#what the heck happened in 7th year

[sunkissesforzeus]

Ocean Spells & Chrysalid Shells WIP (31 chapters out)

Chapter 6: A Heart So Still

As they made their way to the top of the stairs, and alighted onto the corridor, other eerie peculiarities became apparent. The portraits were less lively than usual. The subjects were all sat in their assigned frames, quiet and unassuming, eyeing them warily from their painted positions. It was normal to see this illustrative community piling from one portrait to the next, like bees swarming in herds, the gossip was their honey, the revels, and parties their hive.

[pineapplefulfillseveryneed]

Additional info:

2. this was published as news on Sparks' website:

3. Alvin and the Chipmunks

4. Everyone has seen it, but anyway. The Russia Today Report video.

6. When I'm Sixty-Four (Bonus videos: you may also enjoy this version performed by Russell and the band Baby Lemonade and this performance of All You Need Is Love where Russell shares the stage with Jarvis Cocker and The Residents, among others.)

[Edit: dangit I forgot an option. Sparks also joined Facebook in 2007.]

[mysticstronomy]

HOW TO DESTROY A BLACK HOLE??

Blog#460

Saturday, December 7th, 2024

Welcome back,

Black holes want to absorb all matter and energy in the Universe. It’s just a matter of time. So what can we do to fight back? What superweapons have been devised to destroy black holes?

Black holes are the natural enemies of all spacefaring races. With their bottomless capacity to consume all light and matter, it’s just a few septillion years before all things in the Universe have found their way into the cavernous maw of a black hole, crushed into the infinitely dense singularity. If Star Trek has taught us anything, it’s that it’s mankind’s imperative to survive against all odds.

So will we take this lying down?

Heck no!

Will we strike first and destroy the black holes before they destroy us?

Heck yes!

But how? How could you kill a black hole?

This… gets a little tricky.

For a black hole, any matter entering the event horizon is added to the mass. Shoot bullets at a black hole, and you just make a slightly more massive, slightly more dangerous black hole. Detonate a nuclear bomb inside the event horizon, and you only make the black hole more massive.

Fire your forward phasers at the black hole, and that’ll still make it even more massive. Swap those bullets in for lasers and black holes don’t care. Within the event horizon, energy and matter are one, and those very same black holes can convert that energy into mass. So all your projectiles and energy weapons inevitably just make it more dangerous.

What if we crashed a star into it? Would that fill it up, or burn it out? Nope. It would just gobble that star up, and go on with its business. If we smashed another black hole into it? Would that tear it apart? The cause is also the cure? Not even maybe. As soon as black holes get within each other’s event horizons, they’ll just merge into a more massive, and even nastier, meaner black hole.

Number 1, it’s time to bring out the big guns. Reverse the particle flow, flood the dilithium chamber with exotic particles and route it through the main deflector dish, and construct your own black hole out of antimatter. Then kamikaze this new antimatter black hole right into a the black hole you want to destroy. Would that do it? Would that solve our problem?

As you probably know, when you crash matter into antimatter, you get an explosion of pure energy. It’s the most perfect energy weapon we can envision. Unsurprisingly, this brings its own set of complications. It’s not entirely clear you’ve still have antimatter in your antimatter black hole. It’s possibly been converted into a regular flavour black hole.

Still, if you *could* crash an antimatter and regular matter black hole together, you would get an incomprehensible explosion. Converting that entire dense and gigantic mass into pure energy, as calculated by Einstein. As soon as you did, all that energy would be immediately converted… into more black hole.

Nothing, not even light itself can escape a black hole. That includes all your magnificent explosion energy from your antimatter impact. You wouldn’t even see it happen. You’d just end up with a black hole with twice the mass. And that might be just what it wants.

As we learned in a previous episode, we can extract angular momentum from a black hole. By dropping material into the event horizon, we can remove energy and slow its rotation. We can even bring it to a stop. So we can slow down its spin, but that won’t make it go away.

So, is that it, are we out of options? Good news, we have one last strategy, and it’s so crazy it just might work. According to Stephen Hawking, black holes can actually evaporate over enormous periods of time.

Virtual pairs of particles are constantly popping into existence all around us. Then they recombine in a flash and disappear from the Universe. When one of these particle pairs appears right on the edge of a black hole, one particle falls into the black hole, and the other is free to fly off into space. And here’s the amazing thing. This might actually reduce the overall mass of the black hole.

So, over an incomprehensible period of time, even the most supermassive of the black holes will have evaporated away into a harmless soup of particles. It turns out, in order to defeat the black hole menace, all we need to do is ignore them, and they’ll go away all on their own.

Originally published on https://www.universetoday.com

COMING UP!!

(Wednesday, December 11th, 2024)

"HOW ARE BLACK HOLES CREATED, AND HOW DO THEY GROW??"

[struggling-jpg]

Some Things About Ma Feima (Yanqing) I Learned

And it matters to HSR Yanqing only because some people have had what they heard about Ma Feima affect their views of him even though it really SHOULDN'T imo.

The underlying point I'm trying to get at is that when we hear about parts of a story or characters we aren't familiar with, it'd be fairer to at least try to look into it more before making final judgments, especially if we only hear see memes and short summaries from a person over the internet.

If you're also interested in this topic then this will be very long, so thank you for bearing with me.

And if not, especially because you don't care or don't want to read about 7S/HI3 Yanqing then that's also fair, Ma Feima and Yanqing are different characters, and I hope you have a good day!

(NOTE: CW for the mention/discussion of a notable age gap between characters in the story. There are details surrounding that but I'd rather place this here for convenience. Look out for yourselves and stay safe!)

It's wild how many different versions of what happened in the Seven Swords visual novel, which is understandable due to its lack of official translation + not being complete (as far as I know? I am open to corrections overall). But the amount of details that go missing or are incorrect is notably large and I find this situation interesting. As mentioned, anyone who knows better (content, translation-wise, etc.), please correct me on anything if needed.

I will use some screenshots from the videos that translated the available chapters (1-2 and part of the beginning/prologue of 3, I believe). The translations are not entirely accurate so heck, I might be wrong on stuff too.

From personal experience, there were two things I heard about Ma Feima from HI3 players:

He killed his master, Fu Hua.

He cheated on his wife.

Legit, the first time I encountered these points, it was as simple as that. And I took it at face value because it understandably takes effort to look into this stuff and a lot of players from HI3 were saying it. But over time, curiosity got to me and I wanted to see the context surrounding it, and here's what I found.

However, here are some things to know about Seven Swords and Fu Hua's disciples:

The Seven in order are: Lin Zhaoyu, Su Mei, Jiang Wanxi, Jiang Wanru, Cheng Lingshuang, Ma Feima, and Qin Suyi

The present of the VN is set in 1496 while the assassination of Fu Hua was twenty years prior in 1476.

Ma Feima, despite being the 6th disciple, is the youngest.

Ma Feima's original name was Yanqing but changed it to Feima when he got older.

Qin Suyi, the 7th disciple, is Sushang's mother in both HI3 and HSR.

Lin Zhaoyu, the 1st disciple, and Ma Feima are married.

Onto the points:

He killed his master, Fu Hua.

Yes, he was involved but some attribute the plan to him. BUT he wasn't. The person who formed this plan was Su Mei, the 2nd disciple.

Supposedly, all seven disciples participated though most, if not all of them, were reluctant to do so.

They were all bothered by Fu Hua's, effective but cruel way of dealing with Honkai-infected people (She would wipe out whole villages if even ONE person was infected).

The last straw for the disciples was when Jiang Wanru, the 4th disciple, got infected.

It was in that battle that Ma Feima got the scar on his face.

Also to note, Cheng Lingshuang, the 5th disciple, was the one to get the last hit on Fu Hua.

This is a straightforward point, a lot of people know this stuff, and is probably the point that's more elaborated on. But I still wanted to mention it because, oftentimes, a lot of the credit for the plan, and sometimes the last hit is given to Ma Feima. It erases the actions of other pretty interesting characters and is simply incorrect.

Onto the second point, because this is where things get really interesting and a lot is going on.

2. Ma Feima cheated on his wife.

This has given the idea that he had an affair, cheating on his wife, Lin Zhaoyu

No, he didn't.

It is true that he was in love with Su Mei but she never loved him back and was very clear about it so in a literal-traditional sense, he didn't have an affair.

Emotionally, yeah.

It seems that he had been attached to her since he was a child.

Lin Zhaoyu seems to have always been aware of that and still pursued to marry him.

BIG NOTE: This is where I'm going to cover the age gap stuff.

One thing that I have rarely seen anyone mention is the large gap between Lin Zhaoyu and Ma Feima in age.

It's said that Lin Zhaoyu is 15 years older than Su Mei.

Supposedly, Qin Suyi was around eight years old when Fu Hua found her.

Remember, Ma Feima is the youngest of the disciples.

I wouldn't have harped as hard about the age gap if they met/didn't know each other in Ma Feima's childhood, but the disciples technically grew up together so I found it to be questionable.

For reference:

In order, that's Lin Zhaoyu, Su Mei, and Ma Feima when they were younger.

At minimum and based on all the searching and math, at minimum, Su Mei would be thirteen there, and by the 15-year age gap, Zhaoyu would have been 28 years old.

Now, based on the writing, Zhaoyu and Feima most likely got married in the twenty years between the assassination of Fu Hua and the present of Seven Swords.

The youngest Feima would've been at the assassination was seventeen years old at that point.

For the present of the story, Zhaoyu, and Su Mei are 56 years old and 41 years old respectively. Feima is likely in his thirties.

Like I said, I'm making a big point to this because, like, what the heck. That's MAJORLY concerning even if you tried to reason your way around it. Besides any potential "normal in the era" type stuff and that they got married when they were both adults, it's still a huge yikes, isn't it? Also, I've seen barely anyone mention that, and the ones I did see it from, it was when I was looking into the visual novel.

It's mostly because Yanqing is the one in HSR, he's the character that gets the most eyes. And when people only know him as a "master-killing wife cheater" without any of the context surrounding it, it's a huge shame, albeit fair if people don't want to actively look into it themselves. But because a notable chunk of players have let those perceptions have weight over an unrelated by anything but appearance, old name, and the parallel of (potentially) killing a master.

The circumstances surrounding the two are very different.

HSR Yanqing has Jing Yuan to raise and guide him safely through his early life. He's still very young and while stubborn, has a good head on his shoulders, and has a lot of potential to grow into someone strong and stable.

7S/HI3 Ma Feima on the other hand, is shown to have grown very differently from his younger self.

He is far from enjoying life, and don't get me wrong, he isn't completely innocent.

But he's completely aware and is miserable.

There's a lot more I could cover in terms of Ma Feima, his circumstances, and the things about the characters around them, but my brain is so fried lol. All-in-all, his story alongside the seven, is very...complicated.

My main thing is that, hey, maybe we should be a bit more vigilant when we learn things about characters. Beyond fiction, misinformation spreads very easily because we, understandably, take things at face value. In terms of media literacy, we see it time and time again when characters get reduced to a singular trait or a ship or get heavily misunderstood by the audience because a simplified summary will never do the context justice.

[speed-world]

so I'm wondering if you can make a story if we were in the 7th anniversary of ovenbreak story (the wish camp story), like just the ending of the story but with y/n cookie and then they all tell them that they love them and then they all group hug them and kiss them while watching the shower

P.s sorry if this is long

“Woah! The sky is so clear now! The stars are so close…it feels like I’m in space.”

“Yeah…It’s really beautiful. Soon the Star Candy meteor shower will pass by…!”

“Oh?! I think I see something sparkling in the sky!!”

“Ah, those are the wish lanterns floated from the campsite, Y/N Cookie!”

“Ah-, hehe, guess I’m super eager for the shower!”

“So pretty….You can see everything from here. The town below looks tiny like a toy town!”

“The stars feel so close…like I can reach and grab them. Congrats for finding the best stargazing spot, Y/N Cookie.”

“C-Congrats to you too, and you as well Cannoli Cookie. There’s no better place in the world than here, right now!!”

The Star Candy meteor shower - finally, the day you’ve been waiting for!! The shower only happens once every seven years, and so much has happened in that time. Some good memories, some painful, but you made it through with all the cookies you connected with. The two cookies you connected with the most, S’more Cookie and Cannoli Cookie, were…more to you.

You enjoyed being around them more than any other cookie, and your dough has changed to redder shades the more time you spent with them. It was clear to you that you loved both of them dearly; so much that you fell head over heels for both of them at once! But you never could find the time, or the words, to confess your feelings to the two. Thankfully, tonight is your night-your time to open your heart! It’s all so beautifully perfectly aligned, the greatest setting to finally say—

“Y/N, Y/N!! Are you feeling okay? You spaced out there for a while.”

“Oh! I-umm, yeah I’m okay. Just really anxious and exited for everything.”

“Something must be really taking over your mind then, because you didn’t hear your name being called out by everyone…!”

You turned around and nearly dropped your jaw at the sight before you. Camp Leader Squirrel, GingerBrave, heck-every cookie you knew was here!! They’re surely here for the meteor shower too. You were starting to get nervous again as you saw everyone all chatting with each other. It was all radio noise as you only thought of one thing: confessing to Cannoli and S’more Cookie now, before the shower passes!

“H-Hey Cannoli Cookie, S’more Cookie, I gotta talk to you guys really bad.”

“Hmm? Of course Y/N, what’s on your mind?”

“Well…these last set of years have been quite the journey to say the least. So many memories, so many friends, but you guys have meant more to me than you could ever imagine.”

“Awww, that’s so sweet! I-“

“Hold on, lemme finish. You guys are really, really special to me. So much so that I-…I love you guys, a lot. And not just as friends, but more than that. I love you two so much that I wanna spend all of our years together forever!”

“W-wow…! Are you saying—“

“Yeah, I am, to the both of you. So err-would you guys…wanna be my lovers for life?”

The two of them were completely flushed, yet smiling so widely. They both hugged you from separate sides and nuzzled your cheek.

“Awwww, Y/N, you mean so much to me, and you too S’more Cookie!! Of course my answer is yes!!”

“So is mine. I really enjoy being around you like no one else; it would be amazing to spend the rest of my life with you two!”

“Really!? T-thanks you guys, this is the best night of my—! Wait, quick, look at the sky!”

“Hmm?”

“The star…!”

“The meteor shower!!”

“Woah…! I’ve never seen anything like this..! The stars are showering down like beautiful waves…”

“There’s the Star Candy meteor!”

It was breathtaking! The beautiful sight that only appears every seven years. Only one thing left to do…make a wish!

“I wish…that our love for each other never fades; that we stay together and love one another forever!”

Cannoli and S’more somehow smiled more widely than before when they hear your wish. The two of them then took turns cupping your cheek and kissing you; you made sure to kiss them back in return. Such a beautiful night and a beautiful memory that was just made; you have everything to be grateful for tonight!

[softgaychild]

I miss my 7th grade year, not because of school, but because it was then that I discovered this little Korean kids show named 'Tobot.' I watched dozens of episodes not understanding anything going on all since I was watching it un-subtitled in Korean. I even watched some of the sequel series it had like Athlon, V/Galaxy Detectives. Truly a moment in my life. (It should be noted that I rediscovered the series years after the fact in English on Youtube and that was how I was finally able to watch it and actually know the plot)

I also watched this other kids show called Dinocore which I absolutely devoured the first 3 seasons of. Season 2 had a small twist where for a brief minute you thought that they had killed the MC, and Season 3's first fight lasted 2 episodes and highkey made you question if this "monster of the week" style show would have the main characters lose immediately (of course it didn't

Oh and going back to Tobot, it was kinda based as it had hella interesting plot points. The show literally starts off with a kidnapping, there's dozens of near death experiences for a bunch of the characters. There's bombings, the spreading of addictive substances to children, terrorism, the kids get trauma, one of the main characters is a bit racist for one of the story arcs, it's crazy. Although unfortunately the english dub/edit removes several of the plot points that make it so interesting. Heck, even in V/Galaxy Detectives they nearly kill the MC from the previous Season with a cliffhanger where he's left powerless and sinking in the arctic ocean. Dinocore also does a similar thing where the MC is left comatose for like an episode before awakening with a new power. I need to rewatch the last few seasons in order to remember what happened cuz I don't even remember how they beat the final villain.

Long story short, Korean kids shows hit different.

[sinfulslytherin]

Fire

Summary: your Boyfriend kicked you out of your dorm room and invites another girl over. In the common room you meet Draco Malfoy.

"Daphne has been sleeping in the same dorm as Pansy and Blaise for the last few days...I doubt that she's making her way back to her dorm right now..especially at that pace." Draco says in a calm voice as we both watch Daphne run towards my dorm room.

"Yeah. I know. Graham probably lets her know that I am not in my dorm room tonight. He's probably gonna brag about me sleeping in the common room." I say as I scoff.

"How about you'll sleep somewhere else?" He smirks at me.

A laugh leaves my lips.

"You're dorm room? Isn't that a bit obvious?"

Draco shakes his head.

"No, not my dorm room. Let's go." He says as he grabs my hand and pulls me up and drags me out of the Slytherin common room.

We quietly make our way through hogwarts. We are still allowed to be up and walk through Hogwarts, bur we're still careful that no one who knows us spots us together.

Draco suddenly stops in front of a huge wall.

He lets go of my hand and starts to walk past the wall while he seemingly concentrates.

"Shall I leave ooooor....?-" I akwardly say as I am confused what he's doing.

Suddenly after the third time walking past the wall,a huge door appeared.

I look at Draco in shock as he only smirks at me.

He again grabs my hands as I am still overwhelmed by what just happened.

We enter the the room and my heart skips a beat.

A huge king sized bed and some beautiful book shelves. Furthermore, a sofa and a cute fireplace.

"What is this place..?" I say as I look around.

"The room of requirements." Draco answers as he makes his way over to the bed.

"How did you find it?-Did you just run a few laps in the hallway or what the heck did you do?" I ask as I laugh at him.

"Stop making fun of me. I just got us a beautiful place to stay for the night." He says as he rolls his eyes.

"Okay, okay. I was just joking, ferret boy." I tease him.

"You still remember that?" Draco whines after hearing the familiar nickname.

"Draco, everyone remembers. You were a freaking ferret." I say as I let myself fall into the bed.

"I hoped everyone would forget it someday." He quietly says as he looks away.

I laugh at his reaction.

"You think that's funny, huh?" He says as he looks at me.

I smirk as I look at him.

"Yes, kinda."

"I think it's time to whipe that smirk out of your face, you little brat."

Read the whole story here <3

[prussiasqueen]

Hey genuine question: how can someone be both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine? I understand you have family and friends in Israel but how can you be both when Israel has been

-using white phosphorus bombs

-targeting Palestinian journalists for reporting the truth

-shooting children (even BABIES) in the head

-refuse hostage negotiations

-basically running concentration camps and torturing Palestinian civilians

And a bunch of other war criminal shit that even South Africa has recognized

People criticizing Israel and wanting them to give back the land to Palestine is not antisemitism. Yes, there are people who take it too far but historically, Israel is a settler nation and Palestine should get the land back. No sane person is saying they want Jewish people dead/not have a place to go. There are Jewish people in Palestine, it was never about wanting Jewish people dead, it’s about freedom and ending the occupation.

I apologize for the lengthy rant, I just want to help educate people on this matter.

Ok so I’m gonna keep this simple as I can anon, not because I don’t think your questions aren’t important… but it sounds like to me you may need to actually sit down and talk to some Israeli people and get the full scoop and idea of what’s happening on BOTH sides. Can’t really rely too much on listening to just one side, because ya know… propaganda and how the media twists so much.

As stated a lot of what you are saying sounds like a bunch of propaganda and rinse and repeat of the same things being said over and over again.

Truth of the matter is, you’re not seeing beyond October 7th, you’re not seeing what’s been going on beyond 1948, a little bit of searching online and heck, even checking in with Israelis about said information could help a ton with this. Secondly, all the information you provided, Hamas literally did the same things to the Israeli as well and to their own people. Hamas has been torturing people since before all this has happened. Literally you sound like someone who hasn’t batted an eye to any of this until suddenly when things happened during October 7th.

This was never a genocide, this has always been a conflict.

There’s so much here to cover, maybe I should suggest you chatting with parts of jewblr?

Another man I might recommend listening and watching is Mosab Hassan Yousef.

A Palestinian man who not only is just a Palestinian but the son of Hamas co-founder, he is also known as “the green prince” you want some true insight and someone who can really break it down for you to understand, I highly recommend having a listen to his videos online (if you can find them) and also his book “The Son of Hamas” Will help give you a better perspective.

I personally could actually sit down and look at you and say, “alright, so where do we start” but I really don’t feel I need to explain when you can literally see what a lot of us have been saying. I mean hell, if you really wanna know more… (I won’t say tumblr is the best of sourcing but, the Jewish community here and my own reblogs on my other blog have walls and walls and walls of text and sources you can go and read.)

“Shooting children, even babies in the head”

Were you…. Not present when you heard what they did to some of the hostages? Umm… you do know that Hamas killed women and children too, right? I mean this is a conflict and war… I mean like I said so much to cover…

War is gray area when it comes to how it is, it’s never fully one sided, there’s casualties everywhere and there is no winning outcome in it at all.

Also can I just… can I throw one thing in here, yes people want Jews dead. People have been wanting Jews dead since the beginning of human existence on earth, I don’t know what planet where you think this is not the case, but Jews have been ostracized for many many many many years, by the Romans, ancient Egyptian, Greeks, the Germans, the polish, the Russian, the Turkish, and the list goes on and on and on, let’s be real here most of Middle East does not want Israel to exist and the people in it. (Especially Jewish) most Palestinians that support Hamas, do indeed want the Jews dead. That’s not up for debate, so by saying no “sane” person wants Jews dead, well when you support a terrorist group like Hamas, you do want Jews dead. End of discussion.

Many one else willing to help put in more info here… that’d be awesome.

@bottlepiecemuses you have anything to add to this for anon? I’m like really tired and don’t feel like breaking this down more…

[felassan]

EA website update:

"Incoming Transmission N7 DAY 2023 Happy N7 Day to our wonderful community!"

"Hey, everyone, Every November 7th, we’ve all come together—developers, superfans, regular fans, kinda-fans—to celebrate (and speculate about!) the games, stories, and community that make Mass Effect so special. It’s a testament to the long-lasting appeal of this universe and the characters who call it home. Eleven years of N7 Days and sixteen years of Mass Effect later, the franchise continues to inspire our development team, and with each day, gives us the opportunity to create more adventures for you to have. Whether it’s one of the many who have been here since the original game’s launch or those recently joining us at BioWare, we are all incredibly lucky to be envisioning this future. That process is equal parts rewarding and challenging. We’ve asked ourselves many of the same questions you’ve asked us over the years! What happened to everyone you know and love in the games? Who really died? Who had kids with whom? What does a baby volus sound like? What about all the galaxies? The endings! What the heck is going on with our asari scientist-turned-Shadowbroker? What about S— nevermind...you get the idea. And of course, to those questions, there are answers, but you’ll have to wait to hear them. And anything we do say won’t be easy to find, just like you’ve come to expect from our #N7Day teases. But for real… thank you. Thank you for everything, and allowing us to do what we do. We approach the future of this universe with gratitude and deep respect. Respect for you—the community. Respect for the love and dedication you’ve given to us. Respect for the history and the stories you’ve created, and the characters you’ve fallen in love with. And, respect for the future, and the opportunity to do something big—something amazing—for you. Until next time…and Happy N7 Day! —Mike Gamble, Mass Effect Franchise Director & Executive Producer"

"Through o0ur partnership with Humble Bundle and friends at Dark Horse Comics, we’re making all Dark Horse Mass Effect and Dragon Age comics available in a convenient package! Pr1oceeds from this will go to Child’s Play, a charity that seeks to make the lives of children in hospitals more comfortable. We all know how powerful and uplifting games can be, so we’re glad to be able to help bring joy t0o kids in need through this effort. If you’d like to help, too, please check it o0ut! We also have some exciting new merch from our partners for those who want to stock their shelves or add to their wardro0bes. The BioWare Gear Store is releasing multiple new i1tems today! From a brand-new mini replica Claymore Shotgun to Omni-Blade LED Wall Art, we’ve got tons of Mass Effect items for your collection, all go0ing live with a site-wide sale. Be sure to check out items new and old, and follow them on social media to see their latest relea1ses."

"Our frie0nds over at Dark Horse have also been working on something special. For over a year now, we’ve been working closely with them on a few new statues based on popular requests. First and foremost, we’re excited to share that Commander Shepard (female) is ge1tting an iconic battle-worn statue! This has been one of the top requests from the community and we’ve been super excited to see it come to life."

"And, of course, if you w1ant to put a squad together for her, Dark Horse is also releasing new statues of Wrex and Tali. These statues are brought to life with the level of care and quality we’ve all come to expect from Dark Horse over the years. These two iconic characters are ready to take the fi1ght to the Reapers!"

"F0or those who live in colder climates (Canada being a prime example), our friends over at Volante Design have returned this year with s0omething just for you. Following the success of the N7 line of apparel they released, the team at Volante has created a Garrus Vak0arian-style parka, complete with a “head cone” to protect your 0face."

"A0nd of course, Sanshee always has something for our b1iggest fans. For lovers of Grunt, Lia1ra, and adorable va1rren, the team has created a new set of plu0shees and pins for your colle0ctions! Be sure to chec1k out their site for all that and m1ore."

"Your joy, creativity, and passion help drive us towards the future of Mass Effect and all that it may be0come. The team is ta1king their time to cr1aft a whole new adventu0re for you to enj1oy, with new stories, chara0cters, and experiences to fill it. At the end of t0he day, that’s w1hat N7 Day is about. Cel0ebr1ati1ng yo0u an1d th1is speci0al fr0anchise that br0ings us all to1get1her. W0e hope you’1ve enjoyed the glimpse1s int1o the fut1ure of the fra0nchis1e so f1ar. An0d don’t wor1ry, ther1e’s mo1re to come, but fa0rther away! Ever your biggest fans, —The Mass Effect Team"

[source and link to all images in post]

Associated Twitter post:

[source]

[echoing-gravity]

Double Legacy Sally Jackson Au

Okay. This has been my head Canon for like, years, imma try to explain the best I can.

So basically Sally is a 4th Generation legacy of the Norse God Loki (25%) and a 6th Generation Legacy of the Roman goddess Venus.

Making Percy not only 50% Greek sea demigod, but also:

20% Norse Trickster/lying/MISDIRECTION 5th gen

and 15% love/pretty as fuck Roman. 7th gen.

His Im/mortality blood split is more like 85/15.

Her parents (Percy's grandparents) died in that airplane crash when she was 5 because Sally's mom was a 3rd gen Loki and was unaware(cuz like apparently Norse demigods don't smell until AFTER they die) and Thor was all like, "heck no get the FUCK out of the sky" and Zappos hammered them to death.

(Percy has a Times 2 weakness to electric types. You think he's scared of ur lighting bolt? When he has to worry about a fucking lightning HAMMER? the answer is yes. To both. But like hammer>spear-bolt)

Sally found out about her heritage like maybe 2 months after her parents died(she inherited these cool norse pirate dagger/half-swords(I swear I can't remember what their called rn UGH), from HER great-grandparent. Percy's great-great grandparent ei: the Loki demigod. Loki gave them to her, and told her what's up.) and then she being the badass hardcore survivor she is, learned everything she ever could about Norse/roman(but also Greek) mythos by the time she's 12.

She meets Poseidon when she's 16.

Then Percy happens when she's 17 almost 18. And she learned from his father while she was carrying, that he would attract monsters.

Since she's related to Loki she has his whole "avoidance/dodge/misdirection can't be caught" thing. (As well as the shape shifting, but she can really only change her gender. But this is not relevant)

Sally, has been alone all her life, she is a SURVIVOR, so she buys an RV/tiny-home on wheels, and covers it absolutely completely buries it in a mix Norse and Egyptian magic-y misdirection runes to hide Percy's scent. She figures if she uses multiple mythos, it will be harder for Them to find her baby.

so there is no Gabe. Percy grows up even more of a mamas boy than canon.

She teaches Percy all about all the mythos, but like she does it in a very avoidance way that he knows NONE of their names like "the Greek sun god did this" or "the Roman sun god did that" and teaches him never to think their names "so they can't here you"

The changes in Percy's powers:

1: Since he's still Poseidon's kid but also now son of a legacy of the SHAPESHIFTER he can shapeshift, but only into a merperson, and only when he's wet. (Also he's genderfluid)

Sally teaches him to keep himself dry, he HATES it but understands that he needs to be sneaky, this first happens when he's like 7. And it doesn't happen during the full moon cuz like "the moon controls the tides" and what not. Yes, he is bioluminescent. Blueish/green aquamarine glowy mermaid fins!! His scales are either black or so dark indigo that they Look black.

2: Since he's a legacy of Venus, 7th gen notwithstanding cuz he has the 50% from the sea to make him stronger, he can do the charmspeaking, well... CharmSinging like a siren. When he was like 5 there was this really close call cuz when he sings one of two things happen. Either A: the default of "everyone in hearing range that isn't related to aphro/Venus is suddenly attracted to him, or b: people fall asleep. option a is the one that happened, he has to focus to get people to sleep. Sally is a smart cookie, she realized what was happening and decked the guy in the face before he could do anything to the baby 5 year old Percy. Sally then bans Percy from singing (at least around other ppl)

He HATES it. He loves to sing! but he understands enough to understand that sing around ppl is dangeours. This also happened when he was seven, but before the tail thing.

Sally, trying to hide Percy's heritage, and getting inspired from the Avatar the last airbender cartoon, trys to teach percy to only attack with "ice-bending" as to misdirect suspicions.

She tells him to "try and make the water stiff and cold"

He hates it. And how it feels "The sea doesn't like to be restricted" and what not, but like he trusts his mom, she's super cool and smart so he goes along with it, and OMG he gets cool water powers??? Like Katara?! From his favorite cartoon??? Best 10th birthday ever!

Ugh I can't remember if I'm forgetting anything, oh wait right. He can sense when people are trying to trick him. It's like a little itch I the back of his head. His mom can too, so they end up having these conversations where neither one is TECHNICALLY Lying, but like not telling the whole truth and shenanigans. Ei: "your father is lost at sea" does not ping his built in lie detector. So he's really REALLY Good at lying without lying. (Like what fae so in fairytales)

Because of this Percy thinks his dad is a mermaid. Percy is unaware that he is a demigod, he ony thinks his mom is a history-mythos nut. And that his mom is hiding him due to the myth of "if u cut out a mermaids eye and eat it you become immortal"

ugh thats all I can remember rn I'll edit it later.

Oh wait I just remembered since Percy's blood split is 85/15 he kinda can't really be referred to as a Half-blood. That is waaay more than half. Since like Frank blood split is 49/51 he can still be described as half. In other words,

IN THIS AU NICO IS ONE OF THE SEVEN.

and I also ship percico.

All of this is to say it leads to a dramatic scene outside of the doors of death where nico is like nico: "you have to go your one of the seven!"

And Percy is like

Percy: "nope I'm not 50/50 I'm 85/15 that's waaay more than half.....blood"

Nico: "but I can't leave u here"

it's more dramatic in my head and they are not dating by this point, But it's like mutual pining. Percy then kisses him and then pushes him into the elevator in his shock. Tells him to use his wish when he saves the world to use Persephone keyblade to get him and Bob out of Tartarus.

Then since this Percy is op and has seen alta, he blood bends all the rivers in the ground into spikey ice shards cutting the actual Tartarus(not his mortal plain body that Bob and friendly giant guy is fighting while Percy holds the button, but like the actual ground.) into 1000 pieces. And kills him. Like the sky primordial. He also killed poison lady. Btw. I'm so tired ugh what else. They are now stuck in Hell: frozen over.

Percy's logic for cutting up Tartarus with his own insides was as follows:

70% of the mortal human Body is made of Water.

70% of the earth is covered in a Body of Water.

The earth is Gaea, a primordial.

Mortal humans were based on gods.

And gods are descendants of primordials.

It takes a mortal and a god to kill a giant.

it took multiple titans (and a primordial to trick) to kill the sky primordial. His body was cut into 1000 pieces.

Ei: saltwater is Gaea's blood. And so are the rivers. I mean their called Bloodstreams for a reason.

A mortal a titan and a giant kill Tartarus.

Gaea was right about one thing Percy will admit.

If u want to to rid your garden of weeds, you have to rip out the roots.

[kyndaris]

Legends and Lattes

While you, dear reader, may initially think this post is about Travis Baldree's novel of the same name, I am here to quickly disabuse you of that notion. In fact, I shall do you one better and admit I have yet to even read the book sitting on my shelf, begging to be read. Heck, I even bought the prequel not too long ago: Bookshops and Bonedust. And before you say anything, dear reader, I will get to it.

Eventually.

It just so happens my blog is not solely a book blog. Nor am I a BookTuber/ Booktoker by day or by night. So, you know, it's very understandable why I've not read through this, assumedly masterpiece of a tale. Plus, I also have a lot of other hobbies like badminton, videogames and my own actual writing. All of which detract from my reading time.

Then, of course, there's my dating life, which, albeit is slowing down because I've mostly given up on men. And well, the women are certainly not biting as often.

What's a 32-year-old supposed to do except pine for the love of a fictional character? Karlach, I'm looking at you for when I finally start playing Baldur's Gate 3.

As you've no doubt picked up on, this blog is yet another entry into my forays of dating. This time round, I met up with a woman (third time's the charm, maybe? We're still chatting on the occasion although the topic has shifted into more a creative enterprise). It started with her liking one of my Hinge prompts, and after thoroughly checking her profile (she had actually cropped up in a few of my recommends previously), I thought I would do her the courtesy of matching.

It was followed by a brief conversation on mythology before the two of us went down the tabletop role-playing game route where we both tried, and failed, at playing grifters stealing personal information. Now we're on a journey to stop the Goblin King. The dastardly creature has stolen her identity, leaving naught but an empty vault of where it should be. And because of that, I, the handsome rogue in this situation, must continue masquerading as a Nigerian Prince as we go forth to acquire a magical sword with the ability to track goblins.

So far, we've made it to a small town called Bree. Although we did try to ride towards Bag's End, a number of black riders passed us by and Keyleth - the codename I've decided to use in this instance to refer to my date - was insistent we put a stop to their evil plans. Not that we know they're evil.

They simply have business with a halfling and are being very difficult about anyone who might be in their way.

As you can see, dear reader, we are most assuredly not in Kansas anymore.

That said, we did arrange to meet at a cafe halfway between where we live in what is fittingly named The Shire for Sydneysiders like me. It should be noted that unlike me, Keyleth does not live in Sydney. Rather, she is situated in the coastal city of Wollongong. You'll remember it as a place I visited not too long ago with a group of friends as we tackled a dastardly difficult escape room.

At the time, though, Keyleth's path and mine had not yet crossed. A shame, truly, since there are quite a few choice burger places in Wollongong we could potentially visit if I didn't mind the long drive down.

The cafe was named 7th Heaven. To my dismay, there was no raven-haired bartender or a blond courier. What it did have were a number of brunch options such as my go-to meal in almost every situation: Eggs Benedict with a side of smoked salmon. Keyleth ordered a milkshake and Eggs on Toast, adding on top of it a rasher or two of bacon and some delectable avocado.

By the end, though, she'd barely touched it - having eaten only one piece of bread and egg, some bacon and hardly any of the avocado.

Keyleth was the first to arrive - most probably due to the limited number of trains and because she had further to travel. I arrived just shy of the appointed time at 10. When I arrived, I had not quite expected the shock of dyed red hair to greet me. After all, in all her previous photos - both on Hinge and on Whatsapp - Keyleth had sported long blonde hair.

Still, she was keen to give me a hug, though I was quick to advise I wasn't much of a hugger. Or even a physical touch kinda gal. Yes, I'm more willing to accept it from a woman but it's not something I tend to do. And it's certainly not one of my key love languages.

Once I had sat down, we chatted idly about how our week had gone. After putting in our order, we began the painstaking process of learning a little more of the other. Keyleth learned I was an only child, whereas I learned she had a sister. Some of our family dynamics were talked about before we moved to more dangerous topics: like my favourite musical and whether or not I am actually a theatre kid (spoiler alert, I am not. Yes, I've been to four musicals in the last four months but those are baby numbers compared to the actual musical nerds out there. Or so I hope).

We also chatted about the weird role-playing experience unfolding on our messages, with Keyleth confirming the Goblin King was none other than David Bowie from Labyrinth.

Then, of course, we also talked a little about our dating experiences. Given I was asexual and she was demisexual, it seemed prudent for us to address the very big elephant in the room of what an actual relationship would be like. Both of us were a little uneasy about jumping immediately jumping into relationships as we required time to get to know the people we would be committing a significant portion of time with. Lust is certainly not a thing either of us experienced at first sight. And in order to catch feels, a strong emotional connection must be created first.

I, certainly, have not been in an actual relationship of significance with another. At least in the romantic sense. I do like to think I have many meaningful friendships with the people in my life though it's anyone's guess if they agree. More than likely, they find me egregious or too sardonic for their tastes (in fact, I recently had a nineteen-year-old university student at my work place call me epigrammatic!)

We also bonded over how difficult it was to date cisgender men!

But while the conversation was invigorating, our brunch date did slowly come to an end. Given the immediate surroundings didn't have any other interesting diversion, we paid for our meals and headed back to the local train station. A little unfortunate but sometimes that is how the cookie crumbles.

After all, it would be the height of rudeness to remain at a table for several hours afterwards when all our food was taken away.

Will there be another date with Keyleth? I'm not quite sure. Our conversations were pretty easy-going, flowing from one topic to another.

It was certainly better than the date I had with Tip Top.

As always, time will tell if anything will come of it, but I'm hopeful in obtaining a new friend if nothing romantic blossoms from the encounter. Of course, there is still Dikottir.

And while we haven't exactly had a sixth date/ meet-up, both of us will have gone to PAX in Melbourne by the time this blog post goes up. So, keep your eyes peeled for that riveting entry. Or not.

In the words of the founder of feminism himself, Rhysand, "It's your choice, Feyre darling."

As an aside, I can't say for sure if that's an actual quote from the book but it certainly feels like something he would say. On that note, I need to stop reading books like ACOTAR. I mean, it's no Fourth Wing, so I'm glad for that. But it's definitely not the height of fantasy literature. I was hoping for.

Anyways, THIS WAS ANOTHER EPISODE OF DATING 2.0! WILL A ROSE BE FINALLY AWARDED TO A SUITABLE SUITOR? YOU'LL HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL WE COME BACK FOR THE NEXT UPDATE!

And now, back to the weather!

[bubblybumblebee1]

Alright

Barbie lore time lol

So I've done the math of Barbie's many siblings (cause I'm bored)

And if some of these characters aren't the same person (Tutti, Kelly number 1 and Anastasia, aka Stacie)

And assuming that Kelly number 2 and Chelsea aren't the same person despite what Mattel says since their ages don't match up

Barbie would canonically be the eldest child of 9 kids

Including a possible set of quadruplets (Tutti, Todd, Kelly number 1, and Stacie since they're all supposed to be the same age)

I was looking through the wiki for Barbie and her family, and it starts with Barbie obviously, then Skipper, Tutti, Todd, Kelly number 1, Stacie, Kelly number 2, Chelsea and Krissy

But the younger siblings' ages also don't match up either of how old they're supposed to be vs. debut orders, as well as where they stand in the family tree

Tutti came after Skipper making her 3rd oldest, then her twin brother Todd but

Kelly number 1 came after Tutti and then came Stacie, who has also been called Todd's twin

Are Stacie and Tutti the same person and just look different as they got older? Is Tutti a nickname and Anastasia aka Stacie her real name? And what about Kelly number 1? Who came after Tutti but before Stacie?

Or did something happen to Tutti and Kelly number 1? Did Tutti get sent away to live else where since she looks like trouble? Was she the trouble maker of the family?

Again: What happened to Kelly 1?

Also, where does Todd stand? Is Todd in the middle if they actually are quadruplets and what number order of middle since he's listed as both Tutti and Stacie's twin brother? Or is it Tutti, Kelly 1, Stacie, then Todd?

Then there's Kelly number 2, the apparent 7th oldest, yet her age range is listed as 3 and in preschool while Chelsea is listed as 6 and in elementary school

Is Chelsea actually the 7th born child and Kelly 2 8th?

And if all these other siblings really are different from each other and not the same people going by different names or nicknames, where are they? Why do people only know of some of Barbie's siblings but not the rest

Do all of Barbie's best friends and Ken know about these siblings? Many have known Barbie for years but only ever see and hear about Skipper, Stacie, and Chelsea

Then again, these are also best friends who have never even heard of her siblings and vice-versa

Or is it because these 3 accompany Barbie the most throughout her adventures since apparently these 3 live with her and not their parents

When the heck did Barbie leave home? Why is she allowed to have custody of some of her siblings? Because of her many career moves? Also, isn't Barbie 19 since that's when she apparently stopped aging? Skipper is between 14 and 16 now, and I know Stacie is between the ages of 10 and 13 with about a 4 year age gap between her and Chelsea, who's 6

So modern age time wise: Barbie: 19, Skipper: 14 - 16, Tutti, Kelly 1, Todd and Stacie: 10 - 13, Chelsea: 6, Kelly 2: 3 and Krissy: 1

Meaning Barbie's parents were having kids about every 3 years

Many questions about the Robert's family

Maybe I'll do the extended family since they have some cousins and I wonder where they fit age wise

[nancypullen]

This Time Tomorrow...

I'll be slogging through airport security. But shortly after that I'll be flying through the sky in a chair (doesn't that sound magical?) and eventually landing in Paris.

We'll leave Baltimore around 5pm, connect at JFK, and fly overnight into beautiful Paris. Not going to lie, that first day will be rough. It will be noonish in France when we land. Once we get through passport control and claim our luggage we're catching a 3pm train to Strasbourg. The train ride is about an hour and 45 minutes. Once we arrive in Strasbourg our AirBnB is about a 4 minute walk from the train station...if you're not a 61-year-old zombie. So we'll be arriving at our lodging around 5 o'clock. I promise you that I'll be finished with the day by then. Maybe, just maybe, this will be the trip where I sleep like a baby on the plane and arrive refreshed. There's always a chance, right? But I'm betting on pure exhaustion by the time we unlock the door to our little French abode. As excited as I am about this trip, getting that day out of the way is the first hurdle. So we depart on the evening of the 7th, and the 8th will just be arrival and sleep. Then the adventure begins. I'll take you along to enchanting Alsatian villages and whatever else we discover along the way. BUT...before any of that happens I'm puttering around the house, making sure everything is ready for the cat sitter and for our return. I need to mention that after 42 years of being the only one who did any of that, Mr. Pullen has decided that he will actively participate in all of that fun. He's been tidying, laying in kitty supplies, etc. I don't know what to do with myself when half my chore list is already checked off. This is fun. I've had time to even clean up garden areas for fall (even though it's 80 degrees, yuck!). Remember that German Pink tomato plant that gave me an ulcer this summer? I babied the heck out of that thing and it bloomed like crazy but never produced fruit. I finally just completely ignored it, and now it has eight beautiful tomatoes on it.

Of course. Maybe they'll be perfect in two weeks when we're home, maybe the whole plant will be dead. I waited all summer and now I don't care anymore. Stupid plant. Probably should have waited to take the photo until after I pulled that big ol' weed. Whatever.

Oh! Before I forget, I received an email asking how the clay ghosts turned out that I made in early September (I think?). Eh, mixed results. The candy corn ghost is okay, looks fine with a little battery-powered votive underneath. He's sitting out with some other Halloween decor, doing his job.

The little ghost that I decided to dress in a patchwork quilt is another story. The quilt squares were just okay, but I could live with it, but then I ruined the whole dang thing because I painted his eyes too close together. He has issues.

I kept him in my craft room because I felt bad for doing that to him. We're friends now.

In other news, I was clearing photos out of my phone (100 flower pictures...why??) because I anticipate taking loads of photos on this trip. I came across some fun snaps of birthday gifts...

look at these beautiful sterling silver Scottish thistle earrings, purchased with an Etsy gift card.

I love them! A nod to my heritage, but also just pretty.

Then there was this picture of a luggage tag that I'm tickled with and, yes, I'm just that boring.

It's heavy duty acrylic, and on a metal loop, so super durable - not likely to be torn off, and it's SO CUTE. I covered my phone number because I don't want any calls from weirdos. Another Etsy purchase.

With that same Etsy gift card I found mosaic supplies that I plan to experiment with this winter (I'm excited!) and even this adorable glass tumbler that makes me smile every morning when I drink my protein shake.

And wait until you see this duo!

Not only is that a treasure of a travel journal with perfect prompts...

...but that little pink case is a TINY PHOTO PRINTER!

I've got an app on my phone, so I can select a photo and send it to the little printer with one touch. It prints a picture of excellent quality, and I can peel the back off and stick it right into my travel journal! Holy cow! These were all birthday gifts from people that I love, so they're already special - but man, do they know me well or what? I'm still wallowing around in the birthday love and I've been 61 for 11 days already. I even received flowers. Isn't it always the loveliest surprise when the doorbell rings and there are flowers on the other side? They arrived before my birthday and at the end of the first week some of the most delicate blooms were fading. I always just start plucking out the dying blooms and shrink the bouquet until I have a single stem and some greenery left. I just snapped this - the bouquet is down to about half its original size, and I fear I'll have to say goodbye to it. I may reduce it to just a few flowers and leave a pretty bouquet for the cat sitter. I can't toss them.

When I receive flowers I always try to place them where I'll enjoy them/see them the most. Often I'll move them room to room. These started out on the dining room table, and moved to my craft room on the days I spent hours in there. I love fresh flowers in the house.

So I've rambled from tomatoes to bag tags and have probably bored you stiff. Take heart, I'll soon have beautiful photos to share from fairytale villages. The weather forecast concerns me - the temps look fantastic, but there are a handful of days where we may see rain. I don't want a repeat of my Irish hair.

I don't care about the 8th, that's mostly a travel day. I'm hoping that those other drizzly days clear off in a hurry.

There's not a thing I can do about the weather, so I'm not going to worry about it. Brace yourself, France.

Alrighty kids, I'm outta' here. I need to check my list and make sure I have everything ready before we make our escape. You won't hear from me before the 9th, unless I can't sleep at all on the 8th - then you may get a posting from the wee hours. Until then, sending you loads of love. Stay safe, stay well. Adieu! Au revoir! XOXO, Nancy P.S. I have discovered that our Paris AirBnB at the end of the trip is in the 7th arrondissement, the same as Ina Garten's apartment! I may have found out that her building is on Boulevard Raspail, right across from a fabulous fresh market. Stalker? Who, me? Hey, I just want to pose in front of her building, I don't think she's even there. I did download her autobiography, Be Ready When the Luck Happens, so she's already traveling with me.

[twilightichor]

I have just completed the new Xianzhou quest, so leaving a few thoughts under cut!

𖧷 He didn't make a physical appearance, but I was mistaken about this man— his presence be stronk and to be honest, good for him. It was outrageous enough to get into a prison and not find Luocha :|

𖧷 I adored seeing Huaiyan at long last after hearing and seeing things about him. I feel that his talk about mistakes in the past is also about himself for not having been able to do anything / enough what concerns Yingxing here, as it seems that he continues to be very meaningful to him, probably as if he were his son or a grandson.

𖧷 I was already skeptical since Jarilo-VI with Topaz's coming (or was it the Aurum Valley event first? I don't quite remember) about the IPC, but they have gotten to a point of being insufferable to be by now and I hope they continue to be that way and that HYV don't make them "likeable" to sell more on their future banners. But on to the story: suspicious as heck with the making of borisin-looking mechas using actual biological tissue from them at that. I dislike them with all my soul.

𖧷 Not a fan in the slightest of the March 7th bit. They left it at the conversation between Feixiao and Yukong with the seriousness behind it and the foreshadowing of what was about to happen, and then they forced me to go through her part of learning swordsmanship. Way to kill the vibe there << The one good thing I have to say about this is that I liked the final part specially with Jiaoqiu.

𖧷 Moving forward with the plot, I adored to bits that they didn't cut any slack with the borisins and that they made them as deadly scary as several documents and the knowledge of what happened to Blade's homeworld because of them. It made me feel lots for what the Foxians must've endured and it made me feel for Jiaoqiu, a Foxian himself, going through the trouble he is just for a chance to heal Feixiao and probably for the best of the Xianzhou too.

𖧷 So eventually it's official that it's been 700 years since the disintegration of the High Cloud Quintet and this will be a topic that I'll stay away from the dash from now on for reasons I'll keep to myself. It's very saddening the disproportionate commentaries I've seen about them for more reasons than one and it continues to be even to this day, even after all the time that has passed since they didn't get any kind of spotlight for some months.

𖧷 Dan Heng has entered the club of making me feel for characters in this patch, the immense effort that must've taken from him to keep himself still despite being in the Shackling Prison, the bad memories, everything... He's so caring and I like that he's acceptant of those who know him as the Imbibitor Lunae.

���� I can't wait to see more of the Xianzhou. It has that special charm to me that never dies out and even after Penacony, it never did. I won't ever get tired of saying that Xianzhou is the best "world" to me in HSR so far because of its compelling story and many of its characters. There is that vibe of coming back home and seeing the characters interacting with one another that felt so dissonant in Penacony because, great part of the characters there, weren't even local so-to-speak.

𖧷 Oh, and as one last note: has anyone addressed the big elephant in the room of what Moze said? That the mara-struck are actually using a technique typical of the Caelorum Venti and how this was a thing even during Dan Heng's quest with Bailu? Everything is looking so sus right now and I adore every bit of it.

[shortformblog]

The Formula That Shaped Cable TV 📺

So, I do this thing where I publish a shorter version of Tedium on different outlets like Substack and LinkedIn. I call it Lesser Tedium, and I’m going to try it here. If you like it, subscribe to Tedium here. If you think it sucks, leave an angry comment, so I feel the depth of your anger.

A forgotten TV show from the late ’80s played a massive influence on how cable television was made—so much so that the formula it spawned is better known than the show.

In the midst of the recent Writers Guild of America strike, a lot has been said about the ways that writers are paid, particularly how the rules often end up being quite confusing.

But even when the rules work out, they can be weird as heck. My case in point: The weird case of what happened to the late-’80s show Sanchez of Bel Air.

This show, which aired during the fall of 1986, was a bit of a forgotten unicorn at the time of its release. Airing on the USA Network, the show had a lot in common with a later Bel Air-based television show, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, albeit focusing on an upwardly mobile Latino family rather than a black one. It was a sitcom when cable television was not known for airing sitcoms.

The show aired on USA at a time when representation, especially positive representation, of Latinos on television was quite limited, and the show did receive criticism for not being particularly authentic. (One potential reason for this: While its cast—with the notable exception of Bobby Sherman, for some reason—was largely Latino, its creators, Dave Hackel and April Kelly, were white.)

The show was not a hit, and disappeared after just 13 episodes. But because it appeared so early in the history of cable television, it became a bit of an unexpected landmark for completely behind-the-scenes reasons.

See, as a part of the show’s creation as one of the first sitcoms explicitly produced for the medium, it led to the development of a residual agreement about how much writers received upon re-airings of the show. The current formula breaks down as such: For the second to fifth re-airings, writers get 50 percent residuals, then it shrinks down to 6 percent on the sixth re-airing and 4 for each of the 7th and 8th re-airings. Gradually, the scale slides down until the 13th re-airing, when every future replay gets 1.5 percent each.

This formula, crazy as it sounds, is better known than Sanchez of Bel Air. It’s called the Sanchez Formula, and is generally used for scripted shows that air on cable television.

In many ways, emerging technologies shift the game for writer compensation—and the current Writers Guild of America strike highlights how, when these rates fall out of sync with the work being created, it can create serious problems. While the Sanchez formula wasn’t perfect, it worked well enough that it has stuck around for nearly 40 years.

» Wanna learn more? Check out my 2018 piece “TV’s Hidden Math,” which explains why so many shows have 13 or 65 episodes—especially if they’re syndicated.

[candycryptids]

Ayoooo, I'm back to be a pain AGAIN! This time I really, really, really want to know more about... duh, Chuu! But also a little about Tuesday, as well. This idea is just so COOL and I need to know more.

So! How long did it take Chuu to finish building Tuesday? I know it says he's been 'finished' for around 6 months to a 1 year but I imagine the process must have taken Chuu forever! And how in the heck did she learn to make an entire being from scratch and give it the capabilities to understand/learn emotions and what not?

My curiosity is insane and I'm going to stop before my "one question" keeps turning into a billion more. :)))

Ok so we’re gonna start with the first question, and then the second answer ends up being a huge timeline-lore dump, so, uh, brace for impact?

It took Chuu 10~ish years of development to get Tuesday to a 1.0 state, starting from drafted prototypes on paper to Built.

She wanted an assistant after going MIA from Garlemald [if you ask her, she’ll say she quit; she just only left an audio clip at her station that said GoodBye :)] because going from having people to run around and do grunt work to, doing everything herself forever…. Sucked.

Learning to Build Tuesday as a whole took her first visit to Ul’Dah, where she was first properly exposed to Mammets in the Goldsmithing guild. Delicate, small robots with full on Hearts. Personalities. MEMORIES! Opinions! Instead of Ceruleum, like Magitek, they ran off Aether. It’s fascinating- it’s not a weapon, it’s different, and confusing as hell. Chuu sticks her nose into their business and learns as much as she can about, how Mammets even function, how they’re put together, until the Gil she had starts to run low, and the Flames start questioning why there’s a Viera here with shocking similarities to one of the head engineers from Garlemald, and she dips again. To Limsa, where she meets the then-Warrior Of Light Keathan. Their extensive knowledge in Aetherology sets Chuu briefly into learning Arcanist magic (hence… part of the origin for her obsession with Carbuncles)

Together they draft further still prototypes on paper, utilizing Keathan’s extensive knowledge on the Body- and the affects Aether has on it, and the reverse (a body’s affect on aether). (it is, in fact, what their Archon Mark is for; BioAetherologist is the word we’re settling on uvu;) to make some pretty Huge Headway….

Something Chuu coins as ‘Mammetek’; a marriage between Magitek and Mammets that would be able to Talk, Walk, Carry, Gather Materials as well as Analyze them for Quality and Usability. A slimmer silhouette than her previous designs, a Mammet heart, a Magitek’s dependable, durable framework, but no need to make room from Ceruleum Tanks, or Emissions. While this Assistant would likely still need coolant, heat sinks, vents… it would still be possible that, to the layman’s eye, it would appear as any other Person, given enough fiddling.

Until the 7th Umbral Calamity occured, and Louisoix’s magic wipes from all the memory of The Warriors Of Light….. and Chuu and Keathan both wind up with gaping holes into the memory. Keathan with terrible active recall, and Chuu with no recollection of the Project they’d been working on together for all this time. Aimless and restless, she drifts away from Limsa and settles Temporarily in Kugane, with its more neutral stances. This is about when she falls in with her current shady Free Company, lmfao. [Which I’ll say, has lore, but I don’t know it, cos our rp scene is, shall we say, a tumbleweed, at best.]

While she’s moving in more fully to their base of operations, about a year after the Calamity, she dredges up notes and prototypes for something that she can’t remember having drafted in the first place. There’s numerous notes on something called a ‘Mammet’ though, which sends her back to Ul’Dah, much to her consternation, but it was the best and only place to learn more.

She happens to meet Keathan again- though the two are mostly struggling with a sense of Deja Vu at first, trying to place where they know each other- they eventually work it out, though perhaps the middle of the market street wasn’t the best place to discover this…

Regardless, the project ends up in full swing again, with Keathan making occasional contributions when not otherwise occupied (though Chuu did probably throw them off their intended task a number of times)

Tuesday [1.0.0] isn’t operational mid-ARR, and he’s not allowed out of the workshop at all. No legs. No face. No hands. But he has a voice, and he has crude mitten-like graspers, and Keathan spent quite a bit of time conversing with him while Chuu refined code and worked on the frame. Originally he was more like a dating sim- predefined responses to partially defined questions and phrases. But it was…. Vast. Training a learning module was easier; let the Mammetek utilize stored memory, and let it build on recalled conversations to generate its own responses based on those. It gets more complicated than that rather quickly but it was more forgiving a module than trying to code for every conceivable combination of words. *please understand my knowledge of computers and programming is rudimentary at best, I’m leaning rather heavily on Fantasy Handwaving

Tuesday’s first proper forray with a body includes mitten hands and a blobby-somewhat suspect-tonberry head, mailed in pieces to Ishgard once Chuu finally got word where Keathan and the Wayward Fugitives had ended up. This is Tuesday [1.2.45]; The startup takes quite a large amount of Aether- so it’s really fortunate Keathan has just that ;)

And Keathan continues to [treat them like a person] and not a Machine! So do most other Ishgardians, actually. He’s Keathan’s attentive, if a little eccentric, assistant and bodyguard. By the end of Heavensward- following a [major incident] with Nidhogg, he’s on 1.3.49. A furious Chuu had to build him a new leg, and made some alterations to his software in the hopes she could head off some of his ‘riskier’ plans (partially at Keathan’s request).

Working as a group in Azys La with Gerolt gets us to Tuesday [2.5.58]; new body, working individual fingers, a lovingly crafted and life-like Faceplate (thanks Keathan 💖) and, more importantly, an enhanced Mammet heart that could better Sustain itself and didn’t need to tether with Keathan to remain operational all the time. Allagan tech also aids in creating a durable self-healing bio-skin, so he gets to wear… like… real clothes. Not just a full coverage padding-insulating armor-body, but. Like. CLOTHES.

Tuesday [3.6.60] comes about post-ish Shadowbringers, when she gets her hands on YorHa technology to take apart and refine and study…. Through curious means. [Tuesday’s Soul] was called there, having residual ties to Keathan, so much of her work comes from second-hand sources until she figures out how to get there on her own power. Don’t tell Shtola.

I imagine he’ll face another updated body and hardware/software to 4.6.49 in Post Endwalkers, working in tandem with Thavnairian Alchemists who designed Varshaun’s vessels. She comes a long way by that point on being closed off and insular, more willing to… care about other people, lmfao, and a course in the Studium about Memory gives Keathan some ideas to work on with Chuu and Tue about upgrading his memory- store it as Aether, and not just as hard copies of ‘deemed important’ or ‘requested’ video and audio and training data. (So basically…. He gets pumped with way more aether and it gives him a proper unique Personality, by about EW, lmfao. Outside of just Formed Opinions and Programmed Quirks, which are the basis of things… it’s a minor but important change I think)

…. Which is to say; how did she learn to give Tuesday Personality? Technically, she didn’t! It was more Keathan’s influence and fingerprints that led to Tuesday having as Developed a sense of self as he does, with Chuu working to accommodate his growing Self while also stubbornly refusing to let him be completely self-governed. He knows entirely too much to be allowed to act completely on his own, you see.

Additional silly fact as a thank you for reading this much; anytime he has a full face and hands and ears and all during Heavensward screenshots it’s because I struggled immensely with knowing I had to obliterate all expression and nuance by slapping a tonberry head and gloves on. So I let him have his face (which I worked QUITE HARD ON, THANKYOU) And hands, because I really like hands as part of a communicative medium. :T

Also, his hair used to be white-ish and green, like Chuu’s, but following HW he asks to be Blue instead of Green- not only to match the color of his tech but also to match the hair of the person he has strong emotions tied up with (Haurchefant, who is provide links for relevant posts but there are a Good Many).

(You might notice in many images their hair isn’t even actually a pure white, but a greenish yellow, this is because I kept going fucking blind with their Snow White hair so I shifted it a few shades into pale grey-green and I’ve enjoyed it much more lmfao.)

ALSO I HAVE SCREENSHOTS IF PROTOTYPES FROM CHUU’S JOURNAL- I struggled to figure out where to place them naturally and even considered doing some heavier editing to make it look like an actual journal schematic, but the payoff wasn’t enticing enough to pursue, so have these on their own; (they were taken using a variety of fiddly filters and a smidge of post-editing but I’m pretty sure it was just “some sorta sketch shader” and then fiddling with settings in gshade until it looked right)

Fuck I forgot to tag my HUSBAND @zombiesockfuckinglovescardfight who is Keathan @v@