#CD Rom Included

[fashionbooksmilano]

Graphic:Print Source

Vol 8 Decorative Graphic

CD ROM Included

GP Publication Ltd, 142 pages, 21,5x30cm, ISBN 978 1427 631 848

euro 29,50

email if you want to buy booksinprogressmilano@yahoo.it

A collection of vintage, retro, art deco and antique style all over prints, the Vintage Prints book offers thousands of ideas, inspiration and design options. For a timeless look that won't go out of fashion - a fantastic showcase, created and put together with 21st century feel. The range of application for these designs includes unique solutions for any printable surface, including fashion fabrics, home and household textiles, upholstery fabrics, wallpaper, gift wrapping paper, accessories, jewellery and much more. As is usual with products from Graphic Print Source, the book comes complete with all the designs in vector format on a CD

09/02/24

[maxillis]

The hardest part is remembering that the heat on your skin is only a memory. You can try to take it from there, if you want, but instead you focus on water; something cool, something comforting, before you turn to something harder to soothe out the muscles that ache from two marathons—one of endurance and another of fortitude.

The heat rises from your chest to your face, where a sturdy bump on your forehead is threatening to grow. Still, it hurts less than the sight of a little girl stuck in an active Cressidium war zone. You know you’ll see her gift to Alaska in FACTORY-RESET’s cockpit by your next deployment, whenever that is.

Best to clear your mind for now—or fog it away, given how many drinks you find yourself taking from quite the unassuming bartender. They don’t recognize you in the slightest. This is another comfort you don’t take for granted; the prosocollar around your neck masks your true voice, and your paranoias about eavesdropping or confrontation die. You haven’t said anything incriminating, but you’ll be damned if you take a step out of your mech that isn’t calculated. And this stress, this constant vigilance, metastasizes.

You’re drinking with a man, you realize. He’s dripping blood on the floor and the noise is only unbearable to you. Quietly, splat, splat, he drips, not yet glancing over. His glass raises between you, waiting to meet your drink with a cheers. In clear defiance, you refuse to raise your hand to the red-stained glass.

It bleeds onto you, crimson on your palms and under your nails. You don’t blink away the consequences of what you’ve done, not even when you feel droplets drying in your hair. You continue to drink, ignoring the metallic taste that you know isn’t alcohol. It doesn’t make a difference to you.

“That’s fine. You don’t have to look. It’s only us.”

It’s something that man, that son-of-a-bitch in the specter would have never said, you're sure. The only words out of him before had been “kys” and you hold little belief that he had anything nicer to add after the fact of his death. It couldn’t be him that came to drink with you tonight.

Before you know it, you are looking up at the seat next to you, searching for what you are certain to hear next.

He’s gone.

You tell yourself to forget the first time you heard those words, and the second time, and the third. It's been a long time since you were young, green, and unsure. Back when you couldn't bear to look, you always had someone to look for you, to charge ahead, or to take a life. Still, the memory of sickness and disgust reviles you. 

The taste in your mouth is your own blood, as it turns out. You've been biting your tongue for the better part of two minutes in the best interest of not freaking out every person you're drinking near, or saying something to your own bodied memories that you might regret. You take your drink to the end of the bar before the bartender can think you look too sick to hang around. 

We all learned it from the best, you think. We as in a long-gone squadron, as in a colony home in ice-ring orbit, as in a family of people who are carried on by the only one remaining. This is why you accept the clap on your shoulder, the memory reverberating with a "Well done!" that you couldn't misunderstand if you tried. You did well today. You've always done well, even when you didn't. And like a school game between children, you were the last to look, so it's only fitting you'd be the one to carry it all home. He says it again to make sure you heard it full and well.

“That’s fine. You don’t have to look. It’s only us.”

There is no us anymore. Just like there is no we, and truthfully no you.

⤝⦽⤞ What secrets do you know?

You shoot him cold between a double-barrel and a pillow. You don’t even blink. But, you do sit with him, still caught in whatever celestial dream that turned out to be his last, as you pat his knee.

“Well done.” It is the only thing you can bring yourself to say. For a long time, you cannot, cannot, look away. In your heart you know that it’s only a matter of time before someone comes in to check on the noise, yet you remain there, and when the door inevitably opens—

Pop. Your shotgun flies up to the headline of the now-open door frame, and another body hits the floor. You don’t look at this one, your gaze still fixed on the man in blissful sleep. It isn’t how he would have wanted to go out, being put down like a dog. That was how they wanted him dead. Not you, but that person who owns the shotgun you grip with white knuckles, cocking back and launching a pretty red shell onto the bed. The dead man catches it with his cheek.

You look at him instead of the other corpse that regrets joining you.

“You don’t have to look,” the dead man says. He’s looking at you and he’s trying, somewhat, to smile. It all comes up cracked skin and blue veins. “It’s only us.”

You swallow your heart down your throat, but it all comes back up.

Standing at attention in front of your Field Commander only seems easy because of the mental preparation you have bounded through on the ride from the dropship, back to your base. The noise of your shotgun still rings in your ears. You don’t realize that your team has left you until you hear the door close; the disorientation is not letting up, only staved for now by the red-hot brand of your former Lieutenant’s medallion-lined jacket in your hands. You’re keeping it as a souvenir. You hold on for dear life, like this alone can keep you from falling over. It’ll work well enough for now.

“You’ve done excellent work this week.” In all your months of working with this company, you’ve never received such praise. From anyone else, it’s a praise that might even be received warmly. Work had been agonizingly slow; intel was hard to come by and politics kept you from blazing your guns for longer than you ever felt comfortable. In the end, the very person that you had been searching for had been the one who kept you closest. You can’t ration it into a victory.

Atop your Field Commander’s desk is a large metal suitcase, closed and facing you. She continues to ignore it as she speaks to you with gusto and a smile so kind that any fool too trusting might think her to be an angel—she knows, and you are grateful, that you are no regular fool. The smile won’t hit her eyes.

“I can only commend you for eliminating our…old friend. Plenty of people in this building wouldn’t have the guts.” Not like your guts, she means, but you do remember how you spewed them all over the old motel room and opt to keep that part to yourself. It isn’t like the cleaners would say shit. “I’m not sure how long he was planning on staying alive, though, as long as he kept giving you his keys.” 

What else can you say?

“I’m not sure either, ma’am.”

It seems to satisfy her well enough. She hums, nods, and seemingly decides that she isn’t making too big of a gamble by passing on this gift. What a mistake it would turn out to be, but for now she is the one in blissful unawareness.

When the suitcase pops open, a snow-white shotgun glares your reflection back at you. The truth is, you don’t look like you’ve just come back from killing your closest companion, the only other living legacy, other than you, of a galactic disaster that everyone else forgot—you’re smiling, softly.

“I’m glad you can appreciate a weapon worth admiring.” Her voice grates down on you. You’re certain she’s aware. Knowing her, she could smell it like a shark in the water.

“Thank you.” When your voice catches, you pass it off as pure admirance for the craftsmanship. It is a gun you could put on a wall or display in a case, glistening and smooth, certain to catch the eye. A closer look would tell you that it’s a working shotgun just the same. “Was this custom-made?”

“Without a doubt. She’s all yours. I shouldn’t have to tell you to watch out for the recoil on this one, right?”

You only pause for a moment. It’s enough time to remember the red shell hitting your dead Lieutenant's cheek, and the sure feeling that he would wake up to ask, fuck was that for?

You wonder if you should kill her now, judging the weight of this new model in your grasp. You don’t care that the dirt from your hands leaves prints and smudges. The pride must come from the intense amount of cleaning that would be necessary for this weapon to keep its luster. You know you aren’t wasting a second of your time on anything that isn’t gun oil.

You have hesitated too long to do what you want to. Your following answer is mechanical.

“No, ma’am.”

“Stellar. I’m expecting you at 700 hours tomorrow. You’re dismissed, Lieutenant. ”

It’s the first thing to hurt you since you left the ice.

⤝⦽⤞ Where is the rest of your team?

What do you wanna be? I dunno, I kinda wanna fly one of those airships. You know, the big ones. The ones with a bunch of cargo? You wanna be a space trucker?! Maybe I do! I could just go out and fly until the end of the galaxy. They’d pay me good. Come on, that can’t be all you care about. Stupid. You’re not gonna get anywhere if you’re not making money! I’d rather hang out all day. Why work out there when we could just stay here? You can’t hate me so bad that you’d run out of the galaxy. …Nah. I’d come back. I know you would. You’d miss all this! 

When he threw his arms out, you laughed, and you punched him square in the chest.

Ow! Fuck was that for? I have more than just you to miss. Fine. I won’t take all the credit. I’ll just take most of it. You can have a solid five percent of the credit. If I didn’t know any better I’d think you were saying you loved me. 

When you wake up, your head is throbbing in more than one place. You go through your memories for over an hour in the bathtub; how you got to the bar, who you were with, how you ended up leaving—not everything comes back. The man from the specter does.

I’m ripping your spine inside out. If you say it loud enough in your head he has to hear it, right? If you get angry enough, if you kill him with enough blood and luxury to satisfy a king, he has to appreciate it more than being executed in his sleep, right? If he knows the person doing the killing, if he can look in their eyes and give one final scream, then it would be better than dying a coward’s death, wouldn’t it?

You storm out to your closet, to the pockets of your Lieutenant’s old jacket—the one you still wear everywhere you go—and you pull a long, metal chain from the breast pocket. It jangles as it hangs from your hands, and even more when you unclasp it.

You’re grateful no one else was in that cockpit with you. You ripped that pilot’s tags straight from his neck and shoved them in your pocket when you pierced through his heart. 

Coward’s death or otherwise, there are certain things you would chase to the end of the galaxy. Your anger, for one. Your past, for another.

His tags join the collection you’ve amassed. You can’t count how many names you’ve stolen (though you could, if you could manage to rifle through all of their names)—or how many bodies were probably buried unnamed, or who might've been lucky enough to be found by their family. What does it matter, when there’s no one left to remember yours? 

You return the chain to the jacket's left breast pocket. The pilot from the specter claps your shoulder. Instead of saying the only thing you believe you’ll be hearing next, he kisses you.

Then, there is nothing. You are alone.

You feel that, in a world where your luck is dictated by dice, you’ve come up snake eyes.

[kamaradka]

i have 186 cds

[arconinternet]

Black Dahlia (Windows, Take-Two Interactive Software, 1998)

You can download it here, or download it pre-configured to run on modern versions of Windows here.

Solve the seemingly unsolvable in the game that came on eight CD-ROMs - the world record for a non-MMO game (Everquest 2 had ten).

Tip: if you solve the rune-gem puzzle pictured below before you need to, you'll render the game unwinnable. The version at the second link includes a workaround - type 'reset' on the puzzle's screen to reset it.

[smallmariofindings]

The iQue GBA SP was the official Chinese version of the Game Boy Advance SP. Bundled with the console, a CD-ROM was included that contained the first chapter of a comic about Mario, called 马力欧大冒险, or “Mario’s Big Adventure”. This is the preview image used for the comic.

Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source

[charcharbinks333]

¡evan peters characters!

fall preferences!

tate langdon:

tate loves spending halloween with you, since it’s the only day he can leave the murder house

cozy sweaters, horror movies, the rare rainy night in, cuddles (he’s the little spoon obvi), the smashing pumpkins and nirvana playing on your cd player

he takes you to the unknown spots around town on halloween that have all the cool graffiti art, but they are unknown to most

overall a sweetheart

kit walker:

he watches girly rom coms and chick with you

you make pumpkin pie while he holds you by the waist, peppering chaste kisses along your neck and watching you at work.

“i’m not in your way, suga’… can’t you let a man watch his wife at work?”

visiting family for thanksgiving and charming his parents (he does the same)

laying with him in bed and listening to the storms

candle light when the power goes out, jazz playing on the radio, early morning kisses, walks on crisp october afternoons

pre-death!kyle spencer:

days spent in your dorm, watching horror movies that he adores

him watching you do your makeup before going to a halloween party in matching costumes that you chose.

him letting you paint his nails black to match yours, but denying it ever happened when he’s around his frat brothers (not in an ashamed way 😭)

him letting you wear his hoodies and sweatpants as the days grow colder

making desserts together at 3 am

james patrick march:

lots of planning for devils night��he has to be ready for the greatest serial killers of all time!

him seeing you in your flapper costume, absolutely shellshocked. he practically worships the ground you walk on, and seeing you in something so skimpy drove him insane

engaging in pastime murders with him (!IF THATS UR THING)

leisurely drinks, late nights waiting for him to come to bed, reading beside him, dancing to jazz by the bar

him letting you wear his blazer when you’re cold (wearing a dress)

austin sommers:

watching him at late hours, writing away in his notebook and drinking. you wrap your arms around him and he kisses your forehead, repeatedly telling you he needed to finish this before november.

halloween themed karaoke at the bar, in which he holds eye contact with you and eventually drags you on stage.

cuddling on the couch and watching hocus pocus over and over (it’s his favorite halloween movie.)

late nights drinking before going home and drunkenly eating the leftover pumpkin pie in the fridge while giggling uncontrollably.

peter maximoff:

watching him speed through piles of leaves, creating a tornado of red, brown, and orange hues, giggling to yourself as other students get frustrated with him

going trick or treating even though you both are way too old for it

watching his kleptomania at work as he takes all the candy from the “take one” bowls, haphazardly using his mutation out in a random neighborhood

watching community and—to your luck—landing on the halloween episode and giggling at the coincidence

listening to classic rock as you get ready to go out, but he pulls you back onto the bed for more cuddles (“baby please i need you… don’t go out yet…”)

play fighting on the bed

alex (adult world):

giggling as the halloween issues of different porno magazines ship to the store, judging the horrible costumes with him

him teaching you how to bake, you clinging to his side as he tries to work around you, being successful in his efforts.

studying for midterms during work, hoping alex doesn’t catch you off duty (it’s happened plenty of times)

watching the first snow together while leaving work, trying to catch the first snowflakes on your tongue 

going to mini-parties at Rubia’s apartment and planning group halloween costumes that include a couple for you and alex

[cronch-rat]

A guide to the missing episodes - 2nd doctor

A small guide on how to experience the missing episodes so you don't have to skip them - continued.

A reminder: All stories have loose cannon recons on the internet archive. Features only visual releases (animation, recon etc...) in region code 2.

The Power of the Daleks

a recon was released onto CD-ROM in 2005

it was animated in black/white only in 2016 with a special edition version being released in 2020

original animated release featured the CD-ROM recon while 2020 release had a newer recon made for it

The Highlanders

(nothing official)

The Underwater Menace

episode 3 included with the VHS release of the missing years documentary

same episode featured on the lost in time DVD

released on DVD in 2015 with episodes 1 + 4 reconstructed

special edition released in 2023 with missing episodes animated in both colour and black/white

The Moonbase

episodes 2 + 4 featured on VHS in Cybermen-the early years

same episodes featured on the lost in time DVD

released on DVD in 2014 with episodes 1 + 3 animated in black/white only

The Macra Terror

animation released in both colour and black/white in 2019

recon made to accompany this

The Faceless Ones

episodes 1 + 3 included in the reign of terror VHS set

same episodes featured on the lost in time DVD

animation released in both colour and black/white in 2020

recon made to accompany this

Evil of the Daleks

episode 2 featured on VHS in Daleks-the early years

same episode featured on the lost in time DVD

animation released in both colour and black/white in 2021

recon made to accompany this

The Abominable Snowmen

episode 2 featured on VHS in the Troughton years

same episode featured on the lost in time DVD

animation released in both colour and black/white in 2022

recon made to accompany this

The Ice Warriors

episodes 1,4,5 + 6 released on VHS in 1998 with a CD of the audio of episodes 2 + 3. Also came with the missing years documentary

released on DVD in 2013 with missing episodes animated

The Web of Fear

episode 1 included in the reign of terror VHS set

same episode featured on the lost in time DVD

released on DVD in 2014 with a recon of episode 3

special edition released in 2021 featuring episode 3 animated in colour and black/white

Fury from the Deep

animation released in both colour and black/white in 2020

recon made to accompany this

The Wheel in Space

episodes 3 + 6 featured on VHS in cybermen-the early years

same episode featured on the lost in time DVD

recons made of episodes 1,2,4 + 5 in 2017 as exclusives to Britbox. Currently available on BBC iPlayer

The Invasion

released on VHS in 1993 with episodes 1 + 4 summarised by Nicholas Courtney

released on DVD in 2006 with missing episodes animated

The Space Pirates

episode 2 featured on VHS in the Troughton years

same episode featured in the lost in time DVD

Clips from the highlanders feature in lost in time but no episodes.

Again, if there are any errors please let me know.

[themuppetmasterencyclopedia]

Pops

Pops

PERFORMERS

Jerry Nelson 1980-2002

Matt Vogel 2011-present

DEBUT 1980

Pops is the stage doorman for The Muppet Theatre. He's supposed to greet the guests when they first arrive -- though the nearsighted and forgetful Pops invariably needs to ask "Who're you?" in his slight country accent. Pops was first introduced during the fifth season of The Muppet Show, where he was featured in the Cold Open of each episode. This was a departure from the previous three seasons, which had featured Scooter talking to the guest stars in their dressing room. (No cold open was used before the opening titles during Season 1.) Outside of his expository function in establishing the guest star, Pops appeared three times onstage. First, in the episode 508, he took on the role of Geppetto to perform "Puppet Man" with Pinocchio. He then performed "Once in Love with Amy" with Fozzie in the UK Spot in episode 512. His last onstage appearance was in a sketch where Professor Salamander hypnotized him in episode 520. In The Muppets comic strip, he also took on the responsibilities of running the wardrobe and props departments. His most substantial role was as the owner of the Happiness Hotel in The Great Muppet Caper. He also appeared briefly at the end of the musical number "Scrooge" in The Muppet Christmas Carol. Although barely glimpsed in Muppet Treasure Island, he had a larger role in the video game version, where he runs a clothing store and, as part of a minigame/sidequest, will pay Hawkins if he protects his shop from pirates. After that, Pops wasn't seen for several years. On Muppets Tonight, Bobo the Bear filled the function of greeter, in addition to serving as security guard. However, when The Muppet Theatre re-opened in It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie, Pops was back on hand selling tickets. In "Kermit's Story," the first in Roger Langridge's four-issue run of The Muppet Show Comic Book, Pops was seen delivering the mail to the Muppets, including the letter to Kermit that sets off the main plot. He often makes appearances in the comic book. At the end of part 2 of The Muppet Show Comic Book: Muppet Mash, when Calistoga Cleo chooses Pops over Statler or Waldorf, Waldorf says "Well, we knew she preferred older guys", implying that Pops is older than Statler and Waldorf. Pops spoke for the first time since performer Jerry Nelson's retirement in an online behind-the-scenes video for the music video of OK Go's cover of "The Muppet Show Theme." Matt Vogel assumed the role at that point, and has spoken for him again in a 2013 Muppisode (with Gordon Ramsay) and in Muppets Most Wanted. Palisades Toys produced a Pops Action Figure in their ninth and final series of Jim Henson's Muppets Action Figures. FILMOGRAPHY The Muppet Show (all season 5 episodes) The Great Muppet Caper The Muppets Go to the Movies Polaroid commercials The Muppets Take Manhattan The Muppets: A Celebration of 30 Years A Muppet Family Christmas The Muppet Christmas Carol Muppet Treasure Island Muppet Treasure Island (CD-ROM) Muppets Tonight Episode 101: Michelle Pfeiffer It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa The Muppet Show Theme Music Video Muppisodes (2013) Food Fight! Muppets Most Wanted The Muppets Presentation Pilot "Because... Love‎‎" The Muppets Take the Bowl ↑ hide BOOK APPEARANCES Two for the Show Light on Our Feet! On the Town The Phantom of the Muppet Theater The Muppet Show Comic Book issue #1 - "Kermit's Story" The Muppet Show Comic Book issue #3 - "Gonzo's Story" The Muppet Show Comic Book: The Treasure of Peg-Leg Wilson Part 1 The Muppet Show Comic Book: On the Road Part 3 The Muppets Character Encyclopedia

[ulan-bator]

Hi, Who is credited on those Patrick Nagel digitizations? They aren't photographs, so are they crude scans, or independently made, renderings by creditable artists? Love just about every thing you post, best to you.

Hey, thanks a lot. My Patrick Nagel tag has a couple different things in it, but i think I know which ones you mean. There's a few posts with similar style and presentation that I like a lot. (This is one) Those seem like obvious computer recreations to me bc they're so clean and crisp. You wouldn't get lines like that from a scan. A few differ a bit proportionally from the originals too, so that's another sign. I'd actually never seen them with artist information or packed as part of anything besides cd-rom collections of images before, but I had another look now and actually found a few more, including one with a name :)

[easternmind]

Junko Kubota joined the team at Synergy Inc. shortly after graduating from Tama University in 1993. After her debut interactive CD-Rom Four-Sight was released in 1995, she began developing another project expanding on the concept of cryptic geometry and optical illusions titled アベラシオン (ABERRATIONS). Planned for release in 1997, the only known screenshot can be found in the Synergy catalogue included with Zeddas: Horror Tour 2. Several mentions are made in the archived versions of the Synergy website, as well. The project was probably cancelled as the company merged with Tsukuda around this time, shifting its line of business strictly to publishing PC software.

Very little is known about her work afterwards. In the early-to-mid 2000s, she kept a website for her design label, Iconographician. In her blog, MneMe Fragments, she describes herself as an independent 3DCG designer. She updated it until 2014, mostly with posts about her favourite music albums and movies.

It is important for me to highlight the fact that I only became aware of this page because Haruhiko Shono shared it with me. Regrettably, only fragments have been archived at IA.

https://web.archive.org/web/20090309082830/http://www.iconographican.com:80/mneme/

Another reference is a shared blog, also hosted at Jugem, apparently from a 3DCG class that she taught. Some posts refer to her as 'professor', and mention how keen she was when it came to providing film suggestions to her class. The above renders can be found there.

https://vancg.jugem.jp/

I am currently pursuing a few other leads and will update this post in the event that I am able to find any additional noteworthy information.

[flclarchives]

undefined

Fanmade music video from a CD-ROM included with issue 44 of Dokan magazine (March 2002), credited to “Lazy H”.

[fashionbooksmilano]

Graphic:Print Source Eco Inspirations

GPS Graphic Print, 142 pages, Hardback, CD Rom included, 21,5x30cm, ISBN 978 1427637 456

euro 29,50

email if you want to buy booksinprogressmilano@yahoo.it

A timeless collection of all over prints, the Eco Inspirations book delivers a selection of versatile print ideas with the ability to create thousands more styles to suit your needs. This adaptable resource of usable prints will inspire not only fashion and fabric designs, but also home wares, accessories, jewellery, wallpaper, upholstery and bedding creations.All the elements in the book can be accessed with ease on the fully vectorised CD

25/02/24

[maxillis]

You sink under the cover of the water and you expect a certain kind of light to hit you as your body is sent under the waves, not having the mind or time to watch the schools of sea-life fleeing from the whirlwind above the surface break.

The light is all ladders of shimmer and shine, of broken and faded beams that fall into the dark like a porch collapse; it is cold like a ghost, or cold like a memory no longer in reach. You raise your hand to swim towards the last splintering step, you fall through it instead, and you fall through it endlessly. There is no purchase for your fingers. There is no anchor, no right-side-up.

The dark creeps in. The porch melts into the swell. 

Enveloped by startling nothingness, from your mouth emerges a low, pulsing light.

Illuminated with sunset pinks and brooding bruises, a mangled, suffocating thing like an animal writhes as well as any small, drowning thing would do, so deep now in the sea. It brushes past your lips and floats just there, beyond your nose, as if to take one last long look back at you. Your eyes no longer register how it burns to see the thing agonize, to grow dim, and to grow dull.

You realize that this is because you are being dragged backwards, outwards from the depths, before you can understand what the pulsing light is. As what feels like an iron bar clasps around your stomach, there is no cry, no warning, and no exception. You must bid your goodbyes while burning for oxygen, swarmed by salted bubbles, and spat back out in a show of foam and blood and ragged gasping. There is no time to miss it before it is missing.

Breaking the surface almost feels vile; you are crashing, yelling, gaping for air against the sharp edges of a jetty, and you think with some string of bitter luck and lucky bitterness, that the only reason you know this isn’t the ocean floor is because you can feel the air touch your lungs once again. Daylight is an afterthought. You wonder if the light you saw in the dark had been a blood vessel bursting in your eye, as you realize you are grappling with your ability to see anything anymore at all.

Something else is in your lungs. An uncomfortable fullness; a taste of sea brine that lingers in the back of your throat. You know that you are cold, but nothing left in you shivers. On shore, the frigid waters that dwell in you now are still. The shine in your eyes has gone milky, shrouding most of anything that still floats along the horizon.

One last look out to sea, however, sends you a gift: a swath of unnatural darkness that almost seems to wave back at your looking. Further behind the figure, there is a certain gradient to the sky—from blue, to gray, then blue again. No wind chills the droplets on your skin. The figure doesn’t move.

Your charter was capsized in the hurricane. Your memory of it feels electric, and you can only think of it in pieces. You put a pin in the thought; you have accepted that no other survivors are in your company.

Looking up to the apex of the sky, on your back, a nagging thought occurs to you: the grayness in the air from behind the black figure is moving quite swiftly across the water’s surface. More than clouds, more than marine fog, you witness gentle blankets of dark, gray smoke billowing away from what must have been a great fire at sea. Your ship. No evidence remains of it that you can sense.

The black figure remains, though, the only head above the waves. You think it might be expecting you to move. You, however, are waiting, and regardless of your waiting, nothing continues to happen.

Above, the lighthouse stands. It is a monolith of faith, and promise, and hope, but for who? The captain who spots it through the scope? The falling bodies, the drowned? To be so close to home, the lighthouse attempts to deliver its believers from the sea, and yet how many ships have been swallowed by her storms? You know enough marine history, including the taboo which you should not know, to understand that the lighthouse was built to be a hope for the island, and never for you. Never for the sailors.

You wonder if someone would laugh if they happened across you. Like a jellyfish in the sand, like a riptide with a victim. You would be hard-pressed to find a sympathetic hand in a situation like this—the foolish prince of seafoam that lost his sensibilities on a spoiled voyage gone wrong. Not even the merchants who ship supplies directly to the storefronts and shanty house businesses of your people receive a second glance, let alone a spoken word of sympathy for the hardships they faced to arrive here. Except, maybe from you, but now you scarcely have the sight to spare any act of that compassion.

They all did warn you. 

A muffled, distant yell does not echo. It is pushed back by the surface tension of the water, as if the sea could reflect sound the way it reflected blessings. Something about it doesn’t feel right. You can’t quite tune into the name being called even if surely, it must be yours. No regular person comes to the shore, or at least wouldn’t be caught doing so in the middle of the day.

No desire arises in your chest to move. Inevitably, a small group of shorerunners are sent to retrieve you, and are a little more than surprised to find you alive. Your haggard face looks identical to a corpse—but you can still move. You try to focus your sight on the shorerunners and who they might be, or extend a hand to hold, but your flesh only meets open air. It should horrify you that they don’t want to touch you any more than they need to, there should be an anchor plunging through your chest at your comrades’ rejection of what they hold in their arms. 

It’s a taboo, you hear one say. The sky still above you, they haven’t reached home yet, and with absolutely no feeling to it whatsoever, you know that they are debating on whether or not to bring you back at all. While they don’t stop walking, they slow around the peak of a hill behind the shore. Your vision is no longer good enough to see the black figure, if it remains at all.

The shorerunners bicker. The octopus isn’t alive just because the tentacles move. The lobster feels no pain as it writhes in the boiling water. The trout heart on the cutting board beats for nothing but its memory.

Whatever you are, the water in your lungs weighs you down. Exhaustion from fighting the ocean and spoiled adrenaline passing between your dead muscle keeps you limp. They debate putting you down like a dog and all you can do is beg for them to look at you. 

You think you can recognize one, a young man who left school the year before you did, who is perhaps the least eager out of them all about making you their next mercy kill. But not even he will look down, gaze stuck paralyzed, horrifyingly at his superior. It’s a lot to ask of a person, you understand, and you have never been under the impression that your people owe you anything; this island, this “kingdom” of sea shacks and broken down harbor piers has proven beyond ages lived long before you that wealth and land and material desire give no advantages against the sea. 

That isn’t how your people tithe.

They refuse to look. They are refusing you. And you have had this nightmare before, but the same way you knew the jetty was not the ocean floor, you know that you cannot be sleeping now. Limp as you are, your skin can still register the pressure where they hold you upright. 

The shorerunners continue to slow and you are running out of time. The hill they are dragging you up is one that leads through the center of town, past a gathering square, and further to your family’s home—still quite a ways, and quite a climb. They won’t make it for another hour at the pace they set, and they have no choice but to pass through the middle of town in the middle of the day. Something like you would normally be killed on sight.

The buzz, the chatter, the laughter, stories, haggling, arguments…You can hear the way they step off to the side, quieting amongst themselves, deciding. Whatever kept you alive to this point must also have influenced the crowd to step away, some in fear, some in anger, and some in despair. Whispered prayers under breaths do not harm you but you suppose that nothing could harm you in the traditional sense, in this state, regardless.

Your father stands at the doorstep of your family home, watching from the distance; you are unable to see him but you can feel the way the waves crash underneath the cliff of the estate, always threatening to shake it apart. Just as waves have crashed there for hundreds of years before and the sea has allowed the people this island, however, the house will remain standing tall. You wonder what it would say to the lighthouse, sitting on the far side of your family’s docks, alone.

Without thinking, you take your own step forward. The shorerunners drop you and leap back, wondering if something abyssal and predatory might emerge from your back or that you might begin to speak some terrible prophecy, now cursed with visions of the sea. Gasps and hard stares bore into you like teeth, but they cannot hold you down. When the shorerunners drop you, when your old friend scampers back in fear and unknowing hatred of this thing you have become, you begin to crawl on your belly to your father’s doorstep. Deep in your heart, you have always believed that he is the only one who should be allowed to handle this.

An inch. A foot. The town leaves you be, perhaps believing that you have come to cast some kind of judgment on them, or their island, or their king. You cannot bring yourself to stand on your feet, but you allow your knees and elbows and heaving, soaked body to scrape itself raw on your fate. By the end of your pilgrimage, your head barely lolls up enough to greet him again.

Whatever he sees in you, you do not know. He says nothing, and so do you. Then there is pressure around your shoulders, and your legs, as if your father is raising your dead body specifically to be beheld by your people.

“The sea,” your father bellows and you know how well his voice reverberates, commanding attention, yet in such a register that you wonder now what emotion he is trying to express, “She returns my son. She has spared him the blight of death, so he might carry the burden of our curiosity.”

You feel no burden of the sort. You feel hollow, empty, far too light for the living thing you ought to be. There is no porch light to greet you back here; only the dull sense of your father, only the faint register of a setting sun. 

Light shuffles give way to an uneasy market that closes quite earlier than it would otherwise. Small children are kept close to the waists of their families with a iron handhold; curtains are drawn across windows and candles are snuffed soon after the clatter of dinner is done. 

Your father realizes that you have not spoken a word; perhaps that you cannot. “Our infirmary cannot keep you.” Little liability, he holds you closer than any shorerunner would dare. “I’ll send word for the nurses to set up a room here.” 

You want to tell him everything you saw. The black figure, the fire, the blackness—

The light. You raise your hand up to your throat, where you saw it floating gently away and beyond you. If you were to go back, would it still be there? What if you could get it back, take it in your hands, say I’m sorry for leaving you down there alone, I’m sorry you were scared in the dark, has your light gone out? Are you so dim and heavy? 

Can you forgive me? Are you still alive?

Your hand falls to your chest and rests there. Nothing moves. No heartbeat answers your call. Instead, there is a stirring in your lungs. Like waves of your own, they ripple when you take a rattling breath in or out, in tandem with the muffled crash of the waves under the cliff-side. It feels like you out there.

If you breathe slowly enough, quietly enough, from the furthest reaches of the sea you know that you can feel it aching; your heart, tumbling through the endless primordial darkness and the very lifeblood of the earth, yet beats. 

And you, lifeless corpse, last survivor, carrying this burden, carried in your father’s arms, must plan your next voyage into her waiting waters.

[invisiblefoxfire]

Playing the Riven remake is such a trip. So much nostalgia for my teen years playing the original on five (5) CD-ROMs. They really managed to capture the same feeling the original did way back then.

And that includes the feeling of decoding two number systems, one base-5 and one base-3, realizing the numbers can be found in various items hidden around the map, discovering the hidden images in the environment linked to each one, traveling to another zone entirely to find a piece of one of the numbers that had been removed, spotting the hidden passage within the other hidden passage within the locked room behind the elevator that requires two different vehicles to access (both of which can only be found after exploring entirely other areas of the game), strolling into the super secret password room, realizing you haven't yet converted the numbers from base-3 to base10, quickly doing that, and then realizing you are missing one of them and have absolutely no fucking idea where it could be.

It also perfectly replicates the feeling of discovering a new mode of transport, enjoying all the sounds and animations as it goes k-chhhh zzzhhhhhhmmmm.... swooo! fwssshhh. clunk. And then you WHOOSH through a tunnel and CHWAAAAA under the water and KZZZHHH past several fascinating sea creatures and then PAAH back to the surface and finally KKHHHHRRRRRR.....ksshhh at the end of the ride.

And then realize you forgot to do something back where you were and discover that you are going to have to watch that entire cutscene every single time you need to change areas. Over and over and over and over again.

(To be fair, there are some settings that can reduce/remove some of these travel cutscenes in the remake, but obviously I refuse to use them because I'm a stubborn son of a bitch for no good reason.)

Anyway the Riven remake is fucking spectacular and you should play it.

[its-stimsca]

Can you do a stimboard for Miss J/SCP-5094?

SCP-5094 is a sapient character in the discontinued children's educational CD-ROM software Miss J's Whiz Kidz Schoolhouse, released in June 1999 by Shoot the Moons Software. Its appearance is that of a stylized female humanoid, modeled as a two-dimensional cutout in a three-dimensional environment. It responds to the name "Miss J" and any feminine name beginning with J; documented examples include "Miss Julie", "Miss Jenny", and "Miss Joy".

I completely forgot about this Scp!! It’s nice to find one every once in a while that isn’t trying to murder you :]

📚 💾 📚

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[arconinternet]

Internet Directory for Kids & Parents (Book, Barbara Moran, 1997)

You can digitally borrow it here.

You can visit archived versions of the websites it lists via the Wayback Machine here.

You can download the included CD-ROM here (probrams 64-bit versions of Windows will say cannot be run can be run by dragging them onto otvdm.exe (downloadable here).