otherkin

An idea for a story I just got from watching a video about the reasons for the Salem witch trials (it wasn't ergot, it was likely a mass panic event triggered by the pre-existing mental illness called Christianity). The idea is simple: the Devil or something like it is real (no idea about god in this story), but the Devil wasn't taking in covens of witches. No no no. What it was doing was much more subtle. In this story idea, the Devil plants the idea of witches in the minds of the "righteous," causing supposed Christians to stray from the path Jesus laid out by their paranoia snowballing into a religious panic event where "the least of these" get targeted for violence.

It's an interesting idea, I think. And I think the best way to go about it would be that none of the ideas the Devil gives people are new ideas, just he's taking pre-existing human ideas and using them to start a fire of paranoia and violence. Thus the evil is still caused by humanity, the Devil is just fanning the flames.

I'm giving this idea freely to anyone who wants to write it because there are a great many reasons I know I could not do this idea justice. I know my limitations as a writer.

ysabetwordsmith

Mountweazel [mount-wee-zuhl]

noun
1. a decoy entry in a reference work, such as a dictionary or encyclopedia, secretly planted among the genuine entries to catch other publishers in the act of copying content.

(More details on

1word1day)

Current Mood: amused

ysabetwordsmith

Snowflake Challenge 7: Self-Love

LIST THREE (or more) THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF. They don’t have to be your favorite things, just things that you think are good. Feel free to expand as much or as little as you want.

While we’re busy celebrating fandom, it’s good to remember to celebrate ourselves, too. Fandom is all of us! I know it’s often easier to talk about what we like about other people than it is to talk nicely about ourselves, but challenge yourself here.

A gold snowflake ornament is nestled amidst pine boughs

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Discovery shows early humans were much more advanced hunters than previously believed

On stone arrowheads left in a South African rock shelter, researchers found 60,000-year-old traces of plant poison.

A team working in Sweden and South Africa analyzed quartz tips from Umhlatuzana Rock Shelter in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

A residue on one artifact can be a fluke, but repeats on older and newer arrowheads are harder to dismiss.

*laugh* Hominids helped wipe out 98% of land animal body mass. What did scientists think, all they were doing was running up and stabbing megafauna until it dropped dead? Yeah, no. Arrow poison. Channel traps, pit traps, cliff traps. Fire. Collecting scat to frame one predator for encroaching on another predator's territory, then watching them shred each other and sneaking up to dispatch the weakened loser.

"Work smarter, not harder" has been the hominid strategy for millions of years.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

... is scheduled to appear at 4PM Eastern time, which is 3PM Central time -- so 10-15 minutes from now. It's a planned variation, no need to worry.

Snowflake Challenge: A pair of ice skates hanging on a wood paneled wall. Pine boughs with a few ornaments are stuffed into the skates.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

This strange form of water may power giant planets’ magnetic fields

Water pushed to planetary extremes turns into an exotic, electricity-conducting solid — and it’s far stranger than scientists ever imagined.

At extreme pressures and temperatures, water becomes superionic — a solid that behaves partly like a liquid and conducts electricity. This unusual form is believed to shape the magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune and may be the most common type of water in the solar system. New high-precision experiments show its atomic structure is far messier than expected, combining multiple crystal patterns instead of one clean arrangement. The finding reshapes models of icy planets both near and far.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Today is cloudy and cool.

I fed the birds. I've seen a flock of sparrows.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 1/13/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 1/13/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 1/13/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 1/13/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I've seen a pair of cardinals and a starling. I heard a woodpecker but didn't see it.

As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Researchers poison stolen data to make AI systems return wrong results

Researchers affiliated with universities in China and Singapore have devised a technique to make stolen knowledge graph data useless if incorporated into a GraphRAG AI system without consent.

I'm reminded of how alchemists would leave out a critical detail, or make a substitution, so that nobody could steal and reproduce their work.

Current Mood: busy

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You can have this idea.

Vocabulary: Mountweazel

Snowflake Challenge 7: Self-Love

Early Humans

Snowflake Challenge

Space Exploration

Birdfeeding

Artificial Intelligence

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January 2026

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