#Supermassive

[thefirststarr]

It’s oh-so-easy to be mesmerized by this spiral galaxy known as NGC 4254. Follow its clearly defined arms, which are brimming with stars, to its center, where there may be old star clusters and, sometimes, active supermassive black holes. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope delivered highly detailed scenes of this spiral galaxy in a combination of near- and mid-infrared light.

Image Credit & Copyright: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Janice Lee (STScI), Thomas Williams (Oxford), and the PHANGS team

[elklounge]

Chris Hackett’s Vices.

While I don’t see it pointed out often Chris Hackett has both a caffeine problem, an alcohol problem, and a smoking problem. The number of coffee cups all over his office and also the cigarettes which can be seen all over his desk in an ashtray shows his issues. It would make sense to pick up smoking after such a rough six years. There are also multiple whiskey bottles and references to drinking. While it’s a silly joke his mug states, “My other mug is a hip flask.” He also has a bottle of liquor in his office and another shot of whiskey in his room. Chris Hackett also has heart medication. While it’s unclear in the story why he is on heart medication it is interesting. Is it linked to his vices? His condition? Or was he born with a heart issue? It’s all so interesting. However, I wanted to point it out.

Will update with clearer photos later:)

[theeternalsteelangel]

The Casting Of Frank Stone

[keirashark]

So excited for the Casting of Frank Stone.

The title referencing both welding shit and the filmmaking that the characters are doing is sick as fuck.

Can’t wait to desperately try to keep some dumbasses alive

[muscularmass37]

Titanic Kay Green

[thingsasbarcodes]

The Dark Pictures: House of Ashes - Everybody Lives Ending

[prvttystvr]

my type: blonde guy obsessed with the USA looking for affection and with problems with redheads

[coolcomicbookcovers]

[hoodsie]

🧨

Number 1 Skyler Gisondo fan

🪓

[queenofbaws]

It’s not the weekend quite yet but I’ll be busy hosting myself a little birthday tea party of one and don’t want to forget this. Once again an Okkervil River prompt: the song black sheep boy for any fandom.

not-quite-six sentence weekend :P

The house had never felt emptier than it had when he'd first been released from the hospital, stitches tight and the smell of antiseptic high in his nose. It had been empty for a long time, really - if you sat and thought about it, that was - because Pop was always off working, and Mom was always out schmoozing, and the twins...

It had been empty for a long time. It just felt emptier now, somehow.

He'd sat and suffered through enough Lit classes for the irony to gag him; home was where the heart was, home was always waiting for you, there was nothing like coming home, home was anywhere you felt it, blah blah fucking blah. Josh didn't feel any of that as he unlaced his shoes and set his keys in the dish. If he felt anything at all, it was tired. And even that wasn't quite right.

By the time the sun had hidden away behind the neat row of houses across the street, he'd gotten rid of every photograph he could. That was dramatic. An exaggeration. He'd turned them around, though, or laid them flat on their faces, toppling them like dominoes until he was positive - absolutely sure - that there weren't any eyes on him. Not his parents', not his sisters', not their fri...not anyone's. He didn't want to be seen, wasn't even sure he deserved to be.

At some point, he'd fallen asleep on the couch. It was hard to say when, but harder to say how. There'd been a few days there where he'd been sure he'd never sleep again (not without the drugs they'd been pumping him full of back at the hospital, anyway, or maybe a good old fashioned mallet to the head). Lo and behold, fallen asleep he had, and as he rolled onto his back, blearily staring at the shadows shifting and sliding on the ceiling, flickering in time with the late-night show playing on the tv, he struggled to figure out what'd done it.

Had he been dreaming? Felt likely, all considering. Or maybe remembering was the better word, his brain not spinning stories out of whole cloth but instead piecing them together from everything that had happened lately: the mountain, the monsters, the mayhem, the mealy-mouthed ranger who'd told him, almost matter-of-factly, that only two of them had made it, that only two of them -

And then the knocking had come again, and the question answered itself.

He knew the sound of it at once. It was too clear, too familiar, and for that reason he was almost positive he was dreaming after all. There wasn't any way that could be who he thought it was. No way in hell. He sat up slowly, watching the front door with suspicion and detachment in equal measure, and when it came a third time, he took to his feet.

Once, he'd fancied himself a horror buff - the kind of guy who didn't flinch in the face of the goriest or most gruesome. Just then, he found he didn't have the strength to check the peephole. He opened the door before he could think himself out of it.

The silence that followed probably lasted a second. Maybe half that. Maybe even less. It felt like forever. It felt like how he imagined limbo, or purgatory, or whatever the hell you wanted to call it.

Despite all the effort he'd put into turning her pictures over, Ashley Brown stood on the welcome mat, looking at him. Watching him. Seeing him. Her boots rubbed anxious circles on the nap of the mat, her hands rubbed at her arms, and her bruises hurt him to look at.

Josh wasn't sure what he expected her to say. What could a person say at a time like this? Hi? Howya doing? Would she just fling herself at him, beat her fists against him until his eyes were as swollen as hers? Spit at him? On him? Remind him that this was all his fault? Every last second of it? Hold him accountable for every loss, every death, every -

"So," she said softly, her voice rasped, maybe from disuse or from crying or screaming so hard into her pillow at night that something simply tore. "Guess it's just you and me now, huh?"

When he swallowed, he swore he felt sandpaper lining his throat; the same sandpaper, he had to imagine, she felt in hers. "Guess so," he agreed after a beat, then stood there, same as he had been, feeling her eyes on him, wishing he didn't. "Guess so," he said again, no longer sure whether he was answering her or convincing himself, not entirely positive there was a difference. He took a step back - just the one - and held the door open an inch wider than before, a silent question with no good answers.

Ashley watched him, and he watched her, the wound in his shoulder pulsing a Morse code reminder that the parts of the brain responsible for love and for hate lived right beside one another, that both of them were capable of hurting, of being hurt.

Josh held the door. He waited.

He realized the house didn't feel quite so empty now.

[visualcontinuum]

Celestial series - Dark star

[be-side-my-self]

Another of the stickers, that can be found on the collaborative sticker-sheet that was done by @a-fortheloveofart, @falsemortal and myself.

This sticker was sketched up by falsemortal and I cleaned it up.

Support a good cause and get a total of seven really cool stickers!!

There are still 34 available!

Also a handwritten note and another chibi of either Laura or Travis. You can even suggest what kind of chibi you want in the comment section?

The charity we collect for is The Nature Conservancy:

@hackearneyarchive

[elklounge]

If dangerous why boopable nose?

[theeternalsteelangel]

If I had a nickel for every time Supermassive made a character named Chris with blonde hair and blue eyes I’d have two nickels. Which is not a lot but weird that it’s happened twice

[seraphjewel]

The Trust Mechanic in Man of Medan: Deep Dive part one

This deep-dive into the Trust mechanic of Man of Medan turned out to be a lot longer than I expected. That said, I will divide it into several posts to make it more digestible. This first post will explore the Trust mechanic as it applies to the characters.

Before diving into this, some may already be thinking: how is the feeling of trust a game mechanic? Let's look at the technical definition of the term. Game mechanics are rules and elements that make up a game. They can govern or guide a player's actions along with the game's responses to them. Going by this definition, I would argue that Trust is the most essential mechanic in Man of Medan.

First we'll look at how Trust affects the characters. In the prologue of the story, the player is introduced to Joe and Charlie. They are two soldiers at the tail end of World War II and stationed on a cargo ship. The player follows them as they interact with different elements of a Chinese market (serving as a tutorial). The two men return to the ship a little drunk, with Charlie demanding his money back. Trust is immediately broken between the soldiers. Fear and paranoia builds as they find their fellow soldiers dead. The tutorial for the Keep Calm mechanic is the two men hiding from their superior officer—they no longer trust him. The prologue closes with the possibility of the soldiers attacking phantoms. For Joe, it is a horrific image of his son; for Charlie, it is the Chinese fortune-teller. While these hallucinations are based on the soldiers' fears, whether or not Joe and Charlie attack is based on trust. Specifically, the player trusting that the hallucinations are real.

Each of the five main characters are given traits to establish questionable trust. Alex is introduced with the characteristics of “motivated” and “insecure” with the latter trait opening him to lack of trust in himself and his relationships with others. His younger brother Brad is next as “witty” and “innocent.” The innocent trait suggests Brad is more willing to trust others, at least in the beginning. Julia and Conrad are the next introductions. Julia is “excited” and “reckless” while her brother is “foolhardy” and “relaxed.” In a way, their traits work in opposition to Alex and Brad. While Alex and Brad's traits affect how they trust others, Julia and Conrad's affect how they are trusted. Julia's reckless trait makes her more unpredictable, with the potential to put herself and others in dangerous situations. Conrad's foolhardy trait is similar while adding in a rash disposition. Finally there is Fliss, whose traits are “impatient” and “courageous.” The impatient trait gives Fliss the potential to not trust any of the other four. Thus even before the characters start interacting, a layer of mistrust is introduced.

This is where the player starts coming in. Through dialogue options and environment interaction, the player can influence whether the trust between characters is strengthened or weakened. There are already established relationships between four of the characters that can be built on. Alex and Brad, and Julia and Conrad are siblings. Alex and Julia are dating, with Alex considering proposal. In fact, the first Bearing in the Theatrical Cut is whether or not Alex will propose, affected by dialogue from Brad. The outlier is Fliss. She is an employee, and only through interacting with the others does she grow closer or pull back from them. Another early Bearing affected by trust is when Alex and Julia are exploring the wrecked military plane. As they reach the boat, they see it light up in flames. Julia panics but Alex cautions her to wait for decompression. What happens next depends on player choice. Do they choose to trust Alex's judgment and wait, or do they let fear and paranoia move them to surface early?

Other small moments early in the narrative work to shake the trust between characters. For example, the player can find Fliss's license and discover it's fake. They can lose a clue by having Julia trust Alex and not go after it. Fliss can have positive interactions with Brad and Conrad to build her relationships. Some of these choices have smaller consequences, like Alex mentioning the fake ID later. Some have a greater impact. If the player chooses to ignore Alex's warnings, this sets Julia up to ignore him later without player input.

The three fishermen arriving raises the stakes, and that includes the trust between characters. I have not seen a version where Alex doesn't question Fliss's loyalties. There are other elements of the fishermen scenes that are affected by trust. When Alex and the others worry about Brad, the player could choose to trust he will be all right and keep him from being found by the fishermen. Conrad's plan of escape also depends on trust. The player can choose to trust in his plan (and the corresponding premonition, if they found it) and get him to the speedboat, or they can make him stay with the others.

Trust continues to play a key role as the characters board the Medan. The most visual aspect of this is how the hallucinations manifest, as well as the characters' reactions. Alex has the potential to either see a deformed monster (based on a clue found by the player) or Olson. Julia's main hallucination is Alex, but I've seen a possibility where she hallucinates Conrad as a clown. Conrad's hallucinations are the least personal, though there is plenty to analyze in the choice of the sailor girl growing more aged and monstrous. If Fliss or Brad do not get fresh air, they are more likely to not trust each other. Inversely, Conrad being talked down from his hallucination is done by someone he feels he can trust—Fliss if she's still alive, or Brad. One of Alex's final moments is a test of trusting hallucinations versus reality. He can hallucinate the monster or Olson, and the choice is if he will believe the hallucination and attack, or trust that it's an illusion.

The characters are only one aspect of the game. If there is interest, I will continue this deep dive and talk about how the Trust mechanic factors into other areas.

[thingsasbarcodes]

The Quarry - Everybody Lives Ending