#suzirya

[thefearofcod]

Top five subject headings

oh what a great question! In no order, I’m currently into:

600 0 0 $a Aeneas $c (Legendary character)

650 _ 0 $a Manuscripts, Italian $z New York (State)

650 _ 0 $a Aramaic language $v Dictionaries $v Early works to 1800 $x Latin

650 _ 0 $a Private libraries $z Spain $v Catalogs $y 18th century

and of course:

650 _ 0 $a Sewerage $v Early works to 1800

[wild-west-wind]

☕️ about cool rock facts! (Dealers choice)

Okay, so most folks know that obsidian is volcanic glass (and for anyone who may not, surprise! It’s cool right!?), but it is, by many definitions, NOT A ROCK!

At the end of the day a rock is by definition a naturally formed aggregate or mass of crystalline, or fossil material, or bits of other rocks (lithics). The different textures you see in igneous rocks all come about due to the size and deformation of the various crystals within them.

The rock forming from lava flows in Hawaii (Basalt) has the correct molecules in its fluid state to make some feldspars, pyroxenes, and olivine, all relatively low silica minerals. It cools rapidly at the surface, creating very, very tiny crystals (so small you can’t see them with the naked eye, called aphanitic).

Meanwhile a rock like Granite is made of potassium feldspars, and quartz (etc), and because it cools very slowly, it has time to organize itself into larger crystals (a phaneritic texture).

These very different textures can come from compositionally similar melts. The big difference is time and viscosity. With time molecules can travel through a melt or crystalline slush to organize into larger grains (there’s a bunch of thermodynamic stuff going on here too, but to say it briefly there are bonds that are easier to make in certain concentrations of certain atoms/ions, and that also effects what minerals are forming, and how they form). Viscosity meanwhile prevents molecules from easily traveling through the melt. A more viscous fluid will be more likely to have smaller minerals forming from it.

So, Obsidian.

If rocks that cool faster, or come from more viscous melts have smaller minerals, what happens if you cool a rock instantly, or have a melt so viscous that molecules can barely travel through it (or a combination of both)?

You get glass! It’s an amorphous wad of atoms, organized, but not into any crystalline form. Atoms have bonds, but they’re big complicated messes that don’t have regular or repeating structures.

And ultimately, because obsidian isn’t a naturally formed lump of minerals, fossils, or lithic fragments, it is, by most definitions, not a rock!

(I’m couching this in ‘by many definitions’ because some folks will include mineraloid substances in definitions of a rock, but to me that feels too broad, and includes a lot of non-rock things, like water, that can be included in a rock, can be formed by geologic processes, but aren’t really rocks in any way that matters, that’s my opinion, I’ve got a BS though so I sure people with higher level degrees can get angry about this over beers.)

send me a ☕️ and a topic and i’ll talk about how i feel about it  

[avantguardisme]

Thoughts on the sea?

please note that when i got this ask i did, in fact, sigh wistfully thinking about the ocean

which is to say that i have a hard time talking about the sea without getting all poetic and nostalgic about it, because i really adore the ocean SO much and miss my wife (the ocean) every day

i've spent most of my life between kansas and florida and the combination of regular exposure to two different big, open spaces (the great plains and the ocean, respectively) resulted in a deep & abiding love for both landscapes which are unfortunately very far away from each other, so i'm doomed to always be missing at least one. i'm currently back in the midwest, so it's the sea i'm missing right now 😞

(also now that i'm thinking about it, and this may just be the influence of the classes i'm taking this semester, but i think my love for those types of landscapes is because they inspire that very capital-R Romantic feeling of the sublime? that sort of encounter with nature that leaves you overwhelmed and in awe-- although the Romantic view also has this element of wanting to conquer nature, which i don't vibe with at all; i know the sea could easily kick my ass and i respect that)

anyway this was a lot of rambling to say that i really need to visit the coast next summer and get my fill of staring at the ocean for a little while

[astriiformes]

I wanna hear about Gandalf! Is! Here!

Ah yes, one of my sillier titles, inspired by the 10-minute Hobbit humorous interpretation piece I did my sophomore year of college. (It was a line that I gave a particularly dramatic delivery, and became a bit of a Speech Team Meme)

The fic itself is one I am really excited about though! I have not written too much of it yet, just some bits that I honestly may overhaul, but it’s an idea I’ve had thoughts about for a while so I have worked on the like, timeline details and etc pretty extensively (as one does, with LotR fic)

The quick version: On my most recent partial re-read of LotR, I found myself having a lot of unexpected Gandalf feelings, and this piece is intended to be a bit of a summation of them. I think it’s probably going to be a oneshot, but a long one, with a number of small, thematically-interconnected vignettes: essentially, his first encounters with each member of the Fellowship when they were young (since he not only plausibly, but very likely would have met each of them as children, and I have.... a lot of feelings about that)

As a taste of the general idea, here’s a little snippet from the one vignette I’ve done a bit of work on (they’re going to be generally chronological, but I’ve only started on the first one) -- with the caveat that, like I said, I may be thoroughly overhauling what I have written. But it still gets across the general idea!

“What manner of squirrel is it that clothes itself, hm?” the old man asked, 

Legolas was surprised to understand his words -- though he had only overhead Men, as this new visitor to the forest appeared to be, in his father’s court on a few occasions, they usually spoke in a language that sounded far more confusing to his own ears than this, the language of his own people, that he had been addressed in.

“I am no squirrel!” he said, indignantly scrunching his nose in a manner that, however unintentionally, caused him to resemble just such a creature. He would not admit to this stranger that sometimes he fancied himself one when running through the trees -- it would make him sound very childish, and he already felt a bit embarrassed about his entrance.

“Indeed you are not,” the old man said. His voice was gentle, but strong. It reminded Legolas, in some ways, of an oak. Like them, he sounded kind. “What is your name, elfling?”

“Legolas,” he said, proud he could answer the question, and the man laughed.

“A strange season it is in Mirkwood, then, that even the green leaves have decided to fall from the trees!”

[sixth-light]

So how do you imagine an Old Guard / Locked Tomb crossover going? (I’ve finished HTN)

Major, major, MAJOR Harrow the Ninth spoilers below the cut:

Having finished that book, I cannot imagine the Old Guard being involved in that ‘verse in any way except on the outside of the Empire, fighting the people who ~murder whole planets~. However, they have to walk a tricky line here because any time anybody sees them revive it’s “NECROMANCY!!!” and they have to run away. It’s very tiring. Nicky and Camilla probably get on really well? I feel like they’d get on really well.

On a funnier and more personal level: whenever and however they ran into Harrow and Gideon, Harrow would be personally outraged by their entire existence. They get the functional equivalent of Lyctor-hood for NO REASON AT ALL? No study? No practice? She is the A+ student who pulls all-nighters and they are the assholes who spend all semester goofing around and then get As anyway (is how she would conceptualise it, if she had any concept of twentieth-century education systems). She loathes them pointedly. 

Gideon would be very confused for like thirty seconds and then tell them “Wow, that’s sick” and ask to exchange swordfighting tips. She would be extremely into Nile, in a way that would only add to Harrow’s loathing. Nile would...not object to this, but be very aware that it wasn’t a long-term proposition, due to the furiously vibrating necromancer standing two metres away and glaring through her skull makeup. 

Both Gideon and Harrow would do a lot of eye-rolling at Joe and Nicky’s everything but ship it so much, deep down, while pining for each other. 

Andy would just be like “welp, guess we gotta go kill God”.  

[hattersarts]

LivMay commission for @suzirya ! thank you so much :^)

[with-my-murder-flute]

Shitty summary of your blog (from what I’ve seen): Many Historical Resources + Incisive Commentary (source material varies)

Thank you!

A long time ago I was in Stargate SG-1 fandom and there were SO MANY RESOURCES. Like, diagrams of the layouts of the characters’ houses, detailed breakdowns of how much every character would make according to government payscales, and analyses of what would be in the necessary military training courses they would take. Fans went like 10,000x harder than the actual showrunners ever did. Since then, I’ve wanted that kind of resource base for other fans!

[fuckyeahisawthat]

Ooh tell me about encounters please?

from this list

Encounters is a Fury Road fic, one of a couple that I thought were solid concepts but just never got around to finishing. (In the Ashes is another.) It is basically a brief history of Furiosa’s relationship with sex and her own sexuality, from her childhood in the Green Place until meeting Max. (Now that I think about it, it is a hilariously perfect illustration of this pattern. Look there’s a reason Max and Furiosa are my forever OTP.)

I actually have a fair amount of this one written, so enjoy a bit of tween Furiosa and Valkyrie in the Green Place:

A summer later. She has her first rifle, and she’s assembled and disassembled it so many times even Katie has tired of watching her do it, but bullets are scarce, and this is what she can do with her rifle so she’s doing it.

Val strides over to where Furiosa is sitting, at the edge of the olive grove, and flops down against the nearest tree. Her crowfeather-dark hair is loose, the way she likes it, even though it means hours of picking knots out by the fire later.

“Got kicked out of the tent,” Val declares. “Moms want to have sex.” They are thirteen now, and have initiate mothers, and that is definitely old enough to talk about sex.

“Ma Amelia’s other lover is coming soon, around waxing half-moon.” Val is braiding a grass stem into her hair, trying to coax it around the dark strands without breaking.

“The hairy one?” Ma Amelia’s other lover is a trader whose caravan passes near the Green Place sometimes on long, irregularly-timed circuits through the Wasteland.

“Skeet? I think that’s this one’s name. Gods, he is hairy though.” She snorts. “He’s nice enough, I guess. Last time he brought me a bayonet blade.” Her fingers work the braid without having to look at it. “Ma Amelia says it’s the right time of the month, so they’re gonna try to make a baby.”

“That’d be nice. We wouldn’t be the youngest any more.”

Val shrugs. “I guess. Ma Bess said Ma Amelia was real grumpy when she was pregnant with me.” The grass blade snaps, and Val huffs in frustration and carefully picks out another one.

When Ma Amelia’s other lovers visit the Green Place, she gets the tent to herself. Ma Bess plants herself right outside, her rifle across her lap, because you never know, with men in the Wasteland. The men may or may not get a whispered tip or two from Ma Bess at some point, depending on how much she likes them.

This is the third or fourth man that Ma Amelia has tried to get pregnant from, that Furiosa can remember. None took.

“Do you think we’ll have lovers, when we’re older?” Val asks.

“Sure, if we want to.” Furiosa looks up and Val is looking at her and she finds herself immediately looking back down at her half-assembled rifle.

“We should practice,” Val declares.

“What?” Furiosa says, although it comes out as more of a cough.

“You know. So we get good at things. For our lovers, when we’re older. Like this.”

Whatever she thought she was going to say in response evaporates as Val leans forward. She bumps their lips together for a split second before pulling away.

“Oh.” Her face is suddenly way too hot and Val is looking at her with her head cocked like this is some kind of fucking dare and if that’s the way it’s gonna be, well then—

She intends to lean in but somehow it’s way more of a lunge, overbalancing both of them and knocking them sideways into the grass. Val shrieks with laughter and at first their faces aren’t lined up and then they are and they’re kissing, and it’s like when you say hello or goodbye with your forehead pressed against the other person’s, except new, different, better, and she gets to put her hand in Val’s hair which is always so sleek and so much—

Val giggles. “I think you’re supposed to open your mouth,” she says, millimeters from Furiosa’s face. “And use your tongue. Somehow.”

“Like this?” Furiosa sticks out her tongue and licks an absurdly long stripe up Val’s face and they both explode in laughter.