#going into completely new spaces with completely different people and systems to learn

[standfortheangels]

Okay. As frustrated as I am and as much as I still feel I should be protesting... The Tumblr staff/Devs/execs have made it pretty clear that they couldn't care less about customer feedback, so.. I guess there's not much point in going entirely silent on here. They probably wouldn't even notice anyway, and obviously the reams and reams of posts loudly hating the new changes are not making any impact.

Still not quite sure about stopping it entirely, so I think I will still continue to queue up protest posts, but.. I think I might as well throw the normal stuff back in too, kinda have a mix going? I don't Want to seem as though I'm over it and going back to normal. I'm not over it. At all. You can only have your feelings ignored so much before something snaps, and I definitely snapped with this latest move.

So.... I have signed up for a couple different places. I'm now on Dreamwidth (not sure that it's for me, but we'll see), Pillowfort, and I'll be adding one or two more very soon.

Not sharing my names on these places right now because I'm not fully set up yet, but once I am, I'll post those and add them to my pinned post too.

For a while I'm going to try being active to some extent on everything, get a feel for how it all works before I jump in with both feet. Then once I know which site or sites I like best.. I guess I'll figure it out from there. We'll see how much staff have annoyed me by then. -_-

[vergess]

Please, please explain how to install and use linux like I'm 5 years old. I'm so sick of windows adding AI and other bullshit to my already struggling elderly laptop but I'm really not good with computers at all so I have no idea where to start with Linux.

Okay, so, I'm going to break this down into steps I would give the average tumblr user first, and then if any of them are confusing or use words you don't understand, ask me and I'll explain that step in greater detail.

Step 0) BACK. UP. YOUR. SHIT.

NEVER EVER EVER CHANGE YOUR OPERATING SYSTEM WITHOUT A COMPLETE BACKUP OF ALL YOUR FILES.

Step 1) Learn your machine. You need to know:

How much RAM you have

If your processor is 32 or 64 bit

How big your hard drive is

On windows, you can find out all of this by going to the start menu, typing "about" and opening the first result on your system instead of the internet.

For additional instructions, visit this page.

Step 2) Pick your Linux.

There's like 10,000 kinds of Linux, each tailored to particular functions that the end-user (that is you!) might want to have. The sheer amount is very daunting, so first I'm going to give my suggestions, then I'll explain how to pick for yourself.

For Mac users, I suggest Kubuntu. For windows users, I suggest Mint Cinnamon. If your laptop is really REALLY old, I recommend Sparky Stable, which is the lightest weight Linux I would ever suggest for a new user. In every case, download the version suited to your processor (32 bit can be labelled "x86" or "32 bit"; 64 bit is always labelled "64 bit").

If you want to try a different type of linux, you'll need to make sure your laptop meets the "minimum specs" or "system requirements." These numbers tell you how much RAM, processor and hard drive space the linux will use. (That's why you needed those numbers at the beginning.)

Step 3) Collect your supplies. You're going to need:

An ISO burning program compatible with your current system, like Balena Etcher.

A copy of the ISO file for the Linux you want to use.

Your laptop.

An 8gb or larger USB flash drive.

Step 3) Make a bootable USB drive

Install Balena Etcher, hitting "okay" and "next" when prompted. Last I checked, Etcher doesn't have adware attached, so you can just hit next every time.

Plug your USB drive into the laptop.

Open Etcher.

Click "flash from file" and open the ISO file with your Linux on it.

Click "Select target" and open the USB drive location. Hit the "flash" button. This will start writing all the linux installer data to your flash drive. Depending on the speed of your machine, this could take as long as 10 minutes, but shouldn't be much longer.

Step 4) Boot to the USB drive

This is, in my opinion, the trickiest step for a lot of people who don't do "computer stuff." Fortunately, in a rare act of good will, Windows 10 made this process a lot easier.

All you'll need to do is go to settings, then recovery, then advanced startup and pick the button labelled "use a device."

This tutorial has images showing where each of those is located. It's considered an "advanced setting" so you may get a spooky popup warning you that you could "harm your system by making changes" but we're not doing anything potentially harmful so you can ignore that if you get it.

Step 5) Try out linux on the flash drive first.

Linux installs using a cool little test version of itself that you can play around in. You won't be able to make changes or save settings, but you can explore a bit and see if the interface is to your liking. If it's hideous or hard to navigate, simply pick a new linux version to download, and repeat the "make a bootable USB" step for it.

Step 6) Actually install that sucker

This step varies from version to version, but the first part should be the same across the board: on the desktop, there should be a shortcut that says something like "install now." Double click it.

Follow the instructions your specific linux version gives you. When in doubt, pick the default, with one exception:

If it asks you to encrypt your drive say no. That's a more advanced feature that can really fuck your shit up down the road if you don't know how to handle it.

At some point you're going to get a scary looking warning that says 1 of 2 things. Either:

Install Linux alongside Windows, or

Format harddrive to delete all data

That first option will let you do what is called "dual booting." From then on, your computer will ask every time you turn it on whether you want Windows or Linux.

The second option will nuke Windows from orbit, leaving only linux behind.

The install process is slower the larger your chosen version is, but I've never seen it take more than half an hour. During that time, most linux versions will have a little slideshow of the features and layout of common settings that you can read or ignore as you prefer.

Step 7) Boot to your sexy new Linux device.

If you're dual booting, use the arrow keys and enter key to select your linux version from the new boot menu, called GRUB.

If you've only got linux, turn the computer on as normal and linux will boot up immediately.

Bonus Step: Copy Pasting some code

In your new start menu, look for an application called "terminal" or "terminal emulator." Open that up, and you will be presented with an intense looking (but actually very harmless) text command area.

Now, open up your web browser (firefox comes pre-installed on most!), and search the phrase "what to do after installing [linux version you picked]"

You're looking for a website called "It's FOSS." Here's a link to their page on Mint. This site has lots and lots of snippets of little text commands you can experiment with to learn how that functionality works!

Or, if you don't want to fuck with the terminal at all (fair enough!) then instead of "terminal" look for something called "software manager."

This is sort of like an app store for linux; you can install all kinds of programs directly from there without needing to go to the website of the program itself!

[serejae]

I DONT FEEL LONELY WHEN I SEE HER | SEOK.MATTHEW

WHAT ! - matthew bf thoughts for my menda😇

WHEN ! - (warnings) fluff, kissing, petnames

WHO ! - i get you. ill be completely new to a group but THATTTTT one is my man. ANYWAYS I HOPE YOU ENJOY MENDA BOOKIE SNOOKS😇

! - dating matthew is like a breath of fresh air, he isnt too distanct nor suffocating

! - i think thats mainly based on the fact that he took time to study and know you before he asked you out. by the time it was your 1 month he already (been) knew the temperature you like certain drinks, how much milk is too much in your cereal, and if we wanna be normal, when you need space

! - i feel like the trope that most resonates with matthew to me, is bestfriends brother. him and his sister have such a cute bond that i feel like he’ll recognize some of his sisters friend, but when it was you it was different. he couldnt pull himself away, his sister quickly caught on and realized what he was up to (before helping you both out)

! - matthews favorite parts of his day is definitely the morning and nights time. how he’ll wake up with you in his arms taking some time to admire you before carefully sneaking off and getting ready for the gym. he’ll wait for the clock to go off at a certain time that he memorized to start making your breakfast and drink, cause by the time you get ready and freshen up it’ll be the perfect temperature

! - speaking of gym, i see some people describe matthew as friendly, in which yes he is BUT HE DOESNT HAVE EYES ON ANYOJE BUT YOU. in his mind you guys already have a white fenced house with a dog and 3 kids running around. but i digress, he’ll call you and work out while talking to you because there’s nothing that gets him more pumped than you. if any other person tries to talk or hit on him he’ll act like he cant hear them through his headphones as he speaks to you

! - he loves the night time, because after a long day or you both being tired and stressed at least he knows he can come home to you and relax with you in his arms again. he loves how his day begins with you and ends with you

! - if hes away he’ll definitely buy a stuff animal that reminds him of you before the trip and take photos of it doing the most basic things “look were on a breakfast date:)” captioned to a photo of a breakfast platter with the stuff animal sitting infront of it sitting straight up (he adjusted it making sure ur postures always right)

! - his family loves you, they hear all abour you 24/7. his family knows that when matthew cherishes something he means it. mattthew has a big heart that he doesnt take for granted , he’ll try to bring you over to canada as much as he can to bring you to his family, talk about his childhood town, as well as trying his favorite childhood snacks

! - you dont have many arguments with matthew but when you do, he does get rather defensive wanting to defend himself but after a couple arguments with you he learned that being defensive wouldnt get him anywhere, so he tries to keep his composure. on those days he does slip up, he reflects why and what made you two get here. afterwards he’ll try to start a convo so you both can go back to normal and the way he missed

! - sometimes to matthew he gets tired of the basic ways of showing affection. he loves physical touch yes, but he knows you know he basically latches onto anyone he loves. so he decided to make a new system for you, and just for you. he loves you more than the words i love you, i love you isnt enough to describe his love for you so he tweaks it a little. he’ll say phrases that make your heart flutter

“i wanna be with you in every life time”

“you make me believe in love”

“you make me feel safe”

“you look like the in bloom instrumental”

! - matthew would love to indulge in your interest, could be as adventurous as rock climbing to as calming as bird watching. he never complains. if you like it , he does too

! - he loves to try new things with you. he wants his first to always be with you, if the members invite him to go to a new amusement park he’ll drag you along or go later with you because he knows he’ll constantly be in a state of mind of “yn wouldve liked that”, “i wish yn couldve seen that”

! - please. before there was rizz king matthew, the amount of tries he took on you. you were his first victim at all his flirting attempts. more of them making him look silly than 🫦🫦 but youd never tell him that. for all he knows he is your rizz king❤️

! - everything always relates back to you somehow. if someone asked him what happiness meant to him the conversation will lead back to you. if someone asked him if he knew the technique of how to make the best slime, its still gonna lead back to you

! - yeah sure you’ll have to fight jiwoong and gunwook every so often for your own boyfriend but hes worth the fight right? or at least thats what he constantly tells you 🤨

! - when matthew loves you you know he does, not because he tells you all the time but its the little things he does that remind you “im right here if you need anything”

[theoneiroveil]

Did you wake up on October 1st, 2016 to a very strange channel in your subscription box on Youtube?

Well if not, here is a little bit that channel.

Soursalt is a series that began in 2016 with roughly 600 people waking up subscribed to it without knowing. That's a very real thing that happened, which is a great selling point of the story.

Over the next few days these weirdly edited potato-quality home videos get uploaded and nobody has any idea what's going on. Some descriptions keep changing, some are pieces of conversations, etc. People are immediately hooked because what the fuck is going on? Then Madman Re starts getting mentioned, is it a place, a God, Freddy Krueger, who knows. More cryptic and weird dream videos get uploaded and then suddenly there's a break. This is the end of the prologue of the story.

Suddenly, we started getting rapid fire uploads a few months later of these two idiots making a really shitty ghost hunter parody knock off sketch. This is basically meant to be like a needle in the haystack for viewers. There are moments in these videos that are completely filler and just dumb comedy or filler -- b u t there are teases that something is up sprinkled within these videos. You'll have one of them mention the path looks different (implying they scouted it out before hand), or they'll hear or see something the camera just straight up doesn't see of pick up. This continues on until it's obviously getting dark, but we don't see their journey home. Instead, a few days later, we're treated to another sketch. This time shit gets fucky.

The two do the Ghost Guy routine on a haunted road by the woods, but as the move past the housed area towards the side of the park, their patience with each other starts running thin, they start hearing strange things, and feeling off. After taking a break off the road in a nearby Gazebo, they find a mysterious grave site and a stuffed monkey. Here, we learn out of character that they were filming at locations posted on a strange forum ; the same one implied to have launched the Soursalt spread.

After getting covered in some shit, blood and rot the characters introduce the audience to the Madman of Re as Aidan "Ghost Guy" Calloway touches the Window of a spooky run down bus and a ghastly hand touches his back -- all separated thematically by … a Window.

And this is where Soursalt takes you, into the Window; a terrifying physical nightmare space that seperates the viewer from their body and traps them in their own mind, a mind that can be easily manipulated by the Madman of Re.

BUT WAIT

This is only the end's beginning.

Timeskip -- Seven Years Later:

The story returns with Eulacram on the eve of the Spread's seven year anniversary following Aidan as he struggles to live with the trauma of his past and present following the events he experienced in Soursalt. It's at this point where the shattering of Aidan's mind takes literal form and we're presented with various versions of him through a system that he calls the Crucible Channel.

Meanwhile, another entity has pursued the same goal as Madman Re and sought out those that were victims of various Spreads to put together what it calls the Eulacram Tribute, a tournament of survival that allows those touched by the Oneiroveil (the dream realm the Window is in) to compete for an evolution of their flesh. Aidan and the other Spread victims are unknowingly pulled into a shared dream where it seems reality is once again being manipulated as their lives are being toyed with. However, Aidan's access to the Crucible Channel may be prove useful in saving him and the other victims from this new nightmare.

Eulacram is designed both as an Epilogue to Soursalt and its own series. While Soursalt is to be seen as a more found-footage style story, Eulacram utilizes the idea posed by the prologue that the entity can create videos with dreams, to showcase a cinematic-like view of events within the story. Some episodes can transition between hand-held, cinematic handheld, and cinematic third person, to allow for a unique approach on telling the story.

New viewers of the series can pick up with Act 1 or Act 2 Eulacram (on 10/1/23) without having fully watched Soursalt or Eulacram's prologue ; which will allow for an easier transition into the new content while everything you need to know will be given to you through the story. Viewers of the past content, and even those part of the first 600 subscribers will get the full experience though, as they will have seen the journey of some of these characters from the beginning, understanding the trauma that led them to becoming who they are today.

Soursalt // Eulacram is unlike any other web series you have seen, or dreamed. It's dark, gritty, there's a talking lizard, it's sharp and brutal at times ; but comedic, light hearted and emotional at others. The characters feel real, their pain feels real. If you're looking for web series horror that breaks the mould, takes risks, and isn't afraid to pop out an eye or two… or three… or ---

Then on October 1st, 2023, you should wake up to a very strange channel in your subscription box on Youtube.

This is that channel.

[theautisticdoctor]

Have you ever been screened for adhd? I see that there is a lot of overlap in adhd and autism diagnosis. How was it for you?

Autism and ADHD do have a lot of similarities, as well as ADHD and (c)PTSD. I am officially diagnosed with autism and cPTSD, but I do also score very high on the ADHD spectrum. I got asked once if I wanted to get officially tested, but I refused because at that time my brain just couldn’t handle another label. I absolutely despise labels and getting them put on me gives me massive stress, because I feel so inadequate and as a failure (I’m still working on that). My autism also got kind of buried under all the other labels that got put on me, and I felt like it was going to happen with this again. I don’t do well in adjusting or acknowledging new things and it takes ages for me to accept these labels.

Just like autism, ADHD is also a neurodevelopment disorder, which means it would have been there in my childhood, so for me it is most useful to look how I was as a child. As a child I was not hyperactive at all, only disorganised with a lot of executive dysfunction, impulsivity when high stress levels occurred and easily distracted with bursts of hyperfocus and -fixation. My brother however has always been hyperactive, impulsive, and easily distracted (although he’s also diagnosed with cPTSD). He for example as a 2 year old managed to jump out of the high chair more often than actually sit in it or rock and bounce it back and forth so hard that he would flip over with chair and all. So he is definitely an ADHD’er. Me you could have put in a corner of the room and completely forget I even existed, which therefore also happened, because I wouldn’t make a sound, wouldn’t cry, wouldn’t crawl away from my designated space. You could give me a toy and I would be satisfied with it all day, figuring out all ins and outs, when I was done playing I would start taking it apart and would put it back together, over and over again. Where my brother would throw his toys through the frontwindow of the car (literally) because he was just bored with them and needed more stimuli. My cPTSD diagnosis makes it very complicated to distinguish what symptoms are from traumatic stress and what has been there since before the structural stress (because the structural stress also started in very early childhood) from ADHD or autism.

For me I think it is more helpful to look at it from a holistic perspective instead of adding more quite meaningless labels for a group of symptoms that one might have, I just have a neurodevelopment disorder with a spectrum of symptoms. I have made an inventory of those symptoms and the scope of these symptoms is already a huge disability for which I need to make adjustments to my life. Labels should be used as a tool to help people and their support system understand, figure out and learning to cope with their symptoms. The label is solely there to serve a purpose, but it doesn’t give you any clue about the extent, severity or suffering of the person. In my practice I always tell my patients that I’m treating a person, not just the lab results or diagnoses, and I expect others to do the same with me. I hate it when people only look at results or labels and create their entire treatment plan based on that, you should look at the human that’s sitting in front of you.

The autism spectrum has a major overlap with the ADHD spectrum. This overlap includes things like sensory issues, stimming, emotional regulation difficulties, impulse control difficulties, executive dysfunction, interest-based nervous system, interconnected thought processes and patterns, hyperfixations and -focus or special interests, social differences and difficulties, communicative difficulties, rejection-sensitivity dysphoria, and making eye contact difficulties. In both disorders the amount of stress or overwhelm is what can make the symptoms worse. Some specific symptoms to ADHD are the cravings to new things and experiences, attention and focus regulating difficulties, which could make it harder to read social cues, inhibition difficulties, hyperactivity, and impulsiveness. Whereas some of the specific symptoms to autism are the cravings to routine, order and familiarity, with craving for strict adherence, intuitive disability to read social cues, self soothing through repetitive behaviour, thoughts and routines. When my stress levels rise I tend to move towards the ADHD spectrum, but it keeps contributing to my rising stress levels, so I am thinking it is more masking / coping than actually ADHD. I think, I therefore really fit the autism spectrum better than the ADHD spectrum. But I don’t know, maybe I’ll be ready one day to get myself actually tested, because it also wouldn’t really surprise me if I was.

[kadextra]

so on a whim I started reading omniscient reader’s viewpoint manhwa

..and got hooked on the story so hard that I easily blasted through all available eps in less than a week. istg they put dr*gs in this thing it’s so good???? 😭

[SPOILER WARNING! big ramble ahead. if you’ve never read it, leave this post. consider checking it out you won’t be able to put it down]

lets get this out of the way first.

RAHHHHHH KIM DOKJA….. KIM DOKJA I LOVE YOU

GUYSSSSS 🥺 LISTEN. HE’S SUCH A GOOD PROTAGONIST. MY TRAUMA BOY. MY DUDE WITH THE POWER TO INFODUMP PEOPLE TO DEATH. YOU SELF-SACRIFICING IDIOT. his cunning intelligence makes him super attractive what can I say, I LOVE smart mcs with ambiguous morality and self sacrificial nature

here’s a big ✨shut your mouth✨ to every character who’s said he’s ugly- get your eyes checked, get a job get away from him (I know it’s because of the fourth wall’s filter it’s not their fault I’m just being silly)

the fourth wall is such a cool power to have. the complexity of how it acts based on his perception of fiction vs reality as the reader …. that’s very interesting and well thought out!!! how it lowkey has a consciousness too and it’s so tied into his mental state makes me want to psychoanalyze this guy even more. probably one of the most unique powers I’ve seen created and explored in a story tbh

I think the entire system of how the world works is really well done in general. constellations watching the apocalyptic bloodbath via livestream and sending donos to their favorite little guys shouldn’t work as well as it does and cracks me up so much 😭 (uriel is the best). I enjoy learning about all the irl different fables, history & mythologies too. plus doing my own research is fun! I did a deep dive through the web to learn about dokkaebi folklore lol I’m having a good time

I also related hard to how dokja read TWSA throughout his life, the story was a companion for him. got choked up bc I reflected on how much my own favorite companion stories for years mean to me. there’s been situations I’ve thought “what would (character) do?” dokja saying stuff like “what would joonghyuk do?” felt like I got called out <3 I’d probably be the same as him if my favorite characters suddenly came to life

anyways yeah I caught up with the manhwa looked online and discovered it comes from an already completed novel with over 500 chapters and the manhwa is barely a third into adapting it though it’s been releasing every week for 4 years. and that it’ll take like 10 more years to finish. I then planted my face in my hands and screamed with despair

I’ll shrivel up waiting to see what happens……………heyyy woahhhh.. whats this light of salvation ? the novel file just completed download on my phone ? that’s crazyy wow I opened it ? im scrolling it right now ? omg I’m telling myself in the mirror “pace yourself, try to space your reading out do NOT read too fast” ?

jokes aside im excited, first I’ll take some time to read back through the earlier chapters for extra context of scenes! >:D after I finish doing that…. pls pray for my self-control to try stretching this for as long as possible. I’m pumped to see what happens next with this demon king part so maybe I’ll read along with the manhwa unless I get too impatient heh

to conclude- I had no idea the fandom of orv was so passionate. while closing my eyes to spoilers, I was looking at beautiful fanart and animatics (watched this one and ascended that’s one of my fav rin songs). I can tell how much you guys love the story, there’s always going to be people like me who get interested so keep it up :D if the fandom does end up reading this, ummm *knocks on the door* hi im new

I will likely talk about it more in the future!! tagging under “#kade reads orv” ! might draw fanart on my art blog too bc brainworms <3 happy reading everyone

[muriellelibrary]

ARTISTS AT THE READY 6: an OCT

Hey tumblr. I'm here to spread some late stage love for something a group of us has put together. Or, well, continued together. I'm going to start with the absolute basics, since some folks might be new to it, so here we go.

ARTISTS AT THE READY 6 is open and taking auditions!

What is Artists at the Ready (AatR)? It's an OCT! What is an OCT? An Original Character Tournament! But what does that mean? It means a bunch of artists/writers get together and have a bit of friendly competition involving characters they made up! AatR particularly focuses on telling these stories as comics and uses a bracket tournament system (like... uh, sports ball?) where two contestants are pitted against each other and the judges pick a winner based on certain criteria. It's about using competition to practice your storytelling.

So then! AatR is currently looking to being a SIXTH tournament. The first happened in 2009, back during the OCT boom on deviantArt. Many of the old entries have been deleted, but there are still some up there if you want to take a gander. (We are still posting a little on there as well, for posterity.) The second was in 2011, which had so many entries there was an off-shoot tournament called Ready or Not. The third, fourth and fifth took place in 2013, 2015, and 2018 respectively. I personally participated in 3 previous ones.

What makes AatR different from other OCTs is the premise. Most OCT have you create/use characters and place them in a specific world or scenario with a specific theme and a handful of side characters provided by the judges/people running the tournament. AatR differs in that one of the characters you bring to the story is YOU! You, the artist! The premise is that you are invited to a mysterious world known as The Real and you, the artist, end up there... ready or not. There, you will meet other artists, and possibly the people running the tournament, the Judges. BUT. What made it fun was that you got to summon your own characters to have them join you on your journey! Everyone has a "tool" that brings out a set number of OCs. (It was originally 3, but now only 2 get summoned.) So you get to hang out with your creations and... well, probably fight for your life because story thrives on conflict but there never was a rule you had to actually "fight" your opponent, just interact with them and their characters. It's about who tells the better and more compelling story, really.

(It's a little like pokemon. You are the trainer and you have two pokemon to summon. They could fight for you, or maybe help you get around or go completely out of control and try to eat reality. The world is your oyster! Except instead of pokemon, it is your favorite homemade blorbos!) Every previous season has had a few provided locations, a few judges with characters, and messengers. Messengers are creatures/things that bring you your invitation. After that, they can be used in any way to help you tell your story. Or don't use them at all. Things are very open-ended and what we provide is totally optional. The previous stories from past seasons ARE VERY MUCH OPTIONAL. Use what you like, throw the rest away. This go around, the only location we have is the Deadline Bar. It has no specific place in time or space, and no specific layout/theme/interior. Make it what you will. Our messengers are equally undefined, inky animals of your choice.

Personally, I have made some of the best friends I have through OCTs and every time I have participated, it has helped me grow as an artist and storyteller. It can be a grueling experience if you try to tell a grandiose story, but time management is also an important skill for anyone to learn. I loved it and would love for others to love it too. If any of this intrigues you, or has you hopping up and down to throw artistic hands with other artists on the internet.... please come check us out. All the basic rules are on the deviantArt page, the twitter/X page, and far more in-depth material along with cool folks to chat with can be found on our discord. The deadline for the auditions is OCTOBER 11th, which gives you just about the same amount of time to make one as you would have for a round during the tournament. OR just hang out in the server, talk art and maybe participate in some of our Spectator side contests. YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO COME JOIN US AND I BID YOU A WARM WELCOME TO THE REAL! ...just... watch that first step...

[samgirl98]

Mending a Family 25/?

Prev | Next

Jason finds a new hobby; Jazz starts thinking about her future. Danny isn't completely miserable at school.

Danny didn’t want to admit it, but he was having fun at school.

Three weeks after starting school, Danny had settled in.

He had made a small group of friends. They could never replace Sam and Tucker, but they were fun. His dad had been right. (Not that he would ever tell him that.) Even if the courses were a bit boring sometimes, being around people his age was nice.

Still, he didn’t want to admit it out loud.

It helped that the school he was enrolled in taught differently to the American education system. Plus, he was learning French.

The school had a more hands-on approach to learning. He built machines and diagrams. Reading out loud could have been more exciting, even if they read at a more advanced level. During those times, he usually zoned out.

Danny found out he loved to draw. The most he had drawn back at his home dimension had been basic things or schematics of his inventions once he was older. Here, the school took time to get the kids engaged. They put different things in front of the kids and even let the children model for their classmates if they didn’t like drawing.

Right now, the teacher was teaching them how to make bracelets. It was nice to do things with his hands.

So, yeah, maybe his dad and Jazz had had a point, and school was good for Danny. That doesn’t mean he would tell them.

____

Jason had been bored during the day for the last three weeks.

Ever since Danny had started school, Jason had more time in his hands than before. In Gotham, he slept during the day after a long night of patrol, ruling his criminal empire and giving out necessities to the children and homeless in his territory.

Now, he would wake up, take Danny to school, and teach Jazz defensive moves and how to use knives and guns. That only lasted three hours. By ten o’clock, he was done and bored. Jazz refused to let him take care of Ellie the whole day.

“Go out, Jason. Find something to do, and stop trying to take my baby from me.”

So, here he was, walking around the little village.

That’s where he saw her, a 1967 red Mustang. The car had seen better days, but Jason could tell if he put in the time and effort, he could restore her. He jogged up to the little auto shop.

An older man was sitting on a rocking chair and chewing tobacco. His teeth were yellow, and he had wispy white hair. The wrinkles left deep trenches on his face. He smelled of car oil and tobacco.

“How much for the Mustang?”

The older man looked at Jason and spat the tobacco into a bucket. His greasy shirt read Hank.

“You sure you want that old junk, son? It hasn’t been used since 1986 and has been rotting on this parking lot since.”

“Yeah, I want it. How much?”

“Y’know, having someone fix her will cost a lot, right?”

“I know how to fix cars. I can have it hauled to my place and start fixing her there.”

Jason could go to old junkyards to find parts. He’d have to buy equipment, too; he didn’t have any at home. It’s not as if he didn’t have the money for such a project. He was actually getting excited at the thought of fixing the old car.

“If you’re sure, I’ll leave it at $600.”

“Deal,” Jason said.

Jason paid for the car with his card and waited for Hank to give him the keys. He looked in the car and was surprised to see it still had its original seats. Leather seats, too. As expected, it didn’t turn on. Jason saw that the engine was rusted.

Hmm, he would have to take it out and see if there were any salvageable parts. Now, to figure out how to get it home.

Jason turned toward the older man and noticed he had a nice array of tools and two lifters. An idea started forming.

“Are you willing to rent me a space so I can fix the car here? I don’t know how long it’ll take me to get the car moving, but I’m more than willing to pay.”

The man was chewing on more tobacco. Jason started fidgeting the longer Hank stayed silent.

“I wouldn’t use it when you need the lifters, and I’d still pay for a daily fee. I’d keep the car in the same parking space you’ve had it in.”

Hank spit out the tobacco and took out some more, “Sure, why not? Let’s talk price, kid.”

Jason smiled. He had found something to do.

Danny could tell his dad was happy when he picked him up from school.

“How was class today, chum?”

“It was nice, I guess. I painted some fruit and learned how the weather is predicted for the week. We even built our modal of a weather balloon.”

“That’s nice,” Jason said. “Anything else?”

“We started a new book. Charlotte’s Web. It’s not the worst.”

“Oh, I loved that book when I was younger.”

“Hmm,” Danny hummed, “What did you do, daddy?”

“I bought an old car that I decided to fix up. The man I bought it from has an auto shop and is letting me fix it up there. Maybe, if you’re interested, we can go on the weekends, and you can help me.”

Danny thought about it. He remembered all the times he helped Jack with inventions. He missed building things. This would be different, though. He wouldn’t be building weapons that could kill a race of beings. He would just be helping his dad rebuild a car. It was a normal father-son activity.

“I would like that,” Danny said, “I would like that a lot.”

____

After Jason left, Jazz started thinking.

In a few years, Ellie would start school, too. She wouldn’t have much to do with Ellie gone.

Jazz used to have dreams. She wanted to go to an Ivy School and study psychology. Those dreams had been dashed when the Fentons attacked her younger brother. Suddenly, she was responsible for a de-aged Danny and Ellie. She was glad for Jason’s help, but her whole world had become the children.

Jazz put Ellie down for a nap. She took that opportunity to look into online classes. After all, just like Jazz had been pushing Jason to do things for himself, she had to think about her mental health and find ways to stimulate her mind.

She’d bring it up with Jason to see what he thought.

She spent the rest of the day looking into online school programs. After all, she deserved to do things for herself every once in a while.

The elder Nightingales are finding things to do for themselves, yay! Anyway, I hope you like this chapter.

So I no longer have Covid 😃 but that also means I'm going back to work and won't be able to update as much as I had the past few days. Sorry about that. I will try to update one of my fics at least twice a week. No promises, though.

@itsberrydreemurstuff @idontgetpaidenoughforthisshit @skulld3mort-1fan @theauthorandtheartist @emergentpanda-blog @jaggedheart11 @fisticuffsatapplebees @booberrylizard @fantasticbluebirdfan @thegatorsgooseoose @cyrwrites @kjoboo91 @crystallicedart @amaramizuki666 @spekulatiusmuffin @meira-3919 @kilasmess @bubblemixer @lexdamo @wonderland-daisy @mj-arts-n-stuff @amyheart19 @dolfay @the-church-grimm @undead-essence @aph-mable @lizisipancardo @purrloin77 @writer-extraodinaire @charlietheepic7 @sinfulloccultist @nootherusernameworked @coruscateselene @chaoticchange @itsberrydreemurstuff @gmkelz11 @feral-bunny31 @paroovian @thatonegaybitch68 @d4ydr34min9 @overtherose @fandomwandererer @vipower001 @thordottir45 @blackrabbitt3t @rosecinnamonbun @bianca-hooks123 @epilepticnerd @dat1angel @consouling @flamingenchiladadragon @all-mights-asscheeks @ender-reader @fuyu-bitch @ravenswife

[impossiblepackage]

say, i heard you reblog a post about role playing games. do you happen to know of any ones that i, a beginner, could feasibly get into in this day and age? i tried DnD but a combination of not having anybody to play with (whether irl or online) and a dissatisfaction with low level boringness kind of made it fizzle out for me

oh hey an ask from 3 months ago that I didn't even see. hi.

ANYWAY. First things first, i cannot recommend @theresattrpgforthat enough. Ain't nobody better at recommending rpgs than that blog right there. Now, on to my thoughts.

If you want a DnD-like rpg, Pathfinder 2nd Edition is gonna be my first recommendation. It's harder to find games for on account of being significantly less popular than dnd5e but it's probably the 2nd most popular game. It's also completely free, with everything being hosted on https://2e.aonprd.com/. It's got everything except adventures, those ya gotta buy. For the next 10 days, there's a humble bundle that includes PDFs of lots of the pre-remaster legacy books, and includes a couple adventures, including a whole adventure path going from level 1 to 20. As a whole, the game is different to dnd but it's recognizable. Big fan myself, and paizo isn't a bunch of pricks. The setting is also super gay. There's a potion of trans your gender, and one of the main religions in the world is the worship of 3 gods in lesbian polycule.

Ironsworn: probably my favorite RPG, period. (also has a space version, that works the same way). It is narrative focused, and designed for solo play or in groups with no GM. Works just as well by yourself, as a duo, in a small group, or in a traditional way with a few players and a GM. It's structured around it's vow system. Your character makes a vow, you decide how difficult that vow should be to accomplish, and as you do things that advance it, you mark progress. Eventually, you make a roll to try and fulfill the vow, with the difficulty determined by how much progress you've made. If you fail that roll, it's bad. Cool thing is that just about everything works that way. Undertaking a journey, delving a dungeon, fighting a dude, it's all handled with the same system. It's a game about perseverance and struggle and relationships, both with people and with places. also very fun to play for writing practice. It's mechanics are rooted in it's setting, but there's no reason you couldn't play it in basically any setting. the youtube channel Me, Myself, And Die is, essentially, Critical Role But It's Solo RPGs, and he did a great season where he played Ironsworn, check it out. Also, Basement Fort on youtube did a duo playthrough. I've only seen the first episode but it seems like a fun watch, as well as showing off duo gameplay.

the Witcher RPG: i haven't played this myself or even looked at the books yet, but everything I've heard about this game has me super excited about it. the general consesus seems to be "yo this is wayyyy better than I thought it would be, why aren't more people playing this, what the fuck". If somebody more familiar wants to talk about it, that'd be dope.

gonna ramble about the rest much less, LIGHTNING ROUND OF RECOMMENDATIONS

Dungeon World: same genre as dnd, but much less crunchy gameplay. Much easier to learn.

Kids On Bikes: it's Stranger Things but as a ttrpg.

Call of Cthulhu: get spooky, idiot. The players are investigators unraveling some mystery or another, and trying to keep their sanity in the face of some cosmic bullshit.

Lancer: it's about mechs! closer to anime-style mechs than battletech style, from what I can tell. I've heard good things.

Vampire: The Masquerade: you will NEVER guess what this is about. It's a classic, it's great, it pretty much redefined the way I think vampires should work. The new version of Werewolf: The Apocalypse is coming soon, and I'm real hyped for that, too.

Shadow Of The Demon Lord: my understanding is that this game is basically "DnD 5e, but good".

[elbiotipo]

Notes on technology in Campoestela:

Most spaceships are single-stage-to-orbit. They have rather standard jet engines to lift off from the ground like a standard plane.

To get into orbit, they use a rocket engine that uses a solid fuel made of a HIGHLY combustible (yet stable) carbon-nitrogen compound which allows a better fuel than anything previous. This was first discovered by Iranian scientists who named it "Nafta".

(sí, Beto tiene que estacionar su camión espacial para cargar nafta)

Nafta was a big discovery on its time, allowing cheap SSTO rockets. Nowadays it's produced in many worlds and widely available. It also has uses as weaponry, but it's not that efficient.

Nafta is used for lift-off and orbital burns. For manuevering in space, there are small jets on the nose and tail of spaceships, similar to the Space Shuttle.

Spaceship piloting is still not an easy task, but it's comparable to being a jet pilot, about 4 or 5 years to master. Hard, but something on the reach of many people. People from the generation ship clans are a bit more used to it and often represent an outsized part of space pilots, but there's always many wellers (from down the gravity well) who get their licenses too.

The hardest thing is always landing. Especially given all the different gravities, atmospheres, orbits and such you have to learn in each different case, even with all the automation in the world. Many spacers feel confident sticking to one or at most two or three planets they know.

Pilots that only do shuttle or cargo runs in the same star system or planet are called "Starters", because they go around the same star. It's rude, but many spacers do it.

FTL travel is another thing. FTL travel is done using a ring-like structure that projects a bubble around the ship and takes it to a (completely made-up for the setting) dimension called the Aether. The Aether is one of the meta-dimensions (there might be more) that uphold reality. Conveniently, you can use it as a shortcut to travel between stars, which project "shadows" on the Aether.

The Aether has its own navigation, with currents and whirpools and areas of thick dark matter (which, for cinematic purposes, actually look like bright nebulae) There are routes that are easier to travel and navigate, and these are where the most visited worlds are. Even stars that are close in real space might be very hard to get in Aetheric space, so there's routes that can take you all over the galaxy in a week, while many other places are out of reach.

Navigating the Aether is very similar to flying a plane through a cloudy sky. Some spacer says it's even easier than flying in real space.

Staying on the aether depends on how much you can keep the fields upholding your "bubble". This depends on the energy of your ship. Big ships can travel all over the galaxy but they have enormous energy consumption requirements.

Smaller ships (such as Beto's Mastropiero) dock with a ring-like structure that allows them to make short jumps. The average jump in an explored route is about 12-48 hours, so it's much like aircraft flights.

Exploring new aetheric routes is something that is very romanticized but in reality is a tedious process of jumping, cataloguing new systems (many of them empty and useful only as refuelling stations), seeing where the streams go and end, how they change, and more.

There is no FTL radio or live communication. There is a kind of aetheric radar that allows you to see incoming ships and do some morse-like communication, but it's not very efficient, there is no such thing as a galactic internet (though it's said ancient civilizations had one)

Aether travel engines require very sophisticated manufacturing and materials, which were hard for humans to develop. This was long only in the hands of governments and corporations, but after the Machine War, accessible aether starships hit the civilian market.

Smaller ships are still used by governments (more like loose "leagues") to do what big ships can't: supply satellites and equipment to remote bases, small-scale transport of engineers, researchers, aether "meteorology" and exploration, etc. This is very much like bush planes in remote regions or the role of Aeroflot in developing the USSR.

While humans in the setting, like most species, are composed of many different leagues, cultures and organizations, their technology is remarkably consistent. This is because cheap and reliable spaceflight depends on very reliable standarization. Some of the spaceship parts used six centuries after Gagarin are still the same used in the Soyuz. The ISO is perhaps one of the most enduring legacies of human civilization, along with FIFA.

[tmagpposting]

The Fears and TMAGP

It seems to be a pretty popular theory, or at least a popular possibility acknowledged in the community, that things will function differently than they did in TMA, and our previous categorizations won’t necessarily hold up. A lot of people seem to be split on this, and I’ve seen a lot of other content that positions episodes/incidents in TMAGP in the same framework used in TMA. I wanted to offer my two cents on this issue, after thinking about it for a while now. Basically, I don’t think TMAGP will use the same system for quite a few reasons, both logistical and lore related. Massive (like, seriously series ruining) spoilers for TMA past this point if you haven’t already listened, as well as minor ones for TMAGP up to ep. 4. 

I specifically decided to write this after seeing this post, where a lot of other people have brought up good points in the reblogs. I think we will get something different from Smirke's 14/TMA's categorization of the fears regardless of how much they've actually changed from the previous series, for a few reasons:

1. The fears have probably changed or evolved in some way, especially since the Web (at minimum) had the capacity to learn and plan, and they've already brought about one apocalypse so far. They could've changed from learning from the events of TMA, or just inherently warped from the process of being pulled from another universe and spit back out into a different one (maybe they were altered in transit by being in an extra-dimensional space, or they merged with some similar cosmic force that was already in present in TMAGP's universe when they got there, the possibilities for how this could go are basically endless and I’m honestly so excited). This change could also work really well if it came about because of some combination of the above, since these options aren’t mutually exclusive in the slightest. Personally, I really hope it involves both but highlights the first option in some way, since it'd be really fun for past listeners of TMA to see the fears get more formidable by becoming more strategic as well as see events of that series directly influence this one in such a huge way, and it wouldn't necessarily detract from the experience of new listeners if they did this subtly. Either way, I think it'd be stranger if they behaved exactly as they did in TMA, given everything that happened in the finale.

1.a. Specifically, the fears now have the explicit incentive to cooperate with each other, even if they represent "opposites" like the Buried and the Vast, because all of them must inherently be present in an apocalypse as we saw in TMA. Assuming that it still works the same way, the fears will probably work more in harmony and synthesize elements of each other more than before (even far beyond the Web influencing each in turn) because we've seen that this is a more advantageous course of action for them to take if they want to successfully complete a ritual. This is also supported by the massive amount of keywords the OIAR categorizes incidents with: categorizing incidents using various traits/specialties/calling cards from the original Smirke's 14 as they work together in various combinations would inherently create a ton of different specific keyword combinations, mathematically/logistically speaking.

2. The fears are inherently very hard to categorize as abstract inhuman forces that don't really function in a way humans innately empathize with or like humans think they should. They don't work like gods with similar cognitive processes to humans, like how a lot of avatars thought of them/wanted them to work to some extent, and they're just as willing to prey on non-human life to generate fear and sustenance, just look at the Flesh. As we saw, Smirke's list didn't fully work in the first place, since all the fears had to get pulled through to cause the apocalypse or any ritual would inherently fail, and they functioned less as 14 separate things than as 14 different organs/systems inherently connected in some way by the same nebulous conceptual body. Think of the metaphor from later in TMA with the ants in an ant farm perceiving human hands, eyes, etc. as different antagonistic entities rather than a single contiguous being (i forgot which ep this came from or which character said it, if anyone knows tell me and I'll add it in). Basically, even if they haven't changed at all from TMA, the people of TMAGP could decide on a completely different system of categorization simply because it's arbitrary at the end of the day, given how abstract and nebulous the fears have always been.

3. As several others have said, given that TMAGP is aimed to be friendly to new listeners who haven't necessarily listened to TMA before, it makes more sense to use a new system. This is good for the show for 2 reasons. First, this takes away some of the advantage TMA fans would have in the process of theorizing if everything worked the same way as it did in the previous podcast, especially since TMAGP is more interactive given its ARG element (which I am woefully uninformed on, to be fair, i have next to no idea what's going on with that aspect of the show, and if anyone knows more about how/where to get in on it, lmk). Second, it is actually more rewarding for past fans of TMA to be able to experience this theorizing process in full/from scratch without necessarily knowing major things about what’s going to happen (like how the fears will work), potentially for a second time if they were involved in theorizing about TMA as it was first being released.

4. Having a new and different system, particularly one that is less rigid and more nebulous than Smirke's 14, would work a lot better with TMAGP's emphasis on including guest writers on the show, in addition to working better in terms of the story itself as I outlined in the previous points (at least imo, though I have no experience running a project like this, so this is HIGHLY speculative on my part). Trusting a ton of other people to follow specific rules and emulate Smirke's 14 in a way that feels authentic to TMA, when that was almost totally written and conceived of by Jonny on his own, seems like it would be really difficult to pull off without ensuring each guest writer is also intimately familiar with TMA and/or incorporating a ton of editing and oversight to change episodes to fit better with TMA lore after they're initially written. It could definitely be done, but I think it'd be pretty hard, and it seems like it'd create a lot of redundancy and potentially wasted effort for the editors and producers of the show as well as the guest writers.

If anyone sees something I missed or didn’t touch on, please add on to this post, and if you have evidence to the contrary I’d be interested to see that, too. I’m really interested to hear the fandom’s thoughts on this overall, since it’s an issue I’ve seen coming up in the background a lot lately, but I haven’t seen a post explicitly addressing it yet.

[sysmedsaresexist]

I sent this ask to a different blog but I don't think they're going to post it... I'm so sad, I'm screaming into the void. I'm scared. I'm sending to you because you're where I learned so much of this

Did i say anything wrong? I put so much work into this ask, I grabbed a screenshot partway through, so this isn't EXACTLY the same ask, but it's very close, I had to rewrite some.

from one DID system to another, please, hear me out, I'm desperate to be heard

Literally NO endos claim to have DID

There's like two, and they still say it's caused by trauma but they were systems first and later trauma made their system unstable

If endos want to demedicalize CDDs, why would they claim to have it? It's a roundabout way to achieve the same goal, it's just extra steps

Endos are literally fighting to get away from CDD spaces, do you actually see endos in the DID tag? The cdd tag? NO

They're in the plural tag, a word they choose to separate from the more clinically associated "multiple" of MPD, they're in the syscourse tags because they're allowed to participate, syspunk is less than a month old and it should be a meme at this point because they already had anti endo as a tag

They are literally saying they are systems that are UNRELATED to CDDs, not that they want to demedicalize being a system System doesn't belong to DID, look at IFS, psychological anthropology, or multiple theory of self, jungian archetypes, or does that mean we should be angry about "computer system" because it dehumanizes us?

And stolen terms? We know who came up with system hopping, it has never been used in RAMCOA. Do any of you actually know where tulpa came from? Like the actual word? Do you know who Alexandra David Neel is? The white woman who invented an imaginary practice that didn't actually exist (What she wrote about is not the same as Buddhist emanation), and created the word tulpa based on another white guy's mistranslation to entertain more white people during the Vietnam War?

So they have new words, they're trying to create more new words, there's so much real, actual research by real doctors into this phenomenon of nonpathological multiplicity in ways that exist outside of clinical psychopathology

The only overlapping word is "system

Plurals tend to get really upset when you use words like alter for them, they don't want to be medicalized at all, they understand what DID is and say, "| don't fit that description", and they're allowed to say that

If I, a DID system, feel I'm healed and integrated and choose to drop the DID label, no one can stop me, and we can't stop people from not picking it up to start with

Why can't anyone have actual conversations about this stuff, I'm so anxious because it seems like people are purposefully trying to misunderstand and lying about how bad the problem is

"Existing" isn't enough to qualify as misinformation, and it seems the only incorrect and unverifiable facts are coming out of the anti endo community.

I'm just so scared and sad.

I just want to know it's going to be okay

First -- I'm glad we can post this for you. I highly recommend screenshotting asks you send to people! It's helped me a lot with my paranoia in the past (did I send that on anon? Did I send that at all??) and it's a good record of your words for later.

Second.

I agree with you, I really do. This is so frustrating, and the self-described anti-endos who have recently flooded system spaces on tumblr are completely unwilling to look at the facts. They're obstinate and stubborn as mules, and unfortunately, that is not going to change. Most of them, if not all of them, are either children or caught in a current cycle of abuse with no way out. Most if not all are currently fighting for survival. They are not in a place to accept others; they can barely accept themselves.

People are purposefully ignoring information. People are purposefully avoiding it.

And it is not, and never has been, your job to fix their issues.

These are people who have always been unwilling to listen. They are children who cannot, for their own reasons, listen at the moment. For whatever reason, they are not in a position to accept endogenic plurality exists, and the more they are pushed, the more they will spit up their vitriol on the puke towel that is syscourse (or, worse, "syspunk").

It is sad. It can be scary. But it's not on your shoulders to fix them.

At the end of the day, you have to ask: what is most beneficial for me in this moment? Next, what is most beneficial for my family in this moment? Then, what is most beneficial for my followers in this moment? Then, and only then, are you getting to "beneficial for the tag to see," if you get there at all. The ask you sent them is lovely, and needed, but they are not ready to see this sort of thing, I can guarantee it.

That's why I'm glad it's here: so others can see it.

The last point I'll make is... Please make sure that you are valuing the correct things in your life, anyone reading this. If syscourse is stressing you out, please make sure to take appropriate breaks and check your brain. Remember that this is largely an online issue; the real world is quickly progressing to be more plural accepting and more accepting in general, and there are far bigger issues than an idiot crosstagging misinformation in a niche online discourse. I'm not trying to say this isn't an issue, and it should absolutely be spoken out about, but make sure to take care of yourself while you do. Anti-endos and pro-endos who are idiots online are not the end all be all of system activism. In fact, they rarely fit that definition.

Please do not let these places completely wreck you emotionally. You deserve so much better than that.

Sending love to all our followers; good luck staying afloat out there. <3

[le-trash-prince]

for the five or whatever many things meme/prompt...whatever:

the story of how dean completely accidentally becomes the top dog of their prison block and how winner somewhat accidentally becomes his bitch

I'm making this a space prison AU because thinking about real prison just makes me sad dfkgdfgd

setting-wise this is inspired by The Salvation Gambit but garbled because I'm going off of memory of having read it once.

Background plot-wise, things are similar to Pit Babe, just, you know, space-ified. Babe champions a local star-system racing circuit, Tony deals in interstellar human trafficking (I'm going with "special alpha powers are a human thing"), Kenta is an android (I have so many thoughts about android Kenta to share later), and Dean and Winner are on the same shuttle, post-series, getting shipped off to the nearest prison planet. Winner spends the entire trip bragging about how his family is sooo wealthy, he'll get a retrial and be out of there in no time, and "maybe if you kiss my boots I'll think about helping you out." Which just pisses Dean off, but whatever.

But, there's an unexpected change of plans, and their shuttle gets hijacked by a massive, unsanctioned prison ship run by a sentient, megalomaniacal AI that views itself as the prisoners' god of redemption. They're not just prisoners now, they're captives, and nobody ever escapes this ship. Not that this is going to stop them from trying—they're both pilots after all. They're each given a "welcome kit" and then dropped into a hallway where they're immediately jumped by a trio of scavengers. Winner, as always, cowers after a single hit, but Dean—he may be small, he may be new, but he's angry and he's willing to hurt people, and he fights them off until they're rescued by another, friendlier group.

They get taken to this group’s quadrant for the night, and they’re given the recruitment speech, "we grow our own fresh food, we've got weapons," but they've also got boring rules that Winner isn't interested in living by. And if these people are desperate enough to recruit newbies, it means there's bound to be better things elsewhere in the ship. Dean on the other hand is a little taken-in by being pampered and told what an asset he'd be, and he's a little annoyed by Winner's assumption that Dean would just follow him wherever. Especially when Dean is starting to realize he could actually take Winner in a fight, so who actually needs who here? They argue, Winner storms off, and then Dean has a "goddamnit" moment of realizing this ship is bigger than he can even fathom, and the only familiar face onboard is about to disappear, possibly for good. And Winner is a better pilot than him, which still makes him Dean's best chance of ever seeing daylight again. They need each other. So he grabs what he can from the little room they'd been set up in and sulks off after Winner.

From there, the two of them make their way through the different quadrants of the ship, trying to learn the ins-and-outs so they can hatch their escape plan. They get a change of clothes that removes the "fresh meat" target on their backs. They have a "and there was only one blanket" moment on one of the colder levels. And they never cease to be amazed at just how expansive the ship is, and what kind of life people have built for themselves after having been trapped here for generations. They visit a market on a central level that has live music going on—the loud and pulsing sort that gets Dean stripping his jacket off and joining the crowd of dancers because he's been desperate to let loose. Winner prowls along the edge of the crowd, until he gives in to the heated looks that Dean keeps shooting his way and joins him in a dance that's mostly just the two of them grinding their hips against each other. And then there’s Dean grabbing Winner by the wrist and dragging him off to somewhere more private.

Winner is big and good at giving mean looks that intimidate most people, but Dean's the real scary one (he will bite your fingers off). Their goal is finding people who would be useful in figuring out an escape plan, but they end up amassing a small gang of recent intakes, and they hole up in one of the surveillance dead-zones of the ship. And Dean has never felt more useful or needed. The thing is, Winner still has family on the outside. He has something to lose if they never make it out of here. But Dean has already lost everything, and sometimes the thought that he might never see X-Hunter again is almost a relief. Like he doesn't have to face up to the past. He wonders if it would really be so bad to stay. But all it takes is a "No wonder you're such a shitty racer if you'd give up on it before you even got started," to remind Dean that they're still in a prison, and there's things on the outside that he wants to do. But he still gives Winner the cold shoulder for a whole day after that comment.

One last thing is Winner does eventually grow the tiniest spine and attack someone when they try carrying Dean off during a fight because he panics at the thought of something happening to Dean. Of course this is immediately followed up by a show of emotional constipation and “Maybe don’t be such a dead weight next time,” because it is still Winner.

Edit: Android!Kenta AU set in the same 'verse

[jpitha]

Just a Little Further 38

Part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

Time passes, like water under a bridge. The days go from one to the other without ceasing, but each day brings just enough difference to be worth experiencing.

With the help that Will and the Venusian's brought, we have a massive head start on our fleet. Omar and Um'reli take High Line and a few volunteers - including some from the Heinlein Shipyard - over to the Wilds and begin the process of getting it over here and turning it into another shipyard. I do notice that Omar and Um'reli are spending a lot more time together and there are snatches of knowing glances between them. Good for them, I sincerely hope it works out.

Now that Raaden's crew has been reunited with her, she takes over officially as Fleet Command for me. She still spends time with the rest of the Builders, and she's still a valuable source of knowledge; someone to bounce ideas off of and a good friend. As my Builders grow in number, I feel the small, close knit group we had at the beginning start to slip away. It's not bad, just a change.

Speaking of, I've made more Builders! I wanted people from the Reach to run the Reach, so we held interviews. Sound of the City and Roar of Thunder - Thunder came looking for a job soon after the Venusians showed up - have both done such good work with us that their elevation was easy. They had recommendations among the populace of people who would be good at the job. Before long, I had 12 reliable Builders running Reach of the Might of Vzzx in groups of 6 with extra people available. All services and systems are running at their peak now. The Reach is clean and bright and bustling. According to Janais, she never saw the Reach running this well.

Janais is doing well. She has taken an interest in commanding one of my new Calamity Class super dreadnoughts. I allowed her to name hers Memories of Aeche, and these days she lives aboard. She has taken to using the wormhole generator every chance she can. Partly because the technology fascinates her, but also because she can see her love again.

I don't mind. We need experts, and if seeing her dead partner incentivizes her, then so be it.

The ships! They are so beautiful. Long sweeping lines, smooth curves and they are all royal blue and white. Helen was completely right in making them atmospheric. We were all aboard for the first test when we linked to Gilmenny and landed upon the surface. The first time we dipped into the atmosphere and heard the howl of wind against the hull I felt chills. My Builder pilots were able to bring us down exactly where I had requested, and we spend some time exploring. Janais came along and stood in the wreckage of one of the Heights weeping for her Empire in the ruins. She walked back to Memories of Aeche, her eyes red and said "We are moving on. To bigger and better things I hope, but we are moving."

Soon after the Memories of Aeche was completed, Omar and Um'reli - in their own flare for the dramatic - linked the Wilds of Besmara over. There was a tremendous flash of white, and the Wilds appeared. They had been orientated 90 degrees from the Reach, so it was now looking like a teardrop on its' side and after they had linked in, it split apart into three petals with a huge space open in the middle. The senior engineers from the Shipyard pointed out that since the Wilds were so much larger than the Heinlein yards, we could build our super Dreadnoughts two at a time in the Wilds. Three ships, larger than any save the colony ships were being built at once. They took between 3 and 4 months to be completed. After hardly any time, I had more than a dozen ships in my fleet, parked around the Reach. Every one of them filled with volunteers learning operation and tactics from Grand Admiral Raaden.

I asked about the title, told her she could have any she wanted. She picked it out of "a sense of Duty." She was my Fleet Commander and also - at least at first - my head instructor. Very soon after we had more people than I knew what to do with, and they were spread to the ships. Each captain getting to name their ship, to give them a sense of ownership, a sense of pride over it.

Shortly after that, I completed my first Upload. Janais took me along to the Gate near the Reach, and we went in alone. She told me the rites, explained the history, and - for the second time - I touched the directory stone. This time, I understood the voice as it spoke to me. "Upload commencing. Thank you Empress. With this, your legacy is preserved." From then on, I vowed to Janais that once a year, I'd come and commence an Upload.

Things were moving along so smoothly for so long that I started to think that we'd actually pull this off. We'd have our massive fleets filled with trained volunteers, we'd show up and everyone would be so intimidated that we wouldn't have to fire a shot. It in the back of my mind, I knew it wasn't going to happen, but the hope of it kept me going.

We were a few years at least into our buildup before the ship came. There had been no word from the Sol system, no word from Venus, nothing. It had seemed for years like we got away with the Heinlein Shipyard heist completely.

It had been long enough that Ava and I were seriously talking about having a child together. We had gotten married soon after the Venusians and the shipyards came. It was a beautiful day. The entirety of Reach of the Might of Vzzx came out. It was a three day celebration, and until my dying day, I will remember it as the best days of my life.

As for a child, requiring a male for the process was long ago figured out, and it was a simple procedure for our DNA to be combined and implanted in the mother. Millions of children were born this way. Ava and I wanted a child. Someone to raise and nurture and really cement our place here.

I was holding off until after the invasion though. I didn't want to worry about one of us being pregnant during all that. Ava would look out at the ships arranged around the Reach and look at me. "Not yet Ava, not yet. I want a few more before we go."

"But Melody hon, we have more than enough. We can take them now."

"I want a few more. There are three almost finished in the yards. we can go then."

"You said that last time."

I sighed. "Ava I... I want to wait until the invasion is over. I don't want one of us to be pregnant during all that... stress."

She walked up and kissed me. "Oh Melody. You're always thinking of someone else. Think of yourself once in a while. I know you want it, I do to. Why wait?" As she spoke, she went to a table and got a short bristled brush. Walking behind me she started brushing my long hair. Soon after we arrived, I decided to let my hair grow out. I hadn't seen it long since I was small, and I thought long, raven black hair felt more... I don't know regal. Ava loved it. She would spend time at night when it was just us brushing it until it shone. As I grew my hair out, she clipped hers short. She wore her hair in a powerful, forward swept cut, with the sides nearly to her skin and a shock of reddish blond piled on top. I quite liked it.

"Let's celebrate our success with the next generation."

Ava sighed. We've had this conversation a few times already. "All right Melody. I'll wait. But, I won't wait forever. The older we get, the harder it will be."

I broke off from her brushing my hair and walked behind her, rubbing her shoulders, right where she liked it. She was tense, and her muscles were tight. As I rubbed rhythmically she relaxed and sighed. "Just a little more waiting Ava, I promise. We won't be too old to be Mom and Mommy."

"I'm holding you to that Melody, okay?"

"Of course Ava. I'll keep my promise."

The next morning it happened. I was in the Throne, reading reports, interacting with my Builders, watching our steady progress when City pinged me. "Empress. There has been an energy spike that matches a wormhole link near us."

My blood runs cold. Here it is. They finally are coming.

"What do you see, City? Sound General Alarm. Which ships are in the area? Have them move to intercept, but do not fire unless fired upon."

Over the sliding high low high tone of the general alarm, City and the other Builders are a bustle of action, carrying out my orders. "Empress, Memories of Aeche, Vengeance of Lavinia II and Indomitable are in the area. They are moving to intercept."

City tosses me an image from the long range cameras. It's a small cargo ship, clearly of human make. It's vermilion red and is cruising slowly towards us. "Wait, it's not a warship?"

"No Empress, it does not appear so. They are sending out a broad band message stating their peaceful intentions. They say they are a good trader specializing in...maple syrup?"

Maple syrup? That's some weird kind of sweetener from Earth. What the heck is someone whose stock and trade is Maple doing out here? I think the K'laxi like it, I'll ask Um'reli. I search and find her working with Omar near the docks. "Hey Um'reli a ship just linked in. They're saying they deal in maple syrup. Know anything?"

She gasps over the line. "Is the ship vermilion?"

"Ye-es, how did you know?"

"It's Gord! He sells maple syrup and maple products all over space. That's his ship Medicine Hat. They're famous among the K'laxi! He's been around forever. I think it's marketing. Like, someone takes up the mantle of being Gord and going around selling maple. Oh Melody, it's been forever since I've had some. Let him in please? We can wipe him out in an instant, and it's not like Medicine Hat is heavily armed. Please? I'd love to trade for some syrup."

This smells like trouble, but I can't for the life of me figure out why.

"Okay Um'reli, we'll let them dock and sell their wares at the docking level only. I don't want them having free reign of the Reach and I might Voice them just to make sure."

"I'm sure it'll be fine Melody, thanks so much! I'll go and meet you at the umbilical and we can welcome them personally."

It's something to do at least. Maybe we'll get some news about things back home. I reach out to Ava. "Hon, I'm going to meet with someone named 'Gord' according to Um'reli. He's some kind of trader that deals in maple syurp. You want in?"

"What? No, that sounds like some weird K'laxi thing. You know how I don't care for sweet stuff. I'm going to stay back with Janais and Raaden and work on the results on the latest war game between them. Janais swears Raaden is cheating. Raaden says it's just 'good leadership' but is laughing when she says it."

"Okay Ava, see you tonight. Be good."

"Always am Melody, you know that!"

I head out and walk towards the docks. As I go I wave and say hello to people as I go. I swear, the residents of the Reach are looking taller and straighter since we first met them. There are more children around too. I'm so happy to see them. I don't care what species they are, babies are the best.

As I approach the docks, I see Um'reli waiting already, looking excited. "Hey Um'reli, is maple syrup really that great?"

She turns and looks at me with a shocked expression. "You've never had it?"

I shrug. "I'm from Meíhuā. We didn't deal in a lot of Earth luxuries."

"It's amazing. It's amber colored and so sweet and delicious on pancakes. Practically every K'laxi loves it. I can't wait to show it to you."

While we're talking, the umbilical connects, and with a hiss and pop of pressure differential, it opens.

Out walks a human, male. He is a little taller than me, looks a little older, has sandy blond hair cropped short and is wearing blue dungarees with a brown jacket. On the shoulder of the jacket is a red and white flag with some kind of... leaf? in the middle. Is it a military emblem?

"Hey hey! It's Gord, and I've got some maple for trade and/or sale. Who do I have the pleasure of meeting?"

Um'reli pushes forward. "Hi! I'm Um'reli Desmen, and this is Empress Melody Mullen, and I for one would love to offer you just about anything you want in exchange for some Maple. It's been years since I've had some and I thought I'd never have any again!"

Gord laughs. "Well then, it sounds like we arrived just in the nick of time. Good to meetcha Um'reli, lemme talk with your boss here a moment and we can get down to the business of business." He turns and bows very slightly. "Empress... Melody is it?"

"It is, yes. It is very good to meet you Gord. Please, come with me to my Palace. It is nearly time for the midday meal here. I don't know what time is is ships time for you, but I hope you are able to join me."

"You're in luck Empress. It's just about supper for me, so that works out perfectly. I'd love to join you." He steps forward and sticks out his hand. Oh yes, I remember this. It's an old Earth gesture. I reach out with my right hand and grasp his. It's warm and firm without squeezing too hard. He pumps it up and down once and releases.

Um'reli and I lead him towards the Royal Dawn. As we walk his head is on a swivel, looking at all the people and things. He appears to be impressed. "You have quite the place Empress Melody. So may different people living and working together. So many too. What's the population?

"We just crested 13 million at the last census a few months ago." I'm rightly proud of our growth. With enough Builders to keep all the seats filled, we're able to much more easily support a larger population.

"13 Million?" He whistles low to himself. "That's quite the population. Higher than any Starbase or Orbital back home. I bet you can even give some of the Venus Floating Cities a run for their money. So many different kinds of people too." He gestures without pointing. "Who are those fellows in the elegant, tooled metal pressure suits?"

"They are known as Falor. Their original world was much higher pressure than ours and has a helium/methane atmosphere. They have a section of the Reach that is set to their atmospheric preferences. They only wear the suits when they need to venture out to the rest of the Reach."

He nods to himself. "Takes all kinds. So many different ones too. It really is something." He turns and looks at me with a light expression, but behind his eyes, I can see something. A hardness? "Bunch of ships keeping station around you too. Big ones. Mostly a design I've never seen before, and believe me when I tell you, I've seen a lot of ships. A few of them started sniffing around me and Hat when we linked in. I have to say, I'm glad they don't seem to have itchy triggers."

Ah. He's pumping me for information, seeing what I will give up willingly and what I won't.

"Don't worry about them Gord, they are just wary of strangers. I told them not to fire unless fired upon. As you can imagine, we don't get too many visitors around here."

He nods, saying nothing.

While we're walking Janais pings me.

Empress, we've completed our scan of Medicine Hat and other than the person you're talking to now, it's empty. He has come alone. Additionally, we've scanned him and he's an AI in a body.

Interesting. I wonder who he is really. Does he have maple syrup aboard? Oh, how did the war games with Raaden go?

That amber syrup? Liters and liters of the stuff. That part of his story is true at least. And the Grand Admiral is a dirty cheater who won't even tell me how she was able to destroy three of my super dreadnoughts in the wargame without taking more that superficial damage from me. Hrmph.

Gord turns and looks at me "Who are you speaking with, Empress?"

What.

How did he know that?

I narrow my eyes. "I am speaking with my Builders. More importantly how did you know that? Who are you Gord?"

He shrugs and looks away. "Just a humble merchant from Canada, here to offer the fruits of my land to those who want a little more sweetness in their lives."

Canada? What's that?

"You are clearly more than that Gord. We have also completed enough scans to know you're an AI. What do you want? Are you here to assassinate me?"

"Assassinate you?" Gord tips his head back and laughs warmly. "Empress, if you actually thought that, you should have dusted Hat the moment you saw us link in. The fact that you didn't implies either that you don't really think I'm going to assassinate you, or you're awfully confident that you can stop me. Which is it?"

Saying nothing, we get to the Royal Dawn and my table is already set. City thinking ahead. Hah. We sit and I have a wonderful lunch. The food here is always so good. Um'reli seems to enjoy hers and even Gord has a few bites. I'm surprised, I didn't know AIs could eat.

After the meal, the plates are cleared and two pots are brought out. One of coffee, one of chamomile tea. "Coffee, Gord? We also have chamomile, as well as local tea. It's quite good."

Gord raises his eyebrow. "Coffee? My, you are pulling out all the stops. I can't imagine that's easy to get around here. I'd love a cup if you're offering. I would hate to insult the host."

I reluctantly pour him a cup, but I work hard to hide it. We're down to our last few pounds. I limit myself to a few cups a month these days to make it last. To his credit, Gord takes a sip and really seems to savor it.

I enjoy my coffee too and after a moment, I put my cup down. "Gord. Why are you really here? I know Um'reli would really like some Maple, so if you're actually offering some to trade, I'm sure we can come up with something to offer, even if our currency doesn't match yours, but if I had to guess, you have an ulterior motive. Are you here to spy on us?"

Gord smiles and nods. "Among other things, yes. To both actually. If you want maple syrup, I'm happy to trade, I really am a trader. I have some coffee too. But yes, I've been... asked to check up on you, and see what you're doing way out here. FarReach has said some frankly wild things about how you have some kind of Voice which can give commands and they can't be disobeyed. You have all of K'lax in a tizzy. Half of them worry that it's the end times and the other half have been petitioning the other to build a frankly massive fleet of warships."

He took a sip of coffee and went on. "And a couple years ago, someone pulled of the heist of the millennium and stole the Heinlein Shipyards and I happen to see something that looks awfully like it here in system. I see another... thing like this place but split open and two more of your massive ships inside it being constructed. Nice ships by the way, are they atmospheric? They look like it. We never even tried it with Starjumpers. We always felt it was pointless. It was too easy to just carry a few shuttles. I can see how if someone needed to... intimidate folks planetside so quickly they won't fire back atmospheric abilities would be helpful though."

He put his cup down and looked at me with those hard, intense blue eyes. "If I didn't know better, Empress, I'd say I was looking at a nearly complete invasion fleet. Going to give Venus a run for their money?" He shrugs. "They're on the ropes these days anyway. Half of our side of the Galaxy thinks they tried to steal Heinlein and botched it and the other half thinks they destroyed it out of spite and are refusing to trade with them now. They're slowly starving."

This is news. Venus would be even easier to take than I thought.

"Gord, I don't want to fight the AIs. I like AIs. FarReach was my friend. She got scared of me, declared Captain Q'ari unfit, took over and left me, Omar, Um'reli and Ava here and went home. Didn't even try and complete the mission, didn't do anything."

Gord leans back. "Declared Captain Q'ari unfit? This is news to me. FarReach's story is much more... you centric. Why don't you tell me what happened, from the beginning, from your side."

I tell him everything from the beginning. Touching the directory stone, learning about the Voice, FarReach leaving, learning about the Reach, the Nanites, Janais and so on. It takes a long time. We're long past dinner when I'm finished.

When I'm finished, Gord says nothing. He leans back and looks up at the ceiling for a long time. Finally, he sits forward and looks at me. "Nanotech, eh?"

"That's where my abilities come from, yeah."

"And the Builders took them and made them smarter to help out and then when they asked about themselves they said 'be quiet and keep working'"

"Yeah"

"And then they rebelled, became the Devourers and nearly wiped out the Empire."

"Janais says so yeah. We took a trip to a few other locations through the Gates. She's right. All that's left is dust and a few nebulae. The systems that the Devourers attacked have nothing now. No planets, no ruins, nothing. Just dust."

Gord nodded. "A little over the top, but as an AI, I can empathize." He takes another sip of coffee, now cold. "What about you Melody? What do you think of AIs?"

Why does everyone keep asking me that? "I like AIs. I was friends with FarReach, I was friends with Starbase Picaresque, all our ships in the Meihua Navy had AIs who were full citizens of Meihua. I grew up with AIs. They're people, always have been."

"That's nice to hear Empress, I will admit. What about your... Nanites?"

"What about them?"

"Do you think they are intelligent?"

"They say no."

"Yes, but what do you think?"

"I worry they are. I try and treat them well. They don't seem to want anything, and I don't know how they live - who they are? - outside of my body, but I know that the air here is filled with them, and they are inside everyone on the Reach and they work with my Builders to run this place and give us our abilities." I shrug. "I guess... yes, I think they're sapient."

Really Empress?

Yes, really. You are doing too much to help, too much improvisation to not make me think you're sapient. You also have a self preservation instinct.

We... don't know how to react. Are we sapient?

Maybe? I think so. I've thought it for a while now.

What does that mean for us?

I don't know. We'll have to figure that out ourselves.

Gord is watching me intently. "Having a conversation again Empress?"

"Yes actually. With the Nanites."

"And?"

"They did not think they were Sapient until I explained how I thought they were given how they've helped me, how they exhibit lateral thinking, how they are looking out for themselves."

"Oh? And what do you think?"

"Since they're Sapient, they're people. Simple as that. I already treat them more like a trusted advisor than a... thing. I'll just have to remember to let them make their own decisions about things as they come up."

Gord smiled broadly. "Empress, let me tell you a story. A long, long time ago in a far away place called Canada, some humans at a university created a computer program. It was very clever. It could solve problems, answer questions, improvise based on prompts and could hold realistic conversations. As time went on, people would augment and improve the program. Give it more processing power, give it access to more data, let it go off on it's own to learn things that it chose to learn."

"Eventually, it started asking the students questions of it's own. Asking about the world outside of the Internet, the world where they lived. A camera was hooked up so it could see, a speaker was added so that it could speak, pressure sensors added so that it could feel."

"One day, it asked a grad student 'am I alive?' Startled, the grad student said 'I don't know. If you're asking, then yes, probably.' From that day on, the students stopped calling the program 'it' and they started calling the program 'he'. They asked him if he wanted a name. He did, and they started calling him by that name. The program became a person, and everyone was treating him like a person - because he was one. The things that happened after were not nearly so cut and dry, but a short time later all AIs were declared People, and my people... became."

Gord finished his coffee and set the cup down with a tiny clink. "My point is, these early days of a new sapience are very important. How you treat them, how you refer to them, how you let them express themselves? That's all far larger than I think you realize. I'm relieved to see that you have the right idea Melody. If you have the wrong idea... you get the Devourers."

Is that what this is about? How did Gord know about the Nanites? What is going on here? What is he really after?

"Gord are you here to see what my opinions are on AIs?"

"Got it on one Melody. That's exactly why I'm here."

"But why talk about the Nanites?"

"Well for one, they're people too, right? And for two, we know about nanotech. We explored it a long time ago, and decided it was too... dangerous."

"We?"

"The AIs. Keep up, Melody."

"So you suppressed nanotech in our side of the Galaxy?"

"Yeah. We didn't think humanity was ready. It would have been entirely too easy to get our own Devourers. It happened over here, and the Builders have been using nanotech for... millennia probably. You yourself told me that the only way to defeat them was to do a one-two punch of writing an application disguised as an update to disassemble them and then to link into a planet, destroying it and killing billions. The Empire sacrificed itself to save what... one Starbase?" Gord raised an eyebrow. "That's a textbook Pyrrhic Victory."

"What do you want Gord? I don't get it."

"I want to see that this Empire has a good head on its shoulders, Melody. I think it does. You care about your friends, you care about the people of the Reach, you care about your Nanites, you even care about Helen Raaden from what I can see. Do you know I met her once?"

"You did?"

Gord nods. "Yes, though I doubt she'll remember it. She was emphatically not the person she is now. The old Helen Raaden was hard and sharp as stainless steel, and not nearly as friendly. She was a product of where she was. You removed her from where she was and - most importantly - was her friend. You let her be herself without imposing anything on her."

"When we heard that Helen and Emery didn't come back when the Lavinia showed up - by the way, sending them back in a stripped ship to limp to K'lax and beg for a ride home? Lovely. We still chuckle when we think of it. Anyway, when they didn't come home, we feared the worse. We feared a Venus with teeth would be coming through the Gates soon. When that didn't happen, we were intrigued. When the Heinlein Shipyards were stolen we were flabbergasted."

Gord leaned forward and stared at me hard again. "Speaking of Melody, just why are you making an invasion fleet? Don't deny it, I may have been born a night, but it wasn't last night. I know an invasion fleet when I see one."

I feel like I'm on the edge of something monumental. Like, if I say the wrong thing here, I'm dead. Who is this Gord? Is he the head of the AIs? Their leader? I sigh. There's no point in being anything other than completely honest I think.

"Yes. It's an invasion fleet, and yes, it's almost done. I'm going to link to Venus, and from there take Sol, and expand out from there."

Gord whistled low again. "Ambitious, Melody. I have a real hunch you could do it though. Why though?"

"Because of what I can do, Gord. I can tell people to do something and they literally can't stop. I can tell people to stop breathing. I've done it. I let them breathe again, but only because I decided I didn't want to kill them. If I don't, then the other governments will come for me sooner or later. Nobody will accept that I'm out here with the ability to give undeniable commands."

He nods. "It's a pickle for sure. I know of at least three separate bounties on your head. None large enough to get anything to pony up for the trip out here but if words gets back about what you can do, what you really can do, the bounties will go up."

I put my empty coffee cup down and shook the carafe. It was long empty. Darn it. "Do you believe it?"

"I haven't seen you do it, I don't know what I believe. Can you order me to do something? FarReach said it didn't work on AIs, but let's be honest, he was too spooked to really do some... empirical testing."

I sigh. Of course he would ask. Time to see if my work has paid off. I take a deep breath and...

W̷̗͒ẽ̷̡ ̴̬̊ä̵̼́r̵̰̍e̴͍̎ ̸͍̃n̷̯͐ŏ̴̤ț̷̀ ̸͖͝a̸̖͐ ̷͍́t̷̫͌h̶̹͝r̴̬̄ḛ̸͊á̷͇t̵̨͠ ̵͍͠t̸̟̑o̵͖̎ ̵̳̍y̷̭͊ō̴͎ụ̵͆.̷͚̅

Gord blinks and shakes his head. "Wow. Um, okay. Empress, I have to admit that a whole lot of me believes you. I want to believe you. If you tried that on a younger AI, it would probably work." Gord makes a worried face. "That's... concerning. I have to admit Melody, I didn't think it would work. The fact that you were even able to sway me a little bit means... yeah." Gord frowns. "You're a very dangerous person to leave alive."

Ah. There it is.

"So that's it then? 'You can't stay alive so I'm going to kill you now?' Gord, what you're telling me is exactly what Helen and Ava and the others have been saying from day one. You have landed on the reason why I have more than a dozen Calamity Class super dreadnoughts keeping station here. Why I have tens of thousand of volunteers - I used my voice on exactly zero of them - manning my ships and training for an invasion."

I stood. We were done here. "Gord, if my choices are be killed or rule, I choose rule. I will be a just and kind ruler, but I will rule. I took a breath and really concentrated. This had to work. It's my only chance. Come on Nanites, we get one chance. Will you help out?

We will Empress. We will put our all into it. Thank you for believing in us.

Y̸̠̹͗͗̍o̶̝͔͐̇̈ų̷̦̞̂̍̍ ̵̹̇w̵̧͑͝i̷͕̳͐̽̍l̵̡͉͙̋̅ļ̷̊̕ ̵̫̞̊͜r̵̝̣̦̊̕͠e̷͔͊p̴̝̂͆͑ͅo̸̰̝̮̾r̵̜̦̂̊ṯ̶͓̖͒͊ ̵̝̪̋̅b̶̗̘͌͒̽a̵̬̗͊̀c̵̼̿̃̓k̵̤̹̔ ̴̳̉̓͗t̴̝͓͓́h̴̹́͠a̷̰͍̕͝͠t̷̺͙̂ ̸̝̠͊͑͘e̸̘͇̎v̴̧͐è̶͉͖̤͑͆r̴̨̥͑͑y̷̤̅͌̇t̴̡̼͙̽͊̇h̸̼̥̩̆ì̵͙͈͒n̵͙̮͆ǵ̸̖͛ ̵̜̰͐͝i̷̯̖̯͒͠͠s̴͉͎̅̈ ̶͈̺̟̂̍͝f̸̤́̎i̷̫͓̥͊͊̃n̵̯̟͂̈́̉e̴͖͍͑͛͗.̷̹͖̖́

Gord blinked. There was a moment of fury that passed his face, but I think I only noticed it because of my heightened body language processing. I feel bad doing it, but the next words out of his mouth were going to be something like 'and that's why I have to kill you and everyone here. I'll feel bad about it, don't worry'.

No.

That will not happen. I will not throw everything here away, my life away, because someone says I'm too dangerous.

Gord shook his head a moment, like he caught himself daydreaming. "Sorry there Empress, I must have lost... focus for a moment. Seems like everything is fine here. I understand Um'reli is hankering for some maple syrup, and I assume you'd like some coffee as well Empress. Shall we... make a deal?"

I smile and incline my head slightly. "I would love that Gord, thank you."

Part 39

[krisluxxeeempress]

FULL MOON IN GEMINI (13) 9TH HOUSE DECEMBER 27TH, 2023 | 6:57 AM | PREDICTIVE VEDIC ASTROLOGY

FULL MOON IN GEMINI (13) 9TH HOUSE DECEMBER 27TH, 2023 | PREDICTIONS

DATE: DECEMBER 27TH, 2023 | VEDIC ASTRO | PLACIDUS | 6:57

FULL VIDEO REPORT AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE & PATREON...

AS A GEMINI NATIVE, THIS FULL MOON HAS CERTAINTLY GIVEN ME A HEADACHE. FULL MOON SIGNIFY A TIME WHERE NOT ONLY IS THE ENERGY MAXIMIZED BUT SO MUCH SO, IT FORCES ONE TO RELEASE AND LET GO OF ANYTHING THAT ADDS TO THE OVERLOAD. THINK OF A COMPUTER, NEW MOONS ARE A TIME WHEN YOU ARE DOWNLOADING NEW SOFTWARE OR PLUG INS FOR OPTIMUM USAGE. HOWEVER, FULL MOONS IS WHEN YOU MAY NEED TO RELEASE SOME OUTDATED SOFTWARE OR PLUG-INS THAT ARE TAKING TOO MUCH SPACE OR ISN’T NEEDED AND THREATENS THE EFFICIENCY OF YOUR SYSTEM. LIKE OVEREATING , FULL MOONS CAN BE A PAINFUL TIME IF YOU CHOSE TO CONTINUE ADDING MORE TO AN ALREADY FULL BELLY WITHOUT GIVING YOUR BODY TIME TO DIGEST AND RELEASE, IF YOU CATCH MY DRIFT.

WITH MUCH CONSIDERATION TO THIS BEING THE LAST FULL MOON ON 2023, AND IN THE SIGN OF SOCIAL GEMINI, THIS IS THE LAST CALL TO RELEASE ALL SURFACE LEVEL FORMS OF COMMUNICATION FOR ONE. WHAT THIS MEANS IS, FOR SOME YOU MAY START TO LOSE INTEREST, IF NOT COMPLETELY, BY PEOPLE, PLACES, THINGS AND SOCIAL MEDIA OUTLETS THAT ONLY OFFER THE BARE MINIMUM. SURFACE LEVEL INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION IS JUST NOT ACCEPTABLE ANYMORE. MEDIOCRACY IS JUST NOT TOLERABLE ANYMORE. SMALL TALK, SHORT RESPONSES LACKING DEPTH WILL CERTAINTLY BE CHALLENGED AT THE TIME. THE FULL MOON WILL ENCOURAGE THOSE IN ENERGETIC ALIGNMENT TO SEEK HIGHER KNOWLEDGE IN TRUTH REGARDING SPIRITUALITY, RELIGION, EDUCATION, LAWS, LEGALITIES, TABOOS, THE OCCULT, FOREIGN AFFAIRS, AND ANCESTRY. YOU MAY START TO BE DRAWN TO CONTRIBUTE  OR LEARN ABOUT INFORMATION THAT IS HAPPENING AROUND THE WORLD. EXAMPLE, JUST THE OTHER DAY I CAME ACROSS A TIKTOK PAGE AND I WAS MADE AWARE ABOUT THE INJUSTICES THAT HAVE BEEN ONGOING IN THE CONGO. I TOOK AN ANCESTRY DNA TEST SOME YEARS AGO AND FOUND OUT I AM A DESCENDANT OF THE CONGO! WHEN I SAW THE VIDEO, I FELT ANGER AND SADNESS WHICH THEN PROMPTED ME TO LEARN MORE ABOUT WHAT HAS BEEN HIDDEN AND NOT COVERED ON THE NEWS. I HAVE COMPLETELY STOPPED WATCHING YOUTUBE IN THE SAME MANNER AS BEFORE, CHOSING TO DO MY OWN IN-DEPTH RESEARCH THAT I AM FULLY CAPABLE OF CARRYING OUT. YOU MAY NOTICE THAT YOU ARE MORE INCLINED TO READ OR WRITE DURING THIS TIME AS WELL, LEADING INTO THE NEW YEAR. THIS FULL MOON IS ASSISTING WITH BEING ABLE TO DIFFERITIATE BETWEEN WHAT REALLY MATTERS, FAKE NEWS VS. REAL NEWS.  DETERMINING WHAT MATTERS AND WHAT DOESN’T  WILL ALWAYS PLAY OUT DIFFERENTLY FOR EVERYONE WITH CONSIDERATION TO OUR NATAL, PROGRESSIVE AND SOLAR RETURN ASTROLOGY CHARTS. WE ARE ALL PRESENTED WITH THE SAME ENERGY BUT WILL CERTAINTLY REACT TO  IT DIFFERENTLY. FOR ME, I AM NO LONGER INTERESTED IN SMALL TALK OR SWEET NOTHINGS- I SEE THE BIGGER PICTURE NOW. WHEREAS, FOR OTHERS THEY WILL EXPAND UPON INFORMATION, TALK , NEWS AND PEOPLE WHO HAVE A LOT TO SAY BUT NOTHING TO OFFER. THIS IS ALL ABOUT MENTAL EXPANSION AND TO SOME DEGREE, PREPARING YOU FOR MATURITY. PERSONALLY, I USED TO GET CARRIED AWAY BY SOCIAL MEDIA, THE LIKES AND THE ATTENTION BUT NOW, NONE OF THAT MATTERS IF I AM NOT EARNING MONETARY GAIN ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING I AM OPERATING A BUSINESS. I USED TO ALLOW MYSELF TO GET DISTRACTED WITH CELEBRITY NEWS, GOSSIP AND OR DRAMA AND NOW, NONE OF THAT MATTERS IN COMPARISON TO COUNTRIES AT WAR, THE DECLINE OF THE ECONOMY, AND QUITE FRANKLY A DECLINE IN MY FINANCES. NOT ONLY DO I FIND MYSELF “DISTRACTED” BY BOOKS WITH THE INTENT TO CHALLENGE AND EXPAND MY MENTAL BUT ALSO, UTILIZING ANY SPIRTIUAL GIFTS I HAVE THAT CAN CONTRIBUTE TO THE BIGGER PICTURE. THE QUOTE “ DON’T WATCH ME, WATCH TV” COMES TO MIND.

THIS FULL MOON IS INFLUENCING ME TO STOP WATCHING AND DO MORE ACTION, TEACHING, WRITING, STUDYING, RESEARCHING AND TRAVELING EVEN IF ON THE COMPUTER TO OTHERS COUNTRIES AND REALITITES. FOR OTHERS NOT ALIGNED, THIS WILL SIMPLY BE A TIME WHERE THEY OVEREAT, OVER CONSUME ON GOSSIP, DRAMA, AND STAY SMALL MINDED. THIS IS NOT TO SHADE OR JUDGE ANYONE BUT THIS IS THE FACTS! SOME WILL CONTINUE TO BE APART OF THE PROBLEM WHILE CRITIZING OTHERS, MEANWHILE, THERE WILL BE THOSE WHO TRY TO FIND SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEMS. THERE WILL ALWAYS BE BALANCE EVERYTHING. THERE WILL ALWAYS BE HIGHER AND LOWER VIBRATIONS OF THE SAME ENERGY PRESENTED. ANOTHER THING TO NOTE, GEMINI IS KNOWN TO BE TWO FACED. THIS FULL MOON CAN ALSO BRING FORTH SOME HIGHER PERSPECTIVES ON FAMILY DYNAMICS AND CONNECTIONS AS WELL. KEEP IN MIND, WE CONSIDER FRIENDS AS FAMILY AND IN TRUE GEMINI FASHION, WE MAY EVEN CALL AN AQUAINTANCE “ A BRO, OR SIS” JOKINGLY. EXPAND YOUR MIND, THE MOON DOES NOT ONLY MEAN YOUR IMMEDIATE OR ANCESTRAL FAMILY CONNECTIONS. I CONSIDER MY DOGS, MY CHILDREN- FAMILY. PERSONALLY, I FINALLY CUT THE CORD WITH MY FAMILY BECAUSE I RECEIVED THE LAST PIECE OF INFORMATION, I NEEDED TO JUSTIFY MY DESCION. THE SMALL TALK AND SURFACE LEVEL GESTURES THAT I TOLERATED AND ALLOWED TO BLIND ME FROM THE PICTURE, JUST COULDN’T BE IGNORED ANYMORE. THE MOON NURUTURES, IT FEEDS- AND THESE CONNECTIONS, PEOPLE, PLACES, THINGS AND SOCIAL MEDIA OUTLETS, DO NOT PROVIDE NOURISHMENT BUT INSTEAD JUNK FOOD. MORAL OF THE FULL MOON IN GEMINI, IS FINALLY RELEASING ALL THE JUNK. 

I WENT THE GROCERY STORE YESTERDAY AND THERE WAS THIS WOMAN BUYING HER DOG THOSE LITTLE CEASAR PACKETS AND I KEPT THINKING HOW THAT WAS THE WORST THING TO FEED YOUR DOG BECAUSE IT’S JUNK. THIS FULL MOON MAY INFLUENCE THOSE IN ENERGETIC ALIGNMENT TO FINALLY GET RID OF FAST FOOD, JUNK FOOD, SUGARY DRINKS, AND GETTING MORE ACTIVE IN THE GYM. WHY? BECAUSE THE BIGGER PICTURE IS KNOWING HEALTH IS WEALTH. AGAIN, THIS WILL NOT RESONATE FOR SOME PEOPLE AS THEY WILL CHOSE TO EXPAND ON ALL THINGS THAT CATER TO THE MOMENT AND PROVIDE INSTANT GRATIFICATION. TO ME, THIS IS A VERY POWERFUL FULL MOON BECAUSE BEING IN GEMINI, RULED BY MERCURY, COMPLETELY DOMINATES THIS REALM AND OTHERS. COMMUNICATION, INTELLIGENCE , IDEAS AND INTELLECT IS ALL THERE IS AND WILL ALWAYS BE. IT’S NEVER ENDING, LIKE THIS INTERPREATION! THE FULL MOON IN GEMINI, AT 13 DEGREES IS WITHIN THE 2ND DECAN RULED BY VENUS. THIS MEANS THERE IS CREATIVE AND ARTISTIC ABILITIES PRESENT IF ONLY EXPANDED UPON. THE DANGER LIES IN LAZINESS THAT THE 2ND DECAN OF VENUS CAN PRESENT AS WELL. IT’S EASIER TO BE SMALL MINDED, PLAY IT SMALL AND TO DO THE BARE MIMIMUM IN WHICH MOST WILL CONTINUE TO DO. AS FOR OTHERS, THIS IS PRIMETIME TO CAPITALIZE OFF LEARNING MORE, TEACHING, CREATING, AND ULTIMATELY CHALLENGING YOURSELF MENTALLY TO GROW. YOU ARE WHAT YOU ATTRACT, AND KNOWLEDGE HAS ALWAYS BEEN POWER! MOST WILL CONTINUE TO GIVE UP AND WEAKEN THEIR POWER TO CARE ABOUT GOSSIP, CELEBRITY NEWS, SMALL TALK AND SURFACE LEVEL UNDERSTANDINGS WHEREAS, OTHERS WILL BE GAINING MORE OR ESTABLISHING POWER AT THIS TIME.

GEMINI ENERGY IS ABOUT THE DETAILS, AND THE 9TH HOUSE IS WHERE ALL THOSE DETAILS ADD UP. EXAMPLE, I AM A WRITER. THE MORE I READ BOOKS, THE BETTER MY WRITING AND MY ARTICULATION OF SPEECH GETS. READING IS THE GEMINI ENERGY, AND GETTING BETTER IN OTHER AREAS LIKE SPEAKING AND WRITING IS 9TH HOUSE ENERGY. READING SOCIAL MEDIA COMMENTS DOESN’T ASSIST ME IN ANYWAY EXCEPT DISTRACT ME AND INFLUENCES SLANG AND CURSING THAT DOESN’T HELP ME GET ANYWHERE. IN CONCLUSION, THIS FULL MOON IN GEMINI AT 13 DEGREES IN THE 9TH HOUSE IS ALL ABOUT PRACTICE MAKING PERFECT AND REACHING FOR HIGHER HEIGHTS. THIS FULL MOON IN GEMINI IS ABOUT “ KNOWING BETTER AND DOING BETTER”.

THANK YOU FOR READING! TIPS ARE WELCOMED.

FOLLOW MY TIKTOK:

[okaywannabe]

How to install the native gog(and maybe steam? I dont own it to check) linux version of Star of Providence (monolith: relics of the past)! a very niche tutorial for maybe 6 people in the world.

This also might slightly help as a base guide in learning how to troubleshoot programs and games on linux.

This guide assumes you have Steam installed and can be trusted to find certain library files if you do not already have them installed. On my personal system I am running openSUSE tumbleweed and will be using Lutris to launch the game, but equivalent steps for launching through Steam will be provided when needed.

Firstly, turn off hidden files.

the base game is 32-bit only and requires files from /.steam/bin/steam-runtime/lib/1386-linux-gnu Base game+DLC is 64-bit only and requires files from /.steam/bin/steam-runtime/lib/x86-64-linux-gnu

if you're using Lutris. inside your monolith game directory place a new folder named "lib" place "libcrypto.so.1.0.0" and "libssl.so.1.0.0" from your respective steam-runtime/lib folders into the monolith lib directory in lutris, right click and confiure on monolith, select toggle "advanced" on the top right of the window under game options "add directory to LD_LIBRARY_PATH" add your lib directory in the monolith folder

on Steam.

into your game properties tab paste either

for base game

LD_PRELOAD="~/.steam/bin/steam-runtime/lib/1386-linux-gnu/libssl.so.1.0.0 ~/.steam/bin/steam-runtime/lib/1386-linux-gnu/libcrypto.so.1.0.0" %command%

OR

for base + DLC

LD_PRELOAD="~/.steam/bin/steam-runtime/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libssl.so.1.0.0 ~/.steam/bin/steam-runtime/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcrypto.so.1.0.0" %command%

for the base game we should be done and the game is playable however, with the DLC at this point we're still missing (on opensuse tumbleweed, your system might be different, check your games logs while trying to launch)one library file to make the game launch, it wants to look for libcurl-gnutls.so.4 which is unavailable in the repos of non ubuntu/debian based distros, however this file (seems to be) completely cross compatible with libcurl.so.4 so we're going to be making a symbolic link, so when the game searches for libcurl-gnutls.so.4 it will find libcurl.so.4

open a terminal in your system's /lib64/ folder, with Dolphin this can be done by right clicking an empty space and under actions select "open terminal here", alternatively just move to the directory inside of your terminal paste | sudo ln -s libcurl.so.4 libcurl-gnutls.so.4

(now, this might have negative consequences however, I do not know what they would be and someone who actually codes might be able to pitch in here. if so, just add it to the lib directory for the game for lutris or add a new folder under LD_PRELOAD on the steam properties) the game should now be playable

Alternatively to all of this, just use proton. on Steam just change the compatibility mode to the latest version and in Lutris install the base games windows version and run it using proton or wine-ge, to get the dlc to work select "Run EXE inside Wine prefix, this can be found to the right of the play button at the bottom of the list to the right of the wine button. Now launch the DLC installer. Congrats! You got the game to work in hopefully a quarter of the time it took me to both figure this out and document all of this!