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inbabylontheywept · 1 year

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Kevin vs. Quantum Mechanics

This is an autobiographical piece. Names have been changed for anonymity, but it's otherwise left be. ---

The class's first suspicion of Kevin was that he had, somehow, cheated his way up to this course. He just seemed perpetually confused, and strangely antagonistic of the professor. The weirdest example of this was when he asked what an ion was (in a third year EE class?), and was informed that it referred to any positively or negatively charged particle. It would have been strange enough to ask, but his reply of "Either? That doesn't sound right" sealed him in as a well known character in the class of 19 people.

The real tipping point in our perception of him during a lecture where the professor mentioned practical uses for a neutron beam, and Kevin asked if a beam could be made out of some other neutral material. When asked "Like what?", he replied "An atom with all of its electrons removed." When we pointed out that the protons would make that abomination extremely positively charged, he just replied with "So what if we removed those too?" and then was baffled when we informed him that would just be neutrons.

That's high school level chemistry. Not knowing it was so incredibly strange that I felt like something was off, so I asked him if he'd like to grab lunch. He accepted, we chatted, and I finally began to get a sense of his origin story.

See, Kevin wasn't a junior/senior electrical engineer like the rest of us. Kevin was, in fact, three notable things: A business major, a sophomore, and a hardcore Catholic. All three of those are essential to understanding his scenario.

What had begun all of this was actually a conflict with Kevin and his roommate. Kevin frequently had his fundamental belief in Absolute Good, Absolute Bad, and Absolute Anything pushed back on by his roommate, who was in STEM. Said roommate kept invoking quantum mechanics as his proof against Absolute Knowledge. Kevin was tired of having something that he didn't understand thrown at his convictions, so he decided to take a quantum course to settle things once and for all.

Despite not having any of the pre-reqs.

He'd actually tried to take quantum for physicists first, but the school's physics department wouldn't let him. It's actually pretty strictly regulated, because it is a mandatory class for physics majors. However, because quantum is not mandatory for electrical engineers, there aren't really any built in requirements for the class. It's just assumed that nobody would actually try to take it until their third year because doing so would the be the mental equivalent to slamming your nuts in the car door. Just, pure suffering for no good reason.

Apparently, the counselors had tried to talk him out of it, but if Kevin was one thing, it was stubborn. He'd actually had to sign some papers basically saying "I was warned that this is incredibly stupid, but I refused to listen" in order to take the class.

He was actually pretty nice, if currently unaware of how bad he'd just fucked up. I paid for the lunch, wished him the best, and reported back to the class discord. We'd all been curious about this guy's story, but now that I had the truth, I could share it with the world.

Feelings were mixed. Some people thought he was going to drop out any minute now. Others thought that he wouldn't, be also that convincing him to drop now, while he still could, was the only ethical thing. Others figured that a policy of non-interference was best: The counselors couldn't dissuade him, and if we tried to do the same, he'd probably just think it was STEM elitism trying to guard its little clubhouse. He'd figure out how hard things were, or he'd fail. Either way, it would help him learn more about the world.

We wound up taking the approach of non-interference. If nothing else, understanding his origins gave us more patience when he asked bizarre questions. He wasn't trying to waste our time, he was just trying to cram three years of pre-reqs into a one semester course. He did get a little bit combative sometimes, and we could tell that he was really wracking his brain to try and find some sort of contradiction or error that he could use to bring the whole thing down, but he never could.

First test came by, and he bombed it. Completely unprepared. He'd taken Calc I, but he didn't know how to do integrals yet (that was Calc II). Worse, he was far past the drop date. I imagine most people in his shoes would've stopped struggling. They'd realize they were fucked and just let themselves fail, at least salvaging their other classes grades in the process. Why waste resources on an unwinnable battle?

Kevin never asked questions like that. If he was stupid enough to try it, he was stupid enough to finish it. God bless him.

He invited me to lunch after the test and said that the class was more fascinating than he'd ever imagined, but he didn't know if he'd be able to pass it. He asked if I could help, and I said...maybe. I brought the request to the discord, and from the eight people there I got three volunteers who admired this dork's tenacity. He was in over his head, miles beneath the surface, but his fighting spirit was fucking glorious. If he was willing to go down swinging, we were willing to bust our asses trying to get him caught up.

Some of the stuff was just extra homework we gave to the guy. We told him he needed to learn integrals, stat. We sent him some copies of basic software that can be used to teach the basics of linear circuit equations, and he practiced that game like it was HALO. Just, hours sunk into it. Absolutely godlike.

He was still scrabbling for air at just the surface level of the class, but he'd gone from abysmal failure to lingering on the boundary between life and death. Other people in the class started to learn about Kevin's origin story, and our little circle of four volunteer tutors grew to six. Every day, he had someone trying to help him either catch up in some way, or finish that week's homework. He'd gone from being seen as a nuisance that wasted class time to the underdog mascot.

He was getting twelve hours of personal tutoring a week, on top of three hours of classes, on top of six hours of office hours, on top of the coursework. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that this kid was doing 40 hours a week just trying to pass this one single class.

Second test comes around and he gets a 60. He's ecstatic. We're ecstatic. Kid's too young to take out drinking so we just order a pizza and cheer like he just won gold at the Olympics.

After that second test, things hit another tipping point. With so much catch-up under his belt, he was able to focus a lot more on the actual material for the class. A borderline cinematic moment happened when I was trying to get ahead on the homework so that I could put more hours in on my senior project. Nobody else had finished it yet because it wasn't due for another week, so the specifics of the problem I was working on were still a mystery. I went to the professor's office hours and get some pointers, but he wasn't willing to give good hints when the HW wasn't due for another week or so. He said I still had time to think about it, which was true, but I wanted to be able to think about other things. Kevin had watched the whole conversation, waiting for his turn to ask the professor more simple questions, but when I left I got a text from him telling me to hop on zoom.

Kevin had finished it earlier, because Kevin started all of his homework the moment it was assigned. He needed to, in order to make sure that he could get it done on time. He'd finished it the day before, and was able to walk me through it.

From student, to teacher. I'm not exaggerating when I say that he probably saved me eight hours on that assignment. I could've kissed him.

A month or two later, we took the final. As soon as we were done, we six asked Kevin how he did. He was nervous, there was so much new material for him in this class that his retention hadn't been great. Us six were also a little stressed: We were going to pass the class, but the final was hard.

We waited for the results.

And waited. And waited.

Finally, the scores were posted as a table, curve included. From our class of 19 people, 4 withdrew within the deadline, 4 failed, 1 got a C, 8 got B's, and 2 got A's. We could see that the curve for a C was set at 59.2% overall.

We called Kevin. He was crying. End score, 59.2%. Teacher curved the C exactly to his score.

It was a week into winter break so we couldn't gather the forces around for a party like last time, but we were all losing our shit. Kevin was losing his shit. He couldn't believe how stupid he was to try this course, he couldn't believe that six people busted their ass just to make sure he didn't die, and he couldn't believe that the professor basically just passed him out of sheer effort alone.

He said it was the stupidest thing he'd ever done, and while I doubt that, it was outrageously stupid. And yet, I've never been so invested in a fellow student before. I'm prouder of Kevin's C than I am of my own B. I was walking on sunshine for weeks after that. In theory, my senior project was building a functioning washing machine, but in practice, in my heart, it was helping Kevin pass Intro to Quantum for Electrical Engineers.

(And as an epilogue: No, he did not renounce Catholicism and become an atheist like his roommate had hoped. He did walk out changed. I think that being that wrong about something, and realizing it, was a pivotal moment for him. It's hard to be dogmatic once you realize that a lifetime of being wrong feels exactly like a lifetime of being right, right up until the last two seconds of it.)

#writing #Kevin #electrical engineering #college #memoir #biography #college stories #group project #quantum physics #senior project #people are awesome #Babylon-Lore #Babylon-TopPick

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delta-orionis · 5 months

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Currently losing my mind a little bit trying to find an alternate name for the Recursive Transform Array/Abstract Convergence Manifold regions in Five Pebbles/Looks to the Moon respectively. I think both names mean roughly the same thing.

(Left: Coils in the Recursive Transform Array, Right: Coils in the Abstract Convergence Manifold)

(Theorizing under the cut)

Both regions contain sets of large transformers (or inductors, they both look like coils) arranged into different groups. I assume the function of this region is to receive power from an iterator's power source (how iterators get their power isn't exactly clear- but at least in Pebbles' case it probably comes from the Linear Systems Rail) and step up or down the voltage so it can be distributed to the different electronic components of an iterator's superstructure as needed.

Stepping up/down voltage is the function of a transformer, which is where I assume the "transform" part of "Recursive Transform Array" comes from. In Moon's case, "abstract" in "Abstract Convergence Manifold" is a synonym for "transform" or "change", one thing is being abstracted, or changed into something else.

"Recursive" means "repeating" (and "repeat" is a synonym of "iterate", funnily enough), so this part probably refers to the multiple similar transformers found in the Recursive Transform Array.

In terms of the Abstract Convergence Manifold, either "convergence" or "manifold" could correspond to the "multiple similar things" meaning. The objects in question are "converging", coming together, or being similar.

"Manifold" is a bit trickier, the general definition means "variety" or "many", but the word has other uses. In typography, it can refer to the process of making copies of a document (via a carbon copy), and in engineering it can refer to a component that distributes gas or liquid to different parts of a system. So in this case, I'm going to assume that "manifold" means "copies" and/or "distribution". This makes sense if the Abstract Convergence Manifold distributes power (or maybe even Void Fluid) to different parts of Moon's structure.

And finally, "array" in "Recursive Transform Array" means a group of things arranged in a pattern. This is also probably what "manifold" in "Abstract Convergence Manifold" means; a group of copies of things.

Based on this, both names basically mean "group of similar/repeating things that change". This might not just refer to the groups of transformer coils, but also to the big square structures that both Pebbles and Moon have in these regions:

(These rooms are very dark, I'm only showing Pebbles' here because it's better lit than Moon's.)

This thing looks like a big computer chip, maybe a Central Processing Unit (CPU). I theorize that this room is where the majority of an iterator's processing takes place; where the actual iteration (in terms of computing: repeating a process) happens. So the things that are repeating and changed could be the actual iterative processes (simulations, thoughts, calculations) are carried out, altered slightly, and repeated again.

(Side tangent: I've always wondered what Pebbles was referring to when he mentioned his "processing strata". It might be layers of processors located in his Recursive Transform Array, possibly in the same big room as the square thing. Personally I think the processing strata are the little blinking lights you can see in the background of this room, but I could be wrong. If anyone actually knows the answer please let me know.)

TL,DR: If you have an iterator OC and you want to give their internal regions names but you don't want to simply copy existing ones, I'm pretty sure the naming convention for the transformer arrays uses synonyms for (similar/repeating) (change) (group). For example, "Sequential Flux Assemblage", "Parallel Modification Cluster". These sound silly, but basically everything iterator-related is silly technobabble, so I think the moral is to have fun with it.

Thank you for reading, and let me know if you have any ideas. I enjoy talking to people about random Rain World theories.

#this is another theory spiral I fell down while trying to flesh out OC lore. enjoy #rain world #iterators #rain world iterator #rw iterator #personal #rain world theory #delta's lore corner

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mrs-gauche · 1 month

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So, I *think* I've calmed down enough to form coherent sentences about this trailer now, after watching this about a gazillion times. 😂 There is just SO much in this and I still can't believe it's all real.. I feel like people have already dissected every single frame anyway, so here are just my poor two cents (that's a lie, it's an essay lol), I'm sure 90% of this has probably already been said lol, but I just had to write my thoughts down, so there you go. 🫠

But first, can I just ask you guys this.. Does anyone else feel SO friggin overwhelmed every time something huge like this drops? 😂😭 Like, I LOVE the collective excitement and freaking out over all this with the fandom together in real time, and maybe it's because I'm not a native English speaker, but I'm watching the trailer live and within like fifteen minutes there are already a bazillion notifications, messages, people have already made hundreds of theory posts, edits, fanart and shitposts, meanwhile I'm sitting here still looking at the FIRST FRAME and trying to process what I'm even looking at. lmaoo Like, it takes me SO long to take it fully in, calm down and look at ALL of it in detail, while I go radio silent for like two hours, making people think I just died watching the trailer, I guess. lmaooo So.. sorry if it takes me forever until I even go on here and look at everything you guys are posting. 💀 <3

Anyway, so first of all, I'd like to just generally say... Everything about this blew. me. away.

Look. After like 20 years of watching BioWare's entire animation catalogue of the same 25 movements in every cutscene, that it would make you jump every time a character but even slightly moved differently than everyone else, we're now getting a game that is SO INCREDIBLY CINEMATIC, SO SMOOTH, unlike any BioWare game before. A game where everyone just moves and expresses emotions like their own person, making everything a hundred times more immersive and impactful!!

Not only that but there's a BioWare game now with PHENOMENAL LOOKING HAIR and REALISTIC HAIR PHYSICS. Guys, do you understand this is HISTORY??? lmao We've been asking for this for YEARS and it's happening!! 😭

And the cinematography? THE CINEMATOGRAPHY?? Just looking at that very FIRST LOCATION SHOT alone. The camerawork, the composition, the fluidity of movement, the shift of focus, the lighting, the use of MoCap, the facial expressions... As someone who spent a *LOT* of time using the flycam to make cinematic gifsets of DAI, where - with all respect to the devs - 90% of the camerawork basically consisted of "zoom in/zoom out"... this. blew. my. fucking mind.

Like, they did it. They mastered the Frostbite engine on all fronts. And it truly hurts my heart seeing people compare this to Fortnite or whatever, when in my opinion this time they actually managed to find a perfect mix between stylized and realism, in favor of making the characters even more expressive and this coupled with the use of MoCap and the incredible cinematography will make these emotional scenes hit SO hard and.. ugh, I just love it so much. 🥹❤️❤️

With this being said, let's dive into it!

Okay, so I know this is super random, but it was literally the first thing I noticed about this trailer. lol Did you noticed that it said "BioWare" *before* "Electronic Arts" in the beginning, unlike that first... controversial reveal trailer, where it was the other way around? 😂 Not reading anything into this of course (or do I? lol), but.. Idk, I thought it was.. interesting. 👀

So we start off with the first of many amazing tracking shots, with the camera orbiting around Rook in this place devoid of color or life. The note at the bottom made me chuckle "Game engine footage with some costum camera angles", I was like "Oh, so they used the flycam to make this?". lol So some shots of these will look different in the final version (what kind of spoilers are they hiding?? 👀👀).

I do hope that next shot DOES end up in the game though, because holy SHIT, that FIRST wide shot already blew. me. away.

Look at the COMPOSITION of this.

Actually, you could probably take every single location/wide shot of this trailer and hang it on your wall. lol But seriously, the way this place just looks... dead. It makes me think of "void" rather than Fade.. like an ancient graveyard. The raw Fade looks generally creepy, but this is haunting even for that. There's no life, no color, no motion. It's all broken and crumbled. Almost like it reflects Solas' feelings. People are speculating if this place might change depending on Solas' state of mind.. This is the Fade after all, but Solas is here physically and this being the place that was supposed to be the new prison for the gods.. It's probably different from the rest of it.

We also see all seven statues of the pantheon from the ritual site again. Solas "I have the high ground", *literally* talking down to Rook, while standing on two separate cliffs (how did Rook even get there, I wonder? lol), like there is quite literally a rift between them (for now..!) and Solas is keeping a distance, as always. We still don't know how that connection between the two even works, I assume Rook can only contact him while asleep? But to think that this is the place where he is trapped now, where he is even more isolated than ever before, is making me so emotional. ;-;

I love how it's just black and white though. It gives the scene a destinct atmosphere that might be important, if this is where we get to see Solas doing a lot of introspection. In the art of filmmaking, the absence of color is often used to force the audience to focus on the contrast, textures, and tones present in the image, which can evoke a deep sense of emotion.

And speaking of emotions...

"You have no idea what you have done."

We had already heard that line before, but something about that booming, echoing effect they used on his voice sent a shiver down my spine!

"The blighted elven gods walk free. And all because you disrupted my ritual."

To me, he *sounds* much more frustrated here than he *looks* when saying that. lol He looks incredibly worried though, and just so tired. A moment ago, he was SO close to achieving his goal after hundreds of years of preparation and then he failed again... and now there is this completely clueless stranger who got him in this situation, but who he has to rely on now to stop these gods, when he's unable to trust anyone, and yet he can't even yell at them too much, because he *needs* them. He must be so exhausted.

And yes, it is kinda funny how they put "elven gods" in quotation marks. lol

Thank god he still has his freckles though. ❤️ We're actually seeing a lot more texture on his face here than in the gameplay showcase. And yes, not only did he get his eyebrows microbladed but apparently he's also sporting eyeliner and lipstick now. 😌✨✨ The only downside to the lack of colors here is that his super purple eyes are not poppin' anymore. lol

"You battle against gods. They will not rest until you are on your knees. Fearful. Cowering. Helpless in the face of such power."

I love how they play this line so early on in the trailer, that it makes you go "WAIT... IS THAT- NO WAY" and not until the end do we get the confirmation with the most amazing entrance ever.

We then get a shot of what I think has to be Treviso in flames and Ghilan'nain symbolically coiling her tentacles around a crow statue's head, as she's probably about to take over the city. 👀 *falls on my knees the second I meet her in the game* lol

Then there's the shot of this horrifying Blight.. lump.. growth thing that has completely devoured an elf (and several other bodies it seems) with a hair style that has everyone wondering if this could be Felassan! 🥺🥺🥺 As much as I would LOVE for Felassan to make an appearance.. I kinda hope this *isn't* him.. because good god, whatever happened to this persom here must be pretty traumatizing (are they even still alive?) and also, how do we get them out of there? lol Either way, seeing as there are Harding, Bellara and Neve accompanying Rook here, this might be earlier in the game (and this is them dicovering that the Blight is already spreading rapidly?) and yet it already shows us that this Blight is on a whole other level than anything we've seen before, and it's taking every living thing.

Then we see another snowy place (or might this be within the same area?) that's also in huge parts taken over by the Blight. You can also see a dead(?) dragon lying on the ground at the bottom right corner? 🥺

Then Elgar'nan literally pops up right next to Ghilan'nain, and btw, I love how I can't even tell where her body begins or where it ends in this shot. lmao What ARE you, Ghili?? 💀

It looks to me like maybe she was struck by a bolt/spear from a ballista or something? The Grey Wardens tried to take her out maybe? Looks like the power of Elgar'nan's mere presence blows the Wardens away then lol, like they're just insects to him.. and in the blast we can see a person that looks like Evka?? <3333 (please don't die here though 😭)

Then we're getting a first glimpse of a dragon that shows up multiple times in this trailer. Also, to me, it looks so much like the dragon from the Golden City vinyl cover, which has me like 👀👀👀👀

Next there are a few scenes from the prologue we've already seen in the gameplay showcase, but it's coupled with new lines from Varric, that have me super worried. :(

"Rook, you've got this. I've seen your work. You're clever, adaptable. And you don't know when to quit.

My first reaction to this was "Oh god no, that sounds so much like a "passing the torch" kind of dialogue to me" as in Varric either dies (PLEASE NO but it IS super suspicious how he's not seen or mentioned in any other scene so far) or retires his role as the leader of this group and hands it over to Rook. And he just sounds... weary. 🥺 I wonder what he means by "your work" though? Is he talking about things Rook has done before Varric recruited them? Or is it maybe later down the line, after Rook has already proven themselves to be a great leader? 🤔

Then we get another shot of that one dragon and our first look at Harding with the bruised face (whoever did this, come fight me!) and some poor person tangled in.. something, I'm not sure. lol

Then there's a super quick shot of the floating building in Minrathous, followed by Rook opening a gate Aragorn style, which leads me to believe that this is actually somethere IN that floating building maybe?

But the fact that Rook and everyone else seems to be wearing casual clothes in the following shots, plus the architecture in the background has me wondering if they might be at the Lighthouse actually? 👀

Especially because in the very next shot we see Rook, Bellara, Neve and Harding all in casual clothes again in front of a giant eluvian and I wonder if that's the mirror that we've read about in the Game Informer article. The special eluvian at the Lighthouse that can take you anywhere? :o

Speaking of the Game Informer article, it also told us that Rook, Harding and Neve went back to the ritual site after what happened in the beginning, which is probably what we're seeing here!

"You want allies to go after the elven gods. I've got places to look."

Well, good thing we have a clever detective on the team that apparently knows people who would willingly fight some gods. lol Notice how Harding's face is still injured in this scene. 👀 So I assume whatever happened to her must've happened at the ritual site? Btw, I love how the trailer makes it look like they're all in casual clothes and the second they're stepping through the eluvian, they're in full gear? 😂 (I'm sure those two scenes take place at different times though.) It's crazy how much different the Arlathan Forest looks now, without the cataclysmic storm and all. I love the lighting, the colors and the soft rain! :3

Then we get another gorgeous location shot to hang on the wall. <3 My guess here is definitely Anderfels, given the landscape and those "pillar ring" things we've seen before (I still have no idea what those are, the funniest guess is still griffon training flight path 😂 But something tells me those things will be important.).

"I'll be damned! A griffon!"

Davrin and Assan!! <33333 And the dialogue makes it sound like this might be the first time they meet each other?? 🥹🥹 Followed by a scene of Davrin taking care of business and what might be the return of children in DA?? 😭 Seeing that little girl made me so happy, because that was actually one of the few things on my wishlist for DA4, because I always felt like children make the world feel SO much more real and immersive and besides Kieran, children were completely absent in DAI.

Am I trippin or does it look like this child is smiling here, while running away from a horde of darkspawn?? 😶 Kids in the Anderfels are build different, I guess. lol

"In war, victory."

CHILLS!!

Then we see Assan again, who is pinning down a.. thing I can't identify. lol I'm very curious about all those cages in the background though.. 🤔

We then get one of the shots that made me freak out the most, because it's a flippin *underwater* shot of elven ruins??? 😱😱

We know it's elven because if you look very very closely, you can see a Halla statue in the distance, to the left side. I'm immediately reminded of the stories about Arlathan having sunken to the ocean floor! There's also still all that mention of Ghilan'nain's grey "goop" that smells like the ocean and another shot later on of a dragon (Elgar'nan?) emerging from the ocean! 👀👀👀

And aside from all that, it's just such a sick level design!! 😍 What do these ruins look like if you enter them in the game? How do we get there?? There's an eluvian in the middle of the ocean on the newest map that's included in the Collector's Edition! 👀👀 If that one flippin theory of mine actually turns out to be true and there are somehow two parts of Arlathan, one on the ocean floor and another in the center of the Fade/the Black City, I'll do a triple backflip. lmaoo

Then Lucanis jumps in with some incredibly smooth fighting moves against the Venatori... and PURPLE WINGS!! So we were right with our speculation about the reveal trailer! Why does he have them? Is it some connection to a pride demon that revived him? 😂 I don't know, but it looks SO cool!! And after showing off, we hear his first line "I'm ready" with that sweet sweet accent, which is just the cherry on top!! <333

What the heck is up with the sky in this one?? My first thought was the Lighthouse?? 😍😍 Because if you look closely, there are a few wolf head ornaments on the walls? 👀 And this could be in the Crossroads and just like a real Lighthouse, there's a light on the top..? 🥹

Then there's Bellara using some magical device, that looks super similar to the things that were next to the big eluvian in that other scene!

Which makes me think that this might be where we help Bellara find this artifact in order to get the eluvian at the Lighthouse to work properly (since it doesn't seem to work right without Solas, according to the Game Informer article).

"I've never seen this before. There's something kind of exciting about it!"

Not gonna lie, that line and that weird looking device gave me Peebee flashbacks from Andromeda, which I honestly wasn't the biggest fan of. 😂 But Ghil Dirthalen (member of the community council) responded to me a few weeks back on twitter and confirmed that Bellara is nothing like Peebee at all. lol So that's a relief. 😂 I'm really looking forward to learn more about her and every time I see her magical gauntlet, I'm reminded that we're *definitely* not in Ferelden anymore. lol

Anyway, we then get a few shots of the Deep Roads?? Kal-Sharok??? 👀👀 And of course, there's Harding's big reveal of her new magical powers! The animation on this looks sooo amazing!!

Like many suspect, the Titans' awakening might have something to do with this! I totally agree with what Ghil Dirthalen said on twitter recently and, rather than this being Harding having Solas' petrification powers, it's actually Solas who has the powers of the Titans/stone sense/whatever Sandal did to those ogres back then lol. (I need Sandal to return and be her "teacher" or something 🙏❤️) We know of Solas' orb, which was likely created by obtaining the heart of a Titan. And if the Titans are connected to the Forgotten Ones, Fen'Harel was once considered their ally in Dalish legends. 👀

Also, if you look closely, you can see that the moment her powers are triggered, we see the blue glowy effect all over her body, like glowy lyrium veins almost?

And that in turn could hint at something in connection to her blood? So that big injury we see on her (which is still visible in this scene btw!) was maybe the moment her blood came in contact with something that awakened these powers? (We need Valta back to explain! lol)

"What is happening to me?"

That delivery gave me chills again... She is frightened. Ali Hillis is so good. 🥺🥺🥺

Next up is the Grand Necropolis and people have already pointed out that the ceiling we see at that entrance hall or something looks like a GIANT rip cage?? 💀 (What kind of creature would be THIS big???)

First look of Emmrich in-game!!! And he's wearing a fancy new outfit!! And I paused at the perfect moment to catch Rook already falling in love with him, clearly. lmao

There are two characters next to the gate that could be anybody, really. Myrna from Tevinter Nights or Joanna from the short story "The Flame Eternal"? The guy on the right is actually giving me Executor vibes?? 👀👀👀

Then there's Giant Skeleton Monster (Manfred's mom?), and don't even ask me what this could possibly be. 😂 I just hope we don't have to fight THAT (we totally will 💀). I got flashbacks of the Human Reaper endboss in ME2. 😭😭

"Let the Fade draw close!"

There's something kinda... posh about the way he says this? 😂 Like, he's not really intimidated by Giant Skeleton Monster and it's just another Tuesday in the Grand Necropolis and Professor Volkarin is just doing his every day job. lol

Then there are two shots of what I think is somewhere in the Anderfels but snowy again, like that area in the beginning where Elgar'nan and Ghili showed up? And a destroyed watchtower that is occupied by the Wardens. Then we get a *third* and final shot of this beauty again.

"Draw the dragon out into the open. Then attack."

I assume that's Taash?? Sadly, that shot of her drawing her weapon is all we got from her in this trailer, but she looks awesome!! <333 We're gonna be Lord of Fortune buddies, even though we might disagree on the matter of dragon hunting lol (look, I don't want to *fight* dragons, I want to be *friends* with them 🫠😂❤️ I want to see them live their best lifes.. for the most part (I get to the Elgar'nan dragon and the blighted "twin dragons" in a second lol))

We see the docks of Minrathous for a split second and then a first glimpse at a romance scene between Rook and Neve? 👀 At the Lighthouse maybe?

"You and me Rook. Maybe that's what scares me."

What does she mean by that exactly? Does Neve have commitment issues? lol Or is this more like a "We're a dangerous match, Rook. We'll be too powerful of a couple. Like Bonnie and Clyde." kinda statement? 😂

And THEN... Well, then we get probably THE most badass looking introduction/entrance of any character in DA yet. lol And YES, I freaked out SO hard.

SHE'S BACK. Returning like the QUEEN that she is. 🙏 And of course, she has to come down a flight of "stairs" again. lol (And no, Claudia Black did not lie, she just wasn't contacted at the time. 😁) Gosh, that transformation is so SMOOTH. I could watch that forever, it's so darn beautiful. 😍 Again, the way this is done, cinematically.. just *chef's kiss*.

In retrospect, it seems almost like a given that she would be back because.. well, everything about the way DAI ended. lol Flemeth wanted her to inherit her "godhood", and she looks more than ever like her mother now. Remember the designer notes on that last scene in DAI.

Flemeth intends to let Solas have the power, so long as she can pass the essence of her godhood onto Morrigan, a gift Flemeth had always planned for her daughter yet one Morrigan misunderstood as hostile possession.

So, what exactly is she now? Did she receive whatever Flemeth sent through the eluvian at the end of DAI? Does she carry Mythal now?? If so, does Solas know (I NEED a conversation between those two technically "half-siblings", because Flemeth/Mythal is both their "Mother"? 😂)?? Remember when I said that this one dragon that appears multiple times here reminds me a lot of the dragon on the vinyl cover with the Golden City, which is very likely Mythal? So my very first thought was that the dragon is actually Morrigan?? lol Just throwing that out there.

It seems to me that she is with the Dalish/Veil Jumpers in the Arlathan Forest now? (Btw, if you look closely, you can see elven mosaics in COLOR in the background? :O)

"These are the times in which legends are born or slain."

That line goes so HARD aHhhh. Also, speaking of slain, that new outfit is slaying too. <33 Her return also means that the Well decision and potential consequences are back on the table, which will definitely keep me up at night again. 💀

That moment right there. She is everthing. ❤️❤️❤️ I wonder if we're gonna see Kieran again?? 🥺🥺

We then get the most impressive tracking shot and choreography of what I think is Teia and Viago fighting some Venatori?? <333333 Like, seriously, the way the camera is following his movements in this shot without a single cut, makes me think of something like flippin Games of Thrones' Battle of the Bastards. 😱 And those hair physics on Teia as she's swinging around?? Absolutely amazing.

Followed by Lucanis and.. is that Zara Renata (the character with the best name ever lol)?? Fighting over an ominous glowing staff. lol We know these two still had unfinished business with each other after the Wigmaker Job in TN.

Then we get our first in-game look of my man MANFRED (🎉🎉🎉🎉), proving yet again to be the most fashionable character in the whole game, using his pelvis effectively. lol I love him so much.

Then there's another terrifying shot of Giant Skeleton Monster, which almost looks like it's in command over the crowd of people here, like they're possessed or something? Uhg.. As if this thing wasn't scary enough. 💀

"Our gods are back. Our gods! How do we stand up against that?"

Again, CHILLLLS!! Chills all over. It's gonna be so interesting to hear what the Dalish, Bellara or Davrin think about all these revelations!

Then we see the Wardens again, confronting one of the super duper blighted "twin dragons" we see at the end (more on that later).

We see Neve using a barrier or something against a guy who wears the same armor as her, so maybe the Shadow Dragons are corrupted, too?

Then we see Rook dramatically tossing a sword on a table at Weisshaupt? And holy moly, Davrin in that new armor here looks FINE. 😍

Back in Treviso, we see a cool finishing move from Rook, obliterating a poor Venatori guy. That bow on Rook's back though (I need it)! :O

"I believe in all of us. So let's get it done."

That little pep talk from Rook certainly worked for me. lol Like, whatever it is we're doing here, I'm so pumped, let's gooooo!

Then we get literally a millisecond of a frame, where you can see Ghili lying on the floor.. with the lyrium dagger stuck IN HER CHEST??

EXCUSE ME?? They wouldn't just spoil her death like that, right?? lmao Also, that adds another billion questions about this damn flippin dagger and at this point the list of questions is getting so long that I've completely given up speculating. 😂💀 We see how Rook tries to retrieve(?) the dagger but the power it emanates pushes them back?? What the heeellll.

And then I died. No, really. lmaoo

What can I say.

I cried. I screamed. My soul left my body. It happened. We FINALLY saw him. The Dreaded Wolf, He Who Hunts Alone, Roamer of the Beyond, God of Rebellion. The one everyone's been talking about since flippin 2009. And by GOD, he lives up to his NAME.

He's dreadful, he's horrifying. He's a monster, a nightmare. He's perfect. And just like Solas, he's just a Little Guy and bald. 😭😭😭

...At least in comparison to this dragon!! Look at that friggin SIZE DIFFERENCE. Someone measured the size by comparing them to Rook, who we see for a split second before Fenny leaps in. So, make no mistake, Fen'Harel IS the size of a high dragon, like he was described in Tevinter Nights... It's just that this blighted dragon is HUMONGOUS. lol That dragon, let's call him Elgar'nan, because we all KNOW, right?? Who else could it POSSIBLY be?? He's got the horns, he's the dragon on the vinyl cover with the Blighted Black City, he's ENORMOUS!! I've been saying this forever. Fen'Harel vs Elgar'nan, Battle of Gods was all I ever wished to see and FUCK, I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT WISH CAME TRUE. 😭😭😭

And look WHERE they are fighting!! It's Minrathous, you can clearly see the floating building in the background!! Which means the Dread Wolf is OUT. He's no longer trapped, or in the Fade. Remember Sandal's prophecy "When he rises, everyone will see". And he HAS RISEN. lmao And look at the lighting!! It's the same dim, gloomy RED we've seen at the end of the reveal trailer with the eclipse. "AN ECLIPSE AS FEN'HAREL STIRRED". IT'S HAPPENING. Remember the 2020 teaser MURAL.

Is this the Black City or is it the floating building?? Either way, it's BLIGHTED. In the trailer, Minrathous has clearly been completely taken over by the Blight. "All the world will soon share the peace and comfort of my reign", that's what Elgar'nan said at the end of the 2023 teaser, and what better way to take over the world than to start with the biggest capital in Thedas, a nation which built their own empire over the ruins of Elvhenan, ruled by the most powerful mages!

And I am SO scared. You can see Elgar'nan snapping Fenny. The dragon is blighted, and maybe so is Fen'Harel. He's also clearly been through so much. "The Wolf chews his leg off to escape the trap.", is what Cole said in Trespasser. I don't think he always looked like that. In the murals and the 2022 cinematic, he has a lot more fur. And I can't help but think about the devs saying that Solas wasn't always bald either. lmao How are they connected.. are they one and the same.. are they bound to each other.. we still don't know. But I'm SO. F*CKING EXCITED. TO FIND OUT.

Those few seconds of this scene were breathtaking and whoever made this trailer knew exactly what they were doing, because the editing is so perfect as Fen'Harel charges at Elgar'nan in slow-motion and the music cuts out completely while that beautiful wolf howl can be heard and you can almost HEAR everyone's jaw dropping on the floor. lmao THAT's. how. you. do it. *standing ovation* *sobbing*

Okay. Breathe. Moving on. We gotta get to the end. lol

The very next shot is SO funny to me, because we literally just got to see Elgar'nan, the biggest flippin dragon we've ever seen in DA and it's followed by a shot in which Elgar'nan looks SO tiny next to Ghilan'nain. lmaooo

His ego doesn't allow to appear small though, I guess, so he f*cking levitates to top her in height. lmao These two ancient clowns are already killing me.

What's interesting though is that this is the exact same angle from which we left off in the gameplay showcase. And Solas is nowhere to be seen, so... did he literally just "poof" away right there into that Fade prison?? lmao

We get a quick montage of all the lovely monsters we will face. Like I mentioned, there's the Elgar'nan dragon taking a swim in the ocean, I guess? (I hope he drowns. lol) And a shot of what I think is Irelin (from TN and The Missing) doing.. something with some magical device. Someone fighting a magical "automaton" in the Arlathan Forest. lol Harding doing her THING again, acting like Toph from Avatar, literally bending the flippin earth, like a true Child of the Stone!!

And right before the end, there's one of my personal favorite shots, Rook basically bitch slapping a Pride demon into full K.O.?? lmao

The trailer ends with a final beautiful shot of Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire. lol No, seriously. A SUPER blighted pair of angry dragons, seemingly at the same snowy place that Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain popped up earlier in the trailer. 👀👀👀

So, they might have something to do with this? There was a dead dragon lying on the ground in an earlier shot, so maybe the elven gods revived them? If I see Blue and Red, I'm of course immediately reminded of lyrium.. whatever that means. Or, given that they seem to be attacking Grey Wardens in this place... maybe we are looking at an altered form of Archdemons?? Or something similar to Corypheus' dragon? 👀 There is an interesting theory floating around that Ghilan'nain might look like *that* because she somehow merged with her lover Andruil. As I mentioned in the beginning, Ghilan'nain seemed to have been struck by a spear or something.. and in this shot, you can see that the red dragon is pulling a spear out of its body! Sooo... maybe that actually IS her?? And she somehow transformed into two different blighted dragons, representing herself and Andruil??? The tinfoil hat is strong with this one. lol

ANYWAY. The release date is revealed to be 31st of October, making this the best Halloween of all time!! Not only is it perfect because of its origin, Samhain, the thinning of the Veil between the living and spirits.. But also because we all get a chance to dress up as Manfred, walk into the store, buy the game and then go Trick or Treat (but mostly trick) in the name of Fen'Harel, the Trickster God. 😂😂💜💜💜

And that's it!! Now we only have to wait two months before we can all lose our collective shi— NO WAIT, OF COURSE WE'RE NOT DONE YET.

WHAT THE HELL

IS THIS

EXCUSE ME, how do you throw this in there in the background at the very last second, HELLO??? A rocky object, split in half. HUH, WHERE HAVE WE SEEN THAT BEFORE.

Oh, you sneaky sneaky people. The mural depicting a Titan's death.... Remember the description of this place in DAI's files.

"A final eluvian is situated in a beautiful bolt-hole where Solas has painted murals. Fen'Harel was here and wanted to make sure nobody ever found what the other gods were doing. This place was the breaking point for him that turned him against the gods."

Whatever this is... I think it might be the very reason why all of this is even happening. The Evanuris mined the Titans' blood and "something else" before they collapsed and sealed the Deep Roads with stone and magic.

"Terror, heart-pounding, ice-cold, as the last of the spells is cast."

"What the Evanuris in their greed could unleash would end us all. Let this place be forgotten. Let no one wake its anger. The People must rise before their false gods destroy them all."

I'll leave it at that. I'm so so so flippin excited. I want to thank all the devs involved, I'm so full of joy and can't wait to finally return back to Thedas in October. 🥹🥹🥹 (And if anyone wants to get me that "Rook's coffer" collectibles thing for my birthday two days after release, my address is— naah just kidding!! ..or AM I?? 👀😂😂)!! 💜💜💜💜💜

#dragon age the veilguard #dragon age the veilguard spoilers #tinfoil time #datv #datv spoilers #solas #da4 #and now I go lie on the floor lmao #until October 31st lol #*crying of happiness*#the hype is REAL

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bootleg-nessie · 10 months

Text

Things that will happen in the future (based on my own experiences with time travel):

***FAQs at the end***

*All of these observations are copied directly from my notes in roughly the order I took them in

*Don’t ask about the interchanging use of past/present/future tense, you know how that stuff is with time travel

Women just started all growing three boobs instead of two. Scientists baffled

Genetically engineered catboys (no literally)

The great pyramid of Giza has been converted into a Bass Pro Shop

The entire state of Rhode Island was bought by some rich tech CEO who promptly dug a 500 foot wide trench around the entire state so that it could in fact be an island. It was soon converted into the world’s largest parking lot

Pollution has gotten so bad that fresh oxygen is now delivered straight to most homes via a subscription service

Basic necessities such as food, water, and housing are now provided for free by the government, but only for the top 1% of wealth holders

Insulin now costs twice as much as rent. “Get fucked,” say pharma companies

92.6% of new electronic appliances now have smartphone integration and require a monthly subscription to use

Most billionaires have real estate on earth’s moon

As an ongoing film experiment, Taika Waititi successfully convinced a Nebraska man that he’s been raptured and is now in heaven. He actually got Truman Show’d and now millions of viewers tune in every week to watch God (played by John DiMaggio) manipulate Robert into confronting his own views, battle cognitive dissonance, and face the realization that he might not have been as good of a person on Earth as he thought he was

Carrots have gone extinct, as have highland cows

Species of extinct animals and plants now are being posthumously renamed after the billionaires and elites most directly responsible for killing then off

Researchers discovered a sentient colony of fungus off the coast of Chile, it prefers to go by Fleebo and appears to have a incredibly complex intelligence far greater than any other observed organic being

Nobody knows where Ireland went. It literally just disappeared off the face of the earth one day and nobody bothered to question it. The story couldn’t compete in the news cycle with the recent news about a company in China that made the first real life pokemon. An entire civilization of people gone and I’m the only one who seems to remember it or even care

Fleebo and its offspring have annexed Madagascar and are threatening any retaliation with nuclear warfare and “making The Last of Us a reality.” Nobody knows if Fleebo actually has the capabilities to do this, but after the Lovecraft incident we’re all TOO goddam scared to fuck around and find out

Large snails have replaced cats and dogs as the most common household pet. Snail culture has largely taken over the world, especially Japan

The president of the United States is now decided with an oiled up twerking competition. Most people were hesitant at first but this has produced vastly more competent leaders so now everyone just kinda goes along with it

With the cost of living crisis only worsening with time, selling tattoo space on your body to advertisers has become common as people struggle to afford rent and pay their bills

North and South Korea have reunited into “Korea 2.0”

Germany has split up into East and West Germany again

Belgium and France have been annexed by West Germany and renamed “Wester Germany” and “Westest Germany” respectively

The entirety of Florida is now underwater. Most of Kansas is too for some reason that scientists refuse to explain because they’ve “sworn an oath to the eldritch gods” and that “much worse things would happen” if they did

The melting ice caps in Antarctica unveiled a lost civilization of intelligent creatures descended from a species of lungfish, predating human civilization by millions of years. They planned on hibernating for another 10-15 million years to observe the course of evolution on Earth and are very very angry at humans for waking them up prematurely and ruining all of that with global warming

The politically correct term for lungfish people is “Dipnoid” but most people refer to them by a variety of slurs, such as “finwalker” and “kelp muncher” (not that they even eat kelp)

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch has now increased to nearly half the size of what was formerly known as Canada and has been colonized entirely by pirates (the flag is actually pretty cool). The pirate nation has the 17th largest economy in the world and is projected to surpass the United States in GDP

Africa is about 2% smaller. Nobody knows why. Most people point to Fleebo, who denies having any involvement

All human-Dipnoid interaction was promptly banned by most world governments, except for the GPGPRP (Great Pacific Garbage Patch Republic of Pirates), whom the Dipnoids rely upon extensively for trade

Scientists have used DNA from fossils to recreate other species of humans. We now live alongside them like we did for thousands of years before everyone besides Homo sapiens went extinct. Racism is at an all time high

Class C and above robots are now legally recognized by most progressive countries as people

The United States government has been exposed for secretly funneling billions of dollars into the GPGPRP and using it to fund terrorist operations all over the world.

A new major religion revolving around Dave Grohl has skyrocketed in popularity. Grohilsm is now the world’s largest religion, second only to Fleeboism

Scientists discovered a new continent in the Pacific Ocean, and then promptly lost it again. Most people are convinced this was just an elaborate practical joke, but scientists “swear it definitely happened”

For a brief period of about 30 years, everything in George Orwell’s 1984 happened almost exactly as written in the book. Literally 1984

It was revealed that Jeff Epstein didn’t kill himself. He actually faked his death and spent the next few years in a drug-fueled episode of psychosis making sock puppets in a cave in Italy and then molesting said sock puppets until he died from a sock puppet related illness

Bigfoot was discovered off the coast of Georgia doing cocaine with a congregation of alligators. When questioned, he said he normally lives in Montana and was only there on vacation. He is now a celebrity, and has been featured in a number of tv shows and films, two of which he won an Oscar for. Last I checked, he was a washed up actor living in Hollywood with a reanimated Neanderthal woman

The GPGPRP raided most of England’s museums with the object of “doing exactly what they did for the last few centuries” England was understandably furious, but the rest of the world found it rather amusing

England declared war on the GPGPRP, which it promptly lost after hackers brought down the entire country’s military overnight. Much like in the 21st century, England is the world’s laughing stock

The entirety of Luxembourg relocated itself to the moon

Russia attempted to take over most of Eurasia. In retaliation to the full global effort to stop them, they launched nukes at the world’s 600 most populous cities outside of its current territory. Most of the warheads were stopped in time, but a few major metropolitan areas got hit pretty badly, including Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Chengdu, Mexico City, and Istanbul. Japan was understandably super pissed that Hiroshima and Nagasaki got nuked for a second time

In the wake of the nuclear holocaust, Canada assumed control over what was formerly Russia and assimilated many of its citizens and leaders into its own society and government. Under the new rule of formerly Russian leaders, Canada became a puppet state for the second coming of Russia. It annexed much of the United States, Mongolia, China, and a handful of other countries, becoming “the world’s first megacountry.” Crungolaska now controls a majority of the northern hemisphere

As part of a practical joke by Adam Sandler, Tom Hanks was actually marooned on a desert island like in Castaway. He lasted less than a week before he died. When I left this era of the future, Adam Sandler was serving a lifetime sentence in prison for murder

Fringe groups of crows with above-average intelligence have started popping up around the world. So far they have been observed forming small communities, crafting relatively complex tools, using rudimentary speech, performing rituals, and creating music

Aliens visited earth and had a formal meeting with many of our world leaders, but decided to leave us alone for a few thousand more years because humanity is “not yet mature enough to handle the responsibilities of interstellar travel.” They have incentivized us with a the blueprints for an Alcubierre Drive and a means to produce the exotic matter to fuel it once they deem us as being ready

The original colony of settlers on Mars has declared independence, officially becoming the first country not on Earth

We sent Tom Cruise back to space but this time we just left him there

The tether for the space elevator broke. The town known as Vatorville, famous for being the location of the takeoff point of the elevator shuttle on Earth, was completely decimated as tens of thousands of miles of steel cable came crashing back down. There were no survivors

Most people in first and second world countries have mandatory microchip implants that serve as a personal ID

Last Thursdayism has been largely denounced by quantum physicists. Current theories now revolve around “Next Thursdayism,” the belief that the entire universe was created in the future and that we all exist as a memory in the past

Synthetic organ farms for transplants and research have become a massive industry worth billions of dollars. However, there is still a huge black market for organically grown human organs, as they’re much cheaper to acquire and aren’t taxed at the exorbitant rates that lab-grown organs are

China dug a hole all the way to the center of the Earth. Turns out it’s hollow and there are people living inside. Who knew?

A university reconstructed the entire city of Rome as it was in its early days during the Roman Empire. It’s actually pretty historically accurate, except for the fact that there’s a lot less sex because it’s run by a bunch of sweaty history nerds

After Rome 2 resulted in the creation of a cult revolving around the Roman god of the dead that gained traction as a minor religion, Pluto was officially reinstated as a planet by NASA when cultists picketed their headquarters every day for nearly 3 years straight. “Fine, we’ll give these fucking virgins what they want so they’ll finally shut the hell up,” said NASA’s administrator in chief

In a display of the biotechnical prowess of Disney’s Imagineers, all the animatronics in Disney’s Hall of Presidents were replaced with clones of the originals, which went about exactly as well as you’d expect. After reports of the presidents hurling a series of racial slurs and other obscenities at the first black family to enter surfaced, the project was shut down almost immediately after it had opened. Minority admission to Magic Kingdom plummeted to 2.3% of its numbers from the previous year, making it the second whitest place on earth after a taylor swift concert

Plastic now makes up about 3% of every organism on earth by weight

Public officials are now required by law to take shrooms before running for office

Trees are considered a rare and highly sought after commodity, and are usually only owned by public institutions and the rich (the vast majority of oxygen farms use algae to produce oxygen)

FAQs:

FAQ: What time period(s) did you go to?

A: I have no fucking clue. The world stopped using the Gregorian calendar in 2063 after a gamma ray burst hit the sun. The GRB led to stellar ablation, which changed the length of a year on Earth. The sun would continue to lose mass at an accelerated rate for several more years, with the length of the year changing slightly from year to year. The world adopted a variety of different calendars which kept being updated frequently and were often super confusing and contradictory. I traveled to about a dozen different points in time, which based on my best estimates spanned within a few millennia of the current date.

FAQ: How did you obtain a time machine?

A: I think it was the 17th or 18th of June, 2055? That night, a large sci-fi looking box thingy roughly the size of a VW Bus appeared a few hundred yards away in the open field in front of my house. I tried to take a picture of the box, but for some reason the closer I got, the more the image on my camera started to become fuzzy, and by the time I got close enough to take a decent picture, the camera had stopped working altogether. I pulled open a door to reveal a corpse inside that was charred beyond recognition, who appeared to have suffocated and/or burned to death during a fire that damaged most of the interior. I also noticed a number of strange tumors and growths on the body. I pressed a random button on the remains of what I believed to be a control panel, expecting nothing to happen, but the door closed automatically and I suddenly lost consciousness. When I came to, I exited the box, expecting to still be in the field in front of my house, but instead found myself a ways outside of a small snowy village that based on my best estimates, was somewhere in northern Asia around 2-3 thousand years ago. The villagers started coming after me with spears, so I quickly ran back to the box and pressed another button, hoping it would return me to from whence I came. This time, the people I found (who were thankfully much nicer and spoke a dialect of English that I could mostly understand) told me that it was the year 506 of the PGRB-Δ4 calendar (the calendar that the United Territories was using at the time). I repeated this maybe a dozen more times trying to get home until I landed in 2023, which as far as I could tell, was the closest I had gotten back to my original time so far. It was at this point that I decided to stay and seek medical attention, as I was rather concerned about some nasty new growths on my arms and legs similar to that which I had seen on the corpse.

FAQ: Where is the time machine now?

A: No idea. It disappeared a few days after I landed in 2023. My best guess is that some poor sap found it and ended up sometime else.

(I never ask for likes/reblogs but I literally spent fucking WEEKS on this one so if you liked it pls show me some love <3)

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justlemmeadoreyou · 11 months

Text

a misfortune | (mechanic!harry part 1)

Okay, so here is my version of the grumpy!harry x sunshine!yn trope. I had midterms so this got a bit late! Sorry! I don't rhink you waited for my shitty writing, but here it is (forcefully)

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Summary: Harry is a grumpy asshole, but he is also a mechanic that you are in desperate need of. Sunshine!reader x Grumpy! harry trope

Word Count: ~2k

8 hours.

That's how long you've been in the backseat of your car, and chewing on your already swollen nails. All your belongings, from clothes to your oversized makeup bag, toiletries, blankets, bedsheets, and even your electronic gadgets, are crammed beside you on the backseat. Your life has spiraled into chaos because your landlord has kicked you out.

Tears well up in your eyes, blurring your vision as you recall the moments that have led you to this bleak situation. It isn't fair, which is something you think. That isn't true though. You haven't paid your proper rent in nearly six months, frequently stumbling home at obnoxious hours, blasting loud music when you were drunk and high, and you hadn't even bothered to check the 15-day eviction notice that arrived almost 20 days ago. So, yes, your landlord had every right to kick you out.

You were irresponsible, reckless, and didn't give two cares until you became homeless. With your car serving as an unwelcome shelter, you realize you should have been more responsible. You should have cared more about your living situation before it all came crashing down on you. If only you had taken your life more seriously, you wouldn't be stuck in your car on this cold, lonely night.

It was the beginning of November, and you had so many plans about decorating your small apartment. You had fetched out the Christmas lights too, planning on hanging them out the following weekend. The memory of those festive plans, the warmth of the holiday spirit, now feels like a distant dream.

You wipe away your tears, but they keep flowing. You shift some of your stuff down on the floor of the car to make some space to sleep in. You curl up into yourself in the small space, and after a few more tears, you're finally asleep.

You're woken by harsh knocks on your window. You try to open your eyes, but the sunlight pouring in through the window is so blinding that you have to squint and shield your face with your hand.

It's a man, who looks angry at you. You roll down the window a bit so you can hear what he's saying.

“Could you move your car out of here, please?”

You rub your eyes and finally get a look at your surroundings, and you see that you've basically parked at the entrance of a house.

“Yeah-yeah. I will. Sorry,” you grunt with a raspy voice, and he goes back inside.

You quickly fix your clothes and your hair, and grabbed the car keys from your pocket. Opening the door, you got out of the backseat and got back out front.

Pushing the key in, you turned it, but the engine didn’t start. You tried it again and again, biut all in vain.

Great.

Just fucking great.

Now even your car had given up on you.

You felt like crying all over again, this was all so heartbreaking. You had to get the car checked almost two months ago, when the check engine light had started to blink first.

You pulled out your phone and searched for a nearby garage. Hopefully, there was one that was 2 blocks away. But that meant you wouyld have to push your car two blocks.

You could also call a tow service, but that would take money, and money was something you were running short on.

With a loud sigh, you switched the handbrake on, and got out of the car.

Rolling up your sleeves, you started to push it. The car was so heavy, and you managed a good 200 meters, before you were sweating profusely, and almost gave up, putting your hands on your knees and breathing loudly.

A kind man offered to help, and thank lord he did. With lots of struggle and a good 15 minutes, you were finally able to reach the garage.

Quick Fix Auto

You read the garage name, before lockiong your car and walking in. It was still 8 pm, so you doubted getting any help at this hour.

“Hello?”

You called out tentatively as you entered the garage and walked further into the shop, past the cars and vehicles scattered out front. Hopefully, a second voice would call you back, or you would have had to wait for someone to come in.

“Yeah, I’m a bit busy. Be out in a minute,” the voice replied. It sounded British and thickly laced with an accent. You couldn't help but think that now a gorgeous British guy would see your horrible car, which was also your home, all wrecked up and messed up due to negligence. Bonus points to you for not even washing your face after waking up.

You briefly contemplated running away and finding another garage with an old mechanic. However, you realized you physically wouldn't have been able to do that. So, you took a deep breath, preparing to face the embarrassment and potential humiliation.

After a few moments, he came out, and boy, was he gorgeous. A white headband held his thick hair back, and below that was a beautifully shaped face with green eyes. His tan hands were covered in a bit of grease, and he had tools hanging from his upturned waistband.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, and you gulped hard, snapping back to reality from admiring his physique. Boy, was he pretty.

“Oh, um... I tried to start my car this morning, but it won’t start.”

“And what’s the issue? The battery is out, fuel is down?”

“I don’t know, that’s why I came here.”

“Jeez, your breath smells terrible. Alright, let me have a look at it. Keys?”

He extended his hand to take your keys while looking into your eyes. You squinted at him for his rude remark, then handed him the keys.

“You don’t have to be so rude, you know.”

He kept walking, ignoring your comment. As he reached your car, he stopped in his tracks when he saw your belongings inside it. He turned back to look at you, and you frowned. Eye bags, dark circles under your eyes, a sad face, and you hadn't even washed your face; you had to rush to get your car fixed. You were in bad shape.

He decided to draw a line and not throw questions at you. He opened your car and took a look inside, noticing that the check engine light was on.

“How long has this been on for?”

“Oh, that. Yeah, about... 2 months?”

He slumped his shoulders and came back out, walking to yhe front and opening the hood of the car. As soon as it went up, a big cloud of smoke escaped.

“Fuck. What did you do?”

He coughed a bit, taking a step back to let the smoke dissipate. You felt even more humiliated than before, but he seemed more focused on the issue with your car than making further remarks about your condition.

“Alright. So, this is not going to get fixed in a short while. It’s going to take atlest 2 days.”

“No! Where will I live?”

You exclaimed loudly, and his eyes widened.

You could book a hotel?”

“I don’t have money.”

“A motel?”

“How will I reach one? Most of them are out of town.”

“Right, so you could still sleep in it at night, but I lock the garage at 11. So, you will have to park it outside.”

She nodded her head, and he still felt bad for her.

“I’m Harry, by the way”

He extended the same grease-stained hand again, and she complied, shaking hands with him.

"I'm Yn." she said.

"There’s a bathroom at the back. You can clean up there if you want to. My staff comes in at 9, so you still have about half an hour."

She smiled at his kind offer. He might be rude and grumpy, but he wasn't a bad person.

"Thank you, Harry. I really appreciate it."

"Oh that's okay. But, you do have money to pay for your car, right?"

You did a quick calculation in your mind, and quickly came to the conclusion that you didn't have even that money.

"No, but- listen to me! My payday is here, so I'm gonna get paid soon. I have to buy few supplies first, and then I promise I will pay you as soon as possible. I'll borrow money from my friends."

"As long as I get paid, I don't care where you get the money from."

And the grumpiness was back.

"Okay! Can I go in?"

"Sure. Be my guest."

You got some stuff from the car and went inside the garage. walking all the way to the back, and finding the washroom. You locked the door and cleaned yourself up.

Meanwhile, Harry took a look at your car.

It was in a bad condition. it hadn't been serviced in over two years, and the engine oil hadn't been replaced in so long. The battery was old too. A lot of work had to be done. and he had no idea how he would manage when you literally lived in the car.

Meanwhile, you were happy to have gotten a place to brush and bathe. Initially, you thought you would have to go to a cafe or restaurant, and brushing and bathing there would’ve been embarrassing. Even though embarrassment and humiliation were your best friends now.

You walked out in clean clothes a while later. and saw your car standing at the same place, with no sign of Harry. You searched for him again, and found him at the back, working on the same car he had been in when you had arrived.

"Harry?"

"Yeah?"

"Why aren't you working on my car?"

He slid out from the bottom of the car, before replying, "I have other jobs too. First come, first serve. Plus, this one paid me in advance."

You frowned and flared at his words, and decided to deal with him later.

"So, can I take it, then? I have to go to work."

"No, I will work on it in the afternoon."

"Then how the hell am I supposed to reach work?"

"Many options, by foot, take the bus, order an Uber, Oh! Sorry! I forgot you didn't have money."

He mocked you once again, and this time, you seriously wanted to punch him across the face. Maybe you would, once your car was done. But right now, you have priorities.

"Alright, fine. But my stuff is in the car."

"Chill. Nobody's gonna take it. They might give things to you, though."

You rolled your eyes again, and went back to your car. Why did he have to be such a dick?

Gathering your bag, you stuffed your valuables, leaving only clothes and heavy articles behind. You shifted it to one corner, and draped a huge sheet to cover it.

"Okay, I'm leaving."

And once again, that grumpy asshole ignored you.

(next part)

divider by @firefly-graphics

okay, sorry if this sucked, i really don't know how to write l literally finished this at 2am, so really really sorry

taglist: @freedomfireflies @gurugirl @thechaoticjoy @styleslover-1994 @gem1712 @ellaorchard @bxbyysstuff @opheliaofficial07 @rafaaoli @tchlamqtsgf @the-mouse27 @indierockgirrl @vrittivsanghavi @walkingintheheartbreaksatellite @drewrry @babyiamperfectforyou @whoreonmondays @avalentina

let me know if you want to be added or removed!

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legobiwan · 4 months

Note

For the drabble prompt list

"none of this is your fault" mario and luigi

Drabbles, they said, Ha! I answered. Anyway, I have no idea where this came from, but enjoy this barely-edited not-drabble. I am apparently incapable of concise writing right now :D

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“None of this is your fault, Lou.”

Luigi scoffed, pushing dampened sleeves up both arms, smearing dark, sweaty grease across his skin in wide, impressionistic lines.

“You tell that to Toadsworth in three days. I’m sure he’ll be happy to believe you,” Luigi groused, tightening a stubborn, thick bolt with a violent twist. That should keep the engine boosters from flying off at speeds exceeding thirty miles an hour. (Or as they were counted in the Mushroom Kingdom, five hundred and two mycelia per second, a measuring system so opaque - and infuriating - that Luigi had sat through an entire five-hour Toad Council meeting just so he could petition the government to introduce a bill to launch a public vote on switching to any other quantifier that made a modicum of sense. The notion, of course, was voted down in a manner of seconds. Tradition, Mister Luigi, Toadsworth had sniffed, rapping his long-handled gavel with an imperious gesture, closing off all debate on the matter).

Snobby old toad could stuff it up his spore holes.

“He’ll get over it,” Mario said. “What’s he going to do, anyway? Make us sit through another boring state dinner?”

Luigi poked at a serpentine belt that resembled some slices of old cheese he once found in the back of their fridge in Brooklyn. How these guys managed to stay competitive with equipment in this condition was a complete slap in the face to basic physics.

“You like those dinners.” Luigi crawled out from under the dented chassis, sitting back on his haunches as he gestured at his brother with a ratchet-wrench, making curly patterns in the air as if he were a Magikoopa casting a spell.

“I hate those dinners as much as you. They’re hot, stuffy, and the food is an insult to the entirety of Brooklyn. It’s not my fault I get to sit next to Peach and you’re always stuck with Lady Maitake and her hundreds of onion bulb-pup photos for two hours.”

“Don’t remind me. Did you know she’s trying to train them to do circus acts and take them on the road?” Luigi ran a finger down one of the dusty schematics strewn about the stone floor. “Hand me that spanner, will you?”

Mario shook his head, chuckling, handing off the hooked tool to Luigi, who shimmied once more underneath the maroon-and-black kart. “Look, you got hoodwinked into a bad contract. I should have looked over the fine print before you signed.”

“You’re not my keeper, Mario,” Luigi grumbled, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice. “And it’s not even the contract that I care about. Frankly, I’m impressed Bowser’s been able to get these things to do anything beyond cough up smoke and crash into the nearest palm tree. It’s a good challenge to get them running again.”

“So what’s the issue, then?”

Luigi stilled, his hands guts-deep in a mess of wiring and cables that looked like an earthworm graveyard. After a moment, he sighed, letting the spanner tool clatter to the floor with a bright, metallic jangle.

“The issue,” he began, staring up at the internal electronic system of one of Bowser’s so-called best racing karts. “Is that he’s probably going to win. Bowser, that is. And everyone will make nice about it at the awards ceremony and Bowser will get too drunk on elderflower wine and get kicked out of the post-race party.”

“That happens every race, Lou.”

“Yeah, but you know Bowser. He’ll let it slip that I was the one doing repairs on his karts. And then in the morning, there will be a meeting. And Toadsworth will go on about the standing of the Kingdom being compromised and it being a diplomatic catastrophe that we allowed Bowser to win and that,” Luigi adopted a whiny, pompous voice. “Mr. Luigi has once again strained his credibility within the Mushroom Kingdom.”

“Look, that stodgy old Toad has no chance of making those charges stick. You were exonerated, Weeg. Nothing that happened with Bleck - “ Mario clenched his fists, hissing through his teeth. “Nothing that happened in that place was you. That wasn’t your fault, and neither is this.”

Luigi reached towards one of the dangling battery coils, playing with the violet and yellow wires between his fingers. “Sure,” he breathed. “Not me.”

“Not you,” Mario insisted, his voice steely. “And besides,” he continued, a hint of humor creeping into his words. If you’re so concerned about Toadsworth, why don’t you sabotage Bowser’s fleet?”

Luigi pushed himself out from under the kart, snapping up to a seat in wide-eyed horror.

“And ruin my reputation as an engineer? No way, bro. I’ll risk the treason charges, thank you very much.”

Mario guffawed, ambling over to take a seat next to his brother, the two coming shoulder-to-shoulder, backs set against the passenger door of the Koopa Coupe. “I think your reputation is beyond reproach, Lou.” Mario gave a small, uncertain smile. “After all, you did build two killer robots in the span of two weeks.”

It was a huge step forward, just being able to talk about the whole incident in Flipside, no less joke about it - the ordeal with Bleck and the jester and Luigi’s brainwashing. Mario had stayed tight-lipped about the entire debacle for weeks after they had gotten back, much to Luigi’s aggravation, until things came to a head one night due to a series of ill-conceived plans on the part of the Toad Council, the most brazen of which featured a misserved cup of tea laced with a dubiously legal truth potion.

Luigi sniffed out half a chuckle, nudging his brother in the shoulder. “Well, I can’t let Bowser think I’m slipping, right?”

Mario eyed his brother carefully, his features brightening as he caught the note of mischief in Luigi’s voice. Grinning, he clapped his brother on the knee. “You’ve got an idea, don’t you? The Old Koopa King doesn’t know what he’s got coming.”

Luigi straightened, composing himself into the picture of innocence. “Dear brother, I am a man of my word. Bowser will win the race, just like the contract stipulates.”

“And?”

“Aaand,” Luigi drew out the word, schematics and thermodynamic equations taking shape in his mind. “Let’s say the engine modifications I’m making happen to engage a set of rocket boosters at a certain speed threshold. Bowser’ll like that. But then maybe the activation of those boosters, given a certain location and time input, temporarily cede control of the brakes and steering to a pre-programmed route of the engineer’s choosing.” Luigi paused for dramatic effect. “All after the race is finished, of course. No injuries. No harm. Just a little post-race joyride through the forest.”

Mario gave a joyous whoop, bringing his brother into a tight, side-hug. “They’ll hear him screaming all the way in Rogueport! Ha! You know he’ll threaten to invade during the after-party! No one will care if you worked on his kart once he shows back up breathing smoke!”

“He’ll do that regardless,” Luigi laughed, feeling lighter than he had in weeks. “But you know how these modifications are. Always a chance of overburdening your circuits.”

“And at least it’ll be a while before he tries to trick you into doing his dirty work again,” Mario added.

“I hope so.” Luigi placed a warm hand on his brother’s shoulder, smiling. “Thanks, Mario.”

Mario beamed back at his brother, playfully flicking the brim of Luigi’s hat. “Come on, Lou. Show me how to build a sentient robot race kart.”

~~~~~

Drabble writing challenge: Make me sweat!

#hello there #writing #the eternal struggle #luigi #mario #writing prompts #ask meme #no i will not tell you how the contract came about i have no idea #yes i *do* actually have a story in the works about the tea incident #LET'S FUCKING WRITE YEAH #for once only minimal angst!#still rusty still getting back in writing shape #and speaking of in shape: time to try to run again after a few day layoff

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hobbithabits · 8 months

Text

I understand it takes a lot of the fun out of it but what if Garak was actually just a tailor. And he had really shitty social skills.

Julian staring in awe as Garak dismantles electronic systems on ds9 cause ‘Holy Shit he is a spy’ and Garak is just recalling all his school lessons on basic electronic science while stressing the fuck out cause starfleet engineers mangled the place. Half of Garak getting stuff to turn off or turn on again is his half baked knowledge of cardassian work and the fact that the starfleet tech wasn’t actually integrated very well.

Julian keeps catching Garak staring at him with that look he has, and it’s mysterious and haunting (and sexy) but Garak is just. Really attracted to him and can’t get himself to say anything.

But then it’s revealed that he’s Enabran Tain’s son and everyone’s like “oh this guy is totally a spy” and Julian bursts into his shop to confront him about it and promptly causes Garak to nearly cut his finger off with electric scissors, because “what do you mean you know who my father is? I don’t even know who my father is! and I didn’t tell you that!”

Garak genuinely thought all the spy stuff was just a really long bit and he played into it to make Julian happy. He knows how to shoot a phaser and how to fight and stitch himself up because “it’s basic self-defense and first aid, doctor!” Garak hates the idea of being a spy cause he’s a tailor and he’s a good tailor, so why in the world would he get involved in something like that? Yes he used to be a gardener and briefly did engineering but people change careers all the time, and he wasn’t as good at those as he was at being a tailor.

Garak is literally just a very smart middle aged tailor. With an awful, awful crush on a doctor who’s like 20 years younger than him—A doctor who keeps getting him involved in very important and secret starfleet issues. Truly Julian just has no sense of subtly.

#star trek #star trek ds9 #ds9 #elim garak #julian bashir #garashir #elim garak is NOT a spy #he’s just a gay dude with daddy issues

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mostlysignssomeportents · 7 months

Text

Electrons, not molecules

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TUCSON (Mar 9-10), then SAN FRANCISCO (Mar 13), Anaheim, and more!

When hydrocarbon barons do their damndest to torch the Earth with fossil fuels, they call us dreamers. They insist that there's a hard-nosed reality – humanity needs energy – and they're the ones who live in it, while we live in the fairy land where the world can run on sunshine and virtuous thoughts. Without them making the tough decisions, we'd all be starving in the frigid dark.

Here's the thing: they're full of shit.

Mostly.

Humanity does need energy if we're going to avoid starving in the frigid dark, but that energy doesn't have to come from fossil fuels. Indeed, in the long-term, it can't. Even if you're a rootin' tootin, coal-rollin' climate denier, there's a hard-nosed reality you can't deny: if we keep using fossil fuels, they will someday run out. Remember "peak oil" panic? Fossil fuels are finite, and the future of the human race needn't be. We need more.

Thankfully, we have it. Despite what you may have heard, renewables are more than up to the task. Indeed, it's hard to overstate just how much renewable energy is available to us, here at the bottom of our gravity well. I failed to properly appreciate it until I read Deb Chachra's brilliant 2023 book, How Infrastructure Works:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/17/care-work/#charismatic-megaprojects

Chachra, an engineering prof and materials scientist, offers a mind-altering reframing of the question of energy: we have a material problem, not an energy problem. If we could capture a mere 0.4% of the sun's rays that strike the Earth, we could give every person on the planet the energy budget of a Canadian (like an American, only colder).

Energy isn't just wildly abundant, though: it's also continuously replenished. For most of human history, we've treated energy as scarce, eking out marginal gains in energy efficiency – even as we treated materials as disposable, using them once and consigning them to a midden or a landfill. That's completely backwards. We get a fresh shipment of energy every time the sun (or the moon) comes up over the horizon. By contrast, new consignments of material are almost unheard of – the few odd ounces of meteoric ore that survive entry through Earth's atmosphere.

A soi-dissant adult concerned with the very serious business of ensuring our species isn't doomed to the freezing, starving darkness of an energy-deprived future would think about nothing save for this fact and its implications. They'd be trying to figure out how to humanely and responsibly gather the materials needed for the harvest, storage and distribution of this nearly limitless and absolutely free energy.

In other words, that Very Serious, Hard-Nosed Grown-Up should be concerned with using as few molecules as possible to harvest as many electrons as possible. They'd be working on things like turning disused coal-mines into giant gravity batteries:

https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/02/06/this-disused-mine-in-finland-is-being-turned-into-a-gravity-battery-to-store-renewable-ene

Not figuring out how to dig or flush more long-dead corpses out of the Earth's mantle to feed them into a furnace. That is a profoundly unserious response to the human need for energy. It's caveman shit: "Ugh, me burn black sticky gunk, make cave warm, cough cough cough."

Enter Exxon CEO Darren Woods, whose interview with Fortune's Michal Lev-Ram and editor Alan Murray contains this telling quote: "we basically focus our technology on transforming molecules and they happen to be hydrogen and carbon molecules":

https://fortune.com/2024/02/28/leadership-next-exxonmobil-ceo-darren-woods/

As Bill McKibben writes, this is a tell. A company that's in the molecule business is not in the electron business. For all that Woods postures about being a clear-eyed realist beating back the fantasies of solarpunk-addled greenies, Woods does not want a future where we have all our energy needs met:

https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/the-most-epic-and-literal-gaslighting

That's because the only way to get that future is to shift from molecules – whose supply can be owned and therefore sold by Exxon – to electrons, which that commie bastard sun just hands out for free to every person on our planet's surface, despite the obvious moral hazard of all those free lunches. As Woods told Fortune, when it comes to renewables, "we don’t see the ability to generate above-average returns for our shareholders."

Woods dresses this up in high-minded seriousness kabuki, saying that Exxon is continuing to invest in burning rotting corpses because our feckless species "waited too long to open the aperture on the solution sets terms of what we need as a society." In other words, it's just too late for solar. Keep shoveling those corpses into the furnace, they're all that stands between you and the freezing, starving dark.

Now, this is self-serving nonsense. The problem of renewables isn't that it's too late – it's that they don't "generate above-average returns for our shareholders" (that part, however, is gospel truth).

But let's stipulate that Woods sincerely believes that it is too late. It's pretty goddamned rich of this genocidal, eminently guillotineable monster to just drop that in the conversation without mentioning the role his company played in getting us to this juncture. After all, #ExxonKnew. 40 years ago, Exxon's internal research predicted climate change, connected climate change to its own profits, and predicted how bad it would be today.

Those predictions were spookily accurate and the company took them to heart, leaping into action. For 40 years, the company has been building its offshore drilling platforms higher and higher in anticipation of rising seas and superstorms – and over that same period, Exxon has spent millions lobbying and sowing disinformation to make sure that the rest of us don't take the emergency as seriously as they are, lest we switch from molecules to electrons.

Exxon knew, and Exxon lied. McKibben quotes Woods' predecessor Lee Raymond, speaking in the runup to the Kyoto Treaty negotiations: "It is highly unlikely that the temperature in the middle of the next century will be significantly affected whether policies are enacted now or 20 years from now."

When Woods says we need to keep shoveling corpses into the furnace because we "waited too long to open the aperture on the solution sets terms of what we need as a society," he means that his company lied to us in order to convince us to wait too long.

When Woods – and his fellow enemies of humanity in the C-suites of Chevron and other corpse-torching giants – was sending the arson billions to his shareholders, he held back a healthy share to fund this deceit. He colluded with the likes of Joe Manchin ("[D-POLLUTION]" -McKibben) to fill the Inflation Reduction Act with gifts for molecules. The point of fantasies like "direct air carbon-capture" is to extend the economic life of molecule businesses, by tricking us into thinking that we can keep sending billions to Exxon without suffocating in its waste-product.

These lies aren't up for debate. Back in 2021, Greenpeace tricked Exxon's top DC lobbyist Keith McCoy into thinking that he was on a Zoom call with a corporate recruiter and asked him about his work for Exxon, and McCoy spilled the beans:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/01/basilisk-tamers/#exxonknew

He confessed to everything: funding fake grassroots groups and falsifying the science – he even names the senators who took his bribes. McCoy singled out Manchin for special praise, calling him "a kingmaker" and boasting about the "standing weekly calls" Exxon had with Manchin's office.

Exxon's response to this nine-minute confession was to insist that their most senior American lobbyist "wasn't involved at all in forming policy positions."

McKibben points to the forthcoming book The Price Is Wrong, by Brett Christophers, which explains how the neoclassical economics establishment's beloved "price signals" will continue to lead us into the furnace:

https://www.versobooks.com/products/3069-the-price-is-wrong

The crux of that book is:

We cannot expect markets and the private sector to solve the climate crisis while the profits that are their lifeblood remain unappetizing.

Nearly 100 years ago, Upton Sinclair wrote, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." Today, we can say that it's impossible to get an oil executive to understand that humanity needs electrons, not molecules, because his shareholders' obscene wealth depends on it.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

#pluralistic #bill mckibben #exxon #exxonknew #solarpunk #climate #climate emergency #climate crisis #gaslighting #guillotine watch #Darren Woods #incentives matter

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