Epimetheus and Prometheus

There was once a time when there were gods, but no mortal creatures. And when to these also came their destined time to be created, the gods moulded their forms within the earth, of a mixture made of earth and fire and all substances that are compounded with fire and earth. When they were about to bring these creatures to light, they charged Prometheus and Epimetheus to deal to each the equipment of his proper faculty. Epimetheus besought Prometheus that he might do the dealing himself; “And when I have dealt,” he said, “you shall examine.”

– Plato, Protagoras

hour 1

so I was thinking we could take turns on each of the species and work our way towards each other and meet in the middle

oh no no no you’ve done so much creationing already, just gimme all the animals and you can do people

you sure?

absolutely

you know it’s today, right?

what, like they’re DUE today?

yes

all people and all animals are due TODAY

yes

fuck

i am more than happy to take birds off your hands –

like shit-all you will, i said i’ll do animals and i’ll do animals, it’s fine, i’ll just – it’s fine

hour four

hey are you done with claws, can i borrow them

NO I AM NOT FUCKING DONE WITH CLAWS

sorry, sorry, im sorry about that, i’m just still using claws

but didn’t you finish with birds like an hour ago

y e s

what else needs claws

im doing lobsters now

you’re putting claws on lobsters?

claws look good on a lot of things

shouldn’t you be putting things on people instead of making me nervous while im trying to make lobsters

i can’t get started on people until you’re done and you just told me i can’t give them claws

you can take the eyebrows, i’m not using those

mm except leave like four so i can put them on old dogs and SOME owls

hour nine

*humming angrily* HMMMMMM

how is everything going

fine fine fine fine fine fine fine!! so feel super super entirely free to not keep checking in, i will definitely let you know when i am finished!

hour sixteen

okay!!!! fucking DONE

so my vision was basically a complementarian design, so you can see some of the weaker ones I’ve equipped with spead, others armed, and still others in an unarmed condition, different faculties to preservation

those invested with smallness get a winged escape or underground habitation

compensation and balance were some of the key words, vision-wise, such that no kind should be extinguished, and in guarding against the seasons, thick-set hair and solid hides sufficient to ward off winter yet able to shield them also from the heats

also i kind of went nuts with hooves for a while but i ended up in a really interesting design space so overall i think it works

it’s kind of a mess and they all want to eat each other but mostly i think we’re good

everything has at least a decent chance of eating something else’s spine

and you still have like three hours left for people so go nuts

go nuts with what

what do you mean

oh, ASS it

no no no no no no no way i definitely left a whole pile of things here for when it was people time?

did you not see the pile i was saving for you?

the only thing that’s still lying out is soft spots on baby skulls

oh fuck i meant to use that on eagles

to protect them from hubris

well you didn’t use it on eagles because it’s still here

and that’s the only thing left to give them

which is not going to really work because they are supposed to be just a little lower than the gods and the only thing i can use to update their pre-sets is softer headbones for infants

hour eighteen

well i don’t know what to say

you didn’t leave me with anything

i thought i left you with a pile!

you did not

we could have just split it from the start but you wanted to take all the animals, i could have been doing something all morning

i cannot tell you how much it stresses me out when you talk about the past

it just happened!

yes, but it just happened IN THE PAST so let’s not dwell there

just give them something from the gods

like just run home super quick and find something the gods aren’t using, hats or ichor or whatever, and give them some

no one’s going to notice, it’s like ONE species

hour twenty-two

look it’s fire or it’s nothing

fire was all they had laying out and i had like eight minutes and you told me to find something they weren’t using and fire is generally useful

it’s the only plan we have at this point

they don’t even have teeth right away, people, they’re going to need all the help they can get

oh no this is so much better than before

because now man is still naked, unshod, unbedded, unarmed, bad skin, anxious, can’t fall sleep when he wants to, paranoid, given to destruction, lazy, unnecessarily universalizes his limited experience, and about to emerge in a world of claws and teeth and poison frogs

but on the plus side, now he can set fire to anything he wants!!!

so what do you want me to do, do you want me to take the fire back

obviously not

i just want to go on record as hating it

but let’s go for it, absolutely, i am 100% on board and then we are never making anything ever again and if anyone asks we meant to give them exoskeletons