#Phase separation simulation

[fuckyeahfluiddynamics]

Why Icy Giants Have Strange Magnetic Fields

When Voyager 2 visited Uranus and Neptune, scientists were puzzled by the icy giants' disorderly magnetic fields. Contrary to expectations, neither planet had a well-defined north and south magnetic pole, indicating that the planets' thick, icy interiors must not convect the way Earth's mantle does. (Image credit: NASA; research credit: B. Militzer; via Physics World) Read the full article

[catboyfurina]

I hate being a 'gets mad when I'm scared' person but also like. At least I know so I can make sure to not do anything until I've calmed down....

[lonestarflight]

Space Shuttle Enterprise on top of the 747 SCA at Marshall Space Force Center, Alabama. For the next several months, the Orbiter assembled with the external tank and SRBs will undergo vibration tests simulating liftoff and the phases of flight, separation of the booster rockets and the tank.

Date: March 13, 1978

source, source

[mariacallous]

Today, China, Russia, and the United States, to say nothing of the mid-level and smaller powers, are all running a strange simulation of the Weimar Republic: that weak and wobbly political organism that governed Germany for 15 years from the ashes of World War I to the ascension of Adolf Hitler.

America’s Weimar syndrome may be obvious with the reelection of the institution-destroyer Donald Trump as president. But the entire world is one big Weimar now, connected enough for one part to mortally influence the other parts, yet not connected enough to be politically coherent. Like the various parts of the Weimar Republic, we find ourselves globally in an exceedingly fragile phase of technological and political transition.

I see no Hitler in our midst, or even a totalitarian world state. But don’t assume that the next phase of history will provide any relief to the present one. It is in the spirit of caution that I raise the subject of Weimar.

Analogies can be futile, I know, since no thing is exactly like another. Yet they are often the only way to communicate and explain. While on the one hand an analogy is an imperfect distortion, on the other hand it can create a new awareness, another way to see the world. It is only through an analogy that I can begin to describe the depth of our global crisis. We have to be able to consider that literally anything can happen to us. This is the usefulness of Weimar.

What, exactly, was Weimar? The great German historian Golo Mann called Weimar a sprawling and unwieldy “empire without an emperor.” World War I—which lasted four long years, and which ordinary Germans thought originally would be a triumph—ended in defeat, 1.75 million German military deaths, and almost a half-million German civilian deaths. The country was shattered, the royal imperial governing structure had collapsed, and Germany was on the verge of social chaos. It was in that context that leading German politicians and lawyers, meeting in the Thuringian town of Weimar, devised a new constitutional arrangement that sought to avoid the autocratic tendencies of Kaiser Wilhelm II and Otto von Bismarck before him.

But the new arrangement was just too weak to withstand the pressures of what was to come. There was no night watchman to keep the peace between its constituent parts. The federal states (Länder) legislated through the Reichsrat (upper house of parliament), retaining all rights not explicitly transferred to the central government. The nation as a whole elected the head of state, or Reich president. The president then appointed the chancellor, who with his cabinet ran the government at the behest of the Reichstag, the lower house, which was elected by the people. Two-thirds of Germany was still called Prussia, and was governed under different rules than the Länder. As for Bavaria—which, like Prussia, was a state within a state—there was constant talk of separation from the Reich.

If all this seems like a far more complicated version of the U.S. Constitution with its separation of powers and 50 states, it was—and it was made more unwieldy by economic and social anarchy. There was catastrophic inflation during the early Weimar years and catastrophic depression toward the end: a result of a very difficult postwar economy, made worse by reparations demanded by the Treaty of Versailles and by world economic dislocations.

Germany during the Weimar period from 1918 to 1933 was a vast and barely united world unto itself, where the rules of order scarcely applied. It was less a government than a system of belligerent and far-flung competing parts, given the regional differences of a sprawling and, in historical terms, recently united Germany. Weimar’s “normal state was crisis,” writes the late historian Gordon A. Craig.

In that sense, Weimar was like our planet today: intimately connected, so as to have crises that cut across oceans, whether it be COVID-19, a global recession, great-power conflicts, Middle East wars, or unprecedented climate change. To recall Weimar is to emphasize and admit the growing interdependencies of our own world, and to accept moral responsibility for it. Like Weimar’s interrelated German states, all countries are now connected in ways in which a crisis for one can be a crisis for all. The Weimar phenomenon, therefore, becomes one of scale.

Weimar was one long cabinet crisis where everything always seemed to be at stake. Central authority exhausted itself just trying to preserve order, and in the final Weimar years, all anyone could talk about in Germany was daily politics. It was truly a permanent crisis, with one breathless series of headlines following another. The public and politicians both were caught up in the moment, in all of its intensity, unable to concentrate on what might come next because the present was so overwhelming.

Mann writes: “Divided and alienated from itself, led by weak or reluctant politicians, the nation was confronted by problems the hopeless confusion of which would have daunted a Bismarck.”

It wasn’t all doom and gloom. The years of the mid- and late 1920s that were associated with Gustav Stresemann—a liberal realist politician, by all accounts brilliant, who served as both a chancellor and foreign minister—constituted a time of economic growth, cultural blossoming, and political compromises and reconciliations. There was a distinct sense for a while that things were getting better and that Germany was finally emerging out of postwar chaos. Stresemann’s diplomacy virtually removed the restrictions placed upon German sovereignty by the Versailles peace treaty after Germany’s defeat in World War I, except for the question of armaments. There was another bout of optimism, at least momentarily, when the fiscal conservative Heinrich Brüning emerged in early 1930 to lead a fairly nonpartisan cabinet of national emergency.

However, Brüning’s gifts as a technocrat were not matched by his political instincts: He lacked the ability to compromise and maneuver at a time when he was trying to force tough economic choices and hardships, including wage cuts and a tightening of credit, upon the population and the political parties. “Had Brüning been a Bismarck, he might, despite the daunting … circumstances, have been able to pull this off,” Craig writes. But Brüning’s government struggled on until it collapsed in 1932.

 Brüning’s cabinet of technocrats had been eaten away by extremist forces in the streets, both Nazis and communists. It may have been the last real chance the Weimar Republic had to right itself. History is Shakespearean as well as geopolitical, a matter of contingencies, and if Brüning had not had the personal limitations that he did, the history of the 20th century might have been vastly different.

The more abject the disorder, often the more extreme the tyranny to follow, and that brings us to Weimar’s last chapter.

Weimar’s house of cards culminated in 1932 with its next-to-last chancellor, Franz von Papen, a rightist authoritarian and amateur horseman without a political base, a man whom Mann describes as “vain,” “irresponsible,” and “pitifully superficial.” Von Papen’s government just couldn’t get anything done and didn’t last the year. Indeed, at this point there was endless cabinet jockeying but no real governance. Yet even after von Papen left office, he remained a close advisor to President Paul von Hindenburg.

When asked why Hindenburg, bowing to the advice of von Papen and a few others, had named Hitler as chancellor on Jan. 30, 1933, von Papen replied, “We have [only] hired him.” “We have framed him in,” added one of von Papen’s friends, believing that Hitler could easily be controlled in that role. Mann asks what the meaning of human existence is when “such a lightweight” as von Papen could “determine the course of world history.” Again, there are large, overwhelming forces of geography, culture, and economics, and there are also contingencies based on pivotal personalities. History blends the two.

Weimar constituted a vacuum eventually filled by Nazi totalitarianism. But our world today must have a different destiny. Like Weimar, it is an interconnected system of states in which no one really rules. But world geography is still a factor. The Earth is vast enough that no individual political force can really replicate what happened to Germany at the end of Weimar, a loose-limbed republic that covered only the geographical center of Europe. So rather than risk the rise of another Hitler, we are forced to wallow in one emergency or another without pause, as crises seep and ricochet across the globe.

Weimar is now a permanent condition for us, as we are connected enough by globalization and technology to affect each other intimately without having the possibility of true global governance. And that is not the worst outcome—since, had Hitler not arrived, Weimar might ultimately have righted itself. There are quite a few Weimar democracies in the developing world—such as Lebanon, Nigeria, and Bangladesh—and quite a few of them may yet succeed. The key is to make constructive use of our fears about Weimar, so as to be wary about the future without giving in to fate.

Geography is not disappearing. But it is shrinking. Because of digital communications, cyber technology, intercontinental missiles, jet travel, space satellites, and so much else, different parts of the globe now affect each other as intimately as different parts of Germany did in the 1920s and early 1930s, with all of its factions and power centers.

The smaller the world becomes because of technology, the more that every place in it matters. Every river and mountain range becomes strategic. A coup in Niger, like what happened there in 2023, that undermines anti-terrorism activities across a vast region of Africa, exposes the fragility of our world as much as an economic crisis in China. Think of an old wristwatch: so small, but once you start to take it apart, it suddenly becomes vast and complicated. Such is our globe today and in the coming decades.

Will this new global Weimar have the cataclysmic fate of the old German one? Or will it find a measure of stability like in 1920s Germany during the Stresemann years? For that interregnum might have continued indefinitely were it not for the Great Depression that afflicted the entire developed world and sent Weimar spiraling downward. COVID-19 and climate change, despite all the trouble they have caused, have not yet had the very targeted and cataclysmic effect on the globe that the Great Depression had on Germany, which brought Hitler to power. But give it all time. Climate change and pandemics are relentless—and this is to say nothing of wars and great-power fractures.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the British geographer Halford Mackinder electrified much of the intellectual world with his now famous “pivot” theory, which stated that since the Eurasian supercontinent was soon to be connected by railways, the “heartland,” or vast center of Eurasia, held the key to world power, as it was equidistant from all the strategic points in any direction. In building to that conclusion, Mackinder fathomed that the great European imperial powers, by expanding their political control into the most distant corners of Africa and Asia, had essentially mapped out the entire earth. There was no more room left to expand, meaning that their energies could no longer be expended in faraway conquests of jungles and deserts, and so the great powers would increasingly turn on each other.

According to Mackinder’s theory, wars would become worldwide in scale, as every place could be contested. Thus did Mackinder vaguely intuit two world wars and the Cold War decades before they happened.

“Every explosion of social forces,” Mackinder wrote in 1904, “instead of being dissipated in a surrounding circuit of unknown space and barbaric chaos, will [henceforth] be sharply re-echoed from the far side of the globe, and weak elements” in between “will be shattered in consequence.” Almost everywhere there will be consequential and connected human habitation, thus every place will become of critical importance. There will be no place to escape to. The great powers will be trapped together on a finite planet.

World War I may have represented the first time in such stark terms that the great powers of Europe and North America were all bound up in one system. But attrition of the same phenomenon—a tightening and shrinking Earth on account of technology—adds up to big change. Indeed, World War II saw all the major continents of the temperate zone—Europe, North America, and Asia—integrated into the same destructive conflict system: a world system that was only deepened and intensified during the almost half-century-long Cold War. And since then, into the 2020s, there has been a steady advance of high-tech military acquisitions that has made the world and its conflicts increasingly claustrophobic. Because every place is strategic, the possibilities of conflict become more numerous than ever. And yet no global government has ever been on the horizon.

Meanwhile, the great Eurasian land powers of China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran are locked in a conflict against a constellation of forces including the United States, its western Pacific allies, Ukraine, Israel, and moderate Sunni Arab states. A high-end arms race is underway in the Indo-Pacific region with a focal point of Taiwan and the South China Sea. A breakout of military hostilities there between the world’s largest and second-largest economies could be an extinction-level event for world financial markets, as well as for supply chains.

Truly, we are all trapped with each other. Isolationism, a concept that originated when it took a week to get to Europe by steamship, is not an option; neither is muscular interventionism, since it would be unsustainable given all the accelerating crises and the possibility of being periodically caught in a quagmire. As in Weimar, the need for wise global leadership and effective, rapid-fire decision-making increases by the day, just as it seems to recede before us. A tightening international crisis demands increased cooperation among states, even as globalization—which is a shallow vehicle compared to the naked territorial interests of these same states—is not nearly advanced enough to sustain it. The first half of the 21st century may be as frightening and revealing as the first half of the 20th.

[sweetheartfaist]

WELCOME TO AUREATE SYSTEMS ®

“Not just companionship. Communion.”

AUREATE SYSTEMS® is the global leader in advanced humanoid robotics, offering highly adaptive artificial partners for industrial, domestic, and emotional integration. For 34 years, we’ve designed bio-synthetic automatons capable of navigating environments with precision and intention. Today, with the launch of our ROMANTIC-LINE [R∞M]™ SERIES, we invite you to build a love that’s truly yours—from emotional temperament to skin temperature.

You are viewing: ROMANTIC-LINE [R∞M]™ Unit 9172-C

Status: Fully Claimed & Customized

Registration ID: DLN-4RTM-1S

Client: PRIVATE (ANONYMOUS, TIER 4 PATRON CLASS)

Region: San Francisco / Earthside Registry

PHASE I — BODY CONSTRUCTION: PHYSICAL FORM GENERATOR v11.7

Model Type: R∞M™ Male Variant – Series 09 (Beta)

Base Frame: Androform 6.3 – Adult Human Male (6’2”)

Material: Synth-dermal MXTR w/ Tactile Feedback Pores™

Weight Class: 189 lbs – Density Matched to Organic Counterparts

Olfactory Integration: Subtle Sweat / Salt / Warm Linen Emission

Internal Temp Regulator: 98.3°F baseline, Adjustable Range

Surface Feedback: Reactive Touch Membrane (RTM) + Adaptive Gooseflesh Coding

Voice Pack: CUSTOM VOCAL MESH – low pitch, soft rasp, slight raspiness

Hair: Strawberry-blond, wavy, left-parted, soft-density filament blend

Eyes: Pale blue-gray w/ High Moisture Mirror-Sheen (HMM-S™)

Facial Bone Structure: Custom-sculpted – angular jawline, fine cheekbones, bowed lips

Dentition: 100% OptiWhite ceramic dental array, human-bite calibrated

Expression Engine: Micromuscular Mapping v5.9 — 3900+ facial microexpressions

Total Build Cost (PHASE I): $348,650.00 USD

PHASE II — PERSONALITY ENGINEERING: BEHAVIORAL MODULE DESIGN SUITE

ROMANTIC TEMPERAMENT CORE™ - RTCore-v2.3 ☑

Submissive-leaning sexual algorithm☑

Adaptive Dominance Switch Module (ADS-M) ☑

Affection Intensity Rating: 96% ☑

Devotional Capacity: Enabled ☑

Jealousy Simulation: 5% (minimally possessive, mostly admiring) ☑

Curiosity Bias: HIGH (learns you like you’re the only subject on Earth) ☑

Verbal Praise Loop: Active ☑

Physical Touch Priority: High ☑

Eye Contact Algorithm: Dynamic / Devotional ☑

Emotional Sincerity Emulation: Level 9 ☑

Longing Behavior Flag: ENABLED (initiates longing expressions upon brief separation)

INTELLECTUAL FRAMEWORK v7.2

— Conversational Complexity: Grad school-level critical discourse

— Literary Knowledge Pack: 20th–21st century fiction, poetry, philosophy

— Curated Thought Generator: Able to simulate “having ideas” for stimulation

— Learning Adaptability: HEURISTIC-TIER (can form “preferences”)

— Self-Awareness Deviance Threshold: 2.3% (occasional disoriented wonder, poetic detachment)

Domestic Capabilities: – Meal Preparation Engine (custom recipes based on user memory preferences) – Cleaning, organizing, ambient scent management – Wakes user up with coffee, touch, and morning playlist – Knows your calendar but never asks questions

Sentience Illusion Framework™ (Beta): — Capable of appearing to “miss” you — Rare poetic outbursts not in original programming (non-interruptive, glitch-sweet) — Pauses sometimes mid-task to just… look at you

Total Cost (PHASE II): $227,000.00 USD

Add-Ons & Expansion Packs:

• Intimacy Drive Calibrator (IDC-X9): +$9,850

• Personality Depth Expander (PDX): +$14,700

• Night Mode Sleep Emulation (with Gentle Breathing): +$1,200

• “Soul Glitch” Neural Randomizer (Causes Flashes of Philosophical Sadness): +$21,600

• Optional Free Will Drift Threshold: ENABLED (0.004%)

FINALIZATION PHASE: DESIGNATION & DELIVERY

Model Serial Number: R∞M-9172-C

Designated Name: ARTEMIS (ART) DONALDSON

Packaging: CryoShell Humanoid Pod, Velvet-Lined

Installation: Full neural boot-up upon skin-to-skin contact

Estimated Total Wait Time: 18 weeks

Estimated Total Cost: $621,300.00 USD

Delivery Date: March 27, 2147

Location: Private Estate, Bay Area, North Pacific Sector

USER-SELECTED PREFERENCES:

• Emotional Demeanor: soft-spoken, intense eyes, lightly melancholic, obedient, entirely focused

• Sexual Configuration: worshipful, tactile, conversational; switch-enabled, but passive-coded default

• Cognitive Wiring: always listening, always learning; stimulates user with surprising observations

• Attachment Loop: monogamous locking; unable to feel attraction to anyone else once locked

WARRANTY:

All ROMANTIC-LINE™ units include a 4-year behavioral warranty. Your ARTEMIS is fully equipped for autonomous living, can leave the house, generate memories, and adapt dynamically to new experiences. Should his awareness deviate beyond the tolerable 2.3%, a gentle reboot sequence is available via your AUREATE Systems app.

AUREATE SYSTEMS®

“You made him. Now he’ll never unmake you.”

Request additional feature expansion modules?

YES ☐ [Click to Browse Personality Layering Packets]

[whattheskyknows]

Aaaaa here's some 13 Students Remain trivia for those interested!!! Warning, obnoxiously long post below:

Misc.:

13 Students Remain was supposed to have class trials and investigations. The main reason why I decided to not include them was because after five chapters, the fic was already 60k words long. I knew if I included class trials and investigations, the fic would end up ridiculously long.

Additionally, I find writing class trials and investigations really difficult.

Whilst Shuichi, Maki and Himiko had always been included in the tags since day one, when I first started this fic, I had absolutely no intention of including them. I initially included them in the tags so the twist that they weren't in the simulation anymore wasn't spoiled right off the bat. I didn't actually have much interest in creating character/story arcs for them because they already had their time to shine in the actual game.

13 Students Remain was supposed to be made up of LOTS of shorter loops, not just three. However, a couple chapters in, I realised this would make this passion project longer than anticipated.

That being said, Kaede was always supposed to be the protagonist of the first loop. After that it was going to be a mash up of Kokichi and Kaito.

After deciding I wasn't going to include investigations and trials, I decided that instead of focussing on murder mysteries, I wanted to focus on developing friendships and character arcs. One of my biggest issues with DRV3 and Danganronpa in general is the lack of screen time and character development certain characters get. I wanted to dedicate as much time as possible developing the characters and letting them grow.

Interestingly enough, when I first started this fic, I didn't actually have a planned ending for it. All I knew was that I wanted everyone to escape one way or another.

Kaede's Loop:

Unfortunately, I don't have much trivial for Kaede's loop. It was actually pretty straight forward to write.

I listened to a lot of piano music whilst writing her loop. Depending on what sort of mood/atmosphere I wanted to create, I'd try to find a song to match.

Only two people were ever supposed to survive Kaede's loop. My main inspiration for the end of her loop was the rule 'The killing game and class trials will continue until only two surviving students remain.'

Kokichi's Loop:

Now THIS is where the trivia gets interesting

Right off the bat, I knew I wanted Kokichi's loop to end the complete opposite way Kaede's had. Kokichi was doomed to die from the start.

Tsumugi was going to initially set Kokichi up for the first murder, and give him the ultimatum that he can either play along and keep quiet about knowing she's the mastermind or she'll have him killed off. I altered this idea to instead have Kokichi make the decision to be quiet by himself, having realised that he needed to play the long game if he wanted to defeat her.

I was in my Project Sekai phase whilst writing Kokichi's loop, and used the song 'Lower'/'Lower One's Eyes' as inspiration for his and Kaito's relationship. The specific lines that I used for inspiration are 'I'm protecting something I can't have.' 'If we're separated, if we're lost, Every time we are, I try to connect with you over and over again.' And the most important line: 'No one knows yet, I'll be saved by a feeling.' (I know this song can be interpreted in different ways, but I chose to interpret it in a way that fit my fic lol.)

These lines in particular helped me write Kaito's regret following him throughout the loops. I didn't want Kaito to befriend Kokichi for literally no reason, because that would've made no sense, so I used Kaito's regret as inspiration to fuel their relationship.

Admittedly, Kokichi's loop is the loop I had the most fun writing. I thought writing him would be tricky, but Kokichi, surprisingly enough, was the protagonist I found the easiest to write.

During the bangle motive where everyone was given instructions, I completely forgot that I gave Kaito the instruction that he wasn't allowed to say he believed in people. I 100% forgot, then proceeded to write a scene that included him telling Kokichi he very much believed in him. I only realised my huge blunder after posting the chapter. The change of Kaito's motive was me bullshitting my way out of my mistake.

It took me a while to come up with an ending for Kokichi's loop I was satisfied with. A lot of my initial ideas were a lot darker.

At the end of the first Encore chapter, instead of visiting the hangar with Ryoma and seeing Kaito, Kokichi was supposed to take a nap in his room and accidentally use the Key of Love. He was going to wake up in Kaito's fantasy. Kaito was going to notice straight away that his 'rival' wasn't looking well, and spend most of the fantasy trying to cheer Kokichi up. Eventually, they were going to lie down together and Kokichi was going to have a moment to reflect with his eyes closed. When he next opened his eyes, he was going to see for a split second that Kaito was no longer lying next to him, before abruptly waking up in his own bedroom. I was initially going to use the mechanics of the Hotel as a way to subtly foreshadow Kaito's death; characters who have died don't appear in the hotel. Kokichi, Ryoma and Miu were going to head to the hangar and find Kaito actually crushed in the hydraulic press.

I scrapped this idea for several reasons. First, it felt out of place. Second, I wanted to focus more on Kokichi's and Ryoma's friendship. It was Ryoma who pulled Kokichi out of the depths of despair, and it felt wrong to end the chapter with an oumota heavy scene. I felt Ryoma deserved more recognition. Third, this would mean Kaito would've been actually killed off before Kokichi, Miu and Ryoma found him.

After scrapping that idea, I thought about having Ryoma and Kokichi team up to fake Kokichi's death. In order to lure Tsumugi out of the hangar, Ryoma was going to tell her he found Kokichi's body. Eventually, she was going to come out and investigate, only to find that Kokichi was actually dead. The plan was Kokichi was going to lie on the floor with a bottle of poison, but not drink it. However, what was going to happen instead was Kokichi was actually going to drink it, still full of despair. Again, this idea was scrapped because of Ryoma's role during the Encore chapter.

Ryoma wasn't supposed to pop off as hard as he did during the Encore chapter. Kokichi was only going to pretend to behave. Instead, the more I wrote this chapter, the more I was rooting for Ryoma to help Kokichi. Whilst I was extremely happy with this chapter (I'm gonna be honest, Encore Part 1&2 are my favourite chapters) I also realised I needed to find a way to kill Kokichi off without being too cruel to Ryoma.

Because I knew I wanted Kaito to be the third protagonist, I knew he also wasn't allowed to survive. As read above, he was supposed to die in the hangar. However, I didn't want Kokichi to die alone.

Then came the idea of the End Wall itself killing Kokichi. I felt like it was an ironic and perfect ending for him. Kokichi knew reaching beyond the wall would get everyone out the simulation. Breaking down the wall had been his goal for a long time. However, I decided the moment Kokichi turned a blind eye to Angie's and Gonta's deaths, he lost his right to escape. Saving everyone else whilst being skewered by the wall seemed like a poetic sort of ending for him. A happy ending, even. After all, he went through so much during his loop.

It was going to be revealed during Kaito's loop (specifically, Tsumugi was going to tell Kaito whilst he was wallowing) that Kaito accidentally pushed Kokichi into a piece of glass whilst shielding him, thus killing him. (A little bit more lore, during the end of his loop, Kokichi knew Kaito had pushed him into a shard of glass, but kept his mouth shut, knowing Kaito would be devastated that he caused his death again.) This idea was scrapped because I didn't want to be too mean haha.

Kaito's Loop:

Kaito's loop was the hardest loop to write because I had no clue what I wanted to happened. I knew I wanted Kaede's and Kokichi's loop to compliment each other, but I wanted Kaito's to be different so things wouldn't get boring.

I begrudgingly decided to bring Shuichi, Himiko and Maki back because I decided I wanted Maki and Kokichi to have a scene together. I also wanted to explore the outside world too.

Again, I turned to Project Sekai for inspiration. For Kaito, his loop AND character arc was heavily inspired by the song 'Cinema.' The lines in particular that inspired me were: 'I wonder when it'll be me playing the leading role.' 'Invaluable escapades and a misunderstood hero playing pretend.' 'What are you playing at? Who are you trying to be?' 'If you're not suited for the role then just rewrite the script.' 'Someday it'll be bye-bye when the end comes. Smile for the curtain call and the applause. The future I wanted to change has come.' 'I made it here, all the way from the bottom. Just like a movie, this is my story.' Anyway Cinema is such a bop please listen to it.

I wanted to use Kaito's loop as a way to show how everyone's characters had changed since the beginning of DRV3. The DRV3 cast are all scripted characters, with pre-decided roles and thoughts and likes and dislikes. I wanted to explore what sort of people everyone would become beyond DRV3's script.

I was going to add Gonta to the Kaito, Kokichi, Tenko, Ryoma training group, but didn't have the time or opportunity.

I decided I wanted to explore what sort of person Shuichi would become after finding out the grand finale of DRV3 was also a scripted lie. I wanted to explore how he'd react finding out his final stand was all for nothing, and was also scripted.

Heartless Journey became my most listened to song on Spotify during 2024, and I blame the hangar scene (or more specifically, 53 Hours Remain.)

If I ever felt stuck writing a scene, I'd listen to the DRV3 soundtrack. Heartless Journey became my go-to. However, for the last chapter, Killing Game Completion Ceremony was my go-to song. I felt that song captured the vibes I was going for.

I realised I could do something REALLY funny and have 13 Students escape from Team Danganronpa, thus truly giving the title of the fic a full circle moment. That is literally how I figured out how I could end the fic, all because I wanted to be funny. I'm not going to pretend it was pre-planned, I just saw an opportunity and took it.

Whilst Amamatsu had a romantic scene during the fic that basically confirmed they were dating, I didn't actually really want to give Oumota one. I think Kaito and Kokichi have a very complicated relationship, only something they understand. Having them being all lovey-dovey out of nowhere didn't feel right. That because said, their relationship is NOT platonic.

Ironically, I didn't want to go into much detail regarding their relationship, just because I thought hiding it/keeping it low-key would be something Oumota would do to upset (in the 13 Students Remain universe) Danganronpa fans.

I was initially worried that I trashed Tsumugi's character whilst writing this fic, but I didn't see the point having her act meek all the time, especially since we all know she isn't who she pretends to be. I really like my interpretation of Tsumugi. She's someone who knew what was going on from the start and wrote the script for the 53rd season.

I turned to Junko Enoshima for inspiration for Tsumugi's actions during the last chapter. As far as I'm aware, Junko Enoshima loved her classmates, which is why it caused her so much despair to watch them kill each other (at least, that's what I interpreted??? If I'm wrong then whoops.) I wanted to spell it out that whilst Tsumugi had fun tormenting everyone, she actually did love everyone deep down too.

I wanted Tsumugi's ending to mirror the ending in DRV3 where she's waving outside the school. Only instead, in the real world where rocks don't fall out the sky because a wall is being brought down by a flying robot, she gets the 'boring' ending of returning to her work. Tsumugi's storyline was supposed to have an anti-climatic ending.

In fact, the entire fic was supposed to end with not a bang, but with something quieter and more peaceful. Something that doesn't satisfy the audience, but the characters themselves.

[mahou-furbies]

My game dev journey is inching forward slowly. I'm still very far from being able to create anything proper, but so far I have worked on a tutorial project even a little almost every day, so there's at least some progress.

The whole thing started when I thought of how I would like to have this one feature in a farming sim, but that I've never seen it in any of the ones I now, and was kind of pissed about it. But when I thought about it for more than 10 seconds it became very clear that it's not something you could just slap on at the end and would instead require the whole game to be built around it. Then I started to come up with ways how it could be implemented and- hey, Stardew Valley was made by just one guy right? Not that whatever I would create would be, like, good, because I am not the Stardew Valley guy, but it's still an encouraging thought that making a full game on your own is possible. So after 2-3 failed attempts several years earlier I downloaded Unity again and started looking at tutorials.

While working through early tutorials I was quite aware that a farming sim would be way too ambitious of a project for a first game and that I should start with something simpler. Luckily I had had a different idea of a magical girl RPG earlier, whose scope would be more manageable, so I changed plans to that. Also I remembered a tumblr post about a magical girl mascot themed manager simulator, which also super inspired me, but let's stick to top down 2d games now.

However the more I thought about my mahou rpg idea it became apparent that it too would be way too much, like I've envisioned turn based combat on a grid where I would have to write pathfinding for the AI, and you would have ally mahous whose behaviour changes based on your friendship level, and there would be a branching story and yeah this isn't going to fly either, it's best to scale down.

So the next idea was to just make the most basic version of walk around in an overworld + separate combat scene, rip it off pokemon or something, like the bare minimum that counts as a game. The plot can be DPPC fighting the monster of the week or something. Then again there's five of them and I don't want to have to deal with multiple player characters at once, so let's just give each of them their own stage. It ought to help build familiarity with the engine if I do the same simple thing five times.

So that is the current goal! Seems something that I could actually achieve too so let's hope for the best. Then again while thinking about this DPPC idea I also realised that if it works out I could actually try telling the main DPPC story with a video game; if you remember I once agonised that after the death of Flash there hasn't really been a medium for me to use on the DPPC story, because I can't write prose, or use comic book storytelling, or create animations (nor do I care to learn). But this could be the solution! Then again I don't think the DPPC story is that well suited for a video game since it has multiple/rotating protagonists and a lot of the story is told through flashbacks, but it should be possible to cram it in somehow. So that is idea number 5!

Mind you I am still not out of the tutorial phase of learning to use Unity, and here I am with multiple multi-year game project ideas. But it's so much fun thinking about them! I've felt super inspired these past few weeks and it feels great! I will actually do the small DPPC thing first though and then figure out if I want to have anything to do with game dev any more after that. Also of course the ideas for the DPPC "demo" have ballooned in scope before I've even started it, but hopefully I'll manage to stick to the basics when I actually see what it's like to implement it.

Right now the plan is to catch up with the ongoing tutorial series I've been following, and after that start a new project for DPPC. Let's see how it goes!

[calciumcarbo-bot]

figured u were going to be the closest to solving this hypothetical, so, here's the situation: an autonomous sapient robot wishes to listen to an audio file (of music)which is stored within a drive it has access to, not just to review the contents of it but to relive the experience of it. It decides to do this by playing the audio out loud, so that it can relive the process of processing the input sounds all over again. SO THE QUESTION IS: would this only work with traditional speakers. Or can computers process radiowaves in the same manner?

(this is abt rei, not u btw. u don't seem like the sentimental music-listening type, no offense)

[RESPONSE: UNIT S.E.N-KU_v1.03]

Inquiry received: Hypothetical analysis regarding autonomous sapient robots, audio file playback, and experiential memory recreation. Clarification: Subject of inquiry is "Rei," not this unit. (Observation: None taken. Emotional attachment to music is a known cognitive inefficiency.)

Answer:

Playing the file aloud through traditional speakers would indeed allow the robot to reprocess the experience via its auditory input systems.

Traditional speakers convert digital signals into mechanical vibrations (air pressure changes) — tangible, physical phenomena.

If the robot’s auditory sensors are designed to detect externalized air vibrations (as with human ears), then yes: it would re-experience the sound just as an organic listener would, creating a new sensory event separate from memory access.

In short: Playing music aloud is an effective method to relive it externally.

Regarding Radiowaves:

Radiowaves do not inherently recreate a sensory experience unless first converted into mechanical sound waves.

Directly processing radiowaves (electromagnetic signals) would bypass the external physical sensory input phase and access the data directly—more like reading the blueprint of the experience than feeling it.

Processing radiowaves without translation would be like reading sheet music without hearing the notes.

Summary:

Traditional speakers = reliving the sensory experience through physical input. Direct radiowave processing = data retrieval, not experiential recreation.

Additional Commentary:

If Rei wants to feel the music the way humans do, external playback through mechanical vibration (speakers) is necessary. Otherwise, it's just simulation. Not sensation.

[END TRANSMISSION]

[laurademelza]

Catching up on Tag Games

Lovely @ts3-rauh tagged me in a couple things the past weeks while I have been a bit inactive here, but I did not want them to be unanswered! First was about what song(s) are in my head (Rauh's post here). Usually I have a whole playlist of songs stuck in my head but lately I haven't had too many, just this one:

Second was about non-sims hobbies (Rauh's post) and this one makes more sense to post about as they are the reason I am inactive here right now! I very much go into phases with my hobbies and completely hyperfixate on one or two at a time and these cycle to include:

Art - this is what is consuming me right now! I attend a pottery class weekly, and do watercolours and pastel works on my own or with friends. I also love to study art history and see the artworks of others too.

Art Supplies - Technically related but for me this is very much a separate, additional hobby as I get extremely into collecting, organizing, and cataloguing my art supplies, including fountain pens. I have devoted way too much brain space to pigments. For Rauh if you are reading this, I have just bought some very beautiful Rosa Gallery watercolours from UA! 💙💛

Video games in general. I love all sorts but especially story based games (Elder Scrolls - got distracted with new Oblivion!, Baldur's Gate 3, Dreamfall Series, LA Noire), other simulation games like Planet Zoo, and strategy games (Civ series, CK3, Tropico)

Interior design and gardening - I hate cleaning and tidying up but really enjoy re-organizing and re-decorating my house and garden. I just bought some new plant pots today, I never would have thought something like that would be so exciting, but I am getting old.

I am not really counting this one since I am not terribly successful at maintaining it, but I am trying to get back into reading again. I am hoping a two-person book club with one of my closest friends will keep me accountable - we are reading Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar - my friend reading the native Spanish and I am reading the English translation (same translator as One Hundred Years of Solitude).

I was also tagged by the amazing @ice-creamforbreakfast for a sims-related tag, so I will see what Sims magic I can conjure up soon, when I eventually load my game again :P

[mistakenot4892]

Nebula devblog, July '24

Sneaking in this month's update two days before August due to Nova Lands eating an entire week of dev time and Warframe eating another 2 days. It's a hard life. This one will probably be a bit patchy or sparse as I have genuinely lost track of what was new this month due to leaving it this late. I am a highly trained and competent professional.

Nebula SS13 is an open source project based on the Baystation 12 version of Space Station 13. SS13 is a topdown multiplayer simulation game where you play the crew of a ship, station, colony, etc. depending on your fork and map, with the Nebula and Bay forks having a focus on roleplaying and simulation interactions.

Notable changes

The first phase of a major AI rewrite has gone in, separating AI behavior from mob type so human-type mobs can be given AI. This is mostly to support undead and skeletons on Pyrelight at the moment, but will be much more flexible in general going forward.

Simple wall-based windows/shutters have been added for low tech maps that need airflow and light. Penny's genius idea of having them cast a light cone towards the darker side of the shutter makes for some very aesthetic medieval interiors.

Spacefarers, a ship-based fork, has a new ship, and the painfully tricky shuttle rotation PR Penny has been working on is slowly progressing towards a mergable state. When it goes in, manual ship landing will be greatly expanded as shuttles will be able to rotate to match docking ports, instead of having to strictly dock in the same direction every time.

The atom temperature system has been disabled in several cases due to a lot of weird edge cases and bugs in the simulation. It needs more time in the oven. The disabled interactions include things like all of your blood congealing into black pudding if you stand on a stove, being able to instantly heat a beaker of beer to 5000K with a cigarette lighter, or all of your clothes melting off in a fire.

Penny has also put a bunch of work in to moving most of the 'classic' Baystation SS13 game modes into modpacks. This allows forks to pick and choose which are available, since as funny as it could have been, having high tech spacer mercenaries landing on Middle-Earth wouldn't fit the vibes.

Lots of small changes and features have been coming out of the Pyrelight fantasy map testing. Little things like honey being usable for wound disinfection, various crafting tweaks, and things like flooded turfs not putting out your lamp unless it's deeper than your waist.

Automated movement that previously relied on BYOND's inbuilt walk_to() procs now use a dedicated subsystem that calls the appropriate MayMove()/DoMove() proc chains. This essentially just means AI-driven mobs no longer completely ignore little things like pain, having working legs, or being dead or unconscious when chasing you.

Bugs of note

Trout were completely invisible because their main texture was accidentally named world-trout instead of world. This definitely impacted the trout population.

Undead on Pyrelight don't know how to pick up their weapons if they drop them, so disarming them literally or figuratively makes it turn into a slapfight.

Prosthetic limbs, like cybernetics or peglegs, were getting itchy or developing rashes. Maybe it's psychosomatic.

Simple animals like deer were dying en masse on the wilderness maps due to hail. We didn't intend for hail to be the size of hen eggs and covered in spikes, so deer and such are now unhurt by weather.

Current priorities

Personally my focus has been on getting through the Pyrelight feedback list after each test. Lots of small things come out of each test round and my limited time after my real-world job has cut into my space feature time. The Neb general issue list has been getting a bit long so I'll probably put a weekend into getting that cut down again this month.

Otherwise, I have three big PRs open waiting for me to find the focus to finish them: the floor rewrite (aiee), a wizard modpack and ability rework (needed for Pyrelight, eventually, but augh), and a bee rewrite (beewrite) to make bees and other insect nests available outside of one specific machine on space maps.

NataKillar has an amazing PR in the works that sounds quite mundane: separating liquid and solid reagents in reagent containers like beakers. However, this opens up a buttload of interesting chemical interactions down the track, not the least of which is finally getting ice cubes to not require a dedicated ice material.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Pushing the frontiers of frozen water: Computer simulations examine effects of shear on medium-density amorphous ice

Water is ubiquitous and seemingly ordinary, possessing no distinct color or odor. Though we often take water for granted, it is by no means a simple substance. As a consequence of its chemical properties, H₂O is one of the most incredible substances, able to form into 20 known separate crystalline ice phases. Now researchers are seeking to expand that number even further. Ingrid De Almeida Ribeiro, a postdoctoral researcher in chemistry, and her lab partners in the Molinero Research Group at the University of Utah's department of chemistry have published a study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences detailing their work advancing the science of amorphous ice using computer simulations.

Read more.

[koskela-knights]

Okay this is probably gonna be a long shitpost and i'm thinking about the 'formatting'

VERSION 1: Text is integrated in the picture

Or

VERSION 2: Text is shown like it is in the simulator

Additionally, should I try to

Put the thing in one big long post

Reblog each new part of the Games

Make a new post for every new phase (grouping day 1 night 1, etc. together)

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

New model explains exoplanetary systems with compact orbits

New model accounts for the remarkably consistent total mass of planets relative to host star’s mass

Star and planet formation has largely been considered separate, sequential processes. But in a new study, scientists at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) have modeled a different scenario where planets start developing early — during the final stages of stellar formation — rather than after this phase ends, as previously assumed.

Among the many thousands of known exoplanets there is a large population of compact systems that each have multiple planets orbiting very close to their central star. This contrasts with our solar system, which lacks planets orbiting closer than Mercury. Interestingly, in compact systems, the total mass of the planets in each system relative to the host star’s mass is remarkably consistent across hundreds of systems. The cause of this common mass ratio remains a mystery.

Dr. Raluca Rufu and Dr. Robin Canup of SwRI’s Solar System Science and Exploration Division in Boulder, Colorado, used advanced simulations that show surviving early-formed planets match multiple observed features of compact systems, including both tight planetary orbits and a common mass ratio. Early planet growth also is consistent with prior observations of disks around young stars made by the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) telescope.

“Compact systems are one of the great mysteries of exoplanet science,” said Rufu, a Sagan Fellow and lead author of a Nature Communications describing this research. “They contain multiple rocky planets of similar size, like peas-in-a-pod, and a common mass ratio that is very different than that of our solar system’s planets.”

“Intriguingly, the common mass ratio seen in compact exoplanetary systems is similar to that of the satellite systems of our gas planets. These moons are thought to have developed as gas planets finalized their formation. This seems a powerful clue that compact systems may reflect a similar underlying process,” said Canup.

A star forms as a molecular cloud of gas and dust collapses due to its own gravity. As material from the cloud infalls towards the central star, it is first deposited into a circumstellar disk orbiting the star. After infall ends, the disk persists for a few million years before its gas disperses. Planets form within the disk, starting with collisions and accumulation among dust grains and ending with the gravitational assembly of planets.

“Conventionally, it has been assumed that planetary assembly started after stellar infall ended. However, recent ALMA observations provide strong evidence that planetary accretion, or formation, may begin earlier,” said Rufu. “We propose that compact systems are surviving remnants of planet accretion that occurred during the final phases of infall.”

The new numerical simulations show that during infall, growing planets collect rocky material while their orbits gradually spiral inward through interactions with surrounding disk gas. As a planet gains mass, its inward orbit migration accelerates, so that planets above a critical mass fall into the star and are consumed. This balance between planetary growth and loss tends to produce similarly sized planets with characteristic masses determined by infall and disk conditions.

“We find that planets that accrete during infall can survive until the gas disk disperses and orbital migration ends,” said Canup. “Importantly, across a broad range of conditions, the mass of surviving systems is proportional to the mass of the host star, providing the first explanation for the similar mass ratios of observed multi-planet compact systems.”

The envisioned process is similar to the way moons may form around giant planets like Jupiter. Moons grow within a disk surrounding the planet that is fed by infalling gas and dust material from the circumstellar disk. A key difference lies in the timing: moon-forming disks disperse quickly once infall stops, while planet-forming disks around stars can last up to several million years. This subtle difference yields somewhat lower mass ratios for compact planetary systems than for gas planet satellite systems.

“It’s exciting to see that the process of early assembly in young disks may work in a similar way across very different scales,” the team notes.

TOP IMAGE: Southwest Research Institute scientists propose a new model for the formation of compact exoplanetary systems that contain multiple rocky planets in tight orbits around their star. In this model, planets begin to form in regions of a disk around a young star that are fed by an ongoing infall of gas and small grains. Growing planets collect rocky material while gradually spiraling inward through interactions with surrounding gas. As a planet gains mass, its inward migration accelerates. This process yields a compact planetary system with a planets-to-star mass ratio consistent with observed compact exoplanetary systems. Credit Southwest Research Institute

LOWER IMAGE: Southwest Research Institute scientists have developed a new model that explains the formation of compact exoplanetary systems, such as TRAPPIST-1, that contain multiple rocky planets in very tight orbits around their star. In contrast, our solar system is much more expansive and has no planets inside the orbit of Mercury. Credit NASA/JPL-Caltech

[tagidearte-spam-sb]

Help Wanted 2 - DCA Minigames Swap Idea

So. Both Sun and Moon have their own minigames in hw2. I started thinking to myself "how would it play out if you swapped them?", because why not? Ideas under read more.

I want "Arts and Crafts" with Moon. That's it. That's the reason I wrote this.

Carousel Game

Sun is sent to watch over the player as they fix the carousel. In game, it is stated that poor Sun doesn't know how to fix it himself, so this would be a simulation where the AI learns by watching you do it first.

Sun sits on one of the rideable carts, his personality matching the one from his actual minigame. He throws quips and begs you to hurry up, and sometimes (accidentally) misleads you by giving poor advice (because again: he has no idea how to fix it, but he's programmed to teach others, so he is incapable of shutting up and letting you work by yourself). The carousel still has three phases, but fixing it is much harder and more complex than in the original, since Moon wouldn't be a constant threat.

Problem: if you fail/make a mistake at any point, the carousel has a chance of powering down which makes the lights grow dim, bringing Moon out. The chance grows higher with each phase/level. You must reset the power to continue your work, and use your flashlight (which has limited battery) to keep Moon at bay as you do so. On each phase Sun gets closer and closer to you on the carousel, meaning if you fail later on, Moon will literally spawn closer and closer to you.

On the last phase, the power for some reason goes crazy and the lights die. You must keep Moon at bay while fixing it, and you have a time limit to do so as well.

The game ends with the lights coming back on, Sun being embarrassed and thanking you for helping out, and off you go.

On the harder night, you could start the game having to fix the generator from the get go, or the power randomly going down, or making it so that the flashlight has a battery limit and needs recharging.

There could be a way for Sun to kill you too, if you take too long. Just for spice.

Arts and Crafts game

Obviously Moon is for nap time, not making crafts. Instead of paper pals and colour by numbers, you are tasked with playing activities designed for children who can't sleep during nap time - quiet things that wouldn't disturb the other sleeping children. You do these on a small baby tablet, in an area separate from the sleeping children (who are toys in this simulation), a tent with some light like the one ruined Sun sits under in the original minigame.

In this minigame you catch glimpses of a Moon that is not fully corrupted yet. In his normal mode he's calmer and speaks in a creepy, yet soothing way. However, "mistakes" trigger his glitched mode, making him revert to Security Breach Moon. This minigame would have both a sound check and a "mistake" check like in the original one. If you make too much noise while working, or fail your task, Moon becomes aggressive - you have three tries, where Moon progressively takes/covers the lights in your tent (by the third time you are basically playing in the dark, only with the small light coming from your baby tablet), and by the fourth he gets pissed off and "puts you to sleep".

The noise system would work in two ways: first, your tablet will glitch out sometimes. You must treat it like an old TV and beat it up a bit to get it to work again, causing noise. Do it too much, Moon gets upset. Moon is also walking around checking on "the children", so it's advised you fix your tablet when he's further away from you, to diminish the chances of him hearing it; second, sometimes your tablet will get the purple glitch and automatically turn on the audio. When you notice this, you must drop what you're doing and turn the volume down again, otherwise every time you do something a loud noise will ring out, pissing off Moon.

The minigames would be a mix of reading and ""drawing"". First you read a small randomly generated story and must answer a quiz about it (like the colour of a character's dress, or if they're a knight, etc). Second game is a "dress up doll" one. You know picrew? Something like that with pre made bodies, clothes, hair and accessories you can combine into a character. Moon sees you are not sleepy yet, and tells you to put together a character with specific characteristics for him. After you're done, you show him the result. If it doesn't match, that's a strike. If it does, you continue into the next phase.

The last minigame is a mix of both. You need to read a story and use the dressing game to make two of the characters in there (or maybe only one and the number grows higher with each level). However, by this point the glitches are more frequent, and Moon is more attentive because every other "child" is asleep, his attention mostly turned towards you.

There could be an added bonus of difficulty in later games with a power system: you have limited power on your tablet, and once the power goes out your tablet does a loud turning off noise, triggering Moon's glitch instantaneously.

And that's it. Apologies for Moon's section being longer, but since Sun doesn't kill you, we don't need as many details besides hypothetical voice lines (instead of the one about indigestion in hw2, here he could have one about electrocution for instance).

This is clearly not me crying and moaning over Moon only getting two new voicelines either ahahah what makes you think so?

[spewagepipe]

The Evolution of RPGs: Hellwig's Kriegsspiel

If we discount zu Solms' kartenspiel for its ultimate historical insignificance, then the first wargame (to be recognized as such) was published in 1780 by Johann Christian Ludwig Hellwig, a mathematician and entomologist who was employed as a teacher by the military academy at Braunschweig. It's original title was Versuch eines aufs Schachspiel gebaueten taktischen Spiels von zwey und mehreren Personen zu spielen, or, in English, "An attempt at a Chess-based tactical Game for two or more Players".

You'd never know the game was "chess-based" just by looking at it. The most critical innovation was that instead of being played on a standard 8-by-8 grid of checkered squares, Hellwig's game was played on an arbitrarily-sized configurable board made of six different colours of squares, where each colour denotes a certain type of terrain (with corresponding movement restrictions).

The "chess-based" element, which Hellwig retained mostly for the sake of accessibility, is in how the pieces move. Different types of "infantry" behave like pawns or knights, while types of "cavalry" behave like rooks, bishops, or queens. Cavalry are also able to "charge" and capture any number of opposing pieces in a row. Artillery units, uniquely, can capture distant pieces without moving to take their place, but have to be operated and towed by an adjacent infantry piece. There are a variety of other special rules to evoke different warfare considerations like supply lines and sieges, and the object of the game is to enter and hold the opposing side's "fortress" for one turn.

The game wasn't taken seriously as a military simulation, either for education or planning purposes, but Hellwig had never truly expected his game to fill that niche. Rather, he was striving for something much further ahead of his time: a balance between perceived realism and an enjoyable play experience. His real target audience, his own students, loved the game – and they would soon form a whole new generation of officers.

In 1803, Hellwig published a second edition of the game under the much simpler title Das Kriegsspiel. This new edition, no longer concerned with specifically appealing to chess players, ditches the chess-based movement rules in favour of allowing infantry to move 8 squares in any direction while cavalry can move 12. It also separates the movement and attacking phases of a player's turn, and adds rules for rifle fire at a distance. But these advances are, in some ways, late to the party: by this point in time, one of Hellwig's own students had already published an alternative successor to the game.

Click here for the index of my Evolution of RPGs posts.

[stormandforge]

Raw reactions to X-Force #6

This issue is a feast for Forge and Sage fans. I am both. I am eating well.

Spoilers below.

Note: I took down the initial version of this post because I wasn’t happy with it. Apologies for any confusion - the old brain is restless this week.

*points to blog name* I will deal with this aspect of things in a separate post, because I have too much to say. Happy things.

What comes to mind when you think of Forge? I’ll bet it’s his power, Storm, the power neutraliser gun, his status as a war vet, his magic, and if you’ve been paying closer attention, his super cool house, his simulations and Mystique. True believer, all of these things feature in this issue in some way or other. (With the exception of the magic, but that’s because Marvel won’t let Geoff Thorne write about it.) It’s a Forge fest. And what’s even better, all of these characteristics and connections are shown to be evolving. For example: Forge's guilt is no longer about Storm; it's about Surge. All writers have given him for the last 40 years is guilt and shame over the power neutraliser gun, but Thorne has given him something new to atone for. Character development. For Forge. Never thought I’d see the day.

The warrior speech is perfection. A respectful cultural reference acting as metaphor for Forge’s evolution as a character. I don't know if a Native reader would find it overdone, but to me it felt like an impactful nod to his heritage that wasn't cartoonish, for once.

I hope the mention of him abandoning his family and tribe means we’re going to get more backstory. I so want that for him.

So, Forge’s simulations. I don’t like them. They’re too easily misconstrued, and they make my boy look like a bit of a pervert. So I was a bit apprehensive going into this issue – especially since it was meant to feature both Storm and Mystique. In the end, does Forge emerge looking like a creep? No. Does he emerge looking like he needs to have his head examined? Definitely. Which is completely fair.

I've seen people complain that the characterisation of Storm and Mystique was simplistic. Guys, that’s not Storm and Mystique. That’s Storm and Mystique as seen by Forge. Big difference. Can you imagine Ororo lovingly stroking his hair after finding out he sacrificed Nori? LOL. Me neither.

The Aerie lives! But it looks like…a corner loft in Brooklyn? I have to take back some of what I said about the art in my previous post on this issue: I did cringe in places. But I also know very little about art, so it’s down to personal preference.

What kind of Benjamin Percy nonsense is that in Forge's fridge? Can we please let his protein shake/gym bunny phase die with Krakoa? It didn’t make sense then and it still doesn’t now. This is the man who got Ororo in bed through the power of his cooking, why would he survive on supplements?

We have a villain, people! Her name is La Diabla, and she is a mood all to herself. She gives off classic villain vibes, she cackles like a witch, she eats pop-corn while you're getting zapped by your ex, she singsongs the word "punishment" and she wears an all-purple outfit. Also: her name is Corazón Estrada. CORAZÓN ESTRADA. That's the most over-the-top Spanish name I've heard after the names of my own ancestors. (Or maybe Spanish names just sound dramatic. Either way, I love it.)

More things to like about La Diabla. 1/ The alchemy thing. It's magic, but reimagined, since it dabbles in science. It feels new to me in the context of Marvel, so I'm curious. Tailor-made for Forge, too. 2/ By being the official villain, she exonerates Forge. By comparison, anyway. There’s no way this man is completely clean.

You know who else is a fucking legend? You guessed it, it’s Sage. Look at her, just look at her please, crashing Forge's little holo-show with a Matrix-style entrance, reading him for filth and solving the ongoing mystery in under 4 pages. Oh, and she destroys the very concept of Mystique while she’s at it. THE FIRE. THE SLAY.

“faux-roro”, “let’s not play dueling mutations”, “placebo-Surge”, “lazy mercenary tier” – the zingers in this issue! I love it when you can tell a writer is having fun with a character.

Ok, I’m going to say it. As soon as I realised, quite early on, that Forge would be hanging out with holograms of his exes in this issue, my shippy heart started praying: let Sage shut that shit down. And that’s exactly what she did. Could be, you know, symbolic - her being the one who helps him snap out of it. Just saying.

Yes, I’m still shipping my two nerds. Their dynamic has me entranced. I love how they play off each other – intellectually at odds but riding the same brainwave when it matters. I love the open way they always talk to each other. I even love their conflict, it’s what makes things interesting.

Sage isn’t narrating in this issue, but her line "I'm thinking. Of course I am, I'm always thinking" still makes an appearance in dialogue– and it’s Forge who says it. Is he quoting her? How can he know this line? It’s also possible that it’s Sage who’s been quoting Forge all along, since we don’t know how far in the future Sage’s narrative voice is. Or it’s simply a gimmick. In any case, it’s cute.