randomslasher:

injuries-in-dust:

autisticexpression:

excessively-english-jd:

historyisntboring:

weasowl:

glamourweaver:

gallusrostromegalus:

a-book-of-creatures:

cringe-incarnate:

a-book-of-creatures:

a-book-of-creatures:

Honestly the biggest disappointment I had researching ABC was that medieval authors did not, in fact, see the creatures they were describing and were trying their best to describe them with their limited knowledge while going “what the fuck… what the fuck…”

Instead all those creatures you know came about from transcription and translation errors from copying Greco-Roman sources (who themselves got them from travelers’ tales from Persia and India - rhino -> unicorn, tiger -> manticore, python -> dragon, and so on).

So unicorns are real

behold… a unicorn

I always thought animals in medieval manuscripts looked like the result of having to draw say. A Tree Kangaroo, but your only source for what it looked like was your friend who heard it from a fellow who knows a man who swears he saw one once, whilst very drunk and lost, and I am SO PLEASED  to find out this is, in fact, the case.

Questing Beast

- Neck of a snake

- body of a leopard

- haunches of a lion

- feet off a hart (deer)

So is it

Or….

don’t forget that some of the legendary creatures they were describing were from other people’s mythos which were passed down in the oral tradition for gods know how long. You know what existed in Eurasia right around the time we were domesticating wolves into dogs?

these beasties. For a long time, science had them down as going extinct 200 thousand years ago, but then we found some bones from 36 thousand years ago. Which, y’know, is quite a difference. Since you can bet that any skeleton we find is not literally the last one of its kind to live, many creatures have date ranges unknowably far outside the evidence.

In South Asia there were cultures that described a man-beast/troll forrest giant  who’s knuckles dragged the ground, and everybody from the west was sure it was superstitious mumbo jumbo, but you know what used to live there?

And did you know that some of the earliest white colonizers of the Americas heard accounts that there were natives still alive who had seen and hunted and eaten a great hairy beast, shaggy like the buffalo but much bigger, with a long thin nose like a snake and two giant fangs… so, like, mammoths, you know? but they were totally discounted because europeans of the time were like, elephants live in Africa and aren’t hairy, you can’t fool us, pranksters!

Anyway, the point is between the early writing game of telephone description thing talked about by OP, and the discounting of native cultural accuracy, I’m pretty sure most legendary creatures are in fact real animals one way or another 

It can’t explain every single legendary creature, but yes, this is super important. Because History relies on written sources, it tends to sweep oral tradition under the rug, even if there’s a lot of interesting informations in it.

And it’s not just living animals that were badly described, or which descriptions got exaggerated over the course of centuries or through translation errors. Sometimes, people finding fossil bones of extinct animals might have also influenced some myths!

By now this is pretty well-known but it has been theorised that the Greek myth of the cyclops was started when people found Deinotherium skulls. Now you might say, uh, how is it possible to think a cousin of the elephant is a huge human dude with one eye?

Well-

- the big nasal opening kinda looks like an eye if you have no idea what kind of animal had this kind of skull (you can read more about this theory in this old National Geographic article if you like).

Here’s a less well-known one; the griffin is a mythological hybrid with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. The earliest traces of this myth come from ancient Iranian and ancient Egyptian art, from more than 3000 BC. In Iranian mythology, it’s called شیردال‌ (shirdal, “lion eagle”). Now, it’s been the subject of some debate and it’s not confirmed, but there’s a theory that people might have seen some Protoceratops and Psittacosaurus fossils in Asia and might have interpreted it as “a lion with an eagle’s head”:

Check the “origin” part of the wikipedia page for “griffin” if you want to find more sources for this theory and for the arguments against it! Again, it’s just a theory, but I think it’s super cool.

This is a pretty well accepted theory for why dragons (or animals we group as like dragons, eg wyverns and drakes) are seen in mythos almost worldwide - because people found dinosaur bones, looked at them, and went “oh fuck what’s that? some big…. lizardy thing?” and then created dragons.

Also many deagon legends are simply exaggerations of well-known living reptiles like snakes and crocodilians.a

It also explains why dragons can look so different in the myths of the various regions.

In asia, Dragons tend to look very long and snake like:

One of the most common dinosaurs that used to like in the asia region, so would have been the most common fossils found by people:

The Mamenchisaurus, this thing is just all neck and tail! You find just half a fossilised skeleton of this monster, you can easily end up thinking of a long snake-like beast.

South America also has legends snake-like dragons among some of its peoples:

What fossils from pre-historic south America could be found?

The Titanoboa, which can easily grow to be 40 feet long.

In North America there is the Piasa Bird

Which wikipedia tells me comes from “ the large Mississippian culture city of Cahokia,” it’s describes as

What fossils could have been found in that region:

Pterosaur, and Triceratops. Features of both sets of skeletons could have been merged into one legendary creature.

Then we get our European style dragon:

One of the most common fossils that could have been found was a Cetiosaurus 

which, despite being a herbivore, looked to have a mouth of sharp looking teeth, consistant with a dragons.

Dragons amongst the peoples of Africa are even more varied, but most revolve around some kind of giant snake-like creature. As a quick example, we’ll take Dan Ayido Hwedo commonly found in West African mythology.

Fossils in that area could have been included the Aegyptosaurus:

A quick google search tells me that most Sauropods: well known for being long necked and long tailed, are found in Africa.

If you found only a half complete skeleton of this thing; which is likely, because it’s rare to find a complete dinosaur skeleton, you could easily think of a giant snake monster.

IIRC, another possible explanation for long snake-like dragons/sea serpents in Africa could’ve been Basilosaurus, a whale from the Paleogene whose skeleton looked like this: 

A lot of the most complete specimens have been found in Egypt. 

nonasuch:

ceekari:

tbh the idea of immortal character’s personal growth is interesting and doesn’t seem to be explored enough

I mean, how many times have we seen an immortal character drop the whole “actually I’m several hundred years old” bombshell, and they still act like the exact same person they were at age 20 or whatever. how many people do you know who are still the same as they were even just 10 or 20 years ago? yet somehow eight lifetimes came and went and had no impact on this dude?

Give me immortal life stages. Give me

• millenia old characters poking gentle fun at someone who’s 200yrs old and in their edgy ‘brooding’ phase.
• midlife crisis immortals who just got bit with the 'what am I doing with my life?’ bug, who suddenly feel like they’re wasting their gift and they need to be making the most if it right now
• you know what, I want an immortal who keeps having weird skills/knowledge, and everybody assumes they’ve got this big elaborate backstory because of it, but no, it’s just all from that one fifty-year span where they decided they needed to learn how to everything or else they were wasting their potential
• immortals who have changed their stances and opinions on issues but now there’s callout posts for things they said in letters to their friends a hundred and fifty years ago, like yes@cumberbatchcockdongle, I am sorry I said transphobic things about the bearded lady at that circus in 1872, please kindly forgive me and/or fuck off
• characters going through the eternal cycle of whether loving mortals is worth the inevitable grief. the answer always depends on how recently they’ve been bereaved. just a merry-go-round of 'better to have loved ans lost’ versus 'shitfuck grieving hurts I’m never doing this again’
• super laid back immortals who have lived through so much nothing phases them, and sometimes they have to be politely reminded that things do not always 'work themselves out’ for mortals

my personal white whale is immortals who act their actual age despite looking much younger

PLEASE give me the vampire turned in childhood, now in her mid-70s, with the personality and mannerisms of a mortal woman her age.

“Aw, my great-aunt Paula sent me a birthday card.”

“You have a great-aunt Paula?”

“Yeah, she’s my grandpa’s older sister on my dad’s side. [pulls up family photo] That’s her in the front row.”

“Um. I thought that was one of your little cousins.”

“Oh! Right, no, she got the measles as a kid a couple of years before there was a vaccine for it, and she almost died but there was a vampire on staff at the hospital. She’s great! Look, she knit me this scarf.”

“Huh. Okay. What’s the card say?”

“Let’s see… ‘wishing you the happiest of birthdays, and many more to come, love, Auntie Paula.’ Ooh, and a ten-dollar bill. I better write her a thank-you note.”

safe-haven-safe-place:

luminous-lily12:

moniquill:

knowanoah:

Stop telling yourself that the grass is greener on the other side, because it’s not. It is greener where you water it. So take control of your life and start watering your own pastures and grow your own greener grasses.

Fuck grass, clover is a nitrogen fixing legume and dandelions are super useful. Be the weeds. Grow on concrete in defiance of those who would thwart you.

It’s also greener where you bury a body

compassionatereminders:

It’s wonderful how, with no warning and without even trying, we will randomly stumble across new favorite songs, new favorite artists, new favorite books, new favorite movies, new favorite games, new favorite shows, new favorite snacks, new passions, new hobbies, new interests, new favorite blogs and new favorite people. So when things are terrible, hold onto the fact that someday, possibly when you least expect it, you’ll suddenly come across something wonderful!

ibelieveinturtles:

burntcopper:

petermorwood:

teenydancer:

rubixpsyche:

avocadostealingwhore:

vrabia:

bobcatmoran:

allthingslinguistic:

seductive-celery:

wordfully:

chaotischkladblok:

awelshpolyglot:

langsandlit:

sprachtraeume:

viktor-risjak:

uselessslovakiafacts:

useless-finlandfacts:

psychokonfetti:

useless-finlandfacts:

samtaims ai vonder if inglis spiiking piipöl aar eiböl tu riölais thät ai äm äksöli vraiting in inglish rait nau bat tsast vith veri finnish spelling

sou if juu spiik inglish bat not finnish kän juu pliis reblog änd liiv ö komment on tis post tänk juu veri mats

Sammteims ei wonda iff inglisch schbieking pipel ahr ebel tu rieleis set ei ehm ecktschuli reiting in inglisch reit nauh batt schast wiss währi tschörmen schbelling

So iff ju schbiek inglisch batt nott tschörmen kenn ju plies riplock end lief eh kommänt on dies pust senk ju wäri matsch

tänk juu for joor tsörman kontribjuusson, ai äpprishieit it veri mats. änd it oolsou helps mii tu gräsp tö essens of tsörman äksent

Samtajms aj vonder if ingliš spíking pípl ár ejbl tu rielajz det aj em ekšuely rajting in ingliš rajt náv bat džast vit veri slovak speling. Sou if jú spík ingliš bat not slovak ken jú plís riblog end lív en koment on tiz poust tenk jú veri mač

Самтаймз ай вондр иф иньглиш спикинь пийпль ар эйбль ту риэлайз дзят ай эм экшуалий райтинь ин иньглиш райт нау бат джаст виць вейрий рашин спеллинь. Со иф ю спик иньглиш бат нот рашин кэн ю плиз риблог энд лив э комент ан дзис пост цянк ю вейрий мач

Samtæms æ wonda if ínglis spíking pípl ar eybel tú ríalæs ðet æ em ektsuali ræting in ínglis ræt ná bat dsast við veri æslendik speling

so if jú spík ínglis bat nott æslendik ken jú plís ríblog end líf a komment on ðis post þenk jú veri mats

Samtaims ai uonder if inglisc spiching pipol ar eibol tu rialais det i em acscualli raiting in inglisc rait nau bat dez uid veri italian spelling. sou if iu spic inglisc bat not italian chen iu plis riblog end liv a comment on dis post tenk iu veri macc’. 

sumtaimes ai wundère eef angliche peepole ar ébl tu rayolize zat i am actualie ritin en angliche rite nau bat dees iz veri french spélling. sau if u speec angliche bat nut french plis cun u reeblog end leev a commant en deez post tank u veri muche

somtajms ai wonde if inglisj spieking piepel ar ebel toe riëlais det ai em eksjelie wraiting in inglisj rait nau but djust wif verrie dutsj spelling

so if joe spiek inglisj but not dutsj ken joe plies rieblok ent lief uh komment on dis poost tenk joe verrie mutsj

Samtajms aj łonder if inglisz spikink pipul ar ejbul tu rielajs dat aj em akczueli rajtink in inglisz rajt nał bat dżast łif weri połlisz spelink

Soł if ju spik inglisz bat not połlisz ken ju plis riblok ent lif a koment on dis połst fenk ju weri macz

somtaghms aigh bhondar iobh iunglois spíocang píopal ár éabal ta ríalaghs dat aigh eim aicsiúlaí raghtuing in iunglois raght nadh bot diost bhot bhéirí aighris spoiling

sómh iobh dhiú spíoc iunglois bot nát aighris cean dhiú plíos ríoblág eand líomh a camoint án dus póst taenc dhiú bhéirí moit

sʌmtaɪmz aɪ wʌndɚ ɪf ɪnglɪʃ spikɪŋ pipl ɚ eɪbl̩ tə ɹilaɪs ðæt aɪ æm ækʃəli ɹaɪɾɪŋ ɪn ɪnglɪʃ ɹaɪt naʊ bʌt dʒʌst ɪn ði ɪntɚnæʃʌnl̩ foʊnɛɾɪk ælfəbɛt

soʊ ɪf ju spik ɪnglɪʃ bʌt nɑt aɪ pi eɪ kæn ju pliz ɹiblɑg ænd liv ə kɑmənt ɑn ðɪs post θænk ju vɚɹi mʌtʃ

ソムタイムズ　アイ　ワォンダー　イッフ　イングリッシュ　スピキング　ピーパル　アル　エーブル　ツ　リアーライズ　ザット　アイ　エッム　アックシャリー　ライティング　イン　イングリッシュ　ライット　ナオ　バット　ジャスット　ウイッス　ベッリ　ジャパニーズ　スペリング。

ソ　イッフ　ユー　スピック　イングリッシュ　バット　ノット　ジャパニーズ　プリーズ　リブロッグ　アンッド　リーヴ　ア　コメンット　オン　ディッス　ポスット　サンク　ユー　ベリー　マッチュ。　

samtaims ai uandăr if ingliș spiking pipăl ar eibăl tu riălaiz zet ai em ecșuali riating in ingliș rait nau băt giast uiz a veri rumeiniăn speling. său if iu spic ingliș băt not rumeiniăn chen iu pliz riblog end liv a coment on zis post senk iu veri maci. 

三台麼 愛 玩大 衣服 英理社 素皮請 皮破 二 誒波 圖 日來四 薩特 愛 啊麼 啊可圖啊哩 熱愛聽 音 英理社 熱愛牠 腦 吧特 加色特 五一特 誒 杯理 拆你色 色陪另。艘 衣服 雨 色皮哭 英理社 巴特 耨特 拆你色 看 魚 皮裡色 日一不落個 安的 哩不 誒 口們特 歐呢 紫色 破色特 三可 雨 杯裡 嗎車。

santaime ai wanda yifu yinglishe supiqing pipo er eibo tu rilaisi sate ai ame aketuali reaiting yin yinglishe reaite nao bate jiasete wuyite ei beili chainise sepeiling. Sou yifu yü sepiku yinglishe bate noute chainise kan yü pilise riyibuluoge ande libu ei koumente oune zise posete sanke yü beili mache.

I was gon say “I’m not smart enough to do this in chinese” and you absolute mad fuckin lad you did it

but also yifu,,,,YIFU,,,, AHSHSHSSH

im too slow for this

Reblogging with amazement and amusement.

This is when linguistics meets gymnastics. Or possibly origami. :-D

Joke’s on you, other languages, English is so inconsistently spelled that we can read any of them except the ones in other alphabets.  Half of learning to read in this language is having a gap where our brain takes a millisecond to take a guess at the pronunciation *this* time.

This ^^

boringid:

pens-swords-stuff:

boarofthenorth100:

I Gallop Along

And All The While

I Sing A Sweet Song!

kalinara:

hopeful-trekkie:

James T. Kirk:

-Graduated in the top 4% of his year
-was bullied by jocks
-Is a history nerd
-was so much of a teacher’s pet that he cheated on an exam and was commended for it
-Was referred to as “a stack of books with legs”

Jean-Luc Picard:

-Spent all his free time drinking in pubs and playing billiards
-broke more hearts than he can remember
-started a bar fight that ended up in him being stabbed in the heart
-likes to explore dangerous ruins of ancient civilizations for fun
-wouldn’t even have become a starship captain if he wasn’t this much of a hothead

And yet people still manage to get it backwards???

I think it’s a problem of First Officer, really.

Jim Kirk seems like a wild man because he’s standing next to calm, logical Spock.*  

Meanwhile, Picard seems stately and dignified because he’s standing next to Will “Any alien physiology is bangable if you just put some thought into it” Riker*.  

* Of course THEN, we get to the next layer, which is that Spock is the dude who told the Vulcan Science Academy to fuck itself, while Riker plays the trombone.

The Federation is a confusing place.

jerboamoe:

tipsykipsy:

marmod:

having a 3yo brother means i get exposed to kids’ shows way more often than i thought i would at this point in my life, but man, binge watching thomas the tank engine as an adult is a wild fucking experience

all these trains (and there’s like 20 counting locomotives alone, don’t even get me started on the anthropomorphic train cabins) are MAD competitive the whole time and will constantly fuck up their own whole day by tring to prove they’re the biggest baddest train. and like, i understand that you gotta get you plot from somewhere and i imagine plotlines like this happen in cars etc. as well, but the other day i was watching and i noticed that all these goddamn locomotives have DRIVERS in them. that apparently have no control over their train’s actions at all whatsoever. so these trains wake up, pick up their drivers, go to work, get taunted by another train who’s like “ha ha i see u there with your 4 cabins but did you know i can pull SIX cabins and still fucking book it at 80mph” and the 4 cabin train will be like “fuck it i gotta prove myself now, hook me up with 4 more cabins” and will inevitably derail themselves or some shit while the engine driver just shuts up and kicks back the whole time

i explained this to my brother and was like, is that fucked up or what, but he just pointed at the green train and went “that’s percy” so i guess that’s his take on the situation

OKAY I’M GETTING IN ON THIS BECAUSE I’M MAD AND FULL OF COLA

I worked on that show. For three hideous months of my life, I did this.

And there was this whole unwritten rule structure about the drivers and what they did and when they did it and how/when they needed to act

And there was this weird fucking balance between what the trains did and what the humans did - the drivers would only act when the train can’t do a thing by itself. Hooking up to another car? Driver does it. Need to shift from one track to another? Driver gets out and does it. Loading up one of the cars? Drivers.

See something funny here? BECAUSE I DID. What driver would hear their sentient train say “fuck it i gotta prove myself now, hook me up with 4 more cabins” and NOT respond with “Percy just shut up and drive we have people to transport or the Health and Safety committee is going to breathe fire up both our asses”??? 

Naw, they hear their giant fucking trains with giant fucking faces whining about how they are getting old and outdated and how they need to prove themselves by doubling their reasonable capacity and they go “welp, okay” and they get out and they hook up those cabins.

Otherwise, the trains had total autonomy to do whatever petty competitive shit the plot of the day demanded that they do. Go way too fast and end up breaking because they wanted to race a new and not outdated engine that’s actually built for speed? They do that. Go 100% the wrong direction because they wanted to show their friends a thing they got loaded up with and end up ruining it? No probbo, Bobbo. Disobey directions given by Sir Topham Hatt HIMSELF because they’re too proud? You do the thing buddy. Strain way too fucking hard to carry 8 fucking cabins when they were only built for 4? YOU GO FOR IT YOU MORON TRAIN. 

SO WITH ALL THAT HERE’S MY THEORY that I had to develop because it was either that or never stop drinking ever again

Those drivers? They never speak to each other, never acknowledge the existence of any humans. They get in the train, go with the train, fix the train, load or unload the train. That is all they do. 

They’re not human. 

They are symbiotic extensions of the trains. They are a combination of the birds that eat parasites off hippos and fucking Boston Dynamics style robots where literally all they do is whatever shit their designated Train Of The Day deems worthy of their time. 

With no task to fulfil, they are thoughtless beings. WATCH THEM. They look around at nothing. They blink. Sometimes they lean on the edge of the window. 99.5% of the time, they do nothing, they see nothing, they interact with nothing. They are shaped in such a way as to avoid unsettling the real humans of the world, but are below humans in almost every way - Sir Topham Hatt never speaks to them directly in the way he speaks to the engines. 

If the train derails and it’s possible that a human driver would be severely injured? It’s fine, because they’re not actually human. They crumple into a heap of non-euclidian geometry and then rebuild themselves like an inflatable snowman. Their recovery is fuelled by the years of poor decisions they’ve helped enable - all this time they’ve been feeding off the intellect of these trains. 

Why do the trains never learn from their mistakes? Why, after more than 30 years, are they still getting stuck, taking on more weight than they should know they can handle, still derailing themselves? 

Because these symbiotic train extensions need their slice of the pie. They must feed. And what’s more cost effective than sandwiches? Thought. 30 years of quiet leeching, giving the trains enough processing power to do their jobs, but not so much that the trains don’t need them anymore. 

The trains are in a constant state of developmental hiatus because of the drivers themselves. 

NOW YOU MAY BE THINKING, this seems weird and unusual. Why would Sir Topham Hatt allow for this? Wouldn’t it be more cost effective for the trains to be able to learn from their mistakes and become better workers? 

And to that I ask you… from this entire operation, hauling coal, hauling people, hauling animals, being  “really useful”… what do the trains get out of this? They are kept alive and maintained, but neither are they allowed their own independent thought, or their own free time or interests. Everything they do is done under orders of Sir Topham Hatt.

And without the brainpower to devote to critical thought, they are unable to see how their petty struggles to be better than each other only reinforces the system where they are coerced into being “really useful”, above all else. 

WAKE UP SHEEPLE

did not expect to wake up today to thomas the tank engine discourse and unsettlingly well-thought-out conspiracy theories..but at the same time, in this day and age, i really cant say im surprised

justsomerandomgaynerd:

dankmemeuniversity: