Long-term psychological effects of physical isolation
2026-03-16 04:12![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
voidbeetles posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
little_detailsHi!
I have a character in a sci-fi universe who ends up "shipwrecked" alone on a completely uninhabited planet for two years. The planet, and the specific environment he lands in, are perfectly habitable by humans (we are in soft scifi territory here, very Star Trek inspired) and he's able to survive with some effort. (The details of how are not really important to the story - I know at least that he's the kind of guy who'd be able to salvage some tech and emergency supplies from his wrecked ship, and I'm comfortable with brushing past the details of what exactly he brought with him - but if anyone's really interested in coming at it from that logistical angle, I won't stop you!)
What is more relevant to the story is how this experience would continue to affect him by the time he's back home safely. I think there are a bunch of possible avenues here and I'd love to see people's takes on how they would approach this or approach researching it. For example, here are some of my cursory thoughts:
I have a character in a sci-fi universe who ends up "shipwrecked" alone on a completely uninhabited planet for two years. The planet, and the specific environment he lands in, are perfectly habitable by humans (we are in soft scifi territory here, very Star Trek inspired) and he's able to survive with some effort. (The details of how are not really important to the story - I know at least that he's the kind of guy who'd be able to salvage some tech and emergency supplies from his wrecked ship, and I'm comfortable with brushing past the details of what exactly he brought with him - but if anyone's really interested in coming at it from that logistical angle, I won't stop you!)
What is more relevant to the story is how this experience would continue to affect him by the time he's back home safely. I think there are a bunch of possible avenues here and I'd love to see people's takes on how they would approach this or approach researching it. For example, here are some of my cursory thoughts:
- PTSD is certainly a likely long-term complication
- It's implied that his shipwrecking was not an accident/was engineered maliciously - I imagine this is something he has dwelt on heavily throughout the two years and will affect his ability to trust people (and to visit other uninhabited planets in the future!). Seems like it would be easy to get caught in delusional spirals in a situation like that.
- I know that prolonged isolation can cause hallucination/psychosis in some cases, especially in solitary confinement, sensory deprivation contexts, etc. Is that as much of a risk in this case? And if so, do you think he'd still be experiencing psychotic symptoms after the fact?
- One of his personality traits is that he's fairly attention-seeking - I think it's likely this incident will exacerbate that and make him more desperate for connection
- It'll probably alter how he approaches social situations in the future in general; that's something I'll definitely be thinking about
- Perhaps he got into the habit of talking to himself on the planet, and this never went away
Paul R. Ehrlich is dead
2026-03-15 22:31james_davis_nicollFinally.
Interestingly, although he died a couple of days ago, I couldn't find a news article to which I felt comfortable linking.
Interestingly, although he died a couple of days ago, I couldn't find a news article to which I felt comfortable linking.
(no subject)
2026-03-15 22:26sorcyressWe're bad at everything. Let's write down the things we've done today:
***
I wrote all of the above earlier. I've since finished all the laundry --it appears that the shirts no longer smell, so success-- and gone to demo team and hung out with Maia some, so all of that is quite good.
I couldn't maintain GOGOGO the entire day, but also like, I shouldn't have to? I shouldn't in general? It is important to do mindless fuckoff stuff as well as Srs Useful Stuff? Yeah.
I hope you are well. <3
~Sor
MOOP!
- Brushed hair
- Braided hair
- Ate Breakfast, also caught up on comics and even read a bit of Dreamwidth finally (I miss y'all, it's another symptom of the same Problem that is my brain right now.)
- Unloaded dishwasher, reloaded dishwasher
- Brought the load of laundry that's been in the dryer for three days upstairs finally (thanks Rey for basketing it, sorry to have left it)
- Brought a bunch of laundry downstairs, started it (load two is just in the washer now, and load one in the dryer)
- Switched my stuffies from their hamper into a steralite bin, eventually this will turn into like...one of those ottomans that opens up and you can store blankets (or stuffed animals) in but then it has a surface instead of being an amorphous blob sticking out of the top of a hamper, bonus, was able to use the hamper for my spare quilts/heavy blankets, double bonus, went through the stuffies a little and have some I can maybe give away.
- Folded most of the laundry from that old load, while putting it away, successfully went through underwear drawer and pulled out the "good enough to keep but I'm not going to wear it regularly" stuff to put in the "save for Pinewoods" box
(At Pinewoods I would like to have approximately three pairs of underwear a day. If I do something absolutely batshit crazy this year, that will change, but I want to have the option to be able to wear clean underwear always.) - Also socks, pulled out a handful of pairs I don't like so I stop wearing them by accident and being all :/ about it, also pulled out all the pairs that I know have big holes (they're currently due for the trash, but I may put some into my scraps bag instead)
- Got stuck in a serious yak shaving rabbit hole but I think I have finally managed to put the additional music I wanted onto my phone, and also I have taken off last year's photos, which is important because now my phone should run smoother? Anyways, that took forever but now I can listen to music while I do additional chores? Seems fake. I'm into it!
- I also reset the "accessories" boxen, which technically go with socks --long stockings, tights, kilt hose and accessories, suspenders and belts, scarves/pashminas. It's been a while, so that was good.
- I'm now sitting down to eat lunch. Laundry load two is on my bed upstairs to put away, load three is in the dryer, four in the washer. (I'm aiming for like...six? It wouldn't be so high, but a) I have been slipping on the "own more than one set of sheets so that you don't get trapped with an unmade bed by having all your sheets dirty at once" and so I need to catch up there *and* there's been some sort of funky smell in my t-shirts boxen for a couple months and I'm not sure what's up with that, but I think step one is probably just wash _all_ my t-shirts.
On the plus side, that latter problem doesn't seem to be anywhere in my dresser except my shirts, so that's a good sign? I guess? I mean, mostly it just means there's probably not, like, a dead mouse behind my dresser or something (a thing I would not be able to rationally deal with)).
***
I wrote all of the above earlier. I've since finished all the laundry --it appears that the shirts no longer smell, so success-- and gone to demo team and hung out with Maia some, so all of that is quite good.
I couldn't maintain GOGOGO the entire day, but also like, I shouldn't have to? I shouldn't in general? It is important to do mindless fuckoff stuff as well as Srs Useful Stuff? Yeah.
I hope you are well. <3
~Sor
MOOP!
and now for something completely different
2026-03-15 17:01muccamukkThe YouTube algorithm has seen my interest in figure skating and started offering me classical ballet (I think, always difficult to tell how one gets where one ends up).
So I've been watching bits and pieces of that, as well as all of The Royal Ballet's Cinderella. I therefore offer you some fully random observations, from someone who never got into any kind of dance as a kid, and therefore knows baaaaaasically nothing about the topic. (I have been to several ballets in person, The Nutcracker of course, and the Winnipeg Ballet's Svengali..)
Which is all I have for now.
So I've been watching bits and pieces of that, as well as all of The Royal Ballet's Cinderella. I therefore offer you some fully random observations, from someone who never got into any kind of dance as a kid, and therefore knows baaaaaasically nothing about the topic. (I have been to several ballets in person, The Nutcracker of course, and the Winnipeg Ballet's Svengali..)
- I like classical ballet (I'm not really watching modern) because it's quite ridiculous, and unconnected to anything that has ever happened on the face of the Earth.
- I have learned that there's dialogue! Classical ballet has a kind of sign language, done through gestures, so that the dancers can explain plot points such as "We make evil men dance until they die!" and "This lake is made of my mother's tears!"
- There does not seem to be much point to the male principal dancers. They have thighs like birch trees, which allows them to leap impressively high in the air, but they don't spin around on nothing but their big toe, which makes them less interesting to watch. Their main purposes seems to be to move the plot along, and act as a "Ballerina holder upper."
- Maybe it's just because I'm not good enough at reading the mime, but the romantic dances are... not very romantic. They mostly seem to be the ballerina holder upper holding up the ballerina while she spins around on her big toe.
- I don't know if there's non-transphobic/misogynistic way to do the comedy roles where male dancers play female characters, but Cinderella sure didn't manage it.
- The plot of Giselle is really interesting (boy meets girl, girl dies when she finds out that boy has a fiancée, girl joins chorus of vengeful ghosts, vengeful ghosts attempt to kill boy, girl saves boy), and I wonder if there have been modern retellings like there have of other old fairytales.
- I'm pretty sure the human body is not designed to do any of that.
Which is all I have for now.
Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore
2026-03-15 08:50james_davis_nicoll
Hodge would like nothing better than to study American history. Be careful what you wish for.
Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore
Books Received, March 7 — March 13
2026-03-14 12:21james_davis_nicoll
Seven books new to me: four fantasies, one science fantasy, one science fiction, and I am not sure how to categorize the Shepard. At least three are series books.
Books Received, March 7 — March 13
Poll #34364 Books Received, March 7 — March 13
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 39
Which of these look interesting?
View Answers
The Lion and the Deathless Dark by Carissa Broadbent (July 2026)
4 (10.3%)
Teach Me to Prey by Jenni Howell (December 2026)
0 (0.0%)
Heart of Thieves by Jessica S. Olson (September 2026)
0 (0.0%)
The Dagger in Vichy by Alastair Reynolds (October 2025)
16 (41.0%)
Crows and Silences by Lucius Shepard (December 2024)
15 (38.5%)
Engines of Reason by Adrian Tchaikovsky (September 2026)
20 (51.3%)
The Heart of the Reproach by Adrian Tchaikovsky (July 2025)
16 (41.0%)
Some other option (see comments)
1 (2.6%)
Cats!
26 (66.7%)
Streaming Some Once Upon A Galaxy
2026-03-13 19:11![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
pennyarcade_feedIf you like what you see, you can play it pretty much anywhere. Next Friday I'm gonna teach Dabe how to play on some sponsored stuff - now he's wrapping up all the video walls for PAX East, so he's gonna have to watch the stream if he's gonna bone up. Join me right here if you want to see what I am typically doing between miodnight and one in the morning.
(CW)TB
One More Reason the Aliens Might Be Avoiding Us
2026-03-13 10:06james_davis_nicoll
Is the current location of our Solar System the reason no one's coming to visit?
One More Reason the Aliens Might Be Avoiding Us
The Language of Liars by S L Huang
2026-03-13 09:08james_davis_nicoll
A linguist goes undercover to unravel a xenological puzzle whose answer is in plain view.
The Language of Liars by S L Huang
Paint manufacture, storage and transport in Napoleonic Europe
2026-03-13 22:05hyarrowen posting in little_detailsFor large-scale projects, specifically for ships. All my ship-related resources for the era are for the British Navy, and books on colour that I've read have been on artists' paints or dyes.
How would a French Imperial Navy vessel be painted, not at one of the big shipyards? Would it be mixed up on site from raw ingredients, or bought in? Would there be barrels, buckets with lids, cannisters, vats or what - and what would the paint be made of?
Searching online produces info on painting scale models, or contemporary pictures of ships. I found a chapter on ship decoration in Conway's History of the Ship: The Line of Battle but that doesn't have the early-in-the-process details I want. I found an article on the pre-Revolutionary Navy in the International Journal of Maritime History, by David Plouviez, that's too early and still doesn't cover paint.
Thank-you in advance.
How would a French Imperial Navy vessel be painted, not at one of the big shipyards? Would it be mixed up on site from raw ingredients, or bought in? Would there be barrels, buckets with lids, cannisters, vats or what - and what would the paint be made of?
Searching online produces info on painting scale models, or contemporary pictures of ships. I found a chapter on ship decoration in Conway's History of the Ship: The Line of Battle but that doesn't have the early-in-the-process details I want. I found an article on the pre-Revolutionary Navy in the International Journal of Maritime History, by David Plouviez, that's too early and still doesn't cover paint.
Thank-you in advance.
podcast friday
2026-03-13 07:26sabotabby Let's take a little break from reality and talk about romantasy! Escapist tales of fucking fairies and immortal elves and nothing to do with politics whatsoever, right?
Okay you know whose blog you're reading here. Two new-to-me podcasts with great names, Ordinary Unhappiness and In Bed With the Right, did a crossover episode, "Romantasy, Fantasy, and Trauma." For someone who has never read a romantasy (but read a lot of the precursors) I'm kind of obsessed with it as a genre and even more obsessed with the discourse around it.
Disregarding the people whose opinions I don't care about, there are kind of two opposing takes on its appeal.
This is a fundamentally conservative genre that encourages women to become tradwives and relish in our own oppression.
This is actually a liberatory genre that allows women to explore their fantasies and traumas.
I don't think either side is fully right or wrong here, and that tension is worth exploring. This episode starts from two positions that many critics and admirers of the genre neglect: That women have agency, and that not everything women like is inherently feminist. From there it looks at where the romantasy boom came from, what its appeal is, and what it says about the psychology of its readers. I came away without a spicy take beyond that it turns out that a lot of the stories I wrote and never showed anyone when I was in my teens and twenties actually fit pretty neatly into the genre, which means that either BookTok girlies and I read a lot of the same books growing up, or there's something very deep in our culture that it speaks to, such that we reproduce the tropes unthinkingly.
I also find it interesting (not really discussed on this episode) that for all that the romance formula is reified into tropes and beats and commercial genre fiction is expected to at least somewhat engage with word counts and structure, romantasy really does appear to be an exception, and you can still write and sell stupidly long books in which nothing much happens, and no one complains about it. Dear Publishing Industry: Another world is possible.
Okay you know whose blog you're reading here. Two new-to-me podcasts with great names, Ordinary Unhappiness and In Bed With the Right, did a crossover episode, "Romantasy, Fantasy, and Trauma." For someone who has never read a romantasy (but read a lot of the precursors) I'm kind of obsessed with it as a genre and even more obsessed with the discourse around it.
Disregarding the people whose opinions I don't care about, there are kind of two opposing takes on its appeal.
This is a fundamentally conservative genre that encourages women to become tradwives and relish in our own oppression.
This is actually a liberatory genre that allows women to explore their fantasies and traumas.
I don't think either side is fully right or wrong here, and that tension is worth exploring. This episode starts from two positions that many critics and admirers of the genre neglect: That women have agency, and that not everything women like is inherently feminist. From there it looks at where the romantasy boom came from, what its appeal is, and what it says about the psychology of its readers. I came away without a spicy take beyond that it turns out that a lot of the stories I wrote and never showed anyone when I was in my teens and twenties actually fit pretty neatly into the genre, which means that either BookTok girlies and I read a lot of the same books growing up, or there's something very deep in our culture that it speaks to, such that we reproduce the tropes unthinkingly.
I also find it interesting (not really discussed on this episode) that for all that the romance formula is reified into tropes and beats and commercial genre fiction is expected to at least somewhat engage with word counts and structure, romantasy really does appear to be an exception, and you can still write and sell stupidly long books in which nothing much happens, and no one complains about it. Dear Publishing Industry: Another world is possible.
Letter to NSF regarding NCAR
2026-03-13 02:10flwydIn the winter of my funemployment I didn't expect to receive a research project and homework, but then the Trump administration announced it intended to "dismantle" NCAR, the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The National Science Foundation published a Dear Colleague Letter requesting input and proposals for splitting up work done by NCAR. Notably absent from that letter was the word "climate," despite the OMB director's announcement that NCAR was a leading source of "climate alarmism."
This proposal to disrupt a key institution in my home town led me to spend weeks researching NCAR's organization structure, mission, computing infrastructure, and data sets so I can craft a persuasive letter to NSF and (more importantly) be useful if someone spins up an effort to save NCAR's data and provide a plan B organization for its valuable services. So far I haven't gotten wind of such an effort, but I'm keeping my ears to the ground. Maybe we'll need to enlist the help of Woody Allen to exfiltrate the data on magnetic tape.
Also, personal message to LinkedIn: if I search for NCAR I do not want to see posts about cars or the auto industry.
This proposal to disrupt a key institution in my home town led me to spend weeks researching NCAR's organization structure, mission, computing infrastructure, and data sets so I can craft a persuasive letter to NSF and (more importantly) be useful if someone spins up an effort to save NCAR's data and provide a plan B organization for its valuable services. So far I haven't gotten wind of such an effort, but I'm keeping my ears to the ground. Maybe we'll need to enlist the help of Woody Allen to exfiltrate the data on magnetic tape.
Also, personal message to LinkedIn: if I search for NCAR I do not want to see posts about cars or the auto industry.
It's Here!
2026-03-12 21:00muccamukkNational Theatre's Importance of Being Earnest (2025)
Free to view now until the 18th, GMT, I assume.
Free to view now until the 18th, GMT, I assume.