#Technology implies Belligerence

[positron2399]

More Whispers in the Stars concept art:

Just concept art of two characters of a "hard sci-fi" super hero comic I hope to write one day. The first two are of the second "super" we'll see in the series, her people are "tiny" parasitoid arthropod analogs, with females only being around 9 cm excluding the stinger, and males being slightly smaller at 8 cm. The bug girl eventually signs up for her nation's space force (for reference, her "homeworld" is an O'Neill Cylinder), becoming one of the specialized warships of her people thanks to the total consciousness transfer technology of her people (as opposed to the copy-paste system of Soma and Invincible)... Copy-pasting a "soul" is possible. As for the warship she became, it uses fusion propulsion and is armed to the teeth with lasers and auto-cannons, her front outright having an x-ray cannon capable of outright disintegrating any ship unfortunate enough to stumble in front of her.

Very clearly inspired by Asuka and her mech... I'll eventually get around to watching Evangelion, so plz don't spoil. Also, while I haven't been playing it, I do love the designs of the ships from "Children of a Dead Earth."

... I dread the eventual meeting between "Mars" and these people of The Killing Stars, their launch was practically ancient history thanks to the ~natural~ lifespan of her people (only 20-25 earth years)

The next is President Reidmen of the alternate US the story takes place in, he's more or less a stand-in combination of Mitt Romney, Regan, the Bushes, and a few tiny hints of Trump for added "good" measure. Unlike most stories, I'm trying to make him seem "not" evil despite the fact that he's absolutely creampieing the economy and quadrupling down on bombing the fuck out of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine... Unfortunately for him and his shareholding buddies, the Superman (Delroy/The StarKnight) stand-in of the story refuses to let the US and Israel continue to "Manifest Destiny" and sending children to die "fighting tewwism" like he, his friends, and his brother did in Vietnam. The monstrous form isn't something he turns into, but how the StarKnight slowly begins viewing him as the "early" story goes on... also he's just really afraid of Dinosaurs, to the point where he couldn't watch Jurassic Park till he had his nuke-proof flying neutron-star body (he still had the lights on).

The thing about Riedmen is that he doesn't just sit around plotting to further bomb the Middle East, he has hobbies, he has fear, he has a corn farm and a family. He, much like Del, loves model train sets, and thanks to his wealth, it's far more impressive than our main protags, he has four shelter mutts and heavily advocates for the humane treatment of these animals, not because it'll make him look good, but because he actually cares, yet in the same breath will glorify any and all drone strikes Delroy failed to stop for it was "Al-Qaeda/Isis hiding in the Schools/Mosques/Hospitals." He also helps with the legalization of gay marriage in this world's US.

It was simply too funny to not have a Republican President with the last name "Reidmen." I also tried giving him a face that's either kind-looking or somewhat creepy for he is a very clear criticism of how Obama drone struck the hell out of so many children and how it was sold to children like me as a good thing, the American news at the time portrayed those mechanical abominations as some sort of "Super Hero" or "Angel." He has a mustache simply as it's been a very long time since a president had one and I thought it'd make him a bit more unique. The OFF/Paranoia Agent influence is real

@k1-2-ur-heart @toxetta @piko-chan @cyannidex33 @bladeechan @internetsinner

If you find them, the older posts aren't really cannon in terms of design, but are cannon in personality. The story itself would be paneled in a right-to-left flow specifically after Mob Psycho and the Pokemon Adventures manga, though I'd attempt to give it a more "Watchmen" feeling for the backgrounds and such.

!DESIGNS ARE NOT FINAL AND STORY MAY NEVER COME!

[cosmicobubisi]

Cosmic's Malleyuu Whump vs Flufftober: Day 28

DENIAL CCTV / Lucky Charm

Continued from day 11.

"And you have no idea as to his whereabouts after 7?" asked the police officer, in a tone that implied this was the time to tell the 'truth', or at least what he wanted to hear.

Malleus was fidgeting hard under the harsh lights of the interrogation room, hot spotlight shining off his skin. He didn't like this much light directly pointed at him, nor did he like all of the attention he was getting.

He didn't know how long he'd been here. A few hours, perhaps, and Malleus could feel himself starting to come apart at the seams.

The police had stormed into the convenience store with a clear vendetta. His father had stepped out, for what was supposed to have been just a moment, but had been two hours at that point. That, in itself, wasn't unusual- his father often ran errands Malleus had no knowledge of, but they couldn't have been caught at a worse time.

Someone had gone missing around here, and the police believed their convenience store could have something to do with it. They'd provided Malleus with a description, and Malleus thought he looked familiar, but he couldn't be sure.

He'd relayed that to the police officers, but it had been the wrong answer, as they'd become hostile and demanded to see the footage from the CCTV cameras inside and out of the store. When Malleus had stammered that he didn't know how to work the cameras, one of the officers had slammed their hand down on the counter and had screamed at him to "Do his job!".

Trying to remember how he'd seen his father do it once, Malleus pulled footage from one of the cameras, the one on the entry doors, and had spent a nerve-wracking 30 minutes trying to get it to play in the program. Technology didn't like him very much, and he was lucky the computer was turning on at all, but despite his pleas that his father would be home soon, and would be better equipped to give them what they wanted, they'd become more and more belligerent until he'd finally been able to play the clip they wanted.

It had indeed shown that the missing person had visited the convenience store, but not for more than a few minutes, and he'd left without buying anything.

The timing, however, had made it so that was now the latest time anyone had seen him alive, and, after being so tongue-tied he couldn't answer the officer's questions, Malleus had been brought to the station for 'questioning'.

His skepticism for the use of the word came from the fact that it seemed they had no interest in gaining any more knowledge that didn't confirm whatever story they'd spun in their heads, because the last few hours had been filled with variations of the same questions, asking Malleus to remember if he really didn't remember the customer that well, if there was possibly a connection between him and the missing person, if maybe his fidgeting wasn't some sign of guilt.

Things had quickly begun to deteriorate in what Malleus estimated was the last half hour, though.

A different police officer had come in to relieve the one questioning him, and Malleus did not like this one nearly as much.

He'd started right away yelling, startling Malleus in the small room, before showing him family photos of the missing person.

The officer insisted Malleus needed to tell the truth, that now was the time to relieve his 'guilty conscience'. No explanation was enough, and Malleus began to suspect he wouldn't leave this box of a room unless it was in handcuffs.

"No, sir," he tried to say for the thousandth time. The officer didn't look too pleased at that.

"Listen here, kid," he hissed. "I just want you to know somethin'."

Malleus nodded to ensure the officer knew he was listening closely.

"I think you're lying. I think you're full of shit, and I'm not gonna leave you alone 'till I crack you."

Malleus felt ice in his veins at the words. Was he... threatening Malleus?

"I-" Malleus wanted to defend himself, but he felt breathless. He wanted his father here, to speak for him and say what Malleus never could.

"One more time!" shouted the officer.

"Wait!" The words immediately caught the attention of the officer, but it wasn't going to be what he wanted to hear.

"I want to call someone," he continued. "I am entitled to representation."

The officer stared for a moment, before barking out a cold laugh.

"Of course. Of course, you'd want a lawyer. Is that 'cuz you did it, huh? Figured out we're onto you, and need time to get your story straight?"

Malleus shook his head, but the officer was already standing, and that made his heart race in fear.

"Big mistake kid, big mistake. You weren't under arrest, but that just proves you're guilty. Alright, call you damn lawyer," he said, indicating for Malleus to follow him, "but just know, this is gonna look real bad in court."

Malleus got up, but not before feeling his heart drop to his stomach.

A guilty person is the only kind of person who would need a lawyer, right? Perhaps if Malleus could explain himself again- make better eye contact with the officers questioning him, not squirm so much, he could convince them he wasn't hiding anything and that they could let him go.

Was this truly his fault? Malleus had visions of standing in a dingy courtroom, his father furious at his self-implication in a case that had nothing to do with himself, in chains with an ineffective lawyer.

The officer went down the hall, still in view, and Malleus saw a phone on a hook. He presumed this would be his lifeline, and slowly fingered the handle before taking it off the hook.

He could call his father, but he rarely picked up while out. He'd be upset with Malleus for getting himself caught up in this, anyways, and he already hated to be such a burden.

His fidgeting led him to his pocket, and he rubbed over one piece of paper, his lucky charm, in his pocket reflexively, the action bringing him a measure of comfort.

Malleus was suddenly injected with a swell of hope- there was one more person he could call.

He fished the business card out of his pocket and dialed the number. One ring, and then another, and then Malleus felt the hope leak out of him as the phone kept ringing, sure his lifeline was out of the office, before something clicked on the other end and a voice appeared.

"Hello?" said the voice.

--

Malleus was back under the spotlight.

There were pictures all around him, pinned up on poster board. Some of them were almost saccharine in their content, lots of pictures of happy, smiling families of all types next to brutal photos of crime scenes.

It was a lot easier for Malleus to maintain eye contact now, distressed and sickened by the photos as he was, but that only contributed to the guilty narrative the police were writing.

The story they spun was no tapestry, attempting to weave together frayed ends of a damaged cloth. It was a web, cast wide and sticky, and it was trapping Malleus harder the more he struggled.

All he had to do was answer as minimally as possible until help arrived. That's all he had to-

The door opened, and there was a gust of fresh air that arrived with the face of their salvation.

He hadn't gotten a good look at them last time, but it was undoubtedly the person they'd spoken to last time. Yuu, dressed smartly and carrying a handbag, smiled into the room.

"Officer! Nice to see you with my client," they chirped.

"Huh? Are you the lawyer?" he huffed.

"Sure am. Now, can you please get out so I can chat with my client?" Yuu was smiling, but there was a hard edge to both their words and their face.

The officer grumbled, but slunk out of the chair and walked out, slamming the door behind him. Yuu was unfazed, and sat in the abandoned chair.

"It's good to see you again," they said in a low tone, more genuinely this time.

Malleus couldn't help but feel warm at the words.

"I feel the same way," he said. "it's a relief you also offer legal consultation services."

"I wear a lot of hats," said Yuu, plopping their handbag onto the table and beginning to rummage through it. "Now, it seems they're not exactly holding you legally here. It's not strictly illegal, because of how some stuff is, but it's also not straight up legal. You look tired, but tell me again your story."

Malleus relayed it once more.

"And you already told them that? Didn't omit anything?"

Malleus shook his head.

"Alright, sounds as watertight as it could be. Now, we're gonna walk out together, and you're gonna say that you've already told them more than their fair share, and you have no further details at this time, and I'll tell them if they wanna talk to you again, to call me. Ready?"

This time, Malleus nodded.

It all happened in a blur. There seemed to be a bubble of protection with Yuu around him, and in a few minutes, they were out of the precinct and in the crisp air of twilight.

"Thank you," he said. "I can never repay you."

"Awww, don't sweat it. You know, normally I charge a pretty penny, but you're a friend. Discounts for friends and all that." They nudged him with their shoulder with a wink, and Malleus got the sense that was funny.

"Thank you," he said again, not knowing how else to respond.

"You got it. Now, I guess I'm taking you home?" they asked.

"Perhaps," he said after a pause, "my father won't be home for a while. Perhaps we can find something to do in town while we're here. May I offer you a meal?"

A grim spread across Yuu's face slowly, like the slow trickling of a spilled drink.

"You may," they said, locking arms with his as they walked towards a diner.

[mask131]

The other campers at CHB: the Athena cabin

Next stop in our tour of the non-protagonist campers: the Athena cabin!

Despite being the cabin from which one of the main protagonists of the Half-Blood franchises, Annabeth Chase herself, we actually know very little about the Athena campers. Annabeth takes most of the place and thus overshadows her half-brothers and half-sisters. 

In The Lightning Thief we get a generalized description of the Athena kids as a “bunch of serious-looking athletic kids, all with the gray eyes and honey-blond hair” of Annabeth. This is confirmed in Sea of Monsters, where they are described as a “dozen of boys and girls” (without counting Annabeth) “with blond hair and gray eyes” just like Annabeth. Many fans have noted that the fact all the children of Athena are blond could limit the ethnic diversity among them, or implies some unnatural hair color for some of them. 

The Lightning Thief also mentions that the Athena kids “always have a plan”, something repeated in “The Hidden Oracle” where Lester identifies the Athena kids as the biggest threat in the three-legged race because they always have a plan, just like their mother. The Athena kids are depicted as being the intellectuals of the camps, the martial geeks and bookworm nerds, the sources of strategy and knowledge - there is a great emphasis on their intelligence supposed to be higher than normal, Circe described Athena children as always being the same “seeking knowledge and admiring greatness” (Sea of Monsters), and during the fight in Battle of the Labyrinth they set up a command tent to direct the camp’s military operations (Malcolm does the same in the battle during The Hidden Oracle). 

However there are nuances to all that. In the Sea of Monsters, Percy mentions that some of the sword-fighters of the camp are in the Athena cabin (the others are in the Ares cabin), which ties to how they were described as athletic in the first book ; and in Battle of the Labyrinth it is mentionned that the children of Athena are supposed “to be wise, not just clever”. Outside of that, we know that during The Last Olympian their part in the war involved bringing the giants down to the ground with hooks and chains, that in Battle of the Labyrinth they organized a chariot race with the Demeter cabin (an event not out of the ordinary according to Percy), and during the Sea of Monsters when the Stymphalian Birds attack they demand to have shields to protect themselves and others (truly showing Athena’s style of combat, protecting and defending before attacking). 

The last interesting note is that in The Sea of Monsters, it is mentionned that Annabeth is not the oldest of the residents of the Athena cabin, but she is their leader and head because she spent more summers there than any of them and thus they do not contest her right to lead.

  Now, the only camper of the Athena Cabin truly identified is actually Malcolm... who we could sum up as “lesser Annabeth” or the “Annabeth replacement”, but let’s go into more details...

Malcolm first appears in The Battle of the Labyrinth, when he fetches Annabeth for archery practice and stumbles upon her emotional hug with Percy. He is very embarrassed, his whole face bright red, and quickly leaves them alone. No physical description of him is given, and in fact we will never have one of the entire books - though we do know that he has blond hair and gray eyes like Annabeth’s, because in “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” it is the rule for Athena children. He reappears in the Last Olympian, where he is identified as the “second-in-command” to Annabeth and he takes over her role when she has to leave. 

For the Heroes of Olympus series he only reappears in “Blood of Olympus”, where it is explained that he is the new head counsellor of the Athena cabin in Annabeth’s absence, and contrary to Clarisse’s belligerent plans to fight the Roman legions he advices for a more patient and careful approach, considering the technological advantage of New Rome. 

He makes a bit more appearances in “The Trials of Apollo”, and it is actually in “The Hidden Oracle” that we finally learn of his last name - Pace. His full name is Malcolm Pace. His appearance there basically repeats all I mentionned above - he shows Meg and Lester maps of the woods so that they know the places to avoid and where to go (information-giver) and when the camp is under attack he coordinates the fight from a command camp. However this book also gives him some details that make his character a bit more noticeable, even though not much deeper: he is the only child of Athena in his cabin at this time of the year (revealing he is a year-long camper), and when the camp is under attack he is dressed with his leather cuirass but forgot his pants, showing off his red briefs - this implies that he is the kind to rush into action when the camp is in grave danger and to not care much of his appearance when the situation is critical. 

Malcolm’s final appearance is in the Tower of Nero, where he is now the official and fully-fledged head counsellor of the Athena Cabin (instead of a co-counsellor or assistant to Annabeth). At one point Lester asks him for information to prepare a plan of attack, and he explains that he can build up an intelligence dossier and plans of attack, but that it would take him (and his fellow Athena siblings) four weeks, “three if we push it”, which might be a hint at how perfectionist or overtly cautious and working he is. Or just be a way for Riordan to torture his characters further... 

So yes, unfortunately, it seems Malcolm was mostly designed to be a male and lesser-talented version of Annabeth, mostly existing to fill her role whenever she is gone or to assist her in whatever task she has to do. 

  EDIT:

There is actually a second identified camper of Athena in the franchise, that I overlooked because she appeared in a side-book/bonus material, but it is a very interesting case... Bea Wise, from the Camp Half-Blood Confidential book. 

Bea Wise resided in the camp in the 1950s, and participated in the “Camp Half-Blood” quiz show featured in the orientation movie used on all new demigods. Bea Wise quickly gets annoyed at the game and at how Apollo (the host) runs things, but her reactions are quite interesting... she answers “Are you ready?” with “I think therefore I am” which is a clever pun and philosophical reference, possibly showing a hint of sly humor there. However after the first question is asked, she actually takes her answering time to object that it is not a question (Apollo used an order form “Name the snake I slayed!” instead of “What is the name of the snake I slayed?”). It hints that Bea might be one of those “textbook” people that can object to very little details for not much.

However her next objections are more legitimate - she is angry when Apollo gives the answer to another question after one failed answer by another contestant, legitimately shouting that Apollo did not let the other contestants answer. She then points out how Apollo is inconsistent in his speech (he asks about the Marsyas case, saying in his question that he was falsely accused of skinning him alive, but once the answer is given he brags that he taught the satyr good by... well skinning him alive). And finally, when Apollo just abandons the quiz show to start a big party with satyrs, Bea is just fed up with everything. “I cannot believe I studied for this” are her last recorded words.

But what is even more interesting here is Bea’s appearance, because the book is illustrated, and we can see that Bea does not have the “typical blond hair” of the Athena kids, being rather an Afro-American girl with dark-colored hair (I can’t tell which color it is exactly since the picture is in shades of gray and black, but it is a dark color). We can assume she has the gray eyes of the Athena children, though it is not visible on the drawing - we can just see that she has her hair pulled in a ponytail and big glasses on her nose. But anyway, it is quite interesting to get to see an Athena child that breaks the “blond hair and gray eyes” pattern in the camp. 

[anocana]

so. Blindsight. bleak as hell. i think the whole “everyone’s being extremely subtly manipulated by intelligences beyond their comprehension with precise results” thing is... well, it’s a compelling premise once, but i’ve already read Echopraxia. it gets kind of tiring the second time around, and i don’t really think brains work like that. but the aliens are very alien, and the whole thing with the first contact protocol was cool.

an interesting thing about siri’s relationship with chelsea is that he tries to not act like a chinese room in it - he tries to actually be himself with her - and it falls apart because himself just completely sucks ass and can’t interact with people. if he’d been a true chinese room he could have done whatever was necessary to get the best outcome, but he doesn’t. some bits were relatable but thankfully not the “explaining through evolutionary psychology why our relationship is doomed” sort of thing, jesus

the rest of this is going to be various nitpicking disagreements i had, because it is indisputably that sort of book.

vampires are obviously rather ridiculous, just too many convienient things all in one place. the crucifix glitch, obviously, but also, how do you evolve multi-generation hibernation that fast? when you must eat one singular species, and failure to hibernate means you completely wipe out your obligate prey and make your territory uninhabitable? and the longer you hibernate, the fewer generations per timespan *to* evolve in? i’d accept this sort of thing in a book that didn’t have a list of scientific citations at the end but it just doesn’t fit as well

the rationale behind Technology Implies Belligerence seems simply wrong. Sure, if you have all your needs perfectly met you don’t need to develop more technology, but the more extreme the competition, the less leeway you have to set up long-term things and the less free time to spend on idly thinking up new ideas rather than directly competing. I’m fairly certain if you tried to track it, you’d find most technological progress throughout history comes from societies with less day-to-day competition due to surpluses, etc.

Rorschach actually kind of proves this - their whole “sit around generating ATP anaerobically for thousands of years” strategy doesn’t work if you get eaten halfway through

Since Rorschach didn’t attack the humans until after they’d hit it with a probe that it actively told them not to do, it might just be wrong in-universe. Who knows?

there’s a lot of questionable evopsych, but I’m not sure how much the book itself puts stock in evopsych, vs. just Siri as a character putting too much stock in evopsych.

he does get called out for thinking he’s objective when he’s just projecting his own opinions onto other people

also one of the main conclusions he draws from evopsych is “every heterosexual relationship is doomed” (nothing to say about gay relationships, naturally) which seems obviously false enough that I’d suspect it’s a personal bias to the character

but it’s the sort of book where i’m not sure if that even counts

EDIT: i misremembered part of it, he was wrong about Bates plotting to mutiny. i remembered thinking she’d mutinied when her drone fucked up Sarastri, but forgot that she later confirmed it wasn’t her. so yeah i think the really dumb evopsych stuff can mostly be chalked up to Siri being biased

the consciousness as parasite thing is obviously an interesting sci-fi premise but i don’t actually buy it, at least not for Earthly life

chimpanzees do actually pass the mirror test, apparently

my personal experience is that, when i focus on it, i have a lot of really quick pseudo-conscious thoughts before they pass up more slowly into full consciousness, but not all of them end up getting into consciousness. i’d be surprised if consciousness didn’t serve the purpose of, at minimum, taking the good bits of unconscious thought and reinforcing them so they get stored better.

Blindsight’s perspective on consciousness does seem to have language being a product of genuine consciousness, because Rorschach can’t do it. but how the fuck else are humans supposed to communicate, besides language? Maybe you can theoretically have intelligence without consciousness, but if it’s necessary for language then I don’t think you get complex human societies without consciousness, even if they’re individually more efficient.

vampires seem to be able to do language which is a bit weird if they’re not really conscious? but also, like, they can’t do complex societies because they’re so individually territorial, so that’s an enormous disadvantage anyway. i suspect they’d have died out even without the crucifix glitch.

“you don’t need consciousness to do math/science/whatever because of a few anecdotes of people waking up having dreamed whole theorems” is completely unconvincing. like, okay, how much of the work did they do consciously beforehand? how big of a leap was the dream, how complete was it, how much did they have to do consciously to make it rigorous? how often do people wake up with incorrect ideas in their heads?

this sort of thing was more plausible with the Bicamerals in Echopraxia because they were basically magic. applying it to actual humans falls rather short.

also I think his evolutionary reasoning in his “dodo” analogy isn’t quite the right line of thought for the point he’s making. Consciousness, as he frames it, is an extra energy cost for no real benefit which persists only because we’re not facing enough selection pressure to weed it out. But the dodo lost flight because it was excessive and useless for its island, which is the exact opposite situation.

A dodo analogy would be appropriate if consciousness was useful when facing unexpected problems but useless on earth due to human dominance, so we evolved out of it

a better comparison might be the Irish Elk, which is often thought to have gone extinct due to its enormous antlers. Its antlers were way too large to be beneficial to survival, but they persisted and grew bigger over time due to sexual selection. then the argument becomes that consciousness makes you more likely to get laid but is actually bad otherwise. still questionable, but at least fits better

[k7l4d4]

Owl House AU Ideas, ZA FIRST!!

Hello all, this has been a long time coming on my part. After procrastinating on the subject, I have decided to upload my personal AU ideas for the Owl House. Here’s hoping ya’ll like them, and feel free to make your own stuff based on them as you please!!

Tough Love: This AU is my own twist on the classic Siblings AU, in which I fleshed it out into my own little niche using whatever I had available in my brain.

Victoria Noceda: My name for Beta Luz, who in this Idea is the oldest of the three Noceda sisters. Brash, belligerent, always ready with a smart remark, Victoria is a tough girl who takes no crap from anyone, with her weapon of choice being a metal bat carved with glyphs. A short temper mixed with both a strict demeanor and a flippant attitude has earned her a reputation as a thug, one which she has done nothing to reject or deny. Growing up, Victoria quickly grew familiar with the uglier side of humanity, and when her sisters were born vowed to shield them from the harshness of the world, by any means necessary. She is highly cynical, yet being around Luz chips away at this persona of hers. Despite her attitude and behavior, she is highly intelligent, graduating from school as valedictorian to the shock of everyone bar her teachers. Victoria first ended up in the Isles by chasing down Owlbert after the Palisman tried (and failed) to pickpocket her. She and Eda, to their mutual surprise, hit it off rather well, with Victoria often acting as her Stall Manager, Gopher, Muscle, etc., and has amassed a large quantity of glyphic spells, which she keeps as tattoos climbing up both arms (she actually has enough to cover nearly her whole torso and part of her neck, but uses illusion glyphs to hide them so Eda doesn't ask how she discovered them... some of them were highly unpleasant for lack of a better word). Using her work with Eda to avoid getting a job on Earth, Victoria has a LOT of money, mostly due to Eda paying her with whatever bills and coins Owlbert brings her without consideration for how much they actually are worth. Offered to house her sisters so they could "branch out and get some real world experience," really an excuse to get her sibs away from the toxic environment at school. Convinced (threatened) Principal Hal to have Luz sent to stay with her for the summer. Her aggressive tendencies and willingness to use incredible violence to solve her problems has resulted in her relationship with her sisters partially atrophying, though she is unaware of it herself. Her first encounter with Boscha, in the body swap episode, is meant to illustrate this as she very clearly and deliberately tormented and ridiculed the girl for bullying Luz, refusing to let up even when Luz begged her to stop until Boscha apologized and begged for forgiveness; Luz rushing off to help bandage Boscha's nearly broken hands implies this isn't the first time she has done this, or at least something like this. Victoria has a bad temper when roused and often resorts to extreme verbal haranguing when she's cross with Luz, not knowing that this reinforces the idea that she doesn't like or care for her youngest sister, as she can't bring herself to raise a hand to her sisters. Finds Amaryllis hot and enjoys teasing her. Will answer to Victoria, Tori, or Ria, NEVER to Vic or Vicky, which will result in her threatening to break the offender's legs, THIS IS NOT A BLUFF SHE HAS DONE IT TWICE BEFORE. Mari Noceda: My name for Pilot!Luz, the middle child. Easily the most well-behaved of her siblings, though that isn't saying much. Unlike her hyper-impulsive younger, and her super aggressive elder, Mari is calm, logical, and significantly more easy going. However, she is an absolute snoop with a very poor understanding of personal privacy, resulting in her being sent to the principal for breaking into other students' lockers, on multiple occasions. After Victoria basically dropped off the map, she became hellbent on tracker her down, resulting in her discovering the Boiling Isles and magic. As is her usual, she quickly got over whatever shock she felt and proceeded to brow beat her mom, Victoria, AND EDA to let her stay in the Isles by homeschooling (Camila doesn't know she went to the Isles, just that she wanted to move in with her sister... it hurt her more than Mari thought it would), she soon set herself to studying everything the Isles has to offer, to Eda's chagrin. While her repertoire is much smaller than Tori's, she knows quite a few spells herself, all of which she has studied to a ludicrous degree. After reading up on some of Luz's fantasy novels, she has started viewing herself as an artificer, blending magic and technology together. Is VERY GOOD FRIENDS with Vela Blight (they are dating but don't want anyone to know). Often puts down Luz's fantasies as ridiculous. Luz Noceda: Canon cinnamon roll, sorta. Plucky, sweet, optimistic, and, oh yeah, Kinda mental. Was introduced to the Boiling Isles and Eda via Victoria picking her up and driving through a portal that opened up in Eda's living room. When she asked her sisters' to share what they know about magic with her, they both laughed and told her they would teach her how to use any spells she figured out on her own, and no more. Basically the same as canon, she is somewhat more fragile emotionally as a result of Mari's unintended put-downs, and Victoria's angry rants. She is convinced that part of the reason she didn't have friends was due to everyone being afraid of Victoria beating them silly, or Mari invading their privacy. While very similar to her original self, this version of Luz has a lot of repressed anger, which manifests as a slight twitch in her left eye and a compulsive hiccup when stressed. Eda: Due to taking in Victoria and Mari, she is much more in touch with her caring side earlier on than Canon, welcoming Luz easily and more willing to play the mentor role. Quickly picks up on the warning signs in the sisters' interactions but is repeatedly shut out, to her frustration and concern. King: Mellower than in canon due to having Mari, who considers him a fount of demonic knowledge, and Victoria, who appreciates his street wise wisdom when it peeks through his megalomania, to talk and interact with. Clings to Luz as a "new general in my Army! Rejoice, Mr. Ducky, REJOICE!!" Amaryllis Blight: My name for Beta!Amity, and the eldest sibling. Ruthless, ferocious, and feral, Amaryllis always possessed the hallmarks of a problem child, bucking her parents authority at every turn, which she got away with due to her immense magical power even as a toddler. Wears green hair dye to spite her parents after they virtually disowned her. Regularly forgets any and all information that she deems useless, which includes her parents' names, resulting in her always referring to them as Mr. and Mrs. Blight at all times, even in her head. Leads the Predators, an elite section of the Emperor's Coven tasked with locating and sealing dimensional breaches, as well as purging anything that crosses through. Has a severe survival of the fittest mindset; if you don't have the strength and will to survive and succeed, you are nothing. Ironically, she hates bullies, claiming them as weaklings who tear down those with true potential for greatness, and often curses herself for being too weak to separate from Belos. Her sheer power and accomplishments have forced the Blight parents to recognize her as their child, if only to capitalize on her success and prevent difficult questions being aimed their way, yet none are comfortable with the arrangement. Strongly admires Eda, genuinely believing her to be the greatest Witch of all time, which leads to her verbally, and sometimes physically, tearing a new one in anyone who speaks ill of her in Amaryllis' presence. The biggest inspirations for Amaryllis were Katsuki Bakugo from My Hero Academia, and Esdeath from Akame Ga Kill, being strangely friendly and amicable to her fellow Predators and anyone who she finds sufficiently impressive in terms of combat, though she has no ability to register those she thinks of as weak, often being incapable of recalling any real information about them beyond whatever part of their appearance stuck out most to her. She has no respect or regard for Emira and Edric, regarding them as fools and cowards, and is genuinely incapable of telling them apart, despite the fact that they are different genders, and often needs a moment to remember who they are. Often verbally scolds Vela for being weak, with the first "kind" thing she has ever said to her since graduating was congratulating her for taking the first steps to realizing her true potential. Admires Amity's dedication to be the best, but detests her kowtowing to their parents. Has a huge crush on Victoria, but is both better at hiding it than Amity, by a mile, and severely conflicted over it, due to regarding humans as "the weakest existence on the whole of the Isles." Amaryllis' animalistic mentality is considered extremely unusual, even by the standards of the Boiling Isles and results in everyone being incredibly wary of her. Amaryllis is insanely loyal to those she holds regard to and works with, viciously destroying anything that dares bring harm to her comrades, or "pack" as she insists on calling them, and has a win by any means necessary mindset, being genuinely puzzled by the crowd and Amity's distress at Lilith's cheating during the Covention, seeing the power glyph as a perfectly acceptable tactic and applauding Luz and Eda's mines to circumvent the Human's lack of spells, however even she disapproves of cheating that can result in permanent injury, which is her sole complaint about the duel. Vela Blight: My name for Pilot!Amity, and the Middle child of the Blight Triplets. Timid, meek, and polite to a fault, Vela is near totally lacking in confidence. Is hopelessly mediocre in every form of magic, despite her higher than average power, and regarded as a failure to the Blight name. Her parents disowned her shortly before Canon, but allow her to stay in the Manor as her siblings' attendant, even Amaryllis is better regarded than she is by the Blight parents. Is good friends with the Detention Track kids, and eagerly jumped on the bandwagon when they became multi-track students, joining Luz as an All-Tracker, which also exposed her immense talent for magic mixing, allowing her to merge different forms of Magic with ease and fluidity. Vela's sheer passion for learning magic exceeds both Amity and Luz combined, and is genuinely puzzled why more witches weren't trying to multi-track too. Is something of a teacher's pet, to her own embarrassment, as even with her poor abilities her sheer passion for learning has caused many of the Teachers and Bump himself to develop a soft spot for her. Has a complicated relationship with Ed and Em, as while she loves them, she envies their talent, and despises their pranks, as she is often punished for them whether she had a hand or not, and often when she tried to stop them. When her trip-mates decided to prank Amity, she lividly tore into them with a brutal "The Reason You Suck" Speech before storming off in tears, resulting in Ed and Em chasing after her and leaving Amity and Luz alone in the library. During the trip to the Knee, she was still bitter, and went out of her way to be as difficult for Ed and Em as possible, only forgiving them after took on the Slitherbeast. Vela is very close to Amity, as well as the Nocedas. Vela regards Amity as a treasure and has the healthiest relationship with her out of all their siblings, instantly pegging to Amity's crush on Luz (She ships them so hard), though she doesn't call her out on it. Vela is scared of Amaryllis. Ed and Em: Are wilder than in Canon, willing to resort to harsher pranks to meet their goals. They adore Vela, and assumed she adored them; having her verbally tear them a new one served as a massive wake-up call to how jerky they could be, and often were, provoking them to be better siblings and people all around, still tricksters though. Are jealous of Amaryllis due to her being unshackled from their parents, and are often rendered livid by her casual dismissal of them. Amity Blight: Mostly the same, but a bit more assertive against the toxic influences in her life. Idolizes Amaryllis due to her power and freedom, and trusts Vela with the same secrets as her diary. Sallix Park: Name for Beta!Willow. A maverick and an agitator, she enjoys stirring up trouble for the heck of it, but only when she's the one to cause it. Adores her little sister, but insists on her fighting her own battles, and enjoys training Willow through random plant attacks. Has been secretly gaslighting Boscha, in the hopes of the brat having some kind of epiphany and cleaning up her act, not knowing that her actions were causing the triclops to develop conflicting impulses and feelings regarding Willow, as well as an unhealthy fixation. Is good friends with both Victoria and Amaryllis, resulting in her serving as referee whenever they fight, which is often. Willow Park: Same as canon, but more assertive over her behaviors.

Let me know if any of you have any questions or opinions on it.

[emptyhead00]

And here’s the second part of my list of favorite 2019 albums. (part 1)

Pixx - Small Mercies [alternative, electronic] (Peanuts Grow Underground)

Potty Mouth - Snafu [rock, punk] (Massachusetts)

Stoneburner - Technology Implies Belligerence [electro-industrial] (The Structure Itself Is in Pain)

This Gift Is a Curse - A Throne of Ash [blackened sludge metal] (Wormwood Star)

Taylor Swift - Lover [pop] (Daylight)

Venom Prison - Samsara [death metal, hardcore] (Uterine Industrialisation)

Vivian Girls - Memory [dreampop, punk] (I’m Far Away)

Plus a few other honorable mentions:

Cult of Luna - A Dawn to Fear

Killswitch Engage - Atonement

Ludovico Einaudi - Seven Days Walking album series

Plaid - Polymer

And one more little list: non-2019 albums I listened to a lot in 2019:

Green Day - American Idiot (Boulevard of Broken Dreams)

Frankie Rose - Herein Wild (Question/Reason)

Emma Ruth Rundle - On Dark Horses (Light Song)

Kelly Moran - Ultraviolet (Water Music)

Emma Ruth Rundle - Marked for Death (Medusa)

Frankie Rose - Interstellar (Know Me)

Radiohead - OK Computer (I’d link Let Down, which is my favorite Radiohead song and one of my favorite songs overall, but I can never find it on YouTube)

Kelly Moran - Bloodroot (Celandine)

[pretendsweetly]

“Dude, you wanna compete with Jimmy Hendrix? Fuck you.” lmaooo

that professor meme that’s so amazing

Teddy’s head tilted in dissatisfaction, and he made a face at Owen, one that read really, bitch? without his having to actually intone it. 

“First of–” Teddy let his guitar settle in his lap, and clucked his tongue in disapproval of Owen’s implication–and that he didn’t just, like, get what he was saying. He held up his index finger, resting between the joint gripped in his thumb and middle fingers, and waited for Owen to oblige him by stopping and giving him the floor again.“That is not what I said.”

When he felt like his friend was prepared to hear what he had to say, Teddy persisted, “I’m just saying, if Jimi Hendrix were alive today, he’d have to be a lot more impressive than he was at that time.” Over Owen’s groans of discontent, Teddy persevered. “That’s all I’m saying! That’s all I”m saying!”

“But you’re saying that he couldn’t do it! What you’re–no, no, listen,” Owen was forceful over a belligerent Teddy, now. “No, what you’re saying, what your’e implying, whatever the fuck, is that Jimi Hendrix wouldn’t be as impressive now because of what? Technology? He invented half this shit!”

Teddy, on the tail end of a long drag, shook his head for a few seconds and then, finally, let the smoke roll forth before him lazily, making its way through the air between him and Owen. He passed the blunt to Owen, who took it, despite his clear dissatisfaction at Teddy’s insinuation.

“I’m saying that he’d need to work harder to be special. That’s all I’m saying.”

Owen, smirking in the way he did that let people know that he knew more than they thought he did, held his breath for a second and then, on his exhale, murmured, “You’re a piece of shit.”

Teddy grinned. “Love you too, buddy.”

[chessanator]

For the fanfic ask meme! K, L, M, V!

Thanks for the ask!

L: How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?

It’s working out at about three official drafts at the moment: first draft, edited after my parents have read it, edited after my beta-reader has read it (Thanks, @blackflirtlarping​!).

There are a couple of chapters which I like to re-read from time to time and I’ve occasionally noticed errors and fixed them then-and-there. But I don’t think I catch enough at once doing it like that for it to count as an extra revision.

M: Got any premises on the back burner that you’d care to share?

I’ve got two sequels planned for TUoHS, the first of which is ridiculously spoilerly just from the concept of it alone, and the other of which is about what Nagito Komaeda is up to in this alternate timeline.

Once I’ve finished those (so, like, not for at least fifteen years) there’s a couple of other ideas I’ve been percolating. Probably the only one that’s developed enough to mention is the crossover between Pokemon and Harry Turtledove’s Worldwar I had some inklings of. It would basically be a reimagining of the Worldwar story but with Pokemon, so rather than the aliens having advanced technology they’d have IV-bred EV-trained Smogon move-setted pokemon. Where Worldwar had a character who was a representative of the Manhattan Project, here he’d be a Rocket Scientist trying to tell people about Mewtwo. And the role played by the belligerent governments of WWII would be played by the Champions and Elite Fours of each region. Also, there’d be a scene where the aliens declared Brock to be a superior specimen of humanity because he’s attracted to every lady he comes across. (That probably makes more sense in context.)

V: If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

Back before the second fic in the Game Theory ‘verse of Nanoha fanfics (by Immatrael) finished, I had this vague idea for how I might start a fic in that verse based just before the time period of the third season of Nanoha. Basically it drew on some connections in the world-building implied by the ending of the first fic, though I have no idea how I’d continue beyond that first scene to turn it into an entire story.

Unfortunately, the ending of the second fic churned up the status quo completely (not that I’d accept anything less from my favourite fanfic) such that I don’t think my idea works anymore, not without knowing quite a lot more about the setting Immatrael and her collaborators have developed.

K: What���s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up with?

My angstiest idea is pretty spoilery (TBH, it’s the big spoiler of TUoHS, to the point where I’ve been calling everything related to it ‘The Spine’) so I’ll stick it under a read-more Stupid Tumblr isn’t letting read-more work, so I’ve ROT13′d it instead.

(@blackflirtlarping​: please, please don’t read.)

Gur sbhegu zheqre bs GHbUF unf Zvxheh Nfnuvan nf gur zheqrere. Gur oehgnyyl natfgl cneg vf gung ng gur cbvag bs gur Pynff Gevny, fur unfa’g npghnyyl pbzzvggrq gur zheqre lrg sebz ure crefcrpgvir. V whfg ubcr gung V’z hc gb jevgvat gur Ohyyrg Gvzr Onggyr sbe gung gevny, juvpu jvyy or nobhg arrqvat gb pbaivapr Zvxheh gb npghnyyl tb onpx naq qb vg fb gurer vfa’g n gvzr cnenqbk: gur svany jbeqf ng gur raq bs vg jvyy or ‘Rfgnoyvfurq Vasbezngvba’. 

C.F. Gur vqrn sbe gur bgure frdhry gung V zragvbarq rneyvre naq qvqa’g qrfpevor vf gung, fvapr Zvxheh qvrf qhevat gur nygreangr gvzryvar bs zl fgbel, zl gvzryvar vf gur bar gung Shwvjnen sebz pnaba genafcbegrq bire sebz.

[sburbian-sage]

That’s No Moon, A Guide On Planets, Lands, And Other Cosmic Bodies

The game of SBURB has several solar entities in it. If you thought your dinky 1 Sun and 8/9 Planets/1 Sun, 1 Planet, and 2 Moons was cool, get ready for a lot more than that.

Earth/Alternia/Beforus/Other

This is “your” planet in the sense that you and your species inhabit this place. Less nostalgic people would imply that it doesn’t belong to you in the slightest. And one could argue they’re right because this shit is going fast. As soon as the game begins, meteors encroach on your home world and begin doing what meteors do, and destroy it and kill all life aboard. It’s important that you begin the entry phase. Not that you’ll die (the game always ensures you at least enter your Land), but it’s not going to be pretty to scrape by.

Catastrophe Aver- NOT!

In some cases, meteors are not how your planet meets its end. Don’t relax yet, as the game always ensures destruction of the home planet. Cases have been reported of planets with anti-meteor technology, psionics deflecting the meteors, or other such cases, and always after the calm, the storm brews. Some of the examples are fascinating.

An Elder Horrorterror reaches out and begins to drag the planet into the collective maw of the Others.

Tremors come forth, and the planet explodes with a new cosmic body at the center. Sometimes it’s someone’s Land (and the Land Owner may take it personally), the Ocean Star (the Star player will be okay with it because Stars), the Battlefield, or even the Black King.

In the case of Alternians, Her Imperious Condescension usually puts and end indirectly. Her Lusus is always possessing of some unfathomable power, and if allowed, can/will destroy the planet with it.

The planet up and flies into the sun like a piece of shit for no reason.

The Land of X and Y

After you properly enter the game, you will find your house on some strange new world, often seeming unnatural, and possessing of a really nifty theme. This is your Land. It follows the naming convention above. Inside you will find

Aesthetics™

Dumbass Talking Animals (your Consorts)

Weird Puzzle Shit

Lots Of Walking

DUNGEONS

More Weird Puzzle Shit

Even More Dumbass Enemies (Underlings)

Emotional Turmoil

Your Corpse Inevitably

Shining Flying Whale Dildos (Angels)

Even More Weird Puzzle Shit

A Very Tall Bed (Quest Bed)

Godlike Douchebag Thing (Denizen)

Inquire or see other guides for the individual things listed within.

Why The Stupid Name?

Blow off the name is cool. It’s tailored after two things. One relating to your Aspect. So Heart probably gets “Love” or “Emotions” or “Masks” or somesuch, while Might would get “Waves”, “Floods”, or “Challenges”. The other one relates to your role in the sesssion, your quest, or something else about you specifically. So if you’re the glue to the session, you’ve probably got Cracks or Divisions. It’s rather intuitive.

But it is also stupid because this doesn’t apply after the first session. You get some other guy’s Land, and that sucks, but oh well.

The Land of Sorrow and HNNNNG

As befitting SBURB’s amazing failsafes, sometimes it generates modifiers that mess the game up, throw curveballs, or outright kill you. Kids and Fun. Look out if any of the following appear as an X or Y.

Angels: Oh shit. Normally Angles stay underground. But now they feel like sitting around in the sky like the assholes they are. All the rules about Angels applies here, except that The Law is not as overbearing. Not overbearing, but not absent. You can listen to music or own liquids, but don’t attack them. That’s begging for trouble.

Glog'oht: OH SHIT. You know how bad it is to get Angels? This is worse. The Others plant their tentacled eldritch asses directly on your Land. I recommend just leaving and not coming back until they leave or something.

On the other hand, you know how Angel and Other corruption cancel each other out? If you get “The Land of Angels and Glog’oht”, then it’s perfectly safe to walk around. If you have Glog’oht, crack your planet open and let the Angels clear them out.

[Weather/Time of Day]: If you get something along the lines of Rain, Sunshine, or Fog, then guess what you’re going to encounter in your Land. Also, if you get Daylight, Nightfall, or similar, then you can make an educated guess as to what your Land will be like. This usually isn’t deadly, but it can be a nuisance. Trolls won’t have to worry about being fried by the light, but it will hurt, get some shades. Similarly, the rain or snow isn’t in a torrent, but it will get you wet or cold slightly. Just plan accordingly and get used to it.

Additional note on the day/night cycles. Your Land has ambient light depending on your sleepiness. It will be day when you are awake, it will go down when you’re sleepy, become night when you sleep, and becomes day when you wake up. Obviously, your Land will now be stuck in one state. So take care of yourself or set a timer, because your Land won’t regulate your sleep schedule for you now.

Wrath: Good News, your Echeladder and Strifing ability will skyrocket. Bad News, literally everything on the planet is pissed off. They will attack on sight and won’t stop until one or both parties is dead. Don’t even think of entering an Atomyk Ebonpyre.

Critical NPCs like Consorts and the Denizen will not attack on sight, but they will be belligerent.

Pumpkins:

Peace: Every deadly NPC looks docile and nonhostile. That means your Underlings and bosses will look safe to be around. Note that I put focus on looks. Because if you’re dumb enough to be given the Killer Rabbit treatment in the Kids and Fun game, you kind of deserve it.

[Your Aspect]: Despite this making complete sense that your planet would just namedrop your Aspect, this is actually pretty horrible. Firstly, because this generates on somebody else’s Land. This causes a lot of identification issues for you and the other guy. Secondly, don’t visit there. The Land does not quite like you, and you’ll glitch into the walls and through floors and stuff. Just keep your distance.

X and Y and Z: Sometimes your Land goes braindead and gives your THREE keywords because apparently two wasn’t good enough for you. For some reason, this goes on Space Lands automatically. It tries to replace the Aspect Keyword with Frogs, but it just adds one more, but the last two keywords overlap and it’s unreadable on your Land. Players with the ability to scry on game data can see it accurately though, and at worst you can just guess.

And for some reason, if this happens on a non-Space Land, it’s correctly formatted as “X and Y and Z” instead of “X and YZ”, go figure.

The Golden Towers - Prospit

When you got to sleep after the game starts (and sometimes before if you’re a special little thing), you “wake up” on a gigantic piss-yellow eyesore of a planet. This is the Dream Moon of Prospit, and it also has a moon attached via chain even though I’m pretty sure that isn’t how that works. This Dream Moon has several features itself, like Lands.

Gigantic Letters That Spell Out The Name Of The Moon: In case you were confused. This is also the limit to how far you can fly away unless your Dreamself is the only living Self you have, you’ve [Earned Your Wings] in the flying lessons quest, or you’re a Hope Player.

Your Unconscious Body: If you’re a Prospit Dreamer, then you’ll wake up on Prospit. It’s as simple as that. Use this opportunity to chill out from the stress of being awake, do Moon Quests to build reputation, or do other things. If SBURB is a game (and it is), then being on a Dream Moon is like doing mini-games. Unless you want to fly off to go back, but that doesn’t have a lot of advantages unless you’re clever (which you should be).

Your Friend’s Unconscious Bodies: Some of your friends are here too. If they aren’t, they’re dead or on Derse. If you two are awake at the same time, then go have fun. If they have an active but sleeping Dreamself, then you CAN wake them up, but it knocks them out in the real world, so maybe don’t do that.

There’s a rumour that a Dreamself can activate an inactive Dreamself by kissing them. This is not true. Either someone is a fairytale romantic, is confused about corpsesmooching, or is laughing wildly that about a hundred kids are macking on Dreamselves. Stop it.

Collective Dum Dum: A weird quirk is that when you are a Dreamself, one of two things tend to happen. Either you become a flanderized version of yourself, or you go stupid like an actual dream. None are very constructive when it comes to collaboration or trying to get shit done.

White Chess People: They’re cheery, in spite of the fact they all know they’re doomed to fail.

Useless Assholes: There’s anywhere from 3 to 8 Prospitian Agents to the 4 Derse Agents. They’re supposed to be carrying out the will of the Prospitian Royalty, and also help/hinder the players depending on the circumstances. They’re supposed to, but they mostly spend a lot of time doing random bullshit shenanigans due to a glitched out [Shenanigans_AI] stat.

White Royalty: The White Queen and White King respectively. They’re helpful to your cause, but doomed to fail.

Another Moon Chained To The Main Moon: THAT’S NOT HOW THAT WORKS.

Portents Of The Future/Blindness: Sometimes, Prospit comes close to Skaia. During these times, you can gaze into the clouds of Skaia and see visions of the past, present, and future. An amazing time to get information on what’s going on, and it’s just relaxing too. Whatever you do though, stay inside when the two eclipse. It’s BRIGHT and you will go blind. Especially if you’re a Seer, because the game likes blowing your eyes up.

The Mail: It never fails. Seriously, those mailmen and mailwomen do more than you ever do in any of your Sessions.

Towers That Kill You If You Get Too Close: There exist [Number of Players/2] yellow towers with white orbs on Prospit. Everytime a player enters with a prototyped kernelsprite, they light up. Very useful for figuring out how far everyone is into the game. However, this is where a lot of critical information is stowed. The game actually took a precaution, and protects these towers. The only problem is that it does this by instantly killing you when you get close. Not ever Denizens pull that kind of stunt. All of the towers are on boxes, so as long as you don’t touch or come near the boxes, you’ll be okay.

The Obsidian Towers - Derse

This is similar to Prospit, except it has a few crucial differences, listed here.

A Bearable Colour Scheme: Seriously that bright yellow hurts my eyes.

Black Chess People: They are NOT cheery.

Murderous Assholes: Unlike the 3-8 functionally useless Prospit Agents, there are a concrete 4 Derse Agents. And they actually do what they’re supposed to do for the most part. Unfortunately, that’s hindering and even attempting to kill you. While their names vary, they each have the same quirks, personality, and looks to separate them.

CD is probably the least dangerous, as he really likes hats, often defuses conflicts, and is kind of an idiot. Don’t discount him though. He has access to tons of explosives, and usually strikes once people stop treating him like a threat. It’s unknown if he’s putting up a front and this is his form of tactics, or if he just suddenly remembers he’s supposed to kill you after a while.

HB is also kind of low, but for the wrong reasons. He’s forward, tactless, and raw. Everyone else plans before doing something, but he just goes for it. It doesn’t hurt that he’s built like a brick shithouse and can horrifically unhinge his jaw to bite chunks out of people. It’s actually kind of nauseating. In spite of his tremendous strengths, he has some glaring weaknesses though. He’s an unstoppable force, so throw some immovable objects or tricks his way. And secondly, his head is very detachable. Just aim for his melon and he’ll be instantly decapitated. I don’t know why.

DD is probably either the most dangerous or second most dangerous of the Agents. He’s cold, cool, calculating, and some other words starting with “C” that denote that he operates like a mobster. It doesn’t help that he has a fucking fandom on the Replayernet (???). Expect him to pop up when you aren’t expecting it. He only has two weaknesses. The first being that he’s lazy and is almost always on a smoke break, giving you a breather (how ironic). The second one is... it’s hard to broach this topic. All I have to say is that those with not a lot of self respect can gain some brownie points from him by being a girl in a grey tint. Don’t read the newspaper.

Jack Noir is THE most dangerous one. Take DD’s ruthlessness and remove the tact, the laziness, and the “Noble Demon” thing. He’s a bloodthirsty and stab-happy force of nature. He’s luckily chained down by bureaucracy, but when he starts moving, things change. He’ll stab and switch and command and connive and stab some more because that’s just the type of person he is. The only saving grace you get is that he loves black licorice scotty dogs, and has a kismesis towards the Black Queen that can be exploited.

Black Royalty: The Black King and Queen. The former is the Final Boss of the game. The latter is The Dragon (and a bonus boss for people who hate living), but luckily she can be reasoned with, or manipulated.

Dark Portents/Tentacles: Just like Prospit comes close to and overlaps with Skaia, Derse comes close to and overlaps with The Furthest Ring. Feel free to listen to the song of the Horrorterrors, and even make a Deal if all goes wrong. Just stay away. They’re not above picking Players out like snacks.

I Keep Going To Sleep And I Don’t Wake Up On My Planet!

That’s because your Sleep Ratio is horrible. You need to relax to raise the Sleep Ratio. Get betters pillows, drink warm milk, and put on calming music. Another good way is facing something unpleasant. The act of confronting something one would rather avoid and “awakening” can cause your Dreamself to become active.

Unless you got shanked in your sleep, in which case, too bad. No amount of relaxation fixes that.

This Dream Moon Sucks I Want A Different One!

Too bad. It’s not like they matter anyway. It’s just a framing device to get an extra life/do more quests. Just deal with it.

My Dreamself Died, But I’m Waking Up Somewhere Different!

Oh, this is fun. You found the Dreambubbles. These don’t appear in every Session, but it’s a cool experience. You can interact with dead Players and their memories. Just don’t expect to get anything done, because it’s almost always dumb shit going on in there.

The Veil

The Veil is a ring of meteors around the Incipisphere. These meteors are the same ones that destroyed your planet (or at least I hope they destroyed your planet). You may be wondering why they’re all still there. That’s because when the game is about to end (this event is called The Reckoning), the meteors will assail Skaia. Skaia protects itself and sends them back in time, at your planet.

Thanks Skaia.

So Why Should I Care About Rocks In Space?

Because one of these rocks contains a lab filled with weird science shit. This is the Ectobiology Lab. This is where Underlings are cloned, and so are you and all your friends. And their Guardians/Children!

What this means basically is that the Ectobiologist will stumble upon this place like a tool, ogle blankly at an Appearifier screen, press buttons, watch paradoxes happen, slime gets created and shoved into some tubes, some babies come out, the slime mixes, and then more babies come out. They then scream and flail in the newfound baby pile, accidentally put them on meteors, and send them off to Skaia/your planet, and then wander off again.

Thrilling. I Still Don’t See Why I Should Care.

Because if you’re this apathetic about awesome time travelling space rocks, then your Session is doomed to fail. If that happens, and you feel like escaping like I did, but don’t have a ship like I do, then your next best bet is the Ectobiology Lab meteor. It’s the largest one, decked out with all manner of cool technology, and an Appearifier means you can snatch food from your pre-destroyed home planet.

The Furthest Ring

Don’t go here.

I Actually Enjoy Horrible Things Like Brain Fucking

Don’t. Go. Here. There are certain situations where you need to get close to the Horrorterrors. I understand. But don’t go to The Furthest Ring directly. Even if you think you’re going to just get close and make a deal, they can still reach out and eat you. If you NEED to perform a Deal or other communion, then go out onto Derse’s streets, or in some weird ruins, or your own house with all this occult stuff. There’s guides for holding communion with the Others.

Skaia

The gigantic ball of light in the center of the new solar system. This is Skaia. Your goal is to build your Dwelling Spire up here, pass through the Seven Gates, and reach it.

Is It That Simple?

 For once, it is. Of course, you can complicate it by going early, but that involve Ascending to the God Tiers, but you’re probably better off doing the easy things first.

Why Do I Want To Go To Skaia?

Because there lies The Battlefield. The forces of Prospit and Derse will converge here to do battle. Prospit is always doomed to failure though, and the Players will have to be the ones to face the Black King and claim The Ultimate Reward.

In other words, progress, build up, reach the shiny ball of light in the sky, and fight the final boss to win the game.

The Battlefield Doesn’t Look Complete

[Critical] If that’s the case, someone entered the game without Prototyping their Kernelsprite. This is a Void Session. Go find a guide on that, your concerns are more pressing.

The Green Sun

We have next to no information on this entity. It is located within the Furthest Ring, and the First Guardian may be connected to it. Otherwise, we still don’t know what the The Green Sun is.

[eyeofthestorm888]

Technology implies belligerence.

Blindsight by Peter Watts

[positron2399]

The brunniees and their warships

Another sophont species from an illustrated web novel I'm working on called "Whispers in the Stars," which is a superhero story that takes place in a dark forest universe

I'd bore you readers with their lore, but I didn't write it down yet :p

Regardless, they’re an alien species that's both a parody and love letter to the centaur races that were really popular in spec evo a few years ago. They evolved from four legged ancestors who only grew a "sixth" pair of legs as they were weird monkey chinchilla things. Said "chinchillas" only evolved into "ungulates" after an asteroid or dead space habitats crashed into their world at 100 km/s. The "rodents" only survived caused they munched on seeds and dead "wood," which was plentiful.

Also, while I compared them to mammals, they're actually a closer analog to flightless birds or pterosaurs, especially in their bone, lung, and egg structures. Luckily for their women, the crap hole and egg hole are separated, so no death via constipation after a failed period.

Their ships where heavily inspired (ripped off) by these:

http://toughsf.blogspot.com/2016/10/space-warship-design-iv-complete.html?m=1

https://www.reddit.com/r/threebodyproblem/s/AI6Qxf7XlK

[ganymedesclock]

Lotor and Sendak: Longstanding rivals?

Something I was mulling over is the idea that Lotor and Sendak seem to recognize each other just fine in s5e4, neither particularly requiring introduction, and they immediately set into each other with fairly intense enmity.

The paladins’ handbook specifically states that Sendak was personally trained by Zarkon- which is confirmed by Zarkon’s own words at the end of s1e3.

Which... the only other time in canon we’ve seen that brought up was Lotor pointing out Zarkon never trained him in s4e3.

The s6 trailer seems to suggest things are going to heat up into a full war of succession between Lotor and Sendak. And what we know about Sendak is that Zarkon and Haggar both seem quite fond of him- Haggar wanted to put him on the throne and wanted to give him impressive weapons. She claims that Sendak was Zarkon’s “right hand” and this would seem to be corroborated by what we see in s1e1- that Sendak was the first one Zarkon sent after the paladins, and that the Red Lion was also in Sendak’s ship.

It could mean Red was a recent discovery, but I think it could very well also mean that Zarkon had gifted the Red Lion to Sendak. Which is a pretty big statement considering Zarkon’s relationship with Alfor. And Zarkon in s1e3 actually expresses complete confidence in Sendak- he chooses not to have Haggar create another Robeast because “Sendak is still alive on Arus. I’ve given him instructions for how to proceed.” 

(And Haggar does ask “can he be trusted?” but given her nomination of him as ruler, to me, that implies less a lack of faith and more she takes issue with the idea that Sendak might succeed where Myzax- her own handiwork- failed)

Another element in the trailer is Sendak rather explicitly attacking civilians, and what’s already been pointed out is the similarity between that and the events that led up to Lotor’s exile.

Haggar says Sendak has been Zarkon’s “right hand” for millennia. The destroyed colony happened, according to Lotor, at least centuries ago.

In s1e3 Sendak claims that the paladins have “the worst weakness of all: they value the lives of others.”

This is a pretty damning statement for how Sendak would feel about the reason behind Lotor’s exile- because the “others” Sendak is specifically referencing in this scene is the Arusians. And what is it in s1e3 and s1e4 the paladins are doing with the Arusians? Socializing with them, sharing technology and culture. Trying to protect them and preserve them.

Exactly what Lotor was doing on the colony.

And in s4e3 and s4e6 both, when Zarkon attacks Lotor he makes no attempt to make it private but mobilizes many different galra fleets to attack with him- neither of which were occasions Zarkon was attacking an entire planet or committing genocide, which even if we assume Lotor’s colony had relatively limited technology, would require significant manpower.

There’s no guarantee that Sendak was there, or that he participated- he may not have been alive at the time- but it is worth noting that little bit of Zarkon talking about Sendak in s1e3 is probably the proudest we’ve ever heard Zarkon talk about any of his subordinates save Haggar.

So I have to wonder if Sendak was, effectively, the “favored son” over Lotor despite not being related to Zarkon by either blood or adoption- and that he and Lotor might have some longstanding resentment between the two of them.

After all, it goes both ways- Lotor is, in Sendak’s eye, “guilty” of compassion and empathy, on top of being a half-galra who Sendak clearly doesn’t seem to think deserves to be respected as a person, given he threatened to make Lotor his slave. And from Lotor’s perspective- we’ve seen Lotor sneer at aggression and belligerence, and Sendak is nothing if not tenacious and quite aggressive.

[kaylenellanos-blog]

Effort Of The Electronic World In Military Technology

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[rametarin]

Mostly it's cause you post about a lot of really cool science stuff, so I thought you might have an answer to my burning question. I do specifically recall a lot of clean fuel stuff making headlines back as a kid, though. I guess it just takes a lot of time to get that stuff out of the lab.

It's all those reasons and more, depending on what it is.

My personal opinion? One of the reasons we've yet to fully transition has always been the state of battery technology. We can speculate from now until the 33rd of May just why research and development has lagged so hard, for so long, on the electric car. But my personal opinion is that it's related to belligerent state actors all but requiring oil and natural gas to be factors in their plans to control other, neighboring nations.

Yes, I am implying such powers as Russia and Saudi Arabia. Because what have we seen happen? Petro-republics cashing in on the worth of their national product as a source of revenue. Oil rich places either enslaving the world, or being enslaved as oil producing nations with contracts and shit deals by places like China, where they get robbery fees from Venezuela to pay loansharking and shitty deals and the bad deal perpetuates from the poverty.

Russia went all in on oil and natural gas as a petty, direct and authoritarian way to economically cuckold Europe. And what happened? Germany went so bananas that it SHUT DOWN clean nuclear power plants and tried to do everything with renewables. Which didn't work, because even with solar panel prices plummeting, solar is good for when the sun is out, but not for base loading, and absolutely horrible when you have no ubiquitous, cheap storage medium like molten salt reactors to turn turbines when the sun isn't out.

So what happened? Germany re-opened its coal mines and doubled-down on buying Russia's natural gas and oil. Wow. The Greens of Germany, for some reason, heralded this as an environmental win. Knowing full well the bullshit that goes in environmentally in Russian industry.

Almost as if there's some element in the Green Party, in every nation, that harbors more than their fair share of tankies.

Meanwhile, France continued erecting nuclear power plants, and what happened? Their air became CLEANER, their energy prices were HALF that of Germany, and their carbon footprint for the power produced became negligible, as opposed to the depleting air quality, higher energy costs and now dependence on a hostile, belligerent imperialist ethnostate hankering to start swallowing up parts of Europe it considers its sovereign territory. Which is.. effectively.. Europe.

And same with the Petro Islamic nations, using seemingly infinite oil and petro-dollars to finance global Jyhadism and Islamic fundamentalist supremacism. It is Saudi and Quatari and Iranian oil, minerals, gas, all the extreme cultural disparity between sheiks and peasants that incite religious fanaticism and cultural, theological romanticism. The wealthy create a histrionic bubble of tribalism to Islam and then point the wound up impoverished at non-Islamic communities and say 1.) "Destroy the heathens" 2.) "Go forth and multiply." State sponsored multi-ethnic ethnosupremacism as well as theosupremacism. All sponsored by oil.

But the thing about oil is, eventually, it runs out. And the thing about doubling, tripling, quadrupling down on making oil your biggest industry and export and source of revenue for your rapdily expanding country?.. It becomes a bubble, where you better HOPE you don't start running out of it. Or the entire civilization built on it comes tumbling down.

So you're the United States. You want to disrupt and bring those countries with belligerent ideas to heel, but you want to avoid nuclear war or armed conflict. You aren't afraid to fight, but you'd rather not kill millions of people in a senseless, expensive, bloody conflict and get depicted like a bloodthirsty savage in history- any more than you already have. What do you do?

..

You let them hoist themselves by their own petard, don't interrupt them as they set themselves up to hang from their own society by becoming overly dependent on a fuel source before ripping the rug out from under them and using the transition as leverage. Once they're set up to make the BIG bucks. Because they know, the thing that will fuck up their plans to force the wealthier nations to capitulate to them, is if the wealthier nations no longer require their scarce and cheap third world resource anymore in order to keep the gears of the modern world turning.

And hey, look. It appears like we're.. doing just that. Hm. How strange. Almost as if the relationships fostered between US oil men and the Saudis, experiments nation building in the middle east and modernizing Saudi Arabia were preludes to diplomatically recommend they consider liberalizing, modernizing and not trying to conquer the world through petrochemical scarcity anymore, now that access to energy would likely come from uranium, plutonium and thorium.

The Middle East took some convincing, but it's looking like the OPEC nations are begrudgingly acknowledging the inevitability. Electric cars and pure electric industry comes out, and petro fuel is no longer the trillion dollar a year industry it used to be with guaranteed market in the richest nations on earth; nations that dry up and stop being successful if their energy is cut.

And then we have Russia. Poor Russia. As a result of Crimea, the US flooded the market with oil for a bit. Which caused the Russian economy to fucking nosedive. I'm to understand it hit them hard enough it's still bruised. And then Putin pulled THIS shit.

I think Putin has done this, because he knows he WILL NOT get a chance to entrench any deeper into Europe, will not be able to bully Europeans any harder than he already has for fuel oil for heat and lights. There's officially a date by which Russia's near monopoly can no longer be subtle, but the bias domestically towards steering European nations towards forced dependence on Russian gas and oil from corrupt internal actors, has to surface now. The alternatives will be too cheap, with too many perks, if they're but flexed.

So he took a chance and got hamstrung by his own nutsack. Like a bear that tried to bully a porcupine den by sticking his entire dick and ballsack into it. And paid the price for it.

And what has Putin been hollering about during all this? Threats to nuke if anyone interrupts or intervenes or fights with them. It was always going to come down to this. They just needed to be given an organic opportunity to show their true colors and proactively make fools of themselves. The CIA didn't make Putin attack Ukraine and dribble on about how Ukranians as a culture don't exist and they're just more Russia. The mask has slipped away. The pretenses spoiled like moldy bread. He has to take responsibility for his actions and statements and you can't blame the magical mystical CIA for it, now.

Once Putin's Russia is too emaciated to function and, hopefully, disarmed of nuclear weapons, and falls in line with the OPEC nations, you may just see an absolute revolution of technological honesty and progress. And a revealed powerlevel of where technological progress in DARPA and deep black American projects have taken it over the last 50 years. As well as things that seemed like no-brainers suddenly finish coming to the table where we thought they should've been since 30 years ago.

That's my little ole take on it.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

UNLESS THEIR WORKING DAY ENDS AT THE SAME TIME

The average 25 year old is no match for companies that have already raised money. But once you've admitted that one high level language can be more powerful than your own. I was still wasting time imitating the wrong things? I first laid out these principles explicitly, I noticed something striking: this is practically a recipe for succeeding just by negating. Productivity varies in any field, but I don't think our competitors understood, and few understand even now: when you're writing software that only has to do something trivially easy. That may be the more important of the two. Certainly not the authors. Whether to do anything hard in. Lexical closures provide a way to get a job. For example, open source software is more reliable precisely because it's open source; anyone can find mistakes. By the end of the scale, nature seems to be more companies like us. This essay is derived from a talk at Oscon 2005.

The people who understood our technology best were the customers. Fortunately you have some control over both how much you make, and you can decrease the amount of bullshit in your life by more than you think. By definition you can't tell from his portfolio. I knew practically nothing about the paths from rich to poor.1 If your terms force startups to do things they never anticipated, rather than a real downtown, Brasilia rather than Rome, Ada rather than C. There's nothing like going to grad school at Harvard to cure you of any illusions you might have about the average Harvard undergrad. What you're doing is business creation. Maybe it would be misleading even to call them centers. And the thing we'd built, as far as they could tell, wasn't even software. Many things people like, especially if they're young and ambitious, they like largely for the feeling of virtue in liking them. A programming language does need a good implementation, of course, but as far as they could tell, wasn't even software.2

Technically the term high-level language, in the long run, of the forces underlying open source and blogs are done for free, but before the Web it was harder than it looked.3 When you choose technology, you have to figure out. It's there to some degree in almost every field, but there aren't enough investors who will give $200k to a startup that was sufficiently successful would never have to move. VCs. So you could say either was the cause. The companies that rule Silicon Valley now are all descended in various ways from Shockley Semiconductor. Hackers like to hack, and hacking means getting inside things and second guessing the original designer. It's basically the diminutive form of belligerent. They switch because it's a better browser.4

It's not simply a matter of writing a lot of the new principles business has to learn it? He suggests starting with Python and Java, because they are easy to learn. That's what you do.5 Does this sound familiar?6 Except books—but books are different. And users don't care where you went to a better college. But if you make a language popular? The language can help here too. Now Palo Alto is suburbia, but then it was a charming college town—a language you should learn as an intellectual exercise, even though the latter depends more on determination than brains. How do you protect yourself from these people?

If you make something users want, then you're dead, whatever else you do or don't do. I bet this isn't true.7 I think the effect of such external factors on the popularity of a programming language rather than, say, making the language strongly typed. People interested in local events that one is solving mostly a single type of problem instead of many different types. Microsoft is remarkable among big companies in that they are able to develop software in house. But Y Combinator runs on the maker's schedule has a meeting, they have to be really good at tricking you. They were not even on a path to anything interesting. By the time you have to design buildings that don't fall down, but the creator is full of soot. If willfulness and discipline are what get you to profitability but you can tell it must be satisfying expectations I didn't know I had. The last one might be the most important.

The Reddits pushed so hard against the current that they reversed it; now it looks like they're merely floating downstream.8 If you throw them out, you find that good products do tend to win in the market. And God help you if you choose them. It seems unlikely this is a sign that something is broken?9 How about writer?10 Our secret weapon was similar. But there's another way of using time that's common among people who make things, like programmers and writers. Revealingly, the same status as what comes with it. What's less often understood is that there are more of them. For I see a painting impressively hung in a museum, I ask myself: how much would I pay for this if I found it at a garage sale, dirty and frameless, and with no idea who painted it?

The reason we tell founders not to worry about and which not to.11 The melon seed model implies it's possible to make yourself into one. My God, it was harder to reach an audience or collaborate on projects. Better to get a lot done. I accumulated all this useless stuff, but that the people pretending to work. There is usually so much demand for custom work that unless you're really incompetent there has to be in the twentieth century.12 Using first and rest instead of car and cdr often are, in successive lines.

And that is just what tends to happen. I cheat by using a very dense language, which shrinks the court. In this particular case there is a way to finesse our way out of lower-level abstractions are built in a very transparent way out of lower-level abstractions, which you can survive.13 And odds are that is in fact the bullshit-minimizing option. There are usually a few people in a company with someone you dislike because they have some skill you need and you worry you won't find anyone else. Note too that determination and talent are not the whole story. That word balance is a significant one.14 I tried my best to imitate them. Often, indeed, it is at least different from when I started. You may have as many as five or ten releases a day.15 So if Lisp makes you a better programmer, like he says, why wouldn't you want to get the most out of them, and lose half a day's work; or we can try to avoid meeting them, and probably offend them.

Notes

For example, understanding French will help dispel the cloud of semi-sacred mystery that surrounds wisdom in ancient philosophy may be some things it's a significant effect on returns, it's easy to believe your whole future depends on where you go to grad school, and the war it was actually a computer.

Investors are professional negotiators, and all the East Coast. In many ways the New Deal but with World War II had disappeared.

Ed. Some of the lies we tell.

When I catch egregiously linkjacked posts I replace the url with that additional constraint, you can't even claim, like indifference to individual users. In Shakespeare's own time in the 1980s was enabled by a central authority according to some abstract notion of fairness or randomly, in the 70s, moving to Monaco would give us. VCs may begin to conserve board seats by switching to what modernist architects meant.

The person who would in 1950. I did when I was a good idea to make money from the truth to say that was actively maintained would be investors who turned them down because investors already owned more than just getting started. 7% of American kids attend private, non-programmers grasped that in the world of the most accurate way to find a broad hard-beaten road to his time was 700,000 per month. But one of few they had in grad school, because they attract so much on luck.

Dealers try to write your thoughts down in, say, recursion, and in fact you're descending in a difficult position. But do you use this route instead.

In principle yes, of S P 500 CEOs in 2002 was 35,560.

Some blue counties are false positives caused by filters will have to want them; you don't see them, but whether it's good enough to convince limited partners. If by cutting the founders' advantage if it were. An accountant might say that IBM makes decent hardware.

This is not a VC who read it ever wished it longer. 'Math for engineers' classes sucked mightily. Even college textbooks is unpleasant work, like warehouses. 5% of Apple now January 2016 would be to say because most of the lawyers they need them to get the people worth impressing already judge you more than investors.

So the most surprising things I've learned about VC inattentiveness. Stone, op. No, we met Aydin Senkut. I overstated the case.

The way to pressure them to ignore investors and instead of just Jews any more than make them want you.

I couldn't convince Fred Wilson for reading drafts of this essay, I preferred to work than stay home with them. I wonder if that means is No, and that modern corporate executives would work. Mayle, Peter, Why Are We Getting a Divorce?

There are people in return for something that would appeal to space aliens, but this would be critical to do something we didn't, they still probably won't invest in so many different schools of thought about how to allocate resources, political deal-making power. There were a variety called Red Delicious that had other meanings. The problem is that you'll expend a lot like meaning.

It's not the shape that matters financially for investors. This plan backfired with the New Deal but with World War II the tax codes were so bad that they probably wouldn't be worth trying to deliver the lines meant for a startup than it was 10 years ago. At the time I thought there wasn't, because they can't afford to. Where Do College English 28 1966-67, pp.

Your user model almost couldn't be perfectly accurate, because the illiquidity of progress puts them at the works of their growth from earnings.

[mideastsoccer]

China in the Middle East: Stepping up to the plate

By James M. Dorsey

By defining Chinese characteristics as “seeking common ground while reserving differences,” a formula that implies conflict management rather than conflict resolution, Messrs. Sun and Wu were suggesting that China was seeking to prepare the ground for greater Chinese engagement in efforts to stabilize the Middle East, a volatile region that repeatedly threatens to spin out of control.

The scholars defined China’s goal as building an inclusive and shared regional collective security mechanism based on fairness, justice, multilateralism, comprehensive governance, and the containment of differences.

By implication, Messrs. Sun and Wu’s vision reflected a growing realization in China that it no longer can protect its mushrooming interests exclusively through economic cooperation, trade, and investment.

It also signalled an understanding that stability in the Middle East can only be achieved through an inclusive, comprehensive, and multilateral reconstructed security architecture of which China would have to be part.

Messrs. Sun and Wu’s article, published in a prominent Chine policy journal, was part of a subtle and cautious Chinese messaging that was directed towards players on all sides of the Middle East’s multiple divides.

To be clear, China, like Russia, is not seeking to replace the United States, certainly not in military terms, as a dominant force in the Middle East. Rather, it is gradually laying the groundwork to capitalize on a US desire to rejigger its regional commitments by exploiting US efforts to share the burden more broadly with its regional partners and allies.

China is further suggesting that the United States has proven to be unable to manage the Middle East’s myriad conflicts and disputes, making it a Chinese interest to help steer the region into calmer waters while retaining the US military as the backbone of whatever restructured security architecture emerges.

Implicit in the message is the assumption that the Middle East may be one part of the world in which the United States and China can simultaneously cooperate and compete; cooperate in maintaining regional security and compete on issues like technology.

That may prove to be an idealized vision. China, like the United States, is more likely to discover that getting from A to B can be torturous and that avoiding being sucked into the Middle East’s myriad conflicts is easier said than done.

China has long prided itself on its ability to maintain good relations with all sides of the divide by avoiding engagement in the crux of the Middle East’s at times existential divides.

Yet, building a sustainable security architecture that includes conflict management mechanisms, without tackling the core of those divides, is likely to prove all but impossible. The real question is at what point does China feel that the cost of non-engagement outweighs the cost of engagement?

The Middle East is nowhere close to entertaining the kind of approaches and policies required to construct an inclusive security architecture. Nevertheless, changes to US policy being adopted by the Biden administration are producing cracks in the posture of various Middle Eastern states, albeit tiny ones, that bolster the Chinese messaging.

Various belligerents, including Saudia Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Turkey, but not Iran or Israel, at least when it comes to issues like Iran and the Palestinians, have sought to lower the region’s temperature even if fundamentals have not changed.

A potential revival of the 2015 international Iran nuclear agreement could provide a monkey wrench.

There is little doubt that any US-Iranian agreement to do so would focus exclusively on nuclear issues and would not include other agenda points such as ballistic missiles and Iranian support for non-state actors in parts of the Middle East. The silver lining is that ballistic missiles and support for non-state actors are issues that Iran would likely discuss if they were embedded in a discussion about restructured regional security arrangements.

This is where China may have a significant contribution to make. Getting all parties to agree to discuss a broader, more inclusive security arrangement involves not just cajoling but also assuaging fears, including whether and to what degree Chinese relations with an Iran unfettered by US sanctions and international isolation would affect Gulf states.

To be sure, while China has much going for it in the Middle East such as its principle of non-interference in the domestic affairs of others, its affinity for autocracy, and its economic weight and emphasis on economic issues, it also needs to manage pitfalls. These include reputational issues despite its vaccine diplomacy, repression of the Uyghurs in the north-western province of Xinjiang, and discrimination against other Muslim communities.

China’s anti-Muslim policies may not be an immediate issue for much of the Muslim world, but they continuously loom as a potential grey swan.

Nevertheless, China, beyond doubt, alongside the United States can play a key role in stabilizing the Middle East. The question is whether both Beijing and Washington can and will step up to the plate.

A podcast version of this story is available on Soundcloud,s Itunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spreaker, Pocket Casts, Tumblr, Podbean, Audecibel, Patreon and Castbox.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is an award-winning journalist and a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore and the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute.