#how to increase disk space

[scoobydoodean]

I know you said you had a lot of asks, but do you have any thoughts on why the fandom hates the idea of Dean being seen as a dad to Jack? I don't even know how to put it into words, but I feel like it just rubs me the wrong way the way that certain segments oversimplify all the stuff with Jack and make fatherhood a competition. Sorry to take up your time and you don't have to answer.

It's totally okay to send me asks. I've had a backlog for a long time that slowly increases in size for one reason or another (no time to answer then forgetting, left half answered in drafts and forgotten, wanting to circle back later with a fresh perspective, not having a strong opinion on something, it's about disk horse I've addressed as much as I'd like, etc). I do answer the vast majority of the asks I get as I get them and try to catch things that won't take me much time.

I think a lot of people really resent that Dean didn't automatically slot himself into a nurturing, parental role with Jack in early season 13. Dean was grieving Cas, Mary, and Crowley, he did not trust Jack because of "The Future" and because Dean was full of utter despair. He was suicidally depressed (13.05) and in absolutely no state to nurture/guide Jack or anyone else. Sam was disassociating from his own grief and because of that, would not stop trying to convince Dean that his grief was not real, and that exacerbated the situation and caused Dean and Jack to be pushed together when they needed space the most. Dean explicitly rejected being Jack's "mother", two episodes after telling his own mother in tears that he had to be Sam's mother and father when he was incapable of filling those roles, and that wasn't fair (12.22). 12.23 then replayed Dean's defining childhood trauma, "killing" his mother in front of him, and shouldering him with a "child" that was not his, who he was not equipped to parent but was expected to begin parenting. He was overwhelmed, utterly lost, and wanted to die, and Jack was not his child, and Dean trying to set boundaries was immediately and thoroughly dismissed by his brother.

Fandom prefers to ignore all of this and be angry at Dean for not setting aside his grief because Dean is the narrative heart—the hearth of the house. His love and care is expected and anticipated. In Supernatural, the idea of being loved/belonging/accepted tends to orbit around Dean, so his rejection of Jack in those early stages is built into a denial of Jack's right to be loved at all by anyone or be part of the family. Jack himself almost immediately starts seeking ways to please Dean, and his well-meaning, good-hearted attempts aren't taken to immediately and that angers fans. If it was Sam or Cas who didn't immediately take to Jack, their rejection would hardly register/quickly be forgotten, because their love and acceptance just doesn't carry the narrative significance that Dean's does (though the idea that Sam immediately accepted Jack is also tenuous at best—this is something Jack confronts Sam over in 13.03).

"Jack In The Box" and "Moriah" reignite people's indignation and bring them back to the anger they felt in early season 13, even though Jack was murdering and torturing people, Sam also tricked Jack into the box, Cas went behind all their backs to see about getting him put in The Cage, and the whole point of Moriah was Chuck trying to emotionally destabilize Dean specifically to the point he would kill Jack because Chuck is obsessed with a familycide ending where Dean is the bringer of judgement and his heart is ripped in two. The entire plot of season 15 starts from Chuck being enraged that despite all his manipulations and painstakingly laid plans, and despite the carrot and the stick (it was also literally a suicide play btw) Dean would not kill his son for the "greater good". No one wants to actually look at any of it because it doesn't support their unbelievably dull narratives about Dean... to the point they'll harass you for months over polls of canonical facts that they find inconvenient. People have become obsessed with this silly nonsense about cYcLeS while fundamentally misunderstanding what is happening because they don't actually remember the show. But they sure love to try and talk down to you about tHe CyClEs and how "interesting" and "fundamental" it is that Dean does nothing more that repeat generational patterns (among the Winchesters and the angels) when the entire goddamn show is about Dean Not Doing That and telling God (who has a canonical pervy obsession with him) to go fuck himself for a decade and a half instead, culminating in god unleashing his wrath on them for not repeating tHe CYcLEs he wanted them to repeat.

All that said, I myself don't think Dean wanted to be a father to Jack early on. I think he accepted that role eventually, but he made it very clear that it wasn't what he wanted like... day one. And there's literally nothing wrong with that. Dean becomes the "parent" who treats Jack more like an adult (which Jack appreciates, because he isn't a baby and hates being treated like one). Jack seeks Dean's council on more serious topics like nightmares from traumatic experiences, guilt, and sex. Dean teaches Jack how to drive, he encourages Cas to give Jack space when he's upset, he encourages Jack to go out and have a good day when he's dying when Sam and Cas want Jack to be on bed rest. I think some fans also look down on this, wanting Jack to be treated like a child and seeing Dean's actions as a rejection of Jack's alleged "child" status.

[wirewitchviolet]

I miss games conveying a sense of Bigness

As you know if you watch my twitch streams, I play a lot of games, and games from a lot of eras, and there's a whole bunch of industry trends you pick up on from certain time periods. The one I really feel like talking about was a definite thing from oh... 1998 through... 2010 or thereabouts? Basically the aughts, give or take a couple years. Or if you prefer, the first two Playstations' run and a bit of the third. It was a period where games in general were really committed to feeling Big.

It feels a little weird to say that when major releases are priding themselves on stuff like measuring how much disk space they need in terrabytes and maps that sprawl out everywhere, but that's not what I'm talking about here. Games trying to feel Big is more of an attitude thing, and ironically enough I'd say it fell out of fashion almost immediately when Open Worlds became the new big thing. We hit a point where people actually made the maps for their games super big (even if most of that space was just kinda vast stretches of unremarkable rocks) so there's no more need to fake it, right? But faking it was kinda great.

I was thinking about this a lot playing the Resident Evil 2 remake, and comparing it to the original PSX game. See the original Resident Evil was set in a spooky mansion out in the middle of nowhere, but RE2 was the Bigger Better Sequel. So now we have a zombie outbreak happening in a whole major city, not just this single mansion. And how do we accomplish that? Do we actually model hundreds of buildings and have a big meandering adventure through all of them, or even a good swath? No not at all. Let's compare the actual maps side by side...

[There WAS a full map of RE2 here it was causing the post button to bug out. Look it up on your own?]

It's a little bigger. There's maybe a dozen more total rooms? But mostly, it's a smoke and mirrors thing. We've still got one big primary location, an animal-filled hike to a side location and back, and an underground science facility, but it feels like we've increased the scope to an entire city. The first playable moments have us out on the streets of the city, objectively in a few quick hallways, but presented as streets packed with dozens of crashed cars, raging fires everywhere, dead bodies littering the streets, and what again feels like innumerable zombies feasting in scattered packs. Once inside, arms of several zombies outside will reach in clawing at you, or later in the game finally breaching through. The remake completely loses that feeling. It feels like there's maybe a dozen zombies out on the streets.

Not to focus on just the one game though. How about GTA3? Remember how even when you're just on the first island, it feels like you're exploring this vast sprawling city?

Here's a more elevated angle from about the same point. I'm looking at this with noclip.website by the way, it's a really cool little toy.

The actual map is LAUGHABLY small. But it FEELS huge. They were really careful to avoid straight roads, and place a couple big vision blocking buildings, even if they're basically just a cube or two so that when you're actually on the ground, it always feels like there's so much more around you. Have another side by side, and a rough estimate of what's visible on the ground in the bird's eye.

RPGs around this time were also having a lot of fun playing with scale comparisons. FF7 is the obvious go-to. The world map is on par with any other in the series, but Big Cities are presented as such, making it very clear that you're just seeing parts of a single district in Midgar, really just the main street in Junon. Dragon Quest 8 had this very bold idea to keep the same visual scale on the world map as in the streets of the towns, with forests made of actual individual trees.

And I'm not even getting into the biggest elephants in the room. Are you old enough to remember how mind-bogglingly sprawling Hyrule Field felt? Maybe a bad example when sequels have kept that focus on selling their worlds as staggeringly Big. Shenmue? Objectively, looking at this map, there's not much there, but damn if I don't feel like this was a real town I lived in for a while 20 years ago. It's the way the detailing gets finer and finer the closer you get to Ryo's bedroom, where you can open every drawer, turn on every light, turn that orange in your hand, you know? I believe that bus you take to the docks has to stop in several other neighborhoods like this one.

And of course, then there's the one other series, maybe worth mentioning, perhaps.

Years later I'm still just speechless.

Again though, I don't actually WANT games with worlds as big as some of these feel. There just isn't the time and the money and the ability for a creative team not to burn out to fully realize that in a handcrafted caring way. I want some kind of inverted Plato's Cave, where it feels like there's a vast breathing world out there, but I'm really in a small cozy space watching masters of the craft put on a shadow puppet show.

[apod]

2024 June 16

Animation: Black Hole Destroys Star Video Illustration Credit: DESY, Science Communication Lab

Explanation: What happens if a star gets too close to a black hole? The black hole can rip it apart -- but how? It's not the high gravitational attraction itself that's the problem -- it's the difference in gravitational pull across the star that creates the destruction. In the featured animated video illustrating this disintegration, you first see a star approaching the black hole. Increasing in orbital speed, the star's outer atmosphere is ripped away during closest approach. Much of the star's atmosphere disperses into deep space, but some continues to orbit the black hole and forms an accretion disk. The animation then takes you into the accretion disk while looking toward the black hole. Including the strange visual effects of gravitational lensing, you can even see the far side of the disk. Finally, you look along one of the jets being expelled along the spin axis. Theoretical models indicate that these jets not only expel energetic gas, but also create energetic neutrinos -- one of which may have been seen recently on Earth.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap240616.html

[qtcatbox]

Introducing Catbox Spaces! + Server Upgrades!

Hi there!

As we approach Catbox's 10th birthday (jeez I've been at this for a while.), I wanted to share something I've been working on in sort-of secret last year - Catbox Spaces!

Catbox Spaces

Catbox Spaces is a new, paid service I've been developing to help content creators share their content with their followers. It's designed to be a content publishing platform separated from social media sites and payment/subscription processors (as Catbox generally has a more… sensible Terms of Service/Acceptable Use Policy). A content creator who owns a Space can create content packs that can be viewed on the site, with measures taken to restrict downloading/hotlinking of the images. You can also create password protected content packs. This can be taken even further by tying your space in with your Patreon or SubscribeStar account to have access based on pledge tier. The Space is highly customizable too, letting you style it how you want. You can also see view statistics for not just your Space, but individual content packs too. Further planned features include automatic Glaze anti-AI protection, custom CSS (for those that want to get really in-depth with their customization), and more!

Note that the funding and expenses that I incur from this new endeavor is completely separate from Catbox's. Catbox will remain user funded, and user expense driven. Don't worry, I'm not going to become some big corpo. I've just seen what's been happening recently with sites like Imgur, Tumblr, and others heavily restricting NSFW content. I've even been seeing sporadic reports that Mega has been purging folders of NSFW content. That's one of the great things about Catbox Spaces - I'm not a corporation (well, technically Catbox LLC is, but it's just me!), plus, I actually care! Did you know I read about 4 abuse/content reports a day for Catbox? And I handle each one individually. Bet you Mega doesn't do that.

If you have any questions, please reach out to me via email! I am more than willing to answer any questions. Thank you all again for your support!

Server Upgrades

I've been a little quiet on here regarding upgrades, but I assure you that Catbox continues to grow - both physically and logically! As we've increased in size, so has the need to add additional storage. Some of you may have noticed the brief downtime back on the 26th of January - that was me putting in a new, larger, and much more powerful server for Catbox! Unfortunately I wasn't able to put it into production, but I am aiming to do so either this weekend or next! The new server brings with it new, redundant SSD storage for critical files, as well as a dedicated 87 TB of disk space for user files. Combined with the storage array that's currently attached to the old server, that brings Catbox's total on-premise storage capacity to 162 TB!

[tenleaguesbeneath]

Some astronomically unusual habitable worlds

Or, weird star systems that include a habitable planet, or at least one in the habitable band that could be terraformed, on the assumption that systems you can live in are more interesting than those that can't. "Habitability" is a bit of a stretch here; a habitable world could be anywhere from "it has an evolved biosphere with plants you can eat" to "an airless rockball, but if you pelt it with enough comets, put a biosphere in place, maybe you could eventually live there" or perhaps one where someone already did the hard part; that part is deliberately vague depending on how hard your sci-fi is.

Throw these on a d10 or 2d6 table or something; stick "planet orbiting a yellow dwarf" and "moon of a gas giant orbiting a yellow dwarf" in the most common spots, and you're good to go. This is a draft of a setting design generator table I might use. I might use it for Stars Without Number or I might use it to fill in stuff about under-developed systems in BattleTech, for instance. None of these have precursor aliens so that they can be used in settings that don't include them (if you add precursor space habitats to your star system tables, you can get pretty wild and I do fully encourage that), though one of them assumes humans have been at this space colonization thing for centuries. Likewise, this doesn't include anything that requires Weird Space Magic, like hollow worlds with an antigravitational inside and an inner pseudosun. If that exists in your setting and you're building a Weird Planets table then by all means put that in.

If you want to follow real astronomical commonality, small dim stars are much more common than big bright ones. I'm not an astrophysicist, though, and I haven't done the math to demonstrate that any of these are physically possible.

A world in a distant orbit around a bright star. Because luminosity increases with mass faster than gravity does, this world has a very long orbit; seasons might last decades. Depending on the role solar gravity plays in your setting's FTL (if any), these planets might be faster to reach coming out of FTL.

Converse to that, circumbinary planets (with two closely-orbiting stars at the center of the system) will have shorter years in the habitable band, since the mass is divided among two separate stars leading to much lower luminosity for the same mass

A world in a spread-out binary star system (the planet is closer to its primary than the other star is). The other star shines brightly on it. In the right time of year, there's never a night dimmer than a full moon.

A spread-out binary system with two separate habitable worlds, light-hours or light-days apart

A planet in a binary system with two stars of greatly different brightness, but because of relative distance they appear similar. It's tide-locked to the dimmer star, giving it an uninhabitable hot side and an inhabitable side with a day/night cycle.

A world in a highly eccentric orbit around an extremely bright star. In time, it will fall in to the inner system and its seas and atmosphere will boil away, but that's maybe a century or three out

That same world, coming out the other side. It might have scorched ruins on it, left behind when it was abandoned. It's on its way to the outer system, where it will freeze for a thousand years or more.

A planet that distantly orbits a black hole or neutron star, its atmosphere restored after the supernova burned it off. At the rate its primary is radiating (remnant heat/accretion disk), it's exactly in the habitable band, for now.

An outlying "moon" of a gas giant. Instead of orbiting its primary properly, it orbits at the L4 or L5 Lagrange point

A binary planet in a low orbit around a red dwarf. Their tidal forces on each other are the only thing that has kept them from becoming tide-locked to their primary.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

New SpaceTime out Wednesday

SpaceTime 20250416 Series 28 Episode 46

How black holes generate their powerful plasma jets

A new study has unravelled some of the mysterious forces which help generate those power superluminal plasma jets that shoot out of the accretion disks of black holes.

Perseverance witnesses one Martian twister eating another

NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover observes a string of Martian twisters spinning on the rim of Jezero Crater including one devouring another.

A greater understanding of how tectonic plates move

A new study claims anomalies within basaltic oceanic slabs influence how the Earth’s tectonic plates move over the planet’s crust.

The Science Report

The link between loneliness and early mortality among middle-aged women.

Study says less than 10 minutes on TikTok is enough to make women feel worse about their bodies.

Google DeepMind AI successfully mines diamonds in the computer game Minecraft.

Alex on Tech: New updates for Samsung.

SpaceTime covers the latest news in astronomy & space sciences.

The show is available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday through your favourite podcast download provider or from www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com

SpaceTime is also broadcast through the National Science Foundation on Science Zone Radio and on both i-heart Radio and Tune-In Radio.

SpaceTime daily news blog: http://spacetimewithstuartgary.tumblr.com/

SpaceTime facebook: www.facebook.com/spacetimewithstuartgary

SpaceTime Instagram @spacetimewithstuartgary

SpaceTime twitter feed @stuartgary

SpaceTime YouTube: @SpaceTimewithStuartGary

SpaceTime -- A brief history

SpaceTime is Australia’s most popular and respected astronomy and space science news program – averaging over two million downloads every year. We’re also number five in the United States.  The show reports on the latest stories and discoveries making news in astronomy, space flight, and science.  SpaceTime features weekly interviews with leading Australian scientists about their research.  The show began life in 1995 as ‘StarStuff’ on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) NewsRadio network.  Award winning investigative reporter Stuart Gary created the program during more than fifteen years as NewsRadio’s evening anchor and Science Editor.  Gary’s always loved science. He studied astronomy at university and was invited to undertake a PHD in astrophysics, but instead focused on his career in journalism and radio broadcasting. Gary’s radio career stretches back some 34 years including 26 at the ABC. He worked as an announcer and music DJ in commercial radio, before becoming a journalist and eventually joining ABC News and Current Affairs. He was part of the team that set up ABC NewsRadio and became one of its first on air presenters. When asked to put his science background to use, Gary developed StarStuff which he wrote, produced and hosted, consistently achieving 9 per cent of the national Australian radio audience based on the ABC’s Nielsen ratings survey figures for the five major Australian metro markets: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth. That compares to the ABC’s overall radio listenership of just 5.6 per cent. The StarStuff podcast was published on line by ABC Science -- achieving over 1.3 million downloads annually.  However, after some 20 years, the show finally wrapped up in December 2015 following ABC funding cuts, and a redirection of available finances to increase sports and horse racing coverage.  Rather than continue with the ABC, Gary resigned so that he could keep the show going independently.  StarStuff was rebranded as “SpaceTime”, with the first episode being broadcast in February 2016.  Over the years, SpaceTime has grown, more than doubling its former ABC audience numbers and expanding to include new segments such as the Science Report -- which provides a wrap of general science news, weekly skeptical science features, special reports looking at the latest computer and technology news, and Skywatch – which provides a monthly guide to the night skies. The show is published three times weekly (every Monday, Wednesday and Friday) and available from the United States National Science Foundation on Science Zone Radio, and through both i-heart Radio and Tune-In Radio.

[angelosearch]

I'm kind of annoyed that FF8 was supposed to be the first game in the franchise to be all about romance, yet Squinoa only share 1 hug, never say I love you directly (they do sort of indirectly say it at separate times in Disc 3 — he says "I've fallen for you" in his head, and she admits that him saying "Just stay close to me" had started everything for her... but again, those aren't direct love confessions), and their 1 kiss panned away from them so quickly, it ended up being a discretion shot.

But... on the other hand, we are talking about a JRPG game from 1999. Eastern countries like Japan were and still are very iffy about PDA, hence why, if any kisses occur between couples in the FF universe, such kisses literally only happen once, and only between a canon couple. Of course, that doesn't really explain why, just 2 years later, in FF10, Tiduna (which I love, btw!) got a real, fully-displayed kiss... not sure what happened in the 2 years between those games to change gears like that 🤷‍♀️

Sorry, I just had that thought pop into my head and wanted to share it with you 😅😜 What are your thoughts?

Hello anon! Thank you for sharing. Haha, I am always down to talk FF8!

In terms of why the PDA was at a minimum, I think you're right that it has to do with the culture around the game. Why was FF10 so PDA heavy in comparison? This is all conjecture, but I wonder if it was an overall increase in Western influence on the company. (or just an increase in wanting to appeal to a Western audience)

Right before the release of FF10 was the release of Spirits Within. That movie required a new level of localization because of the voice acting. Then, FF10 was the first game in the franchise to require voice acting. Working with Western voice actors and translators throughout the production of the game may have had some bearing on how the story was told. Of course, FF10 was also being produced alongside Kingdom Hearts, which was a MAJOR Western Influence. I mean, it doesn't get more America than Disney, in my opinion. Whatever American executives that were working on the Kingdom Hearts storyline may have inspired changes to FF10.

Not sure if this had any bearing, but when SquareSoft was working on FF10, they were attempting to appeal to Enix for a merger. Some of their decisions around major cinematic moments may have been made to make them more competitive. I mean, when I think of 10, I definitely think of the kiss scene, so I really do think it appeals to a Western audience.

Now, in terms of if FF8 was successful in illustrating a romance... From my perspective, the way FF8 shies away from the more typical signs of love (saying the words, physical contact, etc.) makes it all the MORE romantic to me. It's like... their love transcends what is normal and expected. Maybe they don't hug and kiss much, but they do so much more. Squall carries her half way across the world on his back. Rinoa travels across time to bring Squall back to life. Squall throws himself into space. Rinoa gives Squall a metric fuck-ton of patience. Everything is so grandiose and epic, a kiss on the cheek or occasional hug, I think, would have ruined the rhythm of it all.

(Although, I am Ace, so to me, physicality and romance can exist in two completely separate spheres.)

In terms of saying "I love you" - I don't think it will be easy for Squall to come to identify with those words. He knows he feels something, but he's probably never said that to anyone but Ellone. And for Rinoa, she probably knows saying something like that to Squall could chase him off, especially because by the end of the game they've known each other for about... two weeks.

(Rinoa does say something like "We love you. There, I said it!" in the middle-of-the-road interaction at FH on disk 2 though, which I've always imagined as her saying it in a covert, "I've got a crush on you" sort of way.)

That is to say, I do think FF8 is all about romance, and I love how they portray it. Would I like a high-definition close-up kiss shot for AMV purposes? Damn right, I do. But I don't think the lack of PDA or specific wording takes any love away from the story. Anyway, that's my take! Thanks again for the ask!

[uncontrolledfission]

Animation: Black Hole Destroys Star, 2024-06-16

What happens if a star gets too close to a black hole? The black hole can rip it apart -- but how? It's not the high gravitational attraction itself that's the problem -- it's the difference in gravitational pull across the star that creates the destruction. In the featured animated video illustrating this disintegration, you first see a star approaching the black hole. Increasing in orbital speed, the star's outer atmosphere is ripped away during closest approach. Much of the star's atmosphere disperses into deep space, but some continues to orbit the black hole and forms an accretion disk. The animation then takes you into the accretion disk while looking toward the black hole. Including the strange visual effects of gravitational lensing, you can even see the far side of the disk. Finally, you look along one of the jets being expelled along the spin axis. Theoretical models indicate that these jets not only expel energetic gas, but also create energetic neutrinos -- one of which may have been seen recently on Earth.

Credits: NASA's 'Astronomy Picture Of The Day.'

[askagamedev]

How is the process of learning In-house game engines once you get into an AAA studio? Do they immediately put you in production to learn as you go, or does it take some weeks before allocating you to a project?

The onboarding process is a little of everything you say. Whenever I start a new job, there's the new hire administrative tasks I need to get done like signing paperwork and doing harassment/DEI/office safety training and there's the actual "this is what they hired me to do" learning process where I learn how the workflow works so that I can start being productive. We'll ignore the administrative stuff and focus on the productivity onboarding.

The first thing that any new hire has to do is get the project synced to the latest safe build and get the game running. Without being able to run the game, we can't make or test any of the changes we will inevitably need to make. This often entails fiddling with a bunch of workstation and network settings in order to make sure all of the files are where the game expects them to be, all of the necessary software is installed and ready, and so on. Getting an in-development game running can take quite some time (I've seen whole days lost in some cases) given how much disk space these games can take (and therefore how long it takes to download all of those files from the depot) and how complex the workflow can be.

Once the new hire has the game up and running and has familiarized herself with the game's controls and such, it's time to start reading documentation for the internal tools and workflow - how the content is made, how the work is done, what the working process is, how to check your work, who to contact in case of questions. At this point, the lead usually assigns an introductory task or two to the new hire - a small task for her to get her feet wet and to provide some guidance while looking through the system and making some actual changes.

After this initial process of learning > making changes > testing > submitting the fix, the process repeats with newer and more complicated tasks as the new hire's lead deals out new assignments. As the new hire completes more tasks, she learns more about the tools, the workflow, and the team. That knowledge and experience is then considered when increasing the scope of her tasks until she's reached the level of productivity expected of a dev in her role.

If you think this sounds a lot like the [minimum competency for joining a team] post from a while back that I wrote, you're absolutely right. We use this exact process to bring a new hire onto our team because it's the same goal - we have someone who (we hope) is dedicated to working on the game and helping us carry it to completion.

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[drivinmeinsane]

Christmas Movie ※ 12 Days of Goosemas

Day Two ※ Driver / Ken

{12 Days of Goosemas Masterlist} ※ {Regular Masterlist} ※ {ao3}

※ Summary: Driver has no real idea how to celebrate Christmas, but he's going to do his best he can for Ken.

※ Rating: No mature content.

※ Content/Tags: Fluff, Driver being Driver, Established relationship

※ Word count: 1925

※ Status: Oneshot/Complete

Nervousness is not a completely foreign emotion to Driver but it is unsettling all the same. He gets anticipatory, eager, sometimes feels like he’s vibrating in his own skin to the point that he has to fidget with his toothpick, with his tools, with anything to keep himself in his own body. But he never feels like this, never nervous about someone else’s feelings. Never really had anyone to make him feel this way.

Driver doesn’t celebrate Christmas, not really. His family hadn’t been one for the holiday, more focused on the vague outlines of their relationship. His foster parents had tried, but by the time he had come to them, he was so withdrawn and emotionally empty that it wasn’t worth their efforts. In the years following, it has only been him. Every year, he gets a clap on the shoulder from Shannon and picks up a meal from a Chinese takeout place. Does he like it that way? Not really. Does he want anything different? He doesn’t have the experience to know.

Now that he has Ken living with him, he is willing to try something different. He’s crossing the parking lot of his apartment complex with his arms laden down. He has some store bought sugar cookies, two boxes of Chinese takeout, and a Christmas movie that he's kept in his glove for the past week to keep Ken from finding it. With the plastic takeout bag banging against his hip, he takes the stairs up to the apartment he has been sharing with the other man for the past several months. 

The mechanic manages to wrestle his keys out of his front pocket. The worn rabbit’s foot is soft against his palm. He gets the house key into the lock and opens the door only to be welcomed by an empty living room. He hears the shower running. Good. It gives him time to get things situated for tonight without his man vying for his undivided attention. 

He grabs a hold of the folding table and drags it in front of the couch. It will have to serve as a coffee table for this evening. They regrettably do not have the space for one, not with Driver knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt that Ken would hit his shins on it at any possible opportunity. He does not relish the idea of the other man hurtling through the living room because he clipped the table in his eagerness to greet him at the door when he gets home from work.

Once the table is positioned with enough room between it and the couch to squeeze, he sets the plastic bag and the cookies on it. He double checks which is which before putting Ken’s on the right side of the table. Driver knows that Ken prefers to be closer to the television and to where the folding table, and Driver himself, usually reside. If he is too far away from him, he knows that the other man starts to get antsy. Work has taken up so much of his time lately, pushing him out of the apartment for so long that he’s taken to sleeping in the back seat of his Malibu between jobs. While he may not say it outright, he knows that being away so much due to the holiday workload increase has been taking a clear toll on Ken. It should be over after the start of the New Year. 

He crosses the small studio apartment to kneel at the dresser that also functions as a television stand. They’ve shoved the DVD player in the gap between the bottom of it and the floor. Not ideal, but they have to make use of their available space. Since Ken has become a fixture in his life, he has things now. Not many, but still more than just the duffel bag of clothes and handful of personal effects he had before. He pops open the DVD case he’s holding in his hand and barely stands up from shoving the disk into the slot when the bathroom door opens. He turns in time to see Ken’s excited face as he gasps out “Driver!” before he has an armful of the very muscular, very wet, and very excited man.

“I missed you,” Ken sighs against his neck, “You were gone longer than usual. I was starting to get worried.”

Driver grunts and runs a hand up and down Ken’s back. The skin is hot and damp underneath his palm. Since Driver has a toothpick in his mouth, Ken settles for planting wet, open-mouthed kisses against his jaw. He can’t say he minds the attention. This is so much much better than coming home to an empty, lifeless apartment after long days at the garage and even longer nights driving the streets. Ken’s mere existence gives him something to look forward to.

He takes a hand off the man clinging to him and plucks his toothpick from between his teeth in order to tuck it behind his ear. With it out of the way, he nudges at Ken with his face, bumping his nose against his cheek, guiding him into a better angle before he kisses him.

Ken always tastes sweet. He’s a contrast to Driver in every way. The wheelman knows that he is distant, quiet, and unapproachable. Ken is not any of those things. He balances out all the bad in him. 

Instinctively, he deepens the kiss when Ken whines into his mouth. Driver quickly comes to his senses, however, and realizes he has to head this off before they get entirely derailed. He pushes at Ken to separate the two of them. He soothes Ken's disappointment by pulling the towel from the tan man’s waist and dropping it over his head, leaving him bare. Driver rustles it to dry his hair so it stops dripping onto his shoulders. Finished with the other man’s hair, he moves to wipe away the beads of water that have trailed down his chest. The mechanic avoids allowing his eyes to trace over the constellations of freckles. If he thinks about the other man too hard, he’s going to be popping a boner. Getting worked up in his jeans over Ken's bare chest doesn’t exactly represent the Christmas spirit he’s trying to provide tonight.

“Put somethin’ on and take a seat.” He tells Ken, bundling up the towel in his arms to toss over the rack in the bathroom. 

Driver comes back into the living room after hanging the towel up to dry. He’s pleased to see that Ken listened to him and is waiting as patiently as he can manage on the couch, even if he does look ready to leap up at a moment’s notice to crowd into his personal space. Driver busies himself with unzipping his jacket and tosses it onto the bed once he shrugs it off his shoulders. He doesn’t miss the way that Ken brushes his tongue over his bottom lip, pupils dilating. It’s inviting, too inviting. For his own sanity, he has to ignore it. He picks the remote up off the dresser before taking a seat next to Ken. The other man immediately turns to him.

“What’s the occasion?” He asks cheerfully.

“Christmas.”

Ken squints at him in thought before perking back up. “I think we had that in Barbieland! It’s the day that more dol- people move in, right?”

Driver looks at him in confusion before it clicks. Oh, more Barbies as Christmas presents. That tracks with the wild story that Ken shared of his origins. 

“Uh… we do it different here.” He offers. 

“Oh, like how? Some of the others have said something about Santa, but I don’t know about all of that and I-.” Driver cups his hand over the back of Ken’s neck and pulls him over, silencing him with a press of his mouth against his. It’s rough, inelegant, meant to subdue. 

Ken looks dazed when Driver releases him. Managing Ken is an art he’s not sure that he’s mastered but this seems to do well to earn a moment of peace. Keeps his mouth busy with something other than running it. He usually doesn’t mind it when Ken fills hours of silence with his ramblings, but he does have a plan after all.

“I’ll show you,” he tells him. Ken flashes a wide smile at him in response, all perfectly white teeth.

“I like it when you show me things,” the other man says earnestly.

Heat arcs up Driver’s spine. He has to fight the urge to draw Ken back in, to say screw it and just devour him on the couch, the floor, anywhere really. He wouldn’t be too picky. He instead busies himself with the remote and presses play. 

“Figured we’d do a movie this year.” He frowns, decides to let himself be vulnerable for a moment. “Don’t really know what to do beyond that.”

“Why?”

“Haven’t had anyone to celebrate with.” 

Ken nudges him, nearly knocking him into the arm of the couch. “You have me now. It’s something that happens every year, right? We can be the best at Christmas.”

Driver ducks his head and smiles. He’s warm with a feeling other than the simmering arousal that he’s had to tamp down. He taps the lid of Ken's takeout box before he picks up his own. They eat, and Ken can hardly take his eyes off of the television. He’s entranced by the stop motion. He excitedly turns to Driver every now and then to point at the screen and exclaim.

They end up taking an intermission halfway through the movie. Driver clears away the takeout boxes and moves the table back to its usual spot. He also switches the lamp off, leaving the streetlights outside their window and the television as their only sources of light. Turning back to the couch, he’s briefly surprised to see that Ken has slid over into his place and is looking expectantly up at him. He’s dragged Driver’s jacket from the bed and it’s resting on his lap. He pats the cushion next to him and Driver takes the hint. He sits down, avoiding the container of sugar cookies on the floor by the couch, barely has the remote in hand before Ken is resting his head on his lap, drawing the jacket up over his shoulder to use as a blanket. 

The weight of Ken on his thighs is comforting and he can't help but relax into the softness of the couch cushions. The wheelman places his hand on the side of Ken’s neck and caresses him; sometimes scratching his short nails in his hair, tracing the curve of his ear every now and then, occasionally brushing his fingers over his cheekbone. He almost lulls himself into a doze. He's more relaxed than he has been all week.

“Why Rudolph?” Ken asks suddenly as the reindeer is leading Santa’s sleigh through the dark with only the light of his nose.

Driver’s hand goes still and it’s a long moment before he finds the words. “The unwanted ones were finally loved by somebody.”

“Oh.” Ken says softly. He reaches up and covers Driver’s hand with his own, interlacing their fingers.

Maybe they’re not that much of opposites, Driver thinks. They were both misfits that hadn’t had a place in their respective worlds, but they have a place here and now, together. They want each other. They love each other. There was nothing more he could possibly want than this.

[nightingaletrash]

Hey friend! I hope you're doing well. After admiring it from afar for a long time, I bought the Dragon Age games on mega sale. Do you have any suggestions for mods I should use to play? Thank you!

okay so, first off, welcome to hell I hope you enjoy your stay because there is no being normal about Dragon Age once you're in deep enough <3

second off

how much time and disk space do you have? because I use *a lot* of mods

First off, there is a learning curve to modding Dragon Age. DAO is deceptive in how easy it is to mod because for many mods, the installation is as simple as 'drop file in the override file' but there are some caveats based on how the engine works and it pays to understand what files are what, and what they do. DA2 is an almost identical process but tends to be much less finicky in practice, and DAI is infamous for being trickier by comparison due to the fact you have to use the Frosty Mod Manager, but you don't necessarily need to know the different types of files like you do with the other two.

If you have any questions about anything, feel free to ask, I'm happy to share whatever I know ^^

So starting with DAO, here are some mods I'd recommend:

Unofficial Remaster - what it says on the tin, this mod includes higher resolution textures and introduces some updated models to create consistency with the later entries in the series. There used to be a lot more involved, including other mods that help increase cohesion between games but a lot of that was cut because people bugged the mod author too much about it.

Natural Lighting - makes the character creator less dark ^^

Female Proportion Fixes - there are three versions of this mod, one for humans, dwarves and elves respectively because the originals are pretty damn bad. Humans come with two variations, Sensual and Seductress - you only need to choose one.

Elf Update - this is entirely optional, as it essentially swaps the elven designs with the less-human elf designs used in DA2. Elf Update comes with its own version of the proportions fix, so if you chose to use this, you don't need Elf Proportion Fix.

Neutral Female Armours - does away with the atrocious boobplates that plague Origin's ladies. Luckily, a similar mod wasn't needed for DA2 and DAI because Bioware largely got their shit together. There is a compatibility patch for the proportion fix mods - those files need to overwrite the corresponding files in this mod. The Unofficial Remaster also includes some retextures for this mod as an optional file.

Extra Dog Slot - because the Dog is a very good boy and deserves to come along on quests without taking up a companion slot.

Dragon Age Redesigned - again this is optional, as I use this mod solely for non-companion NPCs, as bioware's originals sometimes look a bit odd. If used with Elf Update you'd need to delete all of the elf headmorphs included in this mod to avoid getting the wrong heads showing up. There's three options to choose between, Lore, Balanced, and Aesthetic.

Goblet De-Gobbler - tackles a pretty well-known bug with modded armours and rectifies some little inconsistencies with a particular sequence.

Thedosian Grey Wardens OR Grey Wardens of Ferelden - DA2 and DAI gave Wardens a uniform, yet there's none whatsoever in Origins. Which is odd because everyone seems to recognise you as a Warden on sight. Thedosian Wardens uses the Inquisition armour models while GWOF uses the DA2 model so it comes down to personal preference. Personally I'm a Thedosian fan and use it and it's related mods - searching Thedosian on the Origins nexus will bring them all up. It's pretty much everything you need for GWOF is pretty much included in the mod however. There are also some good retextures for both available by VagranDreamer.

Origin Unique Grey Warden Armour - adds some GWOF style armour with some unique flavour. These are included in Vagran Dreamer's retexture series.

Thedosian Wardens Arsenal - new Warden themed weapons. GWOF does include weaponry as well, but this stuff is my preference. It also contains scripts that allow it to replace all NPC Warden loadouts with this weaponry

Complete Bi Overhaul - because it could be gayer. Also includes some optional files to either stop certain male NPCs hitting on a female Warden or to get them to hit on a male Warden.

There really are so many more that I could like like character creation mods and NPC morphs I use, but I don't want to overwhelm you with info. I literally use too many mods XD

For DA2, here's my top hits:

Kirkwall Expanded - a really cool mod that adds new little quests to the game, a bounty board, and just livens up the city.

Automatic Chargen - opens the CC in the transitions between the acts (this game is divided into three acts with time skips between them), so if you want to mess with the idea of your character changing over the years, this mod is 10/10

NEW Import Vault Fixes and Editable Vault - essentially a bug fixer oriented around the content imported from your Origins save, and adds the ability to tweak the worldstate in game

Sapphim's Dialogue Mini Mods - a collection of little mods that alter some conversations to tone down some unnecessary sexism and to let the game be a lil bit gayer (and shut Gamlen's damn mouth)

Wardens of Weisshaupt - puts all Warden characters in Warden gear, and gives you a choice between shiny Inquisition ported armours like Thedosian Wardens or the original DA2 models ^^

Again there are dozens more mods I could recommend in regards to armour, headmoprhs, companion gear etc but those largely come down to preference so it's best to find what you like for yourself ^^

Then there's DAI. Keep in mind that for a long time, the go-to mod manager was DAIMM. Mods from that period are DAI.mod files; nowadays most people use Frosty Mod Manager and a lot of mods are made with Frosty, as its more powerful. Some dai.mods do work with Frosty, but it can be hit and miss.

Complete War Table Operations Without Waiting - For Frosty - DAI's war table operations take real time to complete, which is terribly impractical if you actually want to just clear them out and get them done. This mod changes the waiting time so the operations are completed automatically or have a very short wait time

Less Shards Please - An Oculara Rebalance - you might have heard of the tedious shard side quest; this mod makes it significantly less tedious.

Party Banter Tweaks - Inquisition's banter is unfortunately kinda buggy, so this mod gives you a better chance of hearing your companions talk to each other! There's a lot of great convos you don't wanna miss ^^

Enhanced Character Creator - adds even more sliders and options to CC, as well as a hair slot unique to the Inquisitor that some modders use so that Inky's hairstyle isn't shared with random NPCs. It can be a lot to take in, but once you have a grasp of it, you can really customise your character extensively

Dialogue Wheel Overhaul - completely changes the way the game’s dialogue wheel works to make it more cohesive, universal, and functional

Modded Hair in DLCs - what it says on the tin; the DAI DLCs are a bit finnicky with hair mods, and this is one of the ways around it

And as usual, there's loads more I could add but if I did, this post would need links for potentially hundreds of mods lmao

sorry this took me a while, I may have overwhelmed myself a bit because I literally use hundreds of mods in these games, and I didn't want to overload you with mods and information. If you need any help, let me know because there's a lot to know. Origins can be deceptively tricky thanks to the engine and its the one that has caused me the most headaches lol

[ladyirisreviews]

Drainus - Review

I'm very excited to review this, this is the third game of Team Ladybug, a developer team I am quite fond of, they made 2 of the best Metroidvanias out there and it might seem weird that their next game following 2 Metroidvanias was a shoot em up, but if you take a look at their 2 previous games, it does make sense.

Touhou Luna Nights is basically a fangame of the Touhou games, a bullet hell series, and Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth had elements that were heavily inspired by shoot 'em ups, specifically, the element change system, which is similar to how Ikaruga works.

So them making a shoot 'em up seems very logical to me.

Another interesting fact is that this is their first completely original game, both of their previous games were based on an already existing franchise, so that makes this game even more special.

I'll start with a brief summary of the plot.

You follow Irina, a young woman who fights to destroy the evil galactic empire that has control over countless planets, she counts with the help of the incredibly handsome Gehnie, an artificial lifeform sent from the future.

He manages to steal the empire's secret weapon, the Drainus, and contacts Irina so she helps him free the universe from the empire.

The plot is fairly straightforward, but the inclusion of obtainable disks scattered through the levels, that contain conversations between characters on both sides of the conflict, help flesh out the world.

Now, moving out of the plot, because I don't want to spoil too much, let's get into the gameplay.

When you boil it down, it's a very classic shoot 'em up, but it has some features that make it stand out a lot, for starters, the whole draining mechanic.

When you enter draining mode, you drain all energy-based projectiles you come in contact with, and when you exit draining mode or run out of meter, all of the stored energy auto-targets the enemies.

It's very reminiscent of Ikaruga, like how the upgrade system is reminiscent of Gradius, but they add their own, very unique spin to the system.

You start with a basic weapon, and each upgrade item will unlock the next equipment you have equipped, it can be a different laser weapon, a fleet of mini ships with different properties, missiles, or even a stat boost.

You can unlock them with special points you get after defeating enemies, and after purchasing them you can equip them wherever you want.

The equipment level you are currently into is displayed in the top middle by the power-up meter, once you get all of your equipment unlocked, any new upgrade items will charge your bombs.

You can also buy hard upgrades for your Drainus, like unlocking more equipment slots, increasing the draining gauge, and increasing the number of bombs.

The upgrades also work like your life meter, when you get hit you lose your highest upgrade, and if you get hit while you have none at all, you lose a life, which I think is quite friendly for players who aren't that good at shoot 'em ups, like me.

But if you want a greater challenge, there is the option to enable 1-hit kills, making the game way harder.

You can also change the speed of your ship whenever you like, making maneuvering in tight spaces easier.

The actual levels are very dynamic, there's a wide selection of enemies, environments, and transitions that keep the level fresh and fun the whole time.

And as a cherry on top, the bosses are extremely cool.

Most of them have more than one bar of HP, and when it depletes they morph into a completely different machine, the music also aids these encounters greatly.

The whole OST is incredible, really.

These are all the first boss!

The artwork is also incredible, it's in my opinion the best artwork in any of their games to date, it's something to admire.

So in a few words, this game has very tight controls, gameplay, upgrade system, and difficulty customizations, while also counting with an incredible OST and artwork.

So if you like shoot 'em ups, it's a must-play, and even if you don't play a lot of shoot 'em ups, it's a game anybody can enjoy due to its difficulty options, it's just that good.

I can see myself getting lost in doing challenge runs on this game, like I have been doing in Touhou Luna Nights and Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth, except on this game it's way easier to determine the rules because of the levels of customization.

I really mean it when I say: Go play this game.

[skiplo-wave]

https://www.tumblr.com/skiplo-wave/748663242429235200/the-tiktok-ban-was-signed-into-law-by-biden-ugh?source=share

yeah, people can’t delete their accounts however there’s ways to have the app even if the bill gets passed. In my friends country (India) TikTok is banned, but she found a way to download it on her phone. We will see a huge increase in piracy the more the government does shit like this. If we can’t be more private, we’ll just pirate.

Same as when Texas banned porn and then there was an increase in piracy and people buying porn mags and disks. Not to mention how people are getting more and more fed up with streaming services and also how video game companies don’t want people to own the games that they PAY FOR and how vinyls, DVDs, and CDs are becoming more popular within the music industry. And with all of these “at home activities” (video games, watching TV, etc) becoming more expensive and going to fast food places, even though expensive, is becoming cheaper than buying healthy groceries, people are starting to yearn for 3rd spaces again. The mall where I work has seen an uptick in the amount of people coming, lots of kids and teens. Feels like a blast to the past.

Imagine that this brings a revival of places like Blockbuster lol.

It’s always morally correct to pirate

[boyakishantrinity]

Click, clack, clunk.

BANG.

Firing across the range, gun loaded and striking targets kilometres away. Somehow, the conventional weapons were not the actual reason he were there.

He'd paid a pretty penny, an anonymous individual named "Boyakishan" had taken a bribe to someone with links related to the underground of humans.

Nobody explained anything, one moment lowering into a dunny, pushed into a shop, then a cell before being lifted out of a truck by a large man. Then a brunette human was now walking him towards a bunker door, closing the door behind the Galv as the elevator moved. Lowering, glass panels showing the massive warehouse. What looked like crates of portable black hole generators just casually placed near the elevator. Levels flowing past him, flames erupting out a level, people testing gear near the elevator space.

Anti gravity weaponry, the edge biospheres, entrances to further sections.

The Galv might as well have been moving between worlds, the humans had spatial technology, already jumping leaps and bounds in the thirty years of recognising the UFA. An action that was more than a little insult by an individual known as "Beta".

Whoever it was, the humans remained tight lipped, with their underground practically an extension of their UEN. Well, as an ambassador. He could not not appreciate how much control the UEN had over their inner workings.

Humans has disseminated through the underground, with whispers of a new organisation conducting business. "Wolves".

Whoever they were, their links stretched across the systems. Spreading out like pollen, guards, weaponry, setting up stalls with associated groups.

Highly efficient, but largely passive. Barely a few branches of a greater organisation. "Mercenary Guild".

Alongside several names, a cabal of the best in the dark and light. Thirty years...

Looking up, the elevator growing dark as it seemed to switch gears.

"Watch your head."

Reva Galvi amongst froze in place, that. That was his local language. Looking towards the marked out camera, the big metal box largely for show as the door opened up.

He dropped to the ground, sliding onto the floor with a dazed look, the woman around the space all wearing masks, guns, blades, eyes turning to look at the alien. Reva looked back, getting to his feet as one of them stepped forward. Dark haired, a black covering mask over her face as a voice called out.

"Reva Galvi?"

He'd been let in, the woman ignoring his questions, the robotic voice tinged with an Australian accent as she sat down.

"How do you want your data?"

"I- You speak Gav?"

Looking back at him, flipping a radio device to her hand, a pool of something, specially tempered glass as the woman sat onto the desk.

"... This. This is-"

"Level 8 tech, that's like. Uhhh. Rose?"

Several drones popped out of sockets as the girl stumbled, low range light emitters flickering as the tiny cloud projected a woman beside her. Legs crossed, also wearing a mask.

"50000 credits. Moron."

The cloud smashed into her nose, flickering to rise back towards the wall, what took second causing him to pause.

"... that- Are you part of the Wolves?"

"... Uh huh. So, what do you want? CD? Floppy Disk? Cassette? Text? PNG? Paper?"

Tapping the window behind her, the tech displaying the images as he looked at the increasing ways to store the device.

"I. You. How-"

"... Uh huh, USB it is."

Pulling down a painting, tossing the small metal item to the man as she flips over the table. Flipping to sit backwards, twirling to slap her legs in front of him.

"I. You. What kind of organisation is this??"

Looking up at the woman, the masked individual putting back the various items she'd toppled pausing as she looked back at him.

"... Oh, right. You wanted an interview too. Uhhh. Mercenary Guild company."

"... You're a union?"

Shaking her head, the Galvi taking a seat as she looks down to him.

"Not really? We're more like. Streamlining the criminal underworld."

"... How do you streamline-"

The woman kicked open a hidden drawer.

"crack?"

The wooden panel showing the white drug, the alien looking at it.

"uhhh."

"Benzoylmethylecgonine?"

"... Uh, no thanks."

"Your loss."

Kicking the drawer shut, nonchalant as the man lifts the USB.

"... A few questions. So this contains all the data?"

"Yep."

"... And how much does this 'USB' have in total?"

"the data's. Terabytes if you only count the key data."

"... How much data can this data storage device hold in total, and the data I have requested?"

"... Uhhh, a little under half a petabyte. And like. 8 Petabytes?"

"... Excuse me?"

The woman shrugged.

"Hey, Mo- Boya commissioned us, we added all the context around the event since all you asked for was information on the Knights, Bitches and Wolves."

"... So, I could ask for anything and you'd send it?"

The woman paused at that, hesitating.

"... Technically yes, ask and after a little paperwork you should be able to get it."

"So, slaves?"

"... Yeah. We've got a few markets, but you will need to sign an NDA."

"... NDA?"

The man looked at her, sitting on the chair, relaxing on the couch, as she continued.

"I mean, yeah. Our facilities and allies have a right to privacy, plus it just swear so long as you know the knowledge you tell anyone who doesn't have an NDA or similar-"

"And what if I wanted to not sign one?"

"... Well, if anyone did find out about this and it got public, we'd have to end you, your line from history."

He paused, looking at her. The girl hadn't stated her name, and here she was casually talking about ending anyone...

"I refuse to believe that."

"hm?"

Looking at me, eyes looking straight as he continued.

"How about you ambitious little girl-"

CLICK.

"... I'd suggest you leave."

Something nudged his back, the woman getting up as she held open a door to a hall leading to an elevator.

"And why should I? I have links to the Marlins-"

"Who?"

The woman behind him spoke up, mentally noting.

... Royale French. Brighton British.

"The Marlins. Y'know, the largest bandit group. Wait, you've never heard of them?"

The two looked at one another. Watching the pair as they exchanged facial expressions, a silent conversation.

"Those people who've been giving us a little trouble in the new areas?"

"... Oh, the Fish."

"... Fish?"

"yeah, easy to bait and kill. Now out."

Kicking the man's chair out, forced to his feet as the woman held his back at gun point. Despite both wearing masks, barely possessing any strength, they forced him out.

10:40pm.

Kitty: You bastard, you tricked me.

Beep Boop: You mad mate?

Kitty: They gave me a piece of tech that's not compatible with my tech! What quality service

The man paused, his phone freezing as the message sent itself. The keyboard covering with a greyed out symbol.

Beep Boop: Mate. You probably pushed into something you didn't need to look into. I said my contacts were interesting, I've paid my part of the deal. But hint. Press the button on the side before you try pushing the storage device into your fancy port.

10:45pm

Kitty: ... How?

Beep Boop: Hell if I know, I'm a betweener. Not the company. Anything else before we ditch these burners?

Kitty: ...

10:50pm

Kitty: Can your contacts find a meeting of the leaders of the triage of figures?

Beep Boop: ...

Click, clack, clunk.

BANG.

Firing across the range, gun loaded and striking targets kilometres away. Somehow, the conventional weapons were not the actual reason he was there.

He'd paid a pretty penny, an anonymous individual named "Boyakishan" had taken a bribe to someone with links related to the underground of humans.

Nobody explained anything, one moment lowering into a dunny, pushed into a shop, then a cell before being lifted out of a truck by a large man. Then a brunette human was now walking him towards a bunker door, closing the door behind the Galv as the elevator moved. Lowering glass panels showing the massive warehouse. What looked like crates of portable black hole generators just casually placed near the elevator. Levels flowing past him, flames erupting out a level, people testing gear near the elevator space.

Anti gravity weaponry, the edge biospheres, entrances to further sections.

The Galv might as well have been moving between worlds, the humans had spatial technology, already jumping leaps and bounds in the thirty years of recognising the UFA. An action that was more than a little insult by an individual known as "Beta".

Whoever it was, the humans remained tight lipped, with their underground practically an extension of their UEN. Well, as an ambassador. He could not not appreciate how much control the UEN had over their inner workings.

Humans have disseminated through the underground, with whispers of a new organisation conducting business. "Wolves".

Whoever they were, their links stretched across the systems. Spreading out like pollen, guards, weaponry, setting up stalls with associated groups.

Highly efficient, but largely passive. Barely a few branches of a greater organisation. "Mercenary Guild".

Alongside several names, a cabal of the best in the dark and light. Thirty years...

Looking up, the elevator grew dark as it seemed to switch gears.

"Watch your head."

Reva Galvi froze in place. That was his local language. Looking towards the marked out camera, the big metal box largely for show as the door opened up.

He dropped to the ground, sliding onto the floor with a dazed look, the woman around the space all wearing masks, guns, blades, eyes turning to look at the alien. Reva looked back, getting to his feet as one of them stepped forward. Dark haired, a black covering mask over her face as a voice called out.

"Reva Galvi?"

He'd been let in, the woman ignoring his questions, the robotic voice tinged with an Australian accent as she sat down.

"How do you want your data?"

"I- You speak Gav?"

Looking back at him, flipping a radio device to her hand, a pool of something, specially tempered glass as the woman sat onto the desk.

"... This. This is-"

"Level 8 tech, that's like. Uhhh. Rose?"

Several drones popped out of sockets as the girl stumbled, low range light emitters flickering as the tiny cloud projected a woman beside her. Legs crossed, also wearing a mask.

"50000 credits. Moron."

The cloud smashed into her nose, flickering to rise back towards the wall, which took a second causing him to pause.

"... that- Are you part of the Wolves?"

"... Uh huh. So, what do you want? CD? Floppy Disk? Cassette? Text? PNG? Paper?"

Tapping the window behind her, the tech displayed the images as he looked at the increasing ways to store the device.

"I. You. How-"

"... Uh huh, USB it is."

Pulling down a painting, tossing the small metal item to the man as she flips over the table. Flipping to sit backwards, twirling to slap her legs in front of him.

"I. You. What kind of organisation is this??"

Looking up at the woman, the masked individual putting back the various items she'd toppled pausing as she looked back at him.

"... Oh, right. You wanted an interview too. Uhhh. Mercenary Guild company."

"... You're a union?"

Shaking her head, the Galvi takes a seat as she looks down to him.

"Not really? We're more alike. Streamlining the criminal underworld."

"... How do you streamline-"

The woman kicked open a hidden drawer.

"crack?"

The wooden panel showing the white drug, the alien looking at it.

"uhhh."

"Benzoylmethylecgonine?"

"... Uh, no thanks."

"Your loss."

Kicking the drawer shut, nonchalant as the man lifts the USB.

"... A few questions. So this contains all the data?"

"Yep."

"... And how much does this 'USB' have in total?"

"the data's. Terabytes if you only count the key data."

"... How much data can this data storage device hold in total, and the data I have requested?"

"... Uhhh, a little under half a petabyte. And like. 8 Petabytes?"

"... Excuse me?"

The woman shrugged.

"Hey, Mo- Boya commissioned us, we added all the context around the event since all you asked for was information on the Knights, Bitches and Wolves."

"... So, I could ask for anything and you'd send it?"

The woman paused at that, hesitating.

"... Technically yes, ask and after a little paperwork you should be able to get it."

"So, slaves?"

"... Yeah. We've got a few markets, but you will need to sign an NDA."

"... NDA?"

The man looked at her, sitting on the chair, relaxing on the couch, as she continued.

"I mean, yeah. Our facilities and allies have a right to privacy, plus it just swear so long as you know the knowledge you tell anyone who doesn't have an NDA or similar-"

"And what if I wanted to not sign one?"

"... Well, if anyone did find out about this and it got public, we'd have to end you, your line from history."

He paused, looking at her. The girl hadn't stated her name, and here she was casually talking about ending anyone...

"I refuse to believe that."

"hm?"

Looking at me, eyes looking straight as he continued.

"How about you ambitious little girl-"

CLICK.

"... I'd suggest you leave."

Something nudged his back, the woman getting up as she held open a door to a hall leading to an elevator.

"And why should I? I have links to the Marlins-"

"Who?"

The woman behind him spoke up, mentally noting.

... Royale French. Brighton British.

"The Marlins. Y'know, the largest bandit group. Wait, you've never heard of them?"

The two looked at one another. Watching the pair as they exchanged facial expressions, a silent conversation.

"Those people who've been giving us a little trouble in the new areas?"

"... Oh, the Fish."

"... Fish?"

"Yeah, easy to bait and kill. Now out."

Kicking the man's chair out, forced to his feet as the woman held his back at gunpoint. Despite both wearing masks, barely possessing any strength, they forced him out.

10:40pm.

Kitty: You bastard, you tricked me.

Beep Boop: You mad mate?

Kitty: They gave me a piece of tech that's not compatible with my tech! What quality service

The man paused, his phone freezing as the message sent itself. The keyboard covered with a greyed out symbol.

Beep Boop: Mate. You probably pushed into something you didn't need to look into. I said my contacts were interesting, I've paid my part of the deal. But hint. Press the button on the side before you try pushing the storage device into your fancy port.

10:45pm

Kitty: ... How?

Beep Boop: Hell if I know, I'm a betweener. Not the company. Anything else before we ditch these burners?

Kitty: ...

10:50pm

Kitty: Can your contacts find a meeting of the leaders of the triage of figures?

Beep Boop: ...

The man looked at the message, USB plugged into the mobile device. He'd gotten a date, location and a simple message.

Be warned. The underworld here is a lot more intense than your fancy space one. Humanity's been through a lot of shit. If you're not dead or tell anyone where you got the data. You can get your little signal to that station orbiting Pluto.

[forexvpswithlowcost]

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[spacetimewithstuartgary]

In the belly of the beast: Massive clumps reveal star factories from a bygone era of the cosmos

Astronomers have surveyed massive, dense star factories, unlike any found in the Milky Way, in a large number of galaxies across the local universe. The findings provide a rare glimpse into processes shaping galaxies in the very early universe and possibly the Milky Way a few billion years from now.

Known as luminous and ultra-luminous infrared galaxies, or LIRGs and ULIRGs, these galaxies are relatively rare in the local universe, with only 202 known within 400 megaparsecs (1.3 billion light-years) from Earth, according to Sean Linden, a research associate at the University of Arizona Steward Observatory, who presented the findings during a press briefing at the 246th meeting of the American Astronomical Society on June 11.

LIRGs and ULIRGs differ from spiral galaxies like the Milky Way in that they are in the process of merging with other galaxies. Most exhibit features such as two galactic nuclei instead of one or extended "tails" as gravity stretches and deforms the two objects. And unlike "modern" galaxies, they contain "clumps"—dense regions brimming with newborn stars, much more massive than anything found in "typical," evolved galaxies that are not undergoing mergers.

"These galaxies are very clumpy, very different from the beautiful spiral galaxies that we see now, such as the Milky Way," Linden said. "And we know from cosmological simulations that these clumps were the building blocks of galaxies in the early universe."

Astronomers are interested in LIRGs and ULIRGs because they serve as windows into a distant past when the universe was much younger and galaxies were much less evolved and crashed into each other much more frequently than today.

This is where the Great Observatories All-sky LIRG Survey (GOALS) comes in. It combines imaging and spectroscopic data from NASA's Spitzer, Hubble, Chandra and GALEX spaceborne observatories in a comprehensive study of more than 200 of the most luminous infrared-selected galaxies in the local universe. Now, infrared observations with NASA's James Webb Space Telescope have provided the most complete census of these galaxies.

Running from October 2023 until September 2024, the survey is the only of its kind. The team plans to publish the results in a forthcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

"You can imagine a million suns forming in one small, compact region, and within one of those galaxies, there are hundreds of thousands of such clumps," Linden said.

For comparison, the most massive young clumps in the Milky Way have masses of about 1,000 suns, and on average, one star is born each year.

When two galaxies collide and merge, star formation rates increase dramatically, Linden explained, resulting in massive clumps that are not seen in other galaxies that are not undergoing mergers.

"These clumpy structures build up over time until they become incredibly massive, and if we want to understand them and how they actually contribute to galaxies evolving throughout cosmic time, we need to study them in detail," Linden said.

Although star-forming clumps had already been observed with the Hubble Space Telescope, only the infrared capabilities of JWST allowed astronomers to pull aside the veils of thick dust that had prevented them from obtaining a more detailed look at these features.

The survey results also confirm predictions of galaxy evolution based on simulations done by supercomputers, which predicted that "typical," disk-like galaxies contain fewer clumps of star formation, and most of the star formation happens in small clumps, as seen in the Milky Way today. Mergers produce bigger clumps, and more of them, and more of the star formation takes place in the massive clumps.

"We're now finding these massive clumps in the local universe," Linden said. "We are beginning to complete the picture by comparing for the first time observations of massive clumps from both the nearby and the distant universe."

Being able to discern previously hidden details in these unusually massive star-forming clumps helps researchers better understand how these features and their host galaxies evolved over time, essentially providing a natural laboratory for a type of galaxy that—for the most part—no longer exists in the universe except for its most distant, outer regions.

"In a sense, you look at the local universe, and it gives you information about what would have happened 10 billion years ago," said Linden, whose work focused on imaging the clumps and the star clusters, and who led the data acquisition, reduction and analysis.

The early universe was much denser, he explained, and mergers between galaxies happened much more frequently, producing massive star-forming clumps. As the universe evolved and space expanded, the galaxies became more and more like the Milky Way and the mature spiral galaxies we see today.

"The universe used to be much more violent and extreme in the past, and it's now settling down," Linden said. "That's why these rare examples of extreme galaxies no longer exist in the local universe, because, by and large, most galaxies have settled down as well."

In addition to providing windows into the past, the surveyed galaxies also hint at the future, Linden said. At some point, the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are going to collide, over the course of several billions of years, and when that happens, the merger could ignite another round of massive star formation in both galaxies.

"As Andromeda gets closer and the pressure in the interstellar medium goes up, all of a sudden, the clumps that you will find that the Milky Way is forming will be more and more massive."

TOP IMAGE: This artist's illustration shows a stage in the predicted merger between our Milky Way galaxy and the neighboring Andromeda galaxy, as it will unfold over the next several billion years. In this image, representing Earth's night sky in 3.75 billion years, Andromeda (left) fills the field of view and begins to distort the Milky Way with tidal pull. Credit: NASA; ESA; Z. Levay and R. van der Marel, STScI; T. Hallas; and A. Mellinger

CENTRE IMAGE: Two interacting luminous infrared galaxies, designated as IRAS 09111-1007, from the survey. The galaxies already passed through each other once and are coming back on a second approach. Credit: Great Observatories All-sky LIRG Survey

LOWER IMAGE: A selection of luminous infrared galaxies from the GOALS survey. These objects are very common in the early but rarely found in the 'local' universe. Credit: Great Observatories All-sky LIRG Survey