thewritershandbook:

Air/Wind

• Aerokinesis -manipulate the air, wind, and gas.
• Aeroportation – teleport using air/wind currents.
• Air Mimicry – transform into a cloud of gas, fog, or mist.
• Atmokinesis – manipulate the weather by mixing water, fire, earth, air, and lightning/electricity.
• Deoxygenation – suck up all the oxygen from a place.
• Lung Adaptation – breath anywhere
• Wind Generation – create blasts of air.
• Divine Winds Manipulation – create and control heavenly winds.
• Dark Wind Manipulation – create and control eerie winds.

Earth

• Geokinesis – control, manipulate, and reshape the earth at will.
• Atmokinesis – control and manipulate the weather by mixing water, fire, earth, air, and lightning/electricity.
• Crystallokinesis – manipulate minerals and crystals.
• Ferrokinesis… manipulate metal at will.
• Fraxikinesis – manipulate burnt matter.
• Geo-Thermokinesis – manipulate, control, and create lava, magma and volcanoes.
• Golem Creation – make golems out of inanimate materials like rocks, wood, plants, magma, etc.
• Granulation… can turn things into sand.
• Halokinesis – control and manipulate salt.
• Hyalokinesis – control and manipulate glass.
• Koniokinesis – manipulate and control dust particles.
• Plassikinesis – manipulate and control all forms of plastic.
• Psammokinesis – can control and manipulate sand.
• Terrakinesis – control, manipulate and alter/reshape the surrounding terrain and landscape at will.
• Terraportation – teleport via the earth and earth-based materials.
• Sacred Earth Manipulation – Create, manipulate, control, reshape divine earth minerals.
• Black Earth Manipulation – Create, manipulate and control tainted and evil earth minerals.

Fire

• Pyrokinesis – create, control and manipulate fire, flame and heat.
• Atmokinesis – control and manipulate the weather by mixing water, fire, earth, air, and lightning/electricity.
• Fire Breath – breathe out flames.
• Geo-Thermokinesis – manipulate lava, magma and volcanoes.
• Heliokinesis – manipulate and control the sun and sunlight.
• Hell-Fire Manipulation – Generate and control flames of hell.
• Holy Fire Manipulation – Generate and control flames of Heaven.
• Inflammation – burn things.
• Melting – heat molecules to melt things.
• Plasmakinesis – can control plasma.
• Pyrotechnics – create fireworks.
• Self-Detonation – explode self and reform.
• Thermokinesis – create, control and manipulate heat.

Water

• Hydrokinesis – manipulate and control liquid water and mold it into any desired shape or form.
• Aquatic Adaptation – adapted to underwater living.
• Aquatic Respiration – breathe underwater.
• Atmokinesis– control and manipulate the various aspects of the weather by mixing water, fire, earth, air, and lightning/electricity.
• Dehydration – absorb water.
• Hydroportation – teleport across short or long distances through liquid water.
• Water Mimicry – turn into liquid water.
• Holy Water Manipulation – create, manipulate and control graceful waters.
• Dark Water Manipulation – create, manipulate and control evil and dangerous waters.

Darkness

• Umbrakinesis – can manipulate and control darkness or shadows.
• Animated Shadow – Animate one’s shadow.
• Light Absorption – block out light in an area.
• Night Vision – see in the dark.
• Sacred Darkness – create holy darkness.
• Shadow Camouflage – be unseen in shadows.
• Shadow Mimicry – become a shadow.
• Umbrageous Teleportation – teleport via the shadows and darkness.

Electricity/Lightning

• Quintessence Force -Can generate whitish-blue lightning that also contains pure life energy.
• Electrokinesis – control, generate or absorb electric fields and shoot lightning bolts.
• Activation & Deactivation – turn stuff on and off.
• Positron Manipulation – control positrons, the antimatter counterpart to electrons.
• Electrical Absorption – absorb electricity.
• Electric Mimicry -transform entire body into a lightning-like being of pure electrical energy
• Electrical Transportation – teleport with lightning.
• Divine Lightning Manipulation – create and control the brightest lightning.
• Black Lightning Manipulation – create and control the darkest lightning.

Energy

• Dynamokinesis – manipulate existing energy.
• Energy Blast – create blasts of energy.
• Energy Emission – release energy.
• Quintessence Force – create and manipulate unique form of electrical and life energy.
• Mana Manipulation
• Chi Manipulation
• Electricity Manipulation
• Energy Manipulation

Ice

• Cryokinesis – control ice, snow and other forms of frozen water.
• Freeze Breath – freeze things in solid ice.
• Freezing – lower the temperature in kinetic atoms to freezing temperatures.
• Frigokinesis – control snow either as precipitation or already on the ground.
• Ice Beam – shoot beams of freezing energy.
• Ice Generation

Light

• Dark Light Manipulation – create the darkest light in existence.
• White Light Manipulation– create sacred light from the divine.
• Photokinesis – create and manipulate pure light.
• Force-Field Generation – create protective shields of solid photons.
• Invisibility – be unseen.
• Laser Emission – bend light wavelengths to create lasers.
• Light Absorption -absorb the light around you.
• Light Generation – emit blinding light or glow in the dark.
• Light Mimicry – take on the traits of light.
• Photoportation – Teleport by using photons.
• Projective Invisibility – turn other things invisible.
• Evil Banish – Rid and banish all spirits of evil and black magic.
• Light Manipulation

Weather

• Atmokinesis – manipulate the various aspects of the weather by using water, fire, earth, air, and lightning/electricity.
• Atmokinetic Resistance – immunity to all weather-based abilities and effects.
• Atmokinetic Sensing – sense the future weather patterns.

Other

• Aether Manipulation
• Cosmic Manipulation
• Gravity Manipulation
• Nether Manipulation
• Space-Time Manipulation

From Superpower Wikia. See their complete list of superpowers HERE.

bamonnineties:

khraddict:

ave-aria:

starforgedsteel:

berrybird:

• Sticking a landing will royally fuck up your joints and possibly shatter your ankles, depending on how high you’re jumping/falling from. There’s a very good reason free-runners dive and roll. 
• Hand-to-hand fights usually only last a matter of seconds, sometimes a few minutes. It’s exhausting work and unless you have a lot of training and history with hand-to-hand combat, you’re going to tire out really fast. 
• Arrows are very effective and you can’t just yank them out without doing a lot of damage. Most of the time the head of the arrow will break off inside the body if you try pulling it out, and arrows are built to pierce deep. An arrow wound demands medical attention. 
• Throwing your opponent across the room is really not all that smart. You’re giving them the chance to get up and run away. Unless you’re trying to put distance between you so you can shoot them or something, don’t throw them. 
• Everyone has something called a “flinch response” when they fight. This is pretty much the brain’s way of telling you “get the fuck out of here or we’re gonna die.” Experienced fighters have trained to suppress this. Think about how long your character has been fighting. A character in a fist fight for the first time is going to take a few hits before their survival instinct kicks in and they start hitting back. A character in a fist fight for the eighth time that week is going to respond a little differently. 
• ADRENALINE WORKS AGAINST YOU WHEN YOU FIGHT. THIS IS IMPORTANT. A lot of times people think that adrenaline will kick in and give you some badass fighting skills, but it’s actually the opposite. Adrenaline is what tires you out in a battle and it also affects the fighter’s efficacy – meaning it makes them shaky and inaccurate, and overall they lose about 60% of their fighting skill because their brain is focusing on not dying. Adrenaline keeps you alive, it doesn’t give you the skill to pull off a perfect roundhouse kick to the opponent’s face. 
• Swords WILL bend or break if you hit something hard enough. They also dull easily and take a lot of maintenance. In reality, someone who fights with a sword would have to have to repair or replace it constantly.
• Fights get messy. There’s blood and sweat everywhere, and that will make it hard to hold your weapon or get a good grip on someone. 
• A serious battle also smells horrible. There’s lots of sweat, but also the smell of urine and feces. After someone dies, their bowels and bladder empty. There might also be some questionable things on the ground which can be very psychologically traumatizing. Remember to think about all of the character’s senses when they’re in a fight. Everything WILL affect them in some way. 
• If your sword is sharpened down to a fine edge, the rest of the blade can’t go through the cut you make. You’ll just end up putting a tiny, shallow scratch in the surface of whatever you strike, and you could probably break your sword. 
• ARCHERS ARE STRONG TOO. Have you ever drawn a bow? It takes a lot of strength, especially when you’re shooting a bow with a higher draw weight. Draw weight basically means “the amount of force you have to use to pull this sucker back enough to fire it.” To give you an idea of how that works, here’s a helpful link to tell you about finding bow sizes and draw weights for your characters.  (CLICK ME)
• If an archer has to use a bow they’re not used to, it will probably throw them off a little until they’ve done a few practice shots with it and figured out its draw weight and stability. 
• People bleed. If they get punched in the face, they’ll probably get a bloody nose. If they get stabbed or cut somehow, they’ll bleed accordingly. And if they’ve been fighting for a while, they’ve got a LOT of blood rushing around to provide them with oxygen. They’re going to bleed a lot. 
• Here’s a link to a chart to show you how much blood a person can lose without dying. (CLICK ME) 
• If you want a more in-depth medical chart, try this one. (CLICK ME)

Hopefully this helps someone out there. If you reblog, feel free to add more tips for writers or correct anything I’ve gotten wrong here. 

How to apply Writing techniques for action scenes:

– Short sentences. Choppy. One action, then another. When there’s a lull in the fight, take a moment, using longer phrases to analyze the situation–then dive back in. Snap, snap, snap.
– Same thing with words – short, simple, and strong in the thick of battle. Save the longer syllables for elsewhere.
– Characters do not dwell on things when they are in the heat of the moment. They will get punched in the face. Focus on actions, not thoughts.
– Go back and cut out as many adverbs as possible.
– No seriously, if there’s ever a time to use the strongest verbs in your vocabulary – Bellow, thrash, heave, shriek, snarl, splinter, bolt, hurtle, crumble, shatter, charge, raze – it’s now.
– Don’t forget your other senses. People might not even be sure what they saw during a fight, but they always know how they felt.
– Taste: Dry mouth, salt from sweat, copper tang from blood, etc
– Smell: OP nailed it
– Touch: Headache, sore muscles, tense muscles, exhaustion, blood pounding. Bruised knuckles/bowstring fingers. Injuries that ache and pulse, sting and flare white hot with pain.
– Pain will stay with a character. Even if it’s minor.
– Sound and sight might blur or sharpen depending on the character and their experience/exhaustion. Colors and quick movements will catch the eye. Loud sounds or noises from behind may serve as a fighter’s only alert before an attack.
– If something unexpected happens, shifting the character’s whole attention to that thing will shift the Audience’s attention, too.
– Aftermath. This is where the details resurface, the characters pick up things they cast aside during the fight, both literally and metaphorically. Fights are chaotic, fast paced, and self-centered. Characters know only their self, their goals, what’s in their way, and the quickest way around those threats. The aftermath is when people can regain their emotions, their relationships, their rationality/introspection, and anything else they couldn’t afford to think or feel while their lives were on the line.

Do everything you can to keep the fight here and now. Maximize the physical, minimize the theoretical. Keep things immediate – no theories or what ifs.

If writing a strategist, who needs to think ahead, try this: keep strategy to before-and-after fights. Lay out plans in calm periods, try to guess what enemies are thinking or what they will do. During combat, however, the character should think about his options, enemies, and terrain in immediate terms; that is, in shapes and direction.
(Large enemy rushing me; dive left, circle around / Scaffolding on fire, pool below me / two foes helping each other, separate them.)

Lastly, after writing, read it aloud. Anyplace your tongue catches up on a fast moving scene, edit. Smooth action scenes rarely come on the first try.

More for martial arts or hand-to-hand in general

What a character’s wearing will affect how they fight.  The more restricting the clothes, the harder it will be.  If they’re wearing a skirt that is loose enough to fight in, modesty will be lost in a life or death situation.

Jewelry can also be very bad.  Necklaces can be grabbed onto.  Bracelets also can be grabbed onto or inhibit movement.  Rings it can depend on the person.

Shoes also matter.  Tennis shoes are good and solid, but if you’re unused to them there’s a chance of accidentally hurting your ankle.  High heels can definitely be a problem.  However, they can also make very good weapons, especially for someone used to balancing on the balls of their feet.  Side kicks and thrusting kicks in soft areas (like the solar plexus) or the feet are good ideas.  They can also (hopefully) be taken off quickly and used as a hand weapon.  Combat boots are great but if someone relies more on speed or aren’t used to them, they can weigh a person down.  Cowboy boots can be surprisingly good.  Spin kicks (if a character is quick enough to use them) are especially nasty in these shoes.

If a character is going to fight barefoot, please keep location in mind.  Concrete can mess up your feet quick.  Lawns, yards, etc often have hidden holes and other obstacles that can mess up a fighter.  Tile floors or waxed wood can be very slippery if you’re not careful or used to them.

Likewise, if it’s outside be aware of how weather will affect the fight.  The sun’s glare can really impede a fighter’s sight.  A wet location, inside or outside, can cause a fighter to slip and fall.  Sweat on the body can cause a fighter to lose a grip on an opponent too.

Pressure points for a trained fighter are great places to aim for in a fight.  The solar plexus is another great place to aim for.  It will knock the wind out of anyone and immediately weaken your opponent. 

It your character is hit in the solar plexus and isn’t trained, they’re going down.  The first time you get hit there you are out of breath and most people double over in confusion and pain.  If a fighter is more used to it, they will stand tall and expand themselves in order to get some breath.  They will likely keep fighting, but until their breath returns to normal, they will be considerably weaker.

Do not be afraid to have your character use obstacles in their environment.  Pillars, boxes, bookshelves, doors, etc.  They put distance between you and an opponent which can allow you to catch your breath. 

Do not be afraid to have your character use objects in their environment.  Someone’s coming at you with a spear, trident, etc, then pick up a chair and get it caught in the legs or use it as a shield.  Bedsheets can make a good distraction and tangle someone up.  Someone’s invading your home and you need to defend yourself?  Throw a lamp.  Anything can be turned into a weapon.

Guns often miss their targets at longer distances, even by those who have trained heavily with them.  They can also be easier to disarm as they only shoot in one direction.  However, depending on the type, grabbing onto the top is a very very bad idea.  There is a good likelihood you WILL get hurt.

Knives are nasty weapons by someone who knows what they’re doing.  Good fighters never hold a knife the way you would when cutting food.  It is best used when held against the forearm.  In defense, this makes a block more effective and in offense, slashing movement from any direction are going to be bad.  If a character is in a fight with a knife or trying to disarm one, they will get hurt. 

Soft areas hit with hard body parts.  Hard areas hit with soft body parts.  The neck, stomach, and other soft areas are best hit with punches, side kicks, elbows, and other hard body parts.  Head and other hard parts are best hit using a knife hand, palm strike, etc.  Spin kicks will be nasty regardless of what you’re aiming for it they land.

Common misconception with round house kicks is that you’re hitting with the top of the foot.  You’re hitting with the ball.  You’re likely to break your foot when hitting with the top.

When punching, the thumb is outside of the fist.  You’ll break something if you’re hitting with the thumb inside, which a lot of inexperienced fighters do. 

Also, punching the face or jaw can hurt. 

It can be hard to grab a punch if you’re not experienced with it despite how easy movies make it seem.  It’s best to dodge or redirect it.

Hitting to the head is not always the best idea.  It can take a bit of training to be able to reach for the head with a kick because of the height.  Flexibility is very much needed.  If there are problems with their hips or they just aren’t very flexible, kicks to the head aren’t happening.

Jump kicks are a good way to hit the head, but an opponent will see it coming if it’s too slow or they are fast/experienced.

A good kick can throw an opponent back or knock them to the ground.  If the person you’ve hit has experience though, they’ll immediately be getting up again.

Even if they’ve trained for years in a martial art, if they haven’t actually hit anything before or gotten hit, it will be slightly stunning for the person.  It does not feel the way you expect it too.

Those yells in martial arts are not just for show.  If done right, they tighten your core making it easier to take a hit in that area.  Also, they can be used to intimidate an opponent.  Yelling or screaming right by their ear can startle someone.  (Generally, KHR fans look at Squalo for yelling)

Biting can also be used if someone’s grabbing you.  Spitting in someone’s eyes can’t hurt.  Also, in a chokehold or if someone is trying to grab your neck in general, PUT YOU CHIN DOWN.  This cuts off access and if they’re grabbing in the front can dig into their hand and hurt.

Wrist grabs and other grabs can be good.  Especially if it’s the first move an opponent makes and the character is trained, there are simple ways to counter that will have a person on their knees in seconds..

Use what your character has to their advantage.  If they’re smaller or have less mass, then they’ll be relying on speed, intelligence, evasion, and other similar tactics.  Larger opponents will be able to take hits better, they’re hits may be slower depending on who it is but will hurt like hell if they land, and size can be intimidating.   Taller people with longer legs will want to rely on kicking and keeping their distance since they have the advantage there.  Shorter people will want to keep the distance closer where it’s easier for them but harder for a taller opponent.  Punching is a good idea.

Using a person’s momentum against them is great.  There’s martial arts that revolve around this whole concept.  They throw a punch?  Grab it and pull them forward and around.  Their momentum will keep them going and knock them off balance. 

Leverage can used in the same way.  If used right, you can flip a person, dislocate a shoulder, throw out a knee, etc.

One note on adrenaline:  All that was said above is true about it.  But, in a fight, it can also make you more aware of what’s going on.  A fight that lasts twenty seconds can feel like a minute because time seems to almost slow down while moving extremely rapidly.  You only have so much time to think about what you’re doing.  You’re taking in information constantly and trying to adjust.  Even in the slow down adrenaline gives you, everything is moving very rapidly. 

Feelings will be your downfall even more so than adrenaline.  Adrenaline can make those feelings more intense, but a good fighter has learned not to listen to those feelings.  A good fighter may feel anger at being knocked down or in some way humiliated – their pride taken down.  Yet they will not act on the anger.  Acting on it makes a fighter more instinctive and many will charge without thinking.  Losing control of anything (adrenaline rush, emotions, technique, etc) can be a terrible thing in a fight.

Just thought I’d add in here.

YES. YES.

ambientwriting:

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOUR BETA READERS:

When I send out my chapter to be read over by my beta readers, I always include a set of questions typed out at the bottom, grouped into different categories such as: plot, pacing, character, setting, etc. 

You might want to tailor the questions depending on the genre or which chapter it is. For example, if it’s the first chapter you’ll want to ask them about how well your story managed to hook them, or if they managed to easily get an idea of the world you’ve introduced them to. If it’s the climax you might want to ask if the action scenes are fluid, and if the plot twist/s were predictable or surprising. 

Here’s some example questions that you could use:

Opening Chapter:

• What is your first impression of the main character? Do you find them likable? Annoying? Boring?
• After reading it for the first time, what is your first impression? Was it cohesive and compelling? Boring and confusing?
• Did the first sentence/paragraph/page efficiently grab your attention and hook you in?
• If you were to read this chapter in a bookstore/library would you be convinced to buy it? Or would you need to read further before deciding? Why or why not?
• Did you get oriented fairly quickly at the beginning as to whose story it is, what’s going on, and where and when it’s taking place? If not, what were you confused about at the beginning?
• Does the first chapter establish the main character efficiently? Do they feel believable?

Characters:

• Could you clearly imagine what the characters looked like? If not, who?
• Who was your favourite character and why? Has your favourite character changed? (if this hasn’t changed feel free to skip this question) 
• Are there any characters that you do not like? Why do you not like them? (Boring, annoying, problematic, etc.) 
• Was there ever a moment when you found yourself annoyed or frustrated by a character? 
• Could you relate to the main character? Did you empathise with their motivation or find yourself indifferent? 
• Were the characters goals/motivations clear and understandable? 
• Did you get confused about who’s who? Are there too many characters to keep track of? Are any of the names or characters too similar?
• Do the characters feel three-dimensional or like cardboard cutouts? 
• How familiar have you become with the main characters? Without cheating could you name the four main characters? Can you remember their appearance? Can you remember their goal or motivation? 

Dialogue:

• Did the dialogue seem natural to you?
• Was there ever a moment where you didn’t know who was talking?

Setting/world-building:

• Were you able to visualize where and when the story is taking place?
• Is the setting realistic and believable? 
• How well do you remember the setting? Without cheating, can you name four important settings?

Genre:

• Did anything about the story seem cliche or tired to you? How so? 
• Did anything you read (character, setting, etc.) remind you of any others works? (Books, movies, etc.) 

Plot/pacing/scenes:

• Do you feel there were any unnecessary scenes/moments that deserved to be deleted or cut back?
• Do the scenes flow naturally and comprehensively at an appropriate pace? Did you ever feel like they were jumping around the place? 
• Was there ever a moment where you attention started to lag, or the chapter begun to drag? Particular paragraph numbers would be very helpful. 
• Did you ever come across a sentence that took you out of the moment, or you had to reread to understand fully? 
• Was the writing style fluid and easy to read? Stilted? Purple prose-y? Awkward?
• Did you notice any discrepancies or inconsistencies in facts, places, character details, plot, etc.?

Additional questions:

• What three things did you like? What three things did you not like? 
• Can you try predicting any upcoming plot twists or outcomes? 
• Was there ever a moment when your suspension of disbelief was tested? 
• Is there anything you’d personally change about the story? 
• Was the twist expected or surprising? Do you feel that the foreshadowing was almost nonexistent, or heavy handed? 

Feel free to tailor these to your needs or ignore some of them if you don’t think they’re useful. Basically, your questions are about finding out the information about how others perceive your own writing and how you can improve your story.

-Lana

petermorwood:

sirobvious:

You often see armies in medieval fantasy settings all charging at each other out of formation with swords and it makes me cringe. Nobody did that–they all used polearms–and there’s reasons why.

1. Polearms are cheap: A spear is just a long stick with a knife on the end. It doesn’t take very much steel to make one and if the shaft breaks you can just reuse the spear tip easily by attaching it to another shaft. Nearly every every other polearm in existence is some variation of the simple spear and they all pretty much work this way. You could arm an army with spears cheaper and more quickly than with swords.

2. Polearms are effective in combat: Whether in a tight formation or not, having a longer weapon(to a certain upper limit of course) than your enemy is an advantage. He’s in your ‘danger zone’ before you’re in his ‘danger zone’. You can stab him before you yourself are even threatened, so usually armies sprang for the longest weapons available: Polearms. 

3. Polearms are easy: Anyone can pick up a spear and learn to use it with some effectiveness within a few days; all you do is hold it in front of you and move it back and forth. An army training to use spears are going to be combat-ready months before an army training to use anything else, and you really don’t want your enemy’s army to be ready before you are, so most armies will go with the fastest, easiest possible thing. Also, there’s no shame in using an “easy” weapon. If a single mistake could literally get you killed, wouldn’t you want to be carrying the weapon that gives you the largest possible margin for error? In real warfare, easier is better, which is why militarizes switched to muskets even when the longbow was better in every way except for the time it took to master.

This isn’t to say that shorter weapons weren’t used or weren’t effective, because they were, but they were often carried as backup weapons in case your spear broke or you lost it or something, or if you wanted to travel alone through a dangerous area and didn’t want to carry around a cumbersome spear or something. 

If we’re to use a modern analogy, a spear is your assault rifle and a sword/handaxe/mace is your pistol. 

@sirobvious makes a lot of (inevitable pun)
good points

about using spears in fantasy and historical-fiction battle scenes: cheapness if kept simple, definitely; effectiveness in combat, certainly; relative ease of use in certain periods and circumstances, yes indeed. You can hold ‘em, you can throw them, you can poke them like a stick.

Here are a few more details…

Polearms
are what TVTropes calls a “Blade on a Stick” – sometimes they were easy to
use, at other times they needed as much training as anything else. I’m going to
ignore halberds, bills, partizans, voulges, glaives, ranseurs, corseques, ox-tongues, Bohemian earspoons and all the other
complicated conglomerations of blades, spikes, hammers and hooks.

Let’s just
look at the basic pointy stick, AKA, the spear.

On the
good side, as Fred Colon of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch is well aware, a really long
spear means all the unpleasantness happens far away. On the bad side, if the
other guy has a similar long spear, his unpleasantness is equally far away from him,
but uncomfortably close to you.

Greek
hoplites and Saxons/Vikings used their spears (about 8 feet long) in the
hoplite phalanx and shield-wall, along with large shields. The first
and second row spears could reach the enemy, the rest were in reserve.

This is one of the more famous shield-walls, Harold’s housecarls at Hastings:

They’re shown with long Norman shields even though Saxon shields were usually round with a pronounced boss; there are a couple in the battle scenes…

…but I suspect the ladies doing the needlework had easiest access to Norman military kit for reference. These re-enactors mostly carry round shields; the scattering of Norman ones may be there to represent what’s shown in the tapestry or perhaps a re-enactor with kit for both sides.

The
Greek Phalanx looked like this:

Keep reading

ten-and-donna:

broliloquy:

protect-lgbtqia-kids:

eggcup:

run-up-the-sail:

pisshets:

If you add two pounds of sugar to literally one ton of concrete it will ruin the concrete and make it unable to set properly which is good to know if you wanna resist something being built, French anarchists used this to resist prison construction in the 80s

I’m just gonna go ahead and reblog this for purely educational purposes.

added bonus is that concrete now taste good

Sugar does not really do that.

What you need is citric acid (you get that to get the hard water residues out of your pots/water boiler/washing machine), looks like sugar granules.

Or concentrated vinegar.

Cement needs a high ph to bind properly.
So if you add acid, it won’t properly set and/or needs 3-4 times longer.

Speaking as someone who works in the concrete forming industry: the easiest way to severely fuck up any large concrete pour is to delay it at the wrong moment.

If someone is trying to build a huge fuckoff concrete thing – say, for instance, a giant wall – they’re going to need an obscene quantity of concrete, and that’s all going to have to be transported there from the nearest mixing plant. This means they’ll have multiple trucks coming by to decant concrete in consecutive pours while the workers place it and vibrate it to ensure it all intermixes and sets properly, forming a monolithic mass. If one pour is allowed to set before the next one is added, you get a big, ugly, possibly structurally unsound gap between the two called a “cold joint.” A bad enough cold joint can completely fuck your whole project because the next engineer or inspector who sets foot on that site is going to take one look at that motherfucker and immediately embark on a quest for blood vengeance. You will literally have to cut that whole section of wall out, slap some dowels in the nearest structurally sound bits, and re-form and pour the offending segment from scratch, which represents a fortune in cost overruns and will make everyone involved very upset. This is an especially bad problem in hot climates, because the concrete curing process is exothermic – that stuff sets much faster when it’s really hot out, and its 28-day compressive strength tends to be poorer as well.

So if, hypothetically speaking, you wanted to completely shit up a wannabe dictator’s enormous unfeasible poured concrete vanity project, you could literally just randomly hassle and delay every concrete truck on its way there. Dude’s gonna end up with a giant worthless pile of shitty crumbling concrete and exposed reinforcing steel, and an army of pissed-off contractors to boot.

reblogging for purely educational purposes nothing more