Aquila

Licat volare si super tergum aquila volat - Anyone can fly, if they ride on the back of an eagle

[sarahmackattack]

I wanted to get a video of this ghost crab but every time I got close to their hole they scuttled back in, so I tried getting clever with it. I made a little sandcastle and shoved my phone into it, hit record, and walked away. Crab was VERY suspicious of this addition to their environment.

[morgrimmoon]

Crab really isn't sure what to make of this mysterious Monolith.

[kaminageeha]

Hmmmmm wing au...

Not everyone has them, in fact Kamina and Simon are among only a handful in Jiha with wings. Kamina's loud and proud about his wings, foregoing the cloaks everyone else wears to have his wings out at all times. Simon's far more shy about his, which are undersized to begin with, and he always keeps them tucked away under his cloak and later his team gurren jacket. Part of Kamina's argument with Chief about the existence of the surface is the very existence of their wings, because what's the point of them if there's not enough space to fly?

When proto team gurren are being chewed out after the pigmole escape attempt, Kamina's wings are bound just as his wrists are, and Simon watches out of the corner of his eye as Kamina's feathers ruffle and his wings strain against the ropes even as he seems focused on his argument with Chief. Simon feels their absence keenly when Kamina pulls him into a hug during the earthquake, as Kamina's hugs usually involve being covered by his wings as well.

Yoko's wings pique Kamina's interest immediately when she dives down after the big metal face. Her's are big and powerful, unlike the sad atrophied things the few other winged Jiha residents sport, and she really knows how to fly with them. "Daaamn, you got a mighty fine pair of wings, surface chicks are a breed apart!"

Once they get to surface, Kamina keeps trying to encourage Simon to wear his wings proudly but Simon's still too self conscious to go without his jacket.

[kaminageeha]

Simon's wings getting super disheveled and scruffy after Kamina's death because Simon always let Kamina preen them for him, and trying to do it himself just made him feel Kamina's absence all the more keenly - along with getting frustrated at trying to do it on his own and not being able to reach everywhere or get the right angle. It makes him hate his own wings even more.

Over the course of his big triumphant return in ep 11, his wings finally start to grow from their stunted state. His wings are deeply connected to his spiral power, and have been growing a little ever since he powered up Lagann for the first time, but now he's finally truly embraced his spiral power and his wings reflect that.

Simon doesn't even notice until after Guame's forces have been sent packing and Nia comments in awe on how beautiful his wings are now.

(He lets Nia and Rossiu help him with preening after this, much to everyone's relief)

[morgrimmoon]

Tweak things a little so that in the big battle with Guame's forces, there's a moment where Simon unleashes his spiral power and unconsciously spreads his wings wide and then cups them forward to help guide it, mirroring how he cups his hands, and there's spiral energy crackling over his feathers.

[helenvaughans]

[dangerhousecooks]

Best of my knowledge cycloaporiasis being a fecal parasite means it came from bad sanitation practices on the farm. That's a management problem.

[morgrimmoon]

When it's popping up at multiple farms, it usually means fecal contamination in irrigation water. Occasionally contaminated soil additive, like fertilizater.

[eclecticopposition]

what is THE worst thing you've ever drank. all liquids acceptable. please tell me what it was, bonus points for why

[carby]

Hey whoa hi. Hello. I am looking directly into your ear canal. What do you mean you drank a tube of virus concentrate.

[whyamiherewhosummonedme]

So, I was working in a lab, right? My job in the lab was preparing a pure, concentrated enough sample of virus. This is tricky since, y'know, viruses require hosts to replicate, but you then need to get the host cells (and the pieces of the host cells that died!) out of the sample while still keeping the viruses. Once I'd finished and the samples had been sent to the database for analysis as well as a second one sent to be frozen for future reference, there was still some left over that needed to be disposed of.

I, knowing that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity, waited carefully for the lab director to be deep in conversation with someone else on the other side of the laboratory. And then I took my chance.

Test tubes, as it turns out, are really bad as shot glasses. Their shape turns any liquid inside into a stream, so you really can't knock it back quickly - it takes a couple seconds. Additionally, the best way I can describe the taste of virus concentrate was "sterile rot". A very unique kind of bad! Made worse by the test tube's inefficiency as a shot glass.

(by the way we were studying bacteriophages, not animal viruses. these viruses are too specialized on attacking prokaryotes to even recognize our cells as targets at all, according to studies.)

(but also like. if the viruses managed to successfully switch hosts and killed me with a violent infection, itd still be worth it.)

(for science.)

[violetthunderstorm]

You have a fitting blog title

[nico-the-overlord]

this post is getting 50k easy

[marlinspirkhall]

[cawyden-gaming]

Thank you so much for that post about biomancy! I was wondering if there's some explanation about how Heinrix also chose "sanctic discipline". Mechanically he has it in game but we don't see much usage of it. Only his words: "The Lord Inquisitor was most insistent that I master the discipline of Sanctic Daemonology." Maybe he could purify heretic RT with it as Xavier does it if you repent.

Hi! Thank you! I am glad if it could help 💖

True, we do see more of his biomancy. I think he might have used sanctic discipline on Kiava Gamma while working on the cogitator:

As soon as Heinrix takes another step toward the cogitator, it emits a deafening shriek like hundreds of metal needles driving into toughened glass, as though sensing the stranger. Wincing, Heinrix approaches the control panel and bends down toward the screens. Despite the heat clogging the room, you feel an ice-cold breeze — Heinrix is clearly using his psyker abilities to try to fend off the pernicious effects of the Chaos artefact.

And this one from an event, I belief:

"Emperor's mercy, do not forsake your loyal servants now!" Van Calox's voice cut sharply through the panic that had descended upon the brave scouts like a net cast by an unseen hand. The psyker's eyes gleamed softly in the gloom — the touch of his sorcery drove the taint of weakness from the scouts' souls, and the sinister voice vanished as if it had never been there. After regrouping, the team retreated to the shuttle."

And maybe even here during the ritual in Voidshadows DLC:

A hand is laid on your shoulder. For a second, a golden flash breaks through the ruthless white light, and you hear a fragment of a sentence: "…brace yourself…"

Xavier is not a psyker, but he is performing a ritual, and I believe that is usually called sorcery (though Heinrix in-game dialogue often uses the term for psychic/psyker powers as well, I have noticed) - and non-psykers can do that too. But I would also expect that it belongs to the same school/field.

It is a very useful discipline that any psyker should have - but not everyone can do it (more to this later).

I do think they learn some basics - about the nature of the warp, demons, etc. but only what they are allowed to know, of course - what would help them to be careful, to remain stable.

Heinrix in Voidshadows DLC responds on the idea that he could do the ritual:

"He is right, {name}. I know some of the fundamentals, but this isn't my primary field."

It could be something Heinrix specific, but it is also possible that psykers learn at least some basics about other fields - maybe just that they exist, how to recognise them perhaps.

On Janus, Heinrix senses psychic powers and know it is a bewitching spell - but - it is possible of course, that he just sensed something and given the reaction of the rebels, came to the logical conclusion it has to be mind affecting.

"These people are not thinking straight, {name}." Heinrix stares at the tall, robed figure without blinking. "I can sense an influence. A bewitching spell. Sorcery known only to the strongest of the Aeldari — their Farseers."

Now, even given the sanctioning, training and, for sure, brainwashing that is going on there, I don't think every psyker is that devout and has such a strong belief that is required to make the sanctic discipline work.

You have to believe that it works, that the God-Emperor really protects you, to make it efficient and to make it work. So whenever Heinrix says (and he says it a lot) - God-Emperor protects - that isn't just a phrase; he actually believes it.

And in general, we do see him very much being devout, believing that their escape from Commorragh was a miracle sent by the God-Emperor, or in Voidshadows he isn't doubting that it was the Emperor sending them a warning.

So I think he already had strong faith, because I don't think that if he hadn't, Xavier simply asking him to believe would have worked that well. And since he said "master", it sounds to me more like he already used the powers of that field, but there was potential for more (basically, the higher-level powers).

And I assume he learned that during the training/sanctioning when they identified him as a potential candidate for that discipline. As a battle psyker in the Imperial Guard, he might already have had opportunities to use them.

Xavier then encouraged him to master them because they are so incredibly useful. They work against Chaos, as well as against enemy psykers and xenos. And in his service to the Inquisition, there was for sure no shortage of situations in which to use them.

My personal head canon is that the psykers in the game would not start with these few powers, that this is simply a gameplay decision, but instead would already wield higher level powers as well. I do think they can get even stronger over time; I think it was also said that through the warp rift more and more psychic people are born and that psychic powers are now increased, but maybe that is just for those worlds near the rift.

I hope that was what you were looking for - sorry, there isn't that much about it in the game, as you also already noticed.

Thank you again for your question💖

[morgrimmoon]

It could be something Heinrix specific, but it is also possible that psykers learn at least some basics about other fields - maybe just that they exist, how to recognise them perhaps.

On Janus, Heinrix senses psychic powers and know it is a bewitching spell - but - it is possible of course, that he just sensed something and given the reaction of the rebels, came to the logical conclusion it has to be mind affecting.

In the tabletop game that RT is based on, all psykers have a skill called "Psyniscience", which is basically like an Awareness skill for warp-related phenomena. To start with its something they have to focus and actively use, like when you close your eyes and listen hard to something just outside your hearing, but it can be improved with training. Even if we take that as a symptom of the game system, it makes sense to me that learning to feel the movement of the warp around you would be a foundational skill for all psykers. And the name is as good as any.

That ability would be how Heinrix can tell if you're a psyker when you first meet, and it's how any sanctioned psyker would be able to tell that the rebels on Janus were under the influence of something. Heinrix's additional training would be how he could make a fairly solid guess about what sort of power was influencing them, even if he doesn't have a knack for mental powers himself.

(I miss my astropath from the tabletop game. I put so many boosts and talents onto his Psyniscience that it was effectively turned on passively at all times. Couple that with his Telepathy and Telekinesis and one of the other members of the party complained it was nearly impossible to sneak up on him. Which was needed, because he was the super-squishy support character.)

[o-craven-canto]

What's your opinion on the concept of marsupial intelligence? People said that marsupials are dumber simply because of the brains they built, but I highly believe they are just as smart as placentals because there are biases in those studies on marsupial development. What would the hidden potential of marsupial intelligence would be like?

Interesting question. There are fewer marsupials than placentals, most of them are concentrated in the continent with the lowest primary productivity (after Antarctica), and IIRC they tend to have a slower metabolic rate, which might artificially against marsupial intelligence.

However, Weisbecker and Goswami (2010) make two interesting observations:

The difference in relative brain development between marsupials and placentals is distorted by the inclusion of Brain Georg among the latter (i.e. primates). Once you exclude those the two clades aren't that different; placentals also have small-brained subgroups (e.g. Xenarthra).

Marsupials may actually have less constraint on max brain size than placentals because of their extremely precocial birth, and -- perhaps because their development is spread over more time -- it's also less limited by the mother's metabolic rate. It's not clear to me they have made much use of this reduced constraint, though.

Ashwell (2008) examines in detail the relative brain size of Australasian marsupials, and interestingly finds that small marsupials have the same endocranial volume (proxy of brain size) as placentals of similar size, but larger ones fall short. Pygmy possums, honey possums, and sugar gliders apparently have similar e.c.v. as similarly-sized prosimians (with whom they share tree-dwelling, grasping hands, and sugar-rich diet). They also find no relation between e.c.v. and the lushness/aridity of the environment, which I find vexing.

Karlen & Krubitzer (2007) also finds a relative brain size in some possums that rivals some primates, and note that similar specializations in the cortex can be found in marsupials and placentals with similar lifestyle; Rasmussen & Sussman (2007) explicitly describe phalangeroid possums as marsupial analogues of prosimians. The brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula) is already fairly close to a marsupial monkey, or at least a marsupial lemur.

The most obvious difference in brain structure is the lack of a corpus callosum in marsupials, but there is an anterior commissure with the same function. Interestingly, per Dos Santos &al (2016), Australasian marsupials have a cortex-to-rest of brain ratio of neurons "comparable to artiodactyls and primates", whereas American marsupials have a less concentrated cortex.

Having a different brain organization compared to placental mammals is not necessarily a negative; birds don't even have a neocortex, strictly speaking, and this doesn't prevent parrots and corvids from being impressively smart.

Tl;dr I'm not convinced marsupial brains as such are in a poorer state than placental ones.

@morgrimmoon, have you thoughts on this matter?

[morgrimmoon]

I'll second some practical experience with possums: both brushtail and ringtail possums can be quite smart. I'd put them at roughly similar levels to a pet cat?

Quokkas (a small wallaby famous on social media) have learnt how to open zips and velcro, which we know because there's a group of them on Rottnest Island who have become somewhat infamous for sneaking into people's tents to steal food. I don't think that quite counts as tool-using, though. Quokka have also learnt how to manipulate tourists, but again that may be more a sign of cunning than smart.

A hand-reared kangaroo can learn its name and maybe one or two other verbal commands, but that's about it. Admittedly, they're not a very vocal species and don't tend to respond to food rewards, so training them is hard.

Some marsupials are not very intelligent, though. Wombats are either oblivious or simply too stubborn to learn, in some cases, and will do things like repeatedly shock themselves on an electric fence. (There's speculation they're trying to intimidate the fence. This does not help their case.)

[linddzz]

gotta be a term that isn't the dunning Krueger effect but is a kind of similar idea where the more deep scientists get into their topic and the more exhausted they get, the more likely they are to find stupid ways to describe things

[linddzz]

this post brought to you by a bunch of coral specialists at the end of a workshop voting to define coral, a complex animal, as "a rock with problems"

[stitchposts]

[morgrimmoon]

@o-craven-canto

[kaminageeha]

I didn't actually cover Nia herself a whole lot in my Enki Solvernia rundown, and the main reason is that her actions specifically are undergoing a major rewrite so I kept them vague on purpose.

I was trying to write the outline for episode 3, but was running into the problem of why not combine right at the start of the battle? I had Nia and Viral discussing the possibility the previous evening (bc neither are impulsive dumbasses like Kamina who would think of sticking Solvernia on Enki's head mid battle, so I need some actual set up to justify it), but Nia's not a scardey cat like early show Simon so she isn't having trouble getting Solvernia to work the next morning when Kamina shows up. So why not try combining right away? But I can't have them combine right away because that completely ruins the pacing and tension of the fight!

And @morgrimmoon came to my rescue as usual by suggesting that if I can't make Nia more scared, why not make her even less scared? She's overconfident and runs into battle as soon as Kamina arrives, ignoring Viral telling her to hold back, and promptly gets swatted over the wall of the canyon. Kamina's not interested in this little mosquito, he's just here to fight Viral. Solvernia goes absolutely flying, gets wedged real good in the rock when she lands, and now Viral has to hold off Kamina on his own until Nia can get unstuck and make her way back to the fight.

1)Brilliant solution, thank you Moon! 2) Making Nia the hot headed one who causes problems by Leeroy Jenkins-ing her way through fights makes this verse so much better and so much funnier 3) Now I actually have a character arc for Nia in this verse! She doesn't need to learn to be brave like Simon did, she needs to learn to chill and act more strategically. After Kamina's death the previously timid Simon gets aggressive, and now the previously impulsive and hot headed Nia starts freezing once Viral is out of commission, second guessing herself constantly and painfully aware of how her rushing in can expose her teammates unnecessarily

[morgrimmoon]

This is the silly MSPaint doodle I illustrated my suggestion with, btw.

[morgrimmoon]

Being dragged back into Tumblr by my scruff. Love you too, @kaminageeha :P

So! It seems my silly beastman!Kamina verse got named "Ascendant" while I was away! It's an AU of Gurren Lagaan, where Viral decides that Kamina has far too much potential and drags him home instead of trying to kill him. This changes many many things. Cockatoo writes about it here.

I should probably stop being a neglectful co-parent and actually share some writing for it? Or ideas/rambling/something else. >.>

---

And of course instead of following him up the safe option the idiot turned to the left, and if he fell and broke his neck when they were so close…

Except the drop didn't seem to register to Kamina. He ran down the narrowing beam, sure footed and accelerating as the path fragmented into spires, laughing as he leapt. Eyes fixed forward and arms spread wide for balance and pivoting as if to display that ridiculous cape he'd left behind, defiantly taunting gravity.

In the flickering lights his shadow seemed to wear it anyway. Although…

Viral's breath caught as Kamina made one last hop to safety, threw his face to the ceiling and crowed in delight…

…and behind him his shadow flared into magnificent wings.

'Well,' Viral thought, digging claws into the wall and bounding upwards. 'This should irritate Cytomancer.' He looked forward to it.

[transgenderer]

Stunning breakthrough: the platypus and echidnas came from the South Pole

Just when you thought Australia’s animals couldn’t get any weirder comes the astounding revelation that the ancestors of the platypus and ec

electroreception in monotremes is extremely old, 130 mya, and may have evolved to deal with hunting in the 3-6 month darks of the south pole forest.

echidnas may have evolved from a platypus like organism that became fully terrestrial, as evidenced by their flatter bill as embryos (and lack of echidna-like organisms in the fossil record past 2mya)

there was a 60 lb tree-climbing echidna in the pleistocene

[o-craven-canto]

@morgrimmoon

[morgrimmoon]

Thank you for adding to my collection of weird monotreme facts!

[o-craven-canto]

Creatures from other bodies of our solar system imagined in the National Geographic Picture Atlas of our Universe (Roy A. Gallant, 1994, p. 44-47; link)

[morgrimmoon]

Oh hey, I have this book! The Pluto silicon life complaining that 'summer' is too hot are particularly good.

[rokamakofo]

Quick poll, let's go.

Would Heinrix torture romanced RT in Act 2 if Calcazar ordered it

Yes

No

Voting ended onFeb 1, 2025

Let's assume he just does.

[cawyden-gaming]

Interesting Question for sure.

I have the feeling I represent quite often the minority in certain views about him, but I also do not think he would do it.

Remember the Magnae? People seem to wave it away easily, like, that was just a warning he gave us, as if that didn't take a lot from him.

He went against the wish and order of Xavier, his Master, who he also describes as someone very dangerous, who is not lenient usually and doesn't tolerate other peoples weaknesses, to warn RT. Xavier clearly wanted this to be a surprise and Heinrix went against this - knowing that this will not stay a secret, he even expects to be punished in some sort for this:

"Let them charge me with whatever they want later — I had to make you aware that there is no genuine threat to your life."

He is more afraid of what will happen to RT than to him. If RT acts unwise, Xavier might order her to get killed - or worse - tortured by him. He is clearly afraid of that and this is also where his fear on Janus stems from I think.

You can also have two times (Janus/Black Ship) already told him there is more than duty - but to be honest, even without this, even if hardened, he acts the same in the Magnae, because duty or not, he is already in love with RT.

And while a hardened Heinrix later tortures Emelina, I think RT is different for him, because of this love. Yes, he cares about Emelina too, but not as strongly. And while Heinrix leaves a heretic RT the ending slide says he was killed by RT while pleading to her - he still would not give her up.

Commorragh is the reason he opens up - if he is present or not. Because he realizes how easily he can loose RT and even sees it as another chance for them to at least enjoy the time they have. And you can have his date and him saying he loves RT even before Emelina.

So I think there isn't actually that much between the Magnae and him stating he loves RT.

I am honestly not sure that Xavier has forced Heinrix to do terrible things just to test is loyalty (at least not openly) - I think that came up naturally during his work, making hard decisions like with Rykad Minoris. Heinrix at least doesn't (until further towards the end at least) seem to hate Xavier - even after Emelina look how he talks about him. He sees him as his personal teacher, admires him, looks up to him. He defends Xavier during banter even later with Ulfar. I don't think he would talk like this if he would hate him or be really deeply afraid of him because of what Xavier might have done to him but for sure he is afraid of what Xavier would do to RT.

Would he do it with a stable environment of loved ones and friends? I do agree it means even more for Heinrix because he doesn't have anyone left or any friends really (aside from Emelina) so he is very focused on RT. But even then - he is in love. It would be more difficult for him to go against Xavier's orders because he might be afraid of retribution affecting his loved ones but still he loves RT. I don't think this would lead him to torture her.

As already being said - Heinrix could make it less worse for RT. But Xavier would know this and notice this too. I know it is hypothetical but if Xavier really wants RT to suffer he will make sure of it. So I doubt Heinrix would be able to do anything except for giving her a quick death and then face the consequences.

So no, I don't think he would torture her. He would rather end her quickly but I am not even sure he would be able to do that. He nearly kills himself just over the fact he can't stay with her. He might start a desperate action to have her or both escape but he knows that can't last. The Inquisition can find them. But they can enjoy the short time they have.

[morgrimmoon]

I think part of it would depend on the reason and the scope. It's easier to justify a certain amount of suffering for someone's own good, or for the good of the Imperium, vs torturing someone to death.

The Rite of Purification that a Heretical RT can undergo is, in my eyes, clearly torture. It's described in very similar ways to the drukhari inflicted and the RT can think they're dying and beg for mercy. And given that Heinrix has already asked for the RT to repent and is about to leave, I see him as being grateful it's happening. In fact, given that the RT asking Calcazar for help does seem to come out of nowhere, I could definitely see a romanced Heinrix as having strongly hinted that the Rogue Trader needs to seek the aid of the Lord Inquisitor. And he'd be doing that knowing what the consequences of that would be.

(Sidenote: the fact that Calcazar has the tools and is willing to offer the Rite of Purification is interesting to me. I don't imagine he gets many repentant heretics that he thinks worth the effort that could be "salvaged" in such a way. But the rite mentions the stains left by corruption on the soul, and Heinrix mentions he risks similar darkness messing with the chaos cogitator on Kiava Gamma. So I suspect the most common target of that purification is other members of the Inquisition, after the sort of particularly fraught mission that leaves them wanting to scrub their souls in bleach.)

At the Magnae, Calcazar can mention the "varied and fascinating instruments and procedures that expedite candour". And I think that if the encounter at Kiava Gamma where Uralon psykically contacted the RT had gone more sideways, or perhaps if some of the drukhari had said something that made Calcazar genuinely wondering if the RT had contacts with their own faction of drukhari that might foul up his deal with Yremeryss... it could come up that the Rogue Trader could be challenged to "prove" herself under interrogation.

And if that happened, an Act 2 romanced Heinrix would, I feel, consider himself the best choice because with his biomancy there's less chance of going too far and doing permanent physical harm. "The only way she does not survive this is if she's a traitor to humanity who tricked me the whole time" is something Heinrix would cling to.

Which would mess them both up terribly in the medium term, of course. But for the sort of RT who took more 'devil' flirting options, I could see the pair of them patching things up in Commoragh, with some black humoured "well, I knew that 'trial' had to be fake because the hallucinated version of you was doing [x] instead of [y]..." compare-and-contrast conversations as a form of processing.

[kedreeva]

I made myself a batch of tater tot casserole with venison. I think this would be better with some bacon in the meat, but it was pretty tasty.

Browned the meat with onions, garlic, salt, paprika, and mustard powder. Drained off some of the grease/liquid, and added ketchup and cream of mushroom soup. Layer that, cheese, and tater tots and bake at 350 for 30-45 mins (though I think it could have gone an hour and been better).

[steampunkskull]

Had a minor out of body experience while reading this as I died, went to Valhalla, sampled this dish (because they must serve it there) and returned to my body knowing nothing will ever taste as good and being surprisingly okay with that.

Hyperbole aside, I now need to figure out how to score some venison.

[kedreeva]

I am pleased to report that it was even better the second day, after the ingredients really had the time to amalgamate properly. It would probably be best reheated in the oven (to crisp up the tots again) but I didn't have time this morning.

I don't know for sure where normal people get venison (I mean, besides hunting it themselves or getting it from a friend that does), but the place that processes my deer sells venison as well, so if deer are local to your area, you might try small town or country butchers that sell game meat. Instead of searching for venison (which is liable to turn up carcass processing places, not places that sell it to eat), you could try looking up game meat butchers or search by other meat names (pheasant, quail, goose, boar, bear, that kind of thing).

If you haven't had a lot of venison before, be aware some people swear it tastes so different than beef it's gross and gamey and and and- and that may be true, if the deer was an aged buck that got got for his rack. But good venison, the sort that is taken for food without regard for the antlers, honestly doesn't taste that much different, to me. BUT I'm used to eating 96% lean beef, and most people are getting a LOT fattier beef than that, which is probably where they are getting the flavor difference. If you HAVE the ability to grind meat at home, you can grind venison with bacon, which will add fat and flavor.

Alternately, you can definitely just make this dish with lean beef and it will be about the same, and probably cheaper. The only reason I use venison is because it's what I have on hand, since we get a doe a year from a local farmer that uses his tags for population control around his corn fields, and that provides my red meat for the year. I'm iron deficient, and vension has twice as much iron as beef (generally), and I'm not overly fond of the consistency of fat while eating, so it suits me better.

[wistsandmagic]

Also, if you do find venison gamey, the way to solve that is to marinate your deer meat in milk and garlic for at least 4 hours before you need to start cooking with it. It also tenderizes the meat. It neutralizes the so-called 'gamey' taste without compromising the taste of the actual meat, if that makes any sense.

My family has done that for years because we hunted what we could catch, and sometimes you just get a gamey deer. When that's your main source of meat, you take whatever you get.

This also works wonders on wild duck, turkey, and grouse, btw, though for grouse and duck I recommend using buttermilk instead.

[kedreeva]

I'm curious- why the switch to buttermilk?

Fascinating info though; I might have to try it with the loins this time. While VERY tender, those are the only parts that sometimes have a gamier taste to them for mine.

[wistsandmagic]

Duck, even wild duck, is fatty, but wild duck in particular does not hold on to its own moisture very well, for whatever reason? So it interacts well with the higher acid of buttermilk to keep the duck from turning very dry and sad. It keeps it more tender than just regular milk.

Grouse just tastes extremely gamey, and it tends to be SUPER dry and tough, so same reasons, the buttermilk helps it hold to its liquid content and keeps it more tender, PLUS gets rid of more of the gamey taste.

Wild turkey generally doesn't need this unless you bagged a very old tom. XD; Oh, for deer loin marinate it in milk and garlic (plus whatever other spices you like in your marinades) for AT LEAST 6 hours. They need a bit more time than most of the rest of the deer, save neck. Neck roasts you want to do overnight. The meat will FALL APART afterward!

[kedreeva]

Ah cool! Thanks for the info, I'll have to give it a try next time!

[morgrimmoon]

Huh, now I'm wondering about trying that milk trick on kangaroo. Roo is extremely lean and notoriously easy to overcook, and also has quite a strong gamey taste. Marinating it in something is pretty much essential.

[barnlarn]

Revising some of my horse drawing tips pages, starting with necks!

Corrected some muscle names and added more explanation/ method.

[barnlarn]

Hip page update!

[barnlarn]

Here are a couple more sections! Going to put all of these into a poster format soon

[tsarina-anadyomene]

i think even as a child i recognized that the platypus is a gimmicky animal

[o-craven-canto]

The platypus doesn't even have a single gimmick, it has a load of them. (Most of these things are also true of echidnae, which are basically platypodes that got anteaterized.) Its stance, metabolism, and reproduction are halfway between reptiles and other mammals. It has milk glands, but no teats or nipples, so it just sweats milk through its skin. It has two uteri and a spiky asymmetrical forked penis (the penis of echidnae is four-headed). It completely lacks a stomach. It has five pairs of sex chromosomes. It can perceive electric currents in water through its fleshy bill. Males have a venomous stinger on their ankles. It's a mess.

[necarion]

A thing that helped me understand the platypus's weirdness was understanding that it is a "mammal" basically by dint of it not really being anything else. Mammal is this category of synapsids (clade that appeared in the Carboniferous, 330 million years ago, and includes mammals and extinct things) that includes Placental, Marsupial, and Monotremes (where Monotremes are basically "other" includes like 3 extant organisms). But the monotremes diverged between 160 and 220 million years ago, so somewhere in the triassic or early jurassic periods! There is considerably less genetic separation between a T-Rex and a sparrow (or a raptor and a stegosaur) than between the monotremes and all the other mammals. So it's no wonder they are weird as shit! They diverged when all synapsids still laid eggs!

Mammal is generally a very useful category that has a bunch of common characteristics which we learn as a kid - we get taught mammal by describing Placental mammal, and then weird Marsupial as the exception (together, the theriimorphs). But for whatever reason we decided that we would group the unusually weird/different/unique monotremes in there, rather than calling them "supermammals" or something (mammalimorpha is a category that includes all extant mammals and some extinct things). The problem is really that we have "mammal" as this super broad technical category but teach it as something really narrow.

[o-craven-canto]

Right! The category of Mammal, like many others, is largely an artefact of what happened to survive to the present day. If a greater variety of non-mammal synapsids (sail-backed pelycosaurs, saber-toothed gorgonopsians, dicynodonts with their strange beak-and-tusks combination) had survived the Permian and Triassic mass extinctions -- the ones that cleared the way to dinosaurs -- then the line between reptiles and mammals would be far more blurry. And if the huge variety of non-Therian mammals from the Mesozoic (which included flyers, swimmers, and large predators) had not mostly gone extinct with dinosaurs, monotremes would look far less out of place.

(Though it's also worth remembering that the weirdness of monotremes is not just due to primitive features. They are actually a really unusual and derived branch of non-Therian mammals -- imagine if the only surviving bony fish were mudskippers, or the only surviving birds were hoatzins. They lost their stomach and developed electroception and venomous stingers all on their own, long after separating from other mammals.)

[morgrimmoon]

Doesn't current research suggest that the venomous ankle spurs were reasonably widespread in the early Jurassic, and it's more that they were lost as more upright gaits became mammalian standard? I'd put that one alongside the eggs and lack of nipples as a primitive trait.

Fun bonus platypus fact! Their venom contains one of the very few right-handed amino acids found in nature! But since venom doesn't fossilize, we have no idea if this is an ancient mammal quirk or a platypus-specific quirk.

[typhlonectes]

Scientists Unlock the Secrets of Crocodile Skin and Its Irregular, Mystifying Patterns

The scales on crocodiles’ heads are very different from the skin appendages of other animals and even distinct from the scales on the rest of their bodies.

We commonly refer to scaly, itchy skin rashes as “crocodile skin.” Scientists, however, have just proven that real crocodile skin—specifically the parts on the reptile’s head, snout and jaw—is much more special than previously thought. But unlike the hair, feathers and scales of most other vertebrates, crocodile head scales uniquely develop as a result of tissue mechanics, not genetics, researchers suggest. Their findings were published in the journal Nature on Wednesday. The study was inspired by an observation of Michel Milinkovitch, a biologist at University of Geneva and the paper’s lead author, while taking a blood sample from a Nile crocodile, per Popular Science’s Laura Baisas...

Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-unlock-the-secrets-of-crocodile-skin-and-its-irregular-mystifying-patterns-180985654

[morgrimmoon]

@o-craven-canto

Some relevant biology for you!

[cawyden-gaming]

Is there any Heinrix and Kibellah content that you find interesting?

Hi,

thank you so much for your question!

I find anything that involves Heinrix interesting, but regarding Kibellah specifically that he knows (from his own dialog on Footfall in act 4 when you talk with Chorda) that death cultists are often heretical and that Kibellah is a weak psyker (I am pretty sure he knows as the player can recognize it as well) and while he is observant and a little sceptical regarding her tarot reading (using her psyker powers although she doesn't realize it) he clearly sees her as a valuable asset and doesn't question her faith in the God-Emperor so that he even tries to recruit her into the Ordo.

Maybe that is just the lack of my lore knowledge, but I had assumed that her being an unsanctioned psyker (even a weak one but strong enough that other psykers notice and she get results) would be more of an issue for him, seeing how he is from the start keeping an eye on Idira out of the same reason. Of course, Idira is much stronger and therefore a greater danger but I would assume even weak psykers might be dangerous.

Seems like it is a difference if an unsanctioned psyker is directly in service of the Inquisition...

And additionally, that he seems to be fine with the Viszier reading the Emperor's tarot and the whole blood bath warning. Again, maybe my lack of the lore, but I would see a difference between someone in an official / high status appointed to read the Emperor's tarot and some death cult guy, even if it is the leader. The Viszier and Kibellah are psykers, they could like Idira just hear whispers from the warp that are not from the God-Emperor. But here Heinrix seems to be fine with it. I know he is devout but he has seen and experienced a lot (the worst - taking his dialog that he has long abandoned hope regarding human nature) and knows that death cultists are often heretic and he is dealing with unsanctioned psykers and still - still he believes them. That was kind of mind blowing for me. He is usually so sceptical but here it is like he wants to believe that it is a sign of the God-Emperor.

And I was missing a reaction from him when Kibellah murders one specific guy in act 4 out of her own sense of justice and not based on the tarot. I always had her and Heinrix in my team and always walk between quests to each companion (and even the non companions) to see if there is something new to talk about but nothing. So actually I would have liked more interactions between them but that is just the usual limitation of resources I think.

Was there something you (or others - whoever wants to participate in the discussion) found particularly interesting?

[morgrimmoon]

For the Vizsier, this is what your character can sense if they're a psyker:

You sense a strange disturbance around the Vizsier. It is similar to the one that appears around Kibellah, but… stronger. He is not a psyker, or else, he is such a powerful one that he can conceal his gift. However, his psychic potential is definitely higher than that of an average mortal. There are people like that in the Imperium — undiscovered by Inquisitorial hunters, they live out their lives as individuals with a reputation for having \"strange things\" happen to them on occasion. Perhaps this decrepit old man is indeed capable of gleaning something more from the Emperor's Tarot than just painted pictures.

To me, this implies there's something of a spectrum, and he falls into "not quite a psyker, can't cause a breach, definitely more sensitive than average". The Inquisition probably likes recruiting those people, because with training they'll have a better chance of noticing trouble before everything erupts around them. I suspect many are also drawn unconsciously to 'sources of power', meaning more likely than usual to end up in the Ecclesiarchy, Death Cults, or also in outright Chaos cults (which would be another reason for the Inquisition to keep an eye out).

There's at least one Living Saint who looks like a psyker but has been proven not to be a psyker who probably falls into this category, too.

Kibellah, I think, might be right on the line between "sensitive non-psyker" and "very low level psyker". Ironically, Heinrix could be a little more comfortable with her because he'd know that psykers who are too weak to reliably manifest powers tend to get sacrificed to the Astronomicon, so she couldn't be sanctioned, but the training she's gone through and continues to practice has quite a few parallels to his own. Heinrix might be more comfortable with her if he's convinced she's unlikely to cause a breach and if placed in a situation she could slip, she'd cut her own throat before a catastrophe could happen.

[cawyden-gaming]

Oh, that makes sense. I do remember the description about the Viszier, I usually play psyker too. Thank you for reminding me!

So there are psykers that are under the radar and not dangerous... interesting.

Ok Living Saint gets the power from the Emperor right? Just like Adepta Sororitas can actually due to their faith have miracles happen I suppose. So I think that is kind of a faith thing and don't require someone to be a psyker? Although - I think I read a lore post once where it says that any human (aside from blanks I think) are more or less psykers, just the majority so very weak that it is not noticeable (and not dangerous).

And very good point regarding Heinrix and Kibellah and her training - yes, seeing what she is through that would not be less than what happens during sanctioning I suppose.

Thank you so much, that was very interesting!

[morgrimmoon]

There's a sort of "category" of things that can be done via power-of-the-Emperor, so when a Living Saint does something outside that, but that is very similar to what an Astartes Librarian can do, it makes you go hmm. That does look awfully like a weak psyker being bolstered by the Emperor, which is exactly what happens for the bulk of astropaths in a choir.

Choir Masters tend to be strong psykers in their own right; for them, the soul binding is a matter of protection. But many astropaths are people who have strong wills but lower end abilities, carefully trained and bolstered to be good at one thing in particular.

Having watched how the lore has developed over the decades, and comparing things in the setting history... I'm fairly sure humans are gradually becoming more psykically attuned as a whole. During the Age of Terra (now) and Dark Age of Technology (the next few hundred years), psykers were exceedingly rare but also extraordinarily powerful, and didn't really have to worry about breaches because the only way they were succumbing to the Warp was is a demon managed to convince them to worship it and then they chose to surrender.

Push forward to the Age of Strife, and suddenly involuntary possessions are starting to become a thing and people are starting to learn to "beware the witch", but there were only one or two scary psykers per nation and it was pretty clear who they were.

By the time of the Great Crusade, the number of psykers had increased enough to be a problem the troops were all warned about, but not the sort of threat that had to be handled instantly; there's multiple occasions in the Horus Heresy books where someone finds a psyker just chilling and makes a note to recruit them. When the debate came up about the safety of psykic powers, all the Astartes who have them were just told to stop using them, not treated as potential threats that needed extra training to be safe like they are in M40.

So my view is that over time, more and more humans are able to awaken psykic powers at lower and lower "thresholds", which means there's a lot of people who 1) don't recognise them and 2) don't know how to shield themselves. Eventually, it may hit a point similar to aeldari, where everyone is a very low-level psyker. The Craftworlds solved this problem by making sure everyone gets basic training in meditation, shielding etc. Admittedly, they only did this after getting 80%+ of their population eaten by Slaanesh, and it might take a similar cultural shift to get the Imperium to change its ways.

[cawyden-gaming]

Wow thank you so much for your insight! I only ever started to get into the warhammer lore thanks to the Rogue Trader game and while I read a lot in the lore subreddit and have started with the Eisenhorn books I am still at the beginning but haven't seen the development like you did.

Oh, so earlier they had it that psykers had to actively worship demons for bad things to happen but then they changed it? Guess it wasn't dark enough for them. Too bad, that would have made things better for psykers.

But not using the powers - is that even possible? I mean Astartes are basically super humans so maybe for them but for normal humans I thought that a) suppressing the powers for longer time can be problematic and b) you might still end up at a point where you lose your control because of strong emotions for example and then involuntarily use your powers.

That does sound however like you have to actively use your powers (if you are not a weak psyker and use it unconsciously but then I suppose only weak effects are possible). Because I was looking for an answer how it works for telepaths. I have seen people believing telepaths have to constantly/actively block foreign thoughts from invading their mind while I thought they would need to actively use their power to read someones mind (unless they lose control and do it unvoluntarily perhaps). I would assume a pyro wouldn't need to block their powers from happening but to actively decide to use them too and that this is the same for all disciplines. Now, in the Rogue Trader game Idira does pick up thoughts from people around her without her intention, but I thought that was due to her lack of control, so basically she using her powers unvoluntarily.

What do you think - if I may ask?

[morgrimmoon]

Oh, I've been unclear and accidentally misled you a bit, sorry.

I've been following the setting for over a decade and seen how it has changed, but what I meant is that during the in-setting timeline, humanity's relationship with psykers has been actively shifting.

The 40k "eras" of humanity are roughly this:

Age of Terra, pre-history until roughly M15, when the first Warp drive was invented. (And then the first Gellar Field immediately after.) 2024 is early M2, for comparison.

Dark Age of Technology, M15-M25. Pinnacle of human technology, a lot of "archeotech" comes from this period. Was the major period of human expansion through the 'southern' and 'eastern' part of the galaxy (the north-west was eldari territory). Fully intelligent AIs worked alongside humans. Navigators were genetically engineered to allow for longer and safer jumps through the Warp. Psykers start becoming widely known around M22-23.

(Psykers had EXISTED for far far longer, of course; the person who would become the Emperor was born around 8000 BCE, and was taught by the ghosts of the Shamans who had come before him. But before the later days of the Age of Technology, psykers were rare enough to be considered cryptids.)

Age of Strife, M25-M30. A whole heap of things suddenly went wrong at once. There was an AI revolt, with machines turning on humans and a massive war erupting. Just as humans were starting to catch their breath from that, psykers suddenly started getting possessed and the first demonic invasions were happening and planets started falling. Then mammoth warp storms erupted and prevented almost all warp travel; sort of similar to how you can't leave the Koronus Expanse in RT, only chop it up into smaller pieces.

The Age of Strife ended with the Fall of the Eldar and the birth of Slaanesh; the warp storms subsided as the Eye of Terror opened. The Emperor conquered and unified Terra, then went to war with Mars and Saturn and conquered them too. He created the 20 Primarchs (who were promptly stolen by Chaos) and the Space Marines, and went out to forge the Imperium of Mankind.

The Great Crusade, M31, was the Emperor's war to turn all the separate human planets into one united empire. It ended with the Horus Heresy, where half the surviving Primarchs and a third of the Astartes turned to Chaos. (Roughly another third to one half of the Astartes were killed.)

Age of the Imperium, M31-M41. Things slowly calcifying into the modern Imperium found in the game.

During the end of the Age of Strife and the Great Crusade, if a psyker was going to get possessed or cause breaches or generally fail to control their powers, it tended to happen quickly. Many were killed as soon as they were discovered because of this. But if a psyker survived those first few years, they were pretty safe; they were either actively worshiping Chaos or they were powerful and strong-willed enough to defend themselves. If the Crusade turned up one of these psykers, and said psyker wasn't their enemy, they tended to get recruited and put to work almost immediately without any special sanctioning required.

The Horus Heresy changed all that and showed how insidiously terrifying a Chaos-aligned psyker could really be. Before, they were seen as people with particularly dangerous potential. After, they were seen as risky sources of corruption.

As for usage of powers: the view during the Great Crusade seemed to be that psykic powers were potentially "addictive", but that you could just stop using them and "get control of yourself" and become "normal". I agree that this doesn't work, but it's certainly a view that many people have about neurodivergence in general.

Telepaths seem to be a mixed bag. Most have to actively try to read minds, but some can passively pick up impressions from around them. That may be partially individual variation, and partially training: both Weiss and Idira have gone through the sort of training that would make them far more sensitive to the thoughts around them. Weiss also got proper training in how to shield, where Idira didn't. If anything, she was encouraged to leave her shields open 'just a crack' so she could hear "warnings" even when she wasn't trying. At this point it's probably a lack of knowledge rather than a lack of ability, and she doesn't have a good enough relationship with Weiss for him to teach her, despite him being the most qualified. (Not to mention Weiss's many personal issues preventing him from offering tutoring.)

Honestly, if it wasn't for the whole Black Ship part (which I don't think Idira would cope with), she'd probably thrive with some of the training involved in sanctioning. When Heinrix mentions that he could sort out the paperwork for her, he's probably thinking of sending her to that sort of "back channel" Inquisition-run training instead of going through the formal one.

[cawyden-gaming]

Very interesting, thank you for the overview!

I think with Idira the issue is also the mind wiping that happened to her and the other officers that apparently worsened her condition and her control. It does get better with her once she stays sober but it also sounds like she doesn't have to live long in any case - even if you don't take her to Commorragh the endings sound like she dies rather sooner than later.

Sending her to sanctioning might just getting her killed by them (or the Inquisition) earlier. I do think Heinrix would like to help but with his remarks it sounds like he also thinks she doesn't have that long anymore:

And if you send her to the Inquisition you don't hear anything about her anymore - ok could have a lot of reasons but I do think it implies she dies.

But I am wondering a bit about his choice of words here - "... any psyker deprived of the Emperor's protection" - that is not just unsanctioned psykers though? Even if you are sanctioned, how is the Emperor protecting you? Heinrix also speaks often about the fate any psyker awaits (no matter if sanctioned or not). We also see even astropaths succumbing to chaos. Of course, the Emperor could protect a psyker, but it is not like he usually does I think?

[morgrimmoon]

But I am wondering a bit about his choice of words here - "... any psyker deprived of the Emperor's protection" - that is not just unsanctioned psykers though? Even if you are sanctioned, how is the Emperor protecting you? Heinrix also speaks often about the fate any psyker awaits (no matter if sanctioned or not). We also see even astropaths succumbing to chaos. Of course, the Emperor could protect a psyker, but it is not like he usually does I think?

That bit is pure Scholasta Psykana propaganda. I mean, Heinrix isn't just a biomancer, he's also drilled in the sanctic discipline, so I expect he believes it whole-heartedly.

From what is described, sanctioning is mostly intensive training so those with the capability and the removal (in various ways) of those that don't. It arguably counts as brainwashing, it definitely counts as conditioning, but there's not a lot of mystical bolstering. It's more like taking the average person off the street and putting them through intensive military training until they're a soldier.

Astropaths definitely get protection from the Emperor[1] but that's the Soul-Binding, not the sanctioning. They've already been sanctioned before that point. But telling psykers that the sanctioning gives them a special personal protection is probably a good idea because it would give them a reason to keep fighting instead of giving in to despair. It ties in neatly to the training that they do for fighting breaches. Also, on a grim note, every sanctioned psyker is taught how to let themselves perish (and/or outright commit suicide) if they're about to be corrupted. People are more willing to do that sort of thing if you can convince them that the God-Emperor will be supporting the action and waiting to welcome their soul home.