#in GR... they do that in GR

[sparkofthetelling]

minmin you're so real for this, every professor in my (small) department congratulated me on my score on the major field test (I didn't take the physics GRE) in part because one of the big things the department was trying to improve the students' score on the beginner physics portion. Me? Literally could not tell you which section was supposed to be beginner and which was supposed to be advanced.

I also got absolutely dragged by the grad student the year ahead of me and my classmate who told me "you should take E&M 2, you'd probably love it" and when I asked more, he actually had me read exactly. All this talk about how challenging graduate E&M is just for me to get to it and in my very particular situation I feel right at home. Symmetries though.... are something else entirely Indices are great though, they indicate which components are topographic maps and which are arrows :)

[24/9/24] nothing like practicing for the pgre with league soundtrack. i switched over to my QFT and GR psets (bc life goes on and those need to be done too)

ive been pacing like an under enriched zoo animal between both of them but barely got anything done :D we are doing symmetries in both but my brain is not stretching to accommodate right now.

look as much as i think noether's theorem is cool, i cannot compute the noether current for this symmetry. don't get me started on lorentz transformations. i have seen too many indices today and i dont know what any of them mean.

we have a lovely juxtaposition here because im getting my ass kicked by both freshman mechanics and relativistic quantum field theory.

[crustyfloor]

A new pop-up store dropped for ALIEN STAGE's 2nd anniversary and wow. It's so sick.

It's Interesting what exactly these experiments are focusing on and monitoring.

Instrument practice

I found it interesting earlier that Till was so tame, more so than he usually is when he's going through experiments, but music, and making music is what he loves doing, So he was fully in his element here. This was probably the only thing he was made to do by the aliens that he at least tolerated.

(Additionally, judging by his collar (orange), he was at least calm. maybe he just isn't fazed anymore.)

//Side note, that head contraption looks familiar BUT this most likely isn't related at least i hope

(It puts me at ease, at least..)

Dance practice

This surprised me, but I suppose Mizi needed more skills.

She looks very startled here, and nervous(?) +It looks like she's doing this while singing. And with that face covering I assume this was a test monitoring her dance balance, precision, etc. At first, I did think it was odd, "Why would Shine put her through that" But alas I was reminded that even though Mizi is the flower of the group she was never untouchable, to Shine, this was the equivalent of teaching your dog to sit and stay.

(seeing this it reminded me of those scenes in movies where the people are dancing, and the music gets faster and faster until they fall. I wonder if she was doing through something similar to that)

Singing practice (?)

Similar to Till she also looks quite calm outwardly, if the machine around her neck is an iteration of the collars they have, then this process wasn't something she liked, or given how intense this experiment looks, this was a test of high-pressure to ensure she always stayed calm during performances (?). Then again this could also be a posture practice given all the structure focused on maintaining her position.

(What I believe was another form of this test was shown before so I think so)

(With her hands in a praying stance I wonder if she was praying to herself or singing a religious song (sweet dream?) It's also interesting that the machinery around her looks like a halo, and she looks so...angelic? holy?)

Image making practice

By image making, I think they made Ivan replicate expressions with his face. Whether this process was painful for him or not...I'm not sure. But it looked visibly uncomfortable, maybe that was the point. (His expression, even in this circumstance is so dubious..)

Ivan, among other things, needed to have a spotless appearance to be successful, his image was a priority given his skills were certainly guaranteed.

I assume the aliens eventually took note of his lack of expression, in the real world this can be a detriment to one's career, so the Aliens had to ensure quality was perfect. (To a more...dedicated level)

Superiority test

'Superiority test' Is very vague.

HyunA is very calm here too, likely sedated in that water with all the tablets on her. I guess this was a test to get an idea of a pet human's strengths and weaknesses, endurance, and temperament to compare and contrast them with others, testing who is more viable for Alien stage?

Another interesting, and sad part about this is that HyunWoo was there, watching his sister through her experiments.

(Also, it looks like both of her legs are normal, no alien leg yet.)

Heart rate variability

And finally, the most visceral of them all. The wording 'variability' makes this all the more sickening, the Aliens were testing his heart hours, testing it at different rates, speeds, and states. And he was in agony the entire time. Even the way he's clutching his chest, it gives me chills. This would've been a completely harmless test in a normal setting, as something quite similar to this can be performed efficiently in real life. But he's being tortured in the process.

This is one of the first times we've ever seen Luka's face so truly clear and unprotected, (understandably so.) He's even crying.

[emtrobarasalaplatja2]

[dunkinbublin]

run up the stair on all 4 babty

[potato-lord-but-not]

and then he woke up

[summoningflames]

i havent drawn ninjago since OCTOBER oh my god

‼️do not tag this as a ship i will steal your fucking liver.

[russellius]

2024 VEGAS GP : P1

GR: That whole race I was waiting for something to happen, and it just never came, so- oh! I look a mess! Jeeesus Christ... SL: You're looking fine, you're a race winner, it doesn't matter!

[toshio]

Hysterical you think your face or your body are any good. You may know your angles in pics. But in real life you’re super unfortunate looking! lol

LMFAO?!? okay bud, you’re on anon. let’s start with that. come off anon and let’s compare mugs. i’ll wait

[cryptidjeepers]

I havent participated in daily dracula this year, but that and re: dracula really shows how important it is that schools reevaluate how they teach classics. Especially when literacy is at such a low point and an interest in books is so uh not great. I guarantee students that engaged in classics in fun and unique ways remember the books so much better than those that were forced to just read it.

[antimnemonic]

I promise you cannot predict what happens to these kids

[tabooiart]

THIS thing ^ says hewwo. UNIRONICALLY.

[dakotac0le]

SUBSCRIBEEEE SUCKUERSSSSS : aka my notes on my ctech design

[dirty-droid]

So I played through some more dbh last night and woke up thinking, God, there is a good reason Markus and Kara, and their respective companions never got as popular as Connor and Hank. Literally The Bridge is surrounded by the most *do everything for absolutely no reason* chapters, and there's no comparison.

First the Kara chapter wastes your time, she barely gets any small talk in with Luther, then the car breaks down, then you're just doing tiny tasks, doing a shitty sum up of her story so far when Alice asks you to make one up- they could have done something interesting with that story but they chose not to, literally anything specific anything that would function as a parallel to their journey would have actually had some value. Then you barely start a conversation with Luther, where are you maybe get a hint of his personality before we're back to just talking about the plot and Alice, but then it's over again and you meet the Jerries and you learn almost nothing about them.

It is a chapter where you do nothing interesting, and you learn almost nothing about the main characters, for a downtime chapter, I expect character development and get barely a sneeze of it. There is so much room and so much time for you to really push and question your main characters but it just doesn't get used.

Honestly I think the protagonists all could have probably really benefited from the audience getting to hear their internal monologues if they weren't actually going to talk to their companion characters, but even that would just be a substitute for decent writing.

Either way, after that, we come back to Connor and Hank, who do almost no tasks in this chapter, *but spend the entire time TALKING.* They talk to each other in a constant volley back and forth for the entire length of the chapter and it's probably one of the best chapters in the game, it's certainly one of the most important in their story. You spend the entire bridge scene learning more about Hank and Connor's inner worlds, and how they think, and how they feel, you spend the whole chapter learning so much about their perspectives, this chapter is all about asking the hard questions about both of their individual characters, and the tension is high, it's a straightforward chapter to play, and it really fucking feels like your choices matter here, there will be immediate consequences, not just walking through your environment trying to find the right answer, or being dragged through an interaction. It's just plain good.

And then Markus infiltrates the Stratford Tower, and you get the most boring and useless and frustrating chapter in the game that doesn't seem to serve any purpose beyond looking cool. If Kara's last chapter was only to gain sympathy and create some soft and fuzzy feelings, this chapter is only about looking cinematic. This is probably my least favorite chapter in the game, honestly I've just gotten lost on that yellow ass office floor building too many times, even though I'm very familiar with the game now I still managed to get lost again last night.

I will admit that eventually it does become an opportunity to decide between pacifism and violence but that seems to be the only real development for Markus, and it wouldn't have been hard to make that kind of opportunity in another setting. Because we get next to nothing watching him get past the front desk, or from walking around that floor, just some outfit changes and pretending to be a machine and a little more Android hate in the background, Markus is almost completely silent yet again, there is almost no talking with North once she appears. We actually get more about North's personality here than Markus', she just feels like she has more lines somehow, because sometimes she just talks without it being connected to the plot and Markus never does.

This bit is more speculative, but my fiance and I were going off last night about whyyyy did they have to break into the tower? We're never given any reason for what the steps are and why they are important, just usually pretty important in these mission impossible type scenes, they're usually explaining in a voice-over why they are taking the steps that they are taking. But we get no explanation for why he needs to go to the 47th floor or whatever, No explanation for why he needs to change into a maintenance Android uniform, why North was in the stairwell, how Josh and Simon got in, it's all just handwaved, and whyyyyyy they couldn't have just?? Made a recording and then hacked the station's broadcast remotely and basically just posted the speech? I don't know, it's just a particularly frustrating chapter to play, personally, but it isn't strong.

Either way, you've got two chapters with next to no character development, that just have a lot of empty space and time where the characters could have been talking or could have been doing something else, but didn't because the vibes were more important, sandwiching a simple scene with ten pounds of character development and it just feels weird. And once I noticed it, it just made the Kara and Markus chapters look incredibly weak and poorly written... And conversely, make the Connor and Hank chapter look much, much stronger in comparison.

It's like Detroit become human almost needs it's own type of Bechdel Test, just to show how much they fail Markus and Kara. "Do they talk about something that isn't the plot?"

"Do Kara and Luther talk about something that isn't Alice or getting to Canada?" "Does Markus talk about anything besides his speech for this chapter?" "Does Alice talk at all beyond basic communication with Kara?" "Does Markus or his buddies talk about anything that's not the revolution or just Markus himself?"

... They don't pass a lot.

It's just hard to take these characters above simply *likeable* when they just, don't, ever, talk. There's little to no development for Markus or Kara, and because they've just become deviants, there's hardly any character establishment in the first place, they barely even get the chance to just be flat, because if they don't really know who they are, we don't really know who they are.

Connor and Hank's friendship is more functionally the main plot, more so than the deviant investigation, and for Markus and the team, and Kara with Alice, that's simply just not the case, there is hardly any relationship, they're just in the same boat. This is why Connor got astronomically more popular, and why he and Hank have the staying power that they do.

Markus and Kara just don't ever talk, and Connor does. And I'm fucking mad about it. The amount of time that was just wasted in their stories, I could probably take a damn stopwatch to all the moments where there could have been a little something-something, and nothing was put there. It's not to say Connor doesn't get some quiet moments too but he always gets the chance to make up for it.

Even at the beginning of the Stratford Tower chapter, I noticed that they could have had Simon and North talking about something maybe unrelated when Markus walks up, but there's nothing, only silence until Markus comes in with a plan. And of course we know about every time Luther tries to bring up the fact that Alice is an android, only to be shut down and walked away from. It fucking kills me how much time Mark is has the focus of the camera but it's only so he could look cool for a minute, and share no thoughts of his own, none of his new feelings, everything is only implied and then followed by the action where he is only allowed to be the leader of the revolution and never just Markus. There's a tragedy in that, but they could have driven it home harder by *pointing that out.*

[hermitcraftx]

some of you people cant get mad at me for not using duo names because some of your duo names are stupid (ESPECIALLY the ones involving gem. shiny duo ???? jade duo??? really?!?????? really ?????????) and arent widely used enough to warrant me using them. ill use jade duo when i'm dead

[dysfunctionalcreature]

i am once again thinking about Andrew/Jean parallels, and the potential for how Andrew could help and comfort Jean, since in some ways they went through quite similar traumas

there's that scene in The King's Men where Renee, Kevin, Neil and Andrew are talking about what to do with Jean now that Renee's gotten him away from the Ravens, and Andrew makes it clear that he's not willing to help protect Jean, "And I'm not taking in any more refugees" Andrew said. -page 326 TKM (which is completely fair on Andrew's part given all the bullshit he's already dealing with)

But like, I can't stop thinking about how things might have gone if Andrew had agreed to help, to protect Jean just like he's been protecting Kevin and Neil for well over a year now, to take another "refugee", like how might things have turned out 🤔

[lychniis]

reader : you know, back in my world...my universe, we sent these disks out on one of our first space probes. they were called the golden records and they contained things about us. our culture, our music, our world, our people. even our history and biology. all of it spanning over ninety minutes. scientists...they stated that those records? they will last over a billion years. could you believe that? they'll last longer than human civilization, and possibly any civilization after that. and if some alien species did find it in the far off future, did manage to learn how to play it...they'd be reading the last memoirs of the human race. we'd be gone but that record? it would be there, and then you realize...that was our way of finding immortality. those songs, those photos, those greetings; that was us. that was all of us, who we were; the last credible proof of our existence to a people who might have never heard of us. and then you realize, with all that time it might take, with all vastness of the universe it might have to travel...we're just...so small compared to it all.

jing yuan : ...i love you but i think you need to sleep.

reader : sleep...huh it also makes you think about the workings of the human body-

jing yuan : *slaps hand over your mouth* no.

@hiraethsdesires @silentmoths @crystalflygeo @zhxngii @ofoceansandtombsanew