#reyofsunlight666

[lorata]

Just wanted to say that after seeing you describe the series some time ago, I finally started reading the Steerswoman series recently and I LOVE IT. Rowan is an incredible character :D

IT IS SO GOOD HONESTLY

Rowan is the best and Bel is the best and Rowan and Bel are the best and I love them so so so much

Please do read and come talk to me about them ANY TIME because I adore everything about the whole universe

#lorata answers #reyofsunlight666

[kawuli]

Hey! I saw you have your askbox open re: agriculture. I've read that historically people had to let land lie 'fallow' for a year to regain its nutrients so it could grow more crops, and also rotate crops. But modern farms as far as I know don't have to do that. What do modern farmers do differently that lets them use the same land over and over for the same things?

the short answer: fertilizer (and herbicides and pesticides)

the long answer:

So there’s two pieces here: crop rotation and fallowing, and they’re similar but not identical.

If you grow the same crop in the same place for several years in a row, a few things happen. One, the crop scavenges all the nutrients it can find in the soil; and two, diseases and bugs that attack that crop will make themselves at home and start attacking the new crop the second it comes out of the seed.

The nutrients problem can be more or less solved with fertilizer, where you’re putting enough nutrients (notably Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium, which is why most fertilizerss will report NPK numbers). In reality, you’ll still be changing the soil composition, usually by erosion from plowing and by breaking down organic matter in the soil. But with modern chemistry you can get away with not caring so much. (for a while, at least. there’s also stuff like no-till or contour plowing or etc that’re designed to protect the soil, but that’s a whole other post)

The disease problem can also be addressed with chemical pesticides, but it’s often more efficient (and cheaper) to rotate between crops that have different associated pests. In the US, corn (maize) - soybean rotations are common. In the Andes, you rotate potatoes with a grain crop to keep potato-destroying nematodes from getting too comfortable.

Crop rotations can also be designed to replicate or improve the soil fertility benefits of fallow. These days, that might mean growing wheat in a field for 4 years and then planting red clover for a year, which you then plow in. Or you broadcast (throw randomly around) red clover seed into the wheat in spring (after planting wheat in the fall), so when the wheat is harvested the clover has all this sun and grows like gangbusters. Red clover is a legume, so it fixes N2 from the air into plant-usable forms of nitrogen, and the leaves of legume plants are extra rich in nitrogen for that reason. So when you plow the clover into the soil, it acts like fertilizer for the next crop.

This is also why corn-soy is a good rotation, soybean is a legume too (but it’s less soil-improving when you harvest the soybean grain and we could go into a whole Thing about legumes and nitrogen and breeding and etc. but we’ll save that for later).

If you are a farmer with both crops and livestock (like, say, your typical medieval peasant community, but also lots of smallholder farmers in Africa), you can replace “fallow” with “pasture” or “hay field” and especially if you plant a legume-rich mix of forage crops you can get the benefits of fallow while also getting a source of livestock feed. If you’re pasturing animals on the land, it also gets all the tasty N-rich urine and manure that gets deposited in the process.

The famous “three field system” was a grain crop (winter wheat or winter rye, usually), a legume crop like lentils or peas (or possibly oats, for feeding the horses), and a fallow field. I would assume the fallow was grazed, because it’d be kind of silly not to. Seed was expensive, so fallow would just be whatever plants got blown in, weeds and grasses and dropped grain from the previous year's crop. It’s probably better to think of this as a 3-year rotation, because that’s what it’d look like on any given plot of land, but you’d want to have plots at different parts of the cycle so you don’t starve every 3rd year because your land is all fallow.

(and my askbox is generally open for agriculture, I can’t promise to respond promptly but I will probably respond eventually)

#agriculture #mo talks about agriculture #ag history #(probably ought to be a tag) #reyofsunlight666

[earlgraytay]

Definitely a villain vibe! The sort of villain who always knows more than you and who has a Magnificent Study with lots of dark wood and leather bound volumes :P

Thank you!

#dash meme #ask meme #reyofsunlight666

[starstuffandalotofcoffee]

hey, i just wanted to say thank you for that 'reasonably achievable' post. as an environmental activist who deals with people every. fucking. day complaining about my org's ideological purity, complaining that concrete goals aren't as ideologically pure as endless arguing, and just generally complaining, it is SO REFRESHING to see someone with a grain of common sense.

You’re welcome and sorry you have to deal with that IRL so much, like, at least this is something I mostly see on social media.

#reyofsunlight666

[kae-karo]

hey! you're a phanfic writer, and i started writing a phanfic that i was intending to get back to, but i saw the video, how much phan has affected dan. in your opinion, should we as a fandom write fics about them now? creatively, i want to get back to mine - youtuber RPF was how i got into fandom and fanfic in the first place - and i was proud of what i wrote. ethically, i never want to pry into real people's lives again. if you choose to answer this, thank you. 💖

hi dear! oof, this is such a controversial question and lately for me (even before dan’s vid, but especially in light of his openness with what he’s chosen to share) i’ve questioned whether i feel comfortable writing phanfic - for me, the characters i write are based on dnp but, of course, i never actually see them as the real human beings dan and phil who i am actually writing about. which sounds kinda weird i guess as a clarifier but i don’t see the people i’m writing about as dan and phil, i see them as characters who share some key characteristics, but that doesn’t inherently change the fact that these are stories we collectively agree are based on dnp (or, in some cases, written about their actual real lives to the best of our abilities and knowledge and speculation and wishes) and, perhaps for me, it’s time to acknowledge that i may not be as okay with that as i was initially when it was fun and shiny and new and i didn’t feel the same empathy toward dnp as i do now cause, hey, they were just on the internet! they didn’t feel like real people to me (yet)

it’s easy to see dnp as these other beings, separate from the space we occupy as fans. which isn’t necessarily bad, but it can lead to a lack of empathizing, an entitlement to feeling like we deserve something for our hours of commitment to them - entitlement to knowledge, entitlement to their lives, entitlement to [insert thing here that we want and are not getting]. and an entitlement to do with ‘them’ (or their personas, or the concept of them put into fictional stories) whatever we want. and i think it’s that kind of mindset - a mindset a lot of us have had with dnp and have been conditioned to have by the phandom and the ‘that’s the way we’ve always done it’ mentality - that led to the invasions of privacy dan mentioned in his vid

now. to be clear. i think fanworks are incredible and amazing and the writers are so talented and thoughtful and imaginative and well-spoken, but maybe now’s the time to sit back and acknowledge how much we love them, how much we genuinely care for and support them. we had this outpouring of honesty and openness from dan the likes of which we never expected, barely hoped for in our wildest dreams, and alongside it we were presented with a request: privacy

is writing phanfic inherently going against that request? on the one hand, i and most writers acknowledge that our characters are not dnp because we will never know the true dnp by virtue of the fact that they do not share every little thing about them and their lives with us. but on the other hand, is it not still invasive to write as if we know them? as if we have all the intimate details of their lives? their relationships?

idk this has been a bit of a crisis for me as well, when i allow myself to think too hard about it. i love writing about these dorks, i really do, but there’s a piece of me that has always felt a little inkling of doubt about it, and it’s grown much larger in the past 6mo or so - i can never know for certain what they think about what we write, but it wouldn’t be unreasonable of them to feel uncomfortable about it. i wouldn’t blame them. they didn’t ask for us to write about them, about their lives, about our hopes for them or our issues projected onto them as a form of self-therapy, about them as a way to explore or even flex our knowledge of things so personal to them or their relationship they’ve been buried or deleted. they didn’t ask for us to pick and pull at perceived traits of theirs and expand them into entire personalities, such that we’ve created stereotypes among our own fandom about them that bleed back into the way we treat them, talk about them, talk to them

i’ve written over seven hundred thousand words about these dorks, and some of the things i’ve written are, for all intents and purposes, about dnp’s lives. they’re ‘canon’ works, as much as they can be, but so many of my more involved stories have never been about dan and phil, they’ve been about these characters who could really be anybody except they have black and brown hair and blue and brown eyes and they both like muse and mario kart and so hey, it fits pretty well, doesn’t it?

but the reality is that maybe it’s time to make my stories about other people, ones that don’t exist as false approximations of actual humans in the real world. my empathy gauge is painfully strong sometimes (i have trouble with like,,,,,,,even just pruning plants okay like i just really feel for everything so much) so perhaps this is something that weighs heavier on me than others, maybe i’m overthinking it or maybe i’m being too sensitive, i’ve certainly been called that before. but i think perhaps, as dan moves on to his new chapter, maybe it’s time for me to do the same

#phanfic #dnp #dan and phil #danielhowell #reyofsunlight666 #ask #kt

[simonstuck823]

List five things that make you happy, then put this in the askbox for the last 10 people who reblogged something from you. Get to know your mutuals and followers 💙

Thank you @reyofsunlight666​!!

- getting under the blankets on a cold night (as I am doing right now!)

- when you’re finally getting the hang of a new hobby and it starts to turn from frustrating to fun

- seeing the funniest fucking meme you’ve seen all week

- eating a really good meal you’ve cooked yourself

- when you’re writing a scene and it turns out perfectly!!

#about me #reyofsunlight666

[chokopoppo]

I saw that you posted about writing Lucy/skull fanfic and I'd never considered this pairing before but it sounds hilariously intriguing. Care to collaborate/share headcanons? :D

CLAPS MY HANDS REAL LOUD AND RUBS ‘EM TOGETHER TO GET MY TYPING FINGERS ALL WARMED UP

Okay so the base of this is the fact that Lucy is the skull’s ONLY connection to the living world, which is commented on literally non-stop in every single one of the books where Skull plays a major part (2-5). He is fully dependent upon her, and despite the fact that Lucy constantly threatens and insults the Skull, he never actually directly insults her back. His major course of action to upset her / bicker with her is to insult her company - he hates George for obvious reasons, but he has a special vehement hatred for Lockwood. Why? TIME FOR ANOTHER PARAGRAPH

SKULL IS THREATENED BY AND JEALOUS OF LOCKWOOD. Why’s this important? ‘Cause Lucy has a big ol crush on lockwood and he seems to reciprocate. This really, REALLY upsets the skull. It’s essentially his entire motivating factor from book 3 onward - the reason skull stops being a massive dickhead and starts being a helpful jerk is because he’s worried Lucy is going to drop him for Lockwood, and he’s desperate for her attention, good or bad. He’s like a little kid - he doesn’t know how to articulate his feelings properly, but he knows as long as he’s USEFUL, he won’t be ditched. This is kind of mirrored in book 5 (spoilers if you haven’t dipped into it yet btw), where he seems legitimately hurt by the fact that Marissa Fittes spoke to him once, then jar’d him and left him to rot in some basement of the agency.

It’s also important to note that Skull repeatedly and emphatically tells Lucy that she’s IMPORTANT, that she’s DIFFERENT, that even before (spoilers for book 4) she stepped over to the Other Side, she attracted the attention of ghosts because she is powerful, because she is a light in the darkness. Lockwood doesn’t seem to appreciate these things about her - he likes Lucy as a person, and he recognizes that her Listening talents could get their (read: his) agency noticed, but he routinely turns down Lucy’s ideas, ignores her input on how to interact with ghosts - it’s worth noting that Lucy’s attitude towards ghosts in L&C is very similar to Ptolemy’s attitude toward spirits in the Bartimaeus series, Stroud’s other big alternate-history fantasy YA series (Ptolemy, btw, being the only human character shown in an exclusively positive manner - but that’s an essay for a different fandom). While the people around her revile spirits (Lockwood especially; “demons are very wicked, and they will hurt you if they can”, anyone?), Lucy not only takes pity on ghosts, she actively tries to understand their motivations and guide them peacefully back to the other side. This is something the skull is so unfamiliar with, having been tortured for multiple years prior to meeting her, that at first, he doesn’t realize she’s being genuine.

The biggest moment for me, though, is - well, there’s a string of moments, all through book 4, but the BIGGEST moment is when (again, spoilers for book 4) Lucy (and Lockwood) are trapped on the Other Side, and Lucy sees the skull in his human form - and despite all his griping, despite all his threats and his pleas for her to die and join him on the Other Side, despite the absolute lack of personal gain for his actions, DESPITE his knowledge that it won’t change anything between them and that she STILL won’t trust him enough to release him, the skull chooses to spare Lucy - he chooses to show her the way back to the way of the living. He points the way to the safety of life, knowing he can’t follow, but doing it anyway beCAUSE HE LOVES HER SHIT BOY I DIE

There’s more reasons, but this ask is getting real long and you probably weren’t here for this much exposition at like, late-o-clock at night. What was my point? I had a point. Oh! Basically:

The skull clearly cares for Lucy. Does she care for it? Mm, debatable. Again, I can mostly point to book 4 for this - Lucy’s primary motivation, and the reason she returns to Lockwood & Co. despite it being expressly against her wishes and desires, is the need to get the skull back. It’s not just that she wants a Type Three Spirit to show that she’s a competent Listener, it’s specifically that she misses skull and wants him back in her life. But again, Lucy is fixated on Lockwood for five books, clearly crushing on him and not paying attention to many of the people around her (she doesn’t even notice sparks flying between George and Flo until book five, and even then, she’s clearly confused about what’s going on). Lucy is also, like...notoriously bad at reading other people. She sees Holly as a threat to her relationship with Lockwood in book 3, for instance, even though Holly is, like...objectively, just way too old for him, and frankly, way too old to possibly find a fifteen-year-old boy attractive. Lucy doesn’t understand other people, and honestly, she doesn’t really understand herself. And that’s not a mark against her character - again, Lucy is 15-17 over the course of the books, which is not a great time for anyone, and definitely not a great time for introspections on personal character - but it does mean that any affection she has for the skull is so subtextual / subconscious that she probably doesn’t even realize it’s there. YET. 

uhhh the point is they should kiss also the fact that the skull ISN’T perfect and Lucy doesn’t think it’s perfect leads to way more interesting and explorable interactions. Also the fact that skull is not recognized by the fandom as a legitimate member of Lockwood & Co. is a fucking crime and I will begin handcuffing people off the fucking nog if this fandom doesn’t get its shit together. I WILL TAKE THIS SHIP BY MY TEETH AND DRAG IT INTO THE LIMELIGHT, YOU SEE IF I FUCKING DON’T. The skull is my favorite character, he’s literally just Bartimaeus but Stroud gave him a new name and stuck him in a jar, and that gives me Big Feelings. He’s a Wyrd Boy with a tragic and mysterious past and he probably loved someone who Lucy reminds him of...staring up at the stars, flooded by the memories of his past, of his failures...I’m just saying I’ve been stanning Bartimaeus since 2003 and ergo it’s REAL easy for me to stan skull and project a lot of that good good barti pain salt onto him, just give me this

fuck this is like twelve paragraphs long how am i like this. uh. i have more feelings but i HAVE to stop myself, i have to get on a bus at 5:30 am tomorrow morning and it’s almost midnight here i HAVE to stop, i HAVE to

#reyofsunlight666 #lockwood and co #lockwood & co. #lucy carlyle #skullyle #skull in a jar #anthony lockwood #uhhhh #bartimaeus #I don't want this to show up in the barti tag but i want it classified as barti shit on my blog you feel #i hope i put enough tags in that it didn't get added to that pile sorry y'all #also i haven't actually finished book 5 yet bc i'm terrified #I KNOW WHAT STROUD DOES. I KNOW WHAT HAPPENED IN PTOLEMYS GATE #I KNOW HIS GAMES

[elf-trash]

@reyofsunlight666 wowww I have not been tagged in one of these in MANY MOONS

last song you listened to: chinatown - The Bleachers (ft. Bruce Springsteen)

last movie you watched: Moulin Rouge lmao my friend and I revisited it/forced our other friend who had never seen it to watch it with us because we were OBSESSED as tweens

currently reading: The Poppy War (I just started it, my sister has been bugging me non-stop to read it for months)

currently watching: The Crown and maybe after that I'll finally watch the Expanse like everyone on the planet has been telling me to for literal years

currently craving: sleep lmao

currently working on: two original novels, a fanfic, a product commercial I'm directing for work next week, and a ballet I'm shooting this week (I'm going to die I need to sleep see above answer)

currently playing: Cyberpunk 2077 if by "playing" you mean booting up the game and recording scenes to reference for my fic (and also testing mods and taking screenshots lmao)

[zisurru]

@reyofsunlight666

YOU HAVE WON THAT BET

[bug-pasta]

Eight People I'd Like to Know Better

Thanks @weepingweellow for the tag!

1. Birthday: june 1st 2002

2. Zodiac: gemini

3. Height: 155cm ish (like 5′2 or something yikes)

4. Last Song I Listened To: as the rope bridge sways by blitzkid (leave me and my punk music alone)

5. Hobbies: reading mostly but also drawing/painting and spending time with animals (SNEK)

6. Favorite Color: like turquoise but more blue but also mixed with a bit of light grey so sort of pastel it’s very specific okay

7. Last Movie I Watched: do doctor who christmas specials count? if so then the return of doctor mysterio. if not then it chapter one

8. Favorite Book: carry on by rainbow rowell i think? but wayward son killed me so

9. Dream Job: yikes idk man. anything with animals i guess (im gonna go to school to be a vet tech probably we’ll see)

10. Meaning behind my URL: i mean it should be obvious cause like,, gatsby’s gay af. it’s basically canon, fight me. but also i changed it like a year ago when i wrote an essay titled The Gay Gatsby for my english class, no joke

I tag: @surreal-snow @reyofsunlight666 @chlokok @cirriiwoods @oscar-mildes ​ @bluiiieee ​ @validmess ​ @someriverinidaho ​

You don’t have to do all the questions if you don’t want to

You don’t have to do any question actually

If you feel like it though, I’ll be glad to know you a little better~

#the great gatsby #tgg #carry on #natsby #rainbow rowell #wayward son #snowbaz #doctor who #it #stephen king it #stephen king #it chapter one #punk #blitzkid #gemini #nev has risen from the dead to make a post

[lorata]

Happy late birthday!! 🎉🎉🎂

Thank you! :D

#lorata answers #reyofsunlight666

[kawuli]

Apollo and Artemis asks!

@contemplatingchicken said: I hope artemis sits on apollo because DOG PILLOW           

I think Apollo is still too skittish for that but a year ago they could barely be in the same room so maybe someday! 

@reyofsunlight666 said: i wish to borrow your fluffy adorable animals. for Official Reasons  @batbetbitbotbut said: i am jealous

They are very good animals I enjoy visiting them

@9thbutterfly said: Can you please compliment your family on the excellent pet names? The excellent pets, too, of course!

The names are thanks to my sister! Artemis came first, she showed up on their doorstep as a ~7-month-old and my brother-in-law was like CAN WE KEEP HER? enough for my sister to capitulate. The name was because she caught a couple mice for them so clearly she is the godess of the hunt.

Then when they decided to get a new dog obviously the names had to go together, so -- Apollo!

(my sister is 100% the kind of person who coordinates mythological figure names for her pets. also has opinions about fashion and interior decorating and fancy food stuff, and still corrects my grammar (”I’m going to lay down” “don’t you mean LIE down?”). we are in many ways very different. she’s great tho)

#apollo the dog #artemis the cat

[earlgraytay]

reyofsunlight666 replied to your post “argumate: the funny thing about the idea of the Jade Emperor up in...”

this is a galaxy brained take

@reyofsunlight666 - I’m playing devil’s advocate.

it’s more fun to argue about religious concepts you don’t actually believe in than it is to argue about whether or not you get to call yourself the identity label you’ve called yourself for coming up on ten years.

#reyofsunlight666 #general malarkey

[babyghoulrat]

People I’d Like to Know Better

Thanks @reyofsunlight666 for tagging me!

1. Birthday: Dec 5 1997

2. Zodiac: sagittarius

3. Height: 5'9"

4. Last Song I Listened To: sweatshop boys by T5

5. Hobbies: painting my nails the worst shades possible! right now theyre like pond scum green, which is pretty sexy of me i think

6. Favorite Color: yellow!

8. Favorite Book: bartimaeus sequence baby! ive also gotten super into more political books recently, and i like The Insecure American and The Revolution Will Not Be Funded by INCITE! good reads if u want to feel Mad about the state of the world, esp if you live in the US

no pressure to do this if u dont want to! i tag: @precariously-in-love, @transformedbytrees, @xoteria (u hapless disgrace)

#ask meme

[kae-karo]

Catch up game!

hello @natigail love i hope you’re well!! tysm for the tag bb 💜💜

last song you listened to: the witching hour by the ready set, but i also want to give a special shoutout to my kaeluc playlist (x) which lives in my head rent free at all times sdlkfjlksdjf

last movie you watched: LMAO the road to el dorado bc rose hadn’t seen it yet

currently reading: does it count if i’m between books? i’m working my way (very slowly) back through the graceling series bc i wanna read the new(ish) one

currently watching: mm nothing really? just finished the last season of the magicians and ri turned me on to fruits basket so rose and i might start watching that soon?

currently craving: the coffee still brewing. for childe to come home already bc oh my god at this rate i’m not even gonna hit guaranteed pity by the time his banner is done. and i was originally saving for venti jfc lmao

currently working on: the arranged marriage/fake relationship kaeluc royalty au >:} seriously tho it’s spiraling out of control lmao it’s so much longer than i expected it to be sdlkfklsdfj

currently playing: genshin lmao what else. literally my brain only has the capacity for one (1) thing at a time,,,,,,my current Big Fear is that between ri and my sister, they’re gonna drag me back into runescape sdfkjjsdfjlsdfjl

tagging (this is my ‘hi friend!!’ or ‘hi i miss u!!!’ or ‘hi idk u well yet but i would like to!’ tag but do not feel obligated lmao): @kerasines @alienjack @snack-thief-keith @monarchofsnails @revyourriley @talkaboutartassholes @dellusioning @reyofsunlight666 @ferricadooza @fourthingsandawizard @ilovepuppysizedelephants @ethydium @prince-liest @speedysharkworld @the-final-sif @deathclassic @watchmakermori @shigarakitomura @captainadwen @anemo-chocobo @zhong-chi

#ask game #hope u are all well loves!!

[autumn-in-phandom]

Rules: tag 9 people you’d like to get to know better!

I was tagged by: @quercussp

Favourite colour: I have a favorite shade/tone for every color, but I’ll go in order of importance: sage green, burgundy, aubergine, charcoal, burnt orange, harvest gold and Prussian blue (I had to look that one up, it’s the color I look best in) I also have a fondness for various shades of blue-green.

Lipstick or chapstick: chapstick for sure. My current favorite is Burt’s Bees Honey

Top three ships: phan, drarry, scorbus

Last song: I’m sure it was Muse in the car, probably Sing for Absolution

Last movie: Gosh movies have become a rarity, I’d have to look at my Netflix history, I’m sure there’s a way to do that. The last one I remember was Emma, with Gwenth Paltrow, and it was mostly for background noise and because I was curious about why I liked it as a teenager, turns out I had it and Sliding Doors jumbled up in my head.

Currently reading: several fics, including a beta read for a lovely story coming out tomorrow by @calvinahobbes (consider this your tag for this too). What I *should* be reading is Good Omens

Tagging: @glitter-intheair @goldenpinof @i-am-my-opheliac @jestbee @neverbeenawriter @reyofsunlight666 @tobieallison @yikesola

#tag thing