#bc its level is scaled very low

[boogiewoogieweeb]

I'm not saying The Terror in general and Joplittle specifically have definitively given me permanent brain rot but I am finding it funny that I'm picking up parallels and similarities with both in a series as far removed from it as Netflix's Blue Eye Samurai

[aeyumicore]

thank you for the response about my orbits!! i didn’t understand when everyone is talking about using one main companion for their main orbits- so you just boost the one and ignore the spectrum colours for most of the levels? i didn’t really think about it like that i was trying to be equal with them so i could also grind diamonds from all the orbits as well but i guess focusing on one makes way more sense !

i wasn’t able to pull for master of fate cause i didn’t have time to grind enough and my materials were really low trying lvl up other cards to get reg wishes to atleast finish caleb fa or zaynes foreseer which i got both but yea i must grind for dragon sylus😭

do you have a recommendation on which companion would be the best to boost for main orbit? bc for me it’s not about who i main bc i try to treat them equally so im not picky but they’re mostly equally leveled so i could pick any of them and build my protocores and not worry about card levels

and also THANK YOU FOR THE HELP MY QUEEN<3 and i adore the writing you do!! thank you for treating us so delightfully with all of it!!!

so how main orbit typically works is that the levels are very easy. the challenge comes from usually the benchmark ones (think 110, 120, 130, etc). for those usually you do need to stella match, but for the ones in between, if your companion is strong enough, you don’t need to. you can brute force it (what’s called when you ignore the stella and just focus on good stats and defeating the level that way)

with how expensive lads is….if ur f2p or even a light spender…its not sustainable imo to try and focus all the orbits and leveling all the guys. i spend a good amt of money (by no means a whale except recently for caleb) and i don’t have enough resources to even touch raf or xavier.

id say AS (dragon sylus) or LR (X02) if you have him. these are really strong companions!

what’s nice is protocores can be used by all companion! so even if you’re focusing one companion’s protocores, they can still be helpful for another companion. yes, AS scales off HP but it is still better than nothing for other companions (if its a good core overall it will have HP, crit, and cdmg for AS. the crit is valuable to other companions)

YESSSS ofc <3 i want to help wherever i can! i love the combat so pls if u need help don’t hesitate to ask.

[the-lavender-room]

Welcome to Earth-2004:

Lore:

Unknown to Peter, Norman had tricked him into helping him build a weapon.

Unknown to Peter, Norman had tricked him into helping him build a weapon.

Unknown to Peter, Norman had tricked him into helping him build a weapon.

When Norman had revealed himself to be the Green Goblin (he was goblining before Peter was spidering) he also revealed that the weapon was supposed to make him stronger and he wanted Peter to be a villain with him.

While Goblin was monologuing, Peter noticed that the weapon had become unstable and was going to explode. Before it did; Goblin throw Peter out the window while he stayed inside as it exploded.

Peter (having survived falling 30+ storys bc plot) managed to get back home Aunt May and Uncle Ben’s house. At first; everything was fine for a few weeks.

The infection started with insects; becoming bigger, more aggressive, more “not right”. Then, it jumped to bigger and bigger animals and became worse. Rats with sharp spines on its tail, cats with venomous fangs, horses with eight legs. They even started to resemble other animals.

Around this time, Peter had gotten sick from radiation and had isolated himself from others. Uncle Ben had dragged him to the car to take him to a hospital (it was a long, difficult drive with bread loaf sized cockroach with acidic spit every where) while Peter was in the ER, Ben had also gotten sick due to exposure to Peter and eventually dies from radiation.

While Peter’s in the hospital, the infection jumped to humans. It started small, with most people feeling very itchy and getting nasty rashes; hospitals became overcrowded and many people had to deal with severe body pains at home. The infection got worse and people began to mutate; peoples bodies would twist and burst open and became more animal like. What was left of society had fallen as many people had become more animal than man.

People in urban and suburban moved to large, interconnecting, underground cities or repurposed the tall abandoned buildings, strung together with bridges and paths. 

Peter(now NOT dying) gets his friends and aunt may underground and becomes a photographer(takes pics below and above ground for news reasons) he decides to become Wolf-Spider so he can protect people from the fugitive and literal monsters.

————————————————————————

Other info:

Peter’s not the only person with a spider mutation, but the radiation just gave him enhanced strength, speed, and healing.

Wolf-Spider’s not the only hero. There are other non-enhanced people, they usually deal with other people and not monsters.(I MIGHT add “street level” heros too)

There are three levels of infection:

Low infection: little to no visible changes and are more likely to be cured(if one is created)

Mild infection: partial changes, often have extra limbs and patches of fur, scales, or feathers. Not likely be able to be cured.

High infection: the big monsters. The animal part of them has taken over and are now unrecognizable.

Only people and animals(and sometimes fungus) can be infected naturally. Plants have to be infected by hand and has a different reaction to it.

Spidey has organic webs

The infection started in New York but fully spread all over the world in two years(bugs and animal migrations)

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

I don't have a scale but I weigh myself sometimes at my sisters house or whatever. I'm down 30 lbs.

Congratulations! I know it’s not all about weight but it shows that your efforts towards fitness have not been in vain. You can’t always see other benefits to healthier living (less pain, etc) immediately, so weight can be a good motivator and indicator of your commitment levels! I was impressed just by you having one dessert a week. That would be a true miracle for me haha.

The dessert thing is big for me. I have the worst sweet tooth and I love hot drinks in the colder seasons. I have a tea most days which is very low cal so that sates that and I have one starbucks drink on fridays. If I get something more sugary from Starbucks, then I don't typically have my dessert bc its about the same thing.

[alan-p-49]

i think the hardest thing about developing dungeon jesters is trying to nerf the multiplication

the left most red line's equation is y=5x and the right most line is y=x+5. the scaling is much MUCH bigger

originally i wanted to use d10s for proficiency but then i ran into the issue that if people wanted to play my system PHYSICALLY they'll have to spend so much money on dice. like its okay to get a set of dnd dice and then a set of d6s but i don't want them to try to find the specific looking set of d10 that'll match with their set so i thought fine i'll do integers

and so i thought it would be nice to have proficiency be a flat bonus and expertise be multiplicative. im adding this to dungeon jesters bc i like varying degrees of expertise in dnd. but as you see on that graph i need to nerf the expertise.

im thinking of making proficiency be a bonus that is half your player level rounded down (which yes this makes lvl 20 be op but in my vision of this system i want lvl 20 to be hella broken) and expertise be a ratio of your player level. i could introduce decimal points and have it be incremented by 0.25 but i need to figure out a minimum for expertise bc at very low levels mathematically expertise is fucking useless.

im thinking of having it be a x2 to flat bonus i.e if your ability bonus is +3 then you multiply it by your expertise but that'll make it +6 and if its +5 then its already +10 and at low level that doesn't make sense either. then maybe have it be base x1 and every second level it increases by 0.25. then at lvl 1 a +3 is 3.75 which is meh and at lvl 3 its 4.5. i guess i could say its rounded up but again i need to figure out the scaling for the expertise without being super broken too early or useless in early game

[shelbyohwx]

SPC Oct 11, 2023 1300 UTC Day 1 Convective Outlook https://shelbyohwx.com/wp-content/uploads/day1otlk-8.gif

SPC 1300Z Day 1 Outlook

Day 1 Convective Outlook NWS Storm Prediction Center Norman OK 0751 AM CDT Wed Oct 11 2023 Valid 111300Z - 121200Z ...THERE IS A SLIGHT RISK OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS OVER PARTS OF CENTRAL/NORTHERN FLORIDA TO THE COASTAL-BEND REGION... ...SUMMARY... Damaging thunderstorm gusts and a few tornadoes are possible this evening and tonight over parts of central/northern Florida to the coastal-bend region. ...Synopsis... The mid/upper-level pattern features a couple synoptic-scale cyclones -- one centered over northeastern ON south of James Bay, the other near the western coastline of the Olympic Peninsula -- forming the feet of an apparent omega block with the anticyclone over north-central Canada. However, unlike many omega patterns on the timescale of a day, this one will be decidedly progressive, with the eastern cyclone continuing to fill and shift eastward back into QC. Meanwhile, the western cyclone -- currently accompanied by a negatively tilted trough extending southeastward over NV -- will weaken inland over WA/southern BC, while another forms along the trough tonight, over the south-central WY/northwestern CO vicinity. Height falls and strongly difluent, cyclonic flow aloft will spread east-southeastward across the central/southern Rockies and then the adjoining Great Plains by 12Z tomorrow. The intervening synoptic ridge -- now evident over the central/ northern Plains -- will shift eastward to MO/IA/MN around 12Z. By that time, the western cyclone, and the quasistationary mid/upper high over northern Canada, will form more of a Rex configuration. To its southeast, the mid/upper-level portions of former Pacific Hurricane Lidia (the low levels having been shredded in the lofty/ rugged terrain of central MX) are moving northeastward from central to northeastern MX. Associated vorticity banners aloft will cross deep south TX, the northwestern Gulf, and the central Gulf Coast. Though not very intense, enough low-level mass response is expected to aid frontal-wave cyclogenesis over the Gulf through the period. The surface warm front was analyzed at 11Z across south FL, bending northwestward over the northeastern Gulf south of AAF, then west- southwestward to a 100-mb frontal-wave low over the northwestern Gulf, roughly east of BRO and south of BPT. The low should ripple northeastward along the northward-moving segment of the boundary to near the mouth of the Mississippi River by 00Z, then weakening and moving eastward across northern FL by 12Z, with additional development possible on the frontal segment over the nearby Atlantic. Meanwhile, cyclogenesis will occur over eastern CO by 00Z, as the mid/upper trough approaches, with warm front eastward across northern MO and cold front southwestward across the Four Corners area. By 12Z, a well-developed low should be located near MCK, with cold front southwestward near an EHA-TCS line and warm front over east-central NE, southern IA and central IL. ...Central/northern FL to coastal-bend region... Areas of scattered to numerous thunderstorms should shift east- northeastward across the north-central/northeastern Gulf throughout the day and into tonight, and begin to impinge on coastal west- central/northwestern FL this evening and overnight. Additional activity may develop ahead of the Gulf convection, in a weakly capped and favorably moist inland boundary layer near the northward-moving front. A few tornadoes and damaging gusts appear to be the main threats. Density of convection, and related outflows, make severe potential more conditional with northward extent over the northern FL/eastern Panhandle area. Hodographs should enlarge throughout the afternoon and especially tonight over the outlook area, as the frontal-wave low approaches, low-level windspeeds above the surface increase in the associated mass response, and the front itself shifts northward with backed flow in the associated baroclinic zone. Modest nocturnal low-level lapse rates should limit buoyancy, with MLCAPE near and south of the front generally in the 500-1000 J/kg range inland (locally higher). Though modest for the geographic area, this can support surface- based supercells, given the presence of effective SRH commonly in the 150-250 J/kg range and locally larger. Some offsetting factors preclude a greater unconditional tornado risk at this time. An increase in forecast buoyancy near the western coastline, the last few hours of the period, coincides with veering of near-surface winds that also will reduce hodograph size/ SRH. Potentially dense/messy convective character and lack of larger near-surface instability also are factors. Still, at least a few potentially tornadic supercells appear possible within the broader mass of thunderstorms. With a preponderance of guidance reasonably indicating the eastward expansion of both a favorable supercellular parameter space and surface-based convective potential toward the Atlantic Coast before 12Z, the outlook area has been extended accordingly. ...Central Plains/Corn Belt... Ongoing/nonsevere convection over parts of western IL to northern MO and southern IA should remain so through the rest of the morning as the supportive low-level flow and isentropic lift weaken. A rogue hail core near severe levels cannot be ruled out, but appears improbable at this time, based on convective and environmental trends. The same elevated, low-level regime of warm advection and moisture transport contributing to that activity should shift/redevelop northwestward through today, then intensify considerably from late afternoon into tonight, amid the mass response to the approaching mid/upper trough. Increased transposition of cooling aloft and low-level theta-e advection will steepen lapse rates and increase buoyancy, while gradient flow aloft and deep shear also strengthen. The net result should be a band or two of scattered thunderstorms this evening and overnight, with episodic, marginally severe hail. Activity (especially in western areas of the outlook, over NE/SD) will be supported by a 30-50-kt LLJ east of the intensifying low-level cyclone, with around 1000-2500 J/kg MUCAPE and 30-40-kt effective-shear magnitudes. Though 850-mb flow is progged to be more difluent with eastward extent into IA/IL, sufficient speed convergence should exist to support lift of parcels to LFC and marginal hail potential there as well. While not likely, a marginal threat for a severe gust is indicated over parts of NE as well, by the presence of a somewhat dry, inverted-v character to much of the boundary layer depth underlying the elevated convective inflow region in forecast soundings. ..Edwards/Broyles.. 10/11/2023

Read more

https://shelbyohwx.com/spc-oct-11-2023-1300-utc-day-1-convective-outlook/

[anime-grimmy]

My thoughts on Pokemon Scarlet and Violet

The game’s been out for almost a week now and Ive blasted through it in like 3 days because my sick ass couldn’t really do much but lay around and suffer anyways. Rn I’m trying to fill my Pokedex and I’ve started a second, way slower playthrough to really enjoy everything the game’s got to offer.

Criticism

So, Pokemon’s first open world game. We’ve all seen the memes, the game has a lot of bugs and especially performance issues. While I have not run into a high amount of glitches, except for some visual stuttering and one shut down, the performance of this game is sometimes atrocious. And this coming from someone who plays Monster Hunter World on an old laptop at 30fps where more than half the textures don’t even load. Sometimes the game dances on the line of death when it loads in too many Pokemon, or god forbid you’re on water because your switch will sound like a chainsaw trying to cut through a stubborn trunk.

And it really IS a shame, because the concepts and ideas of this game are a lot of fun! Like, this game IS fun but it does get bogged down by its issues a lot. Also bcs it does not have dynamic level scaling. Don’t tell me I can go everywhere and do anything, but then throw me in a zone I can’t go through. Don’t get me wrong, the whole “I SHOULD NOT BE HERE YET” experience is very funny and makes you look forward to going back to places, but the layout is just confusing. At the start, Nemona tells you the West Gate is for the first Gym Challenge, Arven tells you the East Gate is for the first Titan. You’d assume either way you go, the challenges in that zone are at least around the same levels but NOPE. You can beat the Gym Leader on the side of the first Titan relatively easily, but try to take on the Team Star base in the same area and be sure to suffer. This weird layout design goes through most of the game. Like, why is the Gym Leader that’s FARTHER North than Grucia weaker than him??? Like, you kinda HAVE to go through his town to get to the other one. It just does NOT make any sense!

 I wanna say that Game Freak just needed more time but we know that even a year more wouldn’t have helped much, because Game Freak just isn’t a studio that’s equipped to do everything they set out to do. They’re short development time makes them build the games on an already wonky base, so even if they did suddenly extend the development by a year, I don’t think much would have changed since they had a faulty game design from the start. It pisses me off so much how Game Freak won’t or can’t reach out for help, they always try to keep everything in their small little team and not let outside hands touch their product (which ofc also is because of all the branding around it), but with their short 3 year development cycle, these guys just aren’t fit for the job to make the games they want to and the people demand. For fuck’s sake, they’re the biggest media franchise on earth, I do not understand what makes them think that one more year of development from the start or an extension of their team would do to fuck that over. So far the people stick with their games because they give us glimmers of hope and lure us in with great Pokemon and characters, but if this continues, they are slowly but surely going to lose their status as top franchise.

Because not making a game with this low res run well on the switch when the Xenoblade’s Chronicles games can be played on the system is unacceptable.

The Good stuff

Now that Ive got the negative stuff out of the way, I can go to stuff I really enjoyed. Because while I do have my fair share of criticism, this game also did a lot I liked.

For one, I am deeply saddened they removed the chugging balls mechanic from Arceus, this just makes catching Pokemon a hassle again. However, I do like the autobattle mechanic. It’s a bit rough because your Pokemon are so slow and once you run for 3 steps they’re back in their Pokeballs. But it’s a nice mechanic to get some off hands exp when traveling from place to place.

Speaking of traversal, I really love Kuraidon. The sound design of this Pokemon is immaculate, I love the scaly boy, he has so much personality and I love how you’re unlocking HMs for him through the Herba Mystica. It’s such a stupid pun but I love it.

As for the other new Pokemon, I’m hit and miss on them. A lot feel weirdly Fakemon. Like, the Flamingo and the Stork don’t feel like real Pokemon to me. Others, however, I really really liked. The Smoliv line is one of my new fav Gras types, Fuecoco has no braincells and I love him for that, and this game did give us some awesome new bug and fairy types. DUDE, A BREAD DOG?! HE’S SO CUTE!!(Spoiler for endgame)

And then the ancient Pokemon. I do prefer the ancient Mons to the futuristic ones tbh, and I like the concept also way more of trying to bring back old, extinct Pokemon to live alongside the present ones than bringing some from the future. Dude, like, the ancient Volcarona is so fucking cool, it’s my fav of the old mons.

(spoiler territory)

But on to the one thing I truly loved about Scarlet and Violet, the characters. Specifically the main three, Nemona, Arven and Penny (and Mr. Clavell/Clive). I never thought I’d like Penny and Arven at the start but holy shit they grew on me. Even Nemona, who I figured I’d like, took a turn in character I hadn’t expected.

Let’s start off with Penny since I have the least to say about her. It was pretty obvious she’s the leader of Team Star from the start, right? The predictability aside, while the Team Star story was nothing to write home about, by the end I did feel attached to this group of misfits, and Penny’s relationship with them is so sweet. Like, when after the game you can join her looking after the team Star bosses to see if they’re doing well in school, it’s so adorable. What I like about Penny though is how surprisingly sassy she is. Freaking hacker Otaku with no chill, I love it.

Then, Nemona. She’s like the epitome of a “nice” rival. I like that from the start it’s established that she is a great trainer, since she already has the Champion title, but the fact she chooses to start from scratch to grow alongside you just screams how much she loves battling and respects a good journey. She wants you to be the best because she sees your potential and she just knows she’ll have the best battle in her life if she helps you out. She’s a mix of a rival/mentor character, who at the same time kind of has a screw loose since battling is all she thinks about. But it all comes from an honest place and the fact she doesn’t act as a cheerleader and actually challenges you in battle when you’re not ready for it, makes her a great rival.

Lastly, Arven. (BIG spoilers) My sweet baby boy, I cannot believe Game Freak dumped so much trauma on you. It was obvious from the start that he had some parental issues, I did not expect it to be year long neglect. I mean, he hasn’t seen the prof in YEARS and has NO memories of playing together with his parent? And apparently his other parent walked out on them the MOMENT he was born??? Then he gets a dying dog, which thankfully got better (it did make me teary eyed by the end ngl) but then the one who’s actually dead is the PROFESSOR???? I hate how quickly he got over the fact, the dude just found out his parent who he hasn’t seen in years is fucking DEAD and has been for YEARS. I mean, I’m happy this makes him find new ambition and a new path in life but fuck me, let the boy process this for a bit.

But yeah, Arven’s story was my fav (im very weak for dogs ok.) Though, all coming together in the end and you running alongside your friends down the Great Crater was so damn cute istg. And the dialogue between them, getting to know each other, is so damn good. You see some different sides of them, showing interest in someone else but you, and it gives them some more dimension, I love it.

Now if Game Freak just FINALLY added voice acting, at least for the damn CUTSCENES, I’d be the happiest. Like dude, that last emotional cutscene really needed some raw emotional voice deliveries.

But yeah, all in all, Scarlet and Violet has a ton of fucking problems, but it also has a lot of good sides to it. Now if Game Freak just took it’s fucking time and accepted some help, they truly could make a great game from the get go.

[weareallstardustfallen]

Minecraft world building is always interesting!! What are your nether worldbuilding ideas? T

well i do Not feel like giving the entire 4k so i will just talk about my thoughts on the history of the nether bc that is the part that i like best of it

so the nether was canonically not always like that; the soul sand valley might have once been "a habitable paradise full of huge, bygone creatures," the ancient debris is the remains of historical netherite mining by piglins, stuff like that. as such, i decided that i wanted to take what we're given in the game, use that to figure out what the original nether was like, and then go from there to the modern nether.

and me and @bananasofthorns were listening to some of the ambiance tracks for the different nether biomes, and we realized that hey, some of these sound very Hm. like, there's a couple in the basalt deltas that sound a little like laughter, or like war drums. and after listening to literally all of the nether ambiance tracks and tossing ideas back and forth and such, i settled on this idea, under the cut because it's Long:

the nether was originally a much more habitable place, with a lot more biodiversity than exists now. originally, there were four intelligent races, not just piglins, and they were loosely settled into the four biomes which existed at the time- the crimson forests, the nether wastes, the basalt deltas, and the soul sand valleys, though they weren't very wasteland-y or soul sand-y at all, so they were probably called something else.

the soul sand valley was home to a bunch of very powerful mages, as well as the massive beasts which became the fossils. they were probably the most able to use magic of all of the societies, and any overworld enchantments which can be found originated in the nether (like the ones on piglin armor) are actually a completely different form of that enchantment derived from ancient enchanted books from this society; soul speed was essentially reverse-engineered from them. the valleys were probably the most utopian of all the biomes at the time, full of many, many different kinds of flora and fauna.

the basalt deltas, on the other hand, were very hostile even then, with practically nothing living there except for the delta warriors. they were very warlike and probably conquerors, and were the ones who built the nether fortresses for military purposes. they spent decades at war with the valley mages, and while they most definitely had access to some pretty powerful magic it was not to their level of artistry.

there was also a society in the nether wastes, which has been next to forgotten. both the biome and the people were caught in the crossfire between the valley mages and the delta warriors and over a very long period of time, their entire civilization pretty much got wiped out. the land itself is still basically barren, and sometimes unstable.

the fourth, of course, was the piglins of the crimson forests. they didn't get involved with the wars, and managed to avoid getting much damage from the massive amount of fighting. they, and the hoglins, are the only mobs who are still around from this period of time.

the war did, of course, come to a catastrophic end in what i'm calling the cataclysm. the delta warriors gained access to very powerful and very volatile magic. what did they do with it? attempt to smite the valley mages off the face of the earth, of course- a little too effectively.

they did manage to totally wipe out the valley mages, which was their goal! they decimated the mages, as well as literally every other living thing in the biome, their own society, and did a lot of Bad Shit to the environment of the nether as a whole.

because the area and the people were so charged with magic already, the mages weren't just completely killed- instead, they were trapped in the newly-created soul sand, half-alive, with their souls only being released upon the sand being burnt. the valleys are now completely devastated, and you can hear the mages whispering or calling in the distance, sometimes enough to lure an unwary traveler to their death, though this isn't out of malice.

the delta warriors, also killed by the cataclysm, became the wither skeletons and skeletons of the nether. those who were in the valley at the time of the cataclysm became the wither skeletons due to the magic of the area; they spend their eternities protecting the fortresses they built. those who weren't there are the normal skeletons, forever attempting to provide reinforcements for a battle which is long since over.

and the piglins? they were adversely affected by the cataclysm, of course, everything was, and their glory days are past. but they're alive, where the other two are not- despite this extinction-level event, they are still continuing on, essentially the same as they were before. and this continues even through the most major thing that would harm the crimson forests after the cataclysm, that being the introduction of the warped forests.

the warped forests were essentially corruption which crept in just after the cataclysm when the environment was still unsettled; it began to slowly expand, eating away at the crimson forests, and it is also very... weird, as far as the biomes go. it's not really hostile, it won't kill you to enter or anything and there's even some helpful stuff there, but... it is Deeply Wrong. the endermen there are numb and expressionless, like they're sleepwalking. they never really react to stimuli other than being looked in the eye, but sometimes they scream in the distance like they're being tortured.

and, bonus, because i'm not sure whether it's piglin legend or reality but i think it's cool:

each of the biomes has an Entity to it, not quite sentient but enough to have intent, like a manifestation of the ones who used to live there. it's not quite a god, not quite real, but it is there and you can feel it, when you step into its domain.

the basalt delta is a conqueror imprisoned, the warrior who lost. the Entity of the deltas is trapped far beneath the surface, but it is still there, angry and vengeful, straining to get out, and sometimes you can hear it laughing, or the distant echo of the drums of war. the basalt delta is angry. the basalt delta hates you. the basalt delta wants you fucking dead.

the soul sand valleys are asleep. it's not quite dead, nothing with so much power and life could just die like that, but it isn't quite there, either. the valleys are a tragedy of unimaginable scale, and there is murmuring in the distance, never quite close enough to make out.

the nether wastes are dead. they are barren, empty, lifeless; nothing really grows and nothing really lives. the wastes died a long time ago, even before the cataclysm- the only trace of it is in the occasional odd noise, and the way the rock shifts and crumbles at random, unsettled by the fighting which reduced it to nothing.

the crimson forests are the only one left as it was- weaker, tired, but still alive and still awake and still free. the crimson forests do not get involved with wars not their own, do not play with the kind of power that can reduce a civilization to dust. the crimson forest, and its residents, are survivors above all. they will still be there, living, and so will the forests.

the warped forest, on the other hand... the warped forest is not of the nether. the warped forest is a foreigner, come slinking into the gaps left behind and slowly gaining ground, bit by bit. if any of the biomes has a mind, it's this one- the warped forests make odd, terrifying sounds, and the endermen are screaming in the distance or wandering like ghosts, and there is something laughing, low and heavy.

best not to stay too long.

[yuzudonut]

vexos hcs and random notes

ill update as i go, because yes i do update my masterlists every once in awhile, i should probably add them to my pinned... 

General

I sincerely hope they have a small living arrangement so I can inflict them with the pain of having to share almost everything with each other

I just want Shadow and Lync to share a bunk

Like to think that alongside Volt, Mylene and Lync were also recruited by Hydron

None of them officially joined until they were a bit older but probably trained to eventually join the Vexos; in the mean time they probably worked for Hydron or something like that

Volt recruited at 11; Lync a year later and Mylene following not long after (respectively 13, 8, 12 when they’re all gathered)

My reasoning to why Volt is patient with Lync’s antics and Mylene less so but doesn’t lash out as badly as you think she would around annoying little kids; grew up tgt moment

Spectra probably forced his way into the Vexos like “hiiii i see you dont have any Vexos members <3″ bcs obv he wasn’t using royal scientist dad privelages (i think, bcs Clay seems horrified abt Spectra being a Vexos and well, being Spectra) 

Shadow had an advantage of being a nobleman (in terms of him being accepted into the Vexos’ ranks)

the Vexos and their set of rules magent-ed on the fridge door or something and every time they go over a page they have to staple/tape a new page on

Joined in this order, Volt, Spectra, Shadow, Mylene, Lync, Gus 

Vexos being a “chance of death low but the chance is still there” type of job... they feel like idols girl help they are bakugan idol group who work for the government 

sorry the way the vestal kids talk about them... going to treat the Vexos like a kpop group now

Spectra Phantom / Keith Fermin 

[canon] son of a (royal?) scientist. definitely had it good and comfy

think it’d be REALLY funny if he already knew Shadow before he became Spectra, Shadow just doesn’t recognize him bcs of his stupid get up

throws childhood friends Shadow Spectra at you, just two weirdos 

Keith specifically keeps Shadow from ever meeting his sister which is why neither of them really recognize each other

Pre-Spectra; probably would’ve been really into bakugan biology and what not. Feels like the kind of person to talk w/ his dad about “do you think we could change their appearance if we messed w/ their mechanical ball form or would it not carry over to their released forms”

this mf looks like a biology major i feel it in my guts 

mom isn’t dead she just divorced Clay bcs he didn’t know how to balance family and work, good for her

probably lives in another city now, and it’s a bit more of a hassle to meet with her kids so they don’t see her as much but she is present in their lives (keep in contact in other ways) 

probably went a bit silent when Keith went missing

didn’t bleach his eyebrows bcs he didn’t want to harm the skin around there and he never thought he’d take the mask off around others, or about how stupid he’d look without the mask

please please please please draw him with his pink hair roots in his MS fit he should've grown out some of his bleached hair by then

daddy issues is truly the root of evil

Gus Grav

Just Some Gut background; middle class just living life

[canon?] was going on a route to being an “idol brawler”, because that’s kind of what their brawls felt like, since it was all purely for show with some competition. it felt less like a sport and more spectacle.

Gus wanting to be an idol brawler is actually such a funny string of words put together I’m making that a thing, if he didn’t join the Vexos he would’ve been an idol brawler

I like the Gus needs glasses hc (shoutout to @marmeladebois ‘s post on that) 

The hc of him being half human and Runo’s half brother is so good 

Cooks well but refuses to help cook fr the Vexos (unless Spectra specifically asks) --> that job is usually left to Volt

not related but reminds me heavily of yugioh vrain’s Spectre (or other way around... Gus was the blueprint) 

Shadow Prove

[handbook canon] a vestal nobleman 

has an older brother (oc; Lux- casual Haos brawler)

inferiority complex or whatever, the only thing he bested his brother in was Bakugan

the Prove family being typical prim proper noble family and forcing Shadow to be repressed is something, but the Proves having the same kind of wavelength as Shadow but in different variations is funnier. They’re just Like That.

Probably not a military family, does work closely with the government still; um im thinking somewhere under the Fermins but not by much

Considered running away from home several times 

Unwillingly has knowledge on Vestal classic literature/ music

hard clutching a wall whenever he wants to join in on discussions about it bcs he knows this stuff but no way is he going to make himself look like a nerd + hes not actually that interested

*debates you for fun and bcs i hate u <3* 

You know how he doesn’t take his job as a Vexos member super seriously, I wonder:

did his parents force him to be a Vexos since he wasn’t interested in the political side of his family and probably against taking up anything related to it, so they had him do something that’d still be beneficial to the family?  

joined to pursue a freedom he didn’t have as a nobleman and is now just taking it really easy?

has clowns > jesters debate with volt; obv he’s team clown, volt is team jester

incredibly irrelevant but if he was a human he’d be chinese, i’ve claimed him, prodigal son older brother and fail son dynamic is there 

Mylene Ferrow

While I like the idea of her being from a military family, I want to make her like Ling Wen (TGCF) in the sense she started from the bottom and climbed to the top... it fits her ambitious nature of grasping for more, she hasn’t reached what she considers the top just yet... 

[very Ling Wen specific but Mylene being put in jail fr crimes unknown to me and being recruited  by Hydron bcs she kicked serious ass is an entertaining thought] 

I like to think she’s closest to Shadow due to the fact he kind of forces his presence onto her so... not her choice in that matter. “annoying” to “endearingly annoying, you still aren’t getting special treatment though”

Ofc Volt and Lync are on the same level, but I think they all know when to give each other space so they’re more of a “we hold each other at a distance, but we’re aware of out closeness which is enough for us”

Then its Spectra and then Gus in the “closest to Mylene” scale; she just straight up hates Gus and it’s mutual

whoever made the “Mylene and Spectra were exes” hc I think it’s really funny so I’m adding it here 

terrible fashion, she’s the one who chose the outfits when she and Shadow went to earth; her fashionable armor look she usually has was designed with Volt’s help, she just voiced what she generally wanted 

Her red lipstick look was bcs she thought it’d make her look more serious/ intimidating (Volt and Lync approved, it rlly does work on her)

Shadow matches w/ her (via his red nails) after they get teamed up tgt several times bcs he thinks they’re basically the go-to duo matchup whenever they’re assigned work n it’d be cool

Very forthcoming about the fact she used to be considered a criminal and was from same rundown area Volt and Lync come from

She’s grateful she got out of jail but she still has no respect for Hydron and despite how much she tries to hide it she does make it pretty clear to him she doesn’t really like him

I wish I had more to say about her... but It’s all relationship esque, i think in general she’s enjoyable and good so what I want more out of her is character dynamics

Lync Volan

[eng dub] he has grandparents; whether they’re still alive or not is...? 

was part of the same area Volt is from

probably aware of each other but didn’t really know each other

you sound like you have mommy issues 

came from the same area as Volt, but lived further out and closer to those areas where there were some bits of nature left 

ill expand on why he got picked up by Hydron another day lazy rn

Volt Luster

[canon] he’s from an area that just straight up looks like yugioh 5ds’ Satellite, and Hydron was the one who pulled him out of there  

He says Hydron pulled him out of there when he was a kid? I’d assume at youngest it’d be like Hydron (8) and Volt (11)

has a neat collection of handmade jester dolls 

lot more artistic than he seems 

Had his guardian bakugan with him the longest; had Brontes even before he met Hydron

Would the others consider him weird fr having a talking Bakugan that acted friendly with him n cracked jokes? 

[crowsent]

a fuckton of things i want in da4

a few words censored bc tumblr will swallow this in the void if i dont. long ass fuck list ahead

a romanceable dwarf

more romanceable elves/qunari

more elf/qunari/dwarf companions

consistent writing for once

more nb representation

good hair. please just give me good hair options. give me long hair. give me luxurious flowing locks. give me braids. give me good fucking hair options

let me shittalk the chantry

dalish elf npcs that impact the plot in unique ways

dalish elf companions that are proud of being dalish

if it is set in tevinter maybe uh. maybe address the issue of systemic oppression (and slavery) of elves???????

a return of the friendship/rivalry system in da2 but improved. maybe instead of a friendship rivalry sliding scale its friendship/rivalry/animosity sliding scale. bc rivalry is more like. two people pushing each other to be better than they were before. friendly competition. hes an idiot but hes my idiot kind of deal. animosity would be just regular disapproval. i liked the crisis cutscenes in dai so high animosity would be the same as low approval and might make the companion leave still, but theres more variety with high approval. high approval “friendship” would be the “were best friends and we share many opinions and agree on almost everything” while high approval “rivalry” being “we disagree on almost everything but goddamn it youre my friend and ill follow you into the fade if i have to” so you can have a high approval with someone instead of being a kissass

actions and choices having consequences again

multiple endings again (epilogue slideshows dont count)

dialogue wheels with descriptions that match what you actually say

characters from rivain, antiva, anderfels, etc

gifts. bring back the gifts. i want to give my companions gifts

maybe. maybe a focus of non-andrastian religion for once?

let me shittalk the chantry

i know its a stretch, but maybe. diverse skin colours. please?

nd characters that are written respectfully and treated w dignity

please bring back the talent wheel from dao and da2

more bi romance options

more wlw romance options

more mlm romance options

ace romance options

nb romance options

background romances

let me shittalk the chantry

far fetched but maybe a polycule?

i lowkey LOVED the fast-paced feel of da2s combat so maybe bring that back in some form? maybe improved to mesh with the tactics of dai to give players absolute freedom of playstyle whether they want to be like me and rush into every encounter or play more strategically

companions with unique companion abilities

would be nice to explore cities

would be nice if the open world were a little smaller so it doesnt feel empty all the gd time

more mage spells. mages felt like just another class of fighter to me in dai. they dont really have any awe-inducing wow factor like in dao or even da2. if the narrative wants me to believe that mages are powerful and dangerous and that it takes multiple templars to hunt down an apostate, maybe show that? give me strong mages

remove the jump ability. its pointless

a narrative that addresses the oppression that the chantry and templars perpetuated please

bring back the attributes

make the choices in dai matter. mages governing themselves? i wanna see that

let me shittalk the chantry

please bring back the healing magic for fucks sakes

multi-class system between rogues and warriors?

multiple specialisations that feel like specialisations and not just skill tree+

player-only skill trees

hardening

companion quests that affect their abilities and further dialogue

actual morally grey choices instead of this stupid mage freedom vs templar oppression narrative that is in no way morally grey but is presented as such and thus leaves the conflicts and narratives set up by dao and da2 to be fucking meaningless

bring back the tactics

would be nice to have an origins-esque prologue again. maybe one that would determine future events in game just to give your character better narrative cohesion with the plot

an approval/disapproval system but for companions with other companions. bringing certain companions together may bring them closer or make them pissed off with each other which affects banter maybe quests maybe combat

give me a fucking mabari bioware. give me back my fucking mabari

day/night cycle

a nightmare mode where you have to finish the main quest on a time limit. it is absurd that dai expects me to believe that i have all this time to do wartable missions that can take literal real life DAYS to finish and still thwart corypheus’ plans in time. bullshit

that said. no more wartable missions. waiting for a countdown to finish isnt very fun

let me shittalk the chantry

kal-sharok. ive been hearing about it since dao let me fucking see kal-sharok

dwarven politics

politics in general. my fav dao quest was the succession crisis plotline in orzammar/the landsmeet and wewh in dai

npcs i can talk to. even with generic dialogue like in dao. makes the world more alive

using the environment to your advantage. far fetched but i would love to be able to pull down boulders if were in the mountains or freeze water to get to places as a mage

home base customisation but the customisation choices you make actually. mean something. and do something. or at the very least give more companion dialogue/banter/approval change

laconic and ergonomic codexes. like. sorted by what kind of codex it is, etc etc but then you just get a brief summary of the codex and the option to read more about it so i dont spend eternity scrolling through cards looking for a specific codex entry. cool aesthetic dont get me wrong but real irritating to deal with. also. maybe. the pc making comments about the codex if you do read more about it? like a dalish elf saying “they got it all wrong” when reading a codex about dalish elves written by a human??? that would a) give character to the pc b) incentivise people to actually read the codex to see what was so wrong about it c) summarise the codex for people who want to learn the lore but dont want to spent the entire game reading text

maybe have the merchants in your home base close to crafting stations so you dont have to take a fucking hike if you miscounted the amount of elfroot you need?

let me shittalk the chantry

avvar companion maybe??? interesting lore right there

bring back stat requirements for weapons and remove the class restriction for most shit. obviously a dagger would be better for a rogue than a longsword and a mage would do better with a staff than a sword and shield but its not about efficiency. its about the roleplay. its about the options. give me the option to make a mage with wildly inappropriate stat distribution

bring back sustained mode abilities

traps. bring back traps. bring back the option to stealth into an area, trap the fuck out of it, and go from there

have the three available classes in kind of a rock paper scissors scenario. warriors do real well against rogues who do real well against mages who do real well against warriors. so you can plan your party depending on who/what youll face AND how much their approval will change during the quest you take them on

let me shittalk the chantry

actually resolve the plot points introduced in dai

a more threatening villain. the inquisitor thwarted every attempt made by corypheus in dai. he was not threatening at all

queer characters. background, companions, etc. queer characters

mounts were meh in dai. maybe. make them faster? or less cumbersome? or have your companions on mounts too so theres still banter?

i liked the armour tinting. let me have armour tinting from the beginning

i would really like mages to move and attack at the same time bc lowkey standing in one spot is uhhhhhhh kinda boring

let me check companions friendship/rivalry levels

would be nice if the narrative acknowledged that elves suffered greatly at the hands of the chantry and stopped victim-blaming them

more taverns. specifically like tapsters in dao where theres a dwarf just reciting something in a language i cant understand and if you look its a ballad/poet about dwarven culture and that was a real nice touch let me have that

dalish elf clan. dalish elf clan that does not get murdered please and thank you

meaningful quests. more cinematic dialogue

make found gear / quest reward gear more valuable than crafted gear

game modifiers like in dai were real nice. i want more

let me shittalk the chantry

quests that can be resolved in multiple ways. like connors fate in dao. and for those ways to impact further quests

companions with varying moral alignments

companions that are mutually exclusive (like alistair and loghain) but are both good companions so itd really make you think

a pc that IS NOT a “chosen one” vanilla da2 is my fav dragon age game for one reason and one reason only and that is because hawke is just some random refugee who escaped lothering. no chosen one magic at all. just an ordinary person who is a real good fighter. and that appealed to me more than this “you are the only one who can do it” narrative

let me meet more elvhen gods

if the setting is in tevinter, GIVE ME FUCKING ARCHITECTURE. give me the high spires, the archways, the buttresses, give me statues lining city gates and magic infused into the buildings. tevinter is a land ruled by MAGES give me magical architecture. give me floating buildings. give me fire floating as orbs above the streets like lamps. GIVE ME ARCHITECTURE

SHALE

let me shittalk the chantry

PIERCINGS GIVE ME FUCKING PIERCINGS BIOWARE

more main quests, longer main quests

if it is set in tevinter maybe. maybe address the fact that tevinter has been at war with the qunari for a while? on and off war is still war. and maybe give us the option to influence the outcome of that war?

more voice options. instead of just american voice or british voice, do the thing in dao again where there are multiple voices of different tones to further cement the pcs personality

more armour designs

biased but uh. can. can taliesen jaffe va a character?

i already said qunari companions but specifically saarebas companions

blood magic

FINISHING MOVE ANIMATIONS

please do not let it be as long as inquisition. inquisition was a SLOG in later playthroughs

body sliders. what if i want a tall but lanky qunari? what if i want a buff as shit elf? body sliders

more eye options

let me call out companions

btw bioware. if you really wanted cullen to be a good guy. maybe handle his fucking redemption arc a little better instead of retconning all the terrible and creepy shit hes done in the past k thx

can female walk/run animations not have. so much swaying hips? no one moves like that

personality dialogue that affects future dialogue like in da2 but meshed with the wider range of emotions introduced by dai

keep the race/s*x lock on romance candidates like in dai. keep the fact that some characters can only be romanced by certain races or s*xes

nb and genderqueer options for the pc

cutscenes of companions interacting

ngl i lowkey liked the random encounters of dao so maybe bring that back

my fav quest in dao is the landsmeet / orzammar succession crisis questline but you know whats my second favourite? the rescue mission if the warden gets captured and you have to play as your party members. give me that again

more creepy/dark shit. dai was too lighthearted for me esp after da2 and dao

let me shittalk the chantry

broodmothers. in hd.

red lyrium broodmothers. in hd

companions with different backgrounds. different faiths. different statuses. different families. etc

maybe make the pcs appearance make an impact on the story? like how bull says he likes redheads, but even if you are a redhead, he says nothing about it????? maybe keep track of which slider the player picks so that can affect the story?

i love my inquisitors but maybe. dont. bring the inquisitor in as anything more than an advisor/npc in this game? let me fall in love with a new pc???

if theres gonna be a homebase like skyhold where youre not in armor. maybe give us better clothing?

a kind of gear skin mechanic similar to ac:odyssey where you can change how the gear looks but keep the stats. so you can equip that higher level armour and keep the look and aesthetic of your old armour and you unlock the skins/looks of the armours you discover/make so you can be both powerful AND aesthetic

i enjoyed the nobility/underworld/arcane/etc knowledge in dai unlocking more dialogue options so maybe keep/expand on that but make it more accessible by side missions or companions or something that isnt the abysmal perk system in dai

let me shittalk the chantry

customisable walking animations. does the pc walk straightbacked? slouched? with a swagger? please

since there will undoubtedly be an obligatory fade sequence, maybe have an option for nightmare demons that ARENT spiders. thank you

slap on subtitles and conlang some languages. i want to hear elvish. i want to hear tevene. give me the languages

more dragons. esp if they look vastly different

more bard songs

i am completely biased here, but i would like to hear laura bailey as a va for a character. preferably a voice option for the pc

hey maybe have the true ending actually included in the base game and not in a dlc (tresppasser cough cough)

better val royeaux

please remove the had to do it to em idle animation tis distracting

on that note, more idle animations. maybe some unique to companions?

very trivial but. unique stair climbing/descending animation

bring back talking to companions on the road. maybe with some dialogue that can only be said on the road???

if banter is interrupted, make like rdr2 and pick up where the banter left off

more vallaslin designs please?

if theres another formal scene like dai maybe. give us. decent clothing. or better yet, decen clothing OPTIONS. i wanna decide how i look in a ball full of haughty orlesians

mage vs templar conflict resolved and addressed please. it is NOT resolved in dai. what we got was sequel bait and a slideshow. resolve it please

let me shittalk the chantry

a pro-mage anti-circle circle mage companion like anders

religious person who doesnt victim-blame elves in the codex or in game or anywhere please

characters more like leliana who question the chantry and acknowledge its corruption and greed

unapologetically sapphic companion

idc if its tevinter i dont want to fucking see queer people being disrespected

a true tal-vashoth companion, one who escaped from the qun

have quest decisions affect whether or not a companion will turn hostile to you or not

if IF solas will be redeemed, please do the redemption arc right

more horn options for qunari

an apostate mage who doesnt use me for their personal agenda whilst hiding something from me (morrigan, anders, solas) thanks

i really dig the whole “leader of an army” thing dai was trying to go for. but you didnt actually. lead. anything. would be nice to have that option. command soldiers. send them places that affect further quests. would even use the wartable for its intended purpose. planning wars. battles. like. you get sent word that there are bandits harassing villagers. you can set up an ambush with your soldiers or confront them headon, and theres a new mini-location on the map like the manor you meet vivienne in where you can go deal with the bandits and depending on your choices, there are actually soldiers with you in a field, or traps in a narrow pass, or even in a city. id rather the wartable shit dont return but if they have to, at least this way youre not just waiting real life time for a bunch of text to appear

i am real fucking excited for the possibility that da4 companions can just fucking die on you. good shit. give me that angst

missions that certain companions would refuse to go with you to. you know. so you actually have to use other members of your party instead of the same 3 (three) people all the goddamn time

disabled characters (i want a character who suffers from the same chronic bad leg disease as i do is that too much to ask)

kinda touched on by the da2 combat point but let me do close combat damage with the staff

no multiplayer. and if there is a multiplayer, dont tie it with achievements

let me fucking explore weisshaupt

(i dont think solas will be the endgame villain of da and i dont think da4 will be the last da game but still) again. for emphasis. resolve the plot points dai brought up

full-body scars and tattoo options

companions and npcs changing their opinions about things over time. eg: a pro-circle mage wanting instead for circles to be abolished after a specific side mission or a main quest decision etc

keep the multiple companion quests. and maybe change what kinds of companion quests are available further down depending on choices made in previous companion quests

please for fucks sake give us more characters of colour

let me shittalk the chantry

[natsunoomoi]

So sometimes I check wikis to like look things up about a show or series that I don’t have time to read or watch the whole thing fully cuz that’s a time investment I just don’t have but I have questions I just want a quick answer to.

The problem is, wikis are of course, made by like regular people with varying levels of biases and also sometimes selective memory of events. As can be seen in my more recent posts with SVSSS and MXTX’s works I’ve been on those wikis, but sometimes the explanations of plot points and a bunch of other stuff are really confusing and circular. SVSSS’s is being more cleaned up recently, but it still has some things that it says happened, that I couldn’t find at all when reading the book and I’m just like, where did they find that info to put on the wiki?

Like one of my earlier posts when I started reading SVSSS at the beginning, I mentioned how I read that original Luo Binghe got killed by his harem eventually and I thought that made sense cuz ultimately no one in that original plotline made choices that made them genuinely happy. But when I read the book, I didn’t see any mention of that anywhere...? I think last time I went to go look at BC Novels they had one chapter left to translate. Is it in there?

Then at other times, I wonder if there’s an inconsistency because there’s a limitation between the translation I read and like something in the original Chinese text like there’s a typo, which obviously there’s a mistake then. But then other times, I’m wondering if people read a different thing, but most of the people with a different interpretation don’t seem to be able to read Chinese and are reading the same translation as me, but I’m confused where they got certain details from?

Like for instance, there’s another part on the wiki where it says Airplane originally planned for PIDW to be a BL from the beginning, but I’ve literally been trying to find where that was stated because I don’t remember that and I don’t see that anywhere and the chapter citation that is listed on the wiki goes to a chapter that doesn’t talk about that at all. Airplane/Qinghua does say that he made changes to Qingqiu’s character that were originally more complex to make him a trash human and he did that to make a living, but I can’t find where it says he originally wanted it to be a BL theme to begin with. In the chapter they cite it says that Qinghua had designed Binghe to have an appearance in a way that appealed more to a female audience and be more of a pretty boy. That doesn’t mean that he meant his entire book to be a BL it just means you make your main character look a certain way partly for internal logic because that look is really popular with women so the in-story women would probably find him attractive and in a meta sense any females who happen to also read a stallion novel like some women read shounen manga would find him hot in real life. A successful story does things like that to reach people outside of its target audience and that’s kind of a lot of the reason why a lot of Shounen Jump manga are really popular with women too even though a lot of the stories have the male perspective in mind. The chapter it cites only talks about the actual physical appearance design choice he made for Binghe vs Mobei-Jun. He just says that Mobei-Jun was made for the kind of male character he prefers to think about, but Binghe was just designed with the idea of what would make him more popular and also could kind of be like a self-insert-ish for his desire to beat on people for funsies. It doesn’t talk at all about what the genre he planned for the book to be and interpreting the text to that much is really stretching the context to wishful thinking levels. I don’t even actually care either way what kind of novel PIDW was because it’s not actually that important to enjoying the story of SVSSS, but I don’t know if it’s the Ravenclaw in me or what, but it just bugs me when there’s something that seems *wrong* printed on a thing that is supposed to inform other people. I’m literally reading chapters at the same time as trying to write this post to find where I think maybe it was said, but it sure as hell wasn’t the chapter the wiki cites.

The other day I re-read the chapter when Qinghua taunts SY with Qingqiu’s real memories, and he doesn’t even say it then. ATM, I’m trying to look through the last chapter because there’s that one part when Qinghua shows up right at the end and talks with SY at the celebration, but even at the start at the chapter, SY talks about how Qingqiu was super straight to him. SY is an unreliable narrator, but given the context of Qingqiu’s life events that makes sense. His personal trauma because of Qiu Jianluo also pushed him away from any amount of closeness he could have with other men other than ones he already trusted to some degree. He had a lot of problems forming new relationships of any kind with other men because of deep-seated trust issues. Not that he didn’t have any, but meaningful ones were pretty absent. One only because of a very sad misunderstanding and lack of communication and explanation, but the others just tough.

But like also there’s like that SJ slept in the Warm Red Pavilion and he went there just for comfort rather than more lascivious reasons. Yeah, it’s true that he didn’t go there for those intentions, but like it’s still in the environment so it’s not like he’s unaware of what happens there. I mentioned it in the previous post about his search for means to grow his cultivation, but only to say he’s probably not that innocent and there may be some truth to him wanting to do something to Ning Yingying out of desperation to make up for his low cultivation foundation. Like he’s aware of those kinds of things and he probably came across something that said that was a way he could grow his cultivation. Desperation and this motivation I think is probably the only reason why he would be so tempted to cross that line with Yingying because he otherwise treats women rather well. She is his favorite too, so if a person who usually treats females well for some reason wants to do something that would be hurtful to their favorite person, there has to be a much deeper motivation behind that. The only thing that is a canonically greater obsession I think would have to be his cultivation level. He has a number of self-esteem issues and such a well, but his greatest pride and greatest concern is his cultivation. He is proud of his abilities, but also he laments and regrets the version of him he couldn’t become so much I can foresee that if there was a suggestion that he could overcome his late start in some way by using someone female, I think he’d at least think about it and also consider who he knows could be a viable candidate should he want to act on it and that is how that part of PIDW happened. Pain and desperation make people do things that are uncharacteristic, so it has to be something that really bothers him more than in a moment of weakness that idea is there.

Which is another point I have an issue with on the wiki because it says his low cultivation is “logically” because he started late and spent so much time with a fake master. It’s not logically. It’s factually. It’s mentioned several times especially in the extras chapters from Shen Jiu’s point of view where he talks about how he is specifically behind because of wasting time with Qiu Jianluo and Wu Yanzi and also that he was the last to form a golden core. If it was coming out of SY or someone else’s mouth as an explanation, maybe you can say “logically”, but if it’s coming from SJ’s point of view chapter it sure as hell is not. That *IS* his motivation. He states it himself.

Also, I think some people don’t understand what it means to have a low cultivation foundation. Cultivation from what I gather according to the rules of this world is like a lot of talents we have in our world where you need to start young to be good at it. There’s a few skills that you can learn that if you don’t start at a specific time you lose the optimal window to develop your talent for it because of the way the brain functions and basically purges off skillsets you’re not using in your environment. 

Learning a language is one such skill. When a baby is born, it has the capability to learn how to speak every language in the world, but as it gets older its brain purges out the sounds that it doesn’t hear from its environment and this keeps going into older childhood as well. The taxi driver I talked to the other day about this said you have to start before you’re 10, which sounds about right. The phoneme purging in your brain starts quite early though so that’s why my company has classes for Moms and their 1 or 2 year old so that they can speak to them in English to try to keep English sounds in their environment so that they can have perfect pronunciation when they grow up. If you try to learn a new language when you’re older that’s how you have accents. You don’t have the phonemes to speak the language perfectly so your brain is imitating the sounds with the ones you do have. Plus it’s a constant use skill. I used to be able to speak Cantonese with no accent up until my teens, but I haven’t spoken it in so long that slowly I started to have an accent and now I can’t say the words properly anymore. I don’t know that much Cantonese to begin with that aren’t baby words, but I used to be able to say them properly.

Music is another one and that one has an even more narrow window. Kids with parents hoping that they will be music prodigies usually start them on music VERY young like 3 or 4. It’s not that it’s impossible for someone to pick up an instrument later in life, but there’s a type of sense to music and hearing the scale and developing that skill that if you don’t start kids on it at that time, their musical ear will not be as good.

And it’s that “not as good” thing that Qingqiu is chasing. He is exceptionally powerful and talented which is why despite starting late he became favored. He is very capable and good at what he does, but he is not as good as what he could have been. Even though he is so good, he is only haunted by how much better he would have been if he had started on time and had proper instruction. A musician who maybe wants to be a concert violinist but took up the instrument late may struggle to get a good seat in an orchestra because despite any talent they have, their ear is not as developed as someone else. Such a musician would be vexed and lament that they hadn’t discovered their love for the instrument sooner just as Qingqiu is vexed and laments that he didn’t start proper cultivation development earlier.

And I’m griping about SVSSS more because I read that book so I have more points of reference to go on. But like the wikis for MDZS and TGCF aren’t much better. MDZS is maybe a little more coherent and easier to follow, but TGCF confused the hell out of me and it took me awhile to understand what was going on. I really needed it though cuz I was watching the donghua and like I think the way they present some of the scenes is like slightly out of order for like foreshadowing and other like film reasons, so I checked the wiki while watching to try to get more context cuz I don’t have much time right now to pick up another book at the moment. I was so confused though cuz like...it seems like the logic in the entries is so circular and I’m trying to keep track of all the characters and what’s happening. I hope it’s better now but at the time I was watching it I was so confused and struggling to make sense of what’s happening.

And like maybe you’re wondering why if I read the book, would I bother checking a wiki. Mostly out of laziness because I’m thinking of something and I don’t want to go find the exact chapter to help me flesh out my thought and reference point. I end up getting more frustrated sometimes depending on what I’m looking up because of the above things.

Plus again I’m like a bit mystified as to why Qingqiu’s look seems to appeal to me. It’s not just him though and like other characters with a similar style in some of the games I play. I think there’s some imprint from some very old childhood memory that I only vaguely remember. Like it’s a look that seems familiar, but I can’t put my finger on where it’s from and I can’t figure it out, so I keep just going to check images to see if it will make me remember. I think it’s a movie I saw with my Dad as a young child, but I can’t remember it at all. I remember there was one Jet Li movie I watched with my Dad once and I ended up watching all the time cuz I thought Jet Li was really cute in that movie (I was also 3 so I don’t know why I’m thinking that way, but whatever), but like Jet Li was bald in that movie because it was about a Shaolin Temple. I think at the time my Dad showed me that movie I already showed an interest in movies from my own heritage, so that’s why he showed me that. But like I can’t remember anything else. I suppose it could have been something my grandpa watched because sometimes he’d watch a Chinese movie when I was playing in the living room and I’d stop to watch too and then he’d fast-forward through the intimacy scenes, but because I’d just look over at something he was already watching I have no idea what any of those were.

[firelord-frowny]

not that i’ve ever done it before, but here’s How To Set Up A Very Good Community Orchestra since it’s Frowny Gets Mad About Music At Night time. 

1. Determine what kinds of players are most common in your community. You want to know (a) what instruments people play, and (b) what styles of music they’re most familiar with. This is going to inform the kinds of repertoire the orchestra focuses on. For example, if you’ve got a bunch of strings players but not many winds, you’d do well to organize a chamber orchestra that’s strings-only. If you’d still like to include other instruments, there are pleeeenty of string-heavy pieces that feature a handful of winds or percussion or piano, etc. If you have mostly wind players, you’d want to do a wind ensemble. 

2. Determine HOW MANY of each kind of player is likely to participate. This will inform the scale of the repertoire you focus on. For example, if you’ve only got like 6 violins, a couple cellos, and a lil smattering of winds, you probably shouldn’t play shit like Mahler or Brahms or Dvorak. You’d be best suited for works that are more typical of peeps like Mozart and Haydn. Basically, anything BUT romantic era music would be well-suited for a smaller orchestra. Baroque and Classical are your best bets for the most part. 

3. Determine the skill level of the LEAST SKILLED players. An orchestra, literally, can ONLY be as good as its worst player. If your players aren’t great at advanced techniques, then you shouldn’t torture them or yourself by trying to play things that are Too Hard. there are LOTS of beautiful pieces that are doable for weak ensembles. Don’t play Ravel’s pavane if your players can only handle Faure's pavane. 

4. Commit to hiring AT LEAST one professional player per section - ESPECIALLY if the general skill level of the group is low. There NEEDS to be someone in each section who can guide the others as far as stuff like fingerings, bowings, articulations, how to execute specific techniques, how to practice, ect. If a player has a question or doesn’t understand something about the music, there NEEDS to be someone there who is qualified to help them.  If you collect ~dues~ from the participants, some of that money should be allocated to the professional section leaders to ensure their commitment. 

5. REHEARSALS. ARE. MANDATORY. The ONLY excuses that should permit someone to miss rehearsals while still being allowed to perform are the same excuses that would permit someone to miss a day of school or work without penalty. 

6. REQUIRE practice logs. Obviously, volunteers may not have a WHOLE lot of time to dedicate to practicing, but if you genuinely have NO time at all to practice, then you need to just not be in an orchestra at all. Participants should show proof that they’ve been practicing by submitting a 30 minute-or-so video of a practice session. SPECIFY which parts of a piece they must include in their video. 

7. If the general skill level of the group isn’t high enough to deliver a super solid performance of fun, engaging repertoire, ALWAYS INCLUDE ONE PERFESSIONAL PERFORMANCE at every event. For example, the full orchestra performs something simple and manageable, and at the same concert, the professional players perform alone. Bc like... let’s be real. People go to concerts to ENJOY THE MUSIC, and you can’t enjoy music that isn’t played very well. The audience deserves to hear a performance that’s well done. The audience DESERVES to know what classical music is supposed to sound like. This is ESPECIALLY important if the mission of your orchestra is to “bring the joy of music to underserved communities,” as is the case with so many regional volunteer orchestras. You can’t Bring The Joy Of Music if all of the music sounds like shit. Let the community celebrate and support their peers, and then let them hear a beautiful concert. 

8. this should be obvious but apparently isn’t: DO NOT select repertoire that is too difficult for any of the players. Everyone should be able to play every note with decent intonation and rhythm, and they should be able to play it at the correct tempo. Don’t play Moto Perpetuo if you’d have to slow it down an egregious amount in order for anyone to be able to play it! 

9. There are a LOT!!!! of pieces that have VERY easy orchestral parts, and very challenging and interesting solo parts. These are especially common in Baroque pieces, like Vivaldi’s double concertos, Corelli’s Christmas concerto, Paganini’s Moto Perpetuo, movements from Holst’s Holber Suite, etc. Consider choosing this kind of repertoire to allow the highly skilled players to shine, supported by the less-skilled players who will sound lovely because the parts are compatible with their skill level. 

10. SECTIONAL REHEARSALS ARE MANDATORY!!! It’s literally so fucking ridiculous that any orchestra would try to function without having sectionals. Like. the worlds greatest professional orchestras need sectionals, so OF COURSE a lil rinky dink amature orchestra needs sectionals! These sectionals should be led by the resident professional players. There should be at least one or two sectionals prior to any performance.

11. Encourage all participants to have a private lesson or two with the professional players before each concert. Since they would likely need to pay for the lesson, it shouldn’t be mandatory. But it should definitely be strongly encouraged. 

12. It is literally ALWAYS better to just cut a piece from the program if it turns out that the orchestra is doing a shitty job at it. It’s MIND NUMBINGLY ABSURD every time i hear a community orchestra absolutely butcher a piece in concert. Like. There’s no reason to do that. Just cut the piece and replace it with something easier, or replace it with a piece that only includes the professional and more advanced players. You should ALSO be willing to selectively remove certain players from a piece of they demonstrate that they’re unable to do a decent job at it. 

13. Seating auditions should be held in preparation for EACH AND EVERY CONCERT - not just for new members, and not just at the beginning of a performance season. This accomplishes two things. (a) players have more of an incentive to actually practice, and (b) it places the strongest players in a position where they can more easily support the weaker ones.

14. MASTERCLASSES!!!!! At least once per performance season, hire a bona-fide pedagogue to work with each major section. I’m talking about those kinds of teachers who have the knowledge to help a student reach a world-class skill level. These kinds of teachers can offer insight that can turn a shitty player into a half decent player in just MINUTES of instruction. Attendances to these masterclasses should be mandatory. 

boom! congrats. you have now created a volunteer orchestra that can legitimately encourage an appreciation of western art music, and can everyone can feel proud of theirselves for delivering good performances. 

[sol1056]

wuxia/xianxia: a loose and somewhat second-hand introduction to the genre, pt1

Sorry for the unconventional q, but i keep seeing Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation everywhere and I kinda want to get into it but a) don't know where to start (web series? live action adaptation?? wait how many are there!) and b) i don't really "get" wuxia / xianxia, that sorta stuff, i find it really hard to cross that cultural barrier and chinese mentality seems very alien. (it's not that i have no experience w different mentalities but chinese in particular is v hard to grasp w/o sources).

So if you have the time and patience, I'd love to hear a summary of it (like, a coherent summary bc all i get on the wikis is a shower of names and concepts that don't make sense to me) and perhaps some "intro for dummies" abt the relevant parts of chinese history and mentality tied to it? not just the cultivation / buddhist part but also re: familial relationships, philosophy and all that. (v brief and low effort of course) Thank you and sorry for bothering you!

("brief and low effort" referring to what I'm asking from you, not to what I need for me - as in i asked for it so i'm more than ready for a complicated essay, but you can write with as much detail as you like, I don't want to ask for some sort of comprehensive tome)

Okay first, you do realize that if you want “brief and low” for anything, you’re asking the wrong person? I was a philosophy major. brief got drilled out of me a long time ago. 

Second... well, explaining what makes The Untamed / Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (mdzs for short, from the chinese title, Mo Dao Zu Shi) such a standout story does require understanding some of the wuxia conventions it subverts -- as well as some that it plays straight (so to speak) very, very well. 

I figure the best approach (again, sadly not brief) is to first get a handle on the genre of wuxia. Gonna break this post into two, so you’re not reading in a single three-hour stretch or something. I’ll do a follow-up about mdzs, to hopefully make it a bit more accessible for you. 

before I do that, let me first say: I didn’t grow up with this genre, so there’s going to be parts that I may miscast unintentionally. for an insider’s view, my go-to voices are @guzhuangheaven, @atthewaterside, @dramatic-gwynne, @the50-person and @drunkensword. if any of them are reading this and can point to more/other/better voices, please do.

I have three analogies -- like cultural doorways --  and like all analogies, they break down when you get into the finer details. In the broad strokes, though, they mostly work, and if nothing else, hopefully they’ll demonstrate that wuxia may be a chinese-specific version, but part of a storytelling tradition that’s nearly universal.

The three doorways are: the american wild west, the samurai era, and the british arthurian romances. And, in a tangential way, the regency period in the romance genre. 

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

The term ‘wuxia’ can be translated several ways, but I prefer ‘martial chivalry’. Most wuxia takes place in the jianghu, a harder term to unpack. Generally, though, ‘the jianghu’ has connotations not all that different from what americans mean when they reference the wild west. 

More of a concept than a physical place, the jianghu (like the ‘wild’ west) exists beyond the reach of the law and/or civilization. It’s occupied by a diverse cast of farmers, merchants, beggars, and so on, but also by outlaws, gangs, hermits, pretty much all those who don’t like the suffocating nature of the civilized world, for whatever reason. It’s not a lawless place (except to outsiders); it does have laws, but those are only unto itself. 

So, jianghu is a world to itself, for the most part -- which also makes it kind of timeless. Tang dynasty, Song dynasty, Ming dynasty, it could be any of them and all of them and none of them. Just as the heyday of the cowboys and the cattle drives was barely a decade long, a culture’s romanticized history stretches into lifetimes that exist separate from any date you could pin down on a calendar. 

The average wuxia protagonist would fit in reasonably well as knight errants in an arthurian romance, with one important detail in difference: they’re rarely aristocrats. Wuxia protagonists are just as likely (if not more so) to be lower-born, whether the child of farmers, or servants, some common caste. 

This is where wuxia diverges from the british and japanese traditions, which have a bit more noblesse oblige going on (knights and samurai both being upper-class types). Even ‘aristocratic’ characters tend to be so only within the jianghu -- sort of like the way a territory’s elected leader in the wild west would’ve had no pull in Washington, given they weren’t from a fully-recognized state. 

Wuxia does often have politics, between competing sects (think schools of learning), but that political infighting is independent of the capital’s rules or wishes. A lot of stories -- in the rare cases the topic even comes up -- tends to speak of ‘the capital’ in disparaging terms. 

That’s not to say wuxia is all about the flat social systems (it’s definitely not), but most commonly a rank implies some level of competence/study. The title of sect leader isn’t granted, it's earned. Children inherit, but it’s also a common storyline to have an heir with no skills (who then goes through all the trials and tribulations to finally level up and earn that position in turn).

What makes wuxia hard to grasp is its vernacular: the conventions that form the backbone that make something recognizably ‘wuxia’ and not just ‘historical drama set on a frontier in a loosely-defined time period’. 

Frex: in a Wild West story, convention is two gunfighters at opposite ends of the street, and at least one of them is wearing a holster tied to his leg with string in a way that no real gunfighter wore, ever, but Hollywood came up with the idea and now it’s a permanent part of our imagination. In the arthurian romances,  convention is carrying the token of one’s lady love (a distant, untouchable figure who rarely appears on-page), or meeting the unnamed knight in black on the jousting field. Convention are the samurai who’ll die for their lord’s honor, always touchy and prickly at the first sign of disrespect. 

These are things granted the most remarkable gravity, that to an outsider might seem ridiculous. (Why is there always tumbleweed?) 

Now, wuxia is the latest evolution in a long-lived literary tradition (and by ‘long’ I mean like 2000+ years) -- but like any living tradition, each subsequent generation reinvents it for their time. Part of that reinvention comes from particularly influential writers, who put their own spin on things, and their interpretation becomes the next generation’s standard for the genre -- “of course wuxia must have X” or “a protagonist never does Y”. (Like how Tolkien almost single-handedly changed western concepts of elves, in fiction.)

And here’s where I explain what regency romance has to do with it. Another short-lived period, in real history, but along came Georgette Heyer, who took bits and pieces of actual research, blended them with her reactionary politics, exaggerating some things and ignoring other things completely. The result is a time-that-never-was, but she cast (and still casts) a shadow so vast that I’ve seen multiple romance writers complain that readers will see a footnoted-and-researched version as wrong, if it contradicts one of Heyer’s made-up conventions. 

Modern wuxia has its own Heyer-sized influencers -- like Jin Yong (the Condor trilogy, Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils), Wen Rui'an (The Four), Gu Long (The Legend of Flying Daggers, The Proud Twins), to name a few of the biggest. If you have a chance or are inclined, the big names get remade on a pretty regular basis, and catching one will at least let you see some ur-tropes in action. 

But it also means that you can’t really extrapolate, in the sense of saying, “in wuxia, people do X, ergo, X is also a factor in Chinese culture.” It’s like... take any western made in the 50s, and the vernacular is simple. The bad guys wear black hats, the good guys wear white hats, the prostitutes wear bright-colored dresses with frills and the good women wear subdued colors buttoned up to their neck. It told an audience exactly what character filled what role, but that’d tell you zero about real people you might meet in Nebraska or Utah, let alone New York City. 

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

Almost forgot: xianxia is basically wuxia but with ‘immortal heroes’ -- so there’s gods, divine influences, non-human beings as characters (main or NPC), etc. (Btw, by ‘immortal’ I mean exactly that, like this character is six hundred years old, that one’s a thousand years old, etc.) You can think of xianxia as wuxia, but amped way up on the mystical scale. 

Xianxia will sometimes take place on earth (jianghu) but sometimes in the celestial realm (heaven). Or a mix of both, like stories where a character falls (or is banished, or defects) from heaven and has to go through various trials and tribulations as a mortal human in order to regain a power, rise in rank, fall in love, or whatever their goal is. 

A number of wuxia stories are driven by some sort of mcguffin, but in xianxia, the mcguffin is more likely to be a powerful spiritual weapon. But I can also think of a number of wuxia in which the mcguffin would fit right in, in xianxia (some near-mystical thing with significant positive, or negative, power independent of the wielder, which often amplifies or boosts the wielder to an inhuman degree, etc). 

Thing is, the mcguffin being divine/infernal supernatural isn’t enough alone to make the story xianxia. I’m pretty sure you need non-human or super-human immortals and/or creatures to be considered in the xianxia genre. 

part two

[justsomeoneunordinary]

3🥦🥦🥦

You love coffee, ergo I love you, ergo intimidation is low. You're pretty blunt and I love that, but I can imagine that this is intimidating for others? 😂

And adding 2, so it's 3, because you love Natasha and that speaks of a fine mind and I remember you telling me of beating someone with a handbag, very romanoff of you.

Also you're so sweet and its so fun to bicker with you or read your interactions with others, like they're often highlights in my day 🥰

10/10 would let you step on me though. Extra coffee for you if you manage to get the weird tensity out of my back:P

sesil 🥺💕💕💕💕💕💕💕

please know, it took me so long to answer, cause i didn't know what to say to all that. (but also cause i totally fell asleep again after i told you i'd answer later lol) god, i should type this on desktop cause WORDS, but i need the emojis to express myself, so mobile torture it is.

coffee is life and anyone who disagrees is literally wrong. i type that while drinking coffee lol. also "pretty blunt" is probably the understatement of the century. i am extremely blunt. it's a problem. though i can't tell if it's bc people get mad/annoyed at me or bc i have to keep it to myself at work which causes my organs almost to explode. 😆

also, also!!! i didn't punch the guy with my handbag!!! he tried to steal my handbag so i punched him in the face. with my fist. that's not the same, please get your facts straight. 😌💖 (i'm telling you, it was poetic! movie worthy!! he was right at the the bus doors when they opened and my punch had just enough force to push him out of the bus. god, it's been years and i'm still so proud of that chchadhfjsfj)

but god, sesil, you!!! chcjskdjfkafjaldfjakfjaksfjgkglakf I LOVE YOU OKAY!!! you're so sweet, how dare. this message transformed me in a puddle of goo and i don't like that. how dare you make me soft.

i remember when you followed me out of a sudden and i just sat there like??? why did this frostiron artist follow me?? you have to know, i had no clue that you're a big name. man, i didn't even know that you also write!! (how dare you be so talented and skilled?? art and fics???? *le gasp*) frostiron is just a ship i look into every now and then for some pretty art and maybe a fic or two if i'm feeling it. so i did reblog your art whenever it appeared on my dash, but never felt the need to follow. i had no idea abt big names or anything, i only know the big names in the winteriron fandom. 😆

and then you followed and i was so confused and thought "oh well, she probably gonna unfollow soon" (lmaooo). (though, you honestly have to tell me what prompted you to come to my blog, i wanna know!!!) and then!!! you were so sweet and sent me asks and talked to me and vhcjdjfjsjfjfksfksgjdkc and i fell in love with you. 🥺💕💕💕

and when i finally did get the memo that you're a big name and i should probably feel intimidated, it was already too late. too much shitposting had happened since then lol. (skat kink anon will forever live rent-free in my head cbcnzfjadjgkvka)

and anyway!!! the fact that you made me love you in first place even tho you are german, which is totally a crime and i am betraying my people by being friends with you (if switzerland ever finds out, i will lose all my swiss privilege), and even dared to ask me if swiss chocolate is actually good - that despite that i still would totally 100% kill for you, says a lot.

gosh, you're just such a wonderful human being. you are nice and funny and beautifully honest and so very intelligent as well as mature (i forget so often how young you technically are. god i was so dumb when i was your age but you!!! you are incredible!), you're an amazing artist and just as an amazing writer, and i love you to pieces. 🥺💕💕💓💓💞💞💘💘💗💗🥰🥰

intimidation level 0 but only cause i love you and know you and know i don't have to be intimidated at all. 10/10 i would absolutely step on you if you asked me to. (but i fear you might not have a back afterwards anymore :/)

thank you for your nice words, love!! 💙💙

-

On a scale of 1 to 10, how intimidating am I?

[lightwormlol]

ACOFAS REVIEW -INC SPOILERS

4.5 stars.

Okay, so! This was the first book I was able to finish in 2021. I've kinda been in a reading slump, and struggling to get past the 30-50% of books. I think its because I took essentially 3 months off my normal (daily) reading schedule and have been prioritising other things (health, fitness, job applications etc) - I think it's a testament to how addicted I was to this that I finished and consumed this at the rate I did! I recently went back and added some things to my ACOWAR review. To briefly summarise, I feel that, at the time I read it, it kind of gave me what I needed, but it definitely isn't getting a re read - my love for feysand has definitely lessened over time, but honestly i'm not that mad at sarah for this, as I find that whenever I've passed the sexual tension part of relationships in books, I tend to get bored of the domestic bliss. Like, leave that shit for an epilogue and keep it at that? As someone generally averse to relationships, but there is definitely a grace period for how long I can actively be smitten with a couple... before it becomes sickly. Taking all this into account, I honestly was nervous for this book, its release date totally took me by surprise, and I read it on a whim. As a Nessian shipper (I mean we didn't really have a choice after acomaf but to delve into the world of fanfic to keep us going) - this book gave me most of what I wanted and needed from them! I think,(some) kudos to SJM, for not disappointing in their relationship. This was definitely a character > plot driven story. In terms of the plot, I wasn't really invested until around the 38% mark? I'm not sure if I was adjusting to the writing style (lots of dramatic. sentences. that. are. so. abrupt. Nesta Archeron. Death etc) - or if it was bc I hadn't read an SJM book since the novella, which I basically skimmed. I was obviously reading for Nessian, but I didn't really feel intrigued by the wider plot (death gods, the human queens? Given I had lost my previous obsession with the world/ have outgrown 'fandom' culture, that made me actively update my knowledge, I couldn't remember a lot!) I think its clear that SJM excels character driven stories, but I think her worldbuilding and execution is significantly better in the throne of glass franchise. Now, I did say this was a character driven story. This is mostly regarding Nesta, Cassian and Azriel. I loved pretty much any interaction they had! I love a good training montage. Ngl though, I think, unless you possess an ardent love for Nessian, you're not going to be particularly wowed by this, if you've read heir of fire, or even acomaf. I obviously am never going to be able to be objective, because I've loved nessian so much from 2017-now, but I loved the dynamic those two (and three - friendship wise between nes/cass/az). One of the highlights of ACOWAR for me was the snippets of Az, showing tenderness, and opening up to the newer members of the inner circle (and i'm excluding any hint of an Elriel ship because FUCK THAT LOL) For me, the tip with SJM books is: once you outgrow them/the particular mode of narrative style, is to not anticipate anything other than a character driven story, albeit one riddled with smut. I personally am a romance heavy reader, so I'm honestly deconditioned to it at this point, (like, when I see reviewers scandalised I'm like... wow, the amount of trash I have consumed in the last five years loool.) While I disagree with the fact SJM marketed this series as y/a (or maybe it wasn't her per se, but the key booksellers definitely did this for her) - I think its clear enough now she's descended into the adult/borderline erotica genre.(very mild imo). I personally like to adopt a policy of skimming sex scenes when I find the dialogue cringy (most the time it is lets be honest any talking is v second hand embarrassment). Cassian and Nesta were definitely better than Rhys and Feyre post chapter 55 though! I was so glad there weren't a million moments of Cass/Nesta betraying their arousal with their scents, in front of everyone (like feysand, the voyeuristic pda pricks they are). I found the slowburn ish nature of their relationship great, and I actually think if you're a virgo/emotionally stunted reader, you will be happy with their relationship dynamic. It contrasts with the daemati sexual snark of acomaf, but it felt right, and authentic. This book was a journey of personal growth, for Nesta. It is clear SJM loves books about strong women, and maybe thats what makes me love this book so much. I think, out of all the archeron sisters, I love Nesta the most. This is for my Rose Calloway fans, my misunderstood, somewhat cold/left out girls, who are less receptive to being vulnerable. If you're a slowburn fan, it's not Mariana Zapata levels of slowburn, imo it's the perfect combo. Addictive enough that I don't want to put it down, but not so fast moving that I couldn't believe it. I loved the sex without emotion relationship they had!! This is honestly never done in mainstream n/a fantasy, unless its a caricature of a 'slut' that normally rivals the main character, lmao. Even if their inner conflict was p transparent, this gave me everything I needed! I know this is vapid lol but I also love the physical dynamic between the two, they just look so good together, the amount of fanart I'm going to reacquaint myself with after this review!! I adored seeing Nesta grow, (even if towards the end I kind of resented her sudden acceptance into the inner circle, i get SJM loves her and just wanted a fluffy ending, but, as a Nesta like character, it's awkward and stilted on her end to adjust to the inner circle like this - i mean, hugging rhys, really??)

I think, if I had to compare this to any other SJM book, I would say Chaols book (though I obviously preferred this). That being said, I felt less attached to new characters in this book than I was in even Chaols book (and even then ngl I remember nothing?) Obviously I loved what it represented, as a trio of traumatised women. I just, didn't love this the way I loved other inner circle members! I get that they gave Nesta exactly what they needed, a family that doesn't hold the history of her sisters, who she doesn't have to worry about holding preconceived notions of disappointment. I loved this for her! Even then.. I just wasn't attached to either of them. I found their interactions cute - but boring. Towards the end, when their stories/pasts are revealed, I couldn't help but cringe slightly, I can't put my finger on why, but I just didn't buy it. Maybe it's the brit in me but I couldn't be moved by this slightly forced bonding moment.. which was so anticlimactic. My 'aww how cute' tolerance is defo deserved for characters whose tropes I love. Maybe they just didn't fit into this list. Maybe I'm just being a cow here?

Now, let's speak about the real star of the show.... A FUCKING MAGICAL HOUSE FRIEND??? YESSSSSSS. IF YOU ARE AN ILONA ANDREWS INNKEEPERS CHRONICLES FAN, U WILL LOVE! How was the animation of this somehow more touching than all of nesta's other friendships combined? Exactly what I ordered, thank you. This trope somehow touches more than any material bonding!! The cute witch x house dynamic (also maybe howls moving castle vibes?) I loved the trying to reach the target of 10,000 steps (a little Celaena HOF). I think this, heir of fire and acomaf are my favourite SJM books for this reason. Gripes: I definitely had some personal gripes with how other members of the inner circle treated Nesta (rhys i'm looking at you. Disappointed doesn't even cover it.) I inherently take offence to any elain scene, as i'm so over bland characters whose existence is reduced to wanting to fucking plant flowers?? like?? really? To go from moriel to that is such a downgrade, even if I fell out of love with Mor due to the way she snubbed Nesta (you're a 500 year old being and you can't see someone is clearly traumatised?). I adore Az so much, but if it aint polyamorous, I cannot see any pairing with Elain making me happy. (wouldn’t mind gwyn though) I think the whole mating bond that I do not want is a good dynamic, but I really hate that everyone has to be mates in this world. I don't think we were that surprised, but it would've been nice if the somehow, idk, developed a strong bond over time, without it being preordained? Like, even if they do not all actively stay with their mate, given how disproportionate mates are among the general population, what's the likelihood 6 members of the inner circle (including lucien) have mates?

My advice? Read this book if you love nessian and the acotar world in general, but don't expect the world building to be consistent with greater fantasy series'. This style of story is obviously what to expect. She writes what she likes, and if her fantasy is this - then who are we, as readers, to expect otherwise?

Final rating: 4.5 (no, i'm not objective, but objectivity does not exist if you are a real, human being, lol)

Original Characters: 5/5 (nessian/az/house wise) 1/5 (feysand - really over how they essentially take over the very end of the book - ugh, I wanted nesta's arc to be wholly separate from them) Writing style: 3.5 Cringe Scale: Low, with the exception of some dialogue. New Characters: 2 Plot: I went into it with a 2 and came out with a 4. Not in terms of complexity, but in terms of how addictive and enjoyable this reading experience was! (less)

[sciencespies]

How Close Are We To The Holy Grail Of Room-Temperature Superconductors?

https://sciencespies.com/news/how-close-are-we-to-the-holy-grail-of-room-temperature-superconductors/

How Close Are We To The Holy Grail Of Room-Temperature Superconductors?

One of the biggest physical problems in modern society is resistance. Not political or social resistance, mind you, but electrical resistance: the fact that you cannot send an electrical current through a wire without some of that energy getting lost, being dissipated into heat. Electrical currents are just electric charges that move over time, and are harnessed by humans to move through current-carrying wires. Yet even the best, most effective conductors — copper, silver, gold, and aluminum — all have some resistance to current passing through them. No matter how wide, shielded, or unoxidized these conductors are, they’re never 100% efficient at transporting electrical energy.

Unless, that is, you can make your current-carrying wire go from a normal conductor to a superconductor. Unlike normal conductors, where the resistance gradually lowers when you cool them down, a superconductor has its resistance plummet to zero below a certain critical threshold. Without any resistance, superconductors can transmit electrical energy in a lossless fashion, leading to the holy grail of energy efficiency. Recent developments have brought about the highest-temperature superconductor ever discovered, but we probably won’t be transforming our electronics infrastructure anytime soon. Here’s the science of what’s going on at the frontiers.

One of Faraday’s 1831 experiments demonstrating induction. The liquid battery (right) sends an … [+] electric current through the small coil (A). When it is moved in or out of the large coil (B), its magnetic field induces a momentary voltage in the coil, which is detected by the galvanometer. As the temperature decreases, the resistance of the circuit decreases as well.

J. Lambert

Superconductivity has a long and fascinating history. We realized back in the 19th century that all materials — even the best conductors — still exhibit some sort of electrical resistance. You can lower the resistance by increasing the cross-section of your wire, by lowering the temperature of your material, or by decreasing the length of your wire. However, no matter how thick you make your wire, how cold you cool your system, or how short you make your electric circuit, you can never achieve infinite conductivity with a standard conductor for a surprising reason: electrical currents create magnetic fields, and any change in your resistivity will change the current, which in turn will change the magnetic field inside your conductor.

Yet perfect conductivity requires that the magnetic field inside your conductor not change. Classically, if you do anything to decrease the resistance of your conducting wire, the current will increase, and the magnetic field will change, meaning you can’t achieve perfect conductivity. But there’s an inherently quantum effect — the Meissner effect — that can arise for certain materials: where all magnetic fields inside a conductor are expelled. This makes the magnetic field inside your conductor zero for any current that flows through it. If you expel your magnetic fields, your conductor can begin behaving as a superconductor, with zero electrical resistance.

Helium’s unique elemental properties, such as its liquid nature at extremely low temperatures and … [+] its superfluidic properties, make it well-suited to a series of scientific applications that no other element or compound can match. The superfluid helium shown here is dripping because there is no friction in the fluid to keep it from creeping up the sides of the container and spilling over, which it does spontaneously.

Alfred Leitner

Superconductivity was discovered way back in 1911, when liquid helium first came into widespread use as a refrigerant. Scientist Heike Onnes was using liquid helium to cool down the element mercury into its solid phase, and was then studying the properties of its electrical resistance. Just as expected, for all conductors, the resistance gradually dropped as the temperature dropped, but only up until a point. Abruptly, at a temperature of 4.2 K, the resistance completely disappeared. Moreover, there was no magnetic field present inside the solid mercury once you crossed below that temperature threshold. Later only, several other materials were shown to exhibit this superconductivity phenomenon, all becoming superconductors at their own unique temperatures:

lead at 7 K,

niobium at 10 K,

niobium nitride at 16 K,

and many other compounds subsequently. Theoretical advances accompanied them, helping physicists understand the quantum mechanisms that cause materials to become superconducting. After a series of experiments in the 1980s, however, something fascinating began to occur: materials composed of vastly different types of molecules not only exhibited superconductivity, but some did so at significantly higher temperatures than the earliest known superconductors.

This figure shows the development and discovery of superconductors and their critical temperatures … [+] over time. The different colors represent different types of materials: BCS (dark green circle), Heavy-fermions-based (light green star), Cuprate (blue diamond), Buckminsterfullerene-based (purple inverted triangle), Carbon-allotrope (red triangle), and Iron-pnictogen-based (orange square). The novel states of matter achieved at high pressures have led to the current records.

Pia Jensen Ray. Figure 2.4 in Master’s thesis, “Structural investigation of La2–xSrxCuO4+y – Following staging as a function of temperature”. Niels Bohr Institute, Faculty of Science, University of Copenhagen. Copenhagen, Denmark, November 2015. DOI:10.6084/m9.figshare.2075680.v2

It started with a simple class of materials: copper oxides. In the mid-1980s, experiments with copper oxides with the elements lanthanum and barium broke the longstanding temperature record by several degrees, being found to superconduct at temperatures greater than 30 K. That record was quickly broken by using strontium instead of barium, and then was broken once again — by a significant margin — by a new material: Yttrium-Barium-Copper-Oxide.

This wasn’t just a standard advance, but rather a huge leap: instead of superconducting at temperatures below ~40 K, which meant that either liquid hydrogen or liquid helium was required, Yttrium-Barium-Copper-Oxide became the first material discovered to superconduct at temperatures above 77 K (it superconducts at 92 K), meaning that you could use the much cheaper liquid nitrogen to cool your device down to superconducting temperatures.

This discovery led to an explosion of superconductivity research, where a variety of materials were introduced and explored, and not only extreme temperatures but also extreme pressures were applied to these systems. Despite the huge explosion in research surrounding superconductivity, however, the maximum superconductivity temperature stagnated, failing to crack the 200 K barrier (while room temperature is just a hair under 300 K) for decades.

Still image of a liquid nitrogen cooled puck, superconducting above a magnetic track. By creating a … [+] track where the outside magnetic rails point in one direction and the inside magnetic rails point in the other, a Type II superconducting object will levitate, remained pinned above-or-below the track, and will move along it. This could, in principle, be scaled up to allow resistance-free motion on large scales if room-temperature superconductors are achieved.

Henry Mühlpfordt / TU Dresden

Nevertheless, superconductivity has become incredibly important in enabling certain technological breakthroughs. It’s widely used in the creation of the strongest magnetic fields on Earth, which are all made through superconducting electromagnets. With applications ranging from particle accelerators (including the Large Hadron Collider at CERN) to diagnostic medical imaging (they’re an essential component of MRI machines), superconductivity isn’t just itself a fascinating scientific phenomenon, but one that enables some excellent science.

While most of us are probably more familiar with the fun and novel applications of superconductivity — such as using those strong magnetic fields to levitate frogs or taking advantage of superconductivity to make frictionless pucks levitating above and sliding across magnetic tracks — that’s not really the societal goal. The goal is to create an electrified infrastructure system for our planet, from power lines to electronics, where electrical resistance is a thing of the past. While some cryogenically cooled systems currently leverage this, a room-temperature superconductor could lead to an energy-efficiency revolution, as well as infrastructure revolutions in applications such as magnetically levitated trains and quantum computers.

A modern high field clinical MRI scanner. MRI machines are the largest medical or scientific use of … [+] helium today, and make use of quantum transitions in subatomic particles. The intense magnetic fields achieved by these MRI machines rely on field strengths that can only be achieved with superconducting electromagnets, at present.

Wikimedia Commons user KasugaHuang

In 2015, scientists took a relatively simple molecule — hydrogen sulfide (H2S), a molecule very analogous to water (H2O) — and applied an incredible pressure to it: 155 gigapascals, which is over 1500000 times the pressure of Earth’s atmosphere at sea level. (For comparison, this would be like applying more than 10,000 tonnes of force to every square inch of your body!) For the first time, the 200 K barrier was cracked, but only under these extremely pressurized conditions.

This line of research was so promising that many physicists who had become disillusioned with the prospect of achieving a practical solution to the superconductivity questioned took it up once again with renewed interest. In the October 14, 2020 issue of Nature, University of Rochester physicist Ranga Dias and his colleagues mixed hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen, and methane under extreme pressures: ~267 gigapascals, and were able to create a material — a “photochemically transformed carbonaceous sulfur hydride system” — that shattered the temperature record for superconductors.

For the first time, a maximum superconducting transition temperature of 288 K was observed: about 15 degrees Celsius or 59 degrees Fahrenheit. A simple refrigerator or heat pump would suddenly make superconductivity possible.

Inside a material subjected to a changing external magnetic field, small electric currents known as … [+] eddy currents will develop. Normally, these eddy currents decay away rapidly. But if the material is superconducting, there is no resistance, and they will persist indefinitely.

Cedrat Technologies

Last year’s discovery represented a tremendous symbolic breakthrough, as the increase in known superconducting temperatures followed a steady progression in recent years under extreme pressures. The 2015 work in pressurizing hydrogen and sulfur cracked the 200 K barrier, and 2018 research in a high-pressure compound involving lanthanum and hydrogen cracked the 250 K barrier. The discovery of a compound that can superconduct at liquid water temperatures (albeit at extremely high pressures) isn’t exactly a surprise, but it is a really big deal to break the room temperature barrier.

However, it seems that practical applications remain significantly far off. Achieving superconductivity at mundane temperatures but extreme pressures is not significantly more accessible than achieving it at mundane pressures but extreme temperatures; both are barriers to widespread adoption. In addition, the superconducting material only persists as long as the extreme pressures are maintained; once the pressure drops, so does the temperature at which superconductivity occurs. The next big step — one that remains to be taken — is to create a room temperature superconductor without these extreme pressures.

This is an image, taken with scanning SQUID microscopy, of a very thin (200 nanometers) … [+] Yttrium-Barium-Copper-Oxide film subjected to liquid helium temperatures (4 K) and a significant magnetic field. The black spots are vortices created by the eddy currents around the impurities, while the blue/white regions are where all the magnetic flux has been expelled.

F. S. Wells et al., 2015, Scientific Reports volume 5, Article number: 8677

The concern is that there may be some sort of a Catch-22 situation at play here. The highest-temperature superconductors at standard pressures don’t appreciably change in behavior as you vary the pressure, while the ones that superconduct at even higher temperatures under high pressures no longer do so when you reduce the pressure. Solid materials that are good for making wires out of, like the various copper oxides discussed earlier, are very different than the pressurized compounds that are only created in trace quantities under these extreme laboratory conditions.

But — as first reported by Emily Conover at Science News — it’s possible that theoretical work, aided by computational calculations, could help point the way. Each possible combination of materials can give rise to a unique set of structures, and this theoretical and computational search can help identify which structures may be promising for obtaining the desired properties of high-temperature but also lower-pressure superconductors. The 2018 advance that crossed the ~250 K superconducting barrier for the first time, for example, was based on such calculations, which led to the lanthanum-hydrogen compounds that were then experimentally tested.

This diagram shows the structure of the first high-temperature low-pressure superhydride: LaBH8. The … [+] authors on this 2021 work were able to predict a hydride superconductor, LaBH8, with a high superconducting temperature of 126 K at a pressure down to 40 gigapascals: the lowest pressure ever for a high temperature superconducting hydride.

S. Di Cataldo et al., 2021, arXiv:2102.11227v2

Already, such calculations have pointed towards a substantial advance by leveraging a new set of compounds: yttrium and hydrogen, which superconduct at near-room temperatures (-11 Celsius, or 12 Fahrenheit) but at substantially lower pressures than were previously required. While metallic hydrogen — which only exists at ultra-high pressures, such as those found at the bottom of Jupiter’s atmosphere — is expected to be an excellent high-temperature superconductors, the addition of extra elements could lower the pressure requirements while still maintaining the high-temperature superconductivity property.

Theoretically, all single-element combinations with hydrogen have now been explored for superconductivity properties, and the hunt is now on for two-element combinations, such as the carbon-sulfur-hydrogen compound previously discovered experimentally by Dias. Lanthanum and boron with hydrogen has shown promise experimentally, but the number of possible two-element combinations rises into the thousands. Only with computational methods can we receive guidance on what we ought to try next.

Squeezed to high pressure between two diamonds, a material made of carbon, sulfur and hydrogen … [+] superconducts: transmitting electricity without resistance at room temperature. So long as the pressure and temperature simultaneously remain above a certain critical threshold, the resistance will remain at zero. This compound holds the record for highest superconducting temperature: 15 C (59 F).

J. Adam Fenster / University of Rochester

The biggest questions surrounding high-temperature superconductivity now all involve the pathway to getting to low pressures as well. The true “holy grail” moment will come when mundane conditions — in both temperature and pressure — can create a situation where superconductivity still persists, enabling a wide variety of electronic devices to leverage the power and promise of superconductors. Although individual technologies will advance, from computers to maglev devices to medical imaging and much more, perhaps the biggest benefits will come from the savings of vast amounts of energy in the electrical grid. High-temperature superconductivity, according to the US Department of Energy, could save the United States alone hundreds of billions of dollars in energy distribution costs annually.

In a world of finite energy resources, the elimination of any inefficiencies can benefit everyone: energy providers, distributors, and consumers at all levels. They can eliminate problems such as overheating, greatly reducing the risk of electrical fires. And they can also increase the lifespan of electronic devices while simultaneously reducing the need for heat dissipation. Once a novelty, superconductivity leapt into the scientific mainstream with the 20th century’s advances. Perhaps, if nature is kind, it will leap into the consumer mainstream with 21st century advances. Impressively, we’re already well on our way.

#News