Sieveplayer - Sieve's

Map of my current fantasy world, Theia. The one on the top is an updated version of the map with some improved borders, bottom is a more outdated version of the map, but with accompanying lore, though I'll fully update everything in the future. Main premise is that the world is undergoing a cold war between major mago-industrial powers with one story I'm working on taking place within the Io Consortium, which is an unstable megacorporate state being fought over by the Demonic Confederacy and the Avalonian Empire.

Hey…Can you hear me?

Me as a parent

Today is the only day you can share this meme. Precisely 2000 years prior to March 6th 4017. The day Squidward trapped himself in the freezer. March 6th 2017.

why is there no electricity after the apocalypse?

something people writing post-apocalyptic fiction always seem to forget is how extremely easy basic 20th century technology is to achieve if you have a high school education (or the equivalent books from an abandoned library), a few tools (of the type that take 20 years to rust away even if left out in the elements), and the kind of metal scrap you can strip out of a trashed building.

if you want an 18th century tech level, you really need to somehow explain the total failure of humanity as a whole to rebuild their basic tech infrastructure in the decade after your apocalypse event.

i am not a scientist or an engineer, i’m just a house husband with about the level of tech know-how it takes to troubleshoot a lawn mower engine, but i could set up a series of wind turbines and storage batteries for a survivor compound with a few weeks of trial and error out of the stuff my neighbors could loot from the wreckage of the menards out on highway 3. hell, chances are the menards has a couple roof turbines in stock right now. or you could retrofit some from ceiling fans; electric motors and electric generators are the same thing, basically.

radio is garage-tinkering level tech too. so are electric/mechanical medical devices like ventilators and blood pressure cuffs. internal combustion’s trickiest engineering challenge is maintaining your seals without a good source of replacement parts, so after a few years you’re going to be experimenting with o-rings cut out of hot water bottles, but fuel is nbd. you can use alcohol. you can make bio diesel in your back yard. you can use left-over cooking oil, ffs.

what i’m saying is, we really have to stop doing the thing where after the meteor/zombies/alien invasion/whatever everyone is suddenly doing ‘little house on the prairie’ cosplay. unless every bit of metal or every bit of knowlege is somehow erased, folks are going to get set back to 1950 at the most. and you need to account somehow for stopping them from rebuilding the modern world, because that’s going to be a lot of people’s main life goal from the moment the apocalypse lets them have a minute to breathe.

nobody who remembers flush toilets will ever be content with living the medieval life, is what i’m saying. let’s stop writing the No Tech World scenario.

Spongebob is the best show.

Unsolved Mysteries

Some interesting reading for a rainy day.

Ambrose Bierce - A famous Civil War-era writer decides to leave his cushy life to go to Mexico, only to disappear forever.

Agent 335 - One of the first U.S. spies was a woman, but who?

Ancestral Puebloans - What happened to the ancient people in the Four Corners region (once called “Anasazi”)? And why is there evidence of cannibalism?

The Axeman of New Orleans - This guy won’t stop coming after people with an axe until everybody plays jazz music.

The Baychimo - When winter strikes, a ship sheds its crew–and then decides to take off without them.

The Canneto di Caronia Fires - Mysterious fires keep popping up in this small Sicilian town.

Çatalhöyük - A 9,500-year-old city in Turkey had everything going for it, and yet it was abandoned.

The Chicago Tylenol Murders - Someone laces Tylenol with poison and descends an entire city into chaos.

The Dancing Plague - People are stricken with the need to dance, some to their deaths.

D. B. Cooper - An unknown man hijacked a plane, extorted hundreds of thousands, and then parachuted to freedom.

The Dyatlov Pass Incident (tw: photo of a dead body) - Several experienced mountain hikers go into a mountain range in Russia and die of unknown causes. [see also]

Elisa Lam - A woman, seemingly pursued by an unseen foe, disappears, only to be found inside her hotel’s water tower two weeks later.

Erdstall - There are thousands of still-standing, ancient tunnels beneath central Europe, but no one knows what they’re for. [see also]

Genghis Khan’s Tomb - One of the greatest and most successful rulers of all time, but no one can find his final resting place.

The Hinterkaifeck Murders - Unexplained noises, missing house keys, and an entire family found dead in rural Germany.

The Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum Theft - Some hacks in police uniforms steal a bunch of priceless art, including a Rembrandt.

Japan’s Ghost Ship Problem (NEW!) - Ships from North Korea keep showing up on Japan’s shores… filled with mutilated corpses.

The Jian Seng (NEW!) - A giant ship is found floating with no crew and no one knows where it came from.

Jimmy Hoffa - A teamster with mob ties disappears, theories abound.

Joseph Newton Chandler III (NEW!) - Is this dead identity thief the Zodiac Killer? And if so, what is his real name?

The Joyita - Crew members abandon a real unsinkable ship, but why?

The Lighthouse Mystery - Several Scottish lighthouse keepers disappear abruptly.

Lori Erica Ruff (NEW!) - An identity thief dies and no one can figure out who she really was.

The Lost Colony (on Roanoke Island) - A bunch of white people decide to try and colonize an island and it doesn’t go well.

The Lost Dutchman Mine - In unforgiving territory lies a lost treasure just waiting to be found–if you don’t die first.

The Lost Nazi Plunder - The nazis stole hoards of important items, including art and cultural artifacts. Where are they now? [see also]

The Mary Celeste - A sailing ship in working order is found, still at sea, without a crew.

Monsieur Chouchani (NEW!) - Who was this mysterious Jewish teacher and mentor of Elie Weisel who dressed like a vagabond?

The Oakville Blobs - Gelatinous blobs of an unknown substance rain from the sky.

The Paris Catacombs - A seemingly infinite series of tunnels filled with bones, artwork, and missing explorers. [see also]

The Phaistos Disc - A mysterious disc, thousands of years old and covered in strange symbols, is found in Crete.

Rongorongo - An undecifered set of glyphs from Easter Island, possibly a completely independent language.

The Tamam Shud Case (tw: photo of a dead body) - A body shows up on a beach in Australia, and how it got there is wrapped in mystery and lies.

Tarrare - A man who couldn’t stop eating, anything and everything.

UVB-76 - A strange radio station in Russia broadcasts a constant buzz, broken only by strange readings of names and numbers.

The Voynich Manuscript - An unbreakable code in an ancient manuscript full of strange drawings–what’s not to like?

The Woman in the Tree (aka Who Put Bella in the Wych Elm?) - A body turns up stuffed into a tree trunk, becomes a local rallying cry.

The Wow! Signal - A strong radio signal from space still has researchers stunned and baffled.

(These are the most reliable unsolved stories I could find. There are many others that require more sources to be believed or already have very plausible answers.)

Know a good one that isn’t listed? Let me know!

ftr I am forever going to be bitter that the post I wanted to be "let's talk about extinct ecosystems and how cool they are!" got derailed into yet another post just talking about a single taxon like the millions of other posts on palaeoblr

“Appeasing them would only make it worse.” I crush the blessing doll. Its stitched smile bloats up. “It has only ever made things worse. My mother and grandmother have been appeasing my father and grandfather for a lifetime. They haven’t changed one bit. You cannot appease someone into loving or respecting you.”

Iron Widow (Iron Widow #1) by Xiran Jay Zhao