#mech nerd shit

[rvengefulobster]

Anyone else think this line was a bit strange?

[knittedbond]

friends at the table fans are absolutely the most insufferable type of fan. no question about it. we KNOW we're insufferable too, and very loud about it. the niche we have carved ourselves is too great. a PODCAST (hard media for people to get into) about playing ROLEPLAYING GAMES (weirdo nerd interest to get into) and not even the mainstream ttrpgs but the indie ones that 75% of the already niche weirdo subculture don't know about, and every season is about insane gay people and grappling with huge philosophical concepts and the world changing and also freaky weird shit like a guy who is all bees and mechs that keep you alive for a hundred years. and yet its the best media you could ever consume and you desperately need other people to talk to about it otherwise the little bugs in your brain will DIE. of course we'll fight a war with the shrek cats and be fucking insane about it. of course we will

[majorshatterandhare]

I too have morals that do not align with most people around me, seemingly in a similar way to you. I think an “equal playing field” of morals makes sense for Brian because wtf is he and how does he fit into the world.

*I think* Brian can kill on MjE so long as he doesn’t think killing is immoral. However that would also mean that being a murderer wouldn’t make someone kill worthy. I think on MjE doing nothing is never worse than doing something immoral, because the Means justify the Ends; his means have to be moral on their own and whatever results is justified by his moral means. If his means are immoral he can’t do it, on MjE.

He was alone in space then he was alone in the sun then he was alone in space again. Give that man a companion!

(I wish I had the materials to make this. As in, I’m not great at drawing but realizing something in a 3D art format always feels more accessible to me and I wish I had the stuff to make that happen. Brian hung by the rose growing out of his body.)

Yes! I had the Brian Delivery Crimes idea! Because of stork scissors! I think part of him knows it wasn’t his fault but part of him is like “I’m a computer I shouldn’t been able to foresee an plan for this to go wrong. I literally get prophecies, I should’ve *actually* foreseen this” meanwhile he has absolutely zero control over the prophecies. And also like, I think he knows the facts but doesn’t *remember* being the doctor and that makes it a lot harder. Maybe he encountered that exact issue before but that’s not him anymore!

The fact that he will not die makes the hanging such a weird punishment. I read that the way the Hanged Man of the Rider-Waite deck is hanged was used in Italy for a bit and that they would continue to feed them until the died, however it seemed dubious. But Brian won’t die. He’ll just keep hanging. When is a life sentence over? If you never die the sentence is forever? People have the capacity to change. But also A) he’s a silicon computer robot, does he have the capacity to change (whether or not there is anything for him to change since he probably didn’t do anything wrong anyway) and B) if he cannot die is he even alive? If he’s not alive he cannot serve a life sentence.

His crime could’ve easily also been some sort of treason by way of not doing something which was immoral. That probably makes the most sense.

Also, the song The Ends and the Means by Robby Hecht has a Jesus-like character at the end. [lyric video link]

Those (Anglo-Saxon) beads would be perfect for this I think!

The idea that his heart is just in there, uncovered, and easily accessible in his chest… he’s gonna get an infection. I love the idea of the flowers growing directly around his heart, but putting a rose that climbs via its long prickles in your chest cavity, next to your precious meat heart (which is the only part of you thats you. Maybe. Probably. If any of you is you, that is) for god knows how long is not a very good idea. He must’ve been incredibly desperate not to be alone jesus christ.

(Something about not being able to feel god and not having disciples)

I did not think about the color popping in the environment but you’re right that it totally would. Also, while red roses coming out of a metal jesus man could be seen as symbolic of blood (which would be rad as fuck) white is often symbolic of purity, which Jesus is (if you dont consider the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, which is considered heresy and in which Jesus murders multiple other kids) but Brian *is not*. Plus there’s presumably some amount of black oil in him which may get on the white roses, showing his fucking impurity *jesus christ im going insane*. While I think plenty of flowers may be unstained, I think the ones stained with the oil that is his bodily fluid mean something.

please consider: Galahad always carrying around rosary beads/prayer beads that carry the image of Merlin, The Hanged Man in the style of a saint or of a crucifix. Also he handmade the entire thing of beads btw.

[atidingofmagpies]

MECHS FANS i was very kindly allowed to play what exists so far of the game Downtime, the extremely funky mechanisms fangame being created by my friend @chaoticmannamedoliver !!

AND HOLY SHIT YOU ARE IN FOR A TREAT

The amount of care that has gone into the game so far is incredible, from the character designs to the Easter eggs sprinkled around throughout - there's so much to explore and interact with alongside the actual plot!!

Speaking of plots... I won't be spoiling anything, but having talked about the plans for all the directions the game can go in, I'm very excited for certain plot twists >:) this is a game with lore of its own on top of the og mechs lore, so you nerds (affectionate) are gonna love piecing it all together

Anyway, head over to @pixelated-mechanisms-chaos if this is the first you're hearing of the game and check out the art so far!

[quitealotofsodapop]

So if Wukong didn't know MK was playing superhero, why was he able to be caught by Spider Queen? The answer is clear. He took the younger cubs down to see the parade. That way, he could be closer to the fireworks, and his kids are entertained. He ended up being caught up in the initial attack and discovered MK playing hero while trying to evacuate the cubs away from the angry spider lady trying to turn people into spider zombies.

Wukong is not happy, but at this point there are far more important things to deal with. He orders MK to get his siblings somewhere safe while he handles Spider Queen. When MK protests, he tells him that MK's arachnophobia would only get in the way, and he is still Sun Wukong, the gods be damned Great Sage Equal To Heaven and the Monkey King. He isn't so far into his retirement that he can't put an upstart little princess in her place.

The plan backfires and Wukong gets captured by LBD and Spider Queen, of course, but hey, the Noodle Crew gets to meet MK's siblings! Sandy babysits them while they're in Heaven trying to get the stuff. All they know of it is that MK's mom was caught by the Spider Queen, they don't know yet exactly who his parent is. Not until much later when Wukong and DBK break out of their bonds and save them.

"Holy shit, is that Sun Wukong!?" ;Probably Tang

"Mom!" :MK

"MOM!?" :Literally eveyone

After all is said and dine Wukong makes good on his promise of a long talk, or rather lecture, and MK is grounded.

"I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU WOULD BE SO RECKLESS! Xiaotian, your father an I taught you better than this! What were you thinking!?"

"But when you were my age you were at war with Heaven, though!"

"And look what that got me! Thrown in a furnace and pinned under a mountain for 500 years! What you did was stupid and reckless. What if you'd gotten hurt!? Your still mortal, MK!"

Referencing.

Yesss. Wukong canonically adores New Years, and I def agree that love extends to the cubs too.

Wukong does a "surprise" visit to Megapolis to show the younger cubs the New Years Parade + check up on his eldest while MK is helping Pigsy with the foodtruck. Likely all in glamours, but MK 100% gets an embarassing visit from his mom at work. The Noodle shop gang tease him endlessly about it.

Then cue the Spider Queen's invasion, and Wukong giving MK the cubs to watch for the moment while he Kings Up. MK doesn't want his mom to go in his condition, but Wukong is still The Monkey King, and has no idea that his son has been superhero-ing for the past couple of months.

The gang all meet up on Sandy's airship, and the kiddos glamours all drop from stress. This is where the gang confirms (they had suspiscions) that MK is a disguised demon - they dont mind since thats sadly common in human-dominated cities. MK specifically being a monkey demon gets Tang asking questions though.

Red Son shows up and has a brain-fart mid-plan when he recognises who "Noodle Boy" actually is;

Red Son: "Xiaotian!? I haven't seen you since we were calves! This explains so much!" MK, nervous sweating: "Not now dude! My mom got captured by the Spider Queen, and my dad is MIA right now." Red Son: "Ah but of course. Seems we have the same predicament then. No fear, I have a plan to defeat the Spider Queen and save our respective parents." Tang, panic-nerding: "MK, how do you know Red Son!?" MK, flash of SWK-esque anger: "NOT NOW."

The gang get to the Celestial Realm and retrieve what they need to make the antidote - though not without attracting the attention of a certain hound that just realised her fave monkey is here.

MK, petting the dog: "I'm sorry Quan. I can't play right now! I'm saving the city." Xiaotian Quan: (*sad whine!*)

Meanwhile at the Spider Mech; DBK has finally met his little brother/enemy once again. DBK in his anger, yells about Sun Wukong's "little-thief successor MK" ruining so many of his family's attempts at gaining power, and Wukong just blanks;

Wukong, scary parent voice: "Xiaotian has been doing what!?" DBK: "The Little Thief is Xiaotian!?"

DBK would also shout at Wukong for putting himself in danger in his condition, but quiets when he learns that Macaque is missing. Tieshan had seemed worried since DBK got back (infact, maybe its why she decided to free him), and everyone knows that the shadow monkey wouldn't leave his mate without reason. When LBD arrives, DBK and Wukong immediate get a chill up their spines. They both know that she's somehow involved with Mac's disappearance... DBK has his super-saiyan moment of worried-anger and frees both himself and his xiandi so that they can find their reckless kids.

The Noodle Shop gang (+ Red Son and the cubs) bust on through with the spider-venom antidote and manage to subdue the Spider Queen with their combined forces.

Tang is about to fanboy at the sight of Sun Wukong in the flesh when MK and the cubs yell something that shatters his preconceptions.

MK & the cubs: "Mom!" "Mama!" Noodle Shop Gang: "MOM?!?" Wukong, swarmed by baby monkeys: "Thank Nuwa you're all ok!" (*hugs them all tight*) Wukong: (*suddenly bonks MK on head with a sandal*) Wukong: "And you! How dare you not tell me that you've been fighting demons this whole time! You told me you were only getting a job for mortal experience!" MK: "But mom! I did get a job! I've been using my spare time trying to figure out what happened to dad!" Wukong: "Which I specifically told you Not to do!! Your father has gotten himself tangled up with a very dangerous witch and I'm not letting you run into one of her traps!" Noddle Shop Gang + DB fam: (*standing at a safe distance from the yelling*) Tang, dizzy with excitement: "Anyone else feel like they're in a fantasy right now?" Mei: "Hm, not really. I knew Xiaotian since we were pups. My grunkle Ao Lie is the same dragon-horse from the stories." Tang: "Excuse me!?"

Erlang shows up on Earth asking Wukong tf just happened - his third eye showed him the chaos in the Celestial Realm and Lao Tzu is pissed for his missing pills and Furnace. But he immediately leaves when he sees tje carnage of a saved mortal city + Sun Wukong. (Erlang: "Ah. Say no more.")

[boobstrider]

Remember to do your daily clicks.

Hey, I'm Dirk. I'm incredibly autistic about Homestuck, mech. engineering, and I'm pretty good at overly analyzing shit to the point I'll convince you I actually know what's going on.

I'm the World's Biggest SCI-FI fan. <- I have multiple reputable sources for this claim, don't test me. Shoot me an ask if you want to nerd out.

If you want to hear my insane rambles go to #testifiedtext.

Join me in the lush meadow if you like Davekat, Dirkjohn, Dirksol, or t4t Dirkroxy. If you respect my artistic boundaries, maybe you can join the whimsy, too.

That's all. So, yeah.

P.S. This post will be updated a lot. I love the gay people in my phone, XOXO Derrick "Mr.Boob" Strider.

[mychlapci]

people are weird about seekers. same goes for praxians. like the fandom almost treats them like entirely separate species and assigns them weird fucking headcanons. like i'm not opposed to giving the seekers some interesting cultural differences, hell i'm literally doing that in my own continuity, but i've noticed that seekers tend to get woobified and reduced down to just trines and fliers.

i'm probably just a nerd who cares too much about worldbuilding but it grinds my gears because they treat seekers like a monolith. which is not how cultures work! cultures are not monoliths! they change and grow and are ever evolving things! and culture, even in a single point in time, will always look different depending on what person is experiencing that culture!

like i always see the idea that seekers and fliers in general are only from vos. but that doesn't make any sense because there should be no reason why only that region of cybertron produces flight frames, especially since the ability to fly is incredibly useful in terms of transportation or exploration.

and it goes past just giving seekers a culture entirely separate from any other cybertronians (like seriously have people never heard of cultural drift? do seekers just never speak with other cybertronains, do they never travel?) people also make them reproduce completely separately from say, ground frames, or even other flight frames. and it's so weird. like why exactly do a pair of wings smacked onto that mech's back suddenly make them incapable of having their sparklings born with hard armour. like i know starscream is a slut but if you look at most seekers in media, they look pretty similar to most cybertronians, they just have wings slapped on.

this is probably too much information but yeah... people treat seekers weird, you're right.

what's funny is that you're talking about a whole different seeker problem in the fandom that is equally as valid. people just cannot be normal about seekers at all under any circumstances. which isn't that important, they're not real or anything but like... i personally don't like it, so i get to complain about it. we get to complain about it.

people making seekers (and praxians!) culturally monolithic and almost a whole damn separate species from grounders is odd and boring, but i especially hate it when they give them explicitly animalistic traits while the grounders remain "normal" and even imply that they keep seekers as pets and shit (not even in a porn way... i've seen it proposed as a silly haha headcanon before). transformers already has themes of oppression and slavery and this just feels iffy and uninteresting at best and offensive at worst.

there's a whole lot of things for me to be salty about.

[wolf-among-mechs]

MW5: Clans

Having messed around with Mechwarrior 5 Clans for a bit I think I can throw out a pretty strong recommendation for it for anyone still uncertain. The TLDR: I enjoy it plenty, lore and gameplay. The cutscenes and characters are pretty good.

I apparently made a review of it because I felt like talking about it into the void. With largely positive things to say about it. Bunch of stuff I honestly want to hear other people's opinions on too.

It is quite back to the old days in Mechwarrior 4 with characters and opinions and how it flows with the fights. While I enjoyed MW5 Mercs, it is kindof lacking in that department though as the DLCs pile on you get a lot more of it or at least attempts that aren't halfbad. Good effort has gone into making the people sound right, with accents and affects. Like yes, the clanners talk as they're supposed to. When one of your team uses a contraction every clanner outside your star immediatly lose their shit. Not in the meme sense but it they might as well have said c*nt next to a bunch of americans in terms of foulness spoken out loud.

The story following the smoke jaguars during Operation Revival is interesting considering they commit the worst war crime during the invasion and also kindof continually fumble the ball against the Combine. Your star, five lone mechs against the inner sphere, are part of the proceedings and the different characters in the star interact, sometimes disagree or just give each other shit. Got a nice team atmosphere. It introduces stuff and concepts among the clans quite nicely so even if you're not familiar with them you'll pick up what they're on about.

I think it does a pretty nice job of showing things from the Clans perspective of Operation Revival and how they are completely unprepared for the Inner Sphere and continually frustrated with it and things just going increasingly awry. There's a few beats that I think could've been done better certainly but I think it's good drama and a fun time in that regard. I could go more into what I think of the depictions of the clans in the game but that's basically some nerding out about the larger battletech universe and stuff. After turtle bay I kinda had that feeling that I've had in the past when a game makes you a culprit of a war crime or something terrible. A special kind of disgust made all the more visceral as you see the people, the resistance, in Turtle bay reacting to the bombing. Then everything blowing up.

Another thing that I quite like of this depiction is that the inner sphere does put up some serious resistance. Stuff doesn't roll over. They put up some serious fights. More often than not this is called dishonourable because the inner sphere descends into trickery and lies even though aforementioned trickery and lies are often extremely basic ambushes or "send more mechs to the fight." It is funny to contrast with Mercs where this just is how the Inner sphere fights. That said the clanners do eventually learn that they will set traps and ambush and attempt to fight unfair. Very often sending tons of mechs and people into the meat grinder in so doing. Some of the fights do get pretty intense and hard. You also get to see Comstar be Comstar. Wearing their space wizard garbs and being a manipulative force that will never tell you the truth.

The maps while feeling a bit more lived in than most of what Mercs managed to do, are kindof cramped and not great half the time for the kindof long range shooting matches more than half your equipment is good for, not helped that even with the added control to your lance or star mates you still have to be the one to step into the breach. Luckily there's many things you can do to fit that problem. I kindof wish that the star command screen had a pause function so that you could assign targets or at least go into bullet time. Because by the time the enemies show up. They're usually ontop of you so that's not really time to get your map out and play mechcommander. The fact it doesn't pause or slow down so you can set attacks or even give things preferences such as "maybe don't waste all your ammo on the fricking Locust when it will fall over from a stiff breeze" is honestly kindof baffling. Especialy how exciting it otherwise looks and how much detailing you can do with the Star mates XP and omnipods for their mechs. Which is not quite like tabletop omnipod but makes more sense than those omnipods.

Because of the tight maps the AI will more often than not walk in front of you when you're trying to hose something down way more often than they did in mercs. And they will complain about it when you invariably remove all thier back armor by mistake. You get used to it.

The fights feel pretty good honestly. Good challenging combat maps. They got a lot more field repair bays around compared to MW5:mercs. Which... I think I only remember 2? And were introduced like they were going to be more common in the campaign. Which holy shit, you're going to need those repair bays. You get to visit some really varied battlefields, a Star League depot, a cave system, cities and country side. Lots of mountain passes. Deserts and even do battle on a space port.

There's boss battles now. With various levels of canonicity. I don't know if we needed those but I see the point of them. They are usually there to give some variety to shooting stuff after waves of mechs and vehicles and vtols. You can also shoot down shilones now. I'd say aerospace fighters but it's all shilones.

All in all. If you enjoy mechwarrior, if you enjoy battletech. Chances are Mechwarrior 5 clans will have you eating well.

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 2/13/2024

writing cover letters like "Market Research Firm 953989464860, will YOU be my Valentine?"

also, a fallout 4 femslash fic for femslash feb

listening

Fresh Blood by the Eels off their 2009 album Hombre Loco. i would say this is another "i think a vampire probably wrote this low, grooving track" but there are several howls featured. wikipedia says it is about a werewolf. this song sounds like it has a simple bassline and simple drums but it knows what it's about. it's probably secretly really complicated but i specced in knowing about fabric, not about music.

it makes me want to ice skate really fast and also sounds like watching broken highway lane dividers go by late at night. fascinating that the back half of the four-plus minute song is fully instrumental. definitely a song for when you are traveling, or perhaps proceeding. spotify

Sun down on the sorry day By nightlights the children pray I know you're probably gettin' ready for bed Beautiful woman get out of my head I'm so tired of the same old crud Sweet baby I need fresh blood

i've been mainlining The Black Keys' album Brothers so it makes sense this popped up on my Discover Weekly spotify playlist

-

reading

in 2015, the year i dropped out of college, the closest comic/weird nerd shit store was a forty minute drive from my house. i bought the first issue of the serialized anthology comics magazine The Island bc i liked the Moebius-esque cover by Brandon Graham, before i knew who either of those artists were or that i liked them. i think it was ten bucks, and having to show my drivers' license really sticks in my brain for some reason. the point i am slowly approaching is that the magazine only ran for fifteen issues, and i didn't buy any other copies bc ten bucks a month was too dear for me, but it was a tremendous incubator for artists i would end up loving. about half the time i stumble across a lovely self-contained book that knocks my socks off i find out it started life in The Island.

All his life, Hank Cho wanted to join the ranks of the Habsec—the rulers of the orbital habitat his people call home. But when he finds a powerful, forbidden weapon from the deep past, a single moment of violence sets his life—and the brutal society of the habitat—into upheaval. Hunted by the cannibalistic Habsec and sheltered by former enemies, Cho finds himself caught within a civil war that threatens to destroy his world. A new barbarian sci-fi adventure by SIMON ROY (PROPHET, JAN'S ATOMIC HEART, Tiger Lung), originally serialized in ISLAND MAGAZINE.

Simon Roy's Habitat asks: do you want to hear a story about a generation ship gone wrong? this is a guy who really knows how to draw mechs and all their fiddly bits and loves doing it, which is a really transferrable skill to lovingly detailing the crumbling brutalist neo-mesoamerican architecture. the Habsec cannibals and their bits and pieces of scavenged armor blend in so well, it's genuinely shocking when we see someone in full, kept up, incredibly colorful armor. gorgeous, gorgeous book. love a fucked up generation ship.

found while perusing the stacks of the library that was closest to a bunch of other admin errands i was running, bc i finally have a tx drivers license and can start collecting tx library cards

-

watching

im also asking myself why the hell i'm watching yellowstone with my bestie and her husband. it has every trigger warning and a lot of them would make me decline the experience had i looked them up beforehand. however, the inevitablilty of each little tragedy feeding into the circular threshing maw that is the Dutton family is really clicking for me. like well! that mom sure did die in the most traumatizing way possible! and wow that really does go a long way toward explaining why the daughter is self-medicating to an alarming degree AND why no one else is doing anything about it bc they're all still mad at her for being very tangential to her mom's death!

the amount of Stuff that happens per episode is truly astonishing. one of my favorite parts of the ttrpg Beamsaber is the downtime between missions, bc you get to have some really bonkers interactions with people who don't usually interact. despite its huge cast, Yellowstone doesn't yet feel incoherent or like it's jumped the shark in its first season bc it's really successful at getting its huge cast to have unexpected interactions with each other. this sounds a little bit like praising it for knowing how to be good television, but this is a neowestern about a land grab that's also a familial dynasty drama that's really leaning into the familial dynasty part of it. it would be very easy for this to become incoherent or bad at switching between storylines, but so far it's really good at it. it's not beamsaber or black sails bc nothing will ever be beamsaber or black sails but it's really scratching that itch of many small rapidly shifting factions and rapidly shifting political goals bc each child is their own horrible little faction and they have a lot of time where they're trapped in cars or helicopters together getting around their ranch, which is simply too large.

we're trying to watch the yellowstone franchise in release order, and the yellowstone prequel with tim mcgraw came out between the first and second seasons. we will not be continuing this. this is a bog standard wagon train western. cripplingly boring after the brazen insanity of the first season. also i think it is in poor taste at best and irresponsible at worst to show a suicide on screen.

i said i don't know why i'm watching this but i do know why i'm watching yellowstone, and that's bc my bestie keeps seeing tiktoks about it. sometimes im influenced in real life

-

playing

changed my sheets this week and didn't chortle at the TOP OR BOTTOM tag which is how i know im having. a brain time. another way you can tell im having a brain time are these screenshots of the Breath of the Wild map. as you may or may not remember from last week, last week i had very little of the map filled out.

now is this EXPLORED? good heavens no. i have under 40 shrines DISCOVERED. i have simply beelined to each tower and went VERY fast. or was very sneaky. the three towers i have not bothered to climb yet are the ones i would have to actually fight some guys about. fuck the akkala tower for real.

i love to accidentally get way too close to dragons and die. some fun things about this run: incredibly, exceptionally rainy. except for the stint in the literal desert and the five minutes in the snowfield it has been raining about 70% of the time, which has made climbing very annoying. another fun thing about this run: exceptionally low ancient shaft drop rate, which makes getting ancient arrows to safely kill guardians from afar very difficult. bc as discussed above i have optimized this little blond boy to be very fast and very sneaky to get up the towers very quickly in the two minute spans of time it is not raining.

another fun thing about this run: not very good at successfully spitting out riders next to horses. you can only see the tip of spinch's hat bc he is underground.

i have unlocked the elephant and the falcon, i haven't gotten much farther than finding painkillers for the goron boss and stalled out at the yiga clan stealth mission. bc despite liking being a sneaky fast sniper out in the world, i fucking hate an enforced stealth mission. i don't think i ever got past this part in my other run either.

not jacked enough to unlock the master sword, i think you need twelve hearts? i would rather have more stamina so i can get faster horses + the princess's horse.

after i unlocked a bunch of towers i spent a goofy amount of time in the Lake Floria system herself hunting for treasure chests (there are easily fifty chests in the water. wild) to get the 10k rupees to unlock the last great fairy. i also spent several real-life hours video game mining video game ore. this was deeply annoying bc i sold off all my gems to get 10k rupees and then had nothing to get those sweet sweet high level upgrades with. this was the point on sunday night where i realized i was getting irrationally annoyed with a game that is supposed to be fun, and is NOT meant to support the kind of grinding i was doing. that was enough video game for one day thank you.

did you know there's a korok in the shrine of resurrection? me either.

also did you know magnesis ACTIVATES on the windmills in Hebra but i can't figure out how to get close enough to any of them to do anything about it. annoying.

this has got to be so funny from ganons point of view. i unlocked the elephant and the falcon in under a week of in-game time and then spent several in-game months mining and collecting clothes. would that make ganon more or less anxious d'you think

making

cross stitch update. this confetti in the rover square. i am dying. here’s what it will look like finished, and a link to buy the pattern

i had such high hopes for pin stitches as a thread finishing method but i had to rip out a mistake near a pin stitch and accidentally ripped out the entire pin and single confetti cross stitch. so what the fuck. i am an insane woman who likes to fully submerge and lightly hand wash projects before they get framed to remove all the oils (yes i wash my hands before stitching, i do get paranoid) and i am not confident pin stitches will hold up to that. oh well. the loop method is pretty great in halving the number of ends i have to weave in, even though i feel like it is extremely wasteful and leaves me with lots of short useless lengths my cats would love to eat. so the gains from halving thread management are really not offset by the meticulous cat management i must embark upon every time i do my fun relaxing hobby.

and the back, which is a horror. and will only become more of a horror. but once this is framed no one will actually see it so it's FINE. i am FINE with this. i started this knowing there was going to be lots of confetti. that's the point of this masochistic pattern

i wrote the first chapter of this fic last summer and outlined the emotional beats (but not much else) while procrastinating moving and have finally lightly polished the first chapter and threw it on the archive. im trying to let things molder less and just fucking post them in the hopes this activates the writing part of my brain again but who could say what's going on up there. this is still something that hasn't quite returned to me post-covid round 2

this will eventually be an E-rated 5+1 fic fixing all the fucking bullshit around Cait Fallout4's companion quest. she will NOT go in the magic chair that tortures her into not being a junkie and being the perfect waifu. she is going to stumble backwards and accidentally into some harm reduction and get railed by a mean top. the mean top and the harm reduction won't fix her but they certainly won't hurt.

[horus-unofficial]

[Meta] Actually, there is a pattern to how the mechs are named. They're all D&D monsters.

Eccept Calendula. Which is also one of the first Horus mechs to be published, before they fully settled on the whole "eldritch monstrosities that are definetely normal and definetely safe to pilot" feel, so I feel like they might not have had a solid naming theme back then either.

So the person responsible for naming all the Horus mechs is a fucking NERD is what I'm saying.

[ooc] yeah i was aware of that, up until long rim released with no knowledge of what's actually going on behind the scenes with the designers i think you could just as easily argue it really is just mythological creatures because all of the original horus mechs were dnd monsters adapted from mythology, the lich is the first and only provable break in that convention because i think lich = immortal wizard was a dnd original, and the lich's flavor is absolutely inspired by the dnd lich ("soul vessel" just say phylactery)

also i assume you mean the calendula was designed before the core rulebook was published? cause the calendula wasn't actually published until ktb and i think the in-universe justification for the name not lining up with that of typical horus naming conventions is that the calendula was designed by the baronies and not horus itself. i don't keep up with the lancer devs so i don't actually know shit about the design history of any of the mechs, but i'd believe that the calendula was designed pretty early on because what the fuck are those frame traits

[rawmeknockout]

techie decepticon reader who just wants money to pay for their nerd shit and a cubicle they can decorate

instead they get a place on the bridge (horribly open and dangerous windows) and surrounded by deadly mechs whose interests involve home invasion, assassinations, and money laundering 😔

[leaflovingal]

Post is pinned like I'm gonna pin you.

Hello, hi, greetings, (insert greeting of your flavor), I'm Leaf or Eden

I'm a Pan Poly trans girl who's kinda annoying and stupid, and not in the cute way. I play games to an unhealthy degree, and my ADHD does its thing. I get attached and detached too easily, and my social skills are at times subpar.

I'm a huge warhammer nerd and will happily chat about it. Among other things, I like S.T.A.L.K.E.R, Halo, Fallout, TF2, TF2, Rimworld, and a bunch of other shit. I'm also happy to play games with people, if you wanna hit me up.

Speaking of, my DM's and asks are open. I don't know what anyone would put there, but the option is available should you be bored. Horny shit, nerd shit, normie shit, tism shit, I don't really care.

I'm an aspiring writer, mostly with either poetry or 40K stuff, specifically about the Ad-mech and even more specifically about the Gryphonne Octad. It's slow work because ideas flow and words do not, but I'm having fun. Hopefully I can commission art for it at some point too, would be nice to have that.

You probably can tell, but this blog doesn't really have a filter, so there will be all kinds of stuff including nsfw, so 18+ please. This segues nicely into that I'm a kinky fucker, and a switch, so there will also be weird shit on here. I try to keep most of it to my likes, but reblogs will occur.

Cool post about other search engines:

https://www.tumblr.com/callese/692630070564683776/refseekcom-wwwworldcatorg-linkspringercom-htt?source=share

Have a few horny blogs, feel free to look or dm :3

@leafbuthornier @leafbutvornier @leafbutfilthier @leafbutmessier

DNI: boring harrassers ig? Please be interesting in your hate speech.

That's all, there might be more later, idk. Thanks if you're reading this, it's nice to exist.

[msmc-796-official]

Tales From Planetfall #2: 3NK1-D0N7

'sup nerds! Slipshod here - P said I was allowed to tell stories from my past if I put 'em under this tag. might as well share one of my favorite stories from the HORUS days and give y'all a sneak peek into the absolute shitshow that was my past

little bit of context - during my time with HORUS, I went by the callsign Ripcord. the cell I come from is long since defunct, but given the kind of shit we got up to, not entirely sure it's safe to give that name out publicly just yet. let's just say if the phrase "shove that up your shaft and smoke it" means anything to you, you know exactly which cell I'm talking about ;)

one of my buddies from back in the day - username KeepHonking-ImReloading, if they still use it - was a bit of a whiz when it came to masking their mech signature. you all know how the lycan frame works nowadays - it uses a dummy shell to hide its true nature until it actually gets into combat, then sheds that shell and goes full tilt. KH-IR did something that, but with a slightly different method. they liked to physically modify a mech's frame until it actually resembled a completely different mech - sometimes not even one from the same manufacturer

(if memory serves, the most extreme they ever got was modifying a hydra with some illegal greywash extruders until it was damn near a functional balor in its own right. real impressive shit, lemme tell ya, especially as they were able to keep the drone capabilities mostly intact. idiot damn near got blown to hell and back when Union found out, but RA almighty was that a sight to see in combat)

anyways, I wound up in a chatroom with 'em one day and we got to talking. told 'em I was a toku pilot and they got real excited. (one of their first ever modified builds was a toku, apparently.) they asked if I was down to take a dare, and being the hotshot piss-and-vinegar pilot I was back then, I said yes. they pitched me this: take the secondary set of arms off my toku, set my torch configs to look like claws, adjust the legs to be digitigrade, and see how long I could fool an opponent into thinking I was piloting an enkidu

now, if you know anything about HA history, you'll know that legit enkidu frames can only be found over on Hercynia, and even those are only prototypes - an officially licensed HA enkidu frame categorically doesn't exist. however, as their prototype code is what eventually became today's tokugawa, it wasn't all that unreasonable of an idea... and so I said sure, fuck it, let's see what we can do

the mods themselves were easy enough - the secondary arms came off clean, the torch config mods were practically built into the base system already (apparently if you poke around in the right code blocks long enough, you can find the original torch-projection pattern for enkidu claws - who knew?), and a few tweaks was all it took to swap the legs over to digitigrade. I had my "enkidu" all ready to go, now it was time to deploy

myself and a couple of buddies got our chance soon enough - we got word that there was a squad of IPS-N trunk security goons poking their noses where they didn't belong, and one of our fellow cells was under heat. naturally, that shit doesn't fly on HORUS turf, so we headed out there to resolve things

with the way enkidus were originally built, they're meant to override their pilot's minds and drive them murder-crazy. (kinda like a SEHKMET-class NHP, if you wanna use that comparison.) I've always been a pretty aggressive pilot, but that kinda behavior is a bit much, even for me. that being said, most pilots have never seen an enkidu before, and I could use that element of surprise to my advantage. crouch real low like a big cat about to pounce, turn the torch-claws on (and summarily watch these nerds shit themselves, because holy fuck that's an enkidu oh shit-), and then lunge full tilt at the nearest enemy and give 'em hell

the wave of pure adrenaline I got from tearing into that first poor trunk security sucker like a wild animal made me question if there wasn't still some latent enkidu code hidden in my toku after all. never before had I felt more alive, and never have my reactors sang louder than they did that day. pilots today may joke about "going feral", but brother, I was living it. (I wish I still had the after-action recording that I sent over to KH-IR - I'd love to rewatch it now and see just how insane I must have looked inside that cockpit)

needless to say, I lived up to the dare, and I had earned KH-IR's respect for it. I got sent a few new torch config patterns as compensation (one of which - a battleaxe - I still use to this day), and also earned a new nickname on the forums. y'all know me today as 70KU-N4H-W4, but for a few glorious weeks after that incident, I was known on the HORUS forums as 3NK1-D0N7. (fun fact about my username - almost changed it to F4UX-UG4W4 instead after this went down. ultimately decided against it after KH-IR weighed in and said they liked this one better)

anyways, I think that's enough of a wall of text for now. this was fun to write - haven't thought about those days in a long while. who knows, if y'all wanna hear more from me, I might write another one of these someday

take care out there, nerds. until next time ;)

-- Slipshod

[alastair-1205]

Episode 18 reactions

Oh my fucking god he fucking dead

Damn he’s like fucked up fucked up

I do kinda love how Geo’s just been around with the ninja tho. That’s been nice

Lloyd: fucking in a coma Me: haha gay ppl

SORAS OUT FOR BLOOD LMAO 

Valid tho

Stfu Z 

Arin is gonna stab someone calling it now

Wyld is shocked at the audacity of this bitch lmao

SHES GONNA SHANK A BITCH LMAO

Yea taking her powers was smart lmao good fro you Robie

Damn deja vu lol. She must hate being dragged away like that again

THE HUSBANDS BE SHARING LOOKS

She’s got a crush and Arin has suspisions. I still don’t think it’s him tho

ARIN REALLY DOESNT LIKE SORA RN MAN

I respect her mindset tbh like fuck yea prove ur man inst evil

That wasn’t what ur parents meant Arin. Arin no-

LMAO I FUCKING LOVE WYLDFYRE. Seeing her and Arin interact is so fun 

Sora v Frack!

They’ve gotta have more than 4 elements by now stop lying to me show 

Hey she remembered Jordy’s name!!

YOU MAY BE CLOSER TO TO THE TRUTH THAN YOU THINK THERE SORA. STOP JINXING SHIT

Badass fight is badass

DONT DO IT FRACK LISTEN TO ARIN 

FUCK YEA GET IT

Oh Ras is gonna murder a teenager

You good Sora??

JOIN THE NINJA FRACK :(((((

I love himmmmmm he just wanted to learnnnnn

OMG THEYRE NERDS

Jordy knows she’ll be able to solve it that’s so cool yes I love that

Ha the 5 don’t know math L

AWWWWWW

They like each other this is fucking precious

Ooh that was a cool transition

Maybe it was Bleckt. Or Ras. He’s still a viable option for me.

What game is this?? I wanna play it lol

AW THE NICKNAME

This is adorable I like them together 

He’s so sneaky! The sneakiest!

THE FUCKING YOGA BALL HELP

They don’t tolerate each others bullshit I love it

Damn. You know what yea fair enough that tracks 

SEE IT WAS RAS

Rip Lloyd. Hi Geo. Theme of this episode

Props to Arin for putting his anger aside for the mission 

MORE VISIONS

I think destiny keeps kicking him out so he can talk to the dragons tbh

SEE YEA IT WAS BASICALLY A SLASH TO THE CHEST 

They could have given him bandages at least to show it 

If I had a nickel for every time Lloyd woke up like this 

But damn those stakes are upped now

That man is not doing good-

HOW MANY GHOSTS ARE THERE WHAT

LMAO COLE I love him so much

Killer jellyfish?

SORAS SO HAPPY

Lowkey that’s her fucking dad 

God he can never catch a break. Let Lloyd rest 2024 christ 

He’s fought worse odds. I believe

I take it back. Don’t let Lloyd rest. Cuz now Sora’s gotta get her ass beat 

I love Robie’s delivery here lol. But yea Lloyd must look like hell warmed over 

Lloyd would have won. I believe 

FUCK YEA COLE GET UR MOMS MECH 

Oh I really don’t trust someone else having Lloyds powers tbh 

Like that feels like a really bad idea 

YEA GET IT SORA BELIEVE IN YOURSELF

2/2 on biology saving the day 

Speaking of are Kai and Bonzel ok??

NEW LILY SCREENSHOT WE FUCKING WIN THIS SEASON EVERYONE GO HOME

Also Cole has a cool outfit 

This is totally cheating but I’m ok with that 

THE MUSIC

MotM music is my favorite in the whole show man it goes so hard every time 

OH ALL THE GHOSTS ARE WU

BUT ALSO HOLY SHIT FINALLY WU. 

We got Wu before Pixal :(

[crows-junk-pile]

OK OK OKOKOKOKON SO I LOVE MYTHOLOGY I THINK ITS SUPER COOL AND ONE OF MY FAVORITE MYTHOS IS NORSE MYTHOLOGY BC I JUST THINK ITS NEAT SO I ALSO LISTEND TO THE BIFROST INCIDENT AND THAT HAS A LOT OF NORSE MYTHOS STUFF AND SO I HAD A LOT OF TOUGHTS ABOUT IT SO HERES MY TED RANT ABOUT SHIT I NOTICED THAT REFANCES NORSE MYTHOLOGY ALSO ALL OF MY INFO I GOT FROM OVERLY SARCASTIC PREDUCTIONS I AM BY NO MEANS AN EXPERT ON THIS I AM JUST A HUGE NERD

Loki killed Baldur that, and in Norse mythology his punishment (after running away and making the fishing net and then getting caught) was to be chained up by the Midgard serpent/Jörmungandr and then during Ragnarök Loki apares despite previously being in his "underground snake prison". In TBI Loki was tought to be publicly executed(as punishment for killing Baldur) but plot twist she lived bitches. Her mind is a lot fucked up tho.

2. SPEAKING OF JÖRMUNGANDR! During Ragnarök O'Clock Thor fights it and wins but after taking 9 steps away dies. AND WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT AFTER FIGHTING(I think? Form what I got Odin was the midgard serpent or possesed by it or sm idk man) ODIN THOR TAKES YOU GUESSED IT 9 STEPS AND THEN BREAKS A WINDOW TO KILL HIM AND ODIN 3. SPEAKING OF THOR HE USES A HAMMER I THINK IT WAS AN ENGIENERS TO BREAK THE WINDOW AND WHAT IS THORS MAIN WEPON NORSE MYTHOLGY MJÖLNIR A HAMMER

4. Unrelated to Norse mythology the second Lyff mentioned "the bandits" I was like "Its the mechs. Calling it now" AND IT WAS!

Thats all that I remember thinking in the moment and know thank you for coming to my Ted Talk

[northwest-cryptid]

I think there are (at least) 3 kinds of mech game nerds I'm aware of...

Now I need to prefix all of this by saying I'm not claiming any single one of these to be better than another; just different interests for different people.

There's the people who just like big mechs, and the clunkier the better; these people are not keen on even really making the mechs, they just want to pilot them. It's mostly about the aesthetic, it's about "hey cool big mech go brrrrrr" more than anything else.

This kind of individual tends to enjoy games like Bulk Slash or Love & Destroy for the PS1. The more elaborate sci fi games with colorful neon lights and cyberpunk cities.

Anything with those classic bulky mechs is gonna be right up their alley since they tend to have a lot of that weight to them. People want to feel like they're trying to maneuver a clunky mess of a bipedal tank because when you actually get it down and understand it, the feeling of actually getting it to do what you want it do becomes enjoyable. These sorts of people probably also enjoy games like Steel Battalion but only those who really enjoy the specifics of like, complex systems working to make something move. This is where I feel like it becomes less about the aesthetic of "oh boy big mech" and more about the aesthetic of "oh shit I'm gonna pilot that big mech"

The game is pretty infamous for having a whole controller set up that even included pedals, and a UI interface that was pretty damn immersive all things considered:

These players also tend to be your MechWarrior types, but there's a good bit of overflow between people who like MechWarrior and people who like games like Armored Core, which brings my to the second type of Mech nerd I am aware of...

The people who really want to make their own mech, like they don't just want to pilot mechs, they want to build something entirely their own. They want to not only feel like they can flawlessly pilot the mech in a way others can't, but specifically they want to pilot a mech that is unique and undeniably suited to whatever specific style they go for.

It's not enough to just know it goes fast, or that it's light weight; or that it's heavily armored. A lot of these players enjoy the specifics of paying attention to all the minor details, the internals are as interesting as the externals. Sure you can slap a really big cannon on this mech, but that's not nearly as interesting as all the finer details of WHY you can slap a giant cannon on this mech. Tell me all about the engine and the weight distribution and what that allows for you as it's pilot, that's the good stuff.

This:

Is as interesting to these players, as this:

Because the two go hand in hand, with the first allowing the second to really shine.

These people do have some overlap with the last, because those big clunky parts moving around mean a lot more when you know what they are and why they are there.

I think this is most noticeably seen in MechWarrior fans, who are fittingly somewhere in the middle,

Not just the look of the mech matters, it's statistics are important, because a really stylish mech doesn't mean much if it gets shot down immediately; reputation is as stylish as cosmetics, and this is one of the few times when I'd argue a good mech pilot blames their mech; you can't make a shit mech perform on par with something well built if you and your opponent are of equal skill.

And the last type of person branches off from the first but instead of leaning heavily into controlling a mech and what makes a mech tick, and caring about all the finer details, they more heavily lean into that first mention of "the bright neon lights and big clunky mechs fighting giant robots and aliens and shit." Basically you have the "oh fuck yea, mechs!" Category of people, people who literally do not care about the specifics of the mech, they don't care how it works, they don't care how it feels to move it around a map, they only care about how it looks because holy shit look at that thing it's a giant fucking mech. These people are going to enjoy basically all mech media, but specifically they're going to hone in on the bright, flashy, colorful, explosive stuff. We're talking about shit like Xenogears, yea; an RPG.

But look at those mechs man!

They're so clunky and crusty it's hard to know what's what just by looking at it.

You've got brightly colored pink mechs with swords, you've got karate mechs, you've got pirate mechs, good shit man you've got so many mechs!

Oh fuck dude you can't fight a giant dinosaur on foot that's stupid...

If only you had like, I don't know-

OH FUCK YEA A GIANT MECH SEE NOW I'M HYPE.

Yea it's like that.

And again that's not a bad thing!

I don't want people to look at this and go "oh okay so there's smart nerds who are valid and good and right because they care a lot about the media and the mechs and they play the right games and they enjoy it in a smart and sophisticated way; and then you have the bad nerds who just like the pretty colors and bright flashy lights and think everything needs to have mechs and oh boy mechs are so cool... I get it I understand, I will be one of the good mech fans!"

Like no that's not the take away, that's literally such a bad way of looking at it. There are so many different kinds of ways to enjoy this sort of media, these are just the two branching paths from "I enjoy mechs" to "I enjoy mechs because I love to know what makes them tick, and getting to fly a mech around in Armored Core or skirmish other players in MechWarrior is rewarding because the time I put into my mech paid off with my performing well." And "Oh shit oh boy big mech holy shit look at the big mech that's so cool! It's such a cool giant fucking mech! Holy shit I want to pilot that thing!" Respectively.

Like Xenoblade X? Skells? Fuck yea dude sign me up! Look at this shit!

Also yea the skells are named Dolls in the original Japanese version, I'm assuming they were renamed for American audiences because they wanted to make them sound "cooler" or whatever, and also because the joke of the "Skell-eton Crew" doesn't make sense in English if they're the uh "Doll-eton? Crew???" So yea that makes sense I guess.

Don't even get me started on CASTS from like PSO/PSO2 like they may be small mechs but they're still mechs!

Oh and speaking of PSO you also have the AIS

These are all fine mechs! Very snazzy I like them a lot!

I think I exist somewhere between the two extremes, I enjoy the vibe and aesthetic of big fuck-all mechs with over the top rockets and big ass wings and guns and swords and glowy bits and neon lights and the whole nine yards. But I also just as much enjoy piecing a mech together in Armored Core and really tuning it to my exact liking because it feels so personalized when I can sorta just go "wow this new engine is really making all the difference in my movement"