Jona

Love, grief, and magic in the mundane

Here’s a quick handy reference list or anyone who isn’t sure:

Homosexuality does exist in almost all social species.

“Alpha males” are not a real phenomenon and in fact the most aggressive males tend to be the least reproductively successful.

“Survival of the fittest” simply means that the success of a species hinges on how well it “fits” its environment. It does not mean that stronger or smarter individuals are supposed to succeed. Those things can even be a detriment in nature by wasting too many resources.

“Race” is not a biological concept. Someone who looks different from you has the same human genes, just a different grab-bag of dominant traits.

Evolution is not a march towards higher complexity, more intelligence or even more adaptability. It’s just a fluctuation of characteristics dictated by environmental pressures and mutation. A slime mold isn’t “less evolved” than a hawk, just adapted for success under different parameters.

People didn’t evolve “from apes.” It’s more complicated than that. We are a category of ape, sharing a common ancestor with the other apes.

No human on Earth is “closer” to an evolutionary ancestor than any other. We all descended from the same one.

Neanderthals were also a “sibling” species of ours. We didn’t evolve from them.

Humans are actually more genetically homogeneous than most people suspect. This is possibly due to a population bottleneck at some point in our evolutionary past. Two chimpanzees from different sides of a jungle are likely more genetically different to each other than any two human beings in the world.

Our big brains may help us use tools, but what was really principal in their development was the need for empathy, communication, and cooperation.

Humans. Are. Social. So social it drove an incredibly energetically costly increase in our brain size.  Don’t believe anyone who says its our nature to fight “every man for themself.” We’re humans, not bears. We fight for each other.

And we always have. Fossil remains are found of ancient humans who bore signs of crucial mobility impairments that lived to notable ages. Some even have sticks or other mobility aids – community care and support is our way. We don’t cast off those with impairments, we stand by them.

Human sexual dimorphism is on a decreasing trend. Our ancestors had greater difference in canine size and overall size. Our dimorphism gap has gotten smaller.

Occam’s razor is the principal that whatever is the simplest explanation is probably the most likely one. Don’t believe someone who says the reason we evolved bipedalism is so that males could carry gifts to females to woo them. Yes, this is a real ‘theory’ on how bipedalism evolved.

Skin tone is an adaptation of UV levels vs vitamin D levels. Both come from the sun. UV is harmful, so where sun is plentiful populations develop a darker skin tone for more protection. The skin needs sun to create vitamin D, so where sun is scarce, the skin tone lightens to allow more sun in. This is literally all it is.

Final thing: No one’s mind is really equipped to fully understand how long a billion years is, or a million, or even tens of thousands of years. Evolution takes place over a loooong time. Its very, very, slow, slower than we can really comprehend. We can’t “stand in the way” of natural selection by caring for our ill. We don’t need to “help” evolution in any way. It inevitably happens, but not on any sort of timescale we could possibly affect, so don’t fall for anyone that tells you not to “stand in the way” of natural selection. That’s fascism, and its utterly pseudo-scientific.

the city of los angeles

the city of new york

sex

how drinking alcohol works

how getting high works

how a child of any age speaks

how nuclear physics work

how [my job] works

how debilitating being shot in the shoulder is

how hypothermia works

things I have never before seen someone fake their way through writing about, until today:

SHRIMP COCKTAIL:

banahbanah: #flashback to that one fic where Peter Parker frets about drinking shrimp cocktail because of the alcohol

generaldeliciousness: adding: what a prawn/shrimp cocktail is

#why is your character turning it down because they're under 21 #do you think prawn cocktail is a cocktail #this lives in my brain rent-free constantly #the rest of the fic was so normal #and good enough that i'll still re-read it #but bro

And then many, MANY, people wondering if this was actually authour mistake, since Peter really would do this!

POMEGRANATES:

zhajhassa: #haha where's that post that was like someone describing someone eating a pomegranate but they ate it like an apple

thornhands: #once someone wrote persephone biting into a whole Pomegranate #had to stop and stare at a wall for a minute

sungsingsanguine: I once saw someone very confidently write about a character eating slices of pomegranate.

FRUIT TREES:

zagreuses-toast: #given a very endearing glimpse into a writers blindspots by seeing them describe someone sitting under a ''pineapple tree''

salatrash: I remember something about picking watermelons... OF A FUCKING TREE

baander: #cranberry trees

DOUGH/BATTER:

maycelium: #I'm a chef so I'm really used to people not accurately describing how to cook food #But I was surprisingly flabbergasted when someone was writing making a cake and was kneading it. Which uh #Not necessary for cake. It was interesting for sure but just bizarre

livebloggingmydescentintomadness: #the one that drove me nuts was when a character set aside a batch of PASTA DOUGH 'to rise' #pasta doesn't have yeast!! #it does need to REST but it will never RISE #you do not want an airy crumb on your noodles

lovesodeepandwideandwell: #THE ONE WHERE THEY MADE COOKIES BY LADLING BATTER INTO A TRAY

Some other topics:

Problem Player: The player who insists their PC is the only canon PC and all the other players characters are "non-canonical OCs"

Solution: Declare their PC non-canon. This will, in their mind, render the entire game non-canon, allowing them enjoy the game again as a non-canon AU where the other PCs exist.

Problem Player: The player who keeps powerscaling your setting and insisting the goblins are "haxx-based low diff mutliversal" or some shit.

Solution: Just use your chain-scaling outerversal massively FTL smurfing to solo stomp 10/10 the argument

Problem Player: The player who never shows up, and none of you remember meeting, and when you search their social media you just get images of your own death.

Solution: Leave a message carved into the bones of an unburied heretic beneath the new moon asking them if they're still around and, if there's still no reply, you may need to find a new player.

Problem Player: The player from an 80s PSA who thinks they're here to pledge themselves to Satan and is clearly disappointed this is a roleplaying thing.

Solution: Sadly, this is just a find a different game group thing. Luckily, there's plenty of Old School Revival games that apply modern game design to the old-school satanic recruitment style that you can recommend them.

Problem Player: Jock who doesn't care about this nerd shit and is just here to impress their nerd crush.

Solution: This one is just a waiting game - by act three, they'll realise that they actually love RPGs in a big emotional climax. Make sure to have the game involve heavy-handed symbolism for the jock's personal problems to speed up the narrative.

Problem Player: Inhuman creature who's wearing the skin of one of the game group and is clearly planning to devour you all.

Solution: Don't be racist! This thing came from the Andromeda galaxy to hang out with you, the least you can do is let it play our human games and give it some snacks.

Problem Player: Sheldon Cooper

The Seven Acts of Mercy were a popular subject in early modern European painting. They depict works of charity that a pious Christian should do for salvation, mostly inspired by the Gospel of Matthew: "for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me." And they added a seventh (religious tip: always rig things to end up with a pretty number!), which is to bury the dead.

One of the earliest examples: The Seven Works of Mercy, by the Master of Alkmaar (Netherlands, circa 1504).

The sixth act of mercy, "to visit the imprisoned", had an interesting side-effect: painters deigned to depict prisons, an otherwise uncommon subject even in genre paintings. The documentary value of these depictions is debatable. It's not a given that the painter knew first-hand what a prison looks like, and of course artistic conventions and considerations always came first – an accurate representation of reality was never the goal.

But it's still worthwhile to notice the details. Most of the time prisoners are bound (in chains, ropes, manacles, pillories, stocks). The visitors talk to them, greet them, touch them, give them food, and often give money to the wardens. Note that in many prisons at the time the incarcerated were expected to pay for their food, and its quantity and quality (as well as general conditions and amenities) depended on the payment. A lot of people only got to eat because their relatives brought them food every day, or they depended on the charity of strangers. The prisons themselves are dark and dismal, with heavy gates and bars in the windows, but in some cases the prisoners are chained outside or in a yard. And there are no individual cells at all, only common halls.

Here are a few of those paintings and prints (i.e. all I could find online), in chronological order from 1504 to 1660:

ca 1504, Master of Alkmaar, The Seven Works of Mercy, ca. (Alkmaar, Netherlands)

ca 1510, Meester van de Levensbron (Master of the Prague Fountain of Life), De Zeven Werken van Barmhartigheid (Dutch)

1514-24, Sperindio Cagnola, Works of Mercy (Visit the imprisoned), fresco, San Marcello Church, Paruzzaro, Italy

ca 1534, Georg Pencz (German) - To Visit the Imprisoned

1559, Caritas, The Seven Acts of Mercy, pen and ink drawing by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, (Antwerp, Flanders)

1571, Pieter Nagel (Antwerp) after Gerard van Groeningen

1577, Philip Galle, print, Freeing or visiting the prisoners as fourth of the works of mercy (Dutch, worked in Antwerp)

1580-1588, print by Crispijn van de Passe (Dutch) after Maerten de Vos (Flemish)

ca 1600, unknown Flemish artist in the manner of Frans Floris, in the sacristy of the Basilica of Saint Servatius in Maastricht, Netherlands

1600s, Anonymous printer 1585-1646, Amsterdam, after a drawing by Maerten de Vos (1532-1603, Flemish)

ca 1600-1638, Pieter Brueghel the Younger (Flemish)

ca 1607, Caravaggio - Sette opere di Misericordia, in the church Pio Monte della Misericordia, Naples

By exception, this Caravaggio is a painting with all the seven works of mercy in the same scene. If you're wondering "where's visit the prisoners", that would be the woman on the right, baring her breast to nurse an old man. And if you're wondering "what the hell is THAT", well it's the Roman Charity: an ancient Roman story of filial piety "in which a woman secretly breastfeeds her father or mother, incarcerated and supposedly sentenced to death by starvation. Once caught, the loving devotion shown so moves the authorities that she is forgiven and the parent is typically freed." Depictions go far back to a Pompeii fresco, and from ~1500 it became a popular motif. Not quite a prison scene, but I could never resist Caravaggio.

1635, Abraham Bosse - Les Oeuvres de Miséricorde: Visiter les Prisonniers (French)

1640, Cornelis De Wael - To Visit the Imprisoned (Flemish, worked in Genoa)

1646-1649, Michiel Sweerts, The Seven Acts of Mercy - Ministering to Prisoners (Flemish, worked in Rome)

1650, Frans Francken the Younger, To visit the prisoner (Flemish, Antwerp)