#BKWK talks

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Is there a fandom name for The Dragon Witch? Considering we’ve named just about everything and everyone else.

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The Russian Second Pacific Squadron.

When I first started watching this video, “The Voyage of the Damned”, I was... honestly expecting something more along the lines of the second part of the video series. Names, dates, a naval defeat for the Russian Empire. (Which is mostly what the second video covers.)

I was not expecting this:

“The fleet had gone from a mad collection of questionable warships, to a floating diplomatic disaster, to a set of mobile fuel air bombs, and was now taking a turn at being the world’s largest sea borne zoo.”

It’s a long story, but if you like naval history, and history that is absolutely BATSHIT hilarious, give this a shot.

For example, the sea borne zoo bit is when, to fix the sailors’ flagging morale, they bring exotic pets acquired from shore leave aboard. Including a crocodile, a venomous snake, (that wraps itself around the main guns and then bits the commanding officer of that ship when he tries to remove said snake) several chameleons that regularly escaped and proved hard to locate when they did so, and a parrot who learned the admiral’s vast and effusive vocabulary of Russian curses and insults for captains and ships that annoyed him.

And that’s arguably not the most interesting thing that happens to this squadron.

*That* title probably goes to the Kamchatka. An absolute fucking troll of a ship.

Like the time before they set sail when someone working on one of the new battleship and, “seemingly forgets that battleships need their hulls intact to be able to float, so removes some sheathing and goes home for the day. Leaving the battleship to sink while at anchor in Kamchatka Harbour and needing to be refloated and repaired before setting sail.”

At just over 40 minutes, I understand it’s a very heavy investment, but I just want to say one final thing, and it’s the introduction to the second part of the series about this squadron.

“The Admiral and the Second Pacific Squadron had faced, and dealt with, numerous threats over the past few months. Imaginary Japanese torpedo boats, *Real* English fishing boats, the Kamchatka, almost starting a war with a global superpower, (The British Empire) accidentally shooting up their own vessels (including once during a funeral service)... 

“...The Kamchatka, disease, mountainous seas, the Kamchatka, venomous snakes, prophets of the End Times, the Kamchatka, high-born officers running rat hunts through the fleet, being saddled with a bunch of obsolete floating targets that only served to slow them down...

“... And of course, The Kamchatka.”

And all of that is in the fucking first part.

And I wondered if Drachinifel was exaggerating about the squadron being as close to deserving of the title, “Voyage of the Damned” as anyone was ever likely to find.

As it turns out, they were not.

(And remarkably, I’ve not spoiled the video. I could never spoil the depths of fuckery the Kamchatka specifically or the Squadron generally gets up to.)

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Since I’m really not having a good night tonight, I’d love some distraction. Cute animals, weird facts, Sanders Sides/Shorts/Cartoon Therapy headcanons, (preferably Moxiety or anything with Remy) would be really appreciated. Just anything to drag me out of my own mind for a while.

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Current writing mood: The Fairy Godmother from Shrek 2 singing, “I Need A Hero” except instead of singing about needing a hero, she’s singing about needing motivation.

Ugh. I hate my brain.

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Vent.

I really *love* my brain sometimes. I went to sleep at a reasonable time last night, everything’s... okay, wake up with a mind filled with RSD, anxiety, and general Badness. Then I burn myself making lunch and my first thought is, happiness, I think.

Maybe it wasn’t accidental. I do like burning myself. Or maybe it was. I mean, my hands have shaken ever since my epilepsy introduced itself, I’m probably just looking for shit that’s not there. And I’ve burned myself a lot because I’m an uncoordinated and unobservant little shit. Eh.

Guess I’ll find out if I do it again.

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So, the Rockerboy has to try and interest the crowd at his gig, prove to them he’s the most interesting thing in the room.

“I think... a burst of pyrotechnics from Priscilla.”

And everyone’s torn between, “Oh, cool.” and, “This is how you burned your face off.”

The GM’s like, “Okay, roll a Basic Tech check and add your skill, tell me what you get.”

“I got 14... and I don’t have a skill in Basic Tech.”

Immediately the corpo who funded his face is just like... “Oh god, I’m having flashbacks.”

I’m not going to blog every five minutes of this, (hopefully), but I can see why this episode is called, “A Night To Remember”.

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So to try and get out of my own head, I’m watching a Let’s Play of Cyberpunk 2020 on Youtube. The pen and paper RPG that Cyberpunk 2077 is based on.

And one of the characters is a Rockerboy who, “plays a guitar, a beautiful guitar, named Priscilla. ‘Scilla for short. But on the mean streets, everyone needs a weapon. So I modified Priscilla with a flamethrower.”

You know, as you do.

“And burned my own face off.”

... Orrr maybe not as you do.

So anyway, this guy got a cybernetic face mask, (think Daft Punk) and the comment?

“But it came with a cost that I didn’t foot.”

“Or face.”

“Or face.”

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Happy Holidays to everyone who’s celebrating. =)

Happy time off to everyone who’s not. =)

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Vent

Triggers: Eating disorder mentions, self-harm mention, lots of swearing. And me just being a salty, bitchy little bastard.

Ahh, Google. I can understand their stance and corporate desire to want to be the cheapest whore in the world, throwing themselves at anyone with an ad who waves a couple of coins in their direction, but I would have thought someone with two brain cells to run together would have explained the concept of not trying to kill their customers.

Apparently, that concept is far too fucking complicated for them.

Which isn’t actually surprising, but given they put the effort into trying to look responsible with their motto being, “Do the right thing”, I wonder what they did to whoever had enough brain cells to understand the value of appearance.

So last night I’m on my phone looking for the app, “Meal Log” because I’m pretty sure I’ve got an eating disorder, but it’s not on the Google Play Store. That I was able to find, anyway. Same thing happened when I went looking for the “Calm Harm” app a little while ago. (Maybe I need to update my browser?) Although, to be fair there, looking for Calm Harm was just unhelpful, there weren’t any potentially triggering apps there.

What was there, instead, were a pair of ads showing calorie counting apps, (just the fucking thing you want when looking for an ED assistance app) and a whole load of other ‘fitness’ apps which just seemed to all be meal trackers and/or glorified calorie counters.

Because this was last night I’ve already had my tantrum of calling google whores and incompetent fuckers (more than I have been here anyway, a previous draft was just all caps and way more swearing) and I’ve now just switched to apathy, so I can’t be bothered pointing out all the ways this problem could be fixed by someone at Google rubbing two brain cells together and producing a spark, but whatever.

Just... fuck you, Google.

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Temporary Hiatus

Hey everyone,

So my internet’s spotty atm and my ISP has a... less than stellar record when it comes to fixing it. And that was before they were handed the contract for the national internet upgrade which they’re fucking over fantastically. Anyway, no clue on when that’ll be fixed. It could be in the morning, it could be in a week.

And my computer has also decided that right now is the perfect time to develop massive problems.

So, I’ll still be around to a certain extent, but I’ll barely be able to look at my messages, let alone get anything done. So if I seem to be around but constantly vanishing, or if I don’t reply to any messages, I’m not ignoring anyone, but either my internet or my computer, possibly both aren’t stable enough to reply.

Hopefully I’ll be back soon. With at least the AU for my new AU complete. Hopefully.

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Is anyone familiar with The Rook Files (preferably book one but mini-series is also good) and Sanders Sides? I’m working on an AU right now but I’m stuck on which Sides match up to which characters. Specifically Patton and Virgil...

If anyone’s willing to help me brainstorm some ideas, please hit me up either in DMs or asks. =)

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Embarrassing Phases

Again, any spoilers for the new video will be tagged, “TS spoilers”.