danex

New banner. Not sure how it looks on a computer b/c my school wifi doesn’t like the shard but

Wait, does Connection work faster than light?

Wait, does Connection work faster than light?

Wait, does Connection work faster than light?

It could be Christmas Eve and Google's doodle would still be "Celebrating the 103rd birthday of the first Native American woman raised in South Africa with scoliosis and dandruff to major in cutlery design at Denning's University at Miami, France. Today we recognize her contributions to the world."

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Was backing up our photos recently, here are some cat pictures that my sister took. Thought it might brighten your day x

Bonus airplane

I haven't been very active lately, how are y'all doing?

Last night apparently I fell asleep writing. Woke up to the Iconar doc just chock-full of

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just realized i'm in the older half of shard members now

i'm user number 24893, and the newest member rn is number 55655.

i'm in the bottom 45%

just realized i'm in the older half of shard members now

i'm user number 24893, and the newest member rn is number 55655.

i'm in the bottom 45%

just realized i'm in the older half of shard members now

i'm user number 24893, and the newest member rn is number 55655.

i'm in the bottom 45%

Weird question, am I one of the cool old-timer people here on the Shard?

Because in my POV I'm not.

Here's my ranking system right now, listing common people in the areas of the community forums I hang out in.

Old, wise, experienced people that everyone is scared of but likes to interact with:

• Nath
• Fadran
• Nameless
• Dannex
• Frustration
• Xinoeph
• Drama Queen
• Other people I'm forgetting, please don't be angry at me

Somewhere in between that and my own generation:

• Thaidakar
• Sequence
• Robin
• Cruciatus (Once known as Elf)
• Other people I'm forgetting

My own level:

• Bookwyrm
• Wizard
• Calano
• Silhouette

(Yeah, that's about it...)

The rising generation (AKA Everyone below me):

• Ranryu
• Cellist
• Haly
• Cinnamon
• Telrao
• Wittles
• Being of Cacophony
• Justice Magician
• Alpha
• Archivist
• Kajsa
• Snail
• Fae
• Insa
• Shortcake
• Altonic Keys
• Edema Ruh
• Almond
• Basically everyone else who joined after me and is active in the community section
• (I KNOW I'm forgetting a ton of you so just pipe up if you aren't on the list)

So yeah.

That's what my brain is like. In Shard hierarchy.

...

...Not sure where I was going with this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions

 

Tag your favorites!

Here are some of mine:

• Ye is not pronounced ye. It's pronounced The. Because þ. (I knew this one neener-neener)
• Violent video games do not cause violence (take that, karens)
• Marco Polo did not import pasta from China (I didn't even know this was a thing people... like, thought about)
• July 4 (we really oughtta pick... literally anytime else for this holiday)
• Napoleon wasn't short (I like making fun of the people who argue that he was "average for his time")
• The dark side of the moon is regularly about as lit as the side we usually see (it's just that only one side ever faces us earthlings)
• When things reenter the atmosphere, they don't burn up because of friction (they burn by literally squishing the air molecules - kind of like Friction Plus)
• Bats aren't blind (and several actually have really good night vision!)
• Only one species of frog makes the ribbit noise (I looked it up on youtube to check)
• Snake jaws don't unhinge (instead they have another bone that allows their jaws to extend, which I just think is neat)
• Not all worms turn into two worms when cut in half (this one because THAT MEANS THERE ARE SOME THAT DO)
• Preying mantis ladies don't always eat preying mantis men! (which means that SOMETIMES THEY DO)
• BUMBLEBEES. CAN. FLY. (GAH.)
• Birds are dinosaurs! (Like, there isn't even any controversy on that)
• Glass is not a slow-flowing liquid (you smart-alek)
• Nuclear is one of the safest forms of energy (unless you're stupid and absorb neutrons with granite instead of water)
• Leprosy as described in the bible was probably another disease entirely (huh)
• Thomas Edison did NOT invent the light bulb (because  F - - -   THOMAS EDISON)
• 0.999... is apparently equal to 1 (in base ten, anyways)
• Vaccines don't cause autism (even though I vaccinate... and am probably autistic. Until I'm sure I'm going to assume that autism causes vaccines)
• People do not "only use ten percent of the brain" (only around 10% of neurons will be firing at a time - and using 100% would likely result not in psychic powers, but in a fatal seizure)

five days

All my stuff from college is now moved to my parents' house but I am far from moved in and looking at the absolute disaster that is all my stuff in a pile in my room makes me feel sick and overwhelmed.

Wish me luck dealing with this.

Live long and prosper or something

Some (crappy quality) pictures of my brother's hunger games simulator with Stormlight characters:

All very interesting, of course. But the highlight of these games? Definitely this:

 

spending the next nine days staring at this website

Tears of the Kingdom Countdown

Who wants to help me come up with a character?

I've created a Sci-Fi universe detailing humanity as an interstellar species reliant on a strange ability held by a small part of the population known as Starshaping, which facilitates futuristic technology and FTL travel. It's inspired in part by Orson Scott Card's "Enderverse", in that certain worlds or sectors were colonized specifically by single cultures. So I have some planets that are basically uniformly one culture from old Earth, some that hold cultures that evolved over the centuries (this is about 700 years in the future (and I might need to adjust that number)), and some that are "melting pots" of various cultures, creating unique ways of life that are more in line with what you'd expect from a space opera.

I am having a tiny bit of trouble getting started with the story that I want to tell in this universe, but some inspiration from elsewhere prompted me to start another story in the same universe, but far earlier.

I want to tell a story about the colonization efforts to an ocean world called Namaka in the year 2276, as a way to flesh out the world and how it was in the earlier years.

But I need a character. Or a group of characters. A whole bunch of characters, actually.

So, does anyone want to make me a character I can write about for a little sci-fi story? Someone who's moving on, braving the frontier of space for a new home on a new planet? Right now in my head I have the planet Namaka being colonized mostly by native Pacific Islanders, but the character doesn't have to be of that ethnicity.

Just a fun little thing that would help me and be fun for the rest of you. I'm also not good at characters. But some of you are. So suggestions are helpful. And so are the characters you make.

happy twelve days til totk

also like your birthday n stuff

YouTube is just determined to drive everyone from their platform. First it was dozens of ads per video, then the shadowbans and the content suppression, then removing dislikes, and now the CEO is saying that their #1 priority is shorts, and channels aren't being recommended unless they post shorts.

 

I'm honestly kind of tired of them making the worst possible decisions I just want to watch some videos.

Mando Season 3 was all over the place but that finale was worth it

I don't like YA fantasy anymore

(Exceptions: Rick Riordan's stuff, Skyward saga, Hunger Games)

And I get that the whole thing about having a bunch of twelve-year-olds save the multiverse is there so a bunch of twelve-year-olds can get into reading. As a kid I sustained myself entirely on Brandon Mull - Five Kingdoms was my first real foray into high fantasy.

But now that I'm an adult? It just... hurts to read. There're always these grown adults sending these children into battle and making stupid decisions to make the kids seem smart and epic. And then some god-level monstrosity finally reawakens from his slumber and is defeated by the power of friendship.

Why am I thinking about this? Maybe because I'm watching Rebels? I really like the series, but the fact that they keep sending Sabine and Ezra into these tough-nut situations on their own usually breaks the immersion a bit for me. Some episodes less so than others - like the one where Ezra infiltrates a squad of Imperial Cadets, because Kanan is all "this is the dumbest idea I've ever had we need to pull him out of there" - but a lot of the time it's like "our plan is to have the mandalorian child run down a whole platoon of stormtroopers as a distraction" and I'm like ??? Child soldiers???

(I do really like Rebels though; not crapping on it or anything)

Maybe I'm thinking about this because I was thinking about some fantasy pet peeves I have - all of which tend to show up in YA fiction at some point or another:

• "We've got company!"
• "I'm not leaving here without [][][]"
• [Two sword fighters glaring at each other while their swords are crossed... like I can't hold eye contact with anyone for the life of me and you're telling me that these people hate each other so much that they can't bear to look away for one second?]
• "Believe in yourself. BELIEVE" (somehow they passed this off in The Lego Movie. I guess Morgan Freeman just has that effect)
• [Wisecracks amid the final battle between the protag and antag, including "oh yeah? well -"]

Objectively the worst thing to ever come out of any of these stories are when the twelve-year-old children form lifelong romantic bonds with each other. No, Harrison the sword boy and Verdi the tank top girl are not in love. No, they did not find their other half at the ripe old age of thirteen. If it's written by a christian then neither of these kids know how babies are made, and you're telling me that they're going to kiss at the end of the story and get married in time for the Era 2 sequel? If your prepubescent tweens are going to be kissing then you need to get an appointment with a psychologist. Meeting your future spouse at that age is called arranged marriage, not true love.

(I have some opinions about the very end of AtLA, in case you cannot tell)

And then these children are beating up the bad guy's soldiers left and right? "It's because they use their wits to fight, not just their muscle" man shut up. No tyrant-king of this fantasy world is going to maintain control over his empire with a bunch of brainless monkey guards. No army consists of a billion muscle machines and three characterized elite warriors. It's like in the Kenobi show how the good guys will whack a stormtrooper in the face and they'll just drop their blaster because reasons.

You want to show the protagonists being capable and thinking on their feet? Give them fewer guards to worry about. Instead of twelve on two make it four on three with tight individual v individual combat. You'll never establish the least bit of tension if the sword child can take out two dozen bad guys on his own.

I know, I know... it's YA. It's written for children. No one's forcing me to read any of it. It just bothers me that there are grown adults who are making the decision to send children into battle because they're their "last hope" or some crap like that. Like maybe if the child has some super powerful magical abilities and is practically incapable of dying (Mob Psycho 100 my beloved), but giving them a slim chance of success on some elite mission? It's not worth endangering these kids over, and it's probably even less worth endangering the mission by leaving it up to a bunch of kids.

Basically, I'm being very conscientious about what happens with my younger characters in the Iconar Collective.

Show of hands:

Who would actually care (or even notice) if I left the Shard forever without notice

I may or may not have read most of One Punch Man in the past... two days? Three?

(I started from where Season 1 left off and finished it this morning)