#BUT ONLY GOES ABOUT THE SAME AS THAT ONE SPACE MISSILE

[bugg-bonez]

HELLO!! Me again from the HungryHog/Werehog comment !! So, your old version of the HH!Story included the BitterBlood fic, and there was a line in there that made a LOT of sense with canon Sonic to me, and so like any normal person does, I made a MatPat theorist corkboard on the idea-

Sane things, yk.

BASICALLY, The line where Sonic said he's been holding back for the ENTIRE canon made SO MUCH SENSE because of the fact Sonic has always been described as faster than the speed of light, (hence why he's CALLED Sonic, because of. Yk. Supersonic speed.) and yet only goes about 700+ mph. Which is very possible in reality, so what's the deal? HE'S LITERALLY HOLDING BACK. BECAUSE. THE NO KILL RULE HE HAS MEANS IF WE WAS TO NOT HOLD BACK, HE COULD POSSIBLY HURT OR EVEN KILL SOMEONE ON ACCIDENT. Because he'd be going SO FAST that it would, like in the fic, LEAVE A CRATER. that could VERY WELL harm and or kill someone. So it MAKES SENSE.

THis either was not the intention at all or was the exact intention,either way it's my canon now, it makes more sense for my sanity on why he's so slow compared to how he's described in the canon.

Ok thx for coming to my ted talk BYEEE XP

-♾️

HungryHeroAU FULL TIMELINE (until I decide to change it again…)

WARNING: this au is a horror au! And it will cover topics such as; Cannibalism, death, child death, gore, guilt, depression, implied suicidal thoughts, implied self harm, violence, ETC… this au is NOT for children or people easily disturbed

Prologue(remade)- Part1 Part2 Part3 Part4 Part5 Part6 Part7 Part8 Part9 Part10

Act1(remade)- Part1 Part2 Part3 Part4 Part5 Part6 Part7 Part8 Part9

Act2- Part1 Part2 Part3 Part4 Part5 Part6 Part7 Part8

[a-very-tired-jew]

I’ve posted about this person before, but as a refresher; I have a former friend that I’m keeping on social media to watch their spiral and how far they will go to justify their anti-Israel hatred. This person is an artist and has very anti-Western positions which are staples of this community, and is a self confessed AnCo Tankie and anti-Zionist Jew.

Today, October 1st, they repeatedly posted about the missile attack by Iran on Israel, and each post got more and more unhinged.

The first one I saw was full on denial that Iran was launching missiles at Israel. This was then coupled with them saying all footage of the attack was from the Ukraine and the “Zionists” were failing at their propaganda. Never mind that in the background you could see architecture and environment that clearly placed it in Israel or the Hebrew being spoken.

Their second post several hours later then blamed Israel for Iran’s attack. As if Iran hasn’t been using proxies to attack Israel in the past or this year.

Their third post then went off from the second and said that this attack is actually the US and the UK’s fault for overthrowing the Iranian government in 1953. Now this has some validity as this coup did set the stage for the 1979 rebellion as it undermined the democratic processes and shift in sociopolitical beliefs that had been developing. So of course people rebelled years later. However, Leftists allied with theocratic fascists and naively didn’t believe that they would follow through on the things they said they would do once in power. This same line of thinking it what underscore the current batch of Leftists supporting terrorist groups that would kill them for any one of the beliefs or positions they hold. But yeah, according to this person it’s only the West’s fault that Khomeini is in power.

They then continued with this and likened Zionism to Khomeinism and I had to actually stop and process what I was reading.

An ideology that at its most basic is a Jewish land back movement is equivalent to a religious and political ideology that is essentially theocratic fascism… I earnestly cannot wrap my head around the mental gymnastics it takes to get to that equivalency beyond being so removed from Jewish spaces, community, and culture that you can no longer tell what is what. And considering they can’t tell Hebrew from Ukrainian… well I think that’s the case.

And their last post that I saw then pushed the conspiracy that FEMA is under budgeted because the US government is sending aid to Israel. Anyone pushing this does not understand how our government works and how aid and funds are allotted. Considering this same person does not believe any state should exist and they’re a Bohemian AnCo Tankie anti-Zionist then their grasp of political systems, regulations, and processes is, at best, severely limited.

I’m still processing this tbh. I never thought I’d see a Jewish anti-Zionist justify Iran’s actions… but here we are. I think this goes beyond Bundism into straight up self loathing, which I am reticent in all aspects to label anyone a self-loathing Jew, but this is the worst I’ve seen.

[magnetarbeam]

Star Wars Technical Worldbuilding Notes 1

Economy of motion would, realistically, be a pretty big thing in space combat tactics. The thrust given by an ion engine and the recoil/kinetic component of a laser or an ion cannon follow the same formula, so a capital ship that has all its power diverted to weapons is effectively applying acceleration equal to its engines in the direction that's opposite the aim of its guns.

The way I currently imagine it, capital ships involved in a serious line of battle would probably assume an even posture, firing the engines only to balance out the recoil of its cannons, for a net acceleration of zero. This doesn't mean the fleet is at rest relative to anything else, since it retains its existing velocity.

Maybe a common move would be to accelerate at full burn for a few minutes after dropping out of hyperspace to hit something like 0.1c before cutting thrust and coasting to engagement range. The point being to build up enough velocity in advance of an engagement that you can divert most or all power to weapons in the opening salvos without the recoil killing your forward velocity.

All else being equal, a ship fleeing pursuit would be at a significant advantage in that objective during exchanges of cannon fire, since the pursuit would be set back by their own recoil, while the ship fleeing is accelerated by shots that don't penetrate its shield.

So in this model of capital ship combat, missiles are useful not only because of the guidance and that they allow a ship to punch above its reactor output, but they allow you to attack without impacting your overall velocity.

I do think the X-Wing books take it a little bit too far, but my theory at this point is that a minimalistic model for galactic fleet scaling makes for better storytelling, because it gives you more of a chance to get to know each ship and its crew and each squadron and their pilots. Thereby giving more opportunity for readers to get invested. Logical fleet scales for an entire galaxy would mean having to use scientific notation to write out the number of ships in a battle, anyway.

One idea I've played with recently regarding logistics is that maybe the impact of large gravity wells on hyperspace could be written in such a way that the fixed installations needed to extract raw hypermatter from hyperspace are most efficient in high-gravity conditions, and so are most often built deep in large gas giants. I like that because fortifying and laying siege to a gas planet would be a very different task than a terrestrial planet. Such a siege would be especially difficult because its defenders have a practically unlimited supply of fuel for planetary shields and defensive cannons.

Headcanonically, hypermatter is created in hyperspace as a side effect of the passage of mass-energy through hyperspace. It is kind of a chicken-or-the-egg situation in terms of the questions it begs about the early history of space travel, but that goes to show how established galactic society is, that they haven't had to worry about that since their civilization's prehistory.

[hugsandchaos]

Guys I just realized something

Remember how Eclipse wanted to turn the world into a food source?

And you know how Sonic Boom Shadow clearly doesn’t like people?

I’m not saying we combine it, I’m saying we give Boom Eclipse’s view of the world basically Modern/Mainstream Shadow’s view!

And this Boom Shadow has a soft spot for him. At first, it was a sort of self-given obligation. Shadow felt absolutely terrible that Eclipse so strongly believed that Shadow was the only thing he could actually call family because they share the same blood thanks to their father, who was very disappointed when Eclipse rebelled and…

We’ll get into details much later.

Anyways, so Shadow knows he’s not the best person. He doesn’t even consider himself a good person anymore because of his grown dislike for people. So for Eclipse to have seen how he acts and still think that he’s a much better person to call family than those he grew up with was like a missile that destroyed the walls Shadow put up around his heart with enough force to still hurt it once it got through them all.

For a moment, Shadow remembered the better times. He waited a bit to be sure that Eclipse wasn’t lying about any of it, but once he was, he made an unspoken promise to Eclipse to be the best big brother he could be and made it a mission to ensure that Black Doom would never hurt him again. (Eclipse heard Shadow’s mind when he came to that decision, but Shadow didn’t know that they could communicate telepathically at the time.)

From that moment on, many of Shadow’s decisions were made with Eclipse in mind. One example is Shadow could go for pretty much his whole life without food and water, and given his situation, he pretty much abandoned getting it. However, Eclipse and the Dark Arms needed food and water daily, and meat was their best food source. Eclipse didn’t like the idea of hurting people, though, so Shadow often had to look for other methods to getting meat than hunting.

Either that or he’d get fake meat healthy enough to pass as real meat. Eventually, the obligated feeling melted away into something much more genuine. I mean, it was genuine before, but now that he knows his brother better, it’s even stronger than before. He’s a surprisingly great brother and friend to Eclipse. This Shadow isn’t completely heartless, but most of his love and care is reserved for his brother.

Actually, you know what would be super sad? After becoming friends with Team Sonic and joining them, Black Doom appears for Eclipse and Shadow back to use them both. Team Sonic has no idea what’s going on and Eggman’s actually horrified that Black Doom intends to use their planet as a food source. Eclipse remembers his treatment before and really doesn’t want to go back. Shadow’s ready to defend his brother, and now, their new friends.

After a fight against another wave of Black Arms sent to kidnap Eclipse and Shadow, then slaughter everyone else, many of the members are tired and injured. It’s one of those really dark hours and they genuinely think that this is truly the end. They don’t know what to do.

Shadow’s never been more sure of what to do until that moment.

He takes off one of his inhibitor rings and puts it next to Eclipse, who’s still unconscious, but healing very well. He turns to everyone and says “When he wakes up, tell him I’m sorry. Tell him “He’s our father, but you’re my brother” .” and then he disappears.

Hours later, after Eclipse is awake, he sees the ring and frantically asks where Shadow is. When they tell him what he said and that he vanished, Eclipse freaks out like never before and rushes outside, screaming Shadow’s name and “no” over and over. Team Sonic goes with him to make sure he doesn’t hurt himself. They can’t stop him because he keeps trying to control their minds so they’d let him.

When they reach the beach in their search for Shadow, there’s a huge explosion in the night sky as if from space. Soon, a golden glow falls from the explosion and into the ocean. Eclipse knows what it is. Or rather, who it is. Devastated and heartbroken, he drops to his knees and screams his brother’s name as loud as both his verbal and mental voices will allow.

Shadow went to the Comet, directly into the heart of the beast, took the chaos emeralds held inside, and removed the rest of his inhibitor rings. This time, there was no miraculous recovery.

[sepublic]

I mentioned a while back about having Gandrayda being a spy within the Space Pirates during the Zero Mission arc; She's the one who deduces that Mother Brain is responsible for controlling the Metroids, and is such a load-bearing component for taming them that without her, the Metroids will turn on the Space Pirates and do a lot of the Federation's work in defeating them.

Likewise, she's the one who finds out that Tourian has been sealed off by Mother Brain out of justified paranoia; The only way in is through two access keys implanted in Ridley and Kraid's wrists, for the select occasions that would call for it. Otherwise, since Mother Brain controls all of the technology across Zebes, she sees little reason why she would need people in the same room as her vulnerable true form; Not when she has machines to act remotely through, outside of Tourian.

I originally intended for Gandrayda to appear during the Zero Mission, albeit without revealing her name or shapeshifting nature; As far as the show has conveyed, she's just a Zebesian gone rogue. And she would've appeared during the Zero Suit segment to bail Samus out of a pinch right before the Chozodia part, before leaving...

But I've changed my mind; Having no allies adds to the dread and lonely isolation of the Zero Suit segment. Having anyone help Samus ruins the tone.

So instead, I'm moving Gandrayda's appearance a bit earlier; Right after Samus defeats Ridley. The idea for the scene is that Samus jabs a Super Missile or Power Bomb in Ridley's chest, and when it goes off it splatters pieces of Ridley all over the place. Samus goes unconscious for a bit, because the explosion happens right next to her; But when she comes to, she only gets the opportunity to scan Ridley's access key to Tourian before some Space Pirates arrive. They see what happened and are stunned; Samus limps away, and they give chase while a few stay behind.

This foreshadows Ridley being salvaged even in this mangled state. The way his torso is obliterated, but his limbs and head are somewhat intact, pay homage to which parts of Meta Ridley are cybernetic and which ones aren't.

As for Samus, she’s been cornered, she's been damaged already, it looks like Ridley might have the last laugh anyway by reducing her to this vulnerable state for his minions to pick off and avenge him... But then one of them turns against the others, giving Samus the opportunity to fight back as well. This is when we meet Gandrayda.

I think Gandrayda showing up here works better; Being cornered by Space Pirates in Norfair didn't happen in the game, so I'm not really ruining a pre-established moment. Likewise, it sets up Gandrayda to basically congratulate Samus and cheer her on for the final lap; Samus defeated her childhood trauma, and now she has everything she needs to confront Mother Brain. She's in the home stretch now, so having someone offer a bit of support and reiterate the goal before leaving feels more appropriate to the hopeful tone. This realization of: Oh dang, I might actually succeed and pull this off! I might defeat my childhood traumas here and now, and basically single-handedly defeat the Space Pirates!

[iamthekaijuking]

A Review of Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon

I just finished up my 13th play through (this is the most I’ve ever replayed a video game), and I know I’m technically reviewing this game but there isn’t really anything I can say that hasn’t been said.

The controls and movement is smooth, and while there’s a learning curve it’s incredibly satisfying. Boosting requires you to manage your energy. It can be depleted, but will also recharge after a few seconds. But in the incredibly explosive combat of AC6, every second counts. Energy weapons also requires further energy management. Different generators can make things easier, and different thrusters can determine how you move and how much boosting uses up your energy. But you also need to worry about weight management on your AC. Your legs can determine how much you can carry as well as how you move. Ultimately you’ll need to spend time looking at stats and testing things out in the garage, but that’s part of the draw of Armored Core. Fine tuning your mech.

Combat is hectic and fast, feeling more like dogfights than anything. Both parties are pelting and trying to outmaneuver each other in a hope to stagger their opponents and get a chance to deal massive damage. Unlike in soulsborne games, there is no invincibility frames in AC6, so dodging is used to dart away from incoming damage and mitigate it, not negate it. You’ll also have different “core expansions” which can give you shields, cover, or an extra means of damaging enemies.

Every part has some use, and while there are weapons that are obviously The Metatm and you can get through a lot of missions with whatever build you feel really comfortable in, different situations will reward different things and you’d be surprised at how satisfying it is when replaying missions to bring different weapons and set ups directly catered to the task. Every weapon has at least one situational use. Fighting in an open space with no roof? Vertical missiles. Enclosed space? Grenades or napalm. Opponents have pulse shields? Use pulse guns to destroy the shields. Also use flamethrowers, songbirds, and the wheelchair tanktreads on the “Escort The Weaponized Mining Ship” mission you will thank me.

The customization and image making system is incredibly freeing and allows for a ton of self expression. It’s incredibly fun. You’ve probably seen some funny looking mechs circulating through the internet in the last year.

Ultimately, the game wants you to experiment with different builds, and even allows you to save up to 160 presets, gives you the presets of every enemy AC you’ll encounter in the story, and even allows you to download up to 40 builds that other players have uploaded online (sadly only on the same platform as you though).

As far as music goes, it’s super good. Fromsoft pretty consistently delivers, but the Armored Core soundtrack is different from their lineup from the past decade. Fitting of a SciFi setting, the AC6 soundtrack features heavy use of synths and droning sounds. There are some exceptions of course. It’s not EDM music (I doubt anyone is breaking it to Coral Guardian or C Weapon) but it’s probably somewhere within Techno.

As for the setting, it’s somewhat par for the course with Armored Core and to an extent the mecha genre itself. A hypercapitalist world where the average person has few rights, the ultra rich wage wars, and mass murder is not only entirely acceptable but is in fact encouraged if it turns a profit. Uniquely though, hyper-industrialization is a thing as well, and the landscape is peppered with inconceivably massive sprawling megastructures that can reach into the sky. There are some firsts for Armored Core as well. The series usually takes place on earth or places importance on its (always) ruined state. In 6 though, earth is completely out of the picture; it’s not important. Instead the game takes place on Rubicon 3, which is… somewhere in the galaxy. Interstellar travel is commonplace and for the first time in Armored Core, sapient aliens appear.

For themes, there’s always a feeling of isolation (as is normal for the franchise), but a not insignificant amount of attention is given to the idea, and importance, of choice and human will. There is importance to your decisions and the human will to live and desire to be free is a strong one, and ultimately you are in charge of your destiny and what you want to do.

All in all, 10/10 game. Please play it and make the funniest mechs ever.

[tobiasdrake]

Okay. Here we go. Deep, serious, complicated talk time. This has been debated heavily in spaces both in and out of universe, and it has no simple answer. But we need to address it.

It's time to talk about who's really at fault for what happened on that fateful day in Lagos.

...

It's Crossbones.

GOOD TALK EVERYBODY!

...

No, I'm serious. That's it. There is no debate to be found here. Brock set off a suicide bomber vest in the middle of a crowded marketplace. When Wanda lifted him up to the side of the building, she didn't cause the explosion. All she did was change its point of detonation. The only thing Wanda's guilty of is not being powerful enough and losing her grip because she's still inexperienced.

She didn't kill anybody. She tried to save lives and failed. That's not the same thing.

There are things about Wanda that warrant examination. She's a former terrorist who launched a Hulk missile straight at Johannesburg, but because she's an Avenger she's been blanket forgiven for that. But this isn't one of those things. Wanda did nothing wrong here.

Steve, on the other hand, hesitated when he had the chance to take down Crossbones. Brock got in his head about Bucky. A case could be made that Steve should have noticed, should have done something instead of freezing up the way he did.

But. Um. Here's the thing.

Brock was wearing a suicide vest. He could have detonated that thing the second Steve grabbed him and the result would be the same. Brock wasted time gabbing to Steve about Bucky, and that offsets Steve's screw up in letting Brock gab to him about Bucky.

Wanda tried to contain the blast and failed, and Steve couldn't really have done anything to stop it anyway. What happened here is that Brock Rumlow detonated a suicide vest, and people died. That's it. That is the full story of what happened that day in Lagos.

We're supposed to take this as, like, a serious moment that calls the Avengers' right to conduct their ops into question. But they did the best that could honestly be expected of them here. Sometimes the job just goes bad.

[pruechaosbracket]

Round 3: Team Science VS Bill Cipher

About Donatello: The team scientist of the turtles, creating a many pieces of tech and having mechanized his bo-staff to host a variety of other weapons inside of it. One of said weapons is a rocket, which he almost hit Raphael with before being stopped, who he also tested a tranquilizer dart on when he couldn’t on a villain. He blasted a fire hydrant with a multi-limbed fire cannon, he also used the same mechanical limbs for a snowball match. He tried to get his brothers to say “Magic is an illusion science is superior” while taking a picture at a magic show and called trickery the science of cowards. He made an impromptu rap song while sneaking around a library which he continued singing after being picked up by a hoard of bats, he made a tree house in the woods with fully functional electricity, he records and archives everything that happens, and he planted trackers on his brothers.

About Dr. Eggman: An evil roboticist who goes between ruling the world and building his own theme park based off himself, with the most chaotic of his plans falling into the latter category, such as when he summoned and powered up (what he thought to be) a god of destruction to destroy a city so he could build over it when he could have just used a missile (which he tries only at the end), and when he made an entire space fleet to trick and trap Sonic with all of the Chaos Emeralds so he could drain the emeralds of their power and shatter the earth release Dark Gaia who he planed to use to power the amusement park, and in an instance where the park was already built in space he tried to mind control the entire Earth so he could make it the star attraction. During his other plans, he broke into a secret military base to steal a top-secret weapon, attempted to blow up an entire island for a Chaos Emerald, blew up half of the moon as show of power, split the timeline in two while trying to undo all of his previous defeats, created a machine that can't be shut off when it reaches full power despite how it could end the world by accident, and suggested imploding the Lost Hex using null-gravity effects despite it potentially causing genocide just to destroy the Zeti.

Bill Cipher: A dream demon who set in point almost the entire series with plan that got very close to working twice. He sent his home dimension and everyone in it into (literal) burning chaos, and then took over the lawless and unstable Nightmare Realm. He turned Gravity Falls into his personal play ground of breaking reality, he killed a time god, he has manipulated almost every main character at least once, he is seen everywhere in the show and has even cameo in many series (mostly in other Disney shows). The only know ways to kill him was with a super-powered gun specifically designed to kill him, and literally erasing him from existent by trapping him in someone's mind and then memory-wiping them, which he might have actually survived.

[erigold13261]

You know how most powers in NSR are based off of some kind of aesthetic or something? What if some people can ONLY do that while others get more flexibility.

Like Mama can only do plant based magic or DJSS only being able to create space magic? While Eve's powers, though based on the mind, are a lot more flexible. She could possible do plant or space magic, but it would be connected to the mind. But Mama and DJSS would most likely never be able to do mind magic.

That makes me think of how flexible the magic system in NSR really is and I wonder what non-specific magics there are. Stuff that is more general and could be more useful in everyday situations compared to highly specific magic that can only be used in certain situations or environments.

I like to think that anyone can use pure magic (pure as in unfiltered or raw, not pure as in purity culture). Like Yinu creating magic notes to shoot at people, or B2J's powers ranging from shields to missiles. None of those are really all that super specific when it comes to themes. At least with B2J they can switch the general theme up depending on who they are fighting/what magic they want to produce.

However, with both of those examples, they need a tool to produce/control that raw magic, which is music. Not everyone needs assistance when using their magic, like Eve can probably use her mind magic without music, and so could Tataiana with her fire and time magic.

Although, those are still specific magics and not general/raw magic. They can't really go outside of those themes without music to help them. Same with B2J and Yinu not being able to go outside their own themes or use raw magic without the help of an amplifier such as music/works of passion.

All this to say, I was thinking about Neon J and what his magic could have been before turning into a cyborg. And what if his magic was literally just RAW magic. Having general use of magic. Or something related to endurance. Making him harder to kill, more easily able to adapt to his environment, and able to pick up things quicker.

I like to think his magic changes him as he goes depending on what he needs done. He is physically stronger than most people of his size/stature (when he was fully human, since now the cybernetics just make him naturally stronger than the average human) and could replicate other people's magic if he put enough passion and effort into copying them, which would come in handy during fights or something.

I like to think of it kinda like Determination from Undertale, or just magic in general where your intent is what determines the kind of power behind your magic. Except in this instance Determination would be passion or hope or something. I guess they are basically the same thing overall.

Anyway, the whole reason for me even talking about this is because I wanted a reason as to why Neon was able to survive so much bullshit in his life. Stuff that most humans could literally not be able to survive. Like he would probably be able to hold his breath for a LOT longer than the average human, and stay in colder water long too.

He just has a shit ton of endurance and is capable of going toe-to-toe with full elementals who would usually squash non-elemental humans with ease. It's why when I see a young Neon and Tatiana fighting, they are so evenly matched, even though Neon punching Tatiana would be like punching a brick wall, and getting punched by her is like getting hit in the head with a brick.

I don't know. His magic is so hard to think of, so him being super moldable just really makes sense to me. He's a jack of all trades, master of none (which is better than being a master of one lol).

So yeah, Neon just having the ability to mold his magic to the situation and create raw magic attacks without an amplifier/tool assist is something I am going to stick with.

[adz]

here is a short story i wrote that nobody will publish. it's called transanima

Tomik’s cavity is hot. The gum and the space around it absorb the heat. Warmth spills out from the hole.

By genetic programming there is no pain. The heat is meant to irritate.

There are no academics where she lives. The meat sets painlessly. Bodies gradually become functionless. Decaying the same way that foam left out in the air becomes something dry and hard and spindly.

Down a long hallway and through the gel insulation cap of her home. And along a dusty paved path twisting between stalklike towers, life hidden inside. It’s quiet on the way to the hives.

///

The sky is taupe and gritty, particles of dust eddying between the buildings. Swarms loop and dive in sequence. At the entrance to the hive building the gel cap feels refreshingly cold. The air inside is kept chilly and thickened with some aerosolized calming agent. The bees are docile. It makes Tomik feel calmer, too, when she visits them.

She walks in circles around the hives and looks up into the darkness. A huge hollow shell, maybe a storage container or missile launching site from a war long since forgotten. Dim and angled walls and the hives in the center under soft white lighting like pastries smothered in cream.

At one of the newer structures she rubs her finger along the sealed seam where the builder left space between the beams. The bees have filled it with one of their miraculous substances. Something they create from saliva and beeswax and sap. Propolis. She takes some of the resin and slathers it along the offending heat of her inner jaw.

Tomik grew up keeping bees. Maintaining these hives. It’s hard to know about bees without really wanting to. Her father told her once that the bees use propolis to seal cracks in the structure but also for something else. For invading creatures that enter the hive and are killed and are too large to remove.

To prevent the corpses from putrefying in the hive, the bees mummify them. And leave them.

The drones here struggle, bash heads, confused. They’ve been drugged by their minders. There aren’t supposed to be so many in one place. But the honey is made.

Tomik walks past again, dragging my fingertips along the rough surfaces of the hives, clicking her nails against the stacked interstices. Should I cut my nails? she wonders. She likes to feel them against her palms when she makes a fist.

Out shivering through the gel and back up the path to the stalks.

you dream about the game. your consciousness a quantum vibration spraying blood as you spin up.

///

The man, Kirt, lies in bed with open eyes. He waits for the machine to finish. 

The room is hot. Lost power overnight, or maybe he forgot to turn the cold air on before going to sleep.

The ceiling has a grey adobe texture. On his back, he can really only stare straight ahead at the tiles, just barely making out the lines where the walls meet the ceiling if he peers hard into the corners of his eyes. It hurts to do so, and he’s seen this ceiling enough times before. So he lies still and waits for the machine to finish.

Forced meditation. The machine whirrs. 

A lot to do today. It’s near the end of the month and he lost a couple workdays when the bed’s battery gave out. Might miss Tomik on the nanobots tonight.

The sound changes and a yellow light blinks on below.

Creaks and pops as the bed ratchets upward into a sitting position. Kirt flexes his neck forward, draws in a long, full breath, then relaxes. The machine stretches his muscles, tries to help them remember what they’re for. When he was born, he could flex his own little arms and legs. He’s been told. Since he can remember there’ve been beds and machines.

Before he logs into work, Kirt goes to his household management application and fiddles with the temperate control. It’s glitching, dropping clicks from his sight cursor. The app’s design is thoughtless, especially unwieldy for disabled users. Perhaps he’ll lodge a complaint. The idea makes him smile.

The app’s got his employer’s logo. So does his computer. So too does the exo on his personal account’s wishlist. At his job, individuals or companies crowdsource processes like selecting certain objects from an array or surveilling shops or filling out questionnaires; tasks that cannot yet be accomplished effectively and efficiently by artificial intelligences. They pay pennies, usually, but Kirt can do a lot of them in one day, and they add up. He’s got a little ticker in the corner of his window with his total earned amount and another below it in green; his expenses, deducted directly from his pay: rent, food, care for his condition.

When he closes the app, there’s a targeted ad for an exo. A little more expensive than the one he’s saving up for. Encased in grey metal, the user walks effortlessly down a flight of stairs, eschewing the railing. He sits with an attractive woman at a cafe and raises a nontrembling mug to his too-pink lips. With a snappy suit bunching up underneath the exo’s straps and aluminum bars, he drives a pod into a bustling city. The camera zooms out and the company’s logo appears, composed of skyscrapers and cranes.

The ad ends, and with a grinding sound, the room’s air conditioner comes on. Settling in, deliberately relaxing his neck, Kirt enters his login info.

///

That night, after work, finished with dinner, Tomik logs into the nanobot game. It’s a curious thing, knowing you’re being swindled by a corporation and submitting willingly. Because you’ve subtracted their evil from the happiness it gives you and the total’s high enough. 

Like most games, it resembles work. Tomik plays as a drone. Or rather controls a drone, because the drones in the game exist physically in the real world. What she sees in the headset, the terrain she explores exploring, all of it is real. 

Originally, the swarm was built with the intent to automate it. A map of the composition of the universe that ran by itself. Ran itself. But the drones were inefficient. Their tangents were unintuitive. They gave the same concern and deliberation to inert debris that they would a shimmering mineral deposit. Their maps were incredibly detailed depictions of barren wastelands. 

The goal, ultimately, was to find spaces suitable for human life, for physical settlements and virtual vacations, and the emotional component was not present or even anti-present. Using machine learning and a database of travel reviews, the drones described their findings almost exclusively in disgusted and depressed terms. The most popular descriptor in the early months of the project was “bleak.” Data analysts found that once one drone described the quality of a location a certain way, the others were often influenced and would criticize the same elements of other space rocks with the same descriptors. They were, after all, partially composed of extracted biological material.

Humans, though, are not content trawling desolate craggy valleys and dully reporting. They seek out what interests them, and these qualities are difficult for programs to recognize: unique formations, particular combinations of colors in bands of rock sediment, cozy partially enclosed spaces, views containing different points of interest to draw the eye.

So the drones do drone work, and the humans do whatever they want. The drones are so cheap to run, the manufacturing and power fees are negligible compared to the value of the data. Users pay a nominal fee for control of their drone, and they collect achievements as they go. There’s a leaderboard.

The drone effort’s human component began as a curiosity, but after a clever strategist suggested adding elements of a social medium, with friend tracking and messaging, it exploded into a sort of vastly open-world public chatroom.  That’s how Tomik met Kirt.

When her headset loads, she’s back where she was last night.

The surface is almost green. Or maybe it’s the light, or the lens. But it seems slightly green in the shadows, an unhealthy dead shade. 

Tomik floats along quickly, maybe a meter above the ground. Quicker than she should be moving. To record high-quality observations requires patience, which she usually has, more than most.

She has turned off the surface audio. Music comes from somewhere in her room, soft and aerial with no beat to nod along to. She is neither bored nor really interested by the video feed on her headset.

Far away, an illuminated username skims past through sharp rivulets and around small mounds of frozen nitrogen on the ground. Tomik pauses and checks again that she has switched off her username display. She feels unnatural and horrifying. Personally, in her room, horrifying, since the nanobot she is piloting has no discernible features. 

She glides into a hole in the ground and shines a thin laser at a mineral deposit. The deposit glows gold, adds to her score, and its outline translates into machine language. The nanobots still have to be taught what to be curious about.

Her breathing slows, and she gradually relaxes into it.

///

Kirt logs in. While the game loads, a mechanical arm dabs sweat from his face, twirls its multitool appendage from damp cloth to utensil, and carefully shovels a spoonful of sprouted beans into his mouth. 

The halo on the screen spins, dissolves, and is replaced by the company’s name in glowing golden script. Kirt remembers when he cared enough to be sick of it. Now it’s just a facet of his life, totally unchanging, barely worth thinking about, like the walls of the room or his petrified hands, strapped to the arms of the bed.

Tomik isn’t there. He scans the horizon. He hardly remembers where he goes, most days. He just follows her.

k: are you online?

There’s a moment where it’s just Kirt, mindful, waiting, staring up from his bed in Canada at deep space, unrenderable blackness and lightly pixelated clusters of twinkling light, and then Tomik responds with her coordinates. He pivots and glides over. The motion is effortless and clean. Tomik’s movement is more jerky, self-conscious. She has a harder time settling her consciousness into the body of the drone.

Kirt arrives but keeps his distance while she finishes up with her mineral deposit, a darting micro-LED, gaze fixed on hazy clusters in the rock. After a little while she’s done, and the LED goes still while she types.

t: went to see the bees today

k: did u feed them?

t: someone else does that now. they dont let me do anything with them. just come visit sometimes

k: im sorry.

She glides away and he follows. Away from the asteroid they’d been surveying for the last week or so; she’s pinpointed something on the map. Kirt latches onto her bot’s signal and lets the AI take over driving.

He grasps for something to say.

k: what is it you love about the bees? 

She’s silent for a long while. Maybe engaging autopilot herself. The two drones are now in basically total darkness, just little pinpricks of light against the void like holes in a sheet.

t: it feels good to care for something

k: could you get a plant?

t: its not the same. a plant doesnt know its being cared for.

They approach a twirling, jagged asteroid. Kirt hates these; landing on them and matching their motion makes the skyline spin nauseatingly, but he settles down with Tomik.

t: hows life as a mechanical turk

k: fine. getting closer every day

t: how many months until you can afford the exo now?

k: fourteen and a few. might be more if they move me again. always expensive to be moved.

Her nanobot darts into a crack in the rock, and he follows. Her LED brightens and the light grows to fill the little rivulet. It’s maybe a couple inches deep. The rock has an angular pattern like overlayed carrot brackets. 

As she works Kirt’s eyes grow heavy.

k: there’s a little farm here where i order produce sometimes. i could mail you an orange.

t: citrus makes my throat swell up :/

He chuckles. There they are, somewhere in the universe, talking about fruit. Little pilots, little flitting machines.

\\\

The dream comes on slowly. He’s had ones like it before. Each time it feels like new details are added.

His drone scuttles, legs clicking, contorting to open the door. Inside is like a cave, grey pixelated rock walls and a small bed with black sheets. She’s there, sitting with her legs crossed. He has never seen her. In the dream she’s got short black hair, smooth shoulders, her face a rippling puzzle, hard edges rolling over into soft lumps, taken in somewhere invisibly and spit back onto the surface.

Kirt climbs up on top of her and they begin, the room pulsing, his head full, thoughts trickling through thickly like plasma on limestone, like a person falling through a gel door. Time moves in dizzy bursts. At the end of it, the drone’s endophallus bursts out and an ecstatic rift opens up in his intestines. He fades in and out of consciousness, in and out of control. In one moment shivering and in the next immobile, eyes darting at a dead interface.

The last part of the dream is unfamiliar. Kirt’s still in the drone as it dies, legs retracting and curling up toward its body. He’s on his back in a room of curving corridors like a server farm, walls composed of gleaming, dripping hexagons. Now, in the corner of his vision, he hears the humming accumulation of his brothers and sisters around him. They’re drones like him, bristling with yellow and black-striped fur, six legged, with shimmering metallic planes and angles and blackly reflective compound eyes.

He feels the warmth of their bodies as they press their feet against his withering corpse. Something red and wet falls on his back. Then more, dripping into his lidless eyes. The bees’ enamel locks his limbs in place and entombs him.

Soon no light can get through. 

Then he just lies there, breathing cimicine darkness, waiting to wake up.

[toastess-with-the-mostess]

Let's Rewind! Toasts watches Voltron: Defender of The Universe (1984)

Season 1, Episode 9: A Pretty Spy

Y'know I would've thought this was the Bokar episode, but obviously it's not Oooh maybe it's the Hunk version of it, I know that doesn't make sense but if it is then you'll understand soon

Looks like some not so friendly fire on a doom ship in Arus space, it really might be this one then!

Keith just effortlessly predicting how the ship is going to crash-land, what a good tactician Hunk runs off to go check for any survivors

Was it really easier to go on a horse to the desert because I feel like using yellow to explore the wreckage would've been better

A slave girl has been found, Hunk recognizes the brand she because it's the same as his Obvs she's alive so she gets taken to medical to get her help

The team minus Hunk doubts she actually escaped, yup this is the episode I was thinking of!

She's explaining her backstory but had so weirdly long pause before the flashback started Apparently Twila was only recently brought to Doom with her brother and while the guards were distracted with beating him she ran back into the ship that brought them there and bolted

I like how last episode it was established that Lance was the one with the lie detector abilities but when it's a seemingly innocent girl all that power is out the window and gets attached to Keith More discussing if attacking Zarkon with Voltron is worth it instead of just waiting for his attacks before they form up It's shot down for fear of losing their jobs

Hunk is immediately pissed at Keith because she went through that escape by herself and Keith still thinks it was too easy Justifiable but I wish it was Lance who thought it was weird for some continuity

Also for some reason they're in the dark while outside, it's probably for drama but like that castle is huge literally go to the complete other side of it and you should be fine guys

And now all the boys share a room for some reason, one of my mutuals headcannoned that Lance is superstitious about things ending with zero being bad and after prince Bokar he was proven right so I'm just gonna take that and say the boys aren't convinced and slept in the room to prove him wrong lol

Twila has weird glowy eyes and goes to check if the boys are sleeping, and after she leaves Keith gets up to check what the noise was before going back to bed

I'm sorry the castle has a MISSILE ROOM?? MAYBE THAT SHOULD BE UNDERGROUND OR SOMETHING GUYS Apparently Twila has weird electric powers, she's a robot, but I'm just going to refer to her as a person anyway, and uses them to open the door

Is she an antenna or something lmao oop she's setting off a bomb in the missile room, that's actually pretty smart for the bad guys this time around I like it when they're competent lol

Oh Kova is back with Haggar So is Twila not a robot? Haggar said she's under her spell, so maybe I'm just mixed up

The mice bother Pidge, but he doesn't care, but Keith notices and gets worried, so he gets the team to follow One of them also wake up Allura and tell her what's up, queue horrified gasp

Coran fell asleep while on watch duty, why put the old guy there I feel like that was a bad decision period They see Twila planting a bomb, Hunk is disappointed because he stood up for her

The team is worried that they can't do anything in time but Coran just sends out the time bomb because it was attacked to a missile they could fire, the castle is saved!

I feel bad for Hunk because he really trusted her, but he goes off chasing her anyway

NOT THE HORSE WHY USE LASER BEAMS ON THE HORSE THEY ARE INNOCENT IN THIS Hunk finds Twila at a cliff, now it's a stand-off

Hunk asks why she'd work for Zarkon, and she gives the regular sob story of being promised something greater than Zarkon would ever let go of, freedom for the slaves Then her says her brother volunteered to be turned into a robeast as part of that deal, the coffin flies overhead

Man absolutely everyone gets fucked over in this war, I mean I didn't expect anything less but still

The brother robeast is called the Poison BugBlade! Weighing at 4100 short tons, this guy is definitely dying

She's supposed to be yelling at him to complete their mission, but her voice sounds like she's whispering really goes to show how much voice acting has improved in modern days

Oh hey the shot of running people is reused from a few episodes ago too I think, I feel pretty good about spotting that lol

The horse is alive lets go, Hunk gives up on Twila and goes to get his lion The rest try to fight him off for Hunk to join up

Again not really liking how much Allura screams and yells, like I do understand that this is her second robeast battle, technically first while as a lion, but c'mon girly pop! It's probably the 80s treating girls as if they were still fragile while they're put in tough roles for little girls to look up to

Allura gets back up only to be manhandled by the robeast again sdovinsdv, saved by Keith of course Hunk comes in after she gets up again

The voltron preamble is super close to the final product, I'd give it a few more episodes for it to finally be the iconic phrase most fans know

Twila still isn't backing down on her beliefs, she wants Arus GONE, but instead she watches her brother die in front of her :P

HELLO?? ALLURA GIVES LANCE A CHEEK KISS BECAUSE APPARENTLY HE SAVES HER BUT LANCE POINTS OUT IT WAS ACTUALLY KEITH Oh, I definitely see why allurance was shipped this time around too

Apparently Twila went back to her home planet to plan another way to get her people back Keith really thinks that she'll be able to do it this time because they'll help her out when it comes down to it

Episode end! I don't think I'll be doing any episode reviews this Labor Day weekend mostly because I'm going home and probably won't bring my laptop which is where I usually do my blogging from

[meandmyechoes]

Kingohger ep26

i saw the leaks this morning. nothing i didn't already know but i was waiting for the heart attack during announcement!! ٩(๑`^´๑)۶

Geats is… fine I guess.

oh god… what do you mean it's kingohger finale

Jeramie is still reserving firepower

I knew there won't be an op

ah he kneeled down… the humility compared to his debut *sobs*

read a take his hair goes from middle-part to side-part going from neutral to fully siding with bugnaroks

Just convenient when you have an international judge on the team

kawaii not because they are mypoic but scared to go to the bug base

satellite phone king's hotline perfect underground reception

??!?!???

i'm watching rider?? us and enemy same origin??

bugnarok DNA is similar to humans, something made them evolve in this direction instead

bugnarok collecting shugods for their power since 2000 years ago → eat shugods to fight with humans // humans join hands with shugods

so the god in Shugod doesn't mean deity, it's just the name of their species?!

AHHHHHH DEATH-CHAN!!!!!😭😭😭😭😭 his character is full now with this ep

a boy and his droid 😭😭😭😭😭😭

Deathnarok has been protecting Tarachino Zero

!! mechanical bug parts 😍😍 they REALLY should use this more in fights

yeah i was saying how Gira's spotlight seems to be stolen when Deathnarok became Jeramie's nemesis

but a negotiation is the style of a no-longer-evil-king ne.

but also failure is not the end and you don't have to do it alone

😱😱😱😱😱

I SHOULD'VE SEEN THIS COMING!! I SHOULD'VE SEEN THIS COMING!!

*screams* Haa-chan!!!! NO!!!!!!

you four are really standing there doing nothing?? i mean maybe give a wide shot to explain they are trying/discussing at least? Especially when you have a doctor on the team and she ran to the engineer's resuce in ep20? I know he's beyond help and she doesn't know how to cure bugs but…

okayyyy there's a missile from space… ok i guess that can explain why they stood there other than "interfering another sovereignty". in a perfect world there'd be time for a scene maybe over zoom for the other four to discuss their view on the matter and reaffirm trust of Jeramie + trsusting Gira to make the right call. But the B*ndai toy ad target hasn't met yet… matbe would look better on rewatch

edit: on rewatch, earlier as Jeramie explained bugnarok eat their opponents to get stronger he mentioned his claim to the throne is only valid in a fight, so that can explain why the other kings don't do anything other than "interefere with another country's intetnal affairs"

gosh the people really don't know shit. jeramie you probably should've launched a pr campaign prior to just announcing your nation on global TV huh

thundering silence…

Jeramie... finally said what he meant 😭

Taranchi 0 bringing him the flower 😭😭 why so many people dying on this fine sunday morning

i said the narration same time with him

--- 27 preview ---

sigh of relief as they don't time-skip directly this ep's end

no fair! no fair! how come that one split second of short rita sama and still not clear!!

they will recreate ep1 won't they

the aides!! esp. Sebas's new yellow suit lol. i was thinking if they really leave chikyuu someone will have to take over as regent!!

ON MY FUCKING KNEES MY LIEGE MY ONE AND ONLY KING:

toei heard us about earcuff-chan yet somehow short rita sama is still not showing earcuff-chan

who the fuck is blond yanma

oh so the "orange" descriptior was for the ends of Himeno's hair! I'd still like the dress's upper body to be more structured

gosh 😭 kaku-san looks really good with long hair (<- has a thing for men with long hair)

gira in a more mature style but still that innocent expression 😢

no long hair moru :(

did they really became regent?

but i'm loving shiokara's look

[tech15]

India's Satellite Defense: A Cosmic Strategy with a Russian Twist

From being weather predictors to finding which road leads to the nearest café, there has been a sea change. Today, they are so much more: space has become an arena of national security, espionage, and military operations; the game is a serious one or, in some cases, competitive. For India, the juggling act demands strategies that merge technical acumen with strategic foresight and, yes, avoiding too much of a cosmic mess.

No one can disagree that countries like the United States and China have turned space into their own playground of espionage. Take the National Reconnaissance Office in the United States. These boys have satellites so advanced, that they can spot a military base from space with the same clarity that you would expect if you were zooming in on Google Earth – only without the lag. And then there are the GPS satellites, guiding us through rush hour while also providing the military with precise coordinates for any operation. GPS: is useful for locating the nearest coffee shop and. coordinating airstrikes.

Nor is China slacking. Its Yaogan and Tianhui satellites are thought to have been employed in stealthy voyeurism of troop movement and military capabilities of neighbouring countries (India, anyone?). Think of it as the intergalactic analogue of spying over the fence into your neighbour's backyard-except with so much more riding on the outcome.

India, in 2019, finally decided it needed to show it was not a total spectator in this great space race. With Mission Shakti, it successfully used an anti-satellite (ASAT) missile to obliterate one of its own satellites in low Earth orbit. India was saying, "We have our eyes on you too," particularly aimed at countries like China. And yes, it was a really big display of muscle, much like flexing your muscles at a space bodybuilding competition.

Sure, but ASAT technology is pretty hot stuff, and it's also like using a sledgehammer to kill a fly. Of course, it works, but now you have the satellite debris swirling around Earth at thousands of kilometres an hour. So what started as a way to eliminate one threat ends up resulting in a space junkyard that can knock out communication satellites or mess with your Netflix stream. No one wants that.

Whereas blowing things up is a tad less. evolved, there are smarter, less. explosive ways of dealing with unwanted satellites. For instance: signal jamming: is like placing a cosmic "Do Not Disturb" sign on enemy satellites. It's non-violent, doesn't leave a trail of space debris and you don't have to mop up after.

Then there is cyber warfare. Why blow up a satellite, after all, when one can hack it? Seizing an enemy satellite can be a way for India to render it useless or turn it into a double agent. Borrowing the Wi-Fi of your neighbour is like it only greater and far more secret.

Last, but certainly not least, non-kinetic weapons such as laser blinding systems, will temporarily blind a satellite's sensors but with no permanent harm. You are like putting sunglasses on the satellite; no destruction at all, just a nice dark view

Now, let's talk about Russia. Russia is a country known for its disruptive ways, both on Earth and in space. Be it their cyberattacks or their geopolitical moves, Russia tends to leave its mark wherever it goes. But, in this case, their "disruptive" nature could actually be an asset for India. Think of Russia as the unpredictable, slightly eccentric partner whom you bring along because, despite their quirks, they know how to get the job done.

Russia has long been an ally of India in space technology and indicated an interest in collaborating with India in the direction of enhancing India's defences of its satellites. Whether developing jamming technology or enhancing cyber defences, Russia's expertise will help India protect its satellites effectively without being destructive. After all, if anyone knows how to shake things up in space, it's the Russians!

India made a very bold and dramatic statement with Mission Shakti, that amounts to bringing fireworks to a diplomatic dinner. While it demonstrated the strength of India to the world, relying on ASAT technology is a bit too heavy-handed, not to mention messy for the long haul. Better options like jamming, cyber warfare, and non-kinetic methods lead to effective alternatives without cluttering space with debris. And with Russia's penchant for disruption, but this time a helpful one, India can continue evolving its satellite defence strategy while keeping its cosmic neighbourhood a little cleaner.

[badwasabi]

I got a certain Star Trek parody book for free on Kindle. And I think I want a refund. This is a story about a motley crew of misfits in an organization that's clearly based on not Starfleet. This crew is led by our protagonist, the captain. He has the proud duty of running the equivalent of a cargo ship and trying to keep the losers pointed in the right direction. They are so low on the totem pole they make the Lower Decks crew look like the Starfleet Admirality Board. Also, there's a lot of references both in and out of universe. For example, when there is a potentially hazardous mission the captain says "no red shirts". Except it's not actually a Star Trek reference, in-universe. This universe just happened to develop the exact same term, because the early uniforms were white. And what happens to a white shirt when a human bleeds onto it? Sure enough, the team find that everyone's dead, Dave. Conveniently, the enemy nanomachines wait until our antiheroes find out to attack. The good guys run back to the ship, with the bad guy nipping at their heels. Cap calls for the person inside to open the doors. They go, "Sorry, Captain, I'm afraid I can't do that."

"What?" The person inside says they're making a reference to "that movie". The captain says that this isn't the time for forced references. Which makes the rest of the book seem...a tad hypocritical.

At one point when our hero is doing something from his ship's bridge that is plotted on a simplified display screen. He thinks it's ironic that the most advanced ship in not Starfleet - and possibly the universe - is still using a display that looks like a, quote, "1979 video game". He means Asteroids. Boy, that is a very specific reference. In fact I'm pretty sure that bit of technology only exists so the captain could make the reference. There's also a good running joke; the captain gets transferred to a new ship, and keeps messing up the unlabeled controls on the arm of his captain's chair. The captain gets to take the not-Enterprise - the most advanced ship in the galaxy - on a shakedown cruise, because he has a rep for finding glitches. Three days into their cruise, they test the missiles. Which start firing themselves. And guess which ship they lock onto? The ship barely manages to get away long enough to warp - sorry, no, the not-warp drive is acronymed the BAMF, which sounds like a GTA radio station - away. And, naturally, they head back to Earth. Which is entirely on fire. Turns out the Fauxderation has space stations positioned over every major planet. Officially, they're for admin, like most of the White House. Except the White House doesn't have planet killer weapons, in case the natives get...restless. If you get my drift. The bad bots somehow learned this, took over the station, and supernuked Earth because Earth wouldn't bend the knee. (I'd call it a pretty obvious plot device, but the heroes start dropping their own Exterminatuses on planets invaded by these bad guys. They're just that unstoppable.) When our hero learns about this Last Argument of Kings situation, he asks if he's in an alternate dimension, and if anyone has a goatee. Interesting how the main character seems to explicitly reference Star Trek, but doesn't notice one of his helmsmen is named "Wesley". Or his organisation's general similarity to the Federation. Or how his Number One on the flagship is basically Spock, with even less visible emotion and much more passive-aggression. The captain and his "away team" - he uses the exact term - sneak into the station. Bad guys are evil micro robots, so they vented the station to kill all the organics. Including a couple that clutched each other as they died horribly. It gets a dramatic description and everything. And then Cap goes "Still a better love story than Twilight."

Ah, yes, it makes perfect sense for a random early 21st century internet meme (that's already old now) to last two hundred years. Especially after social media was explicitly banned in the 21st century.

And now, Politics;

Later on, Cap deflates a dramatic scene by complaining about "mid-adventure exposition". At the middle of the book.

Buddy, it's kind of hard to take the situation seriously when you keep doing things like that. This book already has way too many lampshades.

One part of the book complains about the "godawful historical drama about that reality TV star who became president." You know, it's pretty rare for me to physically groan and roll my eyes at a bad line in a book. Heck, Ronald Reagan was an actor before he got into politics, but I don't see anyone calling him that as an insult or a joke, besides Doc Brown from BTTF. When I see people criticise him, it's always about what he did as President, or as Governor of Cali. I'm not even sure what the modern equivalent would be. A documentary about former seminary student Ulysses S Grant? School dropout James Munroe? College party boy Thomas Jefferson?

Just to be clear; his constant references are supposed to be an in universe character flaw. Even when it's not appropriate. Cap has managed to restrain himself precisely once; when his second in command stared out the screen at the destroyed Earth and said her parents were down there. It would be one thing if he was a history buff. But he's apparently not. In fact he was a big screw up at not-Starfleet academy, and barely passed. He's just...like this. His biggest character trait is daddy issues and insecurity. Bottom line: This often feels like a fanfic. And not good fanfiction. The type where the writer is more focused on generic quips and forcing in as many geeky and/or Topical™ references as possible, because that's the same as good humor, right?

[jodilin65]

Written late last night…

I was woken up by thunder for the second time and it’s not even June yet! Doesn’t look like I’m gonna get much sleep on Sunday either. I have a bad feeling it’s going to be a bad storm season. This is getting to be too much like the old place only there it was traffic waking me up. When I got up at 8:00 in the morning to use the bathroom I noticed it was pretty dark out. I’d only been asleep for 3 or 4 hours. I got back in bed and right after I fell asleep - boom! No storm was even predicted so most of the time they don’t know shit. It took me a couple of hours to get back to sleep and even though I slept well for 5 or 6 more hours and got a good sleep score, I was exhausted. My body just can’t handle broken-up sleep anymore. As tired as I was, we ran out to Walgreens for treats. I managed to do some cooking for us too but that’s about it.

So Tom and I talked about moving to a “quieter” climate that wasn’t expensive like Cali or overly cold, and I talked to Becky in New Mexico since quieter usually means drier. I told her everything we like and don’t like about Florida. She lives in a tiny rural town near Las Cruces and about 40 miles north of Mexico. El Paso is an hour away where they have every specialist in the world, she says, and of course Las Cruces is closer. They’re only about 15 minutes away from stores and stuff like that, so it wouldn’t be anything like Maricopa or up on the mountain in Oregon.

She gave me a link to a realtor that helped her and her husband Kevin find their place. She’s got a 1660-square-foot manufactured home but I don’t see us being able to afford anything as big as what we used to have. It would probably have to be a dumpy old single-wide around the size of this place but to own both the house and the land and have someone around I know and have breathing space around us and not have to drive an hour to get to civilization might be a sweet deal. I don’t know her as well as I knew Aly but I know her well enough to say that she’s smart, reliable, and trustworthy. I would trust Becky alone in a room with my purse, the same as I would Andy or Jessie. Ah, Jessie. If we move, she’ll be disappointed but maybe we could shoot over and see her before we go. I just have to hope I can get up the energy to do all this!

She says the healthcare system there is good and the cost of living there is low. It’s quiet, easy living, she also says. It’s a liberal state and she says nobody cares about anyone’s “position” in life or shoves their religion down people’s throats and no one is interested in robbery.

Just an occasional LifeStar helicopter overhead, some barking when the javelinas are out, and a train that goes through the area. Boom car stereos are rare, there are no motorcycles close by, or anything extreme. She said outside they can hear donkeys and horses. I wouldn’t mind that or the train as long as the train didn’t shake the place or was louder than the sound machines I sleep with. That’s not the impression I get, though.

January until mid-February is cold, she said, which is how it is here. June, July and August are scorchers. The monsoon season is June 15 to Sept 30. I remember the monsoon seasons when we lived in Arizona. Those storms woke me up too but not nearly as much as the storms here do and the storm season here is a lot longer than monsoon season there.

No sonic booms but they do see “weird shit” in the sky. White Sands Missile Range is 40 minutes away and they do aircraft testing, but they don’t hear it.

They have trash and mail service so we wouldn’t have to get a PO Box like we did in Maricopa or burn our trash.

I told her that I don’t regret coming here and experiencing what it’s like to live here just like I don’t regret Oregon and California despite the rough times we had there, and I do like that it’s warmer here more than it’s not. But when you struggle with fatigue and you have two sleep disorders and you throw these kick-ass storms on me, it’s really throwing fuel on the fire.

Although I would expect some barking and maybe even some projects on some of the neighboring properties, I would love to be able to go to bed during the daytime not worrying about what neighbors 50 ft away or less might be up to that day.

I told her about the crazy drivers here and that the people in general aren’t very friendly.

If we ever do move it’s not going to be tomorrow or the next day. It might take a year or two. We’ve only got so much money to work with.

My only other concern would be its effect on my TMJ. It’s almost as high in elevation as K-Falls and that could make it worse, though I’d be willing to take a chance. I think the extreme cold affected it more than elevation.

I won’t miss this carpet but I’ll miss having furniture like this. The living room chairs may not be the greatest but it’s still nice having a complete household set of furniture. I’ll miss the bedroom set, the couch, and the kitchen set the most. I don’t see how we could take it with us but we’d eventually get new stuff.

Again, every place has its pros and cons. I just prefer to avoid those with major cons. Stealing my sleep is a big no-no. I’ll miss the warmer weather but the thought of moving back out west and adding another state to the list excites me a bit.

Another thing I wouldn’t miss is the mowers. No problem when I’m awake but when I’m asleep… there’s that stress of wondering and worrying if they’re going to wake me up or not. It’s especially stressful when I have appointments looming which is pretty much most of the time. I still don’t see us ever being able to afford to move but I’m definitely thinking about it and the idea kind of appeals to me. If we did move I’m going to wish I still had Galileo if we do move because they can be my doctors anywhere. Rhonda can’t.

Written today…

No storms disrupted my sleep last time around but next time around I’m not going to be so lucky. If that’s the case that will be three times in less than two weeks. However, there’s no way we can move. If we ever can it will be years from now so I might as well enjoy the many good aspects of Florida. At least the storm season isn’t year-round. The heavy traffic at the old place was. Also, this place may be small but it’s not a dump.

Becky gave me her address and I checked her place out in a VR app. I could see her dog sitting on the porch but I couldn’t see her sitting next to it because the railing was in the way. The area reminds me of Maricopa. Some well-kept homes but trashy in general. There are a lot of Mexicans there and even though it’s not politically correct of me to say so despite how true it is since it’s not what people want to hear, they’re not exactly big on neatness. I’ve lived with them enough to know this and it’s something I’ve seen with my own eyes.

Anyway, I think barking would be a definite problem there. She’s at the end of a culdesac and there isn’t much beyond it but that would be an issue no doubt if you were surrounded by homes. Becky treats her dog as a pet and part of the family because that’s what you typically do being from the East but in the West, most of them aren’t allowed indoors and the neighbors are the ones who have to deal with it.

I’ve been lucky tonight and last night. No helicopters and very few planes. The night before last I heard more helicopters than I usually hear in a month.

The cramping in the upper right stomach is still noticeable and earlier I had mild nausea. Thinking about what I’ve been eating lately, Tom and I suspect it’s because I don’t have a gallbladder. They did warn me that if I ate too many greasy foods, that could aggravate it, and I made us burgers earlier. Time to keep track of what I eat. I gotta be careful with chips too, because after having Tostitos a while back, I was nauseous. The Cheetos I got yesterday also made me nauseous. So the fucking gallbastard is still giving me shit from beyond the grave.

He’s given up vegetarianism because he says he feels better if he has some meat. He just hasn’t gone back to hot dogs which I guess is a good thing. I don’t know that he was necessarily eating healthier when he was avoiding meat because everything he ate was processed except for potatoes.

I’ve been wanting to see the Vicky White movie and the Lifetime people were kind enough to put it on LMN. I emailed them about a week ago and said I knew it was on the original channel and wondered when it would be on LMN. They said they would pass the word along that I wanted to see it and there it was when I logged in today! So I’ve got that to enjoy along with a suspense movie on Netflix. It’s a great movie so far even though it doesn’t have any dialogue. It’s called Monster.

I’m also watching the Ashley Madison docuseries. When the creators talk about why they created such a service I can’t help but think they’re so wrong but so right at the same time. Unless you agree to an open marriage up front, cheating is definitely wrong. No doubt about it. However, they’re totally correct whether we like it or not when they say that love and sex are two different things and no one’s attracted to the same person all their lives. You can love the hell out of someone and be totally devoted to them in your heart and your mind but as human nature has shown, you’re going to be attracted to different people throughout your life. Especially if you’re under 50, LOL.

I have decent energy today even though I did get up at one point thinking it was already Sunday and told Tom we forgot to do the laundry yesterday. When he reminded me it was Saturday and he was just waiting for me to get up, I told him to go ahead and do it because I didn’t expect to get back to sleep even though I got back into bed. Just beyond the back bedroom wall is the storeroom where the washer and dryer are and for some reason, this washer makes a loud bang when it changes cycles. However, I not only did fall back asleep but I never heard a thing either.

I’m scrambling to get as much done as I can today because I know I’m not going to have energy tomorrow. Not if the forecast is correct. So we changed Tinkerbella’s cage, I did some cooking, I folded the laundry after he washed it, I changed sheets, and I’ll run the dishwasher in a little while. So, typical household stuff.

Gotta hit the road tonight because I don’t expect to have the energy to do it tomorrow. I went through Silver Creek, NY and now I’m in Irving.

After I fell back asleep which didn’t take too long thanks to my comfortable bed, I had a lot of dreams. There was a dream about “Nervous” and him not liking me trying to dump him. I kept trying to push him out of an apartment I had but he kept opening the door and screaming at me. Finally, after slamming the door on him three times, he stayed away. A sense of loneliness and isolation then came over me but I knew I did the right thing.

Then I was in a large apartment building somewhere and I knew Tom in this dream. The old lady above us died and I was more bummed out about it for fear of what we may end up with above us since she had been so quiet than I was sad for her.

Then it was back to not knowing Tom. My parents were alive and I was at some kind of hotel. Outdoors, I watched these flying buses that would take off and land in the parking lot. When I went back into the building, I realized my purse was missing and I was relieved when I finally found it somewhere. However, it had been emptied out completely. A sense of panic came over me when I realized I didn’t have my parents’ number memorized to contact them because I always tapped their name when calling them without paying attention to the number. Then they suddenly appeared and I went running to my mother in tears like a child all over again telling her the contents of my purse had been stolen.

[goldenpinof]

thank you for sharing your experience!! it's so nice that he takes the effort to tweak the script a bit depending on where he is, despite some jokes not landing lmao but thank you for the effort dan. i do feel he thrives off the energy of the crowd so he loves it when the audience engages and reacts a lot (in parts that need that reaction). can't wait to see how it'll be different in berlin. also it's sweet that aside from meeting him a big part of why people go to wad is to see friends and the community and being in the same space enjoying the same thing and reacting with and to dan. and i think dan loves seeing that as well. i love living vicariously through you guys as someone who lives in a country that dan won't tour in :( but it's nice to read different experiences and how dan is such a sweetheart in meet and greets and how he really enjoys performing.

i'm so sorry you can't go :( it's a great experience!

i hope Dan understands what kind of people he gathered around himself 😂 we share some opinions and we're willing to listen to each other. yesterday that was such a pleasantly unexpected discovery. you know it's easier to discuss some things online than irl, like political and social systems, sexuality and etc, but we were discussing it after the show and it felt safe to do so. and these conversations will stay with some people for a long time. it's kinda beautiful, we're in the same boat and Dan and Phil are just slightly directing us by planting seeds of major topics in your heads. and then we're free to make research, share our experience and help one another understand something if needed. even when someone leaves the phandom they don't leave it empty-headed. you can obviously outgrow that kind of relationship and find something similar in real life, so you don't need some British white guys to guide your ways. but i bet they still remember what kind of messages those two were trying to convey to them and the world in general. i'm not saying that dnp's opinions and views are always 100% right. hell nah! but sometimes starting a conversation is more important than arguing your rightness. we can joke about it for as long as we want but they really raised us in a way. just like school and your neighbourhood is raising you as well, directly or indirectly.

i think Dan underestimates his power and influence. or likes to think that he's not as powerful as he actually is because then the damage is lesser. he's scared of being wrong and it prevents him from doing the right things immediately. Ukraine was a good example of it, because even if he waited he still fucked up with that tweet. so i get where the fear is coming from and each mistake bites his ass. he is more careful with it now but he still likes to think that he can't do anything. (i'm bringing up Ukraine because he brought it up yesterday. and i'm glad that he keeps doing it. and by doing it he contradicts himself because talking about this war is doing something. it's not over, missiles are falling on cities and killing people, Ukraine loses its towns, gets some towns back – it's happening every day. i just hope that at least 1 person goes home after Dan's show, opens google, updates themselves on the war and shares it within their circle. forgetting is a scary thing, it's like erasing history, only now we're erasing the present).

anyway, can't wait to compare it to Berlin.