Real-Life Weirdness

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Ever noticed how the Sims seem to speak two slightly different languages based on sex of the speaker? It happens in real life too. When making up exotic cultures, such a case of fluency in two languages can be used to underscore that you're not in Kansas anymore. Or you can make a different line of division - caste, whether one was born during the waxing or waning moon, or even something as changing as age.

Reminds me of
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%BCshu

A Chinese script only women invented/knew.

But spoken variants would make for interesting accidents for trans people.
Native speakers would likely feel that other languages hinder their natural masculinity/femininity by lacking such clear sexes.

Imagine slightly different languages for moods. One could have cultures that idolize cool logic, but using that form when showing strong signs of specific emotions is strongly discouraged. Or the opposite. Passionate people that reserve the calm language for unimportant subjects. I would and could only use that one for sports while a fan would use the excited form.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Native speakers would likely feel that other languages hinder their natural masculinity/femininity by lacking such clear sexes.

Well, in a way English already does that compared to other languages, having gender-agnostic first- and second-person pronouns, gender-agnostic verbs (even verbs that the speaker applies to oneself!), gender-agnostic adjectives, and gender-agnostic numerals (ordinal, counting, distributive and even such ones as 'both'), which seem like awkward features when they coexist with a strong push for conflating merging/conflating social gender and linguistic gender.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

A Chinese script only women invented/knew.

Japan also split after the introduction of Chinese characters (kanji). Men, especially the educated elites, used the regular form, while women tended to use the cursive form, which developed into the Japanese script called hiragana -- also known as onnade, "women's hand".

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by William

.

For an additional twist of weirdness, it's hypothesized that a much smaller amount of tetrodotoxin is a potential component of "zombie powder," which an unscrupulous witch doctor might administer to make someone stupefied and compliant.

Mix a bit of scopolamine in with it... That's the other form of "zombie drug" - the one that renders one compliant and inhibits memory formation, as well... they go with the poisoner until they drop, then scopolamine is used when they wake to render them compliant...

https://www.pri.org/stories/2013-06-...re-zombie-drug (Old article, but still a relevant wierdness...)

[Daigoro]

Beware the Hunger Stones!

Sinister 'Hunger Stones' With Dire Warnings Have Been Surfacing in Europe

Mysterious outlines of ancient societies have revealed themselves across the seared landscape, but it's not just traces of ghostly architecture resurfacing. So too are grim words of warning.

Inscribed boulders known as 'hunger stones' are reappearing in Czechia after a prolonged drought afflicting Central Europe, AP reports.

These hunger stones traditionally sit below the water line of the Elbe River as it flows through the town of Děčín in the country's north, but with water levels hitting record lows in Europe, the rocks and the words carved into them have been exposed once more.

[cptbutton]

Just the flip side of Tsunami Stones.

These Century-Old Stone “Tsunami Stones” Dot Japan’s Coastline
“Remember the calamity of the great tsunamis. Do not build any homes below this point.”

[William]

Well flip me sideways, an off-the-wall theory turned out to be basically right for once.

Those U.S. diplomats in Havana and Guangzhou suffering the mysterious, hard-to-pinpoint neurological issues? Turns out our doctors now think it really was a microwave attack, using something called the Frey effect.

The original goal, for use in your atompunk games, was either mind control (by inducing delusions that spurred desired behavior) or long-term subtle physical damage (by inducing slow injury to the nervous system). Communication is also a possibility (the beam can be very tightly focused, and needs no discoverable receptor other than the human body), but the side effects might be a bit too much for any but the most occasional usage.

Note that these effects are separate from the painful, skin-deep effect employed by Microwave Area Denial systems, which simply induce a burning sensation.

[Flyndaran]

So the one real aspect is that intense microwave radiation can cause auditory hallucinations followed up with a boat ton of wild speculation based on that.

[Flyndaran]

https://www.livescience.com/42862-pe...h-created.html

When I first saw a meme based on this, I assumed it was utter BS. I have no words.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I have no words.

There's always the classics.