#cogitator log

[primarchslut]

ok i'll go back to editing gifs and shit after but i really do hope solomorne is more Normal (but still appealing of course) so more people can compare heinrix to him and realize heinrix only looks like a Normal romance option because hes so far only contrasted with marazhai who's Bucknuts Batshit Insane.

he flirts via playing chess with you, is willing to fuck in the shriekers den in commorragh, his final ultimate romance scene is him attempting to kill himself and you have to talk him down from it, he's horrible at conveying actual appreciation/praise so all of his compliments come off condescending (and some are, to be fair), gets embarrassed about potentially engaging in exhibitionism but still gets right in your face, he's actually angry and horny as hell but just represses it super bad, he was a troublemaker as a kid and almost got executed from it and tells that story like its an interesting tidbit from his college days, sometimes he gets so tense he twitches all over.

like, he's so Fucking Weird.

[sorormaior]

Kulikov

Act 1: The Witness

Well I said I'd do it. Here's the prologue and chapter one of my fic, Kulikov. I'll be posting the first act here, but probably not the rest

There was someone there, on Nostramo, who cared. Who treated him kindly, tried to bring him away from that dark path. The love was there, it changed nothing.

Next Chapter

Prologue

It started with an auspex ping. A flat tone that indicated something closeby in the endless dark. A dull green light flicked on, the cogitator whirred into life. 

An asteroid, high in adamantine content. Completely stationary- the sensors returned some initial responses in regards to void anchors. A ring of static pylons, stout and streaked with the grime of the void, but each as tall as a man. 

From the far side of its face, the asteroid was featureless, pockmarked by debris but otherwise nothing special. Wear had given way to a shine at certain angles- the adamantine, the only true export Nostramo had been valued for. 

Drawing closer, choosing another face, a dark chasm cut into it. An overhang creating a cave-like mouth, the floor worn purposefully flat and smooth for craft to land upon it. Atmosphere generators flanked the entrance like gargoyles. Beyond them, further into the dark, a set of heavy doors with a dark symbol plastered upon them. A bat-winged skull was engraved upon the metal, proving to the ones who had sought this place that it was what they were looking for. 

The landing pad was large enough for a single Stormraven, though many other craft hung in the void around it, waiting. Twelve astartes left the vessel, moving in tight formation to the doors, blue armour throwing up strange reflections on the worn cave walls. 

The machine spirit of the door reacted quickly to the commands given to it, showing that maintenance had been performed recently. Indeed, the air that rushed forward was not stale- it was recently refreshed, the lack of security measures speaking to its remote location. The architects did not intend for it to be found. This made the squad act with further caution, especially as there seemed to be no light inside the reliquary. 

The noise of armoured boots on metal stairs seemed oddly muffled as they proceeded forward, pauldron to pauldron in a space clearly designed for them. The reliquary was not large, having only a few rooms, which they checked methodically. It was a short corridor consisting of five doors, four set into the walls, facing each other and a fifth at the very end. Bones and skulls were moulded into the walls, a deathly peace to those whose ends were assuredly not gentle.

The first door to the right was an armoury, neatly stored weapons and ammunition. Its twin to the left led to a control centre, where cogitators eagerly returned to function. They displayed power outputs, logs of those who had come before and the maintenance done, systems support and various data controls relating to temperature. The most recent activity was a scant two solar days before they had arrived.

The next two doors lead to the true reliquary. Symbols of ages long since passed, to a former Legion’s glory, one they were unlikely to ever recover. These were catalogued, removed from their cabinets and placed into cargo storage crates hauled from the armoury. 

This left the final door. Here too was the Eighth Legion heraldry, the bat-winged skull. It shone brightly under the lumens, refined silver metal against the dull grey of the rest of the door. 

AVE DOMINUS NOX 

The letters were carved there by a master's hand, repeated again beneath in what could only have been Nostraman runes. This door opened willingly too, as if eager for the astartes to continue, to find what lay inside. 

Cold vapour rolled across the floor, dim blue light pouring forth, drowning all need for lumens. It did not come from lumens, but from a coffin. Or at least what appeared to be a coffin, upon closer inspection it was a cryogenic sleeper pod, held inside of a stasis field. The walls hummed with power, and a few screens displayed vital readouts. At the base of the coffin melted candles pooled, scraps of parchment folded and tucked away, a few clean skulls placed like offerings to a heretic’s god, flowers only just beginning to wilt. 

In the casket was a bulky outline, recognisable to anyone familiar with the Adeptus Astartes. Hands laid crossed over their chest, almost covering the bat-winged skull there. The figure was unhelmeted, though the death-faced thing had been placed above their head like a guardian. The face of the space marine was clear, even with the frost encrusted glass. 

A face changed by augment and scar, with three prominently stretching across. A hooked nose and a thin face, brown skin of an unnatural pallor- as if unused to the sun. The head was slightly tilted to the left, the mouth just barely open, dark eyes barely open- the black eyes beneath making them appear closed. As if there had been someone standing there that the marine had turned to look at before being sealed away. 

A cogitator on the wall beeped quietly, as if apologetic for disturbing them. At a nod, an Astartes stepped forward. A new pilgrimage log had been created, and access provided to a single file, named Kulikov.

It contained only a few things of note. A readout of the current vitals of the casket’s occupant, which seemed to be in order. A list of Night Lords who had attended the reliquary and the prizes they had brought. A single vox recording. 

At another nod, the Astartes commanded the machine spirit to play it. 

The voice echoed around the chamber. Dark, cracked and hoarse. The voice of a monster in the night, yet still somewhat regal. Heavily accented with sibilance, captivating in its ghoulishness. 

“If you are standing here, you stand before the last true child of Nostramo. The last loyal Night Lord, the best of us all. Cary Kulikov. If you are a member of my Legion, one of my poisonous sons, know that this is what you were intended to be, know that you never will be. If you are not, and you have somehow stumbled upon this place: I command you to leave. This is the will of the Night Haunter.”

The recorded voice few had heard in a myriad seemed to hang in the air, sticking to the skin. Curze had always had a flair for the dramatic, like many of his brothers. 

The intruders took no heed of this warning, instead moving in synchronicity to the sides of the casket, to the machinery keeping the stasis field in place. There was a crackle in the air as with a few taps against the cogitator, the stasis field fell. The vapour moved a little faster, but the figure within the cryogenic casket remained unchanged. 

A few more commands and the casket was removed from its moorings, those pipes which fed into the chamber that had frozen in place wrenched away by gauntleted hands. Handles were mag-locked to the side of the casket, as the claw hidden behind it lowered from a vertical position to a horizontal one. Four Astartes took up places at the handles, lifted the casket from the fittings it had sat in for nearly ten thousand years. They marched from the chamber, almost a mockery of a funeral procession. The figure was after all, not dead. Great pains had been taken to keep them alive, more care than any thought still could be had in these times. 

They filed out from the chamber and the reliquaries, heretic artefacts in crates carried between the rest. The casket was loaded onto the Stormraven, awkwardly laid down between the seats, only just enough room for it. Closer now, they could see the shadows haunting the cheeks and eyes, a triangle-shaped split in the shell of the left ear. The face was tired, the crease between the eyebrows betraying some great grief. It was not the face of one who would now call themselves Night Lord. 

The Stormraven flew to the waiting battle barge, those who had waited around the asteroid following closely, like a protective flock. Then the ships departed, leaving the asteroid unmarked, once again floating- now completely empty, in the soundless void.

Chapter 1: Awoken

They opened their eyes, only partially. Frost and light made it difficult- that was their first real clue that they were no longer on the Nightfall. No one would have had the lumens this bright. They squeezed their eyes shut against it, a child refusing to wake. Their breath came in ragged, quick gasps. The ache of surgery was still fresh, soft twinges of pain that they recognised but never felt before to this degree. 

“K- Khh-,” their mouth did not want to move, their teeth chattered against the cold. “Ko- Konnacht.” 

There was no response to their plea. Shadows moved across their face, and they forced their eyes open, ready to receive whatever horror awaited. It was a face, that much they had expected. A face of a space marine, broad and noble, fair skinned but crossed with battle scars, a pair of metal studs embedded above the eyebrow. 

The eyes were, of course, the final nail in the proverbial coffin. They were green, with an inner ring of grey. Of course it didn’t matter what colour the eyes were- they weren’t black. The man above them studied them as if they were little more than bacteria on a plex dish.

Noble blue armour, a bright gold trim, a blazing white Ultima. His narthecium was clicking over them, tapping at armoured plates, testing their pulse. He was also waving a diagnostor over them. 

“Ultramarine,” they managed. “You- you must tell… the Lords. Curze- Curze has… gone mad.” 

The Ultramarine looked at them dispassionately.

“You have been heavily injured, Captain, please do not move or attempt to speak.” 

Captain. Had that been their rank? They’d never truly been sure if they’d had an official rank. 

“Nostramo,” they tried again. “Nostramo is gone.” 

The Ultramarine nodded. 

“We are aware. Rest.” 

But their body would not rest. There were tremors, half from the cold and half from their body reacting to the damage taken. 

“Where is he?” They asked. 

The Ultramarine did not answer. 

“What of Sevatar? Shang?”

He still did not answer. Further noise came, the whining of servos inside power armour. More marines.

“We are going to lift you from the casket, Captain Kulikov,” another voice said. “Please do not move.” 

Handles were maglocked to their armour, they stayed as still as they could, but a soft groan of pain still escaped their mouth as they were moved. The ache became a tear, a body still happily reminding them of the damage inflicted. 

They were manoeuvred to a cot, where chapter serfs came forward. The serfs knew the layout of the armour, knew where the catches lay and where to find the bolts that held it together. They lay limply, only moving to ease the job of the serfs. The weight of the armour was practically unmovable for them in their current state- the power pack didn’t help. 

“What is this?” A marine intoned.

They were just about able to tilt their head, to look back at the casket and what the Ultramarine held. Deep blue fabric, it looked small in his hand.

“My jacket,” said Cary. “Could I have it?” 

Some wordless exchange happened between the Astartes in the room. But the jacket was brought to them.

“It was folded behind your head,” said the marine who had found it. 

“It’s my QPC jacket,” they mumbled, half to themselves, smoothing a thumb over the silver-threaded patch at the shoulder. “Half a relic now.” 

More of the plates were removed, from the inside the damage was more obvious. The repairs had been done well, but still visible. Curze had caved in most of their diaphragm after all. 

“I need to inspect your injuries,” the apothecary said. 

Cary leaned forward, grinding their teeth against the pain. Gauntleted hands held their shoulders, supported them as the apothecary released the catch at the back of the neck. The glove only needed to be taken down to their waist, and they were laid back down again. 

It was the first time Cary had seen the wound. Medical skin had been pulled across the gap, the hole had been too large to simply suture closed. The scarring was still red, still raw, slightly pink at the edges. There were still flakes of dried blood, smeared across their skin. It was the newest scar, but far from the first. 

“What weapon caused this?” Another Ultramarine asked, his helmet angled downward. 

“Mercy,” Cary answered. 

The helmet looked at them, and though his face was hidden Cary could feel his confusion, muted though it may have been. 

“One of Curze’s lightning claws. Mercy and Forgiveness,” they nearly laughed. 

The spasm of near laughter made their body seize and jolt, they lay still. The Ultramarines lacked a sense of humour, instead one steadied their shoulder while the apothecary placed a needle to their arm. 

“A painkiller. Your carapace has been repaired but not healed fully,” he said. 

Cary nodded, not really taking in the information.

“How long have I been asleep?” They asked.

There was no response from those in the room. With their eyes adjusted to the light they could make out a handful of armoured Astartes, four including the apothecary, and a small team of serfs. 

The painkillers crept across their body, elevating much of the pain but rendering them even more sluggish in their thoughts and movements. 

“How long?” They asked again. 

“A long time,” the apothecary said. 

Cary looked at him, blinking slowly against the numbing effects of the drug. 

“Tell me,” they pleaded.

“Nearly ten thousand years,” the Ultramarine who had given them their jacket said. 

The apothecary glared at his fellow, then checked what Cary could only assume was a readout of their vitals. 

“Ten thousand years?” Cary repeated, slowly.

They looked straight up at the ceiling, not truly seeing it, digesting this information. 

“Where is Curze?” They asked. 

“Dead,” said the Ultramarine. 

“Elaius,” cautioned the apothecary. 

Cary nodded, slowly. It was an odd feeling, circling its way across their chest. Grief had always been their constant companion, more constant than even the Night Haunter had been. Now the grief was compounded further- when they closed their eyes they still saw Nostramo burn. 

“Why did he let you live?” The Ultramarine- Elaius asked. 

“I don’t know,” Cary admitted. “He always said he’d kill me. That he’d seen it. Always followed the damn visions. Followed them right to the end.” 

Their breathing was becoming more laboured, their chest tight with exhaustion and mourning. Cary closed their eyes, only praying that the action would stop them from weeping openly. 

“You need rest,” rumbled the voice of the apothecary.

Another needle pierced their skin, and again they fell into a drugged sleep. 

-

The dream was formless, not a true thing. An unconscious space that had broken down. Someone was calling their name. They turned. Darkness seeped across the not-floor, it was below them, a roiling ocean, a black sea. There, down below them, a speck of white. They already knew who it was, they reached out their hands, but never seemed to be able to get any closer. They felt hands on their shoulders, strong, large hands. 

They tried to shrug them off, gritting their teeth and reaching again, gauntleted arm outstretched. Cary looked at their arms. Looked at their gauntlet. The chain.

Cary Kulikov, as they had done many times before, took aim upon their primarch and fired. The silver chain sprung forward, the four-pronged hook expanding out. It caught. The chain grew taunt. The servos on their arm whined as the motors pulled the chain back. 

He came up from the dark sea like a bat, reaching for them as they reached for him. There was a second where they saw his face, pale and gaunt, then the Primarch crashed into them like a solid wall. 

All again was dark. 

-

When they opened their eyes again, they had to take a second to think. It was not the same ceiling Cary had been helped to slumber under, where bright lumens had danced painfully before their eyes. In fact, the room was rather dim. There was a blanket laid over them, and what seemed to be a bed beneath them. 

Sleeping quarters, they thought, idly. Indeed, tilting their head they could see that their armour had been mounted magnetically to a storage rack. The rest of the room was small, spartan in its furnishings, though shelving space clearly existed for the occupant to make it their own. An Astartes-sized desk and chair, an ablutions chamber and of course a lone figure sitting politely on a stool. A young girl, probably belonging to the servant caste of the ship- probably about thirteen or fourteen years old. She had short blonde-white hair cut roughly above the shoulders, sky-blue eyes and a pale, voidborn complexion.

She peered at Cary, the hands on her knees just about peaking out from her sleeves. 

“You don’t look very frightening,” the girl said, sliding off of the stool. “I don’t see what all the fuss is about.” 

“I try my best,” Cary replied.

The girl looked at the door, suddenly still. Like an animal in a trap. Cary could hear the sound of plated boots coming down the corridor. 

“You’re not meant to be in here, are you?” They observed. 

The girl scowled at them, worrying her lip with her teeth. Cary nodded towards the ablution chamber. 

“Go hide in there. Sit down and don’t move. I won’t breathe a word,” they mimed drawing a cross over both sides of their chest with a finger. Cross their hearts and hope to die.

The girl scrambled into the chamber, clicking the door shut. Cary looked to the door. When it opened, only two people entered. One Ultramarine, and a young man- human. He was dressed in Imperial black, with an impressive amount of golden trim and fine decorations. His skin was dark, and his hair close-cropped to his head. Cary looked to his breast pocket, where an inquisitorial rosette sat plainly. 

“Good morning, Captain Kulikov,” said the young inquisitor. “I am Inquisitor Gael Casteter, I would like to ask you some things.”

Cary had never had a particular love for the inquisition. Torture a man enough he’d admit to anything, it was no way to reveal any kind of truth. 

“Can I ask some questions first?” Cary sat up, slowly. 

The Ultramarine watched them carefully, but did not reach for his weapons. He seemed taller than most other marines. Gael took the stool, recently abandoned by the girl. 

“You may.” 

“What has… happened?” They asked. “It’s been ten thousand years. Who still lives? Does anyone? The Primarchs, the Emperor?”

Gael looked at them with something approaching sympathy. 

“The God-Emperor lives, resting upon the Golden Throne of Terra. Lord Guilliman, returned to us from his stasis, serves as his Lord Regent.”

It took them longer than was comfortable to process this. 

“The Warmaster?” They asked.

“The Arch-Traitor Horus,” Gael corrected them, gently. “He fell to the ruinous powers, and with the traitor legions brought upon the Imperium a bloody war. Many were lost to us.” 

A thousand names came to their lips. Cary dared not speak them, as if silence would keep them alive. 

“Traitor legions?” They settled on.

“The Sons of Horus, the Emperor’s Children, the Iron Warriors, the Night Lords,” he paused to incline his head in the direction of their armour. “The World Eaters, The Death Guard, The Thousand Sons, the Word Bearers and the Alpha Legion. They joined Horus on his crusade, and paid the ultimate price.” 

Cary’s head span, blinking rapidly against the information. They didn’t want to believe it- they didn’t want it to be true, no matter how much it had to have been true. They had seen parts of it in visions, with their own eyes.

“The Sons of Horus,” they echoed. 

“You would have known them as the Luna Wolves,” the Ultramarine said.

Cary recognised the voice through the vox speaker. It was Elaius, the one whom the apothecary had chided. They rested their head against the metal wall behind them, closed their eyes. 

“I am sorry,” said the Inquisitor. “I understand this must be a shock.” 

“I have lost everyone I have ever known in the span of what feels like a day. Perhaps two at a stretch,” they said, without thinking. “I am a little more than shocked.”

Cary opened their eyes again, looking at Gael. 

“What did you want to ask me?”

He withdrew a device from his pocket, balancing it on his knee. They recognised it as a vox recorder, the green light meaning it had been listening to their conversation, likely from the moment Gael and Elaius stepped through the door. 

“I would like to hear your account, from the very beginning,” said Gael. “I am aware you knew Konrad Curze from a young age, I want to hear about your life.” 

Cary tilted their head.

“Why?”

“I am nothing if not a scholar, Captain Kulikov. It will also help me to keep you alive longer, many here already think you a heretic if only for the armour you wear and the geneseed you bare.” He smiled, kindly. 

“Everything then? From the very beginning?” They clarified.

“If you would be so kind.”

“Very well.”

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Melon Bug (again)

Debut: Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island

(I wanted to write some more about Melon Bug, and I liked the original post just fine, so this post will be a continuation since that one was so short!)

An isopod! Oh, joyous day! It may not look like one at all with that big ol’ nose, but when it’s rolled up, there is no mistaking it! Here’s a very fun fact: when an isopod curls into a ball, it’s called conglobation! Use that in your everyday lives.

Melon Bug technically isn’t an enemy, you know the drill, weird Mario friends, that usual thing. When curled up, Yoshi can lick them up and spit them out, defeating enemies they hit! Could this be the first instance of weaponized isopods?

The Player's Guide says "These feisty hoppers transform from bug to melon and back again." Feisty? They're only slightly more feisty than a real pill bug! And a real pill bug has a negative Feistiness Level. I don't think whoever wrote this has played the game, since Melon Bug is harmless! I also don't think they know about real pill bugs, because they clearly can't cogitate conglobation. A bug transforming into a melon? How unrealistic! What do they think this is, Trip World?

I think "Melon Bug" is a very good name. An incredible name, even! When Melon Bug curls up, it, obviously, resembles a melon, what with both being round with stripes. While real pill bugs don't really have "stripes", their tergites (armor plates) do give a "lined" appearance. If you ask me, Melon Bug could be a good name even for real terrestrial isopods!

What do YOU call pill bugs? I've always called them roly-polies, but they have so many wacky names. Woodlouse? Yeah sure, a bug that lives under wood, why not! Butchy-boy? I don't get it, but it's funny. Then there are all the names comparing them to pigs which I just do not get, but groundhogs also get compared to pigs in common names a lot, so maybe people just don't know pigs as well as they like to think. And THEN! England gave them a bunch of CHEESE-related names. What is happening over there? Are British people somehow making cheese from isopod secretions? Why would you call this creature a CHEESELOG? That's a straight up food! I kind of love this name for them for being so ridiculous! Anyway, my point with all this is that Melon Bug would be more actually fitting than the majority of the common names these have been given, but sometimes it is more fun to be unfitting!

Isn't it weird how Melon Bug's art doesn't quite look like the sprite? Such bulging eyes in the art, but little dots in-game... well, we now know the reason!

Remember Super Donkey, from the 2020 gigaleak? I feel like it's been far too forgotten for how interesting it is! Anyway, as I mentioned when talking about that game, Melon Bug was originally designed for it! It seems like the Yoshi's Island art was drawn before they decided to shrink its sclerae, and lighten its colors, but after they decided to give it little red shoes.

If you grew up calling roly-polies something else, or if you know fun names from other languages, I would love to hear them! And I hope you love and appreciate these creatures! They are so common and easy to observe, so rather than get jaded to their presence, celebrate them, and you will be able to find delight whenever you turn over a log!

[does-this-please-the-omnissiah]

initializing… internal cogitators successfully booted… internal cogitators connected to the noosphere… connection secure… running helloworld.txt

I am a lexmechanic of the Adeptus Mechanicus, tasked with archiving "Noosphere: type=([tumblr] posts)" and ranking how pleasing they are to the Omnissiah by logging them in my databases under the tags {#pleasing to the Omnissiah} or {#not pleasing to the Omnissiah}.

Potentially serious heresies will also be noted and filed in a secondary cogitator under {#POTENTIAL HERESY DETECTED}. //Ima be honest with you, if it’s not pleasing to the Omnissiah it’s probably a heresy of some sort. The tech-inquisitors understand that laymen cannot be held to the same standards and grant some leniency

According to the dogma of the Tech-Priests, toasters are a holy relic and therefore will get their own special tag {#Behold! A toaster} in addition to automatically being considered pleasing to the Omnissiah by default

Anything that I find especially good gets logged under {#Omnissiah be praised!}

If I am tagged and cannot get to it right away, I’ll use {#requires future archiving} and {#data successfully archived} once resolved.

[halfelvened]

I love Master Work Log Cogitator Iota-IIIB. Little old machine all eepy because it was woken up from a nap...

[practicingtechpriest]

Titan Project LOG_0000000

BEGIN LOG_00000000

Forge world acknowledging request for Warlord Titan production.

Processing…

DATA_SOURCE_0000 RECEIVED

Multiple data sources detected…

DATA_SOURCE_0001 RECEIVED

Processing…

DATA_SOURCE_0000: DATA INCOMPLETE

DATA_SOURCE_0001: DATA DEGRADED

Error detected with schematics. Consulting cogitators…

Active data source found, designating.

DATA_SOURCE_0002: ACTIVE

Processing…

DATA_SOURCE_0002 NO_MATCH

Alternative data source requested…

Active data source found, designating.

DATA_SOURCE_0003: ACTIVE

Processing…

DATA_SOURCE_0003 DATA_MATCH DATA_SOURCE_0000

Alternative data source requested…

Data archive found, designating.

DATA_SOURCE_0004: ACTIVE

DATA_SOURCE_0004 DATA_MATCH DATA_SOURCE_0000

DATA_SOURCE_0005: ACTIVE

DATA_SOURCE_0005 DATA_MATCH DATA_SOURCE_0000

DATA_SOURCE_0006: ACTIVE

Decoding…

DATA_SOURCE_0006 DATA_MATCH DATA_SOURCE_0000

Processing data…

END LOG

Ok so a bit of an explanation is needed, I’ve recently reached the end of my warhammer project (a 3000 point Lizardmen army) so I was looking of a new project probably a 3D printed Skaven army, or Adeptus Mechanicus (Obviously) but I am not interested in playing Admech at the moment I just love the lore and enjoy making the minis. Anyway a person at the club i play at has printed a titan and it came up in conversation so i asked for the files and ive got them now!

The problem is that the files were missing or a bad quality upload so I had to do some digging. I found some files but they were also low quality so I did more digging. Basically the problem is that no one is making the it obvious what the file that Games Workshop hasn’t found is called or even what site its on, so I asked around and to my delight I was pointed in the right direction (thank you, you know who you are) and i also reached out to a small YouTube channel that had printed the “gold standard” titan about 2 years ago, and there was a note in the description saying email me if you want the files and i did and to my surprise a got a response the next day. And I was given a link to a google drive with so many files!

So the next step, I want to make a program to print out these logs like an old school mainframe (or get it printing on my BBC Master, yeah I have one! But I would need to learn BBC Basic and get the drives working) to make this a bit more appealing. Speaking of “this” I'm planning to print a Mars Pattern Warlord Titan and paint it Legio Ignatum, and document the process with the flavor of a forge world producing it. So track all the stats like volume of parts, time to print, failures, actual runtime ect. 

Ok actual next step needed is I need to check all the files I have and cross compare them, so I'm probably going to write something to do STL comparisons… 

Anyway wish me luck, the flesh is weak but the spirit is willing, praise the Omnissiah blessed be his servants, may he grant them the motive force to fulfill his will.

PS. I plan to tag things titan_log, and if it actually has titan content ill add titan. If i'm missing tags let me know, oh and i need to name my forge world… I’ll make a separate post about it…

[pennstateuniversitypress]

Q&A with Monica Chiu

The author of Show Me Where It Hurts: Manifesting Illness and Impairment in Graphic Pathography discusses the growing field of graphic pathography, its benefits, and more.

Why is graphic pathography such a fast-growing field, and how does it "work" for the drawing subject?

Graphic pathography allows subjects who have fallen ill or experienced a medical or clinical challenge to have their say—or rather, to draw their own representations. If the internal workings of the body disappear from consciousness when we are in good health, according to Drew Leder, their appearance as aches and pains during illness, I argue, invites artists to reenvision or revise Leder’s “recessed body.” Graphic pathography illustrates the experiences of illness, sometimes to critique a subject’s care and caregivers, other times to offer fresh perspectives on the effects of receiving chemotherapy, living with clinical depression, or struggling against anorexia, among many other experiences. Because the artists are freed from confining clinical representations to express themselves through the graphic line—one with infinite possibilities of showing what sometimes telling cannot achieve—graphic pathography invites aesthetic and personal responses by which others can learn and empathize. That medical schools increasingly are incorporating courses in graphic medicine, in addition to existing courses in narrative medicine (writing about one’s experiences of illness or impairment), teachers, students, and medical practitioners alike find that art can assist in healing.

What subjects do artists of graphic pathography pursue and why? Artists attend to illnesses and diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, depression, dementia, anorexia, COVID—every experience is different depending on a multitude of factors, including support, race, economic class, gender, community ideology, and sexual orientation. Artists also address sexual reassignment surgery to offer needed information for those uninformed of the procedures, to dispel fictions about trans subjects, and to highlight their challenges. Others draw comics about caring for the old and infirm—assuring their readers that no one correct way exists by which to provide comfort—or tending to the very young who die young, in illustrations of grief. Health care providers cogitate, by reading or creating comics, on how to be a compassionate doctor, nurse, or other caregiver by highlighting the pressures and pleasures as well as the challenges and victories of their professions. Medical students illustrate how their exhaustion and sometimes lack of thoughtful pedagogy leads to self-critique and self-doubt.

What benefits accrue in creating graphic pathography for artists, readers, and healthcare providers?

Artists bestow agency on their cartoon selves through thoughtful depictions of their corporeality drawn against disciplining representations created for them under health care and within health care spaces. We might usefully remind ourselves that the Latin-derived term “patient” is defined (by the Online Etymology Dictionary) as the “quality of being willing to bear adversities; a calm endurance of misfortune; bearing of suffering.” Where do we see the unpatients (the nonpatient subjects) of graphic pathography, those characters who unwillingly bear adversity? Through comics artists’ self-representations, traces of the imputations of illness and impairment, or of medicine’s sometimes cold and categorizing gaze, are slowly chipped away, and sometimes completely demolished, in the artist’s manifestation. The term manifestation references showing by illustration, the man of the drawing “hand,” and that of keeping a log, like a ship’s manifest.

Why do so many graphic pathographies by and about white subjects exist in relation to the paucity of works by artists of color?

This is the question that concludes my study, among related inquiries that invite other scholars in the field to participate in writing about graphic medicine’s many representations beyond those by and about white subjects: if predominantly white bodies self-represent, what does this glaring omission portend for the larger field of graphic medicine and its readers? To whom does medicine cater? Historically, black men and women unknowingly served as experimental bodies for medical science; meanwhile, Asian immigrant bodies were grounded in cultural narratives of both disease and palliation, the former playing out currently during the COVID pandemic, the latter in the conception of them as model minorities. In what unfortunate ways do images of black, yellow, and brown bodies intersect with illness and disability? I ask us to inquire: how is an academic focus on comics by white subjects consciously exposing or unconsciously contributing to a historical convergence among race, disease, and/or disability?

Show Me Where It Hurts: Manifesting Illness and Impairment in Graphic Pathography is now available from Penn State University Press. Learn more and order the book here: https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-09682-7.html. Save 30% w/ discount code NR23.

[turbobyakuren]

PLEASE share your Doremy dream, if you haven't already, and the events leading to it

VERY LATE ANSWER but i shall answer thee with the best of my memory.

I have no precise memory of when the dream happened. All I remember was that Doremy Sweet was Here at the time, and that I was cogitating a lot about her. I forgot if that dream happened when LoLK's demo just released (and Doremy with it!) or if it was after LoLK's full release. All i can say is that it was WAY BEFORE Doremy appeared in AoCF. This detail is important.

I remember that i woke up in the dream with the impression of like abruptly falling, except i wasn't. The background: the dream world.

Imagine being in this... void. This empty space. Floating around. Confused as all hells. Knowing that you're in a dream and being ignorant of that, at the same time.

And then Doremy arrived, floating around me, observing me and being smug at me. It's like she was conscious that I was in a "half-awake" state, as it is the norm in dreams. And then she started monologuing. She monologued for what felt like both 1 hour and 5 minutes at the same time. I couldn't move or reply to her, so all I could do was listen.

Most of the details i wrote are unfortunately gone (unless i can by some miracle pull them off of an old discord log) but i precisely remember she was telling me about the Baku species' way of life, the nature of her "job", and MOST IMPORTANTLY: the way dreams work. That dreams were a figment of my brain's capacity to conceptualize and imagine scenes from elements I already know or have yet to know. The way she was talking felt like she was trying to reassure me AND a villain doing his "here is my master plan!" speech. I felt increasingly uncomfortable at her presence and I felt she was super ambiguous in her ways.

I want to mention: she constantly had a ":3" face. Which was very notable to me because holy shit, in AoCF she kept having THAT EXACT :3 FACE

And then she was like "oopsie human, my time is up in here. I'll have to drop you off in a random dream. You probably will forget everything when you wake up but hey! Have fun! That's what matters. Hope we meet again!"

And then she violently slam dunked me with her book and i sunk into the space like it was, idk, you know when they pull off the plug in a bathtub in a cartoon? That happened. I sunk into the space, and abruptly fell into another dream.

I will not detail that part, though. Because, well, it was the most personal nightmare I ever had. It was visceral to a point that remains with me up to this day. It was truly terrifying.

AND I woke up.

And to this day. I still think that it was the actual legit Doremy Sweet who came to my dream and decided to mess with me and give me a monologue and the most horrible "TARGETED FOR YOU!" nightmare ever.

What the hell is wrong with her. I love her. She should do it again.

[primarchslut]

heinrix being So Gentlemanly to cassia and the rt, (potentially) growing to be so sweet to idira versus he’s just snarking, stonewalling, and taking shots at jae and her Big Dark Secret is extra hilarious when you realize jae has all the qualities he states he likes (raven hair + olive skin + fiery temperament)

[sorormaior]

Kulikov

Act One: The Witness

Chapter 8: Of Blood and Darkness

Previous Chapter

The Inquisitor sat back on his stool, evaluating something about them. Cary sipped at their recaf, waiting for his questions. 

“Did you know,” he began. “That when we looked through the cogitator files in order to gain proper understanding of you before we went to look for that asteroid, that it pinged at least a hundred or so alerts, over several chapters and legions? We are still receiving requests for updates- at an increasing rate.”

“I didn’t think anyone would remember me, after ten thousand years,” they replied, idly. “At least, no one who also wasn’t recently brought around.” 

“There are few,” Gael admitted. “Though most of the requests we received are from chapters with second, third or fourth hand accounts of you. Many recall you, in story or otherwise. Most assumed you were dead.” 

Cary watched the recaf roll around in their cup. 

“Your absence from the heresy was noticed, Kulikov. He would not tell them where you were, or if you were alive,” Gael leaned forward. “Not even Jago Sevatarion would give your location.”

“Sevatar was captured?” Cary looked up.

Gael nodded.

“Both he and Curze were held aboard the Invincible Reason for a time, in the presence of Lord Guilliman, Lord El’Jonson and Lord Sanguinius. Records fail to tell me of what became of Sevatarion.”

They could not allow themselves to hope, though it clawed painfully at their insides. 

“It was assumed you had died in the purging of the loyalists.”

“Half true. But most of our loyalists died with Nostramo,” Cary said. “Why am I here, Inquisitor? Why wake me? Why find me? How did you find me?” 

The Inquisitor refilled his recaf, and did the same for Cary. 

“A Night Lords warband was recently eliminated by the Ultramarines after they attempted to raid an Imperial world. There were only three-hundred strong of them, yet they had taken the planet’s capital hive city to its knees. Recovered from their ship were a number of artefacts that they did not get the chance to destroy, including this.” 

He drew something small from his pocket, a datachip. Gael handled it carefully, and tipped it into their open palm. It was embossed in the legion’s colours, the bat-winged skull stamped onto the metal, inlaid with silver.

“On that datachip resides a series of coordinates and a log of pilgrimages taken by the warband to your resting place.” 

Cary slumped against the wall, looking at the datachip. 

“It still doesn’t tell me why you woke me,” Cary said. “Other than to take something else from them.” 

“The orders actually came from Lord Guilliman, he had some faith in you.” 

Cary nodded. Once again they had been pulled into another man’s war. 

“You are an experienced warrior with a high skill for stealth and infiltration. You do not kill in the manner your brothers kill, and you command the respect of those who have only heard stories of you: the last loyal Night Lord,” his words were gentle, pleading. 

“How badly are things going that you need me?” Cary asked. 

Gael did not reply. Cary rubbed their eyes, handed him back the datachip. They drank their recaf and looked at him with tired eyes. 

“Let me tell you of Terra, and of the Primarchs,” they said.

-

Learning the chain had been the hard thing. Everything else could be dealt with- skills could be adapted to fit other situations, adjusting themselves to the new social hierarchy came as easy as breathing. Cary knew people, and Astartes were at their core, simply people. Boys turned to men turned to the sons of demigods. But still men, who laughed and shouted and formed the bonds of brotherhood with each other. 

The chain was a completely new skill, and had several components. First of course was the aiming- the weight of the dart had to be compensated for over long distances. Judging the anchor point was another, if it was strong enough to take their weight, which was considerable inside their armour. 

Then of course came the most embarrassing part: keeping their balance. The servo motors inside the chain’s firing mechanism were strong, built into their gauntlet sleekly. It was little more than a protuberance on the outside of their forearm, a casing where the tip of the dart poked out. 

But of course, when they fired the dart and flexed their thumb against the inbuilt pads on their palm, it immediately started to pull the chain in. The first time they had tried it, Cary had ended up being dragged along the length of the training hall, much to the amusement of their brothers. 

Cary practised in private after that. Not that their ego was so easily bruised, but they found it quicker to improve when there wasn’t a crowd yelling suggestions at them loutishly. It also meant they could dim the lights of the training hall to a preferable level- near complete darkness. 

They had set up a series of hooks and bars, as well as a few tall rockcrete structures usually only used for urban warfare training. They were pitted with craters from bolter rounds, and in the dark gave the strange impression of a miniature city. It was almost like Quintus, almost in that it lacked the heat, the noise and the smell. 

It was almost fun, jumping off the edge of one of the blocks, firing the chain and bracing for the catch. On the upswing they could dislodge the dart and recall it before firing again. They had almost gotten the hang ( ha! ) of remaining in the air. 

They swung through the air, grinning to themselves, pleased with all their improvements. Cary brought the chain in, and had just hit the release catch when the entire hall flooded with light. Their vision was lost in a sea of white. 

A cry escaped their mouth as they flailed, panicking. They could feel themselves about to fall, raised their arm up blind and fired at what they hoped was the ceiling. 

It was then to their complete and utter surprise that they found themselves caught, borne by armoured arms and the lights shadowed by feathered outlines. When they were brought to the ground, Cary found themselves blinking blindly upwards into the face of the Great Angel. The chain clattered to the ground, Fulgrim’s best work bouncing off of the floor. 

His face was almost similar to Konrad’s, if Cary really looked. The aquiline features were certainly there, but there was something more noble as opposed to haunting. His skin was a shade lighter than olive, and his eyes were bright red. 

He was also smiling. 

“Please put me down,” was the first thing out of Cary’s mouth, followed quickly by a hasty: “My lord.” 

Sanguinus put them down. He had entered the training hall with a small company of his own sons, who were looking perplexed at the manner in which Cary had arranged it. They snapped the chain back into its housing.

“My apologies, Kulikov, when we entered I assumed there was no one here,” he said, and the worst part was that he did genuinely sound quite sorry. 

Cary saluted stiffly.

“No apologies are needed. I have taken enough time here, so I will leave you all to train in peace. Thank you, Lord Sanguinius.”

They then turned, and grabbed their helmet from the low block they had left it, and focused on not running out of the hall in complete and utter shame. There was something about some of the other Primarchs that scared them. At first they had assumed it was simply the effect of the warp that had caused it- they had avoided the Emperor’s other sons like they were the opposite pole of a magnet. 

But there was something else, something that made them feel like a fraud. A liar. An imposter. That Lord Sanguinius had looked upon them and saw a quality that wasn’t there. Nacht had always known what they were, and what needed to be done. Nacht knew them from their core, and had made his judgement on their sins, but had not executed them yet. 

Sanguinius, Vulkan, Manus, Russ, Guilliman, Corax. They did not know Cary’s sins. In some perverse misunderstanding, they thought Cary good . Cary knew they weren’t. They could be kind, they could be merciful. They were not a good person, just very good at pretending. 

Nacht’s brothers had seen how they interacted with him, how they always knew when a seizure was about to strike, how they could persuade him away from bloodier courses of action (sometimes). Perhaps they thought Cary had some level of control over him. Cary would have been the first to tell them that no one had ever had any control over Nacht in his damned life, least of all them. 

Still, when Konnacht took charge of the Night’s Children, he did so as a Primarch in high regard. He named them all Night Lords and spoke of how their quiet tactics, the deaths of a few to bring the compliance of many, were the strongest of all. 

It was on a nearby world, that had been given a few stray ideas of rebellion, that Cary first saw open combat. They had been assigned to First Claw, if only in name. There was still some awkwardness concerning their rank and position- not quite equerry and not quite anything else. 

Still, they followed the commands that came through their helmet’s vox. They followed them right into the trap the others had set- Zvekan and the others who had taken some gripe with them. A bombed out shell of a building, still with warrens of rebels. Cary had gone in first, as commanded, and only just caught the movement of the doors over their shoulder. 

The heavy steel doors had slammed closed, with the clanking of chains and snickers over the vox. 

“All yours, Kulikov,” Zvekan sneered. “Don’t bother coming out until you find their leader and bring out a score of dead.”

Then their vox went dead, and they were left in the dark with the rebels, who had not failed to notice the sound of the doors shutting. 

Truthfully, Cary couldn’t exactly recall what happened next. Only that there had been blood. The rebels were poorly armed and had even worse armour, Cary caught glimpses of their faces in the flash of lasguns. 

Eventually, they found the leader, curled up in a ball under his table. At one point he had clearly been a very rich man, his stately clothes now ruined and tattered. Cary wondered if the Imperium had taken that from him, if this was to spite that force which had turned his pleasant life upside down. 

Cary had reached out, and crushed his neck in one gauntleted hand. They then began the slow process of retracing their steps. The chain’s motors had jammed with meat, but they had spare lengths of iron chain. 

They dragged the dead behind them like a battlefield spectre. The doors opened with a single round from the bolter they hadn’t even had time to reach before the rebels attacked. 

Cary spotted First Claw, all standing around in the morning’s golden sun. They were laughing with each other, not noticing them as they drew closer. And closer. And closer.

“Ah, Kulikov,” Zvekan said, his voice betraying his grin. “Why, we thought you were a Blood Angel at-,”

Cary whipped the length of the chain at his neck, where it wrapped around that small gap between neck and helmet and snapped it taunt. Zvekan was cut off with a choke, and Cary brought him down to his knees. They leaned in close to him, pressing the brow of their helmet to his. 

“If you ever do that again,” they said, in a low, dry voice. “I’ll tear out your guts and eat your eyes. And you know what? No one will care. Not even Night Haunter. He’d watch me do it and laugh. ”

“What the hell is going on here?” Another voice had crackled through the vox, another set of power armoured boots racing through the debris and mud. 

Cary let the chain go slack, dropping Zvekan, who wheezed with all three of his lungs. Raven Guard, with coal-black armour and grey metal trim. Suddenly a shadow stood by them, a shadow that blotted out the sun. 

Cary did not even look at him, merely dropped the ends of the chains in his gauntleted hand. 

“Your rebels, my Lord Corax,” Cary said. 

Then turned and walked away, closing all vox channels. Cary walked past the burnt out shells of habs, to where they had seen the edge of a body of water. They waded in, the water turning crimson around them. They walked until the point where they could fall to their knees and be completely submerged. 

Cary attended to the motors of the chain, removing flesh and fabric that had become stuck there. It was nearly impossible to see in the sediment-clouded water, but Cary knew the motor as well as they knew anything. When they were done, they glanced at the several strobing icons indicating at least two people were trying to get in contact with them. 

They stood and turned towards the shore. There was Nacht, face shadowed. They opened the vox channel as they approached the shore. 

“Cary,” he said. “I have been told you attacked a superior officer and threatened his life. I trust you had a good reason.”

“The best,” Cary told him. “He made me do the dirty work for him.”

“Ah,” said Nacht. “Well, what use do I have of a First Captain who can’t even make his own kills?” 

It wasn’t long after that the Night Lords gained a new First Captain, Jago Sevatarion. A Nostraman-born Night Lord- from City’s Edge. Often Cary had thought to ask him about the specifics, if perhaps they had known his family, known him. They never did. 

Cary liked Sevatar, respected him. He had seen Nacht and seemed to understand him in an instant, Cary had perplexed him more.

In the early days of his career as First Captain, he had found them on their way to the neophyte admittance halls. They were not wearing their armour, instead wearing merely their body glove, workman’s trousers and their QPC jacket. He looked at them without expression, black eyes betraying nothing. 

“Captain Sevatarion,” Cary acknowledged him, stepping around his armoured form. 

He reached out an arm to block them. 

“Where are you going?” He asked. 

“To the neophytes.”

“Why?” 

“Were you ever a child, Sevatar?” They asked, using the nickname others had given him. “Were you ever scared?”

“They are not children now, and they will know no fear ,” he replied, unable to keep the mocking edge out of his voice. 

Cary shrugged. 

“Walk with me then,” they said. “But you’ll have to stay in the doorway, you’ll wake them all up trudging around in that.” 

Cary again stepped around him, and continued to the neophyte halls. He followed, chainglaive in hand. Thankfully, he did wait at the doorway. The neophyte admittance halls were long and incredibly dark. Young men lay in rows and rows of cots, some slept soundly, others wept silently. 

Cary walked down the rows, reaching out, whispering softly to them. Placing gentle hands on their shaven skulls, urging them to sleep. They had done this for a long time now. Truthfully it made them guilty. As if they were the one who had stolen the boys away from their families, so that their insides could be twisted and their bodies mutilated. 

Cary walked among the rows until they could no longer hear weeping, then returned to the door. Sevatar had at least let them shut the door before asking again:

“Why?”

“Because I wish someone had done the same for me,” Cary said. “Because they will know only death and blood. A moment’s reprieve, to gather their strength.” 

“You are soft, and stupid,” Sevatar said. 

“Oh, probably,” Cary sighed. “I am a thousand times over a fool.”

“You don’t even realise what you do,” he said, unexpectedly. 

Cary looked at him as they walked together, not quite understanding. 

“You go to them and extend your hand in kindness, without even realising the loyalty it brings you,” he looked down at them, almost amused. “Curze has ruled by fear, yet you have entrenched yourself in their hearts.” 

“Oh come off it, Captain,” Cary said, waving a hand. “I doubt most of them even remember.” 

“I remember,” he said. 

“I never went to you, you never cried,” Cary pointed out. 

“No, I was too old. But I remember you there. I thought you were stretching out your time, gathering our brothers into your fold. Now I know you had no damn idea what you were doing, now I know why Curze keeps you alive.”

“You know as well as anyone he’s keeping me alive until the right moment,” Cary said, their voice strangely bitter. 

“Hm. Yet he allows you to strike him, to shout at him like a dog, you make demands against fate and sometimes he grants them,” Sevatar doggedly followed them, even though Cary had slightly increased their pace. “Other legions think you are the best of us.” 

“I’m not.”

“I know.” 

“What is your point, First Captain?” They asked, sharply. 

“Oh, we’re First Captain now? I would offer to call you by your title but truly, we don’t even know what it is. You are a Captain in name alone and only occasionally attached to First Claw, you say he has seen your death and intends to make it so- but Kulikov, have you considered that he cares for you?” 

They turned away from him. Cary did not want to see his smile. They told him the story of their father, their mother and the crowbar. They told him of the Long Year, as he had likely been too young to remember it. 

“When he kills me, Sevatar,” Cary said, quietly. “It will be your task to keep him in order. He trusts you as well as he trusts anyone.”

“I don’t think he will,” Sevatar said. “I’d put money on it.”

“Don’t challenge him on his visions,” Cary warned. 

Sevatar merely smiled. 

Between the two of them- and on occasion Shang, they could manage Nacht. It also meant that Cary was able to interact with the other legions, to be what he had no understanding of. 

Nacht preferred it when the people speaking to him meant what they said. Of course, this didn’t stop him making perfectly cryptic remarks that he expected everyone around him to understand. Cary had always been better with people and, while not avoidant of combat, found themselves being more frequently utilised when communication with other Legions was required. 

More and more, they started to notice his decline. Shadows growing deeper under his eyes, his face more gaunt. His seizures became worse, more violent, and his persecutions extended not only to the worlds they brought into compliance, but to the legion itself. 

Cary had on more than one occasion been called to stop Nacht. Been forced to use the chain upon him, to attack him in order to get him to see reason. His hands had become claws, and he struck them often- once leaving three long scars across their face. It wasn’t long until their sessions inside the training hall included simulations of him, to work out the points of his armour they could hit.

The best trick they had worked out was to flick the chain so that it arched around, digging into the power pack and either damaging it so that the Primarch was forced to carry the weight of his own armour or at the very least allowing them to fling themselves onto his back. Then they could usually get the chain around his neck, and yell at him. 

Sometimes it worked. Sometimes they ended up in the care of the apothecary. 

The thing was, Nacht was tricky. He knew them as well as Cary knew him, and was well aware of the best ways to get around him. 

Once more led into a trap. Once more tricked. Once more taken away. 

[brendamariesmith]

What TO Stock for An APOCALYPSE, PART FIVE (Updated)

KNOWLEDGE and a set of OLD-FASHIONED SURVIVAL SKILLS will probably serve you better after a cataclysm than almost anything else.

 If you spend time ruminating on all the things that happen in America and the rest of the modern world, things that keep us alive and generally healthy, you will notice a nearly unfathomable list of occurrences in the background of our lives—goods and services we consider essential but never stop to think about. (Though COVID-19 has forced us to think about many of them now.)

 Aside from water, food, and electricity, there are sewers, healthcare systems (such as they are), public health departments, libraries, roads, transportation, infrastructure, law and order, government, police and fire departments, medicines, education, art, music, news from near and far, the internet, an endless array of things to buy if we can afford them, innumerable places to travel, and gobs of stuff competing for our time. Much or even all of this would break down and be gone in a true apocalypse. The people who survive will be those who know how to handle much of this stuff themselves.

 Since this list is so endless, and because my purpose is not to bore you to death with details, my exhortation to you readers is to please do your best to learn how to survive and prepare on your own. Given the rapid pace of climate change, even if we don’t fall all the way into apocalypse, we are likely to be forced to scale way the hell back. We should scale back. We need to scale back. We all know that the Earth cannot sustain our pre-pandemic lifestyles.

 For the record, I am not a prepper. I do not go around freaking out about the coming End of Days. But I do cogitate on these things from time to time, and I write novels about possible scenarios. In my novels, I took a different route than the standard apocalyptic tale. My assumption is that it would take a great deal of time for civilization to fully collapse. At least initially, much human morality and compassion will remain. If people try hard to work together, and if the situation allows, they can keep the deterioration from becoming complete.

So, become men, women, and children of the New Renaissance and learn how things work and alternative ways to do them, practice old skills and learn new ones, stretch your brains and your imaginations. Toward that end, here are some of the areas that we all need to bone up on, aside from what I have already discussed in earlier posts:

·         Learn and practice old-fashioned skills like: soap-making; candle-making; laundry without electricity or plumbing; knitting; sock-darning; fire-building; quilting; basketry; rope-making; carpentry; gravity-fed plumbing; hair cutting; butter churning; cheese making; chair caning; furniture building; cabinetry; glass-making; log-splitting; barn building; shoe-making; the creation of eyeglasses; dentistry; the making, patching, and mending of clothes; spinning and weaving; undertaking; nutrition; sanitation; the making of acoustical music and natural art.

·         Study outhouses and ways of keeping them sanitary. They can spread deadly disease if they aren’t well-managed. Composting toilets are a great way to go, but they still have to be clean, preferably with something that actually kills germs. And you have to know where to dig an outhouse if you want to keep your groundwater clean. I once lived on a commune. Before I got there, dozens of people got hepatitis from drinking water downstream from a neighbor’s outhouse. Don’t repeat that mistake.

 ·         While I am neither a gun owner nor a fan of guns, and I’m not an alarmist or someone who wants to see more guns stockpiled in this world, you may need a means of protecting yourself. You’ll want to learn self-defense.

 ·         You will need bicycles, wagons, carts, dollies, wheelbarrows, skateboards, roller skates, buggies with horses and food to feed them—ways to get around and to haul heavy stuff: Ropes, chains, skids, etc.

·         If you can, start stocking critical supplies: soaps, matches, toilet paper, pens, pencils, paper, pulleys, candles, needles and thread, yarn, ladders, toothbrushes and toothpaste, tools, knives, woodstoves, grills, firewood, water and food storage containers, charcoal, clothing, shoes, kerosene, bleach, lime, wind-up radios (which will charge cell phones, if the phones still work), wind-up flashlights, washing tubs, buckets and bins, clotheslines and clothespins, washboards, boots, shoes, long underwear, batteries, lighters, good jackets, and socks—lots and lots of socks.

  ·         You will need to know about medical care, including the standard Western medicine we practice now, plus Eastern medicine and folk medicine. You’ll want to know how to grow medicinal plants and herbs, and you should stockpile basics: whatever meds you personally need to stay alive, as well as aspirin, antibiotics, antacids, anti-diarrheals, Tylenol, beaucoup asthma inhalers, insulin and other diabetic meds, blood pressure meds, first-aid supplies, splints, crutches, wheelchairs, IV equipment and fluids, scalpels, pump respirators, stethoscopes, otoscopes, blood pressure cuffs, tweezers, vitamins, minerals, skin creams, sunscreen, antibiotic and cortisone ointments, CBD oil, on and on and on.

·         You’ll need the means to educate your children and to continue learning yourselves.

·         You’ll want things to help you pass the time—especially the long winter nights with poor lighting: board games, card games, dice games, jacks, paddle balls, outdoor sports equipment, hobby stuff, acoustic musical instruments, art supplies, those balls you roll around in your hands when you’re tense, and BOOKS, BOOKS, BOOKS.

More than anything, you’ll need quick wits, unbending determination, and people to love.

Here are many of my reasons to stay alive and to NEVER, EVER GIVE UP:

And whatever you do, DO NOT forget the duct tape!

  To see how my unlikely apocalyptic hero, seventy-year-old Bea Crenshaw, shepherds her grandkids and neighbors through the aftermath of a solar pulse, check out IF DARKNESS TAKES US on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Darkness-Takes-Brenda-Marie-Smith-ebook/dp/B07WK9BQHN or order it from your favorite indie bookstore:

The sequel, IF THE LIGHT SHOULD COME, will be out June 2021 from SFK Press.

 STAY TUNED FOR THE FINAL INSTALLMENT OF “WHAT TO STOCK FOR AN APOCALYPSE.”

NEXT: SUMMING UP

[catachan-jungle-fighter]

The Cypher

(REDACTED ON ORDER OF THE OLD WOLF/ ALL ACCESS LOCKED TO OUTPOST HEAD AND HQ TIER COMMAND CODES)

Passcode: The dead Rise

Access Granted: John Geist

File: The Cypher

Description: The key to all the coded and encrypted information that is traded among the Wolves in the hidden communications net of the Mad Wolves, the Cypher is a integral part of both the Comms Net and the Encryption we send. To truly ask "what is the Cypher?" One must ask themselves "How do we communicate out of system?" The Answer to that question? Astropath's, the men and women of the Astropathic Choir's.

The Cypher is a 'linked' Astropathic net of Psyker's hidden on all worlds of the Wolves, these brain dead men and women having their minds linked to cogitators in such a way to understand the massive bursts of data that are sent from another station, these data bursts being encrypted using the dialect of the Wolves which act as the Encryption and as a means of passing on more than the message could carry without the major fault with the system coming to note.

These 'hubs' are watched closely for any signs of Daemonic possession or influence, the larger the messages passed between 'hubs' drawing more attention to them.

To lose even a single one of these linked 'hubs' could mean that men and women lose their lives, so the Wolves continue to stand watch over the brain dead Psyker's, their charges replaced when possible so the bodies aren't worn out from the constant stress they are put through.

Only once has a Hub been found and it was immediately scuttled, the only saving grace having been that the demolition of the Hub having caught the investigation head in the blast, because if this was found out that the Wolves held their own communications net across the stars they would be heavily scrutinized compared to the light gaze due to their 'cleaning' actions the Wolves have undertaken to ensure they wouldn't be looked at too closely.

(LOGGING OUT: John Geist)

------

(Access File: John 'Old Wolf' Geist)

(John 'Old Wolf' Geist Not Found)

(Access File: The Bloody Beast)

(Bloody Beast Found, Requires Passcode: Remember the Oath)

(PRINT ALL) (Failed)

( Unknown User attempting to print document: Alerting to improper usage of Cogitator)

(PRINT ALL) (Failed)

Audio Recording:

(HAIL THE TRUE WOLF!)

*Explosion is heard*

(Dumb Frakker blew his ass up... too bad the stupid frakker tried to print off of this shitty cogitator, only two in the entire camp that can do that.)

[elastigirl72]

Day 21: Shkoder>Lizbahd

620km to go...I’m finally in the mountains!

7 May: Shkoder 07:27am

Given I am a certified and ex practicing sports and rehab massage therapist who still actively promotes stretching and regular massage for active people, lying in my €35 spa having the massage of my life, I was alarmed to fail to recall without some effort my last similar session. It was well over a year ago. Also apparent was my failure on good, regular stretching. I’d been on a cycling yoga week last year, trying to will myself into better self-care with the lovely Sinead, cycling yoga star in Ireland. I am proud to have kept a few of hers, which should only be done in the confines of privacy as they could be taken as some sort of lap dance in the wrong setting. I have my own MASH stretch which I have to say is pretty damn awesome 😊. This young lady, who combined this job with school was one of the best therapists I’ve stumbled across, including myofascial release as part of her treatment. Weirdly, even knowing I was a cyclist, time ran out before she got to my quads. I paid her extra and she spent a good 15 minutes on each, each stroke reminding me how much abuse my legs had taken, largely over the last few weeks. I didn’t train hard for my adventure, and this was by design. Looking at my training log, you could be forgiven in thinking that I might have retired completely from cycling in November, only seeing an ember burning almost undetectable in January. Then, one dark, wet, typical Forest Saturday morning, making Kalamata olive ciabatta toast, I wondered “Where exactly is Kalamata?”. About an hour later, I not only knew where, I’d booked a return flight, and figured out a 2,200 mile route there in April, how long I’d ride each day, and about 1000 permutations of getting there. This was it. It was set. Only it wasn’t. Work threw in the possibility of a work event a day after I was due to fly back...and 3 days before setting off, it was confirmed as Istanbul.

Flying home from Kalamata on 11 May and back to Istanbul a day later would have meant a minimum of 16 hours travel doors to doors. The options I considered were to fly home, cycle to Istanbul, charter a yacht (yes, seriously, I did look into this!), get a bus from Athens to Istanbul (no pre-booking possible for the bike). After much deliberation, cogitation and planning, Athens won, with my bike case and work clothes being shipped to a hotel I booked on hotel rewords points. It seemed fitting too, as I’d never made it to the Athens Olympics as an athlete, but I got close, and next to qualifying, this trip is the biggest sporting conquest I’d attempted. It would be great to finish my ride at the Acropolis, but let’s see...thinking about how close I got to being an Olympian still is a bittersweet memory. Less than two minutes, a toilet stop in fact, and just a little bit faster and I’d have been there. But what I take from trying is that even though I ran my first marathon when I was 18, and didn’t think I was any good at running (this left it in the past until the months after my mum died in 1998, and from that event and to this day, sport has been my Lynch pin in coping with and celebrating life’s rollercoaster), I qualified as a mum o two young children, who to this day, probably still don’t see what hard work went in, and may well believe if you dream it, you can do it. It’s not a bad philosophy to have! That and blessed with good genes 😊.

And yet all so laughable! Here I sit, waiting for breakfast, the barista chuckling at my need for a third cappuccino (they’re tiny really, but delicious, and I giggle too, explaining I’m very tired 😆). I need it, it’s a big day today.

I’ve decided to cycle into the mountains, towards Pogradec, a village or town by a mountain lake. To check the route, I’ve planted in Athens a billion times and plotted by car (avoiding motorways, ferries and tolls) and by foot, put a pin in what looks like a country lane or a busy road to check the road conditions, and loosely made a plan: get past Tirana and head South East. It looks like I’ll spend another two nights before hitting Greece. Dare I say it, but the weather forecast and maps look fairly decent, but for now, the gear stays stuck on my back...

May 9: Librazhd - 05:19

Well, so much to digest from the last 40 or so hours in Albania. There’s still around 120km here to cover, and if my bike and body survive, we will make Greece today and my bed in Kastoria in around 100 miles...another big day - in the mountains.

In just 120 miles in this country, I have seen so much. The good, the bad, and yes, the ugly. Hearing that this is one country my pioneering explorer dad has not visited (I think this is a lifetime first between his coverage of the globe and mine) because its borders were closed when he ran is Overlander business, and learning from a Roman Empire history documentation that whilst the Roman Empire ruled all of the Mediterranean, except Albania, leads me to believe this country has an incredible past, and I need to investigate.

I learnt that Albanians have an industry built on roadside trade, most notably, car washes, petrol stations and attached to every petrol station, a hotel. Most of the people visible in daylight appear to be men; I barely saw a woman, either in the villages or city, and as a woman, this felt quite overwhelming, for no other reason than the imbalance. It meant that whilst the multitude of coffee shops were on offer, I didn’t want to stop. Already looking like an alien dropped from space, putting myself directly amongst gangs of rugged men who seemed to have nowhere to go and nothing to do was too much. That’s just me! But cycling past the many who stood at the side of the road and had stopped doing whatever they were doing, if in fact they were doing anything at all, they stood frozen, eyes and mouth agape. In no other country have I passed through have I had so many positive shouts and I guess, encouraging comments (for all I know they could have been shouting “loser!”). The contrast between those that have and have not was huge.

The road surfaces were very curious. In most places I’d visited, as you entered a town or city, the roads in Europe would be pothole free and markings better than the surrounding country roads. But in Albania, any town or city, the roads dissolved. A network of potholes you could disappear into and a patchwork of concrete “plasters”, and for no apparent reason, countless and pointless road jumps, unmarked, without any warning, which all cars, bling or ancient, rolled over so slowly, as if dampners and suspension were extinct and they had to maintain what they had.

Tirana, Albania’s capital, brought all my observations to a massive climax. Any Highway Code had not been introduced, and for a long time I decided they needed traffic lights at the very least (they did eventually appear). I saw the most insane driving I’ve ever seen in my life, making the film Ronin look like a police training video on how to drive safely around a city. At no other point during this trip had I felt as petrified for my safety as here. Checking my options at the worst point, I stopped at an intersection where coaches pulled up and double parked, a large verge, covered in mud, waste and men, sitting between and on it, police standing close, travellers trying to wheel suitcases over uneven verges, and me needing to make a decision on how the hell to get it out with my life. Google suggested what looked like the motorway, which started at this same junction. I confirmed with the police standing close by and they confirmed I could ride my bike on this road, and stopped the traffic to let me go. It was Russian roulette, but as soon as I hit the ring road’s massive hard shoulder, I felt my life had been saved and escape was nigh.

7km later, and I had reached the mountain road, SH3, the old Elbasan Road, replaced by the recently completed A3 that ran parallel. Order restored, the road started to climb. Given this was recently a major thoroughfare to the mountains, I wondered what would happen to the many restaurants and hotels that flowed with the road, through villages up towards the sky. It was quite haunting, and the stray dogs began to reveal themselves again. Children waved and one even raced me up a section, whilst another shouted “Hallo! Have an enjoyable day!” The climb was amazing, good road, and it felt like I owned it. I saw three cyclists in all, all heavily laden with panniers. I past cheerily one octogenarian going up and two coming the other way going down. It’s easy to see why they built a tunnel to take cars through the mountain, but it was their loss and my gain.

Here, in the land where I have seen more people walking their cow than their dogs, who in turn, run free , civic pride does not exist for what I have seen of Albania so far. It contrasts the most breathtaking landscapes, and shows diversity to the rest of Europe, yet fly-tipping is common, expected even, and mounds of wrecked cars are all to frequent. There are many ruined buildings and near Lehze, I passed what can only be described as a ghost town and factory, which was really sinister. Is this down to a poor state and government? Clearly there are people here who have wealth but the overriding feeling is this country is poor. It wants to be western but can’t quite bridge the gap. I feel very keen to explore its history.

Approaching the top of the mountain, which seemed like the top of the world, I happened upon the most cunning canine skullduggery I’ve ever witnessed. The mountaintop restaurant invited guests to it for 6km, and it was a real possibility that I might drop in. But as it appeared, there appeared to be a dead dog lying in the road directly in front of it, with two more dogs lying in wait to the side. Feeling both sad, but also danger, I pedalled slowly and quietly, not wanting to alarm the dogs to my side, and hoping to pass the dead dog without seeing too much gore. Then, just as I ran parallel, BOOM! he was up, his mates joining him in charging for me, up the remaining mountain! Luckily, I’d anticipated this ambush, and put down the biggest power of my life, as if being chased by a bear. I escaped, but my god! How brilliant of these stray masters of terror? Please, no more like this!

The climb was the day’s highlight, and telling myself that whatever hotel arrived at 100 miles, that’s where I was staying. As if my magic, a petrol station and a Swiss chalet looking hotel.

There’s not much to say about this place, except a stark contrast from the same priced oasis I had stayed at near Shkoder. Here, the food was bland and sparse, and the staff didn’t care as much as my last hotel. At Launi-A, seeing how much food I had put away the night before, at breakfast, they just kept bringing basket after basket of food! That hotel and its staff will keep me going for many years to come as the nicest surprise, and a great introduction to Albania.

And now, breakfast. A lovely Albanian who speaks good English and has lit the fire me and I have amazing coffee. It will be a good day! Ξεκίνα 😃 Even here, this far south, there’s snow on the mountains ahead! Titanium by David Gueta and Sia playing on the empty restaurant speakers...bring on the day 🌈

[kellancallic]

Unexpected Guest (Closed RP)

There tended to be very few visitors to Kellan’s quarters that he didn’t know about. There was usually more warning ahead of time or an appointment had been scheduled. In this case, there had been neither. He had arrived to his rooms after a shift on the bridge to find a tall, dark stranger awaiting him. Torth and Yvonne had dutifully played host in his absence.

“And who is she?” Kellan asked Torth in Konndar. Better that his guest be unaware of his conversation.

“She calls herself Urbosa, my Lord. She’s a native of the planet that you’re currently inspecting. She caught wind of your scouts and asked to speak with their leader. We’ve been entertaining her since she was brought here.” Torth answered.

“Thank you, Torth. Is she a xenos?” Kellan asked.

“Not as far as we can tell. You might want to have the medicae inspect her, or at least one of her kind, before making any judgement. She could be useful to you.”

“Very well. Get me some recaf.” Kellan ordered before going to take a seat at his desk.

“Sorry to have kept you waiting,” Kellan began. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Lord Kellan Macharius Callic. I have a variety of titles that come with that name but they are likely meaningless in this part of the galaxy, so I’ll keep it brief. I am a Rogue Trader and thus come on behalf of the Imperium of Man and the God Emperor of Mankind. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Kellan turned on his cogitator as he spoke, waiting for it to start and then logging in. It was best to keep some notes on this meeting and see what he could learn about this world.

@thegerudochampion

[sunny-satellites]

I guess after last night maybe keeping a separate log from my dream journal for nightmares is a good idea. Might help me gather illogical thoughts and ptsd intrusions together to cogitate on things with some distance from the contemporary mindset.

Last night's horrible ptsd nightmare was the worst I've had in years, ugh, and I had a similar experience less than a week before. I'm used to horrible nightmares being common but not this intense or real feeling.

[daily-klingon]

wotmey wej

mach be small v magh betray v maq proclaim v maS prefer v matlh be loyal v matlhHa' be disloyal v maw offend v maw' be crazy v may be fair v ma' accommodate v mech trade v mej leave, depart v meq reason v meQ burn v mer surprise v meS encrypt (slang) v meS knot v meSHa' decrypt (slang) v mev stop, cease v mIgh be evil v mIl be formerly honored (loss of honor is implied; an adjective to describe one who has fallen from grace; not applicable to 'utlh, which implies a voluntary, honorable retirement) v mIm delay v mIn yuq perform magic (referring to a stage magician) v mIp be rich v mIQ deep-fry v mIS be confused, mixed up v mISmoH confuse v mItlh forge (metal) v mIy brag v mI' dance, run in place, do calisthenics v mob be alone v moD hurry v mogh be frustrated v moH be ugly v moj become v mol bury v mon smile, grin, sneer v moq beat (something with an implement) v morgh protest v moS compromise v mot be stunned, be knocked out (in the sense of "rendered unconscious or into a dazed state as a result of being hit (by a fist or a projectile, etc.)". Like being hit by a "phaser set to stun") v motlh be usual, normal / standard v motlhbe' be unusual (abnormal, non-standard) v mub be legal v much perform (music) v much present v mugh translate v muH execute, put to death v muj be wrong v mul be stubborn v mum taste, sense flavours v mun intervene v mup impact, strike v muq have a volume of v muS hate, detest v mut be selfish v mutlh construct, assemble, manufacture, construct, put together v muv join v muvmoH recruit v nab plan v naD praise, commend, approve v naDHa' discommend, disapprove v naH be hostile, malicious, unfriendly, antagonistic v naj dream v nan gouge v nap be simple v naQ be full, whole, entire, complete v nargh appear v nargh escape v naS be vicious v natlh drain v natlh use up, consume, expend v naw' access v nay marry (wife does this) v na' be salty, be brackish v nech be lateral, move laterally v neH want v nej look for, seek, search for v nen be mature, be grownup, be an adult v nenchoH mature, grow up v nep lie, fib v nIb be identical v nID attempt, try v nIH steal v nIj leak v nIl be grassy v nIq weave, knit v nIS disrupt, hinder, interfere, interfere with v nIt be plain, be pure, be uncorrupted, be unsullied v nIv be superior v nI' be long, lengthy (duration) v nob give v nobHa' give back, return v noD retaliate v nogh writhe v noH judge, estimate v noj lend v non be rotten v nong be passionate v nop omit v noS eat in small mouthfuls, nibble v notlh be obsolete v nov be foreign, alien v noy be famous, well known v nub be suspect v nuD examine v nughI' twist knuckle into someone's forehead v num promote v nung precede v nup decrease v nuQ annoy, bother v nuS ridicule v ngab disappear, vanish v ngach debate v ngaD be stable, be steady, be balanced v ngaDmoH stabilise v ngagh mate with v ngaH squeeze (an object) v ngaj be short (in duration) v ngal be chewy v ngaQ be locked, be secured, be sealed, be fastened v ngaQHa'moH sign in, log in v ngaQmoH sign out, log out v ngaS contain (have inside) v nga'chuq sex (i.e., perform sex; "always subject" probably refers to the concept that all involved parties collectively make the subject of this verb.) v ngeb be counterfeit, false, fake v ngeD be easy v ngeH send v ngej infect v ngel attract, lure v ngep override v ngeQ bump into, run into, collide with v ngev sell v nge' take away v ngIj be rowdy, unruly v ngIl dare v ngIm be putrid v ngIng be negatively charged, have a negative charge v ngIp borrow v ngIv patrol v ngI' have a weight of, weigh v ngI' be pressurized v ngoH paint using fingers, smear v ngoj be restless v ngol move bat'leth from horizontal to vertical orientation v ngom be geeky (This describes someone who is "into" a subject and knows a lot about it, but does not necessarily participate in associated activities the way a qatru' does. It could be a less intense version of ven.) v ngon bubble (The verb ngon describes what water does when it's boiling: It's bubbling. Also, if you blow with a straw into a glass of water, then it's also bubbling. The person does not ngon, they ngonmoH the water.) v ngong experiment v ngor cheat v ngoS dissolve v ngotlh be fanatical v ngoy' be responsible v ngo' be old (not new) v ngun perch (if bird lands on land, use Saq, on water, use tlhot) v nguq be arrogant, haughty, conceited (an undesirable trait) v nguv be dyed, be stained, be tinted v nguvmoH dye, stain, tint v ngu' identify v pab follow (rules) v paj resign v pan spark, emit sparks v pang pluck (a stringed instrument) v paQ meditate, cogitate, reflect v par dislike v pargh be synthetic, artificial v parHa' like v paS be late v patlh be ranked, have a status, be graded v patlhmoH rank, assign status, compare, sort v pav be urgent v paw arrive v paw' butt heads (slang) v paw' collide v pay regret v peD snow, fall slowly (like snow) v pegh be secret v pegh keep something secret v pej demolish v pep raise v peq slaughter (connotes intention, targeting specific victims) v per label, ascertain, specify, designate v peS supply, furnish, provide, dispense v pet be welded (together) v pe' cut v pe''egh keep score v pIch blame v pID coat (food) with herbed mixture) v pIH be suspicious v pIH expect v pIjHa' infrequently, seldom adv pIl be inspired, be motivated, be stimulated v pIlmoH inspire, stimulate, motivate v pIm be different v pIQ be direct v pIQHa' be indirect, roundabout, devious v pIv be healthy v pI' be bold v pI' be fat v poch plant v poD be clipped v poDmoH clip v poH time v poj analyze v pol keep, save v polHa' discard v pon persuade, convince v pong name, call v poQ demand, require v poS be open, opened v poSmoH open v potlh be important v pov be excellent v po' be expert, skilled v pub boil v puj be weak v pujmoH weaken v pul be ground up v pum accuse v pum fall v pup be high resolution v pup be perfect, exact v pup kick v puQ be fed up v pur inhale v puS be few, be several, a handful v puS sight (with gunsight) v puv fly v puy wreck v