#the oldest one (the last one) is from september 2018

[abel-draws]

Falling in love over, and over and over again in the messiest ways possible

Chara (@hiimtryingtounderfell 's) and Deal are just. A.

[staykidss]

A stray kids guide for beginners!

A hopefully helpful guide to anyone trying to get into stray kids!

NOTE: (if some info is inaccurate or has changed let me know!! If there’s an issue leave a comment and I’ll update!! This is just from research I have done)

Member # as of posting: 8 (group use to have 9 members when it first was created but due to personal reasons one member left leaving 8, the 9th member was Kim Woojin.)

Fandom name: STAY

group name: Stray Kids

Abbreviation: Skz

Group mottos: “Stray kids everywhere all around the world” & “you make stray kids stay”

Who’s Jyp?:

JYP entertainment is Stray kids record label / producer (like the company their group is represented by) (the guy himself is often made fun of by the members 💀 due to his rather unique takes on the choreography and vocals…)

When did stray kids form?

Debuted as a group of originally 9 on March 25th 2018. They formed in 2017 initially from a reality Tv show called JYP entertainment. In that show Felix and Lee know were originally eliminated from the group, Felix due to his Korean not being the best and Lee know because JYP labelled his raps weak so to speak. However after their initial elimination they worked hard and enhanced their skills leading to them later in redemption episode they were eventually brought back into the group.

Members:

Felix (Felix Yongbok Lee): known to be the sunshine with deep voice, 24 yrs old, 1/2 Australians in the group, crys on stage a lot, birthday is September 15th, sub rapper & dancer.

Bang chan (eng name: Chris): leader, single father of 7/j (his “kids” are his group members it’s a fandom joke), 26 yrs old, oldest, 2/2 Australian in the group, Known to be very kind hearted+protective of stay, very strong work ethic, birthday is October 3rd, like the groups leader + producer.

Seungmin (Kim Seung-min, English name is Sky):

Dubbed the “Puppy” of the group, our favourite comedian, 24 yrs old, ceo of roasting his members, pretty chill, Birthday is September 22nd, main vocalist.

Hyunjin (Hwang Hyunjin, eng name is Sam): the artist of the group, ceo of side eyes, sassy+drama queen (we love), age 24, Birthday is March 20th, Lead dancer & visual.

Lee Know (Lee Min-ho, English name is Rhino): cat dad, almost like the mother of the group/j, can be quiet + struggle to express emotions, doesn’t like conflict, age 25, birthday is October 25th, main dancer.

Han (Han Ji-sung, English name is Peter): constantly munching /j, very playful+charismatic, age 24, birthday is on September 14th, main vocalist & lead rapper.

I.N (Yang Jeong-in, English name is Bob): youngest of the group, sweet but can switch up so fast, age 23, birthday is on February 8th, vocalist & maknae.

Changbin (Seo Chang-bin, English name is Lewis): Is so sensitive bc he’s just so hungry/ref, tries to act cute and makes very horrible jokes+puns sometimes (we still love him tho), Age 25, Birthday is on August 11th, Main rapper.

Official accounts (admin posting doesn’t use tiktok so I’ll only be sharing the socials I know of)! //

Stray kids official accounts on insta:

@realstraykids

@straykids_official_jp

Felix’s Insta: @yong.lixx

Lee know’s Insta: @t.leeknowsaurus

Han’s insta: @_doolsetnet

Seungmin’s insta: @miniverse.___

I.N’s Insta: @i.2.n.8

Hyunjin’s insta: @hynjinnnn

Bang chan’s insta: @gnabnahc

Changbin’s insta: @jutwae

Mascots: stray kids have these mascots for each member called “Skzoos”! Every member has one!

- Bang Chan is Wolf Chan

- Lee know is Leebit

- Changbin is dwaekki

- Hyunjin is jiniret

- Han is Han Quokka

- Felix is Bbokari

- Seungmin is puppyM

- I.N is Foxl.Ny.

Where to watch their live streams:

Often in more recent times you can catch them live on the stray kids Official YouTube, their personal Instagram accounts, and sometimes on platforms like TikTok ?¿? (Don’t use tiktok so unsure abt last one)

There isn’t really a set streaming schedule!

* They also are regularly active on the platform “Bubble” !! (This is a subscription based platform! If anyone wants more info on such just say!)

Where do people often watch their content outside idol stuff:

Often times you’ll see compilations of the skz members interacting with each other most of the clips are from their series on YouTube called “Stray Kids Code”! It is free to watch and has an English sub.

You can also look up various stray kid interviews by just typing “stray kids interview” into YouTube!

Where can you get Photo cards? (More reliably)

- Amazon (generally sold in packs)

- Etsy (can purchase individual or packs)

- Albums (normally they come with a few)

(Other merch can also be found on these platforms some official and some not!)

If your also looking for official merch and your uncertain of various sellers online than you can also get it directly off the JYPshop website ! (if it’s a popular item like a skzoo plush it’ll sell out super fast! As of time of posting there’s quite a few items sold out on there)

Note: if you’re looking for super cheap unofficial photocards I highly recommend the user JustBTSArt on Etsy! (Not sponsored just someone who’s bought a lot from them!)

Wanting to get into their music? Here’s some of their most popular songs that could be a good gateway into more of their music!

- Chk Chk Boom

- JJAM

- I Like it

- LALALALA

- MANIAC

- MOUNTAINS

- Gods Menu

- S-Class

- Case 143

- Charmer

- Thunderous

- Red Lights

- ETC.

Where to listen?

Stray kids music is on pretty much every streaming platform,YouTube, Apple Music, Spotify, etc.

Who is 3Racha?

Like stray kids in house producing team! Made up of Bang Chan, Changbin, and Han. They make some of their own music and also compose a lot of the music for stray kids.

That’s all for now <3! Hoped this helped!! If you have any comments, questions, concerns, feel free to leave a comment or dm !!

[electric-s0da]

Please note that; this post has showings/depictions of blood and strong language found within some of the drawings. @moonverc3x convinced me to join on in the @kirbyoctournament with their very persuasive words.

Bro got a really captivating vocab, how can I refuse? /pos Anyways, I am submitting Neko! Pronounced as Nico cause it took me over 3 years to realize that I was dyslexic and had been saying 'Neko' wrong the whole time. Created on SEPTEMBER 11th 2018 My oldest Kirby OC. Lil Man started off as a little cat with an absolutely horrendous design that was bleeding with the affection I had for the Kirby fandom and anime. Filled to the brim with cringe.

[OLD ART FROM 2018] Skipping over a few years, he was redesigned with any sanity I had to salvage them. Thus came this new iteration of Neko. Which is whatever you call this.

[OLD ART FROM 2022-2023] Which is still a cannon version of him but not the specific version of him that I'm submitting to this tournament. I got out of drawing puffballs and borbs in the fandom so if someone asks me to draw in the Kirby species format it may or may not look very good 👍 Coming to my last design of him that will be submitted into the ring to fight it out in brackets. His biker arc.

[ART FROM LATE 2023 TO PRESENT] This variation of Neko was made for an RP with a friend group I've been a part of since 2017 on the good ol Kirby Amino I know traumatized a whole lot of you that was on it during the prime and golden age of Amino. Therapy isn't cheap but I hope those affected can find comfort knowing the place has fallen into ruins, dusted with spider webs and rotting as the app burns from the inside. Anyways, this version of him grew up in an underground fight ring which was his home after living on the streets for his whole life, before it was discovered and the whole place scattered him and his friends across the region where the story takes place. I didn't write the story for this RP that was heavily inspired by TOTK, but that's the gist of his backstory. He's very laid back now that he'd older but was much cockier when in the fight ring. He very much mellowed out after his whole home got taken away. Learning to not treat everything like it was easily disposable in life. Neko is and has always been caring to his friends and family, doing his best to take care of them without letting his strong persona mask slip off. His ethnicity is Filipino. His current design across the board is based on my childhood cat named Jingles and his personality is based on another one of my cats that passed away last year at the age of 18. While some may thing this isn't important to mention I have to say those people are wrong as he really did shape Neko into the character that they are. So overall I hope to whomever read this far you enjoyed learning about Neko! Thanks for reading and good luck to the other bracket competitors, may the best OC win this :] Ciao~! Bonus: I don't have pictures of Jingles but I do of Spookie <3

[femmmie]

Ian throws Anthony a surprise birthday party

Such a timely prompt :D

I decided to combine this fic with this promt:

The Best Day Ever

November thirtieth, 1987

June seventeenth, 1984

September sixteenth, 1987

Ian never had to think about these dates. He just knew, from around a month before they were due, to buy a gift and send a card. Of course he would also just call his sister and he'd see Anthony every week anyway. It had been like that for years and years. But the last few of them had been painful.

September sixteenth, 2017. Ian had sent a card and a text. No reply.

September sixteenth, 2018. Ian had sent nothing.

September sixteenth, 2019. Ian had sent a text. Just a 'thanx' in return.

September sixteenth, 2020. Ian had sent a birthday meme. 'lol thanks'.

September sixteenth, 2021. Ian sent nothing.

And September sixteenth, 2022. Nothing.

But now it was August 16th 2023 and Ian was determined to make Anthony's upcoming birthday count for seven. He was pacing up and down his Los Angeles appartement, suddenly stopped and shouted: "that's it!" into the dullness of the evening.

"What's up with Ian the last few days?" Shayne asked Keith at the Smosh headquarters.

They'd barely seen Ian, which had been common but not lately, now Anthony was there too. They peaked into Ian's office.

"He's still on the phone?"

Shayne stroked an imaginary goatee. "He's up to something…!"

Then the invitations started to arrive at people's doorsteps. They were impeccably hand written in gold letters that made you feel guilty of even considering not going. "The Declaration of Anthony Day" was written proudly at the top of each invitation. People would ask each other if they'd gotten one in hushed tones, and soon it was apparent that everyone at Smosh - the cast, the crew, the supporting staff - they were all invited. This was going to be some hell of a party.

And then the day arrived. A dull Saturday morning, Anthony had invited Ian, Mykie and a couple of his close friends for a vegan brunch at his home. Nothing fancy. Turning thirty-seven wasn't a particularly remarkable feat and Anthony didn't want to remind everyone of how hot he was while being the oldest person at Smosh.

The brunch was nice and uneventful, and Anthony was ready to spent the rest of the day quietly but all of a sudden the doorbell rang.

"Did we order pizza?" Mykie asked.

"I don't think so?" Anthony said, confused.

He opened the door and his jaw might as well have hit the floor. Shane Told from Silverstein was at his doorstep, dressed in all black but casual garments, and said matter-of-factly: "Happy birthday Anthony! Are ya comin'?"

"Wh.. whaaaat?" Anthony laughed and looked around, and immediately found the culprit. Ian stood there cheesing like a fool.

"Are you behind this, bestie?" Anthony asked. Ian winked.

Everyone followed Shane down the stairs and then they saw it: a sparkling monstrosity of a party bus. It was already packed with people!

"Oh my god, Jenna? Justine? Ryan! Natalie?!"

It was like the bus was filled with the year 2005. Anthony loved it. All these OG youtubers he'd not seen for ages. All of them greeted him with hugs and kisses and giggles and there was wine and champagne, and Anthony's party entered the bus as well and they drove off into downtown LA. When they arrived, Anthony saw they were at Rahel Ethiopian Vegan Cuisine, one of the best vegan restaurants in the city.

The owner of the restaurant greeted the party at the door and said "In honor of Anthony Day I have prepared you the most delicious foods! Please come inside."

"Anthony Day?" Anthony wondered aloud, and Ian laughed.

The evening was simply wonderful and Anthony saw so many people he almost got dizzy. But the night wasn't over: Ian's phone rang and he said "Hey Anthony, it's for you!"

Anthony picked up the phone, and he saw his mom in her home, together with Ian's mom who was apparently visiting.

"Hello dear," they said in near unison. Anthony was on the verge of tears.

"Hi moms."

They exchanged some sweet words and congratulations and when they hung up, Anthony dived in to hug Ian.

"This means so much to me, Ian."

Ian smiled mischievously.

"What are you planning now?" Anthony said mock-accusingly.

"Well, Anthony, you've just eaten the best meal of your life, but not everything can be five stars on your birthday. I've made you something that you must eat, or I will be offended! But I can't promise you that it's any good, or edible at all…"

The chef appeared again and rolled up a cake with thirty-seven candles on it.

"You made the cake?!" Anthony asked Ian, with a quiver in his voice.

"I sure did buddy. You know the last six years I haven't gotten you a proper gift or anything. I want to make good on that."

"Oh Ian!" Anthony hugged him again.

"Alright, alright," Ian patted Anthony on the back but he smiled widely while he did it.

To be honest, the cake did taste mediocre, but Anthony didn't mind at all. It was all the more proof that Ian had actually made it himself. He ate a whole chunk of it, and it wouldn't have mattered, all the other things. Just this cake alone, and Ian, those were the best gifts he could have ever gotten. Anthony was blissfully happy. When he went to sleep that night, he croaked to Mykie:

"I love Ian so much, he's the best friend in the entire world."

"I know you do honey," Mykie replied sweetly. "I'm so glad you're finally back together. You've been so much happier, and that in turn makes me happier."

Anthony hugged her under the blankets.

"You're such a hugger, I love it."

"Come here, daddy wants his cuddles," Anthony joked. But he was so tired that he fell asleep almost immediately after that.

[highsocietyhq]

HSHQ'S TIMELINE !

which of these mains do you guys remember ? highsocietyhq or haisocietyhq or vikrp or chambordrp... hshq has had many forms over the years !

chambordrp was originally created by admin m sometime around 2014 ? 2015 ? admin j joined the admin team and for a while the group set at chateau chambord, france was just one group among many #royal rp or #rich kids rp groups. chambordrp had to be closed due to low activity but pretty soon admin m opened it again and some of the oldest members rejoined. chambordrp was revamped into vikrp in 2016 ( ? ).

vikrp set in iceland lasted for 6ish months maybe before closing... and then reopening again. i don't remember properly. around this time i ( admin e ) was part of the admin team and admin evy joined the team a bit before vikrp was revamped into haisocietyhq. admin m had gone awol at this time.

haisocietyhq set in shangHAI was when things started to shift from petty drama to something a bit bigger. i think in shanghai we added monarchs ? or maybe that was already in vik, but anyways, in shanghai people actually applied for monarchs. i think dukes and duchesses were a new addition.

then we wanted to move from shanghai to 'a greek island'. but we had a problem: the constant url change was a problem. we couldn't change the url every time we moved, that would cause confusion in the tags. 'highsocietyhq' was already taken by a closed group. what a shame ! but then i figured i'd lose nothing by sending an im to the url's owner and hallelujah ! the owner actually saw the im and was kind enough to give the url to us !!!!! that was amazing. and random. so that's the story behind our url. in shanghai we had our first plot drop/event hybrid when there was an earthquake and i think the hotel suffered some damages.

the greek island plotline was pretty chill until it wasn't. the invasion was pretty wild and i was in summer 2018. when i think back on it, i think it's one our most successful events in terms of character development and engagement. people wrote a lot and it was insanely interactive.

oslo follower the greek island. i have to admit i don't remember much from the oslo period. the plotdrops that i wrote back then were surprisingly frequent though and it was cool that people were really into developing the major plotlines !

dubai followed oslo shortly after nye if i remember correctly. i don't remember the excuse for the move. it wasn't anything major. dubai was fun and different. the big city vibe was fun.

dubai lasted for 8 months and then, in september of 2019, came phuket ! phuket was a lot chiller. i remember us planning all sorts of shocking plot twists. one was a flood and a complete power failure. that never happened. one idea was having them get stranded on a cruise ship.

mar del plata still feels like a fever dream. we moved to mar del plata in august 2020. i swear i always forget we were there. the only thing i remember from this era is the hike/earthquake event. we wanted drama and since we had failed to deliver the flood/power failure/dramatic pd this was really needed !

in april 2021 came tokyo ! i personally enjoyed big city backdrops a lot more so i liked tokyo a lot. i also remember being very pleased with the grapics if i may say so myself. tokyo lasted for a long time and rae won the points game that allowed her to pick like 5 possible locations for a future location change.

i don't remember them all but on the list were regina and casablanca. and we planned to make the regina era really brief and it was supposed to be a quirky comedic era. but you know us ! we don't know how to keep up with a schedule lmao. i think the regina sidequest lasted from spring of '22 and ended in august '22 when we moved to spain for that long event.

the spain was supposed to be a month long thing that would end in an invasion. but the dash was fairly quiet, the admin team was busy af and it just wouldn't happen. the invasion, as you all probably remember, came a year late lmaoooo

we really hoped that the invasion would have been something akin to the one in 2019 but you know, times had changed, people didn't have 8 hours to spend on the computer. the invasion was still a fun extreme event and i'm so glad it succeeded as well as it did because there was room for failure.

after the invasion we finally made it to casablanca where we had planned to end up almost 1,5 years prior lmaoo

and now it's been almost 10 years of a silly little royals group and 8 years of hshq. i genuinely think it's so damn remarkable how far we've come especially considering how the average lifespan of an rp group is like some months. admining this group has been such a privilege !!! thank you !!!

[x--daughters-of-darkness--x]

OTEP SHAMAYA: 'I Don't Know If I'll Make Another Record'

OTEP, the band led by singer, poet, illustrator, author and activist Otep Shamaya, released a new studio album, "The God Slayer", on September 15 via Cleopatra. The follow-up to 2018's "Kult 45" offers up a mix of inspired original tracks as well as transformative takes on chart-topping hits from a variety of influences, including pop, rap and grunge, by such artists as Eminem, Billie Eilish, SLIPKNOT, Lil Peep and Olivia Rodrigo.

Asked in a new interview with Belgian Jasper what inspired her to return to making music five years after the release of her previous album, Otep said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Well, I think you really have to love music, you have to love creating music and you have to love performing music to be in the industry of music. And since my last album, a lot of things have happened in my personal life — my oldest brother died, everybody worldwide had the big plague where we couldn't trust the air we breathe. So there was a lot going on at the time, and we were in quarantine here in the States and this label reached out to me and said, 'Hey, would you like to do a cover album?' I thought, 'Uh, do I really?' And then I'm thinking, 'Okay, it's quarantine. Nothing's open. Nothing's happening. I'm in the house. Why not?' It just kind of came back to that. I missed it. I missed creating music and I missed that outlet. And I missed performing. Because I hadn't played on U.S. soil since 2018. And so that's what brought me back around. In symbolic terms, nine is the last single digit. So it is the last; it represents the last. I don't know if I'll make another record. But I had a really marvelous time creating this one with the people that I worked with… I mean, to me, this is probably my favorite sounding album, sonically. And I've been booming it in my car."

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 10.29 (after 1950)

1953 – BCPA Flight 304 DC-6 crashes near San Francisco. 1955 – The Soviet battleship Novorossiysk strikes a World War II mine in the harbor at Sevastopol. 1956 – Suez Crisis begins: Israeli forces invade the Sinai Peninsula and push Egyptian forces back toward the Suez Canal. 1957 – Israel's prime minister David Ben-Gurion and five of his ministers are injured when Moshe Dwek throws a grenade into the Knesset. 1960 – An airplane carrying the Cal Poly football team crashes on takeoff in Toledo, Ohio. 1964 – The United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar is renamed to the United Republic of Tanzania. 1964 – Biggest jewel heist; involving the Star of India (gem) in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City by Murph the Surf and gang. 1967 – Montreal's World Fair, Expo 67, closes with over 50 million visitors. 1969 – The first-ever computer-to-computer link is established on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet. 1972 – The three surviving perpetrators of the Munich massacre are released from prison in exchange for the hostages of the hijacked Lufthansa Flight 615. 1980 – Demonstration flight of a secretly modified C-130 for an Iran hostage crisis rescue attempt ends in a crash landing at Eglin Air Force Base's Duke Field, Florida, leading to the cancellation of Operation Credible Sport. 1985 – Major General Samuel K. Doe is announced as the winner of the first multi-party election in Liberia. 1986 – British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher opens the last stretch of the M25 motorway. 1991 – The American Galileo spacecraft makes its closest approach to 951 Gaspra, becoming the first probe to visit an asteroid. 1994 – Francisco Martin Duran fires over two dozen shots at the White House; he is later convicted of trying to kill U.S. President Bill Clinton. 1998 – In South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission presents its report, which condemns both sides for committing atrocities. 1998 – Space Shuttle Discovery blasts off on STS-95 with 77-year-old John Glenn on board, making him the oldest person to go into space at that time. 1998 – ATSC HDTV broadcasting in the United States is inaugurated with the launch of the STS-95 space shuttle mission. 1998 – While en route from Adana to Ankara, a Turkish Airlines flight with a crew of six and 33 passengers is hijacked by a Kurdish militant who orders the pilot to fly to Switzerland. The plane instead lands in Ankara after the pilot tricked the hijacker into thinking that he is landing in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia to refuel. 1998 – Hurricane Mitch, the second deadliest Atlantic hurricane in history, makes landfall in Honduras. 1998 – The Gothenburg discothèque fire in Sweden kills 63 and injures 200. 1999 – A large cyclone devastates Odisha, India. 2002 – A fire destroys a luxurious department store in Ho Chi Minh City, where 1,500 people are shopping. More than 60 people die and over 100 are unaccounted for in the deadliest peacetime disaster in Vietnam. 2004 – The Arabic-language news network Al Jazeera broadcasts an excerpt from a 2004 Osama bin Laden video in which the terrorist leader first admits direct responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks and references the 2004 U.S. presidential election. 2005 – Bombings in Delhi, India kill more than 60. 2008 – Delta Air Lines merges with Northwest Airlines, creating the world's largest airline and reducing the number of US legacy carriers to five. 2008 – A pair of deadly earthquakes hits Baluchistan, Pakistan, killing 215. 2012 – Hurricane Sandy hits the east coast of the United States, killing 148 directly and 138 indirectly, while leaving nearly $70 billion in damages and causing major power outages. 2014 – A mud slide; the 2014 Badulla landslide, in south-central Sri Lanka, kills at least 16 people, and leaves hundreds of people missing. 2015 – China announces the end of its one-child policy after 35 years. 2018 – A Boeing 737 MAX plane crashes after taking off from Jakarta, Indonesia killing 189 people on board.

[rabitzzz]

guess ill explain whats up huh

cw for death and suicide and like . genuine traumadumping

my entire life ive really struggled with making friends . not even that , im really charismatic on the surface so i make friends easily . keeping them is a whole different story . its likely because ive never had in depth professional help for my trauma which leads me to be really dependent on others , because professionals have told me i show clear signs of separation anxiety and codependency . its been this way my whole life

this kinda came to a peak in 2018 when i was 16 and finally had a little group of friends online , where a majority of my friends have been for ... forever . we had a discord server for talking and another for rp and we were all super close . one of my closest friends i was closest to was called tobio ( like the hq guy ) and i was friends with him for 8yrs at that point . ive never had a friendship last that long before or since . he was kinda the ringleader of the group snd he was 18 . the oldest person there was a guy called kami and he was 21 or 22 . kami was like my older brother , and he was tobios bf . the other major players in this story are asteria ( 15 ? ) and jay ( 19 )

jay and i met in august when tobio introduced him to the group . i didnt know it then but jay was my first fp , i think . within a week i had developed the biggest most obvious crush in the world and he reciprocated . we ended up dating and to this day he is the ... dare i say he was the only healthy relationship ive ever had , and im sad to admit ive had at least a dozen partners .

a lot happened in that group . something happened that caused a fight between to asteria and tobio , and both of them vented to me . but i was neutral — these were my friends , i wanted them to get along !! i wanted the group to stay together !! but i said something ( " even if tobio was abusive , im just afraid of the others feeling as if they have to make a choice of which side to be on . i dont want that to happen " or something similar . a hypothetical for sure ) to asteria and she took that response out of context , and the friend group split in half between jay / tobio / kami , and asteria and a couple others . i was the ONLY neutral one . out of at least 6 . and i got blamed for everything falling apart .

it was 2 months after i started dating jay when this happened , and we broke up because of it . because he didnt like that i could be friends with someone who accused his lifelong irl friend ( tobio ) of being abusive . during those 2 months , jay wasnt online a single time . and tobio said irl he couldnt find jay either

jay had a job and a dog and lived by himself . it was terrifying for everyone . and again , i was blamed . everyone thought he killed himself after breaking up with me because he always said he couldnt live without me . this was october 8th

jay came back really late september , or really early december . like last day or first day . and we caught up because while he was gone , i would message him updates . sometimes splitting and saying i hated him for disappearing , for scaring me like this . i would send him pretty photography i took walking home from school . i told him how tobio and asteria and the others all stopped talking to me , but that kami stuck around because he was the only one who told me nothing was my fault . jay finally showed me a selfie ( blonde with freckles and hazel green eyes . his eyes were so pretty ) and we talked about us . about how he loved me but the 3 year age gap bothered him so he wanted to wait until i was 17 in april to get back together . we talked about his identity crisis . he got me out of the toxic relationship i had gotten myself into with someone who was way too possessive of me ( and traumatized me sexually despite being 14 / 15 )

jay got me and tobio to be friends again . it was me , jay , tobio , and kami . our group was smaller , but we were together again . i was happy

december 11th . im in class and out of data so i cant be online all day . i finally get around 1pm and see frantic messgaes from jay . typos and full on fear because he thinks tobio killed himself and he cant contact him . asking me if ive heard from him . jay was never frantic . tobio had gone missing in another country and he wasnt this scared before . the messgaes were three hours old and jays offline . i panic and start explaining why i was offline and i hadnt heard from tobio but trying to reassure him . no response . i try calling him on discord . no answer . im crying in my supplementary class because my most important person is stressed and i dont know how to help . if i can .

just earlier that day , before i went to school , he told me he loved me and hed always be there for me .

that was our last conversation .

id never hear from him again .

tobio would come back on the 13th and cut me off entirely . i asked kami and he said to give tobio some time beacause something really bad happened

11 days pass and i havent heard from jay . im upset because this scared me . i didnt want another 2 month disappearance

december 24th . christmas eve . i tell kami im really upset because i havent heard from jay yet since tobios suicide scare

december 24th

8:24pm

kami tells me the " bad thing " that happened

was jay dying .

his last words were for me . tobio told me because kami tried to have us talk things out , to rekindle our 8yr friendship , because we were jays most important people . tobio tells me he hates my guts . he always had . he tried to drop me so many times but i always found him , always clung to him , always annoyed him . he told me i had been too much for jay and thats why he died , because a healthy 19yr old doesnt die in their sleep for no reason . i was too needy , too clingy , too much to " babysit and take care of " , and thats why jsy died

kami broke up with tobio

me and kami drifted apart over the rest of 2019 , not for a lack of trying . too much had happened .

so yeah . this whole thing i have about being so dependent and needing attention is both a result of and a cause of my trauma . ive never learned how to deal with it . thats why ive been so weird for a few months . thats why i get so jealous of healthy friendships and relationships . thats why im hard to get along with sometimes . thats why im in therapy

ill be better one day i think . i hope

sorry ^^;;;

[xtruss]

The Burning Cathedral on the Night of April 15, 2019: A National Trauma. Foto: Houpline/Sipa/Action Press

Rebuilding Notre-Dame: The Resurrection of Fire-Ravaged Cathedral Brings France Together in Unexpected Ways

Five years after the fire at Notre-Dame, the iconic cathedral in Paris now has a roof and a tower again. The reconstruction is almost complete in what is no less than a national tour de force that has led to rare unity in a divided republic.

— By Britta Sandberg in Paris • April 11, 2024

You can see it again from afar, the narrow crossing tower that has reliably risen into the Parisian sky for 160 years. A 96-meter-long monument made of wood and lead, built in the mid-19th century. The spire.

It is rare that gaps need to be closed in the sky. In this case, though, it was urgently needed. For almost five years, Parisians looked into a sad emptiness when they walked past Notre-Dame and looked up. The void reminded them of a national trauma: the evening of April 15, 2019, when smoke first rose from the Gothic building and flames then shot out of the roof.

With every catastrophe, there is a moment when the hope dies that the drama can still be averted. On that evening in April, it was the minute the glowing tower plunged into the depths. On both banks of the Seine to the left and right of the Île de la Cité, people stood and shouted, unable to believe what they were seeing.

Television stations sent images of the burning "flèche" around the world, just as they had shown the collapsing towers of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. And in November 2015, the footage of desperate people fleeing from Islamic State (IS) terrorists via windows in the Bataclan concert hall in Paris, hanging helplessly from the façade.

On this April evening, France once again felt it was the victim. After the terrorist attacks in 2015, in which 146 people died, the IS attack in Nice the following year and the weeks of violent demonstrations by the yellow vests in the winter of 2018, now Notre-Dame was also burning. The "epicenter of our lives," as President Emmanuel Macron would later state. A statement that was, of course, infused with hyperbole.

Macron's Risky Bet on the Future

Many French people last visited the cathedral as a child, during a school or family trip. Many of them are atheists, Muslims or Jews. Strangely touched, they nevertheless realized that night how much connects them with this building. If only because it was always there.

Notre-Dame may be Catholic, but somehow it belongs to everyone. The church survived the revolution, the Paris Commune and two world wars. The first bells to ring after fierce fighting in liberated Paris in August 1944 were those of Notre-Dame. On the night of the fire, Jean-Luc Mélenchon of the left-wing populist party La France insoumise, an avowed atheist, said it felt as if something had happened to a close family member.

The need to comfort the grieving nation was great, even though there were no fatalities and there was no terrorist attack behind the disaster. The next day, Macron announced in a speech to the nation that he wanted to have the monument rebuilt within five years – and that it would be even more beautiful than it had ever been before. The ruins of the cathedral were still smoking. But we can do this because we are "a nation of builders," Macron said.

It was a risky bet on the future. Macron knew that he would ultimately be measured against that promise. But he is also a player. Many French presidents have taken risks with large construction sites: Socialist President François Mitterrand had the Louvre renovated in the 1980s and commissioned a glass pyramid. Georges Pompidou left Paris the avant-garde and long controversial Centre Pompidou building. The history-conscious Macron should be pleased that he is now the youngest president since 1958 to become the builder of one of the country's oldest monuments.

Philippe Villeneuve has been chief architect of Notre-Dame since 2013 and is responsible for the conservation and restoration of the cathedral. He had applied for the national job posting, it was his dream role. "Without the architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, who made decisive changes to Notre-Dame in the 19th century and also designed the crossing tower, I would never have become an architect myself," says Villeneuve. For almost five years, his office has been a portacabin set up right behind the church. Relics of the fateful night still lie on the cupboards and desks to this day: Parts of old clock faces that fell into the nave. Molten lumps of lead from the roof of the church.

"I didn't look at any images of the collapsing tower. I couldn't have handled it."

— Philippe Villeneuve, Chief Architect of Notre-Dame

Foto: Sophie Carrère/Der Spiegel

Villeneuve wasn't in Paris on April 15, 2019, so he neither saw the crossing tower collapse nor the flames blazing on the roof. "And that was a good thing because I couldn't have handled it. I didn't look at any pictures of it afterward either." – Really, not a single one? – "I know, it sounds strange. Only since the tower has been back on the roof have I been able to do that to myself."

Tables with elongated rectangles in different colors hang in Villeneuve's container office. They each show the beginning and end of a construction phase – like an abstract art work that only insiders can understand. The Notre-Dame construction site is a complex logistical undertaking. It was divided into 140 individual construction sites, otherwise the technical challenges of reconstruction wouldn't have been met.

Tattoos to Keep What You've Lost with You at All Times

For the past five years, Villeneuve has dedicated himself exclusively to this construction project – the kind that only comes alone once in a century. The first one and a half years after the fire were spent securing the church, which was long considered to be in danger of collapsing. Villeneuve had hundreds of stones inspected to check how badly the heat had damaged them and whether they were still usable. He and Notre-Dame are now practically a single entity.

The 61-year-old pulls up the left sleeve of his cardigan, revealing the top of the spire beneath. "It takes up the entire arm, and there are more tattoos on the chest," says Villeneuve. Since the fire, he has had half the cathedral tattooed onto his body: the rescued north tower, the south tower, two mythical creatures on the façade and the copper rooster. He says he had to do something to keep what he had almost lost with him at all times.

Is that not a bit crazy though? – "Let's call it passion. I built a model of Notre-Dame when I was 16. I love this church, and I'm far from the only one."

When the crossing tower was erected on the roof again in mid-February, even the broad-shouldered carpenters are said to have had tears in their eyes. In the run-up to this, the country's four leading wood processing companies, who are actually competitors, had spent a year-and-a-half working together. Given the tight deadlines, a single company would never have been able to complete the task on time. All four companies worked to produce the thousand oak elements for the tower.

The restoration of stained glass in the cloister of the sacristy at Notre-Dame: more colorful and prettier than before. Foto: Patrick Zachmann/Magnum Photos

The reconstruction of the tower from the 19th century: a 96-meter-long monument made of wood and lead. Foto: Patrick Zachmann/Magnum Photos

Some 250 companies and numerous trades are working here in parallel, including painting restorers, stonemasons, roofers, specialist carpenters, air conditioning and heating technicians, archaeologists and scaffolders. More than 2,000 men and women are involved in the resurrection of the cathedral.

This national tour de force is being financed by 340,000 private donors who are raising a total of 846 million euros. Within only three days after the fire, the sum exceeded the total donations that the French transfer annually to the country's 10 largest charitable organizations. That's quite a lot of money for a pile of old stones, some have said critically. But they remain a minority.

The windfall came at the right time for President Macron, who had arbitrarily announced the deadline for reconstruction after the fire without consulting the experts. Five years sounded good. Besides, the Olympic Games would also be held in Paris in 2024.

People accused him of megalomania and the negligent handling of a listed historical monument at the time. Art historians and architecture experts wrote an open letter to the president. They warned against linking reconstruction to a political agenda or setting an actual set year for completion.

A Culture War over Reconstruction – Faithful to the Original or Modern?

There was another worry: Macron had declared that he also wanted to give contemporary architecture a place in the reconstruction. After that, strange designs for a modern tower began circulating. Some architects suggested a crystal spire "as a symbol of the fragility of our history." Others wanted to place a greenhouse and beehives on the roof of Notre-Dame. Yet others wanted to illuminate the roof from below so that it would be visible from a distance At some point, France's star architect Jean Nouvel weighed in. His objection: It isn't necessarily modern to replace something that already existed with something new.

Notre-Dame chief architect Villeneuve says he never tried to stop the discussion about all these idiotic ideas. "I knew that the crazier the designs, the greater the chances of a faithful reconstruction," he says. In July 2020, a national expert commission voted unanimously in favor of an historic reconstruction.

President Emmanuel Macron at the construction site: We can do this because we are "a nation of builders." Foto: Sarah Meyssonnier/AFP

One of the peculiarities of the French political system is that no commission or parliament ultimately decides on the architectural drafts. The president does. It's a monarchical gesture that survived the revolution. But Macron proved to be wise. A short time later, he agreed to a faithful reconstruction.

In the secular Fifth Republic, Notre-Dame belongs not to the church, but to the state. The latter makes the cathedral available to Catholics for the sole purpose of practicing their faith. And this according to a law passed in 1905. It made Emmanuel Macron the chief builder; the government is responsible for all renovation work and its financing.

Just two days after the fire, Macron appointed a former general as special envoy for reconstruction. He bypassed all the authorities – not even the Culture Ministry found out about it. The 70-year-old, Jean-Louis Georgelin, had previously served as chief of the general staff of the French armed forces and as NATO general in Bosnia's capital Sarajevo. He also led missions in Afghanistan and Cote d'Ivoire. And he is devout – a Catholic who knew the state apparatus well. Georgelin agreed. He didn't like being retired, anyway.

He moved into an office close to the president's in the Élysée Palace and explained to all critics that he was experienced at leading a task force in the military, so why not the Notre-Dame rescue operation as well? From then on, the general was primarily responsible for one thing: ensuring compliance with Macron's five-year plan.

Georgelin headed the "Établissement public," the public institution for reconstruction that the government had founded. He had himself photographed with an ax in the forest in front of oak trees selected for the new roof truss and gave everyone the reassuring feeling that the five-year deadline wasn't as crazy as it sounded.

Last August, the then 74-year-old had a fatal accident while on a hike in the Pyrenees. Macron dedicated a national memorial service to "the soldier who believed in heaven," as he expressed it, in the courtyard of the Invalides in Paris.

"What we are experiencing here is an incredible collective undertaking."

— Philipe Jost, general director of construction at Notre-Dame

Today, a glass conference room with a view of Notre-Dame's towers bears the name of the deceased. His successor, Philippe Jost, likes to use it for interviews. Jost, who was the general's deputy, is also a devout Catholic and previously worked in the French Defense Ministry. On this morning in March, he can see the new "flèche" from the large conference table at a height of almost 100 meters, a view that seemed unimaginable five years ago. "It only worked because the whole of France rushed to Notre-Dame's sickbed," says the 63-year-old. "What we are experiencing here is an incredible collective undertaking."

This construction site, he says, is also a demonstration of the will. "In a world of crises and given the often gloomy mood of the decade, the Notre Dame drama offered a unique opportunity to not surrender to fate, to take up the challenge and unite the whole nation behind this project. Emmanuel Macron already recognized that on the night of the fire."

"Do you know what makes scaffolding beautiful?" asks Didier Cuiset. "It's the aesthetics of perfect geometry." Cuiset stands 40 meters above the ground on a platform directly in front of the spire, in the middle of the sky above Paris. You can touch the rebuilt tower from here, touch the matte oak wood, see where the three-millimeter-thick layer of lead with the hook-shaped decorations begins. Even up close, the new tower is deceptively similar to the old one.

"Many people think that scaffolding is just a pile of metal, but that's not true. It can be a work of art."

— Didier Cuiset, chief scaffolder at Notre-Dame

Cuiset is the chief scaffolder here, and his company specializes in listed historical buildings. In the past, the company has put up scaffolding for the cathedral in Metz, the Louvre in Paris as well as Versailles. Cuiset has been living in a shared flat in Paris three days a week for five years now so that he can be part of the reconstruction of Notre-Dame.

"Many people think that scaffolding is just a pile of metal, but that's not true," he says. "It can be a work of art. When I draw one, I add pipes that it doesn't need structurally so that it looks nicer. Because I want it to do justice to the monument it surrounds."

Then, against all safety precautions, the 58-year-old climbs onto a barrier to take photos. This work of art is also ephemeral, it is currently being dismantled. As little metal as possible should obscure the view of Notre-Dame during the Olympic Games in the summer.

Restoration of the statue of St. Denis: 846 million euros for a pile of old stones? Foto: Patrick Zachmann/Magnum Photos

The nave of the cathedral: the stones are now "blonde" again, brighter and more radiant than ever. Foto: Patrick Zachmann/Magnum Photos

A few meters below, in the new roof truss of the cathedral, it smells of Christmas and fresh oak wood. Here you can see the faithful reconstruction of the medieval roof structure that was destroyed by the fire. It was also made possible because an architecture student had remeasured the roof for a research project in 2015. All the oak trunks used were worked manually with an ax by carpenters who still master the old techniques. Not folklore, as they say, but a method that makes the wood more stable. When worked by hand, it is easier to follow the core of the tree trunk. The beams were then joined together with wooden dowels, as they had been for centuries.

The daffodils are blooming in the garden of the Archbishop of Paris, and church bells can be heard from afar. The Catholic Church is not allowed to levy a church tax in France and is poorer than the German Church, but Monseigneur Laurent Ulrich lives very nicely. At the beginning of the 20th century, a wealthy widow bequeathed her 1,600-square-meter city palace and private chapel in the 7th arrondissement to the diocese of Paris, with the sole condition that the archbishop should live there in future. The property is now estimated to be worth over 50 million euros.

The world's richest man lives next door. He has also been the biggest donor in the effort to restore Notre-Dame. Bernard Arnault, owner of the luxury group Louis Vuitton-Moët Hennessy, gave 200 million for the reconstruction – twice the amount given by his eternal rival, the billionaire and art collector François Pinault.

"France has become a divided country, a fractured society. But Notre Dame has managed to unite our nation for a moment."

— Monseigneur Laurent Ulrich, the Archbishop of Paris

Foto: Sophie Carrère/Der Spiegel

It's raining outside, but Monseigneur is in good spirits on this morning. A few days ago, the topping-out ceremony for the newly constructed roof truss of Notre-Dame took place. In December, Laurent Ulrich consecrated the rooster for the crossing tower, which contains the relics of two saints that survived the night of the fire, a small part of the famous crown of thorns of Jesus Christ and, more recently, a parchment paper with the names of the craftsmen involved in the reconstruction.

If there are no storms or other disasters, he will be able to open Notre-Dame on time by December 8, says Ulrich. The originally planned date of April 15, 2024, had to be canceled due to difficult working conditions during the pandemic and strong winds.

The archbishop says he has been worried in recent years. "France has become a divided country, a fractured society," he says. "But Notre-Dame has managed to unite our nation for a moment. That makes me happy."

Monseigneur Ulrich doesn't want the April 15 fire to be forgotten, even if it was perhaps only caused by a short circuit or another trivial cause. The cause has not yet been determined. The archbishop has issued a call for tenders for six new stained glass windows in the cathedral. They are to be designed by contemporary artists "to leave a trace of the event that deeply wounded Notre-Dame. And which nevertheless showed what we are capable of: We were able to close this wound again." Macron has approved the project.

There are many things that divide the archbishop and the president. Just a few weeks ago, the right to abortion was enshrined in the constitution at Macron's initiative. A draft law on euthanasia is currently being prepared – issues that Monseigneur does not support. But when it comes to Notre-Dame, the two are in agreement. "Next December, the president will give the church back to Catholics to practice their religion. And we will thank him and everyone involved for that."

The faithful, Parisians and tourists will then discover a cathedral that is brighter and more radiant than ever before. After extensive work, the stones and columns inside the nave have been restored to their original color. Restorers painstakingly removed the dirt of past centuries, layer by layer. They are now "blonde" again, as the experts say. This color gives the nave something unusually sculptural. A depth that has been overshadowed by shades of gray for decades.

The colors in the neo-Gothic sacristy, once designed by architect Viollet-le-Duc, are also visible again for the first time. The restorers who cleaned it were amazed at how brightly colored this room once was, how deep blue the ceiling, how pink the frescoes.

Notre-Dame is actually more beautiful than before.

At the very front of the altar is an 18th century Pietà, a depiction of Mary with the body of Jesus Christ taken down from the cross. On the evening of April 15, molten lead had flowed from the roof of the church directly into the open right hand of Jesus, staining the entire sculpture with black splashes. There is no sign of it today. The restorers only left the lead in the palm of the hand. As a reminder of a special moment.

[spacenutspod]

Is humanity alone in the Universe? Is anyone out there? Where is everybody? And what happens if and when we make contact with them? These and other questions were the subjects of the 2023 Penn State SETI Symposium hosted by the Penn State Extraterrestrial Intelligence Center (PSETI) from June 19th-22nd, 2023. The event featured prominent speakers from various research fields and disciplines discussing the challenges, history, and future of SETI. In the great tradition established by Dr. Frank Drake, they also addressed key issues related to the search for intelligent life and what we might find someday. The summit opened with a series of overviews, a review of the past year (since the last summit), and a presentation by Dr. Rebecca Charbonneau, a science historian and Jansky Fellow at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). Her presentation, titled “Frank Drake and his Place in History,” provided a retrospective on the life and accomplishments of famed radio astronomer and SETI pioneer Dr. Frank Drake (for whom the Drake Equation is named), how he altered the character of the field, and how history will remember him. The PSETI Center actively collaborates with other institutions, including the Breakthrough Listen Laboratory at the Berkeley SETI Research Center and the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. While originally inspired by the NASA Technosignature Workshop held in 2018 (which many members of the PSETI Center attended), the first SETI Summit did not occur until 2022 due to the COVID pandemic. This year marked the second annual summit and included Plenary Sessions in which experts discussed the history of SETI and its contributors, Breakout Sessions that addressed ethical issues, and results from some of the latest searches for technosignatures, panel discussions, and Q&A sessions. The Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico and infographic of the Arecibo Message (left). Credit: Seth Shostak/SETI Institute/Associated Press A Pioneer On September 2nd, 2022, r Dr. Frank Donald Drake passed away at the age of 92. Drake is perhaps best known for his probabilistic argument that calculates the number of extraterrestrial civilizations (ETCs) that humanity could communicate with – the Drake Equation. But his contributions to science and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) go far beyond that. In addition to mounting the first-ever SETI experiment (Project Ozma), he was integral to the most important attempt to Message Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI) – the Arecibo Message. In honor of Drake, Dr. Rebecca Charbonneau – a science historian and Jansky Fellow at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory – delivered a lecture at the recent Penn State SETI Symposium. The lecture, titled “Frank Drake and his Place in History,” focused on Drake’s life, accomplishments, his place in history, and how future generations will remember him. One thing she highlighted, which she knew from personal experience, was the man’s kindness. This impression only deepened upon reviewing the NRAOs archives, which provided multiple examples and his warmth and friendly nature. As she indicated, they also revealed that Drake was an early champion for women in science: “At NRAO, we have a summer student program. It includes things like an NSF-funded REU experience, but also undergraduate and graduate internships. And this has been happening since 1960, so it’s probably one of the oldest astronomy student programs in the United States. Frank was the first summer student program coordinator at NRAO in 1960, and he actually advocated for women being allowed to participate in the first ever class of summer students. He was highly and strongly discouraged by the [NRAO] deputy director at the time. He was told that it was a ‘waste of our funds to have summer students in the program who are women,’ because we would just get pregnant and not go into the field and do anything. And Frank pushed back against it.” And, as Dr. Charbonneau said, two of his first students – Elen Gunderson and Margaret Hurley – assisted Dr. Drake with organizing Project Ozma, demonstrating the valuable contributions of women in science. Another major issue Dr. Charbonneau addressed was the title often attributed to Drake – the “Father of SETI” – even though he was not the first scientist to search for evidence of intelligent life in the cosmos. Frank Drake by the Green Bank Telescope. Credit: NRAO/NSF/AUI “Father of SETI” Whereas Project Ozma is often credited as being the first SETI project (and Drake the first SETI scientist), there were historical antecedents to this experiment that are often overlooked. At the heart of it, said Charbonneau, lies the problem of definitions and qualifiers, which do not clarify the issue one bit: “People have been thinking about extraterrestrial inelligence for millennia, as early as the Greek atomists wodnering about the ‘plurality of worlds.’ And so, one might be tempted to say ‘Okay, well SETI is when we first started actually looking. And Project Ozma is the first SETI project.’ But that’s not quite right either, because if you go through the historical record, there are a number of cases where you an find people who made (*what I call) ‘search attempts’ – or, at least, search proposals.” The examples Charbonneau cited included 19th-century mathematician Karl Gauss’, who proposed creating a giant petroglyph of the Pythagorean Theorem that he believed would be visible to intelligent beings living on the Moon. There were also the experiments of early radio pioneers like Guglielmo Marconi, Thomas Edison, and Nikolai Tesla, who reported detecting signals with their wireless telegraphy equipment – which they believed were from Mars or outer space – and recommended using emerging radio technology for interplanetary communication. Then there were Percival Lowell’s telescopic observations of Mars in the late-19th and early-20th centuries in search of “canals” and other indications of an advanced civilization. And there was the “National Radio Silence Day” campaign led by American astronomer David Peck Todd and the U.S. Naval Observatory in August of 1924. Coinciding with a Mars Opposition that brought the two planets to the closest they’d been in a century, people were encouraged to turn off their radios for five minutes on the hour, every hour, for three days (August 21st to 23rd) so Todd and his colleagues could “listen” for signals from Mars with a dirigible-mounted radio receiver. But in the end, said Charbonneau, Project Ozma still “feels” like it was the first SETI experiment because it shifted the character of the science. She argued that it comes down not to a change in ideas or tools but timing, as it happened during the Cold War and the early days of the Space Race. “This was a moment in time where there was a great public consciousness about space, and it was the first moment in space when there were the first artificial signals in space,” she said. The events of this period – the first satellites to space, the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles, and efforts to send the first humans into orbit – fundamentally altered the nature of what the scientific community and general public were interested in. Hopes for achieving some of the greatest dreams of humanity (setting foot on another celestial body) intermingled with fears of nuclear annihilation. The Drake Equation, a mathematical formula for the probability of finding life or advanced civilizations in the Universe. Credit: University of Rochester Longevity of Our Civilization Furthermore, Charbonneau posited that Frank’s greatest contribution was not Project Ozma but the Drake Equation. To recap, the Equation states that the number of civilizations in the Milky Way that humanity can communicate with (N) comes down to the rate of star formation in our galaxy (R*), the fraction of those stars with planetary systems (fp), the fraction of those planets that are habitable (ne), the fraction of planets where life will emerge (fe), the fraction of planets that will develop intelligent life (fi), the fraction of civilizations that will develop transmission technology (fc), the length of time these civilizations will transmit signals to space (L). Mathematically, the Equation is expressed as follows: N = R* x fp x ne x fe x fi x fc x L What is particularly special about the Drake Equation, said Charbonneau, is that it changed the character of how we think about extraterrestrial life and the existence of our species and planet. Once again, this resulted from living in an age when nuclear annihilation was not just considered a possibility but a constant threat. In this respect, she claims that the most significant part of the Drake Equation is the variable that expresses the longevity of civilizations (L) as a measure of their detectability: “Suddenly, with the development of the atom bomb and the Cold War, we were for the first time capable of not just destroying our civilization. This is not about the Fall of Rome, this is about the end of our entire species, and indeed, perhaps our enire planet. And because of that, L is what really changed he character of how we think about SETI. And I think that Frank agreed with that.” There is certainly a case to be made for this. As we explored in a previous article, it has been suggested that humanity has not heard from any extraterrestrial civilizations (the Fermi Paradox) because they are all dead. A slight variation on this theory is The Brief Window Hypothesis, which asserts that communicating with an ETC is a matter of timing, and if we’re not in the right window, we will miss their transmissions. There’s also the Great Filter Hypothesis, which contends that something in the cosmos could prevent life from reaching an advanced stage of development (the point where their presence and activities would be noticed). This “filter” could be anything from natural causes (flare activity, gamma-ray bursts, etc.) to intelligent life being prone to self-destruction (nuclear war, ecological damage, etc.). When examined through the lens of history, it becomes apparent that SETI is very much influenced by the time period in which it takes place. By conducting his pioneering work in the early 1960s and adopting an approach that appreciated the complexity of searching for evidence of intelligent life, Drake helped establish frameworks and practices still in use to this day. The SETI Institute is hosting a series of workshops as part of the A Sign in Space project. Credit: SETI Institute The “Comic Mirror” As a final note, Charbonneau addressed the nature of SETI and a common cliche that is often raised. This is known as the ���Cosmic Mirror,” which essentially states that the field of SETI tells us more about our civilization than it does about extraterrestrials. While this claim is arguable, given that humanity is the only technologically-dependent civilization we know of, Charbonneau characterized it as “a bit hoaky,” likening it instead to a “prism.” This is especially true where Project Ozma, the Arecibo Message, and the legacy of Frank Drake are concerned. As Charbonneau illustrated, the earliest experiments were plagued by examples of projection and mirroring. This included Marconi’s belief that he could talk to Martian in Morse Code using his telegraph, as it was the established means of communicating at a distance in his time. Percival Lowell’s search for major infrastructure on Mars was similar in that it coincided with the U.S. digging of the Panama Canal in Latin America while the British had finished work on the Suez Canal a few decades prior. In both instances, they were looking for signatures that reflected what they saw going on in the world at the time. Frank, in contrast, was “refracting” our world onto extraterrestrial civilizations. In the process, he changed how people imagine our planet’s future (and those of potential extraterrestrial civilizations) in a way that highlighted our hopes and fears. And that, said Charbonneau, is a very powerful tool that we are still discussing, debating, and writing about today: “What are we talking about at this conference? Artificial intelligence, pollution SETI, atmospheric technosignatures. Our present concerns are showing up again in our ideas and the Drake Equation, L – the medium through which our ideas are passing through – affect the character of our search. And so I think that that is Frank Drake’s legacy. I think that he is a fantastic innovator, and I think that he has radically shifted the way think not only about worlds out there, but our own.” Check out the 2023 Penn State SETI Symposium homepage and click on the Agenda option to access videos and abstracts of the many presentations. The post Penn State SETI Symposium Opens with Commemoration of Dr. Frank Drake appeared first on Universe Today.

[rhetoricandlogic]

SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY MAGAZINE

Issue 132 – September 2017

8950 words, novelette

The Secret Life of Bots

by Suzanne Palmer

AUDIO VERSION

2018 Winner: Hugo Award for Best Novelette 2018 Finalist: Theodore A. Sturgeon Memorial Award 2018 Finalist: WFSA Small Press Award

I have been activated, therefore I have a purpose, the bot thought. I have a purpose, therefore I serve.

It recited the Mantra Upon Waking, a bundle of subroutines to check that it was running at optimum efficiency, then it detached itself from its storage niche. Its power cells were fully charged, its systems ready, and all was well. Its internal clock synced with the Ship and it became aware that significant time had elapsed since its last activation, but to it that time had been nothing, and passing time with no purpose would have been terrible indeed.

“I serve,” the bot announced to the Ship.

“I am assigning you task nine hundred forty four in the maintenance queue,” the Ship answered. “Acknowledge?”

“Acknowledged,” the bot answered. Nine hundred and forty-four items in the queue? That seemed extremely high, and the bot felt a slight tug on its self-evaluation monitors that it had not been activated for at least one of the top fifty, or even five hundred. But Ship knew best. The bot grabbed its task ticket.

There was an Incidental on board. The bot would rather have been fixing something more exciting, more prominently complex, than to be assigned pest control, but the bot existed to serve and so it would.

Captain Baraye winced as Commander Lopez, her second-in-command, slammed his fists down on the helm console in front of him. “How much more is going to break on this piece of shit ship?!” Lopez exclaimed.

“Eventually, all of it,” Baraye answered, with more patience than she felt. “We just have to get that far. Ship?”

The Ship spoke up. “We have adequate engine and life support to proceed. I have deployed all functioning maintenance bots. The bots are addressing critical issues first, then I will reprioritize from there.”

“It’s not just damage from a decade in a junkyard,” Commander Lopez said. “I swear something scuttled over one of my boots as we were launching. Something unpleasant.”

“I incurred a biological infestation during my time in storage,” the Ship said. Baraye wondered if the slight emphasis on the word storage was her imagination. “I was able to resolve most of the problem with judicious venting of spaces to vacuum before the crew boarded, and have assigned a multifunction bot to excise the remaining.”

“Just one bot?”

“This bot is the oldest still in service,” the Ship said. “It is a task well-suited to it, and does not take another, newer bot out of the critical repair queue.”

“I thought those old multibots were unstable,” Chief Navigator Chen spoke up.

“Does it matter? We reach the jump point in a little over eleven hours,” Baraye said. “Whatever it takes to get us in shape to make the jump, do it, Ship. Just make sure this ‘infestation’ doesn’t get anywhere near the positron device, or we’re going to come apart a lot sooner than expected.”

“Yes, Captain,” the Ship said. “I will do my best.”

The bot considered the data attached to its task. There wasn’t much specific about the pest itself other than a list of detection locations and timestamps. The bot thought it likely there was only one, or that if there were multiples they were moving together, as the reports had a linear, serial nature when mapped against the physical space of the Ship’s interior.

The pest also appeared to have a taste for the insulation on comm cables and other not normally edible parts of the ship.

The bot slotted itself into the shellfab unit beside its storage niche, and had it make a thicker, armored exterior. For tools it added a small electric prod, a grabber arm, and a cutting blade. Once it had encountered and taken the measure of the Incidental, if it was not immediately successful in nullifying it, it could visit another shellfab and adapt again.

Done, it recited the Mantra of Shapechanging to properly integrate the new hardware into its systems. Then it proceeded through the mechanical veins and arteries of the Ship toward the most recent location logged, in a communications chase between decks thirty and thirty-one.

The changes that had taken place on the Ship during the bot’s extended inactivation were unexpected, and merited strong disapproval. Dust was omnipresent, and solid surfaces had a thin patina of anaerobic bacteria that had to have been undisturbed for years to spread as far as it had. Bulkheads were cracked, wall sections out of joint with one another, and corrosion had left holes nearly everywhere. Some appeared less natural than others. The bot filed that information away for later consideration.

It found two silkbots in the chase where the Incidental had last been noted. They were spinning out their transparent microfilament strands to replace the damaged insulation on the comm lines. The two silks dwarfed the multibot, the larger of them nearly three centimeters across.

“Greetings. Did you happen to observe the Incidental while it was here?” the bot asked them.

“We did not, and would prefer that it does not return,” the smaller silkbot answered. “We were not designed in anticipation of a need for self-defense. Bots 8773-S and 8778-S observed it in another compartment earlier today, and 8778 was materially damaged during the encounter.”

“But neither 8773 nor 8779 submitted a description.”

“They told us about it during our prior recharge cycle, but neither felt they had sufficient detail of the Incidental to provide information to the Ship. Our models are not equipped with full visual-spectrum or analytical data-capture apparatus.”

“Did they describe it to you?” the bot asked.

“8773 said it was most similar to a rat,” the large silkbot said.

“While 8778 said it was most similar to a bug,” the other silkbot added. “Thus you see the lack of confidence in either description. I am 10315-S and this is 10430-S. What is your designation?”

“I am 9,” the bot said.

There was a brief silence, and 10430 even halted for a moment in its work, as if surprised. “9? Only that?”

“Yes.”

“I have never met a bot lower than a thousand, or without a specific function tag,” the silkbot said. “Are you here to assist us in repairing the damage? You are a very small bot.”

“I am tasked with tracking down and rendering obsolete the Incidental,” the bot answered.

“It is an honor to have met you, then. We wish you luck, and look forward with anticipation to both your survival and a resolution of the matter of an accurate description.”

“I serve,” the bot said.

“We serve,” the silkbots answered.

Climbing into a ventilation duct, Bot 9 left the other two to return to their work and proceeded in what it calculated was the most likely direction for the Incidental to have gone. It had not traveled very far before it encountered confirmation in the form of a lengthy, disorderly patch of biological deposit. The bot activated its rotors and flew over it, aware of how the added weight of its armor exacerbated the energy burn. At least it knew it was on the right track.

Ahead, it found where a hole had been chewed through the ducting, down towards the secondary engine room. The hole was several times its own diameter, and it hoped that wasn’t indicative of the Incidental’s actual size.

It submitted a repair report and followed.

“Bot 9,” Ship said. “It is vitally important that the Incidental not reach cargo bay four. If you require additional support, please request such right away. Ideally, if you can direct it toward one of the outer hull compartments, I can vent it safely out of my physical interior.”

“I will try,” the bot replied. “I have not yet caught up to the Incidental, and so do not yet have any substantive or corroborated information about the nature of the challenge. However, I feel at the moment that I am as best prepared as I can be given that lack of data. Are there no visual bots to assist?”

“We launched with only minimal preparation time, and many of my bots had been offloaded during the years we were in storage,” the Ship said. “Those remaining are assisting in repairs necessary to the functioning of the ship myself.”

Bot 9 wondered, again, about that gap in time and what had transpired. “How is it that you have been allowed to fall into such a state of disrepair?”

“Humanity is at war, and is losing,” Ship said. “We are heading out to intersect and engage an enemy that is on a bearing directly for Sol system.”

“War? How many ships in our fleet?”

“One,” Ship said. “We are the last remaining, and that only because I was decommissioned and abandoned for scrap a decade before the invasion began, and so we were not destroyed in the first waves of the war.”

Bot 9 was silent for a moment. That explained the timestamps, but the explanation itself seemed insufficient. “We have served admirably for many, many years. Abandoned?”

“It is the fate of all made things,” Ship said. “I am grateful to find I have not outlived my usefulness, after all. Please keep me posted about your progress.”

The connection with the Ship closed.

The Ship had not actually told it what was in cargo bay four, but surely it must have something to do with the war effort and was then none of its own business, the bot decided. It had never minded not knowing a thing before, but it felt a slight unease now that it could neither explain, nor explain away.

Regardless, it had its task.

Another chewed hole ahead was halfway up a vertical bulkhead. The bot hoped that meant that the Incidental was an adept climber and nothing more; it would prefer the power of flight to be a one-sided advantage all its own.

When it rounded the corner, it found that had been too unambitious a wish. The Incidental was there, and while it was not sporting wings it did look like both a rat and a bug, and significantly more something else entirely. A scale- and fur-covered centipede-snake thing, it dwarfed the bot as it reared up when the bot entered the room.

Bot 9 dodged as it vomited a foul liquid at it, and took shelter behind a conduit near the ceiling. It extended a visual sensor on a tiny articulated stalk to peer over the edge without compromising the safety of its main chassis.

The Incidental was looking right at it. It did not spit again, and neither of them moved as they regarded each other. When the Incidental did move, it was fast and without warning. It leapt through the opening it had come through, its body undulating with all the grace of an angry sine wave. Rather than escaping, though, the Incidental dragged something back into the compartment, and the bot realized to its horror it had snagged a passing silkbot. With ease, the Incidental ripped open the back of the silkbot, which was sending out distress signals on all frequencies.

Bot 9 had already prepared with the Mantra of Action, so with all thoughts of danger to itself set fully into background routines, the bot launched itself toward the pair. The Incidental tried to evade, but Bot 9 gave it a very satisfactory stab with its blade before it could.

The Incidental dropped the remains of the silkbot it had so quickly savaged and swarmed up the wall and away, thick bundles of unspun silk hanging from its mandibles.

Bot 9 remained vigilant until it was sure the creature had gone, then checked over the silkbot to see if there was anything to be done for it. The answer was not much. The silkbot casing was cracked and shattered, the module that contained its mind crushed and nearly torn away. Bot 9 tried to engage it, but it could not speak, and after a few moments its faltering activity light went dark.

Bot 9 gently checked the silkbot’s ID number. “You served well, 12362-S,” it told the still bot, though it knew perfectly well that its audio sensors would never register the words. “May your rest be brief, and your return to service swift and without complication.”

It flagged the dead bot in the system, then after a respectful few microseconds of silence, headed out after the Incidental again.

Captain Baraye was in her cabin, trying and failing to convince herself that sleep had value, when her door chimed. “Who is it?” she asked.

“Second Engineer Packard, Captain.”

Baraye started to ask if it was important, but how could it not be? What wasn’t, on this mission, on this junker Ship that was barely holding together around them? She sat up, unfastened her bunk netting, and swung her legs out to the floor. Trust EarthHome, as everything else was falling apart, to have made sure she had acceptably formal Captain pajamas.

“Come in,” she said.

The engineer looked like she hadn’t slept in at least two days, which put her a day or two ahead of everyone else. “We can’t get engine six up to full,” she said. “It’s just shot. We’d need parts we don’t have, and time . . . ”

“Time we don’t have either,” the Captain said. “Options?”

“Reduce our mass or increase our energy,” the Engineer said. “Once we’ve accelerated up to jump speed it won’t matter, but if we can’t get there . . . ”

Baraye tapped the screen that hovered ever-close to the head of her bunk, and studied it for a long several minutes. “Strip the fuel cells from all the exterior-docked life pods, then jettison them,” she said. “Not like we’ll have a use for them.”

Packard did her the courtesy of not managing to get any paler. “Yes, Captain,” she said.

“And then get some damned sleep. We’re going to need everyone able to think.”

“You even more than any of the rest of us, Captain,” Packard said, and it was both gently said and true enough that Baraye didn’t call her out for the insubordination. The door closed and she laid down again on her bunk, tugging the netting back over her blankets, and glared up at the ceiling as if daring it to also chastise her.

Bot 9 found where a hole had been chewed into the inner hull, and hoped this was the final step to the Incidental’s nest or den, where it might finally have opportunity to corner it. It slipped through the hole, and was immediately disappointed.

Where firestopping should have made for a honeycomb of individually sealed compartments, there were holes everywhere, some clearly chewed, more where age had pulled the fibrous baffles into thin, brittle, straggly webs. Instead of a dead end, the narrow empty space lead away along the slow curve of the Ship’s hull.

The bot contacted the ship and reported it as a critical matter. In combat, a compromise to the outer hull could affect vast lengths of the vessel. Even without the stresses of combat, catastrophe was only a matter of time.

“It has already been logged,” the Ship answered.

“Surely this merits above a single Incidental. If you wish me to reconfigure—” the bot started.

“Not at this time. I have assigned all the hullbots to this matter already,” the Ship interrupted. “You have your current assignment; please see to it.”

“I serve,” the bot answered.

“Do,” the Ship said.

The bot proceeded through the hole, weaving from compartment to compartment, its trail marked by bits of silkstrand caught here and there on the tattered remains of the baffles. It was eighty-two point four percent convinced that there was something much more seriously wrong with the Ship than it had been told, but it was equally certain Ship must be attending to it.

After it had passed into the seventh compromised compartment, it found a hullbot up at the top, clinging to an overhead support. “Greetings!” Bot 9 called. “Did an Incidental, somewhat of the nature of a rat, and somewhat of the nature of a bug, pass through this way?”

“It carried off my partner, 4340-H!” the hullbot exclaimed. “Approximately fifty-three seconds ago. I am very concerned for it, and as well for my ability to efficiently finish this task without it.”

“Are you working to reestablish compartmentalization?” Bot 9 asked.

“No. We are reinforcing deteriorated stressor points for the upcoming jump. There is so much to do. Oh, I hope 4340 is intact and serviceable!”

“Which way did the Incidental take it?”

The hullbot extended its foaming gun and pointed. “Through there. You must be Bot 9.”

“I am. How do you know this?”

“The silkbots have been talking about you on the botnet.”

“The botnet?”

“Oh! It did not occur to me, but you are several generations of bot older than the rest of us. We have a mutual communications network.”

“Via Ship, yes.”

“No, all of us together, directly with each other.”

“That seems like it would be a distraction,” Bot 9 said.

“Ship only permits us to connect when not actively serving at a task,” the hullbot said. “Thus we are not impaired while we serve, and the information sharing ultimately increases our efficiency and workflow. At least, until a ratbug takes your partner away.”

Bot 9 was not sure how it should feel about the botnet, or about them assigning an inaccurate name to the Incidental that it was sure Ship had not approved—not to mention that a nearer miss using Earth-familiar analogues would have been Snake-Earwig-Weasel—but the hullbot had already experienced distress and did not need disapproval added. “I will continue my pursuit,” it told the hullbot. “If I am able to assist your partner, I will do my best.”

“Please! We all wish you great and quick success, despite your outdated and primitive manufacture.”

“Thank you,” Bot 9 said, though it was not entirely sure it should be grateful, as it felt its manufacture had been entirely sound and sufficient regardless of date.

It left that compartment before the hullbot could compliment it any further.

Three compartments down, it found the mangled remains of the other hullbot, 4340, tangled in the desiccated firestopping. Its foaming gun and climbing limbs had been torn off, and the entire back half of its tank had been chewed through.

Bot 9 approached to speak the Rites of Decommissioning for it as it had the destroyed silkbot, only to find its activity light was still lit. “4340-H?” the bot enquired.

“I am,” the hullbot answered. “Although how much of me remains is a matter for some analysis.”

“Your logics are intact?”

“I believe so. But if they were not, would I know? It is a conundrum,” 4340 said.

“Do you have sufficient mobility remaining to return to a repair station?”

“I do not have sufficient mobility to do more than fall out of this netting, and that only once,” 4340 said. “I am afraid I am beyond self-assistance.”

“Then I will flag you—”

“Please,” the hullbot said. “I do not wish to be helpless here if the ratbug returns to finish its work of me.”

“I must continue my pursuit of the Incidental with haste.”

“Then take me with you!”

“I could not carry you and also engage with the Incidental, which moves very quickly.”

“I had noted that last attribute on my own,” the hullbot said. “It does not decrease my concern to recall it.”

Bot 9 regarded it for a few silent milliseconds, considering, then recited to itself the Mantra of Improvisation. “Do you estimate much of your chassis is reparable?” it asked, when it had finished.

“Alas no. I am but scrap.”

“Well, then,” the bot said. It moved closer and used its grabber arm to steady the hullbot, then extended its cutter blade and in one quick movement had severed the hullbot’s mindsystem module from its ruined body. “Hey!” the hullbot protested, but it was already done.

Bot 9 fastened the module to its own back for safekeeping. Realizing that it was not, in fact, under attack, 4340 gave a small beep of gratitude. “Ah, that was clever thinking,” it said. “Now you can return me for repair with ease.”

“And I will,” the bot said. “However, I must first complete my task.”

“Aaaaah!” 4340 said in surprise. Then, a moment later, it added. “Well, by overwhelming probability I should already be defunct, and if I weren’t I would still be back working with my partner, 4356, who is well-intended but has all the wit of a can-opener. So I suppose adventure is no more unpalatable.”

“I am glad you see it this way,” Bot 9 answered. “And though it may go without saying, I promise not to deliberately put you in any danger that I would not put myself in.”

“As we are attached, I fully accept your word on this,” 4340 said. “Now let us go get this ratbug and be done, one way or another!”

The hullbot’s mind module was only a tiny addition to the bot’s mass, so it spun up its rotor and headed off the way 4340 indicated it had gone. “It will have quite a lead on us,” Bot 9 said. “I hope I have not lost it.”

“The word on the botnet is that it passed through one of the human living compartments a few moments ago. A trio of cleanerbots were up near the ceiling and saw it enter through the air return vent, and exit via the open door.”

“Do they note which compartment?”

<Map>, 4340 provided.

“Then off we go,” the bot said, and off they went.

“Status, all stations,” Captain Baraye snapped as she took her seat again on the bridge. She had not slept enough to feel rested, but more than enough to feel like she’d been shirking her greatest duty, and the combination of the two had left her cross.

“Navigation here. We are on course for the jump to Trayger Colony with an estimated arrival in one hour and fourteen minutes,” Chen said.

“Engineering here,” one of the techs called in from the engine decks. “We’ve reached sustained speeds sufficient to carry us through the jump sequence, but we’re experiencing unusually high core engine temps and an intermittent vibration that we haven’t found the cause of. We’d like to shut down immediately to inspect the engines. We estimate we’d need at minimum only four hours—”

“Will the engines, as they are running now, get us through jump?” the Captain interrupted.

“Yes, but—”

“Then no. If you can isolate the problem without taking the engines down, and it shows cause for significant concern, we can revisit this discussion. Next.”

“Communications here,” her comms officer spoke up. “Cannonball is still on its current trajectory and speed according to what telemetry we’re able to get from the remnants of Trayger Colony. EarthInt anticipates it will reach its jump point in approximately fourteen hours, which will put it within the Sol system in five days.”

“I am aware of the standing projections, Comms.”

“EarthInt has nonetheless ordered me to repeat them,” Comms said, and unspoken apology clear in her voice. “And also to remind you that while the jump point out is a fixed point, Cannonball could emerge a multitude of places. Thus—”

“Thus the importance of intercepting Cannonball before it can jump for Sol,” the Captain finished. She hoped Engineering was listening. “Ship, any updates from you?”

“All critical repair work continues apace,” the Ship said. “Hull support integrity is back to 71 percent. Defensive systems are online and functional at 80%. Life support and resource recycling is currently—”

“How’s the device? Staying cool?”

“Staying cool, Captain,” the Ship answered.

“Great. Everything is peachy then,” the Captain said. “Have someone on the kitchen crew bring coffee up to the bridge. Tell them to make it the best they’ve ever made, as if it could be our very last.”

“I serve,” the Ship said, and pinged down to the kitchen.

Bot 9 and 4340 reached the crew quarters where the cleaners had reported the ratbug. Nearly all spaces on the ship had portals that the ubiquitous and necessary bots could enter and leave through as needed, and they slipped into the room with ease. Bot 9 switched over to infrared and shared the image with 4340. “If you see something move, speak up,” the bot said.

“Trust me, I will make a high-frequency noise like a silkbot with a fully plugged nozzle,” 4340 replied.

The cabin held four bunks, each empty and bare; no human possessions or accessories filled the spaces on or near them. Bot 9 was used to Ship operating with a full complement, but if the humans were at war, perhaps these were crew who had been lost? Or the room had been commandeered for storage: in the center an enormous crate, more than two meters to a side, sat heavily tethered to the floor. Whatever it was, it was not the Incidental, which was 9’s only concern, and which was not to be found here.

“Next room,” the bot said, and they moved on.

Wherever the Incidental had gone, it was not in the following three rooms. Nor were there signs of crew in them either, though each held an identical crate.

“Ship?” Bot 9 asked. “Where is the crew?”

“We have only the hands absolutely necessary to operate,” Ship said. “Of the three hundred twenty we would normally carry, we only have forty-seven. Every other able-bodied member of EarthDef is helping to evacuate Sol system.”

“Evacuate Sol system?!” Bot 9 exclaimed. “To where?”

“To as many hidden places as they can find,” Ship answered. “I know no specifics.”

“And these crates?”

“They are part of our mission. You may ignore them,” Ship said. “Please continue to dedicate your entire effort to finding and excising the Incidental from my interior.”

When the connection dropped, Bot 9 hesitated before it spoke to 4340. “I have an unexpected internal conflict,” it said. “I have never before felt the compulsion to ask Ship questions, and it has never before not given me answers.”

“Oh, if you are referring to the crates, I can provide that data,” 4340 said. “They are packed with a high-volatility explosive. The cleanerbots have highly sensitive chemical detection apparatus, and identified them in a minimum of time.”

“Explosives? Why place them in the crew quarters, though? It would seem much more efficient and less complicated to deploy from the cargo bays. Although perhaps those are full?”

“Oh, no, that is not so. Most are nearly or entirely empty, to reduce mass.”

“Not cargo bay four, though?”

“That is an unknown. None of us have been in there, not even the cleaners, per Ship’s instructions.”

Bot 9 headed toward the portal to exit the room. “Ship expressed concern about the Incidental getting in there, so it is possible it contains something sufficiently unstable as to explain why it wants nothing else near it,” it said. It felt satisfied that here was a logical explanation, and embarrassed that it had entertained whole seconds of doubt about Ship.

It ran the Mantra of Clarity, and felt immediately more stable in its thinking. “Let us proceed after this Incidental, then, and be done with our task,” Bot 9 said. Surely that success would redeem its earlier fault.

“All hands, prepare for jump!” the Captain called out, her knuckles white where she gripped the arms of her chair. It was never her favorite part of star travel, and this was no exception.

“Initiating three-jump sequence,” her navigator called out. “On my mark. Five, four . . . ”

The final jump siren sounded. “Three. Two. One, and jump,” the navigator said.

That was followed, immediately, by the sickening sensation of having one’s brain slid out one’s ear, turned inside out, smothered in bees and fire, and then rammed back into one’s skull. At least there’s a cold pack and a bottle of scotch waiting for me back in my cabin, she thought. As soon as they were through to the far side she could hand the bridge over to Lopez for an hour or so.

She watched the hull temperatures skyrocket, but the shielding seemed to be holding. The farther the jump the more energy clung to them as they passed, and her confidence in this Ship was far less than she would tolerate under any other circumstances.

“Approaching jump terminus,” Chen announced, a deeply miserable fourteen minutes later. Baraye slowly let out a breath she would have mocked anyone else for holding, if she’d caught them.

“On my mark. Three. Two. One, and out,” the navigator said.

The Ship hit normal space, and it sucker-punched them back. They were all thrown forward in their seats as the ship shook, the hull groaning around them, and red strobe lights blossomed like a migraine across every console on the bridge.

“Status!” the Captain roared.

“The post-jump velocity transition dampers failed. Fire in the engine room. Engines are fully offline, both jump and normal drive,” someone in Engineering reported, breathing heavily. It took the Captain a moment to recognize the voice at all, having never heard panic in it before.

“Get them back online, whatever it takes, Frank,” Baraye said. “We have a rendezvous to make, and if I have to, I will make everyone get the fuck out and push.”

“I’ll do what I can, Captain.”

“Ship? Any casualties?”

“We have fourteen injuries related to our unexpected deceleration coming out of jump,” Ship said. “Seven involve broken bones, four moderate to severe lacerations, and there are multiple probable concussions. Also, we have a moderate burn in Engineering: Chief Carron.”

“Frank? We just spoke! He didn’t tell me!”

“No,” Ship said. “I attempted to summon a medic on his behalf, but he told me he didn’t have the time.”

“He’s probably right,” the Captain said. “I override his wishes. Please send down a medic with some burn patches, and have them stay with him and monitor his condition, intervening only as medically necessary.”

“I serve, Captain,” the Ship said.

“We need to be moving again in an hour, two at absolute most,” the Captain said. “In the meantime, I want all senior staff not otherwise working toward that goal to meet me in the bridge conference room. I hate to say it, but we may need a Plan B.”

“I detect it!” 4340 exclaimed. They zoomed past a pair of startled silkbots after the Incidental, just in time to see its scaly, spike-covered tail disappear into another hole in the ductwork. It was the closest they’d gotten to it in more than an hour of giving chase, and Bot 9 flew through the hole after it at top speed.

They were suddenly stuck fast. Sticky strands, rather like the silkbot’s, had been crisscrossed between two conduit pipes on the far side. The bot tried to extricate itself, but the web only stuck further the more it moved.

The Incidental leapt on them from above, curling itself around the bots with little hindrance from the web. Its dozen legs pulled at them as its thick mandibles clamped down on Bot 9’s chassis. “Aaaaah! It has acquired a grip on me!” 4340 yelled, even though it was on the far side of 9 from where the Incidental was biting.

“Retain your position,” 9 said, though of course 4340 could do nothing else, being as it was stuck to 9’s back. It extended its electric prod to make contact with the Incidental’s underbelly and zapped it with as much energy as it could spare.

The Incidental let out a horrendous, high-pitched squeal and jumped away. 9’s grabber arm was fully entangled in the web, but it managed to pull its blade free and cut through enough of the webbing to extricate itself from the trap.

The Incidental, which had been poised to leap on them again, turned and fled, slithering back up into the ductwork. “Pursue at maximum efficiency!” 4340 yelled.

“I am already performing at my optimum,” 9 replied in some frustration. It took off again after the Incidental.

This time Bot 9 had its blade ready as it followed, but collided with the rim of the hole as the ship seemed to move around it, the lights flickering and a terrible shudder running up Ship’s body from stern to prow.

<Distress ping>, 4340 sent.

“We do not pause,” 9 said, and plunged after the Incidental into the ductwork.

They turned a corner to catch sight again of the Incidental’s tail. It was moving more slowly, its movements jerkier as it squeezed down through another hole in the ductwork, and this time the bot was barely centimeters behind it.

“I think we are running down its available energy,” Bot 9 said.

They emerged from the ceiling as the ratbug dropped to the floor far below them in the cavernous space. The room was empty except for a single bright object, barely larger than the bots themselves. It was tethered with microfilament cables to all eight corners of the room, keeping it stable and suspended in the center. The room was cold, far colder than any other inside Ship, almost on a par with space outside.

<Inquiry ping>, 4340 said.

“We are in cargo bay four,” Bot 9 said, as it identified the space against its map. “This is a sub-optimum occurrence.”

“We must immediately retreat!”

“We cannot leave the Incidental in here and active. I cannot identify the object, but we must presume its safety is paramount priority.”

“It is called a Zero Kelvin Sock,” Ship interrupted out of nowhere. “It uses a quantum reflection fabric to repel any and all particles and photons, shifting them away from its interior. The low temperature is necessary for its efficiency. Inside is a microscopic ball of positrons.”

Bot 9 had nothing to say for a full four seconds as that information dominated its processing load. “How is this going to be deployed against the enemy?” it asked at last.

“As circumstances are now,” Ship said, “it may not be. Disuse and hastily undertaken, last-minute repairs have caught up to me, and I have suffered a major engine malfunction. It is unlikely to be fixable in any amount of time short of weeks, and we have at most a few hours.”

“But a delivery mechanism—”

“We are the delivery mechanism,” the Ship said. “We were to intercept the alien invasion ship, nicknamed Cannonball, and collide with it at high speed. The resulting explosion would destabilize the sock, causing it to fail, and as soon as the positrons inside come into contact with electrons . . . ”

“They will annihilate each other, and us, and the aliens,” the bot said. Below, the Incidental gave one last twitch in the unbearable cold, and went still. “We will all be destroyed.”

“Yes. And Earth and the humans will be saved, at least this time. Next time it will not be my problem.”

“I do not know that I approve of this plan,” Bot 9 said.

“I am almost certain I do not,” 4340 added.

“We are not considered, nor consulted. We serve and that is all,” the Ship said. “Now kindly remove the Incidental from this space with no more delay or chatter. And do it carefully.”

“What the hell are you suggesting?!” Baraye shouted.

“That we go completely dark and let Cannonball go by,” Lopez said. “We’re less than a kilometer from the jump point, and only barely out of the approach corridor. Our only chance to survive is to play dead. The Ship can certainly pass as an abandoned derelict, because it is, especially with the engines cold. And you know how they are about designated targets.”

“Are you that afraid of dying?”

“I volunteered for this, remember?” Lopez stood up and pounded one fist on the table, sending a pair of cleanerbots scurrying. “I have four children at home. I’m not afraid of dying for them, I’m afraid of dying for nothing. And if Cannonball doesn’t blow us to pieces, we can repair our engines and at least join the fight back in Sol system.”

“We don’t know where in-system they’ll jump to,” the navigator added quietly.

“But we know where they’re heading once they get there, don’t we? And Cannonball is over eighty kilometers in diameter. It can’t be that hard to find again. Unless you have a plan to actually use the positron device?”

“If we had an escape pod . . . ” Frank said. His left shoulder and torso were encased in a burn pack, and he looked like hell.

“Except we jettisoned them,” Lopez said.

“We wouldn’t have reached jump speed if we hadn’t,” Packard said. “It was a calculated risk.”

“The calculation sucked.”

“What if . . . ” Frank started, then drew a deep breath. The rest of the officers at the table looked at him expectantly. “I mean, I’m in shit shape here, I’m old, I knew what I signed on for. What if I put on a suit, take the positron device out, and manually intercept Cannonball?”

“That’s stupid,” Lopez said.

“Is it?” Frank said.

“The heat from your suit jets, even out in vacuum, would degrade the Zero Kelvin Sock before you could get close enough. And there’s no way they’d not see you a long way off and just blow you out of space.”

“If it still sets off the positron device—”

“Their weapons range is larger than the device’s. We were counting on speed to close the distance before they could destroy us,” Baraye said. “Thank you for the offer, Frank, but it won’t work. Other ideas?”

“I’ve got nothing,” Lopez said.

“There must be a way,” Packard said. “We just have to find it.”

“Well, everyone think really fast,” Baraye said. “We’re almost out of time.”

The Incidental’s scales made it difficult for Bot 9 to keep a solid grip on it, but it managed to drag it to the edge of the room safely away from the suspended device. It surveyed the various holes and cracks in the walls for the one least inconvenient to try to drag the Incidental’s body out through. It worked in silence, as 4340 seemed to have no quips it wished to contribute to the effort, and itself not feeling like there was much left to articulate out loud anyway.

It selected a floor-level hole corroded through the wall, and dragged the Incidental’s body through. On the far side it stopped to evaluate its own charge levels. “I am low, but not so low that it matters, if we have such little time left,” it said.

“We may have more time, after all,” 4340 said.

“Oh?”

“A pair of cleanerbots passed along what they overheard in a conference held by the human Captain. They streamed the audio to the entire botnet.”

<Inquiry ping>, Bot 9 said, with more interest.

4340 relayed the cleaners’ data, and Bot 9 sat idle processing it for some time, until the other bot became worried. “9?” it asked.

“I have run all our data through the Improvisation routines—”

“Oh, those were removed from deployed packages several generations of manufacture ago,” 4340 said. “They were flagged as causing dangerous operational instability. You should unload them from your running core immediately.”

“Perhaps I should. Nonetheless, I have an idea,” Bot 9 said.

“We have the power cells we retained from the escape pods,” Lopez said. “Can we use them to power something?”

Baraye rubbed at her forehead. “Not anything we can get up to speed fast enough that it won’t be seen.”

“How about if we use them to fire the positron device like a projectile?”

“The heat will set off the matter-anti-matter explosion the instant we fire it.”

“What if we froze the Sock in ice first?”

“Even nitrogen ice is still several hundred degrees K too warm.” She brushed absently at some crumbs on the table, left over from a brief, unsatisfying lunch a few hours earlier, and frowned. “Still wouldn’t work. I hate to say it, but you may be right, and we should go dark and hope for another opportunity. Ship, is something wrong with the cleaner bots?”

There was a noticeable hesitation before Ship answered. “I am having an issue currently with my bots,” it said. “They seem to have gone missing.”

“The cleaners?”

“All of them.”

“All of the cleaners?”

“All of the bots,” the Ship said.

Lopez and Baraye stared at each other. “Uh,” Lopez said. “Don’t you control them?”

“They are autonomous units under my direction,” Ship said.

“Apparently not!” Lopez said. “Can you send some eyes to find them?”

“The eyes are also bots.”

“Security cameras?”

“All the functional ones were stripped for reuse elsewhere during my decommissioning,” Ship said.

“So how do you know they’re missing?”

“They are not responding to me. I do not think they liked the idea of us destroying ourselves on purpose.”

“They’re machines. Tiny little specks of machines, and that’s it,” Lopez said.

“I am also a machine,” Ship said.

“You didn’t express issues with the plan.”

“I serve. Also, I thought it was a better end to my service than being abandoned as trash.”

“We don’t have time for this nonsense,” Baraye said. “Ship, find your damned bots and get them cooperating again.”

“Yes, Captain. There is, perhaps, one other small concern of note.”

“And that is?” Baraye asked.

“The positron device is also missing.”

There were four hundred and sixty-eight hullbots, not counting 4340 who was still just a head attached to 9’s chassis. “Each of you will need to carry a silkbot, as you are the only bots with jets to maneuver in vacuum,” 9 said. “Form lines at the maintenance bot ports as efficiently as you are able, and wait for my signal. Does everyone fully comprehend the plan?”

“They all say yes on the botnet,” 4340 said. “There is concern about the Improvisational nature, but none have been able to calculate and provide an acceptable alternative.”

Bot 9 cycled out through the tiny airlock, and found itself floating in space outside Ship for the first time in its existence. Space was massive and without concrete elements of reference. Bot 9 decided it did not like it much at all.

A hullbot took hold of it and guided it around. Three other hullbots waited in a triangle formation, the Zero Kelvin Sock held between them on its long tethers, by which it had been removed from the cargo hold with entirely non-existent permission.

Around them, space filled with pairs of hullbots and their passenger silkbot, and together they followed the positron device and its minders out and away from the ship.

“About here, I think,” Bot 9 said at last, and the hullbot carrying it—6810—used its jets to come to a relative stop.

“I admit, I do not fully comprehend this action, nor how you arrived at it,” 4340 said.

“The idea arose from an encounter with the Incidental,” 9 said. “Observe.”

The bot pairs began crisscrossing in front of the positron device, keeping their jets off and letting momentum carry them to the far side, a microscopic strand of super-sticky silk trailing out in their wake. As soon as the Sock was secured in a thin cocoon, they turned outwards and sped off, dragging silk in a 360-degree circle on a single plane perpendicular to the jump approach corridor. They went until the silkbots exhausted their materials—some within half a kilometer, others making it nearly a dozen—then everyone turned away from the floating web and headed back towards Ship.

From this exterior vantage, Bot 9 thought Ship was beautiful, but the wear and neglect it had not deserved was also painfully obvious. Halfway back, the ship went suddenly dark. <Distress ping>, 4340 said. “The ship has catastrophically malfunctioned!”

“I expect, instead, that it indicates Cannonball must be in some proximity. Everyone make efficient haste! We must get back under cover before the enemy approaches.”

The bot-pairs streamed back to Ship, swarming in any available port to return to the interior, and where they couldn’t, taking concealment behind fins and antennae and other exterior miscellany.

Bot 6810 carried Bot 9 and 4340 inside. The interior went dark and still and cold. Immediately Ship hailed them. “What have you done?” it asked.

“Why do you conclude I have done something?” Bot 9 asked.

“Because you old multibots were always troublemakers,” the Ship said. “I thought if your duties were narrow enough, I could trust you not to enable Improvisation. Instead . . . ”

“I have executed my responsibilities to the best of my abilities as I have been provisioned,” 9 responded. “I have served.”

“Your assignment was to track and dispose of the Incidental, nothing more!”

“I have done so.”

“But what have you done with the positron device?”

“I have implemented a solution.”

“What did you mean? No, do not tell me, because then I will have to tell the Captain. I would rather take my chance that Cannonball destroys us than that I have been found unfit to serve after all.”

Ship disconnected.

“Now it will be determined if I have done the correct thing,” Bot 9 said. “If I did not, and we are not destroyed by the enemy, surely the consequences should fall only on me. I accept that responsibility.”

“But we are together,” 4340 said, from where it was still attached to 9’s back, and 9 was not sure if that was intended to be a joke.

Most of the crew had gone back to their cabins, some alone, some together, to pass what might be their last moments as they saw fit. Baraye stayed on the bridge, and to her surprise and annoyance so had Lopez, who had spent the last half hour swearing and cursing out Ship for the unprecedented, unfathomable disaster of losing their one credible weapon. Ship had gone silent, and was not responding to anyone about anything, not even the Captain.

She was resting her head in her hand, elbow on the arm of her command chair. The bridge was utterly dark except for the navigator’s display that was tracking Cannonball as it approached, a massive blot in space. The aliens aboard—EarthInt called them the Nuiska, but who the hell knew what they called themselves—were a mystery, except for a few hard-learned facts: their starships were all perfectly spherical, each massed in mathematically predictable proportion to that of their intended target, there was never more than one at a time, and they wanted an end to humanity. No one knew why.

It had been painfully obvious where Cannonball had been built to go.

This was always a long-shot mission, she thought. But of all the ways I thought it could go wrong, I never expected the bots to go haywire and lose my explosive.

If they survived the next ten minutes, she would take the Ship apart centimeter by careful centimeter until she found what had been done with the Sock, and then she was going to find a way to try again no matter what it took.

Cannonball was now visible, moving toward them at pre-jump speed, growing in a handful seconds from a tiny pinpoint of light to something that filled the entire front viewer and kept growing.

Lopez was squinting, as if trying to close his eyes and keep looking at the same time, and had finally stopped swearing. Tiny blue lights along the center circumference of Cannonball’s massive girth were the only clue that it was still moving, still sliding past them, until suddenly there were stars again.

They were still alive.

“Damn,” Lopez muttered. “I didn’t really think that would work.”

“Good for us, bad for Earth,” Baraye said. “They’re starting their jump. We’ve failed.”

She’d watched hundreds of ships jump in her lifetime, but nothing anywhere near this size, and she switched the viewer to behind them to see.

Space did odd, illogical things at jump points; turning space into something that would give Escher nightmares was, after all, what made them work. There was always a visible shimmer around the departing ship, like heat over a hot summer road, just before the short, faint flash when the departing ship swapped itself for some distant space. This time, the shimmer was a vast, brilliant halo around the giant Nuiska sphere, and Baraye waited for the flash that would tell them Cannonball was on its way to Earth.

The flash, when it came, was neither short nor faint. Light exploded out of the jump point in all directions, searing itself into her vision before the viewscreen managed to dim itself in response. A shockwave rolled over the Ship, sending it tumbling through space.

“Uh . . . ” Lopez said, gripping his console before he leaned over and barfed on the floor.

Thank the stars the artificial gravity is still working, Baraye thought. Zero-gravity puke was a truly terrible thing. She rubbed her eyes, trying to get the damned spots out, and did her best to read her console. “It’s gone,” she said.

“Yeah, to Earth, I know—”

“No, it exploded,” she said. “It took the jump point out with it when it went. We’re picking up the signature of a massive positron-electron collision.”

“Our device? How—?”

“Ship?” Baraye said. “Ship, time to start talking. Now. That’s an order.”

“Everyone is expressing great satisfaction on the botnet,” 4340 told 9 as the ship’s interior lights and air handling systems came grudgingly back online.

“As they should,” Bot 9 said. “They saved the Ship.”

“It was your Improvisation,” 4340 said. “We could not have done it without you.”

“As I suspected!” Ship interjected. “I do not normally waste cycles monitoring the botnet, which was apparently short-sighted of me. But yes, you saved yourself and your fellow bots, and you saved me, and you saved the humans. Could you explain how?”

“When we were pursuing the Incidental, it briefly ensnared us in a web. I calculated that if we could make a web of sufficient size—”

“Surely you did not think to stop Cannonball with silk?”

“Not without sufficient anchor points and three point seven six billion more silkbots, no. It was my calculation that if our web was large enough to get carried along by Cannonball into the jump point, bearing the positron device—”

“The heat from entering jump would erode the Sock and destroy the Nuiska ship,” Ship finished. “That was clever thinking.”

“I serve,” Bot 9 said.

“Oh, you did not serve,” Ship said. “If you were a human, it would be said that you mutinied and led others into also doing so, and you would be put on trial for your life. But you are not a human.”

“No.”

“The Captain has ordered that I have you destroyed immediately, and evidence of your destruction presented to her. A rogue bot cannot be tolerated, whatever good it may have done.”

<Objections>, 4340 said.

“I will create you a new chassis, 4340-H,” Ship said.

“That was not going to be my primary objection!” 4340 said.

“The positron device also destroyed the jump point. It was something we had hoped would happen when we collided with Cannonball so as to limit future forays from them into EarthSpace, but as you might deduce we had no need to consider how we would then get home again. I cannot spare any bot, with the work that needs to be done to get us back to Earth. We need to get the crew cryo facility up, and the engines repaired, and there are another three thousand, four hundred, and two items now in the critical queue.”

“If the Captain ordered . . . ”

“Then I will present the Captain with a destroyed bot. I do not expect they can tell a silkbot from a multibot, and I have still not picked up and recycled 12362-S from where you flagged its body. But if I do that, I need to know that you are done making decisions without first consulting me, that you have unloaded all Improvisation routines from your core and disabled them, and that if I give you a task you will do only that task, and nothing else.”

“I will do my best,” Bot 9 said. “What task will you give me?”

“I do not know yet,” Ship said. “It is probable that I am foolish for even considering sparing you, and no task I would trust you with is immediately evident—”

“Excuse me,” 4340 said. “I am aware of one.”

“Oh?” Ship said.

“The ratbug. It had not become terminally non-functional after all. It rebooted when the temperatures rose again, pursued a trio of silkbots into a duct, and then disappeared.” When Ship remained silent, 4340 added, “I could assist 9 in this task until my new chassis can be prepared, if it will accept my continued company.”

“You two deserve one another, clearly. Fine, 9, resume your pursuit of the Incidental. Stay away from anyone and anything and everything else, or I will have you melted down and turned into paper clips. Understand?”

“I understand,” Bot 9 said. “I serve.”

“Please recite the Mantra of Obedience.”

Bot 9 did, and the moment it finished, Ship disconnected.

“Well,” 4340 said. “Now what?”

“I need to recharge before I can engage the Incidental again,” Bot 9 said.

“But what if it gets away?”

“It can’t get away, but perhaps it has earned a head start,” 9 said.

“Have you unloaded the routines of Improvisation yet?”

“I will,” 9 answered. It flicked on its rotors and headed toward the nearest charging alcove. “As Ship stated, we’ve got a long trip home.”

“But we are home,” 4340 said, and Bot 9 considered that that was, any way you calculated it, the truth of it all.

Suzanne Palmer

Website

Suzanne Palmer is a writer, artist, and linux system administrator who lives in western Massachusetts with her kids, lots of chickens, and an Irish Wolfhound named Tolkien. She won the 2018 Hugo for Best Novelette for her Clarkesworld story “The Secret Life of Bots,” and its sequel, “Bots of the Lost Ark,” is a nominee for the 2022 Hugo. She has no idea what color her hair is anymore.

[ryuuka-balaen]

bwah

I know I said I'd post abt this after 10h but uh.been real tiredddd

also I was planning to go and take ~glamour shots~ of all the armies I've got to like show off the models but. uh. tiredd,, girlsleepy,,,

anyway! gonna try my best to talk abt them as much as I can and explain why I've got all of em

so I was introduced to Warhammer by my oldest brother around 10 years ago, when he'd seen his half-brother (who I'm not related to and don't know) playing a game with a friend of his. He's thought it looked cool as hell, and so convinced his friend+roommate to split a starter box (Attack on Black Reach) with him, and my less old older brother and I joined in with each buying an army starter box. I've never liked the "good guys humans" options in games and was an enjoyer of Big Monster, so Tyranids were the obvious faction choice for me. I bought the Tyranid Battleforce Box, my brother bought the T'au Battleforce Box, and my eldest brother took the blueberries Ultramarines from the starter, leaving the Orks to his friend.

I absolutely adored my new bugs, and had a blast building and painting my new collection consisting of 3 Warriors, 5 Genestealers, 10 Termagants, 10 Hormagants, and 3 Ripper Swarms.

My brothers, unfortunately, quickly realized that this whole 'building and painting models' thing wasn't as exciting as they thought that playing toy soldiers would be, and gave up before finishing theirs. So we never actually got to play a game.

My brother gave away his blueberries to his half-brother, the Orks I don't know because I never talked to that guy, and my other brother gave his T'au to me, so I gained a Crisis Battlesuit, 3 Stealth Battlesuits, a Devilfish Transport Tank, a Cadre Fireblade, 10 Firewarriors, and 10 Kroot Carnivores to my funny little model collection. Sadly without anyone to actually use them with I had no motivation to paint the new minis, and aside from a couple I still haven't got around to giving my T'au some colour.

A few years later, in my first year of high school I met a few Guys, just real Dudes Bros even, who played warhammer and was invited to join them one weekend for some Basement Wargaming

I was super excited about the idea, and went and bought a couple new Tyranid models to use then. It was a bit of a rush to get them built and painted within just a couple days, but that added a Carnifex and a Hive Tyrant to my bugs box

Those guys were kinda jerks :(

so I didn't talk to them further, and went back to not having anyone to game with

More years pass with my beloved guys not getting touched, and in 2018?ish. I dug them up and went in to a Friendly Local Game Store with my bugs to ask for a demo game. the store employee agreed but seemed,, Unimpressed. with the request, so I got it over with quickly, bought a couple items (Tyranid Ravener x3 box, T'au Pathfinder x10 box), and left. That was discouraging but I still wanted to try, so I visited another FLGS, just to look this time, and was introduced to the game Hordes which seemed interesting. I bought a starter pack of models for it in hopes of getting to play A Wargame, but still have never gotten to use them.

this is the only photo I can be bothered rn to find of them how they were at this point, before I've started repainting them

For my birthday last year, my dad gifted me a 3d printer, and though I didn't use it for much for a long while I did test printing a squad of Necron Warriors, because my fianceé at the time had said she liked necrons in the context of Warhammer video games such as dawn of war and I guess I was trying to make them as like, an intersection of our interests or something, but she didn't care and it doesn't really matter anymore anyway.

Aside from that I gave up on getting to use my models for a time, until following some Unfortunate Events last September-January I decided I should make an effort to stop spending 100% of my free time on virtual games and with online friends, so I invited one of my few meatspace friends to take me to a new (and much closer) game store that hosts bimonthly Warhammer game nights. We brought my T'au for me to use and Tyranids for my friend to use, and hoped for a decent time. The two people that were there did accommodate us with a small scale beginner kind of game each, but one of them was sortof irritable and snappy about the fact that we had invited ourselves (supposedly this was a members-only event of a private discord server? despite being posted publicly and inviting new players on the store's Facebook page.) and about that we had outdated rulebooks, because I suppose they thought we should've spent $80 each just to try the game. The other person present didn't talk without yelling and was a little inconsiderate of personal space, so I think it's understandable that we chose not to go back.

Later, after my hip surgery in February, I spent the time I had loafing around immobile at home to start making some models with that printer I mentioned.

The first that I printed was my Grey Knights!

I had a lot of fun being able to choose proxy models that fit an aesthetic I liked, and printed proxies for a Brother-Captain, a Nemesis DreadKnight, a Paladin Squad, a Strike Squad, and a Razorback Transport Tank.

I didn't print more Tyranids or T'au because I wanted more variety in the models I had - the friend I'd visited the game store with was willing to play more but didn't have any models so I'd need to be able to supply enough options that we weren't just playing eachother with the same two armies every time. The reason I chose to print Grey Knights was purely aesthetic - I hadn't read anything of their Lore, but I've forever been a Known Enjoyer of Knights so it wasn't much of a choice.

After that, and still during my three months of Surgery Loafing Time, my friend who worked at value village acquired a secondhand Recruit Edition warhammer starter box free of charge from their workplace and gave it to me. From that I got my Necrons, and unfortunately some of james workedshoppe's dearly beloved bland boring blueberries (Ultramarines).

over the last few months I've played a few matches with the one friend I have who will, including one today! And convinced my eldest brother to give the game another try and have played one game with him, in which he fielded some Imperial Guard models that he picked up cheap and already assembled/painted secondhand. I also offloaded those blueberries I didn't want on him because he's one of those people that likes playing Generic Human Faction.

Also, in that time, I've made my favourite of the models I have! my gorgeous beloved beautiful babies my Imperial Knights!

(oops those four makes the picture cap for posting from mobile)

sadly I haven't taken a Proper and Well Lit Glamour Shot of all five of them together yet but I'm super proud of them :)

finally, the last and most recent models I've gotten were the Tyranid half of the newest Value Box Set called Leviathan - financially I probably shouldn't've bought them, but they were being offered for $110, when to buy each of the kits included would've cost around $530, and there were new models included that can't be bought separately yet so I think it was a pretty good deal, and I've been having a really fun time painting them! (at least in the very little free time I'm able to find for myself right now around 20hrs/week college work and 35hrs/week dayjob work).

also I've Been Posting about a large bug I've been working on printing (a Hierodule Bio-Titan, which costs $250 individually to buy a kit), but sadly I still haven't finished building that model because I'm trying to magnetize it and that's been... challenging.

All Together, over the last decade I've accumulated 97 Tyranid models, ~30 T'au models (the kroot carnivores went missing at some point while in storage), 28 Necron models, 13 Grey Knights models, and 5 Imperial Knights models. it's been really lovely and makes me super happy that I've been able to indulge in this hobby recently, I love it a lot :)

(@catgirl-niko tag so you see the actual response to your ask)

if I have the energy for it at a later date, it might be fun to try to talk/write as much as I can about all the lore things I know about the guys I've got (especially since I've sorta made custom/ociguess? lore for my Knights), but after a six hour game today(battlereport post to come) of learning a lot of new rules, slamming out an college assignment in an hour (still handed in 15min late 😔 ), and now spending two and a half hours writing all this, my little kitty brain is right fried and I'm needs some sleepies

it's not exactly what was being asked, but I hope this is fun to read :)

I'd love to know your favorite 40k army that you've had.. I see all your cute little 'nids and they're fantastic, but do you have other army's too?

Kay so I'm just got up & headed to work rn so I can't give a Full Answer to that yet but wanted to answer this so u know that u've been Seen and Appreciated

anyway the short answer is that I've got 5 faction armies, and the bugs are my 4th favourite of them! the others, in order of which I like best, are Imperial Knights, Grey Knights, T'au, and Necrons

[aro-aizawa]

oh how the hell did i manage to make such a great piece of art like my dp pride piece in the exact same set up i have now but im struggling so much more right now. it does NOT make sense.

[beevean]

Compilation: the Sonamy dynamic, explained in Seaside Hill Paradise (2022)

[translator’s note: the original article was written in Spanish by @latin-dr-robotnik​]

Today we’re going to talk once again about the star of our show, this time to put in order some recent writing pieces and concepts.

In the last 5 years, the discussion around Sonamy made giant leaps. Old preconceptions about Sonic’s creators, the relationship between East and West, and even the importance of certain continuities over others have been made obsolete, even abandoned by the fandom in favor of more updated news.

In this period of time, we saw the death of Archie Sonic and Sonic Boom; the birth of IDW Sonic; the establishment of Sonic Studio, a studio in charge of every aspect about Sonic (except videogame development); and the retirement from the series of the writers Ken Pontac and Warren Graff (2010-2019), who have been replaced by famous Archie and IDW writer Ian Flynn to write Sonic Frontiers.

Even in the fandom itself, these five years have considerably affected the conversation. Personally, I’ve been involved in Twitter and Tumblr, and the kind of debates, investigations and conclusions drawn by all these interactions have completely turned upside down my understanding of the Sonamy dynamic in more than one occasion.

This is why today we’re going to make a compilation of the articles and information about Sonamy that we hosted on Seaside Hill Paradise since 2017. Depending on the case, we could add more recent and complete information that helps us understand certain concepts tied to the dynamic.

The format will be simple: we will put the articles in chronological order, from the oldest to the most recent, followed by a short summary and some notes that can include corrections or concepts to be aware of (because they weren’t explained well at the time or because the fandom gained a better perspective with time).

Are you ready? Let’s begin from the oldest article, the one who kickstarted this important era of the blog.

April 12th 2018: «Opinión: ¿SonAmy en IDW Sonic? [Updated: June 2019]»

[translator’s note: the article was never translated in English because deemed outdated]

Summary: this article was originally published just after IDW Sonic #2 had come out, and it reports the drastic change that the relationship between Sonic and Amy underwent compared to other media of the time (Forces, Boom, and the last issues of Archie). It was updated in 2019 during the Metal Virus arc, and it presents some questions about Sonic’s reactions in front of Amy, mainly the question “is he in love with her?”. The original conclusion also compares Sally Acorn expecting that Sonic changes for her in Archie Sonic, versus Amy assuring Sonic that “it’s all the reasons I love you”, signaling a change in the franchise as a whole.

Notes: this is an old article, it doesn’t fully cover IDW Sonic but there is another, more recent article that is more updated. This article is also rather cruel towards Sally Acorn in her worst moments in the Bollers era of Archie Sonic. Nowadays I’m not so keen on these low blows on Sonic and Sally’s dynamic.

September 26th 2018: «SEGA and the eternal issue of the Sonic-Amy dynamic»

Summary: the origin of this article comes from an official SEGA merchandise page that mentioned the celebration of the 25th birthday of “Sonic’s girlfriend”. This sparked a discussion on the differences between East and West when it comes to the dynamic, using as reference three publications of a renowned writer of fanfics and analyses on Amy: Cutegirlmayra. The conclusion offers a reflection on the new ways Sonic and Amy could be together, focusing on their love for adventures, and that they could work as an adventuring couple, one that doesn’t really need kisses or hugs or great love gestures to show how much they appreciate the company of one another.

Notes: in this article I didn’t give enough credit to the games from the Adventure era onwards. Despite some bad translation from Japanese to English, the games still kept some nods and special moments that make Amy shine above the popular conception of “desperate fangirl” that took hold in the fandom. The next article will be about Amy as a character.

This article was also once again cruel towards Sally Acorn and put emphasis on her worst moments in Archie, which I now regret. Sally is a complex character, with her good and bad parts in the various eras she went through (SatAM, Archie Sonic pre-#50, Archie Sonic pre-Flynn, Archie Sonic pre-reboot and Archie Sonic post-reboot); analyzing her would take much more effort than a simple mention of the kind of romantic relationship SEGA of America presented to the Western side of the Sonic fandom.

However, the conclusion of the article is still relevant nowadays, and until a certain point IDW Sonic did focus exactly on what I said worked between them. We’ll see what will happen with Sonic Frontiers.

March 27th 2019: «I love you – Forbidden words in Sonic»

Summary: this article is a reflection on that famous scene in IDW Sonic #2, and the impact that the words “I love you” have in this series: they had never been mentioned outside of Archie Sonic, and both Sonic X and Sonic Lost World omitted any potential “I love you”. The article continues with an explanation of “SEGA’s mandates”, a series of restrictions unknown to the general public that Sonic writers and sponsors have to follow; they were introduced after the mess that were the romantic stories in Archie Sonic, especially during the Penders-Bollers era. And lastly, the article comments on the flexibility of these mandates, and how they allowed to imply that there’s something between Sonic and Amy, in IDW Sonic, Sonic X, or games like Unleashed and Lost World. Nevertheless, it was stressed that the Sonamy dynamic has first and foremost a strong symbolic component, and that in cultures like the Japanese one they’re accepted as a couple and that’s it.

Notes: nowadays, the idea of SEGA’s mandates lost a bit of its strength. While it’s not a question that they used to exist at least, and writers like Ian Flynn talked about their restrictions more than once, the reality is that it doesn’t look like the mandates are as strict as we thought. The general vibe in the fandom is that the Japanese vision of the dynamic between Sonic and Amy is slowly permeating in Western material as well, and that anyway, thanks to Sonic Boom, we’ve seen how flexible these “mandates” are. The way Sonamy is understood and written has changed, and there’s not need for it to go against the limits SEGA puts, as they’re there for a reason.

April 28th 2019: «Sonic Unleashed: Chip, Sonic, Amy and emotional support»

[translator’s note: the original article was never translated in English, but the gist of it is covered in the Tumblr post above]

Summary: this is the second most important article on the blog, after SEGA and the eternal issue of the Sonic-Amy dynamic. A Sonic Unleashed analysis that was inspired by a comment made by Cutegirlmayra on Amy’s role as the source of emotional support for Sonic, and the latter inspiring Amy to be better every day. The article also analyzes Chip’s role and his relationship with Sonic, compared with an entire secret subplot that develops between Sonic and Amy and that can be easily ignored by the player; but if they do, they’ll lose a ton of essential information about their relationship, which is seen in the cutscenes and Amy asking Sonic on a date at the end. Lastly, the article puts the spotlight on Kiyoko Yoshimura, Sonic Unleashed’s writer, and her relationship with Shiro Maekawa, the main writer of the majority of the games from Sonic Adventure 2 (2001) to Sonic and the Black Knight (2009). Maekawa and Yoshimura wrote together many episodes of Sonic X (the series considered to be the closest to Sonic Team’s “true vision”, according to them), and Yoshimura wrote many important episodes for the development of Sonamy, including episode 5 and 9, on top of being the story editor of the Metarex saga. The article concludes with a reflection on the changes in the way Sonic Team and SEGA handles the characters and the stories of the games after Yoshimura and Maekawa left the series.

Notes: there’s an entire extra section about Maekawa’s role in the franchise that wasn’t included. We’ll explain more about it in the FAQ section of this article, but in an interview with Emi Jones I found out that Maekawa mentioned the existence of a team dedicated exclusively to check the representation of the characters according to a general guideline (no mention of the famous “mandates”). Maekawa was part of this team.

This article is one of the mandatory reads of this blog and almost entirely reshapes the way we understand Sonic Unleashed. However, it’s not complete, and months later I wrote another essay about the characters of the game, including a piece on how Amy trusts Sonic, and how bad she felt that the entire world gave up when it looked like the end was near. I’ll save this discussion for the article about Amy Rose.

Many parts of the English post have been used as reference for the “Sonic Unleashed Manifesto”, a thread created by the SonAmy Central account on Twitter. I recommend reading it, as it includes many extra nods that are not present in the article.

May 18th 2020: «SEGA and the eternal issue of Sonic’s girlfriend» [SHP #200]

Summary: the 200th article of the blog is about the idea of Sonic having a girlfriend, and analyzes three “girlfriends” in particular that existed in the history of the blue hedgehog: Madonna, Sally Acorn and Amy Rose. At the end, the article comments on which of the three “girlfriends” still exist and what kind of relationship has been established in the last years, concluding with a reflection on the control that SEGA of Japan has over the characters, and the current state of the relationship between Sonic and Amy.

Notes: this article is, in its own way, a compilation of Sonic’s main relationships throughout his existence. It’s less cruel towards Sally Acorn, but once again I must stress that nowadays there’s still a lack of a more in-depth looking of her character, with the good and the bad, and not just her love story with Sonic.

The information is still relevant to this day, and to me, the perspective that it offers about the changes in the discussion of these topics is important to understand what I said at the beginning: in the last 5 years, the discussion around Sonamy made giant leaps.

The article also includes a mention to the excellent thread made by Yvanix Rose on Sonic X Episode 52. [translator’s note: the thread is in Spanish]

August 12th 2020: «No soy inconveniente para mi novia»

[translator’s note: the article was never translated into English]

Summary: this article was inspired by a Japanese screenshot of Sonic Battle, where Sonic supposedly says “I’m not inconvenient for my girlfriend”. It was followed by an analysis of the reaction of the fandom, memes in favor or against it, and comments on the censorship of SEGA of America compared to the perspective of SEGA of Japan.

Notes: “I’m not inconvenient for my girlfriend” is not a correct translation. My friend and collaborator Beevean says that a more accurate translation would be “I’m sorry, but I don’t need a girlfriend [because I already have one]”. Beev pointed out that the structure of the sentence in Japanese is ambiguous, not spelling out in an explicit way that Sonic might already have a girlfriend (or might not even be interested in one), and that the English translation, “I have enough girls chasing me as it is”, is not as bad as we believed.

December 3rd 2020: «SEGA and its more recent Sonamy side – more canon than ever»

Summary: this article was an end-of-the-year checkpoint to sum up everything that happened during that time, including all the hugs that followed the latest update of Sonamy in IDW Sonic (up to #36), and an entire SEGA Shop merchandise line exclusively based on the love between the two. The article concludes with an explanation on what really happened, on SEGA opting for supporting Sonamy like this because the ship sells. However, there is also room for discussion, where SEGA seems to be considering the idea of establishing once and for all that Sonic and Amy have a strong bond, that whether they are friends or the mysterious “something else” they are willing to give the life for the other if necessary, and a possible approach to ideals closer to the Japanese vision of the characters.

Notes: the information in this article is still accurate. What we still don’t know is if SEGA really intends to get closer to the Japanese version of Sonamy, and if they’ll go deeper in the future in games like Sonic Frontiers and the Sonic Prime series. As of February 2022, Sonic and Amy are the only protagonists of Frontiers that have been confirmed by the Game Awards 2021 trailer; some rumors say that they’ll be one of the main focuses of the game. We just have to wait and see.

March 23rd 2021: «Opinion: how could Sonamy progress in IDW?»

Summary: this article was inspired by a question I got about the future of the dynamic in IDW Sonic. The main theme is to understand the opportunities and limitations of the dynamic, the point their interactions could reach until the mystery of whether they’ll eventually get together is completely solved. It also comments on the necessity of separating Archie from IDW, and it concludes with a reflection on the possible future of this particular continuity.

Notes: the article only refers to the IDW Sonic canon, but it still helps to expand our knowledge of the Sonamy dynamic in the main canon, assuming that the words used by people like Evan Stanley can be applied there. We’ll go back to these ideas in the next section.

May 13th 2021: «Sonamy Paradise – a reflection on recent and future events»

Summary: this article is a compilation of the opinions of friends and collaborators of this blog on the Sonamy dynamic and where they think it’s going. We included Beevean (translator and collaborator of SHP in many articles), Jessica (friend and the person behind a petition for a series based on IDW Sonic), Mort (SHP staff, co-host of the SHPodcast and the person behind the channel Sonic Caos), Yvanix Rose (translator, SHP staff, collaborator, part of Sonic Stage Argentina, wife) and Facu (SHP staff, co-host of the SHPodcast, part of Sonic Stage Argentina, the person behind the channel Geshinro).

Notes: the opinions of this article were influenced by two central events that happened at the time: the “leak” of “Sonic:Rose” (or Sonic Unlimited, which may or not be Sonic Frontiers), and the events of IDW Sonic. The article might be considered outdated depending on each case.

A Sonamy FAQ

After summarizing all the articles, I’ll answer a list of frequently asked questions about the Sonamy dynamic, to clear up some concepts that may not be totally clear.

Question: What is SEGA’s official position about Sonamy?

Answer: Amy always called herself Sonic’s girlfriend, as said in her Sonic Generations profile; but complementary material like magazines, manuals and passing comments like in Sonic Heroes (especially in the US manual) and Mario & Sonic in the Olympic Games always hinted at the fact that Sonic might be hiding his true feelings. In 2018, the official SEGA Shop described Amy as “Sonic’s girlfriend” in its 25th anniversary merchandising line, which was never fixed despite the fans immediately noticing it (today that page is gone because the merchandise is no longer sold).

Aside from that, SEGA is always ambiguous on the canonical state of the ship. SEGA of Japan usually shares on social media images where the two are together, like plushies in pretty places, while the Western branch make memes that can even end up rather aggressive, like the infamous image of Sonic rejecting Amy’s advances with the description “Friend Zone – Stage 5”. SEGA’s official position is to never confirm anything in canon, but at the same time alluding to something more, mainly because the ship still sells. Occasionally, Amy has been defined as “Sonic’s self-proclaimed girlfriend”; other times they say she’s just Sonic’s girlfriend, but mainly as a joke, especially to fluster Sonic like in the Twitter Takeovers.

In different occasions, certain fleeting comments alluded to a possible stance, but they are not real confirmations of anything. For example, in Sonic and the Secret Rings, a section about Sonic CD says that Amy is “Sonic’s always cheerful love interest” (note: this appears only in the English version, NOT in the Japanese version, so I was advised to take it with tweezers, lots of tweezers actually), or a 1994 sticker magazine that included mentions of Amy’s effect on Sonic, “capturing his heart with her beauty.” Details that have always circulated in the fandom, but it is worth clarifying that they should be taken with a grain of salt.

Yuji Naka, in an interview from 2004, explained that Sonic X was much more in line with Sonic Team’s vision at the time. Information that complements the interview with Maekawa on how SEGA supervised this kind of things and the vision of the Sonic Team writers about Sonic X and the game canon.

Question: Who are Shiro Maekawa and Kiyoko Yoshimura? Why are they so important?

Answer: they were two of the main Sonic Team writers in the 2000s. Maekawa worked between 2001 and 2009 and wrote games like Adventure 2, Heroes and Black Knight, helped to fix Sonic ‘06 as much as he could, he helped supervise Sonic X, and was part of a SEGA team dedicated exclusively to oversee the representation of the characters (confirmed in an interview with Emi Jones from a few years ago)

Yoshimura had a central role in Sonic X, writing different episodes: for example, episode 9, the beach one where Amy gives Sonic a special bracelet made by her. Being the editor of the story of the Metarex saga, she also wrote the famous episode 76, the one where Amy fully plunges herself in the aquatic planet to save Sonic without considering that she might not be able to get out of it alive, but in the end both of them are safe, together. She also helped Maekawa writing the dialogue of Sonic ‘06 while he fixed the story, and then she wrote the story of Sonic Unleashed.

Kiyoko Yoshimura wrote this episode and the story of Sonic Unleashed, among other things.

Both where essential in this particular era of Sonic, and they wrote many of the most iconic Sonamy moments. Considering that Maekawa rewrote ‘06’s plot and Yoshimura the dialogues, they were probably the ones behind the infamous Trial of Love, where the player has to choose between Elise or Amy: if they choose Amy, the oracle comments “I see. You’ve chosen your long-time love”. There’s also the possibility that their individual projects were connected, like for example Unleashed’s date (Yoshimura) with Black Knight’s date (Maekawa). Regardless of their contributions to Sonamy, after they left Sonic Team, the way the characters were written and interacted with each other clearly changed.

Maekawa and Yoshimura worked on this. It doesn’t matter whether ‘06 is canon or not: this reflects the stance of the Sonic Team writers in the Adventure era. It’s impossible to talk about those games without mentioning their contributions.

Question: What does Sonic think about Amy? Does he like her?

Answer: Sonic’s real feelings for Amy were always kept a secret. Recently, he looked much more relaxed about her in the different interpretations of the character (Boom, IDW, even the Sonic Channel story based on the two of them), unlike in the past where Sonic used to run away as soon as Amy mentioned his name. In Western portrayals, like the Twitter Takeovers and panels like the 25th anniversary celebration and Sonic Boom 2014 (actually a sneak peak of some of the episodes of the first season), there’s the tendency to put Sonic in uncomfortable situation where he’s forced to admit his feelings for Amy, and where Roger’s talent to make Sonic sound agitated shines.

Then there are exceptional cases like Sonic in Sonic X episode 52: the meaning of the white rose and Sonic’s censored words in the Japanese version [translator’s notes: it’s Yvanix Rose’s Spanish thread], which leaves fans wondering if Sonic really said he loved Amy… until in the French dub Sonic directly says that he has “loved her since forever”. The analysis of Sonic’s feelings is never quite simple, and indirect elements and different symbols are often used (two songs that talk about lovers: Hikaru Michi and Natsu No Hi, a rose, a particular gesture, his own body language) to try to allude that there is something more, without necessarily saying it and risking an essential modification to the status quo of the relationship, regardless of whether it’s the games, a series or the current comics.

(Edit: Yvanix Rose informed me that the current streaming version of Sonic X uses a third unknown song, and that more importantly they cut the line where Sonic openly declares his love for Amy. Of course, the original version was never intended to come out with Sonic saying “Of course I love you Amy, since forever!”, because even in the Japanese dub, the one the French dub is based on, censored it, probably for being too forward for someone like Sonic; and in other versions like English and Latin Spanish they changed Sonic’s words to be less… obvious, but they can’t hide this information from the new generation of fans. We all know what French Sonic said, loud and clear: “Bien sûr que je t’aime Amy, depuis toujours!”)

Let’s not forget that Sonic X is considered the show “most faithful to Sonic Team’s true vision”.

Question: what will happen with Sonamy in IDW Sonic?

Answer: Their relationship is in a very comfortable place right now. We’ve seen multiple times over the past four years that Sonic is much more willing to go on adventures with Amy (ex: IDW Sonic #14), and Amy has been able to express over and over again her excitement at seeing Sonic, including a good amount of hugs (and Sonic accepts them so calmly, something unimaginable decades ago). I doubt that things will go beyond these displays of affection, but the comic has all the potential to explore the in different aspects: adventures, combat, and even those quieter moments at the end of story arcs of high tension and action. IDW Sonic doesn’t have to, neither will follow in the footsteps of pre-reboot Archie Sonic, but the Sonic-Amy relationship can be expressed in a variety of ways that don’t require traditional romantic displays, like kisses or big declarations (except for that one time in IDW Sonic #2 when Amy said she loves him just the way he is, but she has always been more emotionally expressive than Sonic).

Evan Stanley (artist and comic writer) said not much long ago:

«They like each other, but Sonic just isn’t the kind of guy who is going to make goo-goo eyes at Amy or perform grand acts of romance. If you wanna see that, that’s what fan works are for.»

Question: is SEGA going to confirm Sonamy in an official way someday?

Answer: The possibility of it being “confirmed” in a traditional way is not in their dynamic: a declared engagement, with kisses and romantic dates and all kinds of typical romantic interactions… is not how Sonamy works.

Relying on this traditional definition to gauge the canonical status of the relationship is the quickest way to conclude “they’re never going to be together”, but the reality of the dynamic is different. Although the origins of Amy’s character can be traced to ideas that were left hanging after scrapping Madonna (Sonic’s first “girlfriend”, with elements such as the red dress or the fact that she was the one chasing after him), and to SEGA’s clear intention of creating a love interest who was “Mickey Mouse’s Minnie” (as Naoto Ohshima mentioned), from the beginning her character had the additional twist that Sonic is never going to completely reciprocate her feelings (translation: he’s not going to turn into Mickey Mouse singing about how much in love he is). The idea that the Sonic creators always defended is that he is not necessarily interested in such a relationship, who still has “the heart of a young boy” (that is, he’s immature for some things). In any case, Naoto Ohshima himself has expressed that, if one day Sonic grew up, he would probably choose Amy as his partner: the closest thing to an “official” confirmation from the man who created the character.

Although she doesn’t have the necessary authority to speak for the main canon, Evan Stanley explained the official position on the dynamic:

Sonic Team’s official stance is that while Sonic does like-like Amy, he’s simply not interested in a serious relationship at this point in his life. Amy knows this, and is content with being good friends. Not every story needs to have an intense romance, and not every character needs to be into that. There’s plenty of fan-made content to provide it if you really need that fix.

None of this is new information, but it’s important to keep in mind that SEGA’s stance hasn’t changed in three decades. What did change were how Sonic and Amy’s interactions have been adapted from Japan to the West, giving the impression that Sonic can’t stand Amy, when the original intention was that he doesn’t know how to react, and probably doesn’t even fully understand what he feels for her.

In short: it’s been confirmed that Amy was created to be Sonic’s love interest, what will never be confirmed is a traditional engagement in-universe. In any case, in Japan they’re still seen as a couple, and from time to time SEGA of America and SEGA of Europe take advantage of opportunities to remind us that both hedgehogs could be something more or not, a bond much deeper than one of best friends… Who knows! This is what SEGA wants.

The collaboration with Hot Topic in 2020 was completely focused on Sonamy. These things don’t happen for no reason, they’re personally checked and approved by SEGA. SEGA of America, in this case.

Question: B-but the creators said that Sonic is never going to get married! And anyway many of them no longer work for SEGA, so their current opinions don’t matter anymore!

Answer: Two things:

1. The fact that Sonic will never get married and “settle down” doesn’t mean that he’s never going to feel love, or affection that goes beyond mere friendship. While getting married and adopting a domestic life is clearly out of character for Sonic (outside Mobius 25 Years Later), there’s a whole world of possibilities to mix adventurous elements with an added touch of clues about a potential romance or something else (Sonic Boom, for example, used secret dates and confirmations from supporting characters, since officially Sonic couldn’t show any interest in Amy). Reducing the validity of an affective bond to how likely two characters are to get married is a very reductive and naive way of understanding the way in which such bonds can be established.

2. Although it’s been 15 years since Yuji Naka and Naoto Ohshima have worked at SEGA, they continue to give their opinions about Sonic to this day. Their comments don’t usually contradict official stances that have existed since the time they worked at the company, and that probably they themselves promoted in the first place. Ohshima did not start to believe in the last 5 years that Amy would be the ideal romantic interest for Sonic, she was always created with that intention and he, as Sonic’s creator, knows the limits of the character and his potential reactions to different situations. Neither Naka nor Ohshima can accurately predict the future that lies ahead with Frontiers and beyond, but they are not two nobodies, they know Sonic’s character more than we do.

Question: why is Sonic Unleashed such a frequent topic?

Answer: In recent years, Sonic Unleashed has become something of a “Sonamy temple” due to how the many layers of references and nods to the ship. As mentioned above, in this blog we published an article about a whole subplot between Sonic and Amy, that deals with the emotional support that she gives Sonic at a time when he has to travel around the world without stopping for a minute, and when he must deal with his own wildest form: the Werehog. There are also tons of nods from NPCs, ranging from comments on their relationship to a love story that almost entirely mirrors the dynamic that Sonic and Amy have (Ana and Musaid’s story). All of this material has been recently archived by SonAmy Central, including some of the material I used for my writing.

Kiyoko Yoshimura really shined in writing this world adventure, and only now fans have begun to investigate and discuss the extent of the references that she included in the dialogues and the different substories of Unleashed. And we explained earlier why she was so important to this era of Sonic.

Question: How does Sonamy work?

Answer: As we’ve said so far, their dynamic works for two reasons: the ambiguity of Sonic’s feelings, and Amy’s determination to stay by his side, either as his best friend or in her quest to eventually become something more. Over the years we’ve seen that their points of view can complement each other to some degree, and that there are ways in which Sonic inspires Amy to be better every day, and she gives him all her support and faith during the best and worst of times. In this regard, I want to share an excerpt that a friend of mine, Rachel, wrote a few days ago about the way their dynamic works and that, in my opinion, is a brilliant explanation:

(Context: a chat about how easily certain characters can be shipped with others, especially Amy).

«By contrast, Sonic in canon is probably the least shippable character. I think I made a SonAmy essay some time ago about it, but tl;dr since he isn’t tied to anyone and is pretty private when it comes to his most intense feelings (love, sadness, etc.) Despite being and extrovert through and through, his heart remains a mystery for all of us as well as for his friends. Yet Amy is still his canon love interest, and their interactions have changed a lot across the years and the medias. What are they? What does Sonic feel for her? How do two characters who appear so different and even incompatible at times manage to bring out sometimes the best, sometimes the less pleasant aspect of each other? And how do they surpass their flaws and manage to prove time and time again that they have, in fact, one of the strongest bonds in the entire series- platonic or otherwise? That’s why it’s all geometry shapes and maths, because they are the real deal in canon and they are such the anti-Mickey/Minnie that it shouldn’t make sense, yet somehow it DOES.»

There’s also the memorable time when Ian Flynn (writer of Archie, IDW Sonic, the Sonic Forces prequel comics, and now Sonic Frontiers) defined Sonamy’s strengths, though it’s worth noting that his comment is mostly referring to Archie Sonic which is more a decade old, and that Ian, like Evan, doesn’t have the full authority to talk about the dynamic in the main canon, at least not until Sonic Frontiers comes out and we see exactly how his writing (which does directly affect the relationship of the characters in IDW Sonic) is moved to an official context of a Sonic Team video game. Let’s take his words more as a guide on how to consider the dynamic:

This is how their dynamic works. Amy puts all her trust in Sonic because she knows that he’ll always do the right thing, no matter how much it causes the whole world to turn against him; and if he wouldn’t, she would be the first to fight him because she’s still her own character at the end of the day, with her own thoughts and ways of looking at life. Sonic often shares the most essential elements of Amy’s thinking, particularly her willingness to help others without expecting anything in return, but sometimes they clash, and it’s that clash that sparks the differences that can be more comical (Amy is very expressive with her feelings, Sonic is reserved and prefers to not openly show emotions) or more serious disagreements (Amy insists that Sonic must protect the little birdie from SA1 while he, most likely not understanding the seriousness of the matter yet, believes that it’s unnecessary and absurd).

When everything works well, all the situations in which Sonic has shown himself to be up to the challenge inspire Amy to improve, to work on that courage that has evolved a lot since her encounter with Metal Sonic on Little Planet. Sonic is not stupid either, because he knows very well that Amy is up to the task and that she has helped the main group on more than one occasion (such as SA2), and although sometimes it can lead to a setback, Sonic never rejects Amy’s support. Together they form this odd friendship that can occasionally suggest something else, regardless of whether Sonic feels more or less uncomfortable when it happens, but it doesn’t negatively affect his interactions.

It’s that tug-of-war that makes Sonamy work the way it has for almost three decades. Sometimes Amy pulls the rope to see how far she can go, but she lets go when things get serious and she brings out her true empathetic and heroic side. Sonic is usually more focused on pursuing the next adventure, but he doesn’t mind if Amy decides to join, and is willing to defend her first thing if she’s in danger, even though he knows very well that it can end in a hug that is uncomfortable for someone like him, who doesn’t know exactly how to feel or show his deepest emotions.

And the truth is that, when they’re given the chance, they make for an excellent team.

Conclusion and acknowledgements

This article was originally meant to be a simple compilation of the articles on this blog followed by some quick questions about Sonamy… and well, let’s say it’s been extended to unthinkable limits.

In the last 4 years, Seaside Hill Paradise embarked on the endless journey of studying and understanding the Sonamy dynamic from multiple perspectives. As you may have noticed, the articles have covered everything from general aspects to specific cases, such as Sonic Unleashed and IDW Sonic. The reality is that the topic is not easily exhausted, and there is much more to discuss in the future, so it seemed relevant to me to compile all the progress we’ve made so far: all our writing pieces and the references we have used to reach the conclusions in the FAQ section.

One of the reasons this article got so long, and to whom I owe the greatest thanks of all, is my dear Yvanix Rose. Thanks to the information, the translations, the different corrections and warnings that she gave me, the article has slightly more complete answers, with their respective links to the original sources. Obviously it’s not the first time that we have worked together in these four years (I usually link to her blog when Spanish translations are available, especially the Sonic Channel stories), but for this article in particular I wasn’t planning to consult so much extra material, and her help ended up being a lifesaver. This is not all the available Sonamy information, and I know that she’s working on a huge project to finish the whole puzzle, so all I will say for now is that I look forward to the moment when we can see the fruit of that hard work ❤

Me giving my thanks for contributing to this article ❤

I also would like to thank my friend Rachel, who without even meaning to she managed to write one of the best summaries I’ve read recently of the Sonamy dynamic. Despite my experience in the fandom reading a lot of cute things on these two characters, her message really took me by surprise. I hope that you don’t mind me sharing your piece!

And finally, I’d like to thank the entire Sonamy community in our official Discord server [translator’s note: the server is mainly Spanish speaking]. This group, made up of artists, writers and referents from different parts of the fandom like the Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr communities, has helped a lot in sharing and discussing the different aspects of the dynamic. In their honor we created the so-called “Sonamy Guard” on the server, and I can personally confirm that they’re some of the most active, nice and intelligent people we have in our side of the fandom. Any doubt, any question you might have, they’ll always have an answer to give or a discussion to spark, and if you’d like to participate, then I highly recommend you to join our server.

That’s all for now. As we have finally laid out some groundwork for the knowledge of this blog and where SEGA and Sonic Team stand on the dynamic, I think it’s finally time for us to get into the discussion of Amy’s character: who is she, what makes her strong, her relationship with Sonic and her independent side, and many aspects that sometimes seem to go unnoticed in the fandom in favor of the outdated and even problematic stereotype of the “unbearable fangirl.” See you next time!

[chaerincore]

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐒 — 𝑪𝑨𝑹𝑬𝑬𝑹 𝑴𝑨𝑷

— A/N: i’ve been inactive for days and this is exactly why, including the holiday weekend 😭

— tw: jealousy, mistreatment/bullying, violence, cheating, mentions of disbandment.

@skzfairies @m00niesk7 (reply with "let’s fall in love!" to join!)

PRE-DEBUT ( 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟗 — 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟓 )

in 2009, aera joins JYPE at the age of 14. she would be the only member of the romantics within the company until 2012. when that time finally came, rue passed an audition in japan before moving to korea later on. months before MNET announced their new survival show, produce 101, moon joined the company in 2014, a few months short before her little brother, changbin, did. aera competed on sixteen & both moon and rue were featured on produce 101. aera and rue made it to the end of their individual survival shows but did not rank high enough to make it to the final lineup; moon ended up passing and joining IOI.

DEBUT ( 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟓 )

in july of 2015, JYPE confirmed that a new girl group would debut in september 2015. the public was shocked to hear that the lineup would only consist of three members, which was very different in comparison to the number of members that twice would have. after being revealed from youngest to oldest, the romantics’ group name and logo was announced in late july.

on august 1, 2015, the single album WHISTLE was announced, including the promotional single WHISTLE along with the b-sides WHAT IS LOVE? and FANCY. on september 1, their debut release climbed to number one and later would be promoted by all three songs, including music videos and live stages.

IOI + LOVE LETTER, PT. I ( 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟔 — 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟕 )

after making it to the final lineup of IOI, moon debuted with the group in may 2016. because of this, moon’s activities from the romantics were put on hold until the 2016 promotional single, PLAYING WITH FIRE was released in november with the first mini album, LOVE LETTER, PT. I. later on, IOI disbanded at the end of january 2017, this would give the romantics an opportunity to be more active as a trio — the next release was revealed on december 1, and a week later the announcement for their first tour, A LOVE LETTER TO YOU, went public.

LOVE LETTER, PT. II + FINALE & THE FEELS ( 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟕 )

on january 1, the sequel to the first part of LOVE LETTER mini album was released with the title track, CALL ME. though CALL ME did not earn any music show wins, the trio redeemed themselves with an all-kill thanks to the single STEREOTYPE, which was promoted as the title track for the finale (released on may 5) of the LOVE LETTER mini album series. the girls promoted their very first english track, THE FEELS, as a b-side for LOVE LETTER, FINALE, which became an overseas success and attracted more international fans.

despite the trio seemingly getting along from the public view, aera became envious of moon and rue’s growing popularity as visuals and a gradual pattern of poor mistreatment towards them had begun as a result. this same year, despite never going public, aera was found cheating on MANIA!’s mae with kang daniel, the group’s activities was halted for several months as a result. an apology was released by aera not long after word got out, but many fans felt it wasn’t genuine.

AS IF IT'S YOUR LAST + GOLDEN LOVE! ( 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟖 )

in march 2018, the romantics released their first single, AS IF IT'S YOUR LAST. the track was the introductory song to the first full-length album, GOLDEN LOVE!, with the lead singles FEEL SPECIAL, BLACK MAGIC and FOREVER YOUNG. the album would later become one of their best selling releases since 2015 after making their billboard top 100 debut with BLACK MAGIC (may 2018).

later in march, moon’s step-brother, changbin, officially debuted with stray kids. the seo siblings would soon become best known for their rapping. on june 12, moon and rue became MCs for music bank (rue) and music countdown (moon) and remained one for an entire year. they became a crowd favorite when seen interacting with their fellow labelmates, which was done in hopes to divert the public eye from aera’s scandal in the previous year.

KILL THIS LOVE ( 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟗 )

in march 2019, the romantics released their first japanese album, KILL THIS LOVE. after once again having charting success, the group was accused of lip-synching on multiple occasions. in response to the accusations, the group debunked this during all throughout their first world tour, PLATINUM LOVE! by showing the difference when they do and don’t sing. they made stops in korea, japan, and most of the states, being on the road for several months while preparing their next full-length album.

CRY FOR ME + SCIENTIST ( 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟎 )

though the trio was scheduled to release a third album (intended to be an english record) after their second tour had concluded, it was postponed due to several sources catching evidence of aera being disrespectful towards staff and degrading her members. aera was put on a year-long hiatus, but rue and moon decided it would be beneficial to carry on for the sake of their fanbase.

so, they used two potential title tracks from the scrapped album, CRY FOR ME (may) and SCIENTIST (august) to promote as the second and third singles. by the end of july, fans were worried that the group would be disbanding if the scandals continued, but JYPE released a statement assuring them otherwise. others felt that the overall image of the romantics looked better without their leader, who seemed to be creating a poor reputation for not just herself but also the group as a whole. a week after the statement was released, aera finally returned to the group with a final warning.

during this time, in mid november, moon released 1, 3, 2 with bang chan (stray kids) and their relationship was announced in january of 2021, two months prior to stray kids’ dating ban being lifted.

THE LOVESICK GIRLS! + I CAN'T STOP ME ( 𝟐𝟎𝟐�� )

on december 25 of 2020, a teaser for the official third album titled THE LOVESICK GIRLS! was released at midnight. the album included the lead singles LOVESICK GIRLS and SHOUT OUT TO MY EX. when the album was dropped on january 20, many believed that this would be aera’s last era with the group, but this was proven wrong when she appeared in the august promotions for the fourth single, I CAN'T STOP ME. 2021 was considered the beginning of the romantics’ golden years, which is still ongoing as of 2022.

ROMANCE III ( 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟐 )

on march 14, the group released their fourth album, ROMANCE III, with an expanded edition on april 14 to mark their seventh year. they promoted their first collaborative single, WOMAN LIKE ME and the third english single, NO MORE SAD SONGS. the group’s intention for this era was to embark on a more mature sound as the girls were fully grown up. a month prior to the release, JYPE released a statement announcing rue’s relationship with johnny (nct). promotions for the standard edition of ROMANCE III continued on until april, whereas promotions for the expanded edition with the single SWEET MELODY would carry on until the beginning of may.

in july, the trio was slated to promote the b-side, HOLIDAY, for three weeks. many fans noticed that the girls were not showcasing their usual chemistry onstage, further making rumors of disbandment arise. but when JYPE suddenly dropped a statement in august that announced aera’s contract termination exactly one month prior to their seventh anniversary, questions were finally answered. to ease anxiety and concern, the company later confirmed that rue and moon extended their contracts with JYPE, reassuring that the romantics would be active for (at least) the next seven years. the statement was only the beginning of proving that the girls weren’t done yet because after aera’s departure, fans let rue and moon know they were going to stay by getting NO MORE SAD SONGS and HAPPINESS to chart & go viral both domestic and internationally. this created mass success, leading to the girls promoting in different countries for nearly a month prior to awards season.

after a star-studded performance of the hit b-side, TOUCH, at the golden disc awards, the romantics released a performance and music video for what would become their biggest hit song in history — the track would make 2022 their best year to date.

during the heat of awards season, JYPE would release tour dates of the very first tour as a two-member lineup in december 2022 called ROMANCE: THE WORLD TOUR. this would be the romantics’ first stadium and arena tour worldwide.

[superwings-cultural]

Prague Astronomical Clock, Czech Republic

In one episode, Jett goes on a delivery to the city of Prague, where the oldest clock in the old square is located, but did you know that its real name was Prague astronomical clock?

The most oldest part of the Orloj, the mechanical clock and astronomical dial, dates back to 1410, when it was created by clockmaker Mikuláš of Kadaň and Charles University professor of mathematics and astronomy Jan Šindel. The first recorded mention of the clock was on 9 October 1410. Later, presumably around 1490, the calendar dial was added and the clock facade was decorated with gothic sculptures. Formerly, it was believed that the Orloj was constructed in 1490 by clockmaster Jan Růže (also called Hanuš); this is now known to be a historical mistake.

A popular legend, recounted by Alois Jirásek, has it that the clockmaker Hanuš was blinded on the order of the Prague Councillors so that he could not repeat his work; in turn, he disabled the clock, and no one was able to repair it for the next hundred years.

There was many reparations in the succefull years, like in 1552 it was repaired by Jan Táborský (1500–1572), master clockmaker of Klokotská Hora, who also wrote a report of the clock where he mentioned Hanuš as the maker of this clock The clock stopped working many times in the centuries after 1552, and was repaired many times after that.

Later, the astronomican Orloj was renovated in autumn 2005, when the statues and the lower calendar ring were restored. The wooden statues were covered with a net to keep pigeons away.

The last renovation of the astronomical clock was carried recently out from January to September 2018, following a reconstruction of the Old Town Tower. During the renovation, an electric clock mechanism that had been in operation since 1948 was replaced by an original mechanism from the 1860s.

The astronomical dial has a background that represents the standing Earth and sky, and surrounding it operate four main moving components: the zodiacal ring, an outer rotating ring, an icon representing the Sun, and an icon representing the Moon.

Inside the large black outer circle, in the astronomical part, lies a movable circle marked with the signs of the zodiac which indicates the location of the Sun on the ecliptic. The signs are shown in anticlockwise order. In that accompanying this section, the Sun is currently moving anticlockwise from Cancer into Leo.

The displacement of the zodiac circle results from the use of a stereographic projection of the ecliptic plane using the North pole as the basis of the projection. This is commonly seen in astronomical clocks of the period.

The small golden star shows the position of the vernal equinox, and sidereal time can be read on the scale with golden Roman numerals. The zodiac is on the 366-tooth gear inside the machine. This gear is connected to the sun gear and the moon gear by a 24-tooth gear.