#borking over this for hours

[alphaofdarkness]

BORKING ACTIVELY AHH 😭💜🤲🏼

Sugar honestly I have no words for this beautiful piece (I’ve rambled endlessly to you about it over dm and in still so in awe over them 🥹🤲🏼); mis hermositas, mis vidas! They are the sillies pair you have ever seen, how Sabine stands Dany’s tail is beyond her, but loves her endlessly 🥹 they are the best Mandalorian duo you’ll ever see 🥰 they are literally older-smol and youngest-tol hehe 🥹

I love this so much my dear friend, what an honor it has been to commission you for the first time! 💜🫂 my endless love and support to you! Go and support this amazing artist! 🔥😤👏🏼 I will bite you if you do not 🐺🐺✨✨

Commission for @alphaofdarkness ILY AND I LOVED DRAWING THIS ❤️❤️❤️ your oc is so precious

[gentlethorns]

you know what? i'm gonna say it. i miss being seventeen. not for the "glory days," bc they weren't, by a country mile lol. if i had glory days i'd say they were in 2020. but i miss the electricity, the constant undercurrent of euphoria and deep plunging black. i miss the fight i had. i was literally known for being scrappy. i was self-destructive and coping poorly, but goddamn if i didn't burn bright and long. it took me until my twenties to finally start to fizzle out. does the candle with its wax melted down to the base of its glass cage miss when the wick was lit?

[tame-the-lion-writes]

FLUFF TIME!! (While I’m in class don’t mind me) Reader and her boys surrounding her, everytime she heads to bed the boys follow, and when she has to get up, they whine (Soap). Why is she leaving? Isn’t it cuddle/eepy time?? Whenever she has delivery and has to receive it at the door (and has to leave in bed) they whine but follow anyways.

9/10 chance one of them tugs her clothe towards the bedroom because they are eepy and want to sleeb and that means it’s also her sleeb time.

Imagine she to take work home and is in bed typing in her laptop at 1 AM (while the sound of the keyboard is luring them to sleep, the light is a bother). One of them just pushes the laptop close and softly borks (it is past eepy time)

(I, too, am currently in class as I write this, and should probably pay more attention because we're covering Fourth Amendment rights BUT ANYWAY—also combining this with another Anon’s ask bc they were talking about their German Shepherd getting them to bed on time lol)

The boys may be strange and chaotic, but they're always hell bent on taking care of you. And that often means forcing you to take care of yourself.

Before them, you were just barely clinging to life. Now that you were out of university, there was no rigid routine to keep you in line, so you kinda just... fell apart. An inconsistent sleep schedule with 2-3 hour naps in the afternoon, only to stay up 'til 4 AM. Skipping breakfast because some days, you'd wake up at 11. And on days when you did have breakfast, it would just be a leftover slice of cake or pie, because you didn't wanna cook.

Things have gotten much better since you adopted these weird floofsters, seen as you've finally set an alarm so you can walk them in the morning, and are forced to buy groceries on a regular basis. Still, that doesn't mean there aren't tougher days when you fall back into old habits. That's when the boys come to the rescue.

Nobody eats until you eat. It's like a pact between them—even Soap refuses, and he's the most voracious eater. Price also insists that you eat properly—even when you're picky, he'll refuse to budge unless you grab some fruits and veggies from the supermarket. And Gaz straight up sneaks snacks into your cart when you're not looking, so you only notice when you're already in the check-out line, and it would be rude to go back. They also tug on your clothes or nip you to get you to bed on time.

You’re allowed no less than seven hours of sleep minimum—and bed is, at latest, midnight. Whereas the other boys are more occupied with taking care of your daytime activities, Ghost, true to his breed’s instincts, herds you at night; he’s the first to follow you out of bed if you try and sneak away, and he WILL stare creepily at you while blocking the doorway if you attempt to leave the room. The intimidation is extra effective in the dark and you see those reflective eyes peering out from the shadows. At first, you panicked and threw a blanket at him so he'd stop with his cryptid-ness. Nowadays, you throw the blanket over yourself, knowing he’s not gonna let you crawl back to your laptop.

You've tried to control his herding instincts by following tips on YouTube and Reddit, but it's like bargaining with a brick wall. Sleep—or else.

[thoughtportal]

It sounds weird to say that carrots are having a moment, but social media has catapulted the humble root to a status resembling stardom. Anecdotal evidence suggests online carrot recipes trail in popularity only those for potatoes and brussels sprouts among vegetables, and Pinterest numbers support that: recipe searches for honey balsamic carrots on the platform are up 75% this year, while queries for roasted parmesan carrots skyrocketed 700%. Fresh carrots are an expanding $1.4 billion U.S. market, andAmericans are expected to consume 100 million pounds this Thanksgiving — roughly five ounces for every human being in the country.

At least 60% of those carrots are produced by just two companies, Bolthouse and Grimmway, both of which were acquired by buyout firms, in 2019 and 2020 respectively.

“There’s only two sources,” Adam Waglay, cofounder and co-CEO of Bolthouse owner Butterfly Equity, told Forbes. “We joke around — it’s kind of like the OPEC of carrots.”

Cartels are less funny for neighbors of the two producers in Southern California’s Cuyama Valley, who are calling for a boycott of Big Carrot over the amount of water their farms are sucking out of the ground. In 2022, Bolthouse and Grimmway together were responsible for 67%, or 9.6 billion gallons, of the area’s total water use. Local residents said they expect their wells to dry up if the carrot farms continue to use as much water as they do — Grimmway CEO Jeff Huckaby told Forbes his company has already reduced the amount of acreage it farms — and the two carrot producers have joined forces to defend their thirst in court. That worries local residents, who say they lack the deep pockets needed to wage a prolonged legal battle.

Cattle rancher Jake Furstenfeld places a boycott sign in New Cuyama, California in September.Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP Photo

Water fights like this can take years to resolve, and often become a way to delay cutbacks, Karrigan Bork, a professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law, told Forbes. “You see these rights again and again get trimmed back by the state or by courts,” Bork said. “In some cases, your savvy water users recognize that, and for them, just delaying that trimming back is a success, and the longer they can do that, the happier they will be.”

Price Concerns

Waglay uses the word “duopoly” to describe the two companies. Such market consolidationoften leads to higher prices, and the government has for years used increased consumer prices as an indicator of possible unfair competition. The U.S. Department of Agriculture declined to comment on any antitrust issues.

Since 2019, carrot producer prices have increased more than 40%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, outpacing the 22% inflation in the U.S. economy.

Carrot Top

Prices are near their highest since 2019, when Bolthouse was acquired by a private equity firm. Grimmway changed hands a year later.

Huckaby, the Grimmway CEO, told Forbes that the costs of a number of inputs have gone up, too. Packaging, fertilizer and fuel prices have all risen at a higher rate than inflation, he said, and California’s minimum wage has increased 27% since 2018. At $15 an hour, it’s the second-highest in the country.

Still, the carrot business has been a lucrative play. Total U.S. production value has increased 34% since 2019.

Duopoly Origins

Bolthouse, founded in 1915 in Grant, Michigan, started selling carrots packed in cellophane bags in 1959. In the 1970s and 1980s, production was centered around Bakersfield, California. After Bakersfield farmer Mike Yurosek invented “baby carrots” in 1986, consumption soared.

In the 1990s, Bolthouse ballooned into the largest carrot operator, reportedly shipping some 80% of California’s carrots. It amounted to half the U.S. carrot market in 1992, followed by Grimmway, founded by brothers Bob and Rod Grimm in 1969, and Yurosek’s family-owned outfit. Grimmway eventually bought out Mike Yurosek & Son. The carrot crop is now the tenth-biggest commodity in California, where one-third of America’s vegetables are grown.

Today, the industry’s growth could be limited by dwindling water supplies in the drought-prone Cuyama Valley, 150 miles northwest of Los Angeles and 90 miles west of Bakersfield. But the companies behind the duopoly aren’t giving up without a fight.

Both businesses, which own their own manufacturing, are hitting a similar point in their ownership lifecycles. Private equity-backed businesses typically change hands every three to five years. In 2019, Butterfly Equity acquired Bolthouse from publicly traded Campbell Soup for $510 million in cash. A year later, Grimmway was acquired by Teays River Investments, a Zionsville, Indiana-based investment firm, for an undisclosed amount. That means both businesses are in the sweet spot of what most investors consider the hot time to unload an investment or take it public.

Los Angeles, California-based Butterfly has sold only one of its investments, an organic protein company called Orgain, acquired by Nestle Health Science in February 2022 after two years of Butterfly ownership. Grimmway is Teays River’s only current investment after exiting two others in 2019 and 2013. Teays River held those investments for eight years and one year, respectively.

Grimmway’s owner, which according to Pitchbook has $1.38 billion in assets under management, is backed by pension funds including the public employees of the states of Maine and Oregon, Texas teachers, the New York state Teamsters union and the Producer-Writers Guild of America.

Butterfly Equity, by comparison, has $4 billion in assets under management and is backed byexecutives of private equity giant KKR, where Waglay worked for eight years. The firm has done eight deals in the eight years since it launched. Butterfly also owns America’s largest striped bass farm, the largest free-range egg company, an avocado oil maker that controls 60% of the market, and a large whey protein manufacturer.

Water Rights

Bolthouse and Grimmway started working with each other in a way that competitors rarely do. They filed a lawsuit together in 2021 in Kern County, California to ask a court to decide how to split up the water of New Cuyama, where they farm.

What’s happening in Cuyama Valley is an example of the kinds of water fights that are surfacing across California. Farmers of a variety of crops there have depended on irrigation for decades. Those years of pumping water and spraying it over crops through sprinklers or complex drip irrigation systems have had drastic implications, including threats of land sinking, a receding water table that makes it tougher to dig wells and the threat of some of them drying out.

That’s why water use around New Cuyama could get reduced by two-thirds over the next two decades. To bring the region back to a sustainable level by 2040, water cuts of 5% started this year and will continue each year going forward. The Cuyama basin currently has an annual water deficit of more than 8 billion gallons, and much of the area’s carrot farmland may have to be taken out of production. Some experts say Bolthouse and Grimmway would have to reduce their water consumption by about double what the city of Santa Barbara, California uses annually.

But water-efficient sprinklers can only save so much. The carrot companies’ lawsuit has forced area farmers, ranchers, residents and even the area’s public school to rack up legal bills. In response, a coalition of locals launched a boycott of carrots in July. The boycott’s goals: for the companies to drop the lawsuit, pay all legal fees and to reduce the amount of water they pump. One flyer the boycotters distributed suggests a Thanksgiving recipe for brussels sprouts instead.

Both Bolthouse and Grimmway lease farmland rather than own it. They recently withdrew from the lawsuit, though the companies that own the farmland are still in it, and what the judge decides will dictate how much the companies are able to farm there in the future.

Expanding Elsewhere

Huckaby said the carrot boycott has taken aim at Grimmway and Bolthouse because they’re easy targets. Only 3,700 of the 13,000 acres that Grimmway leases in the Cuyama Valley are being farmed, according to Huckaby. “We cut way back and we cut way back and we cut back and no one else did,” he said.

The companies may have to find new farmland to grow carrots. The average American now eats roughly seven pounds of the fresh vegetable every year, with consumption up 2% so far in 2023, according to NielsenIQ.

Grimmway has already expanded its farming operations outside of California with facilities in Florida, Washington and other states.

Butterfly’s Waglay doesn’t deny that water is one of the biggest barriers that his investment in Bolthouse faces. “Water challenges,” he said with a sigh. “This asset has great access to water, but it’s going to get worse and worse, and you need to be planning for that and trying to work on ways to minimize that. That’ll be a long-term challenge.”

California water fights often result in residents and smaller business owners getting “outgunned in the courts by large commercial actors,” Pomona College environmental analysis and politics professor Heather Williams, an expert on water issues, told Forbes. The lawsuit is among the first of many, she said.

“It’s put into motion a race to the basin — pumping as much as you can, and putting that into production,” Williams said. “Water is property in California. It’s what a rational actor acting on behalf of investors is going to do. If they’re playing this game, they’ve got to play hard.”

Grimmway and Bolthouse can move on, said Williams, unlike most of the residents in New Cuyama. “These are their homes, their small farms. If the well goes dry, it’s worth basically nothing,” she said. “They can’t pay lawyers for ten years of litigation.”

[steadycoffeeflow]

I'm coming out of my cage and things are not fine, I'm screaming at NaNo "WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?!"

If you haven't already been made aware how borked NaNoWriMo is, in the past 24 hours they've released an endorsement of AI after partnering with an AI software program.

The problem is, much of what they're saying is outright bullshit, and I don't even need to get into the nature of belittling the very writers they claim they're sticking up for by talking over them. It's an exploitation of a community, using them as a PR meat shield.

Because it should be awfully apparent NaNo's goal isn't to foster a healthy writing community. If that were the true goal, their missteps for the past year following the child harm allegations wouldn't be happening. Rather, instead, it's more likely the reason every company has relentlessly pursued and pushed AI: $$$

I don't think I'm entirely off base to say money is the reason AI is mucking up much of our creative spaces. At the peak of this fervor, you could load up some listicle titled '5 Ways AI Boosts Your Side Hustle' or some YouTuber claiming to make thousands a month with their AI writing, as if it were that easy to make a living writing and silly authors have just been leaving money on the table.

The mad gold rush that followed impacted literary magazines and publishing spaces, such as Clarkesworld Magazine freezing submissions as they were inundated with poorly written nonsense. The people behind NaNoWriMo, however, apparently believe Clarkesworld Magazine is just being classist and ableist in their anti-AI stance. Yes. Certainly because of those reasons.

And not because their submissions jumped an untenable amount, almost 500% from their usual submission intake, and cost the lit mag staff untold amounts of mental harm (as well as a very real number amount of staffing hours and financial costs to combat this problem).

But to that, NaNo Org argues that AI is cost-effective, actually!

Which, we're back to the opening argument that NaNo is full of shit (in case you didn't realize that citation link was sarcasm and not evidence in support of NaNo's stance). It may be free to the end user to access AI, notwithstanding the many many models one can buy including NaNo's own sponsor, but the financial damages being incurred by the use of this tech is anything but. The fact NaNo glosses through this in three little bullet points is insulting.

But what really has gotten me to write off about this on a mostly dead Tumblr blog, is that I've worked in the publishing industry all of my adult life and I've been a part of the creative writing community about as long as NaNo claims to. Hell, part of my contract freelance work has been to go through slush piles and evaluate, by hand, if the submission utilized AI or not. Full transparency, that work has helped me get through medical bills this year.

Yet that's my point. Someone had to rearrange their budgets to hire many people like me to combat rampant AI-generated submissions, from college admission offices to literary magazines to other publishers. What could have gone toward the print run of a special issue or increasing the marketing budget of a debut author now has to go making sure illegal, plagiarized work isn't being unwittingly published and endorsed. It's not classist to take a stand against a technology that's disruptive enough to put people out of business, but NaNo takes aim and fires off some bullshit claim they're pro-indie authors.

You might be thinking, "But Steady, if the business can't adapt to the market, they shouldn't exist!"

And to that I say, not every single little thing needs to have a financial commodity price tag slapped onto it. Not everything needs to make money. Things have a right to exist without a price tag stickered on them. The onus of this situation is because NaNo partnered with an AI sponsor. They're outright seeking to make money out of this. Because they're well aware of the PR fiasco, they're high-grounding the situation by claiming they're sticking up for the little guys, while outright taking money from a harmful billion dollar industry.

Meanwhile, the little guy will find no publisher will touch their work, that their writing has no copyright protections attached to them, and they'll be blacklisted by those they stole the work from. NaNo claims this is unfair; sorry folks, that's just how it works. Stealing from your fellow writers tends to get those same writers to rally against you.

I don't need to be told that the publishing industry has issues, that fanfiction writers are made fun of and lambasted. But most of those issues stem from and feed right back into the very problem NaNo is claiming to stand against: The financial commodity of writing.

NaNo has everything to gain by you believing them and using their sponsorship coupon so you can generate works as a writer that have no copyright protections and likely violated the copyrights of fellow writers works in doing so (I can play the bolded words game too, you pricks (see their update in response to the massive backlash this stance has generated online)).

The final point I have to say, is that in NaNo's defense they claim their online workshops are just full to the brim! See the demand! Look, look with your special eyes how popular AI is!! You fools, this is the future at hand!!!

Except, I, an avid anti-AI writer and publishing professional, attend webinars about AI all the damned time. Mostly to understand what new angle or developments we'll have to defend against. Every single one of these publishing industry or writing webinars are, in the end, a sales pitch to get you to pay them rather than a fellow freelancer.

Notwithstanding, it's a marketing and sales 101 faux pas to mistake interest in a thing, eyes on screens and butts in seats, for tacit endorsement in said thing. Besides the obvious point that people most impacted by this tech would be interested in learning more about it, there's the very real possibility that the same crowd who drives clicks to Forbes and YouTube videos is partially the same crowd that flocks to these NaNo webinars seeking to make a quick, effortless buck.

So, in the end, NaNo isn't speaking to writers. They're speaking to people looking to exploit a blind spot in an industry in order to make $$$ in our Capitalist Hellscape. And in NaNo's rush to join that race, they're trampling over the community they've grown and fostered for over 20 years.

The insinuation of this entire statement is that NaNo is standing tall for the "little guy" that the writing community has just let wilt and suffer for years, neglected and unheard. And it's totally not that NaNo nuked their own forums, a free, accessible resource for such writers to utilize, and without warning fired all of their volunteer staff all because they dropped the ball in moderation and safety checks (I'm not touching on whether the groomer is still working for NaNo since that situation is tainted by rumors, sensationalism, and directly conflicting stories).

And topping this all off with a pithy little cherry on this shit sundae: "For all of those reasons, we absolutely do not condemn AI, and we recognize and respect writers who believe that AI tools are right for them. We recognize that some members of our community stand staunchly against AI for themselves, and that's perfectly fine. As individuals, we have the freedom to make our own decisions."

So not only does NaNo condone plagiarism and theft, they're quick to both-sides the issue, only to immediately say "we're all free to make our own decisions!" Not said is the heavy implication, "oh but if you stand against AI you're a classist, ableist dickhead!" Which, if it wasn't obvious, is so far removed from the truth it's insulting.

In short, fuck NaNoWriMo.

Also what the fuck does "further-proof" mean.

[smash-64]

I definitely offended a vendor at work today over Pokemon cards and it's kinda funny.

So, I'm on lunch and this guy comes in to work on some equipment that was borked. He's in a good mood and asks me what I'm playing, since I had my Switch. I was probably a bit short with him because I was off the clock and also losing at the time, but helped him get a hold of the guy he needed to see.

About an hour later, I'm back to work and he's finished fixing the equipment he needed to fix. We chatted for a minute about what was wrong, and as I was signing his paperwork, he noticed that I have some Pokemon cards at my desk. He asks, "You ever think of getting those babies certified??" and I actually had to clarify what he was even talking about, and he meant if I was going to get them graded.

Now, I think grading is a big scam. If the company isn't scamming you to grade your card, the people selling graded cards are. Unless it's a 1st edition shadowless Charizard, I think it's all pointless. The cards I have at my desk are worth less than a ballpark hot dog as it is. So I was honest and just said I thought grading was a scam.

This man froze and squinted his eyes and said, "Welllllllllllllllll, Idk, it actually makes them worth more." And then I realized that this man DEFINITELY has dozens of graded cards at home, probably displayed proudly. And I basically just called him a moron to his face.

Still funny. I hope he comes back some time lol

[elkian]

I've seen a few of my Murderbot posts reblogged with tags to the effect of "I don't go here but I know of it" and for people who are interested in the Murderbot series looking to break in:

Tor.com (now Reactor Mag) has the entire first chapter of the first book, All Systems Red, available free to read on their site.

Link to the article.

ASR is a novella, so this not only covers a lot of ground, but is a pretty good litmus test imo if this book is for you or not.

(I read ASR twice before getting Artificial Condition, and that was the book that got me totally hooked on the series, for what that's worth.)

I'm also just going to post the text under this readmore because free Murderbot.

---

---

I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites. It had been well over 35,000 hours or so since then, with still not much murdering, but probably, I don’t know, a little under 35,000 hours of movies, serials, books, plays, and music consumed. As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure.

I was also still doing my job, on a new contract, and hoping Dr. Volescu and Dr. Bharadwaj finished their survey soon so we could get back to the habitat and I could watch episode 397 of Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon.

I admit I was distracted. It was a boring contract so far and I was thinking about backburnering the status alert channel and trying to access music on the entertainment feed without HubSystem logging the extra activity. It was trickier to do it in the field than it was in the habitat.

This assessment zone was a barren stretch of coastal island, with low, flat hills rising and falling and thick greenish-black grass up to my ankles, not much in the way of flora or fauna, except a bunch of different-sized birdlike things and some puffy floaty things that were harmless as far as we knew. The coast was dotted with big bare craters, one of which Bharadwaj and Volescu were taking samples in. The planet had a ring, which from our current position dominated the horizon when you looked out to sea. I was looking at the sky and mentally poking at the feed when the bottom of the crater exploded.

I didn’t bother to make a verbal emergency call. I sent the visual feed from my field camera to Dr. Mensah’s, and jumped down into the crater. As I scrambled down the sandy slope, I could already hear Mensah over the emergency comm channel, yelling at someone to get the hopper in the air now. They were about ten kilos away, working on another part of the island, so there was no way they were going to get here in time to help.

Conflicting commands filled my feed but I didn’t pay attention. Even if I hadn’t borked my own governor module, the emergency feed took priority, and it was chaotic, too, with the automated HubSystem wanting data and trying to send me data I didn’t need yet and Mensah sending me telemetry from the hopper. Which I also didn’t need, but it was easier to ignore than HubSystem simultaneously demanding answers and trying to supply them.

In the middle of all that, I hit the bottom of the crater. I have small energy weapons built into both arms, but the one I went for was the big projectile weapon clamped to my back. The hostile that had just exploded up out of the ground had a really big mouth, so I felt I needed a really big gun.

I dragged Bharadwaj out of its mouth and shoved myself in there instead, and discharged my weapon down its throat and then up toward where I hoped the brain would be. I’m not sure if that all happened in that order; I’d have to replay my own field camera feed. All I knew was that I had Bharadwaj, and it didn’t, and it had disappeared back down the tunnel.

She was unconscious and bleeding through her suit from massive wounds in her right leg and side. I clamped the weapon back into its harness so I could lift her with both arms. I had lost the armor on my left arm and a lot of the flesh underneath, but my non-organic parts were still working. Another burst of commands from the governor module came through and I backburnered it without bothering to decode them. Bharadwaj, not having non-organic parts and not as easily repaired as me, was definitely a priority here and I was mainly interested in what the MedSystem was trying to tell me on the emergency feed. But first I needed to get her out of the crater.

During all this, Volescu was huddled on the churned up rock, losing his shit, not that I was unsympathetic. I was far less vulnerable in this situation than he was and I wasn’t exactly having a great time either. I said, “Dr. Volescu, you need to come with me now.”

He didn’t respond. MedSystem was advising a tranq shot and blah blah blah, but I was clamping one arm on Dr. Bharadwaj’s suit to keep her from bleeding out and supporting her head with the other, and despite everything I only have two hands. I told my helmet to retract so he could see my human face. If the hostile came back and bit me again, this would be a bad mistake, because I did need the organic parts of my head. I made my voice firm and warm and gentle, and said, “Dr. Volescu, it’s gonna be fine, okay? But you need to get up and come help me get her out of here.”

That did it. He shoved to his feet and staggered over to me, still shaking. I turned my good side toward him and said, “Grab my arm, okay? Hold on.”

He managed to loop his arm around the crook of my elbow and I started up the crater towing him, holding Bharadwaj against my chest. Her breathing was rough and desperate and I couldn’t get any info from her suit. Mine was torn across my chest so I upped the warmth on my body, hoping it would help. The feed was quiet now, Mensah having managed to use her leadership priority to mute everything but MedSystem and the hopper, and all I could hear on the hopper feed was the others frantically shushing each other.

The footing on the side of the crater was lousy, soft sand and loose pebbles, but my legs weren’t damaged and I got up to the top with both humans still alive. Volescu tried to collapse and I coaxed him away from the edge a few meters, just in case whatever was down there had a longer reach than it looked.

I didn’t want to put Bharadwaj down because something in my abdomen was severely damaged and I wasn’t sure I could pick her up again. I ran my field camera back a little and saw I had gotten stabbed with a tooth, or maybe a cilia. Did I mean a cilia or was that something else? They don’t give murderbots decent education modules on anything except murdering, and even those are the cheap versions. I was looking it up in HubSystem’s language center when the little hopper landed nearby. I let my helmet seal and go opaque as it settled on the grass.

We had two standard hoppers: a big one for emergencies and this little one for getting to the assessment locations. It had three compartments: one big one in the middle for the human crew and two smaller ones to each side for cargo, supplies, and me. Mensah was at the controls. I started walking, slower than I normally would have because I didn’t want to lose Volescu. As the ramp started to drop, Pin-Lee and Arada jumped out and I switched to voice comm to say, “Dr. Mensah, I can’t let go of her suit.”

It took her a second to realize what I meant. She said hurriedly, “That’s all right, bring her up into the crew cabin.”

Murderbots aren’t allowed to ride with the humans and I had to have verbal permission to enter. With my cracked governor there was nothing to stop me, but not letting anybody, especially the people who held my contract, know that I was a free agent was kind of important. Like, not having my organic components destroyed and the rest of me cut up for parts important.

I carried Bharadwaj up the ramp into the cabin, where Overse and Ratthi were frantically unclipping seats to make room. They had their helmets off and their suit hoods pulled back, so I got to see their horrified expressions when they took in what was left of my upper body through my torn suit. I was glad I had sealed my helmet.

This is why I actually like riding with the cargo. Humans and augmented humans in close quarters with murderbots is too awkward. At least, it’s awkward for this murderbot. I sat down on the deck with Bharadwaj in my lap while Pin-Lee and Arada dragged Volescu inside.

We left two pacs of field equipment and a couple of instruments behind, still sitting on the grass where Bharadwaj and Volescu had been working before they went down to the crater for samples. Normally I’d help carry them, but MedSystem, which was monitoring Bharadwaj through what was left of her suit, was pretty clear that letting go of her would be a bad idea. But no one mentioned the equipment. Leaving easily replaceable items behind may seem obvious in an emergency, but I had been on contracts where the clients would have told me to put the bleeding human down to go get the stuff.

On this contract, Dr. Ratthi jumped up and said, “I’ll get the cases!”

I yelled, “No!” which I’m not supposed to do; I’m always supposed to speak respectfully to the clients, even when they’re about to accidentally commit suicide. HubSystem could log it and it could trigger punishment through the governor module. If it wasn’t hacked.

Fortunately, the rest of the humans yelled “No!” at the same time, and Pin-Lee added, “For fuck’s sake, Ratthi!”

Ratthi said, “Oh, no time, of course. I’m sorry!” and hit the quick-close sequence on the hatch.

So we didn’t lose our ramp when the hostile came up under it, big mouth full of teeth or cilia or whatever chewing right through the ground. There was a great view of it on the hopper’s cameras, which its system helpfully sent straight to everybody’s feed. The humans screamed.

Mensah pushed us up into the air so fast and hard I nearly leaned over and everybody who wasn’t on the floor ended up there.

In the quiet afterward, as they gasped with relief, Pin-Lee said, “Ratthi, if you get yourself killed—”

“You’ll be very cross with me, I know.” Ratthi slid down the wall a little more and waved weakly at her.

“That’s an order, Ratthi, don’t get yourself killed,” Mensah said from the pilot’s seat. She sounded calm, but I have security priority, and I could see her racing heartbeat through MedSystem.

Arada pulled out the emergency medical kit so they could stop the bleeding and try to stabilize Bharadwaj. I tried to be as much like an appliance as possible, clamping the wounds where they told me to, using my failing body temperature to try to keep her warm, and keeping my head down so I couldn’t see them staring at me.

PERFORMANCE RELIABILITY AT 60% AND DROPPING

Our habitat is a pretty standard model, seven interconnected domes set down on a relatively flat plain above a narrow river valley, with our power and recycling system connected on one side. We had an environmental system, but no air locks, as the planet’s atmosphere was breathable, just not particularly good for humans for the long term. I don’t know why, because it’s one of those things I’m not contractually obligated to care about.

We picked the location because it’s right in the middle of the assessment area, and while there are trees scattered through the plain, each one is fifteen or so meters tall, very skinny, with a single layer of spreading canopy, so it’s hard for anything approaching to use them as cover. Of course, that didn’t take into account anything approaching via tunnel.

We have security doors on the habitat for safety but HubSystem told me the main one was already open as the hopper landed. Dr. Gurathin had a lift gurney ready and guided it out to us. Overse and Arada had managed to get Bharadwaj stabilized, so I was able to put her down on it and follow the others into the habitat.

The humans headed for Medical and I stopped to send the little hopper commands to lock and seal itself, then I locked the outer doors. Through the security feed, I told the drones to widen our perimeter so I’d have more warning if something big came at us. I also set some monitors on the seismic sensors to alert me to anomalies just in case the hypothetical something big decided to tunnel in.

After I secured the habitat, I went back to what was called the security ready room, which was where weapons, ammo, perimeter alarms, drones, and all the other supplies pertaining to security were stored, including me. I shed what was left of the armor and on MedSystem’s advice sprayed wound sealant all over my bad side. I wasn’t dripping with blood, because my arteries and veins seal automatically, but it wasn’t nice to look at. And it hurt, though the wound seal did numb it a little. I had already set an eight-hour security interdiction through HubSystem, so nobody could go outside without me, and then set myself as off-duty. I checked the main feed but no one was filing any objections to that.

I was freezing because my temperature controls had given out at some point on the way here, and the protective skin that went under my armor was in pieces. I had a couple of spares but pulling one on right now would not be practical, or easy. The only other clothing I had was a uniform I hadn’t worn yet, and I didn’t think I could get it on, either. (I hadn’t needed the uniform because I hadn’t been patrolling inside the habitat. Nobody had asked for that, because with only eight of them and all friends, it would be a stupid waste of resources, namely me.) I dug around one handed in the storage case until I found the extra human-rated medical kit I’m allowed in case of emergencies, and opened it and got the survival blanket out. I wrapped up in it, then climbed into the plastic bed of my cubicle. I let the door seal as the white light flickered on.

It wasn’t much warmer in there, but at least it was cozy. I connected myself to the resupply and repair leads, leaned back against the wall and shivered. MedSystem helpfully informed me that my performance reliability was now at 58 percent and dropping, which was not a surprise. I could definitely repair in eight hours, and probably mostly regrow my damaged organic components, but at 58 percent, I doubted I could get any analysis done in the meantime. So I set all the security feeds to alert me if anything tried to eat the habitat and started to call up the supply of media I’d downloaded from the entertainment feed. I hurt too much to pay attention to anything with a story, but the friendly noise would keep me company.

Then someone knocked on the cubicle door.

I stared at it and lost track of all my neatly arrayed inputs. Like an idiot, I said, “Uh, yes?”

Dr. Mensah opened the door and peered in at me. I’m not good at guessing actual humans’ ages, even with all the visual entertainment I watch. People in the shows don’t usually look much like people in real life, at least not in the good shows. She had dark brown skin and lighter brown hair, cut very short, and I’m guessing she wasn’t young or she wouldn’t be in charge. She said, “Are you all right? I saw your status report.”

“Uh.” That was the point where I realized that I should have just not answered and pretended to be in stasis. I pulled the blanket around my chest, hoping she hadn’t seen any of the missing chunks. Without the armor holding me together, it was much worse. “Fine.”

So, I’m awkward with actual humans. It’s not paranoia about my hacked governor module, and it’s not them; it’s me. I know I’m a horrifying murderbot, and they know it, and it makes both of us nervous, which makes me even more nervous. Also, if I’m not in the armor then it’s because I’m wounded and one of my organic parts may fall off and plop on the floor at any moment and no one wants to see that.

“Fine?” She frowned. “The report said you lost 20 percent of your body mass.”

“It’ll grow back,” I said. I know to an actual human I probably looked like I was dying. My injuries were the equivalent of a human losing a limb or two plus most of their blood volume.

“I know, but still.” She eyed me for a long moment, so long I tapped the security feed for the mess, where the non-wounded members of the group were sitting around the table talking. They were discussing the possibility of more underground fauna and wishing they had intoxicants. That seemed pretty normal. She continued, “You were very good with Dr. Volescu. I don’t think the others realized . . . They were very impressed.”

“It’s part of the emergency med instructions, calming victims.” I tugged the blanket tighter so she didn’t see anything awful. I could feel something lower down leaking.

“Yes, but the MedSystem was prioritizing Bharadwaj and didn’t check Volescu’s vital signs. It didn’t take into account the shock of the event, and it expected him to be able to leave the scene on his own.”

On the feed it was clear that the others had reviewed Volescu’s field camera video. They were saying things like I didn’t even know it had a face. I’d been in armor since we arrived, and I hadn’t unsealed the helmet when I was around them. There was no specific reason. The only part of me they would have seen was my head, and it’s standard, generic human. But they didn’t want to talk to me and I definitely didn’t want to talk to them; on duty it would distract me and off duty . . . I didn’t want to talk to them. Mensah had seen me when she signed the rental contract. But she had barely looked at me and I had barely looked at her because again, murderbot + actual human = awkwardness. Keeping the armor on all the time cuts down on unnecessary interaction.

I said, “It’s part of my job, not to listen to the System feeds when they . . . make mistakes.” That’s why you need constructs, SecUnits with organic components. But she should know that. Before she accepted delivery of me, she had logged about ten protests, trying to get out of having to have me. I didn’t hold it against her. I wouldn’t have wanted me either.

Seriously, I don’t know why I didn’t just say you’re welcome and please get out of my cubicle so I can sit here and leak in peace.

“All right,” she said, and looked at me for what objectively I knew was 2.4 seconds and subjectively about twenty excruciating minutes. “I’ll see you in eight hours. If you need anything before then, please send me an alert on the feed.” She stepped back and let the door slide closed.

It left me wondering what they were all marveling at so I called up the recording of the incident. Okay, wow. I had talked to Volescu all the way up the side of the crater. I had been mostly concerned with the hopper’s trajectory and Bharadwaj not bleeding out and what might come out of that crater for a second try; I hadn’t been listening to myself, basically. I had asked him if he had kids. It was boggling. Maybe I had been watching too much media. (He did have kids. He was in a four-way marriage and had seven, all back home with his partners.)

All my levels were too elevated now for a rest period, so I decided I might as well get some use out of it and look at the other recordings. Then I found something weird. There was an “abort” order in the HubSystem command feed, the one that controlled, or currently believed it controlled, my governor module. It had to be a glitch. It didn’t matter, because when MedSystem has priority—

PERFORMANCE RELIABILITY AT 39%, STASIS INITIATED FOR EMERGENCY REPAIR SEQUENCE.

[skelekins]

<< >>

Have some copy pasta Gen Swapfell-Facet Lore from my notes app

Disclaimer: messy

Muffet - Snowdin tea and bakery owner. Close relationship with Skeles. Puts cayenne pepper in many versions foods - spicy sweets. Has a few (like 3) setup for spider checkers - a checkers game with an otcoganol board. Waffle-coffee house. Speciality is spider Waffles, Soft Boiled spider Eggs, and Spider coffee

Muffet is a very hairy spider/rancho with scales/hairs all over body like the fluff of a moth. Helps with insulation. Smaller spider monsters are primarily covered in fluff for extra insulation with only tips of legs visible. Spiders wear little uniforms - usually hats/ribbons/tassels

Diner is covered in trap magic - one of many reasons no one causes a lot of trouble - snowdin in general assumed to be covered

Unlike skelebros Muffet can completely hide her trap magic unless someone is looking for it. Or at the very least her anchors are extremely small/needs less.

Smaller spiders may also use trap magic -> mainly just related to their physical silk.

Silk is heavily used in wardrobe and general materials.

Muffet must be seated the majority of the time the diner is open due to outgrowing the building. She doesn’t need to move much to reach every corner of the diner.

Double doors allow Muffet to leave through front if needed but she prefers to use the basement exit that leads to an enlarged basement - big enough for her to move properly, with a separate door out the back of the diner.

Muffet does not often actually leave and the back door is usually locked tight and hidden behind trash and webs. Since she has space to move in her home below she doesn’t see a lot of reason to leave.

Enjoys cooking and making sweet confections with her kin. Finds Sans and Papyrus cute - seen Papyrus grow up. A little older than Sans.

Spider eggs served to help keep populations acceptable. Boiled in a dust bath -> turning the interior monster into a weird edible savory jelly-like creature that is excited to be eaten. They feel no pain and usually find weird entertainment from being eaten in pieces. Not offended if eaten head first.

Diner spiders may actually be at LV 2 -> spiders have their own leveling customs. Basement spiders LV 1 - part of why Muffet and Diner Spiders are partial to Paps and Sans

“Muffet’s”? Like Grillby’s?

Grillbys - bar and grill

muffets - cafe and diner

While being a diner doesn’t actually care how long anyone is there. Closes late opens early -> most of Muffets time is dedicated to business with closing hours uses for rest, self care, and baking for the next day.

Probably has early days and maybe takes a “Websday” off once a month or so. !!she would be big enough and strong enough to easily go to Hotland or the capital if she wanted fancier supplies. !! <- gives part of reason for being so dedicated to the diner. Maybe gets special stuff for her kin/herself. Also cares about residents of Snowdin in her own way.

Like the idea of some of the bigger spiders acting rough and having little spiked bats to emphasize her kind of hard-punk/street gang aesthetic

15' 3"

Alphys - captain of the guard, watches over Waterfall but mostly has attention elsewhere ruling by name alone. Has Stone generally look after it. Originally from Hotland, met Undyne while stationed in Waterfall. Ascends (playing with words dunno if like that) in genocide route. Maybe something Al or Alph <- not a lot of options even with Alf.

Absolute Alphys? Alphys Ascendant

Her gameplay is similiar to Undynes except instead of blocking the player has to shoot her attacks like a game of asteroids.

Undyne - Royal scientist spicy fish yandere-like/light. Drinks beer enjoys super violent manga. Mew Mew -> Bork Bork

Jewel has a rough relationship with Undyne. Initially they were friends but after Undyne met Alphys she started to gain more level. It once got away from her and Jewel had to shortcut away from her as she was undeterred by Sans protection due to her own relationship with Alphys. She moved to Hotland not long after; secretly regretting her actions and not trusting herself in Waterfall any longer.

Napstablook -> Retraton - RTT // Retraton Para -> translates into shared HP forcing use of consumables along with cursor that copy’s players movements // maybe Retrabot to play off being an automaton vs mettaton being robot // Retrabot Para

Retraton held in place/ can’t move legs. Instead commands show through others monsters/puppets/effects. Usually broadcasts tragedies. (stone in turn loves tragedies lmao)

Has Rounded mascot form - form that is held in place. Para is transformation - still held but with extending arms.

Retraton Para - has extra arms.

"Oh yes~" -> "Oh no :("

Previously Napstablook -> taken to Undyne when Alphys found her missing her home; neighbor of Undyne. Forced into robot when he kept trying to return home.

Songs are very sad and yearning. TV shows are A Lot but also uses a lot of effects because it’s not like there’s infinite monsters.

May not actively star is show frequently but instead use puppets || marionette puppets his cast and narrates -> sometimes puppets are real monsters Retraton has some sort of relationship with surrounding monsters hinting at his Para form.

Para - kills Undyne before protag can activating Para form. Para uses Undynes soul. Might kill surrounding monsters / connected monsters as well.

Retraton - no use of legs - part of why puppets. Maybe needs to remain charged or frequently and feels more comfortable plugged in.

Arms > legs.

Box Form -> literally just a box with arms - no wheel. Has to drag himself or walk with his arms. Maybe has a hover butt? Or a skateboard. Or has lots of little legs. Roomba.

Mettaton(MTT)- Hapstablook

Instead of lie on the floor feeling like garbage they sit on the roof and consider love.

Gaster and Riverperson -

Stay in their respective posts however Gaster speaks in song and the Riverperson speaks in hands

Riverperson - gondola (gondoga) dog theme, speaks in hands, gondola above river because river water is too dangerous

Grillby - fire sale; father of fireflies literally flames with wings. Has a pet Fryfly - long fry-like fly. Instead of forcing player onto strings covers the field with hazards and fire. Have to switch and jump over between flames.

Pacified by firesauce (increases damage, possible burn damage, take one damage for spice) or Frenchfire (a firefly with an exploding baguette - covering the board around you in fire for one turn and burning any incoming attacks) or the purchase of either from his Hotland firesale.

Prices may be inverted to some extent -> Hotland Prices are cheaper but u need both items to pacify him. Ruins are achievable but ridiculously expensive. Only need one to immediately pacify him. Differentiated by name is Hotland Firesauce vs Old/Ruin Firesauce

All Dog references -> Cats (and vice versa)

Dog Squad -> Cat Squad

Annoying Dog -> Adorable Cat

[noyzinerd]

Derek the Doggo

Now, I've read a few Sterek AU fics where Derek has to pretend he's a dog/wolf and gets adopted by Stiles, who is none the wiser. Stiles usually talks to his "pet" in these as if he were talking to a person.

That's nice and all, but can someone PLEASE give me a Stiles that speaks to fully-shifted wolf Derek like a tumblr millennial raised on the internet? Like the single, poorly socialized, unhinged, expending-waaaay-too-much-energy-into-his-"fur-baby" dog-mom I know he'd be?

Like, Stiles holding up a mirror up to Derek and going "It you!"

Or, when Derek lays belly-up, paws to the ceiling, and stretches his toes wide, Stiles says sagely, "Ah, yes.The beans are coming in nicely this year."

Or Stiles putting Derek in a hotdog costume.

Or decorating his entire place with balloons and streamers and ordering an elaborate, dog-safe cake made of peanut butter and Milkbones to celebrate their one-month-iversary since the adoption.

Stiles hiring a professional baby photographer for a photoshoot.

Stiles setting up a Zoom call for Derek with another friend's dog, in which, Derek just sits there, looking awkwardly between Stiles and the other dog like "What exactly am I supposed to do here?", because he's a full grown man expected to have a "conversation" over videochat with a dog like they're supposed to bark back and forth about the weather or park recommendations or something.

Stiles making Derek a Twitter account and constantly posting as him in doggo speak (which he reads out loud, in a voice he imagines Derek would have, as he types). Like "Henlo! I is heckin good boi derk! Big anger! Much grump!" Or "No bork. Only O\m/O". Or "Mmmm hooman shoes omnomnomnom 😋"

And when Derek tears into things or misbehaves in an attempt to upset Stiles, he's just met with a psuedo-stern "Wuh-oh. Looks like Hurricane Derek strikes again. I hereby sentence you to 3 hours of cruel and unusual punishment!" Before being put in a cone of shame.

Bonus points if, after Derek shifts back, it turns out Stiles already knew he was a werewolf (maybe not the whole time, but definitely early on). He just wanted to see how far he could push things until the mysterious werewolf he had adopted finally showed himself and revealed whatever he was planning.

(If there is, by miracles of miracles, already a fic like this, recs would by greatly appreciated!)

[ageless-aislynn]

Annnnd also, very important update on Aislynn's Borked Up Computer...

Still borked up but Georgette (the computer) and I are working out a system:

Turn computer on

Pray it does not blow up

Thank God when it does not blow up

Check to make sure that all of the drivers are still correct and haven't been "helpfully" rolled back by Windows, Dell, the demon who apparently infected a bunch of Dells at the factory level, etc.

Try not to stare at the Nvidia light every time it comes on

Remind self it's okay for the Nvidia light to be on because it's, you know, the graphics card and does have legit things to do

Check Windows Reliability Monitor

Check the health and temperature of the C drive

Check the time

Those last two are important because in about an hour to 2 hours, Georgette will begin to just feel off in some way. Go back and check health and temp. Completely shut down computer if temp has raised (which, to be fair, I think the temp going up, like, 1 degree is normal with use but it's just something I can look at and makes me feel more like I have some sort of control).

If we make it to 2 hours up time without a problem, shut down anyway.

Leave off for a while. Switch to Fire tablet with its awesome, new $9 Bluetooth keyboard \o/ 🥳🤷‍♀️😉and spend some time writing the next chapter of whatever fic I'm working on (currently "15 Minutes" chapter 9) in a Tumblr draft.

Eventually come back to computer and turn it on again. Weirdly now, it should feel a little steadier than the first "session" and can run as long as 10 hours without feeling like it's about to fall over, explode, or all of the above. I do not understand why this is but... it is. 🤷‍♀️

Try not to keep looking at the Nvidia light every time it comes on but, for Pete's sake, that looked so cool when I first got Georgette, like she was some Fancy Gaming PC™️ and now it just gives me anxiety.

Eventually shut down and feel like it was a Good Computer Day if we made it through without a blue screen event.

I'd ideally like to get an entire week with no blue screening, then please, Dear Lord, a whole month, then I want to try installing Steam again. This may end very badly because I know the computer is NOT stable but she's more stable than before. I just want to play Halo again, friends. I miss it so, so much.

I also want this computer, which has so much potential to be a genuinely amazing gaming/vidding rig, to live up to that, one day. 64GBs of RAM should not go into vapors and die because I'm watching a video on Youtube while checking my email. That's just wrong. 😭I know Georgette can be a great PC, can make up for this incredibly rough first 7 weeks of her life. We just need to get this dang BIOS/OS/driver/whatever Incompatibility Demon out of her.

Hope you're all doing well. Love you, frens. 🤗💖

[manonamora-if]

April Check-In

HI! I AM NOT DEAD I PROMISE, ANON!

Just... Ugh... It's been a stressful end of the month. I have not kept up with the weekly devlogs at all, partly because I had little to share each week, but also IRL was just too much. Head seems out of the water for now. Though I will be MIA for the rest of the week.

Onto the usual index:

Recap of last month’s progress

IF Events in the Next Month

Plan for the next month

Still long post under the break. If you want a mini version, head on over to itch.io as usual!

March Progress

From last month, what did we do:

Complete my French Comp entry. ✅ Not only did I write it all in less than two weeks (and it was full of typo that was so embarrassing), I also managed to...

Complete my SpringThing entry. ✅ Because that's the same game but in English.

Play more games! ✅Obviously having finished playing the Smoochie Jam AND all the French Comp game (quite a few good ones, voting was so hard), but also the SeedComp! and the Revival Jam (maybe?). The harvest of games for this month was bountiful!

Finish the Code Ch5 ❌ of Harcourt and edit Ch6 ✅

Finish fixing The Roads Not Taken. ❌

Things, it turns out... No, really...

Yay! Still managed to make a decent chunk of stuff.

Let's start with the bummer: still haven't fixed the borked games. Yeah... I really should sit down at some point and get down to it. BUT I did get some feedback for the Egg-game, and got extra code to fix the container issue. So... I just need to get to it.

Still haven't worked on coding on Harcourt, though I finished my part of the edits of Chapter 6. The file, full of comments, is back on his desk which... Well. Herm. MelS's computer just 💥(not like fire everywhere, but sudden forever black screen), corrupting about half of his data... which included his progress on that chapter and the endings. We've been working on getting his data back (tbh this project is the least of his worries, more important stuff is still gone), so hopefully we can get him back to editing and writing by next month (best case scenario). YEAH...

But before that happened, I managed to finish Les lettres du Docteur Jeangille for the French Comp, at the last possible minute yet again. I had the idea for month, but didn't start working on it until I was truly done with Teatime with a Vampire. It still managed to write over 15k words in 18-19th century French style (and full of typo because, only two weeks...) in essentially 1 and 1/2 week. EPISTOLARY STYLE game :D

After that was done, I got to play the Smoochie Jam and the French Comp games (it's on the IFDB), and started with the SeedComp entries (it's hidden because I'm the organiser). Lots of fun little game, some very sweet and humorous, some VERY DARK, some suuuper hot, and some that required a bit of noggins.

And halfway through the month, I sneaked a mini-parser game for the Revival Jam. I wanted to try my hand out with the old-style Speed-IF jams, that ran all the way back at the start of the century, which were just 2h long. TWO HOURS! No preparation, just you starting to code and stopping after 2hs. I tried my hand at Inform but... didn't have time to learn a whole new program and make my mini puzzle work in time. So I switched back to Adventuron, and managed to make something... in just over 2hs... I ended up Reviving old versions of the EctoComp instead (3h limit). Still it was fun to try to make a parser game in such short amount of time. It's called FIA: The Vacuum Cleaner, it will take you maybe 5min to play. And... it was so fun I kind of want to make basic micro-parser in that little universe. Some sort of multi-episode series where you have a small puzzle in front of you to solve. Like an intro to parser type of thing. Maybe in different parser programs? We will see. I might end up popping up here and there as tiny little games.

When THAT was done, I went back to work on the English translation of Jeangille, cutting it so close for the SpringThing deadline I thought I would not make it (for real, my files were sent at 23:58! I honestly don't think this was my bestest translation. It probably would have needed a few more rounds of polish and maybe some beta-readers but... :/ the computer explosion happened in the middle of all this so. I guess it was enough... I hope it was enough... But yay! I made it! No bug! Probably just typos! I didn't manage to make the cool animation tho...

AND I updated my website to add all of these juicy thingies!

AND AND! I was interviewed by the Rosebush Magazine last week!

So that was my month. We did good, we did bad, we are exhausted.

What’s happening in April?

Oh wow, already April. WHAT DO WE HAVE HAPPENING? So much, we have so much happening.

First off, we have competitions looking for voters:

Vous pouvez lire le français ? Venez jouer et voter pour les entrées du Concours de FI Francophone ! La date limite est le 4 avril.

Also on the 4th of April, is the deadline to vote for the SeedComp! (@seedcomp-if) games! You can find the forms here. We really really need voters!

The Spring Thing just released a new harvest of games (including meee :P ), and will open voting in a bit less than 2 weeks. Come play!

Looking to create some games instead?

The next @neointeractives jam just opened for submission! Come participate in the Dialogue Jam!

Looking to attempt creating a parser that is easy enough for beginners? Come check the Text Adventure Literacy Jam! You need a tutorial and 5 puzzles to solve!

If you want a deadline to finish your project, maybe check out : Finish Your Project Jam 2024

And for lovers: Amare Games Festival 2024

On the shorter side, and in May: Narrative Design Awards 2024 (ranked), 🔥 Fuck Capitalism Jam 2024 🔥 (unranked)

Interested in other IF events?

April 1st is Source Code Amnesty. Come share the code of your creations! (I've added a bunch of mine on Github today)

You can now register to attend the 2024 Edition of the Narrascope! IRL or Virtual, there are a lot of great talks this year!

We had so far 10 actual entries for the Interactive Fiction Showcase 2024 ! If you made something in 2024, consider showcasing it there too!

Note: @neointeractives will have jams all year long. One a month/or so. And the next Planting Round of @seedcomp-if will start as soon as the results are dropped.

The PLANtm for April

I, erm... should take it easy this month. But also, actually finish stuff, because the more I start, the more I have to fix/finish and it's becoming A LOT...

Play more games: I haven't covered the Revival Jam yet (I'm getting on it!) and the SpringThing has just started. So I have a lot of new treaties just for me! (And also that 2nd Rank is so close I can taste it!).

Finish the Code of Ch5 of Harcourt and edit the Ending Chapter: the latter should be easy since it is pretty short. The former... I just need to bite my tong and get to it! It should probably take me a day to code those last passages...

Finish fixing The Roads Not Taken. Or An Eggcellent Preparation. Maybe the other parser too (it just needs a smidge of polish).

Complete the TALJ entry. The deadline is at the end of the month. I already have the basic structure. I need: a tutorial, commands to actually make the game work. And words. So many words. (Did I mention here I'm making a maze?)

I think that's good. I'm trying REALLY HARD not to tack on another Neo-Interactives entry (we're doing dialogues and I LOVE THOSE). But I WILL TRY MY BEST TO KEEP IT FOCUSED ON THE CURRENT PROJECTS!

~

The 2024 To-Do List:

LOL, I've only done the website! :D

The hopefully maybe easy to handle To-Do:

fix the bugs in EDOC + overall the French version to match (waiting for Adventuron to get the French language)

fix the bugs of TRNT + find a way to add the missing pieces (giving up on the translation)

fixing the interface of LPM and the popups + check animal interactions

figure out the One-Button JavaScrip/jQuery issue...

edit the loading screens of the completed tiny games to include the program/format logo at least.

The 'Need a Bunch of Content to update but it's planned!' To-Do:

Update my website (bunch new title - also I don't think the logo clicky thing work...) + redo my itch page

Finish TTATEH (MelS dependent - this year should be it - for real)

Finish Exquisite Cadaver (half-way mark by this summer - manif)

Finish P-Rix - Space Trucker (main path at least)

Update CRWL (it's been almost two years... I'm getting ashamed)

The Unlikely But it Would be Dope To-Do

Finish The Dinner as it was planned (and translate)

Finish In the Blink of an Eye as it was planned (and retranslate)

Finish The Rye in the Dark City

Fixing TTTT (at least fixing, maybe try adding some storylets)

And finally The 'It's impossible, but one can wish' TO-DO:

Remaster SPS IH (if I managed to start this after completing the rest... I'm going to eat a whole sheet cake).

Start the IFComp project (2025? Might end up being a ST?)

[gentlethorns]

help ladies i feel like my life is hopeless at the ripe old age of 22

[catierambles]

ya know

Campfire, my preferred writing platform, will tell me how many words I've written of a story because it organizes them by project

for example, for Alternate Instincts:

I've worked on it for 6.4hours, written 11300 words, and created 11 Elements (I'm working on chapter 11)

Kinda curious how Feral Instincts stands up. That's still in googledocs, I'll have to port it over sometime. the hours will be borked because I didn't work on any of it in Campfire, but the rest will be accurate

[clatterbane]

I was also maybe a little low on patience after the fun I've been having the past day or so with my last phone that already had the sketchy USB port and (unsurprisingly) declining battery life. It is an S20 from 2020, and I did already get this replacement. (Thus even less urgency with doing anything about that thrashed screen protector which looks even worse in this lighting...)

It fell screen side down in the floor and hit the base of some metal shelving just wrong. So, now it's doing this shit. 🙃 Started out with a single green line like it gets when I plug it in here, and the very top of the screen very erratically responding to touch input. The screen also won't turn on unless it's put on charge, then it's grudgingly willing to wake up.

That progressed to what you're seeing here, over the past day or so. The screen was actually behaving remarkably well here, but it goes crazier the longer it's on. Usually now the notifications bar can only be pulled down at all from a homescreen that's empty at the top, and the top centimeter or so rarely responds. It's now also registering random phantom touches and swipes while I am actively trying to use it.

So yeah, I am avoiding touching the thing any more than has been necessary to try to get some of the important final shit migrated over. And I'm really hoping the poor thing will stay somewhat functional until after Mr. C gets back in another week or so.

This has primarily been a backup phone that I've been carrying around to continue running Diabox, and the Samsung watch that I mostly even got for the handy CGM display on my wrist. Still no luck getting Diabox reading the sensor right on the Pixel, trying again--and the devs couldn't figure out the issue either after I got the new phone and tried to get it working the first go around. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Same error this time.

But, whatevs. I did get xDrip+ up and running, which is at least as good other than not being able to directly carry my old Diabox data over.

No luck yet getting the watch to connect to this phone properly either, though I did find one more thing to check--and, due to the person I am, I haven't sought advice on the GrapheneOS forum yet. Where other people do seem to have managed OK. But yeah, while I'll be pissed if my smartwatch is effectively a paperweight now? I'll cope if that is the way things play out.

What really has me worried atm, though? My hard-won BankID is still set up on the S20. And you need it here for everything from online purchases, to logging into anything official like the health portal or the weirdest assortment of commercial sites. I'm not thrilled about the whole setup from a privacy perspective (a number of things in this country, tbqh), but it is what it is. It was difficult or impossible to get SO MUCH done before I finally got set up with BankID access, and I don't want to go back there. Even temporarily.

Being a filthy foreigner with a limited bank account, I also can't just transfer it to a new device online like pretty much everyone else. That would require online banking access. (Which I really don't need to get started on now. A whole rant of its own.) Nope, I need to get the Household Swede's assistance to set up a physical appointment at the bank, so they can do it. You can't just rock up, you do need to make an appointment during the roughly 3 hours a day that they're open and deigning to deal with customers. Banks here would really rather you do handle everything online.

And I can't set that up or really physically get there without some help, frustrating as it is on so many levels.

But, that's why the hope that Borked Phone holds out at least until after he gets back from that trip. I don't know if SEB will need to even see the existing app, though one would really hope not in case of lost/stolen or comprehensively busted devices. But, who knows. My main concern on a practical level is maybe getting stuck for weeks without a functioning BankID, while trying to at least minimally function as an adult. With no onsite backup for another week and a bit.

[8bitsupervillain]

Higurashi When They Cry Hou Ch. 3 Tatarigoroshi pt. 10

Before we get into the real meat of it, I would like to talk briefly about a technical aspect of the GOG release of Higurashi (probably Steam as well). If you are playing the game (reading the visual novel) on two computers and using cloud saves, but don't have the same mods installed across both computers, this can actually bork your saves up.

In Tatarigoroshi part 9 I mentioned briefly how at the start of chapter ten it just has Keiichi mention point blank that he murdered the hell out of Teppei Houjou. I initially thought this was a remarkably quick change of pace from how the rest of the VN had presented facts. It turns out, playing the VN on my desktop computer (my Strong Lad) and not on my laptop as I usually do caused the save to somehow skip over chapter ten entirely. I read roughly an hour or so of chapter nine on my laptop earlier and it deals almost exclusively with how Keiichi executing his plot to kill Teppei Houjou. So I got curious just how much they'd written to extend this part for the console release (the console port got new art, so maybe they wrote a small extra part just for console). When it got to one of the mid-chapter stopping points I decided to see how much was left in the chapter and skipped towards the end. After verifying the chapter was over, I went about my day and eventually decided to check it on my desktop. "I'll read it for a while to see where they decide to converge the paths," I thought and so I read for a while, until I started thinking that something seemed off. This chapter ten seemed awfully different to what I'd just read. So I decided again, to use the skip dialogue until it got to the end of the chapter, where it gave me different TIPS than the ones the one on my laptop gave me. That being said, let's continue.

As you can see, he's becoming slightly more unhinged, considering he now thinks he'll be able to just move on from killing a man.

Bearer, seek seek lest.

I think it's an interesting idea, this notion that he's decided to become a gun for Oyashiro.

In the console remake art is flips very quickly through a handful of the environmental scenes while showing the words that the remake version has there. It's a neat effect, and I curse Nvidia for my recording software not working at this point.

I know that it's just a product of his deeply unwell mind, but I don't really understand why he's decided to project this almost heavenly aura on to the bat Satoshi left behind. Keiichi is treating it like it's a divine holy instrument, and the embodiment of Satoshi's will, when up until twelve hours in-game ago he thought Satoshi was a bum who just cut and run when the going got tough. He's acting like he's inherited the divine sword of justice in an RPG, and not the bat of Kevin the bed wetter who was mid at baseball. Like I said, I know this is a symptom of an unwell mind, but it's just wild to see him completely flip and change opinions on a guy that when you get down to it he knows nothing about.

I think you're gonna have a bad time. Oh yeah, also Keiichi dug the hole he's going to plant a seed of Houjou to see what flowers out of it later.

And so the trap has been sufficiently baited, and Teppei walks unknowingly into his doom.

Bad news Tep, you lost your living perms.

And so begins the murder of one Teppei Houjou by the Coward Keiichi Maebara.

I'm not saying I wanted to see it, but given how the visual novel up to the point has shied away from depictions of murder I'm surprised at how graphic this scene is. You basically get to read all about how Keiichi just splatters this man apart. Whereas in Onikakushi it was just "Mion and Rena got beaten to death with a bat," and left it at that.

"I felt muscular and compact, like corned beef."

And so it ends. Keiichi Maebara beat the life out of Teppei all for the sake of a relationship that a little over a week ago seemed more perfunctory than anything. Also I do find it interesting how he's taken this view that you're allowed a single murder on the night of Watanagashi. It's like a little Purge, a little murder, as a treat.

Sure. Keep telling yourself that buddy.

It's all fun and games until you have to clean up afterwards.

Realistically that's probably how that would play out though. He goes to all the trouble to plot and scheme the murder only to slip fall and drown to death in a swamp. So Keiichi drives the motorcycle the late Tenpenny Houjou had into the swamp, and then begins to have a heart to heart with what he feels is the now at peace spirit of Satoshi.

I know it's not what will happen, but it would be funny if Keiichi goes to all this effort and thinks he's done well for the spirit of Satoshi and Satoko, and he just shows up cause he's back from wherever he ran off to. And it turns out the entire time he was just having off-screen adventures and didn't actually murder anyone. Anyway, shortly after axe-throwing the baseball bat into the swamp Keiichi realizes the problem with committing a night-based murder and finds he doesn't know where he is, or where he left the hole he was going to dump the body in. Which is a pretty amateur mistake to make given all of his plotting and scheming about where, when, and how to do the deed that he forgot the simple truth that it gets dark at night.

[anderwhohn]

Things I'm doing in the background:

Moving my notes and such to a new scrivener project (roster changes make it a nightmare to navigate otherwise, and this blog in particular saw a major change in the roster, though the pages don't necessarily reflect that still)

Update the page structures to reflect forementioned roster changes - several muses have been reclassified as Irregulars and are now available only upon request on a highly selective basis (ie most are restricted to mains and those on my Best Friends Calls only)

Restructure the templates for the dossier pages and redo them for all the muses that are remaining as full muses

Restructure the templates for the verse pages and redo them for all the muses that are remaining as full muses

Update all the listed verse tags for all muses across all four blogs on their respective verse pages - this is to help make it easier to match which verse goes with which detail, especially for the ship verses

Using the same templates, create dossier and verse pages for the Irregulars - all such muses will utilise the same respective page for now, though it may be broken down further by overall fandom category in the future (mostly if I decide to add the details for fringe Irregulars that have largely gone as unlisted to the pages as well)

Move all the Connections details to a fully locally coded page instead of one utilising GDocs because that seems to bork and cause the pages not to load more often than not

Update the mod lists for Mass Effect and Dragon Age, especially noting the mods that have an effect on those universes' roleplay canon within my blogs (namely the story mods, but also a few of the appearance ones as well that play a large role for some muses)

There's probably more, but I've been awake since 5:30am, it's currently almost 7:30am, I haven't had any coffee, I can't remember if I took any ibuprofen or not, and I only have another 2.5 hours to myself before I have to leave to deal with getting mom in and out of the car for her PT appointment today.

In the meantime, if you haven't already, I redid the forms back in June to reflect the roster changes (plus the service I use for them updated to make it where I hopefully won't have to redo the entire form from scratch in the future with further changes, so yay?!), so if you could fill those out asap because it's been over a year since I was really active and verses have changed in addition to muses, so it'd help to know where current interest is.

People who have never written with me at all before and are not mutuals should fill out the New Follower Interest Check - and only that form initially. The rest of the forms are intended for mutuals only.

If we're not mutuals, and you'd like to write together:

New Follower Interest Check - simplified questionnaire to cover which muse(s) you're interested in writing with + a few other important details

If we are mutuals, and you'd like to write together:

Interest Tracker - required for in-character interaction

Ships & Dynamics - required for shipping & other dynamics

Best Friends Call - closest thing I have to a permanent starter call with bonus features; mutuals with established threads only