• TheAlbatross@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 days ago

    They’re a plague on gardens. It might be a metaphorical relic of an age before modern pesticides.

    Edit: Sorry, I know this isn’t funny, but I’ve also wondered about this odd phenomenon, too, and this just occurred to me.

    • SGforce
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      2 days ago

      There’s a documentary that posits the monks who were tasked with writting all the shit down had personal battles with snails who’d eat the manuscripts. I guess the books/pages were shellacked with stuff that would attract them. The monks then turned it into a meme and drew them in the margins and depicting fights like they were dragons.

    • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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      1 day ago

      We don’t know. It was supposed to be funny though, so honestly probably not anything too deep or specific.

      The theory I tend to believe is that it started as a commentary on the endless battle against garden pests, and just became a genuine meme beyond that.

      • hansolo@lemm.ee
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        1 day ago

        To be fair, giant African land snails are about this size IRL.

        Maybe it’s a combo of a few shells traded around plus the garden pest meme to make very snail seem like a murderous asshat.

  • Dharma Curious (he/him)@slrpnk.net
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    2 days ago

    I cannot find the video I watched on it years ago, but this video is pretty good, and goes over the same general theory.

    Aside from this, though, can we go back to illuminated manuscripts? I’m not talking hand drawn or anything, but can we get fun little drawings all over the borders of our books? Be they serious dramas or light hearted comedies? Who wouldn’t prefer to read an illuminated copy of Witness for the Prosecution, with little barristers stalwartly defending their clients to fat cat be-robed judges in the margins? The little people don’t necessarily have to be connected to the written work, either. They could just be doing things. Laying eggs, fighting snails, riding dragons, shooting targets, whatever.

    I’m not talking about picture books, I don’t need full page artwork showing the story. Just little doodles the author approved all around the margins. But would be awesome!

    • Echolynx@lemmy.zip
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      1 day ago

      The art of the manuscript has really fallen. Published books nowadays are not as good as they used to be (in terms of quality, not just content). Most ‘crafted’ things, really - textiles, books, furniture… everything has been discarded in favor of cheap, low-quality nonsense that breaks or falls apart.

      • Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        As a crafter, I can’t count how many times I’ve seen decorations for sale in stores and thought, “Wow, they’re charging that much for this flimsy thing? It looks like it would rip before it’s even taken out of the package. I can make this at home for a fraction of this cost, and out of stronger materials.” Seriously, people are getting ripped off big time when all they want is some pretty holiday decor.

        • ripcord@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          What’s the point of it over, you know, using Wikipedia…?

          Going to the main page, there’s just some link to a blog post from 2 years ago about not joining tbe Fediverse. And that’s it.

          Edit: glancing through the rest of the blog, that dude is definitely on drugs.

  • zqwzzle
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    2 days ago

    Until the titanium sphere can be constructed many fell to the snail.