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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 7 months

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By: Richard Dawkins

Published: Nov 13, 2023

“I say, Jarvis, cluster round.”

“Sir?”

“Close on me – if that’s the right expression?”

“A military phrase, sir, employed by officers requiring the presence of their subordinates.”

“Right, Jarvis. Lend me your ears.”

“Equally appropriate, sir. Mark Antony . . .”

“Never mind Mark Antony, Jarvis. This is important.”

“Very good sir.”

“As you know, Jarvis, when it comes to regions north of the collar stud, B Woofter is not rated highly in the form book. Nevertheless, I do have one great scholastic triumph to my credit. And I bet you don’t know what that was?”

“You have frequently adverted to it sir. You won the prize for Scripture Knowledge at your preparatory academy.”

“Yes, Jarvis, I did, to the ill-concealed surprise of the Rev Aubrey Upcock, proprietor and chief screw at that infamous hell-hole. And ever since then, although not much of a lad for Matins or Evensong, I’ve always had a soft spot for Holy Writ as we experts call it. And now we come to the nub. Orcrux, Jarvis?”

“Very appropriate sir, or ‘nitty gritty’ is these days often heard.”

“The point is, Jarvis, as an aficionado, I have long been especially fond of the book of Genesis. God made the world in six days, am I right, Jarvis?”

“Well sir . . .”

“Beginning with light, God moved swiftly through the gears, making plants and things that creep, scaly things with fins, our feathered friends tootling through the trees, furry brothers and sisters in the undergrowth and finally, rounding into the straight, he created chaps like us, before taking to his hammock for a well-earned siesta on the seventh day. Am I right, Jarvis?”

“Yes sir, if I may say so, a colourfully mixed summary of one of our great origin myths.”

“But now, Jarvis, mark the sequel. A fellow at the Dregs Christmas party was bending my ear last night over the snort that refreshes. Seems there’s a cove called Darwin who says Genesis is all a lot of rot. God’s been oversold on the campus. He didn’t make everything after all. There’s something called evaluation . . .”

“Evolution sir. The theory advanced by Charles Darwin in his great book of 1859, On the Origin of Species.”

“That’s the baby, Jarvis. Evolution. Would you credit it, this Darwin bozo wants me to believe my great great grandfather was some kind of hirsute banana-stuffer, scratching himself with his toes and swinging through the treetops. Now, Jarvis, answer me this. If we’re descended from chimpanzees, why are there chimpanzees still among those present and correct? I saw one only last month at the zoo. Why haven’t they all turned into members of the Dregs Club (or the Athenaeum according to taste)? Try that on your pianola, Jarvis.”

“If I might take the liberty, sir, you appear to be labouring under a misunderstanding. Mr Darwin does not say that we are descended from chimpanzees. Chimpanzees and we are descended from a shared ancestor. Chimpanzees are modern apes, which have been evolving since the time of the shared ancestor, just as we have.”

“Hm, well I think I get your drift, Jarvis. Just as my pestilential cousin Thomas and I are both descended from the same grandfather. But neither of us looks any more like the old reprobate than the other, and neither of us has his side-whiskers.”

“Precisely sir.”

“But hang on, Jarvis. We old lags of the Scripture Knowledge handicap don’t give up that easily. My old man’s guvnor may have been a hairy old gargoyle, but he wasn’t what you’d call a chimpanzee. I distinctly remember. Far from dragging his knuckles over the ground, he carried himself with an upright, military bearing (at least until his later years, and when the port had gone round a few times). And the family portraits in the old ancestral home, Jarvis. We Woofters did our bit at Agincourt, and there were no apes on the strength during that “God for Harry, England and St George” carry-on.”

“I think, sir, you underestimate the time spans involved. Only a few centuries have passed since Agincourt. Our shared ancestor with chimpanzees lived more than five million years ago. If I might venture upon a flight of fancy sir?”

“Certainly you might, Jarvis. Venture away, with the young master’s blessing”

“Suppose you walk back in time one mile, sir, to reach the Battle of Agincourt . . .”

“Sort of like walking from here to the Dregs, Jarvis?”

“Yes sir. On the same scale, to walk back to the ancestor we share with chimpanzees, you’d have to walk all the way from London to Australia.”

“Goodness, Jarvis, all the way to the land of cobbers with corks dangling from their lids. No wonder there are no apes among the family portraits, no low-browed chest-thumpers to be seen once-more-unto-the-breaching at Agincourt.”

“Indeed sir, and to go back to our shared ancestor with fish . . .”

“Wait a minute, Jarvis, hold it there. Are you now telling me I’m descended from something that would feel at home on a slab?”

“We share ancestors with modern fish, sir, which would certainly have been called fish if we could see them. You could safely say that we are descended from fish, sir.”

“Jarvis, sometimes you go too far. Although, when I think of Gussie Hake-Wortle . . .”

“I would not have ventured to make the comparison myself sir. But if I might pursue my fanciful perambulation back through time, sir? To reach the ancestor that we share with our piscine cousins . . .”

“Let me guess, Jarvis, you’d have to walk right round the whole bally globe and come back to where you started and surprise yourself from behind?”

“A considerable underestimate sir. You’d have to walk to the moon and back, and then set off and do the whole journey again sir.”

“Jarvis, this is too much to spring on a lad with a morning head. Go and mix me one of those pick-me-ups of yours before I can take any more.”

“I have one in readiness sir, prepared when I perceived the lateness of the hour of your return from your club last night.”

“Attaboy, Jarvis. But wait, here’s another thing. This Darwin bird says it all happened by chance. Like spinning the big wheel at Le Touquet. Or like when Bufty Snodgrass scored a hole in one and stood drinks for the whole club for a week.”

“No sir that is incorrect. Natural selection is not a matter of chance. Mutation is a chance process. Natural selection is not.”

“Take a run-up and bowl that one by me again, Jarvis, if you wouldn’t mind. And this time make it your slower ball, with no spin. What is mutation?”

“I beg your pardon sir, I presumed too much. From the Latin mutatio, feminine, ‘a change’, a mutation is a mistake in the copying of a gene.”

“Like a misprint in a book, Jarvis?”

“Yes sir, and, like a misprint in a book, a mutation is not likely to lead to improvement. Just occasionally, however, it does, and then it is more likely to survive and be passed on in consequence. That would be natural selection. Mutation, sir, is random in that it has no bias towards improvement. Selection, by contrast, is automatically biased towards improvement, where improvement means ability to survive. One could almost coin a phrase, sir, and say ‘Mutation proposes, selection disposes.’

“Rather neat that, Jarvis. Your own?”

“No sir, the pleasantry is an anonymous parody of Thomas à Kempis.”

“So, Jarvis, let me see if I’ve got a firm grip on the trouser seat of this problem. We see something that looks like a piece of natty design, like an eye or a heart, and we wonder how it bally well got here.”

“Yes sir.”

“It can’t have got here by pure chance because that would be like Bufty’s hole in one, when we had drinks all round for a week.”

“In some respects it would be even more improbable than the Honourable Mr Snodgrass’s alcoholically celebrated feat with the driver, sir. For all the parts of a human body to come together by sheer chance would be about as improbable as a hole in one if Mr Snodgrass were blindfolded and spun around, so that he had no idea of the whereabouts of the ball on the tee, nor of the direction of the green. Were he to be permitted a single stroke with a wood, sir, his chance of scoring a hole in one would be about as great as the chance of a human body spontaneously coming together if all its parts were shuffled at random.”

“What if Bufty had had a few drinks beforehand, Jarvis? Which, by the way, is pretty likely.”

“The contingency of a hole in one is sufficiently remote, sir, and the calculation sufficiently approximate, that we may neglect the possible effects of alcoholic stimulants. The angle subtended at the tee by the hole . . .”

“That’ll do, Jarvis, remember I have a headache. What I clearly see through the fog is that random chance is a non-starter, a washout, scratched at the off. So how do we get complex things that work, like human bodies?”

“To answer that question, sir, was Mr Darwin’s great achievement. Evolution happens gradually and over a very long time. Each generation is imperceptibly different from the previous one, and the degree of improbability required in any one generation is not prohibitive. But after a sufficiently large number of millions of generations, the end product can be very improbable indeed, and can look very much as though it was designed.”

“But it only looks like the work of some slide-rule toting whizz with a drawing board and a row of biros in his top pocket?”

“Yes sir, the illusion of design results from the accumulation of a large number of small improvements in the same direction, each one small enough to result from a single mutation, but the whole cumulative sequence is prolonged enough to culminate in an end result that could not have come about in a single chance event. The metaphor has been advanced of a slow climb up the gentle slopes of what has somewhat over-dramatically been called ‘Mount Improbable’, sir.”

“Jarvis, that’s a doozra of an idea, and I think I’m beginning to get my eye in for it. But I wasn’t too far wrong, was I, when I called it ‘evaluation’ instead of evolution?”

“No sir. The process somewhat resembles the breeding of racehorses. The fastest horses are evaluated by breeders and the best ones are chosen as progenitors of future generations. Mr Darwin realised that in nature the same principle works without the need for any breeder to do the evaluating. The individuals that run fastest are automatically less likely to be caught by lions.”

“Or tigers, Jarvis. Tigers are very fast, Inky Brahmapur was telling me at the Dregs only last week.”

“Yes sir, tigers too. I can well imagine that his Highness would have had ample opportunity to observe their speed from the back of his elephant. The nub, or crux, is that the fastest individual horses survive to breed and pass on the genes that made them fast, because they are less likely to be eaten by large predators.

“By Jove, Jarvis, that makes a lot of sense. And I suppose the fastest tigers also get to breed because they are the first ones to grab their medium rare with all the trimmings, and so survive to have little tigers that also grow up to be fast.”

“Yes sir.”

“But this is amazing, Jarvis. This really prangs the triple twenty. And the same thing works not just for horses and tigers but for everything else?”

“Precisely sir.”

“But Jarvis, wait a moment. I can see that this bowls Genesis middle stump. But where does it leave God? It sounds from what this Darwin bimbo says, that there’s not a lot left for God to do. I mean to say, Jarvis, I know what it’s like to be underemployed, and underemployed is what God, if you get my drift, would seem to be.”

“Very true sir.”

“So, well, dash it, I mean to say, Jarvis, in that case why do we even believe in God at all?”

“Why indeed sir?”

“Jarvis, this is astounding. Incredulous.”

“Incredible sir.”

“Yes, incredible, Jarvis. I shall see the world through new eyes, no longer through a glass darkly as we biblical scholars say. Don’t bother with that pick-me-up, Jarvis. I find I no longer need it. I feel sort of liberated. Instead, bring me my hat, my stick, and the binoculars Aunt Daphne gave me last Goodwood. I’m going out into the park to admire the trees, the butterflies, the birds and the squirrels, and marvel at everything you have told me. You don’t mind if I do a spot of marvelling at everything you’ve told me, Jarvis?”

“No indeed sir. Marvelling is very much in the proper vein, and other gentlemen have told me that they experience the same sense of liberation on first comprehending such matters. If I might make a further suggestion sir?”

“Suggest away, Jarvis, suggest away, we are always ready to hear suggestions from you.”

“Well sir, if you would care to follow the matter further, I have a small volume here, which you might care to peruse.”

“Doesn’t look very small to me, Jarvis, but anyway, what is it called?”

“It is called The Greatest Show on Earth, sir, and it is by . . .”

“It doesn’t matter who it’s by, Jarvis, any friend of yours is a friend of mine. Heave it over and I’ll have a look when I return. Now, the binoculars, the stick and the gents’ bespoke headwear if you please. I have some intensive marvelling to do.”

Note: "The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution" is by Richard Dawkins. It's a little self-referential, tongue-in-cheek joke.

#Richard Dawkins #Charles Darwin #evolution #common ancestry #natural selection #science #common ancestor #mutation #religion is a mental illness

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sweetmeatdale · 1 year

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#biology #common ancestor #mammalia #musk ox #muskrat #science

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agentsketchbook · 2 years

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The intelligent species of Dearth

Commonalities between all 4 species:

They are all protists

Omnivorous

All, with the exception of virals, give live birth

Social creatures

Developmental stages happen at roughly the same time for all 4

Can develop mental disorders, but may vary between species

Common Ancestor of Unankind:

Very genetically mutable ancestor, can assimilate new DNA through mutation and horizontal gene transfer

Reproductive flexibility is still apparent in the 4 modern species that evolved from the ancestor

Virals:

The result of the ancestor assimilating virus genes through horizontal gene transfer instead of becoming infected and producing copies

Both male and female virals can sire, but neither can become pregnant

The second hardiest of the species, suffer the least from environmental concerns

Lowest empathy quotient of the 4 species

Highest IQ of the 4 species

Often cycloptic, but not always

Female virals are still capable of horizontal gene transfer sexually with other virals

Petraphines:

Genetically the closest to the ancestor, evolved to adapt to mineral rich underground conditions and water, grows rock and crystal from skin for defense as well

Does not need light and are capable of seeing in the dark

Are the most durable of the 4 species, do not tire the same way and can go longer without food and water

Highest pain tolerance of the 4

"Artificials" are petraphines, who for some reason, cannot process minerals and express them, so they rely on other man made materials to supplement (For example, Detroit uses car paint and Bonnie relies on ebonite)

The least physically diverse, tend to look the most "human"

Floros (Floro Sapien):

Ancestor adapted DNA from plantlife via horizontal gene transfer

Can reproduce either sexually giving live birth, or through pollination, forming a seed to be planted in substrate

Need for the sun is unique to floros, mental and physical health are dependent on it, will become ill and eventually die without

The most physically diverse of the 4

Most susceptible to illness, both infectious and genetic

Bacterials:

More in common with petraphines and floros than virals despite being adapted to bacteria genetics as a response to attempted infection like them

Prolonged sun exposure can be damaging to them, starting with a very painful and dangerous sunburn open to disease

Prone to herd mentalities as a byproduct of bacteria's quorum sensing

Arguably the least combative and most socially adaptive of the 4, most likely an evolutionary function to survive in large groups peacefully with each other

Gram negative bacterials have flexible and malleable skin and bodies with lenient bones that can bend a good amount before snapping, where gram positive bacterials typically have sturdier bodies and normal bones

When the ancestor fused virus genes into its makeup to form virals, the new species lost its ability to reproduce with itself, despite being very efficient at doing so with members of the other species

Hybrids:

Hybrids have very different needs than pure blooded individuals. For example, bacterials find the sun to be dangerous, but their cyano offspring have no such issues and often rely on the it like their floro parents -Hybrids make up less than 2% of the population. That's roughly the same population of redheads, asexuals, and intersex people in humans

Bacterials + Petraphines = X

The soft and simple half of bacterials becomes poisoned by the concentration of minerals within the cells, Bacterial and petraphine offspring fail very early on during pregnancy

Floros + Bacterials = Cys (Cyanos)

Cys (pronounced like "sighs" are the most viable of the two possible hybrids with a success rate of roughly 80% of pregnancies occurring without complications. Cys are infertile, and while most will bud, they will never bloom.

Petraphines + Floros = Terras (Terraflors)

Like cyanos, terraflors are infertile and will usually bud, but won't ever bloom. However, their success rate is closer to 30-40%. They tend to be less dependent on sunlight, but are significantly more likely to suffer petrifaction in their lifetimes than their fully floro relatives

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WHOOO, long winded ref on the species! There's a lot of stuff detailed here, and even more yet that isn't!

#ref #gallery #notes #species #common ancestor #hybrids #floros #floro sapiens #petraphines #virals #bacterials #terraflors #cyanos

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allpowerfulaxolotl · 10 months

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A tumblr gremlin has reminded me of another fun fact I learned recently:

According to cladistics, we users of tumblr are all fish

Cladistics is a system used to describe relationships between organisms while skirting around the labels of taxonomic classification. Instead of using the group terms of class, order, family, genus, etc., ancestral groups are all clades. Everything within an ancestral group—everything descended from a particular ancestor—is within that ancestral clade. For example, the entire kingdom of plants is a clade, and all the species of prairie grasses are also a clade.

Organisms are divided into clades based on differences in features, paying particular attention to the order in which their features evolved. For instance, skinks that give live birth wouldn’t be in a clade with cats which excludes egg laying vertebrates, because skinks and cats evolved live birth separately. However, mammals that give live birth are in the same clade as platypuses because they share a common ancestor which had three ear bones and produced milk before mammals evolved live birth.

We creatures of the internet are all within the clade Osteichthyes (ahs-tee-IC-thees)—we are descended from bony fish. Therefore, cladistically, we are fish.

You’re welcome

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tenth-sentence · 1 year

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Further analyses should help clarify whether the functionally related aspects of these regulatory modules reflect their derivation from a common ancestral mechanism versus convergent evolution that has exploited elements well suited to maintaining cells in an indeterminate state.

"Plant Physiology and Development" int'l 6e - Taiz, L., Zeiger, E., Møller, I.M., Murphy, A.

#book quote #plant physiology and development #nonfiction #textbook #analysis #common ancestor #convergent evolution #plant cells

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covenawhite66 · 2 years

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Surrounding the asymmetrical armor was a fleshy body with a series of flattened lobes projecting from the sides. Bundles of bristles emerged from the body in between the lobes and the armor. The many lobes, bundles of bristles and array of shells on the back are evidence that the worm was originally serialized or segmented, like an earthworm.

Such an organ is called a lophophore and brachiopods share the lophophore with two other major groups called the phoronids ("horseshoe worms") and bryozoans ("moss animals"). Molecular studies—which reconstruct evolutionary trees using amino acid sequences—agree with anatomical evidence that brachiopods, bryozoans and phoronids are each other's closest living relatives, a group called Lophophorata after their filter-feeding organ.

#evolution #biology #science #common ancestor #discovery #sea life #under the sea #worm

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bitsbug · 9 months

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In my sleep I dream of phylogenetic trees

#rain world #rainworld #specbio #speculative evolution #art #this is of course extremely simplified #and also a headcanon. I cannot predict the actual evolutionary paths of video game animals #but it was fun to realize I can link yeeks and slugcats to a common ancestor!#I'll prolly add more later. vultures will be a doozy

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nookisms · 1 year

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A love poem for the Last Universal Common Ancestor, the last of its kind and the first of our own at the beginning of the world.

#LUCA #Last Universal Common Ancestor #wikipedia poetry #wikipedia poem #poetry #she speks #she speks originale #she writes #my poetry

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rznant · 5 months

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among us...

#lethal company... among us... common ancestor...

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jheselbraum · 6 months

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Vesta is so full of so many creatures unlike any seen on earth, except this one which is just a regular velvet worm

#scavengers reign #Vesta and earth shared common ancestor question mark #I mean velvet worms are pretty old

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faceeeeee · 7 months

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Really important question for those who happen to pass by- in your opinion, who was the FIRST EVER Tumblr sexyman? Like- even before the term was created.

#I'm trying to find a common ancestor for em #and i can't just start with the onceler oh no no no that'd be too simple and wouldn't explain some other sexymen #it's for research purposes i promise #and don't you dare say jaxler #/j i can't control what you say #if you say anything at ALL #faceee rambles

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starwrighter · 11 months

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I am not a baby!!(Yes you are)

(Prompt) (Masterpost) (Previous) (next) (Ao3 link)

( Part three bby! Come get ya’ll juice) @unknownthreat @avelnfear @adeniumdream @meira-3919 @thought-u-said-dragon-queen @hugsandchaos @blep-23 @ashoutinthedarkness

“Zero human life signs detected" A terrifying string of words to hear after crawling out a lifepod. It didn’t sound plausible, there were dozens of life pods on that ship! Dozens of pods that should have launched with him in the crash, that means dozens of people who should be more alive than him were wandering around this planet. They had too be!

Alterra tech wasn’t as advanced as the corporation wanted him to believe. A thorough scan of the entire planet couldn’t be performed in a matter of seconds. The tablet was impressive sure, but it couldn’t replace the complex tech and the brilliant minds from the brightest of space programs. Living people were unpredictable, especially in times of disaster like this. It would’ve been easy for them to accidentally walk out of range or be skipped over by whatever scan was sent out. All he knew about this planet was that there was water as far as the eye could see. There had to be people somewhere on the planet. The area he landed in was safe from what he could tell, he could only hope the same for the others.

Shallow water surrounded him a tropical warmth to it. The ground was a mix between soft sand he could dig his feet and stone. Giant coral tubes were scattered throughout the area and Danny found himself giggling as he darted through them as fast as he could manage.

“Vital signs abnormal. Self scan recommended,” Danny frowned glaring down at the PDA, a flashing light dutifully reminding him to head up for air. Scrunching his nose Danny dismissed the notifications. Notifications and reminders that would be lifesaving for a normal human would be inaccurate and possibly harmful if you applied it to him. His body needed less oxygen so his heart was slower. It made perfect sense to him but it was very difficult to explain to a trained medical professional that he was just built different without exposing the existence of halfa. Explaining his existence to the Ai was a task he wasn’t looking forward to. Maybe he should play along and pretend to be a dumb baby so he didn’t have to. Explaining how he’s still alive when his heart wasn’t pumping anywhere close to the speed needed for his circulatory system to function.

Maybe if he scanned himself like his PDA suggested he’d get accurate medical information for once in his half-life. His semi normal life was over the moment he melted into goo and his grave was dug the moment the PDA noticed the irregularities, no harm in digging himself a deeper grave right? Better to be comfy in your grave than fight to be tossed in a ditch.

Swimming up to the surface Danny allowed himself to think deeply about his situation for the first time since landing on this rock. Alterra drew it’s information from building off confirmed databases, creating new ones and synthesizing theories when they lacked information. For all the GIW’s and his parent’s hard work their research on ectoplasm and ecto entities didn’t exist in any official database outside of fairytales and myths. To his PDA ectoplasm was something they’ve never seen before; something that they’d study without the bias of his parents or the GIW skewing the results.

Jazz and his friends would still accept him no matter what conclusion the PDA drew on his existence. If worse came to worst he could always pull a couple strings with Technus or ask tucker to wipe it’s memory for him when he got home.

With a small gasp for air Danny dove back down into the shallow waters. Brightly colored fish roamed, nibbling at plants and flitting away in terror when he drew near. Only one of the fish didn’t seem to mind his presence. A slim yellow fish with purple fins, goldish stripes and stalked eyes that gave it resemblance to that of a crab or a snail. It glided slowly through the water, ignoring Danny in favor of munching on bits of greenery growing out of the sand. Danny took to ignoring it right back, it was boring, and not as fun to spook while he scrounged for materials.

A creature that was 60% eye was the most entertaining to startle. Despite the little blue fish being bigger than his head it was still terrified of him, darting away at a sped Danny could just barely keep up with. They dodged and weaved leading him in circles until he either got dizzy and lost sight of them or got bored of spinning.

He plucked mushrooms out of the ground, the purple ring surrounding pink insides left a chalky residue that stung his finger tips. Danny didn’t even want to chance eating these, they felt compressed like all it would take was one wrong cut for them to explode into a million pieces. According to his PDA they could be used to make batteries . Rumor has it, battery acid doesn’t taste that good. A high pitched whistling similar to a dog whistle played from his PDA getting louder and higher in pitch the closer he brought the mushroom to his mouth. It was funny how the PDA thought it could stop him if he really wanted to eat poison. Though, if it would stop the PDA from screaming Danny would graciously hold the battery mushrooms in his backpack not his mouth.

Danny used Wilson to bash up stone outcrops, praying the fire extinguisher wouldn’t break against the stone. Shoving chunk after chunk of titanium into his backpack he prayed Alterra had something in their storage modules separating the possibly explosive thing away from each other. Copper was what he needed yet it seemed like it was as rare as gold here. All he needed was one piece, one single piece to make the battery needed for a scanner. Did copper even exist on this planet? It was the main component to most things technological so if it didn’t exist here he was screwed. Hoarding massive amounts of titanium wouldn’t make up for it’s lack in conductivity. Powering tools took electricity, and he didn’t exactly want to risk using a faulty battery in the middle of the ocean. Copper was a must have for the machinery he needed, the fabricator wouldn’t let him substitute materials nor did he have the materials to substitute. For now, he was forced to continue his search, smacking away at the limestone in hopes of the ancients deciding to show mercy and give him what he needed.

Breaks for air were few and far between, the PDA catching on to the difference in biology quicker than he thought it would. Who knew not drowning when all data says you should leaves one eager to reevaluate their data. Oxygen alerts popped up after a minute and a half instead of the normal thirty second warnings. It wasn’t anywhere near his breath holding record before the crash but it was enough to make the PDA slightly less annoying so he considered that a win. When copper finally dropped from an outcrop, he almost cried from relief; not that his tears would mean anything in the ocean. Relief soon morphed into annoyance as every single one of the outcrops he broke afterwards dropped copper. Of course the moment he didn’t need it anymore was the moment it became the only thing that would ever drop! Why wouldn’t it work that way? Clockwork was laughing at him right now he could feel it. Swimming into the nearest cave to drown out of spite didn’t seem that bad of an idea anymore.

“Detecting sulfur deposits in the local cave systems. Sulfur is an essential component of the repair tool.” A colorful, yet morbid animation played on the screen. It depicted a small child putting sulfur into their mouth before being stamped by the image of a skull. It covered the child’s entire body and as the skull faded off screen so did the child, a small grave stone replacing them. This warning was unnecessary but an accurate assumption of his survival skills. Jazz always said he was like a toddler, putting anything and everything he could in his mouth. While not exactly true, she’d seen him eat a plastic spork and watched him drink ectoplasm so he couldn't plead his case without proving her point. Eating random objects was one of his favorite ways to freak people out!

A piercing shriek broke through his thoughts. It sounded like someone taking a wheezing breath when they had the flu and it was rapidly approaching him. A flash red entered his his vison and Danny only had time to make brief eye contact with an alien that vaguely resembled a pufferfish before it exploded sending a cloud of loose sand into the water.

What the hell was that thing!? It just self destructed for no reason! There wasn’t even time for him to get a good look at it before it exploded! It was like the fish took one look at Danny and decided a violent death by self-destruction was the only answer. Why the hell would the PDA warn him about sulfur deposits when their were living tracking missiles swimming around? Did he swim into their territory? Was it protecting something? Ancients he hoped he hadn’t stressed a parent into killing itself to protect it’s babies.

Heading deeper into the caves, he swam towards where he saw Bomberfish emerge. A plant, with a dark beige base almost blended in with the sand. If not for the vibrant red petals with yellow lining bloomed around what looked like pollen but smelled like rotten eggs he might’ve missed it. The pollen was brittle crumpling into a powder like state that sifted though his closed fist. It didn’t take long for him to realize this “Pollen was actually one of the sulfur deposits he was warned about. A gurgle was heard and he twirled around to face the noise. An eye was peeking out through a plant the familiar red petals hiding the boom fish from sight. These things were ultra territorial, or maybe they were guarding the sulfur for some reason? There weren’t any eggs nearby for them to protect. “Living grenades nearby” would’ve been a more fitting warning than “hey you probably shouldn’t eat this” Then again if you told him directly that there were grenade fish in the caves, he would be rushing in there to see it with his own two eyes. The whole point of a warning would be null if it unintentionally encouraged people to rush towards danger with the promise of seeing something cool. He kicked the sand, hiding himself behind the open sulfur plant and waited for the agitated fish to go back into hiding. A cluster of mushrooms nearby illuminated his face as he carefully pocketed the sulfur. Fleeing the cave, he ignored the bomber fishes warning cry as he swam away fast enough to avoid triggering it.

Now all he needed was to craft a battery for the scanner and silicone rubber for the repair tool. Silicone rubber could be made with something called a creepvine seed cluster. Creepvine sounded like a plant your camp counselor would warn you about before going on nature hike. Something that would give you ugly rashes when you inevitably stumbled into a patch of it. The PDA showed him what the materials he needed looked like but not where they were found. Creepvine seed clusters were bulbous yellow seeds that like the name suggested grew in clusters.

It was just his luck that the thing he needed wasn’t in the shallows. In fact, it was located in one of the places he’d been avoiding. Bordering the shallows, tall stalks of kelp grew so tall it almost breached the surface and dense enough that to classify as a forest or at least the ocean equivalent of a forest. The seed clusters were bioluminescent, growing off certain kelp stalks while others remained seedless. The glowing bulbs illuminated chunks of what he could only assume were pieces of the Aroura. A creature long and sleek with jagged teeth lurked in the green tinted waters. Watching, waiting, and ready to strike the moment it’s pray wandered from the safety of the shallows. Often it snatched up pieces of metal, thrashing around with it like an alligator with it’s prey. Sometimes it wandered to the shallows, drawn in by the metallic sheen of scrap and scattered storage crates or lured by dozen of vibrantly colored fish that flourished in the shallows. They never stayed for long, perhaps an instinctual knowledge that scaring prey into migrating elsewhere wouldn’t be good for it’s survival. Picking off stragglers and hunting occasionally was much easier than having to hunt down your preys new breeding ground whenever you wanted to eat.

While their trips to the shallows were short, he didn’t trust a particularly tasty looking prey wouldn’t give them the confidence to venture farther into the shallows. There was no way of knowing a metal muncher wouldn’t stalk him back to the shallows if they saw him on his little errand. No way of telling if their interest in metal was limited to just scraps. The fabricator was his only lifeline right now, his only hope for tools and drinkable water. A fabricator that was built into the wall of a lifepod made primarily of metal that would look oh so tasty to a jagged toothed alligator with a craving for titanium.

There were a lot of things he wanted to do on an alien planet but he didn't want to swim into the home of the metal munching monsters! It was safer to just stay here where the only real threat was a living grenade with territorial issues and the gasmask manatee. The Metal muncher was gigantic and Danny was the perfect bite sized snack! Most of the tastier looking fish were smaller than he was and all Danny had to defend himself was a fire extinguisher and ice powers with the effectiveness of a slushy machine. He’d be the appetizer to tide them over before the main course of a life pod slightly charred!

Impulsiveness and an apparent lack of self preservation was what he was known for by his community but contrary to popular belief Danny didn’t want to die. Back home, he had the strength to hold his own against the attacking ghosts and the friends to back him up when brute force and bullshittery failed. Now he had neither. Hours after the crash and he still couldn’t go ghost; trying to access his powers was as helpful as it’d been during the crash. Worst of all, his friends were lightyears away with no way of reaching him or even knowing what happened. The situation was dire and rescue couldn’t save him or the other potential survivors if he acted stupid and got himself killed. Believe it or not impulsiveness isn’t the same as stupidity; the two could come hand and hand but that didn’t make them the same when they’re separate. No matter what his grades said about him he wasn’t stupid.

Daniel James Fenton, that’s who he is and Fenton’s aren’t stupid.

Common sense ran scarce in their family but intelligence was plentiful. Jazz might be hoarding all the common sense but Danny had just enough to make his own rational decisions every once in a while. Provoking something that big without at least the foundations of a plan would cross the line of impulsiveness and land him with a dunce cap sitting in the corner of his lifepod. That is if he wasn’t torn to shreds first

He couldn’t beat a metal muncher in face to face fight, better to avoid it as much as possible. Out maneuvering one of them wasn’t even an option. His swimming was slow and uncoordinated like the rest of his tiny body. At least stealth would be easier for him like this. The kelp twirled into itself an easy place to hide. Hiding wouldn’t help if they smelt him, the gators snout was long enough to snatch him out of any hiding spot he found. What he needed was something to defend himself but unfortunately, the only weapon he was allowed to fabricate required silicone rubber to make. So unless he wanted to blunt force one of them to death with a fire extinguisher his wit was his only other weapon. Metal munchers seemed to get distracted easily, diverting their attention from him would be an easy task. If he could spare some titanium or catch some of the smaller slower fish he could sneak through the kelp forests mostly unbothered.

Offering food was the safer bet. Carrying around a chunk of metal would slow him down and give the overgrown gators a chance to eat him and his peace offering. Danny chased down fish, snatching up the slower ones in his little hands. They slipped out of his grasp often, his dull nails did nothing to keep the fish from squirming out of his grasp. Sharpened canines although small did great work to puncture and kill whatever unfortunate creature he caught in his maw. It they tasted terrible but what more could you expect of holding a raw fish in your mouth? With a dead fish in his hand, he surfaced for one long gasp of air before delving into the kelp forests. Hope the metal muncher didn’t prefer live feedings.

“Life on this planet grows in distinct and diverse ecological biomes. Further study recommended.” The PDA piped up, playing another short animation of a child using a scanner. The child had three extra fingers sprouting on their wrist and there was an eerie emptiness in the eyes that screamed AI generated. Dismissing the notification Danny began to stalk around the biome. Chunks of sandstone dropped silver, lead and, sometimes gold. A notification popped up for two of the three. Blue lights flashed in his face and Danny had to duck away, hiding inside the curling vines of kelp. The PDA instructed him on handling lead including the usual warning of “Don’t eat it,” given whenever he picked up anything that wasn’t a fish.

It wasn’t his fault that rocks looked so tasty! The only rock he actually put in his mouth turned out to be salt give him a break! A pain in his gums made the concept of chewing on things he wasn’t supposed to more appealing then it was.

A loud shriek erupted, so loud it made his ears ring. Gnashing teeth and dilated pupils stared back at him through the creepvine. With a scream Danny chucked a fish at the creatures face hitting it square in the jaw. Shoving as many seed clusters into his backpack, Danny swam as fast as he could towards the shallows. An indignant shriek of a gator no longer distracted by its snack rang out behind him motivating him to swim faster.

His life pod was in sight, so close yet so far away. With a monster chasing him the short distance felt like miles. Fish scattered in all directions at the sight of his pursuer distracting the gator just long enough for him climb the latter to the top of his lifepod. Air burned his lungs adrenaline rushing through his veins as he stared intently at the retreating form of the metal muncher. The PDA was talking to him. Words that sounded vaguely comforting were drowned out by his rapid breaths and the ringing in his ears.

“Scary,” His voice came out hoarse way too young to belong to him. A string of certain words didn’t make it past his lips. He didn’t know what he was calling scary specifically, everything that’d happened in the past twenty four hours was terrifying. From the crash to the feeling of helplessness he got from being shrunk and hunted. The sky was darkening, soon, the only light he’d have would be from the flames ravaging the Aroura. Another terrifying thought, the Aroura was a tough ship, what could’ve possibly caused that much damage. When Danny was recruited the ship was hyped up as unbreakable, a perfect example of mankind’s brilliance. It wasn’t negligence or a maintenance error, the ship was fine before entering this solar system. With his duel obsession he should have been at his strongest. It couldn’t be a coincidence that his powers went kaput the exact moment the aroura crashes. Something was fishy here and it wasn’t just the living grenades.

The top hatch was heavy and difficult to open. An air tight seal just like the bottom hatch doing more to keep him out than it could with any water. It’d be a lie to say the hiss of air that escaped when it opened wasn’t satisfying If he wanted to investigate further, he needed to repair his life pod. He watched in awe as the fabricator took things from his backpack and turned into something else. Creepvine seeds to silicon rubber, copper and mushrooms to a battery. Silicone rubber, sulfur and titanium to an O2 tank, fins, the survival knife, and the repair tool. A battery and a single piece of titanium built up into a functional biometrical scanner. It was incredible, in just a few minutes Danny went from having nothing to having a knife and other less important tools. If things stayed this easy he’d be ready to fight a minor deity in a matter of days!

A barrage of PDA messages hit him, all somewhat snarky congratulations for crafting but Danny couldn’t care less. His focus was fixated on repairing all the sparking bits and bobs of the lifepod. It was like magic the lights flickered to life as if they’d never been broken in the first place

“Lifepod secondary systems online. Running full environmental diagnostic and outputting results to databank.” The PDA pinged as Danny stepped over the puddle of goop to get to the radio.

“Radio online. Broadcasting emergency distress signal, ”Just like the lights the radio was fixed in a matter of seconds. He couldn’t push down the giddy hopefulness at the sight of blinking red light, a message already was a good sign.

“This is Aurora. Distress signal received. Rescue operation will be dispatched to your location in 9...9...9...9...9.. hours. Continue to monitor for emergency transmissions from other life pods,”

That... That did not sound good.

#It hasn't even been a day and Danny's already tormenting the local wildlife #subnautica au #I'm still deciding what the batfam will be #I'm certain that Jason's going to be an older evolved version of the reaper #Dick might have common ancestors with the amp eel #dp x dc #dpxdc #dc x dp #Damian's a mix between a ghost and whatever I design Bruce to be #sea emperor is the sea emperor because I <3 her 4ever #The tumblr post doesn't get beta read lmao

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the-cat-and-the-birdie · 6 months

Text

You don't know how much I want this character. You don't understand but I just gotta ask

Is This ATSV Character Thai?

aka a crash course in Thai tattooing and Buddhist tradition

Please correct me if I'm wrong - but I was really interested in her tattoo.

And looking at the tattoo they singled out beside her - it made me question:

Is that a Traditional Thai tattoo? Is that supposed to be Sak Yant?

And immediately I saw the opportunity to infodump about Buddhism and Thai cultural tattooing! (And my personal experience with it)

It makes me think that maybe this character was meant to me Thai - because her tiger tattoo resembles the twin tiger Sak Yant tattoo.

If you're unaware, Sak Yant is a type of traumatic tattoo native to Thailand.

Connected deeply to the Buddhist faith, Sak Yant tattoos are specific designs that are claimed to have spiritual power.

Typically done with a traditional needle and stick rather than a machine, Sak Yants are tattooed by a Thai Buddhist teacher, an Ajarn.

Each Sak Yant design grants the wearer fortune, protection, or a virtue relating to a Buddhist value.

Each Yant comes with conditions though.

In order to preserve the spiritual power of the tattoo, the wearer just act in accordance to certain standards of Buddhist teaching - simple things like no murder, no adultery/cheating, no lying, etc.

They say if you do these things, your Yant becomes useless over time.

Many Muay Thai fighters have many Sak Yants, typically for protection - which could be the reason she's wearing herself.

However, that doesn't necessarily mean that she's Thai - for one, the tattoo might not be a Sak Yant.

It doesn't exactly match a true Sak Yant design, however, it's fairly close.

It seems as if the creators mixed the Suea Liaw (left) and Suea Koo Maha (right) designs, combining them to form the unique design for the character.

This would be an interesting choice.

The Twin Tigers are one of the favorites of Muay Thai, as it represents protection, power, and authority, which could be useful to sometime working a bar like her.

However, it also seems similar to the Yant 'Suea Leaw Lung' - tattoo similar to Suea Liaw - except with a raised paw, much like hers. Leaw Lung is said (grain of salt unless you're hearing from a Ajarn though) - to bring positivity and safety to those struggling in life.

So the tattoo might not be a Sak Yant - or it could be a Yant style created specifically by the creators of ATSV (as they may have wanted to avoid using a real one, as they're really hard to do unless you're an Ajarn and know the symbols and language).

And also, not everyone who gets one is Thai - though many who get it are Buddhist.

Like me!

Angelina Jolie is popular for the number of Yants she has on her back.

Angelina is in fact a Buddhist and has raised her children within the religion*.

She, like most other Buddhists, got hers done traditionally, under the hand of a Ajarn.

The one in the center of her back - is actually the one I have as well.

(Angelina's back after her 5th Yant)

Religiously, I am a Theravada Buddhist - though I more focus on the Plum Tree Tradition of Thigh Nhat Hanh.

Theravada Buddhism is the type most prevalent in South East Asia, in contrast with the Nepali and Tibetan Mahayana - which the Dhali Lama belongs to.

I got my Sak Yant done under the hand of an Arhat as well, traditional needle style about 3 years ago in Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand)

The one I have is Yant Putsoorn - the 5 Buddhas yantra.

Although there are many vague ass descriptions of what each Yant means online - my Ajarn personally told me Putsoorn is aimed at raised compassion mindfulness towards yourself and others as well - usually known as loving-kindness.

So she could be specifically Buddhist as well, if the tattoo is supposed to be Yant.

I think the idea is so so cool, because you may see traditional Japanese tattoo designs, many breathtaking , but it's rare you see other forms of traditional tattoo in day to day media!

I really really want to see her in action now! Just to see that tattoo up close. Plus she's so bad-ass!

I was SO SO SO excited to see her tattoo, and I really hope it is one! More Buddhist characters please. You can be hardcore and Buddhist too!

But does anybody have any other theories of what this tattoo could be? Do you know why traditional designs outside of Yant that this could be? Do you agree this could be Yant?

I'm curious!!

* Just a bonus: I wanted to highlight my use of the word religion in reference to Buddhism. Often in the West, Buddhism is reduced to a 'philosohy' or 'a way of life' rather than a legitimate religion. This is reductive. Buddhism is a religion, with monks, nuns, plains of existence, 'heavens' (very different context than Abrahamic - being reborn in heaven actually makes it harder to reach nirvana, because you are tempted by more comfort. Being born on Earth is the easier way to reach nirvana). Buddhism has ceremonies and centuries worth of text and practice - like Sak Yant. Although it is centered in mindfulness, acceptance, and love - and these teachings can be used by anyone regardless of religion - Buddhism is a religion. Just one far removed from the western Abrahamic understanding of religion. You can read and encorporate any of the teachings, it's very very very open. There are no borders between people, and any heart that is open or desiring it can engage with Buddhism as much or as little as they need to. But I think it's important to refer to Buddhism as a religion so the world conversation on religion isn't centered on Abrahamic, Western ideals and history - when in fact there are many loving, kind, and rich religions out there. From Hoodoo, to Sikhism, to Buddhism and beyond :)

#we NEED a Thai spider please!!!#ISN'T THIS SO COOL ISN'T IT #WE GETTING ENLIGHTENED IN HERE #For those curious I'm a ancestoral worshipper (which is common in Theravada)#Spiritually I practice Hoodoo - Religiously I am Buddhist #no proofread lolol #spiderman #atsv #spider man #marvel #across the spiderverse #beyond the Spiderverse #mauro belfiore

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