The Late Rodentocene: 20 Million Years Post-establishment

They are also erasing Jewish history of Israel from before the foundation of the state, and en masse rewriting articles on Zionism and Jews in the Middle East, getting rid of any context that justifies Israel and sometimes adding conspiracy theories. Israeli right-wing sources are considered unreliable due to being propaganda (which they are, but they also sometimes tell the truth) yet Qatari outlets are considered completely okay to use despite many many instances of outright fabrication. They should either ban both or ban neither if they want consistency. I have to constantly go to archived revisions for almost any page relating to Israel's history. Even on the summary page of Israel itself, they erased the link to the "Land of Israel" but kept the "Holy Land" and "historic region of Palestine".

This kind of stuff was happening on other topics than Jews long before October 7th, and is due to an inherent issue in English Wikipedia's editing culture. I remember how the decision making process worked years ago in a debate about deadnaming; trans people were outright ignored not just by transphobes but by "allies" because anyone with a personal stake in an issue is viewed as untrustworthy. Rules are made by consensus, which isn't a terrible idea on its own - but key part of how consensus is built is to marginalise the very people affected. I know from a friend this is also how Wikipedia operates on Romani issues.

I love the *idea* of Wikipedia so much, but the editing culture there is really toxic.

Another Jew on here commented that people were going onto Wikipedia and removing references to certain people's Jewishness, and I just saw for myself that this is true. As a Jew and a fan of old movies and history, I was looking up a list of Jewish actors on Wikipedia. I saw Tina Louise (you know, from Gilligan's Island) pop up. So I popped over to her actual page on Wikipedia. And there were zero references to her being Jewish. So I hopped on over to the Wayback Machine (bless you, Internet Archive) and put in the URL for her Wikipedia page. And wouldn't ya know it: before 10/7, there were at least 3 to 5 references to her Jewishness at any given time on her Wikipedia page. Wtf is happening.

The only known copy of the Hussie “First Folio” of c. 1625 exists in fragments in the Bodelian Library (MS. Eng. misc. c. 413). No publishing details are available, provenance is unknown.  

Prologue:

The uncertain glory of an April day, Which now shows all the beauty of the sun, Limns a youth upon which no name did weigh These thirteen springs. That burden will be one He will take up this morn, and so in this This gentle youth becomes a gentleman, By taking on the name that’s rightfully his - A token that betokes a divine plan. Where others, who did Fate give name at birth Can have no say in what their fortune tells (Whether lives of misery or of mirth), This youth may choose his Heavens, or his Hells. He stands now at the door of childhood’s room, Now Let him learn his name, and learn his doom.  

Act 1, scene 1

   Voice: Enter name.

   Boy: Letters are appearing! As if drawn by Some fiery hand - and now I ken they spell The name “Zoosmell, Lord of Dung”? Fie on this, Fie! A shallow jest - better be the names Of rustics than nobility besmirched.

   Voice: Try again.

   Boy: More words appear, these pleasing to the eye - I’ll be “John Egbert”, a name for saints and Kings, I trow. Now to take up arms and go, But where among these cakes and bills for rude Entertainments could they be? In this drawer?

Looks in drawer

   Boy: No arms. Damn my addled mind: they rest Beneath the cake inside yon magic chest.

   Voice: Remove CAKE from MAGIC CHEST

Boy retrieves arms

   Boy: No antics or hilarity for now, I must needs store these in my Sylladex. What else lies here? Some Gyves that feign to lock, A Blade that cannot wound, a Hat, a Mask, Tricks to mimic smoke or blood, a Treatise On japes, a Volume on the life of a Man of wisdom who traffick’d in dark arts. All this I fain would take ‘gainst future need, For now mayhaps this smoke will show it’s meed.

Takes smoke pastilles

   Boy: Alas! my arms I now can’t bring to hand! This Sylladex is like unto the sack That peddlers use to cart about their wares – And all that they have pack’d must be unlade 'Ere that which they pack’d first will come to light. No matter now: anon I’ll set it right.

Examines bill

   Boy: No spirits be as facinerious As these. Though fell be their actions and their Passions run to black, these hell-kites’ exploits Enthrall me and I can’t abjure their charms. How now, a note? My father left this here, A birthday gift to mark my thirteenth year.

If only I could do that with my friends IRL. A lot of us bake, but we live too far apart

reblog to give warm bread to your mutuals

25 million years PE: The End of the Rodentocene

Dusk of One and Dawn of Another: The End of the Rodentocene Era

It is a chilly afternoon in northern Nodera. The main yellow sun, Alpha, is beginning to set, casting the temperate landscape with a bright yellow gleam, while above it hovers the red-orange pinprick of Beta, promising a few hours more of Beta-twilight before true night sets in. Above in the sky soar a number of ratbats, emerging at dusk to seize the swarms of airborne insects active in this hour of tangerine skies.

It has been 25 million years since life first came to HP-02017, and the wildlife certainly shows its adaptation. Once all just tiny, humble hamsters, they have expanded into such an unimaginable array of forms their seeding precursors would never have foreseen--wherever they were, so long a time later.

In the grasses of the Noderan landscape the sounds of a scuffle can be heard: two rival male masked luchaboars are jousting for territory, squealing loudly as they lock tusks and try to throw their opponent into the ground. Their species, and their territorial jousting, has gone virtually unchanged since the Late Rodentocene, 5 million years ago, but by this time great changes have occurred around them. Once they were the greatest of all Nodera's creatures, but now that age has passed.

The luchaboars butt heads with loud squeals, trying to scare the rival off their turf. But suddenly, both cease their combat and perk their ears in attention, as a faint rumbling sound, slowly approaching, interrupts their petty dispute.

Something is coming.

Something big.

A herd of mison come plodding their way, the ground rumbling with their footsteps while clouds of vapor condense in the cold air with each mighty breath. Like the bumbaas, the mison are descendants of the cavybaras as well-- but their size is on a whole different level.

Weighing almost two thousand pounds when fully grown and measuring six feet high at the shoulder, these lumbering giants have increased in mass from their cavybara ancestors almost twentyfold, and are now thousands of times much more massive than the miniscule hamster that was released onto this planet all too long ago. The vacancy of niches allowed the miniscule hamster to spread out into bigger forms: some of which are now very big indeed.

The herd emerges onto the plains, migrating to new grazing land, and soon dozens, and then hundreds, come tromping their way through the grassland: and faced with such a massive herd, the two brawling luchaboars wisely drop their conflict and promptly flee, while the mison continue on, indifferent to the smaller creatures scurrying beneath them.

As the chilly climate of the Rodentocene's end caused sea levels to drop, the mison, which originated from Westerna, crossed the exposed land bridges down to Ecatoria and across to Nodera, and now they have become established there too, roaming the plains in large herds as they migrate in search of food.

But the mison are not alone. Soon the herd is flanked by several large bounding figures: a group of bipedal, hopping boingos. Large plains grazers descended from the jerryboas, specifically the greater skipperroo, these 190-pound, six-foot-tall leapers dominate the grasslands throughout nearly every continent save for Borealia and Peninsulaustra. Their efficient bounding gaits and grazing dentition have allowed the boingos to conquer the plains, crowding out most of the hamtelopes and keeping their grazing species as small hare-like grazers in the plains...or at least, most of them.

Towering above them all is an immense figure that, with its slender neck, long legs bearing hoofed toes, and a lack of a tail, is unmistakably a giant hamtelope: the girat. While most plains-dwelling hamtelopes avoided competition with the jerryboas and their descendants the boingos by remaining small and feeding on soft, low-ground vegetation, other hamtelopes instead avoided competitive pressure by taking the opposite route, becoming high browsers that feed on tall vegetation beyond the boingos' reach: culminating in the girats, which when full-grown can stand up to 16 feet high-- the tallest hamsters to walk the planet.

Suddenly, the once massive cavybaras and bumbaas are tremendously dwarfed by the great new creatures that have emerged to fill the niches of large megafauna prevalent on Earth, but absent here. The arrival of these massive, mighty behemoths heralds the end of the Rodentocene, and the dawning of a new era: the Therocene-- the age of beasts.

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Soca Valley, Slovenia [OC] (3456x5184) by: peterino99

Well it’s not just any boomers. The guy in the middle is Kevin Chamberlin, a Broadway performing gay powerhouse.

also credits to Austin Archer, who made this song (yourpal_austin on multiple social media, YouTube channel is https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaK8y-VmmJG-VXE3-YiQYBA)

Considering making the predator birgs fellow sapients..

They live in smaller social units than birgs and are almost entirely carnivorous, subsisting mostly on their herds of semi-domesticated trunkhorses. They often bear pike-like tools for prodding and spearing animals.

Birgs maintain an uneasy coexistence with them, often striking trade deals or forming alliances against common foes. However, since the development of firearms, the Twowi have begun pushing the balance, slowly driving giant birgs from their ancestral ranges, and sparking increased conflict.

Many birg folklores designate them as cursed beings, transformed into ever-roaming ‘beastmen’ for consuming the flesh of trunkhorses (a taboo) or even another birg. To the giant birgs, their diminutive cousins are fearful, untrustworthy, and deceptively numerous.

I have a book of Celtic mythology at home, can confirm Old Welsh and Old Irish stories are like that.

Old Welsh lit: Dave punched Steve. This incurred a fine of twelve cattle and a nine-inch rod of silver and is known as one of the Three Midly Annoying Blows of the Isle of Britain

Old Irish lit: Dave punched Steve so that the top of his skull came out of his chin, and gore flooded the house, and he drove his fists down the street performing his battle-feats so that the corpses were so numerous there was no room for them to fall down. It was like “the fox among the hens” and “the oncoming tide” and “that time Emily had eight drinks when we all know she should stop at six”

Old English lit: Dave, the hard man, the fierce man, the fist-man, gave Steve such a blow the like has not been seen since the feud between the Hylfings and the Wends. Thus it is rightly said that violence only begets more violence, unless of course it is particularly sicknasty. Amen.

cadmium red 🔥 all oil on wood panel, by me, 2022