#for a half dozen features with extremely specific use cases

[hesgomorrah]

OH FUCK OFFFFFFF I UPGRADED TO CLIP STUDIO 3.0 SPECIFICALLY FOR LAYER COMPS BUT THAT'S ONE OF THE TINY HANDFUL OF FEATURES EXCLUSIVE TO THE EX VERSION. APPARENTLY. SOMETHING I DON'T NEED ANY OF THE OTHER FEATURES OF AND WHICH THEY EXPECT ME TO PAY NEARLY 200 MORE DOLLARS FOR

[uboat53]

All right guys, we need to talk. Time for a LONG RANT (TM) about an important topic.

INTRODUCTION

Over the last few years, you may have noticed that Republicans and conservatives have made a lot of noise about protecting children. Some of it came as part of the QAnon conspiracy theory about pedophilia and child sacrifice and some of it came as part of culture war issues like the existence of LGTBQ-etc people.

But one thing that's kind of gone under the radar is all the ways that these same people who claim to be protecting child welfare with every fiber of their being have actually made things far more dangerous for children. Let's run through the list.

INFECTIOUS DISEASES

Honestly, the most important thing that's been done for child welfare in the history of humankind is the massive decrease in child mortality that's been achieved in the past century. Seriously, until the mid 20th century, it was perfectly normal for about half of all children to die before the age of 5. We've come so far on this that now it's a rare tragedy when this occurs.

Part of this mortality was due to malnutrition, we've overcome Malthus (see the Malthusianism Wikipedia article if you're interested), but a huge amount of it is the power of modern medicine to deal with diseases that used to ravage children. Measles, Mumps, Smallpox, Influenza, and a huge amount of other diseases used to sweep through the population regularly either killing children or weakening them for another disease or condition to do the job.

Vaccines have been a huge part of this progress and are a major reason why viral illnesses no longer ravage the population on a regular basis (antibiotics have been similarly effective for bacterial illnesses) and yet there remains a disturbingly large and well-funded movement to advocate against vaccines and particularly childhood vaccinations, largely based on fraudulent claims that have been debunked more than a decade ago.

While it is true that this vaccine skepticism has strains across the ideological spectrum, it is only in the Republican Party where the idea has been given power by elected and appointed officials. No Democratic Surgeon General, for example, has recommended against the (exceedingly safe!) Covid or Measles vaccines, but that's exactly what the Surgeon General of Florida, Joseph Lapado, has done.

This is, of course, far from an isolated incident. A quick search will find dozens, even hundreds, of cases of GOP elected and appointed officials inveighing against vaccines, pushing to remove vaccine requirements, pushing to limit funding to vaccination programs, and generally echoing the most extreme and unproven claims against one of the most powerful public health tools for the protection of children that has ever been developed.

GUN VIOLENCE

Time to talk about guns. For a long time, this was a secondary issue, automobiles were the largest leading cause of death for children pretty much since we dealt with diseases (see the last section). However, over the last several decades, we've worked hard to implement all kinds of safety features that have dramatically brought down the number of children killed in car crashes. Guns, on the other hand…

Well, gun deaths among children have almost doubled in the last decade and, for the first time ever, they are now the leading cause of death for those under the age of 18 (otherwise known as children).

This increase seems to be largely driven by assaults rather than suicides or accidental deaths (though both of those have increased as well). Now, I'm not going to claim that there's a silver bullet for dealing with gun violence, but there are policies that are well supported by research and shown to reduce gun violence. It's also the case that, considered overall, states that lean more toward Democratic policies have significantly lower (and increasingly lower) levels of gun violence than states that lean toward Republican policies.

All the specifics aside, it speaks to priorities. If gun deaths are now the number one killer of children, anyone interested in protecting children would want to do something about that. My accusation of Republican/conservative officials is not that they don't want to implement my preferred policies to address this issue, it's that they consistently refuse to implement any policies that, even theoretically, would be aimed at addressing this issue.

CHILD LABOR

In the early 1900s, child labor was common and widespread, with children often working 12 hour shifts or more with very little in the way of safety and oversight. Over the course of the first four decades of the 20th century, numerous laws were passed to make it illegal to employ children in dangerous jobs or for long hours that would interfere with their education.

Now, despite an uptick in child labor violations and numerous stories of children killed while illegally working dangerous jobs, Republican governors and legislatures in states as disparate as Wisconsin, Iowa, Arkansas, Ohio, and Missouri have been pushing for and passing laws that weaken the protections in place for child workers as young as 14 and sometimes even younger.

RACISM

Racism isn't generally seen as a child issue because it's assumed to affect all ages about equally, but we have to take into account the demographics of this country before assuming that. In fact, children (those under 18) are actually the most racially diverse group in the United States with older groups being much more homogeneously white. In fact, because of this racial difference, racism has a far greater effect on the average child than it does on the average adult.

And, to be clear, there are numerous ways that ongoing racism is actively affecting the health and well-being of children in this country today. Republicans, though, overwhelmingly believe that enough has been done to combat racism and that nothing more should be done to address it.

ACTUAL CHILD ABUSE

Okay, QAnon definitely took this issue and ran off into the woods to do unspeakable things to it, but child abuse is definitely a real issue that impacts children. Unlike the QAnon caricature, though, child abuse tends not to be something carried out by shadowy strangers hidden from public view, but is overwhelmingly (over 90%) committed by someone the child knows personally.

The problem is, by spreading the idea that child abuse is a stranger-danger type of problem, this idea directly impacts efforts to protect children from abuse by draining resources from evidence-based policies and pushing them into nonsense.

Now, you may say "hey, that's QAnon, not Republicans" and, sure, but many elected Republicans are supporters of the QAnon conspiracy (among others) and even those who don't openly profess support are either silent or press for policies based on the conspiratorial worldview. In 2020, 97 open QAnon followers ran in political primaries with 22 Republicans and 2 Independents among them making it to the general election, numerous representatives and party officials have taken part in QAnon organized events, and even Donald Trump, the de facto head of the party and its likely presidential nominee, has repeatedly expressed support for it. It's also notable the only prominent Republicans who have spoken out against QAnon have either been out of office or have quickly either retired or been defeated for re-election.

So, yes, the source of the issue is QAnon, but QAnon is part of the Republican Party now.

LGBTQ-ETC YOUTH

One of the main dangers that Republicans and conservatives like to say they're protecting children from is LGBTQ-ect people, but this also ignores the fact that many children are or will turn out to be LGBTQ-etc themselves. The statistics are pretty clear that suicide rates among this group are twice as high or even higher than the general population but the research is also clear that LGBTQ-etc youth with supportive families and communities have suicide rates that are almost completely back in line with the general public.

There's also no evidence to support the idea that LGBTQ-etc people abuse children at any higher rates than any other group, so targeting them not only fails to deliver any particular gains in child protection, it also alienates LGBTQ-etc youth and drives them to suicide.

POLICIES VS OUTCOMES

So far I've only talked about specific policies, but what do the outcomes look like? There's numerous ways you can measure child well-being, but I figured I'd go with deaths. Specifically, I was able to find good data for both infant mortality and child (1-14) mortality. I then compared this with Ballotpedia's information about party control of state governments over the last 10 years (this link brings you to Colorado, but you can change the state name in the URL to get any state).

Crunch this data and what you find is that Republican control of state government is bad for infant mortality but is REALLY bad for child mortality. There are some outliers, but the pattern is pretty clear that, the longer Republicans had control in a state government and the more control they had, the worse the outcomes are.

Infant mortality is almost 25% higher and the mortality rate of children aged 1-14 is OVER 80% HIGHER in states fully controlled by Republicans than in states fully controlled by Democrats. These patterns also generally hold for the level of partial control as well.

A WORD TO REPUBLICANS/CONSERVATIVES

If you're a registered Republican, if you vote Republican, or if you consider yourself a conservative, you may look at some of this and think "that's not what I believe". And, yes, that's fair, this doesn't perfectly represent the views of every Republican or conservative everywhere.

What it does represent, however, is the view of a large number of people in the party and movement with power. Power that they're using to enact these very policies which, as I think I've shown, endanger children.

You may not identify with these, but your party and movement do.

CONCLUSION

Republicans and conservatives talk a really big game about protecting children but, when you look at what they're actually doing, their policies are one of the biggest threats to children. I don't need a longer conclusion than that.

As usual, if you disagree or have anything to add, please cite your sources appropriately. I think I've done a decent job of that, so I'll just ask that you do the same.

[fissions-chips]

Bestiary

A guide to mythical beasts- within my works, anyways.

(These are not hard and fast rules even within my fics/universes/AUs, but they are general guidelines I try to keep close to- a lot of this is inspired by my studies in wildlife, so some features/behaviors may diverge slightly from the standard concept)

Siren:

Physical-

Sirens appear as half-humanoid, half-aquatic creatures- their upper body is somewhat human, with everything from the hips-down instead resembling the body of a fish (or in some cases a serpent).

Their appearance varies dramatically- they come in all sorts of patterns, scale types, shapes, etc. Generally, their bodies are longer than a fish of equal size would be, with older individuals being long enough to be suitably called ‘sea serpents’. All sirens usually possess darkened forearms, scales scattered across their backs/shoulders/faces, webbed + taloned fingers, and dark sclera to help them see underwater. 4-6 gills found between ribs- possess lungs for breathing air.

Pupils are thin and cat-like- they possess ‘third eyelids’ to help shield their eyes when swimming.

Sirens’ bodies are covered in bioluminescent patterning that appears at will- this is used in communication, and to find members of their group in deep water.

Teeth are homodont- broad, even, and meant to crush bone. Dentition is deciduous.

Extremely strong: their bodies are built to cling to rocks and battle the surf as they swim near the cliffs and reefs they call home.

Always cool to the touch- scales are sturdy, resembling those of fish like gar.

Behavioral-

Hypercarnivores- consume mostly fish + shellfish, as well as the occasional seabird. One of the few mythical creatures known to actively hunt humans- often develop a ‘taste’ for red meat.

Hunting strategy depends on target- aquatic prey is pursued until it is too exhausted to flee further, or overtaken by a burst of speed. Terrestrial prey is grabbed and pulled underwater to drown (sometimes aided by their ‘song’, if the prey is human).

Complex social structure. Live in large groups known as ‘pods’, often consisting of one or two family units (though this is not always the case)- extremely territorial and will fight other sirens or similar creatures to maintain control of their territory. Maintain a hierarchy within the group led by the dominant pair (known as the ‘matriarch’/‘patriarch’).

Capable of human speech, possess the gift of tongues- communicates with own kind through whistles, clicks, growls or hisses (purrs when content). Glowing patterns are used for complex underwater language, consisting of different flash patterns and hand signals. These underwater signs are region-specific.

Sirens, like any humanoid creature, can be any combination of personalities and natures- culturally, they are a cunning, brutal species that values strength and guile. They are known to be exceptionally curious, and almost cat-like in playfulness, but this also makes them very dangerous. Many a human has met their watery grave simply due to a siren’s curiosity leading them to pull the object of their interest into the water, only to abandon them when they grow bored/accidentally maul their plaything.

Ecology-

Can be found in freshwater, but largely marine. Range occasionally extends far from shore (dozens of miles, if the pod is large enough), but they rarely stray into empty open water- sirens require rocks or seabeds to roost. Pods live in shared dens, usually formed in reefs or sea caves- these are decorated with scraps stolen from shipwrecks, anything shiny or eye-catching, and bits of bones from their kills.

Crepuscular, though it’s not uncommon to see them perched on rocks, basking, in the day time.

Behaviorally ectothermic (basking), but partially warm-blooded. Can be found very far north.

Aquatic, but capable of moving about on land for brief periods of time (even occasionally roosting out-of-water when warm enough). Use arms to drag body along. Can breath air indefinitely, but prolonged lack of water dries out their scales + gills and will kill them.

By the time they reach adult size, they have few natural predators- orca will hunt them in northern regions/along migration routes, and opportunistic giant squid can occasionally overpower them.

Often hunted as a nuisance (due to fears of predation), for their scales, or, in some regions, as a delicacy. Have become quite rare as a result.

Magical Ability-

Sirens, being members of the Fae order, possess magic- most famously, the ‘siren song’. While not actually a song in the traditional sense, the siren’s song is a low, humming sound with a mesmerizing, hypnotic effect. Depending on the pitch and volume, a siren can disorient someone, freeze them in place, or even lull them to sleep. Sirens who prey on humans often use their songs to do so, though it is also used defensively, enabling a siren to flee when cornered.

Vampire:

Physical-

Appear mostly humanoid, save for long pointed ears, slit pupils, sharply clawed hands, and large, bat-like wings (typically held with clawed joint hanging onto shoulder, allowing wings to fall across back like a cloak).

Signature heterodont teeth- all teeth slightly pointed, back molar forms carnassial tooth. Canine teeth are long, deeply-rooted and sturdy- contrary to popular believe, these are not for ‘sucking blood’, but instead serve as holding/slashing implements.

Eyes are adapted to see well in the darkness- sharp hearing and very sharp sense of smell.

Adults are significantly stronger than an average human.

Otherwise, appear very much like humankind.

Behavioral-

Carnivorous- diet consists of almost entirely small mammals, consuming some flesh (though mostly blood).

Quick, easily startled, and smaller than other mythical creatures (they are human-sized)- more prone to flee than fight, when alarmed.

Form tight-knit family units, and are usually quite dedicated parents.

Avoid daylight hours- skin burns very easily, and sensitive nighttime vision leaves them half-blinded in the light of the sun.

Not territorial, but will attack other vampires in squabbles between families. These battles rarely end in death, but can result in severe mauling of the losing party as others join in to drive them away.

Purr when content.

As in appearance, vampires otherwise resemble humans closely in behavior, living in old homes and going about disguised as such during the evenings when they must. They have adapted to a human world by hiding themselves within it. Many use this disguise to lure humans in, only to attack them and drain them of blood- such attacks are rarely fatal, but blood loss is severe and the bites, improperly managed, can be quite painful.

Ecology-

Small, nocturnal, specialized predators for feeding on blood and then fleeing the scene.

Can terrorize humans easily, but in comparison to other mythological humanoids, they are physically weaker.

Primarily found near human settlements, taking up roosts in older buildings and estates. They have a love for finery and beautiful things (they are almost always expertly dressed).

Often persecuted by humankind, believed to be demonic in nature- vampires are incredibly susceptible to fire and are often burned out of their homes, only to be captured and killed. Many powerful families have grudges against humankind as a result.

Natural rivalry with werewolves.

Magical Ability-

Skilled use of Mesmer to disorient/control targets and keep them from struggling when being bitten. Mild venom in bite that also helps with struggling prey.

Can ‘turn’ a human into a vampire through a specialized bite + a little bit of magic. The scars of said bite never heal, though the turned vampire is, by all accounts, physically the same as one who was born a vampire. Culturally among vampires, this is only done to humans one is very fond of, as one’s turned ‘thrall’ is considered their responsibility to care for. It’s a matter taken quite seriously.

Many possess the ability to turn into a bat- either for ease of travel, easier roosting, or simply because they think it’s neat.

Gorgon:

Physical-

Similar to sirens, the upper body is humanoid, with their lower half taking the form of that of a massive serpent. Appearances vary- some are stocky, others thin, some have keeled scales, others smooth. It is as variable as serpents themselves.

General features include: scaled stomachs + scattered scales across back and shoulders, scaled arms + fingers, sharp, sturdy claws, and slit pupils. Tongues are extremely long, dark and forked. Some have rows of short spikes, such as along their shoulders or spine.

Teeth are largely homodont and deeply rooted- rather than possessing traditional hypodermic fangs, a gorgon’s ‘canine’ teeth are grooved in order to flood their prey’s wounds with venom.

Venom is typically neurotoxic, resulting in labored breathing, tremors, rapid heart rate/weak pulse, and sudden weakness. Some hemotoxic individuals exist, with symptoms being severe pain, heavy bruising around bite site, disorientation, and eventual sloughing of flesh from the wound.

Serpentine bodies are heavily muscled and incredibly strong.

Jacobson’s organ on roof of mouth enables them to ‘taste’ the air- exceptionally keen sense of smell.

Near-silent in motion and leave few tracks behind.

Can grow to be quite large- more than 4 meters tall, with their bodies reaching up to 14 meters long. Average around 2.5 meters tall and 10 meters long.

Behavioral-

Hypercarnivores. Diet consists of any prey they can kill- ungulates such as deer and cattle are common, though anything is fair game. Some larger individuals have been recorded preying on smaller dragon species. Similar to sirens, gorgons have been found to hunt humans in times where other food is scarce, or when their territories overlap with human settlements, leading to conflict.

Hunting strategy usually depends on the size of the gorgon in question- smaller individuals favor a bite-and-release approach, only pursuing prey to kill when it has been weakened by venom. Larger individuals instead coil around their prey, biting repeatedly with the intent of causing severe blood loss + shock. Some forgo that entirely and instead crush their prey to death.

Largely solitary and extremely territorial. Maintain a large hunting ground scattered with several smaller nests + one main den. Those who intrude upon their hunting grounds find themselves the target of a vicious attack, sometimes ending in the loser as prey- even if they’re other gorgons.

Exhibit hoarding behavior similar to dragons, stashing away any gold or valuables stolen or unearthed in their main den. Unlike dragons, they won’t go out of their way to collect a hoard, but they will defend it ferociously.

While active when actually on the hunt/patrolling their territory, gorgons are rather lazy creatures, and spend most of their time sleeping.

Sometimes form small family units while raising young or among hatchmates, but most abandon their offspring early to fend for themselves.

Gorgons are fierce, brutal creatures, prone to grudges- they are known to play games with victims, taunting and tormenting them if their ire has been earned. However, if somehow befriended, they are excellent protectors. While not particularly curious, they are easily distracted and easily amused- they are also easy to flatter.

Ecology-

By the time they are fully grown, they are usually the dominant predator in their local ecosystem, keeping other large creatures in check.

Rare- fatal territorial disputes, a low rate of individuals making it to adulthood, and human/gorgon conflict leave their numbers rather low. Can be found in most temperate-to-tropical/grassland environments as long as there is sufficient food and, more importantly, sufficient warmth.

Enjoy swimming (especially while in shed) and often make their homes near water. Can hold their breath from 30 mins to an hour.

Ectothermic, require environmental heat to regulate body temperature. Can sometimes be partially endothermic if food supply is plentiful, but during the colder months they largely just hibernate.

Nocturnal, diurnal or crepuscular, depending on individual’s preference.

Frequently hunted by humans (and other mythical humanoids) for fear of predation and for their skins. While fearsome, gorgons can be overpowered by sheer numbers, and the use of snares has proven to catch them (as they move quite low to the ground). Gorgons are often blamed for loss of livestock, though this seems to be uncommon and more likely the result of local dragon activity.

Magical Ability-

Most gorgons lack traditional magic (they are not members of the Fae order), but they do have a form of the Mesmer in the form of an intense, paralyzing stare.

Some have been recorded as possessing the ability to turn those they look upon into stone, though (understandably) this has yet to be confirmed safely.

Fae:

Physical-

Tall, humanoid build (6-8 ft), with an almost insectile appearance to them. Ears are long and pointed. Faces are slim, and features are long- limbs are long and jointed like an insects, occasionally spiked along outer edge in mantid-like fashion. Digits are long and sharply clawed for climbing. Two antennae on head (sometimes ‘feathered’ in appearance). Eyes are dark and glittering.

By far their most recognizable feature is their wings- insect-like in appearance (primarily akin to moths or butterflies), they are structured in a fashion similar to a bat’s wing, consisting of a membrane supported by thin supports. Wings are almost always brightly colored- the brighter the wing, the healthier the fae. They use these wings for display, flights between trees, and warmth when sleeping.

Some have bodies armored by chitin in the form of plates, along limbs, chest or throat. Occasionally, they have a ‘ruffed’ neck and shoulders (very soft).

Teeth similar to a human’s, with slightly sharper canine and cheek teeth. Long tongue.

Typically elegantly dressed in lighter furs and leather- decorate themselves with expertly-crafted jewelry and circlets. They are exceptionally showy creatures.

Often decorate themselves with flowers.

Scatter ‘dust’ (wing scales) when they move, as well as pollen that has clung to them as they stalk through their home.

Behavioral-

Omnivorous- diet primarily consists of fruits and flowers, as well as anything sweet they can get their hands on. Only occasionally do they make the effort to hunt down prey (usually small animals such as rabbits, rarely a deer or two).

Extremely complex social structure. Typically two forms of social units- ‘clans’ and ‘courts’. Clans consist of a family unit (often including extended family), while courts are a group of unrelated fae led by one central ruler (similar to a king and his court). These groups can contain up to 20 or so individuals, with the dominant fae being known as the ‘monarch’. The monarch has the absolute final word within their grove.

Each fae or fae group constructs an elaborate grove at the center of their territory, guarded by powerful magic that warps the woods to suit them. Through the power of said magic, the trees within the grove grow unnaturally large and thickly-foliaged, perfect for perching in and sunning. The ground is covered in thick moss and soft grass full of flowers, and a thick thicket rings the grove for protection. Here, each fae constructs their nests and dens to suit them- a fae’s grove is unique to each individual or group.

Fae society is centered around showiness- they gather in large groups to party and make merry (and show off their groves to others). Those looking for partners treat their territories as a bowerbird treats its nest, hoping to attract others’ interest. They are fond of intoxication and get drunk often.

Enjoy singing, typically have very melodic voices.

Largely arboreal, spend much of their time up in the trees, clinging to branch or trunk.

Very protective of their territory and grove, and take meticulous care of the flora within. Despite this, they are not particularly territorial and rarely inclined to disturb each other, unless they have a personal dispute (which is often- they can be exceptionally petty creatures).

Generally very merry creatures, but prone to play tricks and games on other species, at times quite cruelly. They are poor liars but have exceptionally silvered tongues, with strange rules of magic that bind them (never ‘give’ them your name).

Ecology-

Very important ‘ecosystem engineers’ and indicator species- they take exceptional care of the environment within their specific grounds. Plants flourish around them, and wildlife gravitate to these undisturbed patches of wild land. If the forest is unhealthy, the fae will flee it if the damage is too strong to fix, and set up shop elsewhere.

Found in temperate forests and any sort of ‘wild’ lands.

Due to the magic within their grounds, uninvited, human intruders (or other humanoid creatures) will get lost within, stumbling in circles. Kinder fae will guide them out with a firm warning to stay away from their homes- most, however, will simply let the intruder perish among the trees, watching from afar, at times leading victims further in with distant voices and lights (‘will-o-the-wisps’). ‘Feeding the plants’, as they say. The flora within can be quite dangerous in its own right, protecting the grove with oftentimes lethal results- those that make it past such defenses often perish from simple exhaustion, the magic seeping the life from them.

Because of this, while fae are not a species known to hunt humans, they can still be very dangerous- humans they happen to take an interest in can quickly find themselves led astray and trapped by bonds of magic stronger than they can break, to be a sort of ‘pet’ or servant for the monarch.

In kind, however, humans often kill fae they manage to get their hands on, taking their wings as trophies, or using them for their magic. Being both highly social and requiring access to nature, this captivity often kills them in slow, painful fashion. Thus, most fae avoid humankind wherever possible.

Magical Ability-

The strongest magic of all magical creatures. Extremely powerful.

Able to manipulate plants and grow them at will, including those not seen in the natural world alone (massive thorned vines, strange soporific flowers- a favorite trick of theirs-, massive, twisted trees and roots that grab enemies and pull them belowground). Natural life thrives under their care.

Gift of tongues, including many animal species.

Presence can be best described as ‘intoxicating’ to non-fae humanoids- their magic can swiftly lull someone into a state of delirium, disorientation, or deep sleep. Sometimes, this effect is unintentional- other times, they use it to play cruel games, puppeting victims about or making them dance till death by exhaustion. If one has the fortune to have a fae as a friend, however, the effect can soothe pains and help with sleeplessness.

Healing factor, as well as able to heal some wounds in others.

Wide variety of magical skillsets available to them, depending on individual study.

[pudding-parade]

My answer to @solori's comment is too long for a mere comment, so here we are. :)

Behind the cut is how I randomize. Because if I don't randomize, I'll create the same damn sim over and over again...

To choose general hair and eye colors, I use a random number generator. Like, if it rolls a 3 for hair color, then they have some shade of blond(e) hair. If it rolls a 4 for eye color, they have eyes that are a shade of green. Then I get to pick the specific shades and hairstyles. If I'm playing/creating characters who can have unnatural skin and/or hair colors, I usually go with the Sim's general favorite color and create a theme from there.

Then for faces/bodies...

If I'm creating a Sim from scratch I'll first just click the "randomize" button in CAS a half-dozen times or so to get my starting Sim, who because of all the sliders I have installed is often but not always monstrous-looking. LOL In the case of the save I've been posting pics from, the "base" sim is always game generated, either from the wishing well using the "Wish for Love" function (which always results in a slider-less sim, so they definitely need some randomizing) or from randomly choosing one of the game-generated "homeless" sims and adding them to the household via Master Controller. So, I'm not starting with such monstrous beings. LOL

Next, I run PleasantSim's randomizing process, found here. This can add some pretty interesting (and occasionally monstrous) features, and it prevents me from, again, making the same sim over and over.

Then, I randomize again, this time using Master Controller's "Randomize Genetics" function, which adjusts or rerolls (potentially) all of the sliders you have. You get this by clicking on the Sim and going NRAAS - Advanced - Randomize Genetics. In the popup window that appears where you tell it how much it’s allowed to adjust the sliders, I usually type 100 but sometimes more or less depending on how extreme my sim currently is. Bigger numbers = possibly more extreme features, and 100 is more in the middle of the 0-256 range. I usually choose the "Reroll" option on the next popup. (But sometimes "Add." This can result in some extremes, but sometimes that's good/needed.) This tends to sort of soften the results of the above randomizing, which can have some harsh results, without completely obliterating the uniqueness.

OR! If I just want a quick adjust, sometimes I just run the Master Controller randomizer, roll for hair/eye/skin colors, and call it done. That's mostly what I've been doing with this current save, just to save time, since I'm not having as much time to play right now.

Lastly, I tweak a bit if necessary because sometimes I end up with a Sim that has, for instance, a mouth that's way wider than it ought to be, given the width of the sim's nose, or eyes that are way too high or low compared to where their ears are sitting. But most often I mess with T&A, quite frankly, because I like the boobs and the butts. I can spend (literally!) hours sculpting a sim's boobs. LOL

And now it’s time to go comb some alpaca fiber. Which is like the best thing to do at 0530. LOL

[vanquishedvaliant]

So there’s this trend I’m seeing on social media about people boycotting / encouraging people not to buy the upcoming Mass Effect remasters.

The reasonings being somewhat varied, some valid, others not, but mostly centering around one thing in specific; cut content relating to same sex relationships that didn’t make it into the games.

Now, I understand not being interested in the product being offered; I’m probably not going to buy it myself for a lack of specific features like multiplayer and... just not needing the buy the game for my fifth or sixth time. It’s completely valid to think the remasters are just not doing enough for you to justify a purchase, or that their faith in the company doing it properly in their current state isn’t there. I get that.

But the mood that’s come up lately isn’t just disinterest; it’s downright outrage. Violent, ideologically charged opposition to even the concept of the remasters because of a perceived failure to meet their extremely specific and often high standards and notions of progressiveness.

Now it’s not exactly news that Bioware has had a rocky relationship with inclusivity over the years, with queer characters flitting in and out of recognition and prominence, appropriation of queer archetypes, and less than stellar execution of what characters they do include. I’ve had my complaints with these myself from time to time, though it’s still always struck me historically as a generally positive, if clumsy attempt at progress that I appreciated despite the flaws; remember that the original Mass Effect 1 came out in 2007, and was the focus of a major media scandal about even including romantic relationships at all in the game, nevermind same sex ones. That’s 14 years ago! The most recent game in the series is 9 years old!

We can talk about the social standards of the times and the progress we’ve made, and we can also talk about the merits of restoring and improving media as it was, or recreating it to more closely reflect the values of today and which or both of them is a worthwhile pursuit, but I don’t think that’s what’s being sincerely argued here.

What we see instead is some protestation that failure to make the exacting changes that they see fit according to their personal ideology is some kind of radically regressive statement, as if it’s a conscious, malicious decision and not either one made in good faith or not at all. This movement has collectively decided that the remaster needs to contain exactly the changes that fit their fleeting whims or the entire thing’s at best a wash and a wasted effort, and in some cases a ‘homophobic’ statement of hatred, or cynically callous laziness. 

Let’s remember; the focus of this argument is the presence of available simulated dating options in a 14 year old game. The arguments posits that some of these alternative options are ones that were cut from the release of the games, notably the first one, and have some or numerous assets that exist in various forms within the game files that with some work can be accessed in the game with user-made modifications. Some of this is true; though much of it is exaggerated or misconstrued in terms of its scope or viability.

Many of these people just assume that this cut content that someone else has restored in a mod somewhere is just some sort of simple toggle done in moments without effort, ignoring the work those modders did on their own time and money to introduce those features. 

Even if we just hand wave any standards of quality or continuity or polish and integration these mods have, you have to consider the dozens to hundreds of volunteer man hours of labor these fans put into many of those mods to make them viable that a company paying it’s employees a fair wage and time to do without overworking has to budget. Which I should mind to you is something also incredibly topically relevant in game dev these days. Adding new content costs money. Restoring old content, still costs money.

Even then, the viability of many of those original assets is at question in itself; the 'ingredients’ used to create the content are not equivalent to the ‘cooked’ content found in the game files, so some of them are difficult to work with or lacking in features or quality. Hell, we know for a fact that half of the god damn development data for ME1 is just fucking gone, which is why the DLC isn’t making an appearance in the remaster at all; it just doesn’t exist anymore and would need to be remade from utter scratch.

Now there’s a dozen reasons undertakings like these would or wouldn’t make their list of priorities for remaster given the other work they are doing re; texture and model uprezzing, gameplay updates, etc. It’s not exactly strange for them to recreate the game largely as it was with a more limited scope of changes. Perhaps the decision was made to preserve some parts of the game largely as it was; with mostly minor cosmetic changes to things like Miranda’s camera angles; things that don’t have much overhead or ripple effect. Perhaps restoring the content was considered, but didn’t make the cut- maybe for the same reasons it didn’t make it into the game in 2007. Maybe for different ones.

Only the people involved know.

Now, would I like to see some of that content restored and improved? Sure! I think it’d have been a great thing if they’d promoted the series as having new or restored content; if they’d promised us such things. But they haven’t, and while it’s one thing to praise taking an initiative like that if they had, I think it’s completely unreasonable to be outraged that they didn’t.

We can celebrate that kind of outstanding and excellent steps forward in inclusivity, but we have to understand that while someone not being ahead of the curve may not be exciting or even disappointing; it is not in itself an act of directed aggression. And treating it like one is a waste of time and energy that we can direct to protesting actual aggression, or celebrating those outstanding steps.

But here’s the major thing that kills me; all those mods they love and praise aren’t going anywhere.

The remaster will come out and unless Bioware is so completely tone deaf and media blind from the past year they pull a WC3, the old versions of the game will all still be available. All those user made mods they cite in these arguments about “how easy” it is to add content to the game will still be there, ready to play as they always were. Some of them might even work or be easily made to work with the new versions!

All of that will still be there! And we’ll have access to a new version of the trilogy that is far more accessible to new players who haven’t yet been exposed to so much of the games content that they are desperate for more of it.

Just look at Mass Effect 1; that game has not aged well, and it was kind of a sloppy mess even when it came out! How many new players can we get to enjoy all the good things the series has to offer with an easily accessed, more enjoyable package to play through the entire series without issue? I’ve done numerous replays of the trilogy through the years, and Mass Effect 1 is always a huge stumbling block. It’s just a pain in the ass, straight out. Don’t you want at least the option to fix that?

And if not, you don’t have to buy it and no harm is done to you! Enjoy your existing version with your mods and familiar features and flaws.

And if you truly, genuinely care so passionately about Bioware improving their record of inclusivity; look instead to the new game that’s coming out and look forward to that instead. Every game in the franchise has been better than the last at this; ME1 cut the same sex relationships, but ME2 had some. ME3 had even more, and then Andromeda had yet even further than that after patching!

How many will the new game have?

Look forward to that and make it clear to bioware you’re looking for that in their games; just.... ease off this ridiculous vitriol in trying to get people to avoid the remaster because it’s not good enough for you. No one needs to have this bullying done to either the developers themselves or the players looking to buy the game for themselves or others. It’s simply not productive.

Especially with this franchise’s sordid history with excessive media outrage and entitlement that’s been absolutely exhausted.

Just... relax. And have some perspective.

[bltngames]

Review: Super Mario Sunshine

Super Mario Sunshine is a weird game for a lot of different reasons. It was among some of the first game reviews I ever wrote for the internet, for one, all the way back in 2005. I was proud enough of that review that when it came time to relaunch TSSZ News in 2008, it was one of five archived reviews I transplanted on to the site. It was also a strange case where I became convinced it was a game I’d never play, originally. I was 23 years old, with no job, no money, and no prospects. I was desperate to play the game that was being sold as the sequel to Super Mario 64, but I could not envision a future where that would ever be possible.

Eventually, I reached my breaking point. Earlier that same year, somebody had linked me to something called “Quake Done Quick.” It was attached to a relatively new site, called the “Speed Demos Archive”, a hub for videos of people finishing games as fast as possible. The site was small, updated manually, and featured a list of roughly 100 games -- maybe less. This was before Youtube, so these were downloadable video files, usually in AVI or MPG format. And it was here that they had a Super Mario Sunshine speedrun. Even on my fledgling broadband internet, it took a considerable amount of time to download. But, with nothing more than two hours of raw, unedited, uncommentated gameplay footage, I watched a user named “Dragorn” play through the entire game (his old run is still viewable on the Internet Archive). Watching a speedrunner flip, spin, and trick his way across levels, I became convinced that Sunshine was incredible.

A few months later, I was surprised by my brother with $200 for Christmas, stuffed inside a greeting card. He said it was for “all the Christmases he missed” since moving out, years ago. Combined with other money I’d received in gifts, I headed to a Gamestop and purchased a Gamecube with my own (used) copy of Super Mario Sunshine. In my mind, it did not matter that I had spoiled the entire game for myself only three months earlier with the speedrun video. Watching someone else play is no substitute for a controller in your own hands. I needed to play it for myself.

In the modern context, Super Mario Sunshine is one of the games attached to the recently released Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection. Full disclosure: I will not be buying this collection, and I have not played the version of Super Mario Sunshine it includes. It’s not that these games are bad, but even from the outside looking in, the collection looks underwhelming. It’s full of basic, bare-bones ports of games that deserve more. But it does mean that these games have been on my mind, particularly Super Mario Sunshine, which I finished replaying, separately, a little more than one year ago. It was the first time I’d finished the game since that fateful Christmas of 2004, and it provided a refresh in perspective.

The truth of the matter is, brushing aside everything else about it, Super Mario Sunshine is an easy game to hate. Nintendo was trying a lot of new things with the Gamecube, struggling to figure out what could be done with the leap in horsepower over the Nintendo 64. Their pitch was a Mario that was subtly more serious and realistic. Sunshine is a game with a surprisingly large number of cinematics, and a considerable amount of narrative setup. It sounds like a joke, but it’s true: the game opens with Mario taking a long-deserved vacation on a tropical island, only to be arrested and wrongfully accused of crimes he did not commit. He is sentenced to community service, forced to clean the island of a paint-like substance its residents claim he has used to vandalize their resort town. This is accomplished with the F.L.U.D.D., a backpack-mounted squirt gun perfect for washing down walls and floors. It was the first manual labor he’d been shown doing since the NES version of Wrecking Crew in 1985.

It’s odd territory for Mario, but it leads to the game’s first real problem: Plot. Sunshine is not a game that’s packed with story -- there aren’t a lot of named characters, and there aren’t a lot of genuine story arcs to get hooked in to, but it’s way more than you got in most Mario games. Regardless, the influence of a narrative structure is definitely felt within its levels. One of the benefits of Super Mario 64 is that there was no set order to anything; you might drop in to a level with a specific goal in mind, only to accidentally stumble on to something else. You were encouraged to follow your curiosity, collecting stars more through natural exploration. Even though it’s not always obvious on the surface, the objectives in Super Mario Sunshine are following a specific plotline, which means flat, rigid linearity.

So you might reach an amusement park area, but you can’t go inside until you finish the mission where you open the front gates. Even once you re-enter the level for the next mission inside the amusement park, exploring its various rides will be a moot point, as the game will want you to focus on a specific goal instead. Want to ride the rollercoaster? Too bad, the story dictates it’s not available yet. Though you still have that go-anywhere, do-anything world design from Super Mario 64, the current mission is the only thing that’s ever active. Another example: at the beginning of the game, you open up the first stage -- Bianco Hills. Even though you have a whole village and a sizable lake area to explore, there’s little to do out there, because your mission is about reaching the bottom of the windmill. The second mission, again, doesn’t involve the village or the lake, but now asks you to reach the top of the same windmill in order to fight the game’s first boss, Petey Piranha. And so it goes: big zones to explore, but most of it useless as Sunshine slowly trickles out objectives one at a time, following a barely-visible narrative that drags everything down.

Nintendo had other intentions for the game, too. The company was known for taking its time with game releases -- Super Mario World released in 1990, and it took six years for Super Mario 64 to follow it up. Even once a game was announced, there were often months or even years of delays as the game got pushed back, and back, and back, as with Ocarina of Time. Similarly long waits happened for many of Nintendo’s other flagship franchises (Super Mario Kart, Super Metroid, etc.), and the peanut gallery was getting restless. With the release of the Gamecube, Nintendo made a vow to explore other avenues to release more games, more quickly.

The problem was, all of those delays are exactly what lead to Nintendo’s extremely high bar of quality. Rushing these games out the door meant cutting corners and finding easy ways to tack on extra play time, skipping necessary fine tuning. In The Wind Waker, this notoriously led to the last fourth of the game, wherein you must find and decode maps to dredge up half a dozen pieces of the magical Triforce. For most, this meant hours of sailing out to random, completely featureless areas in the middle of the open ocean hoping to find a single golden tortilla chip. “Tedious” is putting it kindly, but it saved Nintendo from having to delay the game too many times in order to add more in-depth content.

In Super Mario Sunshine, this manifested in a degree of repetition that is difficult to ignore. In both Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Galaxy, most mission objectives are unique. There are occasional repeated missions, like finding 8 red coins, but by and large it's things like rescuing a baby penguin, opening a pyramid, assaulting an airship, or finding your way through a gravity-bending maze. There's enough variety that you don't notice as much when you're asked to do yet another one of Galaxy's purple coin comets.

Sunshine still has unique goals like that, but they are much fewer and farther between. Instead, the bulk of the game is filled with doing the same four or five missions over, and over, and over again. Finding fruit to hatch Yoshi or hunting red coins can be fun occasionally, but Sunshine often makes you do this stuff multiple times per level. Most bosses also must be faced at least twice, sometimes up to three times, and very little changes from fight to fight. And then there are the races -- a man named Piantissimo is waiting for you in most stages, looking to race you to an arbitrary landmark, and every single level has one penultimate mission where you must chase down the hero's evil doppelganger, Shadow Mario. It’s padding, basically, and thanks to a tenuous grip on narrative, there’s few ways to skip the things you don’t want to do.

This isn't even touching on the game's blue coins. They're one of Sunshine's rarer collectibles, and ten blue coins can be traded at the shop for a single Shine Sprite (the main item central to the story). The majority of blue coins can be found by hosing down graffiti found around the island. Spray a circle-shaped pattern on one wall, and a blue coin pops out of another circle-shaped pattern on the opposite side of the level, which you must run to and collect before it disappears. Then, the opposite: spray down the second pattern, and another blue coin will appear back where the first graffiti used to be. In a game full of rerun objectives, this is the worst offender. Rarely are these blue coin graffiti spots interesting or challenging; they primarily exist to fill space and fluff up the Shine counter.

The level concepts themselves also suffer from this repetition. In any other Mario game, “tropical island” would be one theme among many other level types, like deserts, volcanoes and frozen lakes. Sunshine tries to stretch its one theme out to last an entire game, and in practical terms, this means that even after 18 years and two complete playthroughs (three, if you count the speedrun video), I still can’t remember most areas in any kind of specific detail. I remember a couple stage names, maybe a few environmental traits (like the hotel at sunset or the amusement park), but anything beyond that and it all starts blurring into homogeneous beaches, docks, and villages. Even the music -- beyond the iconic acoustic guitar of the Delfino Plaza hub world song, absolutely nothing about Super Mario Sunshine’s soundtrack stands out as memorable in the slightest. Every part of this game plays, looks and sounds like every other part in the worst way possible.

And yet, through some miracle, Super Mario Sunshine does not come out the other end being a bad game. It’s not necessarily good, either, mind you. But when I finally managed to get my hands on this game back in 2004, it made me angry. Super Mario 64 was a tough act to follow, and rather than build on those concepts, Sunshine felt like a massive regression. Nowadays, it’s easier to see the bigger picture. Super Mario Sunshine was a stop-gap as Nintendo slowly pushed Mario back to a more linear, level-based structure. Super Mario Galaxy was another step in this direction, doing away with the open worlds in favor of traditional, straight-forward level design, something that would later be perfected in Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario 3D World.

That makes Sunshine more of a curious black sheep than anything else. It’s definitely not a game worth hating -- its biggest offense is simply being dull, and there are worse fates. For my replay, it became the sort of game I chipped away at, bit by bit, over the course of nearly three years. As it turns out, the best cure for repetition is to forget everything you were doing the last time you played. It’s even fitting on some level that a game about Mario taking a vacation is best served in lazy, slow, indifferent chunks. Make no mistake -- there are better, more polished, and more engaging platformers out there for you to play. It is in no way a stretch to call Super Mario Sunshine the worst 3D Mario game, but it speaks to the franchise’s high bar of quality that even the worst 3D Mario game really isn’t so bad.

[intersex-ionality]

how do you feel about the sapphic flag? the purple/pink/yellow/green one

I mean… It’s a palette flag and I don’t like palette flags, but I don’t… hate it or anything? It uses colors that are more or less source-able for crafting, and it doesn’t have multiple shades. It’s bold and stuff.

It’s, like. Fine?

I just wish people would stop making palettes and calling them flags, it’s completely unsustainable, like. My autistic ass has special interests in both flag design and queer theory, and even I can’t keep up with the sheer number of palettes-as-flags that people are trying to pass around these days.

Just, you know, if your flag looks suspiciously like a thumbnail from Color Hunt, then it’s going to fail one of the fundamental principles of flag design: be recognizable at a distance/at a small size.

I’ve already mistaken the sapphic flag for the pan flag like…. half a dozen times so far, and the pan flag is my shit.

So, you know, in that sense, I feel that it fails as a flag.

But it’s not…….. a travesty or something. It’s a definite step up from, say, 3 stripes of difficult to source orange and 3 stripes of almost impossible to source pink.

4 colors is at the upper limit of but is very realistic as an expectation for crafters, the colors aren’t overly difficult to source as long as you aren’t expecting fiber artists and metal artists to have perfect hex matching (get ready for a LOT of variations of the purple and green, and a lot of gold instead of bright yellow). 

It’s good.

It’s just a palette.

I wish it had been used as a starting point. In much the same way that the queer flag had a long discussion surrounding its creation which involved a lot of theorizing on shapes, colors, whether it was plausible to have two shades of purple (pastel purple and bright purple are fairly realistic to source in paint, enamel and fiber, for example), whether the background should be cream or true white, whether chevrons would be too difficult to reproduce on large scales, etc etc etc… I don’t know.

I just want queer flag design to stop being “let’s all imitate the rainbow.” Let’s innovate. There’s a point where it stops becoming homage to our history, and starts becoming an exhausting repetition that makes it impossible to differentiate anything from anything else, and you get a muddied pile of stuff that’s difficult to work with and difficult to identify.

Like, how many times have you seen someone ask, “oh, what’s the flag next to XYZ,” because it’s a flag with 4-7 stripes of color?

Whereas, how many times have you seen someone ask, for example, what this flag is:

A flag featuring three vertical bars: red, white, red. Centered in the white bar is a red maple leaf.

And even if you don’t know what this flag is for, how likely are you to confuse it for any other flags you might run into?

Two red triangular pennants stacked on each other, with a blue border. Centered in the top pennant is a white emblem of a sun (8 of the 12 points visible) rising over a crescent moon. In the lower pennant is a white 12-point sun.

Or, consider these two flags which use the same colors and shapes, and yet, are all but impossible to confuse for each other.

Top: A red field, with 8 white teepees forming a red circle in the center.

Bottom: A white field with a red circle centered. 16 large red rays emanating from the circle make the primary color of this flag red.

You may have also noticed at this point that all of these flags are also extremely distinct and identifiable, even though they all use just red and white (with a hint of blue in one case).

The queer communities’ flag designers don’t seem to really understand why the rainbow flag works as well as it does. It does break the “fewer is better” colors guideline, but it does so with need–it is impossible to capture the symbology of a fucking rainbow without a variety of vibrant color–and with full consideration–when the real world logistics made having certain colors and certain dimensions impossible, those colors and dimensions were dropped.

Whereas, a lot of queer flags that have come since just don’t take that kind of care with their design.

And, frankly, neither does the sapphic flag.

For fucks sakes the designer literally SAYS the flag is based ON A BOUQUET.

Why would you not utilize that? If you’re gonna go for flowers, go for flowers. If you’re gonna go for a cacophony of too many colors, well hell, you might as well commit to it and have a goddamn riot!

Top: A green field, with a 7 circle flower-of-life pattern. The outer circles alternate yellow, pink, and purple. The innermost circle is green.

Bottom: A green field with a 5 petal orchid centered on it. The three rear petals are pink. The two front petals are purple. The stamen is yellow.

Now, you’ll have to forgive the fact that I am emphatically not an artist, I mean, that orchid is so aggressively referenced from a stock image that it’s kind of tragic.

But! No one is going to confuse those for any other queer flags that I’m familiar with.

Plus, I think these kinds of designs also go a long way to showcasing any potential shortcomings with the palettes that these palette-flags may be using. Does that shade of green actually work for art pieces? Is it realistically possible to use a non-standard green alongside three more standard shades of pink, yellow and purple, and still produce whole crafts that look like something more or less coherent? Or is it too many colors? Too clashy?

With a palette flag, those kinds of flaws can be hidden until it’s too late, until you’ve set a bunch of crafters into a situation they cannot actually resolve.

Like, look.

I know flag design sucks. There’s a lot of really heinous logistical issues that you run into with it that are kind of unique to it. But, I dunno.

It’s just.

We gotta stop putting 4-7 stripes of random super specific hex codes in a rectangle and calling it a day, y’all. That’s not a sustainable system.

[rectifystraightenposture-blog]

The 8 Best Massage Gun Reviews

Knead guns have shaken up the way athletes go about healing and for good reasons. Forget foam rollers which rarely tackle your deep tissues. With a massage gun, you’ll say goodbye to muscle knots and soreness and face the next activity pain-free. Everyone from gym enthusiasts and pro athletes to people who suffer from chronic pain touts the advantages this device. It’s the hand-held masseuse that hits the pressure points every single time. And the best part? You can use it all on all parts of your body. So what’s holding you will back? Considerations before Buying a Massage Gun With all the various kinds of massage guns on the market today, it may not be wise to buy the first one you come across. Take some time to analyze the features along with settle for the best. Here are some of the factors you should consider. Size things If you plan to travel with your massage gun, you need one will fit into your suitcase and preferably a cord less one. Not all massage guns fit this bill. Therefore, make sure you check the features before buying. Rock and/or roll? Massage guns deliver percussion therapy differently. Numerous provide only circular motions, and others include thumping, vibrations, and circular motions. It’s best to go for a massage marker that offers a variety of options because it’s hard to know which will therapy will give you the most relief without testing. Need for speed(s) Massage guns also have different speeds. If you’re a fitness enthusiast and tend to experience extreme soreness, it’s better to go for a massage gun with more than one speed positioning. That way, you can always alter the speed depending on the way feel. One size does not fit all It’s even essential to consider the accessories and attachments that come with each massage gun. If you plan to use the massager on large muscle, you don’t need a lot of attachments because one can be used just fine. However , if you plan to use the device regarding specific areas such as the neck, you may need an attachment that will soothe those areas Keeps on going and going… The third thing you need is a massage gun that dies you when you need to use it. Therefore shop for massage guns through long battery life. It may also help to get one particular with two rechargeable batteries so that you never have to wait for someone to charge fully to use it. Massage your wallet Once shopping for a Rectify Straighten Posture, it’s also crucial to take into account your budget. These devices come at different prices. In most cases, one of the most expensive ones are more effective and durable. non-etheless, it’s possible to find an affordable option that gets the job undertaken. Our Selection Process We know how difficult it can be to distinguish the best massage gun, especially with a limited budget. And yet don’t worry — we’re here to help. We searched the internet in search of the top options. We started by scrutinizing massage guns from top brands like Theragun and even TimTim, and we have to say the options were impressive. The actual downside was that most of the high-end brands were steeply-priced. Therefore , to give you options for different budgets, we dug a little further, this time focusing on recommendations by top sites including HuffPost, CNET, and Dr . Body Gadget. And we all didn’t stop there. We also read customer viewpoints on the top-rated options to get an idea of what you should expect to have when you buy the massage guns. After analyzing each therapeutic massage gun’s features, we narrowed down our list towards the top eight most impressive massage guns. Take a look! The perfect Massage Gun for the Money: Our Top 8 We given to you the top eight massage guns on the market. Whether you’re an athlete, a gym enthusiast, or someone what person simply wants to soothe sore muscles and regain an improved range of motion, we’re confident you’ll find a massage gun for you on this list. Are you ready? We’re going to jump right on. 1 . TimTam Deep Muscle Massager TimTam Deep Body Massager is among the budget-friendly options you should consider. This massager brings 2000 strokes per minute and features a 90-degree articulating venture that gives you more angle options to hit different parts of our bodies. We also love that it’s battery-powered, meaning it is easy to take it everywhere with you if needed. However , you should know who there have been complaints about its construction. Some users contain complained about the unit breaking after a while. Other users have likewise raised concern that the battery runs out very fast, therefore requiring frequent charging. These setbacks are expected considering the rate you pay for this massage gun. Nonetheless, you however get value for your money because the unit delivers the power and full speed required to penetrate muscles and loosen tension. Pros Reliable by a one-year warranty Great price Portable Cons Flashy Has only one speed setting Breaks easily Battery everyday living shortens over time 2 . Athlete Recovery Gun Massage Marker Another affordable option is the Athlete Recovery Gun Stroke Gun. This massage gun has better performance not to mention versatility compared to the TimTam Deep Muscle Massager. It presents 500 to 2400 strokes per minute and comes with unique massage heads that allow you to vary your pressure and also results. Besides, the unit also comes with two fast-charging battery power and a carrier bag, thus allowing you to take it everywhere along. However , some people have complained that this massage gun will be too loud. Others have raised concerns about the take care of heating after only a few minutes of using. Regardless, most of the people agree that this unit is effective in relieving muscle emotional tension and knots. Pros Portable Budget-friendly Gets the job completed Backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee Cons Construction could possibly be better Very loud 3. Evieun massage gun Typically the Evieun massage gun is one of the most powerful massage guns that can be found, delivering up to 3200 percussions per minute. The massager seems to have four adjustable speed levels, thereby allowing you to customize your own massage to your liking. Furthermore, it comes with four travel attachments that provide incredibly targeted relief. We also absolutely love that it comes with four tip attachments that make it easier for one to reach every part of your body. Not to mention, it uses a regular battery, which means you can take it anywhere with you. And the best benefit? You don’t have to worry about noise because this rub gun has a silent operation. Buyers recommend it among the best massage guns. Pros Budget-friendly Four attachment brains give you more options Quiet Cons Short battery daily life 4. Theragun G3PRO As we mentioned, Theragun is known just for creating top-notch massage guns. And the Theragun G3PRO seriously isn't an exception. This massage gun is highly run and efficient. It delivers 60 pounds of force at 40 beats per second. Besides, it characteristics an adjustable arm for full-body reach. And that’s not all. The massage gun also comes with six bond heads and two batteries so that you never have to wait for this to charge. We also love that it has couple of speeds, which allow you to vary the intensity. The only flipside is that Theragun is quite expensive. non-etheless, if you can afford to pay for it, you’ll have no regrets. Users are crazy about this unique massage gun. Pros Durable Two intensity options Tranquil Effective Portable Cons Expensive 5. Zermätte Gun Massager The Zermätte Gun Massager offers a lot of the same many benefits as the Theragun G3PRO. It features five adjustable rate settings and comes with five attachments heads that enable you to target different pressure points. Besides, it has a quiet operation, which is a plus in our books. We also like that this massage gun is small in size and is solar battery powered, thereby allowing you to take it everywhere with you. Not to mention, the massage gun is pocket-friendly compared to the Theragun G3PRO. Individuals can’t stop raving about it. Pros Silent Affordable Movable Five intensity settings give you more options Cons Will not last long 6. Wonder Maxi Massage Gun A second excellent choice is the Wonder Maxi Massage Gun. When may not be the most affordable, it offers excellent functionality. This restorative massage gun features five speed strength levels and half dozen head attachments, which makes it highly customizable. In addition to this, the rub down gun has four tip attachments that allow you to achieve every aching muscle. We also love that it’s very lightweight and features noise reduction technology. With these features, you can use the massage gun anywhere without having to worry about distracting others. Users have nothing but good things to state about this massage gun. Pros Allows you to vary the high intensity of your massage Lightweight Portable Comfortable grip Low sounds Cons The battery runs out fast 7. Rock solid Innovations Jigsaw Massage Gun Hands down, the Vigorous Technology Jigsaw Massage Gun gets the job done. Buyers experience praised it for its effectiveness in treating chronic discomfort conditions and post-workout muscle aches. You’ll have to deal with loads of noise while using this massage gun, but the fact that the software gives you a quality deep tissue massage without a masseuse clarifies that it's worth it. This massage gun is battery powered, which means you can use it anywhere. Besides, it comes with a carry instance that makes it all-the-more portable. And if you don’t like it, you possibly can take advantage of the 30-day money-back guarantee. Buyers believe it’s worthwhile every dime. Pros Portable Effective for deep skin massage Durable Cons Loud Motor heats up 8. Evertone Prosage Therapy Massage Gun The Evertone Prosage Healing Massage Gun has three intensity levels and two to three head attachments to help you vary the intensity of your massage therapy. This massage gun delivers up to 3200 percussions for each minute and has received praises for its effectiveness in deep structure massage. It’s also the perfect massage gun for remedy on the go because it’s cordless and lightweight. Not to mention, it’s one of the most affordable options on this list. Consumers love it. Masters Excellent for deep tissue massage Affordable Portable Negative aspects May not last long The Low down on Massage Rifles If you don’t know what a massage gun is or perhaps what it does, you probably think this is another hype intended to die down sooner or later. But that’s where you’d possibly be wrong. Many people have discovered the benefits of massage guns, and by your look of things, this trend is not going anyplace any time soon. So let’s explore this device to understand the things the hype is all about. What is a massage gun? A caress gun, also known as a percussion massager is a device intended to aid the myofascial release process and increase blood flow in an affected area. The device uses pulsation and vibration to apply pressure into the muscle tissues, thus promoting recovery. The actual result is less tension and knots and improved flexibility. If used correctly, these handheld devices can cut down recovery time and relieve soreness and pain. Theragun invented the first massage gun back in 2008. Since then, typically the brand has established itself as an industry leader and is very fashionable among professional athletes. The only downside of Theragun massage therapies guns is that they’re not cheap — at all. However good news is that there are many affordable options you can try. How must a massage gun work? Most massage guns utilize batteries, but some require power outlets. They feature a hardened plastic head on one end that pulsates in plus out of the device. The ball-shaped head moves at the quote of 2000 to about 2500 percussions per minute. It’s these pulsations of the head that create the massage as well as vibration movements into your muscles. Some massage guns feature various head attachments, thereby allowing you to customize your knead to your liking. Time to Get Yours The market is complete with budget-friendly self-massage tools that provide incredible pain relief. But stroke guns take the lead. A massage gun presents a deep tissue massage on all parts of your entire body, unlike other devices that only focus on specific locations. Considering the versatility a massage gun provides, it would be far better to get a high-quality one to reap the benefits of percussion massage therapy. Therefore pick one from our list and say goodbye to body aches and pain. Have you used any of the massage rifles on this list? Did they live up to your expectations? Why not share your experience with us in the comments section. We all love hearing from our readers.

[metalgearkong]

Detroit: Become Human - Review (PS4)

10/7/19

Developed by Quantic Dream, released May 2018

Quantic Dream is a French studio, making a name for themselves with narrative and character-focused games. These titles sometimes resemble more of an interactive digital film, rather than a traditional video game. Indigo Prophecy (Fahrenheit), Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls, and now Detroit: Become Human consist of their releases. David Cage, the writer and director of these games (and founding member of Quantic Dream), seems to have a strong fan base, but many people think he is overrated or controversial. Personally, I’m a fan of his games, but feel like the formula that the series has stuck to for a decade and a half hasn’t evolved enough over time. Detroit: Become Human continues the format of multiple protagonists, quick-time events, player choice, and depressing stories focusing on dark journeys for its characters.

Detroit: Become Human is split between three heroes: each an android of the near future, who endure perils of awakening from tool to sentience. Kara (Valorie Curry) is an android who runs away with her owner’s daughter Alice after witnessing physical and emotional abuse from her father. Conner (Bryan Dechart) is an investigator android, working for the police department, specifically tasked with hunting down androids who have rebelled from their programming and strive for independence called “deviants.” Lastly is Markus (Jesse Williams), who becomes a revolutionary of the android race after being destroyed and left for dead in a junkyard. The story switches between each of these characters, and there are tons of directions the story could go for each person, making for excellent replayability.

If you’ve played any Quantic Dream before, you’ll know exactly what to expect with this game. This is the entry that seems least evolved from prior Quantic Dream games, which is slightly disappointing. The story begins with Conner negotiating with a deviant android who is threatening the life of his former owner. This acts as a great tutorial hooking you to the story, teaching the gameplay mechanics, and demonstrating consequences of what you do. My only problem with this from a story perspective, is that we immediately see androids evolving past their programming, and achieving sentience. This is one of my problems with the game: there is little to no explanation on what makes them deviate, referring to it sometimes as a glitch in the software, simply it being there all along until the android discovers it (or being automatically “awakened” by a touch by a deviated android as we see Markus doing for others).

The rules of the androids are underdeveloped and inconsistent, and its one of the things that broke my immersion. For all the time we spend playing as androids, there are many things that got little to no attention in favor of drama and plot. I never had a good idea for what their physical and mental limitations were. Sometimes and android would have a skill such as instantly transferring their consciousness into another body simply by touch, or had extreme reflexes, but these skills not being used in the story except for when it’s convenient to the plot. I don’t need the game to be pure exposition, but a lot was focused on that could have been better served making sure the rules and technicalities were defined.

The stand out feature of Detroit: Become Human, as are with other Quantic Dream games, are its graphics. There were genuinely several small moments where I forgot I was playing a game, and was convinced I was watching a live-action scene. It’s obvious the voice actors also did the motion and facial capture to bring their characters to life. This is the case with most of the characters in the game as well, not just the three main protagonists. Everything from man-made objects to weather effects look perfect and incredibly realistic. Even skin tones and clothing, something most games struggle to make look realistic, constantly impressed me. Lighting, animation, and virtually all other visual effects are excellent, and probably won’t be topped at least until the next generation of gaming.

The same complements could be said for music, and overall emotion the game can deliver. David Cage knows how to build a scene, even if it doesn’t make perfect logical sense. Many chapters (out of 32) swelled me with emotion, a combination of great directing, acting, and animation. You really do feel like part of a major civil rights movement by the end of the game. It makes me think if the game would have been much better if it dropped its sci-fi angle, and portrayed an actual revolutionary period, not having to worry about making up rules for its fictional setting. On the flip side, a few chapters did feel monotonous and boring, and I wanted them to end as quickly as possible. Most of these chapters happened to be of Markus’ story. Once he begins a search for the android revolution headquarters, he is made its leader for no special reason, other than he is the player’s character. He came from a great life and there’s no particular reason why he was made this big influential person. 

My favorite character to play as was Conner, mainly because his character felt the most robotic and android-like. Seeing him remain analytical, or try to remain analytical, despite the change around him, was the most interesting story to be a part of. However, the game is also stuffed with cliched characters, ones you could read the personality of simply by looking at them. Hint: if a man is overweight, has a beard, and has slick hair, he’s a bad guy, or at least a douche bag. The game truly runs the spectrum of good and bad characters. A particular character that I felt was pure cringe was Conner’s boss Lt Anderson, a drunken, pessimistic, suicidal, lose canon cop who has a dark past and hates androids. Every scene he’s in I felt like I’ve seen a hundred times in other media, even if he was voice acted well.

Detroit: Become Human is better than the sum of its parts. Like other Quantic Dream games, this is a narrative and character driven experience that will fill you with all sorts of emotion, empathy, and conflict, but contain some UI and story fallacies that I couldn’t always ignore. The best complement I can give it, is I found it hard to put down. This is one of the more meaty Quantic Dream games, and I discovered it difficult to stop playing from one chapter to the next. I was invested all the way through, and saw dozens of multiple paths I could have taken than the ones I chose. The game even gives you a thorough flow chart to truly show you how many outcomes there were in every given chapter, and it makes me want to take opposite paths next time I play in the future. You could spend a lot of time uncovering every scene, or at least the majority of the scenes that have been made for the game. This is a David Cage game through and through, which should tell you exactly what to expect.

7/10

[corpus-chorus]

A dev’s insight to tumblr’s updates

Alright guys. I’m sorry to make this long-ass discourse post when I’d really much rather just be doing my art reblogs and basking in my warm community, but I feel this needs to happen, because a lot of you may not be aware of what goes into updates like this.

To be clear - I’m not making any comment about the color change itself. It doesn’t actually bother me, seems kind of silly to flip a lid about when there’s plenty of extensions to fix it if you don’t like it, but I get the annoyance of having something familiar change into something that makes you uncomfortable, especially with no warning.

But then I started to see a bunch of rants on how shitty this update is when there were so many bugs that needed to be fixed instead, and I just need to take a moment to address app development in general, because y’all seem fairly misinformed about the whole thing.

So let’s get one thing straight - bug fixing is not easy.

Yeah, that sounds like a copout, doesn’t it?

But let’s talk about how bug fixing works, alright? Because there’s a couple of things we gotta look at when considering changes like this.

How much code is needed to fix the bug? Yeah, this one’s pretty straight forward, right? How many lines of code do the devs have to write to fix whatever’s broken? Except you’re forgetting the time it takes to find the bug in the first place. And this isn’t about popping into one file and looking through the lines until you see what’s broken. Bugs aren’t just typos. Bugs are NOT easy to find. Generally, if I’m working on a bug, and it takes me 4 days to fix, 3 of those days were probably spent just defining exactly where the bug came from and the places it exists. And that’s with me being super familiar with the codebase. If I didn’t already know that the core value displayed on the groupings page was coming from the hciReplacements inspector (out of 30-some inspectors), which is pulling data from the hagi, which is pulling and calculating data from the clip model, of which I know the exact layout, it probably would have taken me double or triple that time. And now, on top of that, what if the bug is an extreme edge case no one thought about when they built the core code? I might have to rewrite the entire functionality of the thing that pulls all that data, and holy hot hell is that gonna take some time.

How much QA effort is required? Contrary to popular belief, no, developers don’t just make bug fixes and immediately push them out to the app. It’s gotta be tested, usually by some sort of QA/QC team. And, fun fact, QA can take longer than the development did. Because the QA team is looking for EVERY POSSIBLE USE CASE of the exact thing you’re working on. Every single possible way a user might interact with that. That takes a skilled worker to think of all of those possible use cases (and spoiler alert, they’re human, so they still fuck up sometimes), and it takes them time to find them all.

But ON TOP of that, you also have a LOT of unexpected consequences to code changes. Maybe you just needed to update to cores count so that it’s the total cores on a node instead of total cores per processor, but you didn’t realize that another part of the code was assuming that value was cores per processor, and congrats, you’ve screwed the values all through the rest of the app.

And that’s just a data example. You can make critical errors if, say, you rename a value, and miss one of the places that value’s used, so now that value doesn’t exist in that specific scenario, and congratulations, you’ve actually caused your app to crash if the user follows a specific series of actions, and oops, looks like that set of actions wasn’t one QA thought of, so now users get to find it instead. You were just trying to fix a little data bug, and you’ve now broken the entire app. Good job.

How old is the codebase? Why is this important, you ask? Well, if you’re not in the industry, you may have never been introduced to the idea of “legacy code”. Legacy code is, to over-simplify, old code. It’s code that’s been around for a while. It’s code that dozens of people have had their hands in and is therefor a bit of a mess, no matter how hard you try to keep it clean, or how well organized your team is. Because maybe Eric built that one file really well to start with, and Suzy made some great additions to it, and Tom just made a few bug fixes, but he names variables a little differently, so Jason didn’t realize that the function he needed already existed when he went to build it a few months down the line, so now there’s two versions of the same thing, one used in one place, one used in another, and when Meredith goes to fix a bug related to it, she doesn’t realize she has to fix it both places, and wow, that is a bit of a mess, isn’t it?

The codebase I’m working in currently is about a year and a half old now, maybe a little more. When our first version was released, our codebase was 51,714 lines of code long. As of today, it is 357,932 lines long. With new features on the horizon, it will continue to grow, and the web of dependencies tangled through the codebase will get bigger and more complex. This is just a fact.

So keep in mind that that’s an app that’s about 1.5 years old. Tumblr was launched in, what, 2007 or something? That’s 11 years. 11 fucking years of coding, of dozens, if not hundreds, of people contributing to the codebase, in their own coding style, with their own knowledge levels. This is like if a team of 100 writers was working on a fic series for 11 years, and they didn’t all get to work together, and not everyone took notes. You’re gonna have plot holes. You’re gonna have inconsistencies. Shit’s gonna be messy.

And then there’s the pinnacle question. 

How much do the devs care? How much you wanna bet a lot of the devs on this site started out with a genuine passion for it? How many do you think worked long past the hours they were getting paid for just to make sure they were making something they could be proud of? How excited do you think it used to make them to release new features, and get to see it make people’s lives better?

When you care about a project, you think beyond the exact task you were given. You think about the impact every line of code you write is going to have. on the users. Because you want the users to enjoy the app. You want them to be happy with it. You want all the work you put into it to mean something.

When you care, you make less bugs. When you care, you don’t get lazy and just make temporary fixes. When you care, you put your heart and soul into your work.

How much heart and soul do you think the Tumblr devs want to put into this site at this point? When every single update, every single effort they put in, is met with criticism and hatred? When they’re told that nothing they do is ever good enough? How much do you think the devs care about getting everything perfect and on time and working themselves to tears on this site when they know damn well that the second they release an update, it’s going to be met with nothing but hatred and ignorant people treating them as if their hundred of hours of effort were stupid?

If I was a dev for this site, I’d hate my fucking job.

So let’s review. When you ask for bug fixes, I promise, there is someone on that team very concerned about addressing that bug fix. When you complain that tags are borked, or searching is shit, or whatever you get frustrated with that day, I promise, some dev is already working their tits off trying to find exactly what it’s going to take to fix that for you.

But understand that, that ask? That ask that might seem super simple and straight-forward to you from your comfortable couch? But it might take a team of devs working ungodly hours for months to be able to do. It might carry risks as high as accidentally deleting posts or banning blogs or breaking the entire bloody site. So they wanna spend some time and get that shit right so that you’re not stuck with something even worse than the bug they were fixing.

The people working on these bug fixes are human beings. We seem to remember that about everyone else in the goddamn world, but not the people who work tirelessly to give us the very site that we’re having these conversations on right now.

This update? Yeah, it might seem trivial to you. It might seem like they’re “wasting their time” with “stupid bullshit” when they could be fixing bugs.

But let me make it very clear. They’re trying to fix the bugs. They’re trying to stop the porn bots (and oh, fucking boy, I could make an entire post just about how insanely difficult that is, because some of you people seem to think the devs are fucking GODS or something). And maybe this update is stupid to you, but I can tell you right now, having this update right here is not the reason these things are not going to be fixed tomorrow. This is the frontend team making an aesthetic change - I promise it didn’t stop the backend team from their tireless work to fix the tags.

so tl;dr Fixing Tumblr’s bugs is not some simple, do-it-in-a-month, just-get-more-devs fix. And tearing into this release is doing nothing but reminding the probably very tired dev team that their work means absolutely dick to a large portion of ungrateful fucks on this site.

Complain about bugs. Tell Tumblr about their bugs. Make sure they know. And then sit the fuck down and wait - they’re fucking trying.

[bltngames]

Rant: The Nightmare of Steam Input

It’s hardly a surprise these days that something built by Valve Software is maybe not the most solid, well-thought-out decision anyone’s ever had. When it comes to Steam, it can sometimes feel like a cobbled together set of half-finished features. Remember Steam Music, when they were going to implement a way to listen to custom music during gameplay? Remember when they used to sell movies? Or what the “Steam Machines” initiative, when Valve was going to partner with different hardware manufacturers to sell pre-built PCs, likely in a move that was meant to mimic to how Google handles their Android phones?

And then there’s the Steam Controller, built on the back of the “Steam Input” API. Though the controller floundred, Steam Input ended up being far more interesting. The theory: plug any controller in to Steam and it just works. Does the game ask for an Xbox controller, even though you aren't using one? Steam Input will take care of that. Does the game not even support controllers at all? Steam Input can make that work, too. And for games that interface with the Steam Input technology directly, a whole host of new and exciting features get made available, like binding specific actions to a Playstation 4 controller’s touchpad, or a Nintendo controller’s motion control.

On paper, it sounds great. But like a growing number of ideas out of Valve, in practice, it’s been kind of a nightmare.  

The most recent example of this has been the launch of No Man’s Sky BEYOND, billed as one of the biggest content updates that game has ever seen. Previous PC builds of No Man’s Sky relied on basic, functional Xbox controller support. It operated very similar to the original Playstation-4-exclusive console game, but now on an Xbox controller. If you used anything besides an Xbox controller on PC, Steam Input’s base function would kick in, which in my case meant my Playstation Dualshock 4 controller would be seen as (and function identically to) an Xbox controller with zero fuss. It worked flawlessly.

With the release of BEYOND, No Man’s Sky has transitioned into using Steam Input to its fullest extent. No longer does it pretend you’ve got an Xbox controller connected, it now attempts to support the features of your controller directly. In theory, this should mean far better and more robust controller support!

Except that, as of this writing, it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work for Playstation controllers, it barely works for Xbox controllers, and it even seems to have mucked up keyboard support for some. Thanks to Steam Input, the game is now more or less unplayable in many different configurations.

In my personal experience, this manifests itself by only some of my Dualshock 4 buttons working, and only working some of the time. The power of Steam Input means developers can insert hooks to completely remap all your controller buttons depending on the context. So, for example, let’s say you’re playing a game like Grand Theft Auto. If that game supports Steam Input, the developer could set it up so you could change your entire button layout depending on whether you were walking around or driving a car. They could even set it up so you could have different buttons depending on whether you were driving a car, motorcycle, boat or airplane.

This is what No Man’s Sky now does, with half a dozen different contextual button layouts for flying your ship, exploring on foot, using certain weapons, organizing inventory, dealing with merchants, and more. While cool in theory, it’s a little overwhelming to actually consider customizing your controls. You must now dig deep and decipher what button you want to change in which context, and that’s assuming everything is working as intended.

In practice, this currently means some controller functionality only works when certain menus are visible. For example, I can only aim with the right stick while the build menu is up. Close that screen and my view instantly freezes. As I said earlier, it’s more or less unplayable.

To a certain degree I forgive the developers of No Man’s Sky (Hello Games) for this. Signs do point to something changing behind the scenes within Steam Input recently. Other, older games have been silently breaking in the last few weeks. The 2012 PC port of Sonic Adventure 2 suddenly asked me to reboot the game after informing me that my controller type had changed, and I had to remap all of my inputs in Gas Guzzlers Extreme after it, too, detected a change in Steam Input’s Xbox controller support (all its buttons had to be rebound to a “new controller” after the “old one” stopped working, despite no hardware change on my end).

It’s possible that a version of No Man’s Sky from a week or two ago worked fine with Steam Input, and now a change on Valve’s end of things has thrown everything into disarray. It's equally likely a patch will fix things up sooner rather than later (maybe even by the time this post goes up).

That excuse does not apply to a game like American Truck Simulator, however. It’s a story similar to No Man’s Sky, except while I expect No Man’s Sky is trying to use Steam Input to approximate the original controller setup (just with more depth to what buttons you remap), American Truck Simulator inexplicably did the opposite of that.

The game launched with Xbox controller support, meaning you could effectively use any controller with the game via Steam Input’s basic functionality. Sometime around the end of 2018 that changed, with SCS Software ditching Xbox support in favor of direct Steam Input support. But it’s how they did this that ended up so baffling.

Instead of updating their controller support to use Steam Input, they seemingly stripped all controller support from the game entirely, busting American Truck Simulator back down to basic keyboard controls. Then, using Steam Input, they created a custom controller configuration that translated to those keyboard keys to controller buttons. In other words, let's say the "F" key on your keyboard handles turning on your headlights. Using Steam Input, SCS Software made it so hitting the controller's X button would activate the F key on the keyboard, thus toggling the headlights. In theory, this is great, because you can use both the keyboard and the controller at the same time without changing any settings.

But it also meant that when I put down American Truck Simulator mid-2017, how the game controlled changed (relatively) overnight. Booting it back up a year later, all my buttons did something completely different through no fault of my own, and it took a lot of detective work to figure out why. I had to spend more than an hour untangling this new mess and putting everything back the way I originally had it. By the time I was done, I was too fed up to actually play American Truck Simulator.

Next, let’s talk about the exciting new features afforded by Steam Input. Though fully-featured official drivers for Playstation and Nintendo controllers are hard to come by on the PC, Steam Input enables features like the Dualshock 4’s gyroscope, allowing developers to make games with motion control in ways that would have been impossible. A whole new era of innovative uses of tilting your controller could begin!

Has anyone done anything like that? Nope, not really. Unless you count VR, but that's mostly with VR-specific controllers.

Instead, we get developers going rogue, implementing gyroscope functionality where none existed. Take Ubisoft’s Grow Home. Developed as a tech demo for a procedural climbing system, Ubisoft spun Grow Home off into a sort of big-budget indie game. You play as a charming red robot named B.U.D. as he ascends his way up a gigantic alien tree. At the very top of the tree sits his spaceship, and his central computer, M.O.M.

Grow Home uses Steam Input and plugs in to the Dualshock 4’s gyroscope, nauseatingly giving you the ability to control the game’s camera by tilting your controller. It doesn’t tell you this, you just start the game with B.U.D. staring at the floor, gently twitching from your slightest movement. What makes this crazy is the fact that if you were to play Grow Home on an actual Playstation 4 console, this gyroscope camera feature is not present. Same controller, same game, but for some reason Ubisoft secretly gave the PC version gyroscope features thanks to Steam Input.

The exact same thing happened with Croteam’s The Talos Principle. Here’s a first-person puzzle game about redirecting laser beams to unlock doors, available on just about every platform that will take it. On a Playstation 4 console, it controls like any other standard first-person shooter -- left stick moves, right stick aims. Connect your Playstation 4 Dualshock to your PC and play The Talos Principle on Steam, and suddenly you have all-new gyroscope aiming for no logical reason, necessitating a dive into the game’s settings so it can be turned off.

This could perhaps be explained by the environment Valve has cultivated on Steam. On a console, there’s a laborious, and sometimes even expensive “certification” process games must go through to release. Additional rounds of certification is required to issue updates and patches. Usually, platform holders require games to meet certain standards of functionality as to avoid driving away potential customers and spoiling the marketplace for everyone else.

On Steam, that all gets thrown out the window. For a small, one-time submission fee, anyone can publish (almost) anything on Steam and update it instantly, for free, forever. Any whim you have can be instantly realized for zero cost other than the time it takes to implement. New gyroscope controls? Sure, why not! Who’s going to tell you no? Definitely not Valve, that’s for sure.

This lead to the worst of all worlds. I suffer from occasional flare-ups of carpal tunnel syndrome thanks to art-related pursuits. One night a few months ago I found myself with enough discomfort in my hand that I tried playing Valve’s own Left 4 Dead 2 with a controller. Besides launching on PC, Left 4 Dead 2 had console ports on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. As such, the PC version originally received standard Xbox controller support. And more than once, I’d fallen back on playing L4D2 with a controller for any number of reasons. It wasn’t as accurate as using a keyboard and mouse, but in a pinch it was convenient, functional and comfortable.

Booting up Left 4 Dead 2 in 2019 and grabbing my controller, just like with American Truck Simulator, I was met with a top-to-bottom control system rewrite made to accommodate Valve ditching Xbox support and replacing it with Steam Input. This meant that none of my buttons were the same anymore.

And, just like with Grow Home and The Talos Principle, suddenly Left 4 Dead 2 also had completely unnecessary (and frankly, hyper-sensitive) gyroscope aiming bolted on over the top, even though I didn’t need or want it. It was like I stepped on to an alien planet.

Worse yet, this new Steam Input configuration was actually a step back from the previous Xbox controller config.

Left 4 Dead 2 was old enough that it was an early game to feature emotes on a radial wheel chosen using the analog stick. This made it easy to communicate with teammates even if you didn’t have a headset for voice chat. To some degree, it was made specifically for a controller. In Valve’s new, official Steam Input controller config for L4D2, the option to show these chat shortcuts was removed entirely. So not only were all my buttons different, but some old functionality was now gone. Why? Why not, said Valve. After all, nobody is going to stop them.

To butcher a quote from Jurassic Park’s Ian Malcolm, just because you could, doesn’t mean you should.

The solution to this is the same solution Valve has for everything they do nowadays. Steam Input is not a closed system. You can, if you so choose, connect to an online database where users share their own custom controller configurations. In Valve's eyes, the “Free Market” solves all problems, even problems Valve makes for themselves.

Assuming your needs match the free market, anyway. You may spend just as long browsing and testing other people’s Steam Input configs as it would take you to dig into the settings and fix it yourself. Either way, it’s an unwanted distraction.

The greatest benefit of Microsoft standardizing PC game controllers via the Xbox 360 was that you simply plugged in the controller and it worked. No mapping buttons, no detecting analog stick ranges, no fiddling with any of the options menus. The game in question simply said, “I know what this is!” and you were ready to go. The only problem with that was it only applied to Xbox controllers, a problem Steam originally solved. Thanks to Steam, every controller was functionally an Xbox controller!

But as is increasingly the case, Valve’s aspirations to be more than simply a library of PC games outstripped their ability to control the quality of the input or output. They fixed a very important problem, but were so determined to prove their own intelligence that we've landed right back where we started: forever tinkering with options menus when we could just be playing video games like we wanted.

[korinsu-t-blog]

May 29 // Free Day: Digital Arts Museum + Karaoke

Free day today, got to sleep in a little before me, Austin, Rebecca, Kathryn, and Elizabeth set out via train for the MORI Building digital arts museum. Getting off the train had us right in the middle of a futuristic little city out near the docks. The museums bring a ton of traffic to this area, so a little mall had sprung up with tons of places to eat, a ferris wheel, electric go-karts, and more. Lots of stuff we didn’t check out today (and it would probably have been too expensive anyways), but it was neat regardless. There was even a massive Toyota show-off building where they had a lot of their upcoming models, rally cars, and etc.

We stood in line for about a half hour to get into the digital arts museum, but once we were inside it was really something else. The entire theme of the place is “seamless”, so many exhibits flow through the halls along the walls to go to different places. It’s very dark and there are a lot of mirrored surfaces to create illusions of both brilliance and wide open spaces, and the sheer amount of technical and artistic prowess that went into designing some spaces (such as the LED room) were downright amazing. It’s hard to really get an idea for how cool some of the stuff was by photos alone- everything was constantly moving, and sound design played very heavily into some of the exhibits. I don’t really want to go through and describe the particular exhibits because it’s hard to express how they were in the entirety, but suffice to say that there were a lot of very cool and very innovative exhibits and art pieces.

We’re going out to karaoke tonight, so I’ll be able to do my Media Representation Comparison down below once we finish that tonight.

[A Toyota rallycar from the show floor. It was pretty sweet, and check out that color scheme.]

[One of my favorite exhibits, I took a ~50 second video of it because it moved and flowed around. Might turn it into a gif soon.]

[The waterfall room. The water actually goes around people who stand close to the wall.]

[Random corner of the waterfall room. I thought it looked neat.]

[The animated forest. Flower petals would constantly float around the entire first floor of the museum, and the petals bloomed and withered all over the place.]

[This is one section of another animated piece like the black and blue one up top. Not sure what it represents, but it was extremely cool regardless.]

[I was making a terrible face for this one but this was the LED room. Honestly one of the best in the entire place, but a camera REALLY doesn’t show it off that well. It’s one of those things you’d have to be there to see.]

[The lantern room, probably the best in the entire place. The lanterns would light up if something moved near them, then chain that light to other nearby lanterns in a little reaction.]

[Today’s candid: Elizabeth. She’s a very dopey person but also very honest. She also went to Providence HS in Jacksonville and used to know some people at PEP, so that was a blast from the past. I keep forgetting we all go to the same uni back home, so I don’t expect people to know Jax at all.]

=======

Media Comparison Reflection: Anime Karaoke vs. Real Life Karaoke

In anime, karaoke is usually seen in slice-of-life shows and only appears inside of singular specific scenes as a send-off for arcs of a show- if it isn’t just glossed over entirely. Typically, karaoke buildings in anime feature big rooms, lots of lights, fancy displays and enough room to hold a dozen or more people, and the people using them are almost always depicted as singing one particular song really well. This last part was actually quite a bit closer to the reality of karaoke moreso than anything else. In sum, karaoke is represented as being a generally lighthearted gathering of friend circles, and the locations themselves are usually incredibly photogenic.

The reality of karaoke was almost entirely different. The rooms were tiny and dark, in addition to being extremely cramped. Good sound systems, terrible soundproofing, and the smell of smoke everywhere- the place honestly looked more like a decrepit hotel than... whatever it was that I was expecting. Maybe it was just the location, but it honestly wasn’t all that swell. We had a ton of fun singing and stuff as a group, but it was a good coincidence that Kathryn happened to bring a Japanese friend from Musashi Daigaku, because that was where the most interesting contrast came from.

Compared to what the Americans in our group were doing- loud, outrageous songs sung with a ton of laughing and no degree of seriousness- the Japanese seemed to almost treat the karaoke like a competition. Booting up the scoring system, only selecting songs they knew very well and singing them as perfectly as possible, there was none of the usual hilarity that you’re used to seeing in American karaoke no matter where you go. I guess it does reflect their game-competitive culture, which stretches across everything from arcades to collections. People oftentimes dedicate themselves to a single topic (or in the case of arcade-goers, a specific game) and drive through that outlet in search of perfection rather than a good time.

The inner competitor in me knows that the answer is at least a little more nuanced than that, though I don’t know its solution for sure. For myself, when it comes to one of the dedications of my talents, the pursuit of competition and perfection is a big part of what does make for a good time. Whether that’s the same case for the Japanese though, I couldn’t say. All I know after tonight is that karaoke isn’t much for laughs for them.

[printoncd3-blog]

Five Elements of Good Product or service Brand Design

Five Elements of Good Product or service Brand Design

how to print on a CD

There are generally no strict rules which you can follow so that you can create a well developed product brand. However, many of us recognize a desirable design when we view a single. Why? Because presently there are certain components that will will make a ticket style and design attractive and engaging. This information will guide you by means of the main style factors of a product point and offer tips on just how to use these aspects in your favor.

how to print on a CD

1. Color

To be able to grab the eye of a person who is casually going for walks the aisles of often the food store you need to be able to use color well. Area you choose for your personal label is influenced by some sort of number of things. Just what coloring is your marijuana? If you are applying a specific container, then just what colouring is the item? You need to be sure that the colors you decide on for the tag may clash in a bad way to lessen the actual looks of the complete package. Thankfully there usually are tools to help a person pick out colors that may work well collectively.

a couple of. Graphics

An eye capturing graphical will also support draw awareness of your product or service. With inventory photography and also illustrations thus inexpensive these kinds of days you can locate a new graphic for your own labels with places just like iStockphoto. com or Photographs. com just for a number of dollars. You can subsequently make use of these images with your merchandise labels, just simply be sure to check out the licence agreement. Inside the case of iStockphoto you should use most images intended for up to five-hundred, 000 product labels with no getting an extended license. A photo really can be well worth a single, 000 words upon a solution label while a compelling artwork attracts the eye to your current item.

3. Readability

Shade along with graphics will guide catch a persons vision but except if your style is easily understandable at a glance you will lose people. They point out you will have only 2-3 mere seconds to draw in the attention involving a shopper exploring the particular aisles of a food store which is enough moment to read simply a smattering of words. You need to have your own personal brand or even company name and also a couple of or three words talking about the product or service in large adequate type which it can always be read from half a dozen foot away.

4. Web site

Communicating of type, your selection of font types is the critical decision in addition to ought to get just as much focus seeing that choosing color as well as visuals. Don't choose just one of the common House windows fonts such as Periods New Roman or Arial, and also avoid over-used baptistère such as Écrit or Monotype Corsiva. May be afraid to use anything new and different rapid you can find thousands of exclusive fonts about the - simply go to fonts. com or 1001freefonts. com. The top point to remember is actually that you desire excellent looking type that will be set up.

5. Material

Just before you possibly begin typically the design process you should take into account the label material. Your current design needs to "fit" materials. Common material selections include white-colored, clear, or perhaps a cream uneven document. Clear material permits any "no label look" in which can be very stunning in case you have a colored burial container or product or service. Take some sort of look at Palmolive authentic food soap - this specific is a merchandise this uses a clear brand very well. A very simple design with whitened printer, it really shows down often the striking green water inside of. White material offers you one of the most flexibility using design, since you can make bright into virtually any color an individual like, or you may merely use the light background. For the old planet look, a new textured ointment paper can be extremely effective and also is popular with wineries where you want for you to convey a hand crafted graphic.

6. Label Finish off

No matter if you choose a smooth or matte finish in your labels is a common sense phone depending on the actual kind of image you need to convey. A matte layered can provide a considerably more classic search that is usually very easy to study, whilst gloss will put some influence to the particular colors on the ticket and provide a glistening, refractive look. A great example of the matte look is the Sincere Teas brand of bottled teas. Inside the highly aggressive beverage industry they include a more subdued appear with a simple point functions really well having the matte finish off. In the event that you can't decided involving matte and glossy in that case execute a small order connected with the two and test the idea - find what folks find most attractive.

several. Label Size

If anyone are using the rounded container then you more than likely have a choice instructions do you need one large tag or maybe separate front along with again labels? Front in addition to rear labels allow you actually to elegantly distinct typically the front branding information from your ingredient and regulatory details but they can possibly be more expensive compared to a huge wrap around brand. In the event you go with any wraparound label then the item is important to retain a front "panel" with all the vital branding information due to the fact that is what often the consumers might find as they will are browsing the aisles.

8. Shapes

You can easily actually draw attention to help your ticket by employing an unusual shape. This will likely require the initial purchase of your new die which usually can expense several hundred or so dollars depending on the actual sizing and complexity associated with your design and style. Heinz ketchup is one sort of a unusual shape done well the keystone label condition has become part regarding their company after much more than 130 years. This is one trick that could save the money involving buying a special expire. Use a clear point as well as simulate an abnormal shape by making use of white printer ink to create your personal wanted shape, so it can look that your label provides a one of a kind shape perhaps if it is some sort of easy rectangle label.

on the lookout for. A pattern for Different Flavours

With numerous flavors connected with the same product you will need to keep major design components of your label consistent. If someone is looking on the peach, orange as well as lime flavour they really should be able to understand quickly that it is definitely all the same firm and also brand. A corporation that will an superb job of keeping a frequent yet different look concerning flavors is Nantucket Nectars. Each flavor has a new basic illustration encompassing the particular flavor using a similar field from Nantucket Island inside the background.

10. Info

In the 21st one hundred year every single company should possess contact information particular solution labels. This is clearly not about making your own label design more interesting, but alternatively having your tag be more than the inerte selling and promotion. A great 800 number, a website along with a physical address can certainly become easily included in the brand. You can provide a special site on your label to get customers to join up for the email list, to help you accumulate information and start in order to interact with your very good buyers.

When designing your current label you have to take directly into account what your opposition has been doing. If most organizations in your room have got very colorful in addition to sleek labels, then why not a a lot more plain and more subdued seem will allow you to be able to stand out around the grocery shelf. Take lots of the features mentioned here as well as separate yourself from the level of competition. Providing a new and also exciting look invites shoppers to grab your product.

[learnspanishbarcelona4-blog]

Learn Spanish Barcelona

Effective ways to Learn Spanish Fast!

Intensive Spanish Barcelona Romance language is the second many used language in the actual world in terms associated with quantity of native speakers and also is the state run language with 20 international locations. Spanish is usually also one of the particular half a dozen official languages regarding the Not and a great official language in the Western european Union. Spanish is commonly spoken in the American hemisphere of the planet and an increased pattern of learning Spanish since a spanish can always be seen today, mostly as a result of changes in the economical performance involving Spanish communicating countries along with growing recognition of tourism for you to Spanish language speaking countries. Speaking spanish is definitely spoken so generally with present in many places due to the The spanish language invasions made during typically the fifteenth and 19th One hundred year.

Intensive Spanish Barcelona

Which are the techniques of mastering Spanish? Presently there certainly are usually many. This article can vitally evaluate all these kinds of methods which help you recognize the best method connected with becoming fluent in spanish fast.

One procedure that is getting reviewed a lot in latest times will be the 'immersion technique'. The 'immersion technique' implies that if you desire to find out a terminology, you need to go a country that addresses that will language and devote some three years in that region, thus pushing yourself to help learn the words. Thus for example, if an individual desired to learn Spanish, anyone would must travel in order to Spain and are in France for a few weeks as well as years! The chute way is not only somewhat extreme but in addition highly improper. How many associated with you actually could actually move directly into another country merely to be able to learn a new language? Will be it actually simple for a person to give up about your job, associations in addition to commitments that you get inside your native country for you to just study a international language?

Isn't this particular often the very reason that dialect courses even exist; that will help you learn the language and never have to move into Spain to help learn Romance language? The concentration technique effects the rule that 'eventually' following disclosing yourself to the vocabulary for a period regarding time, you will understand the item. The problem nonetheless, is how much time will this take for you in order to discover the language having this technique? What stage of proficiency is it possible to assume to achieve with this specific approach? You may find out enough Spanish language to get to a grocery retail outlet and get the groceries, yet will this kind of mean an individual really know the terminology? With the immersion approach anyone maybe clueless while looking at a notice within Speaking spanish or filling way up a form inside The spanish language, simply because you never ever discovered such words in the course of the time you expended in 'immersion'. This is actually why it can be vital to be able to have a proper words course that sets a good foundation to your Romance language understanding.

While the captivation technique is unrealistic intended for obvious reasons, the style at the rear of it can actually possibly be found in a more functional sense to master Spanish far better. This gives to yet another method of learning Spanish language; that is certainly to 'surround one self along with Spanish'. This implies watching Speaking spanish movies, TV SET shows, listening to The spanish language radio stations. You surely don't need to move to Spain to do virtually any of these. Your neighborhood video clip rental could have Romance language movies that you can rent out. If that won't, you still could get plenty of Spanish videos online. There are several hours and hours of Spanish language videos you could enjoy and pay attention to from video discussing sites like YouTube. An individual need to continuously make use of Spanish words that you actually have mastered, for these people to stick into your own personal recollection. Like any talent, if you don't utilize the skill of language, you can most definitely lose that.

You could make use of display cards to write particular Spanish words you've realized along with the The english language meaning on the reverse side of the actual card. You could fall these flash cards inside of your pocket, and flip by means of them whenever you include a short while to free. Labeling the particular objects throughout your home with their particular Speaking spanish meaning is a different way of burning The spanish language words into your ram. This will mean labeling typically the computer; 'el ordenador', often the oven; 'el horno' and so forth.

If you stay in the neighborhood with a lots of Spanish speaking people, and then great! Listening to these individuals chat will 'train your personal ear' to the indigène accent through which Spanish will be spoken as well as speaking for you to them will improve your own personal pronunciation of words. Should you do not live in a Romance language neighborhood don't be disheartened. There are plenty involving web sites that allow a person to video chat together with folks from all above the world. Use that fantastic opportunity to help to make new close friends while increasing your proficiency with Spanish language!

When learning Spanish it is essential that you get within tune with the beat of the language. When not, the lyrics you converse in Speaking spanish will certainly not make any perception to help a native speaker and also neither will his The spanish language make any sense to you personally. This is why is actually very important to opt for a Spanish language course that may be taught by a indigenous phone speaker and focuses with your own pronunciation connected with Spanish. Audio centered dialect courses go significantly over and above the traditional text-book training, since it teaches an individual the syntax and language and pronunciation all on the same time! The particular best of all, in case it is taught by a local subwoofer then you absolutely don't need to head out to Southern spain to select up the Spanish feature.

When learning any vocabulary you could easily drop enthusiasm specially when your finding out reaches any plateau. This specific is true even to get Spanish. So it is usually important that you go with a language course that is definitely fascinating interesting. A terminology training course that is fun and filled up with games will probably certainly keep you motivated and motivated to study. To get a great Spanish words program that is exciting and exciting, taught by the native speaker and trails your progress in phrases of vocab and pronunciation visit the website link under. Best of luck inside learning Romance language! Adios!

[wumingfoundation]

On #QAnon: The full text of our Buzzfeed Interview

Ryan Broderick of Buzzfeed just published an article on this #QAnon conspiracy bullshit titled It's Looking Extremely Likely That QAnon Is A Leftist Prank On Trump Supporters. The piece features quotes from an interview we gave via email. Here’s the full email exchange.

--

Can you tell me a bit about when and how your book Q was written?

We started writing Q  in the last months of 1995, when we were part of the Luther Blissett Project, a network of  activists, artists and cultural agitators who all shared the name «Luther Blissett». Luther Blissett was and still is a British public figure, a former footballer, a philanthropist. The LBP spread many mythical tales about why we chose to borrow his name, but the truth is that nobody knows.

Initially, Blissett the footballer was bemused, but then he decided to play along with us and even publicly endorsed the project. Last year, during an interview on the Italian TV, he stated that having his name adopted for the LBP was «a honour». The purpose of signing all our statements, political actions and works of art with the same moniker was to build the reputation of one open character, a sort of collective "bandit", like Ned Ludd, or Captain Swing. It was live action role playing. The LBP was huge: hundreds of people in Italy alone, dozens more in other countries. In the UK, one of the theorists and propagandists of the LBP was the novelist Stewart Home.

The LBP lasted from 1994 to 1999. The best English-language account of those five years is in Marco Deseriis' book Improper Names: Collective Pseudonyms from the Luddites to Anonymous. One of our main activities consisted of playing extremely elaborate pranks on the mainstream media. Some of them were big stunts which made us quite famous in Italy. The most complex one was played by dozens of people in the backwoods around Viterbo, a town near Rome. It lasted a year, involving Satanism, black masses, Christian anti-satanist vigilantes and so on. It was all made up: there were neither Satanists nor vigilantes, only fake pictures, strategically spread rumours and crazy communiqués, but the local and national media bought everything with no fact-checking at all, politicians jumped on the bandwagon of mass paranoia, we even managed to get footage of a (rather clumsy) satanic ritual broadcast in the national TV news, then we claimed responsibility for the whole thing and produced a huge mass of evidence. The Luther Blissett Project was also responsible for a huge grassroots counter-inquiry on cases of false child abuse allegations. We deconstructed the paedophilia scare that swiped Europe in the second half of the 1990s, and wrote a book about it. A magistrate whom we targeted in the book filed a lawsuit, as a consequence the book was impounded and disappeared from bookshops, but not from the web.

This is the context in which we wrote Q. We finished it in June 1998. It came out in March 1999 and was our final contribution to the LBP.

I've been reading up about it, and it's largely believed that it's underneath the book's narrative it works as handbook for European leftists? Is that a fair assessment? I've read that many believe the book's plot is an allegory for 70s and 80s European activists?

Although it keeps triggering many possible allegorical interpretations, we meant it as a disguised, oblique autobiography of the LBP. We often described it as Blissett's «playbook», an «operations manual» for cultural disruption.

The four authors I'm speaking to now are Roberto Bui, Giovanni Cattabriga, Federico Guglielmi and Luca Di Meo correct? The four authors of Q?

You are speaking with three of the four authors of Q, and you're speaking with a band of writers called Wu Ming, which means «Anonymous» in Chinese. In December 1999 the Luther Blissett Project committed a symbolic suicide - we called it The Seppuku - and in January 2000 we launched another project, the Wu Ming Foundation, centred around our writing and our blog, Giap. The WMF is now an even bigger network than the LBP was, and includes many collectives, projects and laboratories. Luca aka Wu Ming 3 is not a member of the band anymore, although he still collaborates with us on specific side projects. Each member of the band has a nom de plume composed of the band's name and a numeral, following the alphabetical order of our surnames, thus you're speaking to Roberto Bui aka Wu Ming 1, Giovanni Cattabriga aka Wu Ming 2 and Federico Guglielmi aka Wu Ming 4.

Can you tell me a bit about your background before the Luther Blissett project?

Before the LBP we were part of a national scene that was – and still is – called simply «il movimento», a galaxy of occupied social centres, squats, independent radio stations, small record labels, alternative bookshops, student collectives, radical trade unions, etc. In the Italian radical tradition, at least after the Sixties, there was never any clearcut separation between the counterculture and more political milieux. Most of us came from left-wing family backgrounds, had roots in the working class. Punk rock opened our minds during our teenage years, then in the late 1980s and early 1990s Cyberpunk opened them even more, and inspired new practices.

When did you start noticing similarities between Q and QAnon? I know you've tweeted a bit about this, but I'd love to get as many details as I can. I feel like the details around QAnon are so sketchy that it's important to lock in as much as I can here.

We read a lot about the US alt-right, books such as Elizabeth Sandifer's Neoreaction a Basilisk or Angela Nagle's – flawed but still useful – Kill All Normies, and yet we didn't see the QAnon thing coming. We didn't know it was growing on 4chan and some specific subReddits. About six weeks ago, on June 12th, our old pal Florian Cramer – a fellow veteran of the LBP who now teaches at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam – sent us a short email. Here's the text:

«It seems as if somebody took Luther Blissett's playbook and turned it into an Alt-Right conspiracy lore. Maybe Wu Ming should write a new article: "How Luther Blissett brought down Roseanne Barr"!»,

After those sentences there was a link to a piece by Justin Caffier on Vice. We read it, and briefly commented on Twitter, then in the following weeks more and more people got in touch with us, many of them Europeans living in the US. They all wanted to draw our attention on the QAnon phenomenon. To anyone who had read our novel, the similarities were obvious, to the extent that all these people were puzzled seeing that no US pundit or scholar was citing the book.

Have there been key moments for you that made you feel like QAnon is an homage to Q? What has lined up the best?

Coincidences are hard to ignore: dispatches signed Q allegedly coming from some dark meanders of top state power, exactly like in our book. This Q is frequently described as a Blissett-like collective character, «an entity of about ten people that have high security clearance», and at the same time – like we did for the LBP – weird "origin myths" are put into circulation, like the one about John Kennedy Jr. faking his own death in 1999 – the year Q was first published, by the way! – and becoming Q. QAnon's psy-op reminds very much of our old «playbook», and the metaconspiracy seems to draw from the LBP's set of references, as it involves the Church, satanic rituals, paedophilia...

We can't say for sure that it's an homage, but one thing is almost certain: our book has something to do with it. It may have started as some sort of, er, "fan fiction" inspired by our novel, and then quickly became something else.

There will be a lot of skepticism I think that an American political movement like QAnon could have been influenced by an Italian novel, how do you think it may have happened?

It's an Italian novel in the sense that it was originally written in Italian by Italian authors, but in the past (nearly) 20 years it has become a global novel. It was translated into fifteen languages – including Korean, Japanese, Russian, Turkish – and published in about thirty countries. It was successful all across Europe and in the English speaking world with the exception of the US, where it got bad reviews, sold poorly and circulated almost exclusively in activist circles.

Q was published in Italian a few months before the so-called "Battle of Seattle", and published in several other languages in the 2000-2001 period. It became a sort of night-table book for that generation of activists, the one that would be savagely beaten up by an army of cops during the G8 summit in Genoa, July 2001. In 2008 we wrote a short essay, almost a memoir, on our participation to those struggles and Q's influence in those years, titled Spectres of Müntzer at Sunrise. A copy of Q's Spanish edition even ended up in the hands of subcomandante Marcos. It isn't at all unrealistic to imagine that it may have inspired the people who started QAnon.

Have you seen anything in the QAnon posts that leads you to suspect any activist group in particular is behind it?

No, we haven't.

You think QAnon is a prank? Without some kind of reveal it's obviously hard to see it as that. If you think it was revealed that QAnon was actually some kind of anarchist prank, would it even matter? Would its believers abandon it or would they just see it as a smear campaign?

Let us take for granted, for a while, that QAnon started as a prank in order to trigger right-wing weirdos and have a laugh at them. There's no doubt it has long become something very different. At a certain level it still sounds like a prank, but who's pulling it on whom? Was the QAnon narrative hijacked and reappropriated by right-wing "counter-pranksters"? Counter-pranksters who operated with the usual alt-right "post-ironic" cynicism, and made the narrative more and more absurd in order to astonish media pundits while spreading reactionary content in a captivating way?

Again: are the original pranksters still involved? Is there some detectable conflict of narratives within the QAnon universe? Why are some alt-right types taking the distance from the whole thing and showing contempt for what they describe as «a larp for boomers»?

A larp it is, for sure. To be more precise, it's a fascist Alternate Reality Game. Plausibly the most active players – ie the main influencers – don't believe in all the conspiracies and metaconspiracies, but many people are so gullible that they'll gulp down any piece of crap – or lump of menstrual blood, for that matter. Moreover, there's danger of gun violence related to the larp, the precedent of Pizzagate is eloquent enough. What if QAnon inspires a wave of hate crimes?

Therefore, to us the important question is: triggering nazis like that, what is it good for? That camp is divided between those who would believe anything and those who would be "ironic" on anything and exploit anything in order to advance their reactionary, racist agenda. Can you really troll or ridicule people like those?

It's hard to foresee what would happen if QAnon were exposed as an anarchist/leftist prank on the right. If its perpetrators claimed responsibility for it and showed some evidence (for example, unmistakeable references to our book and the LBP), would the explanation itself become yet another part of the narrative, or would it generate a new narrative encompassing and defusing the previous one? In plain words: which narrative would prevail? «QAnon sucking anything into its vortex» or «Luther Blissett's ultimate prank»?

In any case, we'd never have started anything like that ourselves. Way too dangerous.

[oldsamshouseoffic]

Southern Sun

Words: 7161

My very first modern AU.

Merry Kristannamas, @epbaker! Based on your recs you seem to appreciate a variety of AUs and character interpretations, so I tried to push out of my comfort zone. And boy, did I. It was meant to be a simple fluffy oneshot but, well, you can see it kind of got away from me and is now double the length I planned with oodles of family angst. I split it into four parts and the fluff doesn’t really start until Part III: Bribery. But they get there, they do get there.

I hope you enjoy my hot mess. It even follows the suggested theme...

To anyone with actual knowledge of Antarctic operations, my apologies in advance for the many, many inaccuracies.

Part I: Lousy Antarctica

Lousy Antarctica.

Anna Arendal threw her covers off and dragged herself to her feet, strangling a howl of frustration as she looked at the clock, her only reliable measure of time on this stupid continent. She opened the shutters, ignoring the recommended closure hours sensibly displayed across them in Norwegian, and let the bright daylight into her room. Her brain kind of knew the light was there anyway, even if she couldn't see it. It felt like daytime, twenty-four seven. And she had got used to it. Mostly. Normally. You couldn't be an intrepid polar researcher if you couldn't manage the weird hours- everyone knew that. But...

Lousy Kristoff.

Lousy storm.

Lousy dated, unreliable equipment, that falls apart if a teensy little gale force wind hits it.

Lousy... actually, this wasn't Elsa's fault at all, not this time.

Lousy Anna. Lousy Anna's lousy big mouth.

Lousy comms blackout, at the worst possible time.

She fell back on top of the mangled bed covers, the ambient chill than pervaded every inch of Troll Station even in summer creeping under her onesie and the pyjamas underneath that, at throat and wrist and ankle, setting her skin tingling. The chill cut through the fog of her insomniac funk, just a little.

It was all her fault. And Kristoff's. And the storm, obviously. And the midnight sun. But mainly hers.

She shouldn't have yelled at him. Kristoff was a big, oblivious... Kristoff, and she was expecting him to be a mind-reader. Of course he didn't get why she'd been pulling out her hair about a few days without Internet. She'd never explained about her family, after all. Not that he'd been very polite about it.

But then neither had Anna. Maybe it was guilt, the reason she was replaying their argument in her head over and over. Or maybe... maybe it was a sign of how few people she actually had, out here, on the underside of the world. How few friends to lose.

Lousy language barrier...

Antarctica is a post-state scientific utopia. In theory.

On December 1st, 1959, the twelve nations with active science bases on the frozen continent signed the Antarctic treaty, dedicating one of the great land masses of Earth to peace and scientific discovery. As of 2006, forty countries are signed up to the treaty and operate research bases and stations. More than forty are permanent, 12 months-per-year settlements, antennae and living pods linked together like moon bases, dozens more are small, summer outposts.

The biggest, McMurdo Station, is American. It is more like a town than an outpost, its population never dropping below two hundred even in the depths of the polar winter, and swelling to over a thousand in the summer research season. That was where Anna had spent her first season in the continent. So many fellow research biologists. So many penguins! She could literally walk to one of the Adélie colonies, except that she had promised never to do that again. Those darn pencil pushers...

This year was different. Particular research had to be collected from other parts of the continent, very specific, penguin-ey data which couldn't be gleaned from what other nations had shared. I can do that one, Anna had said, pointing to where Troll Station had been circled on the map. My parents spoke Norwegian. I'll fit right in...

“It'll be great!” Anna had insisted to Elsa. “No more of the big-base politics and bureaucracy and meetings... Ugh, so many meetings! All the nonsense there was around that congressional visit. None of which was my fault, by the way. Just real researchers, braving the frozen wilds for science!”

Elsa had looked uncertain; she hadn't said anything about how Anna was travelling to the other end of the planet again, and that it was different this time, they were different. But they'd promised to stay in contact- the base had a dish for Internet- and Anna had sworn she wouldn't let them drift apart a second time.

The journey back to the frozen continent had gone smoothly, considering how complicated it all was. Connecting flights down the length of the Americas, an overnight stay at an airfield in Argentina, and then a chartered plane had brought her back to McMurdo. She'd had enough time to say 'See ya later' to a couple of old friends before the equipment she'd need was collected and loaded onto yet another plane, which had carried her to the South Pole.

A pilot had greeted her on arrival, a sharp-featured older woman who had informed her in laboured English that she was to to fly her the rest of the way, and had seemed surprised but delighted when Anna answered her in Norwegian, even complementing her accent. She hadn't known she had an accent. Was that... actually a complement, though?

With an hour or two free once she'd made sure her luggage was safely transferred to the smaller cargo plane, and although she had already felt tired from the long hours in the air, Anna had still got out and walked around the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station. Partly to stretch her legs, and partly because she was at the South Pole.

The South Pole... Wasn't that just crazy? Mother Earth's frosty little butt.

It hadn't even been all that cold, being the start of the Antarctic summer. Okay, pretty cold, maybe minus twenty, but she'd come straight from the first frosts of a New York winter and was wrapped up in the finest thermal gear government funding could buy, so she'd felt the sting on the exposed parts of her cheeks and that was about all.

There was... literally a pole there.

Right in front of the base. It was a goofy little thing- red and white striped with a shiny ball on top, sticking up absurdly from the packed white permafrost. To think so many men died to reach the site of some novelty lawn ornament...

She had taken a selfie with it, to send to Elsa as soon as she had Internet.

By the time the final leg had brought her to the little airfield alongside Troll Station, she had been awake for more than twenty hours, which had made it, according to the pilot, only mid morning by Central European Time. A massive man whose ginger muttonchops were sprinkled with white had been standing, waiting for her, by a red minibus fitted with massive winter tyres. Every vehicle in Antarctica looked like a scaled-up kids' toy.  As it turned out that was the station director, Dr Kjøpmann, who insisted on Anna calling him Oaken with the same polite informality which proved to be the norm for... most of the station staff.

On the way from the airfield Oaken had launched into what could well have been the introductory spiel he gave every newcomer. Troll Station was established first by the Norwegians as a summer outpost, and only expanded into a permanent, year-round station in 2003. This was good news in a lot of ways- there were all the modern conveniences. A TV room. Even basic Wi-Fi- although he admitted it wasn't very reliable. A sauna- Anna had tried not to giggle at that. But of course there was a sauna...

And the base now had a wind turbine to generate part of its power. He sounded particularly proud of that. Then Anna remembered being told that a good portion of the Norwegian scientists at the base were environmental researchers. Sustainability was probably close to their hearts.

The base was not much to look at in itself- Antarctic stations never are. A handful of blocky prefabricated buildings, mostly bright red to stand out at a distance to anyone lost nearby, connected by tracks and walkways. What really stood out was that it was all built not on snow, but on bare rock. A huge rock formation rose out of the ice sheet, running up towards a collection of oddly shaped mountains in the near distance, and the Norwegians had planted their flag right on top of it. Oaken explained all this, adding that the mountains were the 'trolls' after which the station had been named.

By the time they had made it to the station, Anna had been half-awake, and they had installed her equipment in one of the lab buildings and installed Anna herself in an empty dormitory room as quickly as possible so she could sleep off some of her extreme jet lag, having gone from EST to New Zealand time then back to European time over the course of one trip.

Left alone to unpack and rest, she'd zipped open her case, changed into her pyjamas, pulled her favourite penguin onesie on over the top because she'd still felt the chill, then remembered just in time to text Elsa.

......

Did you arrive yet? x

Anna, please text me when you're safely there. You know I get jittery when you travel x

Arrived safely! ;)

Thank God. How is your Norwegian holding up?

Xxx

Okey dokey so far.

I'm so out of practice.

Elsa I need my sleep. So do you. It's 4am in NY.

Wait!

???

Forgot this. Lo, ye literal South Pole XD

This... is ridiculous x

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Don't let the bed bugs bite x

Have an adventure, Anna. Skype me. Love you x

Luv u xxx

......

Sisterly duty discharged, Anna had flipped the light switch and collapsed straight onto the bed, instantly asleep...

She'd been woken up again after only a couple of hours, but that was life, wasn't it?

Broken sleep was kind of part of working through the midnight sun, Anna considered, still staring at the ceiling of her room. Maybe they were all feeling a little edgy, shorter tempered...

After another twenty minutes replaying her good and bad choices with increasing frustration, Anna thought: To heck with it. Brooding was Elsa's thing- she was a problem solver.

Well, how to solve her problems, then?

Problem 1: Elsa. Couldn't do anything about her until the storm damage to the comms dish was fixed.

Problem 2: Kristoff.

Kristoff. Anna had the beginnings of a plan to repair that particular burned bridge. Hopping up, she pulled her boots, gloves and coat on over her night clothes. If she remembered the rota right, Olaf was on nights at the moment...

Olaf Snømann was in his element. Three quarters of the staff were asleep and the canteen block was empty, so he could use the kitchen without interruption. Strictly speaking, Troll Station having no official chef, meals were meant to be cooked by the researchers based on a rota, but Olaf often volunteered his down time to bake, mix, prepare. Partly because putting together a lovely stew relaxed him when he wasn't grappling with satellite data, and partly because if he didn't cook, someone else had to- and most of his colleagues struggled to empty a tin of herring onto a slice of bread. It certainly made him popular. Everyone wanted to be friends with the cook.

Of course, with the satellite down he had all the time in the world anyway.

The door swung open which a swish of frozen air which tickled Olaf's scalp through his thin, silver hair, and a lone figure waddled in, wrapped in a thick high vis coat. It wasn't time for the night shift to eat, but there was no mistaking his visitor anyway. Olaf stopped stirring the stew pot and hurried to shut the door as fast as his stumpy legs would allow as American Anna undid her jacket, yawning. Underneath she was dressed in the same bizarre one-piece hooded costume that she'd worn the first time they'd met, her wind-burnt face framed by ginger pigtails sticking out under a goofy plush penguin face...

She had only been at the base a couple of hours at that point, months ago, but according to her she had forgotten to turn off her phone alarm. Now, an early alarm in Latin America is past midday in Europe and, finding herself awake at lunch, she'd decided to brazen out her jet lag and try the canteen.

Everyone had introduced themselves, of course. And it had turned out the base rumour mill was, for once, true and she actually spoke Norwegian, although her accent was so strong Olaf couldn't believe she had ever left the United States before. Although Olaf's own spoken English was atrocious, so it was a relief to know they wouldn't have to rely on it.

In any case, she had sat down, bleary-eyed, clad in her novelty onesie, said thank you very politely for the smørbrød Olaf had placed before her, before devouring a good half of it with her hands- like a toddler. Eventually she'd gone pink in the cheeks, registering that people were staring, and picked up her knife and fork to finish. Someone had jokingly called her 'Pingu' and she'd looked at them blankly. Olaf had shooed them away and sat down to eat with her, feeling a little protective of this young, half-penguin researcher, with her feral American table manners, half asleep and wholly out of her element.

And she was fun, it turned out. A breath of fresh, crazy air. He'd not had a snowball fight in years before Anna had arrived...

Anna coughed, bringing Olaf's mind back to the present before he could .

“Hi Olaf. I'm sorry about the dish.”

He looked back at the pot. “What? Oh, the satellite dish.” He shrugged, smiling serenely. “These things happen. He glanced out one of the little porthole-like windows, sighed, and returned to stirring the pot. “This land is beautiful, powerful, dangerous... that is part of the wonder of it. A little damage, a little delay- it's nothing we can't fix.”

Anna inhaled sharply, wringing her hands. “Yeah... fixing things. About that. Could I ask you a really, really big favour?”

Part II: Penguin Girl

Kristoff shovelled snow.

The base had a snow plough, obviously, but the storm had done more than spread a few feet of powder over the roads. In the driving wind, tonnes had built up in dense drifts against the buildings, burying cables and equipment that had to be dug out by hand. And so, since Lars had called dibs on the plough and he wouldn't be driving Anna anywhere until comms were restored, Kristoff had picked up a shovel and offered a hand.

That was if Anna ever actually wanted to share a cab with him again. The thought that she might insist Oaken assign her one of the other techs bothered him in a way part of him found surprising. He wasn't sure exactly when he'd stopped being annoyed by the ginger menace and started...

He carried on shovelling. He'd been working at it steadily for a while now; Sápmi winters had trained him well and he kept up a clean, rhythmic technique, the exertion warming him against the burning cold of the Antarctic air, efficiently clearing the loose-packed snow into piles that could be swept off by vehicle. Initially the exercise had kept his head clear, stopped him from dwelling on the fight, but now specific impressions kept forcing their way back into his head.

Anna had been so unreasonably angry, Kristoff had thought, about losing Skype when the blackout left the base cut off from other stations if there were an actual emergency, and when the whole TrollSat team's actual jobs rested on the comms mast being fixed, and when actual international treaties existed around Norway sharing that satellite data. And he'd told her so, and he'd not really listened to her...

But now, now he remembered her hands, fidgeting, tying her braids in knots as she'd complained; the tension in her wide blue-green eyes, almost tearful, and that wasn't just Anna being her usual impatient, volatile self. Something had been very wrong, and Kristoff hadn't listened.

Now he was worried, and wondering if it was too late to fix... whatever they had. It wasn't like he could fix comms.

Kristoff remembered when he had first set eyes on her...

He'd been hearing the others gossip about Anna for a couple of days, the strange American penguin girl, but they'd kept missing each other, which suited him fine. 'Kind of hot', apparently, 'in a Pippi Långstrump sort of way'- he hadn't wanted to dwell on that particular disturbing mental image. All Kristoff had known was that some American government agency had cut a deal with some Norwegian government agency, which meant he now had to spend four days a week ferrying some stranger far overland to look at birds.

He had been checking over the snowcat when Anna and Oaken had come strolling up together. The Red Sven was a tracked polar specialist about the size of a tow truck, and the only vehicle they had with the necessary speed and range for Ms Arendal's outings. The director had simply handed Kristoff his revised work schedule and marched back to his office with a wave, leaving his more taciturn countryman to try and make conversation with the newcomer.

It had turned out that making conversation with Anna Arendal was mostly nodding and saying 'Huh'. Her Norwegian was better than he'd heard, although her accent was strong, going high and low in all the wrong places with heavy American 'R's. Still, words, mostly the correct ones, poured bubbling up out of this girl- sweet and effervescent and unrelentingly upbeat, like a human can of Sprite. Questions, follow-up questions, answers to questions he hadn't asked... maybe it was a nervous trait?. She had just arrived after all.

Their first trip had dispelled the theory that Anna only talked too much when she was nervous, as she'd quickly settled into a calm, collected routine of always thinking in her mouth.

Anna was in Troll Station because it was 'close' to penguin colonies she needed to observe and collect data from. However, Antarctica was a continent, and 'close' meant travelling hundreds of miles by snowcat as opposed to thousands by plane. Troll Station being the 'closest' to the colonies she needed to study meant that it was 'only' a three hour drive each way in fine weather, plus an hour or two of driving between the penguin nesting spots themselves. Plus waiting around for Anna to make observations and collect samples.

And through it all, Anna would talk...

Are we there yet?

No.

You don't say much, huh?

No.

…

…

…

If the rock rises through the ice around the station, is the ice thinner? Like, do we have to worry less about falling in cracks?

Actually, you'd think so, but no.  The ice gets thick pretty quick as you move away from the Jutulsessen nunatak.

…

…

…

I've never observed an Emperor colony before. Most of the data I collected last year is from Macaronis, but we need to track the pollution effects on the other Antarctic species and form hypotheses about dietary factors, so... are you listening?

Um, sure.

…

…

…

Are you ever around in winter?

No, it's only really the satellite station team that are needed during the long night.

Twenty-four hours of night. That must suck.

Yes.

…

…

…

Are the nights very long where you come from?

Oh yes.

So, far in the North?

Sápmi.

Sorry?

Sápmi. You know, ugh, 'Lapland'?

Like Santa Claus?

...No, not like Santa Claus.

…

…

…

What's a Pingu?

…

…

…

It had been exhausting at first, chauffeuring their foreign guest from breeding site to breeding site. That first week, the idea of being grounded at Troll Station for a few days would have sounded like a holiday. So why, whatever he did, however much he tinkered with the vehicles in the garage, or cleared snow until his back and shoulders burned and his clothes and beard were dusted white... Why did the day feel so empty now?

He missed the easy smile, the fizzy energy that escaped in bursts of joy, or curiosity, or irritation. He somehow missed the constant barrage of words.

He missed Anna. At some point in all those long, long drives over the ice, she'd grown on him.

Like a terrorist and her hostage...

Part III: Bribery

The sun didn't set during December in Antarctica. But this far from the Pole it did skim lower in the sky for a few hours, swelling into a warmer golden light that smeared itself along the horizon like the glow of a distant fire. Kristoff liked to sit out and watch it sometimes, on his breaks or when there was no work for him. That was how Anna found him, sat on a box by the wall of the garage block and sipping steaming black coffee from a Thermos flask. Alone. Good.

He was looking away from her, scarf loose around his thick blond beard, woolly hat pulled down over his ears, rolling his broad shoulders gently as if working out the aches and pains of the day. Anna saw the shovel propped up against the wall next to him. Clearly Kristoff had been making himself a lot more useful than she had been, sulking in bed, and for a moment she hesitated to bother him.

No, shyness wasn't going to solve anything. If Kristoff didn't want to talk to Anna he could tell her. And the package in her hands wasn't getting any warmer.

“Anna?” She jumped.

“Oh, Kristoff...” Anna swallowed nervously. She'd been spotted, no point in trying to back out now. She stepped up to her colleague, her rehearsed apology completely evaporating from her mind. “So, I...” “I should apologise.”

“What? No! I should apologise.” Anna blinked in surprise. “I yelled at you.”

“I didn't listen to you.”

“No one listens to me!” Anna paused. “I talk too much I know it's a thing.” She held the bag in her hands out to him. “Peace offering. I didn't have time to wrap it.”

“For me?” Kristoff stared at the bag for a couple of heartbeats, then took it and sat back down on the box, shuffling over so Anna could join him. He lifted the box out of the bag, a large plastic tub she and Olaf had found in the kitchen, and...

As Kristoff cracked open the lid of the tub, the smell of sweet fried dough was detectable even in the icy midsummer air. He smiled. “Doughnuts. You got Olaf to make them again.”

“Yep.”

“Everyone has been badgering him to make more since... well, the last time. He said we had to wait for a special occasion.”

“I twisted his arm.”

“They're so good.”

“Yep.” Anna was giggling now. “And they're all yours. Tell no one, or the meteorological team will descend on you like vultures.”

Kristoff laughed, and Anna was finally starting to relax, relieved. “It's a strange world.”

Kristoff reached for a rucksack sitting on the snowy rock, and fiddled with fastenings. Thermal gloves made little things awkward. Eventually, mumbling an apology, he drew out a small package tied up in a cotton rag. “I didn't have time to wrap, either.”

Anna let him place the little parcel in her hands. “And it's not even Christmas yet.” As she pulled the cloth away she saw the gleam of coloured foil. Was it really...

“Chocolate!” Anna jumped up and down, clutching The Precious to her chest, then sat down self-consciously. “Wow, thanks. My stash lasted, like, a week. Not even that.”

She turned back to Kristoff. “I can't believe we both decided to bribe each other with sugar.”

“It's the drug of choice around here.”

“Like cigarettes in prison.”

“We should talk.”

“Yeah...”

“I promise to listen this time.”

It was far too cold to stay outside, so Kristoff led her into the garage. Soon they were sat together in the cab of Kristoff's snowcat, as they had on so many achingly cold, bright 'mornings' since Anna had arrived here.

Anna's chocolate was frozen solid- goodness knows where Kristoff had been hiding it, maybe buried somewhere safe from hungry researchers- so they shared Kristoff's doughnuts as Anna explained a little of her family situation.

How Elsa had increasingly isolated herself from everyone including, most hurtfully, her sister. How they hadn't realised how ill she was, not for years- Pappa hadn't really encouraged them to talk about it.

Eventually, in their twenties, after they had both made some questionable choices- Kristoff didn't need to hear about Anna’s jerkass of an ex just yet- things had reached a breaking point.

After a particularly severe crisis had landed Elsa in the ER, she was finally receiving the medical attention she should have been getting from the beginning. Encouraged by her therapists, she had reached out to Anna.

They were making progress, slowly learning to be sisters again. But things were still fragile between them. Anna could be thoughtless and short-tempered, Elsa was painfully sensitive and sometimes kind of paranoid... it was a volatile combination.

In their last Skype call before the storm had wrecked the mast Elsa had been smiling, proud of herself. She had gone to a Christmas party. Elsa. Elsa Arendal had gone to a party. And enjoyed herself. With people. And dancing.

Anna had asked her where the party had been. Elsa had prevaricated, but Anna had pressed the issue, knowing her sister didn't drink and the blush on her cheeks was not alcohol.

“It... was an office party.”

“Oh really... Whose?”

“Oh, whose office? A, um, friend.”

“A friend took you on a date, huh?”

“Well it doesn't have to be a date, necessarily.”

“Uh-huh...”

“Okay, it was. Maybe.”

“Ooh... Maybe I should check this guy out, ask him his intentions towards my sister. Or do I know him already? You don't meet that many people, no offence.”

“No, no.”

“You hesitated.”

“No, honestly, she's new in town... oh God.”

Kristoff looked wary. “And was that...”

Anna nearly spat out her doughnut. “Oh for God's sake Kristoff, I'm not a homophobe! I'm a scientist! It would be like... hating someone for their shoe size!”

Kristoff's nose scrunched up when he was thinking. It was kind of adorable- Wait, what?

“So, if you're not-”

“There's no if! Geez, one nightmare clown gets elected and everyone thinks the worst of us.”

“So what did you say?”

Anna face-palmed, groaning. “Nothing.”

There was a pregnant pause.

“Nothing? You?”

“I panicked! Said some nonsense about having my lab tests to get back to...”

Anna found herself fidgeting with her hair again. “We're sisters, and I love her, but sometimes it seems like I hardly know anything about her. Elsa pulled away from me so hard all through our teens- I didn't know then about her mental health, I just thought there was something wrong with me, maybe. And it just got worse after Mamma and Pappa passed. We've only really reconnected in the last year after she started getting therapy and meds, and so much is still uncharted territory between us.

There should have been sleepovers and girls' nights in and blanket forts where we talked about our crushes and shared our darkest secrets. But there was none of that. Just a locked bedroom door I passed on my way to the stairs. And being reminded of that made me feel like the lousiest sister in the world all over again.”

She pulled her legs up to her body, hugging her knees. “And you know, I am.”

Anna put her hand up to stay Kristoff's well-meaning protests.

“No, really. I made it about me. I got all weird and made excuses so I'd have time to feel comfortable. I was so scared of saying the wrong thing I said nothing! The one time I didn't talk when I actually should have...

I should have told her that it was okay. I shouldn't have signed off before I was sure she believed that. Elsa never finds it easy to tell me anything. Her issues make her so scared all the time, make her expect the worst. But she's been trying so hard. She's been getting better...”

Anna buried her face in her hands. “But that was when we lost Internet! And phones! Everything! Like, ten minutes later, back at the lab I had started to worry and wanted to send her a quick message, something supportive, even just a stupid little “Luv u Elsa xxx”...

...But no signal. Blackout! So now my only sister's back stateside thinking I freaked out and ghosted her, probably deciding to cut me out of her life for good this time. Or worse, having another breakdown... because of me...”

Kristoff wasn't the most demonstrative guy Anna had ever met, so she was surprised when he shifted the remaining doughnuts to one side and wrapped her in a tight hug.

It was nice, though. It was really nice, even with the gearshift pressing into her hip. She felt adrift in nightmarish uncertainty, no clue what Elsa was doing, no way to fix it, and the feeling of his arms encircling her, thick and strong as tree trunks, was kind of grounding. He was so calm and still most of the time, it was easy to forget how big he was. Two Annas big. Like a bear. A brawny Norwegian bear man.  She couldn't really feel the warmth of him through the layers of insulating clothing they both wore, but... why was she thinking about that?

“Anna, listen to me. The dish will be fixed before you know it. You will call your sister, or Skype or whatever you want. You will tell her exactly what you told me, and she will understand and she will love you. We will carry on collecting data, data and poop alike, I will make you watch Pingu in the TV room so you understand the joke, and everything- that means everything- will be alright. Okay?”

Anna nodded. Something about the sheer, solid presence of Kristoff made it easier to believe his words, to expect good things, as she mumbled his words back to him. “Everything will be alright.”

“That's right.”

They met again the next evening, in the same spot- where Kristoff waited in the freezing wind with a sheepish grin and enough coffee for them both. Anna's chocolate had had time to thaw out and was no longer like trying to bite into a slab of glass, so they took their eating caffeine and drinking caffeine into the garage workshop. Kristoff must have known it would be empty.

“I should explain my behaviour,” Kristoff announced out of nowhere.

Anna put her plastic mug down on the crate that Kristoff had dragged over between their stools to make them a table, with that effortless strength of his. “No offense, but you need to narrow that down.”

“I can often be too...” Kristoff trailed off, his brow furrowing under his woolly hat.

“Laconic?”

He grunted. “Actually, yes. My family are a bit overpowering. It would make sense if you could meet them.”

Anna leaned in, curious. “Your family?”

She'd never thought about him as a family person. But then she'd never asked. Had she really been so self-centred?

“Well, adoptive family. My brother, that's my... hold on.”

Kristoff reached into his coat to retrieve one of the indestructible phones the Norwegian teams were issued with and flicked through a couple of screens, before turning it over to her. It showed a photo of two young men dressed in colourful woollen clothes, smiling and hugging each other while one held up the camera. It took a moment to realise which one was Kristoff- he looked different without the thick beard he'd been wearing since she had arrived.

“My only blood relation. Sven and I lost our folks when we were very little. Then we were adopted by new parents. There were ten of us, altogether, growing up right at the furthest frozen edge of the north of Europe.”

“Ten?” Anna gawked. One sibling had been complicated growing up- seven seemed like, well a zoo.

Kristoff chuckled at the face she was making. “Pappa said it kept the house warm. It was crowded. I never had much time to myself as a boy, except when I was out on the ice. At home, there was always someone talking to me, dragging me off to join in with something. Sometimes there would be songs, all through our little house, just because someone felt like singing and then Mamma joined in, then everyone else joined in...”

“They sound wonderful,” Anna blurted out, before she could stop herself. Compared to the years of her parents always being busy with the company, and Elsa ghosting her- not that they'd known why at the time...

Kristoff snorted. “They are. But also loud, and excitable, and overbearing, and kinda never shut up. I miss them, but at the same time I need to get away for some of the year.”

At that, Anna felt something implode slightly inside of her, a feeling she couldn't exactly account for, but she didn't want to ruin their second actual proper conversation, so she tried to grin and make a joke of it.

“So, you come all the way to the bottom of the world for some peace and quiet, and instead you're driving me two hundred clicks to collect penguin poop, while I talk, and talk, and talk your ear off the whole way? Tough break. Wow.”

Kristoff looked up at her and shook his head. “The whole drive back, too. But that's not quite what I meant. I should relate to people. It is part of life, I want to. But I guess my family has left me too... passive. You come to me, and you sit and talk and I let you, like you're one of my kid sisters. But you are not. I am not home, letting the noise wash over me, where my family know what I feel even if I do not show it. I am here, and you are my... friend, and I should talk to you, let you know that your company is valued.”

Anna wasn't expecting the sudden turn, and the sad look in Kristoff's eyes and the hesitant way he said 'friend', like it was a question, had her head spinning in odd ways. “That's well, I mean, not that- Do you? Value it? My company? I value yours. I think I took that for granted before our fight, which is a thing I do and- sorry.”

Kristoff nodded, radiating sincerity. “I do, Anna.” He held out his gloved hand across the crate, mashing the empty chocolate foil, and Anna took it and held it. “We're all the way out here in fourteen million square kilometres of ice and frozen rock, and only a few thousand complete madmen-”

“And madwomen!”

Kristoff laughed. “-To share it with. It's good we have each other, don't you think?”

Anna squeezed his hand. “Yeah.”

“I have good news.”

“Oh! Hi...” Anna looked up from her breakfast to see Kristoff awkwardly hovering. Checking the hood of her onesie to make sure it hid her bed hair, she wondered for a second why he was looking so uncomfortable if he had good news... before she realised he was just waiting for an invitation. “Sit, sit, come on Kristoff! Tell me.”

Kristoff joined her at the table, grasping a mug of that now familiar thick black coffee. She wondered if he drank it instead of sleeping- he was certainly up at all hours.

“The repairs to the satellite system are almost complete.”

Anna's face lit up. “That's amazing! How long...”

“They'll be able to reintegrate with the satellite and start relaying data back to Europe tomorrow morning.”

“And Internet? Phones?”

Kristoff scratched his beard. “That will take another day or two. Oaken wants to make sure we have everything straightened out before we bring back non-emergency comms, so no Wi-Fi.”

Anna's heart sank.

“But...” Kristoff smiled. “Oaken's office has a direct broadband connection, which will be back straight away, and I told him you had a family emergency and, well, he's really a good boss.”

“Wait, what did you tell him?” Anna's eyes widened.

“Oh, no details, only that you needed to contact your sister urgently. He may or may not think that she's dying.” Kristoff shrugged. “The advantage of not asking for anything for five years is, when you do, people take it very seriously. Just talk to Oaken and arrange when it would be best to use his office tomorrow-”

Kristoff wasn't that surprised when Anna leaped up and threw her arms around his neck in thanks. She was a pretty excitable person. The kiss she pressed into his cheek before she rushed out of the canteen, on the other hand...

He sat still where he was for a moment, just processing. The other driver, Lars, took a seat beside him.

“So, you and Happy Feet, right?”

“Lars, no!” Kristoff hesitated, willing himself not to let his blush rise above the beard line. “I don't know. Maybe.”

Lars snorted with laughter. “Kristoff, you hopeless young idiot. It'll be Christmas eve on Monday. Invite her to the party. A little festive cheer, a little lutefisk, a lot of Oaken's akevitt...”

He waggled his eyebrows suggestively, undeterred by Kristoff's stony silence. “She is the first new person I have seen you happily interact with since... I don't even know. You're at the damn South Pole, do you think you're holding out for someone better?”

“No! Anna's great, really great, she...” Kristoff caught himself. “Oh, I see you.”

“Because if there were someone better, sorry, but she wouldn't date you. You're reaching as it is.”

Kristoff got up, zipping his coat. “I'm leaving now.”

As he walked to the door Lars called after him. “Go, follow the beautiful penguin girl... Confess your true feelings...”

“See you around, Lars.”

Part IV: Julaften

“But he gave you chocolates?”

“Chocolate, Elsa. Chocolate. As in a candy bar. We had an argument...”

“And he didn't have flowers?”

“Hilarious. Kristoff's just a guy I know.”

“Who went out of his way to help get us back in contact. And gave you chocolate, and you spend all day with him. I'm just looking at the facts- he's basically your snow husband.”

“Stooop... A couple of dates and suddenly you're the love expert.”

“'Love' expert? Ha! A confession.”

“I could sign off right now...”

“Wait, Anna. Listen, listen, I'm being serious. You should see the way your eyes soften when you just say his name. Anna, this is me, of all people, telling you to take a chance... Why not just catch him under the mistletoe, see what happens?”

“Elsa, they don't do that in Norway. I think. We don't have mistletoe, anyway. Even if...”

Anna stared at the akevitt in the bottom of her glass, reflecting on her most recent Skype with Elsa. After the initial awkwardness of clearing up misunderstandings- it had turned out Elsa had sent about twenty panic texts and Anna had solemnly sworn to delete all of them unopened once they arrived- their conversation had turned with surprising ease to the warmer, more familial awkwardness of being interrogated about her love life. Not that she actually had a-

The door to the TV room opened, and Kristoff joined her in the hall, rosy cheeked with Christmas spirit and also probably from the rich, dark Christmas ale half-filling his cup. It was not to her taste, but by the rate it was disappearing it clearly suited some of their colleagues. “Not enjoying the film?”

"Three Wishes for Cinderella? They show it every year." Kristoff shrugged.

“Give me It's a Wonderful Life any day.” Anna sipped her drink. “Shall we go out and say hello to the doggie?”

Kristoff tried to frown, but it wasn't working. “It's a goat. A Yule Goat. They're meant to be made out of straw, but Gerda and Lars only had bits of crate to hammer together, which is why it's so...”

Anna grinned. “So... what?”

“So like a robot dog.” Kristoff sighed in surrender. “Sure, let's take a walk.”

A few minutes later, wrapped up warmly, they stood at the centre of the base trying hard to admire what Kristoff's colleagues had constructed. They would not be winning any art prizes.

“So, how's it a goat?”

Kristoff pointed up at some of the messier parts of the beast. “The bent-over parts are meant to be horns.”

“Really? Not ears?”

“Be nice. It would probably look more impressive at night.”

Anna rolled her eyes, giggling. “Sure, at night. Let's just wait a few months.”

Kristoff crossed his arms and pretended to sulk. “Yeah, yeah. Laugh at our ancient traditions. What do you do for Christmas?”

Anna grinned, stepping closer to him. “Give each other gifts...”

“Yeah, we already did that, and I'm out of chocolate.”

She looked up at his face, all bemused patience, eyes dancing. “Eat turkey...”

“Good luck with that. I'm not driving you to the nearest supermarket.”

“Where is that?”

“Cape Town. I hope you can swim.”

“Okay, okay,” Anna laughed, her gloved fingers trailing down the front of Kristoff's jacket. His brown eyes were as dark and heady as the ale he drank. “Well, there is mistletoe. You know how that works?”

“We have Hollywood. But if an American really wants to kiss someone why not just-”

“Yeah, why not?”

The kiss was brief- almost a collision- as Anna grabbed Kristoff's head in both hands and pulled him down, springing up on her toes to meet him halfway. Then she let go and staggered back a few feet.

Yep, she’d actually done that.

Kristoff was bright pink. “Anna...”

“You can't blame me!” Anna yelped. “I'm drunk and I have terrible impulse control!”

Kristoff burst out laughing, which Anna decided could either be good or really, really bad.

“Kristoff?”

That was when he kissed her back. Slow and loving and tender, and the alcohol in her veins could not compete with how that touch warmed her.

What was that bleeping?

Pulling away slightly, Kristoff pulled his phone out of his back pocket. His smile broadened.

“Midnight.”

Anna looked at the bright sunlight gleaming off the ear-horns of the Yule plank-monster. The sun was low over the mountains in the distance, gleaming off the ice flats... “Amazing.”

“Merry Christmas, Anna.”