#and so now I started to use this one and apparently it had a software update and in hindsight maybe I shouldn’t’ve tried to update bc like

[why-the-heck-not]

21.09.23, thursday

!! today bad !! woke up to a sleep paralysis and it just kept going downhill from there; tried to update my laptop’s software and it got stuck, so now that’s the 2nd laptop that has stopped working for me this week. Literally fuck this week, I’m so done ughhh. How is that even like possible

things done today:

fucked up my laptop

sat around, full of rage & defeat

stress-watched Succession (for the emotional support of seeing kendall sit around in defeat 24/7 bc that’s me right there)

[katanablue]

I originally had a totally different idea for this but I think I may just do a part 2 hehehe. ALSO IF ANYONE GOT ANY GOOD 07 DONNIE FICS ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Warnings: NONE JUST DONNIE BEING A CUTE GRUMPY DORK.

Another day another long boring shift full of talking to idiotic people who don’t know the difference between hardware and software and explaining to one too many elderly people that ‘No, you cannot print out the Internet.’

He’s just finished a call, rubbing the space between his eyes as he feels his daily headache come on. He’s impressed that he’s managed to nearly finish his workday without it appearing until now. He groans low in his throat, debating on getting up to grab a glass of water so he can take a pill or just sucking it up these last 30 minutes.

He gets his answer when an incoming call rings through his headset, making Donnie roll his eyes hard and into the back of his skull. He inhales deeply through his nose to prepare himself, letting it out when he clicks on a key to answer the phone.

“Thank you for calling tech support, this is Donatello speaking, how can I help you today.” He doesn’t bother putting on his customer service voice, his headache dully throbbing now as he waits for the other person on the line to start rambling about their dumb issue.

“Hi, how are you today?” You say, giving the standard pleasantries before delving into your computer issue.

Typical, of course his last call would try to make small talk.

“I’m fine ma’am, thank you. How can I help you today?” He repeats it, resisting the urge to roll his eyes again and leans back in his chair, swaying gently side to side. He thinks about what he should eat after, his eyes trailing to the clock in the Lair that signifies in big red letters that it’s nearly 2 a.m. Not the latest he’s stayed up but today’s shift was particularly exhausting. Maybe it’s the full moon or something, ‘Mercury in Gatorade’ as Mikey would sometimes call it.

“Hello?”

Shit. He totally just fucking zoned out on you.

“Apologies ma’am, I didn’t quite catch that. Would you mind repeating it?” Great, he just extended this call by about 2 minutes.

“Oh, that’s alright! I’m dealing with an issue with my laptop’s ability to open programs fast. It’s taking forever just to open something and I’m not quite sure why.” You repeat your issue, quietly sighing as you aimlessly move your mouse around your screen, hoping that the guy on the other side will be able to help with you.

Donnie immediately knows what the problem could be; slow processing speeds a fairly common issue for him but thankfully an easy fix.

So he starts by asking the standard questions: do you have any programs that take a lot of space? Any tabs open that you aren’t using? Anything running in the background?

When you tell him ‘no, no and no’, that’s when he sits up from his chair and squints his eyes. If those aren’t the cause of your laptops slow speed then what could it be?

“Well,”

Ah, there it is.

“I do play a few games but those have never caused me problems before. Could that be it?”

Normally Donatello’s irritation would increase when the customer would ‘suddenly remember’ something that could be pausing their problem. You, however? Didn’t spark that within him for some reason. In fact, besides your calm demeanor, it’s the way you spoke so kindly to him combined with the fact that you also game apparently that has Donnie not wanting to snap at you.

“Like what?” He asks, being sure to keep it professional.

And when you list his all time favorite game among some others that he’s obsessed with, he has to practically force himself to not totally geek out. Sure he’s played some of the popular games nowadays like League or Valorant, but hearing you say that you modded some old PS1 games to play on your laptop practically skyrockets his excitement.

Which in turn makes his headache pound harder.

He’s unable to keep himself from hissing when a pang shoots right through his skull, knowing you heard it when you trail off your sentence.

“Are you alright?”

Maybe it’s because he’s had a long day or maybe it’s because this seems to be shifting into a migraine, but the concern and sincerity in your voice makes an odd feeling bubble in Donnie’s chest. Surely no one would ever be genuinely worried over an I.T guy, not when you have more pressing matters on your hands.

“My apologies miss, I’m just uh, dealing with a bit of a headache right now. Although I think it’s turning into a migraine.” He grunts through his clenched jaw, swinging carefully around in his chair as he searches for his bottle of Advil only to suck his teeth when he shakes the container and hears absolutely nothing rattling around.

“Oh no, I’m sorry! Do you want to go grab some medicine? I don’t mind waiting.”

The corner of Donnie’s lip twitches upward. He brings his hands to massage at his temples, the motions doing something to relieve the tension in his head but not nearly enough.

“I unfortunately just discovered that I’m out of medicine. But that’s alright, I’ll pick some up after this call.” He doesn’t bother hiding his sigh, settling back in his seat as he prepares to ask you more questions to help you out.

“What about any oils? Got any of those? Usually lavender or peppermint do the trick.” You put him on speaker and go to your Safari on your phone to begin looking up other remedies, wanting to assist this poor I.T man.

Donnie’s not quite sure why you’re trying to be helpful but at this point he doesn’t exactly care, the throbbing getting worse by the second.

“It could also be too much pressure, literally, around your head. Do you wear headbands or anything like that? Could also be your headphones.”

“No, no headbands. And my headphones have cushioning all around so not those either.” He responds, debating on texting Mikey to bring him the peppermint oil that April bought for Splinter last Christmas.

“Ah, a man of comfort.” You laugh, fingers quickly typing in your question into the search engine.

Donnie finds himself smiling faintly at the sound, a fleeting thought of ‘Wow, I want to hear that again’ passing through his brain.

“Well, I can’t use regular headphones for gaming. I’m also a fan of those games that you play.”

You blink in surprise, your scrolling faltering for half a second before continuing on.

“No way, really?”

And so you talk for the next 20 minutes about said games; reliving memories, talking about specific moments you wish you could experience again, the soundtracks, the characters. Everything.

For the first 10 minutes, Donnie kept reminding himself that he was just prolonging his work call, that he should drive the focus back onto your issue so he can hang up and clock out. But the more he talked to you, the more he said ‘fuck it’ and allowed himself this one rare moment of normalcy.

He also nearly forgot about his raging migraine, until it pleasantly reminded him that it was still present with a sharp stabbing pain behind his eyes.

It’s what snaps him back to reality, his face grimacing from the white hot torment happening in his skull.

“I’m so sorry, we should really get back to your computers issues.”

“Oh, right. Sorry.”

God, why did he feel so awful saying that? And why did it make his stomach twist when hearing just how disappointed you sounded? It’s something he’ll have to dissect later, not when he’s already 30 minutes past the standard call time for support.

“Let’s see what we’re working with here.”

This is one of the rare times Donnie wishes he wasn’t so smart with technology because in less than 5 minutes he solves your problem. He wishes he could just be a little average to talk to you more even if it’s computer stuff.

“Alright, you shouldn’t have a problem anymore. Anything else I can help you with?”

Please say yes please say yes please say yes.

“No, I’m all good. Thank so much Donatello!”

“Donnie! You can call me Donnie.”

Fuck.

“Just your friendly I.T tech support here to help you 24 hours a day.”

Double fuck.

Why did he say that? It’s standard spiel protocol but still, how utterly lame…

You can’t help but giggle at him, your cheeks hurting from smiling so much from this total stranger.

“Alright then, Donnie. I’ll know who to ask for if I ever need help again.”

He smiles and asks for your name, just so he’ll know who he’s talking to if you ever do call again. He repeats it back to you once you tell him, the word rolling off his tongue in such a way that makes you feel giddy and grinning like a kid in a candy store.

“Have a good night, please don’t hesitate to call back if you’re still experiencing technical difficulties.”

And by Darwin he hopes you do.

[leftistfeminista]

Trolls Used Her Face to Make Fake Porn. There Was Nothing She Could Do.

Sabrina Javellana was a rising star in local politics — until deepfakes derailed her life.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/31/magazine/sabrina-javellana-florida-politics-ai-porn.html

Most mornings, before walking into City Hall in Hallandale Beach, Fla., a small city north of Miami, Sabrina Javellana would sit in the parking lot and monitor her Twitter and Instagram accounts. After winning a seat on the Hallandale Beach city commission in 2018, at age 21, she became one of the youngest elected officials in Florida’s history. Her progressive political positions had sometimes earned her enemies: After proposing a name change for a state thoroughfare called Dixie Highway in late 2019, she regularly received vitriolic and violent threats on social media; her condemnation of police brutality and calls for criminal-justice reform prompted aggressive rhetoric from members of local law enforcement. Disturbing messages were nothing new to her.

The morning of Feb. 5, 2021, though, she noticed an unusual one. “Hi, just wanted to let you know that somebody is sharing pictures of you online and discussing you in quite a grotesque manner,” it began. “He claims that he’s one of your ‘guy friends.’”

Javellana froze. Who could have sent this message? She asked for evidence, and the sender responded with pixelated screenshots of a forum thread that included photos of her. There were comments that mentioned her political career. Had her work drawn these people’s ire? Eventually, with a friend’s help, she found a set of archived pages from the notorious forum site 4chan. Most of the images were pulled from her social media and annotated with obscene, misogynistic remarks: “not thicc enough”; “I would breed her”; “no sane person would date such a stupid creature.” But one image further down the thread stopped her short. She was standing in front of a full-length mirror with her head tilted to the side, smiling playfully. She had posted an almost identical selfie, in which she wore a brown crew-neck top and matching skirt, to her Instagram account back in 2015. “It was the exact same picture,” Javellana said of the doctored image. “But I wasn’t wearing any clothes.”

There were several more. These were deepfakes: A.I.-generated images that manipulate a person’s likeness, fusing it with others to create a false picture or video, sometimes pornographic, in a way that looks authentic. Although fake explicit material has existed for decades thanks to image-editing software, deepfakes stand out for their striking believability. Even Javellana was shaken by their apparent authenticity.

“I didn’t know that this was something that happened to everyday people,” Javellana told me when I visited her earlier this year in Florida. She wondered if anyone else had seen the photos or the abusive comments online. Several of the threads even implied that people on the forum knew her. “I live in Broward County,” one comment read. “She just graduated from FIU.” Other users threatened sexual violence. In the days that followed, Javellana became increasingly fearful and paranoid. She stopped walking alone at night and started triple-checking that her doors and windows were locked before she slept. In an effort to protect her personal life, she made her Instagram private and removed photographs of herself in a bathing suit.

Discovering the images changed how Javellana operated professionally. Attending press events was part of her job, but now she felt anxious every time someone lifted their camera. She worried that public images of her would be turned into pornography, so she covered as much of her body as she could, favoring high-cut blouses and blazers. She knew she wasn’t acting rationally — people could create new deepfakes regardless of how much skin she showed in the real world — but changing her style made her feel a sense of control. If the deepfakes went viral, no one could look at how she dressed and think that she had invited this harassment.

[tbhimnoteasyonmyself]

Who is White?

If it is not I, your friendly neighbourhood non-binary deranged literature major, once again to tell you about stuff that the voices™︎ have prompted me.

This time, let's talk about the elephant in the room, the odd one out: Mr. White, a.k.a the fandom's babyboy.

(me as Fluke in this GIF, walking in ready to dissect this bitch)

So, what do we factually know about this man?

From what we're directly told in the show:

He's Tee's boyfriend, at least, since 12th grade, meaning they have been together for about 3 years, maybe 4 (depending on when exactly we are in terms of time in the present and when exactly during 12th grade they started dating).

He's younger than the rest of them, according to Por and Top in episode 1.

He studied at a different school from the main gang AND from Phee (yes, despite the embroidery having a similar colour, the writings where the institution's name should be are nothing alike, thus, not from the same place)

He cares a lot about his appearance (he does skincare when Por is literally dying downstairs and he sees a rash on his body while under the effect of New's absynthe - idk if it's absynthe or not but my friends and I have been calling it that since we saw them drink the green drinks so it's absynthe for me and there's that).

He's generally a very respectful person (he always speaks formally and nicely to everyone, even when people are hostile to him, like Tee or Fluke).

His fear doesn't seem to paralyze him in high-pressure situations (he strikes people with a tripod twice to save himself and others when he thinks they're in danger).

Another source could be the Yearbook, which, now, we have to be a bit more skeptical about because, as seen in New's case, it's not 100% accurate. One can argue that it is accurate because the yearbook would have Tan's info, since that's who he's living as and no one knows any better than that, including the institutions and, sure, yeah, fair. But while we don't know that White is hiding anything from us as well, we can't be sure of it. So, take the following with a grain of salt:

(translated with Google Translate)

His legal name is Watcharin Siriphan

He was born on the 25th of February 2005 (which confirms what Por and Top say)

His blood type is A (which according to the Blood Type Personality Theory means he is shy, stubborn, a perfectionist, polite and hard-working, apparently. tbh this thing is super shifty, no source seems to agree on the meaning of each type and, of course, it's a pseudoscience and all, so... yeah. take it as you will)

He's studying Software Engineering

He likes cakes

He dislikes cockroaches

He plays games and programs in his free time

So... We don't know much. He's the most generic person ever. Like... I too, and half the world's population, like cake, dislike cockroaches and like to play games. It's not exactly very special. Which is exactly why he is so intriguing. After all, we had 5 whole episodes so far, which were just the backstory of the people we see together in the mansion in the present. We've seen their personalities, their qualities and flaws, what they did and what they didn't do. We've been given a reason as to why they're here. Not just in the more direct sense of "they agreed to come here for Jin's goodbye party" but of why exactly they needed to be put all together in these conditions for this story. All except White. White is just... Barely an afterthought. We're shown when he comes into this story for the group (when he becomes Tee's boyfriend), but we're not given a reason so far as to why the narrative wants him there.

Because, sure, IRL people sometimes end up in random places and things can be pretty meaningless but this is a work of fiction. One that, evidently, has been greatly focused on details (Non's framed apple picture and Phee eating an apple alone, for example, or the correlation between the group and the colour blue). So why would it just throw us a character that is, seemingly, irrelevant to the story?

And to this, there are 2 possibilities my friends: either White is a narrative tool to get to the audience or White is not who we think he is. So let's explore it, shall we?

White = Narrative Tool

Let's start by assuming, possibly the most likely outcome, that White is exactly just a guy who ended up there due to his connection to Tee. Why would this narrative need that character?

Glad you asked. Because he's the only person who's 100% innocent. If he's just some guy who, as we've seen, keeps being respectful and nice and trying to always do the right thing, then he's got nothing to do with the others who, in different degrees are all guilty of something. He's the odd one out.

Because, yes, this is not a show of villains (at least, not in which concerns the main characters). They're all morally grey. But they have some drop of black that makes them grey.

Por is arrogant and a liar and selfish.

Tee is aggressive and manipulative and a control freak.

Top is an overall asshole and a coward.

These 3 actively bully Non. Por steals his work. Tee and Top blame him for shit he didn't do which puts in the situation where he owns Por and they spy on him. Tee manipulates him into mafia money laundry and threatens him.

Fluke is selfish and refuses to take action even when he knows it's the right thing to do.

Jin's doesn't have the capability to realize that the peaceful passive way with which he normally carries himself with won't solve the issue. Plus he's overly emotional. And a bit selfish too.

They didn't help Non when it was their moral obligation to do so. And Jin records him being abused by their teacher and possibly posts it online (though that's still up for debate).

Phee is too stubborn and also overly emotional and even overly empathic.

New is obsessive and vengeful.

Phee never really helps Non because all the ways he offers Non help are the wrong ones. He almost tries to control him. And he fails. And then he tells him awful things and breaks up with him in a terribly vulnerable moment for Non. And even when he regrets it and tries to bring justice to him, he fucks Jin because he wanted to and tries to cover it up as if it was part of the plan. Sure, they were broken up, technically, but Phee himself seems to have had "take-backies" over that breaking up. So, in his mind, at least, it's fair to say he cheats on him, which is very hypocritical after how he reacts to Non being abused. And New... He tries to help sincerely because he feels guilty but he only makes things worse. Nothing is solved and their father curses them both before committing public suicide at their mom's funeral.

Non (which may be even more relevant if he's still alive) is overly independent and uncommunicative.

He doesn't tell Jin he has a boyfriend when it's clear Jin's trying to make a move on him, event though Non's not interested. He hides very important things from Phee. He commits fraud (understandably, but yeah). And yeah, he's justified in his rage and attack but... Does he ever think of how his actions affect other such as Jin, for example, who, in his eyes, is innocent? Not really.

"Oh but White won't die!", I hear you say. "The innocent people never die in slashers!! Only the people who did the killer wrong do!" And that's exactly where I have to disagree.

So, amidst a sea of grey characters, White is, funnily enough: white. He's just good. He's done nothing wrong. And the narrative needs him because, when the others die, we'll feel (to different degrees, sure, but still, we will) that there's a reason. Even if we like the characters, those deaths will make sense. But what happens when an innocent man dies? What happens when you kill the man who wasn't even supposed to be there (he joined the trip at the last minute)?

As @syrena-del-mar says in this post: "DFF is more than just a 90s slasher film imitation". It "sits at a novel intersection of genre: horror slasher on the one hand and BL on the other hand" as @brifrischu puts it here and, for that, it bends expectations and rules and subverts what are natural tropes and events of the slasher archetype. White dying is the sort of thing this narrative, and our inventive genius Sammon, would do. Because... Do you really think they're giving us grey characters instead of black ones because we're supposed not to question this revenge? Because we're supposed to be happy about this? No. Of course not. That would be dumb. If we're meant to 100% side with the killer, then why give us likeable characters as the targets? Because, and this is as much speculation as it is reading the room, we're not.

This story, I don't know how it will end, but regardless I'm pretty confident it's supposed to tell us something important about cycles of violence: that they're neverending until someone chooses peace instead. That aggression and bloodshed and revenge... They won't bring time back, they won't undo the mistakes we make, they won't restore that which is lost, they won't make the grief go away... That they won't make us feel better. More even: that they will only hurt more people, create more injustice and prompt more revenge. And, thus, perpetuate the cycle.

So what's White's role? Being the final drop into our collective cup of realization (and perhaps the characters' as well) that this revenge mission is pointless and won't solve anything. White's role is to die.

"Oh, but uncle Dang was also innocent! Is his death not enough??", I hear you ask. And well... Maybe, maybe not. I think, honestly, his death is too impersonal for us to feel too deeply about it. Like, sure, yes, it is the death of an innocent, but it's a distant innocent. It doesn't make our blood boil because we don't know shit about that man. But, for all we don't know of White's past, we've seen him cry, we've seen him scared, we've seen him fight for his life, we've seen him be a good boyfriend and a good friend. He might just be some dude but we like him. He's the fandom's babyboy, as I said. It is more impactful and it tells the story better.

But this is just a hypothesis. And it might not convince you. And that's fair. So, because I'm a persistent obnoxious fucker with a little too much free time, I'm bringing you a second theory. For this one, though... You might need a little tinfoil hat... Be prepared.

White ≠ Who He Says He Is

So, if you think just having a character be hollow and pure good in a show of very fleshed-out and grey characters is weird, even if he might be narratively relevant, then we can only assume there's something important to White's character we don't know about yet. (I'm adding this in retrospective because I forgot but this idea came to me partially from @yellingaboutkp and their great analysis of horns in the show that you can find here)

But what could that be? We've seemingly seen all the flashbacks we needed from everyone, White doesn't seem very relevant to anyone's storyline but Tee's but... We'd assume if there was something directly connected to Tee's actions and White that we needed to see, we would've. Admittedly, the next episode seems to be on its way to tell us what Tee knows about what happened to Non and Keng while they were captured by the mafia and he could be there but I think, honestly, that it goes deeper than that. And here's why: because there's a person who's even more of an odd one out then White: whoever Perth's character is.

Now, he would've been completely unsuspicious if it wasn't for one thing: Perth's presence in the promotion of this series. He's just... Always there, somehow? Like, his character has only really appeared last episode massaging Tee's uncle but he's constantly talking about this series. Plus, his name is very well credited. AND, the absolute cherry on top, his character appears in THIS poster:

Now, yeah, I understand Marketing and Publicity (it's part of my Master's, you don't have to explain it to me). So, I know this could very well just be a strategy to sell the series. After all, Perth did get a lot of attention after The Hidden Character, I know, I know. It's also a way to put his name out there for other future roles, kinda like a soft launch. Plus, this is the show that killed Us's character first when he was one of the most popular actors in the cast. HOWEVER, I'd argue that, considering the previously mentioned attention to detail, they would not have given one of their rising stars a role in this series if it wasn't important. Like... No other background character without lines (so far) was given an important actor to play it. So pardon me, but I don't buy it. Perth's character's gotta matter somehow. And, back to what I was saying, I think the next episode will be exactly where.

See, I made a poll here on the hellsite asking what y'all think happened to Non. It's this one. And it shows that, overwhelmingly, we all think Non is alive BECAUSE he was helped by the man himself:

"Okay, Dante, but, even if that's true, where does White fit in all this?" Glad. You. Asked.

Now, if we're assuming Perth's character's the one that's gonna help Non (and possibly Keng or maybe not, idk and it really doesn't matter for now), we've gotta assume he's a possible suspect for the murderer. And even more so under this optic that Non is alive. Who more than a person whose whole reality seemed to be the mafia and who might've escaped it would be okay with murdering people? Right? Or, on the contrary, that he took a liking to Non and is trying to prevent him from further digging himself a hole in life and is trying to save him from himself.

You see, I didn't watch The Hidden Character (and those who did apparently recommend it stays that way). I didn't know any of these people before except those who were in Kinnporsche. And you know what that led me to? Curiously enough, dear reader: confusing Fuaiz with Perth. So, yeah, you know where this is going... White and Perth's character might be related. Brothers, probably.

"All because you think they look alike?" Well, if you ignore the way I just explained how it would tie some very loose ends... Yeah, kinda. BUT, in my defence, it makes a lot of genetic sense.

See, no other characters in the show really look this much alike. Believe me, I tested it.

For this purpose, I tried many different sites but the one that seemed to give me the most reliable results was FaceShape. Most characters got no more than 10%, some even got 0% (e.g. New and Perth's Character). And you wanna know how much White and Perth's character got? Nearly 50%.

For comparison reasons, New and Non who are CANONICALLY brothers, got about 30%.

BUT, if this is not convincing enough, my sister and I (who share EXACTLY the same 2 parents) got lower than them.

(pls ignore the picture, I was trynna make it as accurate as possible so I took a front pic with a neutral expression. also, my sister is censored for privacy reasons)

Now... Will I claim this is irrefutable proof? No. Not at all, but think about it: if White and Perth are related that might maybe explain how Tee and White met. It might also explain that really weird scene in the pre-release trailer (albeit all scenes in that are rather odd) where White-

Yes, thank you, Obi-Wan. And Anakin Tee is looking up at him, as if White has more power than Tee does. Because then, it could probably mean that White knows something and is probably there to do something. What exactly? Idk, man. He could be there to ensure the group remains clueless/confused or that they remain where they need to be for things to work... Or he could be there to try and prevent stuff from happening much to the likeness of what I stated for Perth's character's case.

"Oh, but if he knows something, wouldn't he know what happened to Non? Why would he be curious to watch the recording??"

Well, not necessarily. We know Non is not communicative and that he doesn't typically share his problems with anyone (the exception being Keng, obviously, but then again, the exception confirms the rule). And sure, Keng might be more talkative but idk if he would say something if Non asked him not to. I have a feeling he probably wouldn't (since he has that weird thing JJ mentioned about how he "loves Non" and, therefore, even if he's an abuser, he doesn't perceive himself that way and wouldn't do something he actively thinks would hurt Non). So, while Perth's character would know what happened to Non while he was being held by Tee's uncle and even some things about why he is there, he probably wouldn't know the rest.

But then why would he date Tee? Well, this is a narrative so... Foils are something that can happen. Having White and his relationship with Tee be a parallel to that of Phee and Jin is not weird and, in fact, has happened in the very first episode when both couples arrive at the room where the singles are, in pairs. Therefore, it wouldn't be weird to think of White as someone who maybe also fell in love with the guy that was supposed to be a means to an end or, alternatively, and perhaps more interestingly, have White NOT be in love with him and actually succeed, unlike Phee. Thus, drawing the comparison that, while Tee and White are in a relationship, White didn't fall in love and, inversely, while Phee and Jin aren't in a relationship, Phee did fall in love.

And this would mean that all we've seen of White's fear might, in fact, be an act to throw suspicion off of him. Or even more justified because he knows exactly what's lurking in the woods... After all, why would he suddenly join Jin's goodbye party if he's not a friend of Jin's? What reason better than to tag along your boyfriend's getaway with his friends if not to protect him from the terrible consequences of his actions?

But I get it. It's an extremely convoluted theory and, in all honesty, maybe makes the show more dull and boring if it's true because... Why would they repeat this "secret brother" twist? Or the dating with second intentions trope? It could be a narrative parallel, yes, but I can also definitely see how people could point that out as uncreative or lazy writing.

Either way: these thoughts were circling around my head and, before the next episode confirms or destroys them, I wanted to get them out into the world for y'all to, maybe, hopefully, join in on the hype for it, as it's less than 24h 'till it airs. Hope in that I was successful, at the very least.

Anyway... As usual feel free to (politely) argue with me, tell me I'm wrong, tell me I missed this and that, add to it, etc... Because if there's one thing I currently love more than DFF itself, it's definitely the fandom and I want us to make the most of it!!

I'll see y'all tomorrow when we're freaking out about episode 10!!!

All the love! ���💜💜

[things-about-cars-in-posts]

what do you like about cars?

I think you knew, upon asking this, that I could only ever have answered with either an ironic one-liner or a dozen-part novel. And unfortunately, this is already the second line, so novel it is. So then, without any further ado than the literal half year that’s gone by since this was asked, let's go.

1. Engineering matters

At the end of last year (aka when I started writing this, yikes) my dear old iPhone 6S moved on to a new home because it simply wasn't keeping up with me anymore. (And again, I was using an iPhone 6S in 2023. If I say a phone is too slow, it's too slow.) I had plenty of criteria for the replacement: a smallish screen not overboard on resolution, ideally a physical media control button and/or vibration toggle, repairability, a FUCKING AUX JACK... Something like the Sony Xperia 10, whose only real issue is marketing so trash you've only just now learned Sony never stopped making phones.

And yet...

This fancy wallpapers-sporting foldable is a Motorola RAZR 5G, a phone whose too-big screen already broke (though at the edge due to adhesive issues) and those who dared try warn repairing it will be as hard as phone repairs get. Why the fuck did I buy this? Well, because it has something more important than the aux jack, proper sizing, and good cameras: it made me go “That’s so cool!”, and when’s the last time a phone made you say that? It's the cusp of a new technology, and whether it becomes the future of phones, a future of phones, or just a weird footnote, it is an island of interesting in a sea of boring. And sadly, even this island is rapidly sinking. The drive for new form factors has already boiled down to the same two phones and their evolution is sinking into the usual millimetric proportion tweaking, camera rearranging, touchscreen expanding, case material switching, fingerprint sensor moving, and spec improvements not even manufacturers can come up with use cases for. I mean, seriously, how does the iPhone 15 differ from a software-updated iPhone X (which is apparently not pronounced "x", so I guess the iPhone Twitter)? Nothing is new. Nothing is tackled differently. The user experience does not differ. And why should it, when iPhone users will get a new one out of habit anyway and many are so tech illiterate moving a button could hospitalize them? Five generation newer and 150% faster are numbers you basically have to trust, because they don't make a difference that matters.

But in cars? 150% faster will matter alright. Even just looking at it. Cars are a visceral experience to even witness, let alone ride in or drive, and the frantic engineering pursuits for performance and overall capability actually have impactful real world implications beyond "some pockets will bulge 1mm less". And their engineering involves so many fields that there’s always a breakthrough going on somewhere - which leads to another reason their engineering is so interesting: there’s simply so much of it that anyone interested in engineering will find something for them, no matter their level or sector of expertise! Interested in mechanics? Well, obviously you’ll have a field day! Aerodynamics? Don't even get me started! Electronics? You're getting more goods by the year! It spread from engine management to safety assists to infotainment to ergonomic adjustments to even suspension and aerodynamics! Sound design? Even just working on the way engines sound is a profession of its own, let alone making these barrels of metal and glass propelling themselves at triple digit speeds through hundreds of explosions a second things you can comfortably have a conversation in - and that's not even mentioning horns and chimes! Hi-Fi? We’ve spent most of a century trying to get concert hall sound from a tiny tin can where everyone sits off-center and everything bumps and shakes around and you have maybe room for two components* a third the normal size and speakers can only be in a handful of places you wouldn’t want them which may well be the next room over**!

And this is just engineering.

*Like everything in the car world, there are exceptions to that

**For those unfamiliar, subwoofers, the speakers dedicated to, indeed, sub-bass, due to their frequent humongousness are often installed in the trunk.

[stellaralignment]

After reading @kira-serialfaggot 's post about inaccessible menus and @butterfly-sapphire post about non-customizable menus figured I now had sufficient excuse to rant about how I hate how every big restaurant's ""solution"" to these two problems is somehow always the worst fucking app I've ever had to use in my life.

So, to clarify real quick. I agree with both previous posts. Places that serve food should have their menu easily accessible somewhere if they have an online presence, and places that let you customize your order need to have that as a feature of any digital ordering solution they implement. Good? Good.

So, a lot of places I've seen (Wendys, Taco Bell, and McDonald to name a few) Have tried to get around how fucking horrible the DD app itself is by making their own apps with DD integration for the actual ordering/serving of delivery orders. Great, this lets them provide their own menu customization options, serve discounts/coupons, and generally have more control over the user experience. Fantastic. As a bonus, this usually also allows you to just look at the menu whenever you want.

Small issue. All of these apps were written by the worst fucking programmers I have ever witnessed in my life. I havn't gotten angry enough to de-compile or try to reverse engineer one yet, but my user experience has been so consistently bad and I've encountered issues that, as a software engineer, I honestly could not tell you how fucked their system has to be in order to allow that to happen.

Allow me to tell you the worst of these. I'm trying to order delivery from a store. It's late, like 7pm, but I know the place is open till 10. I can confirm this on their website (I do later for reasons that will become apparent) and google maps. So I punch in my address, make my order, and go to checkout. Unfortunately, the app tells me "Your payment method failed. Please select a new method and try again". Which was odd, but not unimaginable. I've had issues with my bank in the past. So I swap cards and try again, thinking nothing of it.

Except, my other card doesn't work either. Nor does using PayPal, or Google Pay, or any of the other payment options I tried. I'm getting desperate. I buy some games on steam just to make sure some of these are working, which they are. I was worried, but now that I've confirmed all my money hasn't been siphoned away somehow, I'm just confused and getting annoyed.

So I start going insane. I buy digital gift cards from several different sites and try using them. No dice, payment failed. I try using the website instead of the app, on my phone and PC. Payment failed. I boot up an android studio instance with a brand new virtual phone, install the app on it, and try to order. Again. Payment failed.

I'm starting to wonder if their servers are just completely down. A friend in a different state can order with no problems. A friend in the same town can order with no fanfare.

But my roommates can't. They have the same issue

Payment failed.

So. I'm going insane. I've now spent almost 3 hours attempting to order food, and I'm starving. It is at this point that my anger finally overcomes my social anxiety, and I do the one thing I never thought I'd do.

I call the store in question.

Now, in all of this there was one crucial mistake I made. See, that friend in the same town? Lived on the other side of town. And there's 2 different stores of this franchise in town. We didn't control for this, because the app doesn't let you pick a store anyways when doing delivery. It's hard locked to whatever one is closest, which isn't a terrible thing to do. You need to get the delivery address anyways, and you know where all your store are, so it cuts out a step for me. But having to choose a store might've clued us in to what was going wrong.

Because the store? Was closed. Not just closed, like mega closed. It was being shut down. It hadn't been open for two weeks, and would never be open again. The order was failing because they'd already taken all the computer systems out, and it couldn't confirm to have received the order.

So there was nothing wrong with the payment. Literally nothing I could have done about this. I am just barred completely from ordering because the app defaults to the nearest location for orders, and my nearest location didn't exist anymore.

And you'd think that there would be some way to communicate this to the user when making the app. But for reasons I can only assume are profit motivated (Though I have no idea how the fuck this is more efficient/profitable), the app just defaults to saying the payment failed.

Now, I wouldn't be this mad if this was just "oops edge case lol" where I suffered the unfortunate consequences of some procrastinator forgetting to do the thing that removes stores from the database. Unfortunate but not really anyone I can blame for it. But no. This is just the most extreme example, and it's not even confined to the one app.

Almost every single app like this I've used defaults to saying the payment failed and to try a new payment method when anything goes wrong. No drivers out on DoorDash to actually move the order? Payment failed. You're trying to order a seasonal item that got dropped today? Payment failed. The companies servers actually are down? Payment failed. You're not connected to wi-fi like an idiot and there's actually something you can do to fix the issue that's not related to payment whatsoever? Payment failed.

What the fuck is up with this lazy ass programming? I seriously doubt there's enough technical debt from these apps to justify not having a robust error catching system that communicates with the user what the issue is. By the fucking stars these people love collecting intrusive data, I'm surprised they havn't used this as an excuse to harvest everyone's fucking location at all times and send "error data" back to central.

But just don't tell me my debit card was declined when I'm trying to order a burger and you closed that store two weeks ago.

[pspkisser]

⚙️ This laptop was saved from obsolescence! [10 mins of read]

Hello!! i am making this post here to raise awareness for PC and laptop upgrades, and how it should motivate you to do that same thing to preserve yours for longer or to give it the power you need! this will feature my history with mine, as well as the steps i took to be able to make him breathe life better! this is the story of his journey, and how it went to this current day.

his name is samuel, he is an asus fx570u and i bought him back in september of 2018 after i turned 13! he was brand new during that time and priced at 800 euros, offering only 6 gb of memory and an HDD as his specs. however he does have an 8th gen core i5 as his cpu and a geforce 1050 ti for his gpu. for something marketed as a gaming pc, it's pretty low and it wouldn't allow him to run fast enough, especially for highly demanding software and causing some compatibility issues. it wasn't severe, but as i was stuck with an hdd, that meant operating systems would run pretty slow on it, also leading to long software loading times. this is made worse by the fact that its bundled system, windows 10, isn't designed to work efficiently on hdd in the first place, but at least that means i have my hands on a windows key to be able to use some windows exclusive programs..

i mainly used him to be able to use advanced video editing software and customize the games i have on it for my own taste, because back then i loved making youtube videos and it was a passion i've had for years until i've partially retired from it. i rarely bought games on it and instead opted for free-to-plays, and overall had a good time with him.

unfortunately within only 3 months, his HDD broke down and i sent him to technicians for them to replace it with another one. it was a minor accident i've had but it formatted all my data, even though it didn't matter much since i uploaded most of it to the internet. i just had to be gentle with him by trying to not moving him around too much to stop that issue from persisting... but it was still low-end in terms of system performance. i finally used him for 1 year straight before moving on to a tower pc, feeling tired about his slowness and believing i couldn't do much about it.

i used that other (unnamed) pc for almost a year, starting from 2020! they seemed to work better since it had windows 7, but embarrassingly enough that version itself stopped receiving official security updates months before i started using it, even though i was careful while accessing the internet with it. its performances were also low, but didn't really matter much since i didn't take so much advantage from the power of samuel. suddenly, i had the foolish idea of installing windows 8.1 on the latter to try to deal with the performance issues on 10, but it led to even more compatibility issues since the drivers i used were meant to be for 10 only. only by early 2021, i got win10 back on him and started using him again to get more power again.

so the low-end performance persisted for very long. back then i never knew how to upgrade pcs, so i was only used to replacing devices with others which wasn't cost-efficient. after realizing i used windows for well over 10 years, i had the idea of switching to a mac and as a result, for xmas 2021 i got myself a cute yellow silicon imac, who goes by the name of sarah! but switching to macos posed new serious challenges, such as getting used to the lack of windows compatibility and the missing features that i was used to for a long time. most of the creativity i did with her was drawings with firealpaca and krita, and cgi with blender, which wasn't really much. still, she is pretty glossy and also powerful for many of the tasks i'm performing with her. originally i also intended to sell samuel, but that never happened (i low regret that decision so much i swear).

in late 2022, samuel's performance apparently had had a big hit... he now takes approximately 20 seconds to open any program and it seemed to me like something was wrong with him. at that time i also gained interest in linux since it's a libre OS capable of much more flexibility, essentially allowing it to revive old PCs. i finally decided to get linux mint to work on him via a dual boot with win11 (what was i thinking when i "upgraded" him from 10?). the performance seemed a little better from then, but programs still took very long to open. for that reason, he had often been collecting dust as he finally became unusable.

finally we've reached 2023. this is the year i decided to take on tearing down devices to learn how to examine problems inside of them. after checking samuel's performance again, i noticed that his HDD was having extremely low writing and reading speeds compared to my tower, which made me feel disappointed. but that's when i finally decided i could be able to replace his hard disk with an ssd, a new generation which is more durable, faster, quieter and energy-efficient...

but i still had a good wait until it was possible. suddenly with my money, i found an ssd which only costed €30, and it made me happy that this would be a quick way of healing up samuel! so i rushed to get it, and finally opened him to prepare everything... unfortunately, his keyboard has to be lifted up in the process, and there are flex cables connected between it and the motherboard. but taking out the hard disk thankfully only requires a few steps; removing some screws, then inserting the SSD inside of it. after that i quickly put linux mint back into him. SO SPLENDID...

for only the price of a high budget indie game, now he can open programs very fast, close to how fast sarah can do, and just about any task works perfectly well on him with way less bugs! thanks to that fast upgrade he's become viable for daily drives again, even though i don't have other desks suitable for pcs which makes me less motivated to use him. really wish id be able to since the architecture he has (x64) means he has a lot more software he's able to handle natively...

but then, i hadn't upgraded his ram. i said before that he only had 6 gb of it, and that meant he could only work with a few programs before becoming bloated. and as i like doing power tasks on him, that obviously causes problems. so one day, i went to a pc part store out of curiosity, and became shocked when i found small ram carts that could be compatible with my laptop. after some talk with the seller, i bought 2 ddr4 carts each containing 8 gb and clocked at 2666 mhz, more than double of what i used to have. after that it was time to take on a challenge to be able to insert them myself.

when the seller asked me if i needed assistance to have the carts inserted into my laptop, i giggled internally because of my past stories with learning how to open devices and trying to troubleshoot or modify them internally. i obviously declined it which saved me money, but also meant i had to do it all myself. after an hour of painful manipulations which required me to take out the entire motherboard from samuel, while that next step was also difficult i was finally able to insert the carts into it, before placing all his components back into place. and after such a long time of waiting...

i've finally done it!

Samuel is feeling very well right now!! despite his cpu and gpu dating from over 5 years, now he can do even more tasks at a time, while also being able to read them faster, a massive improvement compared to when it was stuck with an hdd and only 6 gb of ram. i'm guessing those low specs were for the purpose of saving manufacturing costs, but until you'd find use for the components that you'd remove, they'd end up becoming waste. and with a free os like linux mint, it adds up to an even more optimized experience than windows 10, which comes with so many unwanted stuff and can't be customized very well.

have you had a similar story to mine? did that pose you challenges? i took over 40 minutes to write this entire piece of text, but it should at least be very well detailed! on the best case scenario i hope it would inspire others to do some research on upgrading PCs to preserve their lives and especially save costs. Thank you for reading the entirety of it, don't hesitate reblogging it if you think it would interest your own audience! peace for all of you 💙

[cozyenigma]

Maintenance

HULLO

Word Count- 1263

Request?- Yes!

Summary- Life goes on, even out here. Unfortunately that also meant all the more inconvenient aspects.

Warnings- None

"Hand me that socket wrench?"

You weren't entirely sure why he asked for your help on this. Mark was more than capable of the usual maintenance a ship this size demanded by himself. Aside from his… quirks his work was impeccable. Hell, you could probably find half a dozen other things that needed your attention more than handing him tools. You didn't mention it.

"This one?" You held one out to him, low enough that he could see it with the mass of machinery he was under.

"That'll work."

As he reaches out to grab it, his fingers skim along your palm. It's just for a second, hardly any contact at all. Still you startle, accidentally jerking the wrench back a bit.

"Sorry," you hurried to push it back into his hand, feeling ridiculous.

Your only response is a quick thanks, Mark quickly going back to his work. Mentally you slapped yourself. It was ridiculous to be this jumpy around one of your crew. You were their captain for crying out loud, this wasn't even appropriate. Why did you even say yes to this?

Apparently, Mark had been banned from using the power tools. For what reason you couldn't actually get out of him but the padlock on the storage cabinet they were kept in was enough of an answer. So, much to Mark's annoyance, he was forced to use exclusively manual tools. He'd grabbed you on your way to the bridge, pushing the old toolbox into your hands. The head engineer wouldn't hear any arguments. True, it wasn't technically your shift on the bridge but still.

Mark called your name, insistent. With a start you realized he had been for a while now.

"Sorry what?"

"I said this one's too big, can you hand me the half inch?" Then after a beat, "Are you okay? You seem… distracted."

"I'm fine," you focus on finding the tool he needs, ignoring how the man has his head at such an awkward angle to try and look your way. "Just thinking."

"About?"

"… everything," you said, keeping it vague. Unhelpful.

There were way too many ways that he could interpret that. The journey, the colony you were supposed to be leading, the loops. Plenty of actual, real world issues that could be occupying your mind. Certainly not your childish crush on the man. Really, it wasn't out of the blue that you found yourself getting closer to him. The adventure, the tears, the whole thing lead to an easy camaraderie you treasured. Or at least you'd thought it was just that. This, now? This didn't feel easy.

As you dig around in the tool box there's a dull thud, a muttered curse, and then the sound of fabric against metal as Mark worked his way out from under the machinery. You felt your face burn. While you were handy enough to fix some basic software issues you weren't familiar with the hardware. At all.

"Sorry," you apologize, scowling at the tool box like it was at fault, "can't find the right-"

"Tell me what's really wrong."

Your head shoots up and suddenly Mark was much closer than you realized. Were you that obvious? He was crouched down right next to you, brows furrowed and tapping his fingers against his knee.

"Nothing is-"

"Cut the shit, captain, I can read you like a book. Hell, you're a picture book." He ignores your insulted scoff. "You're distracted, you're fidgety as hell, and you're avoiding me like the plague."

"What?" You couldn't keep the surprise out of your voice and Mark's expression sours. "I haven't been avoiding you, I have a whole ship to run, Mark."

"Uh huh," the engineer seemed less than convinced. "And I'm sure you've got a good reason for assigning completely opposite shifts for us? I'm a night owl but this is a little ridiculous."

"The ship's been through it!" You said. Even you were able to pick up how defensive you sounded but it wasn't like that! "Just the small stuff will take a week or so not to mention trying to get the Invincible ready for planet fall-"

"Captain you haven't even been eating lunch with everyone," Mark cuts in, words quick and snappy, "and I remember coming in for breakfast and seeing you running right out. At the same time."

"Mark it isn't like that-"

"Well what is it like?" He throws his hands up. "Just tell me! This whole thing is just because you," he pokes you, none too gently at that, "haven't said anything and you clearly have a problem with me. So spill it."

On some level, you knew he was just frustrated. Probably due in part to the odd shifts you'd been putting him on and the resulting lack of sleep. But still something inside you wrankled at his words. It tugged at things that shouldn't be. Or maybe it was just the fact that the last time he blamed you for something…

"My only problem with you right now is that you're being an asshole, Mark. Just drop it!"

Blinded by the dizzying sting of what was going through your head, you don't pay attention as you stand up. Your foot lands on the wrench, that wrong sized one you hadn't put back into the box. It slipped with a rough clatter. Suddenly your feet weren't underneath you. You see Mark's eyes go wide, trying to catch you. From his half crouched position, he doesn't have the leverage to actually pull you up. So he goes down with you.

The two of you crash into the floor. Hard. You can feel the pattern in the middle digging into your back. Your elbows stung, you knew you were gonna bruise where your shin caught the machinery. The weight on top of you was solid and heavy for a moment, just a moment, before Mark was scrambling up and off of you. You're left on the floor, staring up at him. The view was one you'd experienced only one other time.

But this time he offered you a hand. It was a quick thing, almost like he'd forgotten in the midst of the embarrassment. Probably embarrassment right? His face did seem a little red.

"You okay?" He asks, louder than he intended apparently as he follows with a quieter, "Sorry. For- yeah…"

All you could muster was a shake of the head. Not only was that whole thing almost straight out of a rom-com, you were uncomfortably reminded of what happened in the warp core. Your brain hadn't decided how you felt about all that still.

"Right, well…" Mark said, slowly letting go of your hand. You hadn't realized he was still holding it. "Sure you have something better to do than acting as assistant."

You open your mouth to deny it on reflex but Mark was already turning back to his work. Whatever it was, it had passed. Another beat of hesitation. You could tell him. The warp core and afterwards, how you hadn't meant to avoid him, how you were just trying to figure things out.

But you didn't.

Swallowing those poisonous apologies, you bid him a quick and stilted goodbye before retreating. The what ifs were too many. It could go over well but on the other hand… You tried to ignore how loudly your footsteps echoed off the metal floor. They beat at your ears in condemnation as you decided to leave things where they were.

The next shift you actually worked on, you made sure the power tools were ready and available for him.

[tgrailwar-zero]

Not really? Our physical body got wrecked a long time ago. We’re actually just voices given a humanoid shape by the Freyr. After we lost the Origin War we got sent into an endless repeating loop of holy grail wars and mindwiped over 6 billion times. Not to mention, I’m not even sure how much of The Interlopers was actually us and not just pre-programmed gunk considering our robotic nature back then.

Think of it like a computer where you replaced all the hardware after smashing it with a hammer, wiped the hard drive and software until it was dust and you had to buy a new one, and started it up again in an entirely different spot then last time. We got glimpse of memories in a dream, we were the ones trapped in their tomb, and we do feel responsible for their actions. So legally and morally, yeah, we’re The Interlopers.

Though we go by Patchwork Gestalt now.

DURYODHANA: "Alright then."

DURYODHANA: "Nope, he's dead. But that's part of why I called you here... alright, I'll only say this once, so listen up."

He cleared his throat, beginning to pace a bit, clearly preparing himself to be speaking for quite some time.

'I was summoned near the back end of the Origin War. Not by any official systems, but in the aftermath of where my Karna and that Arjuna had fought and ravaged the land. It was apparently one of the most grand battles of the Origin War, the two Archers putting everything they had against one another. Nobody knew who the 'victor' was. Some called it a stalemate with them destroying each other.'

'Anyways, I suppose the concept of a 'deadly clash between Pandava and Kaurava' and the dense magic in the land was a suitable catalyst. Maybe it was something else. Luck? Fate? Who knows. My Karna was already gone, but I figured I had to have been called for some purpose, so I began wandering.'

'When I found him... when I found Arjuna, he was already beginning to fade away. Whatever skill he had been surviving off of wasn't enough, he was starving himself of mana. Self-inflicted penance, if I know Arjuna at all. As soon as I arrived, he started talking. I didn't even have to ask. Frankly, I wasn't going to, but I guess he had something to say and he'd be damned if he vanished without saying it.'

'He spilled everything. How his mind had been taken by a dark curse, and the same had happened for his allies. How he had said and done unforgivable things in the name of a monster that his divine father had put his all into challenging. How his heart would never know peace, that sort of thing. Apparently, Karna had struck him with such a destructive blow that it served to temporarily shake whatever curse was on his mind and body, and he returned to reason. With that, he had tricked his Masters into using all three Command Spells on him in order to finish off Karna, and then- now that they had no formal power over him, he went into hiding. And, once he told me everything, he stated that he'd simply let himself fade away as penance. So I'd guessed right, because if there's one thing about the Pandava, they're predictable.'

'…With that lore dump dropped on me, I started to leave. Clearly he was dealing with his own stuff and it wasn't my problem. But he stopped me before I could leave his little pity cave to ask a favor.'

'He had discarded something important. That, if his Masters proved themselves worthy, could collect and assist them on their journey of redemption, if that's the path they chose to take. If they didn't, then it'd simply remain in stasis. Simple as that. He wanted me to guide them to that item. That if they ever broke free from 'his' curse and could enact justice, then it was rightfully theirs. He wanted me to lead you to it, since he wouldn't be able to.'

'I very reasonably asked, 'Why would I ever help you?' which I think is a fair question. We weren't exactly friends after all. I didn't owe him squat.'

'He responded, 'You don't have to do it for me, but you're a Heroic Spirit, and that monster is still out there. So please, I implore you, help me leave at least one legacy in this world that isn't darkened by violence. Be the hope for them that I couldn't be. Be the hero I was unworthy of being.''

'…'And if that's not enough, Karna gave his everything to protect this place for the sake of ending that monster. So if not for me, then for him.''

DURYODHANA: "Talk about a cheap shot. Though considering this is Arjuna we're talking about, 'cheap shots involving Karna' are his trademark."

'Still... At that point, I knew he was desperate. Entrusting his hopes and dreams to me? His legacy, to me? Me, his enemy? The man was so damn earnest that I didn't have much of a response to that one, so I agreed to his terms. He laid out everything, I committed it to memory, and then I left him to whatever fate he decided for himself.'

DURYODHANA: "...That's the long and short of it. I figured if I used one of Arjuna's epithets, it'd eventually lead you to me. Plus, it didn't hurt to hear a bunch of people singing my praises like that. But I still don't know if you're 'worthy', and I figured this was a good enough chance. If you can't win this tournament, then what hope do you have to beating that freak in the Moon Cell?"

MUSASHI: "Oh, Archer..."

[jujumin-translates]

★ Main Story | Act 13 - Budding Spring | Chapter 19 - First-Year Office Worker

Company Employee A: Those intern kids are coming in today, right? Apparently, one of them is the son of the company’s president.

Company Employee B: What’s he like?

Company Employee C: I heard he’s an actor at a theater company.

Company Employee A: Well, if he’s interning, does that mean he’s looking for an actual job?

Company Employee B: Maybe he’s an unsuccessful actor.

Company Employee C: Yeah, well, he’s just a nepobaby, so we probably shouldn’t expect much from him.

*Knock on door and door opens*

Masumi: Good morning.

Company Employee A: --G-Good morning.

Masumi: I’m Masumi Usui, I’ll be a new intern starting today.

Masumi: I may be a bit of an inconvenience at times, but I will appreciate any guidance and encouragement you may have for me. I look forward to working with you.

Company Employee B: L-Likewise.

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

*Flashback*

Masumi: A suit? Too stiff, not wearing one.

Itaru: It’s better if you do this sorta thing right on your first day. You don’t wanna self-debuff by wearing the wrong armor to your first encounter.

Chikage: If you don’t have a suit, I can buy you one from the place I usually get mine.

Masumi: I have one, but…

Izumi: A suit, huh~. They really do make a person look more mature in an instant.

Masumi: I’ll wear one every day. And I’ll have breakfast at the dorms before I go.

Tsuzuru: I thought we literally all just agreed that it’d be a quicker commute to the office if you stayed in the company dorms.

Izumi: There’s no point in you coming back to MANKAI’s dorms every single morning.

Chikage: You’ll have to get some dress shirts and ties too.

Itaru: I think I’ll leave this sorta thing to our veteran office worker.

Masumi: …Whatever.

*Flashback end*

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

Company Employee D: That’s all for the explanation of both the industry and our company. From here, we’ll move on to group work--.

Company Employee D: To give you a basic understanding of what promotion is, we’ll have you experience everything from planning to presenting.

Company Employee D: Here we have created a fictitious company with a specific problem.

Company Employee D: Using this as a reference, each team will come up with a plan to solve the company’s problem and then propose said plan in a presentation.

Company Employee E: If there’s anything you don’t understand, feel free to ask questions.

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

Masumi: …And that’s why these data results suggest that this could be an effective way of solving the company’s issues.

Masumi: Finally, does anyone have any questions for me?

Masumi: If not, I would like to conclude here. I hope you’ll consider my proposal.

Masumi: I thank you all very much for your time today.

Company Employee F: W-Whoa… he’s one hell of an actor… He’s so dignified. And really persuasive too.

Company Employee E: He cleans up nicely wearing that suit and he’s got a different kind of mindset than your typical “I’m-going-to-one-day-take-over-the-company” kind of guy.

Company Employee D: He’s the kind of guy I wish I had coming with me to my presentation this afternoon…

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

Masumi: I’m finished.

Company Employee E: Huh, already? Did you read through them all?

Masumi: I’ve also compiled everything into a rough report.

Company Employee E: …Well then, are you able to use this software? Next, you can put that in a document using that.

Company Employee E: You can take your lunch break once you’re done with that.

Masumi: Understood.

Masumi: …

*Typing*

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

Masumi: …Phew.

Masumi: (Now to confirm with… Oh, they’re in a meeting now. I’ll do it later. I should be allowed to take a break now that I’m done, right?)

Masumi: (I guess while I’m at it, I’ll put together a list of promotional methods that could be used for the troupe and ask whatever questions I can.)

Masumi: (It’s interesting to study promotion like this again. I get why Director and Sakyo do it.)

Masumi: (I wonder if all the other theater companies are thinking of different ways to spread the word about the stuff they’re doing.)

Masumi: (It’s like I knew all of this existed, but I never really was aware of it. It’s the exact same world of theater, but I feel like I’m seeing it in an entirely new way.)

Masumi: (Ah, right…)

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

Curry has entered the chat.

Masumi: (No one’s here… I kind of hate having to be the first one, but whatever…)

Curry: thanks for the suit

[ ⇠ Previous Part ] • [ Next Part ⇢ ]

[miloscat]

[Review] Legend of Kay Anniversary (Wii U)

An unremarkable PS2 action-adventure.

After immersing myself in Avatar media for so long I looked around for any other games set in Asia-inspired fantasy worlds but made by Westerners. This let me knock one off my Wii U backlog, the 2015 remaster of the 2005 PS2 game Legend of Kay. Neon Software, the German studio behind the original game, are known to me for their Amiga Sonic clone Mr. Nutz: Hoppin' Mad, and it's somewhat fitting that their final game before closure was this other furry platformer. Some of the Neon cofounders went on to form Keen Games, which seems to have morphed into a new Kaiko... the original Kaiko being the company that the Mr. Nutz Hoppin' Mad team left to form Neon in the first place! Who knows how long they'll survive now under the aegis of the troubled and layoff-happy Embracer, but it's been four years since their last remaster...

Anyway, this game is a sort of 3D Zelda-like-slash-3D platformer filled with anthropomorphic animal characters, which as a Rare fan sounds up my alley. Comparing it to Starfox Adventures may be a little generous though: this is very much a B-tier PS2 action game, and a graphical revamp for new generation consoles can't magically fix the mediocrity.

To get the plot out of the way: it's extremely Normal. Kay is a "plucky" (read: obnoxious) protagonist, using his martial arts training to fight back against the occupation of his cat village by evil gorillas and rats. He travels his island to settlements of rabbits, frogs, and pandas to free them from oppression. I think it's telling that there are no credits given for story or writing; anything story-related is constantly undermined by overly shallow characterisations, completely functional video game progression (go here to get key to open door to go there etc.), and the most brain-dead "banter". For example, Kay thinks the height of action hero quips is to call a rat "cheese-breath" about a hundred times.

The latter issue is not helped by some misguided voice acting choices. It's a fully voiced game but you'll wish it wasn't with Kay's bland sarcastic schtick and almost every other character uncomfortably presenting as a borderline racist caricature. Mostly it's white people doing faux-"Asian" accents, although apparently crocodiles are Eastern European and frogs are... Jamaican, for some reason? I was glad to find a setting that let me skip any dialogue scene with a quick tap of X, because there's no other way to speed up the tedious exposition and pointless back-and-forth when you meet enemy groups.

There's only a handful of what you might call "puzzles", and the platforming ranges from "not bad" to "OK", serviceable but doesn't excel. The biggest strength and biggest weakness of the game is its combat, which is pretty involved. You can swap between three weapons which have different attributes, you often have to get around enemy blocks so there's a Wind Waker-style roll around move to hit their back, but you can also zip between targets during a combo, or use rolling, crouching, or jump attacks. You can carry up to 5 usable items which sometimes are used to explore but you have to rely on them for combat encounters late in the game when they start throwing waves at you with hordes of armoured enemies. When the difficulty spikes like this, it all just becomes too much and goes from an exercise in creatively using moves to keep your combo up to a struggle to survive (and if you die, you lose any consumables you used in your last attempt, also there's a lives system for some reason??).

I said combat might be the game's strength and it was clearly a focus of the project, but I had the most fun exploring the little worlds. There's lots of goodies to collect, mostly in the form of chests and pots containing money. You quickly end up with more than you'll ever spend but I still liked finding it. The point multiplier mechanic may seem superfluous but when you get accustomed to the flow of the platforming sections, grabbing coloured crystals to keep this combo going to make your fights and coins worth more points becomes addictive. The level design may be nothing special but the zones you traverse have some character to them.

It should be noted that this is a semi-linear game, in that the levels are mostly open to explore with events and sub-dungeons within them, but you progress from one field to the next with no way to go back. This bit me on more than one occasion when I blundered into the story trigger to move on before turning in one of the rare sidequests or going down a side path to find a health extension, making it permanently missable. This frustration prompted me to occasionally consult a Gamefaqs guide with maps during each subsequent chapter. The game does give you a minimap in the corner of the screen but it can't be expanded to a full map so it's less useful than it could be.

Legend of Kay would have felt middling even at release but rereleasing it just makes its deficiencies even more obvious. It's still got some charm for being "of that era" (I was often reminded of The Hobbit's action-adventure game from the same generation, but with fewer instant death pits), so I got some enjoyment from it. And it has some ideas that work, like the acrobatic combat and combo system. While some of the environments look nice there were just as many drab areas, and the repeated character model reuse got old. Oh, and sometimes you ride an animal and it's not fun. On the whole, I can't recommend this one... even if you ignore the cringey cultural stereotypes!!

[scartale-an-undertale-au]

so what did i learn today? that i thought i was getting better with managing my life and work, but apparently all my issues were just buried under my extreme workholism.

i take today off to focus on a project for a course i took (regret as hell paying a fortune for it and now i know i'll never enter the field after finally getting into my latest job and realizing physical work is what i much prefer rather than computers, so long c# course.) and what is the end result?

i managed to take a shower since i had developed some scraping injuries from constant rubbing against my lower scalp from the lab coat, and behind my ears because of my glasses. it's rare to get them, but it's been dry lately and i didnt shower as usual this week so i started bleeding from them after i kept playing with them cuz they are incredibly frustrating and painful. at least they aren't visible...

anyways, after that shower i'm like... done. i'm unable to focus so i moved from the living room to my room, but even though i managed to download the proper software, i'm blank now. i'm constantly moving, constantly up from my chair, unable to keep doing what i planned to do. even eating out of boredom rather than hunger, which is why i know it's bad. my headache is also worse today and sounds are making me more distracted and pained.

i thought taking the meds for so long would help with my symptoms from anxiety and adhd, and while they help with the worst of them (haven't dissociated since i started taking them, and i haven't had a horrible anxiety attack in so long), they haven't done much for my normal level symptoms.

i just have been so fixated on work, i was able to delude myself that i'm in a much better spot, that i'm actually managing my life.

nope, turns out that taking a day off was a terrible idea. i feel so useless and worthless and well... showered. i also hate showers cuz they make me dehydrated and exhausted afterwards, so maybe i should just bore the bleeding and disgusting body until tonight rather than shower.

goodness, my head hurts. i'm gonna take combodex but all that would do is simply return my headache to its usual level... which is better than this but still not that helpful. oh, and not talking about my shoulders cramping and painful today. my joints all feel inflamed...

geez, i really should have just gone to work. this is such a wasted day, i'm way more productive at work and feel much better about myself at work... it's 16:37 and i did less than nothing today. i wanted so badly to enjoy today, but instead i'm more stressed and frustrated and on the verge of crying (edit: nevermind, i'm crying from frustration).

i know my worth is bla bla bla, but my job is one i truly love and enjoy and i truly feel like i found a reason i'm who i am. but now i feel like a useless piece of garbage.

i'm so all over the place. i only barely managed to sit long enough to write this, and i'm so exhausted.

i'm just so, so, frustrated with myself. i really thought i was doing better. i thought i was finally able to use my issues for good.

i'm... i'm just tired...

sorry for the rambling and for this huge wall of puked up words. don't even know why i'm writing and posting it... maybe i'm seeking attention, or maybe i just needed to puke those words out before i go insane...r.

dunno, but don't worry about reactions or stuff, i'm probably going to get a lot of 'kys, zionist' or 'good, suffer, israhell' or something to that extant. wouldn't be the first time. so at least i'll get the attention i need, no? *chuckle*

well, here's my first smile of the day, so i guess useful idiots are good for something

[inbabylontheywept]

Too Confused to Interrogate, Too Confident to Question

When I started my first job in the DoD - in a facility where missiles components are tested - the address they gave me had some software glitches associated with it. If you put that address into apple maps, it takes you to the facility, which is at the end of this unreasonably long winding dirt road through the middle of farmland. It's literally ten miles from my job to the nearest gas station, and then another ten miles until you hit the city limits, and then three miles and I'm home. But if you put that same address into google maps, it takes you to the end of that road while it is still in the city limits. And that end of the road is another classified site, but it's for the IRS. I don't know why they put two classified facilities in the same tiny town in the middle of BFE. Now that I'm thinking about it, I don't know why the IRS has classified facilities at all. Some kind of genetically modified accountant program? God help us.

Anyway, they didn't warn me about the directions bug so for my first day I showed up at the IRS building. They obviously had no idea who I was, but I told them that it was my first day and I didn't know anything about anything except that I was supposed to be there and that I didn't want to be late.

And they let me in.

Because I asked. Because I was that just right blend of too-confused-to-interrogate, but too-confident-to-question. I spent thirty minutes inside of this IRS building before realizing I was not supposed to be there. And instead of telling anyone about this, I just went back to my car and drove off. I have no idea what the consequences of this were. There probably weren't any. I could have stolen a whole filing cabinet of secret genetic templates for our modified accountant program and gotten away scot free. I then drove to the correct location. Apparently, under normal circumstances, I was supposed to be let in by another coworker but because I was late they were all already in the building so I had to call the guard shack on base and do the same song and dance again. The guards are not supposed to let people in. They aren't allowed to. Their sole job is to keep people out. But I did it again, that same superweapon combination of too-confused-to-interrogate but too-confident-to-question and they sent a guy out to get me in. When I arrived on site, I beelined to see my manager (who at that point had become slightly worried about my wellbeing - I was driving on dirt roads in the middle of snowfall after spending my entire life in the desert), and the first thing my manager asked me when I got to his office was

"How the hell did you get in here?" And then I got to explain to him how I had been illegally let into not one, but two secret sites in one day just by being extremely insistent. He was impressed. He was not pleased.

[star-going-supernova]

Security Breach prompt: Building on the "Vanny was a Terrible Killer" idea. Picture this: Vanny standing there, staring bewildered at an ajar "Emergency Exit" door because she forgot they exist and legally don't have locks.

Tumblr generated prompt number 42! Hoo boy, this was a lot of fun to write! It’s not connected to Critque because I had a different setup in mind, so this is a standalone. You get to decide what the situation with Vanny is, as it’s not specified or anything. The only warning on this one is for excessive italics, lol. She gets emphatic when she’s mad.

OSHA Compliant 

Vanny had been searching for the brat for ages now, and there was no sign of him anywhere. She had long since lost her patience and had stopped skipping as her frustration grew. Her grip was tight on her knife, and any plans to toy with her latest victim had withered down to a desire to just stab the little menace to death. 

None of the animatronics had seen him, not even the STAFF bots which were nearly impossible to avoid and should have caught him at some point in the last hour. Midnight had barely passed; she couldn’t be struggling this early. 

Spitting and hissing, she stormed through hallway after hallway, banging open doors and frequently pulling up different security feeds on her tablet. Yeah, her tablet. She needed to use the cameras like a newbie. Over a dozen successful kills under her belt and suddenly she was fumbling like it was her first time again. 

No, worse. Her first kill had gone much more smoothly. 

To make matters worse, she was due to give him his first look at Vanny, so she was all suited up—and had been for far longer than was optimal. It was sweltering inside this wretched fabric-and-foam heat trap, and she was sweating all over. Her hair was plastered to her forehead; she’d look like a complete mess when she had to get out of costume. And she was pissed about it.

Honestly. This was absurd. The brat in question had certainly been sneaky in the lead-up to midnight, but he was still a snot-nosed, idiot child. How he’d gotten Freddy on his side was a mystery to her—one that she would be investigating thoroughly once this stupid night was over. That couldn’t be allowed to happen again. 

Narrowing her eyes, Vanny swiped through the cameras for the nth time. There was a conspicuous lack of Freddy, even on the secret cameras she’d placed in areas the pizzaplex hadn’t. Impatiently tapping her foot, she switched over to the tracking software. It could give her a to-the-room accurate location of each animatronic, and it had never failed her. 

[Glamrock Freddy :: Location Error] 

Vanny unleashed a furious screech of anger. How the hell had the brat managed that?! 

She jabbed at the location history, searching out Freddy’s last known whereabouts. It showed a random hallway. 

Positively fuming, Vanny stalked halfway across the pizzaplex, halfway expecting to find Freddy beat up badly enough that his chip had short-circuited. Instead, she came to a sharp stop in the hallway in question and stared, disbelief and absolutely incandescent rage building up inside her like a volcano about to blow. 

Staring her down was an emergency exit door. It wasn’t closed all the way. Freddy’s last registered location was on the inside of the door—and the tracking system apparently didn’t work outside the building. 

Vanny took several long, deep breaths. She started to shake, fingers tightening around her knife and tablet. 

Over a dozen kids murdered in the past six months. And not once, not once, had she—or, apparently, any of them!—spared so much as a passing thought for the emergency exits. The only-locked-from-the-outside emergency exits. 

Foiled. Foiled by OSHA.

Blinded by wrath, she hurled her tablet at the floor, gaining momentary satisfaction from the shattering crash. She dropped her knife, tore off her suit head, and chucked it at the door, then started shrieking incoherently at the top of her lungs. 

(Her rage was so great that it was heard throughout the pizzaplex—and below it. Afton stirred awake. Upon recognizing the bellowing as that of Vanny, he considered going to investigate but ultimately settled back in his shadows. He didn’t know what had set off his follower’s temper, but he would not be inviting her ire on himself tonight. He was smarter than that.)

(If only marginally.)

[randomvarious]

Next Evidence - “Dune” Stockholm Mix Sessions 2 by Jesper Dahlbäck Song released in 1999. Mix released in 2000. Deep House

It’s kinda strange how you can’t find a proper bio about this French deep house duo anywhere. You’d think that when an enormous major label like Capitol/EMI puts out someone’s album, it’d help to generate some kind of fanfare for the artist, but it doesn’t really appear to have done so in the case of Next Evidence; at least not to the point where some professional music writer publishes a few sentences online about what the duo does and where they’re from. All we really have to go on here is a poorly written, unverified thing from some last.fm user. Crazy.

But allow me to piece together a narrative here that differs slightly from that last.fm entry. Next Evidence was made up of Maxime Cohen and Michael Tordjman. In ‘97, while they were both in their mid-20s, the pair put out their debut record, and in '98, they started their own small record label, Basic Recordings, which ended up releasing material from a handful of house talents, including Julien Jabre and Dennis Ferrer.

The following year, with five releases solidly under their belt as a duo, Next Evidence put out an EP called Sands on the Paris-based Versatile Records. And it’s on that little EP that you’ll find a deep house banger of theirs called “Dune.”

Now, what appears to have sonically set Next Evidence apart from most of their fellow deep house peers is that they had a special affinity for African percussion. While most deep house makers were just using standard drum machines or software to construct their backbeats, these guys were on some different shit, making sure that just the basest parts of their own productions were unique enough to catch and then captivate one’s ear. And that approach, when it comes to just the music itself, will definitely give you a leg up on your competition, because at jump, when all you’ve really introduced is your drums, you’re already putting out something that doesn’t sound like most of what else is out there, and your tune’s barely even gotten started yet! And that’s not to say that others weren’t also using African percussion in their deep house at the time, but it definitely wasn’t nearly as commonplace as other methods of crafting a backbeat.

So, next, you add some space-dubby synth-work to the track, and then by making some slight alterations here and there, you can just coast on that combo for as long as you’d like and you’ll still have a mighty fine track, right? Well, yeah, you could do that, but Next Evidence had other ideas, because just as you really start to sink yourself into this groove for the long haul, they decide to unexpectedly seep in some fantastically sex-wet jazz sax, courtesy of some French dude named Denis Guivarc'h, who’d apparently been lending his talents to records for years before this one and still does to this day. He’s doesn’t appear to have ever released anything on his own, but you can hear his exploits on a sizeable chunk of releases that have been coming out since the early 90s.

And then after Guivarc'h finishes his part, a new top layer of percussion suddenly arrives, courtesy of a guy named Nicolas Krassilchik, who provides an awesome solo on timbales, further enhancing this experience even more. According to Discogs, this was only Krassilchik’s second-ever appearance on wax, but it sure as shit doesn’t sound like it, because his contribution here is simply electric. And Krassilchik is another guy who’s never released anything on his own either, although he was a member of a group called 26 Pinel, who ended up putting out a couple albums in the mid-2000s.

This fully-packed track is amazing. Like, I would’ve totally dug it if it was just only made up of those drums and synths; it was that good already. But then Cohen and Tordjman decide to bring in those back-to-back sax and timbales solos, and the song just ascends to another plane 😌. 

What a superb tune from this duo who you can barely find anything about online, even though they’ve had a major label album release!

[arctic-hands]

What MP3 player? And is it still available! I hare having to muse my phone, and all modern ones require WiFi and that defeats the object of a portable music player!

So about 4 years ago I decided I too was sick of streaming, ads, and algorithms, and was running out of space on my phone for all the songs I wanted to play on the VLC app, so I got a SanDisk/Sansa Clip Jam (the little one on the left)

[Image Description: two MP3 players, next to a hand for scale. On the left is a very small blue one, with a very small and simple white-on-black screen, and a physical button pad underneath the screen. The player on the left is much, much larger, with a larger screen capable of showing color images, and touchscreen buttons underneath. Both players are open to LP albums, but the one on the right actually shows the album art for Churches. End I.D]

Now the little Clip Jam was good for a while and I was glad to have it, but it did have some drawbacks that became clear. Mine was used but I believe these are still being made/marketed. It was twenty bucks used.

Pros (aside from the big one of owning your own media without ads/algorithm

Ultra portability

MicroSD slot for more space

Audiobook-capable, Audible compatible once you register it to Audible

Physical buttons

FM radio

Shuffle capable

NO WIFI, plug in and drag-and-drop uploading

Neutral:

no Bluetooth capability

Has stopwatch

The "clip" in the name refers to the clip on its back, which lets you attach it to clothes and such

Immediately apparent drawbacks:

No external speakers, must have wired headphones to hear anything. They use your standard jack, so I'm assuming you could use compatible external speaker but I never had one to try

Sometimes chapters of audiobooks don't go in order and you have to go in with tag editor software

and sometimes the books upload as one big file, meaning you have to go in with another software to break it up

Thing that made me fully disgusted with the thing after a year or so of frustration:

The HARDware capabilities of the Clip Jam mean that it can only handle two thousand LINES. Not files, lines. Meaning the Artist counts as a line, the Album counts as a line, the songs each count as a line. This is bad enough with just putting music on, but when you add audiobooks to it, the titles of the books and every chapter counts as a line. With an SD card you can add about another two thousand lines. When you use up your line capabilities, the data will be on your device/card but the player won't show it or let you access the files at all.

SANDISK NEVER TELLS YOU ABOUT THIS. It was not in any of the listings for it, it was not in the manual. At. All. I only found out by chance by finally coming across a years-old forum post talking about it after months of frustration while I tried to figure out why half my files (mostly audiobooks by this point) weren't showing

So I started looking for a new one.

...for the life of me I don't remember how I came across the Phinistec Z6, prolly saw it mentioned on the r/DigitalAudioPlayer while trying to come up with a new one to buy for cheap. The brand seemingly came out of nowhere, but it had what I needed. I got it thirty dollars used from ebay. They were still being sold new as of a year ago, I just prefer getting li-ion battery things used.

[Image Description: the players again, the Clip Jam is showing the SD card option, the Z6 is showing a list of Music/Folder/E-book/Bluetooth/Recorder. End I.D]

I don't have an SD card in either and the option only shows up on the Z6 if you have one in.

Pros for the Phinistec Z6

No bullshit line limitation

MicroSD slot for added content

Maybe just a pro for me, but this thing is HEFTY. Not heavy, but dense enough I'm worried you'd crack a skull if you threw it at someone. Wonderful tactile weight in my case.

Long battery life. I think I've had to charge it 5 times in the year I've had it.

External speaker

Wired headphone capable, as well as Bluetooth capable

FM radio (only works when wired headphones are plugged in, the dongle acts as an antenna. This is pretty standard, it used to be that way on phones too)

Audiobook capable. This isn't advertised but it can save your story place in the middle of the chapter. I didn't use this feature too much tho, I got an e-ink reader a few months after. I don't think it's Audible compatible, but there are workarounds for converting those to MP3

NO WIFI, plug in and drag-and-drop uploading

Neutral:

Can read written books for some reason. Not sure why anyone would want to on a screen that small, but it exists

So-so voice recording capabilities

A crappy photo camera for some reason?

Touch screen buttons

Cons:

It doesn't ship with current software, and for the latest update you have to email the company for the download link. Kinda sketch, I'm prolly some Chinese corporation's data bitch now, but seeing as I'm American I'm used to being a corporate (and government) data bitch for my own country anyway

Also had the problem of songs not playing or being listed in the right order. The listing was fixed with the update, but even after tag editing the songs were PLAYING in the wrong order when accessed under MUSIC. When accessed under FOLDER songs play in order, but artists are listed in order of upload then, not alphabetically, so it can get tedious when trying to find the artist you want if you've got a lot of artists on there. Not a deal breaker, just annoying.

No shuffle, but because of the above if you want to shuffle on a specific album just access it thru the MUSIC function

While screen brightness can be turned down, the backlight behind the buttons is blinding white no matter what you do which sucks in the dark if you have sensitive eyes

Isn't as portable as the Clip Jam if you've got small pockets (looking at you, women's jeans)

The external speaker is a bit tinny and higher notes can get a bit staticky (especially a problem when you listen to LP)

Virtually no information out there about Phinistec

I vastly prefer the cons of the Z6 over the hardware limitations of the Clip Jam, all things considered.