Fistful of Gamma Rays

I have too many hobbies.

[souperluminal]

05.29 - Blue Blade

[fistfulofgammarays]

I just finished Safe Harbor and it was so so good!! Do you have any thoughts of continuing it or Passcode on ff.net? Or any side stories to go along with them?

I really love both of those worlds you’ve created, they’re so fantastic!!

Thank you! It's awesome to hear people are still enjoying these! I do have ideas for continuing both those stories and would like to eventually write them, but no idea when it might actually happen, unfortunately.

[roseschmits]

My beautiful porcelain creatures 💕

Available for purchase on www.roseschmits.com

Free UK shipping, worldwide shipping available

[organsmerti]

distribution

[theshitpostcalligrapher]

shit shit shit it's march i forgot to promote this print to yall:

read it carefully lol it's the callout of Caesar

[theshitpostcalligrapher]

i should emphasize, I did NOT write the original post, that was done by @heresmyfiddlestick and they get a cut of the sales from these prints.

I'm not sure how to format image IDs when they're this long so I hope this is right:

[image ID: A sheet of calligraphy print with gold and purple vinework and red daggerlike flowers. In the border there is a torn, purple lined bit of cloth meant to read as a toga and there it begins with a large drop capital F in red. the text reads as follows

Friends, mutuals, countrymen, do not scroll past;

I come to cancel Caesar, not to stan him.

The cringe posts that men make live after them;

The nuance oft interred with their bones;

So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus

Hath told you Caesar was problematic:

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,

And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest–

For Brutus is an honourable man;

So are they all, all honourable men–

Come I to comment on Caesar’s call-out post.

He was my mutual, faithful and just to me:

But Brutus says he was problematic;

And Brutus is an honourable man.

He hath brought many hot takes to my dash

Whose notifs did the general discourse fill:

Did this in Caesar seem problematic?

When that anons have cried, Caesar hath wept:

Toxicity should be made of sterner stuff:

Yet Brutus says he was problematic;

And Brutus is an honourable man.

You all did see that on the Tumblr Blaze

I thrice presented him a kingly crown,

Which he did thrice refuse: was this problematic?

Yet Brutus says he was problematic;

And, sure, he is an honourable man.

I speak not to start discourse with Brutus,

But just to provide some context on his call-out post.

You all did stan him once, not without cause:

What cause withholds you then, to follow him?

/.End ID]

[mbari-blog]

Quality time with this gloriously golden goblet of the deep ⭐️✨️

The fingered goblet sponge (Heterochone calyx) is one of the largest sponges on the Pacific coast. We have observed dense gardens of Heterochone and other sponges on Sur Ridge, offshore of Central California. But in some places, Heterochone grows together with other sponge species to form massive reef structures.

Fingered goblet sponges support bustling communities of life. Much like coral reefs in tropical waters or the old-growth forests on land, countless critters make their home in sponge gardens.

Decisions we make in our everyday lives can affect all animals, even in out-of-sight places like the deep sea.

Increased demand for metallic minerals could lead to mining in pristine areas of the deep sea, harming animals like Heterochone. Mining equipment plowing across the seafloor could damage sponges, and the plume of sediment from mining waste could clog their filtering mechanism.

Life moves at a slower pace in the ocean’s frigid depths. It can take years for Heterochone and other deep-sea sponges to recover from disturbance, in turn threatening all the animals that depend on sponges.

[blazing-butterfly-inactive]

I suppose most people are more familiar with pet dogs than with falconry and therefore calling a dehumanized mech pilot a "hound" is more immediately evocative than calling it a "hawk," but you gotta admit the vibe of the handler as falconer and the pilots as their birds of prey absolutely slaps. If anyone ever does something like mechsploitation but with scifi fighter jets instead of giant robots, pleeeease call the pilots hawks

[themoosebaruniverse]

If i may

[blazing-butterfly-inactive]

Exactly

[bisonrimant]

Ancient Wisdom III

Woodcarving

Last sculpture of 2025

[fistfulofgammarays]

Tagged by @eponymous-rose!

Currently craving:

Cherries. Probably because I'm sick of winter.

Currently reading:

Alien Clay, by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I'm just barely far enough in to where I think I see where he's going with the premise, and I'm enjoying it. I generally think he's stronger at worldbuilding than he is at character writing, but there's a distinct voice here.

Currently watching:

I don't really watch shows, I guess. Uh, listening to a lot of Well There's Your Problem episodes?

Currently playing:

Bloodborne, many years late to the party!

Currently listening:

Legion of the Damned - Contamination. Scratching my current itch for thrash.

Tagging anyone who would like to answer!

[emilymeganxart]

Destiny 1 + D2 warlock 💫✨

Which one do you prefer?

I really miss drawing super unique Destiny characters with their personalised gear!🥹

it was so fun seeing everyone’s individuality coming through.

Please do enquire if you’d like your own original artwork of your favourite or personalised game character! 🫶

[fistfulofgammarays]

When finishing Safe Harbor again, I keep coming back to the fact that I can't decide if Keith's welcome home would be mostly happy or INCREDIBLY STRESSFUL FOR ALL INVOLVED. On the one hand: Home! Friend! Safe! On the other hand: oh wtf why do you look like that?? Compels me

Trust me, I too am compelled.

(Thank you! I personally lean on the "stressful and complicated" side of this hypothesis because that's what I find interesting, but there are potentially satisfying outcomes for both those scenarios.)

[yokowan]

the number of spacecraft failures recently has been absolutely insane and it all comes down to tech bros barging into the industry going "it's not that hard wtf is nasa so bad" and then completely skipping out on any testing

[yokowan]

Recently, a privately funded asteroid mission failed immediately after launch. Here are some choice excerpts from the company's blog post about it:

they cost that much because they do integration testing

.....by skipping integration testing

"skipping integration testing was the right move actually"

come fucking on.

AND YOU FUCKING LAUNCHED ANYWAYS

it failed immediately you dipshits

or you could. i don't know. do integration testing?

source

[weerd1]

Hey, Fuckchop: If you did it for 10% but you have to do it 10 times? You fucking failed AND didn’t save any goddamn money.

[shadesofmauve]

Even if you had the money to throw away, why would you launch with known problems? What are you possibly learning from this? Were they just hoping those wouldn't matter? "Yeah, whoops, blew up an expensive payload because we figured it was worth rolling the dice on problems we already knew about instead of waiting for a new launch window!"

Launching-as-part-of-iterative-design only makes sense for a kid's model rocket you don't have other testing methods for. Or for things that don't explode.

[tehnakki]

Launching substandard low-cost products to low earth orbit is a decent way to make a lot of improvements fast. I say this as someone who has directly designed/built/flown over 700 smallsats at a couple different startups. New teams don't realize how difficult troubleshooting in space is until they've done it at least once (or in Planets case.... A half dozen times). But the trick is to do it in low earth orbit which is relatively benign (fuck you solar maximum) and decently accessible for communication.

The problem is this gives these idiots the idea that they can apply the same rapid design to things that are multiple orders of magnitude more difficult. Anything that requires being outside earths atmosphere???? Fuck me man. It's awful.

I'm landing a sensor on the moon next year and every fucking week I have to argue with the CTO that no, we cannot skip this environmental test. Why? Well the last three tests revealed fundamental flaws in our understanding of the expected thermal repercussions of the estimated lunar environment. This next test, which will be off actual telemetry data from a comparable location currently on the moon is also non-negotiable. And it has to happen on the flight model so if we find a big fuck up we have a chance to fix it before delivery.

No it cannot be fixed after shipping by "pushing software".

As someone who has built crewed vehicles under the NASA safety system and built uncrewed NASA instruments there are things I'm willing to be a little looseygoosey with in build-fast-break-things mentality of low earth orbit. I'm not willing to take that risk anything higher than MEO because it's a waste of their money and my time.

[lynati]

"For just 7% of the cost, we can make something that blows up instead of doing the job it was built for!"

[wtf-scientific-papers]

Gilbert et al. (2025)

[markscherz]

No you don’t understand. This is the actual graphical abstract for an actual paper published in the journal Cell, one of the top three journals for all life science (at the same level as Nature and Science). Incredible.

[evilett]

Malenia

[stripedroseandsketchpads]

Actually, I just realized my watch list document was created a year ago today, so here’s my international-horror year in review for 2024, out of order but still:

(Bolded favorites)

Africa:

His House (2020); UK/Sudan; English, Dinka

The Tokoloshe (2018); South Africa; English, Zulu

The Soul Collector (2019); South Africa; English, Tswana

Ile Owo (2022); Nigeria; English, Yoruba

Living in Bondage: Breaking Free (2019); Nigeria; English, Igbo

The Origin: Madam KoiKoi (2022); English, Yoruba (note: 2-part film)

Americas:

The Old Ways (2020); US/Mexico; Spanish, Nahuatl, English

La Llorona (2019); Guatemala; Spanish, Kaqchikel, Ixil

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014); US; Farsi

The Wind (2018); US; English, German

Candyman (1992); US; English

Interview With the Vampire (1994); US; English

Asia:

Under the Shadow (2016); Qatar/Jordan/UK; Farsi (note: set in/about Iran)

Djinn (2013); UAE; Arabic, English

Suzzanna: Kliwon Friday Night (2023); Indonesia; Indonesian, Javanese

Revenge of the Pontianak (2019); Singapore/Malaysia; Malay

Susuk (2023); Indonesia; Indonesian

Qorin (2022); Indonesia; Indonesian (note: has really low ratings due to review-bombing by users who didn’t like the subject matter, I promise it’s not actually 2-stars quality)

Kaali Kuhi (2020); India; Hindi

Bulbbul (2020); India; Hindi

Ghost Stories (2020) India; Hindi (note: short film anthology)

Detention (2019); Taiwan; Taiwanese

Goedam (2020); Korea; Korean note: short film anthology)

Svaha: The Sixth Finger (2019); Korea; Korean

Europe:

Without Name (2016); Ireland; English, Gaeilge

Suspiria (1977); Italy; English, German

Suspiria (2018); US/Italy; English, German

Deep Red (1976); Italy; English, Italian

Verónica (2017); Spain; Spanish

Hermana Muerte (2023); Spain; Spanish

El Laberinto del Fauno (2006); Spain; Spanish (note: technically not filed as a horror movie but tbh it very much could be)

TV:

Creature (2023); Türkiye; Turkish

Interview With the Vampire (2022- ); US; English, French

Girl From Nowhere (2018-2021); Thailand; Thai

Evil (2019- ); US; English

As a bonus, I also watched and enjoyed the documentary Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror (2021), which covered international folk horror, and watched and did not enjoy the documentary Nightmares in Red, White and Blue (2009).

[fistfulofgammarays]

@mystery-moose

[finnlongman]

You know, I've seen manuscript abbreviations that looked like text-speak, but hand-drawing emojis to stand in for the word ceann (head) in a passage about Cú Chulainn being beheaded is taking that all to a new level

(The line from another manuscript: "Is ann sin d'éirgedar datha aille iongantacha do cheann Choingculoinn")

Manuscript is RIA 23 H 10, Oidheadh Con Culainn, written in 1808.

[finnlongman]

BREAKING NEWS HE DID IT AGAIN

"a cheann do bheith ar an ngad" but obviously when talking about heads on sticks we should just draw a ☹️ instead

[finnlongman]

He just keeps doing it. Every time somebody gets beheaded in this text, the word "ceann" gets replaced with 😐 And a lot of people get beheaded in this text (thanks Conall), so this happens a lot.

"Do bhain an 😐 de" He struck the head from him

[fistfulofgammarays]

Did you have anything in mind for what happened to fifty one after SH? Do they finish their respective tours? Do they die off one by one? Big explosion? Flee? Surrender to Voltron and pray? Mystery?

You wrote such interesting characters!

Thank you!

I don't think I can say much here without spoiling things I'd like to eventually write, unfortunately! (Or maybe fortunately?) Some of them have happier endings than others, but I do have thoughts on where each of them winds up.