#a zillion miles away

[forbelobog]

gepard, any time sampo is up to something, "...my bullshit meter is tingling."

[sailormoonandme]

Mamoru is NOT useless in the Anime

Yes, yes, the memes are funny and all, but this is simply objectively not true and I'm rather exhausted of folks critiquing the character/the anime as though it were.

I will hopefully kill his BS once and for all.

"He just throws a rose and leaves!"

For those who have actually watched the anime (or even just the very first episode) to describe Tuxedo Mask as 'useless' is reductionist to the point of being outright disingenuous. In particular when this argument is made in such a way as to negatively compare him to his manga counterpart, who is put over as allegedly superior on this point.

The original 1992 Sailor Moon anime had 200 episodes, 3 TV specials*, 2 theatrical shorts and 3 films, with these latter theatrical releases being dubiously canonical to the anime. Mamoru appears in the overwhelming majority of those 208 entires, even accounting for the final 34 episodes where he was dead/functionally absent almost all of the time. Even if we seriously low balled things, the majority of those appearances feature him partaking in the following scenario.

Sailor Moon, often with her fellow Senshi, are fighting the monster of the day (maybe it's a higher ranking villain, or a general threat they are dealing with).

They get into a tight spot where either they or whoever/whatever they are trying to protect is in danger from whatever threat they are combatting.

Then, out of the blue, a rose slices through the air and imbeds itself into the scenery like a dart. Typically, this action saves the lives of Sailor Moon, her friends or whomever they might be protecting.

Tuxedo mask gives a speech and either leaves or else sticks around to see Sailor Moon perform her finishing move that effectively ends whatever threat she was dealing with, often with Tuxedo Mask being the one to prompt her into performing this finshing move.

For the sake of argument lets pretend that the above is literally the sum totality of what Mamoru does in regards to the superheroics of Sailor Moon. How could anyone describe the above as 'useless'?

If his interventions regularly save Sailor Moon's life then that is a zillion miles away from useless. For him to be useless, his actions need to be superfluous, pointless, contribute nothing. Even if he contributed a little bit he would by definition not be useless. And saving the protagonist's life is much more than 'a little bit'. If the protagonist dies then the story is over. Evil has won, the world is doomed.

And this isn't even considering all the ways Mamoru contributes OUTSIDE of the above scenario.

He has, whilst untransformed, stabbed a Lemures with a knife to save Sailor Moon.

He has willingly acted as a magical life support system for Chibi-Usa when her Pure Heart was stolen, an act that maybe anyone else could have performed but it is still a noble thing to do, in particular when it freed up the more powerful characters to go get her heart back.

He personally met up with the Outer Senshi to learn about them on behalf of the other girls, going alone which might have been dangerous, but the episode also gives the impression that he, as the oldest member of the team, was better positioned to get info from the older Outer Senshi who has a demeaning view of the younger Inner Senshi. In this same episode, he tried to convince the Outers to join forces with the Inners, acting as a diplomat.

He went 1-on-1 with Rubeus to defend an injured Sailor Moon who was herself acting as a human shield for Chibi-Usa

He has personally gone on a one man mission to infiltrate the Black Moon Clan's HQ to rescue Sailor Moon from being sexually assaulted by Prince Demande.

Mere episodes later he and Artemis went on a scouting mission to learn more about the Malefic Black Crystal

He formed a double team with Sailor Moon to tackle a tennis themed Youma, an encounter that involved more than a singular rose throw and a speech. One of the multiple times he got more directly involved in fighting the monster of the day

He literally carried Sailor Moon on his back to save her when they were both trapped in an elevator courtesy of Nephrite

He was prepared to willingly reveal his identity and hand both himself and his Rainbow Crystals over to Zoisite in order to save Sailor Moon and her friends

The love he shared with Usagi directly led to the manifestation of the Silver Crystal, to the salvation of Chibi-Usa when she'd been brainwashed into Black Lady & the creation of a new weapon and transformation brooch for Usagi in season 3

As Prince Endymion, he went against his own subjects and risked his life to infiltrate the Moon Palace and warn his beloved Serenity that his home planet was going to invade her home

He took not one, not two, but three impalements to protect Sailor Moon's life

More often than not he has acted as reliable emotional support for Usagi and Chibi-Usa, encouraging them, helping them with homework or just being there for them. i.e. he is an imperfect, but ultimately good husband and father. Which is particularly impressive considering he hadn't yet married his wife nor conceived his child.

There are those who might scoff at the latter. Is emotional support really useful? Well, putting aside how the Sailor Moon universe clearly demonstrates how magical power/energy is directly linked to emotions, this is categorically true in the real world as well. There are no end of testimonies from fire fighters, doctors, people who have serious illnesses, or soldiers that the emotional support of thier loved ones have kept them going and kept them alive. So, this is rather useful for our heroine Usagi who's job is that of a Sailor Soldier.

The Outer Senshi

Furthermore, there is an inherent hypocrisy in the 'Mamoru is useless' narrative because such criticisms are never levelled against other characters whose typical role in the narrative are similar to Mamoru's.

The most popular season of the original anime was season 3 (Sailor Moon S) and one of the biggest reasons for that show's popularity were the fan favourite Outer Senshi: Sailors Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Saturn. Let's exclude Saturn as she wasn't active as a Senshi for most of season 3. Uranus and Neptune's role in the first half of season 3 typically amounted to

Attacking the monster of the day, usually to the same end that Mamoru's rose throws did, i.e. a distraction or last minute save

Swiping the Pure Heart of that episode's victim

Checking it over before concluding it wasn't a Talisman

Leaving, or else at least standing by as Sailor Moon administered her finishing move on the monster of the day

Golly...that seems just as 'useless' as Mamoru now doesn't it? In fact, maybe more so considering they weren't even trying to help Sailor Moon in the first place. In fact, during their second appearance, they unintentionally saved the lives of a powerless Usagi, her friends and an innocent civilian to check a Pure Heart, then uncaringly left them all in danger.

You know who then saved them immediately after that? Mamoru!

Later when he too was overwhelmed by the monster he directly contributed to saving the day as his emotional bond with Usagi generated the Spiral Moon Heart Rod, upgrading Sailor Moon and giving her the power to save everyone.

During the third sub-arc of season 3 (where the recurring villain was Mimet of the Witches 5) Sailor Pluto joined the Outer Senshi's ranks and their role in the typical monster of the day plots became yet more minimal. More than once, the trio literally appeared but did nothing, something that had also happened at least once before Pluto joined the team. Examples include (but are not necessarily limited to) episodes 97 (The Labyrinth of Water – Ami Targeted), 116 (Sunny Skies After a Storm – A Friendship Dedicated to Hotaru) and 118 (Battle Inside the Demonic Space – The Sailor Guardians’ Gamble). In some of these instances the Outers deliberately choose to do nothing.

Barring 2 of the specials mentioned above (one of which was a clip show), the Outer Senshi were wholly absent in season 4/Sailor Moon SuperS. In one of those specials, upon learning that a new threat had arisen Uranus and Neptune...choose to continue their road trip and leave the fighting to Usagi and the others...How...useful???????

They, along with Pluto and Saturn get much more involved during the course of the final season/Sailor Stars. Even then, Saturn only appears in the first few episodes and the last few. Pluto only gets involved in the monster of the day schemes once or twice and Uranus and Neptune three or four times, if that. Whilst Mamoru is barely involved at all in this season, he at least has the excuse of being dead for most of it.

So, the fan favourite Outer Senshi got far LESS involved and were LESS useful than Mamoru typically was in the course of the whole show. In fact, even if we exclude the first two seasons where (exempting Pluto) the Outer Senshi hadn't appeared yet, Mamoru overwhelmingly contributed MORE than the Outer Senshi did.**

The Other Senshi

Much the same can be applied to the Sailor Starlights. The Starlights more often than not actually got MORE involved in fighting the monsters of the day during season 5 than the Outer Senshi did in season 3; or at least they were interested in defusing a direct and active threat to innocent lives. But even they literally showed up and did nothing on at least one occasion.

Whilst the Starlights are nowhere close to the Outer Senshi's popularity, they are also never subjected to the 'they are useless' narrative Mamoru frequently is.

Nor in fact are the Inner Senshi of Sailors venus, Mars, Jupiter and Mercury. Now, whilst it's easy to argue due to their superior screentime, the fact that they often initiate combat with the monster of the day and are generally heavily involved in whatever crisis is happening, that they are obviously more useful than Mamoru is.

And you know what, even including the rare occasions they too show up and do nothing else (or do a last minute save like Mamoru is prone to do) this is perfectly true. It is also perfectly true however that the quartet have rarely ever defeated any monster of the day on their own. The overwhelming majority of the time the Inner Senshi act as a distraction to the Monster of the day or else sufficiently lower its HP so that Sailor Moon can actually beat the monster. That might be more useful than Mamoru's typical contributions, but, call me crazy, it seems like Sailor Moon is doing the lion's share of the work there. So, how 'useful' are the Inner Senshi really if we run by the 'Mamoru is useless' narrative?

If Mamoru is useless so are many if not all of the more popular heroic characters in the series.

But...how useless is Mamoru in the anime compared to the Manga?????????

*Well, one special with three segments, but go with me on this.

**They were mostly absent from season 4 whilst he appeared routinely in that season. Meanwhile, in the season he was mostly absent, they rarely helped out.

Obviously, there are real life writing reasons behind that difference, but my point is why is the fandom not treating the Outer Senshi as 'useless' too?

[brazenautomaton]

powerscaling is stupid in a way applicable to more than just powerscaling. there is maybe a point to this post but it's after a bunch of dumb bullshit you likely don't care about so I am putting it under a cut

got into an argument with a powerscaler on reddit. his argument was "because of these feats dante would mathematically beat homelander since he's so much faster and stronger" and my argument was "that's stupid nothing works like that"

key to his argument was a scene where dante throws his sword off the top of a tower, the sword starts heating up and glowing red in the atmosphere, and then dante runs down the side of the tower and catches up to it. since "re-entry speed" is 17,500 mph, and the sword was heating up from atmospheric re-entry, dante must therefore be capable of running at 17,500 miles per hour

and this is stupid because no he can't. he's not running 17,500 miles per hour in that scene because the tower isn't 300 miles high and he doesn't hit the ground in that scene (he gets swallowed by a flying whale so he can have a level inside a gross flying whale). more to the point he doesn't behave like someone who has the ability to travel at 17,500 miles per hour, because when there are things that he genuinely wants and he's not just fucking around, and the ability to run at 17,500 miles per hour would allow him to get what he wanted, he doesn't do that. the people involved don't behave like it's true.

powerscaling is all about taking one detail, interpreting that detail in isolation, making an inference from that interpretation, then proclaiming it ironclad mathematical truth without checking if it matches up with the actual thing you're talking about and whether people behave like it's true. "one interpretation of this shot is that the sword is experiencing atmospheric re-entry, atmospheric re-entry requires this level of speed, therefore it is traveling at this level of speed regardless of any other indications of what might be happening."

and it's notable to point out in the case of powerscaling because it's not a selfish deception, not a selective presentation to get away with something you want. it's not motivated reasoning to arrive at a predestined conclusion or to dismiss a new upsetting idea. this dude had these numbers ready to go, someone sat down and said "I want to know how fast this guy can go," and then made those inferences, concluded it was 17.5k, and said "well done, this is good information I can use to place this guy on a scale." any theory of this being intentional and self-serving obviously isn't true.

and the reason to point out that this isn't intentional and self-serving is that this problem is also the same problem as a shit-zillion political explanations! make an inference about one detail, work only from that detail, make a conclusion, don't check if it matches anything else.

it's obviously common to conspiracy theories, "this is one explanation for one thing that happened, so it means that happened, and I don't need to look at how it fits into anything else," but it can't be particular to conspiracy theories, since powerscalers aren't conspiracy theorists! you can see how people would engage in motivated reasoning or intentionally decieve you that way, but that's not what powerscalers are doing!

so like that one argument back when hogwarts legacy came out, when what's his face was saying "the game is antisemitic, that is the obvious inference to make based on the promotional material saying the game is about quashing a goblin rebellion" even after being told that the game was out and we didn't have to make inferences about its content, we can see its content, and that's not what's in it; that was this same thing. "I made this inference, i KNOW there is more information that contradicts it, but my inference is true." this is by far from the only political example I could use, you can think of some yourself. and most of them are of the form "if that was true, why do the people involved not act like that was true, even though if it was true they would?"

it's not even confirmation bias or being stubborn, because, like, when you won't change your mind based on new information you generally have a reason you don't think that information is trustworthy. this isn't that! people aren't saying "this is why the other things being contradictory doesn't matter," they are saying "this is a valid inference to draw if we only look at this information, therefore, the inference is true regardless of what other information we have." is there a name for this? is there even a point to making this post? no there isn't

[ach-sss-no]

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Boromir's response to the guard was chosen via poll. I never know what the internet will do, and in this case, the majority chose...

....sane and reasonable, the most surprising possible result on the internet! (boromir is not taking the audacious move of trying to get away with pretending he's not bringing another person into the town; but he is also not trying to explain gollum, which i suspect would only serve to confuse the guard and make gollum anxious.)

Needlessly long minutiae under the cut

I do not like to pick specific dates in this AU because I will get them wrong and I am a coward. But this is meant to be slightly into the Fourth Age.

Gollum has been ring-free and essentially in therapy for 4-5 years. There is related fanfiction if you want his situation explained in excruciating detail; all you need to know is that he's just here and has compellingly shown the other characters that he is no longer a threat. He does need care/supervision and can't be ethically released to the wild (primarily because he does not want to go). He's been living in Minas Tirith, if that wasn't clear.

Frodo has set sail, so I am sorry to say he will not be in this comic unless there are flashbacks to when he was still living on the continent. (Ditto everyone else who was on the boat with him)

This is also long enough post-Scouring that I thought Bree would be getting more relaxed about letting people in again, at least if it's just one dude and one hobbit and there are no visible weapons and they have a letter from Pippin Took, famed anti-bandit local hero. Boromir is still thinking about the bandit problem, though.

Staddle is a suburb of Bree to the east. I know this from LOTRO. If you were in Bree and you saw a hobbit turn up at the east gate, creature known to stay at home and not live east of the Misty Mountains, a hobbit, you would probably assume he was coming in from Staddle and not... Gondor, a place a zillion miles away that you've possibly never heard of, where there are no hobbits.

This is the website I got 'ramreth' from and if the site is accurate (it looks accurate) it literally does mean 'wall climber'. I'm not really a conlangs person <_<;

"I had a chance but did not take it" = In this universe where Boromir lives (and is ambulatory/can travel), Boromir was given the offer to travel with the other Fellowship members all the way to Bree if desired, but he left the group earlier than that for personal reasons (chiefly, not wanting another extended absence from Gondor) (but now he regrets that because it turns out there was bandits and also he had more limited opportunity to see certain people again in this life than he realized)

Anyway, if you read all that. Here's a poll, as a treat

[stabbyfoxandrew]

happy Wednesday <3 mafia restaurant my beloved?

WIP Wednesday (6/5) | Mafia Front Restaurant AU (Part 168)

Andrew thinks on it for a moment. It’s not like he’s got anyone waiting for him in Colorado. Nicky has flown back to Germany and Aaron lives a zillion miles away, in Connecticut. So he has no real reason— Well, the cats are there. But those little assholes don’t really need him since his neighbor has been taking care of them. He supposes could always text and ask her to watch them a bit longer. After all, she adores them. So, she wouldn’t mind… Right?

There’s no harm in asking. Andrew yanks his phone out of his pocket and taps out a message.

Andrew Would you be alright with watching Frick and Frack a little longer? Ella Of course. How much longer? Andrew Not sure yet. Ella Oh. Well, either way I don’t mind. I love these furballs. Andrew Thanks. Ella Just don’t be sad when they get used to me and want me to stick around. Andrew You would steal my children? Ella In a heartbeat. Did you see the photo I sent of Frack in your laundry basket? I think he misses you. :( Andrew So he’s rolling in my filth. Disgusting. Ella It’s adorable. They miss their papa. Andrew Tell them ‘papa’ misses them too.

[zuzsenpai]

Full story (so far) of the work project from hell that's lost me vacation time, lost me sleep and hair, caused a number of panic attacks, and literally gave me my period when I'm not supposed to have periods and haven't had one in a year and a half.

I'll put it under a cut because I'm sure most of you don't want to read all this shit. I just wanted to vent and get it out.

So around the beginning of September, a video project request came into our office. The way it was explained to us by the project coordinator in marketing (who I will call "Sam"), was that it was going to be a TV spot as part of a big campaign that the CEO is requesting. The topic is letting people know that our healthcare network has a zillion awards for all 15 of our hospitals, compared to the other healthcare network in our area (this is a VERY common marketing strategy for us even though it's been proven the public does not give a shit which network has the most awards). It's a very dull "look at us and our awards and stats" video that, again, the public couldn't give a shit about. But the CEO wants it because ego.

We were told the video needed to be produced in two weeks, because the CEO wants to see the campaign ASAP. This means, for my team, that we don't have time to shoot new footage for this campaign. We were given a pretty mediocre script (we do not write the scripts), with directions to get it professionally voiced and to use old footage we've already shot in order to get this done in time.

That's where I became involved. I'm not a videographer (I do the animations and various other things). I know how to edit, and I know how to edit fast. But if this were a piece we had time for (that had a much better script), our video team of FOUR videographers would have handled this. But I got the project because of the bullshit reasons that I "know where all our footage is" and "can edit fast".

This was a week before I was supposed to go on vacation. I was supposed to go on vacation for a week and a half. My manager (who I will call "Betsy") KNEW I was going on vacation, but she still gave me the project. I know I should have given it to the video team and that point, but I didn't. That was my first and biggest mistake.

The higher-ups in marketing took their sweet ass time choosing an ending tagline and creating graphic design elements I could use in my video. I still didn't have them by the end of that week. We had our voiceover guy record half a dozen taglines that were supposed to be chosen from, just so something could be eventually edited in.

I had a draft that didn't include the tagline or graphic design elements ready by the end of the week. Meaning the day before I went on vacation. My second and almost just as big mistake was saying I would work on it over vacation. But honestly, this was for the CEO, and the VP of marketing hadn't approved my raise yet and I am always feeling like I would be the first on the chopping block if we needed to downsize the department. So I wanted to prove myself.

Anyway, while I was on vacation, I kept all the channels open: Teams, Outlook, etc. I had a VERY hard time relaxing because I knew at any moment I'd have to pick this project up. I also have massive burnout and just could not get myself to chill out. Anyway, a couple things happened by Thursday of that week: the tagline was finally chosen, the script changed and a whole 20 seconds was added to the video, and the graphic design elements came in. Keep in mind the project was supposed to have been done in two weeks. Meaning by the literal NEXT DAY. That wasn't happening at this point, so I was given a new deadline of a first draft by the following Wednesday.

I scrambled to coordinate the voiceover guy coming in again even though I couldn't be there. I scrambled even harder to find 20 more seconds of footage while I was over 100 miles away and had incredibly slow access to our video server. In fact, I could barely view or download video at all. I panicked for DAYS trying to get video downloaded, but it was just NOT happening.

I cut my vacation short and got in by Tuesday morning that next week. I had a single day to figure this video out. I was able to manage it by the skin of my teeth. I sent the draft on Wednesday and eventually heard back that Sam, the VP of marketing (who I will call "Ken"), and a few other higher-ups in marketing loved it. Great. The end!

Except the Chief Strategy Officer (Ken's boss), suddenly needed to approve it. I will call him "Ray". So Ray is new at his job and apparently needs to have his fingers in ever single piece of marketing that comes out of the marketing department. This is the opposite of how the old guy who retired used to do it. Ray is also the CEO's son-in-law. So, a Jared Kushner if you will. He's trying to prove himself and in the process, he is micromanaging to the extreme. But also it takes him forever to make decisions. Great combination there, all around.

It takes Ray over a week to even look at the video, during which I start getting other projects with quick deadlines. And when Ray does look at it, he comes back with the unhelpfully vague comments of "it's unsophisticated", "doesn't look like a sleek big city ad" and "is not emotional". So he rejects it and asks for a completely new video to be done, ASAP. Marketing collectively loses their minds in a bad way. The project coordinator (Sam) decides to inform me of this by immediately sending me an email outlining everything that was "wrong" with the video, despite having originally said he loved it. He told me a new one needed to be done and it needed to be done FAST. It needed to look like a polished, high budget, big city ad.

Well that wasn't getting done. I told him this. He didn't care. Ray gets what he wants. Even though Ray did NOT say that's what he wanted from the beginning. Even though I made a good video based on the shitty script I was given. The script that was supposedly approved by Ray himself. The script that had no story, was unemotional, and given an unreasonable deadline to get produced into a video.

This was last Thursday. I had a breakdown in my office, sobbing and hyperventilating. I decided I would finally bring in the video team. I needed one of them to do this. I needed to be done with it. I had 4 other projects with deadlines fast approaching (all of them animations, so I was the only one who could do them). Betsy called an in-person meeting with her, myself, and the 4 videographers.

I was still having a massive panic attack as I tried extremely hard to be normal in that meeting. I tried my best to explain to the team what I needed. The videographers were super angry on my behalf that I was even given the project in the first place, and they were extremely willing to redo the video from the ground up. I was grateful beyond belief. My video was scrapped, which sucks, but I didn't care at that point

A few days later on the following Monday (this past Monday), around 4PM, I was told that Ken decided we were going to go over Ray's head and "just edit the video we already have into a sleek, emotional, big city ad". Using the same script and most of the same footage. Just "make it better". Ken's reasoning was that this video was for the CEO and not Ray. And the CEO wanted it weeks ago.

Because this was an update to the existing video, Betsy informed me that I had to jump back on the project to make the edits. The edits that were a nebulous "make it better". I knew the project already and I can edit quickly. So it's mine again. Again, I had 4 other projects with deadlines of THIS WEEK. I had to send emails apologizing to a few people for not having the projects done.

So I spent Monday evening (at home) and all of Tuesday (yesterday) fucking around with the video. I asked the video team their thoughts on what would make it better and "sleeker", and they came back with things like "no amount of tricks and transitions is going to make that old footage look any better". So, unhelpful as fuck. Sam just kept saying "use tricks from big city ads! Just copy them! make it emotional!"

I did what I could. I found an emotional song, I used some flashy transitions, I slowed down some footage for dramatic effect, and I found a few pieced of stock footage that looked more "polished" than the footage I had. Granted ALL of the footage I originally used was local. It was our hospitals and our doctors and our staff. It just wasn't shot for this video. I tried to keep as much of that local feel in as possible, because I know the CEO likes that. I neglected projects for this. I stressed about this. Couldn't sleep. Got my fucking period after a year and a half on birth control.

I sent out a draft at 3PM yesterday. To Sam and Ken. Didn't hear back, but that's pretty normal (Ken sends work emails at like 10PM). 4:30 rolled around and I got up to leave. Betsy called me into her office as I passed by.

Betsy: I have something I need to tell you.

Me: ?????

Betsy: This morning Ken told me that we farmed your project out to [freelance video production company that we sometimes use].

Me: I'm sorry what.

Betsy: I didn't tell you because I didn't want it to upset you or hurt your feelings.

Me: But... then why did I work the project all day????

Betsy: Because I think we needed to show Ken what we are capable of.

Me: But that's irrelevant. He asked the other company to do it.

Betsy: Yes but I think he really wanted us to do it.

Me: So I sent a draft to Ken after he'd already farmed it out to the other company?

Betsy: Yes. But I sent him an email explaining it.

I didn't know what to say. I was furious. But Betsy is in charge of asking Ken for my raise, so I waited until I got to my car to start crying and screaming. I was in a bad state last night.

Got in this morning to an email from Ken just saying "Please find time to discuss tomorrow afternoon". So essentially a "see me after class". This could go one of three ways.

He could tell me he likes it and here are a few edits (unlikely, though he DID like the original and it's not too different from that?????)

He could tell me it needs a lot of work and changes and I need to do it ASAP (likely and stressful)

He could get mad I wasted my time, which is entirely Betsy's fault (likely and gets Betsy in a load of trouble)

The meeting with him is at 3PM tomorrow. I'm working from home because I need it at this point. I'm so sick of this. I'm so done. I'm even done typing about it right now because I am just so out of steam. I have so many deadlines and I'm so burnt out and I am so exhausted.

[murdochfantasies]

there's a town several miles to my east called Higginsville and I'd like to think it was founded by Constable Higgins himself. it'd be just like him to randomly be the founder of a town a zillion miles away from Canada, right?

[ckret2]

Per requests a few months back, I did say if I ever wrote something I thought I might cut, I'd post it here. So here, have a free scene: the first appearance of the Henchmaniacs, post Bill's death.

Ultimately, I will keep this scene; but as it's currently written I think it's about twice as long and half as interesting as it needs to be, so probably I'm going to tighten and polish it a lot to say the same stuff, but faster.

But that's a lot of words liable to be removed, so y'all get to see it as is before I start trimming it down.

####

"We should bail on this dump," Pyronica said, standing on one of the many edges of the Quadrangle of Qonfusion, staring out at the Nightmare Realm. The light of swirling neon-acidic cotton candy nebulas threatened to overpower the much smaller light of her limb flames. "Let's be real: this place wasn't our fortress, it was Bill's. I'm sick of this place. If you can call it a place." She gestured out at the roiling bile lights. Her movement, like the flap of a butterfly's wing creating a hurricane, was enough to set off crackles of lightning millions of miles long in the faraway distance. "All it'd take is a hard sneeze to knock the whole realm down."

Huddled on a nearby wall, staring out at the chaos with Pyronica, Paci-Fire said solemnly, "I want to stay, Mother. The Nightmare Realm might not be a 'place' to you, but it is the only home I've ever known."

"Probably one of my worst life decisions," Pyronica muttered. "You've never had a chance to know another home, Paci. You'd like living in a real dimension if you gave it a shot!"

"No." Paci-Fire crossed his arms. "I don't want to."

"At least think about it." Pyronica gestured again into the distance. "There's nothing to do around here! You've got to travel like a zillion light years to get to any dimensions worth visiting. You like destroying moons so much—wouldn't it be nice to live somewhere that has moons? Instead of going on a road trip to another dimension every time you want to drive a civilization to extinction?"

"And then what would we do? Go to our home inside that same dimension? Wait in front of the fireplace for the authorities to come knocking at our door?" A side-effect of growing up in the Henchmaniacs was that Paci-Fire regarded The Authorities as a nebulous bogeyman of a force that was as spiteful as the devil himself and personally out to get him and all his family and friends. "No, Mother. I do not wish to cower in the dark corners of—" his lower mouth sneered around his pacifier, "civilized dimensions, nor flee from one to the next every time the authorities catch our trail. There is nowhere safer for us than the Nightmare Realm."

"We're just cowering outside civilized dimensions if we stay here," Pyronica said. Paci-Fire's red eyes flared brighter, and Pyronica playfully tugged his horn. "We can easily find a dimension as primitive as 46'\ without any organized interstellar law and order. And it'd be worth it just to live somewhere with consistent physics."

"I am contented with the inconsistent physics," Paci-Fire said sulkily.

"Paci, it took you fifty years longer than most kids to learn how to walk," Pyronica said. "You don't have to be afraid of the authorities in other dimensions—"

"Mother! I know no fear."

"Well," Pyronica said. "You don't have to be wary of them, then. I got by fine before joining Bill out here! Most of us did! And we can get by fine again! Zan," Pyronica kicked off the ground to float up level with the next floor, where several Henchmaniacs were playing a video game, "you still have worshippers in your home dimension, right? Aren't you still getting offerings?"

Zanthar shrugged noncommittally.

"They've still got legends of you, you can whip them back in shape in no time. Keyhole, you've got family—"

Without looking away from the screen, where he was losing hideously, Keyhole muttered, "I'm not moving back in with my mom."

"I'm not talking about your mom, stupid, what about your sisters?" 

Keyhole winced, though it was hard to tell whether it was from Pyronica's question or from getting killed in the game. "I don't know... Bill and I were talking about them once, and I realized they're as bad as Mom was. Bill said  probably the only reason they didn't treat me as bad is because they never got the opportunity—"

"Who cares what Bill said," Pyronica snapped. "Bill's dead! We don't have to listen to him anymore!"

"Hear hear," 8 Ball muttered; but he couldn't throw in anything else, lest Zanthar blow him up and win the match.

Pyronica said, "Face it: the only reason we didn't leave this place millennia ago is because Bill couldn't leave. None of us even like the stupid Quadrangle!"

Sliding around the bottom edge of a staircase to its top side, Amorphous Shape said, "Excuse us."

Pyronica rolled her eye and immediately amended herself, "Nobody except Bill's 2D groupies like the Quadrangle."

Miffed, Morph asked, "What's wrong with it?"

"What's—?!" She gestured wildly at the feat of geometry-breaking architecture, walls and columns and floors and stairs that connected in impossible ways. "Morph, the physics are wrong with it! You can't look at it without getting vertigo! Look at that staircase, it shouldn't be able to go there!"

"It's like that on purpose, it's a shortcut."

"That's not the point!"

"It doesn't give us vertigo," Morph said defensively. They slithered up the stairs to the video gamers and peeled off the floor to looked at Hectorgon. "Does it give you vertigo?"

"No, I'm fine."

"What about you, Kryptos?"

There was no reply.

"Krypt?" Morph slid down a column and unfolded questioningly around a corner.

Kryptos was in the rec room, lounging on Bill's stupid tacky optical illusion throne with the fabric of reality upholstery, staring out a window (or skylight, depending on your point of perspective).

Morph said, "Bill's gonna be furious you're using his throne."

"Whatever. Z's already spilled time punch on the armrest." Kryptos pointed at the patch of reality on the armrest that was out of chronological synch with the rest of the throne.

"He's not gonna be furious," Pyronica said. "He's not gonna be anything because he's dead. He died. D-E-A-D."

"He's not." And suddenly Morph were in Pyronica's face, a flurry of shapes and lines and piercing slitted eyes. "If Bill was dead, the whole dimension would be falling apart even faster, we're sure of it—"

"So let's bail while we can—"

"—but it's not speeding up," they said. "We've been taking regular readings for months, and if anything, its unraveling is slowing down. That would been impossible if he was dead, he's instrumental to holding the Nightmare Realm together—"

"Unless he lied about that, and he was actually making everything worse," Pyronica said. "I'm sick of your stupid 'readings,' it was your 'readings' that said 46'\ was perfect to take over! Was that stupid barrier part of your readings?!"

"That barrier was extremely localized, there's no way we could have detected—"

"The portal was right in the middle of it!"

8 Ball groaned as Zanthar whittled away the last of his HP and tossed his controller at the TV. The TV squealed in fear. He leaned through a window that opened into the rec room below and said, "If Bill is alive, that's just another reason to get out of the Nightmare Realm! Leave before he gets back! He can play king in this dump by himself."

Paci-Fire said, "Surely, you do not mean that. Were Bill still around..."

"No! No, I do mean it! The only reason we stayed here is because everyone's too starstruck or too scared to ditch him! Not anymore! If his flat-brained cultists wanna wait for him, fine! But why do we all gotta stay?"

"Hey!" Hectorgon rounded on 8 Ball. "Who're you calling flat, pinhead—?"

Kryptos tuned out the argument upstairs/next door as 8 Ball and Hectorgon started brawling. Who were they kidding? Nobody was leaving. Maybe 8 Ball, he'd tried to split four or five times before crawling back, but Kryptos didn't care about him anyway. Bill had always been right about him, he was too selfish to care about the rest of the gang but too stupid to make it on his own. They'd taken in losers like that before and it had never been a big loss when they left. But no one else would leave. Where would they go?

Where could they go?

Morph and Hect were desperate to hear from Bill. And truth be told, so was Kryptos: he was firmly in favor of staying in the Quadrangle just in case Bill casually floated back in one day, and he was willing to do anything they could think of to try to get him back. How could he not following even the thinnest thread of hope? But he didn't really believe Bill was out there. He'd been gone too long, and Kryptos couldn't imagine anything less catastrophic than Bill's destruction could have caused the complete collapse of the rift into 46'\ and the reversal of Weirdmageddon.

And yet Kryptos was still here, and still willing to look, because there was nothing else to do. What could they do if Bill was really gone? Bill was gonna get the shapes a new home. He was the only one who could do it. They'd held fast to that hope for a trillion years—who were they without it? Kryptos sure didn't know.

And then Kryptos got a call from Earth.

[bomberqueen17]

streak broken!

I had been doing all right on accumulating a 30-day streak of pokestop spins but then i came back to the farm where i spend most of my summers, and there's no pokestop within a walkable distance (there's one about a kilometer away but it's on a busy highway with no shoulder, so there's no way to get there except by car or risking death) . so I spent three days without spinning a pokestop, and while walking a lot, so i hatched a ton of eggs and didn't want to open gifts because then all my egg slots would fill up with 7km eggs and i already have all those dudes who hatch from those. so i sort of eked along on whatever i'd had in my item bag that whole time.

helpfully, a family dinner completely overran the whole weekly spotlight hour so i didn't even open the app, so i didn't spend a bunch of pokeballs catching whatever was on special this week. see, very economical.

anyway i worked a long day yesterday and then spent the evening doing yet more physical labor for funsies (moving construction equipment that's blocking my ability to live in the cabin where i live on the farm) so as a special indulgence i went out late in the evening and got a milkshake and spun every pokestop i could reach. na ha!

i also caught some of the weirdo new shit that's spawning this new season, so that was fun.

if i level up half a level more, i can submit the community garden here as a pokestop. we'll see if i can manage that. (A friend was going to, but then didn't, and hasn't, so. Who knows if they ever will. It might get rejected anyway but we won't know until we try.)

They've announced a new concept called Routes, which they explicitly wanted to make rural-player-friendly. And I'm hesitant about how it's going to work. It won't help me, because I need there to be a Pokestop. And I think the idea is, it would give you spawns and things and make the game more playable, but like. Out here Pokestops are so few and far between that most of them are pretty heavily-trafficked if they're actually reachable by other people, and so if you can make it all the way to a stop, then there are gonna be tons of spawns around that stop because it's the only thing for miles. The post office down the street, there's a gym in the soccer field next to it that isn't accessible a lot of the time because that parking lot is full of, you know, people there for the soccer tournaments, but if you pull into the post office minimall parking lot, which is also directly across the street from the local high school, there are a zillion spawns that turn up instantly because that is the only fucking place anybody can get to. Making a Route out of that seems like. Redundant, because genuinely there are so many spawns in that parking lot that if you pull in you could stay there indefinitely just catching those.

Anyway we'll see. A Route isn't gonna help me when I don't have a Pokestop I can get to. I have given up on ever using Daily Incense out here because the nice pleasant loop I can walk, which is lovely in the evenings, will spawn me maybe three critters the whole time, and nothing interesting. I did like five nights in a row where I caught, y'know, a yungoos, a bidoof, a starly, in my fifteen-minute walk, and then I gave up on doing it because I got so many mosquito bites and also my job here is physically demanding enough that I don't need more physical exercise in my free time too.

oops i was gonna post this on my pokemon go sideblog but like hey why not. hi. i'm alive. i was gonna post something *else* here, but now i don't have time lol.

[deatherella]

DownTownies

I bet you all saw that coming from a mile away.

Poindexter has gotten himself into a fine pickle, hasn't he? What's he going to do about it?

Frances knows what she's going to do about it. First off, she'll go by the old adage, "the way to man's heart is through his stomach."

Attila asked Lora to move in so he wouldn't have to quite so all alone anymore. They had a little dinner party - featuring salad - with Mom and one of the zillion Cameron/Camryn-s running amuk in my game.

Enzo has been busy setting up his life but not much pic-worthy stuff. He made good friends with The Slob. A couple promotions later and he bought The House of Fallen Trees. I was trying to get the Tricou's on the lot resurrected but it came up saying Gvaudin was resurrected on another lot and my game crashed when I tried to walk to lot to find her and bring her home. She was listed as part of the household too on the ui. I think I'll try just putting the resurrection potion by Fricorith's grave next time. The Poppycock kids that are friends with any of the Teens are all back home so I can't get a Teen teen to move into this house to do the resurrecting as of yet.

[thesobsister]

The Free Design, "Kites Are Fun"

So, this is probably the twee-est song ever to crack the Top 40—well, the Top 40 Easy Listening chart, where it reached #33. Rolled into a sunshine-pop wrapper, the song is cast in the voice of a child who is extolling his very strong "like" for his kite:

"See my kite, it's fun. See my kite, it's green and white. Laughing in its distant flight. All that's between us is a little yellow string, But we like each other more than anything. And we run along together through the field behind my house. And the little drops of rain caress our face and wash my blouse…"

That's most of the verse, and it all reads very childlike in its description and expression, and we're chugging along hearing this twee narrative about liking the kite and running with the kite and...suddenly we hit:

"And we'd like to be a zillion miles away from everyone 'Cause Mom and Dad and Uncle Bill don't realize…

Kites are fun."

And suddenly, it's a whole different story. The child likes being alone with their kite because of the pressure they may be receiving from their parents...and "Uncle Bill." WTF is Uncle Bill? Is he actually one of the parents' siblings? Is he Mom's "special friend"? Is he Dad's "special friend"? Are Mom and Dad in a throuple with Uncle Bill? Clearly, ol' Uncle Bill is integrated enough into the child's life that he counts among the disciplinarians who are harassing him about his kite-flying. Is he a handsy, lap-horsey-ride kind of uncle, and is that why the child wants to be a zillion miles away from everyone?

So, yeah, an incredibly twee song with a real sting in its tail.

[noys-boise]

Howard the duck's mother: my poor son... taken from us too soon... he could've had such a wonderful life but all that was taken from him...

*meanwhile Howard zillions of miles away having hot interspecies sex with his gf*

[ineffablefool]

My household just finished watching Bullet Train (2022), and I cannot remember the last time I’ve felt such sheer *delight* at a new-to-me movie.  Everything keeps happening so much, and it shouldn’t all work together but it does, and Brad Pitt plays a secret agent codenamed “Ladybug” who is the exact opposite of no chill.  Like, all the chill that other people are not?  It’s because he took it.  He has a very good therapist.

The movie is a huge pile of potential triggers (bright flashy things, lots of gunfire, blood and what I consider a small but non-zero amount of gore, so very many onscreen deaths including those of major characters...), but if anyone watches the Netflix preview trailer thing and thinks “huh, there’s no way this can actually be as delightful as they’re trying to make it look”?  No, it is.  It is a zillion miles away from being in the Soft Zone(TM), but it does involve the use of Thomas The Tank Engine characters as a way of reading people.  Apparently one shouldn’t be a Diesel.

[kitwilsonsass]

someone shouted out to me excitedly from their vehicle from like a zillion miles away while i was going into the pharmacy and i have... zero clue who the fuck it was...

[lindsaystravelblogs5]

Days 51-52 Wednesday/Thursday, 23, 24 October

Wednesday (Happy Birthday Deanne!)

As I said, we tried to find the pub with the Cornish music but gave up after a frustrating half hour.   We then drove to Cadgwith Cove, a few clicks away.  We were met at the gate by a fairly officious National Trust guy, instructing us where to park our ‘big rig’ and emphasising the need to pay for parking.  We parked, and Heather paid, and we set off on a loop walk that the notice board indicated was about half an hour - if you happened to be an Olympic athlete at the peak of your career.  It was quite a long hilly walk, but we made it to the bottom of the mountain, where the outgoing tide still had the sea boiling.  There was a little cafe there, so we bought a hot chocolate each to ward off the cold, and started back up after we felt refreshed enough to tackle the climb.   We finally got back to the car after an hour and forty minutes, really glad to be able to sit and relax for a few minutes.   I was expecting the gatekeeper to ask for more parking fees, but we avoided him by exiting via a different road.

We then went to The Lizard, a quaint town and the southernmost point of Cornwall (and the UK).   Heather has been hanging out for fish and chips for weeks, preferably, but hopelessly not, wrapped in newspaper, but it is almost impossible to find it other than in a posh restaurant in the evening - nobody offers it during the day.  We ended up in a fifteenth century pub, The Witch Ball, the southernmost pub in the UK.   I had a truly revolting local beer, and Heather had a gin and tonic - except that the tonic was sweet lemonade.  But we shared a decent-sized pasty that was really excellent.  The pub served drinks and was in partnership with the adjacent seafood restaurant that only serves fish one night a week.  All food served at the pub came from the seafood restaurant – at least their pasties were large and luscious – but no chips.

We tried to visit the nearby lighthouse, but our car was too big for their carpark - or maybe they reckoned they could fleece two drivers for the parking fee in the space we would have needed.

We drove on to Porthleven and drove along one side of the harbour wharf.   Amazingly, we got a parking spot so got out and took a few photos before turning around and retracing our steps to the other side of the harbour.  We drove the length of the harbour and out of town at the end, but navigating the half kilometre through the crowds of absent-minded (death-wish?) pedestrians was a minor challenge.  

We decided to go on to Falmouth (and I may well have been characterised as a Foulmouth by the time we escaped that one).   As usual, getting past the roadworks on the edge of town was fraught, but the town was far worse.  Tiny lanes, one-way streets, thousands of pedestrians, no hope of a car park - we just needed to get out of there double quick.

We couldn’t get home fast enough but we made it through Helston (for about the tenth time) just in time for George and Mildred to descend on us as we parked.

Thursday

Firstly, a little about the traffic - at least the vehicles.  I have not seen a B-double anywhere.  There are very few 22-wheelers, a few more 18-wheelers, quite a lot of small trucks, but most commercial and industrial transport seems to be done in small 4- or 6-wheeled vans, not dissimilar from our camper.  We have seen a surprising number of ambulances, fortunately very few with lights and sirens, and about a zillion very tiny cars.   Most people seem to have learned that family sedans are just too big for the road infrastructure here, although they all seem more than capable of driving at a hundred miles per hour.  

Irrespective of the speed limit, we are always the slowest vehicle on the road.  I think I have passed fourteen vehicles in well over three thousand kilometres - three of them bikes and two of them being a car towing a trailer loaded with the largely decomposed relic of a vintage Morris Minor.   On the other hand, I have been passed by about a hundred thousand vehicles every day during this period – of which about six per day were even close to compliance with the prevailing speed limit.   I feel like the Pied Piper with my long trailing retinue of impatient followers, or maybe the head of a comet with its attendant devotees tailing away into the far distance.  Very often, I can’t see the car behind me because it is slipstreaming me so closely that I dare not brake for fear of it ending up in the back of the van.  It would often be nice to cruise along, looking for a layby to park and look around, or just let the hordes roar past, but it is very rarely possible.  

We had an example today where, by navigational error, or the app just playing up as it does a dozen times a day, we were in a lane less than two metres wide when our van is 2.3 metres.  We scratched and scraped along for a couple of miles, horrified at the probable damage, with another van hard on our heels trying to pass. Yesterday, we were in a lane quite close to the caravan park when a car approached us and tried to pass.  The other driver urged me to pull further over but I ended up rammed hard against the stone wall with the other car half a centimetre away.  I think he could probably have squeezed through but, with very bad grace, he chose to back off a couple of hundred metres to a place where we could pass a little more easily.   

We drove to Penzance today, but I think all the pirates were on holiday - or maybe out at sea raping and pillaging.  There were many thousands of tourists and others, crowding the port area as we tried to get through, so the pirates probably couldn’t have got ashore anyway.  Like most places, we thought it might be nice to visit, perhaps to go for a stroll, have lunch or a drink, but that is simply not possible.   I have no idea how all those people got there, where they parked, or what bus they caught, but England is definitely not a place for touring with a vehicle.  We escaped without much damage, apart from our shattered nerves, and went on to another little place Rick Stein has often mentioned.  It is Mousehole - pronounced mouz-ll, a bit like the mouzzle of a gun. It was a tiny bit more bearable and we found a park well out of town along the cliff drive and gathered our wits before turning around and heading to St Ives.  As I was going to St Ives, I met a man who might well have had a wife or seven, but we didn’t stop to chat.  

Later, when we were in St Ives, the GPS led us into a very narrow, and progressively narrowing lane, crowded with pedestrians, and no way back.  We got to a point where we had to turn left and found that the hypotenuse of the van was microscopically greater than the available space to turn, so we literally had to scrape the side of the van along a building to get around.  (Many houses and buildings abut the roads all over the UK and even in relatively open areas, there is always a building or three that protrudes into the laneway, substantially narrowing an otherwise navigable pathway.)   Physically, in this case, there was no alternative.  The damage was not great but there simply was no other way to navigate the corner.  Another expensive experience that we didn’t want.   (Repair cost for the very minor scratch was eventually assessed at thirteen hundred and twenty pounds – just over $2600 Aussie dollars – much more than the vehicle was worth in our view.)

As usual, once the stress became unbearable, we headed for home via the fastest and least frustrating route we could find, in this case, north to Redruth, south to the ubiquitous Helston, and hence to our digs at Little Trethvas.

[resmarted]

considered not voting bc I feel it's insulting to call this oligarchy a democracy plus I had to go all the way back to my old neighborhood to do it which now feels seven zillion miles away (it always did. it's so far from everything and I forgot about the nightmare train from hell which is crazy bc its my main bitching point) but I am maximizing the experience with a margarita and multiple open mics that no one is going to bc everyone is on edge watching for poll results which probably won't be in until tomorrow like it even matters this country is so ret☆rded and hopeless NOT that I am a bummer or anything