Kaiseaya

(Not talking about hard military sci-fi since I haven’t read enough of it to say one way or the other. I’m talking soft quasi-military sf like Trek)

Like if you think about it narratively they’re incredibly useful because it’s a type of battle where:

1. No matter how spectacularly well the people fighting one do, it’s inherently not gonna successfully take down the big bad. Because the battle that could have done that is already lost. So it’s a time when they can win (achieve their objective of a successful orderly retreat) without winning. Always useful in a story where you need your protagonists to not win until the end.

2. You have an excuse for your Very Clever Plucky Band of Protagonists to be taking on a much much bigger and better armed force without it being just plain stupid to do so. No idiot balls here, just an acknowledgment that we inherently have to be asking a small force to hold off a large one, so the rest of our large force can get clear.

3. Great potential for a heroic sacrifice that doesn’t feel contrived BUT a sacrifice is not required. As mentioned in point 1 your protagonists can also do really well without it screwing up the pacing of the story. This means that your audience will not know for sure which way it is going to go based on the rules of storytelling. So you can get genuine tension/suspense and genuine catharsis.

4. Battle tactics and objectives can be complex and difficult to get across on page or on screen at the best of times, but “cover everyone else’s retreat from a lost battle” is easy to understand, sufficiently high stakes, and emotionally impactful—much more so than any convoluted “get the macguffin” or “take this territory” could ever be.

5. The combo of high stakes, inability to retreat (the whole point is they’re already retreating) and desperation mean it’s a perfect excuse for your protagonists to pull out all the stops. That experimental weapon that has a one in three chance of blowing up? Might as well use it because if we don’t not only are we dead, all our friends retreating behind us are too.

the same bitches who see a man trying on candy scented perfume rather than axe body spray and go "omg you go girl!!" "see you during your transition sweetie! 😘" "which could mean nothing!" are the same bitches who decry the gender binary and say shit like "makeup has no gender!" "clothes have no gender!" "your self expression doesn't equal your gender!" it's almost like y'all see queerness as inherently feminine. hmm.

maybe this is a hot take, but goofing around with gender expression isn't restricted to queer people, nor should it be. cishet men can wear skirts and eyeliner. cishet girls can bind and cut their hair short. cishet people can get funky with presentation and still be happy as their agab. stop reinforcing gender binaries by calling every seemingly cishet person who decides to deviate from gender norms an egg

their big eggs are actually that size for a similar reason to human babies having massive heads!! being bigger at birth can be important.

kiwi are trying SO HARD to become mammals. fur-like feathers, whisker-like feathers, little beady eyes, nocturnal, great sense of smell.... that's basically a mammal!! they're well suited for life on the forest floor.

their big eggs work alongside these adaptations to give them a leg up in the bird world. their young hatch already feathered! they're precocial, which means they're born with the ability to open their eyes and move around. like foals.

big egg = more powerful offspring from the get-go. babies don't need to spend precious time vulnerable while they develop on the ground when they've already done all that in the egg!

I try not to make sweeping statements but I think there’s a case to be made for bernini as the greater sculptor there’s ever been.

here’s his bust of costanza bonarelli

here’s apollo and daphne from the front, where she’s mostly human

from the back, where she’s mostly tree

and details

Insanely detailed feet with veins from “Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius”

Another foot from the same statue because a) he textured underside of the foot and the folds of skin in the arch and b) can you see the light coming through the thin marble between the toes?

One of the mouths of Cerberus from “The Rape of Prosperina”.

Prosperina/Persephone’s facial expression and HAIR TEXTURE

Hades’ hair as well - this man was entirely too good at making CURLS out of ROCK.

A (poorly lit) close-up on the tree textures from “Apollo and Daphne”.

Hand, sling, and rock from “David” which I think deserves to be at LEAST as well-known as Michelangelo’s. Saw them two days apart and I prefer Bernini, honestly.

Facial expression from “David” - I just love the character in this so much.

Kind of a weird angle but look at the texturing on the sling pouch!!!

We also got to see one of Bernini’s earliest works (possibly his very first) in the Uffizi; it’s not currently on display, unfortunately, but look at this:

Forgive the poor photo quality but. He was 14 when he carved this. FOURTEEN.

Man was a straight-up wizard.