#evolution from ape to man

[greater-than-the-sword]

There is no distinction. Adam and Eve were the first humans and all others were descended from them.

TIL Jimmy Akin thinks Neanderthals are "extremely likely" to have had rational souls, i.e., to be theologically human beings.

[youremyheaven]

Krittika: The Tarzan Complex & Survival Strategies

TW: murder, rape, genocide, euthanasia, death, violence, misogyny

This is part 2 of my ongoing Krittika series. This research was commissioned by the wonderful, angelic and patient, @rscelestia-blog . Being commissioned to do nakshatra research by you guys makes me feel like I'm a renaissance artist and you guys are my Medici family ✨🥺🫶💛 I'm so grateful for it.

For this post, I wanted to look into how this nakshatra often manifests in men. Whenever I talk about how naks manifest irl, I am talking about a tendency not a rule. Astrology is not a perfect science and it is very much possible that someone could have these placements and not behave this way. Also there are hundreds of different tendencies for each nak, since every astrologer is a mere human being with limited knowledge, what they derive from their studies is perhaps only a handful of such possibilities. Therefore every nakshatra has vast room for interpretation.

All that said, I have often thought that Krittika men were a bit unrefined and mannerless for a long time. I think this broadly applies to Solar men in general because they're a "guy's guy". However, this observation was further cemented by an ask that I received a long time ago where an anon pointed out how many actors who have played Tarzan or Tarzan like characters have Krittika nakshatra.

I will be making a separate post about the 'feral child' trope and how its most acutely manifest in a different planetary type but for this post I want to focus on the 'uncivilized' nature of Krittika/Solar men.

I had mentioned in my previous Krittika post about how since Krittika nak follows Bharani where creation takes place, Krittika is about survival.

In fact, the theory of 'survival of the fittest' was put forward by another Solar man aka Charles Darwin, Uttarashadha Moon

The term was originally coined by Herbert Spencer, Ketu in Uttaraphalguni after reading Origin of the Species

 Alfred Russel Wallace, whose own theory about the mechanics of evolution was almost identical to Darwin's, had a Solar stellium (Mercury & Venus in Uttarashadha and Jupiter in Krittika)

In Nazi Germany, they appropriated Darwin's "survival of the fittest" to eradicate anybody who wasn't Aryan or 'fit'. One of the key proponents of the same was an officer named Alfred Rosenberg, Uttarashadha Sun who was hanged to death after the war. He helped advance involuntary euthanasia to eliminate mentally ill and disabled individuals.

Now, lets go into Tarzan.

Tarzan is from an aristocratic British family and after losing his parents, he is adopted by the leader of the ape tribe, among whom he is raised. He later experiences civilization, rejects it and returns to the wild.

Many actors who have played Tarzan have either Solar influence or Venusian influence. In the 2 dozen actors who have played this character, the majority are Venusian tbh but I'll explore that more on a separate post about Venusian men. I think its interesting how different aspects of this character fit these two planetary types.

Here are some men who have played Tarzan

Johnny Weissmuller, Mercury and Venus in Krittika

He played Tarzan in 12 films and Jungle Jim in another dozen films and its TV adaptations as well.

Bruce Bennett, Krittika Sun (unrelated but i find this pic so funny lmao)

Tony Goldwyn- Krittika Sun and Venus (atmakaraka)

He voiced Tarzan in the 90s film

Tarzan has always been played by other Solar natives like:

Wolf Larson- Uttaraphalguni Moon

Alexander Skarsgaard- Uttaraphalguni Stellium

Now when we think of Tarzan, what do we most associate with him? He is a man who was raised in the jungle by apes since he was a baby, so he is "uncivilized" and by most standards "lacking manners", he is wild, messy, uncouth, improper and defies all kinds of social norms. We usually associate "mannerlessness" with belonging to perhaps a lower class in society but here is where Krittika and Solar men surprise us. They behave this way despite all that they have. They could be from immensely privileged backgrounds and still act like jungle freaks.

They lack social charisma, grace or "politeness". Tarzan is very independent because he was raised in the jungle where he had to learn how to fend for himself. Similarly, Solar individuals also tend to be very socially independent which means they're often not the best at interacting on a group level. In order to be sociable, you have to emotionally connect with others, Tarzan's early life is not something anybody else can connect to, even if he adopts a more "civilized" behaviour, he's still going to stand out because of how he's lived his life. Even if they're welcomed into and accepted by society, Solar individuals struggle to relate to and emotionally connect to them.

Sun naks are generally known for being a bit emotion-less but in Krittika this manifests in a very "each for himself/herself" mentality that ISNT self-serving. I would say Krittika natives are the least selfish and most service oriented of all the 3 Sun nakshatras. They know that its a dog eat dog world, so they almost have a tendency to be the one who does all the brunt work so that their loved ones can be spared of it?

I'll mention some examples of "mannerless" Krittika men now:

Howard Stern, Uttarashada Sun Krittika Rising

This guy straight up is so RUDE and crass and vulgar with ALL of his guests????

Here is him talking to Matthew McConaughey about his father dying and Matt is no better in this clip either but like wtf?? who talks like that???

Lowkey Solar individuals LOVE to gossip and start shit between people.

Here is a compilation of him being creepy and disgusting to women on his show.

Dana Plato, the actress, committed suicide a day after appearing on his show in 1999. The humiliation she endured is said to have been her breaking point. Her son committed suicide on the 11th anniversary of her death.

When I tell you Solar men are emotionally abusive, either by being avoidant and ignoring you or by being condescending, patronising, openly mocking you and treating you like shit, BELIEVE ME.

Jordan Peterson- Krittika Rising

I dont know if I need to explain why Jordan is a mannerless misogynistic asshole.

Here are some remarks made by Kate Manne, a feminist expert, who critiqued Jordan's work:

"There’s an interesting moment in the book where Peterson talks about resentment as a “revelatory” emotion that can mean one of two things. One, you feel it because you’re immature, in which case you just need to buck up. Two, you feel resentment because you really are being oppressed or taken advantage of somehow. Your resentment shows you that something needs to change or that you need to assert yourself in relation to other people.

But there is clearly a third possibility. People often feel resentful because they appear, based on historically entrenched social norms, to be getting a bad bargain, when what’s actually happening is that others are getting a somewhat fairer deal. When you’re accustomed to unjust privilege, equality feels like oppression, as the saying goes." (link to the whole article)

This is such a classic example of the way Solar individuals think. They don't really think in terms of privilege, justice, fairness etc??? They just think you can work hard enough to erase all the other socio-economic-political barriers that make things harder for others?? This is of course until they've had first hand experience of difficulties of this sort lmao but they are naturally not wired to think too much, they're very simple minded, like Tarzan, that's why Sun is the most Yang of energies. Its a very action-goal oriented line of thought. They are almost incapable of thinking in abstract or trying to see things within the context and subtext in which it has occurred.

This is also why they are often very academically gifted. Naturally intelligent people struggle the most in school because their brains are not wired to endure the structure and mechanical system of learning that our education system enforces. Intelligence by definition necessitates that the person possessing it is capable of thinking unconventionally and that means finding the school environment really limiting or restrictive bc schools fr be killing the joy of learning.

Solar individuals thrive within these systems because they seldom, if ever, question the system itself, they just learn their material and write the exam. They do not think "unconventionally" or beyond the binary in any way. They accept what they learn to be true and they are more focused on working within the system to climb its ranks. If this is the system we're in, they want to be THE BEST in it and they will master all of its rules to work with it to beat it??

This is why all Solar naks are at the very top of the caste hierarchy, Krittika is a Brahmin nak whereas Uttaraphalguni & Uttarashadha are both Kshatriya naks

Solar individuals are lowkey one of the least empathetic types. I dont mean this to be harsh but they're not very emotionally intelligent and its really hard for them to read a room or intuitively pick up on how someone's feeling/what's on their mind. You reallyyyy need to spell things out for them. It does not come to them naturally to understand how others think or to put themselves in the shoes of others because for Solar individuals everything is kind of a competition and when its a battle of survival, you dont stop to think how your opponents are feeling? this is not to say that they're in "survival mode",, Solars are too unbothered to be in fight or flight 24/7, its just the Tarzan mindset tbh. If you're an animal in the jungle, the jungle is your home, you understand how it operates, how you must hunt or starve, you know what your odds are, you cant be here feeling too empathetic towards other creatures knowing full well that you have to hunt them down and eat them or otherwise starve yourself to death. Animals are comfortable, secure and chill in their habitat but they also understand the stakes so they're always survival minded? Because it truly is each for his/her own out there.

Mark Wahlberg- Krittika Stellium (Mercury, Venus AK and Saturn)

Wahlberg is an A class asshole. In the 80s he assaulted two elderly Vietnamese men and a group of black children all the while hurling racist abuses at them.

Here is a clip from one of his movies:

I know its a film but this is for real how Solar men view the world. They see everything as a "conquest". (Tarzan mentality)

The simple minded Tarzan mentality is also why in the books and movies, Tarzan is unable to cope with civilization and returns to the jungle. The author said it's because Tarzan saw the world as too corrupt which is perhaps true but it's also because having lived in a jungle where the ruled are pretty simple and standard, being a member of society means adhering to many unspoken ruled and conventions. Solar individuals find it THE hardest to do so and when they're actual being true to themselves, they act like apes of the Howard Stern school.

Salvador Dali, Krittika Stellium (Sun, Mercury & Mars)

To make matters worse, he was UBP Moon (the influence of multiple malefic planets makes one more prone to being an asshole) and I have extensively covered his wrongdoings in my post about Saturnian men

However, for now I want to focus on how Dali was a Nazi sympathizer,

He was also obsessed with Hitler in a perverse way and apparently had homoerotic fantasies of him lmao??

He was once quoted as saying:

"I often dreamed of Hitler as a woman. His flesh, which I had imagined whiter than white, ravished me… There was no reason for me to stop telling one and all that to me Hitler embodied the perfect image of the great masochist who would unleash a world war solely for the pleasure of losing and burying himself beneath the rubble of an empire; the gratuitous action par excellence that should indeed have warranted the admiration of the Surrealists."

He was a big old fascist who also supported the Spanish dictator Franco which made Picasso stop talking to him for the rest of his life.

In 1975, when General Franco executed many people, hundreds and thousands of fascists gathered in support of Franco, chanting his name and making fascists salutes. When the world condemned this appalling act, Dali praised Franco and called him the “greatest hero of Spain.”

George Orwell, a strong critic of the fascist rule in Spain, despised Dali and wrote —

“During the Spanish Civil War, he astutely avoids taking sides and makes a trip to Italy. He feels himself more and more drawn towards the aristocracy, frequents smart salons, finds himself wealthy patrons, and is photographed with the plump Vicomte de Noailles, whom he describes as his ‘Maecenas.’”

Salvador Dali was nicknamed ávida dollars (“eager for dollars”) by his former surrealist friends for selling his consciousness and idealism for money and fame.

Average Solar behaviour

When I talk about Tarzan mentality, I'm referring to how lions dont feel remorse at the thought of killing deers. Its not in their nature to feel remorse. The hierarchy of the eco system is such that lions are predators and its their job to hunt. They are by biological design, carnivores. Its a bit sickening to think of how like animals, who have no choice but to be brutal to survive, Solar individuals often have this ruthless ambition to do absolutely anything to get ahead in life. The world we live in, is a capitalist, patriarchal world and the people who thrive in it are ones who are willing to overlook or dont see the faults in the system at all.

The ones who sit at the very top of the pyramid did not get there by being compassionate angels. 3/4 Brahmin caste naks are "ugra" or violent nakshatras, Krittika is the exception, as it is a "mishra" nakshatra (mishra means "mixed"). The ones at the very top are the most brutal and fierce. There is no other way to get to the top in this world.

Carrie Fisher, Krittika Moon

The singer James Blunt (Shatabhisha stellium) who was besties with Carrie, wrote in his memoir:

“I was closer to Carrie than almost anyone else in the world, except my wife. She told me which girlfriends weren’t suitable, was the first person I told when I met my wife, and we chose engagement rings for her together.

She also knew where every unmarked grave of mine lay and where every guilt stemmed from. She was complicit too. When I arrived home one morning with a love bite on my neck, and my girlfriend of the moment about to arrive, Carrie grabbed her 16-year-old daughter and gave her a love bite as well.

Then Carrie summoned me over, offering her own neck, and told me to give her a love bite. When the girlfriend arrived, we all had love bites.

There was also an issue with drugs. Carrie had long been open about her addiction, but at some point it was obvious enough to be of concern.

I stood many times at the foot of her bed at 3am listening to the laboured breathing of someone sounding close to death on heavy medication. Not long before she died, I asked her to be godmother to my son, telling her that I wanted her to take care of herself so that he might know her when he grew up.

Charlie, her best friend, confronted her more directly and told her she needed to quit drugs, but was ostracised by her as a result. I took a different approach and did them with her, pretending to myself that I would guide her to redemption one day – just not today.

The lies we tell ourselves are the ­hardest to forgive. As a result, her ­daughter Billie blames me in part for her death, and no longer speaks to me. They buried Carrie’s ashes in a giant ceramic Prozac pill. You can see a picture of it on the CD disc of my first album. There are only two of them in the world, and the other one is my most treasured possession.”

Krittika being a "mishra" or mixed nak means that its just as capable of being tender as it is of being destructive. There are only 2 mishra naks. The other one is Vishaka.

Carrie took James in before he had even made his debut and he lived with her and recorded the songs of his first album in her house. They had a long lasting friendship, all of this points to the kind, nurturing, almost maternal nature of Krittika but the other behaviour he mentioned, including the love bite giving lmao?? Krittika is a Solar nak and they wouldnt be who they are if they weren't competitive for no reason lol and ostracizing people who mean well??? Solarcore AF

I assure you trying to give advice to a Solar is pointless because like the Sun, they too are blinded by their own light, they see nothing, they comprehend nothing except their own projections. Plato's allegory of the cave was about Solars, I swear lmao. The truth can be very very obvious to absolutely everybody else but a Solar WILL NOT SEE IT

They embody this meme:

They're very low on emotional intelligence tbh. You could tell a Solar that someone almost murdered you and they'd be like "oh he's not very nice, is he?" 😭😭😭 I think it's also part of their simple minded Tarzan thinking. They take everything at face value and are straightforward to a fault. They just don't know or understand how crooked people can be.

I have Krittika Moon friend who is dating a Hasta Moon man (Solar x Lunar couples 🤧) and he was disgusting to me IN FRONT OF HER and he's been nasty af to many other women we all know and she wasn't his girlfriend at the time. But even after she knew all of this, she went on to date him and now they've been together for over a year lmao 🤮🤢🤮

They do not see the faults with themselves or with people they love. They live in a bubble of delulu and completely believe that all that glitters IS GOLD. They can be soooo naive, its insane. Theyre naive girls in bad bitch packaging.

Solar individuals struggle more than any other type to understand that things are not always black and white and that real life is veryyy complicated because people are complicated. In the jungle, such abstractions do not exist, things are very black and white, you can easily arrive at solutions by thinking in a very binary way. Sun nakshatras are focused on survival and this mentality warps their mindset from perceiving things in a more complex and nuanced way.

I want to emphasize once more that survival mentality is NOT being in flight/fight mode,, its more so about operating from a place of maximum efficiency and cutting out all the unnecessary bullshit. But being in survival mode is not living. We are not animals and there is more to life than just...surviving.. and thriving..

Solar individuals are the type for whom every kind of experience is a status symbol of some sort. Be it being desired, succeeding at school/work, making x amount of money, they dgaf about "enjoying" things, they are absolutely not the "stop to smell the roses" type, they want to be like the people who they envy or look up to, they want all those markers of success. Ask them about their motivations and you'll seldom hear of an emotional one.

They're mostly driven by a need to do well in life just because. We live in a world where money is king, and where certain things are conventional indicators of success and even if they have absolutely no desire for a certain kind of house, or car or brand or relationship, they do not want to be perceived as someone who is incapable of having it???? so they work hard to get it?? They get it for show, basically.

There is a reason why the ONLY nak without a yoni consort is a Solar nakshatra (Uttarashada). The height of Solar energy is such that its truly each for his/her own, no partners whatsoever.

Jack London, Uttarashadha Sun

He wrote books like a The Call of the Wild and numerous other adventure stories which are all about surviving in the wild by yourself lol

Its funny how literally the themes of certain naks and planetary influences are made manifest

 Richard Gadd- Krittika Sun and Venus

He is the star and maker of Baby Reindeer, which, if you really think about it, is a survival story. You have got to ask yourself is someone subject you to brutal stalking of the kind Gadd was subject to, would you spend YEARS of your career performing and reliving it? There could be many reasons why he chose to do so and many have found it highly problematic how a man whose privacy was so brutally invaded for so long would do so little to properly hide the identities of the real people he's talking about (his stalker was found out by netizens and she's been receiving death threats etc).

I feel like it points to the nature of the Sun. They will have the last word always and even when they're losing, they'll drag you down with them. But beyond that, I feel like it points to the ambition and tenacity of Krittika and their sheer will power.

Pitbull, Uttarashadha Sun, Krittika Moon & Rising

His life story is extremely Solar

The "American dream" tbh is a very Yang one and a very Solar one

He was born in USA to immigrant parents.His family has a history of fighting against the Castro regime in Cuba. When he was three, he could recite the works of Cuban national hero and poet José Martí in Spanish. He learned English by watching Sesame Street as a child. His father was largely absent from his childhood; his parents separated when he was young, and he was raised mostly by his mother, later stating: "my mom is my father and my mother." He briefly stayed with a foster family in Roswell, Georgia. His parents struggled with substance abuse; as a teenager, he was also involved with drug use and dealing, which eventually led to him getting kicked out of the family house.

Divorce, war, natural calamities, destruction of any kind is veryyy common for people born under Krittika, Ardra, Uttarashadha, Jyeshta, Ashlesha nakshatras.

Pitbull's parents were separated, they fled Cuba, he was kicked out and was literally left to fend for himself.

He said he chose his stage name of Pitbull because the dogs "bite to lock. The dog is too stupid to lose. And they're outlawed in Dade County. They're basically everything that I am. It's been a constant fight". Literally so Solarcoded??

I'll end this post here, I have more posts to come about Krittika and Solar naks so stay tuned. I hope this was insightful

I am sooooo sorry that I have been soooo slow with my uploads lately,, I just have a lot on my plate atm 😭😭😭I am going to try my best to be more consistent cause I want to finish this series asap as I have several other pending posts to make UGHH

[tarabyte3]

Mayhaps you could elaborate your top 5 hear-me-out monsters? 😏

Mr. Pyramid head makes me very blushy

Spectacular topic. Pyramid Head is an excellent monster. 😏

Yautja

They're strong and ripped, B I G, the intense body language 🤌, they have a code of honor that makes them fascinating characters, they can absolutely provide for you, and I have recently realized one of my types is apparently men in masks (Paz Vizsla, Immortan Joe, Yautja, Doctor Doom). I mean, just look at them!! Mask on or off, I don't even care. I love my crab faced boyfriends. (Crucified Predator from Predators (2010) is my favorite 😍)

Demons

You could include the devil (and D&D devils) in with this as well. I love corruption tropes, and demons are the embodiment of corruption. Too often they are portrayed in horror as just another violent Creature, when they're so much more than that. I love when they're intelligent, patient, cunning. Why turn to violence when temptation is so much more fun? They're a mirror to my Priest Kink. Seducer vs the seduced. Plus religion is actually fun when you're sexualizing it. 😇

Minotaur

The physicality and bestial aspect of a minotaur is similar to that of werewolves with one (in my opinion) very important distinction: Werewolves can shift their form to something human and a minotaur cannot. There's no split between man and beast. He IS the beast. So it then becomes about acceptance of the monstrous in its entirety. Not expecting it to change. Loving it anyway exactly as it is.

Death from Death and the Maiden paintings

This one is difficult for me to articulate. In this motif, Death is very seductive. It beckons and lures and corrupts, and is often portrayed as doing so in a very erotic and passionate way. Oftentimes moreso than depictions of two humans, even. I find it very appealing in a similar way as demons, despite the lack of any sort of anatomy or flesh. Apparently it just scratches some part of my brain. I suppose you could say I want to 😎 bone him.

Caesar from The Planet of the Apes

HEAR ME OUT. I know this isn't a very monstrous answer. And I know I am tempting fate here because I have been fighting for my life in my asks for saying Caesar is hot. BUT. Caesar is a monster. He's not truly an ape and he's not human. He's a very intentionally human coded Other. The first and truest next link of evolution as the result of a virus.

For anyone reading this and getting ready to send me MORE hate mail, let us refer to the Harkness Test: Does it have human intelligence (or "greater")? Can it talk or otherwise communicate with language? Is it of sexual maturity for its species?

Caesar passes all of them. He's a monster. He has Andy Serkis's voice and grunts and growls. And he's sensitive, intelligent, kind, brave, loving, and he's HOT. 😤

[vickysaurus]

Let's take a closer look at the hominin skulls in the Senckenberg Museum's human evolution room. Keep in mind this is not a linear progression through our ancestors, and more like a bunch of closer and more distant cousins.

The first one, Sahelanthropus tchadensis is seven million years old, and may very well not be a hominin at all. I've always leaned towards the hypothesis that it's a gorilla relative, not one of ours. No matter which branch of the apes it belongs to, it lived not long after the time the human-line (hominins) and the chimp-line separated, and possibly even before that point!

Ardipithecus ramidus, the first hominin from where we can start making a fairly decent family tree of our relatives. Before this point, 5 million years ago, hominin fossils are very rare, fragmentary, and difficult to assign. One of the most interesting things that does seem to emerge from these early fossils is that we have walked on two legs for a long time. Maybe even so long that our common ancestor with the chimps and bonobos did it!

Lucy represents Australopithecus afarensis, who shows up at this point (3.3 million years ago).

Australopithecus africanus, the Taung child to be precise. We're about 2.8 million years ago at this point. Australopithecines must've been such fascinating creatures.

Homo habilis, the 'handy man', named that way because when they were discovered they were thought to be the first humans who used tools. Since then, Australopithecus tools have been found, and tool use by many different animals has also been documented.

Homo rudolfensis, a population of humans who lived at the same time as Homo habilis and were notably bigger and a little brainier. Does it warrant being its own species? That depends who you ask. Splitting vs lumping is a point of contention in almost every group's biology, and it can run especially high in the field of human evolution since hominins are A very high profile and important fossils that directly relate to our own origins, and B an extremely tangled group that seems to have produced loads and loads of isolated populations and subspecies that regularly migrated all over the place and had frequent interbreeding events. Personally I tend to come down on the side of lumping them into a few major species.

Paranthropus boisei. These were basically a separate lineage of australopithecines, quite different from our own ancestors, who continued to do australopithecus things until quite recently. They were very good climbers and seem to have returned to the trees.

Homo ergaster, either a close relative or a synonym of the more famous Homo erectus. This is the point where we got really brainy, probably figured out how to make fire ourselves, and spread from Africa to Eurasia.

Homo heidelbergensis. Homo erectus and its many subspecies spread all over Africa and Eurasia and existed for well over a million years. As time marches on and evolution did its thing, we eventually start calling the ones in Africa Homo heidelbergensis. They were quite tall, positively enormous compared to little Lucy a few million years back, and they too joined in the human migrations out of Africa. From the H. heidelbergensis who moved into Eurasia we eventually get neanderthals and denisovans, while Homo sapiens evolved from the heidelbergensis populations in Africa.

And there's the neanderthals! Large-brained and creative (the first known cave paintings belong to them and they buried their dead), they were likely quite different from the brutish image we often get from them. Rather than truly dying out, their populations eventually merged with the larger Homo sapiens population once they migrated out of Africa, leaving our modern genes with a couple percent neanderthal DNA.

Homo sapiens. And that's us! Not so much the last remaining branch of the human family tree as much as several of the separate branches ended up coming back together and weaving into a single bigger branch.

And then there's these little guys, Homo floresiensis! Probably originating from a Homo erectus population that ended up on the island Flores, insular dwarfism ended up making them grow quite tiny. On their isolated island, they remained until about 50000 years ago.

[captainjonnitkessler]

George Hull was an atheist in the 1860s, and he was pretty pissed off at biblical literalists. In particular, he was pissed off about the gullibility of those who insisted that giants had once roamed the earth, simply because it said so in the Bible.

Hull, a big fan of science and the still-new theory of evolution, decided to do what any rational, science-minded man would do: He spent today's equivalent of $60,000 buying a bunch of stone from Iowa, sending it to Chicago to have it fashioned into a giant statue of a man in absolute secrecy, shipping it to his cousin's farm in New York, burying it there in the dead of night, waiting a year, and then having his cousin hire two men to dig a well in that spot so they could "discover" the giant. Obviously.

He and his cousin set up a tent and charged people for admission to see the "Cardiff Giant" and made absolute bank from the hundreds of people per day that flocked to it. Experts insisted it was a hoax, but many people were convinced it was proof of the Bible's inerrancy. Eventually Hull sold his part-interest to David Hannum for today's equivalent of over $500,000. PT Barnum, the infamous showman and ringmaster, then tried to buy it and when Hannum refused to sell, he made his own copy. He declared his to be the original and Hannum's version the fake, potentially leading Hannum to coin the famous phrase "there's a sucker born every minute". He also sued Barnum, but according to Wikipedia "the judge told him to get his giant to swear on his own genuineness in court if he wanted a favorable injunction".

Eventually Hull proudly confessed to the hoax, putting an end once and for all to the debates about either giants' genuineness. Hull claimed that his intent had been to reveal the gullibility of Christians and to refute anti-science religious fundamentalism.

Then he moved to Colorado and did the exact same thing again, except this time he added a tail and called it the "missing link" between humans and apes.

(Big shoutout to the podcast The Constant: A History of Getting Things Wrong, where I first heard about the Cardiff Giant. If you like weird stories from history you need to check out this podcast it is SO fucking good)

[atavist]

A fossil tooth, a splashy debate, and a strange chapter in America’s long history of science denialism. Issue no. 134 — “The Curious Case of Nebraska Man” by Madeline Bodin — is now live at The Atavist.

It was not a subject he had any special interest in prior to World War I, but during that conflict, Bryan told his listeners, European had slaughtered European without a thought that they were all children of God. He attributed that blind savagery to what in the end was his own flawed interpretation of Charles Darwin’s theory of human evolution, which Darwin had introduced to the world some 50 years earlier. Bryan argued that Darwin’s painting of humans as the descendants of apes was a demotion in ontological priority that provided tacit permission for the deaths of millions. Bryan quoted liberally from The Science of Power, a book by Benjamin Kidd that linked Darwin to the “selfish” and “godless” philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. “Darwin’s doctrine leads logically to war,” Bryan declared.

War wasn’t the only thing Bryan blamed on the theory of evolution. He was also disturbed by reports, mostly from parents, that students were losing their religious faith by studying Darwin’s ideas, as well as geology, in college. “If it is contended that an instructor has a right to teach anything he likes, I reply that the parents who pay the salary have a right to decide what shall be taught,” Bryan said.

Bryan’s words, which still echo across America a century later, were some of the first shots fired in a new battle over evolution, pitting science against faith.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

hey do you guys remember how I said that I was going to use patreon to write up content that would be WILDLY too long for tumblr? yeah. this is uuuuuh a little less than 6000 words about a bad Animal Planet series from 2008 that no one watched but me and my sister.

and here's part of the introduction under the cut for freebies, in case you want a little sample:

If you weren’t a painfully introverted animal fact kid in the early 2000s it’s almost impossible to explain the degree of sway that Animal Planet and its shows held over me as a child. Meerkat Manor, Animal Cops, The Most Extreme, The Little Zoo That Could, Prehistoric Planet, River Monsters, all of Steve Irwin’s work, and truly any and all non-serialized programming about any animal imaginable. I ate it all up, even the terribly boring half-hour programs like Backyard Habitat and Petfinder that they only played in the weird wee hours of the morning. 

Crucially, this programming is mostly of a nonfiction bent. Prehistoric Planet uses a framing device involving the use of time travel to bring extinct animals into the present to live in a zoo, but ultimately they’re trying to teach you some facts about some beasts, and while Meerkat Manor was definitely anthropomorphizing and editorializing the drama those meerkats experienced, it was at least rooted in the very real Kalahari Meerkat Project, which has been intensively documenting the behavior of meerkat mobs for many meerkat generations.

But then we get into the oddballs. In 2004 Animal Planet aired Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real, a British “docufiction” produced for Channel Four that sought to contextualize the nearly-global mythology of dragons in real history and biology, complete with CGI recreations of dragons in their “natural habitats.” That’s all fine and good; there’s nothing wrong with using a fake thing to teach people about real animals’ evolution and anatomy. The Loch Ness Monster episode of River Monsters is excellent for this, as you can tell that host Jeremy Wade (angler, freshwater detective, and criminally fuckable old man) doesn’t expect to find a monster literally at all and is just taking the opportunity to introduce his audience to animals they might not otherwise know about, including the noble Greenland shark. He pulls the same trick again in a later episode where he’s sent to discover the “truth” behind sea serpents and winds up diving in search of the elusive oarfish.

Dragons is… not doing that. Instead it offers up a framing device following a completely fictional paleontologists who “suggests the theory that a carbonized Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton on display was killed by a prehistoric dragon” (thanks, Wikipedia) and then has to go on a quest to save his career by proving that dragons totally existed and he’s not crazy. And he’s not! The piece ends with him discovering straight up for-real dragon bones in the Carpathian Mountains. If you were, say, an impressionably soft-brained 8 year old watching this, well holy shit. Congrats! It turns out dragons are real and nobody knows but you. 

Why did Animal Planet air this? God only knows, but it wouldn’t be the last time they dabbled in this shit. 2012 saw another piece by the same creator, Charlie Foley, called Mermaids: The Body Found which posited that various governments are holding merpeople captive and also relied on the infamously eugenicist aquatic ape theory to justify how merpeople could exist. The CGI on that one creeped me the fuck out, although I was at least old enough by then to recognize it wasn’t real.

Between those two docufictional farces, Animal Planet got a little freaky and rolled out some fake factual content of their own: three season of the TV show Lost Tapes (2008-2010, RIP), which purportedly showed “found footage” from incidents of humans having terrifying encounters with cryptids and fighting to escape with their lives. Interspersed with the fully fictional stories were segments of experts talking about folkloric history and speculating as to how creatures like Sasquatch and sea serpents could be real, which was an admirable effort to make it educational but often fell pretty short. There’s a werewolf episode where their expert weakly offers up that there are tons of transformations in nature, like caterpillars turning into butterflies. Notably that has absolutely nothing in common with a human turning rapidly into a wolfbeast and then shifting back, but they tried! They stopped trying as hard by season three, by which point they were throwing any and every beastie they could think of at the wall: there are episodes dedicated to zombies, a poltergeist, two different types of vampires, and the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl. 

Also straining belief was the dedication that some POV characters had to keeping their cameras rolling. I don’t blame the writers for that; it’s hard coming up with a fresh gimmick for “found footage” in every episode. Some of them, like characters wearing body cameras, are pretty smart; others, like a teenage girl continuing to film on her phone while being hunted by the Jersey devil, are not. They’re very much running on horror movie rules; the characters are as dumb as they need to be to make the plot go. To the show’s credit the dumdums are frequently punished, and it’s not uncommon for every single named character to end up dead at the hands (or claws, fangs, whatever) of the monster of the week. 

Needless to say, as a 12 year old I thought this was extremely edgy and cool. I was old enough to recognize that the so-called found footage was fake and that the acting was mostly very bad, but I liked cryptids and some of the show’s better episodes could still creep me right out. I think geeky 12 year olds who like to get a little freaked out on purpose are probably the ideal target demographic for this show, followed by nostalgic 20-somethings who have seen every episode several times.

(Hi, editor’s note: having completed this list it turns out there are WAY more episodes than I thought and I fully Do Not Recall some of them, so egg on my face.)

[bigfootbeat]

Painted Rock Bigfoot Petroglyph

The Bigfoot petroglyph located at Painted Rock is an intriguing fusion of cultural significance, mystery, and history. Painted Rock, a massive, horseshoe-shaped feature covered in prehistoric rock art, is located in California's arid Carrizo Plain region. One petroglyph in particular sticks out from the others because it resembles contemporary accounts of Bigfoot, a mythical creature. The Chumash and other local native peoples created these petroglyphs thousands of years ago. For these prehistoric people, the rock served as a hallowed location for spiritual rituals, storytelling, and ceremonies. The creatures, humans, and mythological creatures depicted in the carvings and paintings on the rock are said to symbolize different facets of their mythology. Characters that resemble Bigfoot suggest the existence of stories about large, enigmatic creatures in indigenous culture long before modern Bigfoot sightings, adding to their intrigue.

The Yokuts tribe's petroglyphs at Painted Rock on the Tule River Indian Reservation are the main Bigfoot attraction. These, according to author Kathy Moskowitz Strain of Giants, Cannibals, Monsters: Bigfoot in Native Culture, show a family of Bigfoots known as "the Family." Folklore suggests a lengthy history of enigmatic, enormous animals, with the oldest of these glyphs, known as "Hairy Man," estimated to be 1,000 years old. North American folklore frequently portrays the creature as a massive, bipedal ape-like creature that lives in isolated woodlands, lending credence to its legendary status. Numerous theories have been raised regarding the possibility that the Chumash people saw or heard tales of a beast similar to the one depicted in the petroglyph. The Bigfoot petroglyph is more significant than just a picture of the fabled beast. It acts as a bridge across cultures, tying together historical customs and contemporary folklore. This intersection draws attention to the innate human urge to conjure up tales of the enigmatic and unknown, either to explain observed events or to represent anxieties and cultural ideals. The petroglyph also stimulates discussion about the transmission of oral traditions and the evolution of narratives over time. It raises the question of whether real-life experiences, metaphorical depictions, or a combination of both influenced the figure. The petroglyphs at Painted Rock are fascinating because of their ambiguity—they offer insight into the thoughts of individuals who lived millennia ago, but they are still subject to interpretation. The Bigfoot petroglyph at Painted Rock is significant not just historically and culturally, but it also contributes to the preservation of indigenous traditions. Locations such as Painted Rock are essential for comprehending the daily routines and spiritual practices of the ancient occupants. To keep these ancient voices alive, efforts to preserve and research these petroglyphs help people understand the rich tapestry of human history. In summary, Painted Rock's Bigfoot petroglyph is evidence of the myth's continuing strength and the close ties that bind the past and present together. It captures the enigmas of antiquated artwork and stories that have influenced people's perceptions for ages. Whether viewed as evidence of early Bigfoot lore or as a symbolic figure within indigenous mythology, the petroglyph remains a source of amazement and interest, compelling anyone who encounters it to contemplate the stories etched into the stone.

[luxudus]

Merfolk in the Trail of Cryptids (for @jennywolfgal)

woah hey i wasnt expecting to have participated in mermay bet here i am now. This is for @jennywolfgal and her project the Trail of Cryptids which i talked about awhile ago with her dragons. enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Another group of species endemic to this alternate earth are the legendary Merfolk. Trident wielding Half-man half-fish people of the sea of the myths in our world. The merfolk here aren’t humans or hominids, nor are they even great apes. But instead they are a sister-clade of the family Cebidae. They are related to the Capuchin monkeys of central and south America.

They split off 10 million years ago with a similar evolutionary history to the cetaceans. Allowing an evolution of similar extremeness akin to the time between Pakicetus and Dorudon.

Icthypithicids contain a variety of aquatic monkey species. True merfolk belong in the genus Meralosapiens. With some species inhabiting the mediteranean, coast of east Europe, and their ancestral ground the Caribbean with a leaner build adorned in less fat.

To start off physically, They are like Cetaceans, kind of. their tail extended to an extreme degree to swim. Unlike cetaceans and like some ancient artwork of mermaids of our earth. Their legs still remain useful to swim and hold onto partners. Their arms freed up, remain as manipulators. They remain folded to reduce drag. Which lets them hold onto large objects and young merfolk when breastfeeding.

Uniquely they have a full head of hair like humans in spite of the drag created. This hair is maintained and kept healthy through grooming with the aid of two serrated claws on the lower half of their hand. Their teeth are tipped with canines and slowly become more trident shaped further back. Which they use to flush water out of their mouth. And Lastly their nostrils can completely close like a seal, and are at the very front of the face to ensure they breach the water first.

Ecologically, they are mostly carnivorous. They eat a wide array of fish, squid, and other small marine life. They take a particular liking to seaweeds and copepods, which they use their trident teeth to filter them out of the water. They take so much of a liking to copepods they will even follow their vertical migration.

They are quite social and live in family pods. Like mentioned earlier they will groom each other to strengthen social bonds. While most Icthypithicids are comparable in intelligence to their capuchin cousins. Meralaosapiens are fully sophont organisms that have the capacity for understanding and creating art and complex language. Technologically they are comparable to neolithic humans. Most populations use stone tools or other organisms slightly bred for more cooperation, living tools if you will. While other populations scavenge for more advanced tools left behind by humans.

Overall they are neutral to humans. Often keeping their distance or outright hiding from humans. Some more aggressive merfolk will attack or even hunt humans as a source of preyluring them in with their locks of hair. Which is believed to have arisen from a few merfolk cultures going through famine and growing desperate for food, eventually looking to their cousins beyond the water.

And of course there are others naturally curious of their terrestrial relatives and will frequently come up to human divers, even attempting to communicate with them. The future is uncertain, but hopefully the humanity of this earth will treat these people with respect and maybe even lend them a hand.

[talonabraxas]

"Celestial Tree" Talon Abraxas

So, there are 12 Great Orders of Spiritual Beings or Entities and these are in some way connected with and represented by the 12 Signs of the Zodiac, namely Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces.

And within the 12 Great Orders is the 7-fold “Hierarchy of Creative Powers” and these seven are connected in some way with the Seven Sacred Planets, which are Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and two others, which are exoterically said to be the Sun and the Moon, but which are in fact the mysterious planet Vulcan and another planet which has not been specifically named in the Theosophical teachings but which is described by HPB in “Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge” as “a planet with a retrograde motion, sometimes visible at a certain hour of night and apparently near the moon. The occult influence of this planet is transmitted by the moon.”

This is what is said about the Seven Hierarchies . . .

1 – “The highest group is composed of the divine Flames, so-called, also spoken of as the “Fiery Lions” and the “Lions of Life,” whose esotericism is securely hidden in the Zodiacal sign of Leo. It is the nucleole of the superior divine World. They are the formless Fiery Breaths, identical in one aspect with the upper Sephirothal TRIAD, which is placed by the Kabalists in the “Archetypal World.””

2 – “The second Order of Celestial Beings, those of Fire and AEther (corresponding to Spirit and Soul, or the Atma-Buddhi) whose names are legion, are still formless, but more definitely “substantial.” . . . As the name shows, they are the prototypes of the incarnating Jivas or Monads, and are composed of the Fiery Spirit of Life. It is through these that passes like a pure solar beam, the ray which is furnished by them with its future vehicle, the Divine Soul, Buddhi. These are directly concerned with the Hosts of the higher world of our system. From these twofold Units emanate the threefold.”

3 – “The Third order corresponds to the Atma-Buddhi-Manas: Spirit, Soul and Intellect, and is called the “Triads.””

4 – “The Fourth are substantial Entities. This is the highest group among the Rupas (Atomic Forms). It is the nursery of the human, conscious, spiritual Souls. They are called the “Imperishable Jivas,” and constitute, through the order below their own, the first group of the first septenary host – the great mystery of human conscious and intellectual Being.”

5 – “The Fifth group is a very mysterious one, as it is connected with the Microcosmic Pentagon, the five-pointed star representing man. In India and Egypt these Dhyanis were connected with the Crocodile, and their abode is in Capricornus. These are convertible terms in Indian astrology, as this (tenth) sign of the Zodiac is called Makara, loosely translated “crocodile.” … The fifth group of the celestial Beings is supposed to contain it itself the dual attributes of both the spiritual and physical aspects of the Universe; the two poles, so to say, of Mahat the Universal Intelligence, and the dual nature of man, the spiritual and the physical. Hence its number Five, multiplied and made into ten, connecting it with Makara, the 10th sign of Zodiac. . . . It becomes the task of the fifth Hierarchy – the mysterious beings that preside over the constellation Capricornus, Makara, or “Crocodile” in India as in Egypt – to inform the empty and ethereal animal form [i.e. in the early period of humanity’s evolution on this globe in this Fourth Round] and make of it the Rational Man. This is one of those subjects upon which very little may be said to the general public. It is a MYSTERY, truly but only to him who is prepared to reject the existence of intellectual and conscious spiritual Beings in the Universe, limiting full Consciousness to man alone, and that only as a “function of the Brain.” Many are those among the Spiritual Entities, who have incarnated bodily in man, since the beginning of his appearance, and who, for all that, still exist as independently as they did before, in the infinitudes of Space. . . . To put it more clearly: the invisible Entity may be bodily present on earth without abandoning, however, its status and functions in the supersensuous regions.”

6 & 7 – “The sixth and seventh groups partake of the lower qualities of the Quaternary. They are conscious, ethereal Entities, as invisible as Ether . . . as it is the Sixth – on the downward scale of Spirituality – the last and seventh being the terrestrial Spirits (elementals) which gradually form, build, and condense his physical body – this Sixth group evolves no more than the future man’s shadowy form, a filmy, hardly visible transparent copy of themselves. . . . This sixth group, moreover, remains almost inseparable from man, who draws from it all but his highest and lowest principles, or his spirit and body, the five middle human principles being the very essence of those Dhyanis. Alone, the Divine Ray (the Atman) proceeds directly from the One.”

[karoochui]

Okay. So I recently found your blog and been obsessing over the sandman au but like. You mentioned things about reincarnation and how y/b died and like. If sand sun and boogie moon remember everything after the fire, do they know what happened to y/n? And don’t they realize that y/n is gonna die again? After all, I’m assuming that y/n is just a human and sun and moon are like. Kinda gods of dreams? Falling in love for a second time with a person you kinda know is gonna die eventually must be scary

Oh okay well firstly! They aren't gods or anything like that, theyre just them with the magic to boot. All the changes in the world were brought upon by a virus outbreak that i call the AP virus (as reference to it as a fourth wall viewer, not as in what it's called in the story) that killed off most living things by rotting them from the inside-out. After the events of Binary Resurgence this virus causes an apocalypse that's basically the start of everything being re-evolutionized and magic resurfacing. Everything is affected and some species stay the same (like some humans) and some don't. This all happens within like ~2000 years after the plex burns down. It's inspired by adventure time if that helps give you a better idea.

Magic is a pre-exisiting thing that's been subdued by polution (its part of the earth, pollution kills the Earth blah blah blah) and also ignorance/neglect of practice. Like ive said before this story will have a sequel which is where all the magic happens (lol) and it's only really touched upon/used as a foreshadowing element in the first story.

Also sun and moon aren't quite literally the sandman and boogie man, sun wasnt even inspired by either. I actually just mashed the two concepts together for moon's design and skills. Sun is more-so based on a grave-digger,western cowboy kinda look with a witchy touch. And yes! They do know what happened to y/n, they remember everything. They had to LIVE through the apocalypse after y/n's death and then live through the world changing all over again. They actually do "die" (their battery goes kaput) for a hot second but magic doesn't let many things rest in the means of evolution and their body is revitalized.

And yeah meeting y/n again after all of that is fucking horrifying for them but it's also a blessing. Its a plot point actually, because over the years Sun hasnt become evil, persay, but he's a fucking nut lmao. He has been through Some Shit and is absolutely deranged and not always in the best way. His behavior and actions eventually cause some arguments and stuff. The sequel is gonna be more of a feel-good story though, to make up for the terrible way the first one is gonna end.

Yeah y/n is gonna eventually die again (not that i plan to write that but humans aren't immortal) but it isnt so much about that as it is about "things will go right this time". The first story was very much a "right person, wrong time" kinda thing. I wouldn't say it's slice of life, because i don't really like that genre by itself, but it has elements.

Basically i really liked the concept for the first story but i hate bad endings so i made a sequel to fix everything. Also i hope that answered your questions! If not then don't be shy about asking some more.

[bethanythebogwitch]

Australian Pokemon

Another set of Fakemon from my Goorda region based on a mix of Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand. Previous posts in this series: misc 3, single stages, non-natives, regional standards, creepy lines, regional variants, birds, early-game standards, misc 2, misc 1, starter variants, starters.

Drolladrong, the Lungfish Pokemon, Ground or Water-type. Drolladrong live simple lives burrowing through dried-up billabongs and seasonal streams. They are considered by most to be a dull and forgettable Pokemon. However, when the rainy season comes, Drolladrong metamorphoses into a majestic form and swims freely through the water to attract mates and lay eggs before the dry season returns.

Drolladrong is normally in Dry Form, a slow, defensive ground-type. If rain starts, it will shift into Wet Form, a speedy glass cannon. It has a unique ability called Seasonal Rains that causes this. Drolladrong is based on lungfish, which are famous for their ability to survive on land during dry seasons due to having lungs. The name comes from "drought" and "billabong" (seasonal wetlands).

Yowookee, the Hooligan Pokemon, normal-type. Yowookie are too small to participate in the rough games played by their evolutions, so they stand on the sidelines and cheer and holler to encourage their team. They paint their faces and leaves with berry juice to further show their support. Yowookee from opposing teams sometimes get into fights and they will throw wild parties if their team wins and riots if their team loses.

Yowookee evolves to Champowie, the Athlete Pokemon, normal-type. Champowie live in groups that act like sports teams. Different team play games against each other with the goal of getting a ball (made of giant seedpods) through the other team's side. These games are very rough, involving tackling and wrestling. To protect themselves, fur on the arms, legs, and chest has developed into thick padding. The best player of a team is the leader. As the ball is used, it sheds seeds, helping spread the parent plant population.

Yowookie and Champowie are based on sports fans and athletes. Yowookee is based on overenthusiastic fans like the football hooligans from the UK, with the decorated leaves being like flags and banners. In a game, members of this line from different routes would have different paint colors to represent the different teams. Champowie are the athletes and I based the game they play on rugby, which is popular in Australia. The padded fur is based on protective pads worn in sports like rugby and American football. They are also based on the yowie, a creature of Australian folklore said to look like an ape man. Basically, Australia's Bigfoot. The names come from "yowie", "rookie", and "champion".

Sepiliar, the Familiar Pokemon, psychic/poison-type. These rare Pokemon live deep in the forest and move through levitation. Each one carries a stick that it uses as a focus for its psychic powers. They are sent out to collect ingredients from throughout the forest and bring them back to their master. People in the past belived them to be spirits of the forest.

Sepiliar evolves to Sorsuttle, the Forest Witch Pokemon, psychic/poison-type. Sorsuttle lives in the deepest part of the forest and heads a coven of Sepiliar that are sent out to gather ingredients. It hollows out a boulder and uses it as a cauldron to brew potions. These potions are stored in hollow, dried fruits. Legends say that people who protect the forests may be gifted with potions from a Sorsuttle, while those who harm the forest will be attacked with poisons.

Sepiliar and Sorsuttle are based on witches, familiars, and the flamboyant cuttlefish, the only venomous cuttlefish. Naturally, they live in Australia. The reason they live in forests instead of the ocean is I had a dream involving flying cuttlefish in a forest. Yeah. Sorsuttle brews up potions like witches do and its reclusive nature as role as a protector of the forest drawn from various stories of witches and pagans. The blue rings on both stages are a reference to the blue-ringed octopus, another venomous cephalopod that lives in Australia (Because where else would it be?). Their names come from "Sepiida" (the taxonomic clade of cuttlefish), "familiar" (an animal-like servant of a witch), "sorcery", and "cuttlefish".

[bluehairlaunch]

Top 7 WORST Dragon Ball Transformations

Honorable mention: Beast Zarbon

Because they turned my muscle twink into a bear...

Super Saiyan God

This fucker. As much as I like Battle of Gods, this redhead continued a trend that started with a green tinged Broly and ended with orange fucking Piccolo and a cast of otter pop flavored Super Saiyans.

At least Super Saiyan 4 wasn't just a recolor of a recolor...

Orange Piccolo

Speaking of lazy, visually unappealing, late stage capitalism embodying recolors, Piccolo is orange now. Yes I know he hasn't been relevant in a fight since his introduction in the 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament and briefly when Toriyama remembered against Second Form Frieza and Imperfect Cell, but it's ok, don't worry kids, HE'S ORANGE.

Super Android 13

How is there still downhill from a trucker hat? Do you like this? Leave a comment on this webzone if you like this? Explain why you like his Vegeta hair and 90s earrings if you like this. Detail your obsession with blue skinned gingers if you like this.

Third Form Frieza

Why is he a xenomorph? Why is he a xenomorph?! I guess I wasn't expecting him to be a xenomorph, which is typical for Toriyama, but WHY IS HE A XENOMORPH??? Like it's weird he's the alien from Alien, right? And it's weirder that he's almost 1:1 the pirate robot Goku fought in OG Dragon Ball

Fifth Form Cooler

Oh fuck you. You fucking piece of shit. Fifth form? You're so non-canon it hurts. This couldn't just be his second form or idk his third form, since Frieza's second form was already Cooler. But it's his fifth! And Goku has to be there, because it's filler, so the threat needs to be bigger. It's not like the Frieza race are shapeshifters. Of course they're not dipshit, they all follow the same template. They're like the evolution chart detailing prehistoric ape to cromagnon man to blond guy. And this is his fifth form!

Imagine if this had been a Piccolo movie set while Goku was on Yardrat. We have Frieza's bro, who's not just miraculous stronger despite never doing anything about it, but he's still more powerful than the second form Frieza Piccolo fought. Idk. Fuck Coola

Super Buu

This one is basically a Dragon Ball IQ test. At first glance he looks ok, maybe even cool. However, those with sufficient gray matter can easily ascertain that he's actually garbage, and that Fat Buu was the best design all along. He's just so generic looking, which is almost impressive for a guy so pink and sponge-y looking. Oh. And his transformation includes raiding people's wardrobe without realizing that shit don't even match

Super Saiyan 3

See, a bad transformation isn't just about aesthetics. And don't get me wrong, the aesthetics are also awful. That caveman brow, the Raditz hair, those obscene spikes. But no, the worst part about Super Saiyan 3, the thing that I truly absolutely despise, is how effortlessly it cheapens Super Saiyan and Gohan's feat of going Beyond Super Saiyan

Because everyone had that thought the second Trunks arrived and went blond. That they could do it. Gohan, Vegeta, Ghost of Nappa, and any other Saiyan that might be out there. All of them could go Super Saiyan now, it's not prophecy after all. And that leads to the question of escalation. What next?

Well the Cell Saga answered this. Gohan was next. He went Beyond Super Saiyan. The boy did what his dad don't, he fucking mastered that shit. Then out comes Super Saiyan 3 like a baaaaad fart. But it only gets worse. It's a flawed, incomplete transformation that only works if you're dead. It's strong, but burns through energy faster than the body can collect it. And that's that. Dragon Ball ends, Goku saving the day without even using his new form. Dragon Ball GT introduces SS4 and DBS provides a crayon box of recolors for you to shove up your nose, all the while Super Saiyan 3 is left in the dust. It came, we all saw it, it sucked.

[river-taxbird]

Paranthropus Appreciation Post!

What does this cow-like bipedal ape say about what it means to be human?

Paranthropus is a genus of extinct bipedial ape, represented by fossils of three species in west and south Africa around 2 million years ago. It seems like they evolved from earlier bipedal apes called Australopiths, which branched into two groups, Homo, which started eating meat and using tools, and eventually evolved into humans. The name paranthropus even means "Beside man." Paranthropus went in another direction, and filled a cow like niche. It has HUGE teeth compared to other apes, and this means it probably ate grass or nuts, depending on the subspecies. Bigfoot people, if you want to stop appropriating indigenous myths, paranthropus is right there.

While they are not humans or proto humans, it does raise some interesting questions on what it means to be human. Were they basically just bipedal gorillas, or did they have more going on? They went in a different direction from our hunter gather ancestors, but they did exist in the same time and places. We like to think of using stone tools as something only humans and our ancestors do, but there is a stone tool site that is associated with paranthropus, due to one of their unmistakable teeth being found at the site. This probably means it did eat meat at least sometimes, and used stone tools to butcher carcasses. There was clearly something going on in their minds.

Images of stone tools found associated with paranthropus, including analysis. Source

It may seem surprising that other apes could use flaked stone tools, but most people in the know accept that australopiths, or other similar apes that may be ancestor to both homo and paranthropus could use stone tools, so there's no reason to think it couldn't other than human supremacy.

We have also sequenced proteins from their teeth that shows how closely related they are to humans, and it confirms the time they split from our family.

They are a super cool ape and shows that we are not the inevitable endgoal of human evolution. Anyway, now I have told you about it, I hope to see some paranthropus and other pre-human bipedal ape fursonas. They are the only animals that are truly "anthro", and the fact humans are the only bipedal great ape still alive contributes to human supremacy over animals. Imagine if there were relatives this close to us around today!

[gxlden-angels]

There's a guy on campus right now offering $5k if we can change his mind about evolution being impossible and I kind of want to just to check my own retained knowledge from AP Biology cause if this man is anything like my grandmother, a platypus existing is enough for him to say you didn't change his mind

[cypress-punk]

Thinking about Eclipse Phase, a cyberpunk ttrpg with a focus on transhumanism and one of the ideas it brings up in the form of post humans.

So in the setting "transhuman" refers to three groups of beings. The first is humans, like you and me, but in this world basically everyone has a cyber brain and a genetically engineered body or inhabits some sort of fully synthetic robot body but their mind is that of a human. The second is AGI, artifical general intelligences, which are designed to remain at roughly human levels of intelligence and a are engineered to have human like perspectives because AIs allowed to become too smart nearly wiped out the human race fairly recently in the history of the setting. The third is uplifted animals, apes, cetaceans, corvids, parrots, octopi, and pigs which have been genetically engineered to have human like minds and intelligence along with modified bodies that make them more human in body plan (for the apes at least).

This broad and somewhat contradictory set of beings are what you can play as and make up most of the intelligent beings a player might encounter though there are some rather odd aliens and even a weird race of mantis shrimp murder creatures engineered by the bad AIs I mentioned earlier. There are all sorts of contradictions about the category of "transhuman" that the game positions you to explore and challenge in game. Its a very interesting setting in general and worth looking into though the actual rule set is rough (in the first edition, I haven't played the second edition and only skimmed the rules briefly when I read the book)

Anyway that really long preamble out of the way I want to talk about another category of being that exists in the world: post humans. That is to say, if the majority of intelligent beings in the world have become something more than human as it was once understood, these guys have abandoned it entirely. Post humans come in two major flavors from what I recall, Minds, which are people who engineered themselves into enormous brains with equivalently staggering, though alien, intelligence; and Predators, which have abandoned human nature to become pure hunters, highly versatile killing machines that target transhumans as prey, or in some cases have weird space habitats engineered as massive ecosystems over which they are the Apex predators.

Both of these are presented as the result of sort of egoist/objectivist approaches to evolution. In a world where the technology exists to basically engineer a whole viable organism these people have chosen to become something completely unlike what they were. The Minds can be taken as an attempt an organic super intelligence, a piece of meat that can rival the god like AIs that devastated the earth. The predators strike me as a very fascistic view of nature taken to the extreme, seeking to become machines that kill, bending all that you are toward being a weapon. Its almost in line with some Futurist ideas about the body in an industrial world. They also serve as basically stand in for some classic DND monsters. Minds are a lot like Beholders or Elder Brains, Predators can fill many "monster" roles depending on the type of body they've built for themselves.

Anyway I like the post humans because they express an interesting ethos within the setting. Theyre a believable fringe that adds something to the world and provides an interesting element for the players to interact with. But there is one other being in the setting that strikes me as very post human.

There's a description in one piece of fluff of colonies of "barnacles" on certain space ships or habitats. These are extremely stripped down synthetic bodies that are equipped with the tools to affix themselves securely to the hull of some man made object in space and then point a lens at the void of space. A body built for complete isolation and meditation upon the cosmos. A sort of ultimate asceticism. I like the barnacles a lot conceptually.