#advanced space crusade

[oldschoolfrp]

"Kaptin Badrukk's Flash Gitz Freebooterz ambush a group of Tyranids" in a scene from Advanced Space Crusade (Dave Gallagher's cover for White Dwarf 140, August 1991). In the 90s the "grim darkness of the far future" often was bright and colorful.

[terrorland]

I made a old timey space marine scout! In the warhammer minature game the most famous faction is of course the space marines. These guys and their units have changed apperance quite a lot since they started in the 80s. One that changed the most is my favorite space marine unit. Space marine scouts. I have no idea why they are my favorites. Probably cause they look like a middle thing between imperial guard and space marines? Anyhow. They have gone from weird space punkers, with facepaint ( not camo though) and landsknecht arms into proper sci-fi troopers. Funny enough they just showcased new models for the scouts like this week and they look great! Probably gonna pick some of them up for my custom chapters which happens to be.. Well yeah an entire chapter made out of scouts cause they never got their shipment of power armors! ( including some of these ugly old ones yes!)

[galen-the-technomage]

I am having some kind of freeze response due to a combo of being sick + external stress BUT luckily I am still in my B5 rewatch (now up to the Crusade portion) so reality cannot touch me at this moment

[deepspacenova]

𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐌𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐔𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍

4000 words | heavy angst. romance. blood/injury. war. major character death.

Note: I'm still reeling from everything we've discovered in Sylus' myth card, my friends. This draws a lot of parallels and portrays a bit of history repeating itself. I apologize in advance for any pain and suffering this might cause, this one's for the masochists (: I know not all of us want more angst as a coping mechanism for angst so make sure to read the warnings

Inspired by this ask from a fellow angst enthusiast — i think i may have... over-delivered? Either way, I hope I did your prompt justice @huachengnism <3

Also, bc no ideas are original, I was half done writing this when I found this post by @relentlessconqueror, who I apparently share at least a few braincells with when it comes to headcanons haha so *fist bump*

She struggled to catch her breath, her chest heaving with the exertion of the escape. Her ribs screamed with every inhale, bruised from the last blow she’d taken before breaking free, and every bone in her body ached.

It'd been hours since Mephisto miraculously landed on the bars of her cell in the depths of the Association's intricate Wanderer prison system with an all-access key card. But she — they, she corrected as she felt the reassuring pressure of the crow's talons perch on her shoulder — were alive and unhurt. 

The battle had moved to what little remained of the newest No Hunt Zone: what was once known as Linkon City Centre. The once bustling hub that had been full of people and livelihoods had been reduced to a crater on the planet’s surface, destroyed by violence, explosions, and carnage. Linkon was falling, neighborhood by neighborhood, consumed by chaos orchestrated by the Hunter’s Association. Their relentless pursuit of her — the so-called Traitorous Tenebra — had left a trail of destruction in their wake.

She'd barely survived the Alpha Team's brutal "interrogation," which had brought her to the brink of unconsciousness when they demanded information she refused to give. But it was their arrogance and the surrounding destruction of their crusade to capture the elusive leader of Onychinus that let her slip through their grasp.

Now, she had one goal: find Sylus so they could escape this nightmare.

It was easy to predict how today would go — Ever Group’s unrelenting thirst for domination and the Hunter's Association’s relentless pursuit of Onychinus and aether cores made for a volatile duo. But no one, not even Sylus, who had an uncanny knack for understanding human nature, could have foreseen how they would fuel each other’s chaos, turning the Linkon into a nightmare of their own making.

Bloodthirsty men who called themselves "researchers" with protocore-powered ammunition stormed the streets, piercing through civilians like arrows of death. She'd done all she could to defend the innocents of Linkon from afar with the Hunter weapons she’d swiped on her way out of the Association. But only so many could be saved while it seemed like countless others met their ends.

Of course, the Hunters had their own twisted methods for submission. The few teams she'd spotted were taking protocore-inlaid weapons while Wanderers followed their commands like the puppets Xander Sciences made them to be. The very creatures the Association set out to destroy, now wielded like oversized hellhounds to take down Onychinus' leader, "the harbinger of doomsday in Linkon."

She couldn't help but scoff at their zealous fanaticism. And she was the Tenebra.

Bodies and blood were strewn across the cobblestone and the asphalt, and there were far more dead from their side than she’s sure they had predicted in their arrogance. But the fate of Ever’s defeat loomed over the rubble like the mythological Hades, waiting to collect his souls. 

She watched for a few minutes as the attacks grew more spaced apart, deciding that now was the perfect time to send the signal to Sylus. She’d only had a glimpse of his black-red mist and that was hours ago. All she’d wanted to do was cup the reassuring beat of his heart in her hands, to feel his hand wrap around the back of her head, pressing her nose into the warmth of his neck. 

Now was the time. They were done here. Done with this place. 

She looked at the thunderclouds overhead, swelling with eagerness to spill their deluge of water over the landscape. She removed the dark red gem around her wrist before her hands rose to clasp it over her companion's sturdy neck. Her fingers trailed the cold metal of her crow's studded wing when she murmured, "Keep this safe for me, you big fiend. Now, Mephisto. Go."

His mechanical wings unfolded before he launched into the stormy sky. She watched the crimson glimmer as he soared with a fluid grace and precision that made him as real to her as any other crow.

Sylus would know to meet her now.  

Sylus surveyed the No Hunt Zone from the neighborhood’s tallest building, atop the skeletal remains of empty flats that had somehow stayed standing. He was up there for a better vantage point, sure, but he also had to distance himself from the eye-stinging smoke that had surrounded him below as well as the eerily familiar, nausea-inducing smell of burning flesh. 

But he wasn’t going to think about it. Couldn’t think about it. That was then, this is now. 

He'd purposefully stayed within sight of Linkon's supposed saviors and the battle, moving just enough to keep their attention fixed on him. He darted between buildings, his black-red mist filtering through the haze of smoke, a deliberate lure to give her a chance to make it above ground and send him their signal.

He felt a faint trace of her energy only an hour ago as he moved around, commanding and powerful, the only source of water in a desert of death.

Sylus' heart almost beat out of his chest in anticipation of being with her without time limits, without restraint, and he did his best to tamp down that feeling he forbade himself to feel since he was a dragon with his first love: hope. 

But he couldn’t avoid the promise of their escape. It wrapped around him and took the form of her body, making him feel a longing so fierce, he had to force his feet to stay on the stone until Mephisto arrived. 

The firing shots and pained cries were getting fewer and far between, with no shadows of Wanderers moving within sight. The battle was almost over. 

As Sylus squinted to see if any of his men lay among the dead, his ears caught a rhythmic flapping, prompting him to extend his forearm. When he felt the cold weight of the robot's body land on his arm, two things happened at once.

One, his gaze locked on his bracelet's twin, the garnet-colored gem winking at him as he took it off the crow's neck and clenched his palm around it. Two, at the same time, Mephisto's beak opened to reveal the recording device within and the only voice he ever wanted to hear rang out, "Keep this safe for me, you big fiend."

The sound of the words surrounded him like an embrace. Fiend.

He froze in delighted disbelief and couldn’t help it. He laughed. A loud, genuine laugh. It sounded gravelly and unpracticed, feeling foreign on his battle-hardened cheeks, but he couldn’t contain his relief. 

They were done here. 

Mephisto trailed Sylus like a shadow in the sky as he headed toward the N109 Zone, smirking all the way. Very much the opposite of the expression a man who’d just sacrificed everything he’d built on this planet, whose organization had been disintegrated by the Hunters Association, should be wearing. 

He glanced back every so often at Linkon behind him, a scorched blemish on the landscape. 

Impatient, Sylus tried to seek her out with his evol and swore he could feel her heading his way. He was half-tempted to haul her to him, her complaints of manhandling be damned.

The abandoned buildings in the N109 Zone stood like silent witnesses, their jagged edges silhouetted against the unnaturally bright moon. 

He glanced around and whispered her name a few times. When no one answered back he leaned against a crumbling wall, waiting for her. The moon seemed brighter in the sky.

That was when he saw the sinister glow of emerald eyes in the alley. 

A sharp crack split the air, as Sylus’ power surged forward, barely stopping a metaflux-infused bullet mid-air and disintegrating it into nothing before it pierced his chest. 

"Impressive," a guttural voice growled from the darkness. 

The lead scientist of Xander Sciences emerged and Sylus’ lips twisted into a grimace. The maniac had fused himself with a Wanderer. 

The aether core Ever had attempted to manufacture had done more than just augment him — it had warped him completely. Whatever remained of his humanity was buried under a grotesque amalgamation of man and Wanderer. Ugly green scales shimmered under the moonlight, and claws scraped the concrete as he moved.

"I was wondering when you’d crawl out of your hole," Sylus said, his voice calm and unbothered. 

The monster sneered, revealing his jagged face. "You’ve meddled with us for the last time. This planet is mine to reshape. You won’t stand in our way."

He moved with inhuman speed, closing the distance between them in a blur. He slashed with his claws, but Sylus ducked, releasing a burst of energy that sent him skidding backward. The hybrid roared, firing another shot, but Sylus twisted his hand, bending the energy around him to absorb the bullet’s momentum before redirecting it in a volatile arc that scorched the ground at the monster’s feet.

The battle was a storm of power. The hybrid lunged, his claws tearing through the air, but Sylus met him head-on, energy crackling from his fists as they clashed. Each blow lit up the darkness, casting crimson shadows on the crumbling walls around them.

"You’re nothing but a monster now," Sylus gritted out, his voice strained as he deflected another strike. "Even your own tech couldn’t handle your ambition."

He laughed, the sound a guttural snarl. "Ambition is evolution. And evolution demands sacrifice!"

Sylus wasn’t winning this fight, though. He’d already won. 

The hybrid had definitely been injured in battle, or he might’ve just been drunk on bloodlust, but either way, his attacks were haphazard and sloppy at best. Sylus was just looking for the right opening, baiting him so he could deliver her final strike against him. 

Sylus’ evol surged, spiraling around him in a black-red maelstrom of raw power. He struck the ground with his fist, sending a shockwave that threw the monster off balance. Taking the opening, Sylus launched forward, his fist colliding with its jagged jaw, cracking scales and sending it stumbling.

But he recovered, the gun in his beastly hand raised as he fired a spray of bullets, each one infused with metaflux. Sylus dodged, but one grazed his arm, searing through his jacket and burning his skin.

Gritting his teeth, he channeled his frustration into his power, summoning a massive sphere of energy. "This ends now," Sylus growled.

The sphere expanded, its glow lighting up the area around them. With a roar, Sylus hurled it at his enemy, picturing the faces of the hundreds, thousands of humans and monsters alike who had wronged him. Wronged her.

The hybrid tried to counter, his claws swiping through the air to absorb the energy, but the sheer force of Sylus’s attack overwhelmed him. The explosion rocked the area, sending debris flying and shrouding the battlefield in smoke.

When the dust settled, the brilliant Carter of Xander Sciences lay motionless, his hybrid body cracked and broken. Sylus stood over him, breathing heavily, his evol flickering around him like a lightning storm.

"Evolution demands sacrifice," Sylus echoed, his voice low. "Guess you were right about that."

She sighed as she spotted the outskirts of the N109 Zone and headed toward their spot, toward Sylus. She knew he’d be there waiting for her, knew he'd gotten her signal when she saw the silhouette of a black crow sailing through the sky. 

She couldn’t wait to be with him unreservedly, without ever having to leave his side again. She found herself getting excited, feeling a breathless sort of anticipation. Her body ached, the pain of old wounds and new wounds alike coming together throughout her body. And it took all of her willpower to stay cautious of stragglers, to not to break into a sprint. 

But her willpower was no match for hope. No match for the smile that slowly dominated every inch of her face. 

She’d never been so overjoyed, so relieved. So overcome with the need to see his vermillion-streaked eyes, taste teasing smirk, feel his silver-streaked hair. 

The journey felt endless, like she was the Greek king Sisyphus, eternally destined to never reach her only goal. But finally, finally, she could see the haphazard border of the N109 Zone.

When she was just a few dozen feet away, she spotted him, reclined against a stone wall near a felled wanderer, spotlighted by the moon like her very own star.

She paused to compose herself, holding back her stupid tears of joy, of relief. He hadn’t noticed her yet and she was okay with that, content to steal a moment of gazing at him for herself. 

But then he stirred, his eyes lifting to meet hers, and her breath hitched. A teasing smirk tugged at his lips, but it softened when he noticed the way she looked at him, the way her entire being seemed to collapse with relief.

“You’re late,” he called to her. 

She broke into a run, ignoring the protests of her body, her legs barely able to keep pace with the urgency in her chest. “Sylus!”

He stayed in place, his arms opening as she barreled into him, wrapping herself around him. The warmth of his body and traces of his evol enveloped her, buzzing against her skin like a thousand kisses.

One of his arms slipped down to wrap her leg around his waist and held it there, as if the pressure of her chest against his wasn't nearly enough. She felt the warmth of his lips and the sharpness of his teeth on the space between her neck and shoulder as he tentatively nipped her there, like he was infusing himself into her.

She pulled back with a gasp to look up at him, her chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath. His greedy gaze faltered for a moment, replaced by something softer, something vulnerable, as his eyes searched hers.

And then she kissed him.

Her lips met his in a rush of emotion—relief, joy, desperation—all spilling into that single moment. For a heartbeat, he froze, startled, before his hands moved to cup her face, pulling her closer. His evol flared, an electric hum that danced between them, matching the frantic rhythm of her heart.

When they finally broke apart, he rested his forehead against hers, a low chuckle rumbling from his chest to her palm, which caressed the pulse of his neck.

“Careful, sweetie, I might start thinking you like me,” he rasped, his voice rough and playful as his hand slid to the small of her back, holding her close.

She laughed through the lump in her throat, clinging to him tightly.

He pulled back just enough to meet her eyes, ruby gaze sparkling with mischief. His brushed a strand of hair from her face. “You look like hell.”

“I’ll live,” she reassured, leaning into his touch. “I just… needed to see you.”

He sighed as if the words were a balm, hand still cradling her face. “Good,” he said, his thumb brushing her cheek. “Because this big fiend will hunt you down if you leave my sight. Or—" he let go of her leg to circle her wrist and fasten her half of their bracelet around her wrist. "—dare to take this off again."

“Not a chance,” she whispered into his throat, wrapping her arms around him to clasp the bracelet with her other palm, as if printing its jagged shape into her wrist. “No matter how many times the world turns its back on us, I’m never leaving your side.”

The moment took up the entire lens of her focus, so she didn’t spot the other silhouette skulking from the entrance of the N109 Zone.

Sylus felt the shift a second too late.

The sharp, metallic click of a gun broke the fragile quiet, the sound slicing through the air like a knife.

She turned toward the sound and Sylus saw her eyes widen, not with fear, but with recognition.

“Jenna,” she whispered, her voice trembling.

From the shadows stepped her former leader, the woman who had once been her mentor. Jenna's presence was a weapon in itself, Sylus knew —steely, unyielding, and absolute. A metaflux-infused dagger was already raised aimed directly at Sylus.

“Did you really think I needed all the prison guards? I knew where he went, you’d follow,” Jenna’s voice sliced through the air, her voice razor-sharp as she spoke to her and aimed a disgusted glance at Sylus. "The perfect bait."

Without hesitation, she threw the blade like a dart.

"No!" she screamed as Sylus pushed her away from him, the blade slicing his cheek and eye, leaving a burning streak of pain and a hazy right field of vision in its wake.

Pain erupted like a white-hot brand as the impact shattered the aether core in his eye. Blood and fragments of glowing green dripped down his face in a torrent, obscuring his vision.

He staggered, his breath hitching as agony lanced through his skull. The disorienting mix of searing pain and the flickering in his right eye overwhelmed him, and he stumbled.

Through the haze of pain, he could feel the core’s fragments still burning into him and the world around him blurred as his mind fought to regain focus.

A frustrated sob behind him made his blood run cold.

Raising his head, his heart dropped as he saw Jenna’s gun aimed not at Sylus but at her aether core. Her heart. Jenna's other hand had forcefully raised her elbow, aiming his beloved's gun at Sylus' chest.

“You had such promise, young Hunter," Jenna continued, her tone lamenting. "But you should’ve known better than to run from your fate.”

“Jenna, please—”

Something sinister flickered across Jenna's face before vanishing into her practiced calm. “I taught you everything. And this… is how you repay me?” Her tone was as merciless and final. "Now you either kill him, or I kill you."

“Don’t touch her,” Sylus growled, his voice low and dangerous. He tried to reach out toward her, tried desperately to yank her back to him and take her away, but his evol didn't respond.

Jenna only smirked, her grip tightening as she tilted her head. “Your fate has always been sealed. But hers… Well, that depends on how obedient she feels.” She shrugged coldly. “Now shoot him."

Sylus' mind raced as his blurry gaze locked onto the watery anger of her eyes, familiar to him for longer than this planet's entire existence.

"Do it." He ignored her cry of indignant fury at his unmistakable command as he spoke cruel words wrapped in a loving tone.

"Sylus, no."

Inhaling through the pain he exhaled a shaky, almost impatient sigh. She had to do this, had to know he was okay with a world without him in it. "You bluffed once before in this position, kitten. Don't let a second chance pass you by."

"Stop!" The hand being forcefully aimed at his heart was shaking.

Suddenly a fierce resolve burned behind her eyes at his words, at the memory.

Her quaking hand suddenly steadied and her fingers adjusted their grip on the gun, and for a moment, relief overcame the pain in Sylus' body when he thought of her shooting him and ending it once and for all.

But — his cunning little kitten — she outmaneuvered them all.

She twisted her wrist, aimed the barrel at her chest, and pulled the trigger.

The deafening crack of the gunshot rang out, the impact jerking her frame as the bullet pierced right through her and struck Jenna, who staggered backward, eyes wide with shock as crimson bloomed on her Hunter's uniform.

Letting her go, Jenna clutched at her chest as she fell to the ground.

And the world slowed to a crawl.

The visceral scream that tore through his throat was a feral sound, an ancient, animalistic roar that was both agonized and shrill enough to become a death knell for every living being in Linkon. In the world.

Sylus’ legs buckled as he caught the weight of her body. His knees hit the concrete, and his arms tightened around her as he laid her trembling form on the ground.

“No, no, no,” he growled, his voice cracking as he pressed his hands against the flickering, shattered aether core in her chest, desperate to stem the flow of blood.

Her face was scrunched up tight in excruciating pain, but she was still alive. He could work with that. He would. 

“Fuck. You’re okay, kitten, you’re okay,” he crooned. He ignored the blood dripping from his eye to her chest and tried linking his hands through hers, tried to get her to resonate with him, to activate either of their evols so he could at least attempt to—

But her hands were bloody and trembling and limp.

"It's okay, Sylus. It's... alright," she soothed, wincing. "There's no choice, if it's between you and me. No choice."

A half-growl, half-sob escaped him. “Yes, and that choice is always you. Now look at me so I can fix your mistake and figure out how to— no, you're not allowed to close your eyes."

He paused during his diatribe, noticing just how much of his blood and hers had pooled beneath them, just how pale her lips were getting.

“There’s no saving this, Sylus.” Her unfocused eyes met his, hand hovering in the air weakly to pull his face down and place a kiss on his forehead.

The familiarity of the feeling overwhelmed him, like a thousand cuts of grief all at once. His groan sounded like a whimper as he pulled back to grab her hand and press it into the ravaged side of his face.

"Jenna was wrong.... about your fate." She inhaled a ragged breath. "We just made sure of it. There's no going back now."

All he could do was shake his head and imprint her hand over his eye, cold reality starting to fall like ashes around him.

When grey wisps started to sprinkle her hair and rest against her eyelashes, he realized it was actual ash. To some, it might’ve been beautiful; to him, it was devastating. Their souls were separating again, except this time, she was the one leaving him.

"If I ever had a soul—" he exhaled a shaky breath, blinked past the wetness that blurred his good eye, "—just know that it was you."

"You'll always be tied to me, Sylus. Forever." Her breaths were faster, shallower.

Her cheek twitched up and her eyelashes fluttered as suddenly, weak little notes squeezed their way out of her chest. His hand tightened around hers as the familiar melody embraced him and finally made the chest-wracking emotions drip salty trails down his cheek.

As the final note of her requiem faded, there was a long silence.

He waited for her voice again, for more words, but when he pulled back her chest was a pool of crimson and her eyes were closed.

She was gone, and he was in agony.

Suffering had long created a hole in his blackened heart. But this pain was unlike anything he’d felt before. It enveloped him, suffocated him.

And that’s when he found it. That small pebble of rage beneath the mountain of anguish. 

He set her on the ground as gently as he could before getting up and sucked in a breath through his clenched teeth, focusing on the anger so he could escape his grief. 

He felt it latch onto faint, flickering traces of his evol and the two powers laced together like two lovers, moving through his body, his fingertips.

He almost felt drunk with it.

He didn't notice it at first, he was still fixated on his beloved's lifeless face, but there was a soft glow radiating from the shattered remnants of their aether cores.

Black-red mist twitched restlessly and began to stretch outward.

“The day of judgment is today. Everyone will pay for this,” said Sylus, his voice utterly calm. “The whole world will burn.”

[mostlysignssomeportents]

American education has all the downsides of standardization, none of the upsides

Catch me in Miami! I'll be at Books and Books in Coral Gables on Jan 22 at 8PM.

We moved to America in 2015, in time for my kid to start third grade. Now she's a year away from graduating high school (!) and I've had a front-row seat for the US K-12 system in a district rated as one of the best in the country. There were ups and downs, but high school has been a monster.

We're a decade and a half into the "common core" experiment in educational standardization. The majority of the country has now signed up to a standardized and rigid curriculum that treats overworked teachers as untrustworthy slackers who need to be disciplined by measuring their output through standard lessons and evaluations:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Core

This system is rigid enough, but it gets even worse at the secondary level, especially when combined with the Advanced Placement (AP) courses, which adds another layer of inflexible benchmarks to the highest-stakes, most anxiety-provoking classes in the system:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Placement

It is a system singularly lacking in grace. Ironically, this unforgiving system was sold as a way of correcting the injustice at the heart of the US public education system, which funds schools based on local taxation. That means that rich neighborhoods have better funded schools. Rather than equalizing public educational funding, the standardizers promised to ensure the quality of instruction at the worst-funded schools by measuring the educational outcomes with standard tools.

But the joke's on the middle-class families who backed standardized instruction over standardized funding. Their own kids need slack as much as anyone's, and a system that promises to put the nation's kids through the same benchmarks on the same timetable is bad for everyone:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/28/give-me-slack-2/

Undoing this is above my pay-grade. I've already got more causes to crusade on than I have time for. But there is a piece of tantalyzingly low-hanging fruit that is dangling right there, and even though I'm not gonna pick it, I can't get it out of my head, so I figured I'd write about it and hope I can lazyweb it into existence.

The thing is, there's a reason that standardization takes hold in so many domains. Agreeing on a common standard enables collaboration by many entities without any need for explicit agreements or coordination. The existence of the ANSI/SAE J563 standard automobile auxiliary power outlet (AKA "car cigarette lighter") didn't just allow many manufacturers to make replacement lighter plugs. The existence of a standardized receptacle delivering standardized voltage to standardized contacts let all kinds of gadgets be designed to fit in that socket.

Standards crystallize the space of all possible ways of solving a problem into a range of solutions. This inevitably has a downside, because the standardized range might not be optimal for all applications. Think of the EU's requirement for USB-C charger tips on all devices. There's a lot of reasons that manufacturers prefer different charger tips for different gadgets. Some of those reasons are bad (gouging you on replacement chargers), but some are good (unique form-factor, specific smart-charging needs). USB-C is a very flexible standard (indeed, it's so flexible that some people complain that it's not a standard at all!) but there are some applications where the optimal solution is outside its parameters.

And still, I think that the standardization on USB-C is a force for good. I have drawers full of gadgets that need proprietary charger tips, and other drawers full of chargers with proprietary tips, and damned if I can make half of them match up. We've continued our pandemic lockdown tradition of my wife cutting my hair in the back yard, and just tracking the three different charger tips for the three clippers she uses is an ongoing source of frustration. I'd happily trade slightly sub-optimal charging for just being able to plug any of those clippers into the same cable I charge my headphones, phone, tablet and laptop on.

The standardization of American education has produced all the downsides of standardization – a rigid, often suboptimal, one-size-fits-all system – without the benefits. With teachers across America teaching in lockstep, often from the same set texts (especially in the AP courses), there's a massive opportunity for a commons to go with the common core.

For example, the AP English and History classes my kid takes use standard texts that are often centuries old and hard to puzzle out. I watched my kid struggle with texts for learning about "persuasive rhetoric" like 17th century pamphlets that inspired anti-indigenous pogroms with fictional accounts of "Indian atrocities."

It's good for American schoolkids to learn about the use of these blood libels to excuse genocide, but these pamphlets are a slog. Even with glossaries in the textbooks, it's a slow, word-by-word matter to parse these out. I can't imagine anyone learning a single thing about how speech persuades people just by reading that text.

But there's nothing in the standardized curriculum that prevents teachers from adding more texts to the unit. We live in an unfortunate golden age for persuasive texts that inspire terrible deeds – for example, kids could also read core Pizzagate texts and connect the guy who shot up the pizza parlor to the racists who formed a 17th century lynchmob.

But teachers are incredibly time-constrained. For one thing, at least a third of the AP classroom time seems to be taken up with detailed instructions for writing stilted, stylized "essays" for the AP tests (these are terrible writing, but they're easy to grade in a standardized way).

That's where standardization could actually deliver some benefits. If just one teacher could produce some supplemental materials and accompanying curriculum, the existence of standards means that every other teacher could use it. What's more, any adaptations that teachers make to that unit to make them suited to their kids would also work for the other teachers in the USA. And because the instruction is so rigidly standardized, all of these materials could be keyed to metadata that precisely identified the units they belonged to.

The closest thing we have to this are "marketplaces" where teachers can sell each other their supplementary materials. As far as I can tell, the only people making real money from these marketplaces are the grifters who built them and convinced teachers to paywall the instructional materials that could otherwise form a commons.

Like I said, I've got a completely overfull plate, but if I found myself at loose ends, trying to find a project to devote the rest of my life to, I'd be pitching funders on building a national, open access portal to build an educational commons.

It may be a lot to expect teachers to master the intricacies of peer-based co-production tools like Git, but there's already a system like this that K-8 teachers across the country have mastered: Scratch. Scratch is a graphic programming environment for kids, and starting with 2019's Scratch 3.0, the primary way to access it is via an in-browser version that's hosted at scratch.mit.edu.

Scratch's online version is basically a kid- (and teacher-)friendly version of Github. Find a project you like, make a copy in your own workspace, and then mod it to suit your own needs. The system keeps track of the lineage of different projects and makes it easy for Scratch users to find, adapt, and share their own projects. The wild popularity of this system tells us that this model for a managed digital commons for an educational audience is eminently achievable.

So when students are being asked to study the rhythm of text by counting the numbers of words in the sentences of important speeches, they could supplement that very boring exercise by listening to and analyzing contemporary election speeches, or rap lyrics, or viral influencer videos. Different teachers could fork these units to swap in locally appropriate comparitors – and so could students!

Students could be given extra credit for identifying additional materials that slot into existing curricular projects – Tiktok videos, new chart-topping songs, passages from hot YA novels. These, too, could go into the commons.

This would enlist students in developing and thinking critically about their curriculum, whereas today, these activities are often off-limits to students. For example, my kid's math teachers don't hand back their quizzes after they're graded. The teachers only have one set of quizzes per unit, and letting the kids hold onto them would leak an answer-key for the next batch of test-takers.

I can't imagine learning math this way. "You got three questions wrong but I won't let you see them" is no way to help a student focus on the right areas to improve their understanding.

But there's no reason that math teachers in a commons built around the (unfortunately) rigid procession of concepts and testing couldn't generate procedural quizzes, specified with a simple programming language. These tests could even be automatically graded, and produce classroom stats on which concepts the whole class is struggling with. Each quiz would be different, but cover the same ground.

When I help my kid with her homework, we often find disorganized and scattered elements of this system – a teacher might post extensive notes on teaching a specific unit. A publisher might produce a classroom guide that connects a book to specific parts of the common core. But these are scattered across the web, and they aren't keyed to the specific, standard components of common core and AP.

This is a standardized system that is all costs, no benefits. It has no "architecture of participation" that lets teachers, students, parents, practitioners and even commercial publishers collaborate to produce a commons that all may share and improve upon.

In an ideal world, we'd get rid of standardization in education, pay teachers well, give them the additional time they needed to prepare exciting and relevant curriculum, and fund all our schools based on need, not parents' income.

But in the meanwhile, we could be making lemonade of out lemons. If we're going to have standardization, we should at least have the collaboration standards enable.

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/16/flexibility-in-the-margins/#a-commons

[simonbreeze]

Sea of Souls by Chris Wraight, is book 7 in the Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of Fire series.

Here is the 'back of the book':

'The mighty fleets of the Indomitus Crusade face terrors and dangers beyond imagining. As Guilliman’s crusade marches forth, bringing the Emperor’s light to thousands of worlds, Fleet Secundus is headed for the darkest dark: the Eye of Terror itself, where Secundus will execute a major offensive deep into the heart of the Archenemy.

Along with warriors of the Adepta Sororitas and the Adeptus Astartes, the Imperial Navy battle cruiser Judgement of the Void pushes deeper and deeper into contested space. But as their journey unfolds, the greater schemes of the Indomitus Crusade begin to descend into treachery and intrigue. And as the forces of Chaos close in, a battle for survival is about to unfold, one which has ramifications not just for Fleet Secundus, but for the future of the galaxy itself'.

Is it any good through? A big hell yes!

I really enjoyed reading Sea of Souls, at first I wasn't sure, but very quickly I found this is a brilliant story and addition to the Dawn of Fire series.

The story is set entirely on-board the Imperial ship, Judgement of the Void, and as with a few of the previous books in the Dawn of Fire series, doesn't continue the story with the main characters, there is a name drop or two, but that aside, this is very much its own thing. This was part of my apprehension at the start of the book, not advancing the main story and story arcs of the core characters of the series. However, this is a really good book, and as it turns out, unlike one or two of the other side step books in the series, (Wolftime for example) actually has an impact on the core story and characters.

Sea of Souls is generally a mix of big void battles, boarding actions and great action set pieces before slowly turning into a claustrophobic thriller and horror that gave me flashes of the movie, Event Horizon. This, with some compelling and endearing characters, and some solid writing by Chris Wraight delivers one of my favourite books in the Dawn of Fire series.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[datcloudboi]

List of Video Games Turning 20 Years Old in 2024

Alien Hominid (started off life as a Flash game and graduated to a real game.)

Army Men: Sarge's War (the sequel to the Sarge’s Heroes games, but this one was rated T for Teen and used realistic guns instead of plastic ones)

Astro Boy: Omega Factor (seriously, if you have a chance to play this, take it. This game is AMAZING)

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II

The Bard's Tale (the 2004 version with the guy who played Wesley in The Princess Bride)

Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings & the Lost Ocean (hey! That collection with this game and it's follow-up is out on the Switch now! Go get it!)

Blinx 2: Masters of Time and Space

Blood Will Tell: Tezuka Osamu's Dororo

BloodRayne 2

Boktai 2: Solar Boy Django (this GBA game had a special cartridge that required you to go outside into the sunlight to power up your character in game)

Breakdown

Bujingai: The Forsaken City (the game where you play as Gackt)

Burnout 3: Takedown

Call of Duty: United Offensive

Call of Duty: Finest Hour (a side story to the original Call of Duty, which came out the year before)

Capcom Fighting Evolution (the darkest of the dark age of fighting games)

Carmen Sandiego: The Secret of the Stolen Drums (a full-on adventure game where you play as the mascot of a series of edutainment games)

Champions of Norrath: Realms of EverQuest

The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (the rare movie-in game that's not only really good, but is actually better than the movie it's based on)

Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage + Spyro Orange: The Cortex Conspiracy

Crash Twinsanity (a childhood favorite)

Crimson Tears

Crusader Kings

Custom Robo (the first one in the series to release in North America)

Cy Girls

Dead Man's Hand

Dead or Alive Ultimate (remakes of Dead or Alive 1 and Dead or Alive 2)

Def Jam: Fight for NY (the vastly superior sequel to Vendetta)

Dog's Life

Doom 3 (the original version. Hope you've got a flashlight on you...)

Dragon Ball Z: Supersonic Warriors

Dragon Ball Z: Buu's Fury (the final game in the Legacy of Goku series)

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3

Drakengard (Yoko Taro's debut as a game director)

Driver 3

Evil Genius

Fable (another childhood favorite)

Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel (the last Fallout game made by Interplay before Bethesda acquired the IP.)

Far Cry (the very first one.)

Feel the Magic: XY/XX (a launch title for the Nintendo DS)

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (the only Final Fantasy game to release for the GameCube)

Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls (remakes of the first two mainline Final Fantasy games)

Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone

Front Mission 4

F-Zero: GP Legend (the last F-Zero game to release for almost 2 decades, until F-Zero 99 released in 2023.)

Galleon

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (the PS2 one. There was another version of SAC that released for the PSP a year later that is completely different.)

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon 2

Ghosthunter

Godzilla: Save the World

GoldenEye: Rogue Agent

Gradius V (the last mainline Gradius game)

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Grand Theft Auto Advance (yes, there was a GTA game on the GBA.)

Growlanser Generations

Guilty Gear Isuka

.hack//Quarantine

Half-Life 2

Halo 2

Hitman: Contracts (the third one)

Hot Shots Golf Fore! (yet another childhood favorite)

It's Mr. Pants (Rareware made this for the GBA after being acquired by Microsoft)

Jak 3

James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing

Katamari Damacy (the very first Katamari game)

Killzone (PlayStation's supposed "Halo killer".)

KOF: Maximum Impact

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories

Kirby & the Amazing Mirror

The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures

Lifeline (a microphone-based survival horror game for the PS2 by Konami.)

The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age (a turn-based RPG that uses the exact same battle system as Final Fantasy X.)

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth

Mario Golf: Advance Tour

Mario Party 6

Mario Pinball Land

Mario Power Tennis (not to be confused with "Mario Golf: Power Tour" for the GBA.)

Mario vs. Donkey Kong (the first one, which is getting a remake for the Switch in February!)

Maximo vs. Army of Zin

MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf

Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault

Mega Man: Battle Chip Challenge

Mega Man Battle Network 4: Red Sun/Blue Moon

Mega Man X: Command Mission

Mega Man Zero 3

Mega Man X8 (yeah, there was a lot of Mega Man stuff in 2004.)

Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes (a remake of the original Metal Gear Solid for the GameCube)

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (SNAAAAAKE EATERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR)

Metal Wolf Chaos (LET'S PARTYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY)

Metroid: Zero Mission (a remake of the original Metroid for the GBA.)

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

Monster Hunter (the very first one)

Mortal Kombat: Deception

Mushihimesama ((a bullet hell that you’ve probably seen a lot of if you search for “HARDEST GAME OF ALL TIME?????” on YouTube)

Myst IV: Revelation

Need for Speed: Underground 2

Ninja Gaiden (the reboot from the Dead or Alive devs)

The Nintendo DS

Onimusha 3: Demon Siege

Otogi 2: Immortal Warriors (an action-adventure hack & slash made by FromSoftware)

Painkiller

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (can you believe this is getting a remake this year??)

Phantom Brave

Pikmin 2

Pitfall: The Lost Expedition (the last game in an series that started all the back in 1982 on the Atari 2600)

Pokemon Colosseum

Pokemon FireRed/LeafGreen

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy

Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal (the 3rd one)

Red Dead Revolver (the predecessor to Red Dead Redemption.)

Resident Evil Outbreak

R-Type Final

Sacred

Samurai Warriors

Scaler

American McGee Presents: Scrapland

Second Sight

Serious Sam: Next Encounter

Shadow Hearts: Covenant

Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne (you know that “Featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series” meme you guys love so much? This is where that came from.)

Silent Hill 4: The Room

Siren (a spirital successor to Silent Hill from the same creative director)

Sly 2: Band of Thieves

Sonic Heroes

Sonic Battle (an arena fighter for the GBA.)

Sonic Advance 3

Spider-Man 2 ((based on the movie of the same name. The one with the really good web-slinging)

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow (the 2nd one)

Spyro: A Hero's Tail (the 5th one)

Star Ocean: Till the End of Time (the 3rd one)

Star Wars: Battlefront (the one that everyone liked)

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords

Steel Battalion: Line of Contact ((this, and the original Steel Battalion two years prior, used a special controller called the Mega-Jockey 9000, which had 44 buttons, two joysticks, a throttle handle, a radio channel dial, five switches, an eject button, and three foot pedals.)

Sudeki

The Suffering

Super Mario 64 DS

Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain (the 4th one)

Tales of Symphonia

Thief: Deadly Shadows (the 3rd one)

Tony Hawk's Underground 2

Total War: Rome

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

Viewtiful Joe 2

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War

X-Men Legends

[adventure-showdown]

What is the Best Doctor Who Story Ever Told?

Hello everybody and welcome to this, frankly ridiculously sized, tournament between not only every televised Doctor Who story, not only the spinoffs, not only a large number of minisodes, but over a 100 audios and dozens of other stories from other corners of the EU.

Now we will have to whittle over 600 stories down to jusst one, that is a lot of matches, a lot of rounds, just a lot, until very late in the game, rounds will be posted across several days. Right now the goal is to post (up to) new matches daily from Sunday to Thursday, with Friday's a day off for my own sake, which in my current plan places the final on the 18th of December (thats right, this'll be out of date before its even over, during round 2 in fact)

You can use this form to submit propaganda for your favourite stories (or anti propaganda for ones you hate). there is a more checkable list of nominations here if you want to know what you can submit propaganda for

without further ado

ROUND 1 (Group Stage)

earlier in the year I ran some polls between televised Doctor Who stories, the top 50% for each Doctor have automatically advanced to Round 2, which is why (a) there are stories missing, and (b) the groups between the remaing stories are a lot deadlier

Every day will have groups from across the Doctor Who Universe, from Classic Who, New Who, TV Spinoffs, and the EU

Day 6

Group 1

The Twin Dilemma

Attack of the Cybermen

The Two Doctors

Timelash

Mindwarp

The Ultimate Foe

Group 2

Time and the Rani

Paradise Towers

Delta and the Bannermen

Dragonfire

Silver Nemesis

The Greatest Show in the Galaxy

Group 3

The Tsuranga Conundrum

The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos

Praxeus

Can You Hear Me?

Flux

Legend of the Sea Devils

Group 4

The Ghost Monument

Arachnids in the UK

Kerblam!

Orphan 55

Ascension of the Cybermen/The Timeless Children

Revolution of the Daleks

Once, Upon Time

Survivors of the Flux

The Vanquishers

Group 5

Mutant Copper

The Custodians

Taphony of the Time Loop

Robot Gladiators

Mind Snap/Angel of the North/The Last Precinct/Hound of the Korven/The Eclipse of the Korven

Group 6

For Tonight We Might Die

The Coach with the Dragon Tattoo

Nightvisiting

Co-Owner of a Lonely Heart/Brave-ish Heart

Detained

The Metaphysical Engine or What Quill Did

The Lost

Group 7

The Last Beacon

Serenity

Rhys and Ianto's Excellent Barbecue

A Spoonful of Mayhem

The Lumiat

Too Many Masters

Group 8

Expiry Dating

Ghosts

The Cars that Ate London!

A Photograph to Remember

Psychodrome

Iterations of I

Group 9

Living Legend

The Martian Invasion of Planetoid 50

The Bekdel Test

Oh No It Isn't

The Eleven Day Empire/The Shadow Play

Smoke and Mirrors

Group 10

Dooms Day hour 1

An Adventure in Space and Time

Shada (1992) version with linking narration from Tom Baker

Shada animated reconstruction

Return to Shada webcast with 8

Group 11

Dreamland

Real Time

Scream of the Shalka

The Infinite Quest

Ronald Rat continuity announcement

The Man from M.I.5

Group 12

Dr Who and the Daleks

Dalek's Invasion of Earth 2150AD

Doctor in Distress

Doctorin' the TARDIS

I'm gonna Spend my Christmas with a Dalek

previous days under the cut

Day 1

Group 1

The Sensorites

Planet of Giants

The Web Planet

The Crusade

Mission to the Unknown

The Massacre

The Celestial Toymaker

The Savages

Group 2

Marco Polo

Galaxy 4

The Myth Makers

The Ark

The Gunfighters

The Smugglers

Group 3

The Underwater Menace

The Ice Warriors

The Dominators

The Krotons

The Seeds of Death

Group 4

The End of the World

The Unquiet Dead

Aliens of London/World War Three

The Long Game

Boom Town

Group 5

The Christmas Invasion

Love and Monsters

Gridlock

Voyage of the Damned

Planet of the Dead

Group 6

Invasion of the Bane

Revenge of the Slitheen

Eye of the Gorgon

Warriors of Kudlak

Whatever Happened to Sarah-Jane

The Lost Boy

Group 7

The Last Sontaran

The Day of the Clown

Secrets of the Stars

The Mark of the Berserker

The Temptation of the Sarah-Jane Smith

Enemy of the Bane

Group 8

Prisoner of the Judoon

The Mad Woman in the Attic

The Wedding of Sarah-Jane Smith

The Eternity Trap

Mona Lisa's Revenge

Group 9

The Marian Conspiracy

The Apocalyspe Element

The Shadow of the Scourge

The Holy Terror

Storm Warning

Group 10

Minuet in Hell

Loups-Garoux

The Chimes of Midnight

Seasons of Fear

The Time of the Daleks

Group 11

Jubilee

Neverland

Spare Parts

Creatures of Beauty

Doctor Who and the Pirates

Group 12

Omega

Master

Zagreus

Scherzo

The Natural History of Fear

Group 13

The Room With All the Doors

Grey Matter

Lepidoptery for Beginners

Something Borrowed

Nothing at the End of the Lane

Group 14

Divided Loyalties

Fear of the Dark

Fear Itself

12 Doctors, 12 Stories

Scratchman

The Stranger

Group 15

Vampire Science

Alien Bodies

Seeing I

The Scarlet Empress

Unnatural History

Interference

Group 16

The Blue Angel

The Burning

The Turing Test

The Year of Intelligent Tigers

The City of the Dead

The Adventuress of Henrietta Street

Day 2

Group 1

The Highlanders

The Faceless Ones

The Abominable Snowmen

The Wheel in Space

The Space Pirates

Group 2

Ambassadors of Death

Colony in Space

Day of the Daleks

The Time Monster

Frontier in Space

Death to the Daleks

Group 3

Doctor Who and the Silurians

The Claws of Axos

The Mutants

Planet of the Daleks

The Monster of Peladon

Planet of Spiders

Group 4

New Earth

Tooth and Claw

The Girl in the Fireplace

Fear Her

The Shakespeare Code

Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks

The Lazarus Experiment

The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky

Group 5

Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel

The Idiot's Lantern

42

The Doctor's Daughter

The Next Doctor

Group 6

The Gift

The Nightmare Man

The Vault of Secrets

Death of the Doctor

The Empty Planet

Group 7

Lost in Time

Goodbye, Sarah-Jane Smith

Sky

The Curse of Clyde Langer

The Man Who Never Was

Group 8

Everything Changes

Day One

Ghost Machine

Cyberwoman

Small Worlds

Group 9

Arrangements for War

The Harvest

Faith Stealer

Caerdroia

Terror Firma

Group 10

Singularity

Other Lives

The Kingmaker

The Girl Who Never Was

The Condemned

The Doomwood Curse

Group 11

The Magic Mousetrap TIE

The Company of Friends: Benny's Story

The Company of Friends: Fitz's Story

The Company of Friends: Izzy's Story

The Company of Friends: Mary's Story TIE

A Death in the Family

Group 12

Robophobia

The Silver Turk

1963: The Assassination Games

The Widow's Assassin

Dalek Soul

The Grey Man of the Mountain

Group 13

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

Anachrophobia

The Book of the Still

The Crooked World

Camera Obscura

The Gallifrey Chronicles

Group 14

The Left-Handed Hummingbird

Human Nature

Lungbarrow

The Blood Cell

Engines of War

Group 15

The Book of War

This Town Will Never Let Us Go

Of the City of the Saved

Doctor Who and Shada (fan novelisation)

Harvest of Time

Group 16

The Star Beast

Voyager

The World Shapers

Ground Zero

The Flood

Day 3

Group 1

Robot

Revenge of the Cybermen

The Android Invasion

The Sunmakers

Meglos

Group 2

The Brain of Morbius

Image of the Fendahl

The Power of Kroll

The Creature from the Pit

Nightmare of Eden

Group 3

Victory of the Daleks

The Curse of the Black Spot

Closing Time

Asylum of the Daleks

The Bells of Saint John

Name of the Doctor

Group 4

The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood

Night Terrors

The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship

A Town Called Mercy

Hide

Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS

The Crimson Horror

Group 5

Countrycide

Greeks Bearing Gifts

They Keep Killing Suzie

Random Shoes

Out of Time

Group 6

Combat

Captain Jack Harkness

End of Days

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

Sleeper

To the Last Man

Group 7

Meat

Adam

Reset

Dead Man Walking

A Day in the Death

Something Borrowed

Group 8

The Blood of the Daleks

Horror of Glam Rock

Immortal Beloved

Phobos

No More Lies

Group 9

Human Resources

To the Death

The Eleven

The Red Lady

The Galileo Trap

Group 10

The Gift

The Sonomancer

Absent Friends

The Eighth Piece

The Doomsday Chronometer

Group 11

The Crucible of Souls

Ship in a Bottle

Songs of Love

The Side of the Angels

Stop the Clock

Group 12

The Fallen

The Land of Happy Endings

Old Friends

Space in Dimension Relative and Time

Time in Reverse

Group 13

The Zero Imperative

The Devil of Winterborne

Unnatural Selection

Ghosts of Winterborne

When to Die

Group 14

Summoned by Shadows

More Than a Messiah

In Memory Alone

The Terror game

Breach of the Peace

Eye of the Beholder

Day 4

Group 1

Planet of Evil

The Invisible Enemy

The Invasion of Time

The Armageddon Factor

Destiny of the Daleks

Group 2

The Sontaran Experiment

The Masque of Mandragora

The Talons of Weng-Chiang

Underworld

The Leisure Hive

Full Circle

Group 3

The Lodger

The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People

Let's Kill Hitler

Cold War

Nightmare in Silver

Group 4

Into the Dalek

Robot of Sherwood

Kill the Moon

The Pyramid at the End of the World

The Eaters of light

Group 5

From Out of the Rain

Adrift

Fragments

Exit WOunds

Children of Earth

Miracle Day

Group 6

K9 and Company

Regeneration/Liberation/The Korven

The Bounty Hunter

Sirens of Ceres

Fear Itself

The Fall of the House of Gryffen

Group 7

Escape from Kaldor

Better Watch Out/Fairytale in Salzburg

Companion Piece

Day of the Master

Paradox of the Daleks

Inside Every Warrior

Group 8

Stranded

UNIT Dating

Here Lies Drax

The Love Vampires

Albie's Angels

Group 9

Solitaire

Peri and the Piscon Paradox TIE

The Cold Equations TIE

The Last Post

The Scorchies

Nightshade

Group 10

Death and the Queen

The Sword of the Chevalier

No Place

The Creeping Death

Out of Time (individual story)

Wink

Group 11

Wartime

Zygon: When Being You Just Isn't Enough

Downtime

Sil and the Seeds of Andor

Group 12

Wall's Sky Ray lollies advert

Merry Christmas Doctor Who

Step into the 80s/On Through the 80s

A Fix With Sontarans

Dalek Weetabix advert

Famin Appeal 1985

Group 13

The Shrink

Search Out Space

Dimensions in Time

Emperor of the Daleks

The Curse of Fatal Death

Day 5

Group 1

Four to Doomsday

Terminus

Warriors of the Deep

The Awakening

Resurrection of the Daleks

Group 2

The Visitation

Black Orchid

Time-Flight

Arc of Infinity

The King's Demons

Group 3

Listen

The Girl Who Died

Sleep No More

Knock Knock

The Lie of the Land

The Empress of Mars

Group 4

The Caretaker

In the Forest of the Night

Last Christmas

The Woman Who Lived

The Return of Doctor Mysterio

Twice Upon a Time

Group 5

The Jaws of Orthrus

Dream-Eaters

Curse of Anubis

Oroborus

Alien Avatar

Group 6

The Aeolian

The Last Oak Tree

Black Hunger

The Cambridge Spy

Lost Library of Ukko

Group 7

Square One

First Days of Phaidon

Gallifrey IV

Warfare

Unity

Group 8

The Queen of Time

Paradise 5

The Elite

I am the Master

Forever Fallen

A Full Life

Group 9

The Fifth Citadel

The Forgotten Villafe

Peshka

The Concrete Cage TIE

Troubled Waters TIE

The Hollow King

Group 10

Born Again

Tardisodes

Time Crash

Space/Time

The Naked Truth

Night and the Doctor

Group 11

Pond Life

P.S.

The Great Detective

The Bells of Saint John: A prequel

The Battle of Demons Run: Two Days Later

Clara and the TARDIS

Group 12

Rain Gods

Night of the Doctor

The Last Day

The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot

The Doctor's Meditation

Farewell Sarah-Jane

[avelera]

10. Worst part of fanon(sorry if this has been asked before)

I think there’s a general trend in fanon where all the sharp edges and unique features of the character get scrubbed off in the sort of general jostling of characters bouncing between people’s various headcanons and personal lived experience and art styles.

That's one reason I try to keep an eye out on things Hob (or Dream) does that I wouldn’t, because for me therein lies what I find most interesting about the character. I think, for example, that it's natural for a normal person to imagine immortality and losing everyone they love periodically and the stresses of constantly reinventing yourself and be horrified! To feel the tragedy of that preemptively and imagine that an immortal existence would be filled with sorrow. Indeed, that is exactly what Dream thinks when he accepts the wager with Death in the first place.

Except Hob constantly surprises him. Hob as a character is specifically the anti-standard immortal. He doesn't feel those sorrows, or at least he doesn't wallow in them, yet he doesn't detach either, he still feels deeply about those he lost. He still goes out there and dates and marries regularly in the comic, he doesn't shy away from those experiences, and it never dims his fervor to live. That's really hard to imagine! That's what makes him so interesting! He doesn't do what we would expect.

(Even more controversial takes under the cut)

There is also a tendency to make the characters more... in line with the values and worldview of a good portion of the fandom, which is often young (under ~40, but 20-something is a more common median), usually but not exclusively female-presenting, politically progressive, tolerant (or at least aspirationally so), heavily engaged with stories and media and things like mythology (especially in the Sandman fandom), openly queer, concerned with social justice, and in general concerned with trying to be a nice person.

This personality profile is often where I see Hob and Dream's characterization drifting over time. And by the way, this is not unique to Sandman, it's pretty much par for the course in every fandom and it's totally natural that writers would drift towards their own lived experience when depicting characters.

For my own part though, I prefer writing characters who aren't me. I'm bored by me. I live me every day. I want to write characters who do things that I wouldn't do.

For example, I find Hob more interesting to write when he's not a mythology buff like I am. I don't think Hob is overly concerned with social justice until 1789 and even then, I don't think he became a crusader on the behalf of human social advancement. I find it more interesting if he's been a businessman through the ages more often than he was a soldier or anything more artistically inclined, because we see evidence of it on the page and because it's not what I would have done and I like to explore the mindset that leads to that choice.

And along these lines with regards to Dream, there's a personal...eh, to call it problem or even a squick would be too strong a word. "Difference of opinion" shall we say of a trend I've seen lately, which is Dream's gender fluidity and even the prevalence of him taking the more feminine role lately (thankfully, Hob and Dream seem for the most part balanced in which of them the fandom decides to depict in a more stereotypically feminine way from one creator to the next, even if I personally prefer to keep them both as masculine as is possible for my lived experience, it's not like Bagginshield where it was a 90/10 split on Bilbo being the one always feminized). I think this too arises out of the large percentage of queer writers in this space and it makes perfect sense to me.

However, personally, I see Dream as male. Which is funny considering I think I wrote one of the earlier "Fem" Dream fics with "Come live with me" but I vociferously stick to male pronouns for Dream in that fic even when he must present as female. Presenting as female is a source of difficulty for Dream in that story, he is not comfortable with it and would not do it if not for the requirements of the wager.

That said, in my fic Dream frequently presents with female sexual characteristics, like having breasts or a vagina or stereotypically "feminine" facial features. That's because, in my opinion, those things have nothing to do with whether Dream is male. I don't switch to female pronouns even when Dream is presenting as female, except when it is needed for the ruse, because having a cock or a pussy should have nothing to do with being male.

Dream is apathetic towards sexual organs, in my mind, but he has chosen to identify as male. (Edit: and just to be clear, I'm not saying gender as in "Gender is a choice" I'm saying this more along the lines of "right to self knowledge" which - Dream has determined himself to be male, therefore he is, and that deserves to be acknowledged and accepted without argument because it is his decision and his existence and no one else's) I think there's been a move in Sandman fanon towards saying that because the Endless should see gender as beneath them because they're eldritch, all-powerful beings, that they do. I actually find that much less interesting because it's so expected. I find it much more interesting that theoretically genderless beings choose to define their gender or lack of gender. If in our society someone can choose not to have gender define them, I think it is equally relevant to allow technically genderless beings choose the opposite, and I find it much more interesting if Dream chooses to be male and that, therefore, he is male.

Even in the scene in Overture when we meet all the different aspects of Dream, we have something like a 99-to-1 ratio of male-presenting (as far as we can tell) to female presenting Dream's in that milieu. And I find that intriguing. On the one hand, we could take that to mean that internally Dream is very male, but only has a 1% portion of him that defines herself as female. But I would go so far as to take it a step further and say if I was writing that version of fem Dream from Overture, I'd still have him use male pronouns, because appearing as female or having a stereotypically female appearance has nothing to do, in his mind, with who he is at his core. The Dreaming might be genderless, but I find it much more interesting and thematically relevant in Dream's struggle to find or resist his own personhood within his function if he has a strong sense of his own gender that is immutable across whatever form he takes, which is at odds with his function as the Dreaming not having a gender. It lends to the idea that Dream isn't just a function if he has a gender he has chosen. It lends to the theme of his independent personhood, which I find more interesting to explore.

And that's not necessarily a thing fanon gets "wrong" by the way, except insofar as I would point out that on the page, in the show and the comic, Dream isn't fluid. Of the Endless, only Desire is fluid in their presentation, the others present as male or female in contrast with Desire's identity. It's an intriguing fanon to say that all the Endless are fluid but it's not canon, it's not on the page, and for my own part, since I don't identify as male, I find it much more interesting to write Dream's experience as male, even when he has, for example, sexual organs I find more familiar.

[fibula-rasa]

Favorite New-to-me Films—June ‘24

(listed in order pictured above, L to R)

READ on BELOW the JUMP!

The White Moth (1924)

[letterboxd | imdb]

Synopsis: Mona (Barbara La Marr), an American girl in Paris, attempts to throw herself into the Seine. She is rescued by the famous dancer Gonzalo Montrez (Charles de Rochefort), who gives her a job in his new act, where she will dance as The White Moth. Mona is a massive success and attracts the attention of the young, handsome, and wealthy Doug Morley (Ben Lyon). Unfortunately, Doug is already engaged to a society girl. As a solution, Doug’s brother, Vantine (Conway Tearle), whisks Mona away and marries her himself. Vantine is a cynical middle-aged bachelor and fails to see that Mona is genuinely in love with him. Hard feelings ensue.

The White Moth is an engaging and outrageous melodrama. I’ve become a big fan of Barbara La Marr over the years and this film illustrates her strong talent for pantomime. La Marr’s life and career were tragically short, and I wish she had had the chance to do more comedy. Aside from La Marr, a highlight of The White Moth is Mona’s rival, played by Josie Sedgwick. To my knowledge this is the first movie I’ve ever seen her in, but Sedgwick matches La Marr’s energy perfectly and the movie could only have been improved if they had shared more screen time!

——— ——— ———

Ritual Clowns (1988)

[letterboxd]

This short documentary by artist and filmmaker Victor Masayesva Jr. focuses on the traditional roles of Hopi clowns. Ritual Clowns is richly interwoven conversation about indigenous knowledge and colonizer “knowledge.” Masayesva’s layer cake of video footage, graphic art, animation, music, and voice-over is inventive, educative, and entertaining. I’m really looking forward to watching/reading more of Masayesva’s work! 

——— ——— ———

Trip to Mars (1924)

[letterboxd | imdb]

Synopsis: Max plans on sending Ko-Ko off to Mars and Ko-Ko is less than enthused. Ko-ko plots his revenge in advance and so both Ko-Ko and Max end up hurtling through space.

Whenever I recommend an “Out of the Inkwell” short in these round-ups, I’m never sure how hard of a sell is needed! In my experience, Fleischer cartoons are usually crowd-pleasers (even in the 2020s) and the OOTI shorts rarely disappoint. Anyway, Max and Ko-Ko riding back to earth together was adorable.

——— ——— ———

Righting Wrongs / 執法先鋒 (1986)

[letterboxd | imdb]

Synopsis: A crusading lawyer (Yuen Biao) turns vigilante and uncovers a troublingly deep collusion between organized crime and the criminal justice system in Hong Kong. A dedicated cop (Cynthia Rothrock) earnestly trying to do her job, discovers the lawyer’s double life and has to confront the corruption of the system she believes in.

Honestly, no short synopsis can capture how much goes on in Righting Wrongs. Corey Yuen and crew do not shy away from how serious the premise is and the film has a lot of gravity while also managing to be a stunt bonanza. So, while I do recommend this one, it’s with the caveat that Righting Wrongs has a high body count (including children). 

This may be the best performance I’ve seen from Rothrock yet. It’s so frustrating that she hasn’t been given this quality of material here in the US!

——— ——— ———

Winners & Sinners (1983)

[letterboxd | imdb]

Synopsis: Teapot, Curly, Rookie, Vaseline, and Exhaust Pipe are a gaggle of petty criminals who become friends while serving time. Upon release, they go into business together as The 5 Star Cleaning Service. Despite their best efforts at keeping their respective noses clean, they get dragged into a counterfeiting operation that’s gone south and link up with a cop who was clearly born under an unlucky star (Jackie Chan). 

The crew assembled around Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan in the 1980s was unparalleled. 

Winners & Sinners is predominantly a comedy with some martial arts (and Jackie Chan rollerblading) thrown in as a treat. The balance of action and comedy is perfect here. Jackie Chan’s role in the film isn’t really crucial, though the execution of misfortune dogging his every step is entertaining enough that you’re not left questioning his inclusion. 

All around Winners & Sinners was such a fun watch! We caught the dubbed version on tubi. (The dub is genuinely good and funny!) Fair warning tho: a tiny turtle meets a gruesome end about halfway through the movie.

——— ——— ———

Sun, Moon, and Feather (1989)

[youtube| spiderwoman theater]

Synopsis: Three sisters from Red Hook, Brooklyn take us on a journey through their Kuna/Rappahannock family history. Lisa, Gloria, and Muriel playfully mix up musical numbers, miniatures, and home movies with their recollections of their upbringing. 

I absolutely adored this and I’m so grateful that one of the video’s directors, Bob Rosen, uploaded it to his youtube (linked above)! Muriel, Gloria, and Lisa (a.k.a. Sun, Moon, and Feather) are the founders of The Spiderwoman Theater and, seeing as theatrical performance is a transient art, it’s a wonderful thing that the sisters worked with Rosen and Jane Zipp to thoughtfully translate their work to video form. Watching this video really felt like a condensed/sublimated succession of weekend afternoons spent with your favorite aunties. 

——— ——— ———

Three Women (1924)

[letterboxd | imdb]

Synopsis: Debt-ridden society climber Edmund Lamont (Lew Cody) finds his next mark in the ultra-wealthy Mabel Wilton (Pauline Frederick). Mabel, superficial and sensitive about the onset of her middle-age, falls for the cad. Her daughter Jeanne (May McAvoy) is away at school in California, where she has a devoted admirer in med student Fred Armstrong (Pierre Gendron). Jeanne arrives in New York on a surprise visit to her mother. This displeases Mabel, who is preoccupied with chasing youth and her new lover. However, when Lamont meets Jeanne, he begins pursuing her on the side. When the women find out about the two-timing, Mabel consents to Jeanne and Lamont’s marriage. It doesn’t take long, of course, for Lamont to start seeing another woman, Harriet (Marie Prevost). Lamont’s betrayal comes to light just as Fred has arrived back in town to find his girlfriend married to another man. All this culminates in a violent end for Lamont.

I mentioned this in the latest installment of Lost, but Not Forgotten,* but I took time this month to correct my lack of exposure to Pauline Frederick’s surviving films and became an instant devotee of her work. Frederick is fantastic in Three Women and, perhaps if the film was stronger overall, her performance would be commemorated as one of the great moms of film drama (up there with Stella Dallas and Mildred Pierce). Having said that, you can probably gather that this film doesn’t match Ernst Lubitsch’s best work, but Three Women is still a quality film and has its share of “Lubitsch touch” hallmarks. 

Pierre Gendron and May McAvoy come off as very sweet and genuine and Marie Prevost decidedly does not. Prevost is so delightful when she plays a jerk and it did seem a little awkward how minor of a character Prevost’s Harriet is. However, Prevost gets way more time as a rascal in Lubitsch’s The Marriage Circle (1924), which I made gif/still sets a few months ago. 

*The LbNF film was Two Kinds of Women (‘22), this film is Three Women (‘24) and in 1920 Pauline Frederick starred in a film called The Woman in Room 13. Which means that I must announce, with great regret, that Frederick did not make a film in 1926 called “These Women Four”, but by the laws of inflationary language she should have.

——— ——— ———

Smouldering Fires (1925)

[letterboxd | imdb]

Synopsis: Jane Vale (Pauline Frederick) has dedicated her life to running the company she inherited from her father. This dedication has paid dividends, though she still faces disrespect from employees with regressive ideas about gender. When one of her employees, Robert (Malcolm MacGregor), challenges her and criticises her management, to everyone’s surprise, she promotes him. The two work closely and productively together and strong feelings emerge—leading them to a hasty wedding. When Jane’s younger sister Dorothy (Laura La Plante) arrives for a visit, an immediate attraction develops between her and Robert, which leaves them both deeply uncomfortable. They try to bury their feelings out of respect for Jane, but eventually Jane sees the truth. Understanding that Robert married her more out of duty and dedication than love, Jane puts on a tragic charade to allow for the dissolution of their marriage and a guilt-free union for Robert and Dorothy.

This was my favorite of the three Pauline Frederick movies I watched this month, though her work is praiseworthy in all of them. In Smouldering Fires, Frederick is the beating heart of the film. Her character explores more of what life has to offer after devoting most of her life to work, then suffers immaculately out of love for her husband and sister. That emotional journey is rendered with heartbreaking sophistication by Frederick. I now totally get why Frederick was so beloved in the 1910s/20s and my disappointment that more of her films haven’t survived is endless. Peak cinema was and still is the transcendent suffering of a woman in her late thirties. (This is only partly an overstatement.)

——— ——— ———

Cinema Fouad (1993)

[letterboxd]

Synopsis: A short documentary profile of Oscar, a Syrian trans woman living in Beirut. She muses over her complicated life as a domestic worker/dancer/soldier and her relationship to cinema and media while going through her day-to-day activities. 

Despite the filmmakers being overbearing and intrusive at times, the portrait of Oscar really shines through. She is such a compelling personality and I’m so glad this film exists!

——— ——— ———

Cross of Love / Rakkauden risti (1946)

[letterboxd | imdb]

Synopsis: One stormy night, a man is washed up on an island with a lighthouse. A raving old man (Oscar Tengström) tries to shoot him, but he’s saved by the young keeper. Later, the keeper tells the old man’s story to the rescued man.  Years ago, the old man was the keeper of the lighthouse—living in isolation with his daughter, Riita (Regina Linnanheimo). A wealthy consul (Ville Salminen) drifted to the island after boat trouble and Riita was quickly smitten. The consul convinced her to leave the island with him, in spite of her father’s disapproval. Once in the city, the consul revealed his true colors and assaulted Riita. Feeling that she could not return to her father and with nowhere else to go, Riita began working as a prostitute. After a chance meeting with a promising young artist, Henrik (Rauli Tuomi), Riita became his model and muse. They fell in love and Henrik’s career as a painter was about to pop off. Unfortunately, Riita’s father arrived unexpectedly, leading Riita and the consul to stage a fake wedding to comfort the old man. When Henrik found Riita at the consul’s apartment and learned that she was once a prostitute, he viciously rejected her. Her father sailed back to the lighthouse, happy that his daughter was living a legitimate life. Riita, inconsolable after the loss of Henrik, took her own life.  Returning to the present, we now know the rescued man is none other than Henrik and that the old man has been driven mad at the loss of his daughter.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Tulio don’t miss. Wondering as I watch more Tulio-Linnanheimo collaborations if I will ever get to one where Linnanheimo’s character survives the film?

——— ——— ———

As always, if any of these films catch your eye, but you need specific trigger/content warnings, don’t hesitate to ask for them!

——— ——— ———

Last month, I complained about my relatively poor luck in new-to-me movies, but this month more than made up for it and it was hard to narrow this list down! Therefore, I have a few honorable mentions:

One Wet Night (1924) [letterboxd | imdb] Funny short that could have used Alice Howell more effectively

Musical Memories (1935) [letterboxd | imdb | UCLA’s youtube] UCLA made a new restoration of this Fleischer-animated jukeboxy musical short and it looks great. I love seeing Max Fleischer’s technological innovations in all their glory!

The Magic Crystal (1986) [letterboxd | imdb] An absolutely off-the-wall action-adventure-family-comedy about ancient aliens in Greece and a little boy vacationing from Hong Kong who befriends one of them. Honestly, the more I think back on this wacky film, the more I appreciate it. Special marks for the battle-ready mom who doesn’t want you to interrupt her stories.

——— ——— ———

This month was a struggle, but I’m happy to report that my Salomé cosplay is very close to completion and it will definitely be photographed/written up/posted soon! Making this wig from scratch has been a series of challenges (not limited my inflamed finger joints) so I’m glad that all that detailed handiwork is just about finished!

——— ——— ———

Earlier in the post I mentioned that the most recent installment of Lost, but Not Forgotten went up:

Two Kinds of Women (1922)

——— ——— ———

After finishing the great Unthinking Eurocentrism by Ella Shohat and Robert Stam, I constructed an annotated list of films mentioned in the book as a reference for myself and anyone else who might find it useful.

It’s both on letterboxd and on imdb.

——— ——— ———

And I also put together a little post about the Audibert process, exemplified with stills & gifs from Maurice Audibert’s experimental film Étude de la lumière (1923)

[All Audibert gifs/stills here]

——— ——— ———

The other themed gif/still sets I put together this month include:

They Came to a City (1944)

[which I talked about in my April ‘24 round-up]

Desert Hearts (1985)

Intohimon vallassa (1947)

[which I talked about in my March ‘24 round-up]

The White Moth (1924)

——— ——— ———

I’ve already got some gif and still sets arranged for July, but this month I’ll mostly be focusing on finally finishing the Salomé cosplay!

Happy viewing!

☕Appreciate my work? Buy me a coffee! ☕

[gear-project]

Is it safe to say that officially, Asuka is the first and currently the only Guilty Gear character who be able to survive and breathe in outer space? The fact that he is on the moon away from Earth is impressive without a space suit, not surprising but still impressive.

To clarify, the Project Tír na nÓg is a Space Colony built ON the Moon that was built back during the Crusades as a sort of base to house the White House in case of emergency.

Tír na nÓg means "Land of the Young" in Irish, and is the Celtic equivalent of a Netherworld or Otherworld (for Deities and the Dead).

While it's true that Asuka can transport himself to and from Outer Space (and even to the Backyard's Dense Space), he still needs "artificial space" to breathe oxygen, though it is the Magic equivalent of a Space Suit, made primarily of dense mana.

The Cube he created back in 2186 (GG2 Overture's events) was just one of many experiments involving testing the viability of the Backyard's space, not just for storing information or Magic, but also a personal living space for Asuka in times where he needed to be somewhere that wasn't Earth.

In fact that's where he invited Axl Low at one point.

Unlike the Cube or other Artificial spaces, though, Tír na nÓg itself was built using more conventional Scientific ideas: a garden to house space-grown crops, a library and database for storing information, and even an observatory with a telescope.

Originally the Space Colony was built to house at least 500 people, though because of the Crusades, many people forgot it even existed (even Erica Bartholomew thought it was a myth), despite the fact it has such advanced facilities. So in a sense it is still classified as "Blacktech" a forgotten War Relic from times when Mankind still used advanced technology despite the threat of the Universal Will.

According to Zato and Millia's P.W.A.B. Intel, the Conclave were partly responsible for its construction, though the construction itself was registered under the United Kingdoms of Illyria, despite being a centuries-old American Military Secret (strangely enough, Illyria is credited for the Colony's construction, even though Illyria as a Nation itself did not become officially established until 2183, nearly 100 years after the base and White House were built).

Despite still being considered a Blacktech War Relic, Asuka uses it as a Bastion of Defense to protect himself and the Tome of Origin from falling in to the hands of others for their own personal gain.

Though it is still somewhat unclear how the United States Government is interpreting and allowing his use of the space colony, at the very least they've established that he has no intentions of using it for any bad purposes (given the intentions he laid out in his presentation at the G4 Summit).

As a side note, this isn't the first time Space Technology was built during the Crusades, as the Mothership (a Gear Terraforming Project) was built and destroyed some time ago as well (GGXtra's events).

[ask-the-all-consuming-void]

Bio and Timeline

[This post was last updated on April 27th, 2024.]

Key

Blue + Underlined — Links to canonical sources (Ex. cutscenes, developer commentary, Sonic Wiki Zone articles).

Purple + Underlined — Links to posts on this blog. These commonly regard info that is only canonical to this blog, not to official Sonic media.

[LOADING...] — This segment is still being written. Check back later!

[DATA CORRUPT] — This segment regards something The End hasn't revealed yet. Perhaps if you ask Them the right question...?

Bio

The End (any pronouns, hereafter They/Them) is an extradimensional entity older than time and space. They can best be likened to a black hole: not quite an existing something, but a violent nothing threatening to swallow everything around it.

To Them, existence is pointless at best and an agonizing act of futility at worst. Why bother with such chaos? Their solution: to eradicate everything until an empty, silent, unchanging order remains. (This makes Them very unpopular with living things, but surely the poor things just don’t know any better.)

Their consciousness resides in the gaps between the Sonic multiverse. They must take physical form within a universe before They can destroy it. This form’s appearance depends on the viewer’s perception of death itself; the most common perception among Earthlings is a purple moon, possibly due to our Moon symbolizing death in many cultures.

Timeline

|||| The Beginning ||||

Once upon a time, Nothing existed. That Nothing slept peacefully, content with the silence.

Their first memory was of a boredom not Their own. Just as They noticed it... the Big Bang happened.

Time began, space was formed, light and sound and matter and life came to be. Near-instantly the universe churned, cooled, and split off into more universes.

Nothing awoke. They were shrinking, rapidly being crowded out by everything. They found Themself on the outskirts of all creation, on the outside looking in.

Another being may have regarded this display with awe. Nothing saw only a mess. They couldn't go back to sleep—not with this constant chaos disturbing Them.

They vowed to destroy it—all of it—and restore the perfect, silent order They once knew.

And so, The End got to work.

|||| Before Frontiers ||||

Through trial and error, The End learned how to destroy universes (or "consume worlds," as They put it). Over millennia, They perfected a routine. First They had to manifest physically within that world, which took Them time and effort. Once incarnated, They would pierce stars and planets, prioritizing ones that harbored life. Some worlds collapsed after losing a single planet; others held strong until all their contents were atomized. Either way, They'd drag the remains into the void between universes—Their truest form—where they'd cease to exist.

The End began Their crusade at the far edges of the multiverse. The worlds there were quick to fall, but [DATA CORRUPT].

The Ancients had been [DATA CORRUPT].

Their smartest tribe built spaceships powered by the greatest force they knew. They were the first in all creation to witness The End consume... and live.

Angry at having missed Their target, They followed them to their new home planet. Even with advanced technology and ample time to prepare, the Ancients were hopelessly outmatched. In a last-ditch effort, they managed to seal The End within their two greatest creations: first Supreme, their latest mech model; then Cyber Space, a digital dimension made to store records and memories. They left everything running on minimal power, abandoned it, and soon died out; taking all knowledge of the horror they'd subdued with them.

Tens of thousands of years passed. Civilizations rose, fought, and fell. The Chaos Emeralds were lost, sealed, and unearthed. New digital databases were invented; Cyber Space clumsily copied their contents, giving The End vague glimpses of the outside world.

And so They languished… until one fateful day.

|||| Frontiers ||||

Cyber Space was suddenly powered back up. The End noticed something being plugged into Their prison.

That something noticed Them back, gained personhood, and saw The Ancients' final moments all at once. Needless to say, Sage was horrified.

She realized Their escape was inevitable, and acted to protect her father. They left the two to their little corner of Cyber Space, watching from afar.

Not long after, another mortal arrived and was promptly trapped in Cyber Space. The End paid him no mind.

Not long after that, three more mortals arrived. Two of them were trapped as well, but the third... somehow escaped.

This caught The End's attention. They read his mind and found the talent and resolve to free Them... if They nudged him in the right direction.

And so, with some choice words and a few "gifts" as encouragement, Sonic became Their key. They "guided" him to the point of near-death until, at long last, They were free.

...Okay, They were still bound to Supreme and had to fight Super Sonic in it. But after that, They were free to incarnate in space and consume again, starting with Earth.

… Except They were out of practice after so long in stasis, and Their incarnation was weak enough to be countered. (That's what They claim, at least.)

With the Emeralds and Supreme's firepower, Sonic and Sage whittled it down to near-destruction. At that point The End chose to destroy it Themself, hoping to take Earth with it. Even this failed; Sage sacrificed Supreme and herself to neutralize the blast into a harmless meteor shower.

|||| This Blog (Part 1) ||||

With Their final link to the physical world severed, The End returned to the void beyond. They were still weak; gathering strength to incarnate would take longer than usual. But at least They could do so in relative peace...

...Or so They thought. Every so often, mortals would stumble upon Their hiding spot and strike up conversation. Some taunted Them; others were more welcoming. Some transmitted their messages, while others... physically showed up somehow…?

With nothing else to do, The End entertained their questions, even asking some of Their own. Among other happenings…

Sonic was mistakenly declared dead. The End's rejoicing was spirited, but short-lived.

Someone asked if They’ve ever incarnated as a mortal. They haven’t… yet.

The End was featured in a poll rating characters for… certain qualities (CW for suggestive language). This confused and disgusted Them... but They weren't completely above exploiting it.

A Chaos Emerald fell through the cracks of a nearby universe and into the void. The End held onto it for quite a while.

The End spoke at length about the worlds They’ve consumed. In fact, They spoke so much that people reported having “flashbacks” to these worlds. This was not Their intention.

|||| Frontiers: Final Horizon ||||

Suddenly, The End went silent. After a time, They returned with a story: The Chaos Emerald had time-warped Them back to the moment They’d left Cyber Space. With a more informed strategy and Their full power almost restored, They attempted to undo Their earlier defeat.

It didn’t go well.

Back at square one (and minus one Emerald), They reluctantly returned to answering questions.

|||| This Blog (Part 2) ||||

People swiftly made fun of The End for losing twice.

A few rumors spread during Their absence, but They were quick to clarify: No, They’re not related to the Northstar Islands’ Black Dragon, and no, that wasn’t Them outside the Egg Fortress. Also, They can’t die.

Speak of the devil and he shall appear—Sonic himself finally entered the chat! His lengthy, scathing message was met with an equally long and scathing reply.

The End continued to consider taking mortal form. Suggestions were sent Their way, but only time will tell whether They’ll act on them...

After frequent quakes and a brush with total collapse, a shattered universe finally grew stable.

Out of nowhere, The End asked to be sent biology textbooks. [LOADING...]

|||| Miscellaneous ||||

Other characters The End has talked to so far:

Two G.U.N. agents

Sage

Chip

E-123 Omega

Sticks the Badger

a Sonic from another universe

a multiverse researcher

a G.U.N. commander from another universe

Dark Gaia

Other things that have been sent to the void (or just happened to pass by):

A SQUID

A rocket full of Halloween candy

A G.U.N. probe designed to monitor Them

Other tidbits:

The End is genderless and has no preferred pronouns. Refer to Them however you wish.

[LOADING...]

[machathemorrigaesystem]

Ask game:

Ask me anything and everything you want about Infegeddon!

Interesting tidbits:

The main idea is a pot apocalypse game featuring every or atleast most apocalypses. It will feature tropes of medival games, like knights, necromancers, druids, mages, and vampires.

It will have a magic like system called Psionics, which allows the user to 'cast' 'spells'

Several fleshed out factions:

KOTN, Knights of the Northstar, a group of fanaticly devoted crusaders that descend from the Russians and nordic countries, they use air dominance and sundering violence to get their way. They are as if the brotherhood of steel met the space wolves, and they were slavic. Hates robots and mutants, thinks psionics are good if trained (like imperium of man from 40k)

ChomeBones: a group of cyberneticists and cyborgs with cybernetic tech advanced enough to bring people back from the dead. Necromancer theme. Freedom fighters. Accepting of robots, can't really bring back mutants

The Tree people (name WIP) psionicly active people who accept all who enter their villages, their villages are safe havens, descends from hippies. Accepting of everyone

The amish: the amish, 'Nuff said

The molemen: escaped cyborg workers from an evil slaving mining corporation, due to their cybernetics they cant really go above ground.

[sod4leaf]

Therians V2 plus updated lore :D

Therians are avian omnivores from the frigid world of Silakut. Their history of space

Travel is long, having begun exploring the stars outside of their solar system some 20 thousand years ago. They are about 10 meters tall, making them the tallest of the federation species. Aswell as this, their wingspan is nearly 16 meters.

While they look way too bulkyTo fly, their bones are hollow simiraly to earth birds, with less dense muscles. 

However their most iconic feature are the two small arms formed from an upper jaw, covering their peak. These are entirely prehensile and often used in body language. 

Their interstellar history is a complicated one, filled with lost colonies, centuries long wars, political intrigue and tragedy.

The worst event in their history however was the day silakut was destroyed. Not trough wars, or some world shattering superweapon, but pure indifference of the galaxy.

Silakuts sun was already rather old, however some 4 thousand years ago some unexpected and unknown cataclysm caused it to rapidly grow in size, consuming all of their home system including silakut and all 20 billion therians living on it. 

No scientist could explain it, and everything they knew about physics said it was impossible but it still happened. It was however not over, as a year after the sun finally went supernova. 

Luckily this was able to be predicted, so every inhabited system near silakutris  was already Evacuated. 

Due to the nature defying size of their sun in its last year, the supernova essentially evaporated itself and every system near it. Luckily, any lives were lost due to the evacuation, yet it was still a tragedy. Refugees flooded to the frontier worlds, having lost everything. 

The area of space once the centre of therian civilization is now a gaping maw in the void, were nothing but some asteroids made of dead worlds exists. This are has been dubbed “the abyss” and every year countless people travel here in a pilgrimage to pay their respects to the 20 billion dead. 

Since then, therians have been more unified than ever before. They set their differences aside and began rebuilding from scratch, terraforming one world from a dead rock to a 

New homeworld and capital for their species. This world was dubbed “Silakare” to honor their lost ancestral home. 

A few decades after making first contact with the ilgorans they founded the solar federation, an interstellar alliance between the two. 2 centuries later the vardee joined, followed by the olorans. The most recent species joining the federation is humanity, a relatively young species that integrated very quickly into interstellar society and customs.

Therians have a mastery of robotics and cybernetics, which came from them 

Having to often modify their bodies to life on other planets. They are not well suited for life

In warmer environments, needing a built- in cooling system to not overheat. 

In recent years with the galactic imperium having begun its crusade for galactic dominance, they had to gear a lot of their technology towards war. With the help of the vardee´s industrial might and humanities craftyness they created some of the most advanced spaceships ever made, and constructing a fleet for themselves and other federation members. 

The war with the imperium has fallen into a stalemate, thanks to the combined efforts of The members of the solar federation, standing as the only bastion between a better future and Annihilation by a species that should have stayed forgotten.

[keganexe]

Meet The Agents of Rot

I've been working on Blister City, an upcoming far future setting guide for playing survivors on the last city of Mars, for what feels like an eternity now. I want to start sharing some of my favorite factions, npcs, locations, and mechanics from the guide just so I have something to point to if folks want to know more about it as I ever approach finishing the game.

Follow that link up above if you want some basic information on Mars and the setting, because I'm gonna dive right in like you know everything else already.

So first up, lets meet one of my favorite factions, The Agents of Rot.

Who Are the Agents of Rot?

In the simplest form, The Agents are a doomsday cult devoted to the teachings of a long dead and unnamed scholar. They believe the destruction of humanity is already happening, and unstoppable; and they long only prepare everyone for the oncoming end times, without any desire to hasten the coming end.

In 2143, The Agents of Rot first landed in the city of Ambition (which would later become Blister City) after having been chased off earth by The Crusade for their heretical religious beliefs. With them came the first of the Prophet Machines, cobbled together old tech that spits out endless streams of numbers and letters, from which adherents claim the future can be known and prepared for. Upon their arrival to Mars, The Agents had a dire portent, Mars would fall in 2191.

Their portents were ignored, but history would go on too stare back in wonder as their preaching was true. Down to the minute. Ultimate Mars does fall, and today The Agents of Rot occupy a strange space in the city, their heretical beliefs seemingly true, but their message still unpopular for the folks in the last city.

Where Are the Agents of Rot?

In The Mids, the second layer of the three layer Blister City, sits The Smokestack District. In The Lowers, directly under this district the industry of the Blister is booming. Miasma is refined, plasteel is produced, and the toxic smoke of industry pushes up through the levels unstopped by those with the power to demand better.

It is in the worst of this toxic runoff we find The Smokestack District, and herein find some of the worst of the city. The folks who call The Smokestacks home are a combination of those with the expensive lung bionics that make breathing here safe, trading a lifetime of debt for an opportunity to live in an apartment they can afford; and those chased out by the rest of the city, largely unmodified and suffering short lives as the air toxicity kills slowly but painfully and surely.

In The Smokestack District you can find The Rot Chapel, one of few wooden buildings in the city, although the building itself is dilapidated, rotting, and covered in soot. A walk through the church shows mildewed religious statues, sitting undisturbed next to rack after rack of advanced computers; each beeping away at impossible maths. Cries echo out across the church as more prophets discover portents of the future in the hodgepodge of numbers lighting up across screens.

The Agents of Rot in Play

In Blister City, you can find yourself working alongside or against any number of factions in the city, each with a list of pros and cons for helping or harming them. While the factions usually only provide these boons and banes during missions for or against them, The Agents of Rot instead always provide boons and banes for players.

If You Make an Ally of The Agents

+1: The Agents consider you a fledgling acolyte of their faith. Rot Shops are open to you, as are their churches for those looking to lay low.

+2: The Agents consider you a true believer. You gain a discount in Rot Shops, and gain access to their medical centers.

+3: The Agents have begun to see prophecies of you. Once ever you can go to them, and have them tell you a terrible but true fact about events yet to happen.

If You Make an Enemy of The Agents

-1: The Agents of Rot are scared of you and your crew. You are actively turned away from Rot Churches and Rot Shops, violently if necessary.

-2: The Agents consider you persona non grata, and take to the streets preaching of the dangers of being near you, and your allies.

-3: The Agents have begun to see prophecies of you, and it terrifies them. The Agents pool all of their resources, and will hire whoever it takes to kill you, and challenge the hands of fate.

Final Thoughts

The Agents of Rot are but one of 25 named factions, and have (like all the factions do) complicated ties to the city and the other factions. They frequently find themselves allied with The Children of The Red Sands, other religious outsiders to the city; and working against The Rusakli, a quiet order of well liked healers who The Prophet Machines keep spitting out warnings against.

[heliads]

everything is blue • conrisa space au • Chapter Sixteen: Heavy is the Head

Risa Ward escaped a shuttle destined for her certain, painful death. Connor Lassiter ran away from home before it was too late. Lev Calder was kidnapped. All of them were supposed to be dissected for parts, used to advance a declining galaxy, but as of right now, all of them are whole. Life will not stay the same way forever.

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Connor isn’t doing well.

He’s trying to hide it, of course. Sometimes Risa swears that half of Connor’s ill-stolen life is spent running or hiding or trying to pretend he’s something that he isn’t. She loves him, she does, but she hates this too. Connor will drive himself into the ground trying to take responsibility for crimes he didn’t commit. He’s got a good heart, a heart that Risa has carved out a place to hide inside, but it’s getting awfully cramped in there with every other hopeless crusade he pioneers.

Seeing Starkey burn down the harvest colony was the nail in the coffin. Risa has told him that wasn’t his fault about a dozen times, and is running out of new ways to put it, but the repetition doesn’t matter. Connor thinks he’s seen enough. He believes Starkey was trying to send him a message or something by killing that one guard like he did, but even if the tether hadn’t been used, Connor would have felt the blow to his conscience anyway.

After all, it is Connor’s significantly more brutal alias, the king of unwinds, the Akron AWOL, that got Starkey hooked on this idea of violently liberating distributes like this. A very long time ago, so far away in space and time it could have been a wholly separate boy in a wholly separate galaxy, Connor Lassiter tried to run away from home and ended up tranquilizing a Juvey-cop with his own gun before stealing the officer’s ship. The story was warped across an entire universe, and then it reached a boy named Mason Michael Starkey whose only goal was to find a way to make the whole galaxy remember his name.

Starkey succeeded. Connor will always remember that it was his fault first for wanting to survive and having the terrible luck of being celebrated for it. Connor has gone sickly silent ever since they arrived at that harvest colony, and now Risa doesn’t know how to get the Connor she knew back.

Truth be told, she doesn’t think he’s going to come back unless they can find a way out of this whole mess. Storming the harvest camp and liberating their allies from the Graveyard was supposed to be the final chapter in this affair. It would be difficult to survive on their own, of course, several hundred Deadmen do not a secure future make, but they would find a way. They wouldn’t be alone anymore, and then they would grow up and age out of distribution. Risa was supposed to have her future with him. Now she’s not even sure he wants their past.

It’s exhausting, to put it simply. Every day, they’re constantly pulled from one corner of the galaxy to the next. They escape the exploding Graveyard only to be split up. They find each other only to pivot to save their friends. They attempt to break into a harvest colony and discover that an even more twisted villain has the Deadmen. Heartland is still out there somewhere, and Starkey is holding their friends in the belly of his stolen ship, and it feels like so long as Risa and Connor are alive they will never be able to rest. This was supposed to be the end. This was supposed to be the end. 

And, Risa is starting to realize, it never will be. There will always be one more mountain to cross, one more impossible feat to pull off. They’re kids. Just kids. Kids who were meant to die. Kids who have no choice but to survive. Survival has never been anything but a bloody, brutal thing, but for once Risa wishes it were easy. Hasn’t she done enough? Haven’t both of them done enough? At one point do they get to rest?

Never, maybe. Never at all.

A shadow in the door; Risa looks up to find Connor looking at her uncertainly from the threshold. Wordlessly, she holds out a hand to him, and he crosses over at last to join her. They sit together on a bench along the wall. Connor presses a soft kiss to her temple, then whispers against the still air, “Do you think they’re safe with him?”

His voice is doubtful. It cuts her a little inside, wondering how long it will take him to sound secure again. She doesn’t know what he said to Grace Skinner to explain how her brother died, but the gloom in his eyes when he came back to her could have spawned any ghost.

“He’s not going to hurt any AWOLs,” Risa tells him. “He’s not stupid. The whole point of his little crusade is that he’s protecting the distributes. None of them are going to die.”

Connor shakes his head. “That’s not the only way he can hurt them. I mean, do we think he’s cut out for leadership? How can Starkey possibly keep all of them safe?”

Risa blows out a quiet breath. “If some of the older kids from the Graveyard are there, they’ll be able to watch out for the younger ones even if Starkey doesn’t manage it. Hayden could.”

“Hayden could,” Connor agrees. “Plus some of the nav kids for sure. Yeah, you’re right. They can do it.”

“Don’t worry about them,” Risa urges. “They’ll be fine. To be honest, you should worry about us. Heartland’s been quiet ever since you escaped. I don’t like that. One man has the power of the entire Collective on his side and he just lets us go? No way.”

Connor frowns, his lips pressed together as he considers this. “He didn’t have a tracker on me, I checked before I stole a ship. Odds are he’s just waiting for us to slip up. To be honest, he doesn’t need to capture us to further his message. If Starkey pulls something like this again, Heartland will have all the anti-AWOL propaganda he needs. All he needs to do is frame us like insane killers and the whole galaxy will be up in arms against us.”

Risa shudders, realizing he’s right. “We need to shut down Starkey, then.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” Connor insists. “We need to find him first, though. He’ll have to go somewhere to refuel. We need to check nearby spaceports and see if any ships big enough to transport a couple hundred kids have passed through. In fact, they might even get caught at a boundary checkpoint. Let’s check some records and see what we come up with.”

This seems like trying to find a needle in a synth-haystack, but Connor’s got some light back in his eyes, and Risa isn’t willing to shoot down this idea if it means he’ll slump back into nothingness again. So, she heads to the ship holodeck, and the two of them start to painstakingly sift through reports on the comings and goings of large shuttles within several units of their current star sector.

Suns, it’s slow going. Risa swears half their time on this new, ill-gotten starship has been spent combing the galaxy in search of distributes who will never end up found. Risa pores over news holos and headlines for several standard hours. At last, though, it’s Connor who leaps to his feet excitedly when he comes across a report of another mass distribution on a nearby planet.

“Look at this,” he tells her. “It’s got to be more Deadmen. I mean, the Graveyard was massive, right? It would make sense that they had to split everyone into two groups, there’s no way everyone could fit on just one colony.”

Risa’s heart leaps at the same time Connor’s does, but she coaxes her hope back down from that high place with great reluctance. Something about this feels off. It was too easy, and if there’s one thing she’s learned from continually charting new courses across the universe, it’s that nothing is ever easy.

“It’s on a planet, though, not a colony,” Risa points out. “Isn’t that strange?”

Connor waves this concern away, starting to pace back and forth across the floor. “After Starkey’s horror show at that one harvest colony, I wouldn’t be surprised that the Collective tried to distribute the rest someplace with a little more security. It’ll be tougher getting in, of course, but we’ve got to give it a shot.”

Risa swivels over to where Connor had been standing, and hesitantly scrolls through the article he had found. “This seems unusual.”

“Unwinding is unusual,” Connor argues. “Come on, Risa. Our friends are there. We have to save them.”

“I’m not saying we won’t save them,” Risa snaps back, feeling oddly defensive, “but we have to give this more thought. What if this is how they catch us? They know we’re trying to find our friends. Suns, even Starkey could have done this if he threatened someone in communications. We have no proof that this is real.”

Connor bounds over to her again, seizing her hands to his and holding them to his lips as if in prayer. “We are together on a massive starship that is totally empty. We are capable of making one hyperspace jump that will put us in that very star system. We have friends who need us, Risa, and we have the opportunity to keep them whole. Why shouldn’t we leap at the chance?”

“What if it’s a trap?” Risa asks desperately. Connor wants this more than anything, she knows it like she’s reading his mind, but she needs him to understand that this might not be the total victory he hopes it is.

“Then we spring it,” Connor says, suddenly giddy. “We spring it and we get away anyway, maybe even with a few new AWOLs in tow. We show the galaxy that Starkey’s mass murder isn’t how all unwinds think. We win, Risa. We win. Isn’t this what we’ve always wanted?”

What we’ve wanted is to stay alive, Risa wants to tell him. What we’ve wanted is to avoid obvious traps and take life one day at a time. That’s survival. That’s what we’ve always wanted.

Instead, she forces an unsteady smile, and says, “I’d follow you anywhere. You know that.”

“I do,” he says, and kisses her. Risa tries to forget her worries with the gentle pressure of his hand against her cheek. It almost, almost works.

Connor charts a new course. Risa watches and worries from the door to the cockpit. She tells herself that it’s fine and it isn’t, but what more can she do? Since her issues have been avoided in the face of wild, desperate hope, the only thing to do is pivot and try to save them from themselves anyway. She pulls up maps of the planet they’ll be attacking, figuring out exactly where they need to land and what buildings will serve as the harvest location. Anything and everything to avoid the seemingly inevitable.

The site of the latest mass distribution is on a planet called Dandrich-IV. It’s nice, actually, pretty far into Centerworld, the core of the grand sprawl of the galaxy. This means that Collective presence is going to be off the charts, another fact that makes Risa uneasy. Still, Connor just takes this as a sign that this endeavor will be real. After all, the Deadmen are now highly prized property. They wouldn’t be shunted off to another backwater colony.

All too quickly, the Unwind converges on Dandrich-IV. They land a short distance from the supposed location, using the cover of some tall synth-oaks to hide their ship. According to Risa’s research, the Chop Shop and other distribution buildings are in a complex about a ten minute walk from their current location. To get there, they’ll have to navigate a bustling city full of wealthy Centerworld families. Worse still, they’ll have to look normal while they do it.

Risa and Connor stroll down the sidewalk, doing their best to blend in. Their clothes aren’t exactly typical of the luxury common around here, bearing too many signs of having survived a couple of long interstellar voyages, but there’s not a lot they can do about that. Connor uses his fake grounds license to buy them jackets that they can sling on over their clothes, plus caps they pull low over their eyes to hide their faces. Hopefully that’ll do something.

It’s as good of a disguise as they can hope to get around here. Even after a successful purchase, they still attract several dirty looks from shop owners. Seems like solo teenagers are suspicious customers no matter where in the galaxy you end up. The familiar routine should comfort Risa, but instead she’s just reminded of the terrible stakes awaiting them should they mess up.

Risa guides them across the street to the entrance of a nice park. No gates bar their entrance, no tall fences keep out ruffians; here, apparently, polite behavior is expected to the point of trusting anyone. 

“Nice place,” Connor mumbles, staring at the topiary.

Risa nods incredulously. The whole point of this park is somewhat pointless– everyone here knows everything from the individual blades of grass to the vibrant flower bushes are fake, produced somewhere in a lab and shipped over here– but the effect is marvelous. Risa doesn’t think she’s seen this much green in her whole life. The synth-wildlife budget for the OH-10 State Home grounds wasn’t exactly extensive.

They walk further inside, following a curving path that carries them past lines of meticulous synth-trees and even a few stone fountains spitting tall columns of water into the air. Around them, wealthy families preen and pose, showing off the glories of their laboratory flora to whoever’s in sight. It’s like nothing Risa has ever seen before. Secretly, she has to admit she’s glad that she and Connor got to Dandrich-IV before Starkey; he’d probably burn the whole place to the ground out of spite.

“Let’s amble a little more,” she whispers to Connor. “I don’t want to attract attention.”

“Good idea,” Connor returns. “What if we split up so they stop staring? I’ll go pretend to look at some of the statues and pretend I’m working on a school project or something.”

Risa agrees with this and watches him wander off, trying not to act as if the thought of not being side by side with him freaks her out completely. Splitting up is always a bad idea, but they stick out like a sore thumb in the midst of all this faux greenery. One individual teenager attracts less attention than two. All Risa has to do is smile and walk and act as if none of this is new to her.

Risa meanders down a side path, taking in the displays. One flowerbed in particular attracts her attention, and Risa comes to a stop in front of it. It’s a strange design, but since when have the aesthetic tastes of the rich and famous ever made sense to her? There used to be this one girl at the StaHo who had an obsession with these mansion mags that were occasionally downloaded to the State Home holodeck. Risa remembers that girl spending hours flipping through holos depicting the interior of some of the nicer Centerworld estates, remarking on anything from the patterned wallpaper to expensive footstools.

The girl had loved those houses, but Risa couldn’t believe the elites would spend their money on such terrible designs. She’d come up with her own dream place to stay someday, of course, somewhere with big windows and absolutely no other orphans. Funnily enough, it hadn’t involved a spaceship in the middle of the cosmos holding only her and one other boy, but if Risa had to pick a dream future now, she can’t imagine anything but that. Time changes all of us. Sometimes for the worse, yes, but sometimes for the better, too. Risa isn’t alone anymore. That one fact is worth more than a thousand fortunes.

Risa tilts her head to the side, considering the flowerbed. According to the placard below it, the design was just approved in the last few days and submitted by some anonymous wealthy donor. It must make for a very interesting garden if bits and pieces here and there are constantly swapped out. Since everything is lab-grown, the visitors wouldn’t have to wait for the right seasons or temperatures. They could have a new display every day so long as the designers installed the right part in time.

Risa likes this design, though. As she’s looking at it, someone walks up to her, smiling gently. At first, she panics, thinking she’s been recognized, but then she notices they’re wearing a uniform with a logo on the breast pocket labeled with the name of the garden, and she relaxes a little.

“Do you like the flowers?” The gardener asks. “Put them in myself just a short while ago. Lovely things, I think.”

“Yes,” Risa mumbles, “Very lovely. Nice colors.” 

It sounds basic to her ears, but she has no idea what else to say to this stranger. The State Home didn’t exactly train her on how to talk about gardens. 

However, when the man immediately breaks into a wide grin, she can guess that it was taken the right way. “I quite think so too. The designer specifically chose a few plants they had in mind that would just make those colors pop. A certain D.H., I believe. Didn’t leave us anything but his initials. It’s a right shame if you ask me, I hope he will submit more ideas in the future.”

Alarm bells are going off in Risa’s head, but for a moment, she can’t imagine why. “Did the designer say anything else about the flowers?” She asks politely.

The gardener shakes his head. “Oh, no, nothing much. Only that he hoped these flowers would help everyone unwind a little. Great message, if you ask me.”

Risa flinches involuntarily. Technically, she knows the word ‘unwind’ has two meanings, but she’s only ever heard the bloodier definition in so long that she almost forgot it could mean something else. It must be simply a mistake on her end to assume something gruesome, but as Risa looks back at the bright, lurid flowers, she can’t help but feel fear creep back up on her. Under this new context, the colors seem grotesque somehow; the red of blood, the white of bone.

“To unwind?” She asks faintly. The gardener nods and says something else, Risa thinks, but she’s so far beyond thinking of mere flowers that she can’t pay attention.

Suns. Wait. Only one person would put together a display like this, just asking to be noticed. Only one person would require a filthy word like that in the middle of this beautiful place. Only one person would play games like this and make a mockery of their own lives. Only one person, and she and Connor have just walked into his embrace.

Risa turns around abruptly, racing back to Connor, who’s still ambling slowly through the garden walkways. He looks up when he sees her, though, startled out of some reverie.

Connor opens his mouth to ask what’s wrong, but Risa doesn’t give him the chance. “We have to go. Now. They’re here, they’re–”

Halfway through her panicked words, Risa realizes that Connor is staring at her with wide eyes. No, not at her. At something just over her shoulder. Risa turns slowly to see a man who could only ever be Dorian Heartland strolling out from behind the cover of a particularly tall row of synth-trees. His unsettling, mismatched eyes pass over her fleetingly to settle on Connor with an expression of great satisfaction. “Hello, son.”

“I’m not your son,” Connor says reflexively.

Heartland tuts reproachfully. “Technically, you are. You belong to all of us. You’re parts of my universe, Connor, and that means I can refer to you however I please.”

Risa stares at him uncomprehendingly. Connor had repeated descriptions of his encounter with the villainous man many times, but even those heated explanations could not come close to fully encapsulating the horror that is Dorian Heartland. Even without hearing that the man was fully made from separate pieces, Risa can tell that something is deeply wrong with him. His voice seems to be woven together from many different inflections, forced through lips that don’t belong to the tongue nor the voice box that forms each syllable. 

He has the air of a man who knows everything about them, who could predict their escape opportunities and has already shut down each and every avenue they could hope to run to. This man has seen many other teenagers who thought they could be the ones to save the galaxy, and he has killed all of them. Dorian Heartland has centuries of experience in shutting down rebellious young upstarts. 

Risa and Connor thought they could outsmart him– why? You cannot outthink time. You cannot outrun someone who has already chased off Fate. All they could hope to do was keep to the outskirts of Heartland’s time and patience such that he would get bored of him, yet they’ve already messed that up and been found out. All their planning has come to this, a showdown in a glimmering false garden that, just like the rest of their stretched-thin galaxy, was brought to fruition by a collection of parts that calls itself Dorian Heartland.

This, Risa decides, is the end. For her, at least. Maybe she can buy time for Connor to get away, but somehow she doubts that’s possible. After all, she recalls gloomily, they’ve both sworn that they would be together forever. Even in death. Even in distribution. Even in this.

unwind tag list: @reinekes-fox, @sirofreak, @locke-writes

all tags list: @wordsarelife