#bastardised science

[serenaew]

… in anticipation that at least one of yall ships it:

we really need a Dronarry (Harry/Draco/Ron) Big Bang called...

The Large Hadron Collider

:badum-tsss:

Thank you to @showyourself80 for the idea!

[ayeforscotland]

Ah wait, I've got something for you in relation to white American fetishisation of Scotland and other European countries (because unfortunately it's not just Scottland, it's everyone.)

(And this is just an opinion, I have no science to back this up. That must be stated first and foremost.)

To achieve American Whiteness ment that many Europeans immigrating to the states had to shed their cultures in order to be accepted by Anglo European decendents. If you weren't the 'right' type of white then you weren't good enough and were often pushed out.

As such, these people, too, were forced to shed their cultural identity in order to make a living here.

Now, these diverse cultures are celebrated (to a point.) There's celebrations that come from these iterations of faith, foods and dress that come from these homelands, but they're strange derivatives of themselves. Xerox of a xerox of a xerox, made only by a cultural machine that doesn't really understand or want you, but loves the aesthetic of some small component of you, so it takes that, all while simultaneously craving it could be more.

And so NOW that it is no longer 'bad' to be decended from these places, NOW people try to claw their way back, like they're attempting to undo the damage the previous generations did to themselves in order to fit into White American Society, but they have no idea how and so it becomes a crass and ugly thing, often monetized by the same origional Anglo European sphere of influence that put them in this predicament anyway, and then further pits them against NEW people trying to make it here in the states.

(And to that last point, I have to recommend reading an amazing comic in the Nib by Dawson, Why Did They Come, in order to touch on how fucked up that whole thing is (not that we don't already know.) https://thenib.com/why-did-they-come/

But yeah... to summarize- immigrants now seen as acceptably white in the states originally WASN'T and so these people bleached themselves culturally to achieve the Anglo vibe, and now generations later, their decendents cling to fabrications of a culture they were denied in the most grotesque ways imaginable because they know nothing else.

It's like white bread trying to reintroduce culture to itself to become whole wheat again, only to end up giving itself mold.

Some great points there, particularly around the bastardisation of forgotten traditions etc.

I'd be keen to see some evidence of Scottish immigrants to the US being perceived the same way as, for example, Irish or Italian immigrants who eventually became accepted into 'American Whiteness'. Also while many Scottish immigrants who moved to America were poorer, I've never heard of them facing the same challenges as other European immigrants who were perceived as non-white. I expect a large part of that was being part of the British Empire. There was also a disproportionate number of Scots were plantation owners who owned slaves in the south. And while some historians dispute it's origins, I think it's mostly accepted the KKK was founded by descendants of Scottish immigrants , or at the very least, founded by people who drew heavily on that aesthetic. So even if modern Americans who fetishise Scotland are saying they can finally start celebrating their "native homeland's" traditions again - I think there's an element of 'wanting to be seen as victims with a rich history' about it.

[the-weakest-twink]

I kinda hate the trend you see is left wing social science where writers straight up misrepresent ideas/theories to justify them getting to be the one to invent a new concept.

The 5,000 proposed replacements for Intersectional Feminism is a prime example. Basically all of them erase Crenshaw's actual work in favour of the liberal bastardisation of the concept, cause thats easier to reject.

"Intersectionality is wrong, we need to think of oppression as ~Intertwining™~ because thinking of these as separate systems that simply intersect erases the experience of those who exist at those intersections". Wow, what a revolutionary idea that definitely wasn't a core component of the paper proposing the concept in 1989

[transmutationisms]

hiya idk if you're doing asks on this but i like what i have seen of your thoughts and would love to hear them on this subject:

Karl Popper seemed to be right about falsification theory when I read about it 7 years ago, but I've become a Marxist since then and haven't seen his accusations discussed, i.e. that dialectics shouldn't be called a science and that Marx's theories were (all?) unfalsifiable.

Do you know anything abt this? I don't really know enough abt Popper or Marx to think it through properly myself. Thanks in advance

popper actually did not think that marx's own theories were unfalsifiable; indeed, he thought that certain historical cases falsified them, and that marxists who 'refused to accept that marx was proven wrong' were therefore bastardising marx's incorrect but scientific theories into a non-scientific political dogma. fortunately though, popper was a deeply unserious liberal whose opinion we don't have to care about and his notion of falsifiability continues to be roundly criticised and never provided a suitable solution to the 'demarcation problem' anyway.

[troonwolf]

How can you tell someone is one of these white middle class people you speak of? What should i watch out for

I feel like this is sarcasm and I can't remember who I was calling white middle class people + tried looking through my blog but it's too far back or in between memes for my impatient ass to find.

With that said I'm pretty sure you're talking about my criticism on endogenics because I've called them that a few times.

Obviously not everyone in a group is gonna be white and middle class even if the majority are, but as someone who used to be in endogenic spaces I noticed a few things

Grand majority of them are white Americans

Grand majority are from middle class backgrounds

Grand majority come from fundamentalist religious (Christian) backgrounds and have religious trauma in connection to it but they outright refuse to consider how that may impact their perspective and beliefs today.

Now as someone who is no longer in the community but still observes for critical reasons, things are genuinely not that much different today. Where do you think this whole weird approach to mental illness even comes from, my man? Christianity. Unironically it's from white Western fundie culture.

Fundies hate mentally ill people. In fundie circles you're taught either to approach mentally ill people like they're special and somehow blessed, or that they're fucking possessed by demons. This is an attitude that persists very strongly in Western fundie circles. They don't trust psychology, they think it's all a scam. If they think there's something demonic about being mentally ill, they will perform exorcisms and many people over the decades have died due to abuse during exorcisms and other "cleansing rituals."

The "positive" outlook of mental illness isn't much better. You're still denied treatment, and now you have the burden of being a weird Christ-like figure to your family and neighbours, essentially suffering for "the glory of God" because they think your psychotic audio hallucinations are actual angels.

Many endogenics leave environments where this ^ is the norm, and though they have enough critical thinking and self-awareness to recognise that religious brainwashing for what it is, they don't realise or care that they're falling into the same trap as before, except with liberal-friendly language.

They don't want to approach mental health symptoms as if they're mental health symptoms because they're taught that's scary, bad, that it makes them broken, that the trauma and illness "taints" their system. These are things you can easily find endogenics saying for why they refuse trauma labels. It's not because there's any logical reason to refuse those trauma labels, it's because something inside them is averse to it. Scared of it. Because that's what they were taught. That mental illness is scary and makes you broken.

And so you end up with thinking like this: (all yanked from sysmedsaresexist)

All this ^^^^ Is about spirituality. It's about faith. it's about ideology. Even the stuff that isn't explicitly about faith, is still about faith, because that's how they approach it. It's not about data, or what's healthier, or even what's probable, it's not even about having a good internal reason for yourself WHY you resist trauma labels. It's about what makes them feel the best. Because that's how fundie religious backgrounds teach you how to reason- with belief, and faith, not with grounded reasoning backed up by data.

Asides from that, there's also the very middle class white person thing of appropriating other cultures and bastardising them for your unhealthy anti-science belief system. A lot of the time when I vaguely make fun of white endogenics it's because of that.

[kiasnocturnality]

llucien... Putting his head on my lap.... As I stroke his hair..... Aand give him praises for his hard work..... And mayb some kisses..... The last ask with him got me going all mushy...

You'll be able to feel the warmth of his breath as it puffs out against your thighs and he has this distant little smile on his lips as you praise him and comb your fingers through his fluffy hair. He might get all pouty and grouchy if you deny him coffee or an energy drink, insisting that he needs to sleep, but he won't deny the comfort of having his head in your lap.

He'll tell you all about his latest experiment, new discoveries about heavenly matter and its ability to create life from scratch, hellish matter and how it can bastardise the cycle of life in order to restore it, how all of this science - so advanced that it sounds like magic - all works. He'll tell you how he wishes he had known more when he administered his unfinished work to himself, how he could have granted himself immortality without having to pay the price of being able to think about little more than how sweet you smell with his nose pressed to your skin like this after so many days of eating as though he were still just a normal man.

He'll just settle for the sweetness of your lips in the meantime until he can rest for a while and then get up to really eat something.

[subtheory]

I have a Goodreads account in which I write reviews of the stuff I read. You can find it here. I will follow all of you back, if you choose to follow me. I need some new inspiration!

Below you will find my two cents on Xenofeminism: A Politics of Alienation by the working group Laboria Cuboniks.

"Xenofeminism: A Politics for Alienation, while never explicitly a manifesto, has consistently been described as one. This description puts certain expectations of genre and style upon the work, which might mire its reception when it does not fulfil them.

This work, however, is a breath of fresh air into a stale theoretical environment content with sloganeering and momentary action. It is predominantly a project of salvaging: salvaging seemingly tainted and impure concepts—such as alienation, reasoning, and the universal—which in the literature have been closely tied to their origins in the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. The repression of these concepts comes from a bastardised analytical relationship with history in which past events are regarded as blueprints for assessing future events. In moderation this practice should be encouraged, but when performed in the excessive manner that it is, it leads to the foreclosure of the new in general and a refusal to re-work old concepts to fit better aims specifically.

The work argues for a politics rooted in alienation. This alienation, however, is not the one characterised by Marx but, rather, the human's alienation from any notion of authentic nature. As Laboria Cuboniks points out, this is not a recent invention of capitalism but a rift that has been gradually opened up alongside the proliferation of reasoning. Humans were reasonable, and thus alienated, long before modernity and capitalism came to be. A politics aware of this alienation allows for interventions into a given and theological nature, which has been used to justify various horrors, e.g., the confinement of women's bodies. Such interventions may be major, initiated by humanity at large, or may be minor such as the feminist makeshift technologies concocted in times of prohibition of abortion (analysed in Helen Hester's book on Xenofeminism).

By drawing on Sellars and Brandom, Laboria Cuboniks tries to dethrone "Reason" to emphasise reasoning in its stead. That is, they abandon the old way of "Reason", as a faculty in the minds of white men, and open up for the practice of reasoning as a social enterprise, a messy and entangled doing, which entails participation of multiple agents within a diverse field of communities. This would entail silenced and oppressed groups as well. As they write: "There is no ‘feminine’ rationality, nor is there a ‘masculine’ one. Science is not an expression but a suspension of gender. If today it is dominated by masculine egos, then it is at odds with itself–and this contradiction can be leveraged." One of the tasks ahead is to forge a conception of a minor reasoning encompassing difference.

The same task awaits that of the universal. The universal should not be constituted politically by ascribing one principle indiscriminatorily to a diverse fields of phenomena. Instead, it should entail a gradual and piecemeal transformation from below. No universal is truly universal. It is always a patchwork capable of being reworked one place at a time. But this reworking must strive to be all-encompassing.

Why this need to salvage such concepts? Because the left today is impotent to foster any sustained change. It is satisfied with local and small-scale interventions which have no truck with large-scale abstractions. What Laboria Cuboniks argue for is a displacement of strategy: the left should not turn its back to the universal itself, and thus to complete social transformation, but rather switch to a different account of the universal, one which is intersectional and piecemeal.

I find a lot of value in the moves this work makes. However, I wonder whether Laboria Cuboniks may themselves usher in a new sort of theology: this time, one pertaining to technology. As is the case with transhumanism, for example, technology itself may be theologised. Laboria Cuboniks is not crossing this boundary but I do believe a broader view of technology might remove any remaining tinge of doubt. In Theory, for example, well-known technology is being diffused through Foucault's technologies of self, as voluntary and transformative practices, and Heidegger's question regarding technology, in which technology becomes a tool to diagnose a present. Xenofeminists henceforth should draw on other references than the two mentioned. This could come about, for instance, through a more detailed elaboration of Firestone's concept of technology.

All in all, this work is necessary. I hope a time may arrive in which it will be more widely accepted. However, this would require its current adherents to expand upon xenofeminism, something we have yet to see done outside of Laboria Cuboniks."

[yellowthefloof]

“Look how they bastardised you my beautiful passion “

I say waching capitalism diminish science from the joy of descovery down to a soaless quest for the next thing to sell .

Science is art .

Let it be joyfull .

[panthera-tigris-venenata]

The science presentations really be like:

I'm fairly certain what does that word mean. I'm not certain if it's bastardised latin, greek, English, German or whatever else.

[dotshiiki]

The Evolution of Hydras

Ahh so this is gonna be kind of weird because Rhodes airport doesn’t have wifi and my data plan doesn’t charge me extra for my phone use but it won’t let me hotspot overseas so I’m gonna try actually posting fic on tumblr mobile. Well, I have 90 minutes to wait til boarding anyway.

So this is for the final day of @percyjacksonweek2k17 -- free day! And I’m continuing from yesterday’s fic. I’m actually curious to know if Paul’s ‘method’ (okay, really mine) works, or if I’m just barking up the wrong tree with it. So, uh, let me know? :D

Summary. Paul devises a novel way to help Percy with school stuff. | Paul, Percy genfic | 1170 words

The problem with science textbooks, Paul thought, was that they insisted on presenting information in the driest way possible. Would it really kill the authors to inject at least some semblance of a narrative into the bare facts they attempted to shove down your throat?

Charles Tetley had been confused when Paul had asked to borrow a copy of the biology text he assigned his twelfth-graders, but he’d handed it over readily enough. Paul reread the notes he’d made on the chapter, double-checking them against the relevant paragraphs. Given the problems Percy was already having with the subject, it probably wouldn’t make things too much worse if Paul messed up a few points, but it’d be much better if his analogies were accurate.

The fire drill during second period had been quite the godsend. Not for Paul–he didn’t exactly appreciate the disruption to his class–but Percy had Biology second period. Which meant his test now had to be postponed to the following week.

It gave Paul a chance to see his idea could help.

He spent his free periods and lunch break sketching. It had been years since he’d put together a comic (it was a hobby he hadn’t indulged in since college) and it was quickly and clumsily drawn, but he thought it got the point across well enough.

Paul only hoped Percy would think so, too.

He caught up with his stepson that afternoon right after the last bell went. Percy was among the throng of seniors on their way out of the building when Paul tapped his shoulder.

‘Oh hey, P–er, Mr Blofis.’

‘Mind if I have a quick work?’

‘Er, yeah, sure.’

'So, the fire drill today–’

Percy held up his hands immediately. 'I swear, that wasn’t me.’

'No, no, that wasn’t what I–’ Paul sighed. The poor kid–he really was accustomed to getting blamed for anything out of the ordinary. 'I just meant to say, I guess your Bio test didn’t happen?’

Percy ran a hand through his hair. 'Yeah, it’s next week now. Got a stay of execution.’ His mouth twisted wryly. 'Too bad Annabeth went to Frisco this week. I could’ve used her help figuring out that evolution shit.’

'About that …’ Paul held out his amateur comic.

'What’s this?’ Percy scanned the sketches first with bewilderment and then a glimmer of understanding. 'Hydra evolution?’

'Let me know if it helps.’ Paul patted Percy’s shoulder again and headed back to his office. He smiled when he turned back at the end of the corridor and saw Percy studying the comic as he left the school.

OoOoO

Everyone knows hydras have multiple heads. But they didn’t always look that way.

When Poseidon made the first hydra from a magic green gem, it was a pretty normal dragon. Okay, yeah, normal’s relative. But you know–breathes fire, spits poison … hey, it’s a dragon, what do you expect? But one body, one head. Cut if off and it’s dead, game over.

But what fun is that, right?

Athena decided to 'improve’ the design a little. She used her magic grey gems and came up with multi-headed hydras. Maybe she watched too much baseball, because she went with the three-strike policy: strike one, there’s still a second head. Strike two, there’s still the third. Strike three, sorry hydra, you’re out.

So Poseidon had his green, single-headed hydras and Athena had her grey, three-headed ones, and they didn’t really mix until one day, a Poseidon hydra and an Athena hydra had a big adventure involving a daring escape from a demigod hero, a lot of flames, saving each other from certain death, and–okay, the details aren’t important. The point is, they fell in love.

And had lots of little hydra babies … who all had only one head apiece.

Poseidon was pretty insufferable about that, since he was sure it must mean his hydras were better than hers. But he stopped boasting pretty quick when the grandkids came along and out of nowhere, a pair of single-headed green hydras popped out a grey, three-headed baby.

See, the thing is, hydras mix their gems when they mate. And when you mix green and grey, all you really see is green. But it doesn’t mean the grey isn’t there. It’s still hiding under the surface, passed along down generations until one baby gets two grey gems. Without the green to overshadow it, the greys work their magic, and poof: three heads.

So the hydra population grew along merrily, eating heroes whenever they came along. For years, their numbers didn’t change much–Poseidon’s hydras seemed to be more numerous, since the mixed-gem kids always came out green and one-headed. But Athena kept saying, wait and see.

Then the heroes got bigger and badder and started carrying sharp bronze weapons. They got better at killing hydras.’

And Poseidon’s hydras got hit the worst. I mean, one good slice was all you really needed to take them out.

Athena’s hydras made it lots further, with their multiple heads. If they lost one, the others could still attack the hero. Their chances of survival were loads better.

So as time went on, the heroes killed more one-headed hydras than they did three-headed ones. After a while, the green gems that gave the hydras their single heads began to disappear.

Finally, only Athena’s grey gems were left–which now kept producing three-headed hydras, unshadowed by the green gems that kept the multiple heads from developing. And today, demigod heroes must contend with all hydras having too many heads to fight.

OoOoO

Percy was sitting at the kitchen table when Paul got home that evening. He had the hydra comic in front of him, as well as his biology textbook.

'I don’t know what my dad and Annabeth’s mom would think of the story,’ he said, 'but this finally makes sense.’ He jabbed a finger at the biology text.

Paul hoped he hadn’t inadvertently incurred the wrath of two Greek gods. He hadn’t really thought about that when he was sketching his Darwinian analogy. Maybe they’d forgive him; he was only trying to help their kids out, after all.

Percy pointed to a few highlighted passages in his textbook, cross-referenced against Paul’s comic panels. 'The gems are genes. And the heroes are selection pressures, right?’

Paul beamed. 'Right.’

'This is brilliant!’ Percy said. 'Do you think you could do this for, like, history and chem and–’

'Whoa.’ Paul held up his hands. 'I’m not that great an artist.’ Not to mention he’d have his work cut out for him trying to figure out all those subjects. But then, this was what it meant to be a teacher, wasn’t it?

No, scratch that. This was what it meant to be a dad.

'We can talk about it,’ he said.

A wide grin spread across Percy’s face. 'There’s one thing you should know though.’

'What’s that?’

'You do know hydras regenerate heads, right?’ Paul laughed. 'Well, maybe you can give me a crash course on monster physiology in return.

A/N: If I had any drawing skill at all I would totally do that comic. As it is, even my stick figures are pathetic, so a written version is all you’ll get.

Disclaimer–I know nothing about the US school system save what I’ve seen in popular media. My sincere apologies for an inaccuracies and I am open to any corrections anyone would suggest I make!

[belligerentbagel]

hhhhhh. there's . a . lot. going on here (this is a joke rant. mostly)

The foot, bizarrely, appears to be anatomically accurate — correct number of phalanges, metatarsals, and tarsals.

I'm not going to fucking talk about the articulations at all because my brain's going to melt. The monster who designed this is on a level beyond Victor Frankenstein. They've never seen a ligament or joint cavity before. They're slapping together bones with the confidence of a British paleontologist. This is the Magdeburg Unicorn of household objects, but you're not going to receive a Snopes dot com article for acquiring this creation held together with magical bone gunge and hubris.

Ramrod-straight spine, for some reason. You got the tarsal count down, but couldn't be arsed to put a bit of curve into the vertebral column? We're going to generously approximate this as a section for lumbar curvature, which would have made a lovely aesthetic handle/grabbing point, but. nah. you saw the structural need for "vertical section connecting a base to an arm" and thought "spine," but failed to consider the other features of the organ. Fucking put even a rib-clavicle-scapula combo in there, which would have given a much nicer transition into the —

Horizontal long bone glued to the superior aspect of the spine, with vertebral spinous processes growing out of it like a machine-generated bastardisation. I s2g the manufacture process for this had to be 1) enter "bone sewing machine" into midjourney. 2) Take the first design it spits out. 3) Uncritically fabricate the design, without making edits to consider how things could articulate with & fit neatly into each other. As ever, the enemy of science is capitalism.

Horizontal long bone gets a second bullet point, because there is so much happening. The long bone would have been perfect as the vertical aspect, because tada your foot already has two lower leg bones naturally articulating with it; AND the spine would have been great for for the "machine arm" because you can slap the thread spools onto the spinous processes! BUT NO. You're gluing an unidentifiable long bone with blurry nonspecific landmarks to 1) the top of a spine (hooooo. I'm breathing out. I'm not going to engage with this again) and 2) the side of a skull (THE SIDE?? WHERE THE EAR GO??).

The skull. Jesus Jod and Jary I don't have the blood left for this. The distal??? end of the long bone is rammed into the side of the skull because heaven is empty and nobody was left to think logically about how to attach a long bone to a skull (spoiler! this DOES NOT WORK. the skull forms a joint with the vertebral column, but -oh, shucks - this spine already got co-opted into attaching to the foot). 

I appreciate the spidering "cracks" from where the long bone meets the skull, as a nod to the agony of constructing this agglomeration — I guess cracks? because they sure as HELL aren't getting the skull sutures right. TWO sagittal sutures that are bogglingly straight & parallel like a headband, with none of the pleasant squiggles of a genuine suture (you should also only have ONE sagittal suture) and a random suture over the right eye? why???? WHAT bony plates are fusing here after the trauma of 1) birth and 2) viewing this aberration

Now, this is different- a skeleton sewing machine for your goth or Halloween decor.

[timothyeatscandlesinthenight]

nuclear pasta but more like lasagna because i can't think

HELLO don't quote me on this because, to be crude, i am pulling this out of my ass. i am not fact checking.

i will not be spelling. it is late at night and rainign and i want to talk about astrophysics but really simple because my brain is Aching. please correct me if i mess something up, this is from memory and i have no sources (or *sauces* ahahaha)(i'm in pain.)

ok so nuclear pasta is a type of degenerate matter (a lot of pressure), and it is theorised to exist within the crusts of neutron stars (collapsed cores of supergiant stars, so when a real big star doesnt become a black hole). if it exists, it would be the strongest material in the universe - about 10 billion times the strength of steel. it's so dense that a teaspoon of it would weigh 10 million tons.

pls note neutron stars are really dense, and only like uhh 20km across (??) - i saw an analogy that essentially (again i am bastardising this) said it was like a family home that had the same mass as pluto >???//?/

it’s named nuclear pasta as the geometry of its structures resembles pasta. to my knowledge the phases have differing names but judging off image attached, you got the gnocchi phase, the spaghetti phase, the lasagne phase, etc etc and the Swiss cheese phase. LUMPS OF PASTA CAN AMKE “MOUNTAINS” A FEW CM HIGH BUT THEY’RE STILL MAAAANY TIMES THE MASS OF THE HIMALAYAS

this makes zero sense and is probably very wrong. i encourage people who have had more sleep (and have more information on the subject than what i have gained from my limited research) than me

[gingerbreadmonsters]

the library of lamentation: study session 01

or: curses and hexes is a really hard class, isn't it? luckily, satan has some recommendations.

ginger's headcanons about magic, humans, demons, and demon-human magic in 2400 words or less. this is a long one! one non-specific mention of alcohol and medicines, but that's about it. horrible bastardisations of actual science and terrible demon puns ahead - reader discretion is advised.

On the Oni-gin of Species: Demon Biology for Beginners

(scientists dni, i took gcse triple science a long time ago and you will probably cry, i can only apologise)

i imagine demons to be, on average, a little bit bigger than humans

their proportions are still the same and everything, they’re just like…… if you hit 1.25x on humans, that’s about how big i think they’d be

i.e. if you’re already quite short, i can only apologise for the inconvenience when it comes to things like steep stairs and high shelves

if you’re quite tall, you’re actually at an advantage here, because you’re probably within the rough height boundaries (albeit maybe on the lower end) that demon stuff is made for

apologies wing kink enthusiasts but i would guess that horns, wings, tails etc are probably not specific erogenous zones

it would be pretty impractical for something like horns, which are designed for fighting, to evolve to be really sensitive - using them to fight would be really painful if there were loads of nerves involved

that’s not to say that body parts like tails or wings are totally insensitive or anything - they’re just extra limbs, and there are definitely some ways of touching them that feel better than others - take that as you will

however, i do think that some demonic markings are especially sensitive, but this is really a case-by-case basis

markings that are naturally there (like that blue-green colouration on the ends of barbatos’ tail) don’t have any particular sensitivity, because despite the colour, there’s nothing different about the demon’s actual body going on underneath there

however, pact marks and other magically-created markings are more sensitive because they contain a higher concentration of magical energy

when a pact is formed, the mark you see is magical energy literally bonding itself to your skin (and also your soul, but that’s a slightly different matter)

it’s kind of like having an electric buzzer permanently attached to you (although the feeling isn’t quite as strong) - when you touch it or press it, some of the energy within the mark comes into contact with the surrounding nerves, which makes them go all fizzy

we don’t actually get to see a huge amount of natural-born demons in canon, so unfortunately i can’t draw a huge number of conclusions about this topic

HOWEVER

by this theory, i think the marks that the boys (i.e. the brothers) have in their demon forms are sensitive in the way that doesn’t happen with natural demons

(with the exception of satan, sorry everyone)

these guys were angels first, right? 

and they didn’t turn into demons willingly - their demon forms were figuratively forced upon them to replace their angelic bodies

and how do you go about doing that? i’d wager that their transformation into demons probably involved an IMMENSE amount of magic to make that happen

my point being, their demon forms were formed almost exclusively through magical energy being used to convert their bodies - sound familiar? it should, because that’s basically just a super-charged version of what we just said happens when you make a pact

so belphie’s cow spots? asmo’s heart-things on his arm? mammon’s go-faster stripes? lucifer’s forehead diamond? ring ring that is a whole lot of magic in a not-very-large space

hence, sensitivity :)

The Ma-genie-cian’s Nephew: An Introduction to Magical Theory

see, i suspect that the reason demons (and possibly angels too?) possess innate magical capabilities in the way that humans do not is because they are literally made of magic

that’s not to say that they’re like… incorporeal or anything - they have physical bodies that are made of stuff like hydrogen and carbon and potassium, same as humans

but their internal organs don’t convert food into energy the same way ours do

for one, devildom foods aren’t just made of physical matter, like ours, but they also contain magical energy as a result of evolving for millennia in the magically-saturated environment of the devildom

demon bodies, which run partly on magic, need some way of getting that energy inside them - breathing in devildom air, while that does provide some magic, is not going to be enough to replace all of the energy you lose through both performing magic, and just existing as a magically-powered being

what that means is that demons digest food in two ways - they get nutrients from food in the same way as us, where they’re absorbed into your blood via your intestines

and they also absorb the latent magical energy within the food at the same time

is it possible to convert non-magical food into magical energy? yes, and demons can do this (for example, if they’re stuck in the human world for a long time - see: asmodeus being forced to “help” solomon build his temple), but most of the time they don’t need to, because they live in a place where the food has magic in it by default

this is part of the reason why the air (especially in places with high concentrations of magical energy) and food in the devildom can sometimes be problematic for humans like mc and solomon, and why we don’t react to certain substances the same way

take the gold hellfire newt syrup from lesson 22 - it contains a particular combination of actual elements (the actual physical stuff that it’s made of) and magic, and the mixture of the two is what produces a particular effect on demons (i.e. insatiable… arousal? still not quite sure exactly what it did to them, but the sheer amount of kissing that goes on suggests something like that)

this is also the case with stuff like demonus (see: asmo’s failed drinking contest with mc) and the lunatic pudding (see: that diavolo devilgram that i wish i owned) - these are able to have some sort of effect on mc, but that effect is not the same as it would be on a demon, because the way the human body breaks down and processes these foods is different

it stands to reason that the reverse is also true - human things like alcohol and medicines (stuff like painkillers, sedatives, stimulants, etc) will sometimes have the intended effect if they deal with bits of the brain/body that work the same way in demons, but it’s very common for them to either not work at all, or to do something unexpected

(reports also indicate that differences between demon and human taste receptors also cause the taste of certain foods to be different, particularly those which are not common to both realms or which contain high concentrations of magical energy)

it is currently hypothesised that angels also follow these same patterns, but for some reason the celestial realm doesn’t seem to like letting demon scientists run around doing experiments on angels? not quite sure what’s going on with that, but until then - or at least until simeon starts returning our calls - no solid conclusions can be drawn

going back to the whole demons-are-made-of-magic thing, this also accounts for why more powerful demons tend to be physically larger in size - they need more physical mass in order to store and channel that much magic, and the fact that they have lots of magical energy naturally increases their mass

take demons like diavolo or lucifer, who possess enormous quantities of magical energy, and thus require more mass to counterbalance this - smaller demons would not be able to keep that much magic in reserve, and if they tried to use that much power in one go, the surge of energy would probably cause their physically weaker bodies to degrade or be totally obliterated

(this theory runs along the same lines as the human principle of “mass-energy equivalence”, although closer investigation is needed, seeing as there are some notable exceptions like barbatos, who possesses incredibly vast magical power but is built like a more petite demon)

humans do have some built-in magical potential, and there are various ways to increase this, with varying degrees of efficacy

but as our only real canon humans to observe are mc (who has some sort of weird angel blood thing going on, plus seven highly unusual pacts) and solomon (whose continued existence is probably a crime against science), i’m going to reserve judgement on how exactly i think humans and magic interact with one another

The Great Pact-sby: Examining the Science of Pact-Making (2nd ed. foreword by Solomon the Wise)

so now that we know a bit more about how magical energy works, what does that mean for demon-human pacts?

we only really have access to information about mc’s pacts with the boys, and even then we don’t know a huge amount, so the vast majority of this is speculation, very loosely based in canon

there are various types of pacts between demons and humans, and each one has varying creation conditions, uses, side effects etc

however, one hard and fast rule is that pacts can only be created between one human and one demon at a time - it is possible to bond multiple humans and multiple demons together, but that’s a separate process that would take far too long to cover here

when a pact is formed, the individual magical energies of the human and demon combine to form one pact, with a unique magical signature that is specific to the pair

this mixing of energy causes a pact mark to form on both the demon and the human - it’s currently unknown exactly what causes pact marks to differ in appearance (size, shape, colour, shine, and so forth) but it’s likely to be a combination of:

a) the difference in raw magical power between the two pact-mates

b) the type of pact formed

c) the cardinal sin that the demon is associated with (e.g. wrath, sloth)

pact mark formation works as described previously, where the combined magical energy of the pact bonds to your skin to form a mark that is unique to your and your pact-mate (see: On the Oni-gin of Species: Demon Biology for Beginners)

one of the reasons that you can’t pact-bond two humans together is because humans do not possess the inherent connection with a single cardinal sin that is necessary for a pact to form. in magic, all humans are considered to be capable of all sins (albeit to varying degrees), and thus cannot draw upon a cardinal sin to invoke a pact in the same way as a demon

that’s not to say that two humans can’t bond themselves together by other means, because they absolutely can - the most common method is through blood magic, or some other exchange of biological material

however, the most important reason that humans (and also the reason that two demons, regardless of their sin associations, and angels of all varieties) can’t form pacts together is because pacts are based on one of the oldest principles of sin - temptation

while this is not always the case when pacts are actually made (see: mc’s pacts with the boys), the magical basis for pacts is linked to the inherent inclination of demons to tempt humans to sin, and thus pacts originated as a way of allowing demons to attach themselves to humans (and by extension attach their sin to the human)

as a result, it is magically impossible to create a pact between any two entities unless one is a human and one is a demon, and both are currently in possession of their own soul

2nd edition addendum : notes on mark appearance

pact marks can only form continuously (i.e. they must appear unbroken on the body - for example, you can’t have a pact mark over your fingers or on your hair, where the shape of the mark can be split up when you move. it is, however, possible to have marks on your scalp, or along your fingers, as long there are no interruptions in the appearance of the mark). 

marks can be physically removed, such as by severing the limb upon which it appears, but pacts themselves cannot be removed by an outside party, and they can only be dissolved with the consent of both pact-mates. 

this is because pact formation magically bonds the souls of the human and demon together - in magical theory, the soul is considered to be the ultimate embodiment of the self, and therefore can only be manipulated by oneself unless permission is granted to another party.

pact marks can emit light, and will do so to varying degrees depending on certain conditions - generally speaking, the more powerful your pact-mate is, the brighter the mark will be. for those whose pact-mate is significantly more magically powerful than themselves, marks have been known to spark or fizz (or, in one memorable instance, catch fire - for those interested, please consult the Devildom Royal Archive for the relevant RAD incident report) when channelling high amounts of energy.

the most common example is when a pact is invoked or used in some way - the mark will glow as magical energy surges within the pact, causing it to heat up in much the same way as a lightbulb filament.

other instances of pact marks emitting light, changing temperature, or otherwise behaving strangely have been reported, particularly when one or both of the pact-mates is experiencing intense emotion, significant distress, or unusual magical fluctuations (e.g. being flooded with magical energy by a spell).

there are no known instances of pact-mates being able to communicate explicitly using a pact (e.g. via telepathy), but they can be used to convey simpler concepts, such as emotions, over long distances by manipulating the flow of energy within the pact.

this manipulation is what creates the signature “push-pull” effect of a pact, where magical energy can be transferred from one pact-mate to another (see: mc basically pouring power into asmo during diavolo’s retreat), and which is a key principle in all pact-based demon summoning.

looks like that's everything satan gave you. i wonder what else you might find while you're here?

this is an original work by @gingerbreadmonsters - please do not repost or misattribute

[allaantica]

Alla Antica is still well within the concept art stage of visual design, but even still, I want to keep to the punk "fuck the past" roots of the game and setting. Given how cynical Alla Antica is about the Renaissance (particularly the French and Italian Renaissance) and all its follow-on effects in art and science, it makes sense to bastardise the work of the "great masters" into setting-appropriate pieces. Here we have one of Alphonse Maria Mucha's stained glass paintings converted into an Abyaddi noble. Notice the more angular features, the feathering on the hair and brow, the sunken look to the face, and the pallid skin tone!

[fugamalefica]

A part of me is hoping that AI will be the revival of art. Of course, when saying art I am only referring to real art, human art, since nothing assembled together by a robot can be called art in the first place. This bastardisation of art started with the rise of empiricism and has only reached its peak now, when creative and rationalist fields are actively being replaced by science, tech, and engineering (which are also important but ultimately secondary), and of course, they have ironically co-opted maths. The thing is that humanity has survived for centuries without technology but not without art. It cannot survive without art, so if they are at war, ultimately who would win?

As if getting a career in anything related to arts, writings and libraries etc wasn't already discouraged (by capitalism) and even frowned upon (by some families/societies), they had to go and try to steal writers' and poets' jobs by replacing humans with robots

[saintsurvivors]

an uncomprehensive list of places Angus "for fuck sake put that back" MacGyver has been banned from, either temporarily or permanently, compiled by his loving and long suffering partner and best friend Jack "Handsome Devil" Dalton;

Approximately ten different paintball and airsoft places, mostly for blowing shit up that shouldn't have been able to have been blown up in the first place and for getting no less than eighteen kids under the age of ten to revolt against their team mates, join his side, and bombard everyone in the entire paintball place with hand grenades packed with garish paint

An actual think tank that was very unhappy with the fact that mac had been able to solve their apparently unsolvable cryptography program that was going to be put in place for security for the pentagon and then other high profile several places of interest and then saying 'that was easy, got another one?' Also, because he stole thirty seven pensthat jack doesn't want to know what the kids done with, bc mac is apparently a pen kleptomanic?

A science museum because they'd got the information on what jack honestly hopes is a dummy corpse, and mac just had to climb into the exhibit and redo the info bc mac is a grade a nerd and then ended up going on a tangent to anyone who would listen about the history of the exhibits and went into such details the actual tour guides didn't know what the fuck he was on about.

The phoenix research labs temporarily after somehow managing to arm the very very dangerous rocket kept there for research with nothing more than a gum wrapper and bc he 'wanted to see if he could do it'. FYI, he managed to do it. (To his credit, Matty, he managed to disarm it with the same piece of gun wrapper.)

His own apartment bc he tried to cook and bozer wasnt there to help and Riley is as shit with fire hydrants as she's good at computers. They don't talk about that.

His fathers office after James got an equation wrong and mac solved it and stuck a post it to the board with the words 'thanks son' in a passable forgery of his fathers handwriting. James, apparently, didn't appreciate the sarcasm.

Jacks apartment after being able to replicate the minions fart gun bc jack asked him too and didn't think he'd actually be able to do it. jack knows better now.

The closest animal rescue shelter to his house bc when he was concussed and high on vicodin that jack had forced him to take, he'd laid down in the middle of the shelter, allowed the dogs to just dog pile on him and then tried to abscond with about fifty dogs that he insisted were vital to his survival.

The second closest animal shelter to his house because, in a separate incident of when he was concussed, shot and high on prescription pain meds - seriously kid, we need to get you a painkiller that doesn't send you so freakin' loopy - he had shut himself up in a tiny cage with a teeny tiny paralysed kitten and managed to rig up a bastardised wheelchair. This normally would have made the shelter very happy but it the fact he'd cannibalised their crash cart.

The CIA because apparently he makes their analysts and engineers look like fools. They get grouchy whenever they see Mac, like little chihuahuas.

His last two mandatory therapist's because he made them cry. They won't breath a word of why. Jack dreads to think of why.

Mama Daltons kitchen down in texas bc "that boy of yours jack wyatt could curdle water, he may be a genius but he ain't got a lick a' commonsense." Mac knows better than to argue.

All of the phone stores around his house and the foundation. very self explanatory. not good for insurance.

jacks precious shelby gto bc he made the back seat look like a crime scene bc he wasn't wearing his seat belt, he was messing with a doohickey and Jack had to break. It took six washes for all his blood to come out.

Two top secret that definitely don't exist military bases bc the top brass thought he was threatening them by explaining how he could make a frag grenade with nothing but one of jacks many, many bullets, his shoelace, and a ton of fucked up pens. The other one is bc he nearly blew up a good third of thr base bc he and one of their top demolition experts got too excited over their prototype rocket launches. jack had many regrets and matty a lot of phone calls

Quantico FBI headquarters bc, whilst consulting as an engineer there, was so sleep deprived that he managed to rewire their entire computer network with varying degrees of success to sing iron maiden whenever turned on at full volume. He has since been allowed back on the stipulation that he has a handler with him. That handler is often jack or riley who often let mac do his thing bc mac is mac and they are weak to him.