i guess elden giant floating rune just doesnt sound as good

It's, it's just that dragons are the primordial embodiment of avarice wrought into fire and flesh. They are truly, supernaturally good at finding large amounts of valuables, that's why the big mines hire those Dragon Scouts to go sniff out their lairs and mark them on the maps as potential mining ventures. You know, in case someone slays the relevant dragon. Which doesn't happen often because, milord, they are simply not that easily slain.

No I know you've hired many knights, blooded warriors and true. Yes, I was there when you gave the ten most impressive ones their special sashes. Very grand, very high honors, of course. Ehm. It's just, none of them have ever actually faced a dragon. Yes no I know Sir Edbert says he did but Sir Edbert is rather notoriously prone to exaggerated and tragically unverifiable tales---

Well no milord of course I would not doubt the word of a sworn knight. Perhaps his sobriety, but not his word, as such.

The point is that the grand treasury, while surely grand and a very special notion, is just... it is mayhaps not the ideal way of handling the realm's finances? Perhaps a series of smaller vaults, capped well below the dangerous wealth threshold at which gold is known to whet the appetite of colossal winged harbingers of death, in different corners of the realms or...?

No, I, yes well I do realize that will impede anyone's interests in coming into the vault to hurl around the gold coins and go "whee, I'm so rich!" I am aware of its deficiencies as a plan in that regard. No, I see I've misjudged a few things.

Actually, thinking on it, milord, I truly believe what you need is a fresh set of skilled wizards on this job. The court magician and I, we cannot keep up with your visionary thinking. We're too old-fashioned. But the wizards revolutionizing the eldritch academies seem to be more on this sort of level. I hear they've made some truly remarkable choices in terms of outsourcing all of their spellwork to the Ever-Whispering Void, such that it takes mere minutes for them to set up an entire defensive array. That's just the sort of innovative thinking you require.

Fossils, stone tools and seashells in Turkey show that Neanderthals and the Homo sapiens who moved in later had the same hunting strategies and symbolic traditions even without overlapping at the site, suggesting they may have shared information.

[...]

Sites like these are forcing a rethink of how these two types of human were culturally related to each other, April Nowell, a Paleolithic archaeologist at the University of Victoria in Canada who was not involved in the new study, told Live Science in an email. "By demonstrating cultural continuity and elevated levels of interaction, sites such as Tinshemet and Üçağızlı II are changing what we thought we knew about Neandertals, Homo sapiens and other contemporary Homo groups … a fascinating region just got even more so!" she said. But that cultural continuity only heightens the mystery of how modern humans and Neanderthals interacted, with Neanderthals eventually going extinct around 40,000 years ago. Two types of human can't occupy the same ecological niche indefinitely, Nowell noted, and some research into Neanderthal cognition suggests Neanderthals were less-flexible thinkers than modern humans, with more limited capacity for language and less of the kind of self-awareness and creativity that may have given H. sapiens an edge. (However, there is pushback against the idea that Neanderthals weren't as cognitively complex as H. sapiens.) If the archaeological record at sites like Üçağızlı II shows this much overlap in behavior, Nowell said, the real differences between the two may be ones the fossil record simply hasn't revealed yet. The authors noted that many big questions remain, including when and where these shared cultural practices took place and whether these cultural similarities happened because modern humans mated with Neanderthals.

A few things of note:

This is why people to your left have been chiding you about the "pedo" panic: now, the government can accuse you of being a "pedo" to justify committing crimes against you.

the recent new mexico case against meta literally went after end-to-end encryption itself (as a design feature) by arguing that the ability to exchange private messages that police can't surveil enables child sexual abuse. court mandates changes include "protecting minors from encrypted communications." as if minors being abused by adults would be helped instead of harmed by having no privacy or means to communicate that isn't recorded permanently. ridiculous.

Welcome back to Wet Beast Wednesday. I didn't post one of these last week because I was on vacation in New England, so I decided I'd showcase an animal from that area. I ended up picking the most common one I saw, seriously, if you go anywhere with a rocky shore out there you will see more periwinkles than sand. It's also a species I have some scientific experience with, which I can tell you about in the post because it's kind of funny.

(Image: a common periwinkle climbing on what looks like a piece of sponge. It is a small snail with a round, brown shell. The foot is brown with dark lines. The tentacles are long and skinny, with brown and yellow stripes. End ID)

The common periwinkle (Littorina littorea) is a small sea snail, with a shell that is 16 to 38 mm long (0.6 to 1.5 in) and 10 to 12 mm (0.4 to 0.5 in) wide at the thickest point. The shell is conical and tapers to a point with multiple whorls. Most have dark brown shells, but there is a very wide variation is color, with some being bright colors like orange. The majority of the body, including the digestive organs, is located within the shell. The parts of the body that extend outside of the shell are the foot, mouthparts, and tentacles. The foot is a large, muscular structure that produces mucus and is used to move around. It can also produce suction to keep the snail from being pulled off of rocks. The mouthparts consist of a radula, a tongue covered in teeth that is used to scrape food off of rocks. The tentacles are sensory organs covered in chemoreceptors that allows the snail to detect chemicals in the water around it. At the bases of the tentacles are simple eyes. The body also has an operculum, a hard structure that fits into the opening of the shell. When the snail retracts its body into the shell, the operculum acts like a door and closes the hole.

(Image: the opening of a periwinkle's shell with the boy partially extended. The tentacles are out and the foot is folded up. The operculum is visible as a flat disc on one side of the foot. End ID).

Common periwinkles are found in the northern Atlantic Ocean. They are native to Europe, found from Spain to Russia. They have also been introduced to the east and west coasts of North America. In the east coast, they are found from New Jersey to Nova Scotia and on the west coast they have been documented in California. They are found on rocky shores, mud flats, and estuaries on and near the shore. Periwinkles are omnivores who mainly feed on algae. They target both small algae growing on rocks or sediment and larger seaweeds. While grazing, they also consume biofilms, decaying material, and small organisms like invertebrate larvae and eggs. Periwinkles are also prey to a great variety of other organisms, including birds, fish, crabs, starfish, and mammals. Because they live on the coast, periwinkles must adapt to life in the intertidal zone. The intertidal zone is an extremely harsh habitat with widely changing conditions. Periwinkles have gills and can't breathe air and need to avoid drying out, but may be exposed to air when the tide goes out. To survive, they will suction themselves to the rocks and/or close their operculums and produce mucus, all to hold in water. They can also tolerate a wide range of temperature, oxygen, and salinity levels, letting them survive in tidepools while waiting for the tide to rise again. Periwinkles are ecosystem engineers as their grazing gradually erodes rocks.

(Image: a cluster of common periwinkles sitting in a crevice on a rock. The rock is also covered in barnacles and limpets. End ID).

Common periwinkles are unlike many snail species in that they are dioecious. This means that individuals are either male or female. Many other snail species are simultaneous hermaphrodites, meaning they produce both male and female gametes at the same time. Mating can take place year-round depending on the local climate, but seems to peak between February and June. Males use chemical cues in the female's slime trails to find mates. They will grab onto each other with their feet to copulate. The female will then lay eggs in hard capsules that they hide amongst cracks in rocks or kelp. Each capsule can contain up to 100,000 eggs. The eggs hatch into larvae called veliger that drift in the current, feeding on plankton. After about a week, they will sink to the bottom and begin their adult lifestyle. Periwinkles reach sexual maturity at a year old and can grow up to 14 mm (0.5 in) in that time, with females growing faster. The majority of periwinkles will not survive to their first birthday, but those who do have a better survival rate. Common periwinkles can live five to ten years in the wild and up to 20 years in captivity.

(Image: a microscope image of a common periwinkle veliger. It looks like a tiny translucent snail, but instead of a foot it has two wing-like flaps with cilia on the edges. End ID)

Common periwinkles have not been assessed by the IUCN as far as I can tell, but given that they are highly abundant in their home habitat and introduced habitats, they would likely count as least concern. There is debate over whether or not common periwinkles could be considered an invasive species. The arguments in favor state they outcompete local snails, damage biofilms, and increase erosion on rocky beaches. Arguments against say that the snails are sufficiently naturalized and have enough predators to keep them in check. Periwinkles are edible and eaten mainly in Europe, where they are usually boiled and then scraped out of their shells with a pin. There is not much of an an aquaculture industry for periwinkles, they are mostly harvested right out of the wild. Different species of periwinkles are also eaten in Africa and Asia.

(Image: a grouo of four common periwinkles on the beach. Their bodies are fully retracted and the operculums are closed, sealing the water within. End ID).

Now here's my story with periwinkles. Back when I was doing my master's thesis, the first phase of the project involved collecting and breeding common periwinkles, which led to several stories including me having to explain to a bus driver why I was bringing a bucket of snails on the bus, bringing the snail bucket to lunch after collecting them (there was a lid in both cases) and having to regularly trek down to shore to get fresh seaweed for them to eat. I also needed a way to mark the females and males (btw, sexing a periwinkle is hard) to tell them apart. I ended up buying some pink waterproof nail polish and using it to mark the female's shells. I later released the snails and I like to think I confused some people who were wondering why the snails were pink. And after all that, I pivoted to brine shrimp and didn't use the snail data in the final thesis.

I'm intimately familiar with how KFers act, not because I am or ever was one, but quite the opposite. I was horrified by the notion of being stalked by them, though, even if I'm small potatoes and they never did find me. I saw what they were like, I know how those fucks operate.

What's happening on tumblr is NOTHING like lolcowing. The second they know your deadname, it's all they'll refer to you as. You're only ever misgendered, intentionally and maliciously. Doxxed, followed, harassed directly and constantly. They archive everywhere you could possibly be on the internet, and they make archives of your accounts on websites you likely haven't been on in years if they can tie it back to your current identity at all. They call you slurs constantly. The bold ones go up to you, manipulate you, bait and pressure you into making more "lolmilk" entertainment for them like a puppet on strings.

They say they do it for the greater good, while they're constantly racist, transphobic, homophobic, ableist, any possible bigotry that could possibly get under your skin because they are fucking right wing in nature. They "target" zoophiles and pedophiles, while the majority if their targets were minorities they prodded and puppeted into acting out, however that may be. Everything you do or say is archived and made fun of, even the most mundane things. You are no longer a person. You are a cow to milk until you leave the internet or kill yourself, and even then I don't think they ever truly let you go.

As opposed to, what. Telling people, like sa, csa, and incest survivors that you're directly advocating for the people that hurt you? Claiming criticism of Epstein is mostly antisemetic? Being White French and saying Black and Indigenous Turtle Islanders benefit from the systems trying to sterilize, whitewash, or kill us all off? Saying transfem rapists and pedophiles should be welcomed into the trans community while butches, trans men, and even trans women that disagree with your niche and insular community are all rapists and abusers? Calling warning about a rapist's (with multiple transfeminine victims! the people they claim to want to protect!) birthday trip gofundme social murder and calling her victims transmisogynistic monsters? Degendering and dehumanizing every transfem who disagrees with you even slightly?

I won't deny some of the outcry against her is bigoted. There were sockpuppets aplenty slinging slurs like they were paid to do it, and radfems latching onto any post criticizing her and her circle, feeding into her narrative that pedophilia and incest are intrinsic to transfemininity and using that as a cudgel against all the trans women and fems against what she espews.

But there is a massive difference between telling someone they're being bigoted and their rhetoric is harmful, and trying to get someone to kill themselves for your entertainment because they were a little cringy while being a minority. There is a difference between telling others that these women have strangled people, burnt them with cigarettes, advocated repeatedly and publically for actual self admitted pedophiles being around children because harm can only ever come from the family (but incestuous rape is hot when I do it to my underage sister!), and following you in person, contacting your family, and making sure you never have a quiet day for the rest of your life.

I don't feel safe calling myself transgender if these are the people trying to make themselves the face of my identity. They make me want to go back into the closet. I don't want to be associated with rapists. I don't want to know that the people in my community would think my cousin molesting me, and telling me I would be a pretty girlfriend for them was hot.

KFers make me wanna kill myself. ISFF and her circles make me wish I was never born in the first place.

Today's animal of the day is the Quokka (Setonix brachyurus)!

Photo credit: San Diego Zoo

This absolutely adorable species of tiny marsupial is found only in a very small part of southwestern Australia, as well as a few of the nearby smaller islands like Rottnest Island and Bald Island. They are a part of the Macropod family, which also includes kangaroos and wallabies, which I'm sure you could tell based on their appearance. However, quokkas are neither a type of kangaroo nor a wallaby, and are instead their own type of Macropod. They are about the size of a house cat with coarse brown fur and buff colored bellies. Due to their small size, they're able to climb trees and hide amongst patches of thorny Acanthocarpus plants, which helps protect them from predators.

Photo credit: Ena Music

While the indigenous Noongar people knew about them for a long time and referred to them as either gwaga or bungeup, these tiny marsupials weren't discovered by Europeans around the 1650s. The first reports of them come from Dutch sailors, who initially mistook them for a type of wild cat or giant rat. In fact, that's how Rottnest Island got its name, since it means "The Rat Nest Island" in Dutch. Ironically, it was these sailors who brought the actual cats and rats, which then proceeded to absolutely wreak havoc on the local ecosystem and massacre many native species, including the quokka.

Photo credit: Philipp Pavelka

While these invasive species are still causing problems across Australia, the quokka has also gained a new threat: tourists. Part of the reason quokkas look so adorable is due to their faces looking like they're constantly smiling. They're not actually smiling; that's just how their faces are shaped, but regardless, it has led to people falling head over heels in love with these little guys, and sadly, we're loving them to death. Tourists often try to approach wild quokkas to pet, feed, and even take selfies with them, which sometimes really stresses them out. While they've kind of become accustomed to humans in certain places, trying to get too close to a quokka can have serious consequences.

Photo credit: Ry Beaver

Like kangaroos, mother quokkas keep their babies inside a pouch, and when they feel threatened and need to make a quick escape, they'll often force their joey out of their pouch so they can run faster and distract the predator. This seems cruel, but if you look at it from a purely evolutionary standpoint, it makes sense since if the mother survives, she can just have another joey, but if the mother dies while the joey survives the predator, it probably will end up dying without its mother anyway. However, if people keep harassing quokkas and causing them to sacrifice their kids for no reason, it causes a whole bunch of problems both for those individuals and the species as a whole.

Photo credit: San Diego Zoo

People also keep trying to feed quokkas, which is a massive problem. You might think you're being nice by offering a quokka a chip or something, but they can't actually digest human food. They've evolved to eat grass and leaves, and can't really successfully digest much else. But the quokkas don't know that, so they fill up on people food and end up getting sick or dying from malnutrition. The same thing is happening with raccoons, opossums, and other types of wild animals around the world. STOP FEEDING ANIMALS PEOPLE FOOD! Feeding quokkas also causes them to lose their fear of people, which might seem like a good thing if you're a tourist who wants to pet them, but it becomes a problem when they start getting too close to cars and are constantly getting run over! Quokkas are also nocturnal so chances are, if you see one active during the day it probably got woken up by tourists, which is just plain rude.

Photo credit: Marc Anderson