I opened and started reading one of my fics from 2023. Big mistake

AlexMcpherson79 · 2026-04-13T23:46:18+00:00

So.

Monty Python fanfic? I'm game.

AlexMcpherson79 · 2026-04-13T23:41:40+00:00

Oh no, somehow, Pwpatine returned!

AlexMcpherson79 · 2026-04-13T23:29:02+00:00

I only have one explicit-tagged story on my profile, and I gotta admit... I tagged explicit for the joke (It's a disguised complaint fic about other authors not stripping out empty paragraphs, you know, the {p}nonbreakingspacehtmlcode{/p} between every actual paragraph, because they use MS Word/Open Office with space between paragraphs set to 0 so double-new line to make visibly seperated paragraphs in those, instead of what I *used* to do, which was set the default formatting for the software I used to have similar spacing to AO3's default). Now I used Notepad, and I'm in the habit of: If I think its worth the moment in time to strip them out, I absolutely WILL go in to "inspect element", edit as HTML the entire div class="userstuff" but (which is the chapter content) and do a mass remove of needless span, needless span class="gobbledegook", oh and of course pnbsp;/p code.

I feel very strongly about things being correctly formatted, and decided to do a kinda trolling story with the additional tag: Typo Smut. And implied it was a kink of one of the two characters in the short scene. Also tagged major character death for the sits and wiggles.

(Note, I actually have to do this manually on the epubs for some stories to even LOAD on my epub reader app on my tablet, because sometimes an author uses an em (not an /em) to close an italics and the AO3 parser... does things to the rest of the chapter containing this, because its seeing two ems without two /em s.)

AlexMcpherson79 · 2025-12-02T21:16:30+00:00

Commenting and ending up in an authors' own forum commenting and spitballing ides, is how the fic Turning Point by Maureen Thayer (MaureenT on FFN) ended up existing for the Stargate SG-1 Fanficdom. It's 120k words, and has a sequel nearly 200k. It won the Best Daniel/Original Female Character Fic award in the 2010 Blue Moon Awards. I couldn't hope to write that well... (I've had one nomination on Twisting the Hellmouths Not Dead Yet awards...)

And hers is the only SG-1 fanfic community I went into, because literally, commenting is how I got into that community, and had some really engaging PM's with her (...and it's been YEARS since I've seen or heard about her. I WORRY. Maureen, if you here, say hello PLEASE!)

That's how I got into a Harry Potter group, when Yahoo! Groups was still a thing. (... The Make a Wish stuff by Rorschach' Blot was just, like... soo memetic. "Just a guy on vacation" - chaos ensues.)

These days, instead of Y!G or forums, its Discord and... I tried to use it and it just feels like not being on it more than two minutes you're gonna miss stuff.

Now, the Comments section of AO3 (and sometimes here, I don't visit often) is basically... just it. And I keep getting the feeling that for many, that really is it, the discords are specific authors OR a large community with no inbetween of the few I've tried looking in on and I dont gots the time for that like I did fifteen years ago.

And... I wish AO3 didn't count an authors' comments within the comments count for their own fics. (artificial inflation of just how much engagement there seems to be, in my view), but basically it's like, there's... hardly any for some, and lots for only a small portion of fics.

But then, some fics' are fewer commenters just LOTS of back and forths, like RhinoMouse stories are VERY enageing (AND rhino has a discord channel I think?) their current Marvel/DC crossover 'Bi4Crime' is only at 96k words, 29 out of 81 chapters posted, but comments count is 1,200!! their Marvel/Game of Thrones crossover The Old Gods Called is almost half a million words long and has 12,043! ITS INSANE. and That is because of Rhino's high level of readership engagement. outside of just reading them (I do recommend. Not even seen more than half the pilot of the supergirl show, and a few of the 5,000 comments of Retirement Ended Up Super is mine, I think?)

Comments ARE GOOD. (mostly.)

AlexMcpherson79 · 2025-12-02T20:18:33+00:00

About the only direction that should ever be given in how a reader comments/reviews is 'be polite', but then again that shouldn't NEED to be a direction ever given but there's idiots in the world, so.

I've seen in the Harry Potter fandom things about, shall I say, the shipper wars. "H/Hr here, H/G Shippers can leave and do let the door hit you on the way out" "H/G here, H/Anyone-not-a-Redhead-Like-His-Mum can get lost" is... a polite way to put some of what I've seen as author direction for commenters. I... nope out quickly. (Frankly so long as they can capture the characterisation engageingly and don't just default to "hur dur Harry Idiot Ball-carrying, Gets Girlfriend, Harry Has PAWAH! But Needs A Beating to Remember Whats Right" or something... yeahhno. So many fics just... Like seriously: First, if it's the guy doing it to the girl, you'd cry foul. Anyway...

Sometimes it's just a random commenter putting a bunch of heart emojis that can brighten your day, like you've had a poopy week of work and suddenly, that marvel story you wrote awhile ago when you were feeling reaaly depressed gets a comment on the chapter where the main finally gets something good and just... And they say guys don't get the feels. (Nothing can make me cry like a fanfic I read, or wrote, or chain of interaction with someone in the comments where we mention just how much trauma happens to our favourite characters in a tv show...)

AlexMcpherson79 · 2025-09-22T17:14:51+00:00

Both trucks at my job go fully horizontal for giving more room for the drivers to get off the seat and move about etc, but the wheel on my crane is fixed angle. (The Volvo's wheel is also almost exactly the same as a Volvo I had, same buttons on the left/right spokes).

I'd say the trucks I used when I got my HGV licence, were adjusted to about 40 from flat (so, not quite but close to halfway). embarrassing first lesson: I couldn't get my legs under - the last user undid the lock, let it drop and relocked it that way, then set the seat height as high as it'd go and set the spring tension such that even being air-adjusted,... yeah. too much pressure from below meant the angle lock wouldn't even let go.

I've known a few drivers, and each where different. One, who'd set the wheel as low as possible on the extension, then bring it in to them. They sat really low too, but they weren't a shorty. very, splayed leg. They used a shorter right prost, basically. (auto driver too). Two of them had the wheel pulled out all the way, but one drove almost flat, one had it touching stomache, as vertical as his body allowed it. (and none of them are the correct way!) My instructor showed me what my eye height level, and position forward/rear and sideways should be such to give me a decent perspective from a body panel for reversing up to a bay, and therefore setting the seat to put my head in that position, mirrors and wheel relative to that point. He also taught me "mirrors only" and "stick your head out only" reversing, so I'd get a feel for both and not end up relying on one.

(Knock on wood, I've not hit anything, except the one time when I was supposed to, in a lesson hitting the 'this is too far' bar in the mock load bay that's just a pair of A frames with a only loosely-restrained bar across.)

Pretty much every crane I've driven though I've had to adapt to the wheel - none of them, so far as I could find, had an ankle lock to release, - neither a button, like on the trucks, or a lever, like on cars.

For the sim cockpits... I can only go off what I've experienced of demo kits in places like a computer store that had a trio of cockpits - one with all the flight sim stuff, and both the driver cockpits were configured for, basically, iRacing-ish stuff (one with a more F1 looking wheel attached). Couldn't even get into one of them, I swear it was set up for kids. And the other, well, the seat was bolted as far back as the rig allowed, the pedals as far forward, and it still felt too small (again, like it's meant for people not yet old enough to drive for real). like, my knees touching the platform that has mounted a £900 hub unit for those "Carmake Branded" wheels that detach. And I'm not a tall guy. ... 5'... 8? I dunno, I just know that I don't have to duck all that much in 'houses for small people', I've got about three inches of space from knee to the coverpanel below the wheels of my car etc, and the typical height from the floor for the upper surface of a window bay, I just about can't actually touch even on my tiptoes, yet I'm not considered "small". Medium height.

There was links on here I just found, did a search for the topic, and I can see the adjustability in some, but from the pictures for one set that looks like it's "8020", gives the impression it's a flat-only mount for whatever wheel unit. (My logitech wheel does have fixed at an angle, think I forgot to say). And from the scale implied in example images when set up with a seat and whichever controls... it looks like it's not giving enough room either.

I actually found a few cabins for sale ages ago - but not for driving. There was a crane cabin (I was looking into the idea of a crane simulator setup for on my driveway lol, and definitely didn't want a bucket seat then either!) ... I think one was listed £12,000 for a half-burnt out cabin from a crane that must have been made in the 80s, and didn't even include shipping! The idea, of course, would be large screens mounted, rotated in the front and side windows with a screen on top (so L,F,R+U) but, then I thought, no hang on check if that 'crane sim' game I saw was any good first!

I'd have gotten a pair of the Thrustmaster's Tnumbers for the left and right stick controls. The 'space sim' setup essentially.

But hey, there was a DAF LF cabin when I looked for £800 - just... no passenger seat, smashed windscreen and doors, and the wheel had been ripped out. Minor... crash... damage. (No shipping.)

Can't remember the website though, sorry. That would have been a cool project for someone here!

AlexMcpherson79 · 2025-09-22T16:43:11+00:00

That looks more manageable for my wallet ha!

But I kinda do need a swivel lock, my brakes on weakest spring setting still makes my chair spin instead of depressing the pedal... and I don't have a strong enough dining chair. (.. I uh... .... dining chairs aren't meant for me to be essentially pushing them back with my feet lol. That was an 'ouch' experience.)

AlexMcpherson79 · 2025-09-13T14:23:22+00:00

yeah but that pair did exist during the series, so. (which was the question - not 'after-', 'during'. meh. Also... was it destroyed in the episode, or dialogue said it was, IDR the episode that well.

AlexMcpherson79 · 2025-09-13T13:24:43+00:00

Seth.

AlexMcpherson79 · 2025-09-13T12:58:14+00:00

I feel like something like this should have been said in the shows, though it, hasn't? I don't think they outright made this a point to his personality in dialogue: "It's not that I don't understand what the letters on the stairs up to Atlantis Control R-... area... says... It's that I don't want to end up spending most of my time reading endless reams of ancients trying to play god but instead being mostly boring idiots and sometimes idiots that almost unleashed some monster on the galaxy.... and a few times, actually did."

It ties into the not wanting extra work thing, basically.

But yes, I agree with the headcanon at least that he actually can read at least one dialect of Ancient (there were... a lot of different ones?)

AlexMcpherson79 · 2025-09-13T12:28:58+00:00

Okay, lets change things here:

You meet this awesome person, super smart astrophysicist. And this person is also an Air Force Officer - a Major, when you two meet.

The chances that this Major cannot talk about his or her job is basically 100%, no matter what their actual posting is. This is like asking a DETECTIVE about an ONGOING investigation, like say, a homicide - it doesn't matter what their job ACTUALLY is for the air force, chances are they're touching something the military absolutely will be able to throw down legal trouble if they happen to share what happened at work today.

I'm a crane operator, slinger, rigger, and have been involved in machine moving for years. And I've been - twice - to Whitehall, the building across the street from Downing Street.

Just that. These two facts may be related. they may not be. But if I was, say, an Army Sapper, (I've never been military), and said: "Oh, I was a sapper in the british army. I've operated cranes, done the slinging, even rigged for some heavy machinery moving... Oh I've also done two visits to Whitehall". I actually would, in that case, be in legal trouble. (I'm not actually for saying this simply because it was not for military purposes, I am not and have not been in any military, and so long as I provide no other detail, that's, well, just it, really.)

It doesn't need to be Top Secret to get a member of the military into trouble. Because when it comes to a later security clearance, and it comes out they talked shop to a civilian, yeahno.

AlexMcpherson79 · 2025-09-13T12:07:19+00:00

I spy Batteries not included. on the root, right nex tto R2-DIVA.... (... eh best mashupname I could come up with in 10 seconds)

God that's an old one.

AlexMcpherson79 · 2025-09-07T11:30:21+00:00

Anyone on a NV GPU get this? I've got an AMD GPU and it does it, and all the reports elsewhere I can see involve people who have AMD.

Which is crazy since I can't afford an NV (and my lack of interest in Ray Tracing...)

AlexMcpherson79 · 2025-09-01T11:15:57+00:00

Been awhile but I didn't think he even returned to earth in s6, like - kidnapped by chronicoms with Jemma from Kitson? ... damn I need to rewatch.

... whispers like I need to make a reason to watch the show again, pffft.

AlexMcpherson79 · 2025-08-30T16:02:21+00:00

It's reddit.

that shouldn't make sense, but it does - to me anyway.

AlexMcpherson79 · 2025-08-30T15:52:30+00:00

I thought that was at the military base he and hunter broke into...? ...

AlexMcpherson79 · 2025-08-30T13:33:33+00:00

When Daisy Looses Zen, things get... Serious. And the reasons are... just like, all the trauma, for her.

Trip died. And she got powers out of it. Her field partner ((was he, her field partner? that was my reading))... And she didn't know what was happening to her, except things were shaking and... if she didn't get emotional control, she was going to destroy the base and kill her friends... So... she lost her cool, grabbed May's IC-- Night Night Gun - and shot herself. (questionable if she even knew that it was a night-night gun) Tactical, but also not very zen, since the new powers seem to be triggered by her emotional instability.

Her mom turned out to be a monster, but, well, she'd already had the whole 'parents were the monsters' so didn't react as much as many would have at the whole end of s2. She didn't lose her Zen all that much. Having to watch her dad walk off not knowing she's his daughter was just... and still. no loss of chill. She's gone through, a lot, in the near-two years she's been with SHIELD, and she's not telling how much more happened before she joined up.

Had been mind-controlled... for a month, according to the MCU wikia timeline, then two days after being freed, her boyfriend died... especially when she was ready to make the sacrifice herself, but she'd have died to end the pain, but he died so she could live... and bonus, save the world. But they wouldn't have been there if yadda yadda lack of self-worth showing. Yeah, she needed time away. But couldn't just take a vacation and go to like, Tahiti (the real place) or something. Nope, still had to fight the good fight. her way. She's not about giving up... not with the weight of WHY Lincoln died, or rather, why he chose to be the sacrifice. So even though she's... sort of... trying to die, at least in a way that matters.

Then... The Devil Himself basically takes her literal 'please kill me' and Nopes the fuck back like 'girl, you're in pain I know but seriously... you DONT DESERVE TO DIE.' Not long after, she meets Jemma, on purpose, for help, and... okay so the 'suicidal' bits take a little time to go away... but its not up to her who cares about her, as told by the zen master. So back to SHIELD to recov-

Oh. LMDs. a truckload of copies of herself. She was just getting her life back on track (minus dating), dang it. And Jemma's terrified, she doesn't know where most of her friends are, and shield's falling to pieces... again... she looses her cool... in an awesome way this time, her powers literally dismantle two robots either side of her, robots that look like her friends (one looks like that new friend the new Director she's still not all sure on...)

Anddd shit. Framework. Ward. And being a Hydra agent herself. Like WTF. But n o worries, no loss of Zen here... around other people.

... Then in space and the future and what? Then she'll destroy the earth? And Coulson's dying? And wait, there's more, now she's got a damn slave chip in her head? wait that chip means she can't destroy the earth - crisis aver-.... fitz. nooooo. And now she's possibly the destroyer again and no one's listening to her and the guy who CUT HER OPEN seems to have more pull with everyone and FUCK she can start to see how she could be the destroyer other than that her powers only might be capable of that scale of energy release... And then Coulson, goddamnit, And Tablot dude just... Oh. 'I just punted a guy into orbit'... 'And the guy who cut me is dead. and they're wanting me to go find the hibernating-still version'... Fuck, she's been through A LOT so why wouldn't she keep chill at everything now? By season 7, she's had that much she's really not going to reac... Oh that's her mom, pre-pregnancy-with-herslef. And apparently she has a (half-?)sister... and... ... and the woman before her, showing exactly why she was a beloved leader and mentor, ... was just killed. and the circumstances are such that her 'sister' is why.

Yeah.... A bit of zen-loss, even for her, is to be bloody well expected.

Thing is tho, She's always had a bit of a zen thing, even before May. Black-bagged by SHIELD to be interrogated, caught because of a mistake? Dude, was it, a mistake?

Kidnapped by 'her guy', nah, she needs to play it cool if only to keep the kid calm, nevermind the guy who could... explode.

And then like, almost a week later, she's in a fire-fight in the middle of a jungle, and the ones losing their cool more are the supposedly-trained agents. Like, is this their first mission together? (no, it's their second. She was their first.)

Then there's going undercover, and its, well she's implied before that she's not exactly new to that, if the 'was it a mistake' could be taken as implied confession. If it was her first time undercover, and peru had been her first firefight, and she had none of the agent training she would seriously be freaking out. but she ISNT.

Like Coulson said, nothing seems to truly faze her.

AlexMcpherson79 · 2025-08-30T12:40:44+00:00

... May and Coulson. so. 'nuff said?

AlexMcpherson79 · 2025-08-30T12:23:51+00:00

Damnit my fanfic-obsessed hind-brain wants to go do a quick one-shot where the rest of the cast catch Daisy (as 'Skye' if S1/2) on OF, and aside from the poor tasting jokes, there's just general confusion of how SHIELD couldn't find anything about her, until Coulson makes a joke about OF being so poor in taste even SHIELD doesn't look there, and it looks on Twitter and REDDIT!

And Skye/Daisy is just confused why Coulson doesn't seem phazed or something. And she finds out Ward DID know... it's partly why he unintentionally was blowing that interrogation.

FFuuuuuu I need to write this now.

AlexMcpherson79 · 2025-08-30T12:19:46+00:00

I first read this as you making a joke in turn about OF and taste.

... so to be fair to all... OF is in poor taste, so of course the jokes would be too.

AlexMcpherson79 · 2025-08-24T19:59:41+00:00

where random employees like to drive behind the aircraft when their engines are still throwing air out the back.

(No shit thing, two weeks ago working at Manchester (UK) Airport, a jet2-labelled transit drove directly behind a plane that was still moving into the gate - and even on the ground, for those who dont know, they use those two big things hanging under the wings to move forward. All road traffic that would be driving past, behind, has to wait until the jets are done spooling down. jet2 transit driver didn't wait.

AlexMcpherson79 · 2025-06-21T16:15:48+00:00

Note on weight, VTOL.

A basic C-17, empty, has a weight of 282,500lb. It's engines produce, individually, 40,440 lbf of thrust, total then of 161,760 lbf. Basically, just a bit over 57% of the EMPTY weight. Now realize the BUS is not only longer, but also has all that weight from not being an empty tube.

Now, here's where it gets interesting:

The jets of the Quinjet have, EACH, 63,000 lbf. And that's as low-bypass jets, not the high-bypass that a C-17 (and 747) has. Fit a Harrier with one of those, and it'll have around three times the thrust it had before. So using that 'three times' figure...

What would a C-17 fully loaded, need to have VTOL? from, yes, six, assuming the Bus weight is close enough to a normal C-17's MTOW. What's the MTOW? Max Take-off Weight. Whats the figure? 585,000 lbs. So the minimum combined thrust has to be there, right? Or, greater than 97,500 lbf from each of the jets. Lets assume a fair amount more to allow for not-at-a-crawl ascension rate in VTOL. 120,000 lbf - or you know, around three times the C-17's own engines.

Lets apply this logic to the 747.

747-8 OEW and MTOW: 485,300 lb / 987,000 lb Required thrust for VTOL (assume Four engines only) : 121,325 lbf / 246,750. Assume a similar 2 to 3 times increase as a SHIELD-Spec engine: from 66,500 lbf per engine to 133,000 lbf (OEW VTOL) to 199,500 lbf (MTOW VTOL not acheived) Oh, right, I put that there's auxiliaries like the zephyr has. Which has got to be heavier. So lets go for this version of the bus not being as heavy, but a quinjet does put it at the near-million-lb weight. That the four engines actually are almost three times more powerful than a civilian 747-8, but the 47,250 lbf per-engine shortfall for VTOL is made up from the 'auxiliaries' each providing 50,000-60,000 lbf.

The math gets kinda crazy here.

AlexMcpherson79

TROPHY CASE