Ontploffing Boer @ontploffing@writing.exchange

@KittyUnpretty in your web dev adventures, have you come across any good mobile-first themes for Jekyll for short stories or chapter-based stories? (basically: AO3 but in Jekyll?)

Following up on these toots:
https://writing.exchange/@ontploffing/101189494340550267
https://writing.exchange/@ontploffing/101185010264207944

NearlyFreeSpeech satisfies my expectations, and it looks like I'll be setting up a site there this week or next. Static site generators, ahoy.

The feeling when you call your grandmother to say hello, and the answering machine picks up, and suddenly you're talking to your grandfather's ghost, trapped in the answering machine's greeting these last many years.

Edit: honestly the *best* image macro

This #Lego instruction image is honestly the image macro I've seen for telling someone to go do a highly risky job, particularly as pertains to giant robots.

(scan is from the https://www.brothers-brick.com/2018/12/13/lego-overwatch-75953-d-va-and-reinhardt-review/ review of the #Overwatch #mecha sets)

Thesis: color
Antithesis: colour
Synthesis: colȣr

Everyone knew that the pharmacist worked at CVS; their devotion was draped around their neck. It was a custom-knit scarf, a foot for every year of service, carefully styled to look like one of that pharmacy's notorious receipts. #tootfic #worldbuilding

Finally set up an #AO3 #ArchiveOfOurOwn account and copied over my #fanfic #writing from Tumblr; you can find the deets at https://archiveofourown.org/users/ontploffing/works

AO3's TOS aren't that comfortable with original fic, and about half my writing on Tumblr thus far is either really, really niche fandoms or is straight-up original work that doesn't fit clearly into an established fandom. I'll have an original-content wobsite up soon.

⩐
CLOSED UNION WITH SERIFS AND SMASH PRODUCT
Unicode: U+2A50
UTF-8: E2 A9 90

A #TerraIgnota observation: Ada Palmer never tells us how the trackers work. They're defined by how they appear in the story:

- attached to ear
- used to make phone calls, text messages, video calls, as general-purpose computers
- health monitoring, calls emergency services
- displays screens to eyes
- not a visor
- global positioning system
- electronic
- by virtue of the above facts, a global person-tracker and -locator

What we don't hear about:
- battery
- radio frequencies
- AI

#writing

Correction: the last two in the previous list were *not* fulfilled by the 2016 film.

The three things which make the 2016 film least like a Seven plot were:
- the poorness of the villagers wasn't established
- the fighters weren't driven by charity or small amounts of money, but by other obligations
- the village as a whole didn't decide to go hire outsiders, not was the village elder consulted
- knowledge of bandits didn't come from defeating 3 scouts
- gov is present, if corrupt

Boxes that all three checked:

- village in misfortune hires six fighters; the seventh joins on after proving his worth
- the village hides its young women out of fear
- there's a reversal of fortune: in 1954 it was muskets, in 1960 the village invited the bandits in, in 2016 the Gatling gun
- the Kid finds and romances a young woman, and stays behind at the end of the film
- the eldest fighter remarks that the fighters and bandits lost; the villagers won

Now I kind of want to track down the steampunk anime Seven Samurai to see how that compares.

Boxes that 2016 Magnificent Seven did not check:
- the village meets with the old man
- the hired men act out of the goodness of their hearts, rather than for money
- the skirmish against the three scouts, leading to the Kid visiting the bandit camp and learning their plans
- ... the Kid wasn't a character at all, as far as I can tell

Grmh. This 2016 film takes the name and framing plot, but puts a personal grudge between the main gunman and the main antagonist that I think drains the story of its moral. Because he has a grudge, he isn't saving the town as a charity case. It's ... too far a departure.

Meh, another illegible 15-minute gunfight. Nice tactics, but the audience's understanding of the fight is statistical, not in any sense practical until the enemy pulls out a Gatling gun.

"It's the most effective Gatling gun ever made. A single clip ended the entire fight." That's our expert assessment, and the end of the suspension of disbelief.

.... Geez Louise, the 2016 film doesn't understand limited resources. Guns errywhere, unlimited ammo. Half the party are snipers. They liberate the mine for ammo and explosives. They throw out the sheriff. The bad guy runs lives in Sacramento and is rich, not un bandito. "All men have a price, Mr. Harp. Isn't that right?" "Not this man."

The villain contrasts himself with Rockefeller and Vanderbilt, saying that he had to earn his way up.

Emma Cullen is a character in this film, and for a moment we discussed what if there were Twilight vampires in a Wild West setting.

Also, she goes straight for her gun, and that, I respect.

The tunes from 1960 are evident in 2016, and the general framing plot, but the details are different. Though different people do the recruiting and different recruits are recruited, the details are distinct.