#the starman ever.... i love this human design

[alex-dontknow]

guess who guys /j

@k1rameki @taterswithranch @appallinnballin

[grishaversebigbang]

#16 - The Soldat Sol

Project Info

Gang name: The Soldat Sol

Title: trouble needs a place to sleep

Synopsis: Summer in Keramzin. Things wilt away. Alina muses on the politics of waiting, miracles, and the glorious arch of Zoya’s back. 

Gang Introduction 

@mimiofthemalfoys

Role: Writer and Sun Summoner (oh I’m sorry did my gold kefta bedazzle you?)

Short introduction/fun fact: majoring in english literature and minoring in poor life choices. That being said, if I was one of the most powerful Grisha to ever live and had to make a choice, I would dump both the Darkling and Mal and just marry Zoya instead. Rip to Sankta Alina but I’m different. 

@isaakandreyevs

Role: Corporalnik (Beta)

Short introduction/fun fact: They/he. Was probably a dramatic Russian romanticist in a past life. I can’t run sideblogs so my main serves as fandom, personal, and writeblr lol

@rlhysand

Role: Corporalnik - Heartrender (Proofreader)

Short introduction/fun fact: Was editor-in-chief for a year in uni. Currently working to be an architect. Stuff like this keep me sane and grounded as a creative working in a constricting design environment lol

@bdhead​

Role: Materialnik (artist)

Short introduction/fun fact: on all levels except physical, i am in a midwestern crop circle being abducted by aliens. haha what if we left both our men and met up in the Ravkan country side to fall in love…..haha just kidding…...unless?

@bisexualgxnsey

Role: fabrikator! (edit maker)

Short introduction/fun fact: hm you know the song moderation by florence .. thats me. also starman makes me feel the full spectrum of human emotion so make of that what you will

@blacklilacc​

Role: Materialnik (artist)

Short introduction/fun fact: i pray to hozier the old god, i’m actually not mad about the grishaverse casting, i’m a creative writer, an artist, and i love reading. i do everything for the aesthetic, inej gafah, and i’m kind of just here so that’s fun.

@pilotgems​

Role: Materialki (Artist) 

Short introduction/fun fact: My Wi-Fi died SIX (6!!!) times while I was writing this and if that doesn’t sum up my life I don’t know what does.

[ntrending]

SpaceX's Falcon Heavy launch has a lot riding on it—here's how to watch

New Post has been published on https://nexcraft.co/spacexs-falcon-heavy-launch-has-a-lot-riding-on-it-heres-how-to-watch/

SpaceX's Falcon Heavy launch has a lot riding on it—here's how to watch

A little over a year ago, the world was struck with shock and awe when SpaceX finally held the inaugural launch of the Falcon Heavy, the biggest rock the company has ever built and currently the most powerful operational launch vehicle on the planet. Florida’s Space Coast that day was filled with tension and excitement, and as the clock finally ticked down to zero, it was clear there was no coming back from whatever happened next.

Thankfully, the launch was a success—mostly. The Falcon Heavy’s three cores of the successfully delivered its silly payload of Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster (and dummy driver, Starman) en route to an orbit around Mars. And the rocket’s three cores successfully separated from one another. The side pair, which were actually previously recovered Falcon 9 boosters, made smooth vertical landings on the ground in Cape Canaveral Air Force Station without issue The center core’s engines, however, failed to fire during a descent down to the company’s Of Course I Still Love You mid-ocean droneship, and the booster landed smack into the middle of the ocean.

History was made, but the company has only just gotten started with a new era of its goals for spaceflight. After multiple delays, the company is currently aiming to conduct its second Falcon Heavy launch on Wednesday, at 6:36 p.m. Eastern Time from launchpad 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with a launch window open for nearly two hours. Wednesday’s forecast so far is proving quite favorable, with an 80 percent chance weather conditions will be a “go” that evening.

SpaceX aims to send up into space Saudi Arabia’s, 13,300-pound Arabsat-6A satellite, built by Lockheed Martin and designed to help facilitate commercial communications operations for a 15-year lifespan in geostationary orbit.

The launch is supposed to be largely the same as what we saw last year: the launch vehicle goes up, the two side boosters separate and aim for automated vertical landings on land at Cape Canaveral, while the center core attempts landing on a droneship in the Atlantic Ocean—which would be a first for the company. The entire launch should feature 10 percent more thrust than last year’s demonstration flight.

The Falcon Heavy won’t be the rocket that lets SpaceX get to Mars; that will be the Super Heavy rocket, which will also be reusable. But there are big plans for the Falcon Heavy to play a pivotal role in the expansion of space operations through Earth’s orbit and humanity’s return to the moon. In fact, amidst large delays in the development of the Space Launch System, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine has vocalized the possibility that the agency might partner with SpaceX and use the Falcon Heavy to launch its Orion missions to the moon through the early 2020s, and return American astronauts to the lunar surface by 2024.

SpaceX would undoubtedly jump at the opportunity to take part in these missions, and that means there’s a lot more riding on the success and failure of every Falcon Heavy launch hereafter. A single mishap could shake the agency’s confidence the Falcon Heavy is ready to take a NASA spacecraft to the moon.

Let’s see if Wednesday’s launch proves to bolster support for the Falcon Heavy or magnify that there’s still some work to be done before we can trust it to take people all the way to the moon. The Arabsat-6A mission will be streamed over a SpaceX webcast, likely beginning around 15 minutes before launch.

Written By Neel V. Patel

[hermanwatts]

Sensor Sweep: S-F Weapons, Thomas Ligotti, Savage Minicrate, Michael Whelan, Starman Jones

Cinema (IGN.com): The concept of the sci-fi weapon also has its allure. Whether it’s a cyborg hero taking down villains with some kind of crazy blaster, or evil Dark Lords wiping out entire planets with their mechanical monstrosities, there is no doubt that the destructive capabilities of such futuristic weaponry appeal to a certain base instinct in us all.

  Writers (Social Ecologies): Over a period of years the works of Thomas Ligotti have pervaded my thought and life. I’ve decided to spend time writing on the art and philosophy of Ligotti in a new book, one that I will hopefully finish by the end of fall. Not sure when it will be published, but I’ll keep you informed. I may not be as active on the site as I’ve been but will still pop my head up from time to time as I progress.

  RPG (Conan.com): Privateer Press has announced the SAVAGE MiniCrate subscription box, where you can get minis featuring heroes and villains from

King Conan

the rich worlds of Robert E. Howard. The first miniature in the series is Dark Agnes de Chastillon from Howard’s Sword Woman stories.

The SAVAGE MiniCrate is offered as a monthly subscription service monthly ($16.99), or as a six-month VIP subscription ($98.99). Each shipment contains a single exclusive, limited-edition miniature and a corresponding Collector’s Card. International costs will vary, as usual.

Magazines (Mens Pulp Mags): In case you don’t know about it, PulpFest is one of the biggest and best annual pulp-related conventions in the country.

Since the theme for that year’s presentations was “The Pulps at War,” we put together a set of overheads about the war stories and artwork in men’s adventure magazines and the thematic, artistic and literary DNA they share with the pre-World War II pulp magazines.

In the second half of the presentation, I spent some time talking about the men’s adventure mag BATTLE CRY.

    Cinema & Movie Novelization (Glorious Trash): I was probably one of the very few 19 year-olds who had a copy of Circle Of Iron on VHS in the summer of ’94, and I certainly was the only one who got his girlfriend to watch it…several times! It’s a wonder she didn’t break up with me halfway through the first viewing, because Circle Of Iron is a bad movie, one that should’ve been roasted on Mystery Science Theater 3000 but for some reason never was.

  Writing (Sly Flourish): I’ve recently been doing a lot of adventure writing, the results of which you can find in the Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot Kickstarter. As part of this project, I wanted to dig deep into what makes great adventures. So, as I did when writing Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, I hit the books (and the blogs) to collect as much of the best advice on adventure design that I could.

    Sports Fiction (Paul Bishop): Boxing and noir go together as smoothly as a one-two combination punch. The inherent qualities of both noir and boxing, desperation, bad choices, violence, tension, humanity stripped bare, combine for a marriage made in Hell.

We’re not talking the Rockys of the boxing world here. We’re not talking the life affirming, if you punch hard enough, sooner or later you’re gonna be a contender, kind of boxing stories. We’re talking about the down and dirty, punch drunk, cauliflower-eared, in bed with the mob, no hope fighters who populate such novels as Fat City (Leonard Gardner), Ringside Jezebel (Kate Nickerson), The Leather Pushers (H. C. Witwer), The Bruiser(Jim Tully), or Iron Man (W. R. Burnett).

    Art (DMR Books): oday is the birthday of Michael Whelan, one of the greatest artists to ever work in the fields of fantasy, sci-fi and horror. The occasion prompted me to think back on the Whelan covers that really, really affected me when growing up. I have decided that there were four such.

I was a Whelan fan before I was a Frazetta fan. In fact, Michael Whelan—along with Jeffrey Jones—was the first non-comic book artist I was ever a fan of. My fandom started the day I bought the DAW edition of Elric of Melniboné. I was already familiar with the Barry Windsor-Smith comics version of Elric, but that cover blew me away.

          Vintage Fiction (Hi Lo Brow): Eighty-five years ago, the following 10 adventures — selected from my Best Nineteen-Thirties (1934��1943) Adventure list — were first serialized or published in book form. They’re my favorite adventures published that year.

Please let me know if I’ve missed any adventures from this year that you particularly admire. Enjoy!

  Pulp Fiction (DMR Books): The two Northmen ships he had encountered in the Channel had turned and rowed up the Thames to raid the British villages along the river; even though he has only 30 men able to fight them, Tros is able to ride a rising tide up the river and wreak havoc on the raiders.  He sinks one ship and manages to steal the other but the able-bodied Britons desert, more comfortable fighting on land than on a ship. Tros gives Orwic permission to go, leaving the defense of his leaking galley and the stolen long ship to Conops, a score of badly wounded Britons and himself.  Tros wants that long ship; it is beautiful and whoever built that ship could help him build the ship of his dreams.

  Fiction (Brain Leakage): Confession time: I love post apocalyptic stories. ​I always have. Something about the genre’s tropes and trappings just gets my blood pumping. Give me bombed-out cities, atomic mutants, and barbaric biker gangs, and you’ll keep my ass glued to the seat until the credits roll. Funny thing is, as long as I’ve had it, I’ve never given my apocalyptic obsession much thought. If anything, I chalked it up to watching Thundarr the Barbarian as an impressionable kid.

  RPG (Rampant Games):  Matt Barton’s outstanding history of computer role-playing games is now out in a second edition. I haven’t read the whole thing yet (it’s HUGE), but the last ten years have brought about some enormous changes and tons of new games to the genre. This is kind of funny to me, as Matt had kind of closed the previous edition on a down note, thinking the era of quality single-player RPGs had come to a close.

  Heinlein (Tip the Wink): I’m reading my way through many of the Heinlein juvenile SF novels. Last time it was The Rolling Stones, this time, Starman Jones. No, it’s not forgotten, none of Heinlein’s juvenile SF novels are, really, but I recommend them, some more, some less, so here we go.

  Mystery (Jerry’s House of Everything): After reading and reviewing Kuttner’s collection Three by Kuttner last week I was in the mood for another book by him.  Luckily Murder of a Wife, the last of his four mysteries featuring San Francisco psychoanalyst Michael Gray, was near the top of mount TBR.

Kuttner, who died much too soon in 1958, had directed much of his energies to mystery novels in his last years, even as he was studying for a Master’s degree when he had his fatal heart attack.  Murder of a Wife appeared in March 1958 (just one month after the author died) in a paperback edition from Permabooks — its only paperback appearance.

  Weird Western (Scifi Movie Page): Deep in a Wyoming mine, hell awaits. Former cattle driver, Rough Rider and current New York City cop Nat Blackburn is given an offer he can’t refuse by President Teddy Roosevelt. Tales of gold in the abandoned mining town of Hecla, in the Deep Rock Hills, abound. The only problem-those who go seeking their fortune never return. Roosevelt’s own troops are among the missing, and the President wants to know their fate – and find the gold. Along with his constant companion, Teta, a hired gun with a thirst for adventure, Nat travels to a barren land where even animals dare not tread. Along the way, they are joined by a Selma, a fiery and beautiful woman in search of her brother who was swallowed up by Hecla years earlier.

  Games (Jeffro’s Space Gaming Blog): Such a small box, but there’s so much game inside! You can play it as a “design-a-thing” game where you spend five or ten minutes figuring out how to destroy your friend’s continuing character in a campaign of endless arena duels. But you can also cut out the min/maxing element entirely by dealing several of of the fighter cards to each player and seeing what happens. How do you make these unoptimized figures work together as a team in order to crush the spirit of your opponent? It’s not immediately obvious! The range of options each turn are tremendous!

  Westerns (Rough Edges): As you can see from the back cover copy above, BLOOD TRAIL by Gardner F. Fox (originally published in paperback by Belmont in 1979) is a revenge Western, a very common plot in the genre. Fox doesn’t really bring anything new to the table in the story he tells in this book (on the trail of the three men who bushwhacked him and left him for dead, the protagonist finds himself in the middle of a range war), but it’s the execution that really matters in a book like this, not the plot. And in that respect, Fox does a superb job.

  Sword-and-Sorcery (Legends of Men): Last week I review Holmes book Enter The Barbarian. If you haven’t read that review yet, check it out here. Morgan Holmes is an expert on pulp fiction, sword & sorcery, sword & planet, Robert E. Howard, Conan The Cimmerian, and red pilled man. Morgan was kind enough to share much of his knowledge on sword & sorcery with Legends of Men in this interview. In fact, this interview so comprehensive that it’s a great reference for those who want to know more about the genre and masculine fiction.

    Sensor Sweep: S-F Weapons, Thomas Ligotti, Savage Minicrate, Michael Whelan, Starman Jones published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

[eldritchsurveys]

256.

What’s the first thing you do when you wake up, usually? >> Fumble around for my phone to see what time it is.

Do you like to keep a routine or do you prefer spontaneousness? >> I keep to my own routines, but outside of those, spontaneity is welcome.  When was the last time you apologized and didn’t mean it? >> I don’t remember, because I usually don’t do this. Do you prefer to be the “talker” or the “listener” in a conversation? >> I make a pretty decent listener. Usually I prefer to talk to people I am confident are listening to me and interested in what I’m saying, and I’m not often confident that that is the case... so I try to spin my reticence into a virtue. I’m a good listener. How are you feeling today? Is there any particular reason as to why?  >> I have had a number of feelings, some self-destructive and some self-loving. Because that’s how it goes.

What do you think defines beauty? >> Personally, I don’t have a particular definition for beauty. I usually describe things and their effect on me in more specific terms, anyway. Do you find these qualities in yourself? >> --- Do you know anyone personally with those qualities? >> --- Is there anything you wear everyday? >> My Legba pendant. Do you actually brush your teeth three times a day? >> No, once. How about floss? >> Never. What’s your first name? >> Mordred. Is that actually what you go by, or do people call you by something else? >> Some people call me Rev, some people call me Shadow, and some people call me Logan (because I don’t have the legal documentation to force them to do otherwise yet). Do you like to sing for other people? >> Yeah. What’s a movie that you think everyone should see? >> --- Do you spend a lot of your time alone? >> A fair amount. If so, do you like it that way? >> Actually, yes. If I had to spend all my time around someone, even someone I like, I’d hate it. You know that gag where one person in an old married couple is always nagging the other about breathing too hard, because they’ve lived together for so long that the littlest thing becomes an aggravation? It’s like that, but imagine it happening in a much shorter time period.

Do you know anyone personally who has done meth? >> Yeah. Me, for one. Do you usually like bizarre people? >> I mean, I guess? Some bizarre people I like, some bizarre people I don’t like. Do you have a best friend? If so, why are they the “best”? >> No. Who do you love the most in your life? >> Can Calah. Name something that you would never do: >> I can’t think of anything right now.

Have you ever moved to a new country? >> No. How do you usually wear your hair? >> It’s too short to worry about styling. If you could have any hair color, what color would you want? >> White. Name a song that you feel describes you/your life pretty well: >> The fact that I really want to say Marilyn Manson’s Man That You Fear means I should probably refrain from answering this question at all. If you could have any animal as a pet, what would you want? >> --- What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever personally witnessed? >> Oh, who knows. I used to live in a metropolis, my threshold for strange is way different from a lot of people’s. If you could kiss anyone right now, who would you kiss? >> --- Do you have any piercings? >> Lobes and septum. Are there any you would want? >> I mean, maybe, if they were offered to me, but I’m not dying for any. The nearest object to you (other than your computer/chair/etc), what is it? >> There are a lot of things equidistant from me. Do you own a kindle? >> Yeah. When was the last time you saw your “first love”? >> --- Name something you really like about yourself: >> I keep trying. Name something you really don’t like about yourself: >> I keep failing. When was the last time you were sick? What did you have? >> I haven’t been sick in a long time, I don’t remember. What’s your favorite smell(s)? >> I like a lot of smells. Where’s the most beautiful place you’ve been to? >> Hm. What are you going to do after this? >> I’m not sure. I might go poke around video game wikis some more. Stretch your hand out as far as you can to the left. What are you touching? >> Nothing. Do you like to wear make up? >> Occasionally. Is there anything you’d rather be doing right now? >> No, which is what makes it hard to figure out what to do. What’s the stupidest song on the radio right now, in your opinion? >> --- What’s a word you just can’t spell right? >> --- What’s the last book you read? >> The Haunting of Hill House. Did you like it? >> It was insidiously terrifying (for me, seeing as horror can be a pretty personal thing) and I loved it. What do you keep beside your bed? >> There’s a bunch of stuff on this nightstand that just kinda ended up there (like the incense holder and the Starman tarot deck and the salt lamp that I’m borrowing until I get my own lamp and the copies of Promethea that I currently own). But also I put my lip balm and drink on there when I go to bed. Do you pluck/wax/thread your eyebrows? >> No. What’s something unique about you? >> My experiences, naturally. Who’s the smartest person you know personally? >> --- What makes them so smart? >> --- You can’t feel pain for an entire day. What would you do? >> Hm. Who inspires you most? >> I don’t know. Various dead writers, I guess. Have you ever won a contest of some sort? >> Yeah. Are you straight? >> No. Are your nails painted? If so, what color? >> No. You can only eat one food group for the rest of your life. Which one? >> --- Are there any religions other than your own that you identify with? >> I don’t participate in any specific religion, but if I were to choose one to put in the work of converting to, it’d be Judaism. Who makes you the happiest? >> Can Calah. Do you do any specific exercises to stay in shape? >> No, but I probably should. I do some walking, when I feel like it. Are you trendy? >> I don’t know. What color is your bedroom? Do you like it? >> It’s not a specific colour. Have you ever seriously thought you were going to die? >> Yes. What does your shampoo smell like? >> Shea butter, I guess, because that’s what's in it. What’s your desktop wallpaper? >> Right now (it’s on shuffle) it’s the “No Humans Allowed” sign from District 9. Have you ever smoked weed? >> Many times. If so, did you like it? >> I did until, long story short, I stopped being able to smoke it because of the extremely adverse psychological reactions it would cause. Have you done any other drugs? If so, what are they? >> Yeah. DXM, cocaine, LSD, heroin, meth, and two research chemicals that I can’t remember the designations of. Do you actually like your smile? >> Sure. Leave off with a word of advice: >> Watch Bill & Ted movies if you need a pick-me-up.

[beans2cheese]

I need him..

guess who guys /j

@k1rameki @taterswithranch @appallinnballin