#delta's misadventures

[bats-in-the-snow]

!!PROJECT ANNOUNCEMENT!!

Hello hello!! I'm gonna be doing a series of choose your own adventure games based off of Delta Green: Impossible Landscapes, and so this is a post to explain how it will work, and to choose which to play first!

(side note, Cody was created by my bestie westie @gnawdar!!)

How will this work?

Each game will have its own storyline. Each post will have a series of dialogue and/or actions to choose from using the poll feature! Whichever choice wins will be what your character says/does, and will affect the ending of the game! Each game will have multiple endings, but the amount will depend on the story. Each poll will be available to vote on for a week, while I work on a response for each answer/action!

Game tags!

I plan to do more games in the future, but right now I have three! To find all games/posts I'll ever do, you can check

#A mystery in misadventure

To find specific stories, I'll be using their title as the tag! Right now, we have:

#The Dorchester Interview

#Outside Help

#The Nurse and The Doctor

You can find them easy in my featured tags, but they're also in my pinned and on this post!

The first three stories!

Now what we've all been waiting for!

The Dorchester Interview: You're a Delta Green agent pretending to be a police officer as you try to find two missing patients that disappeared from the Dorchester House in the middle of the night. After interviewing other nurses, doctors and patients, you land on the last interview of the day with Cody James Waller and Jax Cambion.

Outside Help: You're a Delta Green agent investigating the disappearance of Abigail Wright and the Nightfloors that exist within the building. You're sent to speak with two other agents from your handler, Agent Lavender and Agent Eucalyptus, both of which have experience with the Nightfloors. But as you speak with them, you start to wonder if the information they have is worth the experience of being around the two.

The Nurse and The Doctor: You're a Detective interviewing Dr. Cody Leonard Waller, and Nurse Jax Clawson about a series of dissaperances happening in their neighborhood and near their work place, The Dorchester House.

Warnings!

Last addition! These games will contain dark/horror content!! If you want specific trigger warnings check under the read more, but it DOES CONTAIN SPOILERS!!!!!

The Dorchester Interview: Mentioned/Implied Child Neglect, Mentioned/Implied Child abuse, Talk of mental health and childhood truama, Murder, Body Horror, and Violence

Outside Help: Mentioned/Implied Child Neglect, Mentioned/Implied Child abuse, Body horror, Murder, and Violence

The Nurse and The Doctor: Gore, Murder, Child Murder, and Cannibalism

[killed-by-choice]

Sarbjit Lall, 29 (UK 1993)

Sarbjit Lall was 18 weeks pregnant with her fourth daughter when she went to a Marie Stopes facility in Leeds. They referred her to an abortionist who would kill her along with her daughter.

The facility referred her to have a second-trimester surgical abortion performed at a hospital at the hands of abortionist Vasu Rane. Rane later told the inquest that the abortion went smoothly, but the truth was that the injuries that would kill Sarbjit had been inflicted.

Some time later, a nurse found Sarbjit hyperventilating and obviously very distressed. The nurse asked Rane and a consultant to come have a look at her, but the two of them decided there was nothing to worry about.

That was the last time Rane saw Sarbjit alive. She had been bleeding internally since the abortion because her uterus had been perforated. Sarbjit continued to bleed so massively that she had a heart attack from blood loss. An emergency hysterectomy failed to save her and she died only three days after the abortion.

After Sarbjit’s death, her husband said she decided to have the abortion after finding out the baby was a girl. She already had three daughters, ages 8, 6 and 5. This is an example of sex-discriminatory abortion, also known as sex-selective abortion or femicide. A study in 2017 analyzed data from 202 countries and found that among these, over 23 million girls were killed by this practice.

The Marie Stopes facility claimed that Sarbjit lied to them and said that she wanted the abortion because she thought the baby would “force her to give up her job as a financial controller and create financial problems” as well as cause depression. (There is no evidence that she was referred to or examined by a mental health professional to evaluate her risk of depression.)

Marie Stopes refused to accept any responsibility for Sarbjit’s death or the sex-discriminatory abortion referral. The facility claimed that they only made the referral because Sarbjit was a liar and the facility’s manager even went as far as to claim that Sarbjit’s death was due to an illegal abortion because of the exact wording used in the 1967 Abortion Act (which actually made abortion essentially legal on demand by definition health and mental health reasons so loosely that anyone could qualify) didn’t specifically say that sex-discriminatory abortion was a legal reason.

During the inquest, Rane claimed to have not been told the reasons for the abortion performed that day and stated “I believed it was a perfectly routine termination for proper medical reasons.” But second-trimester abortions are not routinely for medical reasons. Even training programs for abortionists admit that the most common reason by far for second-trimester abortions are that the client did not realize she was pregnant sooner (71%). Maternal health is almost never given as a reason, and no abortion is ever medically necessary past 20 weeks, when an induced delivery or C-section would be faster and safer.

Sarbjit was killed in May of 1993. The inquest did not give a verdict until the next year, when her death was declared to have been by misadventure. The coroner stated, “I have not throughout the inquiry exposed any evidence of any lack of care on the part of any involved agencies.” He was later criticized in a letter to the editor of The Independent for his comments about Sarbjit being “devious and dishonest” instead of focusing on the fact that the abortionist said a woman with massive internal bleeding had “nothing to worry about” and left her to bleed to death. Sarbjit’s family was considering legal action at publishing time.

Sarbjit was far from the only client to be killed by the Marie Stopes abortion corporation. Others include Sharon Michelle Bagg, 15-year-old Alesha Thomas, Aisha Chithira, Delta Poke and “Marcie Roe.”

[lawyeronabike]

Misadventures in American Public Transit #4: The Airplane

If the Wright Brothers could see the state of commercial aviation today, they never would have invented the airplane. Prove me wrong.

Obviously I'm exaggerating. But there are serious flaws with American air travel that high speed rail all the more essential.

The TSA: at best, they slow you down, make you take off your shoes, unpack and repack your laptop, and generally be a nuisance. Then there's the times that they want to pat you down. I cringed at the sight of their screens, after I passed through the full body scanner, which showed an anomaly in my genital area. They patted me down last time I flew. It's billions of dollars totally wasted.

2. Planing and Deplaning: I never understood why a perk of spending more money for your ticket was to board the plane earlier. I don't give a shit if I'm the first person on or the last person. The plane will not take off until everybody has boarded. Boarding first means you have more time to sit in those cramped airplane seats. It is notoriously slow to file in and out of an airplane, and needlessly so.

People like CPG Grey love to overcomplicate things, theorizing optimal mathematical algorithms for boarding when true solutions are right in front of our faces.

So how can boarding actually be made better? Goddamn it, do it like trains. No mathematical formula for boarding would beat these two suggestions. 1) Stop assigning seats ahead of time. You claim your seat by sitting in it. 2) Have multiple doors for boarding. Shoving hundreds of people in through a single door has always been madness. Trains can board and deboard masses in seconds. It's long past time for planes to do the same.

3. The Idiocy of airline pricing: I'm not even talking about all the extra fees associated with flying. Everybody knows how annoying that is. What I'm talking about is a pricing model that would make an economist's head spin. What I'm talking about is this.

See this? This is a google price graph (Generated Feb. 21) of the cost to fly from New York to San Francisco on June 1. Why does the price dip? You have to be a psychic to play the airline pricing game. Price go up, price go down. Buy the Dip! Oops. you missed it, you have to pay more now. I don't like this. I want straightforward incentives to help me know when to buy. Amtrak for contrast, prices tickets lower, and raises prices as tickets are sold. I can buy a train ticket not worrying that I'm wasting money by not waiting for the dip.

So intrepid consumers try to save cash. They notice something weird. Sometimes, it is literally cheaper to buy a ticket to a far away place with a layover in a closer place than just to buy a ticket to the nearer place directly. It confounds common sense and is not how the world is supposed to work, according to economics. Don't believe me? Here's an example. (Prices checked on Feb. 21st)

On July 1st Delta flight 528 from Los Angeles to Atlanta costs $249. Or does it?

If you want to fly from Los Angeles to Fort Meyers FL, with a layover in Atlanta, it costs $144. Same airline. Same day. And same fucking flight. The first leg of the journey is provided by our old friend Delta flight 528.

So enterprising travelers start skiplagging. (cough cough search https://skiplagged.com/) They simply exit the airport at the layover airport, getting the correct price for a flight which was clearly mispriced. Surely, airline CEO's see this, and immediately fix their obtuse, opaque, and incredibly frustrating pricing system. Surely, airlines don't want to have a system in place which rewards people for buying seats they don't need, depriving travelers who do need them. Right?

But if you guessed they were going to be giant dicks about it, bonus points for you. Because we live in the worst timeline, they have decided to contractually enforce this insanity. It is a violation of the terms of service for most major airlines to skiplag. Take a look at this gem from Delta.

"Delta prohibits ticketing practices intended to circumvent the published fare that Delta intends to offer for your true itinerary. These practices include:.. 3) Hidden City/Point Beyond Ticketing - The purchase or usage of a fare from a point before the passenger's actual origin or to a point beyond the passenger's actual destination."

Imagine going to law school, thinking you're going to make the world a better place, only to sell out to commercial airlines and have to write shit like this to make the world a worse place.

(I hope the lawyers got paid a lot of money). I'm calling on congress to enact legislation to prohibit airlines from punishing customers for skiplagging.

We would not accept these shenanigans anywhere else. Can you imagine if at the grocery store, buying 10 oranges was cheaper than buying 5, but buying 11 was more expensive again? Can you imagine if to get into the store, you were required to wait in line while security guards with a better retirement plan than you made you take off your shoes, and funneled you in, one by one, through a single entrance, and assigned you a part of the store rather than let you pick where you started shopping? Nobody would accept this. Air travel can and be should be better. Much Better.

In Conclusion:

Plane bad, train good

[jakobdodson]

2022 in Music

Here is a note about the music I listened to in 2022. I hope you enjoy it!

Favorite Albums of 2022

Blue Rev - Alvvays

Banger after banger after banger on here!

Favorite Songs:

After The Earthquake

Tile By Tile

Belinda Says

Bored In Bristol

A Light For Attracting Attention - The Smile 

This is essentially a Radiohead album with a jazzy twist. Accordingly, it belongs here, among my favorites of the year. 

Favorite Songs:

Speech Bubbles

Open The Floodgates

Free In The Knowledge

Skirting On The Surface

Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You - Big Thief

My most anticipated release of the year that easily surpassed my highest expectations. It explodes into several beautifully creative directions and where it could overwhelm with its ambition it tends to endear and make you smile.

Favorite Songs:

Change

Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You

Flower of Blood

Red Moon

Promise Is a Pendulum

12,000 Lines

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Runners Up

Dawn FM - The Weeknd 

Once Twice Melody - Beach House

LABYRINTHITIS - Destroyer 

Ice, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms, and Lava - King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard

Dripfield - Goose

Music for Animals - Nils Frahm

Liked It

Misadventures of Doomscroller - Dawes

I’m Not Sorry, I’m Just Being Me - King Hannah

Good and Green Again - Jake Xerxes Fussell

Hell on Church Street - Punch Brothers

Time Skiffs - Animal Collective

Ants from Up There - Black Country, New Road 

Humble Quest - Maren Morris

The Joy of Music - Ben Rector

The Jacket - Widowspeak

Underground Complex No. 1 - Typhoon 

Fear of the Dawn - Jack White

Omnium Gatherum - King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard

Giving The World Away - Hatchie 

Break Me Open - S. Carey

Romeo & Juliet - Ryan Adams

One is One - Delta Spirit

Two Ribbons - Let’s Eat Grandma

Big Time - Angel Olsen

Preacher’s Daughter - Ethel Cain

Cruel Country - Wilco

The Loneliest Time - Carly Rae Jepsen

Surrender - Maggie Rogers

Teeth Marks - S.G. Goodman 

Take It Like A Man - Amanda Shires

Sons Of - Sam Prekop & John McEntire

Chloe and the Next 20th Century - Father John Misty

Reggae Film Star - Damian Jurado

Freakout/Release - Hot Chip

Will Of The People - Muse

WE - Arcade Fire

Birds In The Ceiling - John Moreland

Profound Mysteries II - Röyksopp 

sandhills music - Ben Seretan

The Blue EP - MORE&MORE

I’m Sweating All the Time - Wormy

Heartmind - Cass McCombs

The Liar - John Fullbright

Midnights - Taylor Swift

Changes - King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard

Rolling Golden Holy - Bonny Light Horseman

Into the Blue - Broken Bells

I Walked With You a Ways - Plains

Laminated Denim - King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard

ILYSM - Wild Pink

Being Funny in a Foreign Language - The 1975

And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow - Weyes Blood

Schvitz - Vulfpeck

MUNA - MUNA

Cowboy Ballads, Pt. 1 - Jesse Tabish

Drew Winn - Drew Winn

Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven? - Tyler Childers

Blue Skies - Dehd

Harry’s House - Harry Styles

Ali - Vieux Farka & Khruangbin

Meh

Quitters - Christian Lee Huston

Chris - Ryan Adams

Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers - Kendrick Lamar

Plonk - Huerco S.

Palomino - First Aid Kit

Alpha Zulu - Phoenix

God Save the Animals - Alex G

No Rules Sandy - Sylvan Esso

Not from 2022

Ram - Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney 

Plum - Widowspeak

Tago Mago - CAN

Ege Bamyasi - CAN

Night Moves - Bob Seger

Dots & Loops - Stereolab

Haven’t Listened Yet...

ForeverEverAndEverNoMore - Brian Eno

Empire Central - Snarky Puppy

Björk - Fossora

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Cool It Down

FM - Ryan Adams 

Entering Heaven Alive - Jack White

V I N C E N T - FKJ

Inside Problems - Andrew Bird

Kumoyo Island - Kikagaku Moyo

Dropout Boogie - The Black Keys

Headful of Sugar - Sunflower Bean

Everything Was Beautiful - Spritualized

Electricity- Ibibio Sound Machine

(watch my moves) - Kurt Vile

You Belong There - Daniel Rossen 

El Mirador - Calexico

Unlimited Love - Red Hot Chili Peppers

Things Are Great - Band of Horses

caroline - caroline

Pompeii - Cate Le Bon

The Dream - alt-j

Anaïs Mitchell - Anaïs Mitchell

Laurel Hell - Mitski 

Silver Sash - Wovenhand

Concerts Attended in 2022:

The War on Drugs - Cains Ballroom - Tulsa, OK - 6/4/22

John Fullbright - Fassler Hall - Tulsa, OK - 10/2/22

Spoon - Austin City Limits - Austin, TX - 10/9/22

Goose - Austin City Limits - Austin, TX - 10/9/22

Kacey Musgraves - Austin City Limits - Austin, TX - 10/9/22

Luke Combs - Paycom Center - Oklahoma City, OK - 12/9/22

The Book of Mormon - Eugene O’Neill Theatre - New York, NY - 12/21/22

Links to past lists:

10 Albums that changed my life

2012

2013

2014 

2015

2016

2017 

2018

2019 

2020 

2021 

_________________________________________________

Happy Listening!

Jake

[alpinefury]

Free City of New Salamanca

New Salamanca is a port city on the southern coast of North Hesperida, originally founded in the early 17th century by Castilians.

New Salamanca occupies a crucial position on the lower Mishisipone river, representing the last port on the river navigable by heavy draft ships. Almost all goods trafficked down the length of the Mishisipone river eventually make their way here. It is the only European founded city on the Gulf of Hesperida's entire northern coast.

Should one find oneself in New Salamanca it is very easy to eat well there. It is a favoured port of call for many Hesperidine and European vessels, with well stocked markets featuring all sorts of provender from across the Hesperides, but the wider regio of New Salamanca and its allies is also well provisioned, not only with maize and prodigious hauls of seafood, but also with rice, hesperidine grape, and batat nuts, among many others. The city's 'abiernas do their best to combine the multitude of culinary influences mixing in New Salamanca, to great success.

The site upon which New Salamanca presently sits was formerly a boundary between at least two Hesperidine nations, which according to local legend and backwater history was marked with a standing red pole, a practice sometime associated with the Mascogine speaking peoples. The Mishisipone river itself is a great artery that links the very heart of North Hesperida with its south-eastern coast, and there is plentiful evidence of contact and trade between the cultures along its banks long before Europeans ever set foot upon the continent. The great Mantac mound to modern New Salamanca's west was already built in this earlier period.

Thus, though no city occupied what would become New Salamanca, the region was certainly no empty quarter beforehand, but a rich, well managed landscape, whose peoples held complex court. That the city was founded at all was only due to the largesse of the Hesperidine peoples of the region, in part due to the sorry state of those who sought to settle there. And the story of those settlers had been very sorry indeed.

During King Juan IV's reign in Castile a somewhat ill-considered scheme was hatched to both leech some of Castile's domestic turmoil and increase the kingdom's prestige when reckoned against its neighbour, and rival, the Crown of Aragon. Goffredo d'Escors, the expedition's commander, was only given limited resources, as King Juan didn't want to give the impression of an armed expedition directed against Aragon. This was the inauspicious start to what soon became a complete misadventure. After a series of disasters, including being fired upon by Kuban coastal batteries, the arrival of d'Escors' bedraggled survivors into the mouth of the Mishisipone delta in April 1612 was the only good stroke of fortune they had experienced.

There was never any question of the new arrivals attempting to conquer or otherwise subjugate their Hesperidine rescuers. Whilst the expedition's gratitude towards their new neighbours was genuine, particularly after the Citimasha people not only helped to feed the starving Castilians but showed them how to grow Hesperidine crops, any remaining temptation to become a latter day Alexander was snuffed out by the twelve years it took for any Castilian ship to find them. New arrivals soon started to trickle into New Salamanca, little more than a palisaded village at this time. These new arrivals did not only come from Castile. New Salamanca's relative isolation, coupled with Castile's hands-off governance, made it an ideal destination for certain Europeans fleeing religious persecution or other forms of hardship.

A substantial number of the original founders of New Salamanca had married into local Hesperidine nations, and more than a few of the new arrivals did the same. Martim de Sousa, a Portuguese trader said in 1638, that he recognised very little in the developing settlement as 'evoking a purely Christian character'. This was meant to be an invective against New Salamanca, but it accurately reflected both its principles of religious toleration and cultural diversity. Indeed, New Salamanca was increasingly untethered from Castile, who had provided the colony with only intermittent financial support. This resulted in the growing settlement briefly soliciting Aragonese financial interest, which allowed New Salamanca to complete its first stone fortifications in 1645. Whilst this resulted in Castile banning Aragonese traders from New Salamanca in retaliation, it succeeded in its short term aim of acquiring resources for the town, and in drawing loose Castile's purse strings, at least for a time.

When Castile's attention and finances were inevitably drawn elsewhere once more in the 1660s, New Salamanca turned to another, somewhat unlikely backer; the United Commonwealths. New Salamanca's religious tolerance aligned with the principles of the U.C, but the latter had spent much of the past century preying on Catholic-owned colonies, and New Salamanca was still at least a nominal demesne of the King of Castile. However, the U.C was in no position to maintain any kind of garrison or governance over the city. Backing the city's continued quasi-independence and seeing how the dice fell was a more promising enterprise. This secured the city's mercantile future, but also enabled the purchase of a few obsolete warships. These ships' nominal purpose was the prevention of piracy, but they also decreased the city's nominal dependence on the king of Castile yet further.

Matters would come to a head in 1686. King Bermudo IV was facing a Castilian financial crisis that threw the New Salamanca situation into sharp relief. Either the crown had to restore a Castilian monopoly on the city, due to the proportion of its trade ending up in other European states, or abandon the expensive ambition of the colony altogether. King Bermudo made his choice, and sent an armed expedition under the command of Roque de Menga. This was the first time Castile had ever attempted to mount a cross-continental military expedition, with predictably disastrous results. The expedition, its forces much reduced by disease and one sunken ship, was forced to make for the Aragonese port of La Mercè on Nema island. The Aragonese governor, Ferran Geribert, essentially strongarmed de Menga into accepting Aragonese 'assistance', which would have likely led to New Salamanca passing into the hands of the Aragonese crown.

However, New Salamanca had not been idle in the intervening years. New Salamanca had further fortified the Mishisipone Delta. Its batteries and small navy were enough to prevent any realistic attempt at a sea-led assault. It had also begun to conduct formal treaties of defense, at times even alliance, with many neighbouring Hesperidine peoples, most of whom already had friendly relations with the city. Those Aragonese-Castilian forces that landed on the coast found themselves under near constant arrow and musket fire. The invaders found themselves forced to retreat within an hour, leaving numerous casualties behind them. Among them was Ferran Geribert. His death was was the harbinger of a revolt against Aragonese rule on Nema within less than a month.

The battle marked the beginning of de facto independence for New Salamanca, along with the foundation of the Mishisipone Confederacy. The Castilian crown could not simply keep throwing expensive expeditions across the Atlantic in the hopes of recapturing what was, at the end of it all, simply one successful merchant town. New Salamanca's independence was formally recognised in 1697 in the same Treaty of Lorraine that brought Europe's Wars of Religion to their end. It was the first European-founded settlement to have its independence diplomatically recognised in such a fashion. It would not be the last.

Whilst New Salamanca remains free to conduct its own foreign affairs, it is also a component of the Mishisipone Confederacy, acting as the Confederacy's main commercial hub and sometime political capital. As trade along the Mishisipone has increased over the past century and a half, so also has it increased across the Atlantic, not only between the Hesperides and Europe but between the Hesperides and most other continents of the world. New Salamanca gained its independence as a bustling market town, but has become a substantial city every bit the equal of its European peers. Both the city and the Confederacy have grown prosperous and powerful, and are now a crucial component of the Haudenosaunee's diplomatic wall arrayed against any newly introduced European 'interest' in North Hesperida (and, where possible, the Hesperides as a whole). New Salamanca has recently become a major exporter of Japanese goods. These originate from the Tokugawa possessions on the west coast of North Hesperida, officially termed Koganeyama Domain by the shogunate. These include both the growing agricultural bounty of Koganeyama proper and Japanese textiles. This has added yet further to the complex cultural layers that make up New Salamanca's population. The city is also home to the largest Jewish population in the Hesperides, the only Hussite knightly order to have arisen from the Iberian peninsula, and the largest urban population of indigenous Hesperidines north of Meshiko.

[kungfuslipper]

hello! 😍😍😍 all three of your wips sound very interesting, but i’d like to ask about….Serviced?

Serviced is a four-chapter, 8k-ish, light-hearted, milwank-aspiring story about a missing misadventure on Centax-3, where Delta and Omega squads run through a pre-deployment training course just before going undercover in Triple Zero. The goal is to show the beginnings of Sev and Fi's feelings of attraction after they've first met each other -- (when rescuing Omega Squad) just a few days prior to the start of this fic.

In the Heat Waves series, Serviced will come after Pregame and before Sticky Bomb.

The plot of the third chapter covers a lot of ground, (quite literally) switching locations and goals as we shift from land navigation to urban warfare, to clone rivalry and intra-squad tension. Still in a draft so rough it's little more than an outline with some garlands thrown on the branches.

... Prudii had dropped the four of them off in a clearing, halfway down the eastern slope of the mountain they’d steadily climbed over the past couple of hours. Descent on foot would be an entirely different animal, Sev thought, scanning the treeline. This far up, the vegetation had transitioned to coniferous, long needled trees, interspersed with clusters of tough, dry grass that grew to roughly knee height. 

No idea when I'll finish this, but I still plan to! Thanks for the ask. :)

[briarrosevlogz]

The Crew of the USS Arsenal! (A Star Trek AU)

These are the stories of the USS Arsenal, a Constitution-Class Starship with an all-female command crew. Join their tales throughout the universe in my own little AU world of Star Trek, based on the AOS movies.

The Command Crew of the USS Arsenal

> This has all the information needed to understand any fanfictions I post in this series, from character descriptions to backstories.

The USS Arsenal Crew: The Dabble Edition

> This fic is composed of a bunch of small short stories that may or may not be connected to each other(Will specify if they are at the beginning of the fic). Join the adventures and misadventures of the crew of the USS Arsenal. First Story: Captain Hayvna is the smallest member of the command crew and this fact leads to an interesting interaction with other people.

Shielded by Logic

> Aftermath of an Early Mission aboard the USS Arsenal. Dr. T'lirri is injured on a mission to the M-Class planet of Delta Ementia, a planet inhabited by plant-like creatures, after taking what would have been a fatal hit on Captain Hayvna. This leads to uncomfortable feelings between the two that stem deeper than their friendship.

Fragments of Valor: The Last Stand of the USS Star Chaser

> Ever wondered how Captain Hayvna Vevva lost her left arm? Well, this is the story of the last stand of the USS Star Chaser, an exploration-type ship that was returning home after a long 6-month journey before being attacked by 3 Klingon Warbirds. Young Ensign Hayvna Vevva is excited to get back to Earth to tell her best friend T'lirri and even her own mentor all about what she'd been up to on the ship. Unfortunately, the Crew of the USS Star Chaser runs into trouble and the thoughts of going home start to vanish. A desperate call for help is answered by the infamous USS Enterprise, but will the Federation's Flagship make it in time to save the USS Star Chaser Crew? Will Hayvna ever see her best friend again or will she die among the stars before she ever sees home?

[loreleywrites]

So my #1 MTG blorbo who I'm pretty sure has zero other fans is this planeswalker named Vram. She only appears in the story "Foulmere" from Distant Planes, the second Harper Prism anthology book.

Vram is weird, has some hella lore baggage, and she sucks as a person, a parent, and a planeswalker. I adore this failwoman.

I'll begin with her backstory (which we only learn halfway through the tale), because it's such a bizarre thing to codify in this story since it has basically nothing to do with anything thematically or narratively. Vram is a member of a human culture from Dominaria called the Dobéhma. These people are the descendants of a single woman and her children who were cursed shortly after the empire of Sarpadia fell. See, this guy thought he was the reincarnation of Tourach, leader of the Order of the Ebon Hand, and he used this power to start his own cult and take a bunch of slave-wives. One day, this woman gets tired of being a slave-wife and kills this cult leader and his sons, escaping with the daughters she had with him. Good for her! Except the guy curses her from beyond the grave to only give birth to daughters and to wander forever, never being able to settle down in a permanent home. Also curses her with goldenrod skin and lilac hair. Again, none of this is relevent to the actual story happening or Vram as a character. But for some reason this "punish the victim" backstory just exists (As an aside, I kind of enjoy gender-essentialist curses because the existence of trans people can do so much work to subvert and undermine them and I'd love to be able to write a story like that for the Dobéhma some day.)

ANYWAY

So. Vram. She's a planeswalker, and as pre-Mending planeswalker are wont to do, she is searching for powerful summons that will let her win more fights. There's this big swamp in a river delta called Foulmere, and she figures there might be some powerful creatures there. But she's lazy, so she shows up at this retired scientist elf's house disguised as a man and threatens him so he'll guide her through the swamp to a powerful creature she can learn to summon. She also has a cat!

They're traveling in a little boat and Vram is disappointed that it's winter and not many creatures are out and about...so she casts a spell to turn the entire bog into summer. Our ecologist friend is not pleased. He eventually points out a gigantic frog, and Vram touches it and learns how to summon it. During this, she reveals her true nature and also that her cat is actually her daughter, named Mao. Our elf guy talks to Mao while Vram is fucking around and finding out, since another planeswalker shows up to duel her.

Vram pulls too much black mana from the swamp and ends up taking a ton of mana burn and this frog isn't winning her the fight and everything is bad and then the entire sky erupts into fire. The scientist and Mao barely survive the blast, which has devastated the region so bad it has redirected the flow of the entire river and completely screwed up the environment. Vram is nowhere to be seen, having either fled the plane or died in the duel.

So this woman just wanders up to a guy, threatens to kill him if he doesn't help her, get pissed when things aren't going her way, ruins an entire ecosystem, badly loses a planeswalker duel, and then is maybe responsible for ruining the ecosystem a second time, all while potentially knowingly abandoning her five-year-old daughter who she was freely taking along this misadventure.

She's the worst! Vram is a terrible person! I'm obsessed with her! I want to see so much more of this disaster woman's life!

MTG LORE FANS, please tell me about (random) characters from mtg stories you're obsessed with/a fan of/you just think they're neat, i'm trying to find the most fun bits of mtg lore

[welcometomybraincomics]

Gale Force

Information

based on TFA

◦ Gale Force is a flying “Autobot,” vicious and capable or taking care of himself

◦ Gale Force has no memories but spontaneously remembers things under certain situations. After that moment passes, he has no idea why he knows that information (he has some pretty deep connections)

◦ Gale Force is in a Decepticon settlement called Delta 9, based on the platoon named Delta 9 which all the Decepticons in the settlement were once a part of

◦ Everyone in Delta 9 knows him as the rambunctious and troublemaking charge of seekers Blackbolt and Skyflare (and occasionally Medic Blowout)

◦ Outside of Delta 9 he is known as a particularly dangerous member of a group of rebel forces (Liberation Army) who despise Autobots. He is also business partners with Blackbolt and Skyflare’s trine member, Raindance

◦ All members of the Liberation are of the “disposable” class. They are tools and menial workers, at least a quarter of them are drones with AI (Ex. Gale is a celiometer, Data Drain is a building, and Pearlescent was a waste manager)

◦ Gale Force is a wanted criminal in Autobot space because he killed the bot who used to own him (and mistreated him; bot was a dealer of some sort and that’s how Gale got started on his web of connections) and a hand full of others (in self defense. He has weak plating and they were pointing guns and shoving)

◦ Gale is amnesiac, slowly regaining his memories alongside making new ones as the world’s tiniest Decepticon (According to Delta 9 because, really, TFA Soundwave is so much smaller; Gale is smaller than most Autobots but larger than a minicon)

◦ At some point he gets separated from Blackbolt, Skyflare, Blowout, and the rest of Delta 9 (whether that be through death or other means) and he forms a team with Bastion, Steelrunner, Bloodbath, Turret, and Barrage. They meet up with another Decepticon ship and stay with them for a while (to either find a way to contact the rest of Delta 9 or find a way to Avenge them (possibly death by Autobots? But the possibility of Bots finding Delta 9 is low unless someone accidentally sets of an Autobot distress signal))

Plot

◦ Misadventures of the flying Autobot tiny Cybertronian (wow. That’s literally it. That’s the game. That’s all I want)

◦ Some turmoil between Gale and Delta 9/ Delta 9 and the rest of the Decepticon population on the fact that Gale Force is clearly an Autobot build (although there are Autobot defectors, people are still suspicious)

◦ Gale meets up with his friends from his old life while with friends from his new life and everyone is confused

◦ Slice of life

[nosuchthingasagruffalo]

S2 ep 2

On Voyager the Doctor tried for hours to revive Amal. Finally he turned to his parents to offer a shake of his head, Chakotay rushed over to his son, Kathryn turned and marched out of sickbay. Lottie received the doctor's comm in her quarters and fell into the arms of her god-mother. In his ready room Tuvok allowed a silent tear to fall onto the Padd in front of him.

Chakotay stayed with his son, embracing and kissing him. Reading him the last rites of his ancestors and offering his rudimentary knowledge of Catholic rites, the beliefs of his son's maternal ancestors. Eventually he found the strength to leave, to find his wife who was in their quarters staring into the starlight. "It's followed me Chakotay. The darkness, I thought we had left that back in the Delta Quadrant but it was always there ready to strike. What have I done? This is my penance for everyone I hurt, every mistake I made, when I stared it in the face I wasn't fighting it, I was letting it consume me"

Chakotay didn't have the energy for Kathryn's particular brand of self flagellation and went to find his daughter who was sat on the bed in the guest quarters. Her duffel bag neatly placed on the side, he noticed she had a fresh uniform on. "Captain, I will be returning to the Essex soon, I'll be back on Earth in a few months"

"What the fuck Lottie? Is this what you do too? Hide behind duty? Let your grief eat you up? Is this what your brother would want?"

"Dad, I can't break now, there's something going on here, Seven and I have just scratched the surface. I can't let Amal have perished in vain. He's too good for that, too special, Seven and I can.."

"NO" Chakotay roared "I will not let you and your mother do this to yourselves, we're going home, all FOUR of us" he sobbed.

****

Weeks had slipped by and Charlotte had moved into Starfleet accommodation. The tensions at home was unbearable, Cillian had hidden away at medical school and Niamh spent her days locked in her room. Seven had offered Charlotte support but cautioned her against returning to duty so soon. She stopped by the apartment one evening to let Charlotte know the Essex was due back into deep space. "You have to get me my post back" Charlotte begged "we were on to something. Captain Abioye can't be trusted, they're closing the case on the Lohengrin, no inquest. Death by misadventure. They're burying this Seven and you're the only one who can help me". Seven met her eyes "do you remember the story of my parents Lottie? Their quest ended with their only daughter being assimilated by the Borg. How do you think they would feel if they foresaw that fate, how much they would hate themselves? Your parents have just watched their eldest son destroyed by the quest that drives them. Lottie, somewhere on DS9 or DS11 there's an engineering role for you, you can climb the ranks, study thermo-molecules and give your parents the knowledge at least one of their children is safe. I'm serious, I don't want anymore surprises".

At the Janeway home Kathryn dropped to the sofa in the lounge. "I'm taking an assignment Chakotay, Tuvok will drop to a commander level role and I'll Captain the Voyager. The Vulcans are very interested in investigating best practise in the Federation and have pressed Starfleet to assign us a mission, they aren't saying directly but it must be to do with the Lohengrin. Not deep space so I'll see you when I'm home. I can't sit still anymore, I need to fight and this is my chance" she embraced Chakotay and kissed his neck, sliding her hands over his body. He pulled away, brought her hands to her sides "Aye Sir" he said as he headed toward Lottie's now vacated bedroom.

****

That night Chakotay's vision quest disturbed him greatly, the great bird squaked and flew into the distance "she asked questions to which I cannot give answers." He watched as the flames consumed the forest finally licking the bushes he stood beside.

[therewerepotatoeswheniwasab-blog]

Goal: Tag nine people you want to get to know better.

Tagged by @thepotatoreader. Thanks!

(I really hope this is the right thing. For some reason I can’t see anything thepotatoreader posts under the cut. I found that at queenbovine’s blog and I assume this is it since potato was tagged on this post.)

Relationship status: Single and glad it’s this way.

Favorite color: Blue, yellow and green.

Lipstick or chapstick: I don’t use any.

Last song I listened to: I’m listening to Dear Life by Delta Goodrem right now and I will probably listen to it like ten more times in a row since it’s such a beautiful song.

Last movie I watched: We watched The Imitation Game in math class on our second last day of school (June 22). The next day we gave our math teacher, who was leaving because she’s pregnant, a long encrypted goodbye letter. She laughed and said she regrets showing us that movie. We regret nothing. It was a great movie.

Top three TV shows: Race To The Edge is the only show that I watch and I love it. The only other show I’ve ever watched was Winx Club but I stopped watching it when I was 10. Still, it was my childhood.

Top three favorite characters:

1. Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III (books) 1.5. Camicazi     2. Windwalker 2.1. Toothless (books) 2.5. Fishlegs (books) 2.9. Hookfang (RTTE) 3. Ruffnut (RTTE)

What!? I only got to the third character >:)

Top three ships: Hiccami. That’s it. That’s my only ship. But when they get older. During the books they’re too young and too busy saving the world to fall in love.

Idk who has been already tagged, but I tag all my mutuals who want to. Of course everybody who wants to do it.

And thanks again for tagging me. This was fun.

[cupcakepaints]

*cracks knuckles*

Alright bois I'm adding in my pile

Growth Spurt by @potoobrigham: A fun series of comics that go into the what if scenario- what if Asriel was saved and lived on the surface with Frisk! But is also a lanky teen with trauma!! (ongoing?)

NemaTale by @corpupine: In the aftermath of a neutral run, a kindhearted girl falls into the Underground, what trials await her as she tries her best to make it through and maybe make friends along the way? (ongoing)

Delta Experiment by @delta-experiment ( @gonerboy ): Frisk and Asriel are living their normal lives in Hometown, but there seems to be more at play than would first appear. An ominous experiment, a bunch of wacky hijinks, a zombie??? (cancelled with plans to make chapter summaries)

HomeSick by @ameb-stuff: Papyrus gets a scholarship to a nice college on the surface, leaving Sans to take care of the house and his jobs on his own. While Papyrus gets a taste of living without his brother there. ...They're both totally fine right? (ongoing)

Insomnia by @wily-art: Sans has been having weird nightmares recently and the stress is really taking its toll... but is that all there is to it? (ongoing)

Human Candy by @humancandy-comic (@kuttiesstuff): Sans finds Gaster's old journal- turns out he was a total manchild who lives off caffeine!! Through science misadventures a mutagen is created that can turn monsters into humans! Included are funny gags, fourth wall breaks, and the interspersed touching moment. (ongoing)

With Handplates seeming to come to an end soon, been thinking a lot about Undertale comics. They used to be everywhere, but now I feel like I’ve only seen maybe two?

Anyway, anybody know of any good Undertale or deltarune Comics? New or old, finished or on going or abandoned, I’ll take whatever.

[delta-chan]

VIRUN IS AS POPULARES AS YUO CAN POSSIBLY GET AND HAS SOMEHOW ATTRACTED SOMEONE DEEEEEP IN THE EMPIRE EVEN OUSIDE THE GAEM WHO LIKES THE RIDICULOUS ARMBAND IM

hlep

[luvneedsnosyt]

My Favorite Albums of May 2021

Here’s my monthly list of albums released in May I was feeling, and some other discoveries made during the month.

You can find my list of my favorite albums of 2020 here And my list of my favorite EPs of 2020 here

Previous Monthly Lists: January, February, March, April

Best:

A.G. Cook - Apple vs. 7G Genre: Electronic / Dance

Proof: The Darkness (Remix) w/ Sarah Bonito & Hannah Diamond / Airhead (Doss Remix)

Aly & AJ - a touch of the beat gets you up on your feet gets you out and then into the sun Genre: Pop

Proof: Paradise  / Don’t Need Nothing

Ashe - Ashlyn Genre: Pop

Proof: Save Myself / Kansas

Bebe Rexha - Better Mistakes Genre: Pop

Proof: Sacrifice / On The Go (Feat. Pink Sweat$ & Lunay) // Bonus: Sacrifice (Gorgon City Remix) / Chain My Heart (w/ Topic)

The Black Keys - Delta Kream Genre: Alternative / Rock / Blues

Proof: Stay All Night / Going Down South

Cocoa Sarai - Cacao III EP Genre: R&B

Proof: Overreacting / No Apologies

CZARFACE & MF DOOM - Super What? Genre: Indie Hip Hop

Proof: Czarwyn’s Theory of People Getting Loose (Feat. Kendra Morris) / Jason & The Czargonauts (Feat. Del Tha Funkee Homosapien)

Daya - The Difference EP Genre: Synth Pop

Proof: Bad Girl / The Difference

J. Cole - The Off-Season Genre: Hip Hop

Proof: 9 5 . s o u t h / l e t . g o . m y . h a n d (Feat. Bas & 6LACK)

Jason Ross - Convergence EP Genre: Electronic / Dance / Future Bass

Proof: Beneath It All (w/ Crystal Skies Feat. Dia Frampton) / Wild Ones (w/ Nevve)

Jorja Smith - Be Right Back Genre: R&B / neo-Soul

Proof: Addicted / Digging // Wesley Johnson - Patience (Feat. Jorja Smith)

Masego - Studying Abroad: Extended Stay Genre: R&B / neo-Soul

Proof: Mystery Lady (w/ Don Toliver) / Bye Felicia

nasimiYu - P O T I O N S Genre: Indie Pop / R&B

Proof: Parasite / Who Are You

Olivia Rodrigo - SOUR Genre: Pop

Proof: drivers license / deja vu

Sinead Harnett - Ready Is Always Too Late Genre: R&B / Soul

Proof: Like This / Stickin’ (Feat. Masego & VanJess)

St. Vincent - Daddy’s Home Genre: Indie Pop

Proof: Down And Out Downtown / Down

The Veronicas - Godzilla Genre: Synth Pop / Alternative

Proof: In My Blood / Stealing Cars

Bonus:

Cocoa Sarai - Cacao I EP // Cacao II EP Genre: R&B Released March 2021 // April 2021

Proof: Foolish Heart / Coffee In the Morning // Brand Knew / Cacao

Others:

easy life - life’s a beach, L’Orange & Namir Blade - Imaginary,  Rag’n’Bone Man - Life By Misadventure,  Tony Allen - There Is No End,  YG & Mozzy - Kommunity Service

[emberglowfox]

“I don’t have as much stamina as you, string-bean.”