#??? kind of. i don't know how to tag this so the minimum amount of people see it

[mizuno-marmalade]

sorry no art post today, i woke up too late to work on anything. side note i hate being autistic!! there's people in my house and i feel like i can't go downstairs because of it. which is fine!! it's fine. all i wanna do is go get smth to eat but there's people in the living room and they're gonna look at me and. huagh. i don't want to be perceived i don't want strangers in my house

[emmitaaa4]

Addressing some fandom BS inconsistencies

Gwyn was shadow mommy, Az was shadow daddy, they were gonna have shadow babies with her extra super pliable bones.

I audibly chocked when I read this @nikethestatue (btw everything said in this post was on point). No but seriously this is how they sound, too many of them insisting that there is nothing wrong with basing the likelihood of a ship on who has the more suitable uterus to be with a man... cause supposedly they're just picking up on the hints SJM wrote for them? She likes babies for HEAs so ofc children are the end all be all of a relationship, plus there's absolutely no way that she could ever write an adoption plot SJM is literally adopted and has done it in other series. Selective reading strikes again.

A minimum amount of critical thinking would tell you that 1) the infamous *magical uterus change* scene was about nessian (& feysand), not about any ship; 2) if SJM had written Nesta changing Elain's uterus, it would have given too much away, not to mention 3) how disturbing/violating it would have been for Nesta to change her sister's reproductive anatomy WITHOUT HER CONSENT?! None of it makes sense narratively; my girl Nes would never, especially given the trauma they both suffered from having their bodily autonomy--and so much more--ripped away by the Cauldron.

This argument is so trivialized that I see it every other day on reddit/tiktok/*insert media app*, and yet elriels are the toxic side of the fandom? The ones whom people are allowed to insult, to ridicule for theories all made in good fun, the women that are villainized over a difference of opinion? Don't get me wrong, there's assholes on both sides and people keep calling one another variations of delulu (and the nastier personal attacks). But by painting this fandom-wide villain there is such a lack of accountability for the plethora of harmful talking points spread by other portions of the fandom. (I've been silently reading the anti-elain & anti-elriel tags for like a year, and I'm on tiktok. Yes, I have self-destructive tendencies).

Anyways.

I never understood either how people ever actually thought (or well still think) that gwynriel would happen BEFORE elucien?? It makes no sense logically, narratively, or in terms of characterization & the arc she's set up for Elain, Azriel, and Lucien. Yet it took one controversial bonus chapter for people to decenter Elain in her own story, that is make her choice of romantic partner--which SJM spent 3+ books setting up--Azriel's. It took one bonus chapter that soo many readers are still unaware of, to brush Elain off as a "sexual object" Az is using to distract himself until his therapist-extraordinaire Gwyn comes in and heals him all up. Because ofc she will: she's badass and not the "passive and weak and boring" Eplain (aka "Plant" or "brain dead gardener"), she fits the YA archetype of the spunky warrior-girl so she can handle his darkness, and SJM supposedly spent time fleshing her out because she wrote her as a LI for Azriel; she's made for him, she is what he needs to grow (I actually enjoyed Gwyn's character btw, just pointing out how silly it all sounds). “Next book is a love triangle between Elain/Az/Gwyn” “Elain will turn evil or is secretly evil”. So you're telling me that SJM would pit Elain & Gwyn against each other in a love triangle over a man... all because of a necklace that was not even mentioned once in the actual books? Please, let's be logical for a second.

All this because instead of reading the bonus chapter in the context of the books, some people are reading the books in the context of the bonus chapter. Which now that I think of it is probably why so many people mischaracterize Az the way they do--because yes we know enough of his character to know half of the stuff the fandom diagnoses him with is questionable. Azriel? Entitled incel x fuckboy hybrid (gotta be the first of his kind, minute slay ig)? Interesting tell me more. No joke I saw a semi-popular post on here where a gwynriel said they read the bonus WITHOUT HAVING READ ANY OF THE BOOKS. I'm sorry, ship wars are silly and believe it or not idc who ppl ship, but it makes it hard to take some of the things they say seriously.

All this to say that the fandom isn't even debating the right thing. If you consider everything SJM has said in her interviews:

(she's been planting seeds for Nesta & Elain's book since acomaf; she knows who she is writing the first 2 books about + is keeping things open for the 3rd one--with 5 different ship options--which automatically rules out "Elain will close the series"; she said she's doing research for Elain's book in the ACOFAS bonus & there's seeds for future bookS in acofas; all she said recently about her beloved *heroines* and the themes of fate/true love/choice she finds *very* interesting & wants to discuss)

and if you also consider all she's written in the actual books (elain's characterization + the overarching plot in general & how she fits into it), then it's pretty evident that Elain's book is next.

The question then would be who is the MMC / 2nd PoV in her book, aka would acotar 5 be an elucien or an elriel story? Because logically, gwynriel was always a consequence of elucien. I honestly do not understand how people don't see that.

Oh and they always think they're gagging elriels with the "obviously Azriel is the next MC" as if elriels aren't saying the same thing? And we're the ones twisting info and not making sense. It's just funny at this point.

---sidenote: I realize that this post generalizes some things, and I just wanted to say that I have interacted with lovely eluciens / people on either side of this headache of a ship war. My hard limit is Elain haters though... back off I say 🤺 BACK OFF 🤺

---sidenote 2: I would have written this as a reblog except im not entirely sure how tumblr works and I get no visibility from them rip.

[not-poignant]

hi pia i just wanted to respond to what you said in your tags about the burnout w chronic illness. and i dont mean to condescend or blame but i think your burnout came about because you are an absolute beast of a writer!!!!! the amount of words you were pushing out consistently had me wondering what kind of spell you must’ve been on. (in a good way, except it turned out to be harming you) you worked really really hard for a long time, i think harder than many healthy people even (my chronic illness could never). i know you also enjoyed writing (we enjoyed it too!), but that workload honestly never looked sustainable. the astounding part is not that you burned out, but that you managed to push for so long, despite your handicaps and hardships. want to be careful not to sound like im praising/blaming you. but you’re really just build different than a lot of folks. i hope you had time to recharge so far and keep taking it easy. i do miss your updates but i can assure you im fine waiting, as are your other readers! its really okay! get better soon 💐🐀💓

Hi anon,

This is very kind of you to say, but tbh, I don't think many people know how much some writers can, well, write.

I might seem like an over-achiever, but there are writers out there who easily write around 6000-10000 words per day, and release a book per month. I have met successful authors who aim for 150k or 200k at NaNo, because 50,000 words is 5 days of work to them.

It's hard for me to comprehend, because I know I can't do that. But likewise, I think many folks don't realise that I actually used to write a lot more than I do now!! For some years it was normal for me to write 50-80,000 words every single month. NaNo was a joke. That caused burnout, and so I adjusted down to a 25,000 minimum monthly wordcount which sometimes felt so easy that it was absurd. I now have a maximum which I have to adhere to per month (50k), because it's too easy to go past it.

For me, writing is relatively easy. It's still work, yes. I still need to put time into it. But I don't need to put in the same amount of time as someone who hasn't done it for thousands and thousands of hours. I don't need to put in the same amount of time as someone who can only touch type at 80 wpm, when I touch type at 120-150 wpm.

The amount of stories is an issue, and the number of chapter updates is an issue, but the actual output re: words themselves really isn't. In fact I've written more words this month than I did last month already, and will very likely hit my monthly minimum with the next chapter.

The things that contributed to my burnout are multifaceted. Getting a puppy. A death in the family. Not having access to the mental health drugs I need to function for a long period of time. Friendship disintegration. These things can cause burnout in anyone, even if they are working very sustainably, because they all require separate labour on top of the labour that someone is doing for their job.

When I come back from hiatus, I will not be writing less. I don't believe the wordcount is the issue and haven't for a long time. I will be scheduling out less chapters, because admin is overwhelming to me. If you told me that my job wasn't writing anymore, but I had to schedule + figure out when to post twice as many chapters, I'd fail, lmao.

So I will be addressing admin stuff! But the amount of words I was pushing out, anon, was completely sustainable, and in fact a highly reduced number compared to what I was pushing out 6/7 years ago. Anon, I have been pushing out this many words or more for 5 years without stopping until now. It's felt comfortable. It's been so much less than what I used to make myself write.

So yeah, again, it can be hard for people who don't do this professionally to imagine writing at this level. And all professionals are different. I couldn't write 150k for NaNoWriMo, but the people writing 100k a month find that extremely easy to do. How I feel about their output - that it's impossible (because it is for me) is not how they feel about their output. For them writing 50k a month to make it easy might be extremely laughable to them, like, 5 days of work and then they get 25 days off. That's sometimes how I've felt about 25k (though it's more like 10 days of work to me - which is great, because I have chronic illness lol, so I need a lot of rest days and periods).

The amount of words I was pushing out consistently will be the amount I go back to because that is truly the most sustainable part of my job. I don't expect folks who haven't plugged in as many hours into writing, and who haven't written millions of words to understand, but the fact is the more you do something, the faster you get at it. The more practice you have, the more competent you become.

That was actually how I knew the burnout was so bad, because the easiest part of my job - the words + the writing - was impossible last month, and I only ended up with 14k for the first time in 5 years, and had to make a call.

The reason the hiatus is so frustrating is that so much of it is being caused by external factors, and not actually the job itself. Like yes, I am working on too many stories, and I can address that, but I was actually doing much higher wordcounts when I was working on less stories.

It's all the extra stuff that becomes very overwhelming! But I'll get there anon, and my wordcounts aren't going anywhere.

[twst-drabbles]

oliii I liked your interpretation of vil *hug* it's not a request but I was wondering if the same would happen with a reader who responds to him all the time and does what mc wants bc in the game, except for Leona I think, no one else seems to have the upper hand against vil... and I don't understand the truth xd that's why I was wondering what it would be like with a rebellious reader who doesn't like to listen to him or who responds when he scolds him

Depends, but then again all interactions have a big "depends" on it if given the circumstances. But yeah, if the Rebellious Reader is someone who is rebellious out of spite for Vil and nothing anything deeper than that, then Vil will treat the whole scoffing of his attitude as something childish and not really worth his time unless, unless Vil ends up with an opportunity to highlight to the Reader how childish they're being. Cause, after all, Vil loves nothing more than to be proven right. And if Vil isn't right, well, he can shrug it off and go about his day, because a Rebellious Reader who's like that from the start without being cordial or giving the minimum amount of manners one gives to a stranger, they'll be marked off as "not worth fretting over," and therefore Vil is above them.

(I should probably make this it's own special tag cause I've been doing these kinds of writing a little too often.)

See, overly rebellious readers do not come off as "super cool" as people seem to think they do, because an over reliance on that personality trait makes the audience think that they're trying to cover up for something. That they have such a loose grip over the control of their life that they have no choice but to continue to be overly rebellious. Because they have nothing else to hang onto, so all they can do is spit and stomp and try to make everyone else lose control so they're not alone in that feeling.

In the acting world and with how deeply into it Vil is, he 100% has seen and known people that are like this, so a super rebellious reader is really nothing to pay much mind to. Will he get frustrated if what's being done is impeding on his path? Yes he will and he will not hesitate on shutting that shit down. Usually with people he likes, like Epel, he gives them some wiggle room so as to not completely choke out their fire. But with people he doesn't like, there will be none. You will take that attitude somewhere else, otherwise he'll just get a restraining order or get you kicked out. The social consequences that come of it will be of your own hand. So best be prepared.

Now, when it comes to a reader that's clearly solid in terms of their self control and how they view themselves, that alone would warrant Vil's respect, at least the minimum amount of it. So, when after the getting to know period the Reader gets more and more rebellious, that bothers Vil more than anything. Because, what that says to Vil is that something about him is incompatible with the way you view things. There's a more solid reason, to him, for the Reader to starts disagreeing and going out of their way to be this way. Sure, a super Rebellious Reader might be the same way, but Vil didn't get to know them, so he doesn't care. But this reader can get under his skin.

Super Rebellious Reader feels like a sidekick to some bigger villain, while this reader feels like a leader, an equal that finds these glaring flaws in him that he somehow can't find.

One can't forget that a majority of Vil's confidence and need to be the most beautiful heavily relies on the downfall of Neige. His end goal, whether he knows it or not, is Neige losing to him as a way to prove to the masses that he is the most beautiful. And it's also a way to prove that to himself, cause, to an extent, he doesn't believe it but masks that very heavily from even himself.

So, a rebellious reader that he respects, and took the time to get to know him before they turned to the path of rebellion, ends up being a person that highlights his own childishness to himself with how convoluted his path to true self confidence is, cause the Reader's source of self confidence is not compatible with his. It's from a different, more stable source, and Vil can't take that implication.

[asteria-argo]

Answer the questions and tag five fanfiction authors you know!

tagged by the wonderful wonderful @altschmerzes

1. How many fandoms have you written in?

Written in about 15 but I've only published in two. According to ao3 it's five but that's because of the umbrella fandom of DC comics.

2. How many years have you been writing fanfiction?

Since I was around 6 and I'm now 20 so about,,, 14 years

3. Do you read or write more fanfiction?

I read way more than I write, I read a bare minimum of 3 fics a day and I go through really long periods of not writing anything so I for sure read more than I write

4. What is one way you've improved as a writer?

since I started publishing my fics I've gotten a lot better at actually finishing them, but my grammar and tense has also improved A Lot just from practicing even if it's still not the best out there.

5. What's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

I mean it's not that weird but I get very hyperfixated on small details so I did a lot of researching into the different degrees offered at Yale and Harvard in order to decide what degrees I think would be offered at a fictional Ivy League university when I was writing character bios a little while ago.

Also for To All The Better Places I spent a truly inane amount of time researching grassroots U12 girls football teams for a side character so I could name one in the right area that would suit her needs the best.

6. What's your favourite type of comment to receive on your work?

long ones for sure. I love getting long comments especially on my longer fics where people like,, point out things they liked or quote my work as me. Also love those like,, live slug reaction comments you get sometimes where people go paragraph by paragraph telling you their thoughts as they have them in one long comment,

7. What's the most fringe trope/topic you write about?

I have a lot of ambiguous gender feelings a lot of the time, and I also grew up watching a lot of "boy" oriented media that would only have like,, one or two girl characters at best so from a young age I was fascinated with reading like,, canon divergent "always-a-girl" trope fics and I have written a couple of them myself which I think is a bit of an unpopular trope in wider fandom.

8. What is the hardest type of story for you to write?

angst and whump because I really struggle describing physical sensation and angst usually just ends up with me making myself sad and/or sick in the process of writing it if I don't have a happy ending planned and ready to go

9. What is the easiest type?

found family stories are my bread and butter, slice of life, friends just being friends, those kinds of stories

10. Where do you do your writing? What platform? When?

I usually write at home at my desk, since I study online I've got a pretty perfect set up to spend long hours there. If I'm not at home I'm at the library. I use Notion, because it's free, I have personal beef with Word and google docs sucks. It's not technically a writing platform in the sense I use it in but it works fine as one, it also makes it super easy to organise my files and extra notes of fics, on top of my editing and the drafts.

11. What is something you've been too nervous/intimidated to write, but would love to write one day?

I actually recently overcame my big too nervous to write fic. I am,, an asexual virgin but I also really enjoy reading smut. I've wanted to write some for ages, but on account of not knowing how sex works because I've never had it and also my inability to describe physical sensations I've been weary to give it a go in case it's terrible but I finally wrote some not long ago and published it over on ao3

12. What made you choose your username?

Well Asteria is just my name, and then Argo is a combined DC/Greek Mythology references. Argo comes from the Argonauts of The Golden Fleece myth, but it's also the name of the original supergirls home.

I do not know whose already been tagged or whose already done it so I'm just going to go for it and hope for the best @jamtartandsunshine @kvetchinglyneurotic @jamiesfootball @antitheticaally @its-not-easy-being-green-things

[timandlucy]

2, 12, 13, 26, 38, 40, 44, 49 😘

2. Go to your AO3 “Works” page, to the sidebar with all the filters, and click the drop-down arrow for “Additional Tags.” What are your top 3-5 most used tags? Do you think they accurately represent your writing habits?

Fluff, Smut, Emotional hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Smut, Established Relationship.

I'd say that's very accurate, yes. 😂

12. Are there any tropes you used to dislike but have grown on you?

The soulmate trope, I guess? I read one that kind of changed my mind about it.

13. Are there any tropes you used to like but don’t anymore?

I think that's more of an age thing, but I like teen AUs a lot less than I used to. I mean I even wrote one for Linstead, but I don't see myself reading or writing any.

26. Would you rather write a fic that had no dialogue or one that was only dialogue?

Oh damn that's hard. Even though I love dialogue, I'd have to say no dialogue, because you can speak with actions as well as with words. While where there is only dialogue without any tags, how the words were spoken and so on, you don't really have much.

38. Did any of your fics get surprisingly popular (whatever that means to you)? Which ones? Why do you think they were so successful?

Not really... All my fics get around the same amount of kudos and comments, I wouldn't say one is a lot more successful than all the others.

40. Do you tend to reread fics or are you a one-and-done kind of person?

I do re-read! I absolutely haven't had enough time but I'm dying to go re-read some of my faves.

44. If you take/write prompts: do you prefer dialogue or scenario/narrative prompts?

I do take prompts! I just make no promises about them 🙈 I prefer scenario/narrative prompts but sometimes a dialogue one can be nice because you can take it in so many different directions!

49. What are you currently working on? Share a few lines if you’re up for it!

You know very well everything I'm working on 😂 Here's an excerpt from my sugar daddy wip that I might or might not one day finish. (I hope sugar daddy isn't next roommates Sarah)

“Lucy.”

She looks at him, cheeks flushed and head spinning.

“Breathe.”

She chuckles and nods. “I’m sorry. I ramble when I’m nervous. And that last coffee I had might have been overkill.”

“It’s okay. All you need to do is take my arm, smile at people. Maybe have a dance with me. Keep the rambling to a minimum while we're there. I happen to quite enjoy it, but the people at the party might take offence if you call anyone bald and fat. Then I’ll take you home.”

[blocksruinedme]

Wip Wednesday! LARPer Joel feeling crazy about Etho!

God willing and creek don't rise, this one will be out very soon, but this is motivating me! They in college, they larpers, they started hooking up during a larp (called Double Life) some weeks ago. This part is T rated, not sure if the final is T or M. I added a lot while editing it for this soooo I'm tossing in a cut tag partway through ------

Joel knew he could be kind of a lot when it came to Etho. It had become painfully obvious that Joel’s friends had grown weary of hearing him whine about Etho, possibly even more than they seemed sick of him gushing about Etho, so Joel tried to limit sharing the anxiety spirals and negative thoughts to when he was at his worst. None of his friends knew how consistently (say, every day) he felt crazy about Etho - and not the good kind of “being crazy” about a super hot ripped genius who keeps showing up at your dorm room at night to show you a very good time. Instead, he was stuck with “try your best to not become a stalker but it’s looking dicey” kind of crazy. Well, not instead, he had both kinds of crazy, and knew he might be suffering from even more kinds of Etho crazy than he realized. Etho was easy to be crazy about. 

Etho didn’t often stay the night in Joel’s cramped dorm room, and when he did he usually woke up and left early. (They never talked about it, of course, but Joel knew it was early enough that his housemates might not realize he hadn’t come home the night before. Joel hadn’t ever even seen Etho’s bedroom, which was… fine.) When Etho fell asleep before Joel, or slept in after Joel (who never slept much anyway), Joel let himself be–or at least feel like–a total creep by watching Etho sleep. Those moments were both excruciating and exquisite to Joel’s fragile heart. In the relaxation of sleep, Etho looked peaceful, vulnerable, even soft. It made Joel’s heart ache. 

The rest of the world (or at least most of it) didn’t get to see this Etho, and Joel clung desperately to that knowledge, that he was gifted with some special part of Etho. He knew he would sound crazy if he said it out loud. He knew that Etho wasn’t specifically gifting this part of himself to Joel, that he was taking it without Etho’s knowledge, but Etho felt safe enough to give Joel that access to him, and that meant the world to Joel. 

For all their sexual connection and intensity, these stolen moments in the dark were when Joel felt an intimacy he’d longed for, and lacked, in all of his ill-fated and brief attempts at connection like this. 

On the excruciating side, all those feelings reminded Joel of everything he didn't have with Etho. Being affectionate in public, having romantic things like dates and pet names, getting to introduce Etho to people and say “This is my boyfriend, Etho.” (Sometimes he said the words in his head, and then told himself to shut up.) Right now he’d settle for having literally any idea of what he could expect from Etho, of what this all meant to Etho, what he meant to Etho. They'd never even had a conversation about sex with other people, so Joel had to operate under the assumption that Etho was sleeping with an unknown number of other people. Joel didn’t even know if Etho was bi! Joel was a little surprised that he didn't feel particularly jealous about the idea – he didn't think he needed to be Etho’s Only in any regard. It wasn't about the amount of time together (though he'd love more, he’d take as much as Etho would give), it was about how they spent the time they had, how they interacted with the world, and with each other. If Etho had an actual serious public relationship, while Joel was left in limbo ,that would at minimum sting, if not devastate him. Joel felt sure he’d be happy for Etho to have a dozen boyfriends (or girlfriends, or whoever friends)... as long as he could be one too. 

Etho had never explicitly told Joel to not talk about their relationship (or whatever it was), but in public he always acted like they were just friends. It was weird, it sucked, it seemed like everyone knew anyway, but Joel was getting used to keeping up the illusion that they were just friends. Which was why it was so staggeringly unexpected, and profoundly delightful, to be awkwardly sitting next to Etho on a scratchy, lumpy couch while his hungover friends haphazardly prepared brunch. 

[actual-lea]

TELL US ABOUT THE THERMONUCLEAR BOMBS LEA (& tag them appropriately please)

God okay I don't even know where to begin I just

I'm gonna ramble a lot about how these bombs work and none of it is going to be very informative probably unless you also want to check out the damn Thermonuclear Weapons wikipedia page at the same time, and even then it's fun to remember that all of this is mostly only how thermonuclear bombs are theorized to work, since the actual designs are obviously all super classified info

Also going to ramble specifically about how the bomb is presented in Lost, so spoilers also abound:

Okay well fun fact, a thermonuclear aka hydrogen aka fusion bomb (which is different than like. a "regular" atomic/nuclear/fission bomb) contains a regular atomic bomb inside it - there are two "stages" to a hydrogen bomb, of which the regular-ass atomic bomb is only the first (fission) stage and is basically only there in order to facilitate the secondary (fusion) stage, which is where most of the power actually comes from (and then from that there's more fission that happens, which might actually be where most of the power actually comes from? idk this is all top of my head I don't have the wiki article open right now lol)

That was something that really kind of blew my mind to learn. Like. The idea of an atomic bomb in most people's minds is (for good reason!) this huge city-flattening thing of indescribable destructive power, and that thing very quickly became irrelevant as anything but the activation for the actual bomb bomb, which is so so so many more times destructive than either of the bombs that were actually used in 1945.

I actually just recently re-skimmed over the wiki article about Tsar Bomba, the biggest EVER thermonuclear test explosion (which was in 1961 iirc, somewhere in Russia/the Soviet Union), which iirc is theorized by some people to have actually been a three-stage design rather than two-stage*, and fucking. The seismic wave created by this explosion circled the entire globe three fucking times over even though it was detonated in the fucking air

*because of the way that the two stages work, it's theoretically possible to just keep adding more and more of the "secondary" type device ad infinitum, but it becomes pretty impractical pretty quickly since (I think?) they'd need to keep getting bigger and with just a two stage weapon you're definitely already in like the 20 tons realm at minimum already, so it's kind of silly to keep adding more and more to it especially when the amount of explosive yield you're getting is already way more than enough than you could ever really need anyway

ANYWAY

None of that is really relevant to what I was ACTUALLY trying to learn about in the first place, which is like. How in the good goddamn the bomb in Lost is supposed to have worked.

(Really the thing I was trying to initially figure out more than anything is what the fuck would the stuff leaking from the casing of the bomb even have been and the jury's still out on that one tbh)

SO okay. Season 5 finale of Lost, we have Sayid and Jack and Eloise and Richard all going to get the bomb to do the thing with the incident. According to Sayid according to Daniel's journal, his plan was to remove the "plutonium core" of the bomb rather than trying to move the whole damn thing.

Incidentally, I have a copy of the Lost Encyclopedia, and like half the reason for buying it in the first place was because I saw online that there were more pictures of Dan's journal/the disassembly instructions for the bomb in it (which I did get this damn thing in like November 2020 so that should tell you how long I've been looking into this stuff lmao)

(a picture of a spread from the Lost Encyclopedia showing several images of pages from Daniel's journal)

So, okay - there are 2 spreads (4 pages) worth of detailed disassembly instructions, over on the right side of the image - idk if any of that is even readable in the image but to summarize: the first pages (bottom right) are the ones we actually see for like half a second in the episode:

(an image from 5x16 of Sayid's hands holding Daniel's journal open to those same disassembly instructions)

According to these instructions, what we are actually removing in the episode and carrying around and dropping in the Swan hole, is the "plutonium primary device from the secondary payload", which. Is not really a thing? The "primary" device in a hydrogen bomb IS the atomic bomb, which is a whole separate thing from the "secondary" device. There is a plutonium "spark plug" cylinder inside the secondary, which I assume is probably what this would be referring to, HOWEVER the second part of the instructions (top right of the Encyclopedia image above) have a drawing of this device, which apparently includes "slow explosive lense", which is absolutely not a thing that would be in the secondary. The explosive lenses in a hydrogen bomb would only be found around the primary, most likely in a spherical shape that creates a series of synchronized explosions to compress a spherical plutonium (or perhaps enriched uranium, but most likely plutonium) "pit" in the center, squeezing it enough to cause it to go supercritical which is what causes the explosion. Then, the heat/radiation caused by this explosion is enough to (in a matter of like microseconds - this is also why the inside of the casing is made specifically to hold together long enough for the reaction to actually happen, because otherwise the explosion would blow everything apart before it reached its full potential yield or whatever) then compress the secondary device, a cylindrical casing (called a tamper) most probably made of un-enriched/depleted uranium (I think? it wouldn't be dangerously radioactive to the touch, which is why Sayid handling the damn thing with only a pair of gloves in the episode is actually probably plenty of precaution) with a rod of plutonium inside it and also some tritium/deuterium (isotopes of hydrogen, which is the "hydrogen" part of the hydrogen bomb) is there.

So basically, the radiation/heat/neutrons of the first explosion of the primary compress/ablate the casing of the secondary, and the neutrons react with the tritium and deuterium from the outside while the neutrons from the fission reaction of the plutonium "spark plug" that's getting compressed inside the secondary react with the tritium and deuterium from the inside, and all of this causes a bunch of fusion reactions, which also release MORE neutrons, which then cause some more fission of the uranium casing that surrounds the whole enchilada, and this is how big big big explosion happen.

All that to say - there aren't any explosives present in the secondary. Taking out the "plutonium core" wouldn't leave you with a detonate-able bomb, it would just leave you with a chunk of plutonium and no way to compress it into supercriticality.

Even so, it does seem like the writers did a non-zero amount of research, because I kind of see what we did here? Basically fudged the primary and secondary together in order to make it so that we can take just a piece of the bomb and still have it be detonate-able. So, we've invented for the convenience of the plot a plutonium core that is surrounded by explosives (in a cylindrical shape, which probably wouldn't really work but the plot demands that it does), which is in essence...just an atomic bomb. Not "in itself a thermonuclear weapon" like Sayid says, but definitely enough to cause a big boom**, which I guess is the goal here. I would presume that the actual cylinder (picture below) itself is meant to be a (depleted) uranium casing, with explosive lenses inside it (that the wires are connected to) encasing the cylinder of plutonium inside.

(an image from the Lost Encyclopedia of the "Jughead Bomb" entry, which includes a close-up of the cylindrical device that Jack drops into the Swan hole in 5x17)

**Incidentally, one of the pages in the first Encyclopedia image above mentions "four kilotons" as the theoretical yield of the plutonium core, which I guess might maybe be accurate if we're just treating this thing like a regular ass atomic bomb at this point? It's clearly a very small amount of plutonium that we're working with - for reference, the "Fat Man" atomic bomb (the Nagasaki one) apparently had 6.19 kg of plutonium in it, which is a little over 13 and a half pounds, and of that only about 1 kg actually fissioned, giving a yield of somewhere between 19-23 kilotons. If we're working with...idk, maybe half a kg of plutonium? A little over a pound? And only 1/6 of it was to actually fission upon detonation, then yeah, that yield could probably get pretty close to 4 kilotons.

Even so even so, the idea of rigging the bomb to detonate on impact would maybe maybe work, but only if there was a way to guarantee that the impact would cause the "explosive lenses" (that we're gonna pretend are there) to explode, in sync. This is something that's ordinarily accomplished by an electrical signal sent simultaneously to all of the outer shell of explosives at once - judging from the wires that are all along the cylinder thing, I would presume that's what we're going with in the episode as well. The notes on the second part of the instructions mention "spring loaded detonation switches" but I don't really know what the fuck that means. My best guess is that it's set up like a Wile E Coyote TNT handle switch thing - mayhaps there's a spring loaded thing at the top of the cylinder (right side of the image above, where the tape is) that completes the circuit either when squeezed down or when un-squeezed (I'm leaning towards that, given the tape?) and that's how it would perhaps be able to explode on impact, if that knocked the thing loose enough to complete the circuit.

In which case, hitting it with a rock on the side of the thing would definitely not do anything.

My way to make it make more sense (perhaps in a future fanfic, who can say) would be if rather than there being any kind of explosives in the device itself, if it's instead the pressure/heat generated by the electromagnetic field of the Swan's "electromagnetic pocket" that somehow compresses the device, to the point that the plutonium inside can reach supercriticality and go boom.

But of course, that's not as dramatic or exciting as hitting it with a rock eight times.

Incidentally incidentally, shooting the thing with a gun would also not make it explode (much in the same way that shooting a gas can with a gun would not cause an explosion), but damaging the wires in any way that would cause a short or anything like that could render it unable to detonate and/or cause an explosion that just sort of spits out plutonium chunks everywhere (dirty bomb), so you still don't really want to bring it into the middle of a gunfight if you can help it JACK

[utilitycaster]

I'm in the mood to rant and between the fix-it-fic post I made and the "you should, perhaps, be familiar with the source material post" I reblogged (and the horrendous comments on said post) and the scathing goodreads reviews I'm going to talk about why so many of these fics are terrible.

Here is the thing. Some writing is bad. Some writing is good. There's room for opinion; there's styles that are grating to some, and there's a reason why someone who loves Nabokov may loathe Hemingway or vice versa; but those two still have coherent styles and the ability to craft a good sentence. It's just a matter of whether the sentence is five words or fifty.

However, writing is more than just pretty words put together in some kind of coherent order. You write to communicate. Even when you are trying to be deliberately oblique it is deliberate. There's intent. There's something you are trying to convey or elicit through being oblique. Even when you write things down for yourself to straighten out your thoughts you're writing them down for an audience, for a purpose.

Conventions exist because of this. There are ways to ensure you convey something to the intended audience, because they've seen the pattern before and understand what it means. There is a reason why we can read Shakespeare's 400-odd year old plays and enjoy them, and it's because the way things unfold, with hints and beats and foreshadowing and dramatic irony, are fairly universal in how people process information and the world around them. Because this is a blog that's largely about D&D and actual play: this is why we "see" death flags and foreshadowing in an improvised medium: we know the conventions so well that we interpret chance and happenstance as fitting within them. We put the intent in even if it wasn't there.

So for fix-it-fics: If the work met the bare minimum of "adequately executed" and was successfully finished without interruption, that intent is woven throughout the story. There's foreshadowing there; there are character choices and themes and consequences. There's a lot of work that was done to lead to that ending, whether or not you liked the ending. The ending is part of the story and the rest leads there. Fix-it-fics are therefore nearly always poorly grafted on to a story that doesn't support the new "fixed" ending. The threads don't match up, the patterns clash, and it looks terrible.

This is most notable in my opinion with tragedies. A lot of people don't like tragedies. I think those people are weak and boring but they're allowed to hold that opinion; the problem is that tragedy is a genre and a good tragedy - one that's good enough to get the people who say they don't like tragedies to watch it - knows it. People die in tragedies and the story says it will happen, it promises it will happen, and subversion of that isn't interesting; it's a disappointment. Subversion and playing with genre are a bit like tightrope walking: if someone has put immense practice into it and knows what they're doing, it looks incredible. Most people don't and they'll be lucky if all they do is fall on their ass.

Now there are works that are poorly executed but had an interesting premise (these often fall into the category of "something external happened and cut the story off or forced an unintended change" - abruptly canceled TV shows, for example) but it takes a decent amount of skill to recognize that and distinguish it from a work that is simply bad through and through, and it takes even more skill to match the good parts of that premise.

Another thing worth noting is that fanfiction specifically is usually character-centric. That's what the tags are about and what people are searching on; that's usually why people want something fixed. The thing is, those characters are part of that weave of the story. If you try to make them go in a different direction, you often lose the character in the process. It is painfully obvious when someone doesn't like a character or doesn't understand how to write them.

I will defend fanfiction to people who get snobby about it in general because I think it's one of the best ways to learn voice and tone in writing, through trying to match an existing character - but you have to actually put in the work to do so. Otherwise it begs the question "why didn't you just write a new story that isn't beholden to all these restrictions?" and usually the answer is "because I want the audience, so I made these vaguely character-shaped OCs", or else "because I wanted my favorite character to do something that they didn't and which tbh probably wouldn't have made sense for them to do." And to be clear: you can do this, because you can write for an audience of you and people who already agree with you. But when other people say the story is sloppy and the writing is bad - not on your specific badly and sloppily written story but just in general - they're probably right.

Again: you can write and read fluffy self-indulgent nonsense. That's fine. No one is stopping you. I have my own comfort reading and it's not Nabokov nor Hemingway, let me tell you. But - and this is important - if you can't tell the difference between "I have an emotional attachment to this" and "this is objectively well-written" you are going to be a terrible writer. To do that, you need to understand the difference between "did the story achieve what it was intending to do" and "did the story do what I wanted it to do." And that in turn requires understanding what the story was intending to do, and plenty of people don't make it that far.

[piease-iove-me]

can u answer all of them????

omg! i wasn't expecting this but happily! thank you!!!

When did you start writing? How?

. mmm i think it was about 2018? around that time i started trying my hand with writing small drabbles for this au on here

2. Has your writing changed over time?

. it has!!! incredibly so! especially lately since i've started writing for the tw fandom. though i still have a long way to go TT

3. Do you read your own fics?

. mmmm depends? i mostly do to see what's going on and if it's making any sense. rarely just for the sake of it

4. Do you write every day? If so, do you have daily goals?

. i have taken a break from writing regularly the past couple months. but before that? especially since i was in this twt fix exchange, i wrote a minimum of 2/3k words per day, 5k on my free days TT i kind of miss those times.

5. Do you plan? Or do you “wing it”?

. winging it gives me incredible amounts of anxiety. so yeah. i totally plan plan plan until i can find no hole anymore. chances are there will be some anyway but at least i can fool myself

6. If you plan, what does your planning process look like?

. mostly i go with an idea, that's often just a scene or short dialogue and then i try see how everyone got to that place. and from there i fill in all the holes that inevitable form. i don't stop planning/start writing until all my own nagging questions are answered. if i end up stuck, i drop the idea :') i'm kind of a perfectionist so... couldn't do otherwise TT

7. How would you describe your writing style?

. oh uh... idk??????

8. Have any comments/tags/responses on a fic of yours ever made you laugh, cry or both?

. mmm laugh yes, quite some, actually. and i'm so thankful for them? funny comments are just such a balm to the soul sometimes

9. Have you ever made yourself laugh with something you’ve written?

. omg yes TT but i can have quite some very dark humor so i'm not gonna expose myself and say what did the trick TT

10. How many unfinished works are in your drafts?

oh good god. i know for sure it must be about 30, afraid to check the actual number though TT and that would be without counting the scribbled away ideas i have collected in my notes (20 last i checked) and docs TT

11. Do you write for yourself, or for the readers?

. thankfully, i started to mostly write for myself. or rather, i write what i want and hope people will like it, but either way i know my story won't be molded by others' likings and wants. so that's a good enough compromise/achievement imo

12. Do you feel pressured to write some days?

. i used to. especially when writing for my previous fandom cause of all the pressure to update. but now? here? not really, it'a all so chill and nice i can take it slow

13. Multichapter fics or one shots?

. admitting most of my works start as one shots, i can't do one shots. once i go past the 20k mark ik i'm screwed. but! sometimes i make them 30k-isk one shots and say fuck it overwhelming lengths :')

14. Do you take requests?

. would love to! but anxiety and low self-esteem don't really work in my favour here

15. Angst or fluff?

. angst! tho i'm never sure how much of what i write actually is angst? let's say it feels more something like hurt/comfort

[pridelessdaydreamer]

PLOTTER / SHIPPER

taken from: nat's linoan!

tagging: flutters my lashes like a funny lil guy :eye::sparkles:

1. CONNECTIONS

write about how our muses could connect with each other! ex. what does your muse like to do that other people would be involved in? do they have interests that other people might share?

Linhardt is a Black Eagle, and one native to Fódlan. Any who decide to study the politics of the continent would easily stumble upon his house, and connections can be drawn from there (accurate or otherwise).

She is a frequenter of the library though, even if she's most often found there late at night. Aside from her chronic reading, she also likes to fish! Not competitively though. She's not that competitive.

If you can't find them in class, the library, or at the Fishing Grounds though, just wander around the monastery a bit—they're probably asleep underneath a tree somewhere. Or in their room asleep, in which case, good luck finding them.

2. PLATONIC

write about your muse and their concept of friendship. ex. how is your muse like with friends? do they make friends easily or do they find it difficult to connect with others?

Friendship for Lin is... interesting, to say the least. They'll regard you much the same as they would any other person, but perhaps with slightly less rudeness/sass (unless you're really close, then it's worse *cough cough* CASPAR *cough cough*). The chance of summoning them with the click of your heels increases by 0.5%, so that's also a neat bonus! Really, the big thing is that they'll consciously worry about you now (when they think it's necessary to worry, otherwise, you're on your own).

The thing is, once you actually manage to pin him down, so long as you aren't asking him to do work all the time, you'd be pretty alright in his book! The threshold for 'friendship' though is rather hard to pin down—one day you're acquaintances and the next you're friends. It's not really easy to draw the line.

I can't say she makes friends easily considering she... doesn't exactly try, to be quite frank (it's part of the reason the previous bullet is so nebulous). She'd be completely content being alone forever (minus that one hamster), and she doesn't really rely on others that much except to do work she'd rather not do! Actively seeking out a friend isn't really something she does. I can't say she struggles either though—there is simply no effort made at all. Alas.

3. ANTAGONISTIC

write about your muse and the conflicts they have with other people. ex: who are they on bad terms with? what kind of people do they not get along well with? how do they act around people they don’t like?

Hubert. Also Ferdinand. Edelgard to an extent. Caspar sometimes (it's a best friends thing) /j. Yeah. Yeah.

To elaborate, anybody who expects her to put in more than the minimum amount of effort gotta be joking fr! It's not that bad if it's a misunderstanding, but if you try to force it? Yikes. (Edelgard ain't that bad fr cuz she knows when to quit! Also when to appeal. She's cool ong)

Admittedly, antagonism for Linhardt is basically the same as their normal behavior, just snarkier. More witty rebuttals and sharp comments—this man can never be anything but blunt! They're already very likely to just walk away from a conversation, but if they don't like you? Ohoho!

Won't lose sleep over it though. That's a bit too much.

4. ROMANTIC

write about your muse and their relationship with romance. ex. are they searching for love or not interested in it in the slightest? what’s their dating history like? how do they act around crushes? how would they treat their partner if they were in a relationship?

Okay 'cause this is hilarious when the muse is aromantic gwahaha!

This is an aroace lil guy—completely disinterested in romance for romance's sake (because someone tell me how he tells how many different girls they're gonna have kids together in his A-supports? Also in basically every instance it's got something to do with crests and studying them. He's a bit insane).

Their dating history is completely blank. There is actually nothing to see here.

Similarly, there are no crushes for her to act different around! This one is fairly normal (<- this post was brought to you by the Aspec Gang)

As for how he'd treat his partner if he was dating—the same way he would act if they were friends? lol? Literally nothing has changed in his mind except that there might be kisses or something. (Is there a book he can read somewhere on this? Probably.)

Oh well she's probably gonna get married off for political purposes anyway. (This post was brought to you by the Noble Clique.)

[meme-loving-stuck]

Why shouldnt I charge you $20+ for each hour of work that commission took for me?

You know what I learned from having a slightly more interactive audience on tumblr? My worth as a skilled, educated artist is WAY FUCKING MORE than I ever imagined.

The amount of times I've had people bitch about my prices, just small shit like buttons/stickers/etc, AND the one time I had someone tag that i "had raised the prices of my commissions when [i] haven't really improved much"... (lol. lmao even) is SO appalling. Even if you're an artist— nay. ESPECIALLY if you're the type of artist to self-hate-dump on your own art!— you all need to learn to respect other artists' TIME and EFFORT. Not even to mention the cost of materials!

Do you know what a middle-management job pays in California? (Where we have very strict labor laws, mind you, and minimum wage is above $15 in many counties.) The cost of insurance, a car, weekly gas? Any idea what the cost of living in California is? How about medical expenses; specialists, orthodontics, and necessary surgeries, chronic pain conditions? Look into it.

No, seriously, look it up. Specialty shops that push sales like Sheikh, Spencers, Icing. Management pay. The minimum hours required. The lack of structured schedules. Then, consider what kind of free time a skilled artist who has to work full-time and only do art on the side actually has for making art for fun. There's not a lot of it! And that's for fun, not for pay.

So, if I can go to my job for 8 hrs straight, do my "easy" retail shit, day in and day out, five days a week and get paid $5+ above minimum wage in my state... and my art requires MORE WORK and EFFORT and MATERIALS than my job— my art is important, it's an extension of myself...

Why shouldnt I charge you $20+ for each hour of work that commission took for me?

Or for each hour it takes to design, print, cut, and laminate (by hand!) each sticker? How long it takes to assemble a piece of jewelry with tiny, finicky tools and precision?

My time is obviously worth that much, if that's what a soul-sucking retail job will pay me to run a store. My current prices don't even touch that above rate btw, and still people have the nerve to complain. Really thinking on it taught me a lesson. If people arent willing to pay my current, fine! I don't have time for a small pile of commissions anyway. Go commission someone else for it, or make it your damn self.

I'm never, ever lowering my prices for doubt of my worth as an artist again. If you see some art you want and can't afford it, shut the fuck up and don't guilt-trip the artist about their rates. It's just insulting.

[lavenoon]

For the writing asks:

💞 💫 🎀 (if you wanna!)

I always wanna! Even though I might pretend I theatrically perish at having to compliment myself gfhdjs it's mostly just for the bit! (The rest is bad awareness of myself so I gotta think hard lmao)

🎀 give yourself a compliment about your own writing

Okay compliment number 2, let's go fghdsj

I really really like my dialogue! It's often the first thing that I have for a scene, because I think in words more than visuals, and then I craft a scene around it to make it all as emotionally devastating as possible! Seems to work well enough, with an eye towards the comments I get hehe <3

💫 what is your favorite kind of comment/feedback?

Answered here, but I can also say that I really just reread comments an insane amount. It's a bit of a shame they're all very scattered - some in tumblr tags, some in asks, some on ao3, some on discord - but that just makes it rewarding no matter where I look! Especially recently with that creative slump I've been rereading my own stuff and the reactions it got to remind myself why it's fun and a good thing, so I'm really really glad the dca fandom is just so generous with feedback! <3

💞 what's the most important part of a story for you? the plot, the characters, the worldbuilding, the technical stuff (grammar etc), the figurative language

Also mentioned a bit already in that other ask, but there's more! These also translate to what turns me away from a story if I don't feel like they were considered to a satisfying degree, because yeah that's. That's what's important to me!

So another point is not exactly worldbuilding, because I do admittedly not worldbuild a lot. But it's about how what is there is treated, and integrated, and if it feels like there's info missing! My willingness to suspend my disbelief is unparalleled, as long as what is given within the fic makes sense. I don't need excessive detail as long as things are consistent, and make sense for the world the characters live in. That's of course a tad subjective, but it really depends on the vibe! In fact, sometimes worldbuilding can be excessive - my favorite urban fantasy series unfortunately has that habit of just. Reiterating the worldbuilding in every new novel, and often in a big chunk to get it back out of the way like a refresher, even if not all of it is currently relevant! (me, every Kate Daniels novel: yes, I know how the were-society works, I know I know I know I have binge read this many times thank you can we please go back to your currently happening conversation with your best friend -) So I tend to not overdo it on the worldbuilding myself - there's the asks I reply to here on tumblr, to give the people curious some idea of what I'm imagining, but within the fic I keep that stuff to a minimum and expect the reader to read things at face value. There's hints there, but they're treated as normal and natural within the fic, because I want the audience to think of it as such within the universe! The elaboration has no room within the writing itself, that's for lore asks!

[chickenparm]

Hi parm, sorry if this is kind of a weird question to ask. Does reblogging ur own posts do anything for the algorithm even if u don’t have any followers? I just started a brand new tumblr and have less than 5 followers so it doesn’t feel like reblogging my own fic would do anything

it's not weird at all! tumblr is unique when it comes to social medias in how it operates and how users connect with one another.

so tumblr doesn't actually have an algorithm, and this is why it's so important to reblog other peoples' works or posts so you can help THEM reach a wider audience.

i reblog my works because i have a good amount of followers and they're all in different time zones, not to mention i'm not the only person they follow. it's just a way to make sure that something i want seen IS seen by the peoples whose dashes i haunt. there's a limit to how much you should do this so you don't flood peoples' dashes.

sometimes i'll self reblog a fic ~12 hours after posting, and then sometime the following day after the first reblog. don't be afraid to reblog your older works, too! not everyone has seen them, especially if they've followed you a significant amount of time after the fact.

typically high activity = more followers if you're looking for that sort of thing. the way tumblr works is that the first time something is posted (OP posting it), it shows up under any tags that are put on it. any reblogs with tags won't show up in the public tag.

for example, if you were write a silco fic, you could tag it the following and it would show up in those tags for others to see when THEY look at that tag.

an example of my tags on a SFW silco fic could be as follows: silco, silco arcane, arcane, silco x reader, f!reader, afab!reader, fanfiction, fanfic etc etc etc (you can go to my master list and look at the tags on any of my fics for an example!)

another use for tags is that someone can navigate your blog more easily. using the archive function on a blog, you can look at the tags they use and look at what they've posted under that tag. if you go to mine, "silco x reader" is what i tag EVERY silco fic with, and if you filter with that it's like a pseudo master list. if you want to know more about me, you can use my "chickenparm deep lore" tag. tags are extremely useful for sorting out a blog that would otherwise be an endless scrolling struggle!

also keep in mind that if you're going to put stuff in what people might call the "main tag" (the silco tag for example) it'll be public and others can and will see it. that means it's common courtesy to keep track of what you've written about and put it somewhere in either the post's tags, or somewhere in the post itself. that way, if someone has a particular tag or type of post content blocked, they can safely curate their online experience with the bare minimum of input on your part. if anyone wants me to go into further detail on this (or on how to block tags/post content) i'd be more than happy to!

anyway thank you for coming to my ted talk.

tldr; be active, tag your posts with relevant, general tags so you reach a wider audience, don't be afraid to self reblog within reason

[confessionsofa-roleplayer]

How does someone set up a roleplay page on Tumblr? I've never roleplayed here and I don't know the typical setup of someone’s page should look

I hope it's ok to answer this instead of making it a confession, but I figure that it's such a broad concept of what involves a blog, this would be a great opportunity for our followers to throw some suggestions your way! There is no real right or wrong way to set up a blog, really. Sure, there's some things that would likely be highly not recommended (such as themes with tiny tiny fonts or colour schemes which both make blogs very inaccessible to anyone without perfect eyesight). But at the end of the day, there is no official 'way' that a blog should look. Most people use custom themes, just because the default ones aren't always the most exciting, but at the same time, there is nothing inherently wrong with them, so if you are not sure about html and coding (at least a small amount will be required to edit a custom theme), then just go with a default theme. Just make sure that your links to any other pages are easy to find too. Some musts would be having a rules page clearly accessible, as well as a page with your muse(s) bio for people to read. They are the two most important parts of a blog, to make sure that people know who your muse is and what your requirements are. People definitely need to know what your limits are, what your triggers might be, what topics you are comfortable writing or the kind of muns/muses you aren't comfortable writing with. And while some people might debate on whether a full bio is required for your muse(s), at the very least, having some basic information would be great. Things like their age/age range, shipping info, occupation etc are the bare minimum but if you can, put some time into at least a small bio to give people an idea of what your muse is like. When putting yourself out there, the main tag that would be useful to check out would be the 'indie rp' tag, as this is where most rpers post their open starters/starter calls etc, so use that to find people to write with. Just be aware that brand new blogs often won't show up in the tags for at least a few days. My final bit of advice would be to ensure that all of your pages/rules/about etc are ready before you start engaging with other writers. I can't speak for everyone, but it can be a little exhausting if someone approaches you and they have no information readily available to read. I'll put this out to our followers now, so please let the anon know if you have any suggestions for getting started with a new rp blog.

Mod Louise

[abronzeagegod]

I posted 9,220 times in 2022

That's 691 more posts than 2021!

19 posts created (0%)

9,201 posts reblogged (100%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@spudking

@niverly

@kittymannequin

@embersandauroras

@kelp-kelp

I tagged 645 of my posts in 2022

#this is a reference tag - 72 posts

#dnd - 64 posts

#bloodborne - 42 posts

#my fiction - 36 posts

#critical role - 32 posts

#leverage - 24 posts

#cr1 - 21 posts

#mass effect - 16 posts

#the mummy - 9 posts

#elden ring - 9 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#a fuck up of a villain could be compelling because you'll never be able ot guess how they'll break everything in their failing and flailing

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

I'm working with a friend of mine to do a podcast. It's if Law and Order was set in the Sword Coast. DnD + True Crime podcast. Crime Fiction + Dungeons and Dragons.

Like how do you get away with murder if there are clerics that can simply cast Speak With Dead. Is it really murder if they can pay for a resurrection?

5 notes - Posted May 24, 2022

#4

There are Supervillains and then there are villains. Any day of the week you'd love to be fighting a Supervillain. The flair, the drama, the setpieces were always so much better. Villains are just petty and terrible and in it for the money or the carnage or both.

You don't know how you got into this position, exactly, but this trio of villains had already done some truly heinous acts and then they tried to rob a bank, and not just stealing the money on hand, they wanted to loot safety deposit boxes where people kept personal valuables and documents, not large amounts of cash.

But here you are, sitting in some concrete rubble, head ringing. You've definitely broke some bones, and you're pretty sure that you have a lot less blood than when you started.

You feel like you should feel worse about being killed by these... thieves... but they already killed Justin so you'll be in good company. This villain advances on you with weapons drawn, teeth bared, and blood in their eyes.

If only this didn't feel so inevitable.

The spear that pinned the villain's arm to the wall was a surprise. Someone else approached you, but you couldn't recognize them before you blacked out.

When you wake up an amount of time later that is truly hard to judge, you're in a bed. Which is the second surprising thing, the first was that you woke up at all.

You're all bandaged up, you have some kind of cast over both of your legs and one arm. You feel good all things considered and only a moderate amount of pain.

"I put you on some serious painkillers. My own personal brand that does a very good job, keeps that floating feeling to a minimum, and isn't an opiate that is going to get you addicted and stuck in a spiral of human misery caused by corporate greed and intolerance," says a voice from somewhere beyond your periphery.

The gears started to click in your mind, but they weren't clicking fast enough.

"No hospital?" you manage to croak.

"The medical community is more interested in making profits than saving lives, and you're not the type to have insurance since they want too many invasive medical tests so I brought you to my inner sanctum, my keep and castle." You recognize the voice, and the speech patterns. There's something familiar about their almost rants and half-manifesto. "Sorry about the mask. But I couldn't preserve your anonymity on account of the grievous head injury."

You try to reach up to touch your face, your maskless face, and try to determine how bad it is, since you are covered in bandages. The pain immediately shoots along your nerves and settles into your brain right behind your eyes.

"I'd avoid moving as much as possible, if I were you," they say.

When your vision returns you find that they had stepped into your field of view.

They were an attractive person. Their dark hair looked like it was entirely too poofed and went all over the place, possibly in a "been under a hat or hood for too long" kind of way.

You know them.

"Doctor Terror," you mutter.

"All is fair and all that, couldn't let you be at all the disadvantages," they explain. "Besides I could only bring you to my home so wandering around in my tights would be something that I simply could not stand. So, we're all on equal footing."

"Why?"

"Well I couldn't let you die to those," they trail off trying to think of a succinctness way of phrasing it, "troglodytes. And I wasn't about to let my favorite hero die. So I did what any self-respecting supervillain would do when their things are being broken."

You try to respond but there was one of those terrible, white, shooting pains that cause it come out as a groan.

"Look, I promise you're not going to die or come to harm. I worked very hard to keep you alive, and that doesn't stop with eviscerating a few start up robbers. I will keep you alive here, safe, until you recover enough to attend to yourself. Then you can leave so we may do glorious battle sometime later."

You try to groan out a rejection, a denunciation, or something, but then you realize that you definitely broke several ribs.

"Rest. I'll be here when you wake."

"Why?"

The answer echoes in your dreams and in your final waking moments, "You're my hero. You're not allowed to die. We can't play if you're dead."

11 notes - Posted November 30, 2022

#3

A very long podcast episode I wrote. DnD + Crime Fiction Procedural = Law and Order: Sword Coast. It's pretty good, but it's also a part 2 so make sure you listen to part 1 first.

13 notes - Posted October 20, 2022

#2

I'm bad at making collages as you can see, but here are some A+++ super high quality faces from @artbytesslyn 's webtoon Facing the Sun which is very good and you should go read it.

33 notes - Posted October 10, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Facing the Sun is very good and you should read it

I'm putting off doing the writing I should be doing by doing something I haven't done in a long time, literary analysis. For Facing the Sun a very good the-apocalypse-is-happening-right-now story about a girl and her robot.

There will be spoilers, there will be pictures! Ye be warned!

First let's talk about genre because I'm not entirely convinced that @artbytesslyn isn't secretly writing some cosmic horror in this romance/drama. There are four main characters (I'd say five but we'll get to that) and they are almost all in different genres. Maryann and Grace, the moms, are in a family drama/sci-fi story as they navigate their difficult relationship and the relationship with their children while trying to do their best to save the world mid-apocalypse. Aarya is navigating a romance/drama with her love of the prototype L-001 (Liza) and all the drama and problems with that comes with it, and the different conflicting motivations of Maryann and Grace, along with her own trauma and guilt. Liza the poor android just obtaining sentience and learning what means to be alive is living in a romance/cosmic horror.

See the full post

54 notes - Posted October 10, 2022

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