#but in a very satellite / outsider kind of way

[not-poignant]

You have a very broad readership; do you still, like most ao3 writers, use writing as a way to make friends? If so, how do you manage both to make connections and keep from uncomfortable parasocial engagements?

(admitting: I like your work a lot, I have a similar interest in writing trauma and recovery, I would like to befriend you, but I don't want to bother you bc lots of people want to be friend with writers they like and there's no way you'd have energy for all of them!)

Hi hi anon,

So...this response might be disappointing, but I didn't use fanfiction writing as a way of making friends. That's not why I started, and it's never been the reason for me to be in fandom.

(Thoughts about friendship and stuff under the read more, it's pretty personal so no obligation to read. The TL;DR is I am bad at friendship and I also am not like 'most AO3 writers' (is that really why most AO3 writers write?) in the sense that I never wrote fanfiction as a way to make friends and it's very weird to me sometimes that people actually do this as a motive).

When I turned up in fandom, it was a very private experience for me. I didn't know anyone else locally who shared the same fandom/s I do. When I shared fanfiction on Livejournal, I did so to complete strangers who I never got to know better, or to people who were already friends through other interests.

I've never gone to fandom conventions (there's few here, and I have severe social anxiety. By the time I thought about going I was in my late 30s, and just felt like I'd be too much of an outsider even among fellow outsiders - again, I shared almost no fandoms or ships with anyone I knew locally, and no one I'm friends with / know in person reads my fanfiction). Fandom was always an incredibly isolated experience for me.

When I joined AO3, it wasn't with a view to making friends. I was extremely burnt out, I'd quit my previous job as a professional artist because I couldn't see a way of making the income work out, and I just wanted to write a very angst-filled story that would help me deal with my loneliness which I didn't see as something that would ever change. Writing about a character who's experienced centuries of loneliness was like 'cool, yeah, I'm gonna write about him.'

I did end up making friends, but it was kind of by accident! And not all of those experiences were positive. One person in particular became quite toxic and cruel towards me, and I experienced my first kind of encounter with...I guess what I would call the uglier side of fandom life and also just friendship and relationships. It took me a long time to recover from that experience (and to learn what emotional abuse is), and after that I shut down and stopped kind of making friends on the internet.

I have made friends through the writing since (they're usually the mutuals I also have on Instagram, or here, or people I've DMed in Discord etc.), but I haven't really sought it out actively and I think anyone who knows me well enough that we've private messaged a few times, also knows that I'm quite aloof and reserved, and that I will engage quite deeply sometimes but then disappear for a few months (or years) re: communication, which is a remnant of a period of time where I used to get sometimes 200 Whatsapp messages in 5 minutes from someone who expected me to be accountable to her every second of every day when she was awake and wanted me to be.

On top of like, severe social anxiety + PTSD, and being very reserved in general, I would also say I'm very time poor. I don't have much time for the friends I already have and care about. I often view myself as quite a poor friend, who is not good at starting and even worse at maintaining connections. I'm also very private. As in, I will happily tell the world I have PTSD. But I won't tell my friends in a private conversation when I'm having a bad night, and I don't give friends many opportunities to connect. Even with really close friends, this is an ongoing issue that I'm working on.

So as for befriending, that's extremely sweet of you anon, but who I am in my personal life is sometimes very different to like... the way I can respond in comments or to anons, because it's actually easier for me to talk to strangers sometimes than it is for me to talk to friends, lol. I honestly think some of the people I consider my friends don't even know that I do, because I don't really behave like one. I chat online regularly to one person only, and one other person intermittently (and they're a romantic partner) and that's it. Everyone else I chat to pretty rarely in DM. But I do turn up in the Fae Tales Discord every day.

I don't actually think lots of people want to be my friend, tbh? Not in a 'woe is me' way, but simply because I think some people do grok that kind of... polite distance or that sort of warm 'I care for a lot of people but I am also quite personally walled off' kind of way. The good news is a lot of the folks in the Fae Tales Discord also share a lot of interest in writing trauma and recovery, or have those experiences, and I know a lot of good friends have been made within the like...faedom itself. A lot of neurodivergent, trauma-focused folks have met each other through this writing, and it's really cool seeing the different friendships that have sparked up between people. There's a lot of extremely like... skilled, talented, interesting people that I've met through this job, who I admire, respect and want the best for, and am very happy to talk to.

But yeah I'm a bit difficult to befriend, anon, and that's been an ongoing thing all my life, tbh. But it did specifically get worse in fandom because of some early fandom experiences when I started out in Rise of the Guardians fanfiction.

#asks and answers #personal #pia on fanfiction #tbh the idea of writing to make friends #is very strange and even a bit offputting to me #not that other people do it like i'm happy for them if they do #but it's just so far apart from why i started #i like making connections with my writing don't get me wrong #and i love meeting different people #but fandom was never a very social experience for me #to this day i hate discussing fandom headcanons with other people #and i don't like a lot of fandom meta #i always feel like i'm in fandom #and that i contribute to fandom #but in a very satellite / outsider kind of way #that's why i find it so easy to bounce from fandom to fandom once i'm done with a fic #i'm not saying i don't make friends with people in fandom ever #i'm saying i don't really make friends *in general* #and when i do those people often have no idea they are a friend because i'm not #very connected on a regular basis

[therandomartmaker]

[Image ID: An artwork featuring Danny Phantom, full green excluding his hair and white accents, transparent, sitting on a pile of rubble head tilted slightly upwards with his eyes closed. His hair is wispy, he’s got pointed ears and he’s much more identifiable as a ghost. The rubble includes the F of the Fenton Works sign, a satellite dish of some kind, pipes and concrete. The rubble, and Danny, is surrounded by yellow-black striped caution tape. Above Danny’s head is a conversation, in white, “It’s been ten years,” has been written, and in green, “It’s only been 10 years,” is written. /End ID]

Day 31: “It had been a decade since anyone last lived at Fenton Works. Or so people thought.”

tbh this took like. Less than half an hour to make haha. I may have forgotten to do this yesterday lmaooo. To make up for it, here’s a continuation of this prompt by @cryinginthevoid that i filled, wherein Danny has been stuck haunting the rubble of a ruined Fenton Works after his permanent death, only to later be approached by a very much alive Damian, who is the first person to See Danny in over 10 years. So yep, bonus challenge post 2 under the read more :D

Damian had visited. He’d promised and he’d followed through on it, Danny sitting still and watching as Damian approached, day after day, even after Danny had no more words to say, no more information to give. To quote, he was “a tolerable friend despite your intolerance for proper respect.” Danny had no idea if that was a good or bad thing, if he were to be honest.

But still! It’d been 10 years since he’d to spoken to someone, something other than the air. Damian said his brothers wouldn’t follow him, despite saying he’d bring them to meet Danny during one their tentative hangouts, and Danny supposed that was a good thing. He didn’t want Damian to sound crazy or look crazy for talking to thin air, especially not by his family.

Though, what was interesting was the weird amount of black-haired blue-eyed outsiders hanging around town. The FentonWorks rubble had a pretty good view of most of town, despite it’s slow erosion into dust, so Danny was able to see the several strangers in town whenever he went looking.

Damian said his family was looking into ectoplasm due to it’s relation with the dead, and trying to find if anyone around town knew how to access their information databases. They needed to know if there was a way to relieve “Jason’s” burden of the “Lazarus Rage,” and prepare in the case someone else in the family acquires it. And that ‘Lazarus Pits’ are classified information, but who did Danny have to share it to, no one could talk to him except Damian, anyway.

And truthfully, those Lazarus Pits Damian mentioned sounded like pools of ectoplasm that Maddie and Jack would’ve killed for. Danny could only suggest looking into ‘ecto-acne’ treatments, as from one of the stories of Vlad Masters Danny’d heard, it sounded like the short-term effects of ectoplasm exposure.

—

Damian didn’t know why he was sharing so much confidential with Daniel, but he didn’t seem to mind, and didn’t seem to talk to anyone else. He figured it’d be fine. Daniel needed to know as much context as possible in order to help Damian.

Daniel was strange, he spoke in large amounts, but quieted as though he doesn’t expect someone would respond to him. He rarely moved, and there was something unnatural about him. Perhaps the lack of a rise and fall of his chest, or the way his eyes shined.

Damian couldn’t help but make comparisons to the dead he’d seen. Lightless glossy eyes, pale skin, sallow flesh. Daniel was built like a dying or dead person.

Damian… worried. He’d grown close to the other boy, Daniel’s snark to Damian’s sharp tongue and his acceptance of Damian’s veganism, multiple other factors about Damian never drove Daniel away from him. It was nice, being accepted by someone outside of his family. Daniel’s health was concerning, malnutritioned and Daniel’s reaction time was slow. Multiple things were off-kilter about him, and Damian wanted to know why. So he could help.

Because Danny was his friend.

—

Dick observed Damian. He’d taken to pacing the length of the hotel room, and he seemed worried about his new friend (!!! Dami has a friend!!!! And he’s worried about him!!!), muttering about bringing food to the next time he visited. Dick kinda felt bad about what he was about to tell Dami.

“Richard, why are you looking at me?” Dami asked, stopping his pacing to look up at Dick, a soft half-hearted glare on his face.

“Uh well, Tim…” (fuck! He wasn’t supposed to mention Tim!)

“What did Drake do?”

“Tim told me to tell you that we’d gotten enough information and that we were leaving in two days, just in case something new crops up!” Dick rushed, knowing that Dami would loathe the information, but despise Dick more for not telling him.

Dami needed to say goodbye to his new friend, after all, but from what Dick could tell, they couldn’t even have long-distance communication, because “Daniel Who Liked Being Called Danny” didn’t even have a phone!

Dami’s click of his tongue was expected, and his expression had worsened too. Dick had messed up, but he didn’t think there was anyway to break it gently that Damian would have to leave his newfound friend.

The boy stormed off, leaving the room with a door slam. Dick felt bad, man. Well… Dick did have a spare phone he was free to gibe to someone… Perhaps Danny would like it?

#randomartmaker writing #randomartmaker art #digital art #dpxdc #dcxdp #danny phantom #short story #small story #dick grayson #richard grayson #damian wayne #damian al ghul #ectober 2023 #ectoberweek2023

[bloodyshadow1]

stuff I loved about the percy Jackson show already

the cast is perfect, they're the right ages and they're the right amount of snarky asshole for the main characters.

I kind of like that there's friction between Percy and Grover. it gets glossed over in the books, but yeah, Grover befriends Percy because it's his job to find half-bloods, it doesn't mean he doesn't view Percy as a friend, but I could get Percy being hurt that he thinks that's all their friendship was, that his first friend was only there as a job. It will give their relationship tension and room to grow. I also like how it establishes that Grover does care about Percy, even if Percy doesn't get it, and that at the end of the day he will choose Percy over Olympus even if he has too.

Speaking of Grover, I like that we see scenes with him outside of Percy. Obviously the books are told from Percy's POV, I love that, it gives the books a stylized personal feel getting things filtered from him. But It also has weaknesses like there can't be a scene without him and everything this filtered from his pov. It can work as a book, but it's different when it's a show. Yes, Percy is still the main character, but Grover and Annabeth are important too as main characters as well

I really liked how Luke was the person to show Percy around camp, while I'm not thrilled about Annabeth's screen time being trimmed, she will play a bigger role later in the season. until the end the camp scenes are the only ones with Luke so it makes sense. It makes Luke feel more like a character for the early stuff, he was Percy's first mentor in the books too, but here he feels more like a big brother figure and genuinely kind. Especially since Percy hasn't met Annabeth yet much less been her friend and he's currently angry at Grover, it gives him someone to be close to, someone who he views as a friend. It helps establish Luke's character and also helps make the inevitable knife to the back hurt even more

In addition to Luke playing a bigger role, I like that Chris was included in this first episode, I assume he was Chris at least I missed if he was introduced, since he seems to be Luke's best friend in the show. He is mentioned in Book to, named dropped by Annabeth I believe, and he shows up in book 4 to stay in book 5, but he's a very satellite character. Only really existing to show that half-bloods are joining Luke, then the dangers of the Labyrinth, and then as Clarisse's boyfriend. introducing him as a secondary brother figure/one of the few friends that Percy has makes him joining Luke in the second book/season more the tragic that he's more than just a name on a page. It will also be that much better when he comes back to their side again

Honestly, the whole world just feels lived in despite being an urban fantasy series.

I'm so happy they kept how the minotaur scene ended. I don't care for the design that much, but I was worried when Percy pulled out Riptide that it would be different from the books. But they kept him breaking the horn and killing the minotaur that way and I'm happy.

#percy jackson #percy jackon and the olympians #pjo #percy jackson series #percy jackson spoilers #pjo spoilers #percy jackson and the olympians spoilers

[writingquestionsanswered]

I’ve been reading some craft books and online posts about the world building because my story is an urban fantasy set in present day US, in a fictional town, and theres not a secondary world where the fantasy happens, it’s all in the real world, except the magic is a secret that only certain people know about, but all of the resources I find about world building only talk about fantastical worlds that exist by themselves and not the kind of more subtle world building that I’d have to do. Do you have any tips?

Guide: Creating a Fictional Town in the Real World

Step 1 - Choose Your Location - There are two ways to go about choosing a location for your fictional town. One is to go the "Springfield U.S.A." route, ala The Simpsons, and be vague about the specific location (borough, parish, district, county, region, state, or province) and instead give a broader geographic region... "the East Coast," "the Pacific Northwest," "Central Canada," Northern Scotland," etc. The other option is to go ahead and put your fictional town in a specific location. Just figure out where (for example, somewhere outside of Des Moines, Iowa) and go to Google Maps, click on satellite view, then start zooming in on big empty areas. Choose a place big enough to fit a town. Yes, in reality it's probably farm fields, pasture, or someone's property, but that doesn't matter. You don't have to actually show it on a map. It's just a plausible spot to build your town. Now you can measure how far it is to other places, you know what highways to take to get to it. You can even do street view to get the lay of the land, see what the landscape looks like and try to envision the buildings there. You can also use what's there to create parks, popular recreational areas, and anything else your town needs.

Step 2 - Choose Your Inspiration - Even when you're creating a fictional town, it's still a good idea to use a real town (or two, or three) from that general area as inspiration for your town. For a fictional town in Des Moines, I would zoom in on the map to find a nearby town of similar size... like Elkhart, then I can take a look around to see what it's like. Just looking at the map, I can see they have a couple of churches, a couple baseball fields, a very small main street/downtown area with a couple shops and restaurants, a post office, a few different neighborhoods, and a cemetery. This would be a great model for a small fictional town outside of Des Moines. And, as I said, you could look at a couple other sand combine them. Once you have your inspiration town/s, you can walk around on Google Maps street view, go to the town's web site, watch a tour on YouTube (if one exists), or look up pictures in Google Image search.

Step 3 - Start Planning - This is the really fun part! First, you might want to draw a basic map of your fictional town using your inspiration town/s as a guide. This doesn't have to be a pretty map... just a basic line drawing to help you envision where everything is. Think about some of the basic things this town might have, like the ones I listed in step two, and any other things you might want your town to have, like maybe a library, a hospital, a city hall, school, and maybe a movie theater. It might even be helpful and fun to put together a collage of pictures to represent your town so you've got something in mind as you write about it. You can even choose representatives for specific locations in your story, like your MC's house, school, and their favorite hangout.

Step 4 - Naming Your Town - Start by looking at the kinds of town names that surround your town. Look for common naming conventions... suffixes like -ton, -ville, -dale, -burg, -wood, -field, etc. Words in a particular language, like a lot of French-inspired town names, or towns with geographical terms (lake, hill, valley, river, canyon, gap, etc.) My guide to Naming Locations has additional tips.

Step 5 - Populate Your Town and Give it a History - Last but not least, make up a little history for your town, again, using surrounding towns as inspiration. Who founded it? When was it founded? What's the town's main industry? What are the people like in this town? What jobs do they have? What do they do for fun?

Here are some other posts that might help:

Five Things to Help You Describe Fictional Locations Setting Your Story in an Unfamiliar Place WQA’s Guide to Internet Research Happy writing!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

#wqaadvice

[felixstudios]

Headcannons for the playground Managers on a rainy day?

Random Corporate Clash Headcanons, Playground Managers on a Rainy Day Edition

Prethinker

🧠He doesn't even know it's raining

🧠Stays in the basement playing video games all day and scrolling Reddit

🧠Bro hasn't gone outside in years probably

Derrick Man

🛢️Scoffs about the weather and clearly hates it

🛢️In a sour mood the whole day

🛢️Spends as much time indoors as possible and wears a very good raincoat and/or uses an umbrella outisde

Rainmaker

⛈️She started the rain {probably}

⛈️Will feel bad about it at first, but after a while she gives up with controlling it and just jumps in the puddles

⛈️Spends most of the day outside

⛈️Clearly likes the rain

Land Acquisition Architect

🚦He likes the rain in the sense that plants are watered {saves water bill on the land he needs to look all nice} and ground becomes soft and easy to break

🚦Takes advantage of the cooler weather to get TONS of work done outside, too

🚦Overall has a super productive day. He doesn't care much for how rain actually feels, but he LOOOOOOVES what it means for his wallet

Witch Hunter

🔱He's PISSED. OFF.

🔱He'll find somewhere indoors or try to find some way to shelter himself from the rain so he can keep using his fire powers

🔱A lot of his stuff probably gets ruined with water damage

Public Relations Representative

🧱Rain? Oh, I re-re-remember rain- I- rain!

🧱Toon-Toons, would you be-be-be kind- would- outside to-to- en-en-enough to let m-me outside to see-see it?

🧱N-no? But it's been-been-been-been-

🧱ERROR

Multislacker

🥪Feels extra lazy

🥪Will probably fall asleep a LOT during the day since the sound of rain is very comforting to him

🥪Makes someone carry an umbrella for him wherever he goes because he's too lazy to hold it himself

Major Player

🎹His performance of the day will probably be a little quieter and softer. I mean, not by much since that's not exactly his style, but he'll try!

🎹Lots of rain protection if he goes outside because he doesn't wanna rust. Gotta stay looking young!

🎹Tries his best to stay indoors all day. He REALLY doesn't wanna rust his 'pretty face' or whatever

Plutocrat

🌑Rain? Nah, that doesn't happen here. It's hail.

🌑He loves the weather. Absolutely thrives in it. Productivity at Mozzarella Styx Pizzeria increases by 10% that day

🌑 Satellite Investors are prone to wandering around on the streets, ESPECIALLY if the weather gets harsher. They also thrive in the weather

Chainsaw Consultant

🪚Finds the sounds of rain relaxing

🪚Productivity increases by 23% today. The Chairman is now looking into creating a rain simulation of some kind around his office

🪚Is especially quiet because he's listening to the rain

Pacesetter

👟He CLAIMS not to care about "a little rain," but it's pretty obvious he hates it

👟SUPPOSEDLY doesn't care about it messing up his hair since he "still looks good no matter what," but when he gets to work he spends an hour fixing it in a mirror

👟ALLEGEDLY he won't care about the equipment he left outside getting a little gross looking since it's waterproof and still works, but the same afternoon he has brand new equipment...

#ttcc #toontown #corporate clash #toontown corporate clash #ttcc headcanons #prethinker #derrick man #land acquisition architect #rainmaker #witch hunter #public relations representative #major player #multislacker #plutocrat #chainsaw consultant #pacesetter

[destiny-aesthetics]

^ Communications to the Vanguard; Letter from the Stranger [Elisabeth "Elsie" Bray]

-----------------------------------------------------

Destiny 2 [Bungie] | Beyond Light [Collector's Edition]

ACCESS: RESTRICTED/REDACTED DECRYPTION KEY: ekeriPC6N$ spoof REP #: 121-EUROPA-BAN AGENT(S): CHA-319 SUBJ: Review of interdict on Europa landings. ASSOCIATIONS: Active interdict; Awoken, military commitments of; Bray, Clovis; Bray Tech; cryohazard; Deep Stone Crypt; Enceladus; Golden Age; Io; Jovians; Nine; Titan, moon of Saturn; Vex

1. Prior to the Taken War, the Reef maintained an interdict upon the poorly navigable Jovian moons. That interdict has failed, allowing Guardians to begin (politely put) "reclaiming" these satellites. The sixth moon, however, still falls under Vanguard interdict. To borrow an old adage: "All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no bounties there." 2. I have been asked to review this interdict's continued necessity. My first impression is that its Europan files are so heavily redacted as to encourage the very expeditions they are presumably meant to deter. Have you ever tried to tell a Hunter that they can't go somewhere AND can't know why? 3. Europa's surface is hazardous. Intense radiation mangles both flesh and machinery. Peak temperature at the poles never climbs more than 50 degrees above absolute zero; the equator reaches a balmy 110 above. This moon was never T-formed and has no proper atmosphere. Tidal stress tortures and crackles the surface, leading to frequent cryovolcanism. There are many ways to die on Europa, but we are speaking of Guardians here. Risk of death alone cannot justify a no-landings edict.

4. The subcrustal ocean is two to three times the volume of Earth's. Life exists down there, but we have forgotten how to reach it. Rumors of some vague abyssal connection to Titan and Enceladus are unsubstantiated, and in this agent's opinion, probably nonsense. So long as Guardians do not take up sport hunting, protection of native life is not grounds for an edict. 5. A heavily armed platform of Golden Age origin keeps station over the moon. It maneuvers using either Hall-effect electrical thrust or some kind of anchor in the Jovian magnetosphere. Ordinarily this would be worth investigating, but the files suggest that the platform is a rare example of an active and unpredictably hostile Golden Age defense asset. Approach at your own risk. (Interesting note-some suggest that jumpships of the Eon series are not as rapidly engaged - this matches what we know of their designer. Jumpships are rare and valuable, so best to keep a safe distance.) 6. Recent close flybys have imaged a Golden Age compound bearing the Bray Tech insignia built in the Europan ice. The same imagery captures thousands, if not tens of thousands, of hibernating or destroyed Vex. Unlike all other Vex presences on Venus, Mars, Mercury, Io, or Nessus, there is no sign of major construction. This suggests a Vex strike force, rather than a permanent presence. What did they want? We have fought Vex before, and early aggression against their designs has always proven critical. Their simple presence cannot justify an interdict.

7. Through negotiation and horse-trading with her superiors, Awoken Paladin Kamala Rior provided me with a device capable of sundry high-physics measurements I will not detail. It reveals that Europa is saturated and interpenetrated with dark matter loops. This is a sign of the interest and attention of the Nine. Their power and influence depend on the mass of nearby stellar bodies, and Europa falls within the sphere of Jupiter-as mighty a gravitational gatherer as anything outside the Sun itself. But even in this bastion of the Nine, Europa is a focus of particularly intense observation. We have often speculated that Xûr is a construct made from the repossessed body of a Jovian colonist… but there are no known records of colonies on Europa. So what draws the Nine here? Unclear. Their interests are opaque. In any case, the gaze of the Nine is no reason to prohibit Europa- Guardians have gone much further into their influence before. 8. No known signs of Ahamkara or other ontopathic predators occur on Europa. Perhaps there are wishing-sharks in the abyssal deep, but that is purely my fancy. No grounds for interdict here. 9. Europa is a traditional stopover for Fallen raiders tanking up on reaction mass. Mithrax, VIP #3987, relays vague reports of a taboo no-go area around the Golden Age station. This prohibition apparently goes beyond fear of its weapons and could be related to the Vex. There is allegedly "something that cannot be stolen from." Tantalizing, but not grounds for interdict. 10. Many Exos have fragmented memories concerning ice sheets and Jupiter in the sky. Europa would be a logical origin for those memories, especially given the presence of Bray Tech assets. This seems to militate towards an investigation.

11.The instruments Paladin Rior provided are extremely unreliable in the vicinity of Europa. I cannot determine whether this is a result of poor construction, my own inexpert use, or the presence of something aberrant. 12. This is hardly a well-vetted piece of intelligence, but something about the imagery and lore I've collected gives me an extremely bad feeling. Something is wrong here. 13. In conclusion, I cannot find strong strategic reasons to maintain the interdict on Europa. We lifted the interdict on the Moon not five years ago, resulting in a series of strategic key victories and intelligence findings… but also triggering the arrival of Oryx, an event that gave Ghaul his Light-suppressing technology and ultimately led to the awakening of the lunar intruder. Perhaps Europa will prove as consequential? We cannot shrink from new discoveries simply because they may lead to new challenges. Victory, after all, requires escalation.

I recommend LIFTING THE INTERDICT. MESSAGE ENDS [Recommendation refused on grounds of compartmentalized information. Unable to share; please trust that your analysis has not been ignored or discarded out of hand. Regrets - IKO/0061]

----------------------------------------------------- Guardian- This is an artifact of Darkness, and now I entrust it to you. Do not take this charge lightly. I have seen firsthand what its power an do Guardians who wield it… even to you. Like all new ground, it can prove treacherous to walk. Listen to your Little Light, and remember that you will live with choices forever. it you. My grandfather came to Europa before the Collapse to seek immortality. He thought he was chosen to lead humanity to the future. His experiments to this end were… hideous. Despite my qualms, collaborated with him. I accept my responsibility in full; I would have, know everything. "O nymph, in your orisons, be all my sins remember'd." You, nymph, but the principle holds, yes? We must know what he did with the power you now grasp. I have included a hard copy of the logs I've deciphered so far. Reader beware. My grandfather was worse than you know. Your stranger I remain, E

#destiny 2 #bungie #scans #BL CE

[elipheleh]

mary & george feature in tv & satellite magazine. airs in the uk on tuesday (5th) at 9pm on sky atlantic & sky showcase. boxset will be available on sky boxsets/NOW.

text under the cut

Hollywood star Julianne Moore adopts her best English accent this week when she plays Mary Villiers, a mother-of-four determined to secure her family's future, in Sky's seven-part drama Mary & George.

When she learns that King James (Tony Curran) is in a sexual relationship with his adviser, the Earl of Somerset (Laurie Davidson), Mary realises she could gain considerable power and influence if her son George (Nicholas Galitzine) becomes the King's new favourite.

'Mary is from a kind of middling aristocratic family,’ explains Moore, 'She's living in less-than-ideal circumstances, looking for a way to educate her children and keep herself alive. The only way she's really able to do that is through her relationships with powerful men.’

After sending George to France to learn refinement, Mary endeavours to get him noticed - and King James is soon enamoured with the handsome young man.

'At the beginning, the relationship is very transactional for George’, explains Galitzine, 29. 'I don't think he develops feelings for James until a few months, perhaps years, into the relationship. George definitely has something to gain, but the love is very much real between them.'

Although the King is aware of the power games being played around him, he finds it refreshing that George comes from outside the usual circles of the royal court.

‘James is comfortable when hes in the company of his lovers - he wants to forget about being a king,’ says Curran, 54. ‘He wants that distraction of feeling safe with another person, as opposed to lords and politicians constantly grabbing at him, wanting him to make decisions about affairs of state.’

OUTRAGEOUS TRUESTORY

The series is based on the nonfiction book The King's Assassin by Benjamin Woolley, and Moore was drawn to the project by the way Mary seemed ahead of her time.

‘There was something outrageous and direct about her’, says Moore, who won a Best Actress Oscar in 2015 for her role as an early onset Alzheimer's patient in Still Alice. 'She seemed to have her own desire for power and agency in a situation where she might possibly have none. It's interesting what she achieved at a time when women couldn't even own property.’

The cast also includes Trine Dyrholm as Queen Anne of Denmark, Niamh Algar as Mary's confidante, prostitute Sandie, and Nicola Walker as the Queen's lady-in-waiting Lady Hatton.

Mary & George's salty language and revealing sex scenes may surprise some viewers, but the stars believe it reflects the earthy instincts of its characters as they grapple for power.

"The sensuality in the show isn't crass in any way, says Curran. 'It was certainly interesting for me. I'd ask the producers, "What am I wearing today?" and theyd reply, “Your birthday suit, pal!"’

'It's not a typical period drama because of the licence it takes with behaviours and sexuality,’ agrees Moore. 'It's beautiful and opulent and a wildly entertaining romp through history.’

Who’s Who (top right of image)

Mary Villiers

Julianne Moore

The deeply ambitious mother lives on her wits and wants to create a lasting legacy for her family.

George Villiers

Nicholas Galitzine

Mary's second son gains new-found confidence and charm after an educational visit to France.

King James

Tony Curran

The first joint ruler of Scotland and England, the King is seldom seen without an entourage of male companions.

Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset

Laurie Davidson

The King's current favourite is determined to stop George from usurping him.

Queen Anne of Denmark

Trine Dynolm

The Queen would prefer her husband's favourite to be someone she can control.

Sandie

Niamh Algar

Mary's confidante is a prostitute in a high-end brothel, making her privy to the secrets of the rich and powerful.

#nicholas galitzine #nick galitzine #tony curran #julianne moore #mary and george #mary & george #not rwrb #elio’s #alt text added #and the full text is in the post #didnt get all the words because i couldn’t work out where to put all the image captions #but generally got most of it #george villiers #idk why the quality is so bad rip

[dduane]

Oh dear Goddess but have I finally solved this problem I've been hacking at in Terragen for all this while?! ...Wow.

This is a shot of the alternate Earth on which the Middle Kingdoms are situated, viewed from about a million miles out (as opposed to any much closer map view).* The North Arlene peninsula is clearly visible at about halfway out to the nine o'clock position on the globe. (In fact, almost a little too clearly visible. I swear to everything, that clear space around it is not something I engineered on purpose! It's just how the NASA-based whole-planet cloud pack from this page at SolarSystemScape.com fell when I applied it.)

Still a lot of technical and artistic work to do on this before I'm done with it, as Terragen has many many MANY ways to customize imaging done from outside the atmosphere (even though it wasn't specifically built for that).** All the under-the-hood maps and images controlling terrain elevation and bathymetry, as well as the actual colors of terrain, oceans, polar caps, etc. etc., have to be repainted and detailed so that I can replace the very basic world maps used in this rendering. But at least now all the continents are appearing where they ought to—an issue that I've been struggling with for actual years (on and off since 2017 or so).

All praise to the lovely person or persons running the TerraTuts series of tutorials on YouTube. That's where I found out what I'd been doing wrong and how to put it right! ...Now I can just get on with the business of making this look more realistic...

*As in this view of our own Earth from the DSCVR:EPIC satellite.

...My sources inform me that a Dragon can make it out to this distance in about thirty seconds: twenty-five seconds to get out of Earth's atmosphere at a decorous speed—because it's thought to be gauche to do any significant percentage of c inside what we would consider low earth orbit—and another five seconds to get from LEO out to the million-mile mark.

**To get a glimpse of the kind of thing it was built for: take a look at the video here (https://youtu.be/JWb9v8OB8HA) of the very handsome Paramount 100th-anniversary trailer. One of the great strengths of Terragen has always been the way it handles clouds, and that's very much on display in this trailer.

#Middle Kingdoms meta #Terragen #global mapping #views from space #alternate earth

[alpaca-clouds]

How Capitalism turned AI into something bad

AI "Art" sucks. AI "writing" sucks. Chat GPT sucks. All those fancy versions of "fancy predictive text" and "fancy predictive image generation" actually do suck a lot. Because they are bad at what they do - and they take jobs away from people, who would actually be good at them.

But at the same time I am also thinking about what kind of fucking dystopia we live in, that this had to turn out that way.

You know... I am an autistic guy, who has studied computer science for quite a while now. I have read a lot of papers and essays in my day about the development of AI and deep learning and what not. And I can tell you: There is stuff that AI is really good and helpful for.

Currently I am working a lot with the evaluation of satellite imagery and I can tell you: AI is making my job a ton easier. Sure, I could do that stuff manually, but it would be very boring and mind numbing. So, yeah, preprocessing the images with AI so that I just gotta look over the results the AI put out and confirm them? Much easier. Even though at times it means that my workday looks like this: I get to work, start the process on 50GB worth of satellite data, and then go look at tumblr for the rest of the day or do university stuff.

But the thing is that... You know. Creative stuff is actually not boring, manial stuff where folks are happy to have the work taken off their hands. Creative work is among those jobs that a lot of people find fulfilling. But from the feeling of fulfillment you cannot eat. But now AI is being used to push down the money folks in creative jobs can make.

I think movie and TV writing is a great example. When AI puts out a script, that script is barely sensible. Yet, the folks who actually make something useful out of it get paid less than they would, if they did it on their own.

Sure, in the US the WGA made it clear that they would not work with studios doing something like that - but the US is not the whole world. And in other countries it will definitely happen.

And that... kinda sucks.

And of course even outside of creative fields... There is definitely jobs that are going to get replaced by automation and artificial intelligence.

The irony is that once upon a time folks like Keynes were like: "OMG, we will get there one day and it is going to be great, because a machine is going to do your work, and you are gonna get paid for it." But the reality obviously is that: "A machine is going to do the work and the CEO is going to get an even bigger bonus, while you sleep on the streets, where police will then violate you for being homeless."

You know, looking at this from the point of view of Solarpunk: I absolutely think that there is a place in a Solarpunk future for AI. Even for some creative AI. But all under the assumption that first we are going to erradicate fucking capitalism. Because this does not work together with capitalism. We need to get rid of capitalism first. And no, I do not know how to start.

#artificial intelligence #fuck ai art #fuck ai writing #fuck chatgpt #fuck midjourney #fuck capitalism #anti capitalism #solarpunk #lunarpunk #capitalism sucks #late stage capitalism

[biblioflyer]

Rogue v Cap: Outside vs Inside Power

Its rare for any incarnation of the X-Men to not have incredibly smart things to say about bigotry, authority, organizing, and power, but X-Men '97 is killing it.

However, I think people who are too quick to get behind Rogue or are offended on Captain America's behalf are missing out on just how sophisticated '97's understanding of power and authority is.

Lets get this out of the way: I take a "yes, and" stance on power and social organizing.

I think its incredibly difficult to holistically understand movements and declare this "helped" the cause and that "hurt" the cause. It all depends on how you calibrate your rubric for success and how you understand how influential a person, group, or action really was.

What I see in the X-Men in all incarnations are some of the most iconic and thorniest debates about inside or institutional power vs outside, autonomous organizing and power, about assimilation or separatism.

Reasonable people recognize these are highly contingent arguments without clear, unambiguous or ethically pure answers.

Which is a rich meal for an ethics nerd like myself and I am having the most amazing time watching and thinking about X-Men '97 and the issues it raises.

So lets get into this!

Spoilers for X-Men '97 episode 7 "Bright Eyes"

Rogue's encounter with Captain America on the hunt for Bolivar Trask, inventor of the Sentinels, is probably the most commented on and debated scene on my social media feeds (as of this writing.)

Those who take Rogue's side in the exchange of words and that epic Frisbee hurl make very familiar and painful arguments. The system Captain America represents and Captain America himself have consistently let mutants down. Where were the Avengers when Genosha burned?

Which is a damn good question considering there are multiple Avengers and Avengers adjacent characters who are confirmed as existing in Earth 92131 who could conceivably have been able to learn about the attack in near real time and react in real time. Thor is very likely to have been tipped off by the likes of Heimdal or other mystical means and can cross continental distances in moments. Doctor Strange likewise could portal over the moment he found out about it, along with anyone else he could rustle up.

SHIELD and essentially any other entity with orbital surveillance would likely have learned about the attack the moment their satellites overflew Genosha. Given the world's jitters over Genosha, I'm having a hard time believing Genosha wasn't being monitored around the clock. However, knowledge doesn't translate into the ability to respond faster than a Quinjet can reach the island.

Now there's an unsatisfying Watsonian explanation here in the form that this is a common trope: all of the world's heroes are somehow busy or ignorant when really big stuff is going down. The Doylist lens would remind us that this is endemic to superhero stories and kind of required for suspense, except when its time to do the big team up story.

So if we want to be generous to Earth's Mightiest Heroes, "they didn't know or were busy or couldn't reach Genosha in time" is an explanation we can fall back on. Thor and Doctor Strange do have to sleep sometime and its not as if they don't have other responsibilities that take them off world or off this plane of existence. Most of the other superheroes known to exist in Earth-92131 could have an out in that they may not have had the means to become aware of the attack in real time or the means to reach Genosha before it was already over.

However, that's awful nitpicky. Rogue can be being unfair about the lack of an immediate response to Genosha while still having a valid point to make on a broader scale. Homo Sapiens Sapiens civilization more broadly would almost certainly, from Rogue's point of view, been holding the idiot ball or maliciously ignorant to miss out on a new army of Sentinels under construction including a big freaking Sentinel kaiju.

Of course we'd later find out that some handwavey deus ex may have also ensured that the world's electronic eyes were shut without any elaborate conspiracy, but Rogue doesn't know this yet when she's unloading on Cap. For all she knows, this is yet another in a long list of times where the "good" Homo Sapiens Sapiens and their champions have been unwilling or conveniently unable to intervene in personal scale tragedies like lynchings by the Friends of Humanity or population scale atrocities like permitting Genosha's former regime to run forced labor camps.

Baked into the setting assumptions of X-Men is a significant amount of systemic abuse that gets overlooked by non-mutant superheroes or that said superheroes are not powerful enough or imaginative enough to dismantle. This ends up necessitating a never ending set of excuses for how Earth's Mightiest Heroes keep winding up on the wrong side of justice yet can still claim the mantle of hero.

I'm not going to repeat ad nauseam familiar arguments about the suspension of disbelief problems created by widespread anti-mutant bigotry being a part of the same setting as a vast roster of enhanced individuals and literal gods that the general public lionizes without much hesitation. The savvy reader already knows these forwards and backwards, so I'm only going to continue to address them to the extent they're relevant here and refrain from further meta-commentary about this aspect of X-Men '97's world building.

Now to be fair, Captain America actually does give us an answer of sorts as to at least what he's up to and why he's not more ambitious in his pursuit of justice. He does intend to act, but not, from his perspective, impulsively. Captain America needs to obtain clearance to act across international boundaries. Captain America is in many ways governed by a sclerotic and often unjust system.

But wait! Captain America is a supersoldier, you say. Who gets to tell him "No, you don't get to pursue justice according to your conscience?" Cap should just tell his handlers to get stuffed and go settle accounts.

Notice my repetition of Steve's nom de spandex? Captain America is not a friendly neighborhood star spangled vigilante. Its unclear exactly who he is working for in this universe, but its heavily implied to be if not the United States, then perhaps SHIELD, and either way there are geopolitical considerations to Captain America showing up without phoning ahead and asking nicely if he can wander around without a minder, punching and exploding people and things on his own discretion. A whole lot of countries are justifiably sensitive about this sort of thing.

The point is that Steve Rogers is accountable to some sort of regulatory authority that is clearly meant to ensure that Captain America's activities are understood clearly and that he doesn't meet with an unfriendly reception by governmental actors that Steve would rather not be shooting at him and that Steve would prefer not to have to punch his way through on his way to his mission.

This authority likely has an additional role of at least performing for the masses and other governments that Captain America is being held to strict rules of engagement and that the bad guys he is punching are definitely villains plotting acts of violence not ideological enemies of the status quo. Because again, wanton violence for motives that are not clearly explained or are suspected of being fraudulent is a touchy subject.

Now of course, Steve Rogers could always go off the reservation. Its happened plenty of times in other continuities/universes. After all, the US government can't repo the super soldier serum.

What they can take away though is a lot of what allows Steve to be more than just a really strong guy. You know who is also a really strong guy? Bruce Banner. Also Luke Cage.

What do Bruce and Luke not have when they aren't playing on a team with some sort of direct or indirect government approval?

Extensive intelligence networks to direct them to international problems that need punching.

Supersonic jets to get them to places where there are villains who need to get decked.

People with relevant authorities who can work the phones and obtain permissions for a superhuman to engage in activities that may require a large scale disaster response operation and sending out surveyors afterwards to redraw topographical maps.

Why obtain those permissions? Because nations have armies and sometimes their own superhero teams they will send out if they get wind of a rogue superhuman showing up and doing violence without phoning ahead and clarifying their motives.

Special forces and super teams are a real inconvenience when there's wrongs to be righted on the other side of them.

So that's the bargain.

As Captain America, Steve Rogers gets an invisible army of intelligence operatives, pilots, Quinjet mechanics, and diplomats that all work together to ensure that Steve can do the maximum good when his conscience and the interests of his benefactors are aligned.

When he goes off reservation, he's just a really strong guy. Like Bruce Banner or Luke Cage. Not just a really strong guy, but probably a person of interest because authorities tend not to like their monopoly on violence being undermined by tough guys who are only accountable to the vibes of their conscience but can wreck New York's skyline if they're having a particularly bad day.

Which brings us back to Rogue and the X-Men.

The X-Men represent outside power.

Its heavily implied through any number of dialogues between the X-Men and the US President and the UN, the X-Men have some sort of understanding with legal authorities. However, its also implied that while this understanding exists, its begrudging. The X-Men have a wider latitude to act autonomously than the Avengers because they're specialists at what they do: they're intimately acquainted with some of the most dangerous, "Omega" level mutants who can be surly and embittered towards Homo Sapiens Sapiens.

Yet that latitude is both a gift and a curse.

The gift is the X-Men are essentially free to follow their consciences. Because the legal authorities have given the X-Men nothing much more than a blind eye towards their activities, the only thing the authorities can take away from the X-Men is that blind eye. The X-Men are a largely self sufficient operation, so there's no obvious card to play that is analogous to revoking Steve Rogers' legal identity as Captain America. The X-Men supply their own Blackbirds, no matter how many of them they lose, and largely generate their own sources and intelligence.

The X-Men also own their own mistakes, which is a mixed blessing. When Rogue goes on a grief fueled rampage, she's not liable to start World War 3. While she's technically an American citizen, its understood that she acts as her own agent, with no direct connections to the US government that could be interpreted as Rogue acting out the will of the US government.

Rather than retaliate, any foreign governments alarmed by Rogue's behavior are not likely to blame the US directly and are likely to lodge a complaint through official channels in the hopes that the US government will coax the X-Men into doing something about her or that Uncle Sam will try to take matters into its own hands. In other words, its understood that Rogue is America's problem but not its fault, at least not intentionally. Which is good enough to keep nuclear missiles from waving at one another as they pass one another in Earth orbit.

And that's essentially the contours of what the X-Men's outside power looks like.

The X-Men have incredible resources at their disposal by virtue of Xavier's seed money, the genius of Hank McCoy and others, and the allies they've cultivated like the Shi'ar, but everything they've built up they've had to bootstrap. They're free to follow their consciences but they're also at risk of running off the cliff and getting disavowed if they chase their consciences too far, too fast, too hard for the liking of the world's nations.

The Avengers, especially Steve Rogers, subordinate their consciences to higher authorities to a greater degree, but the trade is that when they do act, they can act with the knowledge that they're not going to have to deal with blue on blue conflict from confused and scared locals and with largely infinite resources. There is almost assuredly a limited supply of Blackbirds. There is a limited supply of Blackbirds right? The number of Quinjets available to the Avengers is only limited by the budget afforded to them by SHIELD or Tony Stark.

Speaking of Tony Stark, depending on which universe and what time period we're talking about, he is not necessarily a backup plan for an Avengers team that finds its consciences misaligned with the interests of SHIELD. Not just because he might not feel like being their sugar daddy, but also because Tony Stark is ultimately a businessman. Ironman may be challenging for the world's authorities to reign in if he's in a bad mood, but Tony Stark has financial assets that can be frozen and capital assets that can be seized.

Let's not forget that when Steve Rogers decided he was done asking for permission to do what he felt was right in the MCU, he was only able to continue superheroing at the same level he had previously because a secretive nation with a friendly monarch was willing to provide him with a jet and supplies so long as they approved of his goals and methods.

Thus the X-Men enjoy greater freedom of conscience but its much more precarious than Captain America's compromised freedom.

This is not a value judgment, just an observation.

And if I made the case for Captain America playing by the rules a little too well, then its probably because Earth 92131 Steve Rogers doesn't seem to have been gaslit into being the hatchetman for corrupt ends.

Yet.

One could also imagine that SHIELD or USGOV have also failed to tip Cap off about mutant related this, that, or the other that Steve might have OPINIONS about and feel strongly that some Homo Sapiens Sapiens supremacists are need of punching in a time and place that is super inconvenient for the authorities.

Because sometimes injustice isn't about what authority does, its about what it doesn't do: malign neglect and so forth.

#x men 97 #x men the animated series #rogue #captain america #steve rogers #the avengers #tony stark #iron man #SHIELD #X Men 97 spoilers #genosha #inside power #outside power #superhero ethics #political organizing

[oliviabutsmart]

Physics Friday #13: Sound (Part 1/2)

Preamble: Sound's kind of a big thing in town

Education Level: Primary School (Y5/6)

Topic: Sonic Physics (Mechanics)

Well, as the title suggests, sound is in fact a very big thing. We use our ears every day, to hear and to listen. And we also make sounds ourselves with musical instruments and voices.

Because of this, there is a myriad of different fields of study that focus heavily on our relationship to sound:

Physics/Astronomy - What is sound?

Engineering/Biology/Sound En. - How do we produce, record, or listen to sound?

Music/Linguistics/Psychology - How do we interpret and use sound for artistic or functional purposes?

All of these fields often need to work with eachother and mix their different purposes of analysis for the betterment of the academic medium. For example, a sound engineer still needs to know what sound is in order to record it. A music theorist still needs to know the structure of their sound-producing devices. etc.

But what we'll mainly focus on is the physics. And briefly touch on it's interaction with the rest of the academic sphere.

So, what is sound?

Sound is a longitudinal mechanical wave.

...

Well that's not very helpful. What is a wave and what does it mean to be mechanical?

A wave is simply some sort of periodic oscillation. It can constitute oscillating particles, mathematical objects, fields, or jumps.

Any form of motion that involves periodic motion or oscillation can be described by, or be related to, a wave, including:

Oscillations in electromagnetic fields

Air particles shifting back and forth

You jumping up and down at a regular interval

A satellite orbiting our planet

Vibrations in solid atoms

A mathematical function that repeats itself regularly

That's very general. So we often classify different types of waves based on what produces them (the generator), what they constitute (the medium), and what makes them move (the propagator).

Were, we come to the classification of the mechanical part of our wave. A mechanical wave requires a few things:

It is produced and propagated by the physical movement or vibration of matter

It is constituted of physical matter

This is how we derive the term mechanical. In physics, mechanical motion simply means something is physically pushing/pulling on you. Gravity is not mechanical but friction is.

But that's not the full picture. Because mechanical waves are a broad category of waves. Often we just generalise and call them all sound, but we can also subdivide our category.

Here's a list of other mechanical waves:

Earthquakes

Explosion blasts

Sound (well it does have to be on this list)

Water waves/ripples

String waves (like jump ropes)

Jumping up and down at a regular interval (stop doing that I can hear it from downstairs)

So what makes sound different? Well, it's not really much. In fact all of these could be reasonably called sound. What makes sound sound, is a matter of perception.

Light is an electromagnetic wave. But for a more pedantic person, electromagnetic waves aren't light. Technically, EM waves outside of what colours we can see aren't light - they're infrared or ultraviolet.

The same distinction goes for sound in a sense. Sound to us is just the mechanical waves we can hear. Or that creatures on earth can hear.

Another distinction we make with waves is how they oscillate. Because the way the particles in these waves move matter greatly.

We distinguish between longnitudinal and transverse.

Image credit: BJYU's

A longitudinal wave involves the particles inside it are moving back and forth - in the same direction the wave is moving.

A transverse wave is where these oscillations are perpendicular.

Both these wave methods are able to travel by physically moving the particles, but often through different means.

Transverse mechanical waves often require that their medium have some sort of tension that allows us to pull particles up and down. Like water or string.

Whereas longitudinal waves require pressure or spring-like forces to resist and react to squeezing and stretching. Like springs or fluids.

Often, when drawing sound waves, we draw it as transverse. And that's because both forms of waves can be mathematically be represented by the other. The 'height' of our transverse sound wave corresponds to the compression of the wave at that point.

Image credit: TEL Gurus

Now. We have a good definition of sound.

How do we produce it?

This is actually a very simple question. We just create the oscillatory motion ourselves. All we do is push the air around us back and forth regularly.

Via our voice

Our vocal folds are made of tiny flaps. When air is forced through them, they vibrate at a rapid pace.

These vibrations from our vocal chords travel turn into sound that travels through the fast-rushing air, and exits our mouths/noses using said air to create sound.

Via resonant chambers

Fast-travelling air doesn't necessarily need to be voiced for it to produce sound. Often we can make this sound by blowing in a chamber or box. Sometimes even connected to artificial vocal folds.

These work by cutting out certain pitches and vibrational modes of sound by either artificially producing new ones or forcing some to be 'resonated out'.

This is how most wind and brass instruments work. By both controlling airflow and producing artificial vibrations, we can effectively create our own version of our voice - producing sound!

Plucking, strumming, and striking

String and percussion instruments on a basic level involve artificially creating a sound wave by plucking/pounding their strings/skin.

These plucks travel up and down the instrument. As they travel, their shape alters and spreads out creating a myriad of vibrations. Which in a split-second devolve into only the resonant modes. Thus producing sound.

In pianos, this plucking occurs every time you press a key. With guitars it occurs manually. And with instruments like drums, striking has the same effect as plucking. You're just pushing instead of pulling.

When strumming a guitar, you're effectively doing this many times over by stroking the instrument to stoke a sound.

Violins operate by utilising friction. The force of moving the stick against the strings create small vibrations that allow us to produce a continuous sound.

Digitally

Sound produced by speakers are often made by all of the sound-producing methods above.

But what's more interesting is how you can produce sound artificially.

You can start doing this by waving your arms. Your movement causes vibrations in the air. And the faster the arms wave, the stronger these pressure differentials become. Eventually increasing the amplitude.

But in order to produce real sound, you need to do it at a really fast pace. So you should probably stop waving you're arms. You're embarrassing yourself in the McDonalds you're reading this in.

We can do this using the power of computation.

Say we have a small 'tick' sound, or a digital 'pluck', produced at a regular interval. Say, once every second. Let's increase this rate. More and more. Until we're producing it 262 times a second. This won't sound like a series of fast ticks. In fact, it will sound like an actual sound, the middle C note.

Unfortunately, that's the end of Part 1

I think it's better to try and end things here before continuing on. Why? Well I just think these posts are a bit too long. And at the same time I have exams coming up next week. So I'd rather focus on that first.

The topics I'll be covering next time will be:

Pitch and Frequency

Volume, intensity, and the inverse square law

What the actual fuck is Timbre/Tambre/Tombré (and how do you pronounce it)

How we hear sound

Resonance

Other wave like properties: Reflection, Refraction, and Propagation

After I complete this little sound topic, I want to utilise it in an actual astronomical example with Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAOs). So you can look forward to that too in the future as well.

Again with everything, please give feedback, comments, or anything else. But like, don't just say something that is clearly not useful like "you suck!" - like great, thanks for the heads up I already know dummy.

Don't forget to like and subscribe gamers. Just to be sure I want you to smash that like button again, and then smash it one third time for good luck.

Another important message:

Please please help me with this colour inversion issue it's making like all colours on tumblr text posts difficult to read. Is this like a global change on tumblr? Can someone help meee

The reference post is here:

#physics friday #stem #academics #stemblr #science #physics #sound

[unknown-lifeform]

Ok but like. I've been thinking of technology in ff7 and parallels between the ff7 timeline and ours and honestly the differences just. They make sense. More than this first paragraph does for sure at least

So. Let's try to assume that the year 0000 in ff7 corresponds to our 2000. So the 90's in ff7 correspond to our 90's, the 80's to our 80's, and so on. Obviously there are some massive differences in technological advancement, especially with Remake/Rebirth giving people smartphones as opposed to the flip phones of the earlier games. If we go with the Remake/Rebirth version, that's more advanced than our early 2000's. Robotics and AI are obviously ages ahead in ff7 compared to us. Possibly bioengineering too, but that can be explained by ff7 having mako and monsters and Jenova when we obviously don't.

But when you think about it, it makes sense. It's about war. Shinra has been actively at war for decades before canon (Wutai in the 90's, and before that the Junon Republic). And it's also fundamentally a technological juggernaut with endless money to throw at research. Robotics and AI being advanced? Shinra uses mechas as weapons, sometimes Wutai never seems to have done. Of course that sector is way more developed, Shinra had an interest in making better, smarter weapons. Smartphones? Obviously developing communication technology is important if you want to take over the world. And once the war is over, Shinra can charmingly recycle their discoveries in things people will like

We can consider instead what the ff7 world doesn't have. There are no high speed trains, or long distance trains at all. Shinra doesn't have a use for it. Wutai was an island so trains wouldn't get Shinra there. Rebirth tells us the Republic of Junon had plenty of roads, but Shinra let them fall apart after taking over, because no use for roads when you can fly your operatives around, and everyone else can suck it up. Why would they even think about things like trains? There are also no power plants outside of mako reactors, obviously, and the only traces that energy sources other than mako were ever used are Corel's abandoned coal mines and as for Rebirth some abandoned Junon era windmills. Oh, and the abandoned oil fields On the Way to a Smile mentions. None are exactly the latest technology when it comes to energy production. Because Shinra would have to be insane to invest a single cent in any kind of energy research that isn't mako

And of course, space technology. In our world, Yuri Gagarin was in space in 1961, and we had people on the moon before the end of the 60's. And why was that? Because of the space race, because we had the Cold War, and sending someone into space was an amazing way to show off your country was the best country, and so both the US and the USSR funneled money into space research. In ff7? There was no Cold War. No rush to develop space technology by the 60's. Maybe the Republic of Junon or whoever would have worked it out at a slower pace, but then Shinra started its very much not cold wars, and there was no reason to invest into a space program then. Not when money and resources could make weapons, instead of rockets. Only after the end of the Wutai War was Cid sent to go into space - as a publicity stunt from Shinra, of course. And when his launch failed (for safety issues, may I add), Shinra didn't bother to make another. No point in it. No need to show how great your technology is when no one else on the Planet is making technology

I mean I'm sure Shinra has satellites because they gotta make those smartphones work somehow. But as of the early 2000's, no one was into space. Shinra's space program is scrapped, and has Palmer of all people in charge. It seems the only people who actually care to study the universe are the planetologists in Cosmo Canyon. So is astrophysics just considered some useless hippy science in the ff7 world? You can't squeeze mako out of space, so let's just not bother with it ever?

I'm just having a massive moment about technological advancement and scientific research being subservient to whatever the latest global imperialist superpower and what its practical wants and needs are. And also how in ff7 the only scientists we see are either on the Shinra payroll, all on varying levels of unethical experimentation, or in Cosmo Canyon, which I don't think gets a lot of research grants on average, or the engineers left jobless around in Rocket Town after the failed lunch. Want a career in science, either get consumed by the evil megacorporation and lose whatever morals you might have had, or get fucked

#ff7 #ffvii #ffvii rebirth

[nectar-cellar]

15 questions for 15 mutuals

thank you very much for tagging me!! sorry i didn’t get around to this sooner 🙈

@sofiims @uglynormie @hiddenspriings @cupidia @obscurus-noctem @drawing-way-outside-the-lines @agnelid @descendantdragfi @satellite-sims @sim4areason @mainlyjustthesims @pleaseputnamehere @sim-songs @simolemons @theageofsims @its-adrienpastel

i loved reading all your answers.

my answers below:

Are you named after anyone? i was named after a place that was named after a person 

When was the last time you cried? earlier this week 💀 the reason: i was trying to write some goth family backstory, trying to write from cassandra’s perspective, and her life made me really sad. not sure if these ideas will end up turning into story posts or not. 

Do you have kids? no ❤

Do you use sarcasm a lot? a little bit. i’m more of a dry humor kind of person, not so much sarcastic lol

What sports do you play/have you played? i’ve played a variety of sports but never stuck with any for very long. i can’t say i enjoy sports in general. i think it’d be more fun if i had a partner or family or group of friends who were very into it. i’m such a couch potato lol but i do go to the gym 3x a week, trying to tone up a little bit okay 💅

What’s the first thing you notice about other people? i used to draw/doodle portraits a lot so i notice faces immediately. their noses and eyebrows especially because those are the “framing” features in my opinion. when i used to draw, those were the features i would sketch first.

Scary movies or happy endings? i like both! i grew up watching scary movies so i find it hard for a movie to truly scare me anymore. i do have a fascination with morbid things and i always want to know why this monster/serial killer etc is on the prowl, like WHY? also the creativity and ingenuity behind how a good plot is set up is really interesting to me as a writer/storyteller. so i’m always intrigued by horror movies, thrillers, mysteries etc. i get to be entertained, i get to analyze, and i get to learn.

Any special talents? related to #6, i’m really good at recognizing faces? i didn’t think this was special but my coworker recently told me he is terrible with remembering faces (we work in a big office) and i was a bit surprised. i remember faces much better than names while he is the opposite.

Where were you born? canada, eh

What are your hobbies? daydreaming about fictional ppl and situations 😐

Do you have any pets? sadly no, as a kid i always wished to have cats and dogs but it just never suited our lifestyle and my parents weren’t keen on them. pets like hamsters, birds and fish don’t really interest me. as an adult i can’t commit to the care and maintenance a pet needs so i don’t see myself getting any pets anytime soon.

How tall are you? one time at work they had the nerve to ask me to change a lightbulb. like... me! imagine. i got onto a chair and stood up and still couldn’t reach the ceiling. 😌

Fave subject in school? english and art!

Dream job? i don’t have one but when i was a kid, it used to be an author or an artist.

Eye colour? dark brown

hmm most of my mutuals have already done this. i’ll tag @olomayasims @zoeoe-sims @twinsimming @frostedshore @llamaheart @treason-and-plot @sunlithills @thegloomiestwhim @streetlites @wolfavens @hotpatched @fishduhh @chinsims @polrbearsims @bobnewbie @itssimplythesims @lazysunjade @amuhav @keibea @simbico @bool-prop @cinamun @rebouks

#i think these qs are from an oc ask i answered for AMIR recently *giggles*

[invested-in-your-future]

Is internet a thing in your au?

As far as the idea of internet goes, the the Cross-Continental Transmit System enabled a rudimentary prototype of the concept, with towers connecting to each other, so information could travel between them. Relay stations in each city and beyond would also connect to the closest tower, essentially allowing an archaic(from our point of view) system of information transfer across continents.

Satellites aren't really a thing because dust doesn't work beyond a specific altitude and all technology uses dust.

Underground cables have been attempted but they have high failure rate due to underground Grimm (giant worms y'all) as well as erosion in the areas with higher Grimm density. High Grimm particle density tends to warp or blank signals of any kind.

Each bigger city has a local smaller network with the relay station connected to tower and thus to the world, allowing the share of information.

Towers connect to each other and to everything in range.

Relay stations connect to each other and to towers.

Personal devices like scrolls, TVs, radios, etc connect to relay stations or towers(as it's essentially a souped up relay station).

Personal devices close enough can communicate with each other acting as handheld transceivers.

So information could be transmitted from towers to local networks, but wanting to access or transmit to another tower could only be done at the tower.

That's mainly due to signal strength as a bigger newer device will punch through to weaker ones but not vice-versa. Hence if Weiss wanted to directly contact Atlas, she'd have to do it via the tower.

With Vale's tower being down, that whole system is no longer operational (and there's an actual reason why it requires all four towers to work).

Each bigger city essentially has it's own local "network" as communication entirely relies on relay stations connecting to each other now.

Connections between continents or locations further away from relay stations are outright impossible now.

With CCTS down, cities don't really have access to any of the networks and rely on the closest relay stations for communication. The communication involves physically sending information from one relay station to the other the way it would have been done pre-CCTS.

Any even smaller villages have zero communication with the outside now.

So, for example, the parts of City of Vale on the right bank of the river that remained intact can contact Patch and vice-versa as well as contacting the evacuation area housing the refugees - there's a relay station in the Upper-Class district and the evacuation area has a retrofitted relay from one of the fallen Atlas ships. However the only way to deliver or receive information from, for example, anywhere on the other side of Mt.Glenn would require someone actually travelling there and back again.

Same holds true for communication between Kingdoms as, by their very nature, there's quite a bit of distance between the population centers of each Kingdom. The only official channel for diplomacy and communication remaining after the system went offline is actual physical meetings between representatives.

Different Kingdoms face different issues too - places more centralized like Vale are more cut off from the smaller outposts and towns, while something like Mistral make use of the relay stations lining the logistics points between the four main cities, as well as the ones lining the railway network that has been built after the war.

So as of right now, after fall of beacon, there are local networks with no information flow between them and before it was more akin a bunch of closed off ARPANET-style systems interacting with each other.

Yes I put way too much thought into this.

#rwby #rwde #rwby rewrite #rwby au #rwbyr stuff mine #rwbyr lore

[duothelingo]

-- Junu ootin' stars break the mold It's a cool place and they say it gets colder You're bundled up now but wait till you get older But t he meteor men beg to differ Judging by the hole in the satellite picture The ice we skate is gettin' pretty thin The water's getting warm so you might as well swim My world's on fire How 'bout yours That's the way I like it and I'll never get bored Hey, now, you're an all-star {Shouting} Get your game on, go play Hey, now You're a rock star Get the show on, get paid And all that glitters is gold Only shootin' stars break the mold {Belches} Go! Go! {Record Scratching} Go. Go.Go. Hey, now, you're an all-star Get your game on, go play Hey, now You're a rock star Get the show on, get paid And all that glitters is gold Only shootin' stars break the mold -Think it's in there? -All right. Let's get it! -Whoa. Hold on. Do you know what that thing can do to you? -Yeah, ! I'm an orge! You know. "Grab your torch and pitchforks." Doesn't that bother you? -Nope. -Really? -Really, really. -Oh. -Man, I like you. What's you name? -Uh, Shrek. -Shrek? Well, you know what I like about you, Shrek? You got that kind of I-uttons. -All right then. Who's hiding them? -Okay, I'll tell you. Do you know the muffin man? -The muffin man? -The muffin man. -Yes, I know the muffin man, who lives on Drury Lane? -Well, she's married to the muffin man. -The muffin man? -The muffin man! -She's married to the muffin man. {Door opens} -My lord! We found it. -Then what are you waiting for? Bring it in. {Man grunting} {Gasping} -Oh! -Magic mirror - - -Don't tell him a \ adas And getting caught in the rain -Princess Fiona. If you're not into yoga -She's perfect. All I have to do is just find someone who can go - - -But I probably should mention the little thing that happens at night. -I'll do it. -Yes, but after sunset - - -Silence! I will make this Princess Fiona my queen, and DuLoc will finally have the perfect king! Captain, assemble your finest men. We're going to have a tournament. -But that's it. That's it right there. That's DuLoc. I told ya I'd find it. -So, that must be Lord Farquaad's castle. -Uh-huh. \

Hi my name is Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way and I have long ebony black hair (that's how I got my name) with purple streaks and red tips that reaches my mid-back and icy blue eyes like limpid tears and a lot of people tell me I look like Amy Lee (AN: if u don't know who she is get da hell out of here!). I'm not related to Gerard Way but I wish I was because he's a major fucking hottie. I'm a vampire but my teeth are straight and white. I have pale white skin. I'm also a witch, and I go to a magic school called Hogwarts in England where I'm in the seventh year (I'm seventeen). I'm a goth (in case you couldn't tell) and I wear mostly black. I love Hot Topic and I buy all my clothes from there. For example today I was wearing a black corset with matching lace around it and a black leather miniskirt, pink fishnets and black combat boots. I was wearing black lipstick, white foundation, black eyeliner and red eye shadow. I was walking outside Hogwarts. It was snowing and raining so there was no sun, which I was very happy about. A lot of preps stared at me. I put up my middle finger at them.

"Hey Ebony!" shouted a voice. I looked up. It was... Draco Malfoy!

"What's up Draco?" I asked.

"Nothing." he said shyly.

But then, I heard my friends call me and I had to go away.

次の日、私は寝室で目覚めました。雪が降ってまた雨が降ってきました。私は棺の扉を開け、持っていた瓶から血を飲みました。私の棺は黒い黒檀で、中には端に黒いレ���スが付いたホットピンクのベルベットがありました。私は棺から出て、パジャマとして使っていた巨大なMCR Tシャツを脱ぎました。代わりに、私は黒い革のドレスを着て、五芒星のネックレス、コンバットブーツ、そして黒い網タイツを着ました。ピアスを4つつけ、髪をボサボサお団子のような形にまとめました。

私の友人のウィロー (AN: レイヴンはあなたです!) が目を覚まし、私に笑いました。彼女は腰まで届く長い漆黒の黒髪をピンクの縞模様で翻し、森のような緑色の目を開いた。彼女はマリリン・マンソンのTシャツを着て、黒のミニパンツを着て、網タイツを履いて、とがったハイヒールのブーツを履いていた。私たちは化粧をします（黒の口紅、白のファンデーション、黒のアイライナー）。

「OMFG、昨日あなたがドラコ・マルフォイと話しているのを見ました！」彼女は興奮して言いました。

「ええ？ それで？」私は顔を赤らめながら言いました。

「ドラコは好きですか？」私たちがスリザリンの談話室を出て大広間に入るとき、彼女は尋ねました。

fun fact i got a strike on my twitch for reading this during a stream. i got to chapter 20 something and i like to think that a member of twitch staff had to suffer through it.

[starblaster]

i’m genuinely fucking appalled that vox decided to publish an ethnographic mondo film about a village of people who very clearly wanted to be left alone, and who may actually face consequences as a result of vox and christophe hausbursin hiring a film crew to show up unannounced and extract reluctant interviews from them… i’m honestly a little scared for these people.

it’s not addressed at all in the video whether or not their village was established so remotely because they’re potentially evading ethnic, religious, and/or political persecution from the madagascan government. the way it’s constructed, we get a couple of interviews from village inhabitants and we’re expected to take every other ‘fact’ and detail presented in voiceover from christophe hausbursin at face value. which does not sit right with me at all.

maybe i’m just being hypervigilant but, given what’s happening right now to the tigray region of ethiopia, i’m very concerned for the consequences these villagers may be at risk of facing, all because some journalists at vox needed to satisfy their ‘curiosity’ after looking at some satellite photos. and of course they'll be making money off of this video, too.

i was raised in a community that, itself, was negatively and directly affected by the exploitation of outsiders and ethnographers sticking their noses where they didn’t belong. so, frankly, i’m worried and i’m a little alarmed that everyone in the comments on the video itself keep uncritically praising it as some kind of ‘journalistic’ masterpiece, and praising hausbursin and vox for making and posting it. at the very least, it is still a disgustingly exploitative invasion of this village’s privacy.

#the link i have above is to the article containing the video saved via wayback machine