Apparently a part of the reason why farmed bees stay in the beehives that humans build for them is because the farm hives are safer and sturdier. I don’t know how a busy Discord server’s worth of bugs that only have one brain cell each would logically conclude that the humans protect them from outside threats, illness and parasites, but if I understood right, the bees would be free to move away and build a new nest somewhere else any time they’d want, and they simply choose not to.
You know how in almost every culture, people have some concept of “if I sacrifice something that I made/grew/produced to the Gods, they will ward me and my harvest from evil”?
So, in a way, don’t the bees willingly sacrifice a part of their harvest to an entity not only far greater than them, but nearly beyond their comprehension, in exchange for protection against natural forces wildly outside of their own control?
So tell me, beekeepers, what are you to your bees, if not a mildly eldritch God?
I don’t know about other cultures, but in English folklore, when a beekeeper dies someone has to go out and tell the bees.
Imagine you’re a neolithic hunter-gatherer, just hanging out, sacrificing stuff to your god, when a new god you’ve never met before shows up and tells you that your god is dead, it’s not your fault or anything, and maybe a new god will come along to take care of you, maybe not, it’s gonna be touch and go for a while
Apparently in medieval Europe they also whispered secrets to the bees.
So imagine the mildly eldritch God you worship talks to you and tells you secrets, but these secrets make no sense to you and are incomprehensible to understand or even know they are secrets. But your God does make vibrations at you, so thats probably a good thing right??
Also occasionally the Swarm decides there is not enough room in the Hive because the eldritch god didn’t take the offering of Honey at their normal time. So enough of a Swarm builds up that the second queen is able to leave without decimating the first Swarm. They are all set to search out a new place that will likely not have your God anymore (but really that’s not too much of a struggle, they have abandoned you, that’s part of why you’ve left, even though the first Swarm still holds out hope for their return).
And then, the scouts find another Hive right next to the old Hive. Literally right next to it. So the Queen lands to inspect it and wow, it’s a good deal. The area already has enough food to support 2 Hives, so it’s a not problem to stay in the area now that they have the space, but…this wasn’t here before.
And then you see God, they’ve come to help the Swarm move to the new Hive and take the offering from the old Hive. Truly this must have been their plan all along
In English folklore, you ALSO have to invite your bees to your wedding, and decorate their hive, and leave a slice of cake for them, and also bring your new spouse by to introduce them to the hive straightaway. Imagine your eldritch god doing THAT.
#these polite beekeepers are just modeling the behavior they would like to see from their own god maybe? #perhaps if we could sting God he would tell us secrets
You have one super power: The ability to know without fail what the truth is to any asked question. You planned to help the world as a super hero. It took you six hours for the government to declare you public enemy number one and the most deadly super villain alive.
It’s called the Gift of Perfect Knowledge. Of course, this is because someone once asked me “Hey, what’s your superpower?” and the name popped right up as it always did. I wonder if that means my superpower named itself. I’ve never had the courage to ask.
I made a part two! Thank you all for all the kind words!
The ideal thing about living almost full time in the middle of Canada’s boreal forest in a remote wildfire lookout tower is being the only soul around for hundreds of miles. No one except the occasional extremely determined and experienced hiker comes out this far on a four day three night expedition and they never stay long here. At least, that’s what usually happens.
Today has decided to be different because he has decided to be different. Whoever he is, he probably knows exactly who I am and what I can do because he walked right into the minimum distance of my telepathy and just…stopped. Normally, that’s not a problem, people take breaks all the time and the base of the tower is technically a trail marker though I’m not obligated to talk to anyone.
Human: (invites merfolk friend to a boat party with their friends)
Merfolk: oh man, there are a lot of women here. Haha don’t worry guys, I got this :) *changes into a man to keep a balance because that’s culturally polite for merfolk*
wired: much like elves, merfolk are mistaken by sailors for being all women because they have long hair and are very pretty
inspired: merfolk actually have very different concepts of gender to humans because they’re an entirely different species with their own unique culture
merperson: i don’t… wear any? i don’t have legs?
It’s a biological fact that fish do indeed change their sex to keep the male/female ratio balanced in their school population. So this fluidity actually makes more sense from a scientific standpoint than the silly idea that merfolk are born with a strictly assigned sex like humans.
Merfolk are all canonically genderfluid and we love them for that
Human: (spits drink) what the FUCK
OH MY GOD
So in the presence of a ship with an entirely or mostly male crew, nearby mermaids would become female to keep the balance.
That’s it. We figured out why everyone thinks merfolk are all women. Get a boat of fems out there and let’s see what they report.
I was so flummoxed by this I had to learn more, so I took to Google, where I found this blog post by Dan Cardone, who was a grip on this film. Some highlights:
This was the first set I had been on that featured three directors, and hopefully the last. One director was there to primarily film the sex scenes, which he did effectively and economically. The other two directors handled what is called in porn-lingo ‘B-Roll’, i.e. everything non sexual. Which on this film was substantial. The plot for To The Last Man involves two ranches populated entirely by horny men who have random sex and feud over water, as they are in the middle of a crippling drought. Which is why we filmed in Arizona during thunderstorm season…
It’s amazing no one got killed, or seriously injured. There was horse riding, there were fight scenes of rocky escarpments, there were drownings. When the real guns and live ammunition came out for a scene I thought, “That’s it, I’m going back to the truck”.
Fortunately, one of the models was also a fully qualified nurse, so that saved money, time and also lives. Plus, he was sexy, so it was win/win.
All this talk and no one posts a link. God damn it, have to do everything myself around here! Here’s the promo page with previews and a purchase link from the actual Raging Stallions Studios website.
True, but the overall purpose of the scene is to show his frivolous use of water. The story is about the escalating tensions between two ranches during a crippling drought – one ranch with water and the other without. So buddy showers with a bottle up his ass.
To anyone who believes fairy tale romances never happen in real life, may I remind you that JRR and Edith Tolkien met and experienced a forbidden love in their youth, and then were separated for five whole years because of his guardian’s rules that he could not date till he was 21, and she got engaged to someone else only because she assumed he’d forgotten her and lost hope that she could ever be with him, but then on his 21st birthday, he wrote her a letter saying he still loved her and wanted to marry her, she responded basically saying ‘if I’d known you hadn’t left me on the shelf, I would never have said yes to anyone else,’ then a week later she greeted him at the train station and then immediately dumped her fiancé, and they got married and she converted to his religion and danced for him in a flowering field far away from the trenches into which he was drafted, which left such an impression that he crafted an entire story about the most beautiful maiden in the world who danced in the woods and made enormous sacrifices to be with the man she loved, and they had four kids and remained faithful to each other and blissfully grew old together and their gravestones are now marked with the names of that same fictional couple that he created, who broke every rule and overcame every possible obstacle to be together and get a happy ending, who only did all that because he based it all on their own real love story.
Knowing all this has always made this bit of Beren’s song instantly reduce me to tears:
Though all to ruin fell the world
and were dissolved and backward hurled
unmade into the old abyss,
yet were its making good, for this—
the dawn, the dusk, the earth, the sea—
that Lúthien on a time should be!
Tolkien straight up wrote a poem that said “the world could end, but it wouldn’t have all been pointless, because she was in this world, however briefly, and that justified all the rest.” Kills me.
Who can outdo Wife Guy Tolkien? Dude was writing elaborate AUs where his wife is an impossibly beautiful magic-wielding immortal elf princess who fights Satan and wins to rescue her human boyfriend from Satan’s doom fortress. Flawless.
Final note: while they were dating, a favorite activity was to go to a local cafe with a balcony and throw sugar cubes into people’s hats.
Wow…. so you’re telling me you took an action that resulted in the death of one person…… to save the lives of many people…. who would have died if you did nothing??? that sounds so familiar
[Text ID: Love Poem with Apologies for My Appearance / Ada Limón //
Sometimes, I think you get the worst / of me. The much-loved loose forest-green / sweatpants, the long bra-less days, hair / knotted and uncivilized, a shadowed brow / where the devilish thoughts do their hoofed / dance on the brain. I’d like to say this means / I love you, the stained white cotton T-shirt, / the tears, pistachio shells, the mess of orange / peels on my desk, but it’s different than that. / I move in this house with you, the way I move / in my mind, unencumbered by beauty’s cage. / I do like I do in the tall grass, more animal-me / than much else. I’m wrong, it is that I love you, / but it’s more that when you say it back, lights / out, a cold wind through curtains, for maybe / the first time in my life, I believe it.
one of these days i am going to get herman melville’s name right on the first try. i am going to say “herman”, and then i’m going to say “melville”, and i’m not going to have to stop myself in the middle of “merman hellville” and start over. not today, though. but hopefully soon. maybe tomorrow.
It Has Been 0 Days Since the Last Merman Hellville Incident
Hilma’s Ghost (Dannielle Tegeder and Sharmistha Ray) — “Surrender your material concerns. This is a call of your ancestors, a place to contemplate your mortality. Use the circular moons as a connection with the divine feminine, her intuition and subconscious mind, and the natural cycles of life.” (acrylic and flashe on canvas, 2023)
my favorite piece of modern art is Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds, over one hundred million hand-painted ceramic sunflower seeds made by dozens of craftsmen
My first thought was “WHY” but @json-derulo did the work so I didn’t have to:
