart 4

 

printscharming:

WHAT?! @themaskedman, I think I know where our next adventure has to be.

 

themaskedman:

@printscharming Looks fun! I’m down haha.

 

knitmeapony:

HURRAY 826!  This is a national organization that sets up awesome kids literacy tutoring groups and puts hilariously dorky storefronts in front of each one!

Chicago has the Secret Agent Supply: 

Time Travel Mart 5

Ann Arbor has Robot Supplies:

Time Travel Mart 6

Boston has the Bigfoot Research Institute:

Time Travel Mart 7

And there are more:  http://826national.org/stores/

 

Great for Christmas shopping!  All proceeds go to the local chapter of the charity!

 

w4rgoddess:

OMG, I knew about the one in Brooklyn but didn’t realize it was a chain!

 

sinbadism:

How can you not mention the original, 826 Valencia in San Francisco? They are amazing organizations

Tags:

#long post #time travel #oh my god

Image ~ ~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

actualsaame:

 

areyoutryingtodeduceme:

I remember my first eagle ceremony when I turned nine. The first eagle you get is always declawed, which I always thought was pretty inhumane, but it was a good way to ease into caring for the birds. My eagle (named Baldy, because I wasn’t a terribly clever child) was already quite old when I received him (he was a rescue eagle, luckily) but I did have him until I was 16. I don’t know if I was more excited about getting my drivers license that year, or my new eagle! You should have seen the party we had when I got him, too! Grilled hot dogs and fire works and lemonade…. obviously I named my beautiful new eagle Freedom. He’s too big to keep inside anymore, unfortunately, but we’ve got a pretty comfortable roost for him on our apartment’s balcony.

 

the19thhistory:

Ah, yes, the eagle ceremony! My Justice and I remember his quite well. (They had just come out with telepathic link transplants when I got him, which is how I know he remembers it.) Our celebration was quite modest, compared to Freedom’s—apple pie under a cloudless summer sky as we signed our Declaration of Interdependence. I still have the inked and talon-pierced document hanging on my wall.

 

vashappeninstyles:

what is this 

 

rinnysega:

Get out Canada

 

thesanityclause:

I was so scared during my pet eagle ceremony I almost threw up. But Stonewall Jackson and I have been best friends ever since. My dad and grandfather built a really massive roost behind the house for my eagle and my sisters’ eagles. Stonewall always waits for me when I get home from class since schools are getting so over protective and strict these days and won’t allow eagles indoors. Which just goes to show how much we’re bubble wrapping kids today. Back in the day, if you couldn’t handle a few stitches because you pissed off the wrong kid’s eagle, you had to just man up and learn your lesson!

 

nooby-banana:

Ooo, I never miss a chance to tell this story! I had a rather unusual first eagle ceremony. The traditional giant American flag that you wave around to summon your eagle had been severely damaged the week prior (a ceremony that had not gone according to plan, but the child only suffered minor talon wounds. The flag took the brunt of the attack).  Anyway, I couldn’t use the normal flag so we had to search ALL OVER for one suitable for eagle summoning. Unfortunately the stripes weren’t the correct shade of patriotic red so everyone was worried an eagle wouldn’t show up at all.  I had to stand in the middle of that wheat field, the wind creating amber waves out of it, shaking that flag in the air for over three hours.  Everyone was just about to give up when suddenly Patriot appeared out of nowhere!  He came to me so quickly it was like he was apologizing for being late.  And we’ve been together ever since.

 

avatarjk137:

Some people think it’s excessive to have two eagles.  But what can I say, I’m a two eagles kind of guy.  Well, I can say, “You must be a terrorist to call me out over my excesses,” but I digress.  We don’t have many open fields around here, so I got Liberty by waving my flag atop a decommissioned WWII aircraft carrier.  I was kicking a couple of boxes of tea into the harbor for good measure, and there she was.  I loved her so much I repeated the process a year later and got young Colbert here.  It’s hard work, raising two eagles, but I have two shoulders, after all.  Besides, I know that the secret to happy and healthy eagles is plenty of Bud Light.

 

roachpatrol:

Oh man, the eagle ceremony. I was a weird fucking kid, okay, so I was totally sure that the eagle ceremony wasn’t just going to net me my eagle and deepen the mystical bond between a citizen and their country, I thought I was going to get to turn into an eagle too. So me and my mom and my dad and my little brother are all standing in the old civil war battleground, surrounded by the ghosts of our fallen soldiers, and all and the problem here — it’s not usually a problem because I make sure to shave my beard off twice a day, three times on sundays — was that I am, actually, born on the fourth of July. So it wasn’t just one eagle that showed up, it was pretty much every big old patriotic warbird in Missouri, all flapping around confused and pissed off, their innate senses of direction completely fucked up by the way firecracker babies warp America’s natural system of ley lines. And I was six, so grabbed the flag and ran with it over my shoulders, rippling in the wind, thinking it was going to turn into wings for me and I would go be an eagle with all the other eagles. Instead I just got mobbed by a freaked-out mess of nationalistic avians who all weighed more than I did. I lost half my nose and my whole left arm and spent most of fourth grade in reconstructive surgery getting machine guns welded on to the shattered remains of my ulna. Completely missed my little brother’s eagle ceremony, which I will always regret, but it was all worth it to have met Columbia. I never did turn into an eagle on the outside, but I like to think those long hours in the hospital, feeding her rubbing alcohol and my own blood, have made me an eagle in my heart. 

 

hudlionunshod:

I usually never reblog long things, but this is worth reading, I swear.

 

raiining:

Ah, see, in Canada things are very different. In Northern Ontario, for example, you never quite know what you’re going to get. Ralph, my beaver, is a very standard 20 lbs, and she came to me quite easily during my Oh Canada Calling. A friend of mine, though, ended up bonded to an 800lb bull moose (she named him Bambi, she was a weird kid).

 

skandrae:

You’re so lucky you got Ralph! I had such issues during my Oh Canada Calling, and wound up with a pair of grice.

 

freyastormborn:

My eagle ceremony was weird. First of all, my parents felt I was too young to get my first eagle so I was the last one of my classmates to get an eagle. My parents are hippies so they got really into the spiritual aspects of it. Like, with my first eagle, I wasn’t allowed to get the telepathic implant, they wanted me to do it “natually” so I had to sit and meditate with Artemis for the entire morning. Luckily she was awesome and creating a natural telepathic bond pretty much happened organically. Of course we had some of the traditional parts of the ceremony, the waving of the American flags while the guests chanted “USA USA USA”. But other than that it was a pretty relaxed eagle ceremony. 
I’m glad my parents gave me the opportunity to develop a natural telepathic bond with my eagle because it’s good experience, but with my current eagle, Brunhilde, I went ahead and got the implants because I’m so busy with school that I didn’t have time to do the proper meditation. Brunhilde is a scientific type so she thinks the implant was a good call.

 

flatbear:

Ugh growing up in New Zealand is worse. You just stand outside and yell Xena war cries until a Hobbit pops their head up over the nearest hill and politely tells you to keep it the hell down.

If you’re lucky, a Kiwi ambles up, but it’s basically like having a football with a handle for a pet.

This is why I moved to America…

 

ferrific:

getting my american citizenship was both amazing and a bit traumatic. you have to do a lot of work before they will let you have an eagle ceremony, and the older you are the more difficult it can be. but after I passed all the tests and received my flag, my canada goose, laura secord, and I went to a shut-down auto plant and waited. eventually uncle sam, my eagle swooped out of the sky, and after a brief struggle, killed laura secord. it was sad, as we had been together for so long, but everyone knows canada geese are assholes, so I got over it quickly. because of my age we had to get the implants, but uncle sam and I are quite happy together.

 

tamorapierce:

Our family, well, the common word you’d have for us is “hillbillies,” but I don’t mind.  We’ve been living in our part of the Alleghenies for a long, long time, and my Pa’s family in particular holds to the old values.  Of course, this was a while back, so we didn’t have the link, but I don’t think the old man would have approved if they’d been around.  Anyway, he was determined that I would do things the right way, even though we both knew he was pretty sure I would be a disappointment to him.  I didn’t like to fish or hunt (to his shame, I was gunshy); I hated camping, and I wasn’t good at swimming.  Still, I was bound and determined to go for my eagle like our family had always done it.

He took me up into the Laurel Highlands, past where stupid old British General Braddock got himself shot in the back and where George Washington built and surrendered his first fort to the French and their Indian allies (though the enemy never got his cannon because George hid them).  We got to the end of the track our family had always taken up into the mountains, and Pa gave me a panic button if I wanted to quit.  He’d come and get me then, but he’d give up on me, too.  That was another thing we knew without saying.

Long story short, I was coming down a hill my second day, worn out because I’d gotten little sleep in the cold, and upset because I hadn’t seen or heard any birds or animals let alone an eagle (I wasn’t what you would call an observant kid) when I tripped and fell.  Down I went, and tumbled.  I stopped on the bank of a stream,

I had my first aid badger from Girl Scouts, and supplies in my back pack, so I soaked my sprained ankle in the icy creek, then bound it up.  By the time I found a branch long and strong enough to lean on, it was coming on sunset.  I had two more days before Pa started to track me.  I wanted at least to be partway back before he found me. 

I had given up on that eagle.  He’d have to wait for my sisters Kim and Dani to get big enough.  They’d find theirs; they were better in the woods than me already.  I was just a daydreamer, someone who never had any sense.  Put me to shelling peas or doing dishes and I’d take twice as long as anyone else, because I’d be telling myself stories.  That’s what I did that night, to keep my mind off my pain.  I told myself stories of brave girls who found their eagles and went off to be soldiers (girls weren’t allowed to be in the Army then) or joined the FBI (we weren’t allowed to be agents, either).  If the owls who hooted or the deer who drank at the stream liked the story, that was good, too.

I must have dozed off sometime before dawn.  When I woke, a golden eagle stood by my hand.  Not a bald eagle, like all those in my family, or like my friends’ parents had, or like people had on TV.  A golden eagle, a big fellow with a trout in his beak.  He dropped it on my knee.

At first I couldn’t breathe.  When I could talk, I said, “Thanks, but I have jerky, and peanut butter, and celery, and … things.  You eat it.”  And he did.

When Pa saw me limping on the track three days from where he’d dropped me, dirty and crazy-looking with twigs in my hair and no eagle on my shoulder, he stopped and looked at me, his weathered face like stone.  Then Anthony Wayne, his eagle, began to raise hell on his shoulder as Tecumseh glided down from his tree top.  We’d found it was easier for him to fly ahead and wait for me than for him to ride on my shoulder, at least while I had one bum foot.  This time, though, for the purposes of meeting family, he settled on my shoulder.

I describe things all the time, but I can never describe the look on my Pa’s face.  I only know that he reached a hand out to Tecumseh, who stretched out and touched his fingers with his beak.  Finally Pa said, “It’s been right in front of me all along.  I’ve been trying to make you a strong member of the family, and you are strong, but you’re also a medicine woman.  A dreamer.  And this is a dreamer’s eagle.”

“His name’s Tecumseh,” I said.

Tecumseh fluffed himself up with pride.

Pa grinned.  “Now let’s see if I can get you two home.  Your mother is going to read me out for letting you into the woods alone.”  He put two fingers to his mouth and whistled.  One of my uncles and two of my aunts walked out of the woods, their own eagles on their shoulders.  Tecumseh and I were going home like royalty.

 

dainesanddaffodils:

Did Tamora Pierce just fucking add her own ‘how I got my pet eagle’ story?

What a time to be alive, folks.

 

patrickat:

You Are All Weirdos

 

daja-the-hypnokitten:

Sure, we’re weird, but TAMORA PIERCE joined in.

I can’t not reblog this.

Tags:

#storytime #long post #unreality #home of the brave #(…your goose *died*?) #(my familiars get along great) #(I guess you renounced your citizenship?)

Image ~ ~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

angels-are-watching:

Can we please talk about how our history teacher sent a barbie to the smithsonian as proof of the presence of man two million years ago

 

bonequeer:

pleas,e for the love of God read the whole letter, there are tears streamign down my face rn

 

derinthemadscientist:

Can we please talk about how your history teacher has done this sort of thing enough times that he has his own specimen shelf in the Smithsonian

 

theverysarcasticscientist:

“yours in science” tho

 

sinesalvatorem:

“B. Clams don’t have teeth” is the part where I lost it.

 

stimmyabby:

@zozi-writes

 

coffiend-jackalope:

The letter says:

“Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled “211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post. Hominid skull.” We have gien this specimen a careful and detailed examination and regret to inform you that we disagree with you theory that it represents ‘conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston County two million years ago.’ Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie doll, of the variety one of our staff, who has small children, believes to be the ‘Malibu Barbie’. It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of us who are familiar with your prior work in the field were loathe to come to contradiction with your findings. However, we do feel that there are a number of physical attributes of the specimen which might have tipped you off to it’s modern origin:

  1. The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are typically fossilized bone.
  2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified proto-hominids.
  3. The dentition patters evident on the ‘skull’ is more consistent with the common domesticated dog than it is with the ‘ravenous man-eating Pliocene clams’ you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time.This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypotheses you have submitted in your history with this institution, but the evidence seems to weigh rather heavily against it. Without going into too much detail, let us say that:
  • A) The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has chewed on.
  • Clams don’t have teeth.

It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your request to have the specimen carbon dated. This is partially due to the heavy load our lab must bear in it’s normal operation, and partly due to carbon dating’s notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic record. To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to 1956 AD, and carbon dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results. Sadly , we must also deny your request that we approach the National Science Foundation’s Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning your specimen the scientific name ‘Australopithecus spiff-arino.’ Speaking personally, I for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the species name you selected was hyphenated, and didn’t really sound like it might be Latin.

However, we gladly accept your generous donation of this fascinating specimen to the museum. While it is undoubtedly not a hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the great body of work you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly. You should know that our Director has reserved a special shelf in his own office for the display of the specimens you have previously submitted to the Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily on what you will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have discovered in your back yard. We eagerly anticipate your trip to or nation’s capital that you proposed in you last letter, and several of us are pressing the Director to pay for it. We are particularly interested in hearing you expand on your theories surrounding the ‘trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous ions in a structural matrix’ that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex femur you recently discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm Sears Craftsman automotive crescent wrench.

Yours in Science,

Harvey Rowe

Curator, Antiquities”

—————————————————————————————————-

(sorry if there are misspellings or wrong wordings. this was long and i was reading it off my phone)

 

logic-and-art:

“I for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the species name you selected was hyphenated, and didn’t really sound like it might be Latin.“

 

moonlitmoor:

@glumshoe

Tags:

#anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #you’ve probably seen this before #(I know I have seen this one several times over the years) #(but it’s still funny)

{{next post in sequence}}