Razz Rambles - Tumblr Posts
Realizing I've barely slept more than five hours a night for going on two months now. Maybe I should see a doctor? But it could also just be the time of year; alledgies plus weather that aggravates both arthritis and the migraines that tank my mental health could be contributing factors. I pretty much always go crazy in June and the past few years have shown that something biological just happens this time of year. I would like it to stop. o_o
Anyway, I'm exhausted. When will my brain come back from the war?
I am actually begging some people to just let some spaces exist untouched by real-world issues and horrors.
Like I've lost count of the amount of times peaceful game or fandom servers have been ruined by people stampeding in with political rants, bitching about world issues, demanding internal activism, demanding vent channels so they can whine about their shitty parents, ect.
Like. Respectfully. Not every single space has to be inclusive of and welcoming of outside topics. The real world sucks. We don't needed to be reminded of that absolutely everywhere.
Weird hot flash that's only on part of my face/neck AND an out of nowhere suffocating panic attack at 3am? Why, thank you, endocrine system! So very thoughtful of you! 8D
On the one hand, yeah, I can sort of see that as a limitation on Anne not killing characters (who weren't uppity women besides her main leads; seriously Crystal Singer is hysterical in that regard). But on the other hand I think it can be argued that a fighting force with literally thousands of years experience should be that good and if they weren't it would be pretty suspicious to hold them in any regard. Going back to the fire fighting analogy, if we saw death rates like those of fic written dragonriders among fire fighters, we'd probably have gotten rid of the system causing it and tried something less detrimental.
Speaking just as a reader, I find that characters dying in every Fall just cheapens the whole thing. It feels every bit as unrealistic as Anne's ideas about certain sciences but it also robs true dramatic moments of their punch. Thread just starts to feel silly when every third character dies or I can't follow the plot because I'm distracted by yet another half a full weyrling class dying between on the first day. It's a delicate balancing act that perhaps Anne did not do so well with (though, again, after thousands of years I would be disgusted if casualty rates were still so high) but fic writers (and Todd to some extent) have gone in the opposite direction to equally or more story diluting results.
More Pern thoughts, tl;dr: Threadfall is probably not as exciting as people think, proper Wing formation is like goose flocks in flight, and I think writers who kill a bunch of dragons in every Threadfall and Weyrling class have things waaaaay wrong.
Honestly the most efficient way of fighting it is probably pretty boring to watch. It falls from a static height and the aim is to catch as much of it as possible as high up as can be done. To do that effectively, you really just need to have your Wings flying in a more or less steady formation that forms a line along that leading edge. I imagine it's a lot more like forest fire fighting than any sort of aerial combat.
Regarding how the Wings are structured, I have always assumed they fly in a V formation. The reason geese do this is so that the lead goose generates lift for all the geese behind. So you put a bronze and a few more bronzes or browns at the point of the V to fly most of the fall, with blues and greens fanned out to the side and staggered behind to take advantage of that lift. Your strongest, most agile, most successful dragons make up the topmost Wing with as many other Wings below them to catch anything that's been missed. Instead of high action flying, it's more like 6 - 8 hours of firefighter dispatch meets airport traffic control. Which I think is cool but I'm just Like That. :D
Also! There is no way in hell a Weyr looses a bunch of dragons in every training and every Fall. That would be a failed system in every way and unsustainable. Even one serious injury that puts a dragon out of action every Fall would decimate the ability of the Weyr to do its job. I think a lot of fan writers got too excited about the drama of loosing a fighting pair or a number of Weyrlings without really thinking things through. Todd McCaffrey absolutely did. If your max fighting force is 600 dragons (and I think that's an overestimate on how many one weyr can hold), you are going to need every one of them you can get to keep the spores that eat everything in a 200 foot radius upon landing from hitting the ground at all. Come to think of it, to really do the job well, there probably needs to be a few teams flying scout at a distance to send general reports to the riders on the front line.
Also I don't think a dragon is going to bond with someone who will get them both killed the first time they try to go between. If they can smell your gender pheromones and tangle their consciousnesses with an alien species via eye contact, I think we can assume they're cognizant enough to Impress someone who will maintain their survival when using one of their most basic, innate abilities.
At random went looking at the presentations of comorbid autism and ADHD and uuuuhhhh.... Not sure if because blind or could have been secret autism. But also not sure if it's worth the effort to even try for any sort of assessment at this point. If it meant I could get a little more support from places I might give it a shot. (Assuming I remember to do it at all, cuz the ADHD is a very much big and well documented factor at this point. XD)
So the first time I took the RAADS-R autism screening test I got 64. I did not realize that "I dislike thing x but do not outwardly react to it" is the same as "I dislike x". Retaking the screener with that misconception removed I got 190. That... that is a lot of autism. XD
True fact: I did not stop giggling at the London Underground announcing the stop "Cockfoster" until I left London. And that stop was on every trip we took. XD
Twat water
"And to your left, ladies and gents, you'll see the lovely town of Twatwater..."
This was good! If you have Nebula do give it a watch! I don't wanna say much about it because it's short enough that just about everything would be a spoiler, but it was sweet. Be sure to stay past the credits.
Just reminded of Infinity Train, an incredibly good cartoon you should watch if Scavengers Reign is too much right now! XD
Okay I like being able to now recognize and say out loud "I'm starting to melt down, I need a break" instead of just enduring and getting increasingly wound up like an industrial cable about to snap and kill three people on the rebound. XD
Sleep? Haha, no. No. Stay up all night watching Tomb Raider speedruns.
Instead of doing 10 minutes of work I have:
watched a video on Japan's death penalty
watched a video about Dutch money from the 70s
downloaded three books cuz @cyberphuck made them sound good
started reading a completely unrelated book
talked to blind people on Reddit
I have ADHD and autism on my side! No gods or anime, alas.
This is the epitome of "eeeEEEHHHH". XD
Since I am up to my eyeballs in shit to do (prep home for my six month absence, meet deadlines for multiple art pieces, fill out permit paperwork for bro in law, etc) I am of course having a migraine and food poisoning to ensure I have as little time as possible to get everything done. Yaaaay. 8)
Passed out for five-ish hours, woke up into a mini hot flash (yaaay), but the important thing is that I had a dream where the airport had a passenger chair lift that went through not one but two habitats full of hungry tigers and that feels like something an airport would do if they could. XD
I feel like desperate cravings for chocolate are always a precursor to migraines. I've been so desperate the past few days I've been eating little nuggets of brown sugar again. Finally gave in and walked to the store in the dark and got a bunch of junk food that's mostly chocolate. But have also been taking extra magnesium, which does help. It sucks when you can no longer do anything about the pain except hope it goes away soon.
Have properly discovered Still Wakes the Deep and I know what my new obsession is. 8D Scottish oil rig workers in the 70s meet John Carpenter's The Thing except it's not hiding at all. Sign me the fuck up! 8D
You know that kind of crying you do where you’re just making that shivering, huffing breath on the edge of noise? Yeah. I’ve watched this game twice and that ending goes right through me sharper every time. It’s beautiful and it’s painful. If you can’t play the game this fellow did an excellent job keeping me company while he played.
Oh that 4 hours of sleep in two days is catching up to me. 8) Trying to hold out until 5pm at least. Also I haven't had to shop for my own groceries in awhile and I am exhausted to my marrow having done that on top of basically moving and all on so little sleep. Yaaaaay!
If you live in black widow country and have a grass lawn, I hope your house burns down for wasting that much water in a desert that's in a severe drought.
(I'm not sure if they live anywhere else but here where it is always so dry and the risk of fires is so high practically year round now.)
