#Modular UPS Market

[watercolor-wings]

I need to finish school, get a career job I can tolerate, and get a big ole house I can decorate

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #20

May 24-31 2024

The EPA awards $900 million to school districts across the country to replace diesel fueled school buses with cleaner alternatives. The money will go to 530 school districts across nearly every state, DC, tribal community, and US territory. The funds will help replace 3,400 buses with cleaner alternatives, 92% of the new buses will be 100% green electric. This adds to the $3 billion the Biden administration has already spent to replace 8,500 school buses across 1,000 school districts in the last 2 years.

For the first time the federal government released guidelines for Voluntary Carbon Markets. Voluntary Carbon Markets are a system by which companies off set their carbon emissions by funding project to fight climate change like investing in wind or solar power. Critics have changed that companies are using them just for PR and their funding often goes to projects that would happen any ways thus not offsetting emissions. The new guidelines seek to insure integrity in the Carbon Markets and make sure they make a meaningful impact. It also pushes companies to address emissions first and use offsets only as a last resort.

The IRS announced it'll take its direct file program nationwide in 2025. In 2024 140,000 tax payers in 12 states used the direct file pilot program and the IRS now plans to bring it to all Americans next tax season. Right now the program is only for simple W-2 returns with no side income but the IRS has plans to expand it to more complex filings in the future. This is one of the many projects at the IRS being funded through President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act.

The White House announced steps to boost nuclear energy in America. Nuclear power in the single largest green energy source in the country accounting for 19% of America's total energy. Boosting Nuclear energy is a key part of the Biden administration's strategy to reach a carbon free electricity sector by 2035. The administration has invested in bring the Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan back on-line, and extending the life of Diablo Canyon in California. In addition the Military will be deploying new small modular nuclear reactors and microreactors to power its installations. The Administration is setting up a task force to help combat the delays and cost overruns that have often derailed new nuclear projects and the Administration is supporting two Gen III+ SMR demonstration projects to highlight the safety and efficiency of the next generation of nuclear power.

The Department of Agriculture announced $824 million in new funding to protect livestock health and combat H5N1. The funding will go toward early detection, vaccine research, and supporting farmers impacted. The USDA is also launching a nation wide Dairy Herd Status Pilot Program, hopefully this program will give us a live look at the health of America's dairy herd and help with early detection. The Biden Administration has reacted quickly and proactively to the early cases of H5N1 to make sure it doesn't spread to the human population and become another pandemic situation.

The White House announced a partnership with 21 states to help supercharge America's aging energy grid. Years of little to no investment in America's Infrastructure has left our energy grid lagging behind the 21st century tech. This partnership aims to squeeze all the energy we can out of our current system while we rush to update and modernize. Last month the administration announced a plan to lay 100,000 miles of new transmission lines over the next five years. The 21 states all with Democratic governors are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin.

The Department of Transportation announced $343 million to update 8 of America's oldest and busiest transportation stations for disability accessibility. These include the MBTA's the Green Line's light-rail B and C branches in Boston,  Cleveland's Blue Line, New Orleans'  St. Charles Streetcar route, and projects in San Francisco and New York City and other locations

The Department of interior announced two projects for water in Western states. $179 million for drought resilience projects in California and Utah and $242 million for expanding water access in California, Colorado and Washington. The projects should help support drinking water for 6.4 million people every year.

HUD announced $150 million for affordable housing for tribal communities. This adds to the over $1 billion dollars for tribal housing announced earlier in the month. Neil Whitegull of the Ho-Chunk Nation said at the announcement "I know a lot of times as Native Americans we've been here and we've seen people that have said, ‘Oh yeah, we'd like to help Indians.’ And they take a picture and they go away. We never see it, But there's been a commitment here, with the increase in funding, grants, and this administration that is bringing their folks out. And there's a real commitment, I think, to Native American tribes that we've never seen before."

Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledged $135 million to help Moldavia. Since the outbreak of Russia's war against neighboring Ukraine the US has given $774 million in aid to tiny Moldavia. Moldavia has long been dependent on Russian energy but thanks to US investment in the countries energy security Moldavia is breaking away from Russia and moving forward with EU membership.

The US and Guatemala launched the "Youth With Purpose” initiative. The initiative will be run through the Central America Service Corps, launched in 2022 by Vice President Harris the CASC is part of the Biden Administration's efforts to improve life in Central America. The Youth With Purpose program will train 25,000 young Guatemalans and connect with with service projects throughout the country.

Bonus: Today, May 31st 2024, is the last day of the Affordable Connectivity Program. The program helped 23 million Americans connect to the internet while saving them $30 to $75 dollars every month. Despite repeated calls from President Biden Republicans in Congress have refused to act to renew the program. The White House has worked with private companies to get them to agree to extend the savings to the end of 2024. The Biden Administration has invested $90 Billion high-speed internet investments. Such as $42.45 billion for Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment, $1 billion for the The Middle Mile program laying 12,000 miles of regional fiber networks, and distributed nearly 30,000 connected devices to students and communities, including more than 3,600 through the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program

[sara-paints]

Wake up, babe. New Robot Lord just dropped!

If you're in the market for amazing looking 3D prints for your generic undead robot needs, look up NAPKING on MyMiniFactory. This comes from a modular kit that makes AMAZING Robot Lords.

[adafruit]

🎄💾��️ Day 7: Retrocomputing Advent Calendar - Altair 8800🎄💾🗓️

The Altair 8800 was one of the first commercially successful personal computers, introduced in 1975 by MITS, and also one of the most memorable devices in computing history. Powered by the Intel 8080 CPU, an 8-bit processor running at 2 MHz, and initially came with 256 bytes of RAM, expandable via its S-100 bus architecture. Users would mainly interact with the Altair through its front panel-mounted toggle switches for input and LEDs for output.

The Altair 8800 was popularized through a Popular Electronics magazine article, as a kit for hobbyists to build.

It was inexpensive and could be expanded, creating a following of enthusiasts that launched the personal computer market. Specifically, it motivated software development, such as Microsoft's first product, Altair BASIC.

The Altair moved from hobbyist kits to consumer-ready personal computers because of its modular design, reliance on the S-100 bus that eventually became an industry standard, and the rise of user groups like the Homebrew Computer Club.

Many of ya'll out there mentioned the Altair 8800, be sure to share your stories! And check out more history of the Altair on its Wikipedia page -

along with the National Museum of American History - Behring center -

Have first computer memories? Post’em up in the comments, or post yours on socialz’ and tag them #firstcomputer #retrocomputing – See you back here tomorrow!

[ms-demeanor]

Hey! I appreciate your perspective on computer-based things. I think I need to get a laptop and would love your opinion on decent brands. If you don't have an opinion or want to answer please disregard the q.

Context: I'm often on the move and really want something small, light, and that will last a long time. I'm bad about buying new things or taking things to be fixed so ideally it's not something that dies quickly or needs frequent repairs. For a while I used an iPad for this but I need more of a keyboard than tablets have and the shelf life of an iPad is shorter than it should be for the cost. Mine is 7 years old and only works while plugged in... I liked my Macbook Pro I got for college but it's almost 15 years old and given I haven't needed a new one since I don't think spending all that on a Mac makes sense either. I use a gaming PC mostly but I'm going to need to travel a lot more in the upcoming year. I'm ok to spend up a bit since I want it to last.

I think you're going to have to adjust your expectations about the average functional lifespan of electronics. Seven years is a lot to get out of any tablet and fifteen years is way way way above average for a computer.

At work we estimate that the functional lifespan of a laptop will be around five years and the functional life of a desktop will be around seven years; we include upgrades in that lifespan, like adding RAM and storage.

It is not *unusual* to get more than five years out of a laptop or seven years out of a desktop, but if you are a heavy user of anything other than a browser and a word processor, that's about the time when you'll find that the computer feels slow enough to be frustrating. This isn't a hard limit, and it's not something that everyone experiences because people use computers differently, but if you're an artist and you use a drawing program that program will start to feel slow after a while because as updates and patches and drivers have been tweaked for newer devices they've slowly left your device in the dust.

This isn't planned obsolescence, by the way. Computer manufacturers try to "future proof" their devices to a certain extent, but you just can't anticipate certain kinds of changes. Maybe your laptop was manufactured before there were consumer SSDs available so its operating system doesn't take the advantages and limitations of SSDs into account. Maybe your desktop was built for DDR3 RAM and we're now on DDR5 and people aren't writing programs to the standard of the old technology, they're taking advantage of the standards of the new technology.

Since you were able to use your devices comfortably for such a long time, it sounds like you're not a very heavy user and don't need to worry too much about beefing up your specs. However it does sound like you want to keep your computer and use it as long as possible while paying a reasonable price for it (which is good! I think we should all try to extend the lives of our electronic devices as much as possible!).

I actually think you sound like a good match for a Framework laptop.

Framework is a company that makes laptops that are a lot more modular than what's on the market these days. They're mean to be easy to open up for upgrades and sturdy for heavy use. Most of the parts of the laptop are easily replaceable - including the screen - so you can use them for a long time and easily make upgrades that will help the computer feel fresher.

They're a bit more expensive than comparable PCs but much easier to repair if you aren't comfortable opening up your own computer (framework is intentionally built to be easy for people who are non-technical to work on their computers), and they are a LOT less expensive than comparable macs.

I still think you're probably looking at around 7 years of regular use out of a Framework and it won't *break* at that point, it will just. Probably be a bit slow and frustrating. You might not be able to get parts for it after a certain point. You eventually won't be able to upgrade the OS. But that's true of all computers.

I've still got my 2005 macbook. It still turns on, I can still use garage band on it. But it doesn't connect to the internet and uses such an old USB standard that it is extremely slow to transfer data on or off of and it cries and freezes if i try to use photoshop. It's not broken, it's just no longer useful as a daily computer.

What I'm defining as functional here is "Is able to run multiple programs (including at least one browser with 50+ tabs open and two office suites) at the same time for 8-10 hours a day without crashing, freezing, or losing data and restarting is not a major inconvenience."

In those terms, it does sound like you're probably in need of an upgrade (I can't imagine that your current machine is particularly quick) and I think that a framework laptop would suit your needs well.

If you're looking for something somewhat less expensive, you can generally find a decent thinkbook with a 12th or 13th gen i5 processor, 16GB RAM, and a 500GB SSD for around $700-ish, which is the low end of what I think you're going to pay for a decent laptop. I'm reccing lenovo here because I personally like them and have found them to be very easy to crack open for repairs and upgrades. Stick to the thinkbook over the thinkpad because that's the business line and is a bit sturdier and they are designed to be easier to upgrade over time.

Actually, here's a thinkbook with a 12th gen i5, 40GB RAM, and a 1tb SSD for under $700. That's a shockingly good price for that laptop; the reseller OEMGenuine is one I've purchased from many times before for work and I've found them to be reliable, though the reason those specs are so good is because they've added aftermarket parts, so your RAM and SSD won't be under warranty from Lenovo.

For Framework you're looking at at least $1000, but it's easy to plug and play with upgrades so you can start out with lower specs (except processor, don't cheap out on the processor) and upgrade later. The framework is a bit smaller and easier to travel with, but I have a laptop quite similar to the lenovo and it's not a huge pain to move around - it's very light but the 15" screen might be bigger than you're looking for.

If you're willing to spend a little bit more and you're very uninterested in doing your own upgrades and would prefer the most computer you can get for your money right out of the gate, this is a 12th gen i7 thinkpad with 40GB RAM and a 2TB SSD for $1150. (I've not ordered from this reseller before, so maybe check over their terms if you're considering purchasing from them.)

[dragonzzilla]

Tears of the Kingdom's underwhelming narrative had rich potential

I'll preface this with a confession: I have not played Tears of the Kingdom. As a matter of fact, I haven't played any Legend of Zelda. I simply never had the opportunity while growing up, so my interest in the series has always been satellite. As such, I do not have the perspective of someone who has. My opinions are formulated entirely in what little I have seen or sought out. I'm coming at this with the perspective of an outsider looking in. But I'm not looking for a fight. My aim isn't to bash the new hotness out of jealous spite, or to convince people to feel bad about liking this game that, I've otherwise heard, is really fun. The reason I care, even though I'm not a part of the fandom, is that we all deserved better.

This is a much anticipated sequel to a smash hit from one of the biggest names in the industry, sold at a whopping $70—and having watched for free a YouTube compilation of all the cutscenes pertaining to Ganondorf, the much advertised central antagonist of TOTK, I felt robbed. This was my legitimate reaction:

Disregarding all my other feelings for a moment, I was dumbstruck to see a Nintendo game—released in our year of 2023—use what is essentially the same cutscene four times while explaining the backstory. I recognize TOTK has modular progression, allowing you to reach the Sages in whatever order you please. But once you've seen the first one, the other three will offer you no more valuable information. I'm willing to stretch my suspension of disbelief pretty far, yet even I recognized on first viewing how formulaic the Sage cutscenes are. It wrenched me out of the story.* Hearing different perspectives about the same events can and should be interesting, but the Sages relating these events barely qualify as characters—possessing neither names nor even faces, thanks to their uniform masks of Zonai design...

* I'll acknowledge: Within universe, there is reason enough for the Sages to repeat what is essentially the same story to their respective successors to apprise them of the situation. I can certainly see Link having to sit through the same spiel several times so everyone is on the same page. But it felt really unnecessary as a member of the audience. And unlike their BOTW counterparts, the Four Champions, the Sages don't stick around long enough to endear themselves any further, instead passing their abilities and function onto their successors.

… Which, I feel, represents the Ancient Past Storyline as a whole. Despite the number of bodies involved, no one felt alive. Queen Sonia—this continuity's founding mother of Hyrule, where divine power is explicitly matrilineal—amounts to nothing more than meat for the fridge to motivate the real star of the show, Rauru. Everyone else, including Zelda and the other Sages, are merely bit players in the conflict between him and Ganondorf. But it's a conflict without teeth. Ganondorf displays nothing but a mad, naked lust for power. Opposing him is Rauru, the quintessential Good King and benevolent god figure who would never abuse his power, but would sacrifice it all to seal away the evil invader who killed his beloved martyr-wife. There is no interrogation of the 'gentle' imperialism Rauru represents. His way is textually presented as the only righteous way. The world of this continuity revolves around his legacy and its preservation; anything else is not merely deviant, but indicative of evil. Only someone with the blackest of hearts would oppose this order. The narrative requires Ganondorf to be nothing less than the epitome of evil.

Which is… really disappointing, to say the least. Because I happen to like Ganondorf. His character and his place in the mythos have always been the forefront of my interest in the series; forget Link or Zelda. Naturally, I was drawn in by TOTK's marketing about Ganondorf's return as a human antagonist after a 17 year long hiatus. Given how much of a reinvention BOTW was for the series as a whole, I was disappointed back in 2017 to learn that Ganondorf existed only as a mindless force of primordial evil. "How lame," I thought, "but I guess it's not really Ganondorf." Calamity Ganon was just that: Ganon. And Ganon's always a full-blown monster, divorced from any nuance possessed by his OOT, WW, and TP selves. Then the first teaser for TOTK dropped, placing Ganondorf the man (if a little worse for wear) front and center. Intrigued, I enjoyed the explosion of enthusiastic fan art that followed, as well as the speculation regarding the role he would play. Surely, he would be more than a one-note villain! My expectations rose as Nintendo revealed more about him. His new design didn't immediately scream Dark Lord; and in his first speaking role, he draws attention to the fact that he has returned (within universe and meta-wise) and he has a vision for the world. I couldn't want to see the final product! Yet here we are.

It's a strange thing to fixate upon, when I don't have any skin in this game. But I'm passionate about storytelling. I enjoy rich narratives with nuanced characters, and I respect those that fully commit to the ideas they present... whereas stories that try to have their cake and eat it too, well, those pique my interest as well. Whenever I see untapped potential, my writer's mind cannot help but ponder the age-old question of "What if?" And I intend to do just that, in the cut below (this rant is long enough as it is).

Of course, no amount of brainstorming can change the reality of a product. A ship's structural flaws only become apparent once it's left port, but there's no recalling it then. Nonetheless, there is value in the discussion. We should always critically analyze what corporations give us, desiccating their products to discern the messages (whether intentional or not) contained within—especially when the product is aimed toward a young audience that might not have the cognitive tools to decipher those messages for themselves. Even if we cannot affect change in a monolithic company like Nintendo, we can still draw lessons from their missteps to improve our own writing.

If I have such grievances with TOTK's story, why bother with a rewrite? Because:

Playing within the limits of another's sandbox can help to build creative muscle.

I believe TOTK has all the right ingredients for a compelling story, if this new series wasn't so afraid to challenge its narrative roots the way it has its gameplay.

A few more things to note: I am not a professional writer, nor am I a veteran of the series. I'm working strictly with what TOTK brings to the table. I'll make no efforts to reconcile the continuity errors between BOTW and TOTK (though it deserves mentioning), or even attempt to fit this in a single cohesive timeline with the rest of the franchise. I am not that brave lol. What I propose below is simply how I would use these toys; YMMV. I hope this inspires discussion more so than congratulation or wordless agreement (though my ego will accept compliments all the same, especially since it took no small amount of spoons to organize my thoughts like this). As Ganondorf says:

A Modest Rewrite of TOTK's Ancient Past Storyline

Zelda is still flung to the past, but she awakens not to a picturesque golden age under the magnanimous rule of an infallible demigod. Instead, sadly reminiscent of her own age, the land lays in ruin, in the immediate aftermath of its own calamity. But this isn't the fault of Ganon. The blame lies solely with the Zonai.

The Zonai were understandably viewed as gods. A people who live up in the sky on floating islands, in possession of miraculous technology (including killer robots to protect their interests!), and magical artifacts that in the wrong hands can unleash cataclysmic power? A civilization as powerful as theirs doesn't suddenly end without a very good reason. Yet as far as I know, no explanation is provided as to why Rauru and Mineru are seemingly the last of the Zonai. No mention is made of a rival power that could've taken them down; certainly none of the terrestrial races. Remember, the Zonai were seen as gods. If you were to ask me? A civilization with that great of a power at their disposal, and apparently so much of it that Rauru has four more Stones (not including his own, Sonia's, or Mineru's) to pass out as he sees fit... can only destroy itself.*

* I know the Zonai are depicted in text as a purely enlightened and benevolent race... but as far back in the franchise as OOT (which TOTK draws a lot from), not even Hyrule—the standard by which all civilization in LOZ is judged—was above a civil war, orphaning Link. War Within LOZ clearly isn't waged solely against primal forces of evil that can, must, and should be destroyed. And that's good! A story is made richer when even the Designated Good Guys can fuck things up, when characters are allowed to contain multitudes—good and bad qualities!

Power does not defuse conflict. It only escalates the scope of destruction once it's unleashed. So, for whatever reasons the Zonai gave themselves then clung to, they started fighting each other. Using their flying machines and automatons, battles were fought upon and between their sky islands, the detritus of war raining down on the lands below—the inhabitants of which can do nothing but watch as a war rages in heaven—until finally the full power of the Stones is unleashed in an exchange that guarantees mutual destruction. The sky islands all plummet to the earth, wreaking mass destruction. This is the world Zelda finds herself in—where the land has been cracked wide open, the skies are choked with dust, and no one gets along... so unlike the world she knows.

Zelda still comes into the care of Rauru and Sonia, but Rauru is merely Sonia's consort—he holds no power as king. It's evident from the start that Sonia is steering the direction of Hyrule—a humble territory in this age—in this tumultuous time, although Rauru is backing her. It's thanks to Sonia that Rauru and Mineru survived the fall of their sky island, brought back from the brink of death. It was during this time that Rauru fell in love with her; and to repay her, Rauru revealed that, between himself and Mineru, they have three intact Stones (a small homage to the Triforce since it doesn't matter in this continuity) with which they can secure Hyrule's place in this brave new world. Importantly, this isn't portrayed as any more righteous than a nation acquiring a clear advantage over its rivals. Indeed, Zelda's thrown for a loop to learn that in this era, the other races like the Gorons and the Zora aren't merely independent from Hyrule but have a history of conflict—something she never learned in her history books. And tensions are only rising, as these rival nations find Stones of their own after much scavenging, shifting an already fraught balance of power. The gods are dead, their empire shattered—yet slivers of their strength remain, for those daring enough to claim them. By using one of these Stones, a tribe could secure its borders, reclaim ancestral land... or conquer new territory. This is where Ganondorf enters the picture.

This Ganondorf is still a villain, but there's room for nuance. He's ruthless and prideful, and certainly antagonistic toward Hyrule; but the narrative respects him as much as his fellow monarchs. He cares about the success of his people, because his entire identity is shaped around being their king. Remember that a male is born to the Gerudo only once in a hundred years. Ganondorf is but the latest in a lineage of kings, with the heavy burden of expectation that carries—he has a legacy to uphold or surpass if he can help it. And ever since he was a boy, he envied the easy lives and green lands of Hyrule, so as a man he has made it his personal ambition to conquer it... but at every turn, he has met his match in Sonia, who is every bit as skilled of a commander and a magician. The two of them have clashed so many times that they've become the most intimate of enemies, hard pressed to hate each other because they both know what's at stake. For years, they've been evenly matched... but the downfall of the Zonai changed everything. In spite of the Gerudo's best efforts, they haven't been able to find a single Stone to make up for the fact that the crash of their local sky islands kicked up terrible sandstorms and drove monsters from their usual habitats. The Gerudo are more desperate than ever. Then Ganondorf learns that his oldest enemy is housing two living Zonai underneath her roof, and has a total of four Stones at her disposal. He cannot battle Hyrule as before, lest he risk annihilation—if not by Sonia's hands, then another tribe that is more willing to coup de grâce a decimated competitor, or they might perish to monsters, or the desert might finally claim them, the dunes swallowing up their bones and burying their accomplishments. He could bend the knee—throw himself at Sonia's feet and hope for the best, sacrificing Gerudo independence to share in Hyrule's bounty. But his pride will never allow that.

He grew up in the shadow of detached gods, was raised on tales of how they were the ultimate arbiters of truth and value—almighty in their judgment and unassailable—and he saw for himself that they would only ever come down to earth to indulge their curiosity about the quaint groundfolk or harvest what their sky islands could not provide, most notably Zonaite (of course they named it after themselves...) to fuel their miraculous machines, the secrets of which they refused to share with anyone 'because they weren't ready' and would in fact use those same machines to keep the groundfolk from overreaching. Ganondorf is the first king in generations to glimpse a sky—and a future—uncontrolled by the Zonai. Though he was raised to be a king, the very definition of absolute power and privilege, only now is he truly beholden to no one. Finally, he is free to shape his own destiny. And he's not about to relinquish that freedom on account of his dearest enemy getting in bed with a fallen demigod—no, not a god... the Zonai's civil war proved they are not infallible. Without their technology, without their precious Stones, they're flesh and blood, the same as anyone else. Mortal. And what is a man to a king?

Despite the bad blood between them, and the generations of strife between their peoples, Ganondorf is able to convince Sonia that he is willing to bury the hatchet for the sake of his people, that his desire to enter the protective embrace of her kingdom, given the dangerous new world they find themselves in, is genuine. His true intentions are not so painfully transparent, but still Zelda does not trust him. She can't stop wondering how this man becomes the source of the Gloom in her era, even if the hateful creature she encountered in the depths below Hyrule Castle hardly seemed human at all. But she cannot act on a suspicion of duplicity due to future events. So for Ganondorf's entire stint in Sonia's court, Zelda tries to weasel out the truth—and in so doing, builds a relationship with the future Demon King. Once Ganondorf catches on to the fact that Zelda sees right through him, it becomes a game of 4D chess. Who is this girl, a member of Sonia's court that he has never heard before yet is trusted enough to bear a Stone, and why is she so certain of his true motives? He's smart enough to suss out that it isn't simple bigotry. It's a fine line Zelda must walk, because she has a secret of her own—she hasn't told anyone that she's from the future, out of a rational fear of disrupting the past and changing history (but at the same time, she can't abide doing nothing, and these interests war within her).

Despite Zelda's best efforts, Ganondorf succeeds in his plot. In a single stroke, he eliminates an old enemy, deprives her nation of its leader and a Stone, and finally secures a Stone for the Gerudo. But claiming the Stone doesn't immediately transform him into an Almighty Demon King. The surge of power is great, but not so much that he's willing to engage three other Stone bearers—two of which are Zonai who of course have experience using them—so he wisely retreats, though not before telling Rauru: "No point in crying over this one. She's not the first victim of your arrogance. And we both know she won't be the last." He's made powerful enemies, but it's a battle he can fight on another day, and at least now he's on equal footing with the other factions and can take their Stones until he can finally conquer Hyrule. But Ganondorf severely underestimates the lengths Rauru will go for revenge. In killing Sonia, before Rauru's very eyes no less, he has made another enemy for life (and beyond).

Understand that Rauru survived the destruction of his people and their way of life. That's traumatic enough. But now, the person who saved his life, and gave it new meaning, is dead. Murdered. By someone he had come to trust. Because he put a target around her neck. He should have seen this coming, he should have listened to Zelda, perhaps then he could have stopped this. But it's far too late now. Before, he was content to merely support and serve—a just penance, he believed, for his small part in breaking the world. Now, he has a new purpose: To secure Sonia's legacy by any means necessary. He binds his fate to Hyrule, which will never be safe so long as Ganondorf lives. This isn't a wise and beneficent King of Light opposing a terrible darkness, but a grieving widower—who's also a skyborn demigod that just lost his one earthly tie.

After taking command as regent, Rauru does not invite the other races to a grand alliance; he brings them to heel through force. It's not enough for Rauru to immediately counterattack Ganondorf. He wants to destroy him, and what better way than to turn the whole world against him? Additionally, by consolidating the power of the Stones onto his side, he denies Ganondorf the opportunity to pick them off one by one. Zelda is witnessing history, the birth of Hyrule as she knows it, but there's nothing noble about it. It's simple imperialism, and she has to grapple with the fact that she's a beneficiary of it. If the peoples of Hyrule were united through bloodshed, does this invalidate the friendships she's made among those peoples in her present? She's confronted with deep questions which possess no easy answers.

Meanwhile, Ganondorf hasn't been sitting on his laurels. He sees Rauru is stacking the deck against him, such that even the Stone's power won't be enough to win the coming war. The Gerudo are outnumbered and outgunned. So Ganondorf turns to darker magics, begins to press monsters into service, etc. His search for ever greater power takes him into the Depths, where he finds a dangerous substance called Gloom. According to legend, it is the ichor of a demon god who was struck down long ago and sealed away in the bowels of the earth. It drains the life-force of whoever touches it, that much is certain... but Ganondorf reckons it is possible to access this stolen vitality to perform feats of magic hitherto thought impossible. Through his mastery of dark magic, amplified by the Stone, he is able to harness the Gloom. First he tests it upon monsters... then dissidents, those reluctant to oppose Rauru's growing army. He makes examples of them, siphoning away their life-force to show those who will not fight will still serve their king. But this barbarous act only creates more dissent among the Gerudo. Tradition appointed Ganondorf as king, but that doesn't mean they have to stomach his tyranny. Even if he manages to win this war, this new power could allow him to reign forever, and he just demonstrated how little their individual lives mean to him. Worried for the future of their people, Ganondorf's second-in-command, Nabooru, sells him out in exchange for clemency, enabling Rauru and his Sages to capture him. Instead of slaying him on the spot, Rauru declares his intention to haul him back to Hyrule for a public execution in Sonia's name. Nabooru insists on coming along; if the King of the Gerudo is to die on foreign soil, then one of his own should observe his passing.

Ganondorf doesn't respond well to this betrayal. After everything he sacrificed, they would still rather roll over and show their bellies—surrender their freedom and pride—to a foreign lord. Who are these people, to abandon the courage of their ancestors? These are not his Gerudo. Ganondorf disowns them, swearing vengeance upon these cowards even as he is taken away in chains. The journey back to Hyrule gives him time to brood on his destiny. He was born to be a king, yet the place of his birth has forsaken him while the rest of the world wants him dead. Most people would crumble, succumb to despair. But his pride will never allow that. He will keep fighting, like he always has. He will crush any opposition, even if it's the people who gave him birth. He will rule, even if he must reign as king of the undesired. There's a saying: 'The brighter the light, the deeper the shadow.' And Rauru has blazed oh so fiercely. To oppose him, Ganondorf must become nothing less than the King of Shadow.

At the moment of his execution, he draws upon the Gloom to transcend his mortal limits, finally becoming the Demon King. In this form, he's able to battle all seven of the Sages, but he's still not almighty. In theory, Rauru is able to slay him... but he chooses not to. Imprisoning Ganondorf isn't done as a last resort; Rauru wants him to suffer. "Killing you would be far too kind. I will make you wish you could die. You won't. I will hold you here. We will build our kingdom over the lands you tried to burn and pillage. And you will rot here, trapped in this moment, long after you have faded from its memory." And he sincerely believes that he'll be able to contain Ganondorf for all time—because he was able to ascertain that Zelda is from the future, after examining her Stone (his Stone, as it turns out) and piecing together her strange accent and unusual notions, even though she has the pointed ears of a Hylian. He doesn't understand the power, but he does take it as proof positive that his victory is guaranteed and Hyrule exists well into the future... without ever learning the whole truth of it. Rauru is directly responsible for the cycle of Calamity Ganon, as Ganondorf's resent and hatred transformed the Gloom into Malice.

Rauru's pride is an actual flaw, one that is fully explored in the modern day. Just like Ganondorf says, thousands of years passed in the blink of an eye; Rauru hasn't had any time to process his rage. He only saves Link to make him a vehicle for his revenge; sticking around past the tutorial as Link's spectral companion, constantly pushing him to ignore all distractions to destroy Ganondorf ASAP, yet unable to control him directly. In staying with Link, Rauru learns of his legacy; that he created a lasting kingdom, but harmed future generations by inadvertently creating Calamity Ganon—Ganondorf's disembodied anguish and hate, nursed over thousands of years. His selfish decisions created more harm than Ganondorf could have in a single lifetime. Just as the Zonai destroyed the world once before, Rauru managed to destroy it again and again. Hyrule no longer even exists as a kingdom, destroyed by Calamity Ganon 100 years prior. Yet Link continues to fight—not for himself, but to protect and help those he cares about as well as perfect strangers. Rauru gives a touch of the divine to Link, and in return Link reintroduces Rauru to humanity.

In contrast: Ganondorf broods in the Depths, alone. Although he still has a corporeal form, he's just as much of a ghost as Rauru is. He's more isolated than ever, having awakened to a strange world where nothing is as he remembers it. The geography is different, the flora and fauna is different, the people are different. Especially the Gerudo. They don't remember him as ever having been a person at all, believing the monster of their legends merely adopted the form of a Gerudo. But that doesn't sting as much as how tame they've become in his absence. These Gerudo have no fangs; they're fully in bed with Hyrule in every sense of the word, and it disgusts him. Nothing in this world is right. Everyone has forgotten their pride and their history; no one remembers a time when Hyrule wasn't be-all and end-all. Unable to accept this future, he terraforms Hyrule in the image of what it used to be, so it might become a crucible once more. The strong will adapt and survive, while the weak rightfully perish. He will create a world that rewards might and daring above all else.

Ganondorf is none too pleased to learn Link is running around with the arm of the man who sealed him for millennia, and assumes that he has become Rauru's puppet (even more hand symbolism)... but that's a key difference between Ganondorf and Rauru. Link essentially drags Rauru through character development, rekindling a sense of humanity within him. Ganondorf has no one to break him out of his rut. His only company down in the Depths are monsters and the Yiga Clan, who revere him as the source of Calamity Ganon—for his power and opposition of Hyrulian supremacy—but do not see him as person, a king in need of counsel. Ganondorf is more alone than ever, but he refuses to address this. To despair is to admit that the world has power over you, and he is the single strongest being in the world. Gods do not weep. And in that final confrontation, Rauru addresses Ganondorf: They're both ghosts of the past, stubbornly trying to shape the future to their liking; but the present belongs to the living. They both need to let go. But Ganondorf's pride will never allow that. To admit defeat is to admit someone has power over him, and he cannot allow it. It becomes clear to him that the only option left to him is to not play at all.

He swallows his Stone and becomes a dragon, but this doesn't lead to another boss fight (to compensate, the third phase would be a more classical Ganon fight; a friend suggested the name of "Scourge of Hyrule—Apocalypse Ganon"). Instead, in line with what was established earlier—that to become a dragon is to lose yourself to the process—Ganondorf ascends to the sky... and bears no more malice toward Link or Hyrule. He becomes the ultimate in power—immortal and at last truly divine—at the cost of his ego. He's still dangerous since he radiates Gloom, but he doesn't attack, just like the other dragons: an idiot god. He returns to the Depths out of instinctual comfort, but will occasionally surface and usher in a Blood Moon. And like the other dragons, you can harvest rare materials from him to make the best Gloom weapons or whatever. + Leaving Ganondorf in this state leaves a door open for fanatics to try and restore him in a sequel.

So, that's all I got

There's a lot of things I didn't address. Like whether the line of succession was broken with Sonia's death (so is Zelda descended from a relative of hers?), what sort of characters the Sages should be, or what Zelda does after Ganondorf is sealed away by Rauru (I'm personally not comfortable with her waltzing up to the Sages and in a stable time loop binding all the races to Hyrule), how weird the Draconification plot point is (and how Zelda is restored to her human form by Good Ending ghost magic), how Zelda is restored in this version (sequel hook same with Ganon?), how disconnected I feel Link is to the Ancient Past storyline as a whole, whether my version of Ganondorf actually ever learned about him, I didn't really dive into the aforementioned imperialist message in TOTK (others have already done so better than I), etc. Thing is, I'm not a professional writer. I do it for the love of it, and that's what this is. A messy labor of misplaced love for a franchise I've never played, all because I was upset they didn't treat my blorbo the way I like. You know how it goes. My brain didn't know when to let go, but at least now it's out there and not rattling around solely in my noggin, making an awful racket. Maybe now I can work on other things. If you've made it this far, cheers.

[trans-femme-fag-dyke]

T4T sEggs Cracking

Sex changes when you transition as a t-girl. New realities come into focus. New turn-ons emerge. A world of novel psychological and physiological experiences are added to the mix, or replace it entirely. Hormones and their impact terraform the ecology into a mycelial divine feminine, replete with new pleasure pathways. In short, it is wild and beautiful, feral and oozing with potential.

What I wasn’t prepared for, though, was how transfiguring the experience of T4T sex would be. Not by a mile.

Degrading Glorification

(What follows is a dual narrative, embellished and made whole by my lover’s own description of our tryst, which may I tell you is really fucking hot. Anyone who finds discovery and meaning in the process of writing has my attention and, most likely, my lust).

Just another day on Grindr receiving unsolicited dick pic after dick pic from people who ignore my profile’s clear insistence on T4T only.

While I don’t avail myself of these opportunities, there is something to be said for the euphoria that comes from being seen by cishets as a girl. Even seeing me as an attractive t-girl, if they’re purely fetishizing that tribal identifier, doesn’t hurt. Having spent too many years in the closet as a boy-modular gay, I am immune to the aggression of those advances and treat it more like a research project, tagging each new appendage into its relevant mental taxonomy: thick, thin, black, white, clean, cum-covered, veiny, etc. Back in the day, these advances were perfectly acceptable — direct, to the point, like the hawking of wares in a saturated meat market. I was less interested in what they were attached to as I was in their function. Emotion and personality were cast aside.

As a t-girl, though, there is a crossing of the privilege divide into an East Berlin of fear and insecurity. Too often, and too unpublicized, are the examples of anti-trans violence that it’s simply not the same fuck economy that it used to be. And anyway, my orientation has changed.

Orientation shift in transition is a topic that could command an entire thesis, so I won’t go into it here. Suffice it to say that almost overnight, as the estrogen moved through my body, I lost my interest in gay or straight men. Perhaps because being with a gay guy, although still on the table before secondary sex characteristics set in and I could stealthily navigate those penetrations, would send a dysphoric signal deep into my programming.

I find myself attracted to trans energy mostly.

Grindr is a numbers game in Los Angeles. There’s so much flakiness you become accustomed to being ignored or conversations end abruptly. Not to mention that hooking up here is so governed by travel times which fluctuate wildly throughout the days asymmetrical commuting times, that the whole affair can be a non-started at the outset.

But she responded. Glorious brunette, with long wavy hair, small pursed lips and an aloofness that immediately activated my pathological desire of the emotionally unavailable. What can I say, my mother fucked me up.

She — let’s call her Adeline — lived about 10 minutes away, so in an abundance of well-heeled politeness cut with impatient lust, I went to pick her up.

Cue the usual slightly coy banter as we both worked each other out during the ride. The dissipation of fear which comes with these Grindr “dates” for traps, which always carry a soupçon of terror to them and see us scrambling to etch a last will and testament into our iPhone notes app and share location with friends as it plays out.

I emerged from the bathroom topless.

Oh fuck, she thought, nipple piercings. The most physical symbol of deviance there is.

We started making out on the sofa and immediately some force took a hold of me. I felt like our bodies were fusing inside a blacksmith’s forge. We were glitching like a hacked mainframe, opening up its secrets to Snowden’s deft digital lock-picking. We were like people who hadn’t eaten in days set loose on a Vegas buffet.

I ran my hands over her back and through her hair, interlocking my teeth around her neck and ears. Almost epileptic in spasms of uncontrollable, uncensored I searched for my frontal cortex and managed to articulate that we should move to the bedroom.

My friend S had told me to expect fireworks in my first T4T experience. Their look of both shock and empathetic excitement registered on their FaceTime framed face.

They hinted at the dynamic’s incendiary force with an elliptical smile, leaving me hanging like a teaser trailer.

“I can’t explain it, but there’s just something to that energy, that vibe. I’m so excited for you. Like fucking excited!”

And Jesus fucking christ, they were right. I can see why they held off on the detail. Language fails.

We made our way to the bedroom where I revealed my kink drawer. There’s a cornucopia of debauchery in this unassuming pine wood piece of furniture: masks, paddles, leashes, collars, nipple clamps and floggers.

We negotiated our limits, settling on consensual non-consent. In short, anything goes.

We couldn’t have been more perfectly matched. When she initially shared photos with me on the app she gave a trigger warning around the bruises I’d see. It just so happened that impact play and relishing in the blues, browns, yellows and purples of corporeal graffiti aftermath was something we shared.

“I don’t care if you draw blood,” I assured her.

“Well ok then, you pathetic little slut,” she hissed, “lay the fuck down.”

I hadn’t fully anticipated how rapidly she would turn on the sadistic domme energy and I didn’t question it. I couldn’t.

Mmmmmmmmm, mama’s hungry, I thought as my crotch began to throb.

I don’t need to pull my punches, she thought, I can really indulge this deeper cruelty in me.

“Yes, mistress!” I responded, getting into role as the slut spit dump I’d soon become.

I lay down.

“Open wide, slut,” she ordered as she spat on my face, all the while positioning her mouth over mine and dribbling long translucent threads of drool onto my tongue and down my throat. She lunged for my neck with lupine grace and hunger, digging her teeth in and unleashing eddies of dopamine and oxytocin. I could feel the fledgling bruises on my neck and knew they’d be difficult to hide but at this point she could have pushed a blade into my lungs and I’d have kissed her while the blood bubbled out of my mouth.

These were feelings I had never felt before.

It was like all my shame, low self-esteem, trauma, alienation, anxiety and isolation channeled a lightning strike turning sand into clear shards of luminescent glass.

It felt both individual and collective, all ruptures and salvation of minority stressed gender fuckery, raining down and being soaked up. An effervescent tribal alchemy of ecstatic release.

The power of consensual degradation cannot be underestimated. I took years of being trodden down by things beyond my control. The abuse of my mother, the deprivation of affection, the laundering of all currencies of love through a front of cold calculation. All of this turned to steam through the act of my submitting to it with someone who also made me vibrate with light. All of those times when I had no fucking say in what happened to me, as humanity depriving as it was and violently unfair, I now took back. I resignified it, reclaimed it, decolonized and liberated it.

She attached the leash to my collar and yanked me onto the floor.

“If you’re a good girl, you’ll get a treat.” She said sternly, with the consummate control of a well-etched domme.

Up until now, she’d only really experimented with this role but now, she leapt up into the saddle ready for battle. From where I crouched, lapping up her girl dick with such an eagerness to please, it felt like she’d been doing this all her life.

In the dawn of her 20s, this girl came with a level of sexual confidence and experience that can only be found in trans circles. It’s like our bodies are always searching for each other with odyssean ardor. Simultaneous electrons suspended in tandem states.

I clambered back onto the bed like a dog and she straddled me, our girl dicks entwined in her hand with a vibrator in between. Edging, foreplay, the beautiful mirage of the female orgasm which rises and falls, ebbs and flows, coming into focus then going blurry as the mind and the body speaks in foreign tongues.

It was the kind of sex you never want to end. Constant punishment, submission, bratty deliberate misbehavior, retaliation, good behavior and treats.

“You told me you were going to cum you fucking whore. Well, are you?!” she cursed.

“Fuck my pussy, mistress. I need something in me so I can cum for you.”

One, two, then three fingers entered me as she celebrated my gaping hole.

“I love how loose you are.”

Ugh, I felt so seen. I’ve been trying to make my ass loose for years. It’s been one of my sexual north stars. I want to be able to get entire cities inside me. Until my neo-puzzy arrives, my ass has been my pussy substitute and I’ve wanted her to stretch until my bud becomes labia and turns from circle into that canal like corridor of floral ingress.

It didn’t take long, with my ass full of her hand, and I reached that liquidless trap climax and lay there panting, dripping in spit, sweat, and a sense of sexed gender euphoria I had waited 39 years to feel.

Who knew that in order to feel my most beautiful, it would take this level of degradation.

We languished, dripping in sweat and overtaken by an exhaustion which was held in abeyance by the relentless motor of sex.

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to do that again,” I said, with the last remaining energy and breath left in me.

“We might not be able to. I’m probably moving to Berlin in a few weeks,” she responded with a signature level of matter-of-factness and regret.

Afterword

This is a post from Threads that resonated with me.

@aspirationaltea I think this post is me realizing T4T lesbian is the full explanation of my sexuality at least?

That’s how I walked away from the experience with Adeline. Literally and figuratively changed forever. In one fell swoop a single lover had the power to make me feel seen for the first time in my life.

Now of course any first time has the potential to carry the hyperbole of its impact. But the water that slacks the thirst of the desert stranded is the exact same water we all drink. The difference, however, is life saving.

I would usually chalk up an experience without more penetration as fun but not fulfilling. In this scene I had a few fingers inside me for a few minutes. And yet I lost all sense of time and place, sinking into the experience like feet in clittoral sand.

It was pure T4T lesbian sex, as much connection, edging and build as it was a wham bam teleology. The purpose was communion and connection.

T4T sex transfigures and transubstantiates the entire experience into a physical act. Inside every bite, kiss, spit, yank, finger and curse, was a microcosm of the entire experience of trans identity. Eucharist anointed trap fantasy.

Our shared struggles, estrogen shortages, dirty glances turned our way, rejections. Our alignments, the joyful tears t-girls shed over the smallest things as their emotional synapses reinitiate, our first sports bra. Everything is there, unspoken but enacted ritualistically like the world is burning all around us and we carry on regardless. Which is, alas, what it feels like a lot of the time.

At the core of the experience was the abiding sense of safety which comes from being intimate with someone who knows how important it is to cultivate that in as many spaces, few though they may be, as possible.

In addition, the dimension of kink/BDSM brings its own magnetic locus of individuation and resignification. We find submission, abjectification, degradation, and pain paired up with consent, control, compassion, negotiation, communication, and transcendence. We recontextualize experiences which in every other life domain are precursors or consequences of socially aberrant behavior or undesirable hierarchical role playing.

Whether the sub is in control or the dom is, just as with tops and bottoms, is a question for the ages. The person under the thumb, in so allowing it, arguably possesses some power over the person they artificially and consensually elevate to that position. When you have nothing to lose because you have relinquished it, you can only be net positive existentially.

The point is the horizontal socialism of the trans lesbian experience. No one person controls. All are equal and the roleplay is merely an enactment of the end of dominion by external forces.

For what baits the enemy like getting back on your feet or smiling in their face? As blood streams out of your nostrils and you turn to face your captor ready for another beating, you demonstrate an unwavering faith in the ultimate form of the Golden Rule: if your enemy strikes you, turn the other cheek and ask, “Have I been a good girl, Mistress?”

[munchin-cheese]

My Current 1.6 Mod list: Visuals (2/3)

🌼Basic Mods

Those are my general visual mods, they change mostly the environment ☆ﾐ(o*･ω･)ﾉ

Vibrant Pastoral Recolor (with the temporary fix) | Better Water 2 | Simple Foliage (temporary fix version)| Simple Resources | DynamicReflections

🪶UI Mods

Make slight changes to the UI |･ω･)

Miyazaki Inventory Background | Vanilla Tweaks - Interface | Vanilla Accent Interface

🪵Craftables Mods

I have a lot of these if I don't list one you're always free to ask on my posts (But I might not find them myself though) ( ˘▽˘)っ♨

Content Patcher : Creamy Beige Telephone | Gwen's Paths | Modern Farm Computer | Primitive Artisan Equipment | Terracotta Garden Pots | Catcrows

Alternative Texture : Chest Deco | Dustbeauty's Seasonal Path and Flooring | Desvudiary's Chocolate Brown Craftables | Elegant Craftables | Gwen's Craftables for Vibrant Pastoral | Gwen's Paths | H&W Fairy Garden Craftables Retextures | H&W Storage Pack | H&W Farmers Market Craftables Pack | Min's Retro Sewing Machine | Nano's Garden Style Craftables | Out and about Storage | Telephone Recolor | Garden Pots to Modular Garden Planters | Catcrows

🌱Item Sprites Mods

This changes the item sprites I have mostly the ones from DSHi but if I don't like the colors I toggle the Vanilla Tweaks option on. Don't use them both if you have them both on only the DSHi one will show up. I suggest to pick and choose the ones you like with the config toggles

(∩` ﾛ ´)⊃━☆*:・ﾟ

DSHi : Artifacts | Fish | Food | Minerals | Shipping Items

Vanilla Tweaks : Aquarium | Caves | Farming | Producer | Warrior

Others : Kedi's Movie Concessions | Letteas Desert Festival Dishes Retexture | Nostalgic Animal Crackers

🏠Farm elements Mods

Those change the interior and exterior of your farm buildings. I use Content patcher for most of them but a few use alternative texture

ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

Interior : Aimon's Fancy Shed | Aimon's Tidy Cozy Ginger Island Farmhouse | Coop and Barn Facelift | Plain Slime Hutch | Prophet's Kitchen | Spouse Room Free Decoration | Aimon's Tidy Cozy Farmhouse | Aimon's Fancy Greenhouse

Exterior : Eorrl's Seasonal Haybale Silo replacements | Haneul's Farm Buildings | Custom Water bowl from Seasonal Pet houses | Elle's Seasonal Buildings | V1.4 Misc Recolour Pack | Molamole's Mailbox

🏫Town elements Mods

Just some town retexture to make it more to my likings ψ( ` ∇ ´ )ψ

Bathhouse Hot Spring | Elle's Town Buildings | Less Ugly Town Interiors | Seasonal Cozy Bus | Seasonal Outfits Silghty Cuter Aesthetic | Elliott Portraits for Seasonal Outfits | Seasonal Special Order Board

🐮Animal Mods

To have more variety with my lil babies (ง ื▿ ื)ว

Content Patcher : Elle's Cuter Horses | Farm Animal Facelift | Farm Animal Facelift Shop Icons | Pet Facelift

Alternative Texture : Farm Animal Facelift | Ragdollnoelle's K's Barn Animals

Phew this one was a big one. If you have any question about my settings I'm ready to answer _:(´ཀ`」 ∠):_ (Part 1 here) (Part 3 here)

[fanbun]

This quote from Variety's new Dan Harmon interview is concerning to me as a Rick and Morty fan… but it also explains a lot of the problems I have with the show’s writing...

“I think a reset is a good way of looking at it. We had so much behind the scenes drama that I think we didn't need a lot of irony and challenge on the screen narratively. I think the experiment became, can we accomplish the show moving forward? Can the fans not lose their favorite show, not be distracted by any of the turbulence? There was also another important reason to reset, which is we're anticipating doing a lot more of these. This was always designed to be a show that could last thousands of episodes. And you can't last thousands of episodes if you're simply going to tell a serialized story about how your protagonist stops being the protagonist. I've always been obsessively focused on maintaining modularity, so that the more popular your show gets, the more accessible it is to a hopefully increasing freeway of traffic.” (source)

I really don’t like this business-minded approach that sacrifices story in exchange for an endless stream of content.

You could argue the show was always supposed to last forever, but the problem is that the writers set up major overarching storylines and focused their attention on Rick’s development as a character. Things in the show are changing and therefore a reset comes across as a forced decision to keep the show from coming to an end.

It seemed like in season 6 the younger writers in the room were allowed to experiment with larger narratives, but from this quote I think it’s clear that Harmon’s stubbornness really prevents Rick and Morty from evolving naturally and reaching its full potential.

What I find most concerning though is that he admits that they are playing it safe with the narrative because of all their behind the scenes drama. That sounds like the final nail in the coffin to me. Why expect anything truly interesting to come out of these characters when the goal is to be unchanging and marketable? Why hope for writing that is reflective of real life when the people working on it are trying to hide the chaos that spawned it?

Unlike Solar Opposites, the Rick and Morty showrunners said they wouldn’t even be referencing the behind the scenes drama for jokes. And it’s not like Rick and Morty hasn’t done those sort of meta references before either. They did it in season 3, a time where the writing felt like it had way more effort put into it.

So not only is the writing itself disjointed and detached from reality but the jokes also tend to feel forced and generic when there are topics that are off-limits to them. And yeah, this kind of downfall is par for the course when a cartoon has been running for a long time. But Rick and Morty didn’t need to become that kind of cartoon. It didn’t need to be a Simpsons or a SpongeBob.

Honestly this is why I vastly prefer what I have read fans come up with for the show. The creatively engaged fans like to dig deep and talk seriously about character development, make theories about the show's world-building, and create art from a place of emotion. There's something really engaging there that the show occasionally touches on, but whatever hopes we have as those type of fans are sure to be dashed. At the end of the day, the showrunners would rather make some casual viewers chuckle with a half-assed pun or movie reference than risk the death of their cash cow.

[howtofightwrite]

Do heist stories still work in the modern world, especially the developed world? More and more wealth these days seems to be intangible and electronic, and more and more of the physical stuff that's still valuable is marked and traceable so that even if you take, it's hard to spend or unload it anywhere. What are macguffins that a thief in today's world could still physically steal today and realistically hope to profit from (without the profiting getting him caught)?

Heists still happen in the modern world. Hell, the entire NFT “economy” crashed last year as a result of a multiple heists. The Axie Infinity hack last year saw over $600 million worth of crypto tokens stolen. There have been many, many, famous heists, and there is no sign of them slowing down anytime soon.

So, in the vague sense of, “is it realistic?” It happens today, in the real world.

What gets stolen? Anything of sufficient value is a potential target. Art is one of the classic examples, and it remains a tempting target. Any liquid asset is tempting, and no matter how good the tracking is, chances are, someone will find a way to defeat it. In theory, crypto tokens are impossible to scrub, as the entire history of that token will be publicly logged on the block chain... so, thieves were using places like Tornado Cash to launder their cryptocurrency. (Incidentally, the US Treasury has sanctioned Tornado Cash, as of August last year.)

How realistic is it to get away with a heist? There are a lot of unsolved heists. Both, of physical items, and also with a lot of crypto thefts in the last few years. Some of the latter are believed to have been the product of state actors (read: Hacker groups believed to be working for authoritarian states with few extradition treaties.)

Art theft is alive and well. Now, I'm not an expert on laundering stolen paintings, however, from the ones that have been found, a lot find their way into private collections. Art collectors, and brokers who aren't particularly bothered with the legality of a given piece will move stolen art. It's not going to command the prices it would on the open market. (If someone estimates a stolen painting as worth four million dollars, expect that the thieves will get considerably less than that when they fence it, and while the fence will make enough to justify their risk, they're probably not going to be raking in millions either. Once it's made its way to a new owner, it will likely go up on a wall in a private gallery, or get carefully stored in a vault, and never seen again by the outside world for decades (or longer.)

Of course art theft can also be sculptures, books, or really anything else.

When it comes to other things, any liquid asset is a potential target for a heist. Cash, precious metals, and gem stones, are probably the most obvious examples, though, certainly not the only options.

The heist is, generally, a fairly consistent (if modular) structure.

It starts with identifying a vulnerable asset. The reason for the vulnerability may be important for the story, but not for the genre itself. This may be as simple as, “the asset exists,” and the PoV character learns of it, or it could be a situation where an exploitable flaw in the electronic tracking for the item is identified.

Once that's happened, then the ringleader starts assembling a team of specialists (and, amusingly, it is almost always specialists), to fill necessary roles in the heist. Usually this is a mix of technical specialists, social specialists, and at least some muscle.

So, assembling the team is something very specific to the formula, and not reflected in reality. A lot of real world heists simply need bodies, and prefer to have as few people as possible involved. The reasons are twofold. First, the less people involved, the less ways the resulting cash has to be split. Second, the fewer people involved, the fewer people that can lose their nerve and screw up, or rat their partners out to the police.

Once the team has assembled and they have a plan (this is usually hammered out along with the recruitment phase of the story, though that doesn't make a lot of sense when you step back and think about it), then they identify the preceding steps that need to be completed before executing the heist. This involves prepwork, sometimes smaller thefts to obtain the resources they need, and other necessary activities. (Again, this is more of a formula consideration, than a strictly realistic one. Especially the perpetration of earlier crimes. Those crimes can easily result in errors that would lead law enforcement to identify the heist before it occurred, and also help with identifying the thieves. To be fair, this is sometimes handled intelligently while staying within the formula to build tension. As the police close in on the team before they've even gotten started.)

After this, the team goes to execute the heist. Expect several things to fail simultaneously, with members of the team scrambling to salvage the heist. So, I don't want to harp on this too much, but this is another one of those places where the formula structure is extremely unrealistic. When looking at real heists, these kinds of fumbles will usually either botch the heist on the spot or provide the police with the threads they need to find the perpetrators. From a narrative perspective, it makes sense, it help build tension moving into the climax. So, while it's not realistic, that's not the point.

Once the team has the item, then they need to extract with it. Sometimes you'll see this skimmed over, but, getting the thing you're stealing away from the people trying to arrest the thieves is a somewhat important consideration. Generally speaking, yeah, a loud extraction with gunfights and car chases is going to end with the police response scaling to the point where escape is impossible. Also, generally speaking, most writers have a difficult time keeping stealth sequences tense, especially when their instinct is to transition into action.

Once they're out, lot heist stories end. The thieves, “won,” and the climax has played out. From a writing perspective, this makes sense. They won, and everything from here is going to be downhill. The team will break up. The actual process of fencing the stolen goods are going to be fairly dry, and, alternately, the process of laundering any cash they may have stolen isn't going to be that interesting either. There might be some lingering character threads to resolve, but the story is over, at least until you start another.

The main purpose for dragging a story beyond the heist is if you're setting up a tragedy. Probably with the police hunting them down for whatever errors they made along the way. I know I've cited it before, but Michael Mann's Heat (1995) is an excellent example of how the heist structure can be turned into a tragedy. (It's also a rare case that reworks a lot of the formula into something more realistic.)

On the whole, I'd say the heist genre is as relevant today as it's ever been. The specific stumbling blocks your characters will encounter are different. That always changes, and your ability to tune your story to your setting is always important. From a strictly mechanical perspective, there's no difference from your character accidentally leaving his driver's license behind at the scene of the heist, and failing to identify a tracker concealed in the stolen object. Both of them create a direct line from the crime back to that character. In a very real sense, a lot of the particulars for how this plays out is simply flavor. If you want your heist to be a techno-thriller, then you can absolutely do that, though you will probably have to spend quite a bit of time studying modern security methods and technology, but you can do that.

-Starke

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[soren-the-scythe-lesbian]

Infested Pets and You: A Relatively Streamlined Guide to Genetically Engineered Warframe Pets

Have you ever wanted a Warframe pet that has more damage resistances than your frames get? Do you want resistances that look like this?:

Recently I've been getting into breeding companions in Warframe just to see what I could do with the system. I've decided to impart my knowledge in a more streamlined form here on my blog with a few disclaimers.

I am not the foremost expert on this subject. My sources are from my own experience and the following google doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sJ_CSdSEa520B6kfokU4FN7WUuD356a6e6YbPPseeGs/edit?usp=sharing This post is supposed to be a streamlined how to and why that I thought would be fun to make.

I will also be detailing a glitch that is TIME SENSITIVE that is not mentioned in the google doc. By time sensitive I mean DE knows about it and is going to patch it out in the Koumei and the Five Fates update. It is currently, however, still in the game at time of writing. Once that update drops, you won't be able to do the glitch anymore, but any pets you made with it are unaffected visually.

Now let's get to the fun stuff~

Big ass post btw be warned

Part 1: how to acquire a Deimos Pet

There are two flavors of deimos pets with three variations each: the Predasite (infested kubrow) and the Vulpaphyla (infested kavat). They can both be obtained by doing conservation on the Cambion Drift and acquiring their modular pieces from Son in the Necralisk.

These modular pieces are the Antigens (which give mod polarities) and Mutagens (which give damage resistances to one element and one of I/P/S). There are four of each for each of the pets so that means a total of 16 modular pieces that Son sells blueprints of.

If you don't like ranking up Entrati standing or doing Cambion open world missions, I highly recommend you buckle up because you need rank 4 in order to get all of the modular pieces (and yes, you need all of them)

Once you have tranquilized a roaming animal of your choice on the Drift, it will be stored by Son for you to build much like any other modular craftable item. You need only apply the two built modular parts to receive your first creature.

It will still need to be guilded first before any breeding can be done, as imprints cannot be made of un-guilded creatures

Part 2: Precision Genetic Engineering

Much like kavats and kubrows, these creatures can be bred in the incubation segment in your orbiter. In order to do so, you need an incubator power core (the BP of which can be bought from the market), two genetic imprints of the same kind of pet (Predasites/Vulpas), and either a kubrow egg or 10 kavat genetic codes depending on which one you want to breed.

So once you have four Vulpas/Predasites, one with each combination of antigen and mutagen (not joking), you can start by making genetic code imprints of each of them. The templates can be made via a blueprint bought on the market. Once you have an imprint of two of your creatures, you can put them in the imprint section of the incubator to begin the breeding process.

After the breeding is done, you will notice that the creature will have both mutagens and antigens of both parents. These pass down 100% all the time. The creature subspecies, tail, and extra trait given by the antigens are all 50/50 on which part gets passed on (the subspecies matters for gameplay, but the rest are only cosmetic).

This creature with two of each modular part is called a 2x2.

Once you have two separate 2x2s, you should breed those into a 4x4.

Now let's do some math:

Each creature you make can create three templates, so after the 4x4 is created, you would have two imprints of your 1x1s available (so 8), two of your 2x2s (so 4) and three of your 4x4. The total amount of 4x4 imprints you would have by exhausting all of these imprints is a whopping 27!!

This means that as long as you keep one 4x4 imprint for yourself (or a few if you have some that have more desireable traits) you can keep selling the imprints for a massive plat profit (200p per imprint). This is because of the massively low supply of people making these imprints and that you would only need one 4x4 imprint and one other random creature imprint to keep making 4x4s.

Congrats! You now have a pet that takes half damage from basically everything. And this is where the pre-update part of the guide ends, because this next part is what DE does not want you to know.

Part 3: Frankenstein's Monster

It is possible to breed together kavats and kubrows by using a controller and hitting menu buttons simultaneously. Now normally, this glitch only really results in visual bugs, like this fittingly named helminth charger:

This creature was created from a Vasca kavat imprint and a helminth imprint. Yes, it looks hideos and terrifying, but sadly there is no tactical advantage to sticking your leggy out above your back.

The same can not be said for the deimos pets, as there is ABSOLUTELY a tactical advantage.

Step 1: acquire a 4x4 of both types of pets (or drag a friend along this ride so you can trade imprints)

Step 2: have one kubrow egg, 10 kavat codes, and one incubator core. Essentially, have the materials that allow you to do EITHER a kavat or a kubrow breeding.

Step 3: grab a controller. any controller will do, as I used a fighting game controller and it works wonders.

Step 4: use the controller to hover over the select imprint slot in either kavat or kubrow breeding. Press A and SIMULTANEOUSLY the bumper/trigger that will make the menu shift to the other pet breeding menu. You will be sent to the imprint select menu and then spat out to the other menu once selected. Start the process in that menu and you will notice that the previously selected imprint is in one of the slots. Simply place in the second imprint as normal and begin the process.

Now there are a few caveats (or kaveats in this case). Depending on which menu you finalize the breeding in, it will have slightly different results. It will be a 50/50 over whether it's a vulpa or a predasite, and regarding the tail and other such features, but if finalized in the kubrow menu, it will have a variable in SIZE. The kavat menu will always have it as the largest size, however. That means you can breed in the Kubrow menu and get reeeeeeeeeeeally tiny vulpaphylas.

Look at this lil' guy.

Now this can be applied to any crossbreedin of kavats and kubrows, although the deimos pets are mutually exclusive and can only be bred with other deimos pets. The FUN part is what this does with the modular parts.

EVERY. SINGLE. PART.

Gets passed down and inherited.

Now what are the gameplay benefits to this?

Simple: a CRAP TON of resistances and free polarities!

This is what the mod screen for my 8x8 Medjay Predasite looked like after I gave it the free polarity from guilding. It now has NINE TOTAL POLARITIES without using a single Forma. Two of each of the main three polarities and two precept polarities.

And for the resistances, well:

You can't really argue with these numbers. Unfortunately these numbers will be getting fixed with the next update. HOWEVER, the polarities given are still fair game, as well as any unique looking pets you happen to make. So get out there and make some monsters :3

[noegrets]

Staircase Spirit in 2024

Hi, Denise here to look back on all the articles Rosy and I shared on Staircase Spirit during 2024 and to look ahead a bit at 2025!

Detective Conan Anime Reviews:

We did two big articles about Detective Conan this year - the first one covered the second movie, The Fourteenth Target, which is definitely at or near the top of the short-list of our favorite Detective Conan movies. It was fun to gush about what we love about this movie, and also fun to think about how we would have handled dubbing the Japanese-language number-pun-name clues if we were the ones in charge of an English localization.

We also reviewed a big chunk of episodes for our Detective Conan Anime Review Part 8, covering Episode 98 through 123 and bringing us through to the end of the episodes that were dubbed by Funimation.

To give the Funimation dub episodes a proper send-off, we made a reel of our favorite moments, which is included as a video within the article itself (with soft-subs), and also shared stand-alone on Tumblr here (with hard-subs). I am maybe putting too much emphasis on the subtitles, but transcribing and timing them took about as long as assembling the video clips themselves, so let me indulge. XD

Looking ahead to 2025, we are almost done with the next chunk of episodes for Part 9, which includes the introduction of Haibara. We're really excited for that, so hold on to your baseball caps that will absolutely conceal your identity during televised soccer matches hats!

We also are considering spinning off our Detective Conan reviews from Staircase Spirit and giving them their own site, and perhaps restructuring the way they are released. We want to sometimes be able to share one episode at a time if we want, but also have chunks when it's appropriate, and maybe interweave some other discussion, and have a flow of reading, but also let it be more modularized, and have a lot more complicated tagging system and -- yeah, it's incubating. I'm going to be doing some behind the scenes stuff to make sure our Stairwell system can handle everything we would want, and Rosy is going to explore what the layout will be, but right now we fear our biggest barrier might be... deciding on the title of the site! HELP!

In the meanwhile, we'll keep putting our reviews together the same way we have been, no holding back!

Pokemon Movie Reviews:

After whatever fluke happened in 2023, this year we did indeed write stuff about Pokemon. First off, we released what I hope will be the first part of a series on Copy Cat where we review Mewtwo Strikes Back scene by scene. And we already had so much to say about the first two minutes of the movie!

The next piece in this series is another one that is almost done. Look out for it, it will get us another... thirty seconds further into the movie... XD

Setting our endless discussion of Mewtwo Strikes Back aside, we also continued reviewing the Pokemon movies that are after the first one. We're up to Number 13, the so-called Zoroark movie, even though the real spotlight is on Zorua, co-starring Celebi, and also the shiny Legendary Beast are there too, and actually, what this really all about is a man who uses vision powers to make money at the stock market. We liked this movie a lot.

Next up will be movie number 14, the double-dipping Victini movie, and I am really excited for what we have in the works for that one.

And last but not least, Oblivion:

We were actually in the process of writing a bit about the Assassin's Guild questline, when we realized, there sure are a lot of inns in Cyrodiil. And even though there's not really an in-game push to visit most of them, they are all fully-fleshed locations, with different furnishings and amenities and rates... So we set out to review them! We'll help you plan your next trip around Cyrodiil, and you'll see which inn is the absolute best!

So, yeah, we hope you enjoyed our articles from 2024 and look forward to what we do in 2025!

[faintinggoatsyndrome]

Hi! 💗 here’s a tracker of how requesting a wheelchair from my 🇧🇪 goverment is going!! Will try to update lol.

For refrence: for diagnosis FND (non-epileptic seizures) so I can save energy and not have seizures consistently outside the house.

• Situations i use it:

- classes (1 day a week)

- long trips (bigger stores, shopping days, flea markets, conventions, theme parks, etc)

- to move me to a safe place during seizure

• The process so far:

1. Have GP fill in wheelchair perscription

— get rejected because though he agrees I should use one, I shouldn’t have one for free bcs I only use it for a % of time.

2. Ask Neurologist to fill in wheelchair perscripton

— (respectfully) fight w/ her for 30 minutes because I shouldn’t ‘give up’ mobility, and try treatment (in form of therapy; after 4 psych wards and currently consistent visits to psychologist & psychiatrist)

3. get wheelchair perscription from neurologist!!!!!! 🎉

4. Go to bandagist (mobility aid specialist) and go to wheelchair manufacturer to put in order

5. Get reeeeeejected! By the goverment!

— score of document was too low because it was filled in incorrectly

?. Give up for like a year and start using a secondhand wheelchair, notice how much freedom you have.

6. Email neurologist to refill in the document, adding the explanation of how to fill in the scores.

— (scores based on how you are during/post seizure, not just on a random tuesday)

7. Give document to a new bandagist

8. Bandagist asks for revision.

— though it was filled in, not every box was also crossed in lol

9. Ask for revision from Neurologist

10. Bandagist that document was filled in on the 2023 edition instead of 2024

— which!! You can only download the 2023 edition from the ✨official goverment website!!✨ it was never updated!!

11. Push back and ask them to take it up with the friggin goverment BRO

12. Say I’ll hear about making an appointment, but don’t hear anything.

13. Get called one morning asking if they can visit me in my house in an hOuR

14. Have consultation! Find out I need 1 more revision to the document to qualify for a possible power supply in the future.

— Find out I qualify for a ‘basic wheelchair’ that cannot be requested changes on, have to get revision to qualify and buy ‘modular wheelchair’ (means can have changes, but different from active wheelchair) only get 980 in goverment assistance for it (will have to pay 2200 euro extra) and then apply for power supply and hope I’ll get accepted after doctors consultation at a ‘specialized wheelchair team’.

15. Decide to go back to GP because asking Neurologist for a 4th time seems insane for that revision.

16. Get revision from GP! 🎉🎉

17. Find out I can’t just pay extra on top of goverment funding to afterwards request power supply!

18. Bandagist offers to change tactics and go all in; try to request a full active wheelchair (100% paid back; 100% harder to get)

19. Make appointment with ‘specialized wheelchair team’ (doctors I do not know) hoping a visit to them will get me the correct referral for this kind of wheelchair.

That’s where I am now; appointment is next week. I am terrified. We’ll see what happens! 💗

[boreal-sea]

You know what?

I just figured something out and I'm sure other people figured it out a long time before me but I have a lot to say so here we go.

Set-up:

Idea 1: So awhile back there was an absolutely fantastic post on here about how Christianity attempts to market itself as "modular" - that you can totally keep being whatever culture you are, but just swap out your current religion for Christianity and go! The post was about how this is complete nonsense, because in most cultures, religion is part of the culture, and the two are not separate concepts from each other.

Idea 2: I have repeatedly said that I find the concept of gender abolition (particularly how radfems discuss it) to be unpalatable, and one of the main reasons is that I look around the world and see how beautiful gender expression and gender performance can be, and I find the idea of eradicating all of that to be quite dystopian. I use the term gender liberation, not abolition.

Synthesis:

Gender identity and gender expression are not modular, and in fact are integral parts of culture, and can't be separated from culture. Your gender identity is part of your cultural identity.

The way I am nonbinary and butch and transmasc and becoming Jewish is not the same way a Burmese person (for a random example) would be nonbinary and butch and transmasc. They may not use the same words! They may conceive of their gender identity in a completely different way from me and how they move through the world is going to be totally different. The ways they express genderqueerness is going to be totally different from how I do it.

And that's beautiful.

And I think this is how I come full circle in my ability to articulate my disgust with radfems who want to not only eradicate gender, but who want to eradicate entire cultures and religions in their twisted vision of "female liberation". Not only are they pro-cultural genocide, they're pro-erasure of identity.

I think about cultural diversity, the beauty and freedom of personal expression, the joy of presenting in a way that not only connects you to your gender identity, but to your people and your community. Feeling at home in your body and your community in a way that brings you pride, gender expression as a form of cultural celebration...

And radfems want to kill that.

[goatsludge]

glawk killer(tm)

@bureau-of-mines and I pick up Ruger's latest collaboration with everyone's favorite gunplastic peddler

Given our only prior experience with semiautos is a gimp-legged P80 and a plethora of 1911's, this is our next lateral step within that territory

There's a lot of incredibly enticing things about the RXM that made me eager to run out and buy one, namely the slide, which is cut from the factory to accommodate a wide variety of pistol red dots:

And that I later found out, the fire control unit being the serialized component, thus allowing you to interchange grip frames for a theoretically unlimited level of modularity (once and if the market catches up).

Basically a Glock-shaped SIG without all the QC and ND problems of the latter.

Now I'm confident this thing is not without a few drawbacks, namely with factory triggers, grip ergonomics, etc. ranging from "meh" to "pretty all right" according to existing online testimony - nothing spectacular like the Glock's repertoire bears ahead of it, but no outright dealbreakers.

But all the same, I think this Gen.3 G19 clone has a lot of bold statements under its belt. I'm eager to report on performance once I can get out and do more than finger fuck it at my desk.

Probably going to end up sticking an RMR Type 2 and a Surefire X300 Turbo on it later once I've put it through a few mags. Might even get an OD Green or FDE Grip Frame once Magpul releases those. We'll see.