Outofambit - Out Of Ambit

I know you guys want me to draw different characters, but I love Nita so much :’)

[GWP said something about her wearing a floofy flowery dress so I had to] 

Astronomers have discovered the largest known structure in the universe, a clump of active galactic cores that stretch 4 billion light-years from end to end. The structure is a light quasar group (LQG), a collection of extremely luminous Galactic Nulcei powered by supermassive central black holes.

Some magical sisters from my absolute favorite book series of all time: the Young Wizards series! It’s really under-appreciated tbh and I, 10/10, recommend it!! Anyway, even if you haven’t read it, you still can appreciate the art I guess  ◕ ‿ ◕

Definitive list of whales, ranked.

Right Whale: It has an upside-down head — a bold move that pays off.

Sperm Whale: Has a silly name but really excels in all areas of being a whale: staying underwater, fighting squid, spraying sonar around the sea, looking like an ocean bus. Having teeth rather than baleen means not having to eat krill.

Narwhal: Sea unicorn that has ocean sword fights. Slightly less cool when you realize its horn is actually a big tooth, making it the whale version of this.

Orca: Doesn’t look anything like the other whales and hangs out around the Pacific Northwest, so it’s basically the hipster whale. Eats real food like seals rather than krill. Was in Free Willy, but, then again, was in Free Willy. Kind of an asshole, but you can’t argue with success. Secret shame: actually a dolphin.

Humpback Whale: Basic canonical whale. Has good press. Bit too mainstream, really.

Beluga Whale: Ongoing experiment in whether white privilege applies to cetaceans.

Blue Whale: Coasting on its size; must try harder.

Gray Whale: Blue whale that’s smaller and more boring.

Minke Whale: Kinda puny for a whale.

Fin Whale: Second biggest animal in the world, i.e. the first loser. Described by Roy Chapman Andrews as the “greyhound of the sea,” and we all know what Captain Hank Murphy of Sealab said about greyhounds. (”Too pointy.”)

Beaked whale: You are not a bird, please reconsider your choices.

Pilot Whale: Dolphin with ideas above its station.

Fuck It, Let's Talk About Wizards

I currently view this blog as a way for me to rant about math and stories without anyone being forced to be my audience. So let’s get on with it!

I am going to rant about my all-time favorite book series: The Young Wizards Series by Diane Duane.

SHUT UP. I know what you are thinking, imaginary reader, and YOU ARE WRONG. This is totally not a Harry Potter knockoff. The series was actually started way before Harry Potter. But to assuage your worries, I will list all the things this series has in common with Harry Potter:

It’s about people between the ages of 11 and 17.

Said people have some sort of supernatural powers that could be deemed ‘magical.’

That’s it. That’s the only ways they’re similar. 

Weirdly enough, Young Wizards actually has way more in common with Doctor Who than Harry Potter. Even though it’s basically fantasy, the stories feel much more like science fiction. 

All right, let’s get on with this. I know what you’re thinking, because I can read the minds of all my imaginary readers.

SO WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT ANYWAYS?

Basically, magic is real. It’s given out by “The Powers That Be,” basically the gods, to a bunch of people around the Universe. So that they can fight “The Lone Power,” who is basically Satan.

Yes, Satan. Voldemort doesn’t seem so scary now, does he?

Our protagonists, Kit and Nita, are kids that are both chosen for this. “Chosen” actually makes it sound a lot more organized than it really is. Basically, you find a book that tells you how to do magic and what it’s supposed to be used for. If you take the Wizard’s Oath, you now have magical powers. And as a sort of “welcome to the magical powers club” gift, you now have to immediately go fight Satan in a terrifying Ordeal. It’s fucking awesome.

So the first book, So You Want to be a Wizard, chronicles this Ordeal. After that, things get a bit more varied. The protagonists mainly just travel around the Universe, going on dangerous missions, and fighting Satan.

Yes, the Universe. Being basically the warriors of the gods, they are not confined to Earth. This is a fantasy book with aliens in it. Awesome aliens. Some of them are bad, some of them are good, some of them are also wizards. This is, in short, the books you have been waiting for: the books where MAGIC KIDS AND ALSO  MAGIC ALIENS FIGHT SATAN oh shit that sounds kind of like Homestuck.

The reason these books are my favorites of all time is because they never get old. Most kids’ books are awesome as a kid and kind of lame as an adult. I have loved these no matter how old I am. I loved them in elementary school and I still do now, in college. And not nostalgic love either, where I just like them because I used to. They’re still exactly as good.

It’s not even in the Harry Potter ‘they grow up with you’ way. Like, when you read The Philosopher’s Stone now, it’s not as good as it was when you were a kid. The first couple Young Wizards books are slightly more childish than the others. Slightly.  The series starts off fairly dark and stays that way. Shit gets real. People die. Sacrifices are made. Difficult moral questions are confronted.

One of my favorite parts of this setup is that it’s still our universe. The kids have to hide their powers from the world at large and still show up to school and do normal kid stuff. They have to cope with all that crap while constantly risking their lives to fight evil. And the magic isn’t easy either. 

All right, this rant is getting kind of ridiculously long, so I’ll leave you with one last comment. This is the kind of series where you are constantly fistpumping and yelling “HOLY SHIT” (and terrifying the people around you) because crazy awesome stuff goes down a lot. 

Here is the list of the books so far, in case you want to read them (you should):

So You Want to be a Wizard (Kids get powers, go on their ordeal)

Deep Wizardry (There’s no way I can describe this without it sounding stupid, but it’s awesome, trust me)

High Wizardry (One of the ones where a lot of crazy awesome shit goes down)

A Wizard Abroad 

A Wizard’s Dilemma 

A Wizard Alone 

Wizard’s Holiday 

Wizards at War (HOLY SHIT GUYS THIS ONE IS AWESOME)

A Wizard of Mars

I had to do a "home budget" project in econ during high school, and we had to "buy a car" as part of our budget planning and so I used a listing for one of these as my "purchase" because I am nothing if not a massive nerd. It still delights me to think about. ^__^

I'm desperately trying to look for the specific model of Lotus that you referenced in the first of the Young Wizard series. I've been wanting to draw a storyboard for a long while for it and for some reason Google is useless.

It's this one: the Lotus Turbo Esprit. Lovely, lovely thing that it was...

(Sorry, the YouTube video seems to have failed to insert correctly. But check it out:  https://youtu.be/CQnOusKNDKs)

...Later in the eighties they softened its lines down. But this is the one that made me stop and stare when I passed by the Lotus showroom in Manhattan in ‘81...

Twice a year, you may experience some degree of television interference due to sun outages.

RCN I have news for you, if the sun goes out I am not going to be worried about missing Wheel of Fortune.

(Sun Outages are actually when the sun moves directly behind a TV satellite and interferes with its signal, which makes it sound like the sun is photobombing my TV, but “sun outages” just made me lol.)

guys

guys

less than three months til the games wizard play release

You know, I think the biggest disappointment of my childhood was not failing to receive my Hogwart’s letter (or the American equivalent). I mean yes, there was a stretch the summer I was eleven where I was hopeful, but September first came around and I sort of shrugged and accepted it (possibly with some relief because I didn’t want to go so far away from Mama and Da).

No. The real disappointment was that the Wizard’s Oath from Diane Duane’s Young Wizards never took. I don’t know how many times I read that oath out loud and then held my breath and hoped. Hoped, hoped, hoped that I would wake up the next morning and the book wouldn’t just be Nita and Kit’s adventure, but would be in the Speech. It never was.

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Never understood why I love black holes so much, there’s something about them that just pulls you in.