via https://ift.tt/2mNieKk
professor-quirrell:
Aziraphale being an on brand Bastard™: different body, same energy edition
professor-quirrell:
Aziraphale being an on brand Bastard™: different body, same energy edition
Sep. 26th, 2019
via https://ift.tt/2lkIKua
alderaan-board-of-tourism:
senator-mon-mothma:
Star Wars never really explores the cool time-keeping situations that you can end up with in a society that spans multiple planets:
planets with no moon that don’t have a time increment between days and years
planets with a dozen moons where understanding their cycles involves university courses
multi-planet star systems where the position of the other planet features prominently in calendar systems
tidally locked planets with no days (or years, really, because even though they’re orbiting a star they wouldn’t have significant changes in seasons)
and not only do they not have days or years, they have no cultural concept of those things and are bewildered by the rest of the galaxy’s obsession with measuring time
planets with years so long that they’re useless as a way of measuring age, so people give their age in months instead
planets with like 6 hour days where people are used to sleeping frequently for only a couple hours at a time
the space equivalent of jetlag involves adjusting to a new day length, not just a new time zone
when two planets have slightly different day lengths, the days shift relative to each other, so if you travel frequently between two such planets, sometimes the days line up perfectly and sometimes you have to deal with 12 hours of “jet”lag
And there are tons of interesting cultural implications that go along with using Coruscant time as a standard throughout the galaxy:
standard Coruscant dates have basically no correlation to seasons on planets with different year lengths, so to even guess at the weather during a historical date given in standard time you need to do calculations
everyone has a different age in local years and standard years, and a different birthday
some planets have days much longer or shorter than standard days, so your standard birthday might be spread over a few local days or vice versa
stuff like being old enough to drive – it tends to go in round numbers of local years, so even on planets where the rule is “about 18 standard”, you have some planets where it’s actually 17.36 standard years, or 19.1, or whatever works out nicely in local years
planets that follow Coruscant standard time and totally ignore natural phenomena on their own planets
up to and including days – they force themselves into sleep cycles with nothing to do with the sun rising and setting
planets that refuse to use standard time even in official settings, and pilots hate having to travel there because the space port is always chaotic because no one knows what time it is
the Separatists try to switch to another time system than Coruscant standard and it’s a total mess but it would be embarrassing to switch back
the Rebellion learns their lesson from this and doesn’t try to change the standard time system even though the New Republic government is no longer based on Coruscant
people pay less and less attention to standard time as you get farther from the core
planets with similar natural time cycles to Coruscant have more prosperous economies and produce more prominent and successful people, although the effect is subtle enough that it goes unnoticed until someone randomly decides to check for correlation
A nerdy Star Wars post that has given me life and revived my crops.
Spacers like the First Order who measure time in shifts and see no reason to bow to the dictates of suns.
alderaan-board-of-tourism:
senator-mon-mothma:
Star Wars never really explores the cool time-keeping situations that you can end up with in a society that spans multiple planets:
planets with no moon that don’t have a time increment between days and years
planets with a dozen moons where understanding their cycles involves university courses
multi-planet star systems where the position of the other planet features prominently in calendar systems
tidally locked planets with no days (or years, really, because even though they’re orbiting a star they wouldn’t have significant changes in seasons)
and not only do they not have days or years, they have no cultural concept of those things and are bewildered by the rest of the galaxy’s obsession with measuring time
planets with years so long that they’re useless as a way of measuring age, so people give their age in months instead
planets with like 6 hour days where people are used to sleeping frequently for only a couple hours at a time
the space equivalent of jetlag involves adjusting to a new day length, not just a new time zone
when two planets have slightly different day lengths, the days shift relative to each other, so if you travel frequently between two such planets, sometimes the days line up perfectly and sometimes you have to deal with 12 hours of “jet”lag
And there are tons of interesting cultural implications that go along with using Coruscant time as a standard throughout the galaxy:
standard Coruscant dates have basically no correlation to seasons on planets with different year lengths, so to even guess at the weather during a historical date given in standard time you need to do calculations
everyone has a different age in local years and standard years, and a different birthday
some planets have days much longer or shorter than standard days, so your standard birthday might be spread over a few local days or vice versa
stuff like being old enough to drive – it tends to go in round numbers of local years, so even on planets where the rule is “about 18 standard”, you have some planets where it’s actually 17.36 standard years, or 19.1, or whatever works out nicely in local years
planets that follow Coruscant standard time and totally ignore natural phenomena on their own planets
up to and including days – they force themselves into sleep cycles with nothing to do with the sun rising and setting
planets that refuse to use standard time even in official settings, and pilots hate having to travel there because the space port is always chaotic because no one knows what time it is
the Separatists try to switch to another time system than Coruscant standard and it’s a total mess but it would be embarrassing to switch back
the Rebellion learns their lesson from this and doesn’t try to change the standard time system even though the New Republic government is no longer based on Coruscant
people pay less and less attention to standard time as you get farther from the core
planets with similar natural time cycles to Coruscant have more prosperous economies and produce more prominent and successful people, although the effect is subtle enough that it goes unnoticed until someone randomly decides to check for correlation
A nerdy Star Wars post that has given me life and revived my crops.
Spacers like the First Order who measure time in shifts and see no reason to bow to the dictates of suns.
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fangirlinginleatherboots:
when canon gives you an underdeveloped character and you just have to make do:
fangirlinginleatherboots:
when canon gives you an underdeveloped character and you just have to make do:
via https://ift.tt/2mP92oM
ladyantiheroine:
elphabaforpresidentofgallifrey:
randomperegrination:
hunger-for-both:
dragon-in-a-fez:
heavydirtysoul-24:
“I don’t want you to be hopeful, I want you to feel fear” this girl is 43 levels of metal
If you don’t reblog this you are DEAD to me.
This is Greta Thunberg. She is an activist for comprehensive climate change policies and action. She is a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize. She’s 16. She’s remarkable.
also she’s autistic and ADULTS have used that against her
Respect this young woman or die by my sword.
It’s not the fear that’s important, it’s the action. Leave that part of the sentence out, and you miss the point.
Fear alone isn’t going to save us, it’s only good if it leads us to do something about the damn problem. So, if you admire her, now ask yourself what you will do to help.
ladyantiheroine:
elphabaforpresidentofgallifrey:
randomperegrination:
hunger-for-both:
dragon-in-a-fez:
heavydirtysoul-24:
“I don’t want you to be hopeful, I want you to feel fear” this girl is 43 levels of metal
If you don’t reblog this you are DEAD to me.
This is Greta Thunberg. She is an activist for comprehensive climate change policies and action. She is a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize. She’s 16. She’s remarkable.
also she’s autistic and ADULTS have used that against her
Respect this young woman or die by my sword.
It’s not the fear that’s important, it’s the action. Leave that part of the sentence out, and you miss the point.
Fear alone isn’t going to save us, it’s only good if it leads us to do something about the damn problem. So, if you admire her, now ask yourself what you will do to help.
via https://ift.tt/2mOAV0f
radicalhoodie:
inthroughthesunroof:
aziraphalelookedwretched:
God only knows what the context of this is
But the Crowley and Aziraphale energy is off the charts
“Look, I’m just saying, it wasn’t my fault if he decided to commit suicide by threatening you.”
“Do you really think our respective offices are going to care?”
“Well, no. I’m just saying it’s not my fault. Anyway, he was a saint to his parish and a demon to his housekeeper. Makes him a double agent. So we’re both doing the right thing.”
“And both doing the wrong one.”
“Well. I suppose you could make that argument.”
“How deep do you think we need to put him?”
“I wouldn’t know, I’ve never hidden a body before. I still don’t see why we can’t miracle him away.”
“Audits, my dear. I’m not sure how your side is about it, but my side audits miracles. Unless you’re really sure about that “both doing the right thing” argument.”
“Whatever. Hold your end higher, would you? He’s heavier than he looks.”
a quick artist’s rendition (with some liberties ;) )
radicalhoodie:
inthroughthesunroof:
aziraphalelookedwretched:
God only knows what the context of this is
But the Crowley and Aziraphale energy is off the charts
“Look, I’m just saying, it wasn’t my fault if he decided to commit suicide by threatening you.”
“Do you really think our respective offices are going to care?”
“Well, no. I’m just saying it’s not my fault. Anyway, he was a saint to his parish and a demon to his housekeeper. Makes him a double agent. So we’re both doing the right thing.”
“And both doing the wrong one.”
“Well. I suppose you could make that argument.”
“How deep do you think we need to put him?”
“I wouldn’t know, I’ve never hidden a body before. I still don’t see why we can’t miracle him away.”
“Audits, my dear. I’m not sure how your side is about it, but my side audits miracles. Unless you’re really sure about that “both doing the right thing” argument.”
“Whatever. Hold your end higher, would you? He’s heavier than he looks.”
a quick artist’s rendition (with some liberties ;) )
via https://ift.tt/2mNpC8p
generalgrievousdatingsim:
generalgrievousdatingsim:
generalgrievousdatingsim:
im reading about cowboy phrases and sayings and like 95% of them are just solid life advice
like idk how accurate these are but somehow they manage to be both peak shitposting humor and genuinely helpful suggestions
fuck self-help books and therapy, all i need to make it in life is my trusty Cowboy Tips™
generalgrievousdatingsim:
generalgrievousdatingsim:
generalgrievousdatingsim:
im reading about cowboy phrases and sayings and like 95% of them are just solid life advice
like idk how accurate these are but somehow they manage to be both peak shitposting humor and genuinely helpful suggestions
fuck self-help books and therapy, all i need to make it in life is my trusty Cowboy Tips™
via https://ift.tt/2ln7r9k
pyrrhiccomedy:
shaaknaa:
pococurantina:
achromic-red-dreams-doze-angrily:
achromic-red-dreams-doze-angrily:
inkwingart:
x4w:
rb this with ur opinion on this shade of pink:
This is magenta, and not pink. Unlike pink, magenta doesn’t actually exist. Our brain just invents magenta to serve as what it considers a logical bridge between red and violet, which each exist at opposite ends of a linear spectrum.
TL;DR this color is fake (and also I hate it)
w
what
im
Wait til you learn about Stygean Blue
Your brain is a badly-designed hot mess of bootstrapped chemistry that will tell you that all kinds of shit is happening that has no correlation to physical reality, including time travel. It just makes things up. Your brain is guessing about what’s happening when your eyes saccade, what’s happening in your blind spot, and what the majority of the visible light spectrum looks like, and you don’t know it’s happening because it doesn’t aid your survival to become aware that a lot of what you see is fake.
The human eye only has three types of color sensitive cones, which detect red, blue, and green light. Your brain is making up every other color you perceive.
Let’s have a little fun with that thought. This is the visible spectrum of light.
You will of course note that yellow is on the chart. Yellow has a discreet wavelength, and is therefore a distinct physical color. But we can’t see it.
“Sorry, what the fuck?”
What we call yellow is just what our brain shrugs and spits out when our red and green cones are equally stimulated. We have light receptors that can pick up on the physical spectrum of light we call yellow: that’s why yellow things don’t just look like moving black blocks to us. But your brain has no fucking idea what the color yellow looks like.
Some animals have eyes that can perceive the color yellow! Goldfish have a yellow cone in their eyes. If they could talk, they could tell us what yellow looks like. But we wouldn’t be able to understand it.
What your brain actually sees of the color spectrum:
We can measure the wavelength of light, so we know that when we see ‘yellow,’ we are seeing light in that 550-ish nanometers range. But we don’t have a cone in our eyes that can pick that up. Your brain just has a very consistent guess about what color that wavelength of light could be. We decided to name that guess ‘yellow.’ We can’t imagine what yellow really looks like any more than a dog can imagine the color red.
Here’s the funny thing: your brain is never perceiving just one photon of light at a time. Something like 2*10⁸ photons per second are hitting your retina under normal conditions. Your brain doesn’t individually process all of them. So it averages them out. It grabs a bunch of photons all coming from the same direction, with the same pattern, and goes, “yeah, that cup is blue, fuck it, next.”
That’s how colors blend in our eyes. So sure, if a photon of light with a wavelength of 550 nanometers bounces into our eyes, we see what we call “yellow.” But if we see two photons at the same time, coming from the same object, one of which is 500 nms and the other of which is 600 nms, your brain will average them out and you will still see yellow even though none of the light you just saw was 550 nms.
So how does magenta factor into this?
Well, as we’ve just established, when your brain sees light from two different slices of the visible light spectrum, it will try to just average them together. Green plus red is yellow, fuck it. If it’s more red than green, we’ll call that ‘orange.’ Literally who gives a shit, we’re trying to forage over here. There are bears out here and it’s so scary.
What happens if you take the average of blue and red light, which we perceive to be magenta? What’s the centerpoint of that line?
Fucking green.
Hey, that’s not gonna work? We live on a planet where EVERYTHING IS GREEN. If something is NOT green, that means it’s either food, or a potential source of danger, and either way your brain wants you to know about it.
So your brain goes, WHOOPS. Okay - this is fine. We already made up yellow, orange, cyan, and violet. We’ll just make up another color. Something that looks really, really different from green.
And so it made up magenta.
So, physics-wise, is magenta “real?”
No; there’s no single wavelength of light that corresponds to magenta. But you’re rarely seeing only a single wavelength of light anyway. And even when you are, every color other than RGB is a dart thrown on the wall by your meat computer. This is the CIE Chromaticity Diagram:
Explaining this thing is a little more than I want to take on on a Saturday morning, but I’ve included a link above that goes into it a little more. The point is that only the colors that actually touch the ‘outline’ of the shape actually correspond to a specific wavelength of light. All of the other colors are blends of multiple wavelengths. So magenta isn’t special.
Given that color is just a fun trick your brain is playing on you to help you find food and avoid danger, is magenta real?
Yeah, absolutely. Or at least, it’s just as real as most of what we see. It’s what we see when we mix up blue and red. It would be disastrous from a survival standpoint to perceive that color as green, so we don’t. Because it’s not green. Light that’s green has a wavelength of around 510 nm. Stuff that’s magenta bounces back light that is both ~400 and ~700. Your brain knows the difference. So it fills in the gap for you, with the best guess it has, same as it does with your blind spot.
The perception of color exists within your brain, and your brain says you see magenta. So you see magenta.
pyrrhiccomedy:
shaaknaa:
pococurantina:
achromic-red-dreams-doze-angrily:
achromic-red-dreams-doze-angrily:
inkwingart:
x4w:
rb this with ur opinion on this shade of pink:
This is magenta, and not pink. Unlike pink, magenta doesn’t actually exist. Our brain just invents magenta to serve as what it considers a logical bridge between red and violet, which each exist at opposite ends of a linear spectrum.
TL;DR this color is fake (and also I hate it)
w
what
im
Wait til you learn about Stygean Blue
Your brain is a badly-designed hot mess of bootstrapped chemistry that will tell you that all kinds of shit is happening that has no correlation to physical reality, including time travel. It just makes things up. Your brain is guessing about what’s happening when your eyes saccade, what’s happening in your blind spot, and what the majority of the visible light spectrum looks like, and you don’t know it’s happening because it doesn’t aid your survival to become aware that a lot of what you see is fake.
The human eye only has three types of color sensitive cones, which detect red, blue, and green light. Your brain is making up every other color you perceive.
Let’s have a little fun with that thought. This is the visible spectrum of light.
You will of course note that yellow is on the chart. Yellow has a discreet wavelength, and is therefore a distinct physical color. But we can’t see it.
“Sorry, what the fuck?”
What we call yellow is just what our brain shrugs and spits out when our red and green cones are equally stimulated. We have light receptors that can pick up on the physical spectrum of light we call yellow: that’s why yellow things don’t just look like moving black blocks to us. But your brain has no fucking idea what the color yellow looks like.
Some animals have eyes that can perceive the color yellow! Goldfish have a yellow cone in their eyes. If they could talk, they could tell us what yellow looks like. But we wouldn’t be able to understand it.
What your brain actually sees of the color spectrum:
We can measure the wavelength of light, so we know that when we see ‘yellow,’ we are seeing light in that 550-ish nanometers range. But we don’t have a cone in our eyes that can pick that up. Your brain just has a very consistent guess about what color that wavelength of light could be. We decided to name that guess ‘yellow.’ We can’t imagine what yellow really looks like any more than a dog can imagine the color red.
Here’s the funny thing: your brain is never perceiving just one photon of light at a time. Something like 2*10⁸ photons per second are hitting your retina under normal conditions. Your brain doesn’t individually process all of them. So it averages them out. It grabs a bunch of photons all coming from the same direction, with the same pattern, and goes, “yeah, that cup is blue, fuck it, next.”
That’s how colors blend in our eyes. So sure, if a photon of light with a wavelength of 550 nanometers bounces into our eyes, we see what we call “yellow.” But if we see two photons at the same time, coming from the same object, one of which is 500 nms and the other of which is 600 nms, your brain will average them out and you will still see yellow even though none of the light you just saw was 550 nms.
So how does magenta factor into this?
Well, as we’ve just established, when your brain sees light from two different slices of the visible light spectrum, it will try to just average them together. Green plus red is yellow, fuck it. If it’s more red than green, we’ll call that ‘orange.’ Literally who gives a shit, we’re trying to forage over here. There are bears out here and it’s so scary.
What happens if you take the average of blue and red light, which we perceive to be magenta? What’s the centerpoint of that line?
Fucking green.
Hey, that’s not gonna work? We live on a planet where EVERYTHING IS GREEN. If something is NOT green, that means it’s either food, or a potential source of danger, and either way your brain wants you to know about it.
So your brain goes, WHOOPS. Okay - this is fine. We already made up yellow, orange, cyan, and violet. We’ll just make up another color. Something that looks really, really different from green.
And so it made up magenta.
So, physics-wise, is magenta “real?”
No; there’s no single wavelength of light that corresponds to magenta. But you’re rarely seeing only a single wavelength of light anyway. And even when you are, every color other than RGB is a dart thrown on the wall by your meat computer. This is the CIE Chromaticity Diagram:
Explaining this thing is a little more than I want to take on on a Saturday morning, but I’ve included a link above that goes into it a little more. The point is that only the colors that actually touch the ‘outline’ of the shape actually correspond to a specific wavelength of light. All of the other colors are blends of multiple wavelengths. So magenta isn’t special.
Given that color is just a fun trick your brain is playing on you to help you find food and avoid danger, is magenta real?
Yeah, absolutely. Or at least, it’s just as real as most of what we see. It’s what we see when we mix up blue and red. It would be disastrous from a survival standpoint to perceive that color as green, so we don’t. Because it’s not green. Light that’s green has a wavelength of around 510 nm. Stuff that’s magenta bounces back light that is both ~400 and ~700. Your brain knows the difference. So it fills in the gap for you, with the best guess it has, same as it does with your blind spot.
The perception of color exists within your brain, and your brain says you see magenta. So you see magenta.
via https://ift.tt/2lXyBUu
rainbow-femme:
smatter:
otto-mandias:
corseque:
poplitealqueen:
tuulikki:
heathyr:
legalizememes:
bruh
everything about this… this statue, the choppy waves, the cliffs behind her, the echo, the drumming….. aesthetic
Lyrics in Faroese:
Trøllabundin eri eg eri eg
Galdramaður festi meg festi meg
Trøllabundin djúpt í míni sál í míni sál
Í hjartanum logar brennandi bál brennandi bál
Trøllabundin eri eg eri eg
Galdramaður festi meg festi meg
Trøllabundin inn í hjartarót í hjartarót
Eyga mítt festist har ið galdramaður stóð
English translation:
Spellbound am I, am I
The wizard has enchanted me, enchanted me
Spellbound deep in my soul, in my soul
In my heart burns a smouldering fire, smouldering fire
Spellbound am I, am I
The wizard has enchanted me, enchanted me
Spellbound in my heart’s root, my heart’s root
Did anyone else just get the shivers? Cuz I’m definitely getting the shivers.
Btdubs, the singer is Eivør Pálsdóttir.
Reblogging again for the haunting wizard lyrics
shoutout to the faroe island for being the only real viking island left
I know the islands are owned by Denmark but this reminds me so much of Iceland
Fun fact this woman is trying to single handedly preserve this kind of singing in her culture by performing and making people aware of it because it’s been fading with time and she’s afraid if she doesn’t spread it it will disappear and be lost to future generations
rainbow-femme:
smatter:
otto-mandias:
corseque:
poplitealqueen:
tuulikki:
heathyr:
legalizememes:
bruh
everything about this… this statue, the choppy waves, the cliffs behind her, the echo, the drumming….. aesthetic
Lyrics in Faroese:
Trøllabundin eri eg eri eg
Galdramaður festi meg festi meg
Trøllabundin djúpt í míni sál í míni sál
Í hjartanum logar brennandi bál brennandi bál
Trøllabundin eri eg eri eg
Galdramaður festi meg festi meg
Trøllabundin inn í hjartarót í hjartarót
Eyga mítt festist har ið galdramaður stóð
English translation:
Spellbound am I, am I
The wizard has enchanted me, enchanted me
Spellbound deep in my soul, in my soul
In my heart burns a smouldering fire, smouldering fire
Spellbound am I, am I
The wizard has enchanted me, enchanted me
Spellbound in my heart’s root, my heart’s root
Did anyone else just get the shivers? Cuz I’m definitely getting the shivers.
Btdubs, the singer is Eivør Pálsdóttir.
Reblogging again for the haunting wizard lyrics
shoutout to the faroe island for being the only real viking island left
I know the islands are owned by Denmark but this reminds me so much of Iceland
Fun fact this woman is trying to single handedly preserve this kind of singing in her culture by performing and making people aware of it because it’s been fading with time and she’s afraid if she doesn’t spread it it will disappear and be lost to future generations
via https://ift.tt/2nuXrvp
oodlenoodleroodle:
hunter-rodrigez:
wetorturedsomefolks:
idk man ive been tryin this ‘twitter’ thing for a while now but it universally feels like unadulterated brain poison… i think the tendency to tie your twitter presence to your real identity and the ability to become verified mean that there is a critical mass of attractive people trying to become standup comics with irreverent tweets about dating apps and overprivileged brooklynite media people trying to build up clout. everyone is either trying to get a Netflix deal or trying to reply guy for liberal politicians hard enough that they can get noticed for it. even the tumblr adjacent hot takes people all seem to be doing it to build up clout with their local DSA chapter. not like here where people have god awful takes on everything just for the sheer pleasure of it, just for the art
That’s one thing I like about Tumblr, you gain nothing by making it big here. You can have a million followers and nobody will even know because you’re the only one who can see it. The best thing you can hope for is running ads for some of these ugly ass sweaters nobody ever clicks on, other than that all you will get is people sending you hate messages or people asking for pictures of your feet… Or both… In the same message…
This was probably caused by incompetence rather tan good intentions but it still kinda saved tumblr from the plague of “influencers” you see on every other social media nowadays.
Like by now people who don’t even know computers or smartphones (like my mom) know that there is a thing called a Face Book or a Twitter or a Instagram. But nobody’s even heard of tumblr, there are millions of people — young people too! people of all ages! — who have never heard of tumblr! If you aren’t On Tumblr you have no idea what it even is. Hell if you ARE on Tumblr you still don’t know what the hell it is to other people, because the experiences are so divided. Like there are entire sections of tumblr life that you don’t ever participate in or encounter in anyway, they stick to their own tags, people don’t reblog them outside of their circles, etc… It’s wild.
oodlenoodleroodle:
hunter-rodrigez:
wetorturedsomefolks:
idk man ive been tryin this ‘twitter’ thing for a while now but it universally feels like unadulterated brain poison… i think the tendency to tie your twitter presence to your real identity and the ability to become verified mean that there is a critical mass of attractive people trying to become standup comics with irreverent tweets about dating apps and overprivileged brooklynite media people trying to build up clout. everyone is either trying to get a Netflix deal or trying to reply guy for liberal politicians hard enough that they can get noticed for it. even the tumblr adjacent hot takes people all seem to be doing it to build up clout with their local DSA chapter. not like here where people have god awful takes on everything just for the sheer pleasure of it, just for the art
That’s one thing I like about Tumblr, you gain nothing by making it big here. You can have a million followers and nobody will even know because you’re the only one who can see it. The best thing you can hope for is running ads for some of these ugly ass sweaters nobody ever clicks on, other than that all you will get is people sending you hate messages or people asking for pictures of your feet… Or both… In the same message…
This was probably caused by incompetence rather tan good intentions but it still kinda saved tumblr from the plague of “influencers” you see on every other social media nowadays.
Like by now people who don’t even know computers or smartphones (like my mom) know that there is a thing called a Face Book or a Twitter or a Instagram. But nobody’s even heard of tumblr, there are millions of people — young people too! people of all ages! — who have never heard of tumblr! If you aren’t On Tumblr you have no idea what it even is. Hell if you ARE on Tumblr you still don’t know what the hell it is to other people, because the experiences are so divided. Like there are entire sections of tumblr life that you don’t ever participate in or encounter in anyway, they stick to their own tags, people don’t reblog them outside of their circles, etc… It’s wild.
That Skull Poster...
Sep. 26th, 2019 11:34 amvia https://ift.tt/2lN4oHO
sanyoshosajira:
neil-gaiman:
I found a version of it in email. Here you go.
Man, lookit the beautiful fanservice we are given. I feel very spoiled and loved.
sanyoshosajira:
neil-gaiman:
I found a version of it in email. Here you go.
Man, lookit the beautiful fanservice we are given. I feel very spoiled and loved.
via https://ift.tt/2liTfxX
permian-tropos:
rex-sidereus:
do you ever just think about how wild star wars are politically.
like, there is the neoliberalism of the old republic, with the textbook neo-marxist core-periphery model of the greater galaxy.
then there are the jedi, which are an enormously ancient and powerful institution that benefits from and enables the republican-corporate structure, but refuses to take direct involvement in its policy,
this leaves an enormous power vacuum which is happily filled by the super secret red glowstick cult of the sith.
and then dooku drags the jedi from his weird neoreactionary hereditary aristocracy ground, which is still somehow more refreshing.
same thing goes for the separatist confederacy, which is mostly a network of megacorporations and planets dependent upon them, which are somehow a less stiffening alternative for many.
and then there is grievous, ventress and others from worlds existing outside the dominant framework of republican politics, but ravaged by capitalism and conflict and stripped of an identity beyond their utility, becoming the eventual wildcards.
the entire worlds like mandalore, powerful and prominent enough to be of weight on the galactic scene, but ultimately uninterested in the galactic politics as framed by the republic, because their domestic problems are more pressing.
what ever the hell is going on in the hutt space and underworld, raw capitalism functioning outside the state system
then there is the extremely militarized administrative structure of the empire, which drives itself to autocanibalistic destruction trying to keep all of the above under control.
pockets of limited autonomy exist under the empire, mostly in places whose established hierarchical administrative system allows for easier management.
the super secret red glowstick cult of the sith becomes even more secret, as things do within the mechanism of authoritarian states, which creates another vacuum, as their power is not backed up by ideological representation.
our beloved farmboy goes to pick up some power converters from the toshi station, and stumbles upon the said ideological vacuum with a blue glowstick in his hand.
the rebel alliance, which is the oddest mix of generational royalty unhappy with the empire taking over the power they have over their individual planets, and straight up space anarchists from the worlds previously disfranchised by the republic and bombed by the empire.
the rebels politicize the jedi teaching as the core of old republican values, going off them as their platform (may the force be with you), even as the old jedi order pointedly stayed away from policymaking.
the sequel trilogy, which refuses to address any of this.
![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
and_then_bam_cassiopeia you’re right of course
permian-tropos:
rex-sidereus:
do you ever just think about how wild star wars are politically.
like, there is the neoliberalism of the old republic, with the textbook neo-marxist core-periphery model of the greater galaxy.
then there are the jedi, which are an enormously ancient and powerful institution that benefits from and enables the republican-corporate structure, but refuses to take direct involvement in its policy,
this leaves an enormous power vacuum which is happily filled by the super secret red glowstick cult of the sith.
and then dooku drags the jedi from his weird neoreactionary hereditary aristocracy ground, which is still somehow more refreshing.
same thing goes for the separatist confederacy, which is mostly a network of megacorporations and planets dependent upon them, which are somehow a less stiffening alternative for many.
and then there is grievous, ventress and others from worlds existing outside the dominant framework of republican politics, but ravaged by capitalism and conflict and stripped of an identity beyond their utility, becoming the eventual wildcards.
the entire worlds like mandalore, powerful and prominent enough to be of weight on the galactic scene, but ultimately uninterested in the galactic politics as framed by the republic, because their domestic problems are more pressing.
what ever the hell is going on in the hutt space and underworld, raw capitalism functioning outside the state system
then there is the extremely militarized administrative structure of the empire, which drives itself to autocanibalistic destruction trying to keep all of the above under control.
pockets of limited autonomy exist under the empire, mostly in places whose established hierarchical administrative system allows for easier management.
the super secret red glowstick cult of the sith becomes even more secret, as things do within the mechanism of authoritarian states, which creates another vacuum, as their power is not backed up by ideological representation.
our beloved farmboy goes to pick up some power converters from the toshi station, and stumbles upon the said ideological vacuum with a blue glowstick in his hand.
the rebel alliance, which is the oddest mix of generational royalty unhappy with the empire taking over the power they have over their individual planets, and straight up space anarchists from the worlds previously disfranchised by the republic and bombed by the empire.
the rebels politicize the jedi teaching as the core of old republican values, going off them as their platform (may the force be with you), even as the old jedi order pointedly stayed away from policymaking.
the sequel trilogy, which refuses to address any of this.
and_then_bam_cassiopeia you’re right of coursevia https://ift.tt/2mRbURW
Egypt will soon be home to Africa’s first vertical forest:
thehopefuljournalist:
The Egyptian desert is set to host the African continent’s first vertical forest.
Italian architect and urban planner Stefano Boeri has unveiled designs for three buildings covered with pollution-absorbing trees and plants in Egypt’s New Administrative Capital, which is under construction in the desert east of Cairo.
Vertical forests pack thousands of square metres of greenery into just a few hundred square metres of urban space, providing shade and creating habitats for birds and insects, according to Boeri.
The trees, shrubs and plants absorb carbon dioxide, produce oxygen and filter dust from the air.
In recent years, large-scale green architecture projects have been taking root in major cities, from Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay to Sydney’s One Central Park.
Meanwhile, Liuzhou Forest City - another Boeri project- is under construction in the southern Chinese province of Guangxi. It will have more than 40,000 trees and 1 million plants covering its buildings. The trees and plants in Liuzhou Forest City are expected to annually absorb 10,000 tonnes of CO2 and 57 tonnes of pollutants, while producing about 900 tonnes of oxygen.
In the Netherlands, Boeri has also designed the 19-story Trudo Vertical Forest, which will house 125 affordable units targeting low-income families.
Egypt will soon be home to Africa’s first vertical forest:
thehopefuljournalist:
The Egyptian desert is set to host the African continent’s first vertical forest.
Italian architect and urban planner Stefano Boeri has unveiled designs for three buildings covered with pollution-absorbing trees and plants in Egypt’s New Administrative Capital, which is under construction in the desert east of Cairo.
Vertical forests pack thousands of square metres of greenery into just a few hundred square metres of urban space, providing shade and creating habitats for birds and insects, according to Boeri.
The trees, shrubs and plants absorb carbon dioxide, produce oxygen and filter dust from the air.
In recent years, large-scale green architecture projects have been taking root in major cities, from Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay to Sydney’s One Central Park.
Meanwhile, Liuzhou Forest City - another Boeri project- is under construction in the southern Chinese province of Guangxi. It will have more than 40,000 trees and 1 million plants covering its buildings. The trees and plants in Liuzhou Forest City are expected to annually absorb 10,000 tonnes of CO2 and 57 tonnes of pollutants, while producing about 900 tonnes of oxygen.
In the Netherlands, Boeri has also designed the 19-story Trudo Vertical Forest, which will house 125 affordable units targeting low-income families.
via https://ift.tt/2mTdR0l
highfemmehux:
are u even allowed to be an evil military officer in star wars if u don’t have sharp cheekbones
highfemmehux:
are u even allowed to be an evil military officer in star wars if u don’t have sharp cheekbones
via https://ift.tt/2lpcCWk
ekjohnston:
drst:
hearseeno:
edoraslass:
psyykkinen-lintukoto:
sophia-sol:
star-anise:
LOCAL MAN MAKES THE WORLD’S STUPIDEST HAT MAKE SENSE
OH MY GOSH.
for the first few minutes of the video I was like, oh, very nice, that hood looks super cozy and I want one
but then 4:14 was a GAME-CHANGER and I actually gasped out loud
I LEARNED SOMETHING HERE TODAY
#middle ages #YE OLDE SNAPBACK
hearseeno
*snort* “LOCAL MAN MAKES THE WORLD’S STUPIDEST HAT MAKE SENSE”
I can just imagine people going “ugh look at these fools wearing their hoods like that, what’s wrong with children these days!”
humans are so great
ekjohnston:
drst:
hearseeno:
edoraslass:
psyykkinen-lintukoto:
sophia-sol:
star-anise:
LOCAL MAN MAKES THE WORLD’S STUPIDEST HAT MAKE SENSE
OH MY GOSH.
for the first few minutes of the video I was like, oh, very nice, that hood looks super cozy and I want one
but then 4:14 was a GAME-CHANGER and I actually gasped out loud
I LEARNED SOMETHING HERE TODAY
#middle ages #YE OLDE SNAPBACK
hearseeno*snort* “LOCAL MAN MAKES THE WORLD’S STUPIDEST HAT MAKE SENSE”
I can just imagine people going “ugh look at these fools wearing their hoods like that, what’s wrong with children these days!”
humans are so great
via https://ift.tt/2mWysRu
wyomingnot:
This is not new, but I feel the need to put it out there again. This is what happens when people (cracktheglasses in this particular instance) feed the right thing into my easily suggestible brain.
wyomingnot:
This is not new, but I feel the need to put it out there again. This is what happens when people (
cracktheglasses in this particular instance) feed the right thing into my easily suggestible brain.via https://ift.tt/2mSiMyA
archaeologicalnews:
For decades, archaeologists weren’t sure what to make of peculiar clay vessels that kept turning up during excavations of ancient European villages. The small ceramic cups with open tops fit easily in an adult hand, but they had thin spouts jutting out of them. Some were decorated with geometric patterns; others were shaped like animals. Were they for pouring? For feeding the sick or elderly? Or maybe they were the ancient equivalent of baby bottles, allowing infants and young children to drink through the spout?
Now, scientists say they have solved the mystery by analyzing the residue left inside three vessels similar to the ones pictured above. All three were found in children’s graves from the Bavaria region of Germany and date to between 1200 B.C.E. and 450 B.C.E. When the researchers analyzed the chemical traces on the insides of the vessels, they found fatty acids from milk. Read more.
archaeologicalnews:
For decades, archaeologists weren’t sure what to make of peculiar clay vessels that kept turning up during excavations of ancient European villages. The small ceramic cups with open tops fit easily in an adult hand, but they had thin spouts jutting out of them. Some were decorated with geometric patterns; others were shaped like animals. Were they for pouring? For feeding the sick or elderly? Or maybe they were the ancient equivalent of baby bottles, allowing infants and young children to drink through the spout?
Now, scientists say they have solved the mystery by analyzing the residue left inside three vessels similar to the ones pictured above. All three were found in children’s graves from the Bavaria region of Germany and date to between 1200 B.C.E. and 450 B.C.E. When the researchers analyzed the chemical traces on the insides of the vessels, they found fatty acids from milk. Read more.
via https://ift.tt/2mTBTbs
herzlosrostig:
Hux : I had a terrible dream last night. You were there.
Kylo : And?
Hux : What do you mean “and”?
herzlosrostig:
Hux : I had a terrible dream last night. You were there.
Kylo : And?
Hux : What do you mean “and”?
via https://ift.tt/2nz6qvz
dukeofbookingham:
dirtydirtychai:
lyinginbedmon:
johannesviii:
prokopetz:
One of my favourite anecdotes about the first Golden Age of Piracy is that, at one point, Captain Henry Morgan left England in one ship, and arrived in the Caribbean commanding a completely different ship, and nobody knows why. What happened to the first ship and how he acquired the second one are entirely unrecorded.
At some point in his short career (1715 until 1718), the English pirate Ben Hornigold attacked a sloop near Honduras just to steal all the hats of the crew, because his own crew had gotten drunk the night before and they had tossed every single one of their own hats overboard.
Bartholomew Roberts, arguably the most successful pirate in history by ships captured (a whopping 470 in 3 years), didn’t actually want to be a pirate. His ship was captured and he was forced to join the pirate crew.
After the original pirate captain was killed, he was democratically elected captain of the pirate crew less than 6 weeks after being captured by them.
please someone give me the mockumentary following all these disasters
(and don’t forget the lafitte brothers!!!! and also all the lady pirates who are super done with everyone else’s shit!!!!)
There’s also Lording Barry, who besides having a fabulous name was so bad at being a playwright that he decided to just become a pirate instead, and was good enough at that that he was legitimized as a “privateer” in 1627.
dukeofbookingham:
dirtydirtychai:
lyinginbedmon:
johannesviii:
prokopetz:
One of my favourite anecdotes about the first Golden Age of Piracy is that, at one point, Captain Henry Morgan left England in one ship, and arrived in the Caribbean commanding a completely different ship, and nobody knows why. What happened to the first ship and how he acquired the second one are entirely unrecorded.
At some point in his short career (1715 until 1718), the English pirate Ben Hornigold attacked a sloop near Honduras just to steal all the hats of the crew, because his own crew had gotten drunk the night before and they had tossed every single one of their own hats overboard.
Bartholomew Roberts, arguably the most successful pirate in history by ships captured (a whopping 470 in 3 years), didn’t actually want to be a pirate. His ship was captured and he was forced to join the pirate crew.
After the original pirate captain was killed, he was democratically elected captain of the pirate crew less than 6 weeks after being captured by them.
please someone give me the mockumentary following all these disasters
(and don’t forget the lafitte brothers!!!! and also all the lady pirates who are super done with everyone else’s shit!!!!)
There’s also Lording Barry, who besides having a fabulous name was so bad at being a playwright that he decided to just become a pirate instead, and was good enough at that that he was legitimized as a “privateer” in 1627.
via https://ift.tt/2lmNT4O
shieldmaiden19:
uncommonbish:
https://www.undercovercolors.com/ - buy tests
The fact that women need this in order to feel safe sucks.
This is genius engineering but also reblog to save a life.
shieldmaiden19:
uncommonbish:
https://www.undercovercolors.com/ - buy tests
The fact that women need this in order to feel safe sucks.
This is genius engineering but also reblog to save a life.
via https://ift.tt/2ln5dqm
oopsabird:
Context, sources, more photos: https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/first-female-bodybuilders-1900s/
The first female bodybuilders and strongwomen showing off their gains, 1900s
xipiti:
oopsabird:
Context, sources, more photos: https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/first-female-bodybuilders-1900s/
The first female bodybuilders and strongwomen showing off their gains, 1900s
xipiti:
via https://ift.tt/2m4bM1h
blossoming–flower:
afacelesschampion:
TILDA SWINTON as GABRIEL in CONSTANTINE (2005)
Me as a kid, watching this movie for the first time:
blossoming–flower:
afacelesschampion:
TILDA SWINTON as GABRIEL in CONSTANTINE (2005)
Me as a kid, watching this movie for the first time:
via https://ift.tt/2lTarKW
cienie-isengardu:
Oh, please. I thought you could read minds, Ren. You honestly believe people hate me more than they hate you?
cienie-isengardu:
Oh, please. I thought you could read minds, Ren. You honestly believe people hate me more than they hate you?
via https://ift.tt/2nxYOcB
moonlandingwasfaked:
got hit with some unexpected wisdom in the youtube comments of all places
moonlandingwasfaked:
got hit with some unexpected wisdom in the youtube comments of all places
via https://ift.tt/2nAcZOs
cthene:
a wip, to be painted
Hux is St. Sebastian, Kylo is Irene, Mitaka is Irene’s handmaiden, naturally
cthene:
a wip, to be painted
Hux is St. Sebastian, Kylo is Irene, Mitaka is Irene’s handmaiden, naturally
via https://ift.tt/2m35Sh3
kyraneko:
duckbunny:
justanothermarvelblog11212:
What if humans are the only species with teeth?
Human: Struggling with wrapping on ration pack.
Alien: Do you require assistance human Andy?
Andy: (With a mouth full of plastic) Na I’ve got it.
Riiiiippppp
See?
Alien: Loses her shit.
*****
Alien looking at a caramel apple: Soooo you eat this?
Human: Yes we love them!
Alien: But they’re so hard. How do you consume them?
Human: Well yeah sometimes people do break teeth on them.
Alien: I’m sorry you can break your mouth bones on them but you eat them anyway!!??!
Human (Already biting into it): Mhuh.
*****
Evil alien: We have you now human!
Human: OH HELL NO YOU UGLY LITTLE SHITS YOU AINT GOT ME YOU THINK HUMANS ARE EASY TO KILL YOU’VE GOT ANOTHER THING COMING YOU…
Evil alien captain: Shut it up will you!
Evil alien: Yes sir OWWWW!
Evil alien captain: What just happened?!!? WHY IS THE HUMAN ESCAPING!!!?!!??
Evil alien: Humans have mouth bones.
Evil alien captain: ARE YOU KIDDING ME WHY DO HUMANS HAVE MOUTH BONES??!!!!???
human: yeah we had to invent cooking because our teeth are kinda small and useless. look *bares teeth*
alien, already disturbed by these peculiar soft endoshelled creatures: cool. cool. so uh just out of interest what do big, useful teeth look like?
-later-
alien, to her friends: AND THEN THEY SHOWED ME A THING CALLED A PET DOG AND I DID NOT LIKE IT
someone show them a replica of a Smilodon fatalis skull
kyraneko:
duckbunny:
justanothermarvelblog11212:
What if humans are the only species with teeth?
Human: Struggling with wrapping on ration pack.
Alien: Do you require assistance human Andy?
Andy: (With a mouth full of plastic) Na I’ve got it.
Riiiiippppp
See?
Alien: Loses her shit.
*****
Alien looking at a caramel apple: Soooo you eat this?
Human: Yes we love them!
Alien: But they’re so hard. How do you consume them?
Human: Well yeah sometimes people do break teeth on them.
Alien: I’m sorry you can break your mouth bones on them but you eat them anyway!!??!
Human (Already biting into it): Mhuh.
*****
Evil alien: We have you now human!
Human: OH HELL NO YOU UGLY LITTLE SHITS YOU AINT GOT ME YOU THINK HUMANS ARE EASY TO KILL YOU’VE GOT ANOTHER THING COMING YOU…
Evil alien captain: Shut it up will you!
Evil alien: Yes sir OWWWW!
Evil alien captain: What just happened?!!? WHY IS THE HUMAN ESCAPING!!!?!!??
Evil alien: Humans have mouth bones.
Evil alien captain: ARE YOU KIDDING ME WHY DO HUMANS HAVE MOUTH BONES??!!!!???
human: yeah we had to invent cooking because our teeth are kinda small and useless. look *bares teeth*
alien, already disturbed by these peculiar soft endoshelled creatures: cool. cool. so uh just out of interest what do big, useful teeth look like?
-later-
alien, to her friends: AND THEN THEY SHOWED ME A THING CALLED A PET DOG AND I DID NOT LIKE IT
someone show them a replica of a Smilodon fatalis skull
via https://ift.tt/2m7TMDp
re-bee-key:
queerly-tony:
This is the best description I’ve heard for this method, I always thought it was bullshit because I never heard a description that actually explained how to do this other than “tap your head 20 times”.
I have anxiety-induced hissing, which sounds/feels different from sound-induced tinnitus (which I have also experience). Sound-based tinnitus actually sounds like you’re “hearing” something in your ears, whilst the hissing I have feels like it’s “inside my head”, if that makes sense. But this technique still helps!!
OH MY FUCKING GOD IT WORKED!
Ive had tintinis my whole life and its just… fucking gone. What the fuck
re-bee-key:
queerly-tony:
This is the best description I’ve heard for this method, I always thought it was bullshit because I never heard a description that actually explained how to do this other than “tap your head 20 times”.
I have anxiety-induced hissing, which sounds/feels different from sound-induced tinnitus (which I have also experience). Sound-based tinnitus actually sounds like you’re “hearing” something in your ears, whilst the hissing I have feels like it’s “inside my head”, if that makes sense. But this technique still helps!!
OH MY FUCKING GOD IT WORKED!
Ive had tintinis my whole life and its just… fucking gone. What the fuck
via https://ift.tt/2nBXq8Y
cuisses-de-tonnerre:
shoe-sheriff:
literallysame:
oh my god
They killed him
he is no longer here, he is sitting on the comfort couch
cuisses-de-tonnerre:
shoe-sheriff:
literallysame:
oh my god
They killed him
he is no longer here, he is sitting on the comfort couch
via https://ift.tt/2nDeKuj
wtfannibal:
Jack : Hannibal can you tell everyone what’s is in this?
Hannibal :
wtfannibal:
Jack : Hannibal can you tell everyone what’s is in this?
Hannibal :
Q&A: Remember, Fiction is a Lie
Sep. 26th, 2019 08:39 pmvia https://ift.tt/2nxRJsw
howtofightwrite:
I read on here before that years of practice is very important and it is no surprise when an 80 year old master beats a 30 year old simply because of that. But how about if a character is able to live for hundreds or thousands of years. Wouldn’t it make such a character an absolute true master that no normal person can beat unaided by magic or tech? I’ve tried to look at fiction with such characters but it never really mentions this and these characters actually do get subdued unaided.
Well, consider this, when you’re reading about immortal characters, you’re reading fiction. Fiction is a lie. It may be a lie you want to believe, it may contain some semblance of veracity, but it is still a carefully crafted lie. It isn’t real and, because it is all in the author’s imagination, you can do whatever the hell you want.
In fiction, the author is not beholden to or have to consider any sort of realism outside of convincing their readership to believe the story they’re telling. More than that, fiction is notoriously inaccurate regarding violence in general. Often, these authors have never been in the room with actual individuals who are considered masters of their craft, experienced that remarkable chasm of awe, or felt the weight of being completely outclassed by presence alone. The end of the story is fiction lies to you. Again, the author crafts their own realism for their narrative and all that matters is whether or not their reader believes.
An immortal who was dueling with small-swords in France during the period when lost eyes and dual suicides were common isn’t going to be threatened by a seventeen year old with three weeks of modern sport fencing experience; especially if that immortal has kept up the practice.
This is a reasonable assumption if you extrapolate from the experiences of real world individuals. Fighting a master in the arena, utilizing their specialty, on an even playing field is asking to have your ass handed to you. In the real world, I’ve met men and women in their late sixties and seventies who are more limber than most teenagers. I once watched my martial arts master bend a solid steel rebar with the hollow of his throat. Crazy as that might sound, I kid you not. It’s a popular exercise shown at martial arts demos.
The irony is the upper limit of what human beings are capable of is, in fact, incredibly high, and most people are completely unaware because they have no exposure to it. Without experience, it’s difficult to fully comprehend the vast differences between individuals at various training stages and is, in part, where the trope “All Violence is Created Equal” comes from.
When an author has no experience with violence in any of its forms, they’re liable to treat all their combat characters as the same. We are all limited by our imaginations, just as our imaginations are limited by our knowledge and understanding of the world. A tiered system of power differences is easier to establish when you have experience. When you lack that experience, it can be more difficult to imagine the concrete ways your protagonist is disadvantaged by their immortal adversary. The author might not even realize how great an advantage experience is all by itself. Especially if they don’t understand predictive strategizing based on prior experience is more valuable than most of the techniques in a warrior’s arsenal. Fiction often treats strategy as separate or distinct character trait, rather than part of the package. This is part of why immortal characters inexplicably fall for obvious traps or ploys they should see coming a mile away, or acting in ways their narrative establishes is out of character for them. It’s all well and good to call your character a master fighter, but describing a master warrior and crafting a convincing character is an entirely different kettle of fish.
Violence is a vast, messy, constantly evolving business with a community that’s difficult to penetrate if you aren’t already a member. Martial combat skills and techniques are generally shrouded in mystery and hidden as a strategy to keep counters from being developed. The more information your opponent has about you, the easier it is for them to craft a solution to stop you. Combine this with media misinformation, urban legends, myths, and power fantasies, the novice faces a lot of difficulty figuring out what is and isn’t bacon. While the internet has given a lot of people more access than they had ten to twenty years ago, it can still be a difficult slog to sift through fact and fiction if you don’t already know what you’re looking for. Unfortunately, on the subject of martial combat, it’s a lot.
Fictional tropes often won’t help you much in unraveling the mystery, they’re far more liable to be even more confusing when sorting out how they relate to reality. The presentation of fictional violence in film or in literature is an art form all by itself. Understanding this art requires admitting that violence crafted for entertainment is its own animal, one which draws from the same source but is only tangentially related to the practical side. Add in the framing of youth versus the experienced elder, which is a central theme in many martial arts narratives and many narratives in general, and you have authors taking cues from stories which have no real relation to the one they’re telling.
An immortal whose body is frozen in their early twenties to early thirties is at their peak, they don’t suffer from the same issues as an the eighty year old human. The danger of the evil martial arts master isn’t their physical prowess, but their experience. Their aging bodies put them at a disadvantage against younger opponents, while their wisdom and skill make them deadly. An immortal doesn’t suffer from this weakness, they have the battlefield experience, the cunning, the skill, the wisdom of all their years, and the physical prowess of someone in peak condition. The scale is weighted even more heavily in favor of the immortal rather than the young protagonist, which is why mythological themes surrounding immortal beings favor ingenuity and cleverness over combat and brute force.
In the cases of the novels you’re reading, the author settled on artistic license to get the scenes and sequences they wanted for their narrative. The fight scenes might be there just to prove the protagonist knows how to fight or to showcase their skills. Usually, in the cases of immortals, that means they take a bath. They have to, if they’re a skilled warrior, in order to bring the protagonist up to par.
As a writer, you’re balancing audience enjoyment and your own desires against, in some cases, cohesive world building and realistic portrayals of violence. For all the smokescreen complaints about realism, people don’t want realistic portrayals. They just don’t want the character’s actions to break their suspension of disbelief. Learning this answer, many people might say, “then, if it doesn’t really matter, then what’s the point of learning about real violence and how it works?” The answer is so you can fake it. The general audience will accept it and claim realism achieved while only a slim segment realizes the truth.
In the end, reality gets in the way of the fantasy. If you look objectively at an immortal being who has survived through the centuries, crossed numerous battlefields, and survived as a soldier in warfare’s constant evolving environments, honing their skills against warriors who were also masters of their craft, you might think that a sixteen year old fighting them with a rapier and six months of sport fencing (consider the problem here, sport fencing doesn’t include the rapier and it won’t actually train you to duel in the old fashioned way either) sounds a little ridiculous. However, fiction is the great con and, like all cons, all about the slight of hand. If you can get your audience invested in the sixteen year old and their defeat of the immortal, you won’t get called out for being unrealistic.
As a writer, you control the perceptions of your audience. You give them the information you want them to retain. You direct the narrative. You can’t control what people take away from the experience of reading your story, but you can control what they read. As a result, you decide what matters.
The vast majority of folklore and myth across many cultures will tell you that fighting an immortal warrior in active conflict without any advantages of your own or just seeking to understand your enemy is a losing proposition. Modern fantasy often doesn’t agree — unless its specifically chasing or introducing folklore elements. The result is two very different narratives where the immortal is either just like everyone else or an immovable wall you need to strategize around. Go try smacking Koschei the Deathless around and see how far brute force gets you.
The answer you’re ultimately looking for is that the media you’re consuming was written by authors who picked a side. They weren’t interested in applying the experience factor, it didn’t fit with the story they were trying to tell, and that’s fine. There are plenty of other authors out there who have explored this experience side of immortals in depth. Highlander, Highlander: The Raven, Hellboy, Hunter: The Reckoning (most of White Wolf’s archives really), Dracula, and Faerie Tale by Raymond E. Feist immediately come to mind. Hell, even Lord of the Rings is filled with main characters who are technically geriatrics. (I’m looking at you Aragorn and your 87 years. And Legolas? 2900. Gimli is around 102.) There are many more out there, including a number of mythological monsters which require a specific set of circumstances to induce death. Most of the horror genre will drag you kicking and screaming into the dark where understanding the unknown is necessary for even a slim chance at victory.
You just need to expand your horizons.
-Michi
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Q&A: Remember, Fiction is a Lie was originally published on How to Fight Write.
howtofightwrite:
I read on here before that years of practice is very important and it is no surprise when an 80 year old master beats a 30 year old simply because of that. But how about if a character is able to live for hundreds or thousands of years. Wouldn’t it make such a character an absolute true master that no normal person can beat unaided by magic or tech? I’ve tried to look at fiction with such characters but it never really mentions this and these characters actually do get subdued unaided.
Well, consider this, when you’re reading about immortal characters, you’re reading fiction. Fiction is a lie. It may be a lie you want to believe, it may contain some semblance of veracity, but it is still a carefully crafted lie. It isn’t real and, because it is all in the author’s imagination, you can do whatever the hell you want.
In fiction, the author is not beholden to or have to consider any sort of realism outside of convincing their readership to believe the story they’re telling. More than that, fiction is notoriously inaccurate regarding violence in general. Often, these authors have never been in the room with actual individuals who are considered masters of their craft, experienced that remarkable chasm of awe, or felt the weight of being completely outclassed by presence alone. The end of the story is fiction lies to you. Again, the author crafts their own realism for their narrative and all that matters is whether or not their reader believes.
An immortal who was dueling with small-swords in France during the period when lost eyes and dual suicides were common isn’t going to be threatened by a seventeen year old with three weeks of modern sport fencing experience; especially if that immortal has kept up the practice.
This is a reasonable assumption if you extrapolate from the experiences of real world individuals. Fighting a master in the arena, utilizing their specialty, on an even playing field is asking to have your ass handed to you. In the real world, I’ve met men and women in their late sixties and seventies who are more limber than most teenagers. I once watched my martial arts master bend a solid steel rebar with the hollow of his throat. Crazy as that might sound, I kid you not. It’s a popular exercise shown at martial arts demos.
The irony is the upper limit of what human beings are capable of is, in fact, incredibly high, and most people are completely unaware because they have no exposure to it. Without experience, it’s difficult to fully comprehend the vast differences between individuals at various training stages and is, in part, where the trope “All Violence is Created Equal” comes from.
When an author has no experience with violence in any of its forms, they’re liable to treat all their combat characters as the same. We are all limited by our imaginations, just as our imaginations are limited by our knowledge and understanding of the world. A tiered system of power differences is easier to establish when you have experience. When you lack that experience, it can be more difficult to imagine the concrete ways your protagonist is disadvantaged by their immortal adversary. The author might not even realize how great an advantage experience is all by itself. Especially if they don’t understand predictive strategizing based on prior experience is more valuable than most of the techniques in a warrior’s arsenal. Fiction often treats strategy as separate or distinct character trait, rather than part of the package. This is part of why immortal characters inexplicably fall for obvious traps or ploys they should see coming a mile away, or acting in ways their narrative establishes is out of character for them. It’s all well and good to call your character a master fighter, but describing a master warrior and crafting a convincing character is an entirely different kettle of fish.
Violence is a vast, messy, constantly evolving business with a community that’s difficult to penetrate if you aren’t already a member. Martial combat skills and techniques are generally shrouded in mystery and hidden as a strategy to keep counters from being developed. The more information your opponent has about you, the easier it is for them to craft a solution to stop you. Combine this with media misinformation, urban legends, myths, and power fantasies, the novice faces a lot of difficulty figuring out what is and isn’t bacon. While the internet has given a lot of people more access than they had ten to twenty years ago, it can still be a difficult slog to sift through fact and fiction if you don’t already know what you’re looking for. Unfortunately, on the subject of martial combat, it’s a lot.
Fictional tropes often won’t help you much in unraveling the mystery, they’re far more liable to be even more confusing when sorting out how they relate to reality. The presentation of fictional violence in film or in literature is an art form all by itself. Understanding this art requires admitting that violence crafted for entertainment is its own animal, one which draws from the same source but is only tangentially related to the practical side. Add in the framing of youth versus the experienced elder, which is a central theme in many martial arts narratives and many narratives in general, and you have authors taking cues from stories which have no real relation to the one they’re telling.
An immortal whose body is frozen in their early twenties to early thirties is at their peak, they don’t suffer from the same issues as an the eighty year old human. The danger of the evil martial arts master isn’t their physical prowess, but their experience. Their aging bodies put them at a disadvantage against younger opponents, while their wisdom and skill make them deadly. An immortal doesn’t suffer from this weakness, they have the battlefield experience, the cunning, the skill, the wisdom of all their years, and the physical prowess of someone in peak condition. The scale is weighted even more heavily in favor of the immortal rather than the young protagonist, which is why mythological themes surrounding immortal beings favor ingenuity and cleverness over combat and brute force.
In the cases of the novels you’re reading, the author settled on artistic license to get the scenes and sequences they wanted for their narrative. The fight scenes might be there just to prove the protagonist knows how to fight or to showcase their skills. Usually, in the cases of immortals, that means they take a bath. They have to, if they’re a skilled warrior, in order to bring the protagonist up to par.
As a writer, you’re balancing audience enjoyment and your own desires against, in some cases, cohesive world building and realistic portrayals of violence. For all the smokescreen complaints about realism, people don’t want realistic portrayals. They just don’t want the character’s actions to break their suspension of disbelief. Learning this answer, many people might say, “then, if it doesn’t really matter, then what’s the point of learning about real violence and how it works?” The answer is so you can fake it. The general audience will accept it and claim realism achieved while only a slim segment realizes the truth.
In the end, reality gets in the way of the fantasy. If you look objectively at an immortal being who has survived through the centuries, crossed numerous battlefields, and survived as a soldier in warfare’s constant evolving environments, honing their skills against warriors who were also masters of their craft, you might think that a sixteen year old fighting them with a rapier and six months of sport fencing (consider the problem here, sport fencing doesn’t include the rapier and it won’t actually train you to duel in the old fashioned way either) sounds a little ridiculous. However, fiction is the great con and, like all cons, all about the slight of hand. If you can get your audience invested in the sixteen year old and their defeat of the immortal, you won’t get called out for being unrealistic.
As a writer, you control the perceptions of your audience. You give them the information you want them to retain. You direct the narrative. You can’t control what people take away from the experience of reading your story, but you can control what they read. As a result, you decide what matters.
The vast majority of folklore and myth across many cultures will tell you that fighting an immortal warrior in active conflict without any advantages of your own or just seeking to understand your enemy is a losing proposition. Modern fantasy often doesn’t agree — unless its specifically chasing or introducing folklore elements. The result is two very different narratives where the immortal is either just like everyone else or an immovable wall you need to strategize around. Go try smacking Koschei the Deathless around and see how far brute force gets you.
The answer you’re ultimately looking for is that the media you’re consuming was written by authors who picked a side. They weren’t interested in applying the experience factor, it didn’t fit with the story they were trying to tell, and that’s fine. There are plenty of other authors out there who have explored this experience side of immortals in depth. Highlander, Highlander: The Raven, Hellboy, Hunter: The Reckoning (most of White Wolf’s archives really), Dracula, and Faerie Tale by Raymond E. Feist immediately come to mind. Hell, even Lord of the Rings is filled with main characters who are technically geriatrics. (I’m looking at you Aragorn and your 87 years. And Legolas? 2900. Gimli is around 102.) There are many more out there, including a number of mythological monsters which require a specific set of circumstances to induce death. Most of the horror genre will drag you kicking and screaming into the dark where understanding the unknown is necessary for even a slim chance at victory.
You just need to expand your horizons.
-Michi
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Q&A: Remember, Fiction is a Lie was originally published on How to Fight Write.
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bastila-s:
AU — The First Order lost the war. Hux fled during the final battle to avoid capture, choosing to hide upon a sparsely populated planet where he lives with crippling paranoia he’ll be recognized. He becomes a recluse.
One day, he needs to visit the market for supplies.
And runs straight into Kylo Ren.
bastila-s:
AU — The First Order lost the war. Hux fled during the final battle to avoid capture, choosing to hide upon a sparsely populated planet where he lives with crippling paranoia he’ll be recognized. He becomes a recluse.
One day, he needs to visit the market for supplies.
And runs straight into Kylo Ren.
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acerebral:
jakemorph:
jakemorph:
i sure hope nobody on here is consuming media…
it’s so pathetic that you’re gonna act like you weren’t already aware of this
wait which part of this image is media? it’s not clear
acerebral:
jakemorph:
jakemorph:
i sure hope nobody on here is consuming media…
it’s so pathetic that you’re gonna act like you weren’t already aware of this
wait which part of this image is media? it’s not clear
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idesirecake:
I wish I knew where the original thread came from but I found this image on Pinterest, fell free to link the original source!
idesirecake:
I wish I knew where the original thread came from but I found this image on Pinterest, fell free to link the original source!
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dark-london:
I’m still on a high from the Hux comic. And seeing my fave.
Follow Me On: Instagram | Twitter | dA | Facebook
Support Me On: Ko-Fi | Commissions | RedBubble
dark-london:
I’m still on a high from the Hux comic. And seeing my fave.
Follow Me On: Instagram | Twitter | dA | Facebook
Support Me On: Ko-Fi | Commissions | RedBubble
via https://ift.tt/2nCPILQ
2. General Hux would never share information with the Resistance. Unless there was something in it for him. Like absolute power. Or a chance to watch someone punch Ren in the face.
Okay, maybe he might.
1. General Hux is not a mole. I’m pretty sure his fursona is this:
Because:
* Small
* Angry
* Doesn’t actually have rabies, but most people are convinced otherwise
* S C R E A M
* Marsupial?
* Nice hair
2. General Hux would never share information with the Resistance. Unless there was something in it for him. Like absolute power. Or a chance to watch someone punch Ren in the face.
Okay, maybe he might.
1. General Hux is not a mole. I’m pretty sure his fursona is this:
Because:
* Small
* Angry
* Doesn’t actually have rabies, but most people are convinced otherwise
* S C R E A M
* Marsupial?
* Nice hair
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sixth-light:
thebaconsandwichofregret:
gayerluke:
hardslimebouquet:
jethroq:
woke liberalism was a mistake
A fun fact about unions is that your dues are typically set to match your wages so “privileged” workers that make more can actually put more money into the union to help out their underprivileged siblings in labor. Putting more money into the union is actually good and not bad. If your company is telling you that you make too much to be in a union you should definitely join a union immediately.
your employer: unions are problematic :\
Do you know what us “priveleged” workers do? We ensure that the Union has enough members that the employer can’t ignore us.
My Union branch covers three organisations. Two of us have high membership. One has low union membership. The one with low membership has been through lots of redundancies and lots of people have lost their jobs because while we threw our full support behind our fellow members who worked there there were not enough members actually working there for strike action to be effective.
If you don’t join a union because you think you don’t need it then when you do need it your union won’t be strong enough to help you. Only joining a union when you need help is like saying “let’s build a hospital” after you need open heart surgery: you’ll be dead long before it can help you.
You never know when you will need your union. Never know when you might be unlawfully fired, harassed by a bad boss, falsely accused of something by a colleague. All of these are cases that my branch dealt with this month, I’m on the committee so we get case briefings and if I didn’t get those briefings I wouldn’t know that my colleagues were going through these things. Your colleagues are going through this stuff right now and you have no clue, and they have no help, because they don’t have a union.
You have health insurance, car insurance, house insurance.
Get job insurance.
Join a Union.
The tech industry specifically has a long history of trying to persuade workers that they are special and skilled and highly-paid, pay no attention to the routine fourteen-hour-days behind the curtain, and that’s why they don’t need unions. Unions are for The Poors, unions are for the saps who work in factories, they’re not for the people who’ve made it. Which is you, programmer with a student loan making barely over minimum wage! You are a Skilled Tech Worker!
Look at how Kickstarter emphasise their ‘flexible’ hours, their catered lunches, their staff, ‘some of whom’ (not all) receive “compensation’ (so…total package? does that include expensive health insurance) ‘twice the average income in NYC’ (mean or median? how’s that stack up relative to the cost of living?). Absolutely none of this rules out them employing poorly-paid and overworked people.
sixth-light:
thebaconsandwichofregret:
gayerluke:
hardslimebouquet:
jethroq:
woke liberalism was a mistake
A fun fact about unions is that your dues are typically set to match your wages so “privileged” workers that make more can actually put more money into the union to help out their underprivileged siblings in labor. Putting more money into the union is actually good and not bad. If your company is telling you that you make too much to be in a union you should definitely join a union immediately.
your employer: unions are problematic :\
Do you know what us “priveleged” workers do? We ensure that the Union has enough members that the employer can’t ignore us.
My Union branch covers three organisations. Two of us have high membership. One has low union membership. The one with low membership has been through lots of redundancies and lots of people have lost their jobs because while we threw our full support behind our fellow members who worked there there were not enough members actually working there for strike action to be effective.
If you don’t join a union because you think you don’t need it then when you do need it your union won’t be strong enough to help you. Only joining a union when you need help is like saying “let’s build a hospital” after you need open heart surgery: you’ll be dead long before it can help you.
You never know when you will need your union. Never know when you might be unlawfully fired, harassed by a bad boss, falsely accused of something by a colleague. All of these are cases that my branch dealt with this month, I’m on the committee so we get case briefings and if I didn’t get those briefings I wouldn’t know that my colleagues were going through these things. Your colleagues are going through this stuff right now and you have no clue, and they have no help, because they don’t have a union.
You have health insurance, car insurance, house insurance.
Get job insurance.
Join a Union.
The tech industry specifically has a long history of trying to persuade workers that they are special and skilled and highly-paid, pay no attention to the routine fourteen-hour-days behind the curtain, and that’s why they don’t need unions. Unions are for The Poors, unions are for the saps who work in factories, they’re not for the people who’ve made it. Which is you, programmer with a student loan making barely over minimum wage! You are a Skilled Tech Worker!
Look at how Kickstarter emphasise their ‘flexible’ hours, their catered lunches, their staff, ‘some of whom’ (not all) receive “compensation’ (so…total package? does that include expensive health insurance) ‘twice the average income in NYC’ (mean or median? how’s that stack up relative to the cost of living?). Absolutely none of this rules out them employing poorly-paid and overworked people.