Rater's Ridiculously Rambunctious Random Ranter #229

[enderlord99]

Still unclear; could be either, both, or neither.

Yes.

The original question was a joke.

[Peelee]

Yes.

The original question was a joke.

I'm aware, just pointing how that literally every answer was still in the table.

[Fyraltari]

I'm aware, just pointing how that literally every answer was still in the table.

Which really helps with the cooking!

[Peelee]

Which really helps with the cooking!

The trick is to undercook the onions. Everybody is going to get to know each other in the pot.

[BisectedBrioche]

Two good things:

1. I'm super happy with how my voice sounds.

2. After a year of streaming on twitch, someone finally clipped one of my jokes.

[Qwertystop]

Two good things:

1. I'm super happy with how my voice sounds.

2. After a year of streaming on twitch, someone finally clipped one of my jokes.

Your voice is indeed great. I'm just barely at the point where I sometimes like mine, but I can't hold it.

[enderlord99]

I'm aware, just pointing how that literally every answer was still in the table.

That fact was the continuation of said joke.

Though, technically, "neither" was no longer an option.

[Peelee]

Though, technically, "neither" was no longer an option.

Sure it was; as Fyraltari pointed out, infection. "Toxins" is such a wonderfully vague word.

[enderlord99]

Sure it was; as Fyraltari pointed out, infection. "Toxins" is such a wonderfully vague word.

Infections either count as venom, or they result in toxins but aren't themselves toxins (thus meaning the toxins were "from infection" and not "from biting yourself")

[LaZodiac]

While contemplating whether an infected bite should be counted as venom, I learned that the tale I have often heard (and even taught to schoolchildren on occasion) that Komodo Dragons kill by weaponizing the pathogen cultures in their saliva is false, as research as discovered that they actually kill their prey with venom secreted from venom glands.

That combined with the domestication comment earlier now has me contemplating whether Megalania could have become a viable beast of burden if it hadn't gone extinct.

I recently learned that too and it kinda ****ed me up because Steve Irwin is who taught me that and it's a really big shock to hear science has progressed enough to invalidate that!

But on the other hand, it means that the komodo dragon has a flame, and that rules.

[Rater202]

I recently learned that too and it kinda ****ed me up because Steve Irwin is who taught me that and it's a really big shock to hear science has progressed enough to invalidate that!

But on the other hand, it means that the komodo dragon has a flame, and that rules.

And it's amphibious so it's got the eastern association between dragons and water going too.

I've heard it's a common theory that "dragons" as a concept are a result of humanity having developed an instinctive fear/respect of certain types of animals--birds of prey, large snakes, big cats, crocodiles and other large predatory reptiles, and so on and subconsciously conflated them.

I think there's some validity to the argument: Dragons or something that is physically for thematically very similar to a dragon tend to appear as a monster, mythological anima, or deity, either malevolent or benevolent, in a large number of cultures, many of which did not have contact with each other, suggesting something common in an early man before mass migration separate us into separate groups.

And, looking at dragons, they do have traits that can be assigned to one or more of their creatures.

[LaZodiac]

Another fun explanation for dragons is dinosaur bones. Which is COMPLETELY reasonable, since weird bones, living or not, have led to all sorts of mythological creatures. Cyclops is an elephant skull. Triceratop skulls are Gryphens. Giraffe's are the Questing Beast itself. It doesn't strike me as odd that someone saw some dinosaur bones and was like "ah, monstrous dragon creature". Especially with the lizard brain in our skull going "ah big bird scary".

[Rater202]

Another fun explanation for dragons is dinosaur bones. Which is COMPLETELY reasonable, since weird bones, living or not, have led to all sorts of mythological creatures. Cyclops is an elephant skull. Triceratop skulls are Gryphens. Giraffe's are the Questing Beast itself. It doesn't strike me as odd that someone saw some dinosaur bones and was like "ah, monstrous dragon creature". Especially with the lizard brain in our skull going "ah big bird scary".

That too.

Honestly it's probably a combination of factors.

"Ah, big scary thing."

"Must be a scary monster..."

"These are the scariest things I can think of, and this seems even scarier. It must be all of them at once..."

Though in the cases of cultures where the dragon is a figure of reverence rather than fear the logic might be more animals that are presented as cool or important than animals meant to be scary.

[Fyraltari]

My favourite explanation for the ubiquity of dragon myths is the inherent contradiction of a flying snake.

[Cazero]

My favourite explanation for the ubiquity of dragon myths is the inherent contradiction of a flying snake.

And yet...

[factotum]

My favourite explanation for the ubiquity of dragon myths is the inherent contradiction of a flying snake.

I remember reading a science fiction short story where they created a dragon just by giving a crocodile a stronger heart (the story claimed crocodiles have relatively weak hearts, no idea if that's accurate). Never quite made sense to me, that--for a start, we're supposed to assume that dragons died out because they all got weak hearts for no readily explicable reason? And that fixing that will immediately cause them to gain thousands of pounds in weight and grow wings?

[Rater202]

Yeah.

To get a dragon you need to start human and then ritualistically hunt down, kill, and eat raw the entirety of 1: A snake whose venom can kill a human, 2 A snake big enough to crush a human(not suffocate, crush,) a tiger, a large hawk or eagle, a large bat, a giant carp or catfish, a wild bull or boar, a horse, a deer, a tortoise, a clam, a frog, a rabbit, and a demon.

The demon's the hard part. Nobody knows where to find those, that's why no one has ever become a dragon.

[BisectedBrioche]

Your voice is indeed great. I'm just barely at the point where I sometimes like mine, but I can't hold it.

I'm having trouble holding mine, too. I've found streaming (and trying to voice every character no matter what voice I do for them)'s really helped, though.

[Anonymouswizard]

My favourite explanation for the ubiquity of dragon myths is the inherent contradiction of a flying snake.

I always thought it was more people reading too much into things: you see a big reptilian creature and you label it a dragon, even if they're completely different.

I mean, yes there's flying snakes everywhere probably because of the apparent illogical nature, but I'm not sure lumping them under 'dragon' is accurate. I don't consider lung/ryu/the other members of that family to be dragons, they're a different kind of mythological creature that just happens to also be based on a snake, same goes for other kinds of mythological big snakes.

We then also have to get into the 'snake versus legless lizard' problem, in that while there is a difference most people don't know what it is, and that's before getting into the entire legged snake thing. Calling both drakes and lung dragons is misleading, because they're from very different myths, but most people don't know the differences beyond 'drakes are lizardy, lung are more serpentine with fur and antlers'. The same goes for feathered serpents, we're throwing completely different myths together under one heading due to superficial similarities.

Let's be honest, the Western dragon hasn't actually looked like a snake for a long time. Sure it originally did, but it morphed into a winged lizard like a millennia ago, it becoming more serpentine again seems to be relatively recent (and possibly due to mixing with nondragons such as the lung).

[Tvtyrant]

I always thought it was more people reading too much into things: you see a big reptilian creature and you label it a dragon, even if they're completely different.

I mean, yes there's flying snakes everywhere probably because of the apparent illogical nature, but I'm not sure lumping them under 'dragon' is accurate. I don't consider lung/ryu/the other members of that family to be dragons, they're a different kind of mythological creature that just happens to also be based on a snake, same goes for other kinds of mythological big snakes.

We then also have to get into the 'snake versus legless lizard' problem, in that while there is a difference most people don't know what it is, and that's before getting into the entire legged snake thing. Calling both drakes and lung dragons is misleading, because they're from very different myths, but most people don't know the differences beyond 'drakes are lizardy, lung are more serpentine with fur and antlers'. The same goes for feathered serpents, we're throwing completely different myths together under one heading due to superficial similarities.

Let's be honest, the Western dragon hasn't actually looked like a snake for a long time. Sure it originally did, but it morphed into a winged lizard like a millennia ago, it becoming more serpentine again seems to be relatively recent (and possibly due to mixing with nondragons such as the lung).

I believe the basic development goes:
Snake (or wyrm) represents the Earth.
Bird represents the sky.
Snake+bird represents forces of nature.

Our dragons are different now, but they started out the same.

[Wizard_Lizard]

Yeah.

To get a dragon you need to start human and then ritualistically hunt down, kill, and eat raw the entirety of 1: A snake whose venom can kill a human, 2 A snake big enough to crush a human(not suffocate, crush,) a tiger, a large hawk or eagle, a large bat, a giant carp or catfish, a wild bull or boar, a horse, a deer, a tortoise, a clam, a frog, a rabbit, and a demon.

The demon's the hard part. Nobody knows where to find those, that's why no one has ever become a dragon.

Eat a large bat you say?

[Rater202]

Eat a large bat you say?

Yes. Sorry.

It slipped my mind.

I was arguing from the position of "dragons as Chimera" and stating that you need to eat anything that has been stated to be or could be inferred to be one of the component creatures of a dragon.

I forgot about the "started in bats and the mutant strain jumped to humans becuase someone ate a bat" theory for the Covid. Is that still the dominant theory? The truth is I haven't been reading much of the news on it other than stuff regarding vaccine development becuase I don't know which sources to trust. Apprently some sources are presenting people who died of unrelated issues as Covid deaths becuase the person had to be infected but other sources are arbitrarily excluding any death that can remotely be argued to be in part caused by something else and it' just too much hassle to try to get exact details or figure out which theory on the origin is accurate.

Speaking of the Plague, my cousin seems to be doing better and has been infected for at least a week, so he should be over the "contagious" period soon and my aunt has tested negative, so... Things are looking up.

Just in case, I'm hoping my family can be talked out of doing a big Thanksgiving this year.

On the other hand, none of my cousin's caretakers was exposed and tested positive, so... Not all good news.

[Peelee]

Glad to hear your cousin is doing better, I was just wondering about that.

My own cousin recently tested positive. She has type I diabetes but she's in pretty good overall health and is expected to recover. She's still having a rough time of it.

Fun fact! My local university is trying to cure type 1 diabetes. They have a world-renowned medical college that focuses on research and effectively maintains a full-on Medical District in the city, so I have high hopes. May take a bit, though.

[Rater202]

Does it say weird things about me that most of my fantasies are about enhancing myself, slowly metamorphosing into something beyond my current abilities(or beyond human), or becoming the dominant member of a fusion of myself and one or more powerful beings?

The ones that don't are usually "absolute freedom to go anywhere and do anything, even though time and parallel, even fictional, realities for all eternity."

[Qwertystop]

Eh. As far as magical/superpower stuff goes, my list is "flight or levitation", "minor to moderate shapeshifting", and something convoluted that I can roughly summarize as "be in the mirrors".

[PontificatusRex]

Today sure has been a nice day. The sun is out in the Bay Area but there's a lovely, refreshing cool breeze. I took a walk downtown and around the lake, everybody seemed to be in an especially good mood. A teenage kid had set up his drum set by the farmers market and there was a big crowd of people dancing.

It was so nice I decided to buy some champagne to help memorialize what a lovely day this has been.

[SZbNAhL]

Does it say weird things about me that most of my fantasies are about enhancing myself, slowly metamorphosing into something beyond my current abilities(or beyond human), or becoming the dominant member of a fusion of myself and one or more powerful beings?

The ones that don't are usually "absolute freedom to go anywhere and do anything, even though time and parallel, even fictional, realities for all eternity."

Other than that last one, they're all fairly common from what I've read. If anything, it would be weird if you hadn't fantasised about having superpowers at some point.

[factotum]

Eh. As far as magical/superpower stuff goes, my list is "flight or levitation", "minor to moderate shapeshifting", and something convoluted that I can roughly summarize as "be in the mirrors".

For some reason, if I fantasize about superpowers, it's always fast travel of some sort (flight or teleportation)--not sure what that says about me!

[Rater202]

Other than that last one, they're all fairly common from what I've read. If anything, it would be weird if you hadn't fantasised about having superpowers at some point.

It is not just superpowers though.

It's things like "If I enhance myself with nanomachines, replace my heart with this cybernetic one, and transfuse myself with the cells of this guy, this guy, and this guy then I should've able to evolve myself beyond what is definitely human" or "if I meditate under this specific waterfall day in and day out for ten years I will gain mystical powers over the elements, become eternally youthful, and slowly transform into a dragon as I practice my skills and cultivate my power" or "can I be Venom and Ghost Rider at the same time*?"

It's the transformation, transhuman, or gestalting myself with other beings.

*For the record, the answer is "yes." General ross was a Ghost Rider and Venom for a bit during his time as Red Hulk, Venomverse has a version of Roberto Reyes with Venom called "Host Rider," and Carnage was temporal imbued with the powers of a Rider in Absolute Carnage: Spirits of Vengence.

[Peelee]

It is not just superpowers though.

It's things like "If I enhance myself with nanomachines, replace my heart with this cybernetic one, and transfuse myself with the cells of this guy, this guy, and this guy then I should've able to evolve myself beyond what is definitely human" or "if I meditate under this specific waterfall day in and day out for ten years I will gain mystical powers over the elements, become eternally youthful, and slowly transform into a dragon as I practice my skills and cultivate my power" or "can I be Venom and Ghost Rider at the same time*?"

It's the transformation, transhuman, or gestalting myself with other beings.

Still not uncommon.