Thejunkdrawers - I Might Need It Later...

Another worldbuilding application of the "two layer rule": To create a culture while avoiding The Planet Of Hats (the thing where a people only have one thing going for them, like "everyone wears a silly hat"): You only need two hats.

Try picking two random flat culture ideas and combine them, see how they interact. Let's say taking the Proud Warrior Race - people who are all about glory in battle and feats of strength, whose songs and ballads are about heroes in battle and whose education consists of combat and military tactics. Throw in another element: Living in diaspora. Suddenly you've got a whole more interesting dynamic going on - how did a people like this end up cast out of their old native land? How do they feel about it? How do they make a living now - as guards, mercenaries? How do their non-combatants live? Were they always warrior people, or did they become fighters out of necessity to fend for themselves in the lands of strangers? How do the peoples of these lands regard them?

Like I'm not shitting, it's literally that easy. You can avoid writing an one-dimensional culture just by adding another equally flat element, and the third dimension appears on its own just like that. And while one of the features can be location/climate, you can also combine two of those with each other.

Let's take a pretty standard Fantasy Race Biome: The forest people. Their job is the forest. They live there, hunt there, forage there, they have an obnoxious amount of sayings that somehow refer to trees, woods, or forests. Very high chance of being elves. And then a second common stock Fantasy Biome People: The Grim Cold North. Everything is bleak and grim up there. People are hardy and harsh, "frostbite because the climate hates you" and "being stabbed because your neighbour hates you" are the most common causes of death. People are either completely humourless or have a horrifyingly dark, morbid sense of humour. They might find it funny that you genuinely can't tell which one.

Now combine them: Grim Cold Bleak Forest People. The summer lasts about 15 minutes and these people know every single type of berry, mushroom and herb that's edible in any fathomable way. You're not sure if they're joking about occasionally resorting to eating tree bark to survive the long dark winter. Not a warrior people, but very skilled in disappearing into the forest and picking off would-be invaders one by one. Once they fuck off into the woods you won't find them unless they want to be found.

You know, Finland.

Your OPSEC is Bad and You Should Feel Bad

Okay so one of the many things that drives me absolutely nuts about most TV shows and (some) books that involve secret or classified information or secure facilities is how absolutely not secure everything is, so these are a few basic things that people get wrong:

You can't carry around classified information. There are, I assume, exceptions in specific cases, though they are assuredly very carefully managed, but random intel agent #12 cannot legally just take home classified information so they can work on it at home. That's incredibly illegal. And that's for a reason--secure facilities are, as the name suggests, secure. Everywhere else is varying levels of not secure. Even for people working with regular business or government materials on their work phone or laptop, there are varying levels of strict rules about where you can leave it, how to report a lost device, and not keeping it in checked bags.

Badges should be innocuous and limited in visible information. Any sensible security system doesn't have badges that are numbered/colored/otherwise identified by access level, because that is a really easy way to identify targets for thieves/people who want to break in. American federal ID cards (CAC for military, PIV for civilian) have really specific layouts. Some companies distinguish between full time employees, interns, vendors, etc in their cards.

Badges shouldn't be displayed outside of the office. This is not really followed by real people (if you get on the metro on DC you will see a wide variety of visible badges), but displaying a badge is not security-wise because 1) it makes them easier to steal, and 2) it can make you a target.

Names/access level/information shouldn't be openly announced. I'm looking at you, MCU Spider-Man fanfiction. Just. Don't.

Confidential/classified information shouldn't be openly discussed. Stop having your characters talk about confidential or classified information in front of people who shouldn't know it, or even just out in the open at all. They shouldn't be telling their parents, their friends, their spouses, etc. Even businesses or government buildings that deal with sensitive information, there may be spaces where certain things can or can't be discussed, and employees/contractors will go through approximately 8 million trainings on where you can't discuss certain information. This also involves erasing whiteboards, locking computers, etc.

You can't have cell phones in certain secure facilities. People shouldn't be having their cell phones with them in SCIFs. This prohibition extends to all things that can be recording devices, including furbies.

My most favorite outfits from 2015 - pants edition I wish you all a wonderful day and a great new year’s eve! ｡◕‿◕｡

long-distance mech pilots don’t need to worry quite so much about traveling light. when you’re walking around in several tons of metal, especially one built to wander, you aren’t quite to the point of needing to choose which of two keepsakes you have room in your bag for— there’s plenty of space for both.

Things are different for interstellar knights.

You see, whether wandering alone or setting off on some quest for their lord, a knight’s only home is their armor. Anything they bring with them, they must carry within that armor, even through battles— and as such, every gram and every cubic centimeter can make the difference between life and death, and every calorie chosen to replace a keepsake can make the difference between survival and starvation. As such, a knight’s inventory is heavily optimized— and so is their armor itself. What matters more, the heating system or the EVA boosters? The extra fuel storage or the emergency release mechanisms? Pick one, and you’ll have no room for the other unless you can cut corners somewhere else. Every single element of a knight’s armor is there because they made the conscious decision to put it there. Every weapon they’ve attached to their shell had to replace some traditional aspect of a life support system. Every inch of their shells are packed full of every system that can fit until it’s tight against the pilot’s skin to leave them bruised whenever they exit their shell.

it doesn’t take long for them to realize which superfluous components are the weakest link.

They start small, at first— often as simple as a haircut to help a tighter helmet fit better. Some try to lose weight, but quickly regret it when they find themselves near starvation on some distant moon. The ones that survive past their first year are the ones that are willing to take things a bit further— the toes on both feet, to make room for a slight jump booster. One of their ribs, perhaps— replaced with a battery that connects to the armor through a cable that winds around bones and muscles. It’s only a matter of time before they do something about those bones and muscles too.

those who have only heard the stories will say that a knight’s armor is their home. Those who have met one, seen them exit their armor and seen just how little is left of the body inside— they will say that a knight’s armor is a part of their body. Integrated into them until they cannot survive without it. Both are wrong. Even some knights cannot pin down the true answer— what they really feel as they connect their armor to the components of it that they have placed inside of them. The best ones do, though. They know it well.

A knight’s armor is not a part of their body. Their body is a part of their armor— their home, to be renovated and optimized as they see fit. To be replaced, improved, amputated and eviscerated so that it can be remade into the glorious works of art that the heroes of the galaxy become as they charge into battle and become a story worth remembering.

As the armor learns to reach into your veins, pulling oxygen from the carbon dioxide you exhale and weaving it back into your blood, the space once taken up by inefficient organic lungs becomes the home of the heating system, warming you from within no matter what part of the void between stars you find yourself in. As it recycles amino acids into proteins again and infuses them back into what tissues remain, you’re free to remove your old digestive organs and find a home for your armor’s main computer, kept safe at the center of your shell. Many knights choose to put their own organic brain down there next to it, incidentally making room for more optical systems in their skulls.

Your armor is no longer simply “a part of you” and you are no longer simply “a part of it.” It is you. You are it. Your bones, its power cells, your organs its systems. You are its brain and its CPU in equal measure and its beautiful exterior plates, painted with the symbols of the lord you serve or simply the cause you stand for, will inspire others to take up arms themselves and let themselves become part of it.

your body, your home, your masterpiece

some people think writers are so eloquent and good with words, but the reality is that we can sit there with our fingers on the keyboard going, “what’s the word for non-sunlight lighting? Like, fake lighting?” and for ten minutes, all our brain will supply is “unofficial”, and we know that’s not the right word, but it’s the only word we can come up with…until finally it’s like our face got smashed into a brick wall and we remember the word we want is “artificial”.

Last time I wondered if Danish vagabonds, also known as Landevejsriddere (country road knights), live by some sort of code because even though they’re usually drunk they’re always very pleasant and friendly and as it turns out, yes they do. LINK

You can’t just put on a festive hat and push a pram with your earthly belongings and call yourself a vagabond in this country. You have to be mentored by an older vagabond and travel along the vagabond routes for two summers and one winter before you get your vagabond name at an annual ceremony at Hjallerup Marked where all new vagabonds are ”baptized”.

They also have an annual ceremony at Egeskov Marked where they vote on who should be their king for a year and help settle conflicts in vagabond society. They give the title to the vagabond who has been the kindest and best behaved all year.

The vagabonds have rules they live by: no lying, no stealing, no fighting and always be polite. If they catch any of their members breaking the rules they beat them up because it’s important to their survival that outsiders can trust them. They make their living by sharpening knives and scissors or doing manual labor like helping you chop wood, clean up your garden or the like.

That’s why if you see a vagabond you know you’re in safe company no matter how drunk they are. Should you come across one support an old tradition full of rituals and kindness by giving them some coins or a sandwich.

why are star wars planets more boring than earth and our solar system like sure we’ve seen desert, snow, diff types of forest, beach, lava, rain, but like… 

rainbow mountains (peru)

red soil (canada/PEI)

rings (saturn’s if they were on earth) 

bioluminescent waves

northern lights (canada)

salt flats (bolivia, where they filmed crait but did NOTHING COOL WITH IT except red dust?? like??? come ON)

and cool fauna like the touch me not or like, you know, the venus flytrap.. and don’t get me started on BUGS like… we have bugs cooler than sw aliens

BASICALLY like???? come on star wars you had one (1) job where are the cool alien species

The Jeanne Hachette center, my new standard to judge all other architecture against and find wanting. 

(fun fact: named after a folk hero literally called “ Joan the Hatchet”.Which, well, that tracks.) 

I wanna hear these Opinions on steampunk color palettes, if you’re willing.

tbh “the Victorians did not go to the trouble of inventing aniline dyes so that we could wear neutrals” mostly covers it?

they went to a lot of effort to bring affordable screaming bright fuchsias and acid greens into the world, and we should honor their tacky, tacky choices.

lahore pigeons are some of the most visually appealing birds out there. like in terms of visual design. very minimalist, good contrast.