#Its told asynchronously

[butterflies-and-bumble-bees]

i am 195 pages into this scifi novel about the dystopian horrors that would be cause by teleportation being a regularly used form of travel, and i just now realized why the spaceship is named theseus

[teriwrites]

Beyond Alder Creek: Part 5

My Live Reactions to Reading Through My 2023 Novel

Chapter 14: A Troll's Toll

I was absolutely determined to introduce more fae to the world, in case you couldn't tell

Things are still tense, but Winnie is distracting herself by just watching their surroundings - the patterns in the clouds overhead, the twitching grasses betraying lil animals running around, the waves of wind in the plains, it's actually rather peaceful

"It's not evil." Taliesin's voice was so unexpected that Winnie flinched. She recovered quickly, carefully moderating her tone. "What isn't?" "The Beyond. I know it doesn't make sense to you - I'm sure your world wouldn't make sense to most of us. It's just protective is all. And the fae, well, we have a special tie to our home. We watch out for each other." Winnie shot him a dry glance. "And leaving other fae to die, that's what 'watching out for each other' means to you?" "I mean the fae and the Beyond. It's a delicate ecosystem." (more of the Beyond as a character rather than just a setting, love to see it)

Taliesin's in a much better mood after managing to get the bramble heart from Raf

'Winnie didn't ask her follow-up question, which was how he'd managed to take it without being cursed himself. She didn't think she'd like the answer.' Zac Oyama's voice saying 'I killed him, yeah' from Make Some Noise just popped into my head as Taliesin's response lmao

'They walked onward, ever onward.' the phrase onward, ever onward is somehow ingrained in my head, like i genuinely think of and use it regularly and when i went to look it up, apparently it's used in Mormon scripture, and as someone who is not and was not raised Mormon but had a lot of Mormon friends at one point as a kid, that's so funny that that's what stuck with me

Oh, chill, they found the end of the world

Oh nvm it's just a Massive chasm

Think like the Grand Canyon, if the walls of it were sheer on either side and fog covered enough of it that you couldn't see the bottom

Yk, a vibe

Taliesin's solution simply being to find a way across and starting off the path into the grass is very in line with how comfortable and accepting he is of this world and all of its bizarre jankiness

To his credit, a bridge did just appear out of nowhere after walking awhile

Alongside a troll, obviously

'The creature's face was small for its size, with four beady eyes set into a long face, blinking rapidly and asynchronously. If this wasn't disorienting enough, the spider-like, swollen abdomen and jointed limbs clinging to the bridge were enough to guarantee Winnie nightmares the next time she slept. "Travelers." Its voice came out in a hiss, settling over every s. "And such beauties. But trespassers, if not coming with the proper toll." (a very normal troll)

Taliesin has absolutely zero hesitation in walking up and addressing them

Oh chill, all the troll wants is a story

'Taliesin pinched the bridge of his nose. "The Bridge Keeper will lay claim to anything told to them. It won't be yours anymore. If you're going to share something with them, they will take it from you. Quite literally. Even the memories you have are theirs to steal as they wish." less chill

Winnie wants to lie, Taliesin tells her to maybe cool it with the human shit for a minute

And ultimately they must give up the bramble heart for passage 😔

Winnie apparently has a fear of heights

At least, given the whole 'nearly just fainted at the center of the bridge they need to cross' situation she just found herself in

Winnie actually calling out for Taliesin as she begins to pass out, and him gently helping her out, I'm gonna cry, they've already come so far

Chapter 15: The Dusk Court Scout

Important to specify that the woods they have found themselves in are Different than the Undernell or the jungle around Alder Creek, these woods are Normal

If normal woods involve trees covered in ivy and pastel fungus and moss

"Another thing about the Beyond that you should keep in mind. Do you see that?" He was pointing into the distance. Winnie followed his line-of-sight to a small garden that had been planted into this forest. A low fence had been built around its perimeter, and within were a wide variety of flowers and blooming plants all growing in orderly rows. The entrance was a beautiful stone archway, intricately carved with flowering vines. "It's lovely," Winnie murmured. Taliesin snapped his fingers in front of her face, drawing her back. "It's cursed." (classic)

Winnie is suspicious of why he keeps offering her help, he reminds her that it's easier to inform her about the Beyond than it is to watch her every move in case she does something stupid (again)

And unfortunately she's not really in a position to doubt too deeply

Fog is rolling in, that's not ominous at all

"Stay close," Taliesin called over his shoulder, and started when he realized that Winnie had already approached. With a tired smile, he offered, "See? You're learning already." it's hard to hate the guy when he's being a caring pal

Oop the fog has fully enclosed her into complete obscurity

And she's lost Taliesin. Great.

Love a book equivalent to a jumpscare

So, yeah, that Dusk fae did not, in fact, stay in the Dusk territory

I actually really love writing for the scout character, their to-the-point shit is fun

In this draft, their name is Herdithas, and they had explicit permission from the Queen to follow them out here

Also, their gender has changed, but I'll have a whole write-up on that later at some point

Chapter 16: Through the Bog

They're walking

Through a bog

'If [Winnie] thought too much, too directly about Bran, she'd have a nervous breakdown. Her innocent, meddling, curious, stupid little brother. She could imagine the eager look on his face in discovering a faerie ring. The puffed-up arrogance in meeting one of the fae and believing he was strong enough to take them on.' i like the take of her actually being kind of annoyed with Bran for all that's happened so far

How does a fog so dense you can't see anything get even heavier??

It's compressing Winnie's lungs, no big

She can no longer speak, can't hear, can't see, can barely breathe, can barely feel the edge of Taliesin's cloak as she holds onto it. Rough going.

And now there are wispy figures emerging from the fog

They start dancing and swooping down at her, but when she ignores them, they turn to grabbing her hair and yanking it, drawing their cold fingers across her face, that sorta shit

She spies an oasis, and tries to get Taliesin to follow it, but he ignores it.

Illusion, classic

Oooooo I made reference to 'creatures and paths and fearful scenes of battles and adventures' appearing in the fog, I kinda want to elaborate and make those related to the Beyond's story-at-large

I like that I actually did kinda continue with the raven theming in this stage - a raven made of mist is what ultimately guides them to the Oracle

No more 'three prophetesses wearing black veils and golden crowns'

Now we have a fae with the body of a massive panther, a long, almost serpentine neck, and a porcelain face with dark, star-filled eyes, all framed with black feathers

Chill

"Welcome," the Oracle said with a smile. "Stay awhile." she's so cool

Ending Thoughts:

Head empty. No thoughts. Too sleepy. Okay, I've returned. Firstly, I need to get rid of the troll. I like including more fae, but they need to offer something to the plot outside of just snatching up that bramble heart. I have other ways of getting rid of it that don't involve a mini sidequest facing off a troll. Generally, though, I like this part of the story. It's still relatively active - they're still bound to their goals - but they also have some downtime to just kind of chat and build on their fun lil rapport. And then, before they can reach their goal, the scout! I love the scout so much. I wanna use them a little more going forwards, but this formal introduction is always fun to write

[twistedwonderlandshenanigans]

Hi I love you @my-cursed-brain (if you want me to tag your alt in the future just lmk bc. I will probably split this into different posts just for the sake of organization) Anyways!! Regarding the Dance AU, I'll give you a little bit of bg information first. Night Raven Dance Academy is a prestigious school with availability for anyone from the middle class tax bracket right on up to royalty, but the difficulty and the quality of the lessons are dependent on your financial standing. (For example, Vil, Neige, Leona, Riddle - they all have the best teachers NRDA has to offer, with a rigorous training schedule and their academics are less of a priority than dance is in terms of personal goals, and are done via asynchronous classes to accommodate for their schedule. Ace, Deuce, Vizzie (OC), are still in a pretty intense dance program, but they still have their normal classes to attend in person). NRDA is divided by floors based on where you're going for classes. Now for Neige, Riddle and Vil. They are the queen bees, studying specifically ballet. Since Leona took a temporary leave from the academy after a dance related accident, the three of them have been competing to be the top dancer at the school. They've got a "Mean Girls" sort of dynamic going, where they treat each other like enemies as much as they treat each other like friends. Part of this is because they've known each other since middle school. Part of this is the (mostly) friendly competition between them. Part of this is the Gender Envy. Neige is openly gender fluid, with supportive (adoptive) parents. This somewhat irks Vil, not just the self expression and the support, but it seems to give Neige more flexibility as their instructor knows Neige is comfortable playing either a typically female OR male lead, resulting in Neige being picked over Vil for leads often, never due to skill, only due to the comfort level the instructor has been made aware of. However he has major imposter syndrome and nobody he can talk to about it because he knows Vil and Riddle will kind of tear him apart, but his parents don't really acknowledge his issues, just telling him he's perfect and he knows its not true. Vil can't say he wants the female lead. He has considered coming out to his father as trans, but overheard a conversation his dad had with Riddle's mom, and realized the moment he told his father he would be disowned, his reputation would be ruined, and his dance career would be over. So he stays quiet, silently seething as Neige gets the glory he wishes he had. Riddle is afab in this universe. She is in denial about being trans, as she knows her mother would not be supportive, which has severely impacted her motivation and passion for dance. Everything just Feels Wrong, and when she looks at Vil and Neige she wonders why she feels a sense of loss or like something's missing. So her performance hasn't been as good as it has in the past, leading to more issues and one-sided conversations from her mother, and empty promises that she'll try to do better but she really doesn't know what's wrong. Her mental health starts to wear on her quite a bit, but Vil and Neige pick up on it eventually.

There will be a day, eventually, in which the three of them are able to really talk to each other and sort their shit but it takes A While to get there. wheeee thank you for asking about it I love talking about worldbuilding and stuff and its a great reward for when I finish chunks of hw so I really appreciate it in that way too lmao

[systastic]

Hihi may we request a lvl 3 alter pack based on Starscream from Transformers? Any version of it, and can be as canon divergent as you'd like! It's just important to us that he was abused by Megatron, if you're comfortable with that

one starscream coming up~! apologies if this isn’t super accurate meow, we don’t know anything about transformers 3: so we went totally against canon n made him a really super nice guy!! hope this is ok nya ♡

name :: starscream, megascream, ulchtar, starry, spark, nova, caelus, castor, orion, oberon

age :: 7.5 million (a teenager for a cybertronian!)

pronouns :: he/him, it/its, xi/xim, bot/bots, auto/autos (autoself), tran/trans (transformerself)

roles :: swordsperson, buffer, defensor, emotional regulator (sees things from an analytic pov), flashback warner (due to being partially amnesiac), frijōn (due to his grounding presence) && amnesiacflux (asynchronous backspace)

species :: cybertronian (decepticon)

gender identity :: robogender, technogender

orientation :: sapioromantic, asexual (worried it may hurt the other party)

source :: transformers (general, canon-divergent)

aesthetic :: abstract tech, artificial nature

appearance description :: similar to canon starscream, caelus has a mostly red, white, and dark black body! he has since given himself some much-needed touch ups: stickers gained from his new friends dot his hull, patterning his sides in wonderful spots of colors! it has also made sure to modify itself so that others can feel safer; orion has the ability to generate large energy shields (dome-like in appearance) that can safely contain his friends while still allowing them to breathe! his eyes have become blue now that he isn’t on megatron’s side anymore — though sometimes, if it’s pushed too far, hints of red flare up in the center.

personality description :: most people would imagine starscream as a big mean robot. castor is quite the opposite: polite, friendly, and outgoing to everyone he meets, it loves making friends and helping to comfort others. xi may be a bit large in comparison, but xi loves giving other people hugs! auto appreciates the small wonders of the human world — what is this thing you call a teapot? what do you mean, it makes water hot? how amazing! learning new things makes caelus happy, doubly so if tran can use his new knowledge to benefit trans new friends. bot holds one secret deep down: bot was horribly mistreated by the robot he once thought of as a father. oberon was lucky; bot met optimus and the other transformers earlier than the “canon” starscream did. they helped orion see the cruelty of megatron’s ways, convincing bot to switch sides. the memories of his once-father haunt bot to this day. oberon doesn’t want anyone else to be hurt like bot was. it has adapted with time, becoming stronger over the years, and now serves to be the shield for others that it never had growing up.

likes :: children, baking, puppies and kitties (he is afraid of hurting them on accident and is very, very gentle with them), protecting the ones he cares about most, interacting with the human world, learning new things, making new friends (especially humans!)

dislikes :: seeing its friends get hurt or hurting, abuse in any form, megatron / megatron defenders, child endangerment, being reminded of his abuse, being told he isn’t good enough, seeing other canons where he wasn’t as fortunate as he was here and did horrible things to his now-friends

front triggers :: emotional harm done to current fronters, emotional distress, seeing someone upset, cute puppies or kitties, a child without a parent,

signoff :: 🚗, 🚘, 🦇

image source: here!

[mariacallous]

What was NATO before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? A Cold War relic in search of a mission, a drain on Washington as it pivoted to Asia, a needless irritant to a nonthreatening Russia—or so a chorus of academic and media pundits told us. French President Emmanuel Macron, Europe’s pundit-in-chief, famously summed up the mood by calling the alliance “brain-dead.”

Countries closer to Russia knew differently, of course, and tirelessly warned their western peers that the alliance still served a vital purpose. Today, in many ways, NATO is back to its roots as a bulwark of the trans-Atlantic West against an expansionist Kremlin. Weapons are heading east, and troops are being forward-deployed. Seeking the bloc’s traditional protection, Finland has joined, Sweden is in the waiting room, and Ukraine’s path to membership will be discussed when NATO leaders meet for their annual summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, next week. All of a sudden, we’re talking about the defense-industrial complex again, tallying ammunition production and counting tanks.

But this is no return to the past, even if some might be nostalgic for the sense of unity and purpose that seemed to define the West during the Cold War. Having brought that epic contest to a peaceful close without a major conflagration arguably made NATO the most successful military alliance in history. Today, however, the bloc operates in a very different world, where Moscow is just one challenge of many. As allies of Russia, China and Iran now impact European security directly; NATO, in turn, is eyeing new threats to the east.

With its asynchronous combination of 21st-century technology and long-forgotten trench warfare, land battle looks very different today, with many lessons from Ukraine for NATO still to absorb. Russia is much smaller and weaker than the Soviet Union—especially after its forces’ decimation in Ukraine—but it still has its nuclear arsenal. As the Wagner Group’s march toward Moscow showed, the country is also less stable and predictable than the Soviet Union ever was, giving the alliance a whole new set of Russia scenarios to prepare for. And unlike in NATO’s heyday, what was then still called the “Third World” isn’t content to watch from afar but rather wants a say in how conflicts are managed.

To give us a sense of how a revitalized NATO might address these and other challenges, Foreign Policy asked nine prominent experts from Europe and the United States for their views. Below, they discuss some of the most important topics facing NATO leaders next week and going forward, from membership for Ukraine to the bloc’s role in facing China. You can scroll down and read through or use the navigation options to choose a writer and topic.—Stefan Theil, deputy editor

Security Guarantees Are Ukraine’s Bridge to Membership

By Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former NATO secretary-general

NATO leaders meeting in Vilnius need to recognize that peace and stability in Europe relies on a secure and independent Ukraine. Ultimately, that means bringing Ukraine into NATO. Personally, I believe leaders should already extend an invitation for Ukraine to join in Vilnius—but unfortunately, certain leaders of NATO member countries remain hesitant to make a commitment while the war is ongoing. This is a mistake. If you make membership dependent on the end of hostilities, you give Russian President Vladimir Putin the incentive to continue the war indefinitely.

If there is no agreement on an invitation to join NATO, the second-best option would be to outline a path toward membership in three steps. First, confirm that once Ukraine is invited, it can follow Finland and Sweden on an accelerated path into NATO by removing the need for a membership action plan, a procedure that could drag on for many years. Second, pledge to review the question of NATO enlargement at the alliance’s 75th anniversary summit in Washington next year. Finally, establish a NATO-Ukraine council with a mandate to work on the conditions that need to be met for Ukraine to join the alliance.

These steps would send a clear message to Putin: Sooner rather than later, Ukraine will become a member. You cannot stop this process.

NATO membership is the ultimate destination, but to get there, Ukrainians needs stability and security. That is why they need a fourth step: robust security guarantees now. Even before next week’s summit, a group of Ukraine’s allies should back guarantees based on the Kyiv Security Compact that I co-authored with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak.

Security guarantees cannot be given by a piece of paper. The 1994 Budapest Memorandum guaranteed Ukraine’s borders and sovereignty—and turned out to be worthless when it mattered. Instead, Ukraine’s partners must ensure that Ukraine can defend itself, by itself, until it is covered by NATO’s Article 5. This should involve an open-ended commitment from a group of guarantor countries to provide weapons, joint training under European Union and NATO flags outside Ukraine, intelligence sharing, as well as sustained investment in Ukraine’s military-industrial base. This should be modeled on the United States’ long-term military support for Israel.

Security guarantees are not an end in themselves, but they can provide the bridge to Ukraine becoming a full member of both NATO and the EU. They can provide the security needed for Ukraine’s economy to recover, reconstruction to start, and millions of Ukrainians to return to their homes.

Leaders meeting in Vilnius must not repeat the mistakes of the past. They must back robust security guarantees and set Ukraine on the path to NATO membership. If they fail to do so, we risk never-ending instability and conflict on European soil.

Ukraine in NATO Will Make Europe Safer

By Dmytro Kuleba, foreign minister of Ukraine

As the Vilnius summit approaches, the battle of arguments over whether Ukraine should be invited to join NATO is in full swing. Meanwhile, Ukrainians are fighting in Europe’s bloodiest war since 1945—losing loved ones, defeating the Russian invaders, and liberating their homeland. Today, Ukraine’s commanders, soldiers, and all of society are gaining essential experience in defending against the Russian threat. Tomorrow, they will contribute their mettle to make all of NATO safe.

Who wouldn’t want an ally with Ukraine’s strength, courage, and tenacity? It is a new reality compared to 2008, the last time a NATO summit formally discussed Ukrainian membership. Ukraine is no longer just seeking to slip under the collective security umbrella. Today’s Ukraine is a net contributor of security, protecting itself and the Euro-Atlantic community from an aggressive and revanchist Russia.

When Ukraine wins the war and joins NATO, it will be Ukrainian brigades—not U.S. or German ones—guarding NATO’s eastern flank. Battle-hardened Ukrainian units will be stationed in allied countries seeking protection from the Russian threat. No other NATO member has our experience and skills, including how to react to and repel an invasion within hours. That resolves one of the alliance’s most serious issues—rapid response time—while also boosting collective security.

We are not seeking immediate membership. We will not drag NATO into this war. We have never requested foreign troops on the ground in Ukraine. With the generous assistance of our partners, we will defeat Russia on our own. This war is ours to fight.

But the next war can be avoided by admitting Ukraine into NATO. What we are therefore requesting is a strong step toward Ukraine’s future membership. In Vilnius, we ask NATO to recognize three obvious things: First, NATO needs Ukraine as much as Ukraine needs NATO; second, Ukraine is an inseparable part of Euro-Atlantic security; and third, Ukraine should be invited now to join NATO, with membership taking effect when conditions are met.

An invitation like this will not provoke Russian President Vladimir Putin—on the contrary, it will deter him from future aggression. When confronted with strength, he invariably backs down, as all of us saw when the Wagner Group marched toward Moscow. With Putin weakened by the mutiny, there is a window of opportunity to invite Ukraine to join NATO.

If NATO leaders are not yet ready to grant an invitation in Vilnius, they should state clearly when they will be. Membership has formal requirements, but an invitation does not. All that is required is strategic foresight and political will.

NATO’s New Power Bloc

By Kristi Raik, deputy director of the International Centre for Defence and Security

One of the long-term strategic consequences of Russia’s war against Ukraine is that NATO is growing larger and stronger in northeastern Europe—the long arc from the Nordic countries to the Baltic states to Poland. This power shift will transform the alliance over the coming decade, making it more capable of deterring the Russian threat. Growing defense capabilities in NATO’s northeast will help make Europe a more serious U.S. ally while also laying the groundwork for a possible reduced U.S. contribution to European security in the future.

Poland, in particular, is building one of the strongest militaries in Europe. Warsaw has gone on a procurement spree and plans to spend 4 percent of its GDP on defense in 2023. The Baltic states are also undertaking major increases in defense spending, aiming at 3 percent of GDP in the coming years.

The accession of Finland and (hopefully soon) Sweden will mark an even bigger strategic shift, bringing new strengths to NATO, including Finland’s highly capable land forces and Sweden’s strong maritime capabilities. These two new members will add strategic depth to the defense of the Baltic region. Instead of being NATO’s weak spot and a possible magnet for Russian aggression, the Baltic Sea will be a virtual NATO lake. Never before in history have all these countries belonged to the same military alliance.

Perhaps most importantly, the new northeastern bloc within NATO will inject strategic clarity into European security debates. The Nordic countries, the Baltic states, and Poland have been among Ukraine’s strongest supporters, above all because these countries have an existential interest in seeing Russia defeated in Ukraine. Likewise, they have a strong interest in credible security guarantees for Ukraine after the war—the most credible and efficient solution being membership in NATO. Ukraine’s accession to the Western alliance—which most allies agree is a matter of when, not if—will make Kyiv a part of the alliance’s power shift as well. The military ability and society-wide resilience Ukrainians have demonstrated since February 2022 leave no doubt that NATO would be substantially strengthened by such a new member.

The obvious reason for NATO’s northeastern members to pull together is an aggressive Russia aiming to restore its old sphere of influence. These countries do not expect the Russian threat to diminish anytime soon. Even if Russia loses in Ukraine, it will be capable of rebuilding its forces in a few years’ time. Importantly, Russia is unlikely to give up its imperialist ambition to reestablish control over its neighbors. NATO’s northeastern flank will ensure the alliance will take Russia seriously as a long-term and existential threat.

At the same time, NATO’s northeastern members are making the most serious efforts to strengthen Europe’s ability to take care of its own security. They don’t like talk of a possibly reduced U.S. commitment, as they are well aware of the Americans’ indispensable role in their defense. Unlike some Western European leaders, who lecture about European “strategic autonomy” and the supposed need to keep the United States at a distance, northeastern countries are focusing on actual deeds by taking on a bigger share of the responsibility for Europe’s security—all the while hoping that this will help keep the United States close.

Is NATO Ready for Chaos in Russia?

By Angela Stent, author of Putin’s World: Russia Against the West and With the Rest

The short-lived mutiny by Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and his mercenary army against the Russian government reminded the world that autocrats appear to be stable—until they are not. As NATO leaders convene in Vilnius, they will focus on the immediate challenge of the Russia-Ukraine war and how to maintain and increase support for Kyiv in the current counteroffensive. But the Western alliance will inevitably confront having to deal with a less stable nuclear-armed Russia. NATO has returned to its original mission of containment—the Soviet Union then, an increasingly aggressive Russia now. But the ability to accomplish that mission will depend on who might come to power after Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In the unlikely event that Putin were to opt for a managed transition—akin to how he came to power in 1999—then he would likely install a successor who would initially continue his policies, including prosecuting the war in Ukraine. In that case, NATO would focus on its current dual policies of supporting Ukraine and deterring Russia from escalation. But a managed transition might not work if the new leader decided not to protect the interests of the Putin elite. In that case, or if Putin suddenly departed the scene with no chosen successor, a power struggle would ensue, similar to what happened after Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin died. A more unstable Russia with different elements of the security services supporting opposing sides could raise new concerns about the disposition of nuclear warheads. Europe would likely see a wave of refugees.

To prepare for various scenarios of an unstable, unpredictable, post-Putin Russia, NATO needs to encourage its members to shore up their defense capabilities, particularly the front-line Baltic states and Poland. This includes conventional military weapons and cyberdefense, but NATO members also need to anticipate a range of unconventional threats from a less stable Russia, such as weaponizing nuclear energy. In case of an unstable transition or worse, the alliance would have to reiterate the importance and continuing applicability of Article 5 collective defense. And it would have to reach out to the Russian military to ensure that there was viable communication about nuclear issues.

NATO’s best scenario for a post-Putin Russia would be a leadership that rejected the imperial mindset of the current Kremlin, realized that domestic development and modernization were more important for Russia’s future as a great power than aggression against neighbors, and was willing to resume discussions on strategic stability and nuclear safety. However, it is unclear how Russian elites and the Russian public, which have been fed a diet of xenophobic, nationalist rhetoric for years, would respond to such a radical change in Moscow’s outlook. Barring some unforeseen developments—and Russia can always surprise—this scenario is still some way off, and the immediate challenge remains confining the instability within Russia’s borders.

The EU and NATO’s New Division of Labor

By Liana Fix, Europe fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations

Europe’s old division of labor—NATO responsible for the continent’s security, and the European Union for economic prosperity—is no longer sustainable. The return of major land war to the European continent for the first time since 1945 has made it clear that NATO has to become more European, and the EU more of a security actor.

The reason is simple: Protection through NATO means, overwhelmingly, protection by the United States. With an ongoing war in Europe and a looming conflict over Taiwan in Asia, the United States could become overstretched. As just about everyone agrees by now, Europeans need to carry more of the burden for their own security. However, better burden-sharing within NATO alone will not be enough. Many European countries have already committed to increase defense spending after Russia’s invasion, but the spending is uncoordinated, fragmented, and largely ineffective at reducing Europe’s dependency.

This is where the European Union comes in. French President Emmanuel Macron’s grandiose plans for European “strategic autonomy” independent of Washington have been exposed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an unrealistic and dangerous fantasy—and were opposed by Central and Eastern European countries even before the war. On a more realistic level of ambition, the EU can make a real and lasting contribution to European security by investing in Europe’s defense industrial base and bankrolling the military capabilities that Europeans are lacking. Financing European defense and coordinating procurement is not a task for NATO, which has little influence on what its member states buy and how they finance it. Here, the EU can make an actual difference.

The EU has already gone through a remarkable transformation since Russia launched its war in 2022. Never before has the bloc acted so quickly and decisively during a security crisis, moving with power and speed on sanctions and energy decoupling from Russia. For the first time, Brussels used the European Peace Facility, set up in 2021 to fund peacekeeping missions, to directly procure weapons and ammunition for a non-EU country. Additionally, the EU is financing a military assistance mission to train up to 30,000 Ukrainian soldiers.

The EU’s next logical step should be to do for itself what it has already done for Ukraine: Finance and build the military capabilities that will allow Europeans to become real security contributors, not just a burden to the United States. The EU cannot and should not replace NATO. However, European countries should acquire the capability to conduct a medium-size combat mission in their neighborhood on their own—without the United States, and within either an EU or NATO framework.

The initial instinct during wartime is to stick to what has proven successful in the past. However, the combination of Russia’s war and China’s stepped-up threats against Taiwan is such a significant turning point that things have to change in order to remain the same. To future-proof the world’s most successful defense alliance for the next decade and ensure the security of the continent, NATO needs to team up with its EU cousin.

Trump-Proofing the Alliance

By Ulrich Speck, foreign affairs columnist at Neue Zürcher Zeitung

When NATO leaders discuss the bloc’s future next week, there will be an elephant in the room: What happens if former U.S. President Donald Trump is reelected in 2024? Even short of pulling the United States out of the alliance, as Trump came close to doing, a future U.S. president might limit engagement in Europe, driven by either isolationism or the need to shift scarce resources to the Asian theater.

Without the United States, the value of the alliance approaches zero. Deterring the Kremlin depends on credibility and power—and for the foreseeable future, those qualities can only be provided by the world’s leading military.

Europeans lack the military strength and, even more importantly, the strategic unity to deter a determined adversary. France is little trusted in much of Europe and focused elsewhere and Britain is weakened by Brexit, while Germany does not have much of a functioning military at all. Countries along NATO’s eastern and northern frontier have the will but lack the means. Without a strong and credible deterrence, Moscow would double down on regaining its Soviet-era possessions, and war in all its forms would spread beyond Ukraine.

Trump-proofing NATO is impossible, and Europe must live with a degree of dependence. But the risk of losing Washington can be diminished. In order to keep the United States engaged as the key power behind the European security order, its allies have to massively raise their share of the burden.

The key to any serious burden-sharing remains Germany—Europe’s economic heavyweight, political and geographic center, and close partner of much of Central and Eastern Europe. Germany needs to become the key backup power for the countries exposed to Russian pressure. It won’t be able to do that alone, not least because it lacks a nuclear deterrent, which remains crucial to being at eye level with the Kremlin. But Berlin could and should take over a far bigger share of the burden, stepping into the still-vacant position of “partner in leadership” that then-U.S. President George H.W. Bush offered to Germany at the conclusion of the Cold War.

A commitment to spend 3 percent of its GDP on defense—roughly doubling the 1.44 percent it spent in 2022—would be a strong signal to Russia and Europe. By stepping forward the same way that Japan has done in the Indo-Pacific, Germany would make it much harder for any U.S. leader to blame Europe for not bearing a fair share of the continent’s own defense.

A muscular Germany ready to free the United States from a large part of its European burden would not only impress the skeptics in Washington, but usher the trans-Atlantic relationship into a new era no longer defined by Cold War memories. It would turn NATO into a key element of an emerging free-world architecture involving the United States, Europe, and key Asian allies and partners, including India, Japan, and South Korea. Tokyo has already stepped into the new era—not least by doubling defense spending—while Berlin has yet to take any serious steps.

A massive investment in German defense would be far more than a symbolic tool to keep Washington engaged. It would become the basis for a healthy and sustainable balance between the United States and Europe in underwriting the European security order. Finally, it would be the prerequisite for any Plan B in case the worst comes to pass and a future U.S. president withdraws from Europe, leaving the continent on its own to face a neoimperialist Russia.

NATO’s China Role Starts in Europe

By A. Wess Mitchell, principal at the Marathon Initiative

NATO’s 2022 Strategic Concept took an important first step by recognizing China as a security challenge, but now the alliance needs to translate that into concrete actions. That won’t be easy: China is not an accustomed object of NATO concern, and allies differ on how to deal with Beijing. But forging a coherent approach is vitally important for improving the West’s collective resistance to China and bolstering the United States’ ability to deter and—should it be necessary—fight a war in the Indo-Pacific.

Dealing with China starts inside NATO’s guts and gears. The alliance operates by consensus, precedent, and the tasks that follow from public pronouncements. That’s why it was so important that NATO included China in the 2019, 2021, and 2022 summit declarations, as well as the new Strategic Concept. The key now will be to build support for concrete actions that follow from the threat assessment and fit naturally into NATO’s core security mission.

First, NATO needs to develop contingency plans for what it would do in the event of a U.S.-China war. It also needs to have the ability to regularly take joint positions on China, even if it lies outside of its geographic focus on the Euro-Atlantic region. A major objective of Chinese diplomacy is to disrupt the cohesion of U.S.-led alliances, and NATO is a leading target. At a minimum, the North Atlantic Council needs to be able to air China matters routinely. Eventually, it will probably need a consultative body of some kind to deconflict between NATO and the European Union—and avoid paralysis in a crisis.

Second, NATO needs tools to thwart Chinese activities that undermine its ability to perform its military mission. That includes threats to infrastructure, telecommunications, military readiness, and interoperability. A NATO perforated with Chinese influence could find itself unable to defend itself against Russia in a crisis scenario.

Third and most importantly, NATO needs to be more capable than it is now of defending the Euro-Atlantic home area. It’s always a welcome sight to see French or British ships in Asian waters, and it’s wise for NATO to deepen its partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region. But the heart of NATO’s job is in Europe. The United States’ ability to deter, and if necessary, defeat China will depend on having a strong defensive glacis in Eastern Europe. That begins by inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia in Ukraine, but it will also require a more substantial and permanent NATO presence on the eastern flank. That can’t only come from the United States and front-line allies; Western Europeans will have to do much more in Eastern Europe than they do at present.

The next few years will be crucial in determining whether the West can avoid a major conflict with China. NATO has a crucial role to play as an anchor to global stability by doing its core job in Europe—and doing it well.

Shielding 500 Million Europeans Is Priority One

By Ben Hodges, former commanding general of U.S. Army Europe and Africa

All over Ukraine, Russia is using precision weapons to attack apartment buildings, shopping centers, and energy infrastructure. Clearly, as long as Russia is a threat to NATO, the Kremlin’s methods of waging war on civilians mean that integrated air and missile defense (IAMD) will be required at a much greater scale than the alliance thought. Not only does critical military infrastructure need to be protected, as current plans envision, but NATO also has to protect half a billion European civilians.

The alliance is not prepared for this. Improving the scale, quality, and sustainability of air and missile defense is therefore NATO’s most urgent military task. As we’ve seen in Ukraine, salvoes of missiles, drones, and enemy aircraft will likely come in swarms, from multiple directions and at a variety of speeds and altitudes. The initial defense against such an attack will most likely be by a single member state or group of states—until Article 5 is invoked and NATO decides to act.

This threat requires NATO members to better integrate their various capabilities and develop the policies and processes required to respond instantaneously to any sudden attack. What is needed?

1. NATO must ensure it has a permanent, fully integrated IAMD architecture to perform early warning and command-and-control functions and defeat incoming threats during the transition from peacetime to conflict.

2. Frequent joint multinational exercises should test and verify IAMD capabilities, including in a simulated contested environment. This has not happened at the required scale for at least the past 10 years.

3. Member countries need to invest in next-generation fighter aircraft and a follow-on for NATO’s Airborne Warning and Control System. The first line of defense will most likely be air forces, as ground-based air defense alone will not be able to protect most targeted areas. Aircraft can cover more territory and shift to threats more quickly. But this requires tested and reliable sensors and a command-and-control system to direct aircraft while integrating and coordinating them with ground-based air defense. No one model of aircraft is the answer, but European allies must invest in aircraft that optimize alliance interoperability. Nations that can’t afford aircraft or their own modern missile defense systems can contribute by purchasing and hosting sensors and other support.

4. NATO needs to strengthen the maritime component of air and missile defense with more ship-borne sensors and weapons systems.

5. Alliance members need to increase their ability to defend against a massive, comprehensive attack for an extended conflict. Air and missile defense must be sustainable for as long as the threat lasts.

6. NATO must accelerate the rapid fielding and training of Patriot systems in Poland, Romania, and Sweden, a key partner in any future Russia contingency.

7. The alliance should seek new technologies that can disrupt ballistic missile attacks before they can actually get off the launch pad.

8. NATO must improve passive defense of military targets by minimizing detection and damage through dispersal, camouflage, deception, and hardening.

If Russia makes the terrible decision to attack NATO, it will surely begin with a massive salvo of missiles, rockets, and drones. The West cannot afford to be unprepared. Effective deterrence—and if deterrence fails, defense—requires greatly improved air and missile defense.

Make NATO a Network, Not a Bloc

By Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO of New America

Is NATO a bloc or a network? At the alliance’s 2012 summit in Chicago, NATO members met alongside 13 global partners selected out of more than 40 countries for their critical contributions to NATO operations. The summit communique emphasized the vital importance of “a wide network of partnership relations” and embraced partnership beyond the bloc as a vital element of cooperative security. In a speech shortly after that summit, then-NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen described a kind of globally networked NATO comprised of “clusters of willing and able Allies and partners ready to cooperate in specific areas.”

That vision of a more horizontal, networked, and cooperative NATO is designed to “empower—to offer assistance and partnership—as much as to overpower,” as I wrote at the time. That ideal is quite at variance with NATO’s currently renewed role as the bulwark of the West, a united front of nations prepared to push back against what is left of the Cold War’s eastern bloc: Russia and Belarus. Yet when it comes to advancing NATO’s core values of “democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law,” whether they are at risk inside or outside the alliance, the network approach of building peer relationships among groups of countries and their officials is likely to work best. That is the way the European Union works among members, with candidate countries striving to join, and in much of its foreign policy.

Even as NATO renews its original raison d’être as a collective security alliance against Russia, its members would do well to remember the subtler security threats corroding strong and honest government institutions in countries around the world, as well as the existential nonmilitary threats all governments now face. Cooperative security networks are more important than ever.

[thebookofjeremiah]

"Topheth." From the Book of Jeremiah 19: 14-15.

Jeremiah finishes the Parable of the Broken Jar much as I begin almost every frame these days, stating, you are all a wicked, lazy, sloppy, neglectful, ignoble human race that has abandoned its good sense, if you ever possessed an inkling of it. Your false religions and shitty politicians have steered you away from it and you do not know what you are doing. You pretend, but the world is not working. Jeremiah says my constant litany of insults are called Topheth, "hitting till the drum breaks":

14 Then I left Topheth, where the Lord had sent me to proclaim his message. I went and stood in the court of the Temple and told all the people 

15 that the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, had said, “I am going to bring on this city and on every nearby town all the punishment that I said I would, because you are stubborn and will not listen to what I say.”

Truth is the greatest punisher there is. Every city and town on this planet is suffering because the government, the church, the public, the environment, and the Academy are in asynchronous balance with each other. I told you to get that man Donald Trump and make him pay for his crimes over ten years ago, but you did not do it and now millions of people are dead. You knew climate change was worsening, you knew there was a migration crisis, the ocean floors and shores were being choked by plastics, that the world was overpopulating and you let a few ignorant men and women blind you to the implications.

Real religious practice is an exercise of exposition. It teaches us how to look at life and change what is scathing into that which is holy. Once one accepts God's holiness must be seen without obstruction all around us, then we know why we must empower the government to make its conservation an integral practice. The government is not here to oppress the people or move them around against their will, it is here for a bounty of other purposes and we are not tapping into its full power. This is a mistake.

The Values in Gematria are:

v. 14: The Lord told me to speak these words. I told all the people. The Number is 5860, ןחס, nnechas, "The Divine Conjecture. We will surmise how to make the magic happen."

v. 15: The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel said: The Number is 11241, יאר‎םא‎, yara. The Hebrew name "Yara" (ירא) can have several meanings depending on the context. It's derived from the Hebrew verb "yara" (ירה) which means "to throw, cast, or shoot". In the context of the name "Yara", it can also mean "honeysuckle". Additionally, the name "Yara" can be associated with "beauty of the waters" or "lady of the waters" in some cultures. 

The final Gemara is ןחסיאר‎םא, hasiyarma, "the series."

This refers to the revelation of the Magthorah, which identifies the beginning and the end points of the search for the Holy Ghost. The end is an undeniable appreciation for the grandeur of life on earth, one that is completely understood and untainted by man. The beginning is a commitment to trade out the animal self for the essence of the angelic. We conject about this but God says the conjecture must become a series of learning objectives that are maintained until we reach Shabbat.

Now have all been punished and scolded and know what we have done wrong. Today should be a very different day from all the rest.

[stahl-tier]

tales from the yard, part 69

1. the fire prevention inspector visits the yard

2. Driver Doesn't Want To Walk But The Trains Aren't Complicit In His Laziness

after arriving with just two engines instead of a whole train, one of the drivers asks me to hop into the rear one and direct him via radio as he wants to drive backwards a couple meters so he doesn't have to walk the ca 40 meters to the break room. I agree and hop on but have to find out that the 1144's radio didn't feel like working that day so I cannot hear the driver on the other engine and he can't hear me. He is disappointed about this but accepts his fate... As he hops off, another train pulls up and blocks his path so now he has to walk a good 600 meters instead

3. Silent Hill sends its regards

4. the new signal

5. yard driver sets boundaries

6. it's only a safety risk if you're making it one

still very distinctly remember when I was walking through the railcar shed and stepped onto an inconspicuous manhole cover, only for it to flimsily give under me and I found my entire calf disappearing into a seemingly bottomless pit below. when I pointed this out to the yard master and asked him if something should be done about this because it's really dangerous, he just gave me a frown and asked "why did you step on it if it's dangerous?"

bonus round: how many railboys do you need to push a locomotive?

[18:56] more context to the engine pushing: the engine was in the workshop shed, which is right behind the engine shed and connected to it through internal shed doors. the overhead powerline ends a couple meters before those shed doors, and there is no powerline inside the workshop shed [18:56] they had a tiny diesel shunting engine to pull and push engines in and out of that workshop shed, but it broke down and the railway said it would be too expensive to fix it. so Zagro was sent here (how a high-tech remote controlled robot train is less expensive than fixing a tiny old engine, let us not think about it too much….). now it turned out that Zagro is actually here illegally as I explained before, and while the yard driver (name redacted) doesn't really care about that (he often operates Zagro, and he shrugged and said "yes the boss told me it's actually not allowed to use Zagro, but he didn't explicitly tell me to stop using him either…."), today's vehicle coordinator is a bit of a chaotic guy and he didn't want to risk trouble by telling people to use the robot

[18:57] but also to be able to pull out the railjet engine from the back of the workshop shed (two engines fit into each shed track and each workshop shed track, so technically you could put 4 engines in a row into the entire hall), Zagro would have been needed because he is battery-powered and can drive into the workshop shed [18:58] if an engine is in the front of the workshop shed, another engine can also be used to pull it out - if you drive into the workshop shed halfway so that the pantograph is still touching the overhead powerline inside the engine shed (it's normally in the back of the engine, so the opposite end of whichevever the active cab is on), you can actually reach the buffers of an engine in the front of the workshop shed, couple the "cold" engine to it, and pull it out [19:00] the same could probably be achieved by coupling two engines together inside the engine shed and then pushing the second engine into the workshop shed track far enough while the pantograph is down on that one, basically extending the reach by 20 meters [19:00] but that would have been way too much trouble and take too long [19:13] so the railboys were assembled and we went to push the cold engine from the workshop shed into the engine shed - from there it would be able to raise its pantograph and drive out of the shed on its own power [19:03] normally two or three men would be enough to push a 1116 on a level, straight track (different story with 1144s and similar engines that do not have asynchronous generator motors) [19:04] but the workshop shed track had… a kink… there's a little "step" where the free-floating pit track connects to the piece of the track that's embedded in the shed floor [19:05] so even though two people were trying to pull in front of the engine and three more people were trying to shove from the back, we could only move it a tiny bit, then it would hit that bump and bounce back [19:05] needless to say it's very hard to "lift" 88 tons of steel beast over a bump of any size. it couldn't have been more than a centimeter of height difference in the track but it was difficult [19:14] communication with the other people was also difficult because an engine is after all 20 meters long, the sheds are noisy, and the engine's wheels and the tracks were creaking and screeching unhappily [19:14] at one point the vehicle coordinator (who was also with us, and the vehicle coordinators are sort of the guys in charge for the other yard workers), had the idea to push it backwards a little and then try to give it a "runup" to get over the bump. but this was communicated poorly so we ended up pulling from both sides of the engine briefly, with people exclaiming angrily "horrible idea! it's not moving at all anymore now!!"

one of the mechanics also showed up and climbed into the pit underneath the tracks, wielding a thick metal stick of unknown purpose but it seemed to help (tho when the engine finally started rolling, he had to duck really quick down into the pit or the transformer would have beheaded him) once it got over the bump and was rolling, we could actually stop pushing because once an engine rolls on a flat track, it just keeps rolling for a looooong time without any force so there was cheering railboys walking beside the engine as it slowly and majestically trundled into the engine shed

[correctrvbquotes]

Back to Reds and Blues.

Sarge: Oh, Blue team! Before you go, maybe we should talk about optional equipment on your new robots.

Tucker: What optional equipment!?

Sarge: All you said you wanted was a body, we didn't talk about features.

Tucker: Like what?

Sarge: You know, undercoating, extended warranty, features, man, come on. Like do you want them to be able to use both arms at once?

Tucker: Of course.

Sarge: Asynchronous arm movement is... optional!

Tucker: What? Oh man, I told Church they would try to screw us! What about the feet?

Sarge: Did you want feet?

Tucker: Yeah we want feet!

Sarge: Sorry, feet are optional.

Tucker: What's on the bottom of its legs?

Sarge: Legs are optional.

Tucker: Oh man, what a ripoff.

Sarge: Options are optional.

Tucker: What isn't optional?

Sarge: You look like a nice guy, don't worry, we'll work something out. Have you thought about financing? How's your credit? I can offer you a free set of high quality mud flaps. And a lube job. You won't be disappointed! I've been told my lube jobs are fantastic!

[maharghaideovate]

Leveraging Distance Learning MBAs for Aspiring Indian Entrepreneurs

Greetings, and welcome, fellow innovators! Today's discourse centers on empowering India's future business leaders – the resourceful and ambitious Jugaadpreneurs. We all understand the unwavering entrepreneurial spirit that burns within you. But what if I told you there's a strategic weapon waiting to be unleashed: the distance learning MBA.

Traditionally, the pursuit of an MBA meant geographical limitations. Relocating to distant campuses might have been necessary, potentially severing valuable ties with your local market and network. This rigidity often forced aspiring entrepreneurs to choose between their business dreams and academic aspirations. However, the landscape has undergone a revolutionary shift. Enter the distance learning MBA, offering the same esteemed business education with the added benefit of remote learning. Let's delve deeper and explore how this perfectly aligns with the Jugaadpreneur mindset, unlocking an exponential advantage.

Optimizing for Success: The Advantages of Distance Learning MBAs

Location Independence:  The core tenet of Jugaad – maximizing potential within limitations – is beautifully mirrored by these distance courses. Imagine pursuing your program from the heart of bustling Mumbai, the serene beaches of Goa, or the quiet foothills of the Himalayas. Distance learning grants you this very freedom. Stay deeply connected to your local market, understand its specific needs on a granular level, and tailor your business accordingly. This fosters a deep understanding of your customer base, a crucial element for any successful entrepreneur.

Enhanced Flexibility: A Juggler's Best Friend:  The life of an entrepreneur is a whirlwind of activity, a constant juggling act between business demands, personal commitments, and the relentless pursuit of growth. These courses offer asynchronous learning, a godsend for the busy Jugaadpreneur. Take control of your learning journey by completing coursework during early mornings, late nights, or even in between client meetings. This flexibility allows you to seamlessly integrate your academic pursuits into your existing schedule, maximizing your productivity and minimizing disruption.

Cost-Effective Strategy: Stretching Every Rupee:  Financial prudence is a cornerstone of the Entrepreneur spirit. Distance learning MBAs can be significantly more affordable than traditional programs. Savings on relocation, accommodation, and potentially even tuition fees can be a significant advantage for the resource-conscious entrepreneur. Imagine the possibilities – these savings can be channeled directly back into your business, fueling its growth and propelling it towards success.

Beyond Flexibility: Unforeseen Benefits Await

These distance courses offer more than just scheduling freedom. They provide a unique environment that fosters the strengths of the Jugaadpreneur, creating a synergy that can propel your business to new heights:

Resourceful Learning: Mastering the Digital Landscape: Mastering online resources, learning platforms, and collaboration tools becomes second nature in a distance learning program. This ability to find creative solutions within the digital space embodies pure Jugaad ingenuity! You'll learn to leverage online tools and resources for research, market analysis, and even team collaboration, fostering a spirit of innovation and resourcefulness that extends beyond the classroom and into your business endeavors.

Building a Global Network of Jugaadpreneurs: Collaboration is Key: These programs connect you with a diverse network of aspiring entrepreneurs from across India and the world. This virtual community becomes your strategic advantage – a platform for exchanging ideas, brainstorming solutions, and finding inspiration from fellow Jugaadpreneurs across borders. Imagine collaborating with a tech-savvy entrepreneur in Bangalore, a marketing whiz from Delhi, or a design expert from Chennai – all within the same virtual space. This cross-pollination of ideas and expertise can lead to groundbreaking innovations and unlock unforeseen opportunities for your business.

Empowering the Strategic Jugaadpreneur: A Force to be Reckoned With

These programs, with their emphasis on flexibility, technology, and resourcefulness, empower the next generation of Indian business leaders. By fostering the spirit of Jugaad, these programs equip you with the skills and knowledge to:

Navigate Challenges with Strategic Wit:  The business world is full of unexpected obstacles. With an online MBA, you'll gain the analytical and problem-solving skills to navigate challenges with a strategic, yet resourceful, Jugaad approach. You'll learn to identify opportunities within constraints, think outside the box, and implement innovative solutions that leverage your limited resources to maximum effect.

Innovate and Adapt with Agility: Thriving in a Dynamic Market:  The Jugaad spirit thrives on constant innovation. An online MBA hones your ability to analyze global trends, identify emerging market opportunities, and adapt your business strategies for maximum impact in the ever-evolving Indian marketplace. You'll develop a keen understanding of consumer behavior, competitor strategies, and economic shifts, allowing you to remain agile and capitalize on new opportunities as they arise.

Become a Strategic Disruptor with a Jugaad Edge

Are you ready to write your own success story? If you're an aspiring entrepreneur with a strategic mindset and a burning desire to disrupt the status quo, a distance MBA might be the perfect springboard for your journey.

This powerful combination of Jugaad ingenuity and a world-class business education equips you to become a force to be reckoned with in the Indian business landscape.  Imagine yourself:

Building a Scalable, Sustainable Business:  Move beyond the limitations of a local venture. Learn to build a business with a scalable framework, allowing you to expand your reach and tap into new markets while staying true to your Jugaad roots.

Leading with Vision and Innovation:  Become a leader who inspires others with your resourcefulness and strategic thinking.  Leverage your learnings to create a thriving business ecosystem that fosters innovation and empowers others to embrace the Jugaad spirit.

The Future Belongs to the Jugaadpreneurs

The future of Indian business belongs to those who can combine strategic thinking with resourceful innovation. Distance MBA provides the perfect platform to hone these skills. So, if you're an aspiring entrepreneur brimming with the Jugaad spirit, don't let geographical limitations or a busy schedule hold you back. Embrace the power of distance learning and embark on your journey to becoming a successful, innovative leader in the dynamic Indian market.

[spellcraftpoetry]

Rescinded.

As the pieces broke off and were slowly put back into place, A million pieces lit up into a starry sky. Navigators of the old world would admire its beauty, Seafaring through torments of waves, following a dot of hope, Distant, yet shining.

Skies and earth twirled for eons before, but no more. Millions of suns will raze the lands and render the milky eternal empty.

Decoupled.

Look up child, The seas gone, Nothing floats anymore, But specks of dust in your eyes.

And as empires of steel sank into the limestone, Your hopes, with them, penetrated your eyes, Hidden behind your sight.

Asynchronous.

How I told you all of this would happen, How you would play with toy hearts and lent names, You fell into the madness you constructed for yourself. See how the dried oceans sparkle under the plasmatic skies, The way they shine into your protective eyes.

May your utmost tear be the most beautiful of twinkles, As you are engulfed into the million lights. Walk freely, and unbound, As even the soil untethers itself.

Chaotic.

I will watch silently, On the only day without a tomorrow, Taking that one last step, Without a goodbye, But a solemn smile.

Be free fae child, Be free of the body you have used beyond repair. I will remain for a while. Someone has to, after all.

Purged.

[ailtrahq]

Decentralized applications (DApps), including apps for gaming, have gained traction for their transparency, security and user asset ownership. However, delivering high-quality AAA gaming experiences through DApps presents challenges.Existing 2D gaming DApps operate on blockchain networks using smart contracts for asset management. While they’re favored for their simple mechanics and resource efficiency, their limitations become evident as the complexity of the gaming experience increases.Scalability is a primary hurdle for traditional blockchains like Ethereum, impacting real-time interactive gaming due to constraints surrounding transaction throughput and latency.Performance is also an issue. AAA games require high-performance computing and superior graphics rendering. Yet, existing DApps struggle to meet these demands, resulting in subpar visual experiences.Moreover, developing AAA gaming DApps is costly due to resource-intensive tasks and blockchain execution fees. Balancing immersive experiences with user-friendly expenses complicates the use of traditional DApp frameworks for AAA games.What is the actor model?The “actor model” is a communication model that enables parallel computing and asynchronous messaging within a blockchain protocol, making it possible for developers to build complex DApps with less difficulty. The actor model is used within the Gear Protocol, and development was led by Nikolay Volf, founder of the Gear Protocol and Vara and one of the key developers of Polkadot and the Substrate framework. Within the model are actors — programs or users that send messages to other programs in the protocol. Each actor has a mailbox and a private state that cannot be changed directly by another actor, rather they can only change states by receiving a message from another actor.Messages between actors are taken from the mailboxes and processed in cycles. Once an actor has received and processed a message, they can either send a message to another actor, create an actor or change its state.How is this beneficial for DApp development?Asynchronous message handling in blockchain programming offers several significant benefits that contribute to the overall efficiency, scalability and reliability of DApps.Firstly, asynchronous message handling allows for non-blocking processing of transactions and smart contracts. Unlike synchronous processing, where each transaction must be executed sequentially, asynchronous messaging enables concurrent execution of multiple tasks.This parallel processing capability enhances the performance of the blockchain network, as it can handle a larger number of transactions and computations simultaneously, resulting in reduced transaction processing times and improved overall throughput.Jack Platts, co-founder of Hypersphere — a crypto venture capital fund that has invested in gaming projects — told Cointelegraph, “In traditional synchronous systems, multiple tasks often have to wait for each other, leading to a slowdown when processing a high volume of transactions.”Platts continued, “In the context of blockchain networks, this parallel processing capability becomes vital for maintaining high transaction throughput. As more transactions are initiated by users, the system can handle them concurrently, ensuring faster confirmation times and overall improved network performance. This is particularly crucial for blockchain gaming, where real-time interactions and quick processing are essential for providing a smooth and enjoyable gaming experience.”Some blockchain games, such as Ember Sword, have already integrated parallel processing into their development processes. Mark Laursen, co-founder and CEO of game development company Bright Star Studios, told Cointelegraph, “In the development of Ember Sword, we employ parallel processing utilizing our ECS [entity component system] solution. Typically, there would be a necessity to manually integrate multithreading and make intricate decisions on a system-by-system basis.

”Laursen continued, “However, in our scenario, the requirements for reads, writes and ordering dependencies are specified, allowing our engine to discern the most efficient method to schedule and parallelize those systems.”Let’s say a player of a blockchain game wants to transfer an in-game item in the form of a nonfungible token, like moving a legendary sword from their chest (wallet for long-term storage) to their inventory (wallet used for gaming). The transfer process can happen instantly with low or near-zero fees, the same way a player can simply click and drag a sword from their inventory and move it to a merchant or chest in a traditional game.Additionally, with asynchronous messaging, blockchain developers can design DApps that are more resilient to fluctuations in network conditions and temporary failures. Pavel Salas, chief growth officer at Gear Foundation — the organization behind the Gear Protocol — told Cointelegraph, “The actor model actually boosts the dependability of applications that run on blockchain,” adding:“Since actors process messages independently, failure or issues with one actor do not affect others, preventing cascading failures and improving the overall robustness of the system. And suppose there are disruptions or network trouble, the actor model allows the system to recover quickly and continue functioning seamlessly.”This can be beneficial for blockchain gaming DApps if there is a network outage, allowing the game to continue running despite any issues on its blockchain.Moreover, asynchronous message handling enhances the scalability of blockchain networks. Traditional synchronous approaches may lead to bottlenecks and performance degradation as the number of users and transactions increases.In contrast, asynchronous messaging allows for the distribution of tasks across multiple nodes, enabling the system to scale more efficiently and handle higher transaction volumes without sacrificing performance.Salas said, “As the user base and activity within the DApp grow, the system can easily manage increased message traffic without causing bottlenecks or slowdowns. Even if a single application grows, it will still manage messages sequentially.”This scalability is crucial as blockchain networks aim to support a growing user base and accommodate diverse use cases.Salas continued to explain how the process works: “Through the actor model, individual actor-programs act as shards, ensuring that the system can be shared by design as the number of programs grows. [...] Vara processes all transactions without sharding across bunches of nodes; each node handles everything. However, within Vara, each program operates independently, containing its own state, processing and sending messages according to its specific logic.”“In blockchain gaming, where real-time interactions and quick processing are crucial, the actor model’s sharding capability ensures fast processing of game-related actions and events, supporting a seamless gameplay experience.”“As the number of actor-programs increases, the system shards and distributes the workload, effectively accommodating the growing user base and maintaining a responsive and efficient network.”Another benefit of asynchronous message handling is its support for event-driven architectures in DApps. Instead of continuously polling for updates, DApps can subscribe to specific events or messages, allowing them to respond promptly and efficiently to changes on the blockchain.This event-driven model reduces unnecessary computational overhead and conserves network resources, leading to more efficient and responsive applications.Moreover, implementing actor messaging capabilities can significantly enhance the overall user experience by mitigating extended waiting periods for transaction validation. Adopting asynchronous processing allows the actor to receive a message acknowledgment of their transaction along with a pending transaction ID.Subsequently, any computational tasks or external

data dependencies can be managed by the same or alternate actor in a subsequent block, ensuring efficient processing without compromising the responsiveness of the blockchain network.This real-time feedback is especially crucial for applications requiring quick confirmations.As the blockchain ecosystem continues to grow and diversify, leveraging asynchronous message handling becomes essential for creating powerful, AAA-style gaming DApps that can cater to the demands of an expanding user base and meet various use cases across industries.By adopting this methodology, developers have the opportunity to expand the limits of decentralized gaming and potentially realize the complete capabilities of blockchain technology within the gaming sector.

[fipindustries]

its going to start with odysseus arriving to ithaca and starting to explain his story, which will be told out of order asynchronously with penelope rejecting suitors and with quick two second flashbacks of the war of troy peppered in out of context all throughout.

Christopher Nolan's adapting the Odyssey?!?

OH FUCK YEAH

It is not AT ALL the type of movie he makes but what the heck, im all here for a muted, overtly intellectual, overexposited and emotionally stilted version of the odyssey shot exclusively in grey and blue tones.

cant wait to see matt damon as ulysses awkwardly explaining for ten minutes how when he called himself nobody he was actually tricking the cyclops into claiming that nobody attacked him

[vroenis]

SoulsBornes, Accessibility, Dear Ester & Mood

It's possible I'm here to shitstir. I don't think I am, but this is going to be a uniquely me perspective. I'm not here to speak for anyone else, which seems like a weird thing to say because I'm about to speak to some of the things I feel I'm observing in others, so that doesn't really make sense.

Let's talk about Elden Ring.

At some point I have to stop being concerned with how I might come off to try and diffuse it and just go for it. Let's make that point now. I absolutely 100% appreciate why people want accessibility for Elden Ring and the SoulsBornes before it. I want to talk about why. I also understand much of the pushback against it. I want to talk about that, too. I think there's something greater and more interesting than any of the individual arguments at play here and it can benefit everyone to understand them. Like a real fucken wanker, I think it's something I understand a lot about, but at least I don't think I understand more about it than anyone else, I just think a fair amount of people have maybe ignored it and if they took it into consideration, a lot of things might make sense.

There's some good writing and media about how difficulty options are indeed accessibility options and I agree with this, I don't think there's any dispute about that. There's also a lot of good writing and media that doesn't devolve into auteur theory about how challenge and indeed failure - even frustration, are intrinsic to the core of what a SoulsBorne game is and I agree with that, too. Without getting too bogged down in definitions, because definitions are boring, I want to try and describe the basic tenets of a SoulsBorne game that FromSoft focus on and in turn hope the player focusses on (in no particular order);

Exploration and discovery

Development of player skill and manual dexterity (literally button, controller and mouse inputs etc.)

Focus on learning through observation and repetition

Subversion of expectations built on previously established dynamics

Light on exposition but heavy on narrative (potentially heavier than all games with hours of voiced cut-scenes combined)

A dynamic and partially asynchronous community experience where accounts of events and encounters are shared outside of the game world

And lastly the ace that you all knew was coming... Mood and Atmosphere yes I capitalised them.

While I appreciate there's some stirring about with regards to narrative, I don't believe any significant advocate for accessibility is asking for the way FromSoft's stories are told to be any different. The way narrative is expressed in these games is one of its strongest elements and one of the ones I think people want access to as it is. The main accessibility challenges as I understand them, and forgive me if I haven't read enough as I certainly don't have the same contact level with culture as I once did, are as follows;

Combat is extremely difficult and is a significant barrier to entry

Lack of signposting makes "knowing what to do" or "the right thing to do" obscure. I started saying "seem obscure" then but it definitely is obscure, and that's by design.

I have a few things to say up front that I think SoulsBorne fans need to understand - having the difficulty ramped down will not affect their experience of the game. They can still experience the game fully the way it was intended. Getting angry about other people having a different experience of the game seems antithetical to the existing tenet of SoulsBornes that is all players explore and build their characters differently, thus having unique perceptions and experiences of the game despite sharing many common moments. This couldn't be more true with Elden Ring, so thinking that easing the difficulty would somehow make the collective experience of the game impure in some way... is absurd.

If anything, a more nuanced challenge would be that everything in SoulsBornes is so delicately and finely balanced to craft experiences in a certain way, that re-coding that balance would be difficult. Off the top of my head, I don't think that's true, but then I'm not a developer so I wouldn't know - I'm just thinking of straight percentage scaling across the whole game so things just take fewer hits and do less damage. You'll still get plenty of moments when you just need one more level to kill something in two hits instead of three, just need a few more levels for a weapon or stat to increase damage output or survivability be it thru movement, damage absorption or utility etc., the margins just shift slightly.

There's probably some discussion of tutorialising and I don't think the game needs that, either - even if there was damage scaling for difficulty, it's a core tenet of the game to be attentive and read all item and statistic texts, the same way one needs to pay attention to all dialogue - wonderfully sparse as it is - and narrative related texts strewn about the worlds.

There are two things I think this whole discussion is about, that I think I can pose with two questions;

What is the actual barrier to access?

What is it we want to access?

The Barrier To Access

I do need to stop here and state that I'm not addressing disability. A few games of late have done really great things for accessibility when it comes to physical and mental challenges and that's great. Whether or not FromSoft can or should do this, I don't want to discuss. That definitely does take time and money and I do think all developers should at least consider it, even if it's just an open discussion of what could be done had they they time and money. We can't get better at these things until we improve our understanding of them.

I know many people will offer varying answers so I don't at all wish to speak for everyone. The way I perceive it, the actual real barrier to access for SoulsBornes is time. For fans of the game, nothing is wasted by playing for hours and then dying to a boss - then dying to that boss again and again and again. Each death is a learning experience, in observing movement, in understanding damage both given and taken, in experimenting with what utilities offer solutions to various combat challenges. They're also happy to not "beat" the boss at the first encounter and return when they've levelled-up. A dear friend of mine made a really great point and all SoulsBornes give you an abject lesson in not assuming you're capable of overcoming every challenge you're offered immediately upon first discovering it. This is an expectation that contemporary video games have given many players - you will always be appropriately levelled, you will always be told what to do, everything will be clear.

Let me tell you something. I don't play SoulsBornes... But I HATE the school of design that is oversaturation of instruction and tempering experiences so they're optimised to the nth degree.

Now seems like a good time to make quick mention of the UI/UX discussion (sorry I'm letting the zeitgeist to a lot of heavy lifting here as I'm too lazy to link everything - I'm not a researcher). After it had brewed for about a day, I saw a great take from someone in the community that said both SoulsBornes and Ubisoft games have UI/UX designed to achieve the exact same thing; Time On Screen. SoulsBornes' UI and UX work famously well for their fans, and it's because they're so intelligently keyed into the experience that the game is. I think that really is more intentional design than it is lofty arty-farty auteur bullshit.

Anyway, back to time, many of us don't have the time it requires to progress in SoulsBornes - I definitely am one of them. It's true, some things do take a lot of effort in order to achieve something. Where I wiggle a bit on that is playing and experiencing a video game is not the same as learning a language or skill like cooking - the skills to overcome many of the challenges in SoulsBornes are significantly manual dexterity ones and those actually don't differ to any bland Ubisoft game at all. But again, where I swing back the other way is that much of the cinema I enjoy has been said to be inaccessible to people which of-course I don't understand because I don't feel like there are any barriers to understanding access for me... but then I remember that I've spent a lot of my life watching Weird Cinema™. I can't ignore the fact that it's established a high fluency in non-traditional visual language and of-course, the degree to which a film might be perceived as obscure or have an obfuscated experience, can certainly scale. There are easier films to ease into weirdness. Is that what we're talking about with SoulsBornes?

I slipped up tho and mentioned time with regards to watching films, without noticing it. I invested time in understanding. Movies are perhaps a little easier to experience and develop fluency in considering one might go for three hours at the longest and as short as a couple of minutes for short format pictures. Nevertheless it's kind of analogous, isn't it? We don't have the minimum time it takes to overcome challenges and immerse ourselves in the full experience.

We're drilling towards the second element;

What We're Trying To Access

SoulsBornes and in particular the most recent iteration, Elden Ring, I feel are incredibly enticing because of the sum of their parts - and like a schmuck, you know this is when I'm going to say

Mood.

Again, I know everyone engages with the games in different ways, but it wouldn't be enough if they just had challenging combat. It wouldn't be enough if they just didn't signpost. It wouldn't be enough if it was just about the narrative being drip-fed in a scant handful of cutscenes and a thousand little notes and texts everywhere. I also shouldn't overlook Miyazaki's absolute intention for the community to come together and share their experiences and discoveries - that is incredibly important to the intention of the design.

All of these things combine into a mood, and at this point, I feel the visuals and overall tone take a front seat, so too the significantly reduced dialogue when compared to their contemporaries. I feel like everything about these games is informed by an overall drive to create very specific atmospheres. I appreciate that almost all of the themes of SoulsBornes centre around decline, desolation, regret, anger, guilt etc. but I don't find any of that harrowing at all - again, perhaps a learning from cinema, those things only inform the way the game feels. Even any sense of oppression and gloom are still combining to something greater. I feel it's that tone that people want to access. Lord knows after the last three video games I've tried to play had so much fucking talking, I couldn't bear how much they talked at me, that a game like Elden Ring offers a wonderful and refreshing change of pace. Much of any SoulsBorne is a serene affair. Perhaps the desolated landscapes ever-present in all the games reflects some of our perceptions of our lives, but I don't want to wade too far into "life sad so game sad identifies with me" territory because I definitely don't do that with films... exactly... I have talked about it before but I'll briefly touch on it here.

Moods in the way I've decided to characterise them specifically as pieces of art, are catalysts for us with which to process or affirm our experience thru. That absolutely does not require similar experiences to be shared, they can and often are completely abstract, but we still use art as expressions of our feelings, our experiences, our thoughts. Those elements can be simple and they can be complex and textured. I got highly emotional driving The Need For Speed 2 SE and NFS 3 and they're just driving games. Similarly I'm sure many folks love running around in Elden Ring smashing foes and that doesn't mean at all their take is shallow - it literally doesn't matter - whatever joy, catharsis, recognition and representation, or expression of play a person has, is wonderful and valid and an amazing phenomenon unique to video games.

So if some of us are trying to access the tone of SoulsBornes but can't, what's to be done?

I know a lot of "play something else" is dismissive, but there's a truth to it, and by the by, we should say it with kindness and generosity rather than aloof git-gud bullshit sass. When I think about the tone of SoulsBornes, I often think about Dear Ester. On socials and in some of my writing in the past, I've discussed sometimes just not wanting to put in the labour of combat, and Dear Ester is overflowing with tone and atmosphere and asks very little in the way of manual dexterity. There's a way in which asking for easier combat in Elden Ring might be akin to asking for combat in Dear Ester. I know, I know, you're going to say that the lack of combat in Dear Ester doesn't prevent anyone from playing it, but it's just as interesting a question of why some people can't process it with its almost complete lack of interactivity. The way one plays Dear Ester is extremely different to the way one plays Dark Souls, and both equally have as much to say. Is there a literacy/fluency barrier for Dear Ester? Just because it isn't in the form of manual dexterity, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

The same might be said about my (equal with Howling Dogs) favourite game of all time, Kentucky Route Zero. The act of playing the game is easy, but understanding it? Understanding more than its narrative because it absolutely without a doubt is saying more than its main text? The difficulty just shifts... it's just that fewer people are asking to parse Dear Ester and KRZ because they're so unorthodox.

You can, of-course, watch a stream or VOD/video of Elden Ring and I think there's a lot of the tone that can be garnered from that. It definitely is not the same as navigating the space yourself tho, as even discounting combat and player-death and what they mean, how important they are to the experience, there's a difference between watching someone else's actions in which you are only an observer, and being a participant and being able to make decisions like stopping to take in the atmosphere for as long as you like.

The Point

I don't know whether Miyazaki and FromSoft will ever make the games easier. I also don't know what my life will look like a year from now so maybe I actually will have the time to dedicate to the skill curve of Elden Ring. I have to say mastering combat doesn't interest me so there's a chunk philosophy at the core of SoulsBornes I'm not up for, and that chunk is a meaningful and important part of the games. I totally appreciate that meaning and it's expertly crafted, I just don't want to have to do it. I feel like that's a good thing, tho, as the people who can and do develop those skills, many of which take on their meaning very well, get to enjoy something truly remarkable and wonderful.

As for the mood we're striving for, the thing that forms a catalyst for expressions of our thoughts and emotions, rather than making Elden Ring fit into our needs, my hope is that instead we seek to capture similar moods and expressions in a greater variety of games. SoulsBornes might seem to gain a fanbase and sell because they have difficult combat, but I think it's more than that - I think it's because they're so different. The curious out-selling of Horizon Zero Dawn: Forbidden West (please stop with elongating titles for FUCK'S SAKE) is a keen lesson in there clearly being an audience for games that differ from the norm. I adored the first HZD but I absolutely do not have another game in me. It's more of the same, and similar to all other open world games. Sure, so was the first one but once again I was into it as a mood piece, and the second game really doesn't feel any different. I don't need the same catalyst.

It'll always come back to that for me, to the Mood Catalogue, and while I like to think I thought the idea up like a dickhead, the truth is plenty of people engage in art the same way and many of them consciously in the very ways I talk about it. We seek to add moods with which to express our lives, to see our emotions represented or express our emotions thru experiencing them, to be catalysts for joy, to be catharsis or distraction or celebration - to facilitate our coping, our mourning, our anger and our peace.

I'm not at all saying "if you want something for you, just make your own" as if that's an easy thing to do - but perhaps if HZD is going to be mcfranchised to fuck like everything these days, maybe it can take some cues from Elden Ring. Isn't that what Santa Monica did with God of War? It was a complete tonal shift compared to the previous chapter of the games' moods and succeeded famously for it.

I'm very happy to live my experience of SoulsBornes via my best friend when they play them, via VaatiVidya and other great commentators. What I hope for is more games informed by difference, restraint, and a drive to create atmosphere.

and LESS FUCKING DIALOGUE ACTUALLY FORGET IT THIS IS THE ONLY LESSON PLEASE LESS TALKING DEAR LORD GOD fucken

[punkpsychologist]

HELLO

AAA. OKAY. ITS BEEN A BIT. You know, I actually drafted this post before but my fucking power went out and I lost it. So here we go again.

Main parts of this motherfucker

where I've been

what happened (yes these are two different things)

where I'm going and how I feel about it

alrighty. so I successfully finished my first year of college at a community college near my home town. i worked asynchronously and was able to make it onto the dean's list again for the second semester!

so all of that was good and well but if you have read some of my previous posts you might know that there is a very specific Scholarship that i have been after. it was very important and was considered to be a deciding factor on if i would be able to go to a university and live in the dorms or not. i did not get the scholarship. my mother and i felt very confident that i would but it was very new and the school that created it had yet to really solidify how it worked and what it's requirements were. in otherwords, the prospect of the Scholarship was unstable from the beginning.

i never got any kind of email or correspondence that explicitly said that i would not receive the Scholarship but i found that it would primarily be given to sophomores. i'm a college first-year who is very close to achieving an associate's degree. my mother and i panicked back during my finals week over the Scholarship. after realizing that I would have a better chance if i had my associates, my mom and i made a plan to put me into a "maymester" course and to completely fill my summer with classes. if i was able to pass all of those classes, I would have my associates by august. now i mentioned that this plan was created during finals week, i was incredibly tired and my pms was putting me in a really bad space. i felt this kind of sense of hopelessness, like it all felt very fruitless. i was tired and i had been continuing on the thought that once i finished my finals that i would get to rest. after realizing how fruitless the effort could be, we scrapped that plan and opted to place me into a full load of classes for the second half of the summer, i was waaaayyyy more supportive of this. my classes begin on july 5th and im once again in the class of one of my favorite professors so we'll see how it goes.

it gets a little more interesting here. so i told you that i never was explicitly told that i was denied the Scholarship, so there was a period of time in the early summer where i was just kind of in this limbo of searching for answers. i was scrambled and panicked and felt rather hopeless. i need to leave home. it's not that my family is bad to me, quite the opposite. i am the only child of a single mother, my father overdosed on opioids when i was a toddler, and my mothers family stepped up to help raise me. i grew up extremely paranoid of people and was always very close to death-related situations. i was also sexually assaulted by someone close to me and couldnt tell anybody. i believe that i am a psychologically unhealthy individual. i have incredible amounts of empathy and sympathy for people, i am also extremely afraid of people. due to my anxiety mixed with my trauma and pms i go through phases of being paranoid and unjustly afraid of people that i love very much. the covid19 quarantine was the most enabling thing that has ever happened in my entire life. i didn't have to talk to anybody aside from my mother or leave my house. i made myself think i was safe and happy when in reality i was slowly allowing my anxiety to consume me. when i say this im serious, like having panic attacks in the grocery store because i cant manage all the people that i run into and lying to someone that i love very much because im afraid to go out and i dont know how to explain to him what exactly is making me act this way. i dont know how to function without my family, and they are all much older than me. i know they will die and i will eventually be left alone.

tldr: i need to be around people my own age and i need to be around them physically because my mental health has gotten out of hand

one of my friends inspired me to transfer to university a year earlier than initially projected. the Scholarship was needed to be able to go.

while in Scholarship limbo my mom straight up called me over and said "you know you're going to the dorms in the fall right?" and i stg its like i had a mini breakdown. AFTER ALL THAT FUCKING SHIT. I GET TO GO. I GET TO GO!!!!!!!!!! I DON'T KNOW WHY SHE DIDDN'T TELL ME EARLIER. THIS DID THIS WHEN I TRIED TO QUIT BAND IN HIGH SCHOOL AS WELL. MAN. I'm so happy, I can't possibly explain how simultaneously happy and afraid I am. Going off and to the dorms is the best possible outcome I could ask for but in yet it is the one that I feared the most. I wonder if this was her way of trying to get me to see how far I would go to try and scrounge up cash or if she wanted to see how devoted I was to the idea of university.

Either way. I have my dorm room and roommates secured. I was on campus a few days ago for an orientation. I also have a couple of friends as well as some organizations that I intend to join. For privacy purposes I still can't tell you all where I'm going or when exactly a lot of things are happening. I will probably upload pics of my room though.

If you're here, thank you. I hope you're doing alright, I genuinely hope anything youre struggling with becomes easier and that you find yourself struck with inspiration often <3

[sgwrscrsh]

double double miya style: the epilogue

☁️a/n☁️ here we are, at the end of another series. writing this hit home extra hard since i’ve gone through something similar the last couple of months. but enough about me. please enjoy the final installment of double double, miya style: the series.

cw: implicit character deaths

“i still remember when we brought you home from this same hospital.”

“seems like it was so long ago. you were all just little babies that barely fit in our arms.”

three of the younger adults standing around the room shake their heads asynchronously. 

"don't embarrass us like that, mom," ryuki says despite the sad smile spreading across his face.

"what's wrong with being a little nostalgic? we're all family here."

“speaking of which, where is your sister?”

“she said she was gonna be a little late since practice ran long. you know how it is for d1 athletes getting ready for the olympics,” ryo pipes up, pocketing his phone. “it’s a good thing we close shop on sundays.”

“and whose genius idea was that?”

“oh, shut up about taking credit already, umi,” hana teases, shutting the door behind her. “we get it, you have a degree in business management.”

“it only took him three major changes to finally make up his mind,” her twin quips without missing a beat. 

“yea well, better late than never. ryo wouldn’t have been able to run both branches without me. he’s only good in the kitchen. not as good as my wife, of course, but good enough to keep customers coming, i suppose,” takumi places a sweet kiss on her lips and pulls away with a smile. 

“that’s not what your boys said last time they stopped by for lunch, right, little dudes?” ryo leans down to offer his three identical nephews each a fist bump in turn.

“don’t try to steal my boys. my precious niece and nephew will get jealous.”

“it’s okay, uncle takumi. we’re used to it by now.”

“yea, at least dad can feed us properly.”

“hey! i can cook some stuff,” takumi huffs. 

the two brothers who lay in their beds chuckled weakly as they listen to the familiar squabble, drawing the attention of the family around them. their gazes turned from amused to sad as their wives, children, and grandchildren took in their time-withered forms.

“anyway, i don’t know how you guys manage your busy jobs on top of your home lives. i just barely figured out how to balance work with my relationship. i mean, it does help that they’re on the team with me.”

“i mean, dad did it,” ryo points out, slinging his arms around his adopted children happily. “so did uncle tsumu.”

“exactly.” takumi’s boys swat at his hands mussing their hair, uncaring of their father’s soft smile. “but i can’t imagine how you do it as a single dad.”

“i had a lot of help before the divorce. she was just set on a different path from me, but she was still an amazing mother.”

“i’m sure you’d make a great mom, too, hana,” ryuki says. “huh, sweetie?” his wife nods in agreement, bouncing their young daughter in her arms. “though, being an exhibit curator for the museum lets me work from home most days. can’t really imagine the volleyball association could figure out a way for you to do the same.”

“yea, but i don’t think i’ll be ready for a family any time soon anyway.”

“you know,” atsumu takes you all by surprise when he croaks out his advice, waving away all of the concern when his frail body racks with coughs. “i didn’t think i was either. but when your mom told me she was pregnant, i was over the moon. nothing in the world made me happier than when you and your brother were born. look at you now. i couldn’t have asked for better kids.”

his words bring more tears to the eyes in the room than the retired setter knows, his wife taking his hand in hers and resting her forehead against it as her shoulders shake with sobs. not one to be outdone, his brother peels his eyes open to glance around the room before settling on his own sons and their kids. 

“and i couldn’t have left the shop in better hands either. i’m glad you took your time to figure out what you wanted to do with your lives. you’ve made me so proud,” osamu reaches out to run his thumb under his wife’s eye, wiping away the tears that wouldn’t stop falling. “we did good, love.”

her hands come up to clasp his against her wet cheek, “we sure did. do you still remember what their first words were?”

osamu shuts his eyes again and hums, “it was one word with a joint effort. and it just had to be onigiri of all things.”

“samu would not shut up about it for weeks,” his older twin makes chuckles rise around the room. 

“you weren’t much better when hana first said ‘dada,’ tsumu,” he scoffs.

“at least ryuki made my whole year when he made ‘mama’ his first word.” 

“remember when dad taught us how to make onigiri for mother’s day?”

“at least one of us picked up the culinary skills that run in our family.”

“and between us two, one of us got the more athletic genes, too.”

“i’m happy with my simple life and job and family, thank you very much. besides, i distinctly remember being way better than you at volleyball when we were growing up.”

“that’s not what i remember! you sucked at serving, ryu! you’d always hit the net during youth club practice.”

“nuh uh!”

“you know, i think i remember the same thing, hana.”

“why are you all ganging up on me?”

between the bickering and the reminiscing, only their wives notice the content smiles spreading across the oldest twins’ faces, each of them grasping their hands tightly as tears stream ceaselessly down their weathered cheeks. and only they hear the words whispered their husbands’ parting breaths.

“i had the better life.”

xv. || mlist

taglist: @lovemeafterhrs @sachirou-senpai-taglist @honey-makki @kenmaki @inarizakied @aruhappy @goodpop9 @tris-does-stuff @its-the-aerieljeane @callmekda @navymacaroons @tinystarks @luckypartyranchmug @chibichab @bjbex @heauxzenji @anejuuuuoy @semi-g0th @lets-go-datehoe @tsukkisfatsimp @newfriendjen @bigdickdaichi

final notes: to my moots, thank you for being such amazing people. you never fail to inspire me to improve and write more.

to my taglist loves, thank you for every comment, reblog, and like you've left on every chapter of this baby. i hope the epilogue has lived up to your expectations.

to all my readers, thank you for all your support whenever the algorithm happens to drop my content on your dash. you all have my heart.

join my general taglists for future content ♡

[sp1ne-sh0t]

Finally finished Control (at least the base game) and I gotta talk about it. Spoilers ahead if, like me, you foolishly put off playing until now.

Story:

I really loved the SCP-esque vibe the whole game gave off. I'm absolutely not a fan of horror, but it just worked so well here. You're by yourself through the whole game, but you never feel that sense of isolation and loneliness that a lot of horror instills, which I think works in its favor; both because of the way Jesse talks to herself/Polaris, and because of the other characters.

And man, the characters. They all felt so wonderfully real and alive! I got giddy and excited about all the sciencey bits right along with Emily 🥰, Darling made all the videos a joy to watch and I was so sad that I never got to meet him 😢, Arish was deadpan but still very earnest in his desire to protect everyone in the FBC, Ahti was a perfect balance of helpful yet mysterious, Langston talking about how much of an asshole his cat is, and his rambling poetry had me laughing my ass off for a solid five minutes, and Jesse.

God I love Jesse. She's so funny and snarky, and her little asides and quips about what was happening were so relatable. I love her so much! ❤ Also there was definitely some chemistry between her and Emily which I will absolutely be exploring in fanfiction in the very near future. 👀

Gameplay :

There were so many interesting mechanics and mods to tweak your experience with, the enemy types were varied enough that combat didn't get stale and it made me switch up my tactics, the countermeasures letting you essentially choose what kind of reward you want made them feel a lot less fetch-questy and more like, "well I'm already gonna be in the area, might as well score some new mods while I'm at it," and as @alexandrauditore told me, the progression of the powers you unlock really does make you feel super powerful and god like.

And speaking of god like, holy shit the Ashtray Maze.

That was THE. MOST. AMAZING. video game level I've ever played, and I will be listening exclusively to Take Control for the next month.

Seriously, the way they managed to tweak and edit the song to fit how far you were in the level was a stroke of genius I've never seen before and likely never will again. I felt like an unstoppable badass. For 15 minutes, I was the happiest person on earth. I'm going to be riding that high for months.

Also, I can't help but compare it to Assassin's Creed Valhalla, since it's the last game I played before Control. I've long been a fan of the AC series, and I enjoyed Valhalla for the most part, but quite often I found myself feeling like playing was more an obligation than an enjoyable activity, like I had to slog through to finish. Never once did I feel that way with Control. Every minute was enjoyable, even the few times where I was getting my ass kicked, but that was my own fault for not planning for the encounters. Not once did I feel like I had to keep playing to finish. I wholeheartedly wanted to.

Maybe it was the length and size of the game, maybe it was the way the gameplay changed up often enough to keep things interesting without feeling like it was all over the place, but I found myself enjoying it so much more than Valhalla that I almost feel...guilty? Idk. I'm getting off track.

Visuals:

The graphics were stunning. The reality warping, physics breaking elements were all rendered so believably, the Hiss were super creepy and horribly twisted, and the mocap and face rigging for the characters was masterfully done, no hint of uncanny valley. Their facial expressions felt so real!

Also, wow, the outfit designs! 😍 I'm still unlocking them all, but I love the designs so far. The Asynchronous Suit is my favorite. I wasn't a huge fan of the color scheme, but this mod gave me exactly what I was looking for and now it's even more badass!

DLC:

So now that I'm finished with the main game, I've started on the DLC. I'm almost done with AWE, for the unique mods, and so far it's been as enjoyable as the base game. I haven't played Alan Wake, but I don't feel like I'm missing context or anything. Looking forward to starting Foundation next.

Overall, Control is a phenomenal game. Easily a 10/10 and my personal GOTY.