Was reminded (because I am kinda terrible at social media) that I ought to let people know I made an art history video about the cave art in Lascaux: How it was made; what pigments and what ingenious art tools were used (Paleolithic mouth-powered airbrushes!); and the historical development of ideas of the Paleolithic and how they were shaped by prejudices of the time.
And I bust some myths:
The cave paintings and engravings had nothing to do with hunting. The animals that people of the time hunted don't show up in the cave art.
It is very unlikely that men made that art. There has not yet been found any physical evidence of adult men in any of the decorated caves of France and Spain -- but there are numerous examples of footprints and finger-marks of smaller people, from woman-sized down to baby-sized, and groups of children alongide woman-sized footprints.
For some weird reason most of the scholarship on Lascaux identifies these smaller footprints as "adolescent boys" for no apparent reason apart from, well, sexism. The increasingly unlikely and awkward contortions made to rationalize how half-grown boy children made this magnificent art, rather than any acknowledgement that perhaps experienced adult women artists had a hand in it, feel kinda bizarre to me.
Anyway, here's my art history video. It's educational!
Trans right grot,
The whole Weakness Of The Flesh Immortality Of The Machine conversation is fun... I really appreciate the point that in the modern real world technology is controlled by an ever-rotating pile of tech companies whose business model is predicated on obsoleting everything older than like 4 years. If you, the person reading this, managed to upload your consciousness to a file, it would struggle to interact and be read in, like, 10 years max. And if you rely on medical aids that are connected to computers and the internet, you are already facing that problem.
All that said, I cannot stress enough that obsolescence is not an issue for the in-universe source of the whole "from the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh" quote
I am never entirely sure if the reason Rubber Duck works is "it forces me to structure my thoughts and cover all the details one by one" or if it's something funkier, like "the brain structures for written and spoken language are different, and the subtle differences between visual and auditory processing mean different things stand out". Probably the former. But still, it could be!
Ice cold takes from a Transgender Woman:
Not all Men are evil
Everyone has the capacity for evil
Transgender Men are men
Transgender Women are women
Excluding Cisgender Men from your spaces requires Transgender Men to out themselves if they want to engage (Same for Women)
Anyone can be Non-Binary, there is no "look" or requirement
Non-binary masculine presenting people should be welcome in queer spaces, many are just treated as men and predators
Non-binary feminine presenting people should be welcome in queer spaces without being seen as "Woman-Lite"
*slaps roof of dragon* This baby can fit so much pure annihilating light in the trunk.
now that's what I call BWEEM
Further lore-accurate facts:
Gura is 9000 years old in 2025, so clearly doesn't age and tends to not die - in 40k terms, she's a "Perpetual".
Also, she's nearly as old as the Emperor (estimated creation ~8000bce), only about a thousand years between them.
I'm fairly new to Warhammer 40k, and I just learned about Carcharodons literally a few minutes ago. And as I learned that they are a shark legion and that their origin and primarch are not confirmed I made the ultimate joke that shall now become canon in our ttrpg club.
They do indeed have their own primarch. The one that was considered disappeared and erased from history. The 2nd Primarch, the one that Emperor himself has kept a secret from all of his other children in fear that they will turn to heresy if they as much as lay their eyes upon that horrifying creature
The only daughter of the Emperor, the mother of Carcharodons...
Gawr Gura
Emperor has always kept her a secret from the entire Imperium in fear that all of his sons and Imperial citizens will start worshipping her instead of her.
And while other Primarchs were scattered around the galaxy by their mother, Gura has been yeeted into the farthest end of the galaxy by the Emperor himself just because he knew she'd be far more beloved and worshipped than him and couldn't possibly have that
look, it's easy, okay? High Fantasy has An Hero whose Destiny is Sword, and Low Fantasy has Some Schmoe whose Job is Sword.
History Lesson! So, for 3rd edition, in the 90s, when 40k was becoming What It Is Today, GW was trying very hard to market it's toys to teen boys. The biggest problem they had was that kids, as a rule, don't have jobs, and thus the deal was "you need to get the kids to persuade their parents to pay up." And this was, well, the 90s. There was still a back-swing going on away from the 70s, and the tail end of the Satanic Panic. Parents cared about what the kids were up to, in very specific ways. War was fine. But sexy? Harder sell. This is when Slaanesh became more vaguely about 'excess', notably, but it's also when the Sororitas arrived on the field, as warrior nuns. And GW took the decision to say nothing about sex. At all. They weren't "the brides of the Emperor" [nuns are often 'brides of Christ']. They were pure of faith. They were never 'pure of heart' or god forbid, 'chaste', lest some mother have to deal with little Timmy asking what it meant. The Sisters' lore was so de-sexualised the canon didn't even suggest they refrained. Just an absolute void of information. Treated as if it were their opinions on 17th century agricultural practices. Writers (canon and fan alike!) over the years later saw this not as a mistake to correct, but a chance to say "what if the nuns fucked".
Sisters Yuri is just gals being pals, being good squadmates. Kissing each other with tongue is in the Codex
[sagely nod] this is the truth. gal pals. gallant paladins, if you will. I read this doctrine in the Book of Sloppy Style, Volume III, Verse 27. improving morale is an imperative to the pious.
Absolutely this. Even setting aside the showier stuff that happens later, Roshar is a living world, alive with motion.
If the Stormlight Archive ever gets an adaptation, I hope it's animated. You can get so stylistic and expressive with the spren in a way that just wouldn't look good in live action. You don't even have to point them out until Syl starts talking to Kaladin. They can just be there, present and unremarked upon. Firespren dancing around the bonfire at the Treaty feast. Fearspren from the guards Szeth attacks. Windspren blowing in the breeze during the battle that introduces us to Kaladin. Painspren as Cenn gets wounded.
All before Syl starts talking. First 10 minutes of the first episode, there have been artistic flourishes in every scene. And then one of those artistic flourishes becomes a main character.
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
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