#deadlines

[todays-xkcd]

If you're really savvy, you can hide an entire set of illicit transactions by timing them to draw what looks like a graph inset.

Tick Marks [Explained]

Transcript

[A graph with two axes is shown. Each axis has tick marks with every fourth mark a bit longer than those in between. The Y-axis is labeled with text rotated 90 degrees clockwise. There is no label on the X-axis. The graph is a jagged curve with three clear peaks; the area beneath the curve is shaded in light gray. After the third and highest peak the curve drops to zero. At the point of decline, a dotted line goes up to a label above the last peak. To the right of this dotted line, the X-axis and the ticks on it are clearly thicker than the axis and the ticks to the left.] Y-axis: Activity Label: Deadline

[Caption beneath the panel:] If you need to conceal activity, try timing it to hide behind the tick marks on the graph axis.

[pratchettquotes]

"Mister Lipwig, the world lives between those who say it cannot be done and those who say that it can. And in my experience, those who say that it can be done are usually telling the truth. It's just a matter of thinking creatively. Some people say 'Think the unthinkable,' but that's nonsense--although in your case, sir, I think you have the nerves for it. Now, don't let me detain you."

Terry Pratchett, Raising Steam

[legendarycollectiveflower]

I don't actually work better under pressure.

I lied.

It's just that I only work if there's pressure.

[human-encounters-diary]

Day 15

We are set to arrive on Fendaar in two cycles. As we are currently stuck on the SIIR Noxos, I have concluded that the passages of time that I am free of duties would be best spent continuing to observe the human. The human, on the other hand, seemed to have different plans in that matter, as it took me an unusually long amount of time to locate her.

As I eventually found her, she seemed to be working on one of the control panels in the main control room, so I may excuse her absence with duties she had to attend to. As she saw me, although, she seemed rather…excited (this is obviously mere speculation, as the study of the Terran so far has provided far too little evidence to prove such theories)?

As she rolled out from under the control board and sighted me, her face once again split into a wide opening revealing her horrifying amount of teeth.

"Hey! Dude!", she said, raising to her full height and stepping towards me, still baring her teeth, although I did not recoil, as I did not want to seem impolite. She raised her arms, each pointing into a different direction, away from their connection to the human's body.

"Human Quinn. How are you?"

"Me? I‘m fine, the whole 'wandering around in space' thing just made me throw up, I honestly don‘t know why they insisted on keeping me there for two whole days."

The ends of her fingers, studded with claw-like (rather short and rounded instead of sharp, perhaps they were not meant to function as claws at all, or perhaps the beings on Terra were far different from what I knew, and therefore a shape like this was far more useful to hunt) protuberances, scraped over the back of the connection between her head and her upper body. If I interpreted her facial expression correctly, she seemed to be thinking.

"Maybe I got a light concussion too, I’m not entirely sure. But it's improbable, because I’m fine now."

I decided to focus on one piece of information at a time. "Well, this "throwing up" can certainly not be a healthy nor normal process, otherwise, it would not seem so violently painful and involuntary, would it?"

"Well it‘s not…unnatural, it‘s just something that can happen. And about health, it‘s not unhealthy, it usually helps us to get rid of stuff that is bad for our bodies!", she eludicated, moving one of her arms in a rather random manner.

"The scientists have concluded that this fluid is highly acidic. If this 'stuff' is so harmful to you, wouldn‘t it just dissolve in this fluid before being able to cause any further harm?"

Quinn seemed to think about that. 

"Well, just because it gets dissolved, doesn‘t mean it‘s gone, you know? It's still in our bodies, and we have to get rid of it somehow. And if it needs to be fast, we throw up. Honestly, I‘d definitely explain this further to you, but Biology‘s never really been my strongest subject, ya know what I mean?"

I did not, in fact, know what she meant, but I decided against questioning her further.

After a pause the Terran spoke up again: "So, this planet we're landing on..." "Fendaar.", I clarified. "Right. So, this planet that we‘re going to, it‘s a desert, right?" "That is correct." "So, is it a sand, an ice or, I guess you could also count rock desert? 'Cuz on my planet, we‘ve got all of those types."

"Fendaar‘s ecosystem is mostly made up out of sandlike landscapes with rather scarce vegetation and biodiversity. Most of the planets in system 36-54 have rather extreme temperature ranges, and Fendaar is no exception.", I eludicated.

"Alright, cool.", she spoke, rolling back under the underside of the control panel she had been working on previously. She seemed to be sitting, or rather lying, on a piece of metal with four small wheels attached to it, allowing her to move it around.

"Your planet.", I initiated. 

"Yeah?", she responded, while continuing her work on the wiring.

"Am I assuming correctly that your planet has a far bigger biodiversity?"

"Oh, yeah.", there was a small spring in her voice, as if she had let out air in the middle of speaking. "Big biodiversity. We‘ve got deserts and rainforests, coral reefs and permafrost - although perhaps not for that long anymore - mountain ranges and all that stuff."

"Interesting.", I supplied, for lack of a better response. If Terra had such differences in temperature and landscapes, it was a logical conclusion that the humans had evolved to survive under such circumstances.

"Yeah."

It was unusually quiet for some time. That was, until Quinn rolled out from the underside of the control panels.

"Alright, I‘m done." She took a deep breath before opening her mouth once again. Then, all of a sudden, the muscles of her face started contracting as if she was plagued by an invisible pain. Her eyes squeezed shut and she let out horrifying noise, holding an arm angled in front of her nose and mouth. The noise itself was not particularly loud or long, but I recoiled either way, as a measure of safety. I could not be certain if this gesture was meant to harm me, after all.

Quinn‘s arm sank down again as her other hand rubbed at her nose. She huffed, a sound far less threatening than the one she had produced a moment ago. One of the hair patches above her visual organs raised itself, prompting the question to arise if human hair was controlled by muscles or if it had a mind of its own, although this was a question that could be further investigated later. One of the corners of her mouth raised, revealing the seemingly sharpest teeth in her mouth.

"I guess dust is an inter-galactic thing, huh?"

I did not respond. Her face muscles contracted, causing the skin above her visual organs to crease.

"Hey, you okay? You‘re looking a little spooked over there."

"Human, I do not wish to cause you discomfort, but, if I may ask, what was the purpose of the noise you just uttered?"

She did not respond for a moment, blinking with both of her eyes as she stared at me. It was quite unsettling, considering her previous explanation, that most humans preferred not being stared at. 

"I…sneezed?" The creases in the skin above her eyes deepened.

My front pliers uttered another rattling sound. "What is this 'sneezing'? What purpose does it serve?" I admit, I was quite curious. Terrans seemed much more complex than I had previously assumed.

She paused, seemingly to think of an answer. "Well, it‘s like…if something is bothering us at or in out nose, like dust, for example, it‘s kind of the natural response to that. To keep things out of our bodies that don‘t belong there."

"Human bodies seem to require a lot of defense mechanisms.", I commented.

She raised and lowered the connection of her arms to her upper body, baring her teeth once again while raising herself to her full height, using one of her arms as support.

"Y’know, it’s surprisingly hard to explain something you’re so used to to someone who’s never heard of it. I guess I still have to work on the whole 'awareness that I‘m around aliens' thing. S‘ kind of surreal."

She patted off her clothing, as if to remove non-existent filth once again. I had noticed the past few cycles that most of her clothing seemed to consist of several, usually differently-coloured, pieces of fabric. 

Her clothes usually covered her body from the connection between her arms and torso to the connection between her legs and, presumably, her feet. Her feet were usually also covered, although I could not determine the purpose it was supposed to serve in the environment we are currently in, although the theory that the conditions on Earth are vastly different compared to the ones on the SIIR Noxos is gaining more probability, based on the Terran's narrations.

The human seemed to evaluate a question she wanted to ask (this is, of course, a mere speculation based on previous observations: her face muscles were contracted to form a crease over her visual organs, which could so far most likely be interpreted as confusion, thoughtfulness or discomfort; her head was both slightly raised and tilted to one side at the same time, a gesture that was most likely supposed to convey an ongoing thought process).

Although, before she could utter a noise, V-7 informed us of a request from the Vitrichl to gather for a matter of importance.

The purpose of his summoning was to divide the crew into several smaller groups that were to be assigned with different tasks to fulfill once we sucessfully landed on Fendaar.

I was grouped with the Terran, which was unsurprising, as well as Tkzt, a member of the species that is widely known across the galaxies as Ctzas (it is to note that the Ctzas have not evolved any form of written language and communicate exclusively through clicking and chittering sounds. The written forms of, for example, names of this species, are written by other species to produce approximately the same sound as the Ctzas make when recited verbally).

Tkzt, as a member of the unit controlling supply chains and keeping a list of the stock of the SIIR Noxos, would make a helpful addition in our task of seeking out the nearest settlement in order to stock up on supplies.

After all matters of importance were settled, the crew dissipated, continuing their respective tasks. The Terran was ordered to stay and to assist the Vitrichl in another matter, which is the reason I did not cross paths with the human again for the rest of this cycle.

Despite this, I am positive that accompanying the human on an foreign planet will give me a further insight into the species' mannerisms and interaction manners with foreign species, which will prove to be helpful further on in studying the human.

[midnightmoviereviews]

Me, having just run more hot water, whilst my phone alarm blares with all the deadlines I have today.

"So good."

[goblincow]

GREEN MILK | #003 | crawling over the finish line & burn out & disability & the root of writerly malaise

All Patreon newsletters are free and readable for everyone, I'm using it as a newsletter platform with scope for allowing people to see (and maybe even support???) future RPG work from me.

I was really cooking with this one. I've been stewing on this for a while and today was the lucky day I was finally compelled to write it.

If you want to know what it's like to try and get any work done as a person with unmedicated ADHD and autism, and why my TTRPG adventure The Perilous Pear & Plum Pies of Pudwick has been four years in the making, you should give this a read.

It's pretty candid, but what else should I do, pretend to be someone I'm not? Fuck that, this shit is hard as hell and my work is worth the effort.

It's a long read but a good one. It has good advice on thinking the relationship between self-worth and productivity (hint: you are not the problem), especially if you've got similar brain soup and circumstances to me.

Also if you want to sponsor a trial of ADHD meds for me you can like, consider assassinating and/or otherwise generally terrorising the government and corporate officials hellbent on destroying the National Health Service, I guess. Or I suppose you could just vote for the other team, who are also very vocally all in on genocide and the systematic destruction of the NHS? That would surely be as effective!

Until next time, drink it while it's green!

[deebrisbyfish]

Always love any excuse to muck with color for the generally black and white strip, and since I absolutely DO dream in color, it seemed a fun way to visually distinguish the "dream" panels here. 

[imolyhollowcold]

Am I obsessed? Yes.

Am I writer? Definitely not the good one but yes.

Do I have ideas for the event? No.

[glassofb33r]

Inktober - RUSH

[dirtytimeslut]

Memento mori, my friends

[cksecretsanta23]

ck secret santa '23 schedule

nov 17 - 24  sign ups!

nov 25 matches / assignments sent out (through tumblr DMs in the first instance - so make sure you have them on so we can contact you)

dec 14 quick check-in to see how you're doing

dec 14-15  pinch hitters contacted (if necessary)

anytime between dec 25 - jan 15 gifts posted & secret santas revealed! (make sure you tag with #cksecretsanta23 and/or @cksecretsanta23 so we can find and repost your gift to this blog)

[catfirebrand]

Been holed up on desperate deadline, but I’m almost done, and I just needed to share this piece because I’m so pleased how Fenrir turned out

[mbrainspaz]

hmmm I wonder when my next deadline is.

I should check when it is.

Oh, this is a good time to check—looks like it’s… FOUR DAYS FROM NOW?!

whew.

Still got 2 or 3 days to waste.

Good thing I checked!

[coffeenuts]

[thenarniaficexchange]

NFE Sign ups!

We’ve extended the sign-ups until this Friday, June 14th. They will close around midnight.  You can sign up here on AO3:

https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Narnia_Fic_Exchange_2023/signups/new

Extending sign-ups pushed some other dates back. See the full schedule here at the DW comm:

https://narniaexchange.dreamwidth.org/153854.html

Please let us know if you have any questions!

[deebrisbyfish]

Me and burnout are old bedfellows, so to speak, but I never seem to see it coming. lol