#Monoliths water features

[ornamentalclassics]

Granite & Stone Water Features for Your Garden

Without the addition of running water, of course, no landscape renovation would be complete. A custom self-contained water feature was made in this garden using a heavy-duty pebble pool, galvanised grid, a fountain pump, and a vintage millstone.

It's not particularly difficult to incorporate a water feature like this into your own garden.

Create a hole in the ground that is the right size to accommodate the plastic reservoir. Ideally, we advise placing a simple layer of concrete into the base first for increased stability and peace of mind if the feature to be mounted on the galvanised grid is going to be quite heavy (solid stone).

Before covering the galvanised grid, the pump and pipe can be inserted into the pool.

Make sure the pipe is fed through the centre of the stone so that water may flow out of the top before carefully lowering the water feature into position on the galvanised grid.

Once it is in position, turn it on, fill the reservoir with water, and clip any extra pipe from the top of the stone feature.

Most fountain and water feature pumps include a flow regulator that enables you to regulate the water flow as it bubbles away from the stone's centre.

Cover the foundation with cobbles and stones to hide the galvanised grid.

Most of our granite and stone water features include LED lights that illuminate the water flow at night, making them ideal for relaxing in your garden on balmy summer evenings.

During the hotter summer months, adding Fountain Fresh to the water feature helps decrease the buildup of algae, keeping the water feature appealing for years to come. Source:

[not-terezi-pyrope]

Often when I post an AI-neutral or AI-positive take on an anti-AI post I get blocked, so I wanted to make my own post to share my thoughts on "Nightshade", the new adversarial data poisoning attack that the Glaze people have come out with.

I've read the paper and here are my takeaways:

Firstly, this is not necessarily or primarily a tool for artists to "coat" their images like Glaze; in fact, Nightshade works best when applied to sort of carefully selected "archetypal" images, ideally ones that were already generated using generative AI using a prompt for the generic concept to be attacked (which is what the authors did in their paper). Also, the image has to be explicitly paired with a specific text caption optimized to have the most impact, which would make it pretty annoying for individual artists to deploy.

While the intent of Nightshade is to have maximum impact with minimal data poisoning, in order to attack a large model there would have to be many thousands of samples in the training data. Obviously if you have a webpage that you created specifically to host a massive gallery poisoned images, that can be fairly easily blacklisted, so you'd have to have a lot of patience and resources in order to hide these enough so they proliferate into the training datasets of major models.

The main use case for this as suggested by the authors is to protect specific copyrights. The example they use is that of Disney specifically releasing a lot of poisoned images of Mickey Mouse to prevent people generating art of him. As a large company like Disney would be more likely to have the resources to seed Nightshade images at scale, this sounds like the most plausible large scale use case for me, even if web artists could crowdsource some sort of similar generic campaign.

Either way, the optimal use case of "large organization repeatedly using generative AI models to create images, then running through another resource heavy AI model to corrupt them, then hiding them on the open web, to protect specific concepts and copyrights" doesn't sound like the big win for freedom of expression that people are going to pretend it is. This is the case for a lot of discussion around AI and I wish people would stop flagwaving for corporate copyright protections, but whatever.

The panic about AI resource use in terms of power/water is mostly bunk (AI training is done once per large model, and in terms of industrial production processes, using a single airliner flight's worth of carbon output for an industrial model that can then be used indefinitely to do useful work seems like a small fry in comparison to all the other nonsense that humanity wastes power on). However, given that deploying this at scale would be a huge compute sink, it's ironic to see anti-AI activists for that is a talking point hyping this up so much.

In terms of actual attack effectiveness; like Glaze, this once again relies on analysis of the feature space of current public models such as Stable Diffusion. This means that effectiveness is reduced on other models with differing architectures and training sets. However, also like Glaze, it looks like the overall "world feature space" that generative models fit to is generalisable enough that this attack will work across models.

That means that if this does get deployed at scale, it could definitely fuck with a lot of current systems. That said, once again, it'd likely have a bigger effect on indie and open source generation projects than the massive corporate monoliths who are probably working to secure proprietary data sets, like I believe Adobe Firefly did. I don't like how these attacks concentrate the power up.

The generalisation of the attack doesn't mean that this can't be defended against, but it does mean that you'd likely need to invest in bespoke measures; e.g. specifically training a detector on a large dataset of Nightshade poison in order to filter them out, spending more time and labour curating your input dataset, or designing radically different architectures that don't produce a comparably similar virtual feature space. I.e. the effect of this being used at scale wouldn't eliminate "AI art", but it could potentially cause a headache for people all around and limit accessibility for hobbyists (although presumably curated datasets would trickle down eventually).

All in all a bit of a dick move that will make things harder for people in general, but I suppose that's the point, and what people who want to deploy this at scale are aiming for. I suppose with public data scraping that sort of thing is fair game I guess.

Additionally, since making my first reply I've had a look at their website:

Used responsibly, Nightshade can help deter model trainers who disregard copyrights, opt-out lists, and do-not-scrape/robots.txt directives. It does not rely on the kindness of model trainers, but instead associates a small incremental price on each piece of data scraped and trained without authorization. Nightshade's goal is not to break models, but to increase the cost of training on unlicensed data, such that licensing images from their creators becomes a viable alternative.

Once again we see that the intended impact of Nightshade is not to eliminate generative AI but to make it infeasible for models to be created and trained by without a corporate money-bag to pay licensing fees for guaranteed clean data. I generally feel that this focuses power upwards and is overall a bad move. If anything, this sort of model, where only large corporations can create and control AI tools, will do nothing to help counter the economic displacement without worker protection that is the real issue with AI systems deployment, but will exacerbate the problem of the benefits of those systems being more constrained to said large corporations.

Kinda sucks how that gets pushed through by lying to small artists about the importance of copyright law for their own small-scale works (ignoring the fact that processing derived metadata from web images is pretty damn clearly a fair use application).

[hometoursandotherstuff]

This is a 2005 double monolithic dome in Hancock, WI. It has 4bds, 2ba, 3,275 sq ft, $660K.

The open floor plan has a nice living room, and the 3 sided glass fireplace is lovely.

The kitchen is built on a platform, which is unusual.

This is very nice and could use a little color to really make it pop.

From above you can see the stone tile of the living room and the two-toned wood of the kitchen platform.

A hallway going to the rear of the home.

This is interesting. The main floor principal bedroom has unusual architecture with spiral stairs to a loft above.

The walls are textured plaster. That wedge in the ceiling is unique.

A door to a sun room is also featured.

The loft is cute.

There's a clothes closet up here and it could be something else, but the ceiling goes a little low on one side.

There's a large shower in the primary bath.

Alongside the stairs is a small area where they have a home office.

This is the 2nd bd. It's quite large and I don't know what that is on the right, but it looks like it could be a newel post for stairs.

The 3rd bd. The bedrooms are good sizes, but odd shapes. I like the floor in here.

The 2nd bath has a soaker tub and a shower, but it also has that rough textured wall.

This bedroom is nice and also has access to an en-suite. It looks like there are 3 baths, not 2.

This is another bath. I like the cabinets in this one.

Another home office, but it could also be a bedroom.

Plus, there's a large laundry room.

The sun room.

And, also a patio with a pergola.

There's a large garage/barn that has a sign that says "eggs."

And, here are the chickens, so there's an egg selling business.

Apparently, that squarish thing with water is a pond.

It's a very large piece of property-20.09 acres.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/561-Bighorn-Ave-Hancock-WI-54943/113632437_zpid/

[catboybiologist]

The Sierras Nevada mountains bear ancient scars.

(Pic: the valley that forms the path of the Middle fork of the Kaweah River, going westward from the Kaweah gap. Sequoia NP.)

These relatively young mountains started as a plateau in Western North America (or rather, Laurasia) during the Cretaceous and early Paleogene. But soon afterwards, rivers carved a rugged landscape. As glaciation periods began ~30-40 mya, the advancing and retreating of rivers of ice from the mountaintops scoured this further into deep, granite canyons. Their scouring revealed buried pockets of magma, solidified into domes, spires, and monoliths, many of which are named and iconic.

(Pic: half dome viewed from El Capitan. Yosemite NP.)

Now, with humans, the fate of these canyons has been varied.

The Yosemite Valley is by far the most well known and recognizable of these canyons. While it is protected as a national park, it is one of the most famous and highly visited parks in the entire US, and a world famous recreation destination. Because of this, it's well preserved, but fairly built up. The Yosemite village has full time habitation from park workers, car traffic, two hotels, restaurants, shops, and more. A natural wonder and recreation destination to be sure, and the neighboring high country is extremely wild, but certainly notably built up.

(Pic: East Yosemite valley from the Yosemite falls trail. The Ahwanee hotel is visible on the left.)

Within the boundaries of the same national park is a sadder story: Hetch Hetchy. Hetch Hetchy valley, just North of the Yosemite valley, boasts similar granite features to Yosemite itself- but some are submerged forever. In the early 20th century, the valley was dammed and flooded to supply water to the booming city of San Francisco. It still does. Some proposals have been made to drain it, but some believe that the damage is already done.

(Pic: Hetch Hetchy reservoir. Only pic in this post not by me, taken from NPS website.)

Kings Canyon represents a middle ground. In 1940, General Grant national Park was expanded to include the canyon, and subsequently renamed Kings Canyon National Park, now jointly managed with Sequoia NP. Car access is possible, and there are visitor services at the bottom, but nothing in the scale of Yosemite. A more typical national park experience, it feels a lot more rugged and wild, while boasting many similar granite features.

(Pic: looking down the paradise valley as it connects to Kings Canyon.)

And then.... There's the Kern valley.

Tucked discreetly in the Southeast of the Sierras, relatively little people know of its existence, despite being as deep and grand as the others.

The reason for this is it's level of protection. The Kern Valley is a wilderness area of Sequoia NP- the highest level of protection for conservation in the United States. In wilderness zones, no permanent structures or roads are permitted- only hiking trails and primitive campsites.

Some parts of the lower Kern fall outside of this boundary, but the upper Kern is only accessible by multiple days on foot. Numerous hiking trails cross cross the area, including the High Sierra Trail, which I completed a week ago.

It's gorgeous, and even though it's used by hikers, it feels untouched by human hands.

But.

We can show it something else.

Some kind of .... Body part. That has a day of the week based following in this website.

That's right, you fools.

THIS IS ANOTHER TGIRL TUMMY TUESDAY POST!

On August 24th, I descended into the Kern from the West via the HST, and decided to show it what I know best- some good fucking tgirl tummy.

Happy Tuesday to the freaks, the degens, and the losers, and the business they get up to, to make their lives more interesting, whatever if may be.

Tags under the cut!

@lilithtransrights @xenasaur

@whalesharkcat @godless-of-the-hunt

@anarqueeen @shakukon-to @eruditegeek

@puzzlecatt @sagasolejma

@havingsecondthots @quinns-sinns

[dvchvnde]

On a precarious overhang above a steep fjord, he comes across a stranded doe. 

The sight is almost pitiful. Leaning against the edge of a sheer cliff, peering down into the ravine below. 

It doesn't surprise him. 

He's been tracking this particular doe for the last eight clicks up the winding river. Following it at leisurely pace with his rifle strung around his shoulder. Waiting. It's young, he knows. Doesn't know the terrain. The area. This little fawn is from the rim—a far way from home, now. 

It's not a position anyone would want to be in out here. All turned around, lost. 

If there's anything Johnny learned after being here for a year is that it's almost laughably easy to get lost. This valley, the winding river, the towering limestone monoliths, have a strange way of bending the perception of reality. At first, it all looks the same, bar several key features. But the deeper into the park, it all starts to flatten into an eerie mimesis. 

This must be what happened to this poor little doe. Swallowed up by the sprawling wilderness. Snatched off the overgrown trail, sense of direction all asunder. Lost in a dizzying plateau. 

Without much else to rely on, this little doe turns to her instincts. Climb high. Look for something familiar—a looming waypoint to follow back to the trail like the northern star. 

He watches it all unfold through the scope of his rifle, keeping trot with this pretty deer lost in the wilderness. What to do with her is still a mystery. Dinner, perhaps. She's as good as dead out here on her own, anyway. 

Johnny levels the rifle, eye glued to the soft expanse of her meaty neck. Through the heart, he knows. A quick death. Painless. It's a shot he's taken so many times in the past that he knows he could close his eyes and meet his target blind. 

But—

The doe stops dead in her tracks. Head lifting from the soft grass she grazes on. Ears twitching. Flickering. She doesn't blink. Her tongue comes out, swipes over her nostril. Alert. Nervous. 

The noise reaches his ears a second later. Soft footfalls, a huff. It's not animal. 

Strange. Johnny was sure he'd be the only person out here for miles, possibly even centuries. This untamed wilderness on the outside of Nahanni wasn't a place most humans found themselves. So far removed from civilisation. Land untouched for aeons. The sprawling wilds was untenable. Desolate. 

The air in his lungs stagnate. He lifts the rifle higher, higher, and—

Oh. 

It's a surprise. On the ledge of the escarpment above him, a face appears. Hidden by the thicket boxing them in, he almost misses them entirely. 

The little doe holds her position on the shelf below. It's only a shallow drop to the rolling incline angled out to the mouth of the river, and he realises, suddenly, that this wayward wanderer is lost. Struggling. 

You peer down, eyes widening slightly at the sight of the deer below you, almost within arm's reach. He can see indecision roll across your face as you glance back toward the dense forest behind you bracketed by an intimidated stretch of slate monoliths that winds deep into the horizon, and then to the river beneath to. To risk it by going backwards through untamed terrain. Sheer drops. Daunting fjords. Or to take a chance on the river's edge. 

The choice is obvious. This river will lead you back to civilisation, to the small towns peppered along the forest. But some places are white water. Dangerous. The current is deadly, and there's no shore to cling to having been eroded away a millennia ago by the same water that carves a terrifying path through the fjords. 

To go forward will eventually bring you to an impasse. To treacherous waters. 

But—

What other choice do you have? 

He sees the moment you decide. When your face crumples like paper, lip quivering as you contend with the sudden realisation that you're stuck. Doomed. The only person to rely on is yourself. To depend on—

Well. 

Almost. 

There's an emptiness inside of him, a funnel that syphons everything into it, spitting it out of the gaping hole in his head. An ache. Everpresent. Constant. Hollow. 

But as he stares up at you, worry cinched tight between your brow, a magnificent bloom of absolute devastation drawing over your pretty face, he finds this barren vacancy suddenly stemmed. Filled. Stuffed with purpose. With reason. 

He can't let you go into the wilds alone. 

The little doe sniffs when you move, loose rock sliding against granite. Scraping. It echoes through the canyon, sound amplified by the jagged rockface of the monoliths closing in. She's about to make a run for it. 

Johnny can't let her do that. Can't let her die out here like that. Not when she led him right to something so incredible—

He breathes out, practiced, and takes the shot—

[littleeyesofpallas]

ya know of all the sloppily localized things from the 90s-00s that I've gone back to over the years to try and make better sense of, I'm shocked I've never actually thought to poke around in monster rancher somehow. So so long as I'm on this Gali kick but too lazy to keep nudging around bits in photoshop, let's tackle the names, starting with the obvious purebred...

GALI[ガリ] after Galileo Galilei, because sun mask and his work promoting the Copernican heliocentric model of the solar system.

And then there's all the mix breeds...

Okay off to a rocky start... Lexus's name in Japanese is in fact just REKUSASU[レクサス], which is how Japanese phonetics handle Lexus, like the car, but like.... I don't know why? I've seen someone mention they think it's REXas like T-Rex, which I guess makes more sense, but why the -sasu bit? It does in fact retain the same name in MR2 even though the breed changes to Gali/Zuum and the English changes it to Scaled Mask. (notably they didn't make a new zuum pattern for its cape.)

WOOROKKUSU[ウォーロックス] I assume a portmanteau on Warlock and Rocks. A neat way to reference both Gali's magic wielding and Golem's stone body, but reliant on the Japanese L/R so kind of doesn't work in English since either Warlocks or Warrocks loses one half of the joke. The localization team seemed to have just thrown their hands up in the air and given up, calling it "Warrior" which has no tie to the name at all other than it starts with "war-" and MR2 just called it Stone Mask.

Sapphire and later Fanged mask was named INU-GAMI[イヌガミ] as in inu-gami[犬神], lit. "Dog God" but references a specific type of yokai that is an ascendant spirit of a dog, akin to magic foxes, cats and other animals common to Japanese folk lore.

Style, later renamed Brown Mask, was originally called TSUCHINOKO-BOKUSAA[ツチノコ��クサー], which I can only assume is read like tsuchinoko BOXER[槌の子ボクサー] where the tsuchi-no-ko[槌の子], lit. "child of (the)hammer" is a Japanese cryptid described as a snake with a wide middle section, as if flatted with a mallet. Evoking the tsuchinoko is clearly a reference to worm, but I have no idea what the full name is supposed to mean... Someone who punches worms? A worm who punches?

Aqua, later Aqua Mask, was AKUARIUSU[アクアリウス], Japanese phonetics for "Aquarius." Pretty obvious reference to water bearer constellation as a Jell subtype.

Pixel aka Pink Mask, was in fact just called PIKUSERU[ピクセル] the English got this one right. At least I assume it's meant to be read as "Pixel", although I don't get the meaning. It sounds like pixie, obviously, but that seems to be it.

Omen, renamed Suezo Mask, originally had the very impressive name, HITOTSUME-OUJI[ヒトツメオウジ] from Hitotsume Ouji[一つ目王子]: "One-Eye(d) Prince."

Galion, alter Furred Mask, was in fact just called GARION[ガリオン]. The first game got it right. Although I assume it's a play on Gali and Leon, as in "Lion" in reference to a mane of fur since the key features being merged between Gali and Hare are the sun motif and fur. (Honestly kind of a shame they didn't opt to give him an actual mane in place of the sun spikes, and a more animal-ish face, it would have made for a cool unique look.)

Gara and later Galirous, was GARIRASU[ガリラス] but I think this should have been romanzied as GALILATH(?) because it seems to be a mash up of Gali and Monolith(Monol's name in Japanese is actually the full word Monolith[モノリス]) If it's not that then it's more obtuse than I can make sense of.

Shon in the original MR and Purple Mask in MR2, both actually come sort of close. SHION-KAMEN[シオンカメン] from Shion Kamen[紫苑仮面], Shion[紫苑] being both the Japanese name for the Tartarian Aster(Aster tataricus) but also short for shion-iro[紫苑色] the color of Aster flowers, generally referring to something in a range between Violet and a Light-Purple. Oh and of course kamen[仮面] means "mask". (So the Shon came from Shion, for some reason dropping the I, but the name Purple Mask isn't technically wrong as a translation and just happens to fit the localization's really bland and otherwise largely arbitrary naming scheme.)

KARAFURU-MASUKU[カラフルマスク] it's just an approximation of the English words COLORFUL MASK. So the second game got it spot on, and the first game just shortened it to Color.

And some of the special Gali/??? types...

Happy Mask, HARE-HARE[ハレハレ] I assume from hare[晴れ] meaning "clear(skies)" in other words, "sunny(weather)"

Gamer was HOKKEE[ホッケー] it's just "Hockey."

Kuma was shortened from its actual Japanese name, KUMADORII[クマドリー] as in kumadori[隈取り] a style of kabuki makeup characterizing villainous or otherwise violent roles.

Milky Way, AMA-NO-GAWA[アマノガワ] as in Ama-no-Gawa[天の川] lit. "River of Heaven" and it's the Japanese name for the Milky Way. His cloak has a little tanabata image on the back, which is a holiday involving the constellations orihime(vega) and hikoboshi(altair) separated by the milky way.

Sunset Gali in the MRAdvance2 is just an accurate reading of SANSETTO-GARI[サンセットガリ].

Ombren was clever, the original name is GARI-NO-KAGE[ガリノカゲ] as in [ガリの影] "Shadow of Gali" and Ombren is from the Latin root word Umbra, meaning "Shade" or "Shadow." When specifically used in reference to an eclipse an umbra refers to the obscured area withing the direct line of sight tangent to the sun and the moon.(as opposed to the penumbra which is the only partially obscured area interior to the light of sight tangent the earth and the moon.)

Weirdly Monster Rancher DS(aka Monster Farm DS 2) added these two random new Gali; Verde(Gali/Centaur) and Ultimate(Gali/???), who also appeared in the first mobile game, My Monster Rancher(aka Monster Rancher 1 Million) but I can't seem to find information on their japanese names? On the one hand English language resources don't seem to include the katakana, but then I tried searching the game name and breed type and can't even seem to find any Japanese language wikis that cover what I'm looking for... Or maybe i've fried my brain and there's some kind of obvious search result that i've been missing.

I dunno where i thought I was going with this... I don't have like, a conclusion or a take away. Just idly scratching more of that monster rancher itch.

[vaguelyoriginaldrivel]

RANDOM TOWN GENERATOR

My longest-running campaign ended this year. Granted, that’s not saying much - only ran 9 sessions, started last fall, but still as of yet the only real “campaign” I’ve ever ran. Was some sort of “urban fantasy” thing, players a bunch of wizards (and one giant shrimp-man) driving around some undefined region of the USA in an again undefined recent past… though near the end I think I’d decided on it being set in Pennsylvania? Definitely a learning experience in a lot of ways for me, regardless. Anyways here’s some tables I made for it

Town name (d10):

Washington

Franklin

Chester

Dover

- 10. [random - roll prefix, suffix]

Prefix (d12):

Spring

Hill

Glen

George

Kings

Green

Arling

Clay

Ash

Gold

Mill

Fair

Suffix (d6):

field

lake

hill

view

ton

-Town

Notable Feature (3d10): 1-3. Can’t be rolled on a 3d10

Ignore everything else - this isn’t an ordinary small town, it’s a neo-nazi cult compound. They have guns and they don’t like you

Historic building - Weird modern house - all pods, steel, fiberglass, and concrete, with spherical pods covered in pods. Abandoned.

Ruins - Abandoned Shopping Mal

Speed trap town - local cops lurk on the side of the highway, entire town economy based on speeding tickets. Basically operates on piracy. Absurdly low speed limits not properly demarcated

Weird art installation - field of sculptures (d4 - abstract metal, cobbled-together trash, stone statues of animals and people, monoliths with inscriptions)

Historic building - haunted mansion, old style - wood, maybe some stone

Notable dam overlooking the town, potentially vulnerable to failure

Ruins - Abandoned Factory

College town - small local college dominates the local economy, most residents are students or staff

Tourist trap - Historic house (d4- Rotting wooden mansion with a ghost story, old colonial stone fort, weird modern house of a dead eccentric rich guy/ weird cult leader )

Large immigrant population from a distant country (ie not part of the Americas- like Kazakhstan or Swahililand or Lichtenstein, not like, Colombia)

Oddly high concentration of a hyper-specific specialized type of business - an entire district of dentists or dog groomers or something

Not a full on cult compound, but much of the town’s population do follow a specific esoteric cults religion like scientology or sedevacantist mormonism or something

Birthplace of some celebrity, statue in town square proclaims as much

Tourist trap -Giant sculpture, gift shop (d4 - historic figure, giant animal, mascot of attached restaurant, dinosaur(young-earth creationist))

Historic building - old colonial fort, earthworks and stone and wood

Geography - Subterranean water (1d4 - Hot spring, bottomless pit in a lake, water-filled mine pit)

Geography- Big rock (d4 - Balancing rock, weird outcroppings (like fang ridge nevada), meteor (in far-off museum, there’s a plaque next to the crater though), butte)

Geography - Weird Cliff (1d6: columnar jointing, waterfall, petroglyphs, looks like a face, church built into it, odd color)

Retirement community, no children whatsoever and everyone is either a senior citizen or a caretaker

Odd museum - animal (1d6- snails, songbirds, butterflies, earthworms, leeches, mice)

Odd museum - human (1d6- finger, ear, spleen, tongue, nose, lip, nail)

Odd museum - local cryptid (1d6 - sasquatch, lake monster, grey alien, weird alien (ie flatwoods), hodag, giant toad, devil)

Religious - large megachurch, drawing in the faithful from across the state

Weird art installation - small grove with (d4 - dollheads hanging from the trees, extensive etchings onto the bark, geometric statues in between the trees, the trees coated in colorful yarn)

Ignore everything else - this isn’t an ordinary small town, it’s some kind of hippy commune or cult compound or something. Either pseudochristian or pseudodharmic, flip a coin

Special - roll on Supernatural table

(intentionally weighted to be biased more towards the middle but I didn’t really check the probabilities here, might be way too hard to get the ones at the further poles)

Extra: Supernatural element. (d4)

Entire town was replaced with body-snatchers a few years ago. They’ll try to keep you in town for a few days - constantly surveilling you, in order to grow a body-double - when they’re done they’ll try and kidnap you to replace you with it the next time you wander away from the group. Body snatcher type varies - (Fae-esque boogeymen cuckoo-bird shapeshifters, pseudo-plant pod people, 1979 Alien style androids, etc)

Recent sightings of some kind of cryptid or something has drawn droves of “cryptozoologists” to town. This is a problem because some of you are cryptids. Coinflip if the cryptid in question is real or not

Entire town stuck in groundhog day loop - the US military has caught on and is using the town as a testing-bed/training site. Just like groundhog day, there’s one guy somewhere in town originating the loop - kill him or put him to sleep and it resets - make him learn the error of his ways - or keep him awake til midnight - and the effect ends permanently. The feds know about this, first thing they do every loop is send their special ops guys to bag him and hide him in a van before they start the raid in earnest. Outsiders, like you and the special ops guys, can enter the loop - no matter what happens, when the loop resets you’re plopped back outside right where you entered in exactly the state you were then except for your memories - even if you died you’re revived.

Certain nights, at the witching hour (12-1), local monsters and spirits and such emerge and walk the streets openly - certain stalls and shops pop up in areas that are normally unused, catering to this strange clientele, and others who sell mundane wares during the day reveal their magical affiliations at night. Also there’s street performances, music and dances and parades - and games, dangerous ones - ones you can join. The rest slumber on, but the magic that keeps them asleep does not apply to you. As magicians and cryptids yourself, this could be a good opportunity, but not all the spirits who’ve emerged are peaceful.

this is what the map of the actual campaign ended up looking like at the end btw

[kalgalen]

(written during the Lightning Fic panel of Arcon 2024 from randomized prompts. I got Mike Crew & Manuela Domingez, in an art studio, featuring the body swap trope. enjoy uwu)

She wakes up. She wakes up, and the light streaming from the windows immediately burns her retinas - aggressive, uncaring, exposing every nerve of her body and flaying her alive. She groans, retches dryly; her eyes screw shut and she curls up to the side, taking a moment to try and remember how she got there.

It had been night time - that she was sure of. That damn Avatar of the Vast had given her this studio as a meeting point, supposedly a safe space for him, at a safe hour for her. Hanging high in the sky, nestled in the last few floors of a tall, monolithic London building, it would have been a perfect trap to take out Manuela, but the winter sky at three in the morning had been thick with clouds, snuffing out any natural light the moon could have provided.

Mike Crew, ever the book lover, had found a dark volume during his perusing of an ancient Scottish library. Manuela’s people had learned of this discovery - Noirceur de Suie d’une Mare en Automne, “Soot Blackness of an Autumn Pond” - and had known it was one of theirs, a book used to turn bodies of water into deep, dark chasms. Manuela wasn’t the only agent of the People’s Church of the Divine Host living in London at the time, and so she had no idea what had convinced her to go after Crew; but she had, and so there she is, wringing in pain on the floor of a dusty art studio.

She freezes when she hears a whine - then another. It doesn’t come from her, she’s sure of it. But it’s her voice. It’s her voice! How’s that possible?

With difficulty, she cracks her eyes open, shielding them with the palm of her hand. Her… hand. Is it really hers? It’s bigger, paler than the one she’s used to, and a network of white scars run across the back of it.

She looks toward the source of the pained sound - though she knows what she’s about to see.

Rolling on his back, Mike Crew blinks. His eyes are dark and hazy, long black hair obscuring part of his face. Manuela grits her teeth. This is her body writhing on the floor. Her body he stole!

Fighting another wave of nausea, she stands on all four and begins crawling toward the other Avatar. To do what, exactly? She isn’t sure yet. She can’t kill him - not yet, and not now, not with the sunlight beating down on her like this. But still her fingers itch to wrap around his - her - throat, to squeeze, to make him regret that silly little trick.

She’s almost reached him when Crew finishes recovering; his eyes flash with an unnatural spark as he sees her close, and all of a sudden -

The ceiling and the ground flip around, switching places; Manuela finds herself gripping the pigment-stained floorboard with all of her might, her short nails digging grooves into the wood. She garbles a swear.

“Stop it!” she spits out, glaring at Crew. He’s getting up, first to his knees, then to his feet; the swaying of his body betrays his actual disorientation.

“Shut - shut up,” he says, holding out a hand. “Give me a minute.”

“Why would I do that? What have you done!”

Manuela tries to convince her fingers to release their grip on the floor - without success. A glance down (up?) shows her the ceiling, in all its water-damaged glory, and she grits her teeth not to throw up.

Ignoring her, Crew wobbles over to a book discarded on the ground. He picks it up, flips through it. Manuela can see her own brows furrow.

“This isn’t - what is this?”

In a blink, the room is right side up again, and returning back to normal is nearly the thing that finally convinces Crew’s latest meal to make a comeback; Manuela clenches her teeth, swallowing back the bile, and after a few fortifying breaths she stands up on wobbly legs. Manuela’s own night-black eyes turn on her, and it’s obvious that Crew isn’t considering her a threat at the present moment, because he turns his attention back to the volume in his hands.

“This isn’t your book,” he says, not looking at her as she hobbles over.

“What do you mean, not our book?” she hisses. “You’re the one who brought it over, why are you surprised?”

He glares at her. “I brought the right book. This,” he says, tapping a finger on a yellowed page, “is not it.”

Manuela squints. “So, what? The books got switched? What’s that one about? Is it even a Leitner?”

“No.” Crew dryly closes the book and hands it to her. She opens it to the flyleaf. “This is just a normal old book.”

Manuela stares at the blank page as if looking at it hard enough will reveal the hidden Ex Libris. Then she drops the book; Crew looks as it falls to the ground, then up at her with an air of reproach. She resists the childish urge to stick her tongue out at him, and turns around instead.

“Where are you going?” Crew calls as she starts to leave towards the door.

“Home,” she spits above her shoulder.

“You don’t want your body back?”

Manuela slows down, comes to a stop. She closes her eyes. Give me strength.

“A body is a body,” she answers plainly. “And I’m curious to see how much easier life will be as a white man.”

“You don’t really think that,” Crew says - using her voice, her tongue, her lungs.

He’s right; she doesn’t. She wishes she did.

Whipping around, she stomps back towards him. He’s picked the old book up and is now holding it in his hands like it’s a sickly dog.

“What do we do, then?” she demands, ignoring the hint of triumph in his eyes.

“I don’t know,” he answers. Manuela growls.

“You -”

“I don’t know yet,” Crew cuts her off. “If I had to guess, though, someone - or something - is playing a trick on us. Switching things around, books and souls - or whatever you people believe in,” he adds dismissively.

She rolls her eyes. “Fuck you. I will kill us both.”

“Mh.” He considers her. “Maybe. Although, wouldn’t you rather kill the thing that fucked with us instead?”

Saying this, he presents his hand, and Manuela looks at it. He’s waiting for a handshake, she realizes. She glances back up to his face. Crew is looking at her expectantly, but doesn’t look like he’s lying.

“Alright,” she says, and takes the hand offered to her. “I suppose you have a clue of where to start?”

A sly smile tugs at his lips. “Of course.”

She answers with a predatory grin of her own.

“Okay. Lead the way.”

[adomainname]

Unveiling Ancient Egypt’s Megalithic Marvels: Secrets of Advanced Engineering

The enigmatic wonders of Ancient Egypt have captivated humanity for centuries. From the towering pyramids to the mysterious Sphinx, these megalithic marvels continue to inspire awe and intrigue. Could these awe-inspiring creations be evidence of advanced ancient technology, or do they hold secrets of a lost civilization?

The Colossal Statues: Titans of Stone

Ancient Egypt’s colossal statues, such as the Great Colossi of Memnon, are feats of artistry and engineering.

Weighing hundreds of tons, these statues were carved with astonishing precision and transported across vast distances.

How could a civilization over 4,000 years ago achieve such monumental feats without modern machinery?

The Pyramids: A Symphony in Stone

The Great Pyramid of Giza is a marvel of architectural mastery, aligned with celestial bodies and featuring flawless geometry.

Some stones used in its construction weigh up to 80 tons, raising questions about ancient construction techniques.

Scholars debate whether these structures were built with rudimentary tools or advanced, forgotten technology.

Transporting Monoliths: Moving Mountains

Ancient Egyptians transported massive stone blocks from quarries to construction sites across rugged terrain.

Theories suggest the use of sledges, ramps, and water-based flotation systems, but definitive answers remain elusive.

Guardians of Eternity: The Enigma of the Sphinx

The Great Sphinx of Giza, with its weathered features and imposing presence, stands as a sentinel to the past.

Some researchers believe it may predate traditional timelines, possibly linked to the Great Flood mentioned in ancient texts.

Its precise craftsmanship and celestial alignment deepen its mystery.

Whispers of the Past: A Lost Civilization?

These remarkable structures might be the legacy of a civilization lost to history.

Evidence points to a cataclysmic event that could have wiped out advanced societies, leaving only fragments of their achievements.

Such theories challenge traditional historical narratives and invite us to rethink humanity’s origins.

Echoes of Grandeur

Ancient Egypt’s megalithic marvels continue to inspire wonder and curiosity.

Whether created through sheer determination or advanced techniques, these structures stand as timeless testaments to human ingenuity.

They remind us of the enduring quest to understand our past and connect with the brilliance of those who came before.

Exploring the mysteries of Ancient Egypt invites us to keep questioning and learning. Share your thoughts on these incredible achievements in the comments below, and join the conversation about the secrets of our shared history.

[out-with-the-boys]

The Dance- Chapter 28

Homelander x Supe OC

Notes: 18+ No warnings apply for this chapter. Each chapter will have individual content warnings as they apply to avoid spoilers. Find this work on AO3. Tumblr master post here.

Previous chapter.

The television cast a dim glow across the small living room. Morgan sat on the sofa, her legs crossed on the plush cushions, a hand resting protectively over the swell of her belly. A news anchor’s voice played from the speakers, clipped, urgent—detailing yet another ripple from the evidence Mallory had finally brought forward.

Things must have been too chaotic after the incident in Paris for her to throw the book at Vought until then.

“Breaking tonight: Former Vought International CEO, Stan Edgar, has been taken into federal custody pending investigation into charges of corporate corruption, unethical experimentation, obstruction of justice…”

The anchor’s words faded into the background as a clip of Edgar being escorted in handcuffs played on the screen. His expression was as impassive as ever, a mask of control even in defeat. Morgan felt a pang of satisfaction watching the man who had orchestrated so much of her misery brought low. But it was fleeting. Even with him gone, she was still trapped.

The segment shifted, the anchor’s tone darkening as she addressed another piece of breaking news. “Sources confirm that Victoria Neuman, allegedly super-abled and deeply embroiled in the Vought scandal, has not been seen since the release of this damning evidence…”

Morgan exhaled shakily. Neuman’s disappearance wasn’t surprising—she’d seen this coming. It was the inevitability of it all that unsettled her. Vought was no longer the unshakable monolith it once was. The cracks were showing, widening with every passing day. Public protests were spreading. Shareholders were fleeing. And yet, Morgan knew that Vought’s fall from grace didn’t guarantee her freedom—or safety.

The baby shifted slightly, an almost imperceptible movement beneath her hand, and Morgan murmured, “We’re not out of this yet, are we?”

The familiar chime of an incoming video call jolted her out of her thoughts. It was only a matter of time before Homelander called. As the news feed disappeared, there was a brief moment the tv screen went dark and she caught her reflection, faintly visible. 

Exhaustion etched deep lines into her features. She didn’t recognize herself anymore—not the quiet scientist who had once dreamed of building something meaningful, nor the confident new member of The Seven who had tried her best to navigate Vought’s treacherous waters. Now, she was someone else entirely—someone caught in the storm she’d helped unleash.

Morgan let out a long breath before answering the call. She didn’t want to, but she knew ignoring him wouldn’t stop him. If anything, it would only make things worse. After another moment Homelander’s face appeared on the screen, his eyes sharp and calculating, but there was something else there—fatigue. His mask of control was cracking, just like the company he likely now ruled.

“You look cozy,” he began, his tone tight, almost mocking. “All settled in while the rest of us deal with the fallout. Must be nice.”

Morgan didn’t rise to the bait. “You’re the one who wanted me imprisoned here, remember?” she replied, keeping her voice steady. “Safe. Comfortable. Out of the way.”

His jaw tightened, and for a moment, he didn’t respond. Finally, he said, “I didn’t want you locked up. I wanted you out of harm’s way.”

“Feels like the same thing from where I’m sitting.” She gestured to the room around her. “I can’t leave, I can’t talk to anyone, and I’m being watched. Sounds like a prison to me.”

Homelander leaned back slightly, his eyes narrowing. “You think I don’t see what you’re doing?” he said, his voice dropping, quieter but no less dangerous. “Acting like you’re the victim in all this?”

Morgan raised an eyebrow. “And I suppose, somehow, you are in all of this?” she asked, keeping her tone calm, though her pulse quickened.

His expression darkened, the faintest flicker of doubt or betrayal crossing his face. “You think I couldn’t figure it all out? Edgar. Becca and Ryan. You had your hands in all of it, didn’t you?” He paused, his voice sharpening.

Her stomach twisted, but she refused to flinch. “You’ve lost a lot of people lately,” she said softly. “That doesn’t mean it’s my fault.”

“Don’t play dumb,” he snapped, his voice rising. “You think I don’t know how you operate? You get inside people’s heads, make them see what you want them to see, do what you want them to do. Even without your powers, you’ve been toying with all of us since the beginning.”

She held his gaze, her face calm even as her pulse thundered in her ears. “Edgar made his own mistakes. And Becca? She never wanted any of what happened to her. She wanted out from day one. I didn’t have to manipulate anyone for any of that to happen.”

He let out a bitter laugh, shaking his head. “You are such a goddamn hypocrite.” he said, his tone cold and cutting. “You’ve been playing everyone in your own way. You manipulate everyone you touch, Morgan. You’ve even got me questioning my own decisions.”

Morgan scoffed. “Maybe you should be questioning them,” she said, her voice soft but unyielding. “Because right now, all I see is someone trying to hold onto power at any cost. Even if it means destroying everyone around you.”

For a moment, the silence between them was deafening. His expression flickered, the weight of her words sinking in despite his best efforts to dismiss them.

“You don’t understand,” he said finally, his voice quieter now, almost pleading. “You don’t know what it’s like to have everything and still feel like it’s never enough. To lose everything and have no one left.”

Her chest tightened, the raw vulnerability in his voice cutting through her defenses. For a moment, the anger she had felt toward him softened, replaced by something more complex. She recognized the loneliness in his words, the gnawing emptiness he tried so hard to mask with power and control. It wasn’t so different from the isolation that had been wearing on her these past weeks.

“You think I don’t know what that feels like?” she asked quietly, her voice softer now. “To have everything and still feel like you’re losing yourself? To wake up every day wondering if the choices you made were worth it?”

His gaze sharpened, the faintest flicker of recognition passing through his expression. “And what would you know about that?” he muttered, but there was no real venom in his voice.

Morgan exhaled slowly, her fingers curling over the swell of her belly. “I know what it’s like to lose pieces of yourself, bit by bit, until you don’t even recognize the person staring back at you. I know what it’s like to be trapped, to have your life picked apart and rebuilt into something you don’t even want. And I know what it’s like to be alone. Even when you’re surrounded by people who claim to care.”

Homelander’s eyes darted away from the screen for a moment before snapping back to hers. “I didn’t want this for you,” he said, his voice low, and soft. “I just… I didn’t want to lose you.”

Her throat tightened, and she fought to keep her voice steady. “I know,” she said softly. “But the harder you hold on, the more you push me away.”

The silence between them was heavy, charged with something neither of them could name. For the first time, Morgan saw the cracks in his armor for what they were—not weakness, but pain. He had built himself up to be untouchable, invincible, but underneath it all, he was just as human as she was. Just as lost.

“You don’t have to lose everything,” she said finally, her voice trembling but resolute. “But you have to stop trying to control it all. You can’t hold the whole world in your hands, Homelander. And you don’t have to.”

His expression flickered, a storm of emotions crossing his face—anger, confusion, vulnerability. He leaned closer to the camera, his voice barely above a whisper. “And what am I supposed to do, Morgan? Just let it all go? Let you go?”

She swallowed hard, her chest aching with the weight of the moment. “Maybe. Maybe you start by letting me breathe.”

Homelander didn’t respond right away. His eyes searched hers through the screen, as if trying to decipher some hidden meaning in her words. For a moment, the silence stretched between them, heavy and oppressive.

“You make it sound so easy,” he said finally, his voice quiet but laced with bitterness. “Just… letting go. But you don’t know what it’s like to have the whole world expect everything from you. To be the answer to every problem. And when you can’t be—” He stopped himself, jaw tightening.

Her voice was steady but soft. “You think I don’t understand expectations? I was brought into The Seven to control you. To keep the world safe from its greatest weapon. Do you know what kind of pressure that is? To know that everyone sees you as nothing more than a leash?” She shook her head. “You’re not the only one who feels trapped by what people want from you.”

His eyes darkened, his jaw still tight as her words settled between them. “You think you’re some kind of martyr?” he asked, his voice sharp and biting. “Like you’ve had it worse than me? You have no idea what I’ve sacrificed. What I’ve endured.”

Her lips curved into a bitter smile. “You’re right,” she said, her voice quiet but cutting. “I don’t know what it’s like to be you. To have the world worship you one day and turn against you the next. To have all that power and still feel completely powerless. But you know what, Homelander? At least you chose this.”

He flinched, just slightly, but she caught it.

“You chose to embrace what Vought made you,” she continued, her voice rising. “You chose to play their game, to revel in their lies, to become the face of everything they stood for. But me? I didn’t get a choice. I was brought into this mess because you couldn’t be trusted to control yourself.”

The words hit their mark, and for a moment, Homelander’s expression was unreadable. Then his lips curled into a humorless smile, his eyes cold. 

“You’re walking a very fine line,” he warned, his voice low and lethal. 

She leaned forward slightly, her gaze unwavering. “I’ve been walking that line since the day I joined The Seven,” she said, her voice hard. “And every step I’ve taken has been to survive you. Don’t you dare act like you’re the victim here.”

The silence that followed was deafening. For a moment, she thought he might lash out, might unleash the full force of his fury. But instead, he leaned back, his expression unreadable once more.

“Did you ever really care, then?” he asked, something barely restrained roiling just below the surface of his controlled mask. “Everything was just for show then?”

Morgan froze, the question striking deeper than she expected. Her mind raced, torn between the truth and the lie she’d been telling herself for weeks. She opened her mouth to answer but hesitated, the weight of his gaze pinning her in place.

“I…” she began, her voice faltering. She looked away, her fingers tightening instinctively over the swell of her belly. “It’s not that simple.”

Homelander’s jaw clenched, his eyes narrowing. “It is that simple,” he snapped. “Either you cared or you didn’t. Either you felt something real, or you were just playing me like everyone else.”

She exhaled shakily, her heart pounding in her chest. “I cared,” she admitted softly, the words tasting like ash on her tongue. “I still care. But that doesn’t change anything.”

“And why doesn’t it?” he asked, his voice breaking. He immediately tried to regain his composure, but that small crack in his facade didn’t escape her. For just a moment, she could see that small boy from his memories again. All he’d ever wanted was love and approval, and it had been denied him time and time again. 

And here she was continuing the cycle.

Morgan’s throat tightened, her mind racing as she held his gaze. She wanted to hate him—needed to, for her own sanity. But seeing that flicker of vulnerability, that small, broken part of him that had never stopped yearning for connection, made it almost impossible.

“You think it’s easy for me?” she said finally, her voice trembling. “You think I don’t feel guilty every single day for how this turned out? For leaving you? But I couldn’t stay, Homelander. I couldn’t become another person in your life who fed into the lies and the chaos. That’s not love.”

His expression shifted, the anger draining from his face for just a moment, replaced by something raw and unguarded. “Then what is it?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. “Because from where I’m standing, it just looks like you gave up.”

She flinched at the accusation, her chest tightening with the weight of his words. “I didn’t give up,” she said, her voice firm but quiet. “I chose myself. For once, I chose what was best for me.”

Once more, his expression hardened. The disdain in his cold, blue eyes was almost palpable as he sneered. “And look where that got you.”

The screen went black before she could respond, leaving her staring at her own reflection once again. Her chest ached, her thoughts a tangled mess of doubt and determination. With a tremulous exhale, her hand drifted to her belly. 

She wasn’t sure how long she could keep this up.

But she had to. 

Song: Falling Apart by Michael Schulte “Try to untie from an old life, But it always drags me down.” Author’s notes: Ya girl is going through it. The consistent push and pull between these two is such an interesting dynamic to me. While Morgan’s powers don’t make her an ‘Empath’ she definitely feels so much empathy toward him just from what she’s gleaned from his memories. It really makes it hard for her to look at her situation with a strictly logical lens. Homelander is so not good for her (and that’s why I have too much fun writing this) but she’s still pulled in his direction. Anyways, that’s enough commentary from me. Thanks for reading! See you next chapter!

Next chapter.

[ornamentalclassics]

https://www.ornamentalclassics.com/product/black-limestone-bowl-on-lotus-bowl/

Black Limestone Bowl on Lotus Bowl

Any color lotus bowl that works with your home decor is an option. Red, Bronze, Grey, or Sandy are your possibilities.

[tempest-toss]

Unfortunate Beginnings

Quill pocketed their radio. They cursed as they began to think of a plan. They had to just go in, rescue their comrades, steal the death defying relic, and escape. Easy right? This will be just like all those training exercises!

...

Quill sighed. Fake optimism wasn't working. They had no plan for inside the mansion, instead relying on luck of the rooms to survive. They decided to do a quick check of their body. Combat knife? Check. Radio? Check. Will to live? Debateable. Yep, they were ready.

Quill spotted a delivery driver making a stop across the way. With little remorse Quill ventured from their hiding spot and made their way to the worker, stabbing them square in the heart, hiding the body in the back of the truck. Donning the uniform over their insurgency gear, they made their way to the estate. Crossing onto the property was admittedly an odd feeling. A sense of unease snaked its way into Quill's body as they advanced up the stone steps. With a breath, they knocked on the door, which opened to reveal a butler.

"Greetings. I am Omrich Varon, second butler of the Lycan estate. To what do we owe the pleasure?"

"Delivery, sir! I have a package for you guys, it needs to be signed by the master of the house." Omrich smiled before turning and walking away to fetch his boss. Quill stepped inside, and hastily moved to the room to their left. "Intel states that the relic room is a permanent feature and is always...here!"

The relic room was large, easily the size of a library, full of pedestals and plaques involving artifacts from across the world. Quill had little formal education, but could vaguely recall locations based on designs, such as the ankh from Egypt, or Mesoamerican monoliths, although they couldn't tell if it was Mayan, Incan, or Aztec. But that didn't matter, they weren't what they were after.

Sitting off to the side was a pocket watch. The placard read "The Deadman's Switch". Quill could recall strike leader Klein's description of it clearly: "The Deadman's Switch is a pocket watch of arcane origin, it'll activate once someone dies, rewinding them to the point prior to death." Quill grinned as the lifted up the glass case. With this artifact under the Insurgency's command, they'd be unstoppable!

As they grabbed the watch it felt as though time stopped. Suddenly they were struck with a barrage of graphic imagery. Shot through the heart. A slice of the neck. Head detached. Rope around the neck. Struggling for air. Being devoured. Firing range. Electric Chair. Suffocation. Lethal Injection. Burnt alive. Freezing to Death. A million ways to die flashed through Quill's mind with such intensity that it caused them to stumble backwards, knocking a vase off and shattering. Quill looked at their hand, the watch was gone. A quick pat revealed that it was now on their pocket, specifically the chain of the pocket watch has fused with their clothing.

"Who's there?" The voice of the butler could be heard. Quill pulled out their combat knife and crept around. As Omrich went to examine the shattered pot, Quill jumped out, and plunged the knife deep into the old man's heart. He said nothing, gasping for air as his life slipped from him. Quill ripped out the knife, using their sleeve clean the blade. They shed their false uniform, and made their way to the foyer once more.

As the butler's blood soaked into the floorboards, the Manor awoke, a sense of anger slowly resonating through it. Quill did not notice the sudden flapping of the curtains.

As they entered the Foyer, they turned on their radio. With it, they could receive a signal ping if an operative's radio was nearby. They moved their radio around as they ventured forward, eventually receiving two pings! One was for a door on the left, and the other for the door on the right. The door on the left had water damage, and a sign saying "Closed for flooding, please enter at own risk!". The other door also had some minor water damage, but had a fish sign on it. Was this the Aquarium room?

This had to be the right track. The final transmission mentioned that nothing but water could be heard from Sapphire, so maybe she was here? With equal ping strength, Quill had to make a choice.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Death Counter: 0 Personnel Counter: The fates of the team remain in limbo Note Acquired: Deadman's Switch ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[xtruss]

The 10 Most Expensive Homes That Sold in 2023, From Jay-Z’s Malibu Manse to Jeff Bezos’s Miami Getaway

Waterfront properties were the star of this year's list, with coastal estates in the Hamptons, Palm Beach and Connecticut selling for blockbuster numbers.

— By James McClain | Robb Report

Daniel Milstein For Sotheby's International Realty

Don’t let these blockbuster numbers fool you. While 2023’s 10 priciest real estate transactions racked up a total sales volume of nearly $1.2 billion, slightly surpassing our 2022 list’s tally, these deals were the exceptions. In almost every luxury market across the country, overall volume declined by double-digit percentages compared to the prior year, driven by economic jitters and soaring interest rates. Among the most severely impacted markets was the greater Los Angeles area, where there’s currently a glut of luxury mansions up for grabs, many of them sporting heavily slashed listing prices. Even typically downturn-proof communities such as Aspen and Palm Beach were not immune to the slowdown.

As always, a majority of the top 10 deals were hush-hush transfers inked off-market. And it’s worth noting that all but two of the deals involved oceanfront—or at least waterfront—properties, suggesting buyers are still willing to shell out big for trophy vacation homes with direct beach access. Here’s our list of 2023’s priciest residential sales.

Top: Paradise Cove, Malibu—$190 Million

Coming in at the top of the heap, and the only California property to make the list, was this colossal blufftop complex atop Paradise Cove in Malibu, which sold for $190 million in cash. This year’s biggest real estate transfer was also likely the most highly publicized, thanks to A-list buyers Jay-Z and Beyonce. It’s the priciest-ever deal for a California home, and the second-priciest ever recorded nationwide.

First commissioned in the late 1990s by Bill and Maria Bell—he the son of the soap opera tycoons who created The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful—the house took 15 years to plan and build. Completed circa 2014, the monolithic fortress was created, at least partially, to display the Bells’ enormous collection of modern art, including numerous works by Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst and Marcel Duchamp. Though the property was never publicly marketed for sale, the Bells had reportedly shopped the place off-market with a whopping $250 million ask.

— Photo: Google Earth

Bottom: North Ocean Boulevard, Palm Beach—$155 Million

In April, New York-based car dealership mogul Michael Cantanucci broke the Palm Beach record with his $170 million purchase of this oceanfront estate, which features a nearly 25,000-square-foot, Tuscan-style mansion built in the 2000s. The house was never on the market, so further details are scant, but the seller was billionaire coffee entrepreneur Bob Stiller, who paid just $25 million for the estate in 2014.

— Photo: Google Earth

Copper Beech Farm, Greenwich—$138.8 Million

Photo : Daniel Milstein For Sotheby's International Realty

This year’s most out-of-left-field big transfer was likely the sale of Connecticut’s Copper Beech Farm, which recorded at a state record of nearly $140 million. The deal came even as the Greenwich real estate market has badly sagged in recent years. The seller, billionaire Ray Dalio, had paid $120 million for the place back in 2014, though that unconventional transaction reportedly included the assumption of tens of millions worth of debt on the estate. The all-cash buyer, who remains anonymous for now, is thought to hail from Mainland China. Copper Beech Farm features 50-acres of land with a 13,500-square-foot main house originally built in 1898, plus spectacular gardens and roughly a mile of private water frontage on Long Island Sound.

Meadow Lane, Southampton—$112.5 Million

Photo: Google Earth

New York’s biggest deal of 2023 was inked in the Hamptons, and it’s no surprise that the property in question is one of the largest estates on Southampton’s ultra-prime Meadow Lane—often called Billionaires’ Row. The titanic spread sold for $112.5 million to an as-yet-unidentified billionaire shielded behind a Delaware entity called Meerkat LLC, with the thrifty buyer negotiating a cool 36% discount off the estate’s $175 million original ask. Long owned by ad exec Marcia Riklis, the so-called Mylestone estate is anchored by an 18,000-square-foot manor house situated on 8-acres of land, with nearly 500 feet of ocean frontage.

Windmill Lane, East Hampton—$91.5 Million

Photo: Google Earth

Talk about a profitable flip. The seller of this two-parcel East Hampton compound, real estate investor Peter Fine, bought the property in 2020 for $45 million. Just three years later, without making any significant changes to the place, he flipped it for an eye-popping $91.5 million to an unidentified buyer. Still not crazy enough for you? There are rumors the new owner might tear down the estate’s current structures to build something more lavish, so that $91.5 million might’ve been for the land alone.

Great Island, Darien, Connecticut—$85 Million

Photo: Google Earth

Great Island, a 63-acre waterfront property on Long Island Sound, features a land bridge that connects to the mainland in Darien, Conn. For decades, the island served as the ultimate private compound since it was built at the turn of the century, with amenities such as world-class equestrian facilities (including a polo practice field), a private beach, and a secluded harbor with a dock and boat house. Owned for over 100 years by different generations of the same family and originally offered at $175 million, the giant estate was acquired by the town of Darien for a heavily discounted $85 million. At last check, the town was still deciding what to do with the island, which features a 13,000-square-foot historic mansion and multiple ancillary structures.

220 Central Park South, New York City—$80 Million

Photo: Google Earth

The two-building skyscraper at 220 Central Park South is famously a huge hit with billionaires, so it’s no surprise that New York City’s biggest residential deal of 2023 was recorded at the limestone complex. This time, it was a duplex penthouse at the shorter “villa” building that fetched $80 million in a staggering resale. While the unit itself was never on the market, sellers Suna Said and her husband Scott Maslin had paid about $66 million for the Central Park-facing apartment in 2020. The anonymous buyer, who may or may not be a big-name celebrity, has a Los Angeles mailing address.

Indian Creek Island, Miami—$79 Million

Photo: Google Earth

In October, two months after paying $68 million for an oceanfront estate on Miami’s Indian Creek island, Jeff Bezos dropped $79 million on the house next door. The lucky neighbor, who acquired the 19,000-square-foot mansion back in 2014 for just $28 million, remains unknown. Bezos reportedly plans to bulldoze both properties to make way for a custom compound of his own creation, so that $79 million was likely just for the dirt alone.

Ute Avenue, Aspen—$76 Million

Photo: Google Earth

Aspen’s biggest-ever home sale was unconventional in more ways than one. Unlike most of the other properties on this list, the $76 million deal was not an all-cash transfer. The buyer, car dealership mogul Terry Taylor, paid $51 million of the purchase price in cash but also gave the seller, real estate developer Leathem Stern, a smaller Aspen home valued at $25 million. The ski-in, ski-out house features four full floors totaling more than 20,000 square feet of living space. Not everyone who crossed paths with the property enjoyed the experience, however—a Christie’s real estate agent is currently suing Stern for $1.7 million in commission payments she claims were owed to her in the deal.

[gardensandtaverns]

The Importance of Interest

It's been a little while since my last "on making a game" installment, and I'm in a mood to talk about interesting things... so why not Points of Interest in light of my current pet project Everwyld?

I'm in the midst of developing a world that has been truly abandoned, where players have few intelligent entities to interact with - no people, gods, robots, or holograms. This is, in a sense, the survival game of survival games: players will only have the tools they can create and knowledge they can accumulate for themselves. And if I'm being honest, I'm taking a not-insignificant amount of inspiration from Subnautica, since they made this vision an excellent reality.

(Going forward, blanket spoiler warning for locations in Subnautica. If you haven't played it and don't suffer from thalassophobia, you certainly should.)

The first challenge, and one that's doubly difficult in the analog format I'll be running this game while I develop the setting, if building player investment through their interactions with the world. Different genres and titles accomplish this in different ways.

The classic survival-crafting game Minecraft has kept players invested over its service life through the addition of new features, biomes, mechanics, the introduction of multiplayer, and a thriving, supported modding community. The multiplayer survival-crafting FPS Rust created interest for players in the world through the inclusion of other players, and the option to cooperate or resort to every-man-for-themself anarchy. Subnautica accomplishes this investment of players in the world through the inclusion of alien environments. This doesn't just mean the alien lifeforms, but the concept of the deep sea and what the various environments look like - which are often shockingly accurate excluding the giant man-eating fish - are alien to so many people who don't have the means or guts to dive through the deep ocean, and I count myself among them.

Something all of these games (and more) include to further create a player interest in the world and exploring it, though, are points of interest. None of them are unbridled wilderness. Minecraft's structures range from thriving villages, to abandoned mineshafts and shipwrecks, to the strongholds. Even the Nether and End dimensions have their own native structures. Subnautica has not only the various debris fields from the Aurora, but the Enforcement Platform, the submarine alien facilities, and the Degasi bases. In Rust, a variety of monuments dot the landscape with various traits, loot, and benefits.

Not only do these structures and points of interest enhance the world, but they change how the player will interact with it. A Subnautica player may build bases near major resource deposits or repurpose existing structures for their benefit. A Rust player may establish their base near an easy resource cache, like the farmable Underwater Rocks. In Minecraft players may use large structures as a base, or as a point of reference when navigating the functionally infinite world.

So what kind of points of interest will I be including in Everwyld? Well, as I said, the world was abandoned. It's a region largely reclaimed by nature, so much so that the artificial blemishes have all but faded. My players will start in a place truly devoid of signs of settlement, a beautiful and serene glade... (which I've taken the liberty of rendering in Unreal Engine 5 here)

Nearby are most of what they will need to survive: a source of flowing water, a game run that cuts through the forest, but what encourages them to venture from this serene space will be their curiosity as to what happened to them, and how they can hope to get home. This world is full of natural dangers, but if they brave them and survive they may find the remnants of a village where the stones jutting from the ground make odd squared angles, or a monolith that a tree has grown to encompass.

Mayhap they'll uncover something better preserved underground, or through some advanced means, that will hold answers and tools for them to delve deeper into the mystery and find their way home.

Until next time!

[first-impressions-gaming]

GAMING RECAP (JULY 7-11)

EA confirms single-player Black Panther game from new studio

EA has officially revealed its Black Panther game, which is being developed by new Seattle studio Cliffhanger Games in collaboration with Marvel Games. As previously reported, Black Panther will be a single-player game. It's being developed by EA's new Seattle studio which in turn is being led by former Monolith Productions boss Kevin Stephens, EA confirmed in its official announcement today.

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Microsoft wins crucial FTC case on Activision Blizzard acquisition

Microsoft has won its crucial court case against the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), clearing its way to acquire Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard for $68.7bn.

Last week's courtroom battle hinged on whether the FTC could be allowed an injunction to temporarily block the deal while it investigated further. But in reality the case was viewed as a referendum on the deal's overall ability to still be successful.

Defeat in court would have left Microsoft's effort to buy the publisher behind World of Warcraft, Diablo 4 and Candy Crush dead in the water, Microsoft had previously admitted.

Today's decision dramatically boosts Microsoft's hopes of closing the deal with just days to go until its 18th July deadline, and despite the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) still standing in opposition.

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Halo: Master Chief Collection July Update Includes Huge Changes To Firefight Mode

343 is back again with another Halo: Master Chief Collection update, and July 2023's drop feels busier than ever with big changes to Firefight, Halo 3 game mode support and more.

The headline additions are for Firefight in this month's update, with plenty of new options coming to the collection on July 12th. The team is (finally) adding the ability to join Firefight matches in progress, which means you don't have to start from scratch to get playing some MCC PvE. This is true for both public and custom games, and Firefight matches will also be added as a new option for the Custom Games Browser as a result of the new join-in-progress options.

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ID@Xbox Demo Fest returns today with over 20 demos

ID@Xbox Demo Fest returns today with over 20 demos playable for the next week.

The list includes games across a large variety of genres. The demos, which will be featured on the Xbox Dashboard for a week, may be republished later, according to Xbox, however some of these demos “will simply disappear”.

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Xbox held ID@Xbox Showcase

[handful-of-seagulls]

It’s been a while since i’ve posting anything here lol whoops. I suppose it’s good to come back with a bang! Here’s a sapient alien race concept I’ve been conceptualizing for about two years. It started out as a simple scribble labeled “alien E” to a little world building project. Below is a long description of the species, their culture, and biology! Hope you enjoy!

The Radials

On an earth-sized planet approximately 600 light years away from earth, humans discover their interstellar neighbors.

The planet has three main continents dotted across it’s surface, each painted in splotches of orange flora. 78% of the planet’s surface is covered with turquoise water, filling large stretches of shallow oceans and spacious rivers. Storms dot the sky of this alien planet, with hurricanes being a common sight in some areas. The planet is seemingly in a greenhouse period, with little glacial activity.

Even from space, the fruits of sapience are visible; a colossal bisected ring has been built around the planet, suspending a massive orbital sky hook that hovers only a few miles above the planet’s surface.

With supports larger than an entire football stadium holding it up, this monolith of engineering is used for bringing space vessels in and out of orbit.

Colossal internal active supports keep the structure rigid, essentially molten aluminum constantly being pushed throughout the length of the ring and it’s orbital beams at high speeds. Like water being pushed through a hose, this pressure helps to prevent the structure from buckling under the planet’s gravity.

Labeled as the pride of the species, this ring and its support beams also serve as the base for large orbital cities. Each interlocking building maintains a stable internal gravity through constant rotation, to ensure minimal long-term health risks during off-planet living. Each building is interconnected through low-gravity tunnels with designated automated transportation.

Mining is done exclusively off planet, with large drones mining through the neighboring asteroid belts. The plentiful resources within their twin asteroid belts have rendered on-planet mining obsolete with time.

The planet is inhabited by bizarre radially symmetrical vertebrates, which humans have pointed out are built like barrels (mouth on top, cloaca on bottom, and a ring of eyes in the middle).

The dominant life form of the planet, which humans have been in radio contact with long before reaching the planet, are known by humans as the Radials. The planet they call home is known as Agurh, the old radial word for ground.

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Radials are a sapient egg-laying species, producing leathery eggs each about the size of a tennis ball. During development, radials will molt their skin regularly like a reptile. While they can live for up to fifty years, they reach sexual maturity at the age of eight.

Radials are mostly a tannish orange in color, with the top for their body being a burnt red to protect from sun exposure. Their skin is very leathery, with only their pale-yellow wrinkly underside remaining soft.

They are warm-blooded, however unlike earth vertebrates they bleed blue; this is due to their blood being based on copper rather than iron.

Radials are sexually dimorphic, with men being smaller and more slender than the women. While adult radial women are roughly 8% larger than their male counterparts, most radials never exceed a height of about three feet.

Radial women also tend to possess brighter coloration than the men, usually taking form in contrasting white patterns on their legs and faces.

They have four triple-jointed legs that each possess a pair of toes raised above the ground; their actual foot being a heel-like hoof. These toes are tipped with large hooked cone-shaped claws, that can close down with enough force to crack bone.

This interesting feature has been found to be an evolutionary hangover from an insectivorous ancestry, which was abandoned after a mass extinction opened up more active predatory niches.

It is believed that it was this shift in lifestyle (from insectivorous scavenger to pack-hunting predator) that spurred the furthering of their intelligence, which later led to sapience. While one branch evolved to outrun their prey, the line that led to the radials instead learnt how to trap their prey.

Between each leg is a breathing spiracle that houses olfactory chambers; thanks to their scavenging ancestry, a radial is able to smell from nearly a mile downwind. These spiracles can open and close like a valve, which aids in respiration.

Situated under the body is a tapered extendable cloaca. In males, it is long and thin for easy insemination. In females, it is long and wide to assist in egg-laying.

This cloaca is prehensile and can be used to pick up objects; however, it plays a relatively minor role in manipulation. The limb is tinted a deep purple, similar to the giraffe’s tongue; this is believed to be an adaptation to protect the sensitive tissue from frequent sun exposure.

This limb is supported by various rings of cartilage and erectile tissue, giving it strength while allowing it to remain flexible and collapsible; this feature is very unique on their planet, likely an evolutionary result of their tool use. When fully extended, it is on average 20 inches long. When not in use, it can be retracted into a pouch-like tube that hangs under them.

While their prehensile tendrils and cloaca are more gracile and are used for delicate manipulation, their powerful walking limbs have been observed being used for heavy manipulation. Radials are capable of balancing on two legs, which becomes handy when pushing large and/or heavy objects.

Above the legs is their main body, which is cylindrical in shape. In the middle of the body is a ring of sixteen black camera-style eyes, each with a glossy waterproof outer coating and a pear shape (as opposed to our spherical eyes).

Each eye possesses a tapetum lucidum, making their eyes glimmer like a deer’s caught in the moonlight. These eyes are situated in a way that ensures that every direction is watched with at least four eyes. Each eye is supported by a sclerotic ring, similar to owls.

On the top of their body is a large mouth that is protected by a cross-shaped lip. Due to the top of them being a massive blind spot, whiskers sprout near the lips to help guide food towards the mouth.

The mouth is built similar to an Aristotle’s lantern, like the sea urchin. The inside of their mouth is full of spike-like papillae, similar to the camel. Their jaws consist of four short vertical rows of teeth, situated in a cross pattern. The jaws move in a shearing motion to help chew food. The top teeth are sharp triple-pointed canines, while the bottom teeth are short rounded molars.

Surrounding the mouth is a crown of four whip-like tendrils that are used for bringing food into the mouth and for grasping objects. Similar to the elephant’s trunk, the tendrils are hollow and are often used for drinking. Unlike the elephant’s trunk, however, these tendrils are supported by intricate interlocking cartilage instead of pure muscle.

Near the tips of these tendrils are rows of small hooked claws that can close down at will. Under the base of each tendril is a rounded bulge with a horizontal slit in the center, which functions as an ear.

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Radials have a ring shaped brain that surrounds their digestive tract, which seems to be an outcome of their ring of eyes.

However, Radials have much more complicated brains compared to other creatures on the planet, having many folds and enlarged protrusions to aid them in abstract thinking. Despite it’s density surpassing that of modern humans, the actual ring is no wider than a sharpie.

Their language is a mixture of bioluminescent flashing, chirping, honking, and a sound similar to that of sneezing. Their bioluminescence is based on luciferin, the same used by fireflies in their displays; it is believed that their bioluminescence is an evolutionary hangover from their aquatic ancestors, as most vertebrates on agurh retain some ability to produce this chemical.

The photophores used in these bioluminescent displays are mainly centered along the width of the torso.

While their bioluminescence is used relatively sparingly during close conversation, radials instinctively use their flashing alone during long distance communication.

Expression is often conveyed by furrowing the skin above the eyes, similar to how humans may furrow their brow.

Individuality is usually conveyed by an individual’s unique smell, similar to some species of albatross. Radials will often identify friends or family by smell alone, rather than by appearance. Having individual smell as a major facet of their social life has led to a lack of taboo towards the body and it’s excretions. Because of this, most radials only wear clothing for utility or social display.

Radials are hypercarnivorous, gaining a large portion of their diet from various meats. Alongside herd animals, the radials farm large colonies of domesticated eusocial invertebrates. The meat is very spongy and is often used as a filler in dishes (not too dissimilar in use to rice).

Treats often come in the form of various salted or fried foods; a few popular snacks on agurh are cuts of salted bone marrow, bags of fried organs, salted fat chews, and bits of solid gravy. Keep in mind, radials lost their ability to taste even simple sugars far back in their evolution. Where humans would usually use sugar, radials use salt.

Traditional homes are built similar in shape to a wigwam, with a nesting area in the center and various household commodities built around it. These were originally built from a stick and hay structure with a clay or mud covering.

However, more urban homes are built similar to apartments on earth (but still with the pre mentioned layout). About 93% of Radial society is urbanized, with the remaining living in isolated herding towns, small hunter-gatherer groups, and coastal fishing villages.

Most of their urban society uses automated trams instead of private vehicles, in an effort to both reduce pollution and remove mortal error. Even the many continents of the radial home planet have been interconnected with the use of bullet trains.

However this is not a constant. More rural areas still use private vehicles for travel, with some areas having a small following of modifying old transit cars into off roading vehicles.

Radial society is mainly matriarchal, as their pack-hunting ancestors’ had a hierarchy similar to hyenas. In these early societies, females always ranked higher than the males; females often had a main mate, with one to two subsequent mates that help with childcare.

This ancestry is suspected to have resulted in the absolutist monarchy that most Radial societies are based upon, with some Radial societies even going as far as having a totalitarian government.

A radial’s rank in many societies were based on their sex and parent’s rank. If they were male, they would inherit their birth-father’s rank. If they were female, they would inherit their mother’s rank.

Polyamorous relationships are still a very common tradition in Radial culture, traditionally with one female and 2-3 males.

Body piercings are also a common tradition in radial culture. Common piercings include four ladders of individual rods that run the length of their torso, rods lining their tendrils, and even frenum studs lining their cloaca.

While ladder piercings originally symbolized wealth and beauty, frenum studs were almost exclusively associated with warriors. With the tissue being particularly sensitive to pain, many studs symbolized high virility and stoicism.

Radials are largely crepuscular during warm seasons, being most active during dawn and dusk; while in winter months, they are strictly diurnal. This is hypothesized to be a behavior evolved to avoid the heat of midday in the seasonal steppe the species originated from.

While still awake during midday, radials will often spend this time relaxing within their homes.

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Radials upon first contact were a type 1 civilization, using various forms of sustainable energy production to power their sprawling cities and looming megastructures. While fusion energy is by far the most prominent, more coastal cities would take advantage of storms and ocean currents to produce energy. Radials are even going through the slow but fruitful process of constructing a dyson swarm around their star.

A new project is blooming just beyond the swarm as well. While few in number now, colossal hollow orbs have begun to surround the radial’s home star.

These rotating space habitats are intended to be the next step in radial space colonization, having several internal layers hidden beneath its exterior like a celestial Russian doll.

Each layer is large enough to support it’s own weather system, with immense towers that will bathe each layer in pseudo-sunlight using the energy from the growing dyson swarm.

When completed, each layer would rotate at varied speeds to maintain a consistent gravity between each section of the megastructure.

From these hollow shells will birth the most immense cities of the radial empire, far exceeding even that of the planetary ring.

Some radial economists worry that to procure the necessary materials, they might have to resort to planetary deconstruction to avoid depleting their asteroid belts. The construction of these monoliths will be daunting, but the many radials believe the payoff will be exceed its price.

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Due to the extremely similar planetary conditions of agurh and earth, Radials and basal humans are able to coexist with one another without special equipment or habitats. However, due to vastly different styles of communication, cross-species translation devices have been implemented to overcome the language barrier.

During initial radio contact, both species worked with one another to share and develop new technologies that lead to a golden age in advancement.

A few hundred years into radio contact, the two species developed a new technology that would not only allow both species to meet face-to-face for the first time but completely redefine space travel as a whole; the Nietzsche probe.