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#so maybe that bible was good for something
dismas-n-dismay · 17 hours
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Hi! It's me again (I'm transferring to a bachelor's in biology this fall and I love the science that goes into the series so I love that you're exploring this)
Do either of them have hoarding instincts or dietary preferences or are they pretty much human in that regard?
They'd possibly be born with baby teeth, at least in Haze/Hazel's case, would that change anything? (Hazel would probably fit better because Falin is half French on her father's side from what I remember from the Adventurer's Bible and it feels even that they'd both get to name a kid but that's just my opinion)
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Haru with his mouth full: Checkit!! Blegh!! Haize: Gross. Good job, Haru, you're a natural hunter!
Welcome back to part 10,000 of me talking about my silly ocs. Hi. hello. Thank you sooo much for coming back with more biology questions for these two hehehe >:]c
Diet Preferences?
These two are quite the oddballs. Haru is an insectivore by simple dragon nature while Haize is a carnivore by hers, though their elven and tallman sides balance them out to be closer to omnivores! Light dragons commonly eat bugs as they're the easiest prey to attract when ur big and flashy though this keeps them very lithe and they typically have more slender builds, though the proteins do help a lot. Conversely, red dragons being mostly carnivores results in their larger build and their obvious frequency to be the most dominant and persevering dragon species- y'know. Because they murk the other ones due to their weaker diets and builds.
Haru started to eat bugs right around the time it was warm enough for him to go outdoors without getting sick, I imagine he would've eaten a butterfly or a dragonfly much to Marcille's horror. Like that vine of the pug eating the butterfly with his owner screaming no! Backtracking a bit though to give some cool facts about baby light dragons because I decide the lore. I'm making them weird half mammal half bird-lizards because I think the variety is cool but this also means that - up until baby light dragons can open their eyes and properly attempt to hunt - they drink milk from their parents! (Whether or not this is crop milk like birds produce is entirely up to the reader's imagination, I will not judge but I will choose either one if asked)
So up until he started going outside, Haru was perfectly content just drinking milk like any other baby- Haize was not. Unlike Haru she was born with baby fangs!! Just little milk teeth to help her get a headstart for the world and such, but she grew hungrier for something more diverse than milk very quickly. Red dragons, unlike light dragons, don't do the whole milk thing so Haize was only partially satiated due to being part elf and tallman but the minute she was allowed to eat soft meats she basically refused to go back. So just imagine like a 1 year old eating various lunch meats for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Honestly it was probably for the best, Haize's fangs bit into Marcille a lot and they were worried she might grow a taste for blood if she kept accidentally nicking her mom while trying to eat. She probably would have and it would've been a really bad habit to get rid of because she hadn't developed that big girl brain to be like "Hey maybe drinking blood isn't super cool."
All in all, the Touden-Donato sibs have slightly preferenced diets! Though Haize prefers meats, nectar, and citrus fruits while Haru prefers bugs, ground vegetables, citrus fruits, and any/all milk based desserts (he just really likes them). God if these kids ever got their hands on sorbet it would be a disaster, Falin and Marcille would literally spend a week trying to explain why they cant have ice cream for every meal and have to deal with whining dragonets the whole time.
2. Hoarding Instincts
They do have hoarding instincts! Though this is one of those things that differs from dragon to dragon on how they react with it. Light dragons tend to go for the flashiest treasures to make themselves more appealing and alluring, naturally they like the attention they draw in just from an instinctual standard. They frequently discard rusted, unpolished, or just not as eyecatching treasure all the time. They really just arent particular about the whole thing unless they see you have an interest in something they were previously disinterested in- then they're smug assholes who see their treasure as still having some renewed value. So essentially Envy = Worthy to them, but they arent extremely vain creatures despite their hoarding preference and are actually particularly generous within reason. It's very common for light dragons to gift their young, mates, or siblings with treasures from their own hoards or that they've taken for themselves to gift. Typically though the gifting of treasure is to help younger dragons start their own hoard and have an idea of what to go for when out and about for themselves.
That being said, Haru is a greedly little fucker who wants every single new treasure possible, fuck you. He's very grateful for being part elf and tallman because he's aware that he can make his beautiful treasures last long if he polishes, dusts, and cleans them! So his hoard isn't too huge if only because he's good at maintaining things. Still, if he sees something he tends to want it and is often reprimanded for trying to steal shiny gems, jewels, or artifacts just because he likes them- as Haru often gets tired with his new finds extremely quickly if they begin to bore him or don't compare to his other treasures. When it comes to his hoarding he essentially has the dragon equivalent to having eyes bigger than your stomach.
Haize, however, has your more traditional dragon's hoard of miscellanous treasures, artifacts, coins from birthdays, and prized family gifts. Much of her hoard consists of trinkets Haru grew bored with but that she still saw interest in and wanted to give renewed purpose, she isn't nearly as picky but is very curious and likes to inspect an item before taking it in. She'll often let Haru have a treasure knowing that he'll get tired of it within the hour- though she has been known to assert her place as the eldest sibling if there is a gift for her she particularly wants and Haru usually shies off. Haize doesn't assert herself as the eldest often so he knows it's business if she does for things like food or treasure. Haru keeps her hoard partially in and around the her nest as well as the family nest in Falin and Marcille's room! Her nest in the guardian is where she keeps most of her baby clothes, toys, trinkets, and cloths/blankets. She just feels they're safest there and prefers to sleep near them <3.
Also, fun tid bits on how dragons train their kids to gain treasure!: Typically young dragons get the urge to grab and snatch at shiny things as soon as they're able to crawl around functionally and protect themselves- which is pretty early due to them being predators of a mythical variety- so they'll often try and steal treasure from their parent's hoard! Older dragons use this as stealth training for their young and will often guard their treasure, sitting stop or nearby and continuously removing their children until they manage to sneak by successfully to take a trinket. Typically the larger/shiner/whatever is more impressive for the type of dragon you are is what is most rewarded for by parents but they do punish thinking a bit too big. It's good to know your limits! better to have 5 gold coins than 5 gold bricks you cant carry.
so Falin was very often having to train Haru and haize to amass their own treasures which was much easier for Haize due to her slinky and stealthy body allowing for quicker and quieter movement! Haru had to learn to fight, due to his regular baby limbs and range of movement, which didnt really work because he's so itty bitty but the thought was appreciated by Falin, learning to stand your ground is good too!
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duckduckington · 16 hours
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Differences of the WoY visual style between the pilot and the final show (Along some other stuff) (Part 1)
So a crap-ton of cartoon show bibles and pilots surfaced recently, which is kind of fucking cool, and it included stuff from Wander over Yonder, which is way fucking cooler.
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First thing I did was over-analyze the show's visual style and I figure I should put my findings somewhere, so here you go! In a chronological order, it's easier that way (and builds suspense for the real good stuff, ooohooooh (in a spooky ghost voice)).
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The first shot alone already brings forth some differences. As far as I know, the show never illustrates space like this, entirely black with just a couple of stars to break the void. There's usually some blue star dust or something, kinda like this:
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The skullship was planned to be 3D-animated apparently, instead of being drawn in the same style as the backgrounds. This allows for WAY more complex movements, since it's easier to pull off.
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We then get to take a looksie inside of the ship... this isn't like ANYTHING in the show.
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We do see control rooms on occasion, but not one like this. It's a circular room with rows of watchdogs on the wall, watching monitors, circulating the middle where Hater sits on his throne. The railings on its support carry Peepers and his cockpit. Two watchdogs control the ship (I think) at the front. That blue goop at the top might be the ship's brain (you can also already see some animation errors in the front, peep their grabbers). There ain't ever been a color palette inside the ship like this, they usually opt for red and black rather than red and white. This might have been their solution to making the characters native to Hater pop out against the background before deciding to just substitute black for purple.
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There's still bright locations within the skullship, but they're non-threatening ones, like the food court.
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Commander Peepers and the watchdogs have designs that, while closer to their final versions than the pitch bible (or whatever that cover of that graphic novel was supposed to be), carry some traits still worth pointing out (well, so does everything here, but pshhhshshhhshh).
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SHINY
COLLARS
Puffy collars around necks, wrists and ankles.
Detailed irises.
Detailed soles on shoes.
Those lines on their gloves that you see in your grandpa's toons.
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(bugs bunny pictured flipping the bird)
This is specific to Peepers; the jagged thunder-spike on his helmet has dimension to it, as opposed to the implied dimension in his final design. Spikes on the side are also way longer here.
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His eye/face emotes differently by just utilizing a black eyelid, rather than turning the hat into a pseudo-eyebrow, kinda like Double D from Ed, Edd n' Eddy.
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We then get a glimpse at Hater's design...
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Despite his face missing, you can already see some differences, like his arms resembling more those of an actual skeleton and packing a lot less mass. His hood is also a bit more tout and the folds surrounding it have more empathis.
Another space shot with some shapes to break up the infinite black; it's not always you see a warm color palette for space in the actual show.
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Maybe here, when Wander and Sylvia stop the sun from blowing up in "The Good Deed".
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When entering the city that's about to get its shit stirred by Hater, we notice that there aren't ANY other locations illustrated like this. We usually have smooth, airbrushy looking stuff, when this is more reminiscent of a comic strip, with clear lines and some hatching to indicate weight here and there. Same goes for the townsfolk, they remind me of... Krazy Kat or something. Craig McCracken has gone on record saying he drew a lot of inspiration from old comic strips, but I don't know if Krazy Kat is one of them. I just thought of it :)
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The inside of the skullship looked different so this place might have had an unique artstyle to other locations we would've seen in this version of the show, but that would also be a big difference since the actual show keeps the background style consistent throughout the whole run (as far as I know).
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Goes in hand with the skullship; the watchdogs are 3D-animated here, although subtly.
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Different gun designs... they look more like water guns here. Big ol' TUBES. Their guns in the show are more sci-fi-esque.
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Hater's logo is different, in-line with his design. Way flatter design too. Might as well take a look at his actual face now.
Well, more like next time. Just found out you can only use up to 30 images in one post. Oopsies. I'll continue this when I have the energy! I'll continue my chronological analysis/rambling and perhaps talk about the general art-style and animation at the end. Might take me a couple of more posts.
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gxlden-angels · 11 months
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On today's episode of Holy Shit My Childhood Was Not Normal:
Kurtis Conner being thrown off by the girls'/boys' bibles with the random "Dream Girl" and "Grossology" passages and shit like that in them
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dolokhoded · 6 months
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what's the buzz, tell me what's a-happening ???
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timeisacephalopod · 6 months
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The type of Christian who asks atheists how they don't like, murder people on the reg are so funny to me because they seem to think their religion makes them the Peak of Morality when statements like "if you don't believe in God how comes you don't do X thing" all but outright state they have no idea why shit like murder and rape is bad except that God doesn't like it lmao. Like way to admit you have no intrinsic sense of morality and need to be afraid of a higher power to be a decent person, but I promise if you're not a piece of shit it's actually very natural not to want to do heinous evil shit all the time potential punishment from a higher power or not 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️
#winters ramblings#seriously its SO funny when that happens because every time its like ??? the FUCK kind of thoughts do you have#to ask HOW i resist doing evil shit all the time because i dont fear god because i dont believe in God??#what kind of fucked up person do you haveto be to only resist killing people because of fear of a higher power??#these are people to avoid because typically they also come with the issue of using their religion to make any action they want#perfectly Good and Moral because GOD said it its in the BIBLE whether thats true or not and like bible or no#if you have no intrinsic sense of morality i dont want to hear about atheist morality from you lmao#not that athiests lack issues i swear to god white dudes who evangelize atheism like its their new religion#have WILDLY missed the point and often suffer the same problem as the aforementioned Christians#wherein the onky thing thats ever given them any kind of pushback is the church so they decide RELIGION is horrible and bad as a whole#which isnt true religion can be a perfectly lovely amazing thing for people but that brand of atheist#doesnt seem to understand that people turned away from the church because of wide spread abuse and discrimination not because#believing in god makes you literally mentally ill like some of these fuckos act like. abelist AND shite to religious folks in one fowl swoop#so you know atheists have problems too but like they arent making laws in their beliefs images across the world so you know#temper the criticism with how influential the group actually is although richard dawkins types DID get a lot of space to spew their idiocy#like dawkims if you think youre SOOOO much smarter than christians how come you have ALL the same misogyny problems??#youre not that smart and logical if youve decided a whole kind of person is inherently less than you buddy. in fact thats very Christian#of him actually. funny when that happens but again if you dont actually know WHY something is a problem#its very easy to say Thats Bad and then literally do the exact same thing you just condemned because when YOU do it its no longer bad#because its got YOUR flavor of fucked up morality on it now instead of being like hmm maybe Christianity isnt a problem#because it EXISTS but because a lot of people use their religion as a pointed barb to discriminate against huge swaths of people#and often the intolerance becomes a legal issue when Christians and other religious majorities shove through laws based on EXCLUSIVELY their#religions and opinions and that doesnt mean religion should be dismantled it means we ahould tell religious folk who would know what#morality was if it fucked them up the ass to shut up and figure out what morality is outside of rekigion before they start legislating about#it and whatnot. also i wish extreme opinions werent ALL the news focused on exclusively on the political right#can we platform some NORMAL well adjusted christians who are god loving AND not a bunch of wingnuts#who are two steps away from arguing thou shall not kill only applies to people they LIKE because they dont seem to understand#maybe murder is bad when EVERYONE does it not just The Bad People??!?!
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friendrat · 1 year
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The fact that Abel believes humans and vampires are all God's children is such an interesting detail. Like Abel has enough guilt already, but the fact that he doesn't see vampires as soulless beings just seems like it would add additional layers of guilt to him.
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rotomicity · 7 months
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Something was in the water when i read tgcf the first time
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spaceshipkat · 8 months
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#have learned my little sister believes the moon landing was faked and cites a video on nasa’s website saying ‘they’ve lost the technology#to reach the moon’ or something. maybe the tech they used to reach the moon the first time? ok#idk*#anyway#also learned she knows a flat earther who cites the Bible as his source#bc the Bible says the moon is flat (im v rusty on my Bible bc i haven’t read it in full since i went through confirmation so maybe it does#and if it does feel free to point it out to me)#but anyway have they not ever thought about the fact the Bible was written before a round earth was discovered?#course their argument is that the Bible is the word of god but like#siiiiiigh#i don’t have patience for conspiracy theorists#oh another argument they used re the flat earth theory is a Malaysian flight going to France instead of India when a woman went into labor#and my mom and i instantly started pointing out how there’s SO many factors to take into account as to why they landed in one place over#another and it doesn’t mean bc on a flat earth France is closer to Malaysia#but the way conspiracy theorists approach conspiracies is always ‘i just think it’s fun to learn about!’#and then those conspiracy theories (which are always created by people who know how to manipulate people into believing lies)#end up convincing them bc of those good arguments built on complete nonsense#so the conspiracy doubter or conspiracy ‘just curious’ becomes a conspiracy theorist#it’s baffling how the most logical people can believe this bullshit#the Bible says the earth is flat* not the moon
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naggingatlas · 1 year
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i looove putting spark over songs about like heroes and saving the world (tom cardy's 'level clear', uncle outrage's 'saved the world' <- nice voice hc for him!. and 'my superhero movie'.) when he like. Did. Not : ) funney.
#sprksplrs#gaia talked about spark wanting to be desired yesterday and while i think he's too much of a Lone Wolf... for those kinds of wants to#even surface. at least in my interpretation of him. its hilarious to think abt him getting. just a tad insecure abt fark's status as#a real like. superhero basically. just for a second in the far back of his head. oh i want to be as cool as him. im not good enough#tho again in my characterization he only wants to do that to be able to love himself. i first got this thought when ruminating on#oh god. what kinda games he n fark like to play respectively? and said 'if he ever does pick up hardmode or a challenge level#he will only do that to one up himself and himself only.' he only proves stuff to himself. he only cares about himself.#and the things that do the most mental damage to him are all scenarios in which his self is attacked.#in which his agency is taken his independence. losing a job to someone something that copies him and does it better than him#something that even copies a really dear object to him thats been with him throughout the years - his jester hat#an attack on individuality. and then being merged into the sim. idk. the yaoi moments when he does work together w fark become even more#potent. this way? and. it contrasts really well with how selfless (at some point in his life very literally) fark is. and how confident in#his self. he turns out to be in the end. as micah said 'how he moves with so much more fluidity in his organic body#the body he created himself because he's no longer afraid of it being fake'. citing that as the bible but yea kinda.#i think spark grew up quite ostracized maybe even self-ostracized and really needs a distinction between himself and everyone else#to be better than everyone else. there is some personality disorder shit happening under that piss yellow scalp.#and he fucking loses it when the events around him hammer in that the facade he builds for mostly again himself is. yknow. untrue. fake.#idk thoughts. i love exploring the antisocial aspect in fictional personas with how shipshipship focused fandoms and 'analysis'#in them is it's not something i see all that much. seems like only people whove experienced it ever bring up that topic.#is it so uncomfortable for others? who knows. ramble over
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puppyeared · 2 years
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Why did my mom have to join bible study
#like. girl why… I’m not sure if I’m one to speak but whenever I’m in the room and she’s on the group call they sound like really culty…#before the whole bible study thing she didn’t really push any religious beliefs on us but#nowadays she’s listening to nothing but sermons on YouTube with the meditating pastors and like Christian rock. CHRISTIAN ROCK#Aand she purposely blasts it on her phone when me and gray are sitting at the table with her hoping it’ll knock something into us but. ugh#and I can’t really complain because she’ll be like oh but I’m just trying to let god into your life! I’m trying to save you from hell!! D^:#and then whenever she talks about being a good person nowadays it has to do with belief in god and#maybe this is just difference in opinion and I’m no expert but. I’m pretty sure you don’t need full dependence on god to be a decent#human being. she wasn’t like this before and it’s creepy and I don’t like it#I’m sure she was already a pretty good person before bible study without dragging god into everything but now she’s like convinced every#good thing she does is because of god. girl???#I don’t know. if you believe in a god I don’t have a problem with it but whatever this is.. it leaves a bad taste in my mouth#also I’m pretty sure it’s making her more homophobic I have no idea what they’re teaching her in bible study but she’s like#more likely to make homophobic comments with my dad. I hate it here#I legit panicked in the car last week bc they were talking about trans ppl in an unsavoury manner. I#maybe being a decent person and using your turn signal and giving your seat to old ladies on the bus is enough to keep you out of hell man#idk. I’m so exhausted I wish she could stop hanging out with them#vent#yapping#religion mention#religious mention#christianity tw#christianity mention#tw religious guilt#religious guilt#ask to tag#?
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gibbearish · 3 days
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ok i finished the first chapter and am gonna take a break now but im v excited to keep reading im really liking the way the author looks at things so far
#there are parts ive kinda disagreed with either what shes saying or how shes saying it but i mean given the whole point of the book i doubt#that the author would take offense at that and would in fact encourage it esp given that its a book and not a convo#like. i should hope i have some disagreements with just the introductory chapter‚ she hasnt had a chance to fully explain herself yet and#i feel like having a written record of my disagreement before potentially changing my mind is very much in the spirit of the ideas this book#is offering yknow#like at one point shes talking about religious perspectives on wrongness and says some scholars believe its abt like#our wrongness comes from eden‚ our lack of understanding of absolute right and wrong that god has#but its like. ok but the whole point with the garden of eden was that the lack of knowledge of right and wrong /was/ the extra knowledge#god had and we didnt that prevented us from sinning#eating of the tree and Gaining the knowledge of good and evil was what gave humans the ability to sin in the first place#because if we cant know something is wrong and choose to do it anyways then what is the sin?#its like how with animals we don't see them killing each other as wrong#because they dont have 'morals' like we do‚ they dont have a sense of right vs wrong so the things they do cant be classified that way#so idk if its like. thats just a difference in how my church taught us vs the scholars the author checked out#or just like. a misunderstanding in the story of eden?#i just dont get presenting eden as the example for 'we dont have the knowledge of right and wrong god does so thats what makes us able to#do wrong' when the whole thing with that story was like.#gaining the knowledge of right and wrong was what gave us that ability. like thats just backwards#(also disclaimer that i am not a christian and do not actually believe in these things‚ im just using the language as if i do here to kinda#speak from the perspective of my past self who /did/ believe it)#so im excited to find out if like. shes gonna expand further on that (next chapter is abt history so maybe) and ill be like#ohhhhh ok i see what that meant#or if ill be like 'hm yeah you just maybe had a misconception abt how the garden of eden story worked'#and like i can kinda see room for the first one already in that it said like 'we dont have gods /absolute/ knowledge of right and wrong'#so theyre saying like. we were given /some/ of the knowledge of good and evil‚ but that that in and of itself didnt /actually/ bring us up#to gods understanding of it#idk its been a while since i reread the bible‚ i do kinda remember there being a second tree? but i dont think it was like#'tree of full onniscience' i thought it was the tree of eternal life or smth#or maybe im just mixing up the bible and the narnia remix of it? i know there is a tree of eternal life in the magicians apprentice#origibberish
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gxlden-angels · 4 months
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do you have any thoughts on the story of abraham and isaac? my parents talk about it and praise abraham for being willing to kill his son which..... scares me to say the least, and i'd love to hear your perspective as someone who seems more well-adjusted
Where I am now, it disgusts me more than anything. The interpretation of "I'm willing to sacrifice your life if I was told to" feels like the step before "I put you into this world and I can take you out of it." It's entitlement to a child, who is an independent individual, just because they are dependent on you for survival. I prefer the interpretation of understanding the actions you're taking and the reasons why (like how there's multiple religions that don't eat pork because it was so unsafe to eat at the time), especially if it's at someone else's expense.
Where I was in the thick of it all, it gave me morbid comfort that scares me now. I had fantasies of being a martyr for the church and the idea of being the next Isaac was just so appealing. Being a hand-selected sacrifice chosen by the Good Lord Himself? Sign me the fuck up, babey!
I think if I admitted that to my family, they'd be horrified.
It's another one of those stories or beliefs where I think the majority of christians just regurgitate what they've heard. It's a point of pride and devotion, but there's no personal reflection or cross-cultural awareness of it. Lean not unto your own understanding and whatnot. It's the potential that scares me the most, like the Quiverfull movement with the Duggars or Turpins. I'm sure there's stories now, but I can't remember them off the top of my head
(Also I will be telling my therapist someone on Tumblr called me "more well-adjusted" thank you anon)
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yeslordmyking · 8 days
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Ephesians 4:22-23 — Today's Verse for Monday, April 22, 2024
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me: I dont even like christianity, cannot tolerate a single christian thought, imagery or sentence uttered in my vicinity,
my downloads folder rn:
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a-book-of-creatures · 14 days
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I think I stumbled upon some kind of ichthyological forbidden knowledge. Opened up a book of names that were never meant to be read.
You've probably heard of "can-opener smoothdream", right? It's practically a meme by now.
But the thing is, it's a deep-sea fish. And deep-sea fish have historically not had English names because nobody drops them into the conversation over a hot cuppa. Sure, there's generic stuff like hatchetfish and barreleye, but when you want to refer to the actual fish you're probably saying such euphonious phrases as Diretmus argenteus, Sternoptyx diaphana, or maybe even Opisthoproctus soleatus.
So whence "can-opener smoothdream"? Certainly no non-ichthyologist has ever used that name. It's not even a direct translation of the scientific name Chaenophryne longiceps - that would be "long-headed gape-toad". Which to me is even cooler than "can-opener smoothdream".
But I digress. The "dream" bit comes from the anglerfish family Oneirodidae, from oneiros, "dream", because those marvelous fishes look like they came out of a dream (Pietsch, 2009).
Note that Pietsch (2009), more or less the anglerfish bible, uses English names at the genus level only. So Chaenophryne is the smoothhead dreamers genus but no mention is made of "can-opener smoothdreams". So no luck there.
Wikipedia, root cause of a lot of misinformation, has this to say.
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"Longhead dreamer" is a far more accurate name. And in fact, despite Wikipedia prioritizing "can-opener smoothdream" (because it's funny?), the links listed use "longhead dreamer" and "smoothhead dreamer" as the name and "can-opener smoothdream" as an alternative.
So. Again. Where did "can-opener smoothdream" come from?
The answer, as it turns out, lies with McAllister (1990).
In the book A List of the Fishes of Canada, ichthyologist D. E. McAllister sought out to list every single fish known to Canadian waters, providing both an English and a French name.
And when there wasn't an English name, like for most deep-sea fishes, he arbitrarily gave them a name. And his names "differ in many instances from the widely accepted names" (Holm, 1998)
This had varying results. This is his name for one of the netdevil anglerfishes.
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The humpback anglerfish or blackdevil anglerfish becomes a werewolf (????).
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This one is just confusing.
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The white-spotted lanternfish or Rafinesque's lanternfish instead becomes...
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And most embarrassingly, the Mediterranean spiderfish gets saddled with something that "violates the tenet of good taste" (Holm, 1998).
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This then is the original source of "can-opener smoothdream". It was invented by an ichthyologist in 1990, and has seen little to no use outside of how bizarre the name is.
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Maybe McAllister's goofier names will catch on. Who knows? They certainly aren't very popular in the scientific community though.
References
Holm, E. (1998) Encyclopedia of Canadian Fishes (review). The Canadian Field-Naturalist, 112, p. 174-175.
McAllister, D. E. (1990) A List of the Fishes of Canada. National Museum of Natural Sciences, Ottawa.
Pietsch, T. W. (2009) Oceanic Anglerfishes: Extraordinary Diversity in the Deep Sea. University of California Press, Berkeley.
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maniculum · 7 months
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Medieval Scorpions Effortpost
So yesterday I reblogged this post featuring an 11th-century depiction of the Apocalypse Locusts from Revelations, noting the following incongruity as another medieval scorpion issue:
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The artist, as you can see, has interpreted "tails like scorpions" as meaning "glue cheerful-looking snakes to their butts".
Anyway, it occurred to me that the medieval scorpion thing might not be as widely known as I think it is, and that Tumblr would probably enjoy knowing about it if it isn't known already. So, finding myself unable to focus on the research I'm supposed to be doing, I decided to write about this instead. I'll just go ahead and put a cut here.
As we can see in the image above, at least one artist out there thought a "scorpion" was a type of snake. Which makes it difficult to draw "tails like scorpions", because a snake's tail is not that distinctive or menacing (maybe rattlesnakes, but they don't have those outside the Americas). So they interpreted "tails like scorpions" as "the tail looks like a whole snake complete with head".
Let me tell you. This is not a problem unique to this illustration.
See, people throughout medieval Europe were aware of scorpions. As just alluded to, they are mentioned in the Bible, and if the people producing manuscripts in medieval Europe knew one thing, it was Stuff In Bible. They're also in the Zodiac, which medieval Europe had inherited through classical sources. However, let's take a look at this map:
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That's Wikipedia's map of the native range of the Scorpiones order, i.e., all scorpion species. You may notice something -- the range just stops at a certain northern latitude. Pretty much all of northern Europe is scorpion-free. If you lived in the north half of Europe, odds were good you had never seen a scorpion in your life. But if you were literate or educated at all, or you knew they were a thing, because you'd almost certainly run across them being mentioned in texts from farther south. And those texts wouldn't bother to explain what a scorpion was, of course -- everyone knows scorpions, right? When was the last time you stopped to explain What Is Spiders?
So medieval writers and artists in northern Europe were kind of stuck. There was all this scorpion imagery and metaphor in the texts they liked to work from, but they didn't really know what a scorpion was. Writers could kind of work around it (there's a lot of "oh, it's a venomous creature, moving on"), but sometimes they felt the need to break it down better. For this, of course, they'd have to refer to a bestiary -- but due to Bestiary Telephone and the persistent need of bestiary authors to turn animals into allegories, one of the only visual details you got on scorpions was that they... had a beautiful face, which they used to distract people in order to sting them.
And look. I'm not here to yuck anyone's yum, but I would say that a scorpion's face has significant aesthetic appeal only for a fairly small segment of the population. I'm sure you could get an entomologist to rhapsodize about it a bit, but your average person on the street will not be entranced by the face of a scorpion. So this did not help the medieval Europeans in figuring out how to depict scorpions. There was also some semantic confusion -- see, in some languages (such as Old and Middle English), "worm" could be a general term for very small animals of any kind. But it also could mean "serpent".* So there were some, like our artist at the top of the post, who were pretty sure a scorpion was a snake. This was probably helped along by the fact that "venomous" was one of the only things everyone knew about them, and hey, snakes are venomous. Also, Pliny the Elder had floated the idea that there were scorpions in Africa that could fly, and at least one author (13th-century monk Bartholomaeus Anglicus) therefore suggested that they had feathers. I don't see that last one coming up much, I just share it because it's funny to me.
*English eventually resolved this by borrowing the Latin vermin for very small animals, using the specialized spelling wyrm for big impressive mythical-type serpents, and sticking with the more specific snake for normal serpents.
Some authors, like the anonymous author of the Ancrene Wisse, therefore suggested that a scorpion was a snake with a woman's face and a stinging tail. (Everyone seemed to be on the same page with regards to the fact that the sting was in the tail, which is in fact probably the most recognizable aspect of scorpions, so good job there.) However, while authors could avoid this problem, visual artists could not. And if you were illustrating a bestiary or a calendar, including a scorpion was not optional. So they had to take a shot at what this thing looked like.
And so, after this way-too-long explanation, the thing you're probably here for: inaccurate medieval drawings of scorpions. (There are of course accurate medieval drawings of scorpions, from artists who lived in the southern part of Europe and/or visited places where scorpions lived; I'm just not showing you those.) And if you find yourself wondering, "how sure are you that that's meant to be a scorpion?" -- all of these are either from bestiaries or from calendars that include zodiac illustrations.
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11th-century England, MS Arundel 60. (Be honest, without the rest of this post, if I had asked you to guess what animal this was supposed to be, would you have ever guessed “scorpion”?)
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12th-century Germany, "Psalter of Henry the Lion". (Looks a bit undercooked. Kind of fetal.)
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12th-century France, Peter Lombard's Sententiae. (Very colorful, itsy bitsy claws, what is happening with that tail?)
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12th-century England, "The Shaftesbury Psalter". (So a scorpion is some sort of wyvern with a face like a duck, correct?)
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13th-century France, Thomas de Cantimpré's Liber de natura rerum. (I’d give them credit for the silhouette not being that far off, but there’s a certain bestiary style where all the animals kind of look like that. Also note how few of these have claws.)
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13th-century England, "The Bodley Bestiary". (Mischievous flying squirrel impales local man’s hand, local man fails to notice.)
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13th-century England, Harley MS 3244. (A scorpion is definitely either a mouse or a fish. Either way it has six legs.)
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13th-century England, Harley MS 3244. (Wait, no, it’s a baby theropod, and it has two legs. (Yes, this is the same manuscript, that’s not an error, this artist did four scorpions and no two are the same.))
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13th-century England, Harley MS 3244. (Actually it’s a lizard with tiny ears and it has four legs.)
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13th-century England, Harley MS 3244. (Now that we’re at the big fancy illustration, I think I’ve got it — it’s like that last one, but two legs, longer ears, and a less goofy face. Also I’ve decided it’s not pink anymore, I think that was the main problem.)
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13th-century England, MS Kk.4.25. (A scorpion is a flat crocodile with a bear’s head.)
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13th-century England, "The Huth Psalter". (Wyvern but baby! Does not seem to be enjoying biting its own tail.)
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13th-century England, MS Royal 1 D X. (This triangular-headed gentlecreature gets the award for “closest guess at correct limb configuration”. If two of those were claws, I might actually believe this artist had seen a scorpion before, or at least a picture of one.)
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13th-century England, "The Westminster Psalter". (A scorpion is the offspring of a wyvern and a fawn.)
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13th-century England, "The Rutland Psalter". (Too many legs! Pull back! Pull back!)
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13th or 14th-century France, Bestiaire d'amour rimé. (This is very similar to the fawn-wyvern, but putting it in an actual Scene makes it even more obvious that you’re just guessing.)
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14th-century Netherlands, Jacob van Maerlant's Der Naturen Bloeme. (More top-down six-legged guys that look too furry to be arthropods.)
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14th-century Germany, MS Additional 22413. (That is clearly a turtle.)
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14th-century France, Matfres Eymengau de Beziers's Breviari d'amor. (Who came up with that head shape and what was their deal?)
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15th-century England, "Bestiary of Ann Walsh". (Screw it, a scorpion is a big lizard that glares at you for trying to make me draw things I don’t know about.)
I've spent way too much time on this now. End of post, thank you to anyone who got all the way down here.
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