#we have thousands of years of history before written records

[h-sleepingirl]

You Are A Wizard, So Pour Over The Tomes

Hypnosis is magic. It is not just “the closest we can get to magic.” Trance practices in all kinds of forms have served as the basis for mysticism across cultures and human history -- thousands of years. It is not new. It is not western. It did not start with Franz Mesmer or James Braid or Milton Erickson or Wiseguy.

Modern hypnosis stems from a rich human history of fascination and spiritual veneration of the mind’s power. We are practitioners of a comparably new discipline where we can literally change the way that other people experience the world. Their innermost selves are as leverage to us -- putty to us, when we know what we are doing. We can transform others freely. We can give pleasure or pain. We can facilitate experiences that seem to defy reality.

People talk a big game about respecting that power. What they usually mean by that is respecting EACH OTHER. That’s crucial, obviously -- not manipulating, not harming, being a good person.

But what about respecting the discipline itself?

It’s tempting to see what we do as disconnected from the “historical” and “outdated” methods of hypnosis. But we are a part of that history. We are likely hilariously wrong about a lot of things related to trance, hypnosis, the human mind -- what will hypnosis and psychology look like in 100 years? And even as we innovate, we are always building on the techniques and ideas that came before us -- in ways we are often not even aware of. We reinvent; we use ideas from the past unknowingly.

We have a right -- and a responsibility -- to OWN our magic. I am not here to gatekeep and say that this magic is not yours. It IS yours; it’s unequivocally yours. But as a whole we could do more to respect it.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” And hypnosis is not even a technology that we UNDERSTAND. The only real reason we DON’T see ourselves as wizards is because there is a huge motivation to legitimize hypnosis as a scientific discipline -- and non-rationalist perspectives are looked down upon in our culture. I��m not anti-science (maybe a little -- tongue in cheek) but I do think that labeling hypnosis as “just psychology” is dishonest about how much we actually objectively know about it -- and does a disservice to the phenomenon itself.

I’m not saying hypnosis is literally metaphysical. But I am saying we practice something very powerful without knowing its nature. There are secrets we have tried to suss out about this magic through history that we have written down -- past and present. We actually have tomes of knowledge, records of past experiments and modern inventors.

In the last couple of years, I’ve started teaching/facilitating “text studies” -- classes where we sit down with an excerpt from a hypnosis book and parse through it as a collaborative group. I desperately want to show people that there is value in just critically reading the resources available to us. The clinical texts -- especially older ones -- are hard to read, like they are almost in a different language. But it is amazing the insights we have come to by tackling them together.

These old texts are not pure truths -- there is a lot we’ve improved on over time. But we can learn a lot by learning what hypnosis was like historically. The entire discipline of hypnosis is extremely susceptible to change -- it is defined SO MUCH by how we view it culturally. I just recently was amazed at re-reading some Erickson where he talks about making his subjects daydream autonomously -- as a primary mode and result of inducing hypnosis. Contrast that with today, where if someone’s mind wanders for even a moment, they feel like they’ve failed. There’s something really important here -- a technique from 50 years ago that tells us something we’ve lost in modern practice.

And there are countless examples of this, of people losing and reinventing methods over and over. As I’ve watched our kinky niche grow over just the past 13 years, I’ve watched ideas phase in, out, and in again -- there is both growth and regression of our collective body of knowledge. That’s the nature of things, especially when we operate partially disconnected from the resources that are available to us.

We CAN be connected to the rich human history of trying to unravel the secrets about our minds, and about this thing that gives us enormous transformative powers -- powers that we take for granted.

You are a wizard -- so pour over the tomes.

Read a book. Read an article. Set aside some time and view yourself with the respect of being someone who can study and suss out a magical text. Take notes, look up words and concepts you don’t know. Or just absorb what you can on a first pass and go back later. Read a chapter or just master a single page. Romanticize the aesthetic of sitting with the scent of paper, or as the technomancer with words appearing on a screen.

Read. Own this art. And bring that respect of this art to the people you share it with. I promise you can do things with hypnosis that you have never thought possible.

------------------

This is a little motivational piece (for you and me!) as I gear up to teach "Analyzing Erickson" at Charmed. It's something I feel really passionately about, and I wanted to share it.

Permanently linked/free on Patreon.

[mariacallous]

Writing a comprehensive history of Polish citizens during the Holocaust is a hefty task. A Polish law that criminalizes any mention of Polish responsibility for or complicity in Nazi crimes makes it even harder.

That makes the groundbreaking research conducted by acclaimed Holocaust historian Jan Grabowski for his new book, “On Duty: The Polish Blue & Criminal Police in the Holocaust” all the more remarkable. 

Relying on meticulous documentation, the book argues that Polish institutions were more than willing to assist the Nazis in their extermination campaign, and often led the way through their own initiatives. Grabowski, a professor at the University of Ottawa, spent more than 10 years conducting the research, including years in Poland going through Polish archives, private diaries and records from more than 100 small towns where Jews lived in high concentrations. 

“I read horrifying things in the diaries of Polish policemen describing how many Jews they killed each day,” said Grabowski, 61. “There were anecdotes about a cop asking for a glass of vodka before shooting a Jew, or using hot water to clean the blood off their hands. They killed friends and schoolmates without remorse, even in places where no Germans ever came to check up on them.”

Much of the evidence Grabowski uncovered had never been seen before.

“It’s not easy to write a book like this when you have opposition from massive Polish organizations with teams of PhDs whose job is to go after people like myself,” said Grabowski, who began his research for the book before Poland passed the controversial 2018 Act on the Institute of National Remembrance. “But thorough and independent historical research is necessary to make sure that a nation can’t rewrite its history into a happy story of righteous Poles saving Jews.”

In particular, the book focuses on the actions of Poland’s Blue Police, officially known as the Polish Police of the Generalgouvernement, established shortly after the German occupation of Poland in 1939 and consisting mainly of prewar Polish police officers.

“We are talking about a police force of 20,000 people that previously was in charge of enforcing mundane civilian laws like making sure that horses walking on the street had horseshoes,” Grabowski said. “What fascinates me is how quickly these normal ordinary cops were transformed into ruthless killers.”

Grabowski’s 496-page book is now available on Yad Vashem’s website.

Grabowski has written numerous books and articles focusing on the Holocaust in Poland. His book “Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland” won the Yad Vashem International Book Prize in 2013.

On the eve of World War II, Poland’s 3.3 million Jews formed a vibrant and diverse society, noted Havi Dreifuss, director of the Center for Research on the Holocaust in Poland at Yad Vashem and professor of Jewish history at Tel Aviv University. 

“Many were engaged in Jewish and Polish causes or active in political movements such as the Bund, Zionist, and Orthodox groups. While most lived in cities, these were often small, alongside villages that reflected the richness of Polish Jewish life.”

This last point is a critical issue for Holocaust scholarship, Dreifuss said.  

“Research often focuses on large ghettos like Warsaw and Lodz, each housing hundreds of thousands of Jews. But over 340 ghettos existed in the Generalgouvernement, 83% of them with fewer than 5,000 Jews,” she said. “These smaller ghettos, representing the majority of Polish Jewish communities, remain understudied, despite their significant role in understanding Polish Jewry during the Holocaust.”

Chronologically, Polish persecution of the Jews progressed in three stages, according to Grabowski.

After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, the Third Reich entrusted Polish police forces to introduce and enforce new restrictions on the Jews. 

“The first phase was the beginning of the inhuman ghettoization of the Jews,” Grabowski said. “The Germans created laws designed to break down the Jews, limiting where they could go and what they could do or own. Yet until now, virtually no historians have examined how the large Polish police force suddenly became so deeply involved with Jewish affairs, effectively condemning them to starvation.”

By 1941, Polish forces began working on the second phase, liquidating hundreds of ghettos. As trainloads of Jews were sent to concentration camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau and Treblinka in 1942 and 1943, Polish police participated in the Nazi evacuations of these ghettos, rounding Jews up, killing anyone who resisted and sometimes even conducting the evacuations themselves.

“It is important to understand that it wasn’t the Germans coercing the Poles to shoot; it was the Polish execution squads making these decisions themselves,” Grabowski said. “In November 1941, Polish police were shooting Jews on a regular basis, much earlier than in Nazi-occupied countries in Western Europe.”

Perhaps the Poles were just acting to avoid facing punishment from the Nazis? 

“The interesting thing is that there is no record of any penalty given to someone who refused to kill a Jew, except maybe some sneers by your colleagues,” Grabowski said. “If you didn’t want to do it, there was always someone else who would be happy to.”

After the ghettos were liquidated, Polish forces continued their killing sprees through the third phase, searching throughout the country for Jews who may have escaped, according to Grabowski.

“At this point, they are murdering with gusto, without any German involvement,” according to Grabowski. “They are working with locals, with their neighbors, and they don’t even inform the Germans about what they are doing.”

As the Holocaust progressed, Polish police acted on their own to kill Jews without coordinating with Germany, Grabowski said. 

“They knew that if they reported their activities to the Nazis they would have been forced to share the money and property they stole,” he said. “They might also incriminate their neighbors who were actively sheltering Jews. And they didn’t want that.”

Poland’s Foreign Ministry declined to respond to the claims in Grabowski’s books, saying, “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not comment on the scientific activities of individual people, considering scientific sphere and activity exempt from political assessment.”

While writing “On Duty,” Grabowski faced a powerful barrage of opposition from the Polish government and was slapped with a number of lawsuits, two of which are still pending. 

“It has not been good for my psychological well-being,” Grabowski said. “When you study for a PhD, no one trains you in how to handle attacks from the state for slandering the good name of the nation.”

But exposing the truth is exactly why Grabowski believes his work is important. 

“The Holocaust has become a universal benchmark of evil, but even after decades of Holocaust education, you have governments bending history out of shape to conform with their own needs,” he said. “This is a very dangerous precedent, and we have a responsibility to prevent it to preserve our future.”

[cryptotheism]

"What is alchemy even?"

Tat: “O pop-history esoterica blogger, what is Alchemy?”

C.T: “My student, alchemy can be neatly summed up as “proto-chemistry.” For most of history there have been people like yourself, those who wonder what the world is made of, how it fits together, and what are the rules that govern its transformations. These days, the people who study these questions are called chemists, but before there were chemists, there were alchemists.”

Tat: “So what’s the difference? What does a chemist have that an alchemist does not?”

C.T.: “The answer is roughly 1,700 years of accumulated knowledge and writing. Chemistry was built from the works of the alchemists.”

Tat: “Ah! So it is like how astronomy arose from astrology?”

C.T.: “Not quite. For astronomers and astrologers both still exist. Alchemy became chemistry. There are no more alchemists. Or, attempting to practice alchemy today, would simply be practicing chemistry.”

Tat: “But what about spiritual alchemy? Were alchemists not magicians?”

C.T.: “My student, there were thousands of alchemists throughout history, from dozens of time periods and cultures. Some were indeed mystics and magicians, but they were generally outliers. The vast majority of alchemists were more akin to glass-blowers and blacksmiths than oracles and magicians.”

Tat: “But alchemical writing speaks so much of gods and divinity!”

C.T.: “Many texts do! Many cartographers from history used elaborate biblical metaphors to describe their work, but you don’t see modern scholars claiming all medieval mapmakers were secretly mystics. The bible was something many were familiar with. Using biblical metaphors to explain complicated processes is simply good technical writing.” 

Tat: “But, if most alchemists were not magicians or mystics, why discuss alchemy in this text? Isn’t this book about magic?”

C.T.: “Because few things have been more influential on western magical literature. Even entirely mundane, non-magical alchemical works are wondrously evocative. Even now, alchemical literature has a way of seizing the imagination. Many texts are literally occluded, written in code to protect the alchemists work. Even when alchemical literature is non-magical, it is deeply esoteric.”

Tat: “Why are they written that way?”

C.T. “To protect trade secrets! What if you discovered a new way to make stronger armor, or sharper swords? That information must be recorded, but it also cannot fall into enemy hands. Many alchemists protected their discoveries with intentionally complex metaphorical language that could only be understood by those with the required knowledge. This also makes them extremely difficult to translate into other languages!”

Tat: “I see! But how did it end? Chemistry is no longer discussed with esoteric metaphors, what changed?”

C.T. “It was a gradual change that took place over generations. But for the purposes of time, this text will consider the First Alchemist to be Maria Hebrea, and the Last Alchemist to be Sir Issac Newton.”

Tat: “But what about the alchemist-mystics? Will this text discuss them?”

C.T. “Indeed, my student. We will be discussing them at length.”

More alchemy on patreon today!

[yeoldenews]

I don't know how much you think about it, but you wrote a post back in Mar 2020:

"A sincere request from someone who has spent her entire adult life wishing people had kept better records…In the coming weeks and months… RECORD WHAT IS HAPPENING."

That post got me to start properly journaling properly, after trying and failing when I was younger. A majority of it is 'just' day-to-day progress updates on my fiction writing, but there's a bit of stuff about my life, and some briefer stuff about the world beyond. Not a lot, but some. Four (and change) years, and my journal is just short of 186K words.

I remembered your post, seeing today's SCOTUS decisions. I remembered your post, and I remembered a line you'd written: "Are you scared to death? Write it down."

I just...I don't know. I just wanted you to know your post made an impact, and I don't know what the fuck is coming over the next week and month and year and decade, but...I'm writing shit down. I'm writing shit down, and it's all because of your post.

You have no idea how much this means to me, and how badly I needed to hear it this week - so thank you. Truly. I am genuinely moved, and so proud of you for your 186k words.

History is made up of the stories people decided to save - and the first step to making sure a story gets saved is writing it down.

I really, really hate writing. Like more than just about anything. I'm a chronic perfectionist, and it can take me a whole afternoon to finish a single paragraph I'm satisfied with. (I spent three days writing this response, and you don't even want to know how long I spend on some of the things I post.) So keeping a journal is not a task I'd ever felt the need to afflict myself with before the pandemic. When I made the post you referenced, my journaling habit was all of ten days old but, against all the odds, here I am over four years later having never (to my recollection) missed a single day.

My daily records of what my cats are doing, and your day-to-day writing progress may not be extensively poured over by future scholars, but for only a few minutes of effort a day we now have recorded hundreds of stories.

And who knows what the people of the future might find fascinating. I'm sure the teenage girl in Philadelphia who smudged the letter she was writing in 1897 because a bee scared her would be absolutely baffled that thousands of people were still laughing about the incident 125 years later.

So much of history, and life in general, doesn't become clear until long after the fact. Historical records are full of people overreacting about events that ended up having very little significance in hindsight, and under-reacting about events they no had no idea were about to change the world. But being able to go back and see what people wrote in the moment, preserving their honest thoughts and hopes and fears, is about as close as you can get to time travel.

Maybe what we fear will come true and we're recording history, maybe we'll look back on what we wrote today and go "phew! that was a close one!", or maybe nothing will come of it at all - I pray it will be the last one, but, whatever the outcome, it's worth writing down.

(Also voting. Please, please vote.)

[wolfy1298]

Don’t you ever wonder what kind of secrets and plot points Venti keeps hidden? He claims to be the weakest amongst the Seven-and that could be true given his whole 500 year slumber and poison and all- but he’s still a god. AND one of the original Seven. You gotta be good at SOMETHING to survive for this long…

He’s also the only archon so far that doesn’t have a second story quest so what is he hiding?! We have accounts of him literally shaping the land with ease from both the Golden Apple Archipelago events and his character stories. We know that he has close relationships with the Hexenzirkel and somehow managed to avoid conflict with them??? And there’s also the fact from the skyward sword series that he was originally a catalyst user before picking up the bow in honor of Amos. He’s pulling a Childe when it comes to weapons he currently uses and the ones he’s proficient in.

And don’t even get me started on his connection with Istharoth and Celestia! Mondstadt already has the Thousands Winds Temple AND the nameless island where both Venti and Istharoth were once worshipped. And from Before Sun and Moon, we know that the Thousand Winds (which Venti IS A PART OF) were once called the Thousand Winds of TIME, all of whom were created and controlled by Istharoth. AND THEN you have Venti suspiciously appearing in the right place at the right time again and again and again. He even self proclaimed knowing every song: past, present, and future. Hell he’s probably one of the only few beings in Teyvat who can naturally bypass Irminsul because of his songs: Nahida already shown it’s possible to save deleted info if rearranged into fiction so the same should work for songs and poetry. And there’s also what the hydro fungus in Nahida’s second story quest said about changing forms. That you need time for growth to occur. And Nahida - an ARCHON- had trouble maintaining her fungus form for even the short period of time. She was even told that to do so for longer, one would need to bypass time itself which is near impossible. AND YET VENTI CHANGED INTO THE FORM OF HIS FRIEND IMMEDIATELY AFTER RECEIVING HIS GNOSIS AND HAS YET TO CHANGE BACK OR TIRE FROM FATIGUE (as we know it). HOW STRONG IS HE. Sure, the yokai in Inazuma and Adepti in Liyue can all change into a human form, but we know in game that it takes a long time and steady energy to take on a human shape, and the Adepti all seem to have that ability naturally: there’s no bending the laws of nature if it’s already natural to them. So what’s Venti’s excuse?!

As for Celestia: there’s already written in the statue of Barbatos “the gateway to Celestia” and what not. And Khanreia! In the chasm AND in the Caribert quest, Barbatos and Mondstadt keep getting named dropped. According to Dainself, the city in the chasm is supposedly OLDER than Khanreia and possibly the Seven, yet BARBATOS of all beings is mentioned in the records you find??? And in Caribert, it’s a Mondstadtian woman who that one bloke had a child with. Never mind that Mondstadt is where Kaeya and Albedo - the two characters with confirmed Khanreian origins- end up! There’s also the fact that Khanreia seems to base its gods and names and whatever around Norse mythology….which has strong ties to GERMANIC HISTORY. WHICH MONDSTADT IS BASED OFF OF. And Enkanomiya, which was once ruled by Istaroth, is Greek origin. Suspicious considering all the connections to HERMES Venti keeps portraying. (And then there’s also a connection to all three places with the hexenzerkel with their Chinese names? Like I think I read somewhere that Alice is Aries(?)/Eris(?) and Nicole is actually Nike in the Chinese version? Which are very much based in Roman/Greek origins)

Oh and something I forgot to mention earlier with the whole Istharoth connection. Mondstadt’s saying “seeds of stories, brought by the wind, and cultivated through time”. SUSPICIOUS

Anyways, this has been my nonsensical Venti theory rant

And you’re stuck with me @worldsokayestmagicalgirl

[boopsloop363]

One of my favorite things to bring up to folks is the correlation between global flood myths across multiple ancient civilizations. How is it that all these people who've never had contact with one another all have myths about a giant flood? Do you honestly believe it was subsistence hunter cavemen who wiped out all the megafauna? They put skilled hunters on the line every time just to kill these creatures en masse? Not to mention these megafauna are all well preserved meaning they weren't even butchered for meat. How were the great planes formed?? You think the cavemen just did that too? Core samples found in Greenland show traces of nuclear glass. Glass that's only formed through intense heat. Now I'm not suggesting we were nuked back into the stone age, that's crazy talk, but have you ever wondered why ancient civilizations were so obsessed with tracking the stars? Was it cause they were just bored? Or was it because they were watching for another meteor? Have you ever thought about the fact that humans today are nearly indistinguishable from humans 65,000 years ago? They had the same capabilities as us and yet written records only begin to appear a few thousand years ago? Doesn't that seem odd to you? Have you ever thought about how you would preserve history? Hard drives? CD's? Paper? On a long enough timeline all these things decay. Oral traditions like storytelling? Now that's a good way to ensure things get passed down but things end up getting distorted along the way. A generations long game of telephone

Tldr: history has been wiped out once before and it's likely that's it's happened multiple times. This implies that it could happen again

[wolven91]

The Human Problem

Humans.

'Late to the party' as they would say, were only discovered after many of the other sentient races had already discovered one another for thousands of years. That wasn't unusual. Space was big, very big. There are records of many species and races living in old territories of one another and not knowing it simply because of how big space was.

What was unusual, was how the draconians, were not surprised by the human appearance like the other races were. Furthermore, the draconians already had many stories of humans, or at least, something that could match the human appearance according to their archivists and philosophers. Although, to the draconians, 'human' wasn't the correct name.

According to the literal hundreds of draconian stories and even one or two ancient texts; humans, were called the fae.

All three rings of the draconian government were present for the debate. The inner circle, the chaotic aquatic draconians swam in the mighty pool at the centre of the auditorium. These were the artists and creatives of the draconians. They celebrated the humans as a great tiding and new life being breathed into a stagnant and dying universe.

The outer circle, the quadrupedal dragons clung to the rafters and in the upper stands. They suspected the humans; they knew what the stories of the fae warned. The outer circle of government was the military arm of the draconian people, it was their honourable duty to protect the draconian way of life. Humans represented chaos and new dangers.

Finally, the middle circle of their government, the bipedal draconians. These were the even hand of the draconian people, the ones who were the outward face and considered all sides before acting. They... did not know how to handle a part of their history come to life. Humans or Fae, they were fantasy, they were myth. It was as if the draconian children's imaginary friends were all suddenly wished into being.

How does one handle the magical suddenly made physical?

The fae, were described as 'Without, feather, fur or scale...' by an ancient text dated several tens of thousands of years ago. At first, it was assumed that it references ghosts or spirits. Likewise, their exploits were just as fantastic. As folktales began, the spirits gained flesh. They were given a name.

Fae.

Shorter creatures that lacked feather, fur or scale. Fleshy creatures that gave off warmth unlike the draconians. They lacked direct advantage in a fight, no claws or sharp teeth or even wings, but a bite from them would always become infected. They were either a great ally, offering boons or sound advice, or they were merciless tricksters, fooling the rude and cruel to their dooms. Often using a draconian's greatest desire against them.

The golden rules to dealing with a human was to be polite, never threaten them or theirs and to never, under any circumstances, offer them your full name.

"The ancient texts are incomplete!"

"We all know what it was going to say! 'Without feather, fur..' and the final portion was to be 'without scale'!"

"That is a guess! The piece is missing!"

"And the folktales? They all complete the saying."

"We have no knowledge of where they began, there's no written beginning to the folktales."

The debate raged on, while several of the more serious bowed out from the discussion, a consensus would not be found here. A purple draconian with a serious expression stalked the halls back to their quarters as they considered the situation.

Humans were a problem. The fae were rightly destroyed. Killed as technology was discovered. No one needed magic back in the universe, least of all an entire race that could destabilise the draconian rings of power. The humans were few, this was a good thing. A few credits given to the select few and many of these humans could suffer accidents or simply disappear in their travels.

No one would miss them, and the status quo would return, but they would have to reach out to like minded others amongst the ssypno, taurian, ursidain and others...

The loathed races would cooperate again to resolve the human problem.

[lichpassing]

How were singers in their prehistoric age equivalent?

Well that’s a bit of a complicated question to answer, because if you’re talking about pre-literary history, a lot of their history is prehistory.

E’s were the first to lay down infrastructure and spread throughout Aurum, and they made it very far. Back before they integrated with Cs, they’d managed to send artificial satellites into space, and they’d recorded a few thousand years of the history up to that point. During this time, Cs had just recently entered their equivalent of a Stone Age. Es had (for the most part) given them a lot of space, unsure of what to really do, or how to bridge the gap in the right way. They don’t get to make a choice though, surprise there’s an asteroid coming straight at your planet!

They notice the asteroids going to hit them with only weeks to prepare. They had to rely on preexisting bunkers, ones designed for war, not a Big Fucking Rock from the sky. They do their best to prepare for it but the initial impact kills off 90% of the Es population. Cs are similarly devastated by it, but their location and lifestyle granted them protection. They became reliant on each other and would settle in areas together, quickly learning to communicate with the other species and changing their behavior to make cohabitation easier. It was a rather bleak time to be alive, and different groups rapidly developed they own ways of rationalizing the disaster. The first satellite was sent up over a decade before the impact. In their eyes they sent things up into the sky and something much bigger was sent down.

I would need to go into detail in another post bc I don’t want to completely derail but, because of these things, “anti-nostalgia” ideology became pretty common and spread through communities over the years. It’s anti intellectualism at its core, but there’s a lot of facets to it that tie into other issues in their societies over the years. It’s an ideology that cropped up often, and quite a few groups would believe any record of the past was either not important or downright dangerous to preserve. This lead to archiving being a controversial and under researched field for centuries, and for multiple groups would actively seeking out historical articles to destroy. By the time they become space faring, it has become much less intense, but the damage has already been done. Whatever survived the impact and the hundreds of years of neglect would be destroyed out of fear that it would damage their society. What is left of pre-asteroid recorded history are untranslatable rotting texts, thankfully stuff written a few centuries post asteroid is more well preserved.

Es had their own separate prehistory in my mind, stuff even pre-asteroid society didn’t have record of. Back then they mostly lived near bodies of water, not spreading inland until they got good at building permanent settlements. They weren’t that much different to how we probably were, but they wouldn’t domesticate animals until much later. Their earliest domesticated species was a fruit baring tree that miraculously made it to the modern day. By the time writing came around they’d already made multiple large settlements, cropping up along a trade road going along the eastern coast.

Cs pre-asteroid prehistory was obviously shorter, they’d already been stone tool users for years and had spread out all over the northwestern mountain range. The two species lived side by side as sophonts for thousands and thousands of years, even back before E singers started their literary history. Interspecies relations were a mixed bag, but they were most often respected as strong and intelligent animals that were best left alone. That didn’t stop them from being hunted for sport, poisoned, or eaten by Es on occasion. Because of their propensity to eat livestock that stray too far from the herd, or for sneaking in and eating produce in the middle of the night, some farmers saw them as a pest. Others worked around it by simply giving them some of what they made, like offering up livestock to be eaten or planting things in an unprotected location nearby. Cs were fully sapient during this time, they had been for a while, so they would pick up on the compromise quickly. Near the time of the asteroid impact interspecies relations were decent, Es realized the full scale of Cs cognitive ability and were actively trying to protect them. Even more recently there had been a push to “bridge the gap” between the two as I said earlier.

Immediately post asteroid, after they both had united together, they focused for a long time on getting things stable. The first few decades they tried to use what remained of society before, but when those broke down, the pieces were often repurposed into something new. Iron and other metals were obtained through scavenging and melted down for other uses, bunkers were emptied out for long term food and water storage, they reused what they were given in whatever way they could. Stored seeds were extremely important, allowing a lot of domestic plants into survive to the “modern” day. None of this was recorded properly and is only hinted to in what survived.

Still, without each other, they would have never survived this long, let alone surpassing their predecessors technologically. I think modern singers didn't need to read first hand accounts of their early years to understand that.

[summersreality]

Hello, I have a question as a fellow radfem!^^

I’ve been struggling to find the right people to talk to about this, since most of the radfem spaces I’m in are strictly trans exclusionary and I worry that asking questions like this might get me pushed out. I haven’t really shared my views on trans people yet, which is probably why I’m still welcome in those spaces.

As a gender abolitionist (which I am), it makes sense to oppose the concept of transgenderism, since the term itself is rooted in gender. And if we believe gender is a social hierarchy that needs to be abolished, then yes, I get why many radfems are critical of transgender ideology.

But what about transsexuals? That’s where I feel conflicted.

While I fully understand that biological sex is immutable, chromosomes can’t be changed. But I still believe transsexuality is valid in its own right. Not as a mental illness, but as a legitimate and personal experience that some people go through.

I’ve used the label trans-exclusionary radical feminist before because I do believe biological women should have their own spaces and I don’t think trans women should compete in women’s sports. But at the same time, I feel uncomfortable with how quick TERFs are to dismiss TIRFs or even people like me who just want to ask questions. They’re often called libfems or even misogynists, which feels overly hostile.

So my question is, why do trans exclusionary radical feminists think the way they do? And why is there such a strong rejection of nuance, especially when it comes to transsexuals?

Before I answer, know that I am not taking this from any actual speech, literature, etc. because quite frankly all my radfem exposure comes from tumblr. But for the record, I study social science and I’ve written multiple A-level essays relating to this subject.

My answer to your question is that there is not just one answer.

There are some of them who are just transphobes hiding behind the term “feminist”. This goes for any of them who just ignores actual data, rage baits, enforce that women are just their bodies or biological functions, and similar things. In some situation it’s even just straight anti feminist. This is also the reason I usually ignore any terf that interacts with my tirf content, because it’s like arguing with a pro russia bot on TikTok.

There is also the fear and fear mongering, I believe. If we believe everyone that’s AMAB is inherently evil and there is nothing we can do to change society (which is false if we look at history), and being a woman is defined by experiencing abuse and misogyny, it will create hate for anyone with a penis. It is true that in a lot of places in the world, being a woman is the last thing you’d wanna be. But instead of targeting trans women, who in there countries are probably equally as hated, we need to demount those cultures and values that oppress women.

Like you mentioned, I too agree with some things that are usually seen as TERF ideology. That lesbians should be allowed to choose wether they only wanna date women who have vaginas, for example. But there’s a point when it’s not about that, and instead using inherently anti-trans dialogue. I also thing feminism should be about the liberation of women, not transgender people. But trans women are women in their right, and in discussions like these it’s good to bring it up. A lot of TERFs complain about trans women, and then go on about how radfems talk so much about trans women instead of cis women. Like check yourself, maybe?

But I am gender critical, if that’s the right term for this discussion. You can’t choose wether to be born with a penis or vagina, or both if you’re intersex. Gender identity on the other hand, is much more vibrant. There are historical records of trans and non-binary people, thousands of years ago. To think all trans women are just men dressing as women because of a fetish is desinformation and transphobic.

If people like TERFs continue to make femininity to be a certain thing or experience, it will just end up excluding and targeting cis women in the end. See how Imane Khelif was treated in the Olympics because she was considered looking too masculine. Plus the fact that saying “real women have boobs” “real women have cycles” is exclusionary to for example cis women who have had their breasts removed surgically due to cancer, women who don’t get their cycles due to medical conditions, etc. This, along with the usually blatant disregard for actual facts and data, is the reason I usually see those TERFs as conservatives calling themselves feminists.

The point is, a lot of TERFs aren’t actually gender abolitionists. Many of them believe there are things that make you a woman, things that make you a man and nothing in between. Of course you can’t change what you were born as or your chromosomes. But modern culture and expression is. True gender abolitionism in my eyes is denying femininity and masculinity as concepts altogether, and any gender roles tied to them.

[dragon-susceptible]

Different Path Taken Ch20: P2 Maybe? Runaan's Narration

I went ahead and gave that narration idea a shot, and I've got nearly a thousand words of it before I had to pause. I think it's turning out okay? Tell me what you guys think. I can still edit in dialogue tags and some action to break it up if that's better.

Ten thousand years ago, the mountains in what is now southern and eastern Katolis were home to the Moonshadow elves.  The area was largely inhospitable back then to human farmers, and magical resources grew aplenty upon the slopes.  That is why this caldera appears so  . . . lifeless now.  The magic was stripped from this place when we were driven out.

“I thought humans lost the war, and that’s why we were driven to this side of the continent.  How come you guys didn’t just keep this land as part of Xadia?”

That decision was not made by elves, but by dragons.  It is . . . difficult to argue with an Archdragon.

“Ah.  Uh, yeah, that makes sense.”

In the end, it was not Sol Regem that proposed the split.  A Sunfire queen, ancestor of Queen Aditi and the line that rules the Sunfire kingdom to this day, suggested the breach be made.  Sol Regem used every bit of his power to draw the lava to the surface, together with the other archdragons, and cracked the world in half.  This left the Moonshadow holdings on the wrong side, and the queens - the elf and Luna Tenebris, the dragon queen after Sol Regem stepped down from the throne - agreed that the people of the world should be split along those halves.  Thus Moonshadow elves were driven to Xadia as humans were driven here, to our home.

We destroyed everything we could.  The desolation you see here, the magic that was stripped - we did that to our own home, to keep its power from human hands.  Little to nothing remains of what our civilization once was.  All we have is memory, histories that stretch back to the very first elves to walk this world.

“How can you be sure the histories are true?”

Magic is in everything, little one.  Even what we took from this place could not drain it of everything.  Moon magic is seen in light through the darkness, deception, in illusion, perception, reality.  It is a flip of the coin from the Sun’s truth, the Ocean’s chaos, and the Earth’s life.  It is in deception, in order, and in death.

“That’s why it’s dangerous for someone who’s grieving.  But what does that mean, moon magic is in death?”

What happens to a soul after it dies is no mystery to a Moonshadow elf.  We know where our dead go - to a world beyond this one, to the next phase of their existence.  What is there to fear in that?  In the old days, here at the Moon Nexus, a door could even be opened to that realm, permitting us to speak to the dead, and to pass on quietly if it were our time.  Now, without the Moonhenge and the power of the Nexus, with everything but a shade of its former self, all we can open is a window.  But that is enough, to confirm the histories we keep.  We are meticulous about them - oral stories passed from one generation to the next, calling upon ancestors to ensure they are accurate.

“Some physical books and written histories remain, but so much has been lost over the centuries that the assassins’ oral histories are considered to be the most in-depth and accurate records of elven history in Xadia - among any elf.”

Thank you, Ram.  There are also other elves tasked with preserving what little physical history we could recover . . . but precious little of that survived the trip to Xadia.  It was a harrowing journey with no support from the Xadian side of the newly made breach, and many of our warriors kept busy with the war and the . . . forced emigration of humans even as our own people were subjected to the same conditions further south.  Many, many lives were lost on that journey, and many more were left behind, slaughtered by the angry humans who had just lost their own homes. 

It is said that nearly a hundred thousand Moonshadow elves once lived among these mountains.  Around twenty thousand made the journey successfully into Xadia, after a harrowing war fought mostly on our doorstep and the migration.  While certainly a population not to be degraded, it was a heavy blow, and many of us were driven to desperation.  It took decades to find a place to settle in Xadia, most land there already strong with established communities.  While we could settle in those communities, we could not maintain our own private rituals until we had somewhere to preserve them away from outsiders’ eyes.  Moonshadow Forest was where we eventually landed, a mere twenty-thousand left of a society once five times that.  It is not a large forest, and was not even then, and many of our people did range around Xadia for many years after that . . . though much changed in the next few centuries, and now few of us venture beyond the treeline.

“That’s sad.”

“Yeah.  Why don’t you tell us something happy?”

“Ellis!”

Ha!  Very well, children, shush.  Despite all the death and destruction associated with this place, it is still sacred to our people, and a single guardian is still left here even now.  Near the peak, where the water of the Nexus itself feeds them, flowers and life still continue to grow.  This mountain is the only place on this side of the breach where you can still find the blue roses once cultivated by Moonshadow elves.  On the other side, they are found only in Moonshadow Forest.

“Has anyone ever found the Guardian before?  What happens then?”

She has her ways of keeping this place safe, and a secret.  I shan’t tell you more of that now.  Skor, I’m certain remembers - the rest of my elves should, and it will be an excellent training exercise in observation skills if they do not.

“I don’t suppose I count as a kid for this?”

No, little blade, you do not.

“Didn’t think so.”

[cin-cant-donate-blood]

I think there is something really tragic about those posts that are like "man can you imagine future archaeologists reading our posts" because I don't actually believe even a fraction of all the things we say will survive for very long.

We supposedly live in an information age where everything is recorded, and people say that once something is on the internet, it is there for ever, but this is clearly not true.

Most of the internet is managed by corporations, and when a certain website dies, there is absolutely no incentive to spend all the money necessary to preserve ecerything that was ever posted. Maybe Archive.org will have saved a lot, but it can't save everything.

Even right now internet history going back as recently as the 90s is really spotty. A lot of forums and sites are simply lost to time.

And maybe one day Archive.org will run out of money too, and everything they preserved will be lost, not in a dramatic bang like the fire in the Library of Alexandria, but with a whimper, like the many thousands of times more documents that have been lost simply because no one copied them in the few decades they had before the mold or worms or whatever else got to them.

Think of Sappho and Catullus, two of the most celebrated poets of ancient Greece and Rome respectively. Both were prolific, and both were titans, widely celebrated for their extraordinary work, long after their deaths.

Both had a single century or two where people got tired of them, and almost every single thing they ever wrote was irrecoverably lost, because books do not last forever, especially not the ones written on papyrus, which was the dominant medium at the time and has a quoted life span of about 70 years unless stored in nearly perfect conditions (desert conditions, which is why we associate papyrus with Egypt).

All we have now are a handfull of fragments of their work. They are, once again, and perhaps forever, celebrated as geniuses, but we can't ever undo that single, brief moment where the majority of their work was lost forever, not out of malice, but out of indifference.

Everything not actively, painstakingly, expensively maintained will be lost, inevitably and irretrievably. Stone carvings last longer, but they're horribly space inefficient. The invention of parchment, which can survive centuries, greatly improved things, but that too is extremely expensive compared to paper or papyrus. Modern digital storage is the same; we just made the copying process easier.

One day, tumblr will die. It is as inevitable as your death or mine. Or the death of the sun. In fact, tumblr will probably die within our lifetimes. When it dies, some things will be saved, but many will not. Some will miss it, but most will forget. Out of millions of posts, perhaps a few hundred thousand survive as jpeg screenshots on reddit, instagram, or whatever sites survive tumblr. Then, as those die, perhaps ten thousand screenshots of screenshots carry on to new social media sites, as of yet not made. And then a thousand of those survive as those sites die.

And maybe those will be the thousand best, and maybe some expert will even be able to tell you that they're screenshots of tumblr, and in a few words what tumblr was, but what even is the thousand best? Every copying act is a choice by someone who thought it was worth copying. Tastes change, and as they do, maybe one generarion's favorite is destroyed by the neglect of the next.

Tumblr isn't special. This is the future of all social media. Echos will persist, but so much will be lost.

So maybe, one day, an internet archaeologist will find your silly tumblr post about how crazy it would be if someone was reading what you said centuries from now. Unfortunately, there will be so much context missing. Maybe your post will be one of a mere hundred remaining, most of which make references to in-jokes and memes long forgotten: incomprehensible and empty. Like the statue in Ozymandias: nothing beside remains.

I'll end this with a poem from the lost poets I mentioned, and since this is tumblr, why not a gay one? Both Catullus and Sappho have their share of love poems dedicated to members of the same sex, but the partial poem known as Sappho 31 is probably the most well known. This is Edward Storer's translation:

He seems like a god to me the man who is near you,

Listening to your sweet voice and exquisite laughter

That makes my heart so wildly beat in my breast.

If I but see you for a moment, then all my words

Leave me, my tongue is broken and a sudden fire

Creeps through my blood. No longer can I see.

My ears are full of noise. In all my body I

Shudder and sweat. I am pale as the sun-scorched

Grass. In my fury I seem like a dead woman,

But I would dare...

... and that's it. The ending has never been found. Scholars think anywhere between a few lines and half the poem is missing.

[leahnardo-da-veggie]

Fast Food - The False Oracles

Childhood, Adolescence, Travels

I knelt before the Oracles, eyes downcast. Six of them, there were, dressed in clothes too casual for their nature. Shrinking beneath their gaze, I felt rather like a child before my elders. 

“One has come to seek counsel, great Oracles,” I whispered with reverence. “I have travelled far and wide. I have met the heroes of legend, watched them make history, and fought alongside them too. I have caused the death of my people, and the rise of another, and I live to tell the tale.”

One of them leaned forward. She was serpentine, with skin dry enough to be scaly, eyes red as rubies and long hair to match. “And what is it you seek, little trickster? Do you wish to change the past? To turn back time and make a different choice? To create a world in which you never had to make a choice in the first place?” The sharp edge of her smile told me there was a right answer, and a wrong one.

“None of them,” I replied, meeting her gaze. I had locked forearms with the first Spirit-Empress, bowed to the great Lich-Queen, danced with the God of Chaos himself. I could handle a crew of omniscient priestesses. “I did the right thing. Even if you gave me the option, I wouldn't have made any other choice.”

“Then why are you here?” It was a different Oracle this time, one hardly more than a girl-child, yet with a voice as deep and luscious as sin. “You have yet to answer our first question.”

I winced. “I-” What did I want? Why was I here? I had just needed to come back to Iraios, back to the place where I had met my first love, lost my first loss. “I must know: Could I have chosen better? Could I have done anything differently? Could I have saved them all?” 

I didn't know what I wanted to hear. It would have broken my heart either way, to know that my family and friends were doomed all along, or to know that I had failed to save their lives.

“And the sun will rise and the mountains will fall and all things will come to an end,” the sole male Oracle said. He studied me with steely eyes, devoid of soul. “What does it matter if they died now, or in a thousand years?” He paused, and I felt the room shift, as though something beyond my grasp had tilted reality. “I cannot stand you pathetic little woe-is-me trauma magnets. ‘Oh, my backstory is so sad! Oh, all my family died in a fire and that's why I'm evil!’ Oh, why don't I smack you right in your sad-little-meow-meow mouth, hmm?”

A smattering of laughter went up at that, the Oracle's clearly delighting in his condemnation of me. It stung, like a slap to the face, hurt and shock and shame. Then it burned like rage. 

“You can stuff your mouth up your ass, you little mud-suckler,” I snapped, not caring if I was picking a fight I couldn't win. “Those are real people you're talking about here, not some pawns in a game. They were my family, my tribe, my entire gods-accursed species! Everyone I shared a single drop of blood with is gone! And you dare to make light of it?”

“Don't you see? That's the point. Those were people with lives, with stories of their own, tossed aside like unwanted toys! She's playing with them, just as She toys with you, for Her cruelty knows no bounds.” It was the scarred one that spoke this time, her voice filled with bitter rage. “I weep for your loss, truly. We all do. Only a monster such as our Writer would dare sacrifice an entire people for character development.”

“I don't understand. You mean… Someone made this happen? This wasn't my fault?” The thought alone lifted a weight of guilt off my chest.

“Hah! It absolutely was your fault, you sad little queer representation,” the snake Oracle told me. “We merely mean that it was written from the very beginning. You would, will, and have always sacrificed your people to save humanity. That's the meta-tragedy of it. And for the record, Liam and I don't weep for you. We laugh, because this whole tale is a farcical comedy.”

“Me too,” the youthful Oracle added. “I mean: You're named after a Macdonald's breakfast. How much funnier can you get? Peak comedic relief.” She grinned. “Oh, but I do feel rather sorry for you.”

I felt myself twitch. Everyone had warned me that the Oracles spoke in tongues, but this? They might as well have been talking to someone else, with the way they went on. “What the hell is a Mac Donald? And was there someone pulling the strings, or was there not? Answer me!”

They ignored me. “You should pity it,” the scarred one told the others. “That accursed Writer thinks She can toy with us like this? Make us into her little dolls to break and bruise?” She spat on the floor. “Well, someday, we'll prove her wrong.”

“Don't be ridiculous, Gloria,” one of the remaining two said. She could have blended into any crowd, save for her solemnity, which could belong nowhere except in the highest of holy places. (Which, despite all evidence to the contrary, this was.) “We can't stop her any more than a character can reach through the pages and pull the quill that writes them away. All we mean, all we have are, all we have done is controlled by her.” What crossed her face was a river so deep I could have drowned all my troubles in it. 

“I am sorry, Hash. You are a Watcher, true and just. You have, will, and must witness many things, most of which will bleed your soul. And you have not, will not, must not allow it to kill the kindness in your heart.” She got up from her seat and stepped forward, pressing her hands against mine. “A long time ago, or perhaps no time at all, your progenitors sought my counsel. I warned them that you, specifically, would be the death of all their people.” she paused, as though to let that sink in.

“But- The records said they didn't know which of us it was,” I protested. “The records just said one of their children!”

“That's the bit you're focusing on?!” Gloria shoved her companion aside. “What part of deliberately engineered tragedy by a callous bitch did you not get?” Her face was right up against mine, cleft lip trembling with rage.

“A tragedy is still a tragedy if it was deliberately set up. It is still grief-worthy if it were unpreventable. And even if the audience does not weep, I will,” the young one added. “Out of respect for a good tale, if nothing else.”

“That I can drink to,” snake-Oracle agreed. “But what about you, dear taglist, hmm?” She cleared her throat.

“Pardon me for the bad language you're about to experience, but here's a shout-out to: @coffeeangelinabox, @dorky-pals, @calliecwrites, @kaylinalexanderbooks, @shukei-jiwa

@thewingedbaron, @pluppsauthor, @cowboybrunch, @wylloblr, @possiblyeldritch

@tragedycoded, @finickyfelix, @urnumber1star, @ratedn, @ramwritblr

@vampirelover890, @possiblylisle, @illarian-rambling, @the-ellia-west

@evilgabe29, @glitched-dawn, @rivenantiqnerd, @dragonhoardesfandoms, @xenascribbles

@drchenquill, @everythingismadeofchaos, @owldwagitoutofyou, @dimitrakies, @beloveddawn-blog

@riveriafalll, @the-golden-comet, @rascaronii, @trippingpossum, @real-fragments

@unrepentantcheeseaddict, @the-inkwell-variable, @flock-from-the-void .” She finished her spiel with a wink at nobody in particular. 

They clapped with delight. “Oh, what creativity! How adorable. To turn such a solemn moment into a breaking of the fourth wall,” the steel Oracle commented. “But using Olive as your mouthpiece? Hardly appropriate. In the future, my hateful Writer, choose me for your meta-messages. After all, aren't I the odd one out?”

Oh, that was it. “This is ridiculous,” I told them, before they could continue their insane little game, or whatever it was. “You all are crazier than a clan of spirits in a crockpot. This isn't going to help me.” None of them stopped me as I got up.

I was halfway to the door when the final Oracle noticed me. Throughout our exchange, her eyes had been closed, her expression unchanging. She might as well have been a statue, carved of ivory and obsidian by the finest of stone-mages. Yet, as I passed her, she opened her eyes and revealed the vitality that lay beneath them. 

In the days before and after, I have encountered the Void That Swallows All, the God-huntress Who Brought the New World, and even Kurall, our Creator, herself. Even after all that, nothing, and I mean nothing, could ever compare to the power I felt at that moment.

The depths of her eyes superseded any Void. The graze of her fingers sparked a fire hotter than a thousand gods' immolations. The curve of her body could have birthed a thousand worlds. She was beautiful like my worst nightmare, and I fell to my knees before the True Oracle.

“WARBRINGER. WANDERER. WATCHER. YOU ARE MANY THINGS, CHILD, BUT A HERO FIRST AND FOREMOST AMONG THEM. I WILL NOT DISGRACE YOU BY CALLING YOU A FALSE NAME. NOR WILL I PRESUME AND CALL YOU BY YOUR TRUE ONE.” Her gaze burned my skin where it fell, and I fought the urge to shift into something small, to dodge the observation of something that could crush me so easily.

She seemed to understand, for she stroked my shoulder. “YOU WISH TO KNOW IF YOU COULD HAVE SAVED THEM?” 

I nodded.

“NO. IT WAS FORETOLD FROM THE BEGINNING. I FORETOLD IT MYSELF. IT HURTS YOU TO KNOW THAT.” She said it as a fact, not a question. 

“BUT YOU WILL FACE WORSE HURTS. YOU WILL KILL THE ONE YOU LOVE. YOU WILL SACRIFICE HIM FOR OTHER PEOPLES, LIKE YOU DID YOUR FAMILY. AND THIS TIME, YOU WILL KNOW THAT YOU CHOSE THE SACRIFICE. YOU WILL HAVE MADE THE ACTIVE DESCISION. YOU WILL KNOW THIS, AND YOU WILL REALISE THAT YOU WOULD DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN IN A HEARTBEAT.” 

“That doesn't make things better,” I replied. “It's not fair. Why do I have to do this? Why does it have to be me?” My complaints sounded hollow, like a rat's chittering, beneath the baritone of her voice. “I just wanted to get by, have fun, live a little. I didn't ask for any of this.”

Her sigh held no judgement, no compassion, nothing except an endless exhaustion. “IT IS INDEED NOT FAIR.” She did not seem willing to say more.

“You think we chose this?” One of the lesser Oracles had spoken up, the man, and his voice did hold judgement. “You think we wanted to be cursed with omnipotence, to be forced to see that stupid fourth wall and the assholes that lie beyond? To know all that, and be able to change none of it? Ramaeria died to try to save her husband, and what did it change? Nothing! She, we, knew everything, and yet we're helpless! It sucks, you stupid little fried potato, and don't you try to compare your suffering to ours,” he snarled.

“SILENCE. THE CHILD'S WEEPING IS NOT CAUSELESS. WE WILL AID YOU, LITTLE ONE, IF YOU WISH TO RECEIVE THE ORACLE'S BLESSING.” 

I turned back towards the True Oracle, and nodded unsteadily. At the corner of my gibbering mind, I thought she looked an awful lot like my first lover, like Akati come back to life. 

She must have known, for she stood up and enfolded me in her arms, like I were a baby bird and the sleeves of her robe a mother's wings. “SO IT IS, YOU WHO CALL YOURSELF HASH BROWN. YOUR SHIFTING WILL BE SWIFT, YOUR TONGUE WEAVED OF THE PUREST SILVER, YOUR JUDGEMENT ABLE TO BALANCE A HEART AND A FEATHER. SO IT IS SAID BY THE ORACLES.” 

Grudgingly, one by one, the other Oracles piped up. “So it is said by the Oracles,” they chimed.

“Thank you,” I replied, at a loss for other words.

“THERE IS ONE LAST THING I MUST DO TO SEAL THIS DEAL.” As she said it, she bent down, a smile finally passing over her lips. 

The True Oracle pressed her lips to mine, and delivered me the grandest kiss of my life.

(hahah i normally put my taglist here but Olive had other plans. Please tell me what you think of this, I really went outta my comfort zone with it. Also, Fast Food is a chronologically unordered series, and you can find the rest on my pinned post!)

[cellarspider]

2/30: Prometheus attempts to establish themes

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Several minutes into Prometheus, we have had no dialog, and we are going to wish that it stayed that way.

This is by little fault of the actors themselves. They all put in solid work. Many of the problems come from the writing, and others from the mismatch between their characterization what we’d call “informed traits”: What the movie tells us we should know about these characters. 

Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway are archaeologists. We see them with a dig team on the Isle of Skye, where they have just discovered their latest piece of evidence towards a radical theory. They have noticed something astounding that nobody else has dared to consider: evidence of alien contact with Earth, recorded in the art of disparate cultures from around the world. We, the audience, already know that they’re right. 

And we, the audience, know that the History Channel has had kooks on it for ages, ranting about Ancient Aliens. We’ve all seen the meme guy.

Okay. Let's try to meet this movie where it wants to be, thematically. These are its first two scenes, it's still establishing its direction, and nothing openly egregious has happened yet. We will ignore nitpicky stuff, like the fact that this previously undiscovered dig site is right next to a well-known tourist spot on Skye with 400 reviews on Google Maps.

This movie is establishing an existential premise for its themes. It implies aliens had some hand in shaping not just our culture, but our evolution. The questions it invites at this time are equally existential: why would they do that? What was their purpose here? What was their purpose for us? Why did they stop contacting Earth?

Whether life has a purpose is one of the core debates of philosophy and religion. This movie is beginning with the premise that terrestrial life does have a purpose, implied by the deliberate sacrifice of a thinking being to shape it. This supposition could create a more focused exploration of one possibility, within its narrative space.

I think it fails to deliver on this. The writing specifically fails to deliver on this, which will become apparent once we have more dialog. But there is also an issue with the framing of this premise, which the movie ultimately does not manage to avoid. An issue of cultural context.

Because this is where I, as somebody with a background in history, start to brace. The idea of extraterrestrials visiting ancient peoples is a discredited mid-20th century theory, which stems from ignorance of the historical record, and assumption of ignorance and incapability of ancient peoples to achieve great things, particularly outside of the cultures placed in the prized pedigree of European civilization. 

Such theorists look at the Great Pyramid of Giza and scoff at the idea that it could have been made without outside help, completely unaware of the century of more experimental pyramid-building that had preceded it, and the fact that we have written records that help us chart the progress of Egyptian mathematics for six hundred years prior to its construction.

They point to the Ramayana–likely written down around the same time that the Ancient Greeks were getting along just fine without aliens–and they say that the flying castles and chariots described in the text must’ve been aliens, who were mistaken for gods, and technological achievements such as rust-resistant iron must have been alien-made. Never mind that the period had a lively scholarly culture that was incorporating ideas from their Greek and Egyptian counterparts, and the people of the Indus Valley built well-planned metropolises with the world’s first known urban sanitation systems three thousand years before that.

They think the Moai of Rapanui, some of which were being erected while Shakespeare was writing his plays, were erected with the help of aliens. The actual answer, as usual, seems to be much more interesting: the Moai walked there:.

This is what ideas of ancient aliens are culturally tied to. You throw this into a movie, and even with the foreknowledge that they’re going to be proven right, I start out skeptical of these people from moment one. I was less likely to give them the benefit of the doubt, and less able to suspend my disbelief around them specifically. This will not get easier as we go.

Which is unfortunate, because most of the next scene is back to being phenomenal, and managed to bounce me back into going along with their premise.

...A side note as we close this out: Getting way too deep into the weeds here, but the art style of the cave paintings is worth mentioning. It appears to be a mashup of two famous cave’s painting styles: The animals are near-replicas of those famously seen in Chauvet (35,000 years old), and the humans and attendant dots are somewhat similar to Lascaux (17,000 years old), both caves in France. Here's an excellent little video from Tom Scott about the former, and the way that you can go see the cave paintings without endangering the site itself. There's a similar museum for Lascaux, shown below!

I say the human figures are somewhat similar to Lascaux, but I can’t find a match for the style anywhere. The closest I can find is from Tassili n’Ajjer in Algeria (6000 BC) or the Cave of Beasts in the Gilf Kebir mountains in Egypt (5000+ BC). This is because depictions of humanoid figures in european cave art are rare–ranging from a single bird-head figure in Lascaux, to the possible hoax at La Marche. 

This produces an interesting implication, if we take the movie’s premise at face value. If humanoid figures were avoided as subjects for cave art for thousands of years, their inclusion here is especially significant. Perhaps indicating that the alien visitors instructed that some visual representation of this scene to be made, or did so themselves. Thus, it is slotted in amongst the pre-existing animal art, creating a culture clash.

…However, cave lions never made it as far north as Skye. Their known northern range tapped out at about London. While it’s certainly possible that people could’ve traveled that far during this period, local animals tend to be the focus of cave paintings. So we’re getting the visual sense that a French stone age painter was doing a residency at Skye. Amusing, but odd.

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Citations for alt text ramblings:

1. https://www.isleofskye.com/skye-guide/top-ten-skye-walks/old-man-of-storr

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariots_of_the_Gods%3F

3. https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

4. https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/royalty-calculator

5. https://search.worldcat.org/title/7625265

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this article from The New Yorker, written by Bill McKibben:

Living through the onset of rapid global warming involves learning to roll with the punches. Increasingly, those are quite real and painful—this year saw, again, an accelerating toll of flood and drought. But, even for climate scientists sequestered in the lab, life increasingly seems like a series of bewildering blows.

As 2024 began, we’d just finished the most remarkable year in the planet’s modern climate history—2023 had shattered every global record for temperature, with researchers firm in the conviction that our planet had seen its hottest average temperatures in at least a hundred and twenty-five thousand years. But, even as they watched the mercury soar, they weren’t completely sure why: temperatures seemed to be rising even before an El Niño warming in the Pacific fully kicked in. In a remarkably candid essay this March in Nature, NASA’s chief climatologist, Gavin Schmidt, said, “The 2023 temperature anomaly has come out of the blue, revealing an unprecedented knowledge gap perhaps for the first time since about 40 years ago, when satellite data began offering modellers an unparalleled, real-time view of Earth’s climate system.” If temperatures hadn’t settled back to something more like a consistent rise by late summer 2024, he noted, that would imply “that a warming planet is already fundamentally altering how the climate system operates, much sooner than scientists had anticipated.”

In the event, this August was the warmest August on record, and most of the other months of 2024 also broke records; it now seems certain that, when meteorological officials announce their results early in January, this will again have been the hottest year ever measured. Scientists still can’t explain what’s causing the spike, which sits atop the steady ramp in temperature over the past few decades. As Schmidt said in an October interview with Elizabeth Kolbert, “it’s still pretty much, I would say, amateur hour in terms of assessing” what’s going on. The proffered explanations—the eruption of a submarine volcano in the South Pacific that put a lot of heat-trapping water vapor into the air, the phase-out of high-sulfur fuels in oceangoing ships that reduced heat-reflecting pollution—don’t seem large enough to account for what the thermometers are measuring; it’s possible that we may have tripped some switches we don’t understand in the global climate system.

What we do understand is bad enough. In September, Hurricane Helene swept across the Gulf of Mexico, turning from a tropical storm into a Category 4 hurricane in barely more than a day—the kind of “rapid intensification” that researchers increasingly see as a hallmark of a warming ocean. It moved so fast that it carried the freight of rain that it picked up over the record-hot waters of the Gulf far inland; in the mountains just north of Asheville, radar estimates suggested rainfall totals of up to forty inches. That water inundated the cricks and hollows of southern Appalachia—the death toll from the storm sits at two hundred and forty-one (making it the deadliest to hit the U.S. since Maria devastated Puerto Rico, in 2017), and the economic damage is nearing a hundred billion dollars, making it one of the costliest storms since Katrina. But the pictures from a ravaged North Carolina looked an awful lot like pictures from devastated parts of southern Europe or northern Africa or Brazil or Southeast Asia—if you look on YouTube, you can find a near-daily flood of flood pictures, with floating cars careening down the streets of mountain towns.

There seems to be just one way left to even start to slow down that torrent, and that’s to rapidly replace coal, gas, and oil with sun, wind, and batteries—and if you’re trying to avoid existential despair, there are stories and numbers this year worth focussing on. Solar power expanded so rapidly in 2023 (eighty-six per cent up on 2022 worldwide) that some wondered whether the charge could continue this year; it did, with the best guess being we will see a further growth of nearly thirty per cent this year. We’ve clearly moved into the steep part of the S-curve of clean-energy expansion, where even the most optimistic forecasts are consistently surpassed, and at the moment we appear to be installing a gigawatt’s worth of photovoltaic panels (roughly the size of a nuclear power plant) every eighteen hours or so.

[leohtttbriar]

not done thinking about the impact of this decision to go back in time, within in the story--the drama, the implications, the existentialist commitment--so i wrote out a possible version of the letter jadzia records for her mother, right before they switch the helm to auto-pilot (metaphorically and actually).

To my mother:

I am sorry--for my incoherence. I normally have a script for this sort of thing, but today the scripts are lost. Maybe because now everything has already been scripted, in an impossible loop. So for this, I’m expressing some unique regrets. This is the message you never hoped you would get--a message you never hoped you would get that you will enjoy far less than that message you never hoped you would get. For that and many other reasons, I am of course sorry. I don't have long. But really, I have so much time and I do not want it. (Actually, I’m sorry for saying that. I want my time in life, I promise. I am sorry for causing you pain.)

Aren’t I just sorry about so many things, now? If I could look at myself from the outside, I would even venture to call myself pathetic. Perhaps that’s what Yedrin sees—the girl who couldn’t save her friend, the girl who couldn’t move on, the girl who is now him, the girl who caused this whole nightmare to begin with.

(I expect the mission briefing being transmitted with all our farewell missives will explain who Yedrin is for you. And what it is I have done.)

The fact is, mother, I am still alive. I am just in a place where you can’t reach me. Time is trapping me, as well as several thousand promises in the shape of people. They want to live and Kira wants them to live so now I will go back to ensure it. I will do what has been reported of their history to ensure that history is written. I will marry Worf and bear countless children and when I do eventually die a generation from now, Dax will go on to another—as is custom. So you see, I am still alive and will remain so long after you read this.

What should I even ask you to mourn, is the question. I’m already mostly absent from your life, at least physically. If I were not to go on this journey back in time, I would still be so far away from you, by so many light-years, that by relative standards we would still be separated by time. Distance is time and time is space—when dealing with quantities like this. Me in a starship, you home… listening to a message I recorded for you a month ago about some organic stone that grows like a plant. (I am sorry, that you have been even for a moment an afterthought to my curiosity. Or maybe I’m not sorry, for still I’ve been gone. Caring more about stones than anything else.) My being on this planet and deliberately stranding myself two hundred years in the past is hardly going to change the status quo, excepting a handful of visits.

Yet, I am sorry. I’m sorry, too, for even trying to pretend like this isn’t the end of something. You will probably not be satisfied to know I’m doing this in service to others. I personally can’t think you selfish for preferring your daughter in the same instantaneous slice of time. But I won’t waver from this, now that it’s decided.

It’s the end of Kira’s life and it is also the end of mine. You’ll accuse me of being dramatic, but I have no intention of labeling this next performance as something as wild and unique and fresh and interesting and fun as life. There’s no real death to it, either—for someday I am will come stumbling down onto this planet again and start this letter to you over once more. Maybe.

Do you remember when I told you about the proto-universe that we had to set back in the wormhole? You said it reminded you of working with delicate coral polyps in your garden, making sure there are enough of them upon each branch, that they are flowering and not crowding, that they are able to eat. That has stayed with me for longer than you know—the image of great dark-energy corals, holding little polyp universes on their colorful bones. And your work, it is something mundane, humble—you’ll call me elitist for saying so—but it’s true. Also true is the fact that I do not wish to do humble work, even if it is beautiful like your garden. I like gardens to stay where I can think about them—in the dark—not where I have to do the digging myself, where the digging is just for planting and not for studying. You’ll say again I’m elitist for drawing that distinction. But my place is in a lab, hitting my head on a fume-hood and taking my time stirring a solution with my glass-stirrer. Because I like the sound it makes against the beaker.

I will think of your coral garden for the rest of my life. I will think of Trill and its amethyst ocean and skies and grass. I will think of my dear father and sister and, of course, you, mother. I hope you will think of me too, doing something different than planting crops: maybe living a life off-planet, discovering a smart fungus that would make father scrunch his nose in distaste…and make you smile.

I would give so many things to return to you. But, alive or not, I am now lost.

I will try to be happy—I have been assured I will find some happiness, even if now it is hard to comprehend. And I’ll play the stone-tossing games, that you taught us when were little, with my own inevitable children. We’ll do what you always showed us how to do. We’ll have a lot of fun.

Your daughter, Jadzia.

[bbenvs3000w25]

Blog 9 "The Night the Moon Vanished: A Dance of Shadows in the Sky"

There are moments in nature that remind us just how small we are in the grand cosmic ballet. Last night, March 13, 2025, was one of those moments. A lunar eclipse one of the most breathtaking celestial events graced the night sky, captivating anyone who turned their gaze upward. It was more than just a scientific phenomenon; it was a mesmerizing performance between the Earth, the Moon, and the Sun, a silent story written in the heavens.

A total lunar eclipse enters its peak stage Thursday, March 13, 2025 (The weather, 2025).

If you are reading this blog on March 13 or 14, don’t miss the chance to witness this incredible event for yourself! Step outside, find a dark place away from city lights, and look up you won’t regret it.

A lunar eclipse is one of the most amazing things I know about nature. It occurs when the Earth moves between the Sun and the Moon, casting its shadow over our celestial companion (Barry & Barry, 2025). Unlike a solar eclipse, where the Moon briefly obscures the Sun, a lunar eclipse is a slow, elegant transition an event that feels almost theatrical, as if the universe itself is dimming the lights for a show. Last night, the Moon didn’t simply disappear; instead, it transformed, taking on a reddish hue that ancient civilizations once feared, calling it a “Blood Moon” (Britannica, 2025).

The reason for this eerie transformation lies in Earth’s atmosphere. When the Sun’s light passes through the thick layer of gases surrounding our planet, shorter wavelengths scatter (which is why our sky is blue), while the longer red and orange wavelengths bend and reach the Moon. The result? A copper-coloured Moon hanging eerily in the sky, as if dipped in molten bronze (Lee, 2014).

During a total lunar eclipse, the Moon is reddened by sunlight filtered through Earth's atmosphere (Barry & Barry, 2025).

As I watched the Moon fade into shadow and reappear in its new form, I couldn’t help but think about how this event has shaped human understanding for centuries. Throughout history, lunar eclipses have been interpreted as omens, signs from the gods, or warnings of impending doom. The ancient Babylonians meticulously recorded eclipses, believing they were linked to the fate of kings. In Norse mythology, a great wolf named Hati was said to be chasing the Moon, and when he caught it, an eclipse would occur (Exploratorium, n.d.). The Incas believed a lunar eclipse was caused by a jaguar attacking the Moon, and they would shout and throw spears at the sky to scare the beast away (Lee, 2014).

Today, we know the science behind this phenomenon, yet it still holds a kind of magic. Even armed with knowledge, standing beneath the night sky as the Moon darkens and glows red is an experience that transcends mere facts. The vastness of space, the alignment of celestial bodies, and the precision of the cosmos all feel incredibly calculated and overwhelmingly mysterious at the same time (Barry & Barry, 2025).

Standing beneath the shadowed sky, watching this celestial event unfold, I couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of wonder. In our modern world, flooded with artificial light and digital distractions, how often do we stop to appreciate the grandeur of the universe? How often do we look beyond our screens to witness something so ancient, so primal, that humans have observed it for thousands of years? It’s humbling to think that the very same phenomenon has been recorded by early astronomers, inscribed into myths, and used to mark the passage of time long before we understood its scientific mechanics.

Another fascinating aspect of lunar eclipses is that they are visible from anywhere on Earth where the Moon is above the horizon at the time of the event. Unlike solar eclipses, which require you to be on a specific path, a total lunar eclipse can be seen by millions across the world simultaneously (Britannica, 2025). It’s a rare moment where people across different continents can share in a collective experience, looking up at the same sky and witnessing the same awe-inspiring event.

Map showing where the March 13-14, 2025 lunar eclipse is visible. Contours mark the edge of the visibility region at eclipse contact times, labeled in UTC (Barry & Barry, 2025).

Photography enthusiasts and amateur astronomers were out in full force last night, capturing breathtaking images of the eclipse. If you missed it, don’t worry there are plenty of stunning photographs available online. Some of the best shots highlight the different stages of the eclipse: the partial shadow creeping in, the moment of totality when the Moon is fully engulfed in red, and the gradual return to its usual brightness. Seeing the images after the event helps cement just how incredible the transformation was.

Last night’s eclipse reminded me of one of nature’s greatest truths: the world around us is always moving, always shifting, always playing out stories far greater than our own. In the span of a few hours, we saw a transformation that defied the ordinary a shift in light, in colour, in presence itself. And yet, how many people missed it? How many never looked up?

Perhaps that’s the beauty of nature’s wonders. They are not demanding. They don’t ask for applause or attention. They simply exist, waiting for us to notice.

So, as we move through our daily lives, wrapped up in routines and responsibilities, maybe we should ask ourselves: when was the last time we truly paused to appreciate something bigger than ourselves? When was the last time we stood still, looked up, and felt awe? And if we don’t make time for moments like these, what other wonders might we be missing?

References

Barry, C., & Barry, C. (2025, March 6). What you need to know about the March 2025 total lunar eclipse - NASA Science. NASA Science. https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/moon/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-march-2025-total-lunar-eclipse/

Lee, J. J. (2014, April 14). Lunar eclipse myths from around the world. Science. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/140413-total-lunar-eclipse-myths-space-culture-science

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2025, March 14). Lunar eclipse | Definition, Diagram, Frequency, Types, & Facts. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/lunar-eclipse

Exploratorium. (n.d.). Eclipse Legends Around the World. Retrieved from https://www.exploratorium.edu/eclipse/eclipse-stories-from-around-the-world

The Weather Channel. (2025, March 14). Blood Moon lunar eclipse photos from around the world. The Weather Channel. Retrieved from https://weather.com/science/space/news/2025-03-14-blood-moon-lunar-eclipse-photos