#ive got things that are technically more useless as this sort of knowledge IS good for writers but

[dream-meltic]

i would be interested in a big post about his speech patterns to better understand how to write him, personally. i guess i noticed he does the, uh... chain of un- prefixes thing at least twice (sign arcade opening and raven win quote)... if that makes sense. i also thought he used french expressions more than he actually does, apparently (i can only find tete-a-tete in his one win quote and, well, deja vu in the movelist). plus there's the crew member and casting stuff... idk he talks a lot it's hard. a referenceable compilation would be cool, especially since the things i mentioned feel more like individual recurring quirks than anything that's present across most of his lines

sorry for taking so long to answer this one I too have been collecting dust as well as my asks

This is technically a VERY shortened version because this is only in relation to written dialogue that I think would help writing the way he speaks, as a writer myself

The way Bedman talks is very interesting! He says in his Xrd SIGN countdown quote that he speaks fast as a means of expressing his feelings, and roughly the pace he talks is the same as how he thinks. This is why his dialogue to Sol in his arcade mode is a ton of dialogue that goes by fast, but to Elphelt he speaks slower and calmer. In short, it depends mostly on his mood; when he is nervous or excited in particular, he speaks a lot faster than normal. And a natural consequence of him speaking faster is that he speaks more, often padding his sentences out with unnecessary stuff, repeating things in slightly different phrasings or answering questions before they can get asked. It seems like murder + fights give him a lot of adrenaline in particular and he speaks very fast in those situations lol (hence his win quotes)

The most notable thing is definitely the theater language. In his mind, he has assigned everyone a 'role', and anything that goes against his expectations is a deviation in the script (or an ad lib when done by himself or Ariels). He speaks as though he is the director and not a character in the 'play' itself, unless he is faced with someone he considers a higher authority. He also drops these entirely when he's either distressed or very calm, so it's a conscious decision he makes to talk that way! So tldr don't overuse them when writing him

And of course, he uses big words a lot. Not all the time, but Often. Pull out a thesaurus and find the most insufferable thing you can for a very basic word, and Bedman would probably use it. But! This does not mean he is completely fancy talk! He literally says shit at one point! He would say fuck and he would not be all ~ oh hoho pardon my language ~ about it he would just yell more if you told him off for it. If he's caught off guard or particularly mad he will slip into more informal language. Sadly I've seen people act like he'd blow up if he said fuck but no, he very much would

TL;DR: Match how much he talks to how much he would think, he doesn't say ALL of his thoughts but he sure says a lot of them. His theater-isms are a conscious decision and basically something he plans out in his head, he would not use them when upset. He CAN be more vulgar and informal but rarely is, attach the way he talks directly to his emotions and you'll see opportunities where he would be.

#bedman #surprise surprise bedman tag its ME again with a long post #you WILL read useless bedman knowledge and you WILL LIKE IT #ive got things that are technically more useless as this sort of knowledge IS good for writers but #everyone else? please enjoy the word vomit ive got here

[angel-bazethiel]

What, How, Why is Flame Alchemy?

--or how Roy Mustang can potentially bottle up a star. --or I’m sleep-deprived and writing this fic that relies on a deeper understanding of how Flame Alchemy works and I’m posting what I thought of bc why the hell not? and if I read another post saying it’s plain ole combustion and how easy it is, I will probably lose my mind --or goddammit, where is Flame Alchemy?????

Content:

I. Introduction II. Mass-Energy Equivalence and Nuclear Energy III. Flame Alchemy? More like Nuclear Alchemy (and Other Myth Debunking) IV. Why would someone study such a research topic? V. Summary

Note: Long post and a lot of Science ahead.

I. Introduction

First we establish that whatever we know of Flame Alchemy is utterly bogus. Solely because of the fact that if Roy and Riza really wanted for the knowledge of it to die, no one will ever know of it. No one. So that explanation by Havoc about aligning oxygen molecules and then snapping to ignite them is not true. I mean, “reactive cloth?” What is that even made of? For a show that was extensively researched, that seems a bit lazy.

Also, this explanation makes Flame Alchemy sound so easy. So why isn’t everyone doing it? For a military-run country, one would think that something easy and can be weaponized would be mass-produced, right?

Another fact, fire feeds on oxygen, yes. But fire is a combustion reaction of oxygen and a C-H compound. Something I hope that the air in a 1900s FMA-Earth isn’t abundant of.

Although, I haven’t thought about what if the fuel Roy uses is H2 compounds instead of Hydrocarbons. That would be funny. Roy deconstructs H2O molecules only to create them again. But if you still want to see whether or not I’m crazy, by all means, do read on. I will still use Flame Alchemy = Nuclear Fusion for my fic. So ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Now, it got me thinking how does Flame Alchemy actually work? And my highly convoluted train of thought started while I was writing this fic where I based Riza’s mother on Marie Curie. (Which I may expand on but now is not the time.)

I thought then, so how about Berthold? Is he Pierre? Naw, man. Who else has had his research mishandled during a war? Who else was a brilliant thinker but is also such a shitty dude to the women in his life? Yeah you guessed it. And what is one of his greatest works?

II. Mass-Energy Equivalence and Nuclear Energy

Albert Einstein’s Mass-Energy Equivalence is such a simple and very elegant equation saying that mass is interchangeable with energy. This postulate led to this branch of physics (or chemistry, whatever) called Nuclear Physics/Chemistry. Bear with me.

Did you know that when you add up the masses of an atom’s nucleons (the collective protons and neutrons) the actual mass is not equal to the calculated? Where did that mass go? As it turns out, that mass defect takes in the form of energy that holds the nucleons together. And when we substitute that missing mass on Eq. 1, we have a specific number for that binding energy.

So what do we mean by nuclear energy?

Nuclear energy is the binding energy released when a nucleon is taken out of its nucleus. And that can happen by either of two reactions: nuclear fission or nuclear fusion.

Now I didn’t think much about nuclear fission because that’s shit’s nasty. And I’m sure that Roy doesn’t have Uranium just lying about. So let’s talk about nuclear fusion. Specifically, the fusion of Hydrogen atoms:

When you fuse two Hydrogen-1 atoms it has three products: deuterium, a positron, and energy. Fuse that deuterium with another Hydrogen-1, we get Helium-3 and energy in the form of gamma radiation. Fuse two Helium-3 atoms, we get helium-4 and hydrogen and more energy. Then start the process again if you want more more energy.

So what has that got to do with Flame Alchemy?

III. Flame Alchemy? More like Nuclear Alchemy (and Other Myth Debunking)

I firmly believe that the “Flame Alchemy” we see in FMA is just the H-H fusion reaction (Eq. 2).

And like an idiot, I only did my research after I thought of all that shit and found this interpretation of Riza’s tattoo.

I don’t know how how much of the tattoo is canon, I tried looking for it in the manga and the anime is too small to see. But I see it everywhere so-- it must be canon?

But in that post, in the upper left part of Riza’s tattoo, we see the fusion reaction of deuterium. And of deuterium and tritium. To which I say, why? Those Hydrogen isotopes are rare. I mean, fine, a D-T fusion reaction gives 40 times the net energy from an H-H fusion reaction.

And, sure, Roy can create deuterium and tritium himself, but it’s just not efficient. I don’t know how alchemy works but I do know that to do that (by which I mean an H-H fusion, then a D-D fusion, then a D-T fusion) would require more energy than just stopping at the H-H fusion.

So I stand by my statement that the “Flame Alchemy” we see in FMA is just the first part of the H-H reaction (Eq. 2).

a. So how does it work as seen in the manga?

Roy would line up the atoms to where he wants the reaction to happen. And here’s the kicker, he can use other light atoms just no heavier than Iron-56.

But I think he uses Hydrogen-1 because that shit is everywhere. Again, not the heavier isotopes. So we’re sticking to that.

How do we know that that’s what’s happening and not Roy doing whatever the hell Havoc said? Because we see this:

I don’t know about you, but I think the sparks we see when someone is doing a transmutation aren’t just there because it’s cool.  

Atoms require energy in order to stay bonded as a molecule. So when alchemists transmute, they break the bonds and release that energy. In this case, the energy released is in the form of light. (I also have some thoughts about why we see red and blue sparks but, again, now is not the time.)

If Roy is just controlling the O2 molecules in the air, we shouldn’t see any sparks because there is no deconstructing happening.

Hydrogen-1 is usually present as part of the many water molecules in the air. So, I think, what we see is Roy deconstructing the H2O molecules and pulling the Hydrogen-1 atoms to where he wants them to be. The Oxygen-16 atoms bond with each other and form O2 molecules but we don’t care about them.

Unless Roy fuses Oxygen-16 instead of Hydrogen-1. In that case, we will see an even bigger release of energy. OH! Maybe that’s why he uses his left hand for smaller and more controlled explosions and the other for bigger ones. Because the gloves are different! One is for H-H fusion and the other is for O-O fusion.

Anyways. Hydrogen-1 atoms, by themselves are positively charged. So to fuse two together we have to overcome the repelling force by those same-charged atoms. To do that, they must meet either at high velocity or at high pressure. In the manga, they do the former.

Remember the sound whenever Roy does his thing? That isn’t actually caused by his snapping. After all he is wearing gloves. The sound when you snap is made by the pad of your middle finger striking your palm. If your hand is clothed, you won’t produce any sound when you snap.

No. That sound is the sonic boom of Hydrogen atoms going faster than the speed of sound. Also, I don’t think his gloves is made up of some special material. He just snaps to cover up the sound. Everything is just nuclear fusion.

b. How about those “flames” that we see, then?

That is how we perceive the energy released by the reaction. When the energy is transferred into the surroundings, it gives off heat. Not only that, but the other atoms in the air get excited (this is a technical term btw) and glow. For all intents and purposes, I guess they are flames? Just not caused by a combustion reaction.

c. But if that’s how the Flame Alchemy works, then what is up with the useless when wet schtick?

That is a misconception. Sort of.

Roy’s alchemy will still be useless in the rain because there is just too much macromolecules in the air. He can’t align the atoms properly and the Hydrogen atoms may collide with the water molecules. That would decrease speed which he maybe can take account of. But the time to calculate then recalculate for each atoms can be too long. So he just lets Riza take care of the imminent threat when it’s raining.

As for when it isn’t raining, but he’s wet… I think he can still do his Alchemy, he just doesn’t. Because in doing so, it would deconstruct all the lies Roy and Riza have built around “Flame Alchemy.” Like that fight with Lust with Havoc. He manipulated Hydrogen atoms and I think he could have just fused them. Instead he let Havoc throw his lighter. Good thing Hydrogen is flammable. And this:

This is just Roy Mustang being the drama queen that he is.

d. Why would Roy and Riza lie about the Alchemy?

They feed false information surrounding Nuclear Alchemy because there can never be another Nuclear Alchemist. They created a version of the Alchemy and make up some magic cloth that supposedly becomes useless when wet. All of that so that no one can learn the actual secret. Maybe even discourage other alchemists, seeing as “it has such a huge weakness.”

IV. But why would someone want to study such a research topic?

Now, I don’t claim to know how Berthold Hawkeye’s brain works. But have you ever looked up to the sun and think, “Woah. That big ball gives life on this piece of rock? How does that even work?” I hope you haven’t because you will hurt your eyes. Please use protective eye-gear if you’re going to look directly to the sun.

All joking aside. It all comes down to energy. The sources of energy we have today have their pros and cons. Our main source, which is burning fossil fuels, is very much harming the environment.

So we look up. The sun has millions of Hydrogen atoms that undergo nuclear fusion. And the energy from that keeps all of us 7 billion little shits alive. What if we bottle up a star?

If we could ever recreate even the smallest fraction of that reaction, we can power hundreds of cities. And with Helium to spare, which we can use to blow out the balloons for our party in celebration of the fact we can finally stop killing our planet.

If nuclear fusion is so clean, then why aren’t we using it?

Because we still don’t know how to contain and control it. Today, there are two designs of fusion reactors and there are research facilities that conduct experiments. But so far they are still developing the technology.

And get this, this is a very hard and expensive thing to do. Whatever Berthold did, it’s genius. Way ahead of his time. He’s still an ass of a father though.

To add salt to the wound, like with what happened to Flame Alchemy in FMA, governments have used this research to create weapons instead. Because why try to contain that energy and use it for technological advancement when we can let it loose on a city, right? Hah. We are such dumbfucks.

V. Summary

So in conclusion, human beings suck. Kidding! Well, not really. But yeah. So. Flame Alchemy is a nuclear fusion reaction of Hydrogen-1 atoms. And it’s very hard to control and contain that even in 2020 Primary-Earth, we haven’t figured that shit out.

It could have been used for the people if the Amestrian government actually cared about the people. And after the trauma Roy and Riza experienced in Ishval, we may only see Nuclear Alchemy in the distant future when humans are kinder – not just to the world they live in – but to other humans they are living with as well.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

#fma #flame alchemy #fma meta #riza hawkeye #roy mustang #berthold hawkeye #science behind fma #fullmetal alchemist #fma reference #fma ref #I REALLY DIDN'T WANT TO REPOST THIS BECAUSE IT HAS PICTURES BUT HERE WE ARE. #ugghhh it still won't show up on the tumbr-wide tags so iguess it was all for nothing skskskkss

[rhinointherain]

28-8-2020

if this type of high was a color it would be pink, deep dark hot electric pink, the color of romanticization, the color of everything you wish should have been but never was and never could be

-here i watched a video about physics-

physics is the study of our “existence”/“reality”/physical universe within the Everything (and thats why the study of Everything that “outside of” this “existence”/“reality”/physical universe is called metaphysics)

by studying physics/the physical world closely enough, we begin to see “properties” of the Everything, like we can understand the “background” within which it/its “properties” are situated by learning about how and why the physical world acts the way it does

“Life” is just really really complex physical processes, technically there is no “difference”/inherent distinction between “living” and “nonliving” “things”, some “things” just are more of these processes happening at once and some other “things” have less. when a living thing “dies” most of its more complex processes stop occurring and so the complex web of interacting processes which classify one as being “alive” cannot function anymore. and then eventually it starts to literally decay until all of its processes, even the ones that continued after it “died” such as its maintenance of its physical structure, no longer happen as their materials have been taken up by/used in other exterior processes. So by this logic Harris was right, there is no “consciousness” and there is no “self”, when the processes of thought (neurons firing in networks) aren’t happening there is no inherent “being”, at least physically there is not a “self” and the concept cannot exist, what we think of as the “self” might be a sort of “ blueprint “ of what about one “human”’s (human=series of chemical processes that make up what we consider to be a “human”) processes different than any other human’s. if i think of something does it not “exist” just because I conceived of it? what does it mean to be real, can things that are not physically real be “real” in their own way, so I guess it depends on what we consider “real” to mean.

and this is particularly why it’s difficult and awkward to address the question of whether the ideas i write down in my journal entries are “real” as in they are true or if theyre “fake” because I’m high and am convinced that things that are not true are true. how could they not be “true” if I think them, me thinking them means they are being perceived, even if they are not being perceived in the way that physical phenomena are. what does it even mean to “perceive”? is “reality” contingent on what is “perceived” and what isn’t? Is two atoms bumping into each other the atoms “perceiving” each other in the same way that touch receptors “feel” touch, or taste buds “taste”, or vision receptors “see” by “perceiving” light? why don’t i know virtually anything about what protons and neutrons and electrons are made out of. i mean i know theyre made of quarks and their differences become from the ratios of like different types of quarks that are in them but i have actually no idea what that means. i need to know a lot more things to fully understanding these ideas, like I need to find out what light is and what energy is godsh i feel so foolish and uneducated how have i been content to go through life thus far not even feeling the need to know????

And/or should be a word in the dictionary, it’s its own word with its own meaning not just two words stuck together

also remember to think about how your emotional and idealistic associations with being high affect the ideas that you have while you’re high, although now that i’m thinking about it, it is probably quite good to write about these emotional associations as i have been doing because then i can understand and analyze them more fully

I went back and read the paragraph i wrote earlier in this entry about what physics is an what the difference is between it and metaphysics, and it made me think, how could there not be a “GOD”? If physics/our physical universe/“reality” exists, then doesn’t “not that” also have to “exist”, just because it exists as a concept?Like what i was just talking about with what it means to be “real”?

Oh I sound JUST like saint anselm ! Didn’t he already say the exact same thing???? He totally did.

But anyway god IS metaphysics, at least the God that judeo-christian religion is referring to. God is everything that is not physics/the physical universe. so I think that with dualistic religions, like Catharism (the one i actually know enough about to feel comfortable discussing esp because there aren’t really any people today who follow it whom I risk offending if I misinterpret something about it), the two “gods” are the physical world (the “bad”/material/“corrupt” cathar God) and metaphysics (the “good”/“pure”/“heavenly” cathar God). the “gods” of Greek mythology and i guess norse mythology and probably many polytheistic religions (but i definitely cannot say that this applies to most or all polytheistic religions because i dont know enough about most or all of them) are, in the view of their believers, part of the physical world, so comparing deities/“gods” like these to the metaphysical judeo-christian “God” is kind of useless in a way because they are too different. i am not highly informed about the terms “yin” and “yang” but from my knowledge of them (like a few online articles or whatever) what i am talking about very much falls into this concept. yin and yang are physics and metaphysics. {i realize in earlier entries ive very foolishly used the term “cosmos” when what i really meant was “metaphysics/metaphysical reality/metaphysical “existence” (and once again, i am trying my best to use the right words to describe what i mean but as l keep saying over and over again, the words existence, reality, being, etc. need to be a lot more rigidly defined before any actual productive discussion about these ideas can occur)}, but anyway, “metaphysics” and “physics” are yin and yang.

so yes sure i guess the greeks, for example” “worshipped physics”, although that’s not to say they didn’t have a lot of things “wrong” (according to our modern perspective) about how it worked, but according to their understanding of the physical world lightning bolts got made by a dude named Zeus, that was physics to them. Christians, Muslims, and Jews, as example, “worship metaphysics”, which is no less “rational” than worshipping “physics” because like how stupid to you have to be not to “believe” in metaphysics right? they are both “things” that “exist” because they “exist” as “concepts”. they are just different, and either “religious” approach may be varying degrees of “right” or “wrong” in their ideas of things and how they work (although again, what does that even mean, what does it mean to be “true” or “not true”, but anyway), but like one example is the question of whether the way in which ppl use these religions to interact with physics or metaphysics (like setting up altars, making sacrifices, consulting oracles) is “effective”, like does it “do what they think it does” ie have an effect on either physics or metaphysics and how the two “interact”, or help you learn something about it etc?

So i guess by this logic a dualist outlook on “religion” resemblingthe Cathars (and i THINK the zoroastrians too from what i understand about their beliefs), ie metaphysics and physics and the interaction between the two, is the most all-encompassing perspective on what “Existence” “Is”. Thats not to say anything about the ritual aspect of any faith, i really don’t know which one is most “accurate” or if any of them are at all. So guess i am a Dualist now??. But then again, it would definitely be also helpful to explore the outlooks provided by other religions to see what they have to say, and whether they incorporate elements into their understandings that are useful to think about. like i feel like i know some facts about hinduism as in i could tell you some things that hindus believe, but i don’t have a “deep” enough understanding of the religion to tell you what aspects of their belief deal with physics and/or metaphysics. like what i would guess about it from my understanding is that it kind of deals with both? like Brahman is almost certainly metaphysics {and actually in many ways has a more “accurate” and wide-encompassing understanding of what “metaphysics” “is” than most other religions i have heard of}, and nirvana is attaining the union of the two? {like obviously not the union of the whole entire physics and whole entire metaphysics but like, within one’s self? [again, im not sure if the “self” does “exist” in the physical world and am inclined at the moment to think that it doesn’t, even though the things that “make it up” (ie your neurons and the “thoughts”/firing patterns they create) are part of the physical world. although AGAIN that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t “exist”, because one can conceive of it, or because it is part of metaphysical “existence”, or both? Or neither??] Or is nirvana like, you become aware of where “you” are within the whole conglomeration of the two, and are able to understand more about everything because of this? In a way i think it might be both, i should think about that more in the future.} Isn’t Brahman said to like, “be present” in the physical world, like in each individual thing ?does this mean that hinduism deals primarily with the interaction between physics and metaphysics? Rather than focusing on the two as “equal” but “opposite” concepts like the Cathars or zoroastrians. Again I’m really not comfortable making a whole bunch of analysis on hinduism, even after learning a bunch about it i still have a hard time understanding what their gods/deities are supposed to be/represent in relation to all this.

Ok yeah i had a helpful thought: I think the reason I am struggling with the definition of “existence” is because im not sure whether im using that word to refer to physical existence, or the combination of both “physical” and “metaphysical” existence. Same with “reality”.

i NEED to establish a glossary of terminology in order to be able to analyze anything further in a meaningful way! i think i am at the point where i can actually start to do this or at least try!

am realizing now that one of the chief questions i’ve been grappling with in these entries is “what is metaphysics”, as have scientists, shamans, theologians, priests, psychonauts etc for centuries and millenia before me. idk being able to concretely state what i am asking might be helpful in charting a course of thought

So how does the idea of physics vs metaphysics relate to the “space-time continuum” that i was talking about in earlier entries? So we have our physical universe that you and i “exist” in, and the “multiverse” which is every other possible universe along an infinite infinity of infinite axes, but is metaphysics the “multiverse”, or is metaphysics somehow what is “outside the multiverse”? how could you even understand what it meant to be “outside the multiverse”? fuck this is really difficult to think about. hmmmm i don’t think there can be an “outside” the multiverse because the multiverse is already everything that is “outside” the universe. right, because the multiverse is infinite in an infinite number of directions and not “bound” so it is not something outside of which anything can be conceived.

yeah okay and this makes sense with the saint anselm thing, because if you can think of “something”, your conception of what that “something” is is bound by your definition of what you conceive that “something” to “be”. and if you define metaphysics as “the Stuff that is Not Physics/Not Our Physical Universe”, that mean metaphysics exists because it is the like, antithesis of physics, so it doesn’t exist in the same way that the physical universe does but that doesn’t mean it isn’t “real”. Like how in a mirror there can’t be a reflection of something that isn’t physically there to be reflected, but that doesn’t mean the reflection “isn’t real” too.

I’ve been typing for over two hours, i think i should take a rest lol.

Do you think its possible that certain elements of fashion, popular culture, etc come back into style every 20ish years (?) because the people who are the most influential in determining trends at any given time internalized the trends of 20ish years ago as what it meant to be “cool” when they were at the age of learning what “cool” was and so they bring those trends back either consciously or subconsciously?

#journal #aug 2020 #🌿