#rankine scale

[teachersource]

William John Macquorn Rankine was born on July 5, 1820. A Scottish mechanical engineer who also contributed to civil engineering, physics, and mathematics. He was a founding contributor, with Rudolf Clausius and William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), to the science of thermodynamics, particularly focusing on the first of the three therodynamic laws. He developed the Rankine scale, an equivalent to the Kelvin scale of temperature, but in degrees Fahrenheit rather than Celsius. Rankine developed a complete theory of the steam engine and indeed of all heat engines. His manuals of engineering science and practice were used for many decades after their publication in the 1850s and 1860s.

[alittlebitbethany]

Hi everybody for Day 21 of A Very Dolly Christmas Countdown 2023 we have my lovely Kurhn doll sharing a sweet moment with my Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer Funko Pop. I hope that you like my photo. Image Description: a photo of a Kurhn doll wearing Christmas outfit petting a Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer Funko Pop. There is a festive backdrop.

[todays-xkcd]

In my new scale, °X, 0 is Earths' record lowest surface temperature, 50 is the global average, and 100 is the record highest, with a linear scale between each point and adjustment every year as needed.

Temperature Scales [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

Temperature Scales

[A table with five columns, labelled: Unit, water freezing point, water boiling point, notes, cursedness. There are eleven rows below the labels.]

[Row 1:] Celsius, 0, 100, Used in most of the world, 2/10 [Row 2:] Kelvin, 273.15, 373.15, 0K is absolute zero, 2/10 [Row 3:] Fahrenheit, 32, 212, Outdoors in most places is between 0–100, 3/10 [Row 4:] Réaumur, 0, 80, Like Celsius, but with 80 instead of 100, 3/8 [Row 5:] Rømer, 7.5, 60, Fahrenheit precursor with similarly random design, 4/10, [Row 6:] Rankine, 491.7, 671.7, Fahrenheit, but with 0°F set to absolute zero, 6/10 [Row 7:] Newton, 0, 33-ish, Poorly defined, with reference points like "the hottest water you can hold your hand in", 7-ish/10 [Row 8:] Wedgewood, –8, –6.7, Intended for comparing the melting points of metals, all of which it was very wrong about, 9/10 [Row 9:] Galen, –4?, 4??, Runs from –4 (cold) to 4 (hot). 0 is "normal"(?), 4/–4 [Row 10:] ''Real'' Celsius, 100, 0, In Anders Celsius's original specification, bigger numbers are ''colder''; others later flipped it, 10/0 [Row 11:] Dalton, 0, 100, A nonlinear scale; 0°C and 100°C are 0 and 100 Dalton, but 50°C is 53.9 Dalton, 53.9/50

[camelidae]

I watched the animated Hobbit movie so long ago I couldn’t actually remember much about what Smaug looked like, except that as a kid I watched all his scenes with equal parts fear and fascination. I thought I’d look him up, since I was fondly remembering Rankin Bass’s dragons from Flight of Dragons - was not disappointed! What an absolutely rad creature design. Beam eyes, viscerally pleasing pebbly scales, fur all over and the face of a wolf/wildcat/goblin who has Seen Things (probably things he caused himself, but whatever)

I did enjoy bendy-snoot Smaug’s design from the live-action Hobbits, but come on. He’s got nothing on this absolute beast.

[miscellaniousbyblue]

I live in New England, and we usually cancel school if it’s below -10°F (-23°C) (250 K) (450 °R)

It's about to hit us here in Oklahoma and the rest of the southern states that are not used to this level of cold.

Please take this seriously if you live somewhere this is going to impact significantly.

I just sincerely hope texas' power grid doesn't fail them again.

but at least a small blessing is that this isn't bringing much precipitation with it and the worst of it will be the wind.

Anyway. Stay inside, wear layers, and bundle up. Get your cold weather shit prepped now if you haven't yet.

[corndog-patrol]

ranking hobbit media by how sexy thranduil is okay go

first up we have 1977 rankin bass thran. and what a fucking mess he is.

they made him bald??? why?? he’s an elf where are the beautiful locks?? you can’t tell me that smidgen of hair on the side is beautiful elf locks. also that hunched posture is terrible for his back. 0/10

2003 Hobbit Game

okay this one earns some points for nostalgia but he is so fucking polygonal. that gamecube crust just DESTROYS the quality of his... everything. he does look a bit better in the cutscenes tho

kind of a serve. 5/10

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II (2006)

cant even find any good images of him from this game. he looks okay? ive never played it. 3/10

2012-2014 Peter Jackson Hobbit movies

okay this is where we peaked as a sexy thranduil society. lee pace thranduil is amazing and his absolutely fucked characterization can be overlooked cuz the aesthetics are literally peak ✨✨✨✨✨ Perfect In Every Way 10/10 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Hobbit LEGO game (2014)

not really sure how to rank this on the sexy scale considering he’s a LEGO but he’s still based on the lee pace thran so that gives him some points. the  best part of this game was smashing shit as sauron after beating it. 7/10

lord of the rings online (LOTRO) (idk when they added him, it looks like 2018 but i have no clue if that’s really true)

The combat in this game is fun but why are half of the quests to fetch animal hides? anyway this thran looks weird, like an older white guy who doesn’t believe in tipping servers. 3/10

finally the new gollum game (2023)

he just looks off? the crown is cool but there’s just TOO much happening with this design. also the game sucks shit. 4/10

and that’s it. they should put more thranduils in media so i can rate them.

[hotdaemondtargaryen]

TECH RADAR REVIEW OF 'HOUSE OF THE DRAGON' S2. HIS OPINION BASED ON THE FIRST 4 EPISODES THAT HE WATCHED OF S2.

SPOILERS! FOR S2:

ABOUT TOM GLYNN-CARNEY'S PERFORMANCE AS KING AEGON II TARGARYEN:

"Aegon II, Westeros' new royal, is the biggest beneficiary of more extensive screen time, with Glynn-Carney bringing some much needed levity – plus youthful impatience, reckless naivety – to bear in episode 1 and in later entries, deep humanization to a character, who we're supposed to despise, in the only way that a GoT series can."

"HOUSE OF THE DRAGON'S SUPPORTING CAST, SPECIALLY IT'S YOUNGER MEMBERS, GETS MORE TO DO THIS SEASON."

ABOUT PHIA SABAN AS QUEEN HELAENA TARGARYEN IN SEASON TWO:

"Helaena's (Phia Saban) roles are also pleasingly expanded; the eccentric and cryptic Helaena becomes central to key storylines leading up to this season's jaw-dropping fourth episode."

"SEASON 2 ZOOMS OUT TO EXPLORE THE INTENSIFYING INTERFAMILIAL CONFLICT'S IMPACT ON THE WHOLE OF WESTEROS."

"Opening with a nostalgia-fuelled return trip to Winterfell a fleeting visit that reminds us of the ever-looming threat beyond The Wall in its very first scene, season 2 slowly lays bare the wider effects of the increasingly bitter Targaryen-Hightower feud on Thrones."

"Indeed, it inadvertently acts as the catalyst for smaller scale battles to erupt between long-warring families, such as Houses Blackwood and Bracken."

"After all, season 2 marks the official start of the devastating, years-long civil war known as The Dance of the Dragons, so I certainly hoped for more action. Nonetheless, observing the blood-curdling, silent horror-imbued aftermath of the Blackwood-Bracken battle made my imagination run wild about how this barbaric struggle played out."

"THE WALL WON'T BE THE ONLY LOCATION IN S2 THAT GOT FANS WILL RECOGNIZE. HARRENHAL WILL ALSO PLAY A PROMINENT ROLE THIS SEASON."

RYAN CONDAL ABOUT HARRENHAL IN S2:

"Harrenhal definitely is its own character in the show. It had its own character in the original books [and] in the original series when Arya was playing cup bearer for Tywin there."

"Other than the Red Keep, it's probably the most talked-about, storied castle in Westeros, and we really wanted to pay service to it. Whether it's real or rumored, it does have this supernatural aura around it that does put people off. We were excited to play that out as storytellers."

ABOUT GAYLE RANKIN AS ALYS RIVERS IN S2:

(whose mysterious arrival was teased in s2's final trailer)

"The enigmatic Alys Rivers was particularly fascinating to me, not least due to her involvement in Daemon's Harrenhal-situated season 2 arc; a personal subplot with the unsettling, almost Macbethian atmosphere and twisty-turny narrative of a psychological horror movie."

[hollow-lime-green]

hi hana!! so i’ve been obsessed w this since string theory: can you tell us a little bit more about your interpretation of the six eyes? i know it’s said that satoru can see in thermal and infrared, is there anything else he can see?

Oh yeah! This is a fun question! I just got stuck in traffic for an hour (as a passenger), so I am going to over-explain this. And I'm bored so I'm going to highlight it with pretty colors like I'm writing in my diary or something.

Satoru's senses basically span the ✨entire energy spectrum✨, because the Six Eyes gives him the ability to work with all types of energy. He can see the EM spectrum (infrared, visible light, and ultraviolet), he can see thermal energy, he can sense (not exactly see) some other types of energy (electrical, sound, chemical), and he can see cursed energy like we do as JJK readers (plus some extra details like the taste, color, and texture of cursed energy).

I'm about to be insufferably STEM, so more under the cut:

Electromagnetic (EM) Spectrum

The EM spectrum has infrared light at low frequencies/high wavelengths, the visible light spectrum, and then UV at high frequencies/low wavelengths. Satoru is kind of like a mantis shrimp in that he sees way more colors than a human. He's got more rods and cones and stuff. (I like physics and chemistry, don't press me on the biology).

I don't really go into the UV part that much, but I like to think that would contribute to his sunlight sensitivity! He's not an outside pet.

The blindfold blocks out the EM spectrum because the fabric blocks the transmission of visible light in the form of photons, packets of light energy. (this is a secret tool that will help us later)

Electrical Energy

I haven't really gone into electrical much either, but like he can see the flow of cursed energy, he'd be able to sense the flow of electrical energy, i.e. the movement of electrons. It gives him good circuit sense.

Sound Energy

Sound energy is vibrations* (another tool that will help us later). He doesn't really see them per se, because even the thought of him actually seeing the vibrations in the air is overwhelming, and it would block his vision so much that I don't think it makes sense for the Six Eyes

I think he would feel them with the Six Eyes kind of like a gentle breeze. It makes him ultra perceptive, but it's still another form of feedback for him to deal with.

This is why I make Satoru so terrible with enclosed spaces. If you can see those forms of energy, you're seeing not only the original instance where they're emitted, but also every secondary instance when things reflect or refract. So sound bouncing around in a train, for instance, is completely overwhelming to the Six Eyes if he's not able to use jujutsu to filter it, which I think is a skill he wouldn't master until maybe his mid 20s.

Thermal Energy

Now this is the fun one.

The Six Eyes gives Satoru the ability to see and sense the energy in things in its various forms, because he can convert it all to cursed energy, or back. So, when you think of thermal energy, you probably think of thermal cameras, which represent thermal energy in the color spectrum, which kind of looks like light.

But thermal energy is very much not light - it's actually motion. Specifically, it is atomic vibrations. The more energy something has, the more it vibrates, and that is actually the basis for what we call 'heat' or 'temperature'.

If you go deep into the philosophy of temperature, it's all a sham. It's the way we choose to interpret and understand a phenomenon we can't really see (atomic vibration) translated into something we can measure (but our scales are all relative and kind of fake. I'm looking at you, Rankine!). But that's a conversation for my very Serbian thermodynamics professor. Existential doubt really flows better in a Slavic accent.

Anyway, remember photons? Okay, so, heat and sound are not light, right, they are vibration. So instead of quantifying them as light packets, we quantify them as vibration packets, which are called phonons. I reference phonons a lot in the fic, but probably not in a way where I have appreciably explained anything about them well to non-STEM girlies.

If you think about photons/photon emission as throwing a ball of magical light at something, you can think of phonons as throwing a slinky at someone. (Which I wouldn't recommend, actually. Slinkies are remarkably difficult to throw.)

Cursed Energy

Okay this one is a gimme but obviously I have to list it. In the JJK animanga, we the reader see the cursed energy auras/flames around people, but it's understood that those are not actually seen in-universe, at least for non-Six Eyes. It's kind of dumb, but it also kind of makes sense pragmatically. If all sorcerers could see cursed energy, then it really ruins surprise elements, residual coverup, and general battle mechanics. Of course, some sorcerers are known to cover up their cursed energy, but if all of the powerful baddies did that then it wouldn't look as cool. It's whatever.

Also, the whole 'training to suppress your cursed energy release' is a hard sell if we also say that literally any sorcerer can see CE. So this is why Suguru isn't aware of when he's leaking CE. He can't see it, and then he also can't really taste/smell it because people go noseblind to their own scent.

In FIYM, Satoru is the only one that can see see it. The rest of them can still sense it, but they sense it by smell, taste, and most importantly, vibes.

Thesis: Why Energy is Gay

Okay so yes I did this to answer the question "what does Satoru see through the blindfold". But I also did this to make it gay gay homosexual. (In the grand tradition of JJK)

Touch Sensitivity

Because Satoru is sensitive to kinetic energy, living things are incredibly potent to him from a sensory perspective. People are made of energy - particularly thermal energy, chemical energy (although this is potential energy which we haven't touched on but I do reference it here and there), sound, and, of course, cursed energy.

When Satoru touches people, he feels all of the vibrational energy from those kinetic energy sources as well as the cursed energy, which to him has textures on top of the vibes, colors, and smell/taste. So of course it's overwhelming. Every touch is combined with vibration, which is very gay, and would take a long time to get used to, even if he never formed the habit of using Infinity to cut himself off from the world.

In FIYM, it's not only a fear/safety/vulnerability thing, it's also a necessary filtration step that he uses for the world. Part of this is because I kept him in Kyoto/the clan setting in his backstory for a long time, so he would have had less sound and population density to deal with. Tokyo would have been super overwhelming for him.

Information Filtering

Speaking of filtering, there are two ways for Satoru to cut down on the amount of information his senses are getting.

One is to block them, which is what he does with the blindfold (blocks photons) and Infinity (blocks phonons). Gay, tsundere, and hot.

The other is to flood or mask his senses, which is what happens when Suguru infuses the blindfold with cursed energy. It's not that Satoru can't see anything, it's that all he can see is the cursed energy, and it blocks out his ability to sense anything else because of how strong and close it is. This is meant to be a direct analog to the phenomenon of detector/sensor saturation, which is to say that a detector has hit its limit of how much it can read/measure/detect, and so everything else is lost.

When Suguru flares his cursed energy, he's doing a baby version of that. He's flooding Satoru's detector (The Six Eyes) with his cursed energy (which is easy on the eyes, for Satoru) and that inhibits his ability to sense the other pesky things. And it makes him feel better.

Physics is gay, physics can be so gay. Greg's biggest sin was not capitalizing on how gay the physics can be. Any day now we'll get an announcement for his next project, a gloomy isekai titled: Transported To a Dark Academia Yaoi Battle School And I Fall For My Physics Tutor?

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the over-explanation, thank you for the ask, I love getting the chance to ramble about some of the science. :)

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Units of Temperature (Beyond SI)

Though the Kelvin temperature scale is used by scientists around the world, in everyday life the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales are more common. The Celsius scale was created in 1742 by the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius, wherein 0 represented the freezing point of water and 100 represented the boiling point of water. The Fahrenheit scale was created in 1724 by physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, wherein 0 was set as "the freezing temperature of a solution of brine made from a mixture of water, ice, and ammonium chloride" and the upper reference was human body temperature. Both the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales use degrees to count temperature, and the capital letters C and F as their symbols, respectively.

Beyond these three scales, the next most popular temperature scale is the Rankine temperature scale. This was proposed in 1859 by Macquorn Rankine and is meant to be to Fahrenheit as Kelvin is to Celsius - that is, an absolute temperature scale wherein zero is the lowest possible temperature and with a change in one degree Rankine equivalent to a change in one degree Fahrenheit. As with the Fahrenheit scale, the Rankine scale is measured in degrees, commonly with the symbol Ra.

Sources/Further reading: (Image source - Temp calculator) (NASA) (Sciencing) (Solar Energy) (Wikipedia: Celsius, Fahrenheit, Rankine)

[covid-safer-hotties]

Reference archived on our website (follow the link to see more than 1,000 open-access covid studies! daily updates!)

This study is currently being misquoted by a lot of science reporters who are claiming it's the cause of all long covid symptoms: this shows inflammation and lasting damage in the brainstem following a covid infection is responsible for many *neurological* symptoms of Long covid such as heart palpitations and loss of sensation.

Abstract

Post-mortem studies have shown that patients dying from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) infection frequently have pathological changes in their CNS, particularly in the brainstem. Many of these changes are proposed to result from para-infectious and/or post-infection immune responses. Clinical symptoms such as fatigue, breathlessness, and chest pain are frequently reported in post-hospitalized coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients. We propose that these symptoms are in part due to damage to key neuromodulatory brainstem nuclei. While brainstem involvement has been demonstrated in the acute phase of the illness, the evidence of long-term brainstem change on MRI is inconclusive. We therefore used ultra-high field (7 T) quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) to test the hypothesis that brainstem abnormalities persist in post-COVID patients and that these are associated with persistence of key symptoms.

We used 7 T QSM data from 30 patients, scanned 93–548 days after hospital admission for COVID-19 and compared them to 51 age-matched controls without prior history of COVID-19 infection. We correlated the patients’ QSM signals with disease severity (duration of hospital admission and COVID-19 severity scale), inflammatory response during the acute illness (C-reactive protein, D-dimer and platelet levels), functional recovery (modified Rankin scale), depression (Patient Health Questionnaire-9) and anxiety (Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7).

In COVID-19 survivors, the MR susceptibility increased in the medulla, pons and midbrain regions of the brainstem. Specifically, there was increased susceptibility in the inferior medullary reticular formation and the raphe pallidus and obscurus. In these regions, patients with higher tissue susceptibility had worse acute disease severity, higher acute inflammatory markers, and significantly worse functional recovery.

This study contributes to understanding the long-term effects of COVID-19 and recovery. Using non-invasive ultra-high field 7 T MRI, we show evidence of brainstem pathophysiological changes associated with inflammatory processes in post-hospitalized COVID-19 survivors.

[thisworldisablackhole]

Contact, by Carl Sagan (1985) - 5/5

All I knew about Carl Sagan prior to reading this book was that he was some kind of nerdy turtleneck wearing space guy with a TV show. Because of that, I almost half expected this to be some pretty dry, hard, potentially even boring science fiction. It kept being tossed around as a classic though, so I caved and decided to give it a shot. I came away from reading this thinking Carl Sagan must have been the most likeable and empathetic guy to ever walk the earth. May he rest in peace.

Contact is a highly realistic and down to earth imagining of humanity's first contact from outer space, but don't let it's lack of pure space fantasy dissuade you. It is told through the following of our main character Ellie, but it's scale extends down to the very core of global socioeconomics and culture, setting the stage for a futuristic Tower of Babel type event. Despite it's mass scale, Contact is also superbly human, and takes great care in building a team of multifaceted and flawed scientists and global elite to face the eye of the storm and steer humanity's fate together. All the characters are beautifully written, with none being too perfect or cliché. Carl Sagan proves that—in addition to knowing a lot about space and technology—he also has a vastly intimate knowledge of human hearts and minds.

There are no clear bad guys. There is no good versus evil. Most if not all characters and factions are human enough to sympathize with on some level. Even when topics of Faith, Religion, Science and Politics come up, Sagan does not use his role as author to persuade the reader in any one direction, he simply sets the questions, and allows our characters to offer up their beliefs and arguments in a very diplomatic manner. In fact, some of the conversations between astronomer Ellie and our religious representatives Billy Jo Rankin and Palmer Joss were some of my favourite moments in the whole book simply for the insight. It might appear like I am making the characters seem perfect, but believe me when I say they are not. Sagan isn't afraid to shine a light on the darkness which humans are capable of, and even our main character actively grapples with shortcomings and relatable yet unflattering self-realizations.

Oh yeah, and the space stuff is cool too. Like really cool. This is a science fiction book after all. There was more than enough actual science in here to support the story with fun theories and realistic explanations of technology and astrophysics without ever veering into wall-of-text infodump territory, and the fair balance between the nerdy and spiritual aspects of the book made the build up and payoff immensely satisfying from both a personal and scientific point of view. Carl Sagan really tried to represent the best of all of us here, and I can now easily see why Contact is regarded as a classic. I have nothing to criticize. Easiest 5/5 ever.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jennifer Rankin at The Guardian:

French judicial authorities on Sunday extended the detention of the Russian-born founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, after his arrest at a Paris airport over alleged offences related to the messaging app. His arrest at the Le Bourget airport outside Paris on Saturday was the latest extraordinary twist in the career of one of the world’s most influential tech icons. The detention of Durov, 39, was extended beyond Sunday night by the investigating magistrate who is handling the case, according to a source close to the investigation. This initial period of detention for questioning can last up to a maximum of 96 hours. When this phase of detention ends, the judge can decide to free him or press charges and remand in further custody. French investigators had issued a warrant for Durov’s arrest as part of an inquiry into allegations of fraud, drug trafficking, organised crime, promotion of terrorism and cyberbullying.

Durov is accused of failing to take action to curb the criminal use of his platform and was stopped after arriving in Paris from Baku on his private jet on Saturday night. “Enough of Telegram’s impunity,” said one investigator who expressed surprise that Durov flew to Paris knowing he was a wanted man. In a statement on Sunday evening, Telegram said: “Telegram abides by EU laws, including the Digital Services Act – its moderation is within industry standards and constantly improving.

[...] Durov lives in Dubai, where Telegram is based, and holds citizenship of France and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). He recently said he had tried to settle in Berlin, London, Singapore and San Francisco before choosing Dubai, which he praised for its business environment and “neutrality”. In the UAE, Telegram faces little pressure to moderate its content, while western governments are trying to crack down on hate speech, disinformation, sharing of images of child abuse and other illegal content.

Telegram offers end-to-end encrypted messaging and allows users to create channels to disseminate information to followers. Especially popular in the former Soviet Union, the app is widely used by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and his circle, as well as politicians throughout Ukraine, to release information about the war. It is also one of the few places where Russians can get unfiltered information about the conflict, after the Kremlin tightened media controls in the wake of the full-scale invasion. Its apparently unbreakable encryption has made Telegram a haven for extremists and conspiracy theorists. Investigative journalists at the central European news site VSquare said it had become the “‘go-to’ tool for Russian propagandists, both leftwing and rightwing radicals, American QAnon and conspiracy theorists,” concluding it was an “ecosystem for the radicalisation of opinion”. The app was also used widely by far-right agitators plotting anti-immigration rallies in England and Northern Ireland in the wake of the stabbing of three children at a Southport dance class last month. The anti-racism campaign group Hope Not Hate concluded that Telegram had become the “app of choice” for racists and violent extremists and “a cesspit of antisemitic content” with minimal moderation or effort from the app to curb extremist content.

Telegram founder Pavel Durov was arrested in France over the weekend based on an inquiry into allegations of fraud, drug trafficking, organised crime, promotion of terrorism and cyberbullying, and child sex abuse material (aka child pornography) on the social media app.

Telegram is popular in Russia and most of the former Soviet countries, and in the west, a hub for far-right conspiracy theorists.

The arrest of Durov has ZERO to do with “free speech”, despite right-wing spin claiming otherwise.

See Also:

The Guardian: What is Telegram and why has its founder Pavel Durov been arrested?

CNN: A Russian Elon Musk with 100 biological children: Meet Pavel Durov

NBC News: Telegram founder Durov's arrest is part of a larger investigation into alleged 'complicity' in child exploitation and drug trafficking

[thedreadvampy]

btw on the tangent of end of history ass bullshit I put my finger recently on why adapting Good Omens as a modern-day story bugs me

bc I Have Known. bc I was a comedy-fantasy afficianado in the 90s/early 2000s. that GO is one of many examples of a very specific genre of British comedy-scifi-fantasy popular in the 90s I would term "millennial apocalypse farce".

you know, they're a mix of biblical eschatology, Fortean Times conspiracy theory, cult tropes, and Y2K Rise of the Machines stuff, smashed together into an Adamsian comedy where a group of hapless protagonists bumble around while the world falls apart in comically overblown ways. imo, though a lot of authors bring their own spin to it, they're all heavily stylistically influenced specifically by Dirk Gently, which isn't Millennial Apocalypse Farce but I think did inspire a lot of it. Robert Rankin is on the edge of it, Good Omens is the most lasting example, but I read like 20 of these and most authors only wrote one afaict.

but the thing I was saying the other day is I honestly cannot think of a genre of popular English-language fiction that's more rooted in a specific time and culture. I tried for a while and really couldn't.

It just doesn't translate well away from the turn of the millennium, purely because the millennium was such a fevered touchpoint for Apocalypse Stuff. two things there I think.

Obviously, Y2K looming. Millennium Approaches. The turn of every century has often been accompanied by an uptick in interest in apocalypses and end times, but this was the BIGGIE. It's only happened on this calendar once before. People in the 1900s were talking about how close they were to a new millennium. The approaching millennium dominated the whole 20th century, and especially with how apocalyptic a lot of the 20th century felt in terms of war and technology, apocalyptic fervour really kicked up in the 90s. And there was a smorgasbord of apocalypses to choose from; divine, nuclear, digital, cosmic, alien, all stuff which on the millennial scale had really only just shown up in the last century or so. I was 7 in 2000 so pinch of salt but I remember all of us sort of holding our breath leading up to Jan 1 2000, not just bc of Y2K but bc it felt like something momentous HAD to happen.

The end of history. The cold war had subsided, and so had the economic depression of the 70s and 80s UK. There just was not a Singular Apocalypse hanging over a group of people who'd spent their whole lives in the shadow of a Singular Nuclear Apocalypse. I think stuff really rushed in to fill that gap, and Millennial Apocalypse Farce is a response to that sudden glut of possible apocalypses all clamouring for attention.

I think as well American end-of-days right-wing evangelism was really loud in the 80s-90s and that plays a part, cause the generally lefty and consciously self-effacing British comedy author milieu found that off-putting in a very mockable way

but the point is that glut of apocalypses was a real flash in the pan, the same way the End of History was. it was a like 10-15 year timespan where the world was definitely ending but nobody could say why or how, and it began around the fall of the Berlin Wall and ended on September 11, 2001.

Millennial Apocalypse Farce novels did keep coming out after 2001 but like everything else, the culture has changed really radically, and also, like, we were past the millennium. Those infinite possibilities of apocalypses hadn't paid off. Not saying that the public interest in apocalypse went away - 2012, obviously. The LHC. But the full on fervour for any and all crank apocalypses kind of petered off a bit bc the turn of the millennium was so much a flashpoint for it. and anyway we had really concrete apocalypses again - terrorism, totalitarian governments, plague, and of course the main 21st century apocalypse, Oh Shit We Really Fucked This Climate Change Thing Up.

and I really love the Millennial Apocalypse Farce genre. I really love stumbling on books in that genre. because it's such a time capsule for an incredibly specific period in recent cultural history.

but it does not translate into a 2020s setting. It's so 90s. it's so rooted in a really specific landscape of cultural anxieties and abstractions. it just doesn't make sense to me to translate it to the modern day, it's like setting Angels in America in 2023. it's just the wrong type of apocalypse. apocalypses are culturally generated and they change fast based on how a culture sees itself and the world. you can't pick up a 1990 apocalypse and put it unchanged in 2023, it's Wrong. if you're going to do that you have to be in conversation with it, you can't just update it.

like ok example of thoughtfully recontextualising an anachronistic apocalypse for a modern setting. War of the Worlds 2005. Why is it War of the Worlds? Because it wants to say some things about the relationship between post 9/11 America and colonial England, and how the specific common anxiety of invasion affects them as people in a nation of invaders. Idk if it's a good film cause I didn't like it when I watched it but that was a long time ago. But the intent makes sense.

what does putting a Millennial Apocalypse Farce in the 2020s actually. say? about the commonalities between now and then? I mean. Based on the TV show of Good Omens, to me, not a lot. It's pretty beat for beat in that sense, and we're not really far enough away from 1990 for it to have the obvious impacts that saying "now is very like then" does with, say, War of the Worlds, because the world of HG Wells was distant enough for a 2005 audience to go 'oh, Victorian colonialism, that's Not Like Us.' whereas like. I remember the 90s. It's not recent but it's in continuity with now. saying "then it's like now" is a) kind of Incorrect imo, the cultural anxieties are Very Different, and b) not...striking?

idk like. The genre is dated. The nature of that specific apocalypse idea is incredibly dated. And that's good actually. It's fine for art to be a time capsule of a specific cultural moment and to not make sense divorced from that moment. That's good! That's a good use of art!

[oh-my-chocolate]

i finished!!! here are some misc reactions - not very detailed or in depth Thought but things that i remember thinking throughout

poor levitas :( he deserved way better. i know everyone is like "we can't stage an intervention bc protocol and rank and discipline" but SCREW THAT!! hollin's got it right. and laurence is so true for recommending him to hatch his own dragon (especially in place of rankin) 1a. even before we saw everyone ostracizing rankin i knew he was going to be not a good guy bc the narrator gave him a nasally voice that usually signifies "this character is annoying"

jane roland is so cool. for many reasons but especially bc how she keeps rattling laurence out of his sensibilities by being a non-typical and definitely non-proper women. laurence spends their entire first meeting and also that conversation in her room being utterly scandalized and doing his best not to show any of it (which he's actually very good at. but she's continually shocked him so much that this time it's not possible for even laurence's manners to hide all that he actually thinks)

a musical concert for dragons 😭🥺

temeraire has gone from being second most special type of dragon to most special dragon. he SO is the super special main character. reason the series is named after him i suppose

i love temeraire and laurence's relationship so much they love each other so much 🥺🥺

the conversation with lily and maximus and temeraire making a little pact like, if anyone tries to come for our captains we will help each other get them out of there 🥺 also basically coming to the conclusion "i will not let my captain commit treason but like also if they do commit treason i'm totally 100% down and no one will touch them"

also it's so hard for me to picture the scale of a dragon where they can have an entire crew of humans comfortably moving around on them. that's so big

you finished!!! 🎉🎉

levitas deserved SO much better

1a. also i'd never really considered the image you can get of a character when listening to audiobooks. that's fascinating

2. Jane Roland is SO COOL and i LOVE HER

3. laurence wants the dragons to be having a good time always and i love him for that

4. he will become even more special just wait omg. he's the specialest little boy ever.

5. you're so right their relationship is absolutely everything to me <33

6. OUGH i also loved that moment so much. and it will be so painful.

7. you're so right almost all of these dragons are huge. levitas and volly et al (i forgot the name of their species 😅 is it grey reaper?) are only big enough for their captain but most of the other dragons have a flight crew of. 25+ it's actually crazy.

[sylphidine]

20 Questions For Fic Writers

I was tagged by both @gretchensinister and @insufferablearchanist and am thus compelled by their charm and glamour to surrender my secrets! [grin]

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

93 at last count. It will probably stay at that number until 31 March 2024, which is when ROTG Hope Week starts. [I get a lot of mileage out of fandom events that are prompt-based.] My goal between now and the month of March is to complete or add to the chapter count of at least three of the multiple-chapter longfics I've got in various states of progress.

2. What’s your total word count?

AO3 says it's 220,945. I don't know if that counts chapters saved in draft on several of my works, which act as notes files for me. So I'm going to underestimate by a lot and say my word count is more than 200K and will leave it at that.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I'm most well-known for fics in the RISE OF THE GUARDIANS/GUARDIANS OF CHILDHOOD fandom and its subfandom Nightmare Dork University. in the last two years I've ventured into writing fics set in the milieu of DELTARUNE [the videogame by Toby Fox], but those fics are so far into the realm of AU country that I can't claim to "write for the DELTARUNE fandom".

4. Top 5 fics by kudos?

A CITIZEN OF THE UNIVERSE AND A GENTLEMAN TO BOOT, which is the first fanfic I posted on AO3 and is still in progress. It's set after the ROTG movie and involves plot threads from the GOC books, as well as featuring several characters from the Rankin/Bass holiday specials.

"Fleecy Shining Streaming Gleaming/Gimme A Mare With Hair", a giftfic based on a prompt from the ROTG Kinkmeme on Dreamwidth from years agone. Still in progress; my giftee is ***extremely*** patient. [sob]

[[ATTIC]] [[NEST]] [[HOME]], my first DELTARUNE fanfic, set in an AU created by @penbwl and featuring the Swatchton pairing.

"A Temptation Averted", set in my Six Guardians AU series, and apparently everybody's favourite of my ROTG Blackice stories, probably because it's so schmoopy.

CALL SIGNS. Ah, CALL SIGNS. The mammoth fic that has eaten most of my current brain capacity, to the point where I have dreams about it. [and plans for sequels] It was supposed to be so simple. A "what if" story where two DELTARUNE characters met in a human!AU and at a different point in their timelines than they did in-game. Then it suddenly roared to life as a whole sequence of events lifted from my own experiences, spread out over an ever-increasing number of protagonists, not to mention featuring cameos from NDU characters. I wrote it to be accessible to people who haven't played the game and had no familiarity with the characters, and I've been told I've succeeded. I expect it will move up in the kudos count the longer it runs... so far it's the highest word-count work I have ever written. EVER.

5. Do you respond to comments?

99.9999% of the time, yes. [see the answer to questions 8 and 11]. I love comments... short comments, long comments, comments that are nothing but emojis and keysmashes, comments that are well-thought-out analyses. As long as the comment is offered in good faith, I'll answer it.

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

If we're being strictly literal with the use of the word "ending", then it's a toss-up between "His Days Like Crazy Paving", "Exit", and "Making Fire".

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

So many of my stories are windows into my characters' "middles", rather than having narrative endings, and I tend to the fluph side of the writing scale. So here's a sampling of one-shots that conclude on a happy note... "Caterpillar", "Starmeadow", "Your First Memory Of All", "Bedtime Story", and "Centres Small And Still".

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I've never gotten out-and-out hate on fics. I *have* had someone react negatively when they wanted to use my comment space to plug fics they had written in fandoms I wasn't interested in and I said as much in reply.

9. Do you write smut?

On occasion. I *enjoy* smut... a lot... but I read more smut than I write. "The Joy Of First Flight" is probably my most explicit work to date, and even that is not terribly steamy.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Again, on occasion. CITIZEN ended up being a crossover about halfway in, surprising me rather completely. CALL SIGNS features cameos from other fanon characters, but isn't technically a crossover. AND FEAR AS MY COMPANION is the only work I've written with the initial intent of being a crossover between RISE OF THE GUARDIANS and DOCTOR WHO.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of. I **have**, however, fallen victim to being fooled by AI bots writing what I thought were truly sincere and sweet comments, which I foolishly answered before realizing the truth. Still kicking myself for how gullible I was, but it was at a low point in my confidence as a writer and I was starved for reassurance.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Into a language other than English? Not that I've been informed about. However, someone did make a podfic of my drabble "Hope In A Storm", if that counts as "translation" rather than "transformation".

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I've collaboratively tossed ideas around with @ksclaw and @piratekingpitchblack that have made their way into character development and plotlines for more than a few Nightmare Dork University stories.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

HOW CAN I CHOOOOOOOOOOOOSE?

The one that started it all, that punched me in the gut not even twenty minutes after I saw RISE OF THE GUARDIANS for the first time, was Blackice. I devoured then and continue to devour now every Blackice shipfic I can get my little paws on. From there, once I found the NDU subfandom, it was NDU StageFright all the way, although it's now running neck-and-neck with NDU Nightmare Galleon as far as fics I've written. And currently, I have a very active Tumblr tag labelled "i have fallen down the swatchton sinkhole don't even try to rescue me", if that gives any hints.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you will?

I am realllllllllllllllllllly hoping that I can get inspiration for "Sweater Weather" going again.

16. What are your writing strengths?

RESEARCH.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Falling into the timesink that research leads to. [sob]

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language?

That hasn't come up in any of my fics so far, other than throwing gratuitous Italian into dialogue for my OC Mama Michelina.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

If you don't count the self-insert novelization of YELLOW SUBMARINE that I wrote when I was fourteen, then ROTG would be the first fandom I've written for.

20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written?

That's a toughie. The most ***personally satisfying*** fics I've written have been "Deal The Cards", which is a love letter to one of my favourite relatives, now deceased, and "Which Witch", one of the few times a story came pouring out of me without needing to be edited to shreds.

I am hesitant to tag people because when I've done so in other ask games, it has often backfired on me. I love all my mutuals and don't want anyone to feel left out. Therefore.....

WHOEVER READS THIS AND WANTS TO PLAY, CONSIDER YOURSELF TAGGED.

[slytherindisaster]

web weaving: rory o'neil + fatherhood

for @unfortunate-arrow

the pain scale by eula biss / don't let me be lonely: “a father tells his son the thing he regrets most about his life...” by claudia rankine / a father by beautiful chaos / belfast (2021) / aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe by benjamin alire sáenz / trista mateer