#External Data Locations

[rajaniesh]

Unity Catalog: Unlocking Powerful Advanced Data Control in Databricks

Harness the power of Unity Catalog within Databricks and elevate your data governance to new heights. Our latest blog post, "Unity Catalog: Unlocking Advanced Data Control in Databricks," delves into the cutting-edge features

[lolli-popples]

bot...

bott smajor...

(Roscot???)

Anyway- the thought behind this was 'What if Gem and the Scotts didn't refer to Impulse being named Scott and instead there were just multiple copies of Scott?' And then it spiraled into a "Scott is a mass-produced assistant robot AU" that I needed to make something for.

((transcript of the text is under the cut))

Built-in LED mask synched with its speech and the surrounding mood. When service is required, the LED’s will change colour depending on urgency.

The control panel, cable ports, power-core access, and serial number are located centrally. 

Each arm comes with two extra attachments, so you can customize your unit based on what functions it will perform!

This space can be filled with a variety of machines, and is selected when ordering. Options include an oven, washing machine, or x-ray machine! (Changes to the primary appliance can   be done for an additional fee)

SMAJORs have great co and cross-compatibility! They can wirelessly connect to and share data with other units and external machinery. They are especially useful for monitoring security and medical equipment!

Need storage? No problem! The units have spacious storage compartments located in the thighs, hips, and upper arms. Your unit will never be without what it needs!

In addition to omni-directional wheels, the units also have convertible feet for walking up stairs or on rough terrain.

[eqt-95]

A double whammy? I hope you don't mind, but I think you're up to it... ❤️💜

Lena was a woman of science, and anyone in that industry could tell you that external factors could interrupt normal behavior. Like heat. 

It was summertime, and Lena did not do well in the heat. Her skin would burn, she’d melt with discomfort, and her brain would get muggier than the humidity. Sure, National City's heat was contributing, but it was nothing on the exposed arms and glimpses of midriff and polished abs her very best friend’s outfit had on display. 

Lena stood with her popsicle melting under the summer sun and pretended not to stare like she was the thirstiest lesbian on the planet. Meanwhile, Kara debated between the keylime or the berry cream popsicle from the very patient vendor with Ruby and Esme weighing their own very serious choices.

“Careful, someone might catch you gawking,” Sam grinned, taking a swipe across her own raspberry-lemonade treat.

“I’m not gawking. I was… just…”

“Admiring? Observing? Panting?” Sam offered.

“What’d you get?” she continued, not waiting for Lena’s reply before crunching into the strawberry basil popsicle in Lena’s hand.

“Hey!” was her lame, muggy-brained response. A pout came next as she looked at the Sam-shaped teeth marks in her popsicle.

“Yum,” Sam mocked, chomping down on the icy treat and shooting Lena a mischievous smirk and an antagonistic wag of her own, unmarred popsicle. 

Lena would blame it on her sufficiently over-baked patience later, but for the moment, a surge of irrational competitiveness overpowered normal social behavior which was why, without warning, her hand extended to grip Sam’s forearm and her mouth plunged downward, wrapping her lips fully around Sam’s popsicle and slurping upward.

Revenge was achieved. The world was balanced.  Sam looked mutinous. Lena grinned, wiping a small dribble from her chin. Esme giggled from the popsicle cart. Then: “Aunt Kara is eating wood!”

Lena turned her attention to the trio. Ruby was smiling ludicrously while happily licking away at her orange treat. Esme had her little hands clutched around a purple one laughing with unhinged delight. And then there was Kara. Kara who was negotiating three and a half popsicles. Half because Kara’s mouth was clearly full. And chewing. And crunching - gnawing. And looking red faced. And uncomfortable. And like she might take flight any second.

“Kara?” Lena managed, ignoring the suggestive elbow from Sam. “Are you… are you eating the stick?”

Kara immediately shook her head; eyes watering, shifting awkwardly. Then, slowly, nodded when Lena’s brow arched in suspicion.

“You know you’re not supposed to do that, right?” Ruby inserted, casually twirling her own.

And Kara simply nodded again.

—

Lena was a woman of science, and anyone in that industry could tell you about how any hypothesis was established through extensive observation.

It was through regular observation that Lena knew all of Kara’s quirks and habits. It was why Lena was quick to notice a new habit appear. Kara squirmed. She squirmed and blushed and stammered more often than usual. 

So Lena pushed the limits, checking in when Kara’s new traits showed up and, perhaps Lena was putting a little bit too much hope into it, but there seemed to be a correlation with, well, Lena.

But she needed more data. She was a woman of science after all, and anyone in that industry could tell you about the months and years it took to observe, test, and bring to market a new product.

That was where a range of experiments came in: 

Experiment no. 1: Weekly Brunch

Constant: location (Noonan’s), time, day, and table

Variable: Lena wore a low cut dress

Results: Kara dripped egg yolk onto her pants, syrup onto the table, and dribbled orange juice down her chin and onto her shirt

Experiment no. 2: Compromising Situation #1, the elevator

Constant: location (L-Corp private lift), floor change

Variable: an IT cart was ‘accidentally’ parked in the cab, taking up 95% of the space and requiring Lena to press into Kara for the full 63-floor ride

Results: Kara’s work laptop screen was crushed between her fingers

Experiment no. 3: Game night

Constant: location (Alex + Kelly’s), time, day, company, food

Variable: wine; more specifically, wine location: top shelf, hard to reach without a little black ink revealed on Lena’s back.

Results: Alex called Kara out for floating

Experiment no. 4: Compromising Situation #2, Al’s

Constant: location (Al’s), time, day, and company

Variable: their usual table was ‘missing’ one chair, leaving a musical chair situation until Lena simply sat in Kara’s lap

Results: Kara didn’t speak the entire night

Experiment no. 5: Movie night

Constant: location (Lena’s apartment), time, day, company

Variable: chocolate covered strawberries

Results: invalid

Note: experiment considered an outlier and to be noted in future studies. Before Lena could follow through with her protocol, Kara lifted a strawberry to Lena’s lips who, taken aback, bit into the strawberry. Kara replied ‘good girl’, popped the rest into her own mouth, and Lena didn’t speak for the rest of the night

Experiment no. 6: Lunch date

Constant: location (L-Corp), food, time, company

Variable: Lena ordered the greasiest double-patty available

Results: 

The experiment wasn’t going well, and even Lena Luthor’s patience had a limit for inconsistent data. That data was currently slurping her straw through the final dredges of an extra large milkshake from Big Belly Burger. That limit was when Kara Danvers stopped squirming and blushing and stuttering over Lena’s sultry, albeit ineffective, attempts at making a juicy burger look sexy.

The limit was crossed when, unaware of Lena’s greasy chin and flexing fingers and soft moan, Kara went and flipped the tables by turning Lena's anatomy into goop. How? It started when Kara dragged a finger over the cup’s inner wall and licked it clean with a demeanor that was making a different sort of mess. 

Another set of underwear ruined by a Kryptonian. And not even in the way Lena dreamed it.

It was when Kara reached a second finger into the cup that Lena’s patience let out a small whimper which years of practice covered up with a tiny cough.

“Darling,” she choked, throat tighter than the forgotten straw on the coffee table. She stretched her lips into a smile and crossed her legs. Always crossed her legs.

“Hm?” Kara asked, two vanilla-covered fingers deep inside her mouth, tongue swirling with the practice of

“I think you've sufficiently polished your milkshake.”

And Kara, blessed Kara, stared longingly at the empty cup like a puppy who'd just been abandoned on a farm. 

And Lena, cursed Lena, only then noticed the dribbles of milkshake left behind of Kara's lips and chin and now her tongue was-

“Right,” Lena said with a finality that included slapping her hands on her thighs, exhaling shakily, and standing with hopes that Kara couldn't hear anything out of the ordinary on her walk back to a desk of libido-killing work. 

“Hey Lena?” Kara asked, and when Lena turned around, Kara was standing. Close. Like, directly-in-front-of-her close. Like, Lena-could-have-wavered-an-inch-and-collided-with-her close. 

“K-Kara, what-?” she asked before taking a step back and pressing into her desk.

“You’ve got a little something-” Kara began, staring intently at Lena’s mouth.

“I-I do? Where-” Lena stammered. She lifted a hand to wipe at her mouth, only to feel it captured by a strong, warm, steady Kryptonian hand. 

“I got it,” Kara offered instead, and before Lena could process air or space or time, Kara’s lips were on hers. They were on hers and sending shockwaves of surprise and confusion and arousal and - to hell with thinking. Instinct won out, and she returned the kiss, letting out the soft whimper she’d always concealed and leaned into the softness of Kara’s lips, and gave access when her tongue trailed along Lena’s lower lip.

“I don’t think you can call these outliers anymore,” Kara smirked minutes later.

And Lena, too breathless and stunned to play calm, cool, and collected, absolutely folded: “How did you-?”

“Sam,” Kara said simply before interrupting Lena’s outrage with another kiss.

“Well, you know what they say,” Lena offered, still breathless but less stunned, “twice is just a coincidence.”

“Care to make it a pattern then?”

“Absolutely.”

Lena was a woman of science, after all.

[vintage-tech]

useful information: How to get a USB Blu-Ray player to work on your computer

Not a post about vintage technology, just an explanation of what you think might be simple to do but isn't: There are Blu-Ray players that plug into your computer by USB, and you discover that just plugging it in doesn't make it work* in the same manner that CD-RWs or DVD-RWs are automatically recognised and function. You will see "BR Drive" in My Computer and the name of whatever movie you have inserted, but that's as far as you're able to go.

*There is software you can buy to make a Blu-Ray (internal or external) function, sure, and if an internal came with your computer it's likely already installed -- but if you're like me you don't have that software, you're cheap and won't pay for software, and you want to use what you have installed already or find free solutions.

Looking in the Blu-Ray drive's package, there's not a lot of info about what you're supposed to do. The above no-name Blu-Ray player cost $40 from a popular website; name-brand ones can set you back $120 or so. Looking around online for those instructions, I never saw the whole set of directions in one place, I had to cobble them together from 2 or 3 sites. And so here I share that list. To keep out of trouble, I'm not linking any files -- Google will help you.

Get VLC, the free video player available for pretty much any operating system. Thing is, it doesn't come with the internals to make it work with Blu-Ray even if when you go to the Play Media menu there is a radio button for selecting Blu-Ray.

Get MakeMKV, a decoder for reading Blu-Ray disks. This had been totally free during the beta testing period but it's come out and has a month or two trial period you can work in.

Get Java if you don't already have it. Reason for this is, the menu systems on Blu-Ray disks uses this... technically it's not required, however it does mean you don't have options such as special features, language and sound changes, or scene selection if you don't have Java installed; insert a disk, it can only play the movie.

Get the file libaacs.dll online so you have AACS decoding. I am told it hasn't been updated in awhile so there may be disks produced after 2013 that won't work right, but you won't know until you try.

There's a set of keys you will also want to have so that the player knows how to work with specific disks, and so do a search online for the "FindVUK Online Database". There will be a regularly-updated keydb.cfg archive file on that page to pick up.

Got those three programs installed and the other two files obtained? Okay, here are your instructions for assembly...

In VLC: go to Tools, Prefs, click "show all"… under the Input/Codecs heading is Access Modules then Blu-Ray: Select your region, A through C. You can change this if you need to for foreign disks. Next related action: go to My Computer and C:, click into Program Files and VLC, and this is where you copy the libaacs.dll file to.

In MakeMKV: click View, then Preferences, and under Integration - add VLC.

Confirm that Java is set up to work with VLC by going to the computer's Control Panel, going to System Properties, and into Environment Variables. Click System Variables, and click New to create this key if it doesn't already exist: … Name: Java … Value: [the location of the Java 'jre#.##' folder... use Browse to find it in C:\Program Files\Java]

Let's go back into My Computer and C:, this time go to Program Data, and then do a right-click in the window and select New and Folder. Rename this folder "aacs" (without the quotes), and then you click into it and copy the keydb.cfg file here.

REBOOT.

And now you should be able to recognise Blu-Ray disks in your player and play them. Three troubleshooting notes to offer in VLC:

"Disk corrupt" -- this means MakeMKV has not decoded and parsed the disk yet, or that you don't have the libaacs.dll in place so that it can decode the disk. ...After checking the VLC folder for the DLL to make sure, launch MakeMKV, then go to File, Play Disk, and select the Blu-Ray drive. Now it will grind a bit and figure out the disk's contents.

A note appears when a movie starts saying there will be no menus, but the movie plays fine -- Java isn't running. ...Invoke Java by going to the Java Settings in Start: Programs. You don't have to change anything here, so Exit, then eject the disk and put it back in to see if the movie's menu now appears.

Buffering between chapters, making the movie pause for a few seconds? There is a setting for this but I need to find that info page again for where that is. (If you find it, tell me where it is!)

I don't claim to know a lot but if you have any questions I might have some answers or suggestions. So far I've watched "Office Space" and Disney's "Coco" without any issues beside occasional buffering.

[da-janela-lateral]

Extrasensorial Powers Genetics and Why Most Espers are Men

by Dr. Konishi Haruka

A classic question brought up by people who are just starting to learn about basic parapsychology is: “why are most espers male?”. While this phenomenon is partially caused by research bias and poor media coverage, specialists affirm that it has a concrete answer in one of the largest subsections of the paranormal studies field: psychogenetics.

The manifestation of ESP (extrasensorial powers) is influenced by several factors, which are divided into external (trauma, stress, background, culture, etc.) and internal factors (genetics, brain chemistry, personality, etc.). Although genetic inheritance is only a part of what determines if an individual is an esper, it plays an important role in making the development of ESP possible in the first place.

The genetic portion of ESP is polygenic - that is, controlled by several genetic variants, each one with its own small effect. The main genes that interfere in the presence or absence of psychic powers are commonly referred to as E gene (or expressor gene) and K gene (or key gene). The E gene is responsible for a major part of the development of ESP, by linking the nervous system with excess soul energy stored near the telencephalon. On the other hand, the K gene stimulates an abnormal cerebral development, which in turn allows the organism to awaken and control ESP.

Even though these genes are directly related, they have different inheritance modes. The E gene is located on the x chromosome and follows a X-linked recessive inheritance; this means that the mutation will only affect people who have it on all of their X chromosomes. As a consequence, it happens much more often to men, as most of them have only one X chromosome that can be affected. In turn, the K gene has an autosomal dominant inheritance, which means that any person with an active K gene will express it and pass the mutation to their children. Because these genes are only activated through a mutation and depend on each other to work, most of humankind never develops ESP.

All of this makes it harder for women to meet the biological criteria for ‘awakening’, as not only they would have to have an active E gene on both of their X chromosomes, but also an active K gene somewhere. Thus, a greater proportion of natural espers are men, while many women acquire psychic powers as a consequence of prolonged stress and social pressure.

Examples

XY inheritance

XX inheritance

-------- A test for my "Matsumoto Parapsychological Research Collection" series!

This is a small project of mine in which I'll get all the data on the ESP and spiritual worldbuilding in MP100 I possibly can, then create mock articles and infographics that both explain details of canon and make hypothesis about everything that wasn't elaborated on. This piece in particular is more of a headcanon-y explanation for the pattern of family members having psychic powers, so expect the next installations of this series to be more based on canonical information. I hope I can get to the more interesting parts soon!

[squircatlies]

I somehow haven't seen anyone talking about it, but what is our point of view in tmagp exactly?

In tma it was the tapes obviously, in tmagp by the sound of the system powering on and off it would be logical to assume we're listening through the office computers (ignoring the fact that most, especially older computers don't have a microphone built-in and I highly doubt the government would spend money on external ones if they're not necessary for the job), but that would only allow us to hear whatever's happening in the proximity of the haunted pcs. This wouldn't be ideal as it would tether us to this one specific location.

So perhaps more technology can potentially serve as our pov in the future? Of course that would include other computers and phones, but also things like security cameras and smart appliances. I know that new tech was unusable with the statements in tma, but it might not be entirely the same in tmagp.

And if we could listen through other devices, would it be possible for Martin to cut into a podcast Alice was listening to with a spooky story? Could Jon interrupt the morning news to give Sam the latest update on spelunking progress in the ruins of the Magnus Institute? Just imagine Gwen trying to eat breakfast while her toaster is describing how it feels to rot from the inside in a stupidly pretentious voice, that may or may not belong to Jonah.

Edit: I forgot we got to hear their conversations from outside the office already while making the original post, meaning the part about various pieces of technology being able to listen in is already confirmed in cannon.

Also I see everyone suggesting we're seeing the story from Freddie's pov and I can't disagree, however that only leaves us with more questions. Like what exactly is Freddie? I don't believe for a second that it's just a program for collecting data. We have no idea who actually created it and for what purpose. What more can it do? Is it alive or conscious somehow? Who or what does it serve? What is its ultimate goal?

[gallifreyinstituteforlearning]

The tenth Doctor in journeys end (i think?) said a TARDIS is made to be piloted by 6 timelords, what roles would each have in the TARDIS?

What roles would six Time Lords have in piloting a TARDIS?

This is more speculative, based on the known features of a TARDIS.

Console Panels and Systems

A TARDIS console is split into six 'panels', with each panel operating a different aspect of the TARDIS' systems. When there are six pilots, each Time Lord would likely specialise in operating a specific panel and system. Although the console layout may change with each TARDIS's 'desktop theme,' the six fundamental panels remain the same.

[Image ID: On the left is a top-down diagram of the 9th and 10th Doctor's coral theme TARDIS, divided into six panel sections. Each section is labelled from 1-6 clockwise starting from the 12 o'clock position. On the right is a text list of the panels and their names: Panel 1: Mechanical and Master Control, Panel 2: Diagnostic and Internal Ship Systems, Panel 3: Fabrication and Information Systems, Panel 4: Navigation, Panel 5: Helm and Dematerialisation Systems, Panel 6: Communications and Exterior Monitor./.End ID]

See this page on the TARDIS Technical Index for more variations on desktop themes.

👨‍✈️ Roles and Responsibilities

Here's a breakdown of each potential role and their responsibilities:

🔧 Panel 1: Mechanical and Master Control

Role: Chief Engineer

Responsibilities: The chief engineer monitors the TARDIS's overall operation. They ensure that all the mechanical systems and master controls are working properly. If anything goes wrong, they step in and fix it.

🛠️ Panel 2: Diagnostic and Internal Ship Systems

Role: Systems Analyst

Responsibilities: This person is all about the internals. They monitor life support, environmental controls, and the internal power grid. Basically, they make sure everything inside the TARDIS is working as it should.

🖥️ Panel 3: Fabrication and Information Systems

Role: Data Specialist

Responsibilities: Managing the TARDIS’s databases and info systems, and handling any fabrication needs. Whether it’s creating new tools, repairing old ones, or just making sure the information systems are up-to-date, they’ve got it covered.

🧭 Panel 4: Navigation

Role: Navigator

Responsibilities: Plotting courses through time and space. The Navigator makes sure the TARDIS lands where it’s supposed to, calculating all those tricky temporal vectors and spatial positions. They work closely with the Pilot to make sure the journey is smooth and safe.

🚀 Panel 5: Helm and Dematerialisation Systems

Role: Pilot

Responsibilities: This is the person at the helm, controlling take-off, landing, and in-flight manoeuvres. They handle the dematerialisation and rematerialisation of the TARDIS, making sure it takes off and lands without a hitch.

📡 Panel 6: Communications and Exterior Monitor

Role: Communications Officer

Responsibilities: They handle all external communications and keep an eye on what’s going on outside, involving sending or receiving messages or watching out for any threats or anomalies.

🏫 So...

Potentially, each Time Lord on the TARDIS would have a specialised role associated with a specific panel. Ideally, they're probably all working together like a well-oiled machine. However, poor old solo pilots have to jump around like madmen trying to cover all the controls at once.

Related:

Do we have any info on TARDIS biology?: Overview of TARDIS biological aspects.

Can a non-Gallifreyan benefit from a symbiotic bond with a TARDIS?: Non-Gallifreyan symbiosis with a TARDIS.

How to locate a TARDIS pilot: Guide for locating a pilot or other crew members using the TARDIS.

Hope that helped! 😃

Any purple text is educated guesswork or theoretical. More content ... →📫Got a question? | 📚Complete list of Q+A and factoids →😆Jokes |🩻Biology |🗨️Language |🕰️Throwbacks |🤓Facts →🫀Gallifreyan Anatomy and Physiology Guide (pending) →⚕️Gallifreyan Emergency Medicine Guides →📝Source list (WIP) →📜Masterpost If you're finding your happy place in this part of the internet, feel free to buy a coffee to help keep our exhausted human conscious. She works full-time in medicine and is so very tired 😴

[foxglovefaun]

i have a loving and desperate reminder for folks working on large/long term projects in digital format:

it's unwise to make the "cloud" your primary location for data storage. making back-ups in them is fine, but the most secure place for your work is on an ext hard disk that you can detach from your machine, and on multiple copies if you can manage/afford it. (and dont forget to unplug your ext drives when not actively using them!!)

if you dont have access to a personal computer, the public library in your area likely has computers available that you can use. even if theyre not powerhouse machines, they can do what's needed in order for you to back up your stuff. using the internet there you can access your phone/tablet cloud storage online and copy your work onto your external drive. it's definitely inconvenient, but it's probably more convenient than losing your entire library of personal work, writing, and photos.

discord stopped hosting images not that long ago which broke a lot of hyperlinks for personal web projects, google is doing sinister google stuff and is probably going to continue to do so, and we're sort of teetering on a major data/archive crisis that definitely won't put people like us first. corporations are not interested in protecting you. you are the only person who can keep your artwork, writing, and photos secure. ❤️ 🙏

i love you ❤️ pls protect your passion projects ;-; dont let corps decide if your work lives or dies pls back up your digital stuff

[leonaquitaine]

Sights of Eorzea: A Quick Update!

First of all - sorry for the lull in posts about pretty things!

The team behind the Sights of Eorzea discord server has been working tirelessly behind the scenes to set up the space, and it's consuming a good chunk of my free time. With that said, much has been done - so here's a quick feature rundown, and a teaser of things to come!

Guides

Every single guide I've worked on so far is listed there, and you can filter by subject and type!

Places to go, Studios to visit

One of the most used features in the server, the gpose-location forum allows users to post their screenshots with location and search tags - so if you're hunting for that perfect spot, this is the place for you!

In the same forum, you can find Studios as well! They're categorized by physical data center (NA, EU, JP, and OCE) and residential zones, and if you have a studio you can create your own entry and let other people discover your amazing work!

In the works: External location database

In parallel, we are also preparing to launch an external website specifically designed for scene search! It will be in sync with the server's gpose-location forum, allowing external users to have access to the contributed entries and search by tags!

(I know, the interface is awful. It's a work in progress, Ok? ;))

We're also planning to have a map view of these entries, where you can look for different angles and perspectives!

With all that said - you're invited to join Sights of Eorzea today and participate in its already vibrant and welcoming community! Join us as we forge new friendships, share captivating stories, and embark on adventures together!

P.S. I promise I'll resume my usual gpose and virtual photography content soon™; thanks for your patience!

[nelc]

Orbiter Columbia OV-102 had a unique external feature the "SILTS" pod (Shuttle Infrared Leeside Temperature Sensing), it was located on the top of her vertical stabilizer. It was installed after STS-9 (1984) to acquire infrared and other thermal data on the vehicle’s environment. The instruments were removed after several missions but the pod remained.

[eurothug4000]

INTERVIEW WITH SHIGENOBU MATSUYAMA - PRODUCER ON SILENT HILL THE ARCADE

I had the pleasure of interviewing Matsuyama-san, one of the producers on Silent Hill the Arcade! Here's what he had to say :)

Q - How did the idea for Silent Hill The Arcade come to be?

A - During the arcade boom of the 1990s and the 2000s, a desire was born to combine the unique worldview of the Silent Hill series - which was already a very strong IP console game-wise – with the haunted houses one might find in an amusement part. We wanted something that could provide an easy and pleasurable experience to an extremely varied range of customers… as in, the casual users. This is the idea that brought Silent Hill Arcade (SHA in short) to life. However, since our goal was to create a new kind of experience that could not be replicated anywhere else, we designed a game that could make the most effective use of the 5.1ch surround sound system, which was something that arcade games hadn’t adopted until that point, with a type of cabinet that could be somewhat isolated from the rest of the arcade via the use of curtains.

Q - Roughly how long did development for the game take?

A - At the time, the development cycle of an arcade game was so short it would be unimaginable today. The shortest one was around six months, the longest about one year and a half. I think SHA took us around one year and two months.

Q - What parts of development were most enjoyable for you?

A – Usually, arcade games are tested a certain number of times, both during development and just before launch in each and every country where their release has been scheduled (which, for SHA, meant Japan, the US, the UK, Italy, Spain, France, Hong Kong and Singapore). In order to keep the development budget for SHA as low as possible, however, I personally traveled alone to the US for the market testing, assembled the cabinet all by myself, repaired it when it was out of order, and stood next to it for days on end, pen and paper in my hand, ready to collect the players’ data. Game development, nearly 20 years ago, was very much an analog experience. It was also hard work, but when I look back, I have so many good memories of that time.

Q - Do you remember any kinds of ideas that you and the team wanted to include in the game, but didn’t in the end?

A – I’m sure this will sound obvious, since SHA was based on a pre-existing IP, but since the framework was pretty much already set when it came to characters and plot, we had to be extremely careful not to deviate from it so that we wouldn’t create inconsistencies. Personally, I would have loved to take the story in slightly wilder directions and include new and fresh ideas.

Q - I loved seeing so many locations from Silent Hill 3 and 4 make an appearance in the game! Was the team who worked on those two games involved in making any decisions for Silent Hill The Arcade?

A - We of course personally consulted select staff members of Konami, like for example Producer Yamaoka, with whom I had been acquainted with since before SHA. However, most development teams had a mix of internal and external members that changed pretty fluidly with each and every year, so there was no real collaboration between the various teams.

Q - What level of freedom were you given for creating this original story within the Silent Hill universe? Were you given any specific directives on what you could or could not integrate/use in the story?

A - If I have to express my personal point of view on the matter, however, should you compare the storyline for SHA with the timeline of the other games, you would indeed notice a few minor inconsistencies that we were not able to completely solve. That’s something I still have regrets about.

Q - Tell me about translating a traditional survival horror experience into the rail shooter genre and control style. What kind of considerations did you have to make for this?

A - The biggest challenge was by far to design a game system that could be as simple as possible, and to regulate the level of challenge in a way that felt balanced, because we didn't want to force complicated controls or an exceedingly high difficulty level on the casual arcade players. Moreover, there was another balance we had to strike perfectly: more specifically, the one between the aforementioned "haunted house" element - the one that was unique to SHA, with its sequences of terrifying events - and the thrilling playstyle that a rail shooter should provide to the player.

Q - As a final product, what are your personal thoughts on the game?

A - I think it had a state-of-the-art sound system, that the design of the cabinet, with its creepy-looking curtains, made people want to take a peek inside, and that the rail shooting system was simple and could be enjoyed by virtually everyone. I think we managed to combine these various elements with a one-of-a-kind worldview of Silent Hill in a way that was in my opinion pretty good! Of course, each and every member of the staff did their part, and I thank all of them wholeheartedly.

Q - Are you working on anything currently that you’d like me to mention?

A - Feel free to write whatever you prefer! If anything, I should thank you, since you allowed me to walk down the nostalgia lane and recall memories from almost 20 years ago that had been dimmed down by the passage of time. Thank you very much!

Shigenobu Matsuyama's site: shig.jp

[attex]

You think fp and lttm have some self soothing behaviors?

i have been regularly thinking of answetring this ask (it was sent 3 months ago.) but i kept fucking forgetting. i think they do tbh but theyre akin to how they move around their puppets by default, yknow how some people move their hands when talking its like that for their Thinking in a way. it can be like when someones mumbling/talking to themselves cuz theyre really lost in thought or something. (insert joke about italians here) this applies to every iterator with a functional connected puppet...

this is just advanced headcanoning btw, read more cuz its kinda long and not formatted well

for the cringe siblings though i headcanon five pebbles would be touching his robe fabric a lot (especially post-rivulet where hes more concentrated on his own puppet and tries to use it more to ground himself to his own body), he does that out of stress usually as another little external representation of his emotions- i imagine a lot of the structure straight up moves and has a lot of its parts basically shifting and wiggling around, its more involuntary but i think pebbles moves and bundles up his cables that are normally used for local data transferring. he doesn't have much to reorganize within him internally a lot of the time (anymore...) so he basically moves his devices for it for the sake of the sensation of having/doing some sort of action

i think moon sometimes gently rocks her puppet back and forth when under-stimulated. though she usually lands back to staying very still (she does this before her collapse too anyway, she meditates in a way have you seen how she moves her puppet to the middle of her chamber and closes her eyes and has her halo move gently etc. AHHHHH its so cuteeee) also i draw her with hair like wires so um :) she braids them sometimes or caresses them. shes much more disconnected from her entire body so its Something to do at least. she will hold and look at the pearls or other items that creatures end up bringing to her also <3 post-rivulet she gets a lot to do with her structure. she very often rumbles parts of her to hum sounds and such, she does this with her puppet too but its more akin to humming a melody for the puppet lol. while every iterator can has a near-constant background hum and noise caused by many things, moon explicitly alters her internal humming to match external things she is experiencing- (unlike other iterators who don't usually have their internal "rhythm" match their external environment as well) i believe she developed this habit to be more in tune with her environmental location as it helped with not causing as much harmful interference to all that is around her (she has an older, not as performant/optimized can so she needed to adjust to function better), its beneficial for her workings too lol! her organic parts do need to be in tune with the life surrounding her to be able to keep stable.

[cliffou29]

Build bigger

Ok, so I’m sharing with you my method to buil digger in TS4.

As it is not possible to have lots larger than 64x64, I looked for a method to arrange multiple adjacent lots (with a slight overlap) in order to build multiple lots and give the illusion of having a single building.

After numerous trials and errors, many failures, periods of giving up, new attempts, I finally succeeded in doing what I wanted: modifying the "World" file of Newcrest to rearrange the 5 lots located on the right.

I created 3 layouts: one in the shape of an L, one in the shape of an M, and one in the shape of a U. You can choose according to your project. Therefore, there are 3 world files available to download :

Download here

- BG_Engagement_01L.world

- BG_Engagement_01M.world

- BG_Engagement_01U.world

I recommend downloading all 3 and storing them somewhere on your hard drive so that you can switch between layouts depending on your projects. 

How to use them :

It's quite simple: just go to the folder C:\Program Files\EA Games\The Sims 4\Data\Shared\Worlds\Areas and replace the file "BG_Engagement_01.world" with one of the three downloaded files (so you need to rename the chosen file by removing the letter indicating the layout).

Attention: for safety, save the original world file somewhere just in case...

Then, you just need to build the different lots: to have a single building, it is necessary to manage the walls at the boundaries and thus plan the construction carefully... obviously, a room cannot be overlapped between two lots (when on a lot, you can see the external envelope of the other lots but not the interior).

It's a method that can satisfy builders, but it's not really suitable for playing The Sims normally...

I heard that during updates or installation of expansions, world files can be restored. So I think that during updates, I will have to redo the process (hoping it won't break the files... but only the future will tell).

* Note: the display in the world view is not great. When the lots are built, the visuals cover up the clickable areas of each lot... so you have to experiment with the mouse, but it works :)

I hope you’ll enjoy it

[montaguethelorekeeper]

Pandofication

Below is a diagram detailing the four primary stages of a transformation referred to as Pandofication.

Very little quantitative data is currently available. The qualitative data suggests that Pandofication can remain dormant in a host body for an extended period of time before entering the metamorphosis stage. It is unknown how Pando spreads into its host bodies.

After close proximity to excessive heat and smoke, the host body begins an involuntary metamorphosis into the final stage of the Pando life cycle.

The following are the four primary stages of Pandofication.

Fig. 1-A.

Host begins to show visible changes. (Pandofication likely has progressed internally before this stage.) Outer extremities begin to whiten and take on a rough bark-like texture. As the Pandofication progresses, this whitening spreads inwards.

Cognition unaffected.

Fig. 1-B.

Blackened creases and other markings typical of Populus Tremuloides (Quaking Aspen) form across whitened areas. Host remains proportionally unaffected and anatomically correct.

Fig. 2

Host begins growth stage. Outer extremities are affected first, losing dexterity while rapidly becoming more root-like in structure.

Cognition impaired. Host becomes confused and disorientated. In humans, the host remains capable of (imperfect) speech, and basic reasoning. Host becomes highly avoidant of others of their kind.

At this stage the host can recognise and can choose to interact with familiar parties. Willing, non-avoidant interaction with unfamiliar parties is highly unlikely at this stage.

Host seeks an isolated location of a forest recently affected by wildfire where water and sunlight are in abundance.

Fig. 3

Host doubles to triples in height, significant growth in overall mass. Branches and foliage are now prominently growing across the host body. External soft tissue not altered by the Pandofication process decays and is discarded.

Cognition severely impaired.

Host no longer displays avoidant behaviors, instead becoming hostile when approached. Host no longer capable of communication or recognition. Exhibits “hunting” behavior, killing and gathering local fauna into a single area.

Fig. 4

Host becomes immobilized. Rooting into the earth around the collected kills, most likely acting as a form of fertilizer. The end result of the Pandofication process is a conjoined Quaking Aspen tree consisting of four trunks, previously limbs.

The Host selects an ideal location for Aspen tree growth and establishes itself firmly, becoming the center of a future Pando forest.

[bethanythebogwitch]

Godzilla biology and history

(Monsterverse inspired, but incorporates the Toho movies and adds some non-Godzilla kaiju).

Godzilla (Gojira colosseus) is indisputably the most well-known example of interior earth hyperfauna (colloquially referred to as kaiju or titans) and the most influential and controversial kaiju known to man. Three individuals of this species are known, referred to as Godzilla I, II, and III. G. colosseus is an apparent reptilian organism with a superficial resemblance to theropod dinosaurs, though the species displays multiple non-reptilian traits including external ears, gills, endothermy, and three rows of bony plates that occur in the back and tail as extensions of the vertebral column. Godzillas also have a more upright stance than theropods, with tails that drag along the ground. While determining the genetic relationships of hyperfauna has proven difficult with the limited data available, G. colosseus is speculated to be related to other known species including Titanosaurus amphibious (Titanosaurus), Gorosaurus asperacutus (Gorosaurus), and Gojiramimus piscovoria (Zilla).

As with other hyperfauna, Gojira colosseus is capable of deriving nutrition from radiation. While it evolved to feed on interior earth radiation, nuclear radiation is also used as a food source. As with other hyperfauna, Godzilla will supplement its radiation diet with other food sources. Godzilla has proven to be an obligate carnivore and will consume other kaiju or whales. Godzillas are amphibious, capable of surviving both on land and in water due to possessing both lungs and gills. The species spend most of their time in the water, only occasionally coming to land. While underwater Godzilla will swim by propelling itself with its tail or walk along the seafloor. An adult Godzilla can reach up to 120 meters in height and is enormously strong even for a creature of that size. Godzillas are also highly intelligent, capable of recognizing individual humans, quickly formulating strategies in battle, some tool use (usually limited to using objects as bludgeoning weapons), and commanding subordinate kaiju. The species possess secondary brains located near the pelvis that control much of the bodily functions and muscular activity of the body, leaving the primary brain free to focus on more complex thought. If either brain is damaged, the other can take over its functions. While the strength and intellect of G. colosseus are vital when battling, another major advantage the species has access to regenerator-g cells. Found in no other species, regenerator-g cells are a poorly-understood variant of stem cell capable of rapidly specializing and replacing damaged or missing cells. The regenerator-g cells grant Godzilla rapid healing, even by the standards of kaiju. It is speculated that a Godzilla could even regenerate a brain as long as the other remained intact.

As with many other species of hyperfauna, Gojira colosseus possesses an internal organ known as the Yamane organ that functions as a biological nuclear reactor. This organ provides Godzilla with a supply of radiation while it is away from sources of interior earth radiation. This is a temporary solution and any Kaiju will need to access a source of interior earth radiation avoid starvation in the long term. G. colosseus has evolves to weaponize its internal radiation in the form of a stream of superheated, ionized particles released from the mouth, commonly known as atomic breath. This stream can appear either as a solid beam or a cloud of vapor and glows blue due to Cherenkov radiation. In rarer cases often after absorbing excessive radiation, a Godzilla will produce a stronger red version of the atomic breath (the red spiral ray), or will release a cloud of superheated, ionized particles in an expanding radius around it, known as the nuclear pulse.

Gojira colosseus is known to be territorial and highly aggressive when provoked. The species is known as one of the few alpha species, kaiju which can force other kaiju to submit to and follow them, often after a battle for dominance. Other known alpha species include Gigatinea mosura (Mothra), Titanopithecus kongii (Kong), and Hypertestudine pyrovoria (Gamera). While nothing is known about how adult Godzilla interact with each other, the species has been observed practicing parental care (albeit only one instance of an adult and juvenile interacting has been observed) and both Godzillas II and III had formed alpha-subordinate relationships with other kaiju. Godzilla II and III had shown stronger bonds with some subordinate kaiju than others, most notably with Angilosaurus spinatesta (Anguirus) that some researchers suggest is indicative of possible bonds beyond the simple alpha-subordinate relationship, possibly indicating something recognizable to humans as friendship. Godzillas have also been known to temporarily ally with other kaiju species that do not submit to them as alphas, most notably Godzillas II and III with Mothra. While G. colosseus has many characteristics of an apex predator, the species are known to have been attacked by Titanus muto (Muto) to be used as hosts for their eggs and by Titanopithecus kongii (Kong) in apparent battles for dominance. In both cases, it is speculated that groups of those more social species would collectively attack individual Godzillas. As the interior earth ecosystem is in the process of recovering from an apparent mass extinction, it is difficult to gain some information about the relationships of certain species.

Godzilla I was the being that introduced humanity as a whole to the existence of kaiju. While paleontologists had begun finding fossil evidence of hyperfauna, nobody expected that such creatures could still be alive until one made landfall in Japan in 1954. Why Godzilla I chose to attack humanity is a matter of speculation, though it is believed that nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific Ocean woke it from hibernation and it may have interpreted the blasts as an attack. Regardless of its motives, Godzilla I traveled from the ocean to Tokyo, attacking islands and ships along the way. The attack was unprecedented and the JSDF had no effective way to respond as conventional weaponry proved ineffective. The answer came from scientist Dr. Daisuke Serizawa, who invented a weapon known as the oxygen destroyer, which utilized a chemical called micro-oxygen to break down molecular bonds in biological matter. Dr. Serizawa discovered micro oxygen in fossils later discovered to be constituent organisms of the colonial kaiju Destoroyah infernalis (Destoroyah). A survivor of the nuclear bombing of Japan at the end of World War II, Dr. Serizawa chose to keep the existence of micro-oxygen secret, fearing it could be used as a weapon even more terrible. In the end, Dr. Serizawa was convinced to use the oxygen destroyer against Godzilla I, but he destroyed his research and committed suicide to prevent the weapon from ever being recreated. Godzilla I was reduced to a skeleton, killed along with all other life in the Tokyo bay area. The ethics of Dr. Serizawa’s destruction of his research has been debated considerably since then. Certainly the oxygen destroyer could have caused immense devastation to humanity and the environment as a whole, but it could also have been a potent defense against other kaiju. Perhaps if Dr. Serizawa had known Godzilla was not the only one of its kind, he would have made a different decision.

In the aftermath of the attack on Japan, the world debated what to do. The creature was named Gojira after a storm god worshipped by the natives of one of the islands it attacked. English language reports mistranslated the name as Godzilla, which has become the accepted name for the species outside of Japan. Scientists were at a loss to explain how such a large creature (50 meters) could support its own weight or acquire enough food to sustain itself. The answer many arrived at was that the creature was originally a mundane animal, often speculated to be a marine reptile or late-surviving dinosaur, that was mutated by exposure to radiation from nuclear testing. Many believed, even hoped, that Godzilla was a lone freak of nature. Those hopes were dashed when, over a year later, a second, even larger (100 meters) Godzilla appeared and engaged in a battle for dominance with Anguirus. This battle marked a turning point in world history: the realization to mankind that we are not the uncontested masters of the world and that monsters are real. 

In response to the appearance of Godzilla II, multiple government organizations were founded to study and respond to the threat posed by hyperfauna. The most notable of these are the Japanese G-Force and USA's MONARCH. Godzilla II was active around the Pacific Ocean until 1995. It engaged in primarily territorial battles or battles of domination against many other kaiju in that time, causing considerable damage to human lives and property in that time but defeating other kaiju that could potentially have caused far more damage. Indeed, on several occasions, G-Force was forced to deliberately lure Godzilla II into combat with Kaiju posing a more immediate threat. While Godzilla I was actively hostile to humanity, Godzilla II seemed more indifferent to us. It made no attempt to actively attack humans, but also took no care to avoid human casualties during its activity. In 1993, G-Force agents began exploring an uncharted island that showed higher than expected levels of radiation (later discovered to be a wellspring of interior earth radiation) and discovered an egg. This egg eventually hatched into an infant Godzilla. The infant bonded with biologist Azusa Gojo, who took on a parental role to it while G-Force leadership discussed what to do with the kaiju. A significant fraction of G-Force believed killing the infant before it could become a threat was the best course of action. The choice was taken out of their hands when a Rodan (Volcaptera rodan) arrived on the island and attempted to attack the infant, likely in an attempt to kill a potential rival before it could mature. While G-Force agents stationed on the island attempted to drive off Rodan, Godzilla II arrived, apparently responding to a bioacoustic distress cry from the infant. Godzilla II quickly drove off the Rodan and began to care for the infant. G-Force decided that the risk of angering Godzilla by killing its adoptive child was far too great to take and began passively monitoring the situation. Both parent and child remained on the island, nicknamed Birth Island. Within two years, Godzilla III had grown to approximately 50 meters tall, a similar size to Godzilla I, which has led to speculation that Godzilla I was also a juvenile. Despite their similar size, the two individuals had very different behavior. Presumably, III’s bond with humans, particularly Azusa Gojo, led to it becoming much more trusting of humans and even protective of them. A similar example of exposure to humans as an infancy leading to benevolent behavior was observed by MONARCH in Zilla II. As it aged, Godzilla III began to become more independent of its parent. 

In 1995, multiple attacks on humans and animals by an unknown subkaiju in and around Tokyo attracted the attention of G-force. Victims of this attack were reduced to skeletons and it was determined by G-force that the deaths were identical to the effects of micro-oxygen. At first it was thought that someone had recreated Dr. Serizawa’s oxygen destroyer, but the truth was soon determined to be different. The subkaiju were in fact utilizing micro-oxygen. These subkaiju were determined to be colonial organisms made of countless smaller organisms working together and soon joined together to form the kaiju Destroyah, a living oxygen destroyer in the form of a monster. At the same time, Godzilla II was undergoing a meltdown as a result of a battle with the G-Force's Mechagodzilla weapon. This meltdown greatly enhanced Godzilla’s strength and the power of its atomic breath, as well as dramatically raising its body temperature. However, if not stopped, the meltdown would not only eventually kill Godzilla, but result in a nuclear explosion more powerful than any nuclear weapon ever created by humanity. This would result in radioactive fallout covering most of the planet, not only causing devastating effects on human health and the environment, but likely triggering many more kaiju to awaken. G-force developed a plan to rapidly manufacture absolute zero cannons and cool Godzilla at the moment of meltdown to prevent its explosion. Godzilla III encountered Destroyah and battled it, quickly losing. Godzilla II followed its child’s distress call and found III on the verge of death. Enraged, Godzilla II battled Destroyah even as G-force and the JSDF set up the absolute zero cannons. Godzilla II died that night, but G-force’s plan successfully prevented the explosion. Destroyah was killed by the combination of extreme heat and cold from Godzilla II’s meltdown and the absolute zero cannons. The release of radiation from Godzilla II’s death was absorbed by the dying Godzilla III, not only revitalizing it to full health, but rapidly accelerating its growth. Godzilla III quickly became fully grown at a larger size than its parent (120 meters). 

Godzilla III is still alive and has engaged in battle with multiple Kaiju over its life, including sparking a rivalry with Kong. It has clamed a large portion of the Pacific Ocean as its territory, particularly in the area around Monster Island, the site of a major wellspring of interior earth radiation. Godzilla III has been the subject of the Monster Island Project, a joint project between the G-Force and MONARCH to encourage kaiju to relocate to similar wellsprings or into the interior earth where abundant access to interior earth radiation for food will hopefully reduce confrontations between the kaiju, or at least ensure they happen away from human civilization. This project is still ongoing and its success has yet to be determined.

[clever-fox-studios]

Free Runner CH 1: Alarm Bells (eyestrain warning)

Got a little carried away with splash art for the first chapter, whoops

White.

… White?

That was wrong.

Fluttering, heavy and pained, he opened his eyes to the white light overhead, his processor humming incessantly as it fired to life in his head. An alert came and went–location data unknown–but he didn’t care. Everything felt… heavy. Had he been sleeping?

No, this wasn’t sleep.

Slowly, carefully, Moon sat up, feeling something give slightly underneath him, creaking as his weight shifted on it. The hum quieted down a bit, but still sounded like it was struggling in his head–a headache, if he ever thought he could get one. Another alert as his system caught up to his waking mind–location data unknown. Yellow eyes found focus on the wall, a white but beaten block of metal that had seen better days; the spot he found appeared to be… scratch marks?

He barely had time to consider why that was strange before the flood began.

//SYSTEM ERROR//

/DEVICE TAMPERING DETECTED_

/Unauthorized user attempted to remove vital component_

/System crash detected_

/TM_moon10300.sys corruption detected_

/NF_moon00010.sys corruption detected_

/System stability corrupted_

/Tower data not accessible_

Clawing at his head, Moon doubled over, the errors ringing internally and externally like ripping metal–he felt himself rocking, the flurry of errors and feedback becoming nails against his shell. Wires twisted, diodes burned, everything was too much–too much–

Something moved.

His attention ripped itself from his inner display to his outer awareness, following the flicker of orange and gold until he recognized what–or rather, who–he was looking at, laid out on a table a few feet from him, moving slightly as if coming out of a deep sleep but not fully awake yet. Sun. Yes, Sun! But he was bare, stripped of his clothing save for a blanket of some sort draped over his groin.

That was wrong.

Looking down, he realized he also had a blanket, but nothing else.

That was wrong.

Why was that wrong–

//HOST ACCESS GRANTED/

/SYSTEM PRIORITY OVERRIDDEN_

/COMMAND: clear errors_

>Errors cleared.

/COMMAND: run diagnostics%background_

>Running diagnostics…

/COMMAND: ping nearest tower_

>Searching for nearest tower…

…

>Tower located: WARNING_

>>Third party tower detected.

>>Compatible system shields not available.

>>Secured network detected.

>>//Status: Private//

/COMMAND: Check memory_

>Checking Memory…

…

…

…

/ERROR: Memory Discrepancy Detected_

>Cause: System Crash.

>>Notes: Area of minimal activity detected; last active hour log does not match last dated memory file; flagged as potential tampering by system host.

>Diagnostics completed.

>>NO ERRORS.

A matter of seconds passed, Moon’s system settling itself forcibly as he commanded it to ignore the errors, to push through the processes and quiet his grinding components so he could think straight. This room was not familiar, but he didn’t know how he got there, or when. Everything was fuzzy, foggy and mixed up in his mind, a nagging feeling of wrongness wasn’t out of place if he had to consider everything up until that moment.

My memory was tampered with, he affirmed, giving it the credit for the unsettling wrongness in his guts.

Systems?

He could eat, so perhaps “guts” wasn’t incorrect, though his last meal was…

//REMAINING BATTERY: FULLY CHARGED/

How could that be?

Looking to Sun again, the navy robot realized his companion–his brother–was awake, sitting up and holding his head as the lights that encircled his cranium shimmered to life, organizing themselves into the elaborate radial pattern Moon knew so well. The familiarity did little to temper his unease, though.

“Oh…” Sun groaned, eyes squeezed shut. “My head…”

“Sun?” Moon finally croaked, sounding strange in his auditory sensors as if he hadn’t heard his own voice in a long time.

Sun’s eyes snapped open, teal illuminations under softly glowing lashes standing out brightly in the whiteness of the odd room. “Moon!” he said with relief and confusion. Moon pulled himself over the edge of his table, still feeling heavy, confused at the sight of grass instead of tile for the floor. He almost didn’t catch Sun yelping. “Why are you naked–” The brightly colored bot looked at himself, voice shrill with concern. “Why am I naked???”

It was a valid question. One he didn’t know how to answer.

Finally, Sun looked around himself. “Where… are we?”

Moon felt his internal system suddenly run cold. “You… don’t know?”

Faintly, Sun shook his head, one foot sliding off the table as he sat up more. “We were outside…”

Not good. Not good. Not good.

Sun’s line of sight went somewhere to his left, drawing his attention that way until he saw a small end table of sorts with neatly folded fabric and glittering wire jewelry that looked painfully familiar to him. He knew those were his clothes–the answer to the lingering question neither had spoken regarding their mutual nakedness–but hesitation froze his hands from daring to try and take them. Even Sun didn’t move to collect his things, stuck in place, gaze focused on the fabric and jewels yet also a thousand miles away.

The seeping, creeping, dreadful feeling tickled down his back and neck like the tips of unwanted fingers–Sun’s ventilation system heaved his chest in a facsimile of a human breath, even having the wherewithal to shudder slightly at the peak of his inhalation–as he stared at the familiar silks and golden threads that shimmered from the light his radials exuded. As much as he hated the idea of being skyclad–let alone without his permission–the idea of donning those things now that they were gone from him was, somehow, worse. Tensions twisted through his inner parts, shuddering and shaking his joints faintly until he was finally able to snap out of his stupor at the sound of his brother saying his name.

“Sun? What is it?”

Moon’s voice seemed hoarse, but still soft and gentle as it had always been…

No. Not always.

Closing his eyes, Sun rubbed his forehead. “I’m… sluggish, I think? My battery… It was so low before.”

Concerned, Moon pressed, “What about now?”

He turned inward.

//REMAINING BATTERY: FULLY CHARGED/

“I’m… charged.” Confusion tinged his voice as he understood his system was shaking off the fatigue and priority shuffle from what he could only assume was the first time he’d ever drained himself dry of any power.

Moon’s background systems came back to full faculty as Sun spoke, which sent a shock through his awareness, making him jump up as he finally gained some sense of situational awareness. “Sun–get up. Quickly.”

A bit startled, Sun picked himself up, holding his blanket to himself where Moon simply let his fall to the ground–he looked down as grass tickled his haptic sole sensors, baffled. “What–what’s wrong?”

Moon’s body language as he yanked the navy and night colored silk to himself, the wire jewelry falling to the ground somewhere behind the nightstand, was slightly uncertain, his yellow eyes flashing with his own intense confusion. “What do you–we don’t know where we are! Grab something, we need to go!”

“Wait, h-hold–” Sun could barely keep up as his own system was still rebooting, Moon dragging bolts of fabric off the table and shoving it in Sun’s hands, the blanket falling to the ground at Sun’s feet, until the golden robot found instead, tucked into the alcove under the silks, two rough-hewn cloaks of muddy gray.

Their cloaks.

Dropping the silk in hand, Sun knelt and pulled the knitted, itchy fabric out and offered the darker one to his brother. As if glad to have another option, Moon ditched the blue and silver wrap for the plain, woolen weave without hesitation and shrugged it onto himself, tying it closed while urging Sun to hurry. He tried, he really did, but Sun’s internal system was taking its sweet time sorting itself out after being drained to zero; wistfully he wondered if this was why others often commented about regularly shutting their companions off on occasion and if that somehow made it easier for them to restart later? Neither of them had ever been shut off since first being turned on, that he could recall.

Tying the cloak on, Moon didn’t wait for him to even fix himself to be presentable before telling him to cover his radials and grabbing his arm, pulling the gangly bot to the open doorway that had been there at his back the entire time. Barely through the threshold, hood half on his head, Sun bumped into his brother as Moon came to a sudden, dead stop, nearly toppling over. The jolt seemed to finally knock his system into place as Sun came-to fully, the weight of their situation finally coming into full focus as he found himself staring alongside his brother at a moderately sized creature the color of rust and mud that stood at attention a few lengths away.

It had gruffed at them, a deep, warning rumble, and halted Moon in his tracks; one ear and the opposite foreleg of the beast stood out in oxidized green from the rest of its body, each eye shining a different color in a way that felt incorrect. Had it not been metal, Sun would think it was mismatched like fabric–stitched together parts from different things that wouldn’t otherwise be together. Yet this was a machine.

One of them.

Four legged with pointed ears–the green one flopping at the tip–and jaws lined with small teeth, a pair of canines visible as its lip curled; threatening was definitely applicable, though aggressive didn’t readily come to mind as Sun stared at the creature. Moon’s body tensed against him, pressing Sun back as he took a half step away, though the only place they could go was back into the strange, white room.

The thing matched Moon’s pace, faintly stepping forward and gruffing again, its tail at attention.

Something inside Moon’s messy, corrupted coding urged him to be ready–to crouch–to run. Not away, but at it. A desire to fight, to use what he had at his disposal to remove the threat and make a break for it. It wasn’t fueled by fear, however, as much as he felt he should be afraid of this unknown thing, but simply a calm, decisive, simple notion that he could. That if it was blocking his exit, he should simply remove it.

He knew he could do so.

Somehow.

The chance was short-lived however, as the creature–Moon’s system finally pinged a possible match as a Sirius-class Stellaris unit–managed to draw attention from another metal thing in the area. It drifted down from the sky, golden and glittering, to roost in a tree nearby, its magenta eyes piercing over the distance and making them both feel very, very exposed. This one was also unfamiliar, though if he had to guess it was some sort of Cygnus drone, but one that had far more agency than to just look pretty and pretend to be a bird. No, this one was very much aware of them and had purpose in its gaze.

Sun’s hand squeezed his bicep worriedly, voice weak, “M-m-moon?”

“I know,” he replied, feeling in his core that these were decorations or simply pets roaming the estate.

These were guards.

“Ah.”

The sound nearly made them both jump out of their shells, heads whipping up to the left where more branches twisted well above them.

“So you’re finally awake then.”

It took only a second for the pair to register the human presence that observed them from a platform in the branches; blue eyes peered down at them, cool and unbothered, while their owner leaned their elbows on a railing crudely covered in vines and leaves by overgrown shrubbery. Their hair was a messy clump of ashen blonde, stained deep blue at the tips but partly shaved at the sides as if it had been flocked but grown in over the weeks, with a white tank top and powder-teal shorts barely visible from this angle behind the leaves–hardly the garb of someone intending harm, and yet it took less than a second more for the brothers to notice this person wasn’t simply a human passerby.

Sun’s gaze fixated on the white and blue gleam of ceramastic plating that covered–or made up–their right arm while Moon could only focus on the long shaft of white-stained metal made to lean on the rail, right within reach–he knew it was a gun before he even fully comprehended its shape. A rifle.

He’d never seen one up close before, yet he knew without a doubt it was just that.

“How’re you feeling?”

They were still speaking, their voice flat but polite; they didn’t wait for a reply as they grabbed their armament and descended a staircase the pair didn’t previously notice. As they came closer, the boys noticed they were barefoot and their attire was more appropriate for sleeping or lounging than wandering around outside. Both of them immediately felt their default program trying to register the human presence before they could consider an answer.

//HUMAN DETECTED: SCANNING/

…

/IDENTITY NOT FOUND/

>>Name: unknown_

>>Body data: Female.

>>Age: Unknown_

>>Height: pending_

>>No history of interaction detected.

Stranger.

Stranger.

Moon moved his body to block Sun entirely from their–her?--approach, which gave the stranger pause, seeming to acknowledge his protective intentions.

Ever the affable one, Sun finally answered, “We’re… alright, I think?”

“Good.” The stranger stopped fully next to the mismatched Sirius that hadn’t budged an inch since its warning step. “Now that you can talk…”

She hefted the rifle into her arms and made a very decisive clatter while loading the chamber, her eyes never breaking contact with them.

“You wanna tell me a good reason for landing in my front yard?”