brekittenreblogs

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Here’s a codex for the ancient ghost language used in A GLITCH IN TIME!

Not necessary for understanding the story, but could make for a fun re-read. 👁️🔎

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hey folks if you have an android phone: google shadow installed a "security app".

I had to go and delete it myself this morning.

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Apparently today is National Internet Friends Day! So happy there's a day to acknowledge the love and gratitude you have for the friends in your phone and across the world 💜💞

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Every time I hear a defence for generative AI in fanfiction it's always about "fixing" problems that fandom has always already covered.

"I need it for writing prompts." Fandom already gives out writing prompts. You can go to places that list them, or you can straight up ask for them.

"I need it for bouncing ideas off of." That's what fandom friends and betas are for.

"I need it to help with writers block." Explore fandom, leave feedback on other people's stuff, talk to your community, you'll break out of your slump.

"I just like it for back and forth writing exercises." You can do that with fellow writers! Just ask people. You'll get so much more out of it with a real person.

"I need help with writing other languages." That's what translator betas are for. Message people in your fandom who speak the language and ask for help, there's a good chance they'll lend aid. Or make a post here, check Reddit, whatever, just explore and reach out!

All your writing problems have better solutions in fandom. That's why us olds are constantly yelling about fostering community because y'all need it. You're literally turning to fucking generative AI instead of eachother. Talk to people! Ask for help! Offer help! Enjoy fandom! Make friends! Learn a skill!

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As a writer, I can guarantee we don't know what we want half of the time.

Some days we want people to obsess unhealthily and make fan art of our characters and make Pinterest pins on quotes and create those fake twitter posts and then at the same time I would rather burn my house down before showing anyone my work.

Who created such a mentally damaging hobby and can they give me my sanity back???

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Y’ALL THERE’S A CHOCOLATE GUY IN CHINA TOO

His name is Kris Zhaokai (kris_zhaokai on Xiaohongshu/Red Note) and his creations are incredible

Imagine what he and Amaury Guichon could create together terrifying

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I love my blorbo so much I need him covered in blood and beaten within an inch of his life

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*emerges from the other room covered in blood* you should see the word document

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Ohhh help help! I'm hurt need help...

FUCK BRIAN GET LOST...

Ohhhh I am hurttttt heeelp... 🐦

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They Have AO3?!?

So apparently AO3 is cannonical to the DC universe, in which it is called Tales of our own or TO3!

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me: yeah I'm pretty close to finishing this fic

the fic:

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ok, because i just saw a terrible take, i feel compelled to say that there is no "fic market" to "oversaturate" in fandom. good gravy.

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Have you seen this post?

You probably have. It currently has over 120,000 notes, largely because of this addition.

Of course it's going to get reblogged, this kind of unsourced factoid does numbers on here. But something about it wasn't quite right.

A bit of searching turned up the origin of the "fact".

Alright, so it's someone who posted this on reddit 4 years ago and somehow ended up in the search hits. And the post confuses the electric eel (from South America) with the electric catfish (from the Nile, which the Egyptians would have known about).

Reminder: this is an electric eel (Electrophorus electricus). It is from South America. (image from Wikipedia)

And this is an electric catfish (Malapterurus electricus). It is from the Nile and would have been familiar to the ancient Egyptians. (image from Wikipedia)

And then of course people were speculating in the notes to that post about trade routes between South America and Egypt. Excellent scholarship everyone.

At this point I was ready to call it another made-up internet fact that gets reified by people repeating it. But something was still bothering me.

An ancient Egyptian slab from 3100 BC. What could that be...

Oh.

The Narmer palette. It's the goddamn Narmer palette. (image, once again, from Wikipedia)

So where is this "angry catfish"?

It's not the Egyptian name for the electric catfish.

It's... Narmer. It's Narmer himself.

Narmer's name is written as above (detail of top middle of the palette), using the catfish (n`r) and the chisel (mr), giving N'r-mr. The chisel is associated with pain, so this reads as "painful catfish", "striking catfish", or, yes, "angry catfish" or other similar variants, although some authors have suggested that it means "Beloved of [the catfish god] Nar".

So.

Where does this leave us?

It would appear that this redditor not only confused electric eels with electric catfish, but also confused a Pharaoh's name with the name of a fish. And then it got pushed to the top search hits by a crappy search engine and shared uncritically on tumblr.

In short, "the electric eel is called angry catfish" factoid actually literacy error. Angry Catfish, who ruled upper Egypt and smote his enemies, is an outlier adn should not have been counted.

Also the Arabic name for the electric catfish is raad (thunder) or raada (thunderer).

References

Afsaruddin, A., & Zahniser, A. H. M. (1997). Humanism, culture, and language in the Near East: studies in honor of Georg Krotkoff. Eisenbrauns.

Clayton, P. A. (2001). Chronicle of the Pharaohs. Thames & Hudson.

Godron, G. (1949). A propos du nom royal. Annales du Service des antiquités de l'Egypte, 49, 217-221.

Sperveslage, G., & Heagy, T. C. (2023). A tail's tale: Narmer, the catfish, and bovine symbolism. The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 109(1), 3-319.

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monks debating whether vows of silence should still allow you to leave emoji reacts on the monastery groupchat

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Clock App Shenanigans

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Danny has developed a neat new power after a tussle with Ghostwriter! And by neat I mean horrible.

Nobody can lie around him, including himself.

They become physically incapable of it.

Sam thinks his range is around 250ft. He can't turn it off. It's just a side-effect of his existence now.

In other news there has been fifty-seven divorces in Amity, thirty-one elopements, and seventy-six arrests for tax evasion.