#i know the exposure is a bit blown out

[sidetongue]

i just think he’s neat 

[earthstellar]

Just thinking about how close Miko came to getting killed in TFP "Con Job"

But not the scene where Fake Wheeljack grabs her;

I'm talking about the scene where she's in a hallway deep in the base, alone with Fake Wheeljack

He asks for where something is, and her response is a deadpan "I'd tell you, but then I'd have to crush your spark" or something along those lines.

Fake Wheeljack isn't familiar with humans. He can't be 100% sure if that's a real threat or not. Sure, she's tiny and squishy, but what are humans capable of?

Fake Wheeljack has her alone, away from the others at least far enough that it might take a little time for them to respond to any screams.

He doesn't move to attack, because he doesn't want to blow his cover unless it's unavoidably necessary, and because if humans really can put up a fight, he wants her to take the first swing to see what she's got.

She may not register as that much of a realistic threat, but she did technically threaten him, and Decepticons (with the exception of Knock Out, via movie night) have little exposure to humanity. He may not understand human sarcasm.

And after all, scraplets are tiny little things, yet look at all the damage they cause. I think Fake Wheeljack is sizing up Miko, just for a moment here. Just waiting to see if she might try to act on that threat.

Miko breaks the tension with a quick "just kidding", but for a moment there, there is a real fear that he might just decide to snuff Miko out while he has a good, clear chance to do so.

Of course, Miko doesn't know how close she came to being killed.

She didn't know she was speaking to a Decepticon.

Sure, she likely realised after Fake Wheeljack was exposed as an imposter just how dangerous an encounter it was, but in the moment...

... It's a very adult fear, being evoked here.

It's a child speaking to an adult who is someone other than who they say they are, with hidden motives, while alone in a secluded space with relatively few places to run to. She trusts him, because she thinks she is a friend of her protector, an adult she already trusts. And her protector likes this guy, so why wouldn't she?

Miko thinks she's playing around with a cool tough guy buddy, but in reality, she is extraordinarily lucky that he did not take the very easy shot that he had to take her out away from the eyes of the others.

Later, he does directly threaten her life.

But I think Miko was arguably closer to death in this scene rather than when she was grabbed and held hostage; A hostage is protection. Fake Wheeljack likely wasn't actually going to kill her then, because there would be nothing stopping the Autobots from opening fire on him if he lost his hostage.

But in this earlier scene, nobody was watching. He could have killed her, walked out and claimed she was running around deeper in the base, pretending to be on a "mission", because that behaviour is in line with how he's seen Miko behave since his arrival. He knows she's a bit more energetic than the others, she's more into "being tough and cool", it's something she would plausibly do.

Fake Wheeljack would return, the Autobots wouldn't be overly surprised to hear Miko got distracted by her imagination while messing around in the base, and they'd give it just enough time before going to actively look for her that the ground bridge would be back online and Fake Wheeljack could make it back to the Nemesis -- Leaving the Autobots to find her body after he was already gone.

This would also potentially frame the real Wheeljack for her death, if Fake Wheeljack's cover wasn't blown before departing, in this scenario.

Really dark shit.

I haven't seen this episode in a while, but it popped into my head and felt like it was worth talking about, because TFP does a great job of utilising adult fears in a way that isn't blatant enough to upset younger audiences, while also registering the real depth of the potential threat to older audiences who will recognise things like this.

Anyway, glad Miko survived, because holy shit this could have been grim.

[hishighnesstheprincess]

Hi! This is gonna be a masterpost about how the metal virus in Sonic IDW functions, complete with screenshots and a whole ton of rambling!

So first off, this is gonna be divided into four sections: How It Infects, How Zombots Behave, The Cure(s), and Miscellaneous.

Obviously let's begin with section 1: How It Infects

We find out from some scenes of Dr Starline and Eggman the very basics of how the virus infects things: it starts with the liquid ooze that Eggman creates, but anything that is infected can be a transmitter. It can infect anything organic, but inorganic/processed materials, at least in these early scenes, cannot be infected.

The rabbit and the flower are both infected and converted by the initial liquid, and the rabbit goes on to infect the pig by just touching it, and the flower infects the squirrel in the same way.

Some other details from analysis of these scenes: once something is infected, it can transmit the infection to other parts of its body just by tapping them (the last shot of the squirrel transferring their infection from their hand to their head). And while completely covering the victim in liquid converts them to a zombot within seconds (as also seen below with Rough and Tumble), merely tapping them doesn't spread it nearly as quickly.

However, repeated exposure to the virus is shown to speed up the process significantly (as seen below).

Lastly for this section, how the virus works while it is on organic material. It actually appears to have two different rates of infections for plants and for living beings, as shown in the panels below.

In the first one, we see that it takes at least ~8 hours minimum for the virus to creep a couple inches up the side of a tree and to infect a flicky sleeping in it. In the last two, we see that it doesn't take long for a small spot of infection on a Mobian to progress into a full blown zombot conversion (we know not much time passes, maybe an hour or so, because the sky doesn't progress much from what looks like the middle of a sunset to the end of a sunset). While due to the power of exponential growth it's likely that more of the natural plant life on Mobius would get infected at an increasingly faster rate as the virus went on, it does seem that the initial infection rate is very different. For whatever reason, I don't know and don't particularly care, it's useful.

One last note on this section before I end this bit (cus I've hit the image limit already yay Tumblr): how the virus interacts with clothing. We can see clearly from Charmy's case that not only can the virus get on clothing, it can infect from there, and in many other cases down the line we see that it can get all over clothing. Additionally, from Rough and Tumble we can see that their gloves and shoes get transformed along with them. Either this means the virus can infect inorganic/processed material, or every Mobian we see infected is all wearing organic material somehow. I'm going with the secret third option: it's for plot convenience, and in my AU of the metal virus I'm just going to bullshit something about the clothing being skintight or something.

Anyway, this is the end of part 1, other parts on their way shortly.

[simlicious]

Personal update about my anxiety

Time for another personal update! At the moment, I'm not really in a creative mood and my projects are all resting.

I am working on more stuff in my real life, including cleaning/decluttering my apartment and working through an anxiety app which will hopefully get me to start exposure (though I shudder at the thought alone). The funny thing is, the app is for social anxiety, and I do have some social anxiety, but I think I mainly have agoraphobia (but there is no medical app available for this at the moment, so I took the next best thing). The app said: "Let's make a gradual steps plan, you first choose a very easy step, then one that is a little harder and harder, and so on until the hardest step comes at the top." And for the easiest step, it actually suggested one of my hardest steps: going into a store, buying something, and interacting with the cashier. Checkouts give me such anxiety. I once had a full-blown panic attack because I couldn't remember the PIN number for my credit or debit card. And I very rarely get panic attacks. Luckily, my brother was present and he was able to pay for me while I almost hyperventilated and tears were streaming down my face. Generally, I start sweating and get shaky hands which does not help while handling cards and remembering pin numbers. I get tunnel vision and cannot focus on anything that is going on around me. Sometimes, blood rushes in my ears so I have a hard time picking up whether someone is saying anything. Then, all items need to be put into bags at lightning speed, and I always fear that I am not fast enough and that everyone else in line is annoyed and angry with me and this makes me even more nervous. Putting things away with shaky hands is tough! So I send my boyfriend shopping for me or buy online most of the time. If I absolutely must, I can go shopping with one of my loved ones because I feel a tiny bit calmer and know I have a safety net with me. They can also help me put stuff in my bags. But alone? That's nightmare fuel for me. Same thing with using public transportation, I just can't do it. I also have a very hard time sitting in waiting rooms at the doctor's office, I get so tense and do not know what to do with myself. Oh, and I also have severe anxiety when I need to make a phone call 😫 But all that is seriously impacting my life, as you can imagine. And I want to change something.

Since the app is not helpful with suggestions for my gradually harder steps to take, I have to come up with my own, and it is harder than I thought! All the things I think about are really hard for me, I cannot think of less hard steps to take 😣 Even just going outside without a destination/going out by myself is also anxiety-inducing for me. I feel like I am watched all the time, I get tense and my thoughts start racing or going in circles. This also happens while I am in a store to shop for something. I get paralysed sometimes with decision fatigue and if someone else comes into the same aisle, I have the urge to run away instantly. I get so distracted that I need to spend way more time in a store than usual and this is of course not making me calmer. I am just super exhausted after going shopping! I am proud that I leave the house twice a week now to go for a walk with my best friend though. We have just established a second day of the week this year, and we still do not go twice every week, but pretty often, which is great. And I love to walk in nature, it calms me (if there aren't too many other people around). 😊 I am also making progress with my borked sleep cycle. I am a night owl 🦉, but being awake the whole night clashes a lot with my family's plans. I have tried for months to shift it, but in the last one to two weeks, I actually made real progress and went to bed 2 to 3 hours earlier than normal, which is really huge for me! I found out that there are lots of free audiobooks on YouTube that authors upload themselves. So one hour before I want to sleep, I put one on, set a shutdown timer of 60 minutes so it will turn off after that time, and then go to bed and listen to it until I fall asleep. This has motivated me enough to actually go to bed earlier.

As a result, I get more daylight and I am more inclined to do housework, which I also struggle with in general, so this is really great! I am focusing more on that now. I also started playing Subnautica again, but I can only play for a few hours on end because it can get pretty intense. I kinda want to play Sims 4 again (weird, I know). My anxiety app wants me to think more positively, so instead of thinking that it is no use updating my mods because the minute I do, another patch drops anyway and I have to start all over, I should think more positively. I will probably drop the game after playing for a day anyway, so it does not need to stay updated for long! Maybe downloading and updating mods is more fun than actually playing anyway? 😆

[purple-plum-petals]

may i request sun/moon pining headcannons? (romantic) like them coming to terms with their feelings, them remembering every detail about you, them refusing to let you neglect yourself etc ? thank you! :]

—⊱ Dreaming of Our Future ⊰ || Sun/Moon X Reader Pining Headcanons

╭─━━━━━━━━━━━━─╮       Character(s): Daycare Attendant, Sun and Moon (FNaF: Security Breach)        Reader Type: Human (Gender-Neutral Pronouns)        Warning(s): Nothing!        Genre: Headcanons/Scenario, Angst and Fluff (Happy Ending), Romantic Relationship (Friends to Lovers)        Word Count: ~1,500 words        Request: “may i request sun/moon pining headcannons? (romantic) like them coming to terms with their feelings, them remembering every detail about you, them refusing to let you neglect yourself etc ? thank you! :]”        Author’s Note: But of course! These two are some of my favorite characters ever and I love being able to write more about them! I might have repeated myself in this ask since I’ve written a few things about Sun/Moon falling in love before, but the other asks were just never specifically pining headcanons. It also ended up being a bit more angsty since I had to look up what pining was because I needed a definition refresher, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless! I’ve been having writer’s block recently due to a mixture of stress and no motivation, so I hope these aren’t too bad haha.

      → If you enjoyed my work, please reblog it if you can! Exposure on Tumblr is based on reblogging content rather than liking it, so your support would be much appreciated!  ♡ ╰─━━━━━━━━━━━━─╯

⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤⋆

     ☀️: Sun comes to the realization that he’s in love with you very quickly. He’s the type of person bot that will become very attached to you if you show him even the slightest amount of positive attention, something which eventually snowballs into a full-blown crush. He accepts his feelings towards you, but he doesn’t do anything to actively pursue you. After all, you’re a human and he’s a robot – you’re both very different from each other in a lot of ways, such as your statuses and the fact that he can never leave the confines of the Pizzaplex. You two would never be able to have a “normal” relationship.

     ☀️: Sun is just happy to be able to be by your side whenever you decide to spend your time with him, drawing together and talking about how your separate days went after all the children have been picked up. You always have quite eventful days at work, and he isn’t quite sure how you manage to handle it all; you’re truly an inspiration! Sun loves listening to you talk about anything and everything, but he especially loves hearing what you do before and after your shifts at the Pizzaplex. He daydreams about being able to leave with you, go home together, make dinner as if you were a couple… it hurts him so much to dream, but he can’t stop himself from doing so if you are in them.

     ☀️: He knows that his… feelings for you aren’t good for his own wellbeing, but he just can’t stomp them out like an unruly flame when you look at him the way you do, your eyes shining with glee and your smile so wide it’s causing the skin under your eyes to crinkle. Why does his chest hurt? He doesn’t even have a heart, at least not one like you do. He asks you one day if you think he has a heart. You take a moment to think as you draw on the paper in front of you absentmindedly, telling him you do think he has one – he loves the kids, he has things he’s passionate about… it only would make sense that he has a heart, at least in the metaphorical sense. That makes him feel better knowing you see him as more than just a machine following code, but he still won’t do anything outright like telling you how he feels about you.

     ☀️: Sun has quite a lot of storage in his memory system, so he is easily able to remember everything and anything about you that you’re willing to tell him such as your favorite food or even something that caught your eye while you were shopping. He can’t do much with that information considering he’s pretty much confined to the daycare, but he’ll always do what he can to show that he cares. For example, if you’re having a bad day, he’ll throw together a card illustrated with your favorite animal drawn with crayon in your favorite color with Sun’s handwriting telling you he’s always there to talk if you need him.

     ☀️: He is an amazing friend and a very supportive figure in your life, always filling your usually boring and sometimes draining workdays into something you can actually look forward to. That’s why when you found yourself catching feelings for him, you weren’t exactly surprised. You and Sun had been hanging out like you usually do when all the kids leave when you accidentally let your true feelings slip during a conversation. Sun froze completely, staring you down with milky eyes as you tried to play it off as a joke – the last thing you wanted was to lose your best friend – when he suddenly asked, “…you do?”

     ☀️: You couldn’t lie to him, so you told him the truth; never before had you seen Sun light up the way he did at that moment. He picked you up in his arms, twirling you around as he exclaimed that he loved you as well – that he had for so long. You both were happy but, for Sun, it was like the vice-grip that had been squeezing his chassis for months had finally removed itself from his person; he felt light for the first time in ages. Now, after you left, he could daydream knowing you loved him back and that, maybe one day… you two could have a future together.   

     🌙: Moon realizes he’s in love with you just as quickly as Sun but, unlike his twin who immediately accepts that he has feelings for you, Moon does everything he can to push them to the side. He probably even starts actively trying to avoid you in the hopes the feelings go away. Alas, it only makes his non-existent heart want you even more. Like Sun, though, he believes you two could never be together considering how different you are from one another, both species-wise and status-wise… You’re a person with a life outside the Pizzaplex, and he’s forever confined to the place of his creation.

     🌙: Moon looks forward to being able to see you even if he wishes you didn’t have him so tightly wrapped around your finger; he wondered if you realized the hold you had on him. You’d usually sneak into the daycare while the children were asleep, the two of you often playing with the deck of cards you usually snuck into work so you two could play. You were so adorable when you lost for the fifth time in a row, quietly accusing him of cheating with a slight pout on your lips. Well, you were playing with a highly advanced AI, of course he was going to win – something of which he told you with a smirk. You just playfully pushed his arm, the area where you touched setting his sensors on fire and only causing the pain in his chassis to deepen… he needed to be more careful with you.

     🌙: Unlike Sun, Moon doesn’t allow himself to dream of the possibilities you two could have together if you were to become a couple. It would be foolish to do such a thing, dreaming of a future that would never come to be. Moon wasn’t one to purposefully put himself through emotional hell even if the possibilities his mind could conjure up would be nice to think about. One night, though, he found himself dreaming of holding you in his arms, curled up together in a bed as you peppered his face with kisses – oh, how he wondered how your lips would feel on his faceplate. Would they be smooth and soft, or perhaps slightly chapped? He stopped himself before he could imagine any further, though, not wanting to put himself through any more unnecessary turmoil.

     🌙: Moon notices when you’re not taking care of yourself – it’s quite obvious if you haven’t been getting as much sleep or haven’t been eating as often as you should be. While the kids are asleep, he’ll hand you small snacks like granola bars or fruits, as well as a juice box, saying something about how your stomach growling might make the kids think a monster entered the daycare with a low chuckle. If you appear tired, Moon has no qualms about you using his and his brother’s room to take a quick nap – if anyone comes around asking where you are, he has no problem covering for you. After all he loves you you’re his best friend and he wants you to take care of yourself.

     🌙: Moon is caring in his own somewhat backhanded way, but you’ve truly come to treasure him and his friendship during your many months of knowing one another. So, when you realize you wish his touch would linger more or have to fight off the urge to kiss his faceplate whenever he makes you laugh, you’ve realized you’ve fallen quite hard for your robotic coworker. Not wanting to deal with those feelings right then and there, you didn’t see Moon during your break that day… or the next. However, after a couple of days of not seeing you, he found you and demanded asked why you had been avoiding him as of late when you accidentally let your feelings for him slip out.  

     🌙: You both stood there, looking at each other with wide eyes and, at least in your case, reddened cheeks. After a few moments of silence, Moon started laughing – straight up laughing at you. You felt embarrassed and mortified, tears forming in your eyes as you started walking away before he grabbed your hand gently, smiling brightly as he told you between the light chuckles still echoed out from his voice box, “I love you, too, starlight – I’m so… happy.” While Moon still didn’t think you two would be able to have a traditional relationship, at least now he would be able to daydream about it knowing you felt the same way.

⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤⋆

[tokidokitokyo]

Photo by Atul Vinayak on Unsplash

2024年6月30日

June is already gone, it's official summertime, and here I am still studying Japanese! I wish I were better at old Japanese so that I could compose a haiku or waka about studying Japanese throughout the changing of the seasons... but then I've been watching too much 光る君へ (an NHK taiga drama).

もう6月は過ぎ、夏がやってきて、私はまだこのまま日本語の勉強を続いている。古文がもっと上手だったら、季節が変わりながら自分がまだまだ日本語の勉強を続くについて俳句や和歌を詠めるかもしれないけど…光る君へを観過ぎるかもしれませんね（^.^）

June Progress

The areas of study that I focused on the most in June included Reading (22%), Listening (18%), and Writing (16%). Usually I neglect writing a lot so I am glad it was in my top three study areas. Vocabulary (10%) and Speaking (10%) were the areas I focused on the least, but learning vocab usually goes hand in hand with reading and listening for me so I definitely had more exposure than I recorded. Also, I speak Japanese daily at home with my husband and son so even though I don't record it, I am getting that extra practice. (My husband has even started correcting me since he wants my son to learn correct Japanese, so I'm not getting away with my little bad habits anymore).

My studying in June looked a little bit different than the rest of the year so far because I focused on one area of study each day

For a refresher my schedule was (approximately):

I still continued my previous study habits that have become a part of my routine, but just made a point of focusing on each study area at least one day out of the week.

What did this end up looking like? Most days I would check my schedule, and then pull out a textbook or the renshuu app or something else to take 10 minutes to dedicate to whichever study area was the focus of the day. I will continue this into July because it worked well this month.

Study Habit Check-In:

〇 = Great, △ = Decent, ✖ = Not Great

Read daily - read almost every day 〇

Write sentences 4 times a week - I didn't keep track of how often I wrote sentences, but I did pay more attention to composition △

Review kanji and vocabulary flash cards daily - I reviewed kanji flash cards but not vocabulary △

Review 1-2 N3 grammar points weekly - did at least 1 review/wk 〇

Learn 1-2 N2 grammar points weekly - learned 1 grammar point every other week △

Listen to 1 podcast a week - yes! 〇

Continue to work on hiragana with my son - we have come to the characters like ちゃ and じ and his mind is blown; need to work on な、は、ま、や、ら (he has わ、を、ん down!) 〇

July Goals

I hope to continue building on my previous progress (that's what it's all about, after all) and to try at least one new thing in my study routine for July. I have added an app called Kanji Garden (which many of you may already know about) and I want to work it into my study routine.

What do your summer plans look like? Are you going to study more or take a break? Either choice is valid, you do what works best for you!

皆さんの夏の予定はどうですか？勉強を増やすつもり？それとも休みを取るつもり？どれでも応援しています！皆さんは自分なりにした方がいいと思います。

[dr-futbol-blog]

Hot Zone, Pt. 5

From McKay telling everyone he's "working on it", we cut directly to Sheppard in McKay's lab working on it. While likely there are a bunch of people listening in on the conversation, this is the first actual private moment between them that we see in the episode:

Sheppard: Alright, McKay, I'm here. McKay: D'you see it? Sheppard: Is it the big thing in the middle of the room? McKay: Yeah, that's the one. Sheppard: Should I pay attention to all these warnings? McKay: Not today, no.

Note again that they just seem to pick up the conversation as though it's continuing from before. And also that there's clearly bits of it missing, part of the conversation that the audience never got to hear where McKay explained to Sheppard what to do once he gets to the lab (we hear him explain it again to Weir and Ford, the first of whom told Rodney earlier to "pretend like" she didn't know what a nanovirus was i.e., to dumb it down for her; meaning that either McKay and Sheppard had a rather long conversation about this, for which there doesn't seem to have been any time for, or McKay managed to explain everything Sheppard needed to know about it exceedingly quickly). These little indications of missing time, of private time between them, are interesting.

Sheppard asks him whether he should pay attention to the warnings on the device. Because the last time he came across warnings pertaining to McKay's devices, he clearly wanted to ask about whether he could ignore the warnings or not, and he couldn't.

Sheppard is also concerned about the radiation and its possible effects on him. This too hearkens back to their discussion in Underground (S01E08) where Sheppard asks whether they're in danger from the radiation and McKay tells him that they're fine, as long as he hadn't been planning on having any children:

McKay: You do realise that long term exposure to these levels of radiation is extremely dangerous? Cowen: Our scientists tell me otherwise. McKay: Well, they're wrong. Sheppard: Are we in danger now? McKay: Oh, it would take days or weeks at these levels of radiation -- but I assume the Genii spend days or weeks down here? Cowen: Many of our people have spent their entire lives here. McKay: Their entire short lives. We'll be fine -- just as long as you weren't planning on having children.

So, once more we return to the topic of children. McKay was thinking about family and children earlier and here, Sheppard seems to be doing the same:

McKay: Wait til it comes on, give it a good ten count, and then discharge. Sheppard: A ten count?! McKay: Don't worry -- I've probably been around more EMPs than anyone. Sheppard: This is gonna be, uh -- I'm gonna be fine, right? McKay: Yes. That's a yes -- you'll be fine.

The difference is, McKay isn't joking about the children anymore. He is actually soothing Sheppard's genuine concern. And Sheppard continues displaying perfect trust in McKay's abilities. Not only to his ideas being good but also to McKay keeping him from harm's way.

Returning to the topic of mental math and the game McKay et al were playing at the start of the episode, we see Sheppard mouth out the numbers. A man that is capable of doing complex equations in his mind is mouthing out a ten-count. He's not making any more mistakes today, especially not with something that Rodney needs to get done.

Again, there are people listening in on their conversation. But it's as though they very quickly forget about everyone else. It's just the two of them, McKay guiding him through the process like he was standing there right next to Sheppard. And Sheppard is ignoring everything that isn't McKay.

The EMP in McKay's lab turns out not to be strong enough to kill the nanovirus. Note again we return to the middle of a conversation Sheppard and McKay were having that we as the audience never got to hear:

Sheppard: I've already tried that -- it's blown. McKay: That is before we re-set the sub-switch. Sheppard: Well, maybe we shouldn't have overloaded it so much. McKay: Look, it's fixable, it's fixable -- we just need to use a little trial and error. Sheppard: Look, even if we get this thing working, who's to say the pulse is gonna get any bigger? Ford and Zelenka have twenty minutes before their arteries rupture. Are you sure an EMP will kill this thing? McKay: Yes. Sheppard: Alright. I have an idea.

Notice how neither is not just not laying blame on the other but how they are going out of their way not to do that. They make it clear that they're in this together: "...we reset..."; "...we shouldn't have overloaded..."; "...we just need to use..."; "...even if we get this thing..." This is also an example of how they work so well together: McKay comes up with an idea and Sheppard figures out a way to implement it. McKay tells him what's possible and Sheppard makes it happen.

I also want to highlight this: Sheppard mentions Ford and Zelenka to McKay before suggesting his rather drastic plan, to get McKay to go along with it. Ford is a team member, Zelenka is a scientist. They are both harbouring a lot of guilt related to people under these headings as of that moment. If not for Dr. Peterson, perhaps Sheppard wouldn't have even thought of suggesting blowing up a nuke in the atmosphere to create a bigger version of what he believed McKay was certain would fix the problem. And if he hadn't been for Brendan Gaul, perhaps McKay wouldn't have let him attempt it. But as it is, they both have a reason to want to go through it it. And the best Rodney can do is to assure Sheppard that he is absolutely sure it is going to work, clearly already having figured out what Sheppard was going to suggest. The only thing he can give to help Sheppard is his certainty, so he does.

They had that discussion amongst themselves even if other people were listening to it but once they start discussing it with Weir, they're both again of one mind. McKay is backing Sheppard up. Just a moment ago he was of the mind that they'd be able to fix the EMP generator but when they are presenting the plan to Weir, he's 100% behind Sheppard's plan. He's able to convince her that Sheppard is right, and he's even able to convince himself that it will be safe: "I know it sounds severe but if the major was able to overload a naquadah generator twenty miles above the city, it would be perfectly safe from a radiological standpoint."

And, you know. Make sure that the kids are alright.

Zelenka gives McKay an interesting look when he very emphatically tells Weir "The Major is right!" like using the EMP hadn't been his idea originally. McKay, voluntarily giving credit to someone else for an idea? Now he has seen everything, clearly.

And that, my friends, is when Zelenka figured it out.

Sheppard gets the go-ahead (and apparently needs no help working the generator, he's watched McKay do that enough times before), and the final words exchanged as he takes off are between Sheppard and McKay. Again, there are people listening in on this conversation but it still manages to seem private, again in this world of their own amidst other people.

It doesn't really need saying, and he knows that it doesn't need saying, but McKay gives Sheppard final advice anyway:

McKay: You're only gonna have thirty seconds once you release it before it explodes. You need to get as far away as you can. Sheppard: Get as far away from the nuclear explosion as possible -- that's good advice, Rodney, thanks! McKay: You're welcome.

It's his way of showing that he cares. It's the most loving thing Rodney McKay knows how to do. This is a man that not just never bothers to say the obvious thing, it really doesn't even occur to him. Like when his sister tells him she loves him (Miller's Crossing, S04E09), while he obviously loves her back, it doesn't occur to him to actually say it, because of course she knows it already. Why does it need saying when it's so obvious everyone knows it anyway? Well, sometimes it is nice just to let someone know that you care about them. So he does.

And I mentioned previously that Sheppard often says things in a tone of voice that makes people interpret his words differently from how he intends them. It was spelled out in one of the novelizations: everything he says sounds sarcastic. Like his response to McKay here, it has that "Thanks, mom" energy. But McKay doesn't get to see the look on his face just before he says it:

McKay interprets what he says as sarcasm (or that which he later calls "the kidding"). Sheppard may even have intended it as a sarcastic reply because heavy emotional moments are not easy for him. He knows he's not good with, what do you call them, feelings. But he still acknowledges what Rodney was trying to do. He still makes sure that if these are the final words he gets to say to him, that they communicate his appreciation. Not just or even predominately (or even at all) for the advice McKay just gave him that didn't need to be given. But for all of it. Up to and including Rodney's voice being the last thing he might ever hear. Thanks, Rodney.

Continued in Pt. 6

[aquilathefighter]

Aquila dear, I cannot wait to hear your opinion on the choice of raven/crow species for Matthew and Jessamy 💛 Would you have any headcanon on which species Lucien(ne) might have been back when they were Dream's raven ? 👀

Hi! So sorry it's taken so long to get around to this! I have so many thoughts!!!

I'll start with the caveat that the distinction between crow and raven is not scientific. They both refer to members of the genus Corvus and there is no clear distinction between what is a crow and what is a raven. As such, I don't get too worked up about the differences in common names.

Matthew is a common raven (Corvus corax). I think this fits him for a number of reasons.

He's American! We only have two "raven" species here (and four crows but that's besides the point), and the common raven is by far the more widely distributed species compared to the Chihuahuan Raven, which is as its name implies, restricted to the areas in and around the Chihuahuan desert. I'm not sure if we know exactly where he's from, but he has a general American accent to me, so I can get away with placing him virtually anywhere on the West Coast, Appalachians or Northwest.

Common ravens are very gregarious! They're often seen in mated pairs or flocks. Matthew prefers to stay by Dream's side over and over and builds a pretty deep bond with him over the course of their relationship.

Play! Common ravens are often observed engaging in play, like somersaulting in flight or making toys out of twigs to share with others. To me, Matthew is very irreverent and playful in his own way, his crude behavior and language being a prime example.

I think common raven is such a great choice! I'm thrilled to bits that they had real ravens play his part in the show, it was honestly one of the first things I looked up about the production because I was just blown away that the birds were actually behaving like birds!!! But that's another rant for another time about animal portrayal in media.

Onto Jessamy! I haven't read the comics (where she appears to be a common raven as well, from some cursory research), so this will all be based on what little we get of her in season 1 of the show.

Jessamy is a pied crow (Corvus albus). According to the wikipedia entry for this species, it is said to be considered

"a small crow-sized raven, especially as it can hybridise with the Somali crow (dwarf raven) where their ranges meet in the Horn of Africa. Its behaviour, though, is more typical of the Eurasian carrion crows, and it may be a modern link (along with the Somali crow) between the Eurasian crows and the common raven." (Source)

Like I said, there's no reliable division between crow and raven and it's just the common names, so there's no big deal in her being portrayed as a species that has "crow" in its name.

Sociality. Pied crows are, similarly to the common raven, typically found in mated pairs or small flocks. Jessamy is very loyal to Dream, staying by his side during his captivity until her untimely death. I would argue that most Corvus species would be a good fit as they tend to stay with the individuals they are bonded to, but I see no reason why pied crow wouldn't be chosen over another species!

Distribution. While we don't have any idea where Jessamy was from when she was alive, she is also given a widely distributed species that we could reasonably place her in many parts of Africa, along either coast up until the Sahara Desert, but not in the thick rainforests of countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Exposure to another species! The Sandman was written by an English author, originally scripted and performed in English, and in my opinion, culturally directed towards the Anglosphere. As such, folks who speak English as their first language may have never heard of the pied crow, and may only be familiar with the common raven! I think its a great way to get people to investigate more into a bird they've never seen before.

Now, let's talk about Lucienne! We know she was Dream's first raven, but not really any timing about when he first took a raven companion. As such, I'll simply consider any extant Corvus species for her. She has an English accent, so I will simplify my choices to species found in England. I'm just making this assumption without much reasoning other than it's fun to imagine that the ravens come into being reflecting species found where they lived as humans.

I'm going to choose common raven (C. corax) for Lucienne as well, but for different reasons than why it's a suitable species for Matthew. They are, after all, very different personalities.

Mainly, common ravens are highly intelligent! Lucienne is the Dreaming's librarian at present, and would thus have to have very high reasoning and problem solving skills. This is typical for common ravens and corvid intelligence has been highly studied in this species!

My other big reason for choosing this species is that, well, you can't beat a classic. If Lucienne is the first raven, then it's fitting that she be the type species for the genus Corvus and the first thing people think of when they hear "raven."

Thank you so much for asking and giving me the opportunity to smash my two main interests together like I'm mixing 2 colors of playdoh in preschool <3 <3

[time-is-restored]

okay like listen i know a lot of people have been talking abt this specific aspect of 3x3 already but. im just having a bit of a moment w the amount of lgbt ppl who saw trent's expression at the end there, and like. Knew.

like to be clear i am aware that at this point trent being gay is, at best, subtext + fanon. its incredibly beloved subtext, but its entirely possible that it could get blown out of the water in the coming episodes. but within the reading of trent being a gay man, seeing colin in that terrifying moment of exposure + vulnerability... that look says So much. its fear, its worry, its an instinctive protective response. its helplessness, its shame from feeling powerlessness, its the grim certainty that comes from knowing just how much is at stake.

(cw: discussion of homophobia + discrimination below. its long. i very much rambled.)

bc the thing that i personally keep coming back to is like. everyone on the team is colin's friend - his family, even, according to the themes of the show. the show is literally about the team + staff working together to break down their toxic/unhealthy behaviours and build up a culture of trust + respect. that's why i think it's so significant that while isaac is the one to use the word gay pejoratively, he's also the one checking in on colin when he gets moved to the bench. he's arguably colin's closest friend at the club! and that's not enough. the fact that the richmond club is made up of demonstrably good and well-intentioned people isn't enough.

don't get me wrong, its fucking terrifying + awful being closeted around ppl who are ACTIVELY bigoted and cruel and who u KNOW would be nothing less than awful to if u were out. but the uncertainty of being around people you love, and not knowing what would happen if you told them? of never truly being sure of your place in the dynamic, since there's always that risk hanging over your head? its exhausting, and terrifying.

because what if they aren't accepting? even avoiding the worst case scenario where his bosses (the coaches, higgins, rebecca - hell, even keely) don't outright cut his career short, he's obviously extremely aware of how being on the outs with the team could lead to his life being made miserable. he was harassing nate himself! and, again, putting aside the (very real! he's a football player! he spends half of his time in a locker room!!!) threat of physical violence, we JUST saw how quickly a member of the team can be shunned + labelled as an outsider (and in the context of this arc, i rlly don't think its a coincedence that trent, specifically, was the one to experience that treatment). and that's without even getting STARTED on the absolute nightmare britain's press + papparazi would be if they put a target on his back (the show has spared no gory detail for their treatment of rebecca + ted, after all).

this is the type of weight colin's been carrying around for the past three seasons. and trent, in that split second before he looked away and continued walking, must've felt it all right along with him. colin works for the fucking premier league in fucking britain. it's harder to think of a workplace LESS hospitable to anything other than the most cishetero, toxic, hyper conformist displays of masculinity.

and that's what fucking GETS me abt the reading where trent is gay! because in the exact same moment where trent would be feeling such a sudden sense of connection + solidarity w colin (you are not alone!!! im here too! i see you! i know you!), there comes the crushing weight of wanting to protect him, and not knowing if you can. trent may be a notoriously incisive + unflinching reporter, but w/ all of his power + armour stripped away now that he's no longer with the independent, it's damningly obvious that trent doesn't have anything close to real power at richmond. if they wanted to make colin's life hell, what could he really do to stop them? again: they're fucking footballers. he's only even allowed at the club on ted's word, a word which could presumably be revoked at any time.

i just. the fear. the guilt. the shame. and above all, the desperate, heart aching need to keep another member of the community safe, even with the odds so blatantly stacked against you both.

and like. idk. to me that is the point of this scene. i think whether you've been in trent's position, or colin's, or neither, the vast majority of us went through a very similar emotional journey when we saw colin exposed like that. love -> fear -> protectiveness. and its an urge so strong, ppl are (lightheartedly, for the most part) threatening the Literal Writers of the show! like, the fact that rn there are SO many people out there tweeting + liveblogging and threatening trent, threatening isaac, threatening the WRITERS - threatening literally anyone and everyone over the CHANCE that any of them will hurt colin/out him/expose him to homophobia in any way? like, yes, colin isn't real. but i'd like to hope that that solidarity is.

and just to be clear, ted lasso is ultimately a comedy show. while it has never shied away from frankly portraying dark subject matter, i don't think this story will have an unhappy ending. but if this arc comes with any takeaway at all, i just really fucking hope that its about how that solidarity is what we all need to embrace + run towards, rather than try and stifle. and that colin is fully + unconditionally supported by his community, whoever that may be.

[sonicasura]

I had this idea for awhile now.

Everyone knows the Unbecoming episode from Trollhunters? Well, instead of it being an illusion casted by Merlin what if was the visage to a different universe? Jim experiencing the last moments from an alternate self. I'll go more in depth on a different post as it isn't the focus here.

For this, it's Bad End Jim ending up in a different universe after he dies. Where exactly? The Transformersverse but our boy won't be human. He wakes up as a half troll so extra trauma!

Jim is found by Optimus Prime and becomes the Autobot's ward. Yes, the good ol' Dadimus trope as I rarely see the boss bot in it. Both canon and FANON. Something that is very shocking since there's more Fierce Dadity (Fierce Deity from Legend of Zelda) than Dadimus.

Back on topic, Optimus looks over Jim as the boy only trusts him at the moment. A reasonable reaction since the Autobot Leader had been the first to find the traumatized half troll and reach out peacefully. The guy did essentially die at the beginning of a war so Optimus Prime would no doubt see the signs related to such trauma.

For awhile, things were fine as the Autobot Leader looked over the half troll. He kept his windows tinted so the boy could see the sun and not get hurt. It wasn't uncommon for everyone to find Jim perched on Optimus's shoulder or fast asleep in the cab of his alt mode.

Until subtle changes begin to crop up. 'Does Jim looks a bit bigger? Were his nails always that long? I think those horns were smaller.' It becomes clear Jim is slowly becoming a full troll and Energon exposure might be the reason why.

It only gets worse when Cybertronian artifacts like the Matrix of Leadership accelerates the process. Optimus becomes conflicted at this because no one else can handle Jim especially since the boy has yet to recover from his trauma. He still has violent nightmares when not near the Autobot.

Any chance of turning Jim back to human would become impossible if he's a full blown troll. Should Optimus allows his ward's physical condition get worse or his mental health? In the end changes are made if the transformation became complete and there is no turning back.

Optimus always carries a trailer of sorts so Jim can be comfortable whenever on the move. A nest in his habsuite(term for bedroom in Cybertronian if I remember correctly) sounds good as the troll recovers enough to sleep in his room. Maybe a cloak or tarp can provide Jim some cover if he wants to play outside.

A new beginning of sorts where Optimus Prime opens up to a tragic survivor and they both mend with each other's help. Cybertronian father with a trollish son. Sounds lovely, doesn't it?

[microscotch]

“I arrived a bit late to this whole thing, but I honestly thought this bimbocast would be chill about it. Clearly I was wrong, literally the first thing this pile of wussies does is complain about the way I fly.”

- “YOU LUNATIC ALMOST HIT US WITH YOUR FUCKING UFO!!!!!”

- “And you’re still alive, get over it.”

“We’re waiting for this last chick to arrive, not knowing this girl was planning on committing murder by almost crashing HER LITERAL UFO into the house!”

“Like, who on earth let that psycho onto the show, she’s a threat to society!”

-”YOU HAVE TWO EYES CONNECTED TO YOUR BRAIN, RIGHT?? CAN’T YOU WATCH WHERE THE HELL YOU’RE FLYING??”

-”I see the whole “earthlings are useless wimps” stereotype is true as well.”

-”You’re insane!”

-”Bold words to direct at someone who almost killed you, now get out of my way, Leslie.”

“So we’re all situated at the table waiting for our boss and in comes this dumpster fire on two legs. I was like “Come on, that can’t be the person running this show!” 

-”Alright, I'll give it to you straight: I’m Toni and I’m your boss for the next few weeks. I want you to disgrace yourselves in front of these cameras and make me the wealthiest sim alive. You're gonna fill in my shitty bike courier job in the meantime and you BETTER do your job cause I'm gonna get in major trouble otherwise, so if I - uh - you get fired, you'll leave this rancid house. You'll also be off the show if you have a net negative relationship with all of your housemates. Got it?”

-”Roz, did you know that iguanas are cold-blooded animals, so their body temperature is reliant on the weather??”

-”Um, Toni, were you high when you cast some of these freakshows?”

-”Yes. Anyways, have fun making me rich!”

-”Oh yeah, so while we’re at that, how much are WE gonna get paid for this?”

-”April what are you talking about, nobody here is gonna get any money.”

-”WHAT??”

-”We’re gonna get paid in fame and exposure.”

“What person gets hired for a show WITHOUT getting paid? I’m just feeling so taken advantage of right now.”

-”Okay April it’s been two hours, people actually need to use this bathroom!”

-”THERE ARE THREE BATHROOMS IN THIS HOUSE, PICK A DIFFERENT ONE!!”

-”Hey Angie, I know we’re thinking the same thing, just letting you know that I didn’t get my nickname from nowhere, wink if you understand me. Angie??”

-”I DON’T DESERVE THIS KIND OF TREATMENT!!!! NOBODY WITH HAIR THAT LOOKS LIKE IT’S PERMANENTLY BLOWN BY THE WIND DOES!!!!”

“This bitch really thought she was gonna get paid to be on here, like, get a grip. Fortunately the whining stopped when the welcome wagon arrived ‘cause she became too busy going crazy over that one guy...”

-”Hey cutie, your cardigan is really hot! ❤” 

-“Oh thank you dear, do you know what’s also “hot”?? My fiancee’s ginger sister ❤.”

-”Getting my pride hurt twice today, alright, time to get drunk and blackout so hard I’ll forget this whole day ever happened!”

-”Aww, don’t be upset, April! Your ass is far too detox tea ad material for you to be this sad!”

-”SHOO ANGIE, TAKE YOUR FAKE ASS COMPLIMENTS AND FLIRT WITH NAMZIB IF YOU’RE BORED!”

-”I can’t be the only one thinking it’s completely sociopathic to cast someone nicknamed “The Slaughter” instead of arresting them, especially after nearly killing everyone upon arrival!”

-”You legit climbed into the hot tub to tell me that?”

“I got this weirdo’s signals and look, I’m not at all opposed to hatefucking, but I don’t go below sevens. I don’t care how turned on you get by near-death experiences, Roz.”

“Not to mention because that creep kept ranting to me, ABOUT me I didn’t have a minute left to change when the cab arrived to take us clubbing. Asshole.”

-”Hey Namzib, sorry we didn’t interrupt your makeout session with Roz sooner!”

-”Yeah, yeah, shut up, Tik Tok edition of Edward Cullen.”

-”EXCUSE ME, YOUNG LADY! DON’T YOU THINK YOUR ATTIRE IS -

-“NO!! THE LEGENDS FROM SECTOR 8 ARE TRUE. MRS. CRUMPLEBOTTOM AND HER MAGIC MURDER BAG ARE REAL!!”

-“...”

-”DON’T KILL ME!! UGH OF COURSE THIS HAPPENS WHEN I’M COMPLETELY UNARMED, STUPID BATHING SUIT....”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One trip to the house and back to the club later..

-“Dude, will you get going? Other people want to use the vending machine too!”

-”Hello there, young folks, it’s a nice day today! :)”

-“Just come back later when you’ve made up your mind, for Watcher’s sake!”

“So while Roz was about to lose his mind I couldn’t help but notice how virtually everyone but him in this house really wants me.”

“The boys...”

“The girls...”

“But I was standing like right next to him and everything he cares about is throwing a fit because some old dude blocked the vending machine! It’s so messed up.”

-”COME ON! COME GET ME!”

-”I love the young people! :)”

-”I’LL KICK YOUR ASS, GOATEE!!!”

-”Roz calm the hell down!!”

“Roz is just being totally aggressive right now, he’s making everyone look terrible. I was just like, calm down. It’s not that big of a deal!”

-“Stawp it, this is literally our first day and you’re making all of us look horrible, we’re gonna get thrown out!”

-”Be real, after what I’ve seen earlier today that guy was clearly your type and now you’re pissed at me!”

-‘You’re being ridiculous!”

-“Look! Over there is another old guy you can pester, now leave me alone!”

-“Would you degenerate move it already?!”

[fltwoodsmonster]

mid-year music round up: my favorite 5 albums of 2024 (so far)

its like june or whatever and ive been listening to a lot of music. here's 5 albums from 2024 I've loved so far.

5. Tems - Born in the Wild

This was my first exposure to Tems, and I'm positively enchanted. Velvety vocals, gorgeous production, and an all around great tracklist. I'm not super familiar with smooth soul or contemporary R&B as a genre, but I've really enjoyed getting into it through classic artists like Sade and, more recently, through rising stars like Tems. It's looking to be a great year for West African music!

Recommended tracks: Burning, Love Me JeJe, Gangsta, Boy O Boy, Hold On

4. Allie X - Girl With No Face

Also my first exposure to Allie-X, I was introduced to this album by my fiance through the song "off with her tits" which might be one of my favorite bops about top surgery ever. A delightful synth-pop album that leans a bit darker but without ever sacrificing dancibility. A real bop of an album!

Recommended songs: Weird World, Girl With No Face, Off With Her Tits, Staying Power

3. Mannequin Pussy - I Got Heaven

It took me a while to click with Mannequin Pussy. Their more punk songs like the eponymous I Got Heaven I vibed with immediately, but I was initially more down on the rest of this album because I thought the energy tapered off too quickly. How wrong this initial read was, though! I had the chance to see them in concert last month and it really reframed how I approached this album, letting me appreciate the slower moments a lot more. Absolutely worth checking out if you like hardcore punk and/or indie rock.. there's something here for enjoyers of both!

Recommended Tracks: I Got Heaven, Loud Bark, I Don't Know You, Softly

2. Mdou Moctar - Funeral for Justice

I heard Mdou Moctar's "Afrique Victime" for the first time last year and was absolutely blown away by it. They easily became one of my favorite active bands. So when I heard they were coming out with a new album, I was hyped. And this delivers! While I don't think it's as cohesive an album as their previous LP, the songs on Funeral for Justice stand strong as punchy, impressive feats of musical prowess. Imouhar might be one of the best songs of this year, no doubt. What a fantastic year for West African & tishoumaren music!

Recommended songs: Funeral for Justice, Imouhar, Imajighen, Oh France, Modern Slaves

Joey Valence & Brae - No Hands

It has been IMMENSELY satisfying to see JVB not only blow up in popularity but also finally start to get the recognition they deserve. Gone are the days of being straight up Beastie Boy clones - they're forging their own path forward through hip hop that draws clear inspiration from the greats (even including a feature w/ the amazing Danny Brown) while putting their own unique, often humorous spin on things. It feels like they've learned a lot from their debut album PUNK TACTICS which released only a year ago. Really hope they continue on this really promising trajectory!

RECOMMENDED SONGS: Any off the album!

[pkmngreentree-longplay]

So, this is going to need a bit of explaining. I have no clue if this is the right website to post this sort of stuff, but I feel like this is the best way to archive it.

This blog is going to be an archive of a bootleg Pokémon game I played as a kid. I haven't had the original cartridge from all that time ago (I'll explain later on), but I lucked out and managed to track down a replacement and dumped the ROM data onto my computer so I can emulate it. This specific bootleg has fascinated me ever since I first laid eyes on it as a kid, so I'm very excited to potentially be archiving what might be a piece of lost media. Here's the title screen.

Yeah.

This is going to need a bit of backstory, so let's set the scene. My first interaction with this game was when I received the cartridge on my 13th birthday. My parents were always struggling financially, so they'd often go through bargain bins or leaf through yard sales to find stuff for cheap. I was a big Pokémon fan, so my guess is they thought it was a new game and wanted to surprise me. I don't have a picture of that cartridge, but it was nothing spectacular - a bare Game Boy cartridge with "Pokemon Green Tree" written on it with a sharpie.

I was excited - you'd be excited, too, if you just got your hands on a Pokémon game you didn't even know existed - and started. My memory is pretty vivid, but I don't remember many finer details - I mostly remember what made me stop playing.

I started the game, and it just cold cut to the interior of the player's house. No cutscene, no writing your name, just an abrupt cut to your house. I wandered around the town, found the game's equivalent to Professor Oak's lab, and got my starter. It was the fire one, some kind of large fish with a plume of fire coming out of its forehead. The rest of my playthrough was just me aimlessly wandering around - I remember the maps being really narrow and directionless. I defeated the first gym leader and found myself in some kind of desert. I distinctly remember the music cutting out, which started to freak me out. Finding a cave, I went in, and found this... indescribable thing. Not in a pretentious Lovecraftian way - I literally don't really know how to describe it. It looked like some kind of shapeless form, or blob, covered in long pipes that winded around. If I had to say what it reminded me of, my first guess would be a giant, anatomically incorrect human heart. I remember approaching it, and the screen faded out, before fading in to a panning shot of what looked like a field of crystals, each one with a distorted reflection in it. My description is overselling this experience - there wasn't really anything that would actually seriously upset anyone in there, but the visual of those stretched faces in the reflections was enough to get me to have a full-blown panic attack as a child, and I ended up hiding the cartridge somewhere in my mom's closet. I haven't seen the cartridge since, and chances are she sold the cartridge.

That was my first ever exposure to this bootleg. Nowadays, of course, with the power of the internet and a lack of better things to do, I decided to snoop around. The game, Pokémon Green Tree, is of course, a bootleg, coming from a Japanese company of ambiguous name, as all information about the game's copyright is simply changed to "Pokemon", as you can see on the title screen. This bootleg is, interestingly enough, a surprisingly sophisticated rom-hack of an existing Game Boy game that was never released outside of Japan.

The picture you're looking at is a fan translation of the original game. The name roughly translates to "Circle Beast", and it is commonly referred to by the game's surprisingly large cult following as "Ringbeasts", which is the name I'll be using because it sounds kind of cool. From what I can gather, Pokémon Green Tree is, for the first quarter of the game, unchanged from Ringbeasts outside of the name, the title screen, and a few text boxes changing "beasts" to "Pokemon". Apparently, ontop of that, another release of Green Tree has another change - inexplicably, in a few maps, there's just... crucifixes. No shit.

As far as I could find, this is the only difference between the 'updated' version and the one people are more familiar with, which is the one I'm currently emulating. No changed dialogue, no different designs... just random crosses scattered across the map. According to the people I could contact who've played this updated version, most of the changes were in the manual and box art, which contained many assorted religious anecdotes and references. Who would've figured? Apparently, these games were mostly sold in low-income Christian bookstores to stay under Nintendo and Game Freak's radar, and the updated version was made so the game would appear more fitting where they were sold - something similar to the fate of Menace Beach on the NES. The prospect of this is honestly kind of funny to me, given the amount of hatred the Christian community had towards this franchise around that time period. That, and the idea of there being an updated patch of a bootleg of a bootleg of Pokémon that just has giant crucifix-shaped mountains everywhere. Delightful!

That's all of the information I could gleam from my extensive investigation (IE a few Google searches). Hearing all this talk about the manual and the box art, I wish I actually owned either - the cartridge I got my hands on came loose. Just a blank cartridge. It isn't even green!

Getting back on-topic, Green Tree is unchanged from Ringbeasts outside of a few word and sprite changes, but from what I could gather, the game drastically changes near the middle. Nobody said anything specific - just rambling about how unexpectedly detailed and weird everything got after how cutesy the early game was. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any screenies of the later parts of the game, so I'm going in blind.

I'm really excited to see this game through. Ever since I found out the cartridge went missing, I've been itching to get my hands on it again, just to see what this weird bootleg has to offer. Here's hoping this stupid blog does its part in archiving it, because God damn, information about this thing is scarce.

I'll update the blog after I play for a while. Expect lots of screenshots!

[lhs3020b]

The Fallout TV show

So, you may remember the days before my social energy-level suddenly collapsed, back in early 2022, and never really recovered? The days when I used to post regularly with idle speculation on media, video games, books and other things? Apparently tonight we're taking one for memory lane on all that.

I just saw the first two episodes of the Fallout TV show, and I have some thoughts…

First, a small surprise: it's actually good. It's a thing. In 2024. Which is enjoyable. Yes, I know, I know, I know. It shows the crisis in popular entertainment that I'm surprised by this. (It's the same feeling, actually, as when Baldur's Gate 3 came out and my socks were blown off by the unexpected experience of properly falling in love with a thing again.)

(By the way? From now on I'm going to call the show FoTV, on the same principle as Fo3 or Fo4 or FNV, just because I can't be bothered to type "Fallout TV show" over and over again.)

Also, somewhat-related to the above, FoTV is the best game adaptation I think I have ever seen. The world of the games is there, from props and set-pieces to the wasteland environment itself, even little nods to actual in-game mechanics. There are also lots of call-backs to the games themselves. For instance, FoTV's opening sequence was, to me, very reminiscent of the opening sections of Fo4, where the perfect suburbia is first set up, and then implodes in front of your horrified eyes, then is incinerated by a literal atomic bomb. The opening sequences of FoTV also do a good job of nailing the fact that while it's a future, it's not our future. It isn't spelled out directly, but we're shown it very smoothly through the mise-en-scène, whether it's news coming via an analogue radio, oldschool chemical-film cameras, or fashions that we just don't wear in our 2024, and so on.

And then Los Angeles gets nuked.

(I do have a small nitpick here. While I understand why the writers structured this scene the way they do, and it works narratively, nonetheless several characters are looking DIRECTLY at the first explosion when it happens. At the absolute minimum, they would have been blinded. More realistically, the radiant heat from the explosion - even at this distance! - would have given them extreme burns on exposed skin. And for that matter the UV component of the flashover would have given them an extreme case of sunburn. Also, the shockwave should actually have been a one-two-three punch - effectively-instantaneous light-flashover first, then the ground shaking as the speed of sound in rock is about three times faster than in the air, then the window getting smashed in by the airburst. Also, uh, they all cope unrealistically well with a storm of knife-sharp broken glass fragments being hurled into their faces.)

(You'll also note that I haven't said a single word about what the hard gamma rays might be doing to the cellular machinery inside their bodies. Actually, this I'm a bit less sure about - gamma rays do attenuate in air, at least somewhat, and also high-energy photons have a tendency just to go straight through people without actually stopping - our soft tissues, at least, semi-transparent to X-rays! -, so I suspect that at the distance the birthday party was from Ground Zero, you could possibly argue this one either way.)

Anyway. Moving on from all of that, before I feel a need to go and look up cumulative radiation-exposure tables or something, because this is supposed to be a Tumblr post, not a peer-reviewed academic paper.

Regarding Lucy's characterisation, I found it interesting how she flips from "sheltered and naive" to "unexpectedly competent". While she's lacking in knowledge of the world outside her vault, she's also clearly very adaptable and good at thinking on her feet. She figures out that the visitors from the other vault are actually Raiders without any direct help, and actually manages to get out of THAT room alive - all the more surprising when you realise she was up against someone who a) had the benefit of surprise, b) had prior experience with violence and killing and c) was also the person with weapons (at least at first). Lucy may be a bit of a cloud-cuckoolander in some ways, but she's not a pushover either. She's also clearly capable of taking initiative and acting on her own when she needs to, and she's also seemingly not averse to taking a third option if she thinks other people are in the wrong. (In particular, her decision to let herself out of the vault stands out here.) On the other hand, she also alternates these merits with getting easily-flustered and off-balance around other people, along with a tendency to telegraph her actions in a very overt manner. (There's a mildly-hilarious moment early on where you basically get to watch her flub her first speech-check.)

The Brotherhood of Steel are, unsurprisingly, back. So far there hasn't been any explanation for how they apparently recovered from the events of Fallout 2 or (possibly, depending on whatever the "canonical" ending is) the events of Fallout: New Vegas. They're also back in the arrogant/dickish mode of behaviour that they fall into very easily. They're also implied to be amoral in their own way - one interpretation of Maximus's trial scene is that he gets assigned to be Knight Titus's squire precisely because they do think he's the guilty party for the "boot-razor" incident, and the higher-ups actually like this bit of backstabbiness. (Perhaps they interpret it as ruthless determination, or a willingness to do "whatever is necessary for the mission". Or maybe they just think it's funny to kick him a little bit upstairs, just so they can see what happens next.)

(As far as I could tell, the narrative and the evidence-in-the-text are coy about whether he's actually guilty concerning Initiate Dane. Personally, I suspect Max isn't the guilty party - given that he had the bunk next to the victim, it would be the dumbest crime imaginable if he was. It's also clear that he has enemies amongst the other aspirants who might be willing to frame him. But who knows? And less favourable interpretations of the events definitely exist.)

While it's subtle, some of the Brotherhood's flaws are also on display here. Remember the overconfident Knights who got themselves blown up by the Boomers in FNV? Knight Titus shows a lot of that sort of behaviour too. Going AWOL in the middle of the mission to do some big game hunting, because he was "bored"? Yeah, arrogance and overconfidence there! Also he displays some real stupidity with his treatment of Maximus, being extremely rude to him and blaming Max for his own failures while he's also too injured to stand up, and there are no independent witnesses present. You'd think anyone who's a wasteland native would know to be extra careful when there's no backup or support! And to add extra sauce to the stupidity, this after he had Max remove his helmet!

The narrative doesn't make it quite clear whether Max either gave Titus a quick headshot, or just stood there until the internal bleeding or whatever ran its course, but it seems clear enough what happened there. And honestly, it's hard to hold it against Max given that Titus was both an incompetent and a dickhead. (Though, one subtlety - as I recall, we don't ever see Titus's body, so I wouldn't be totally surprised if he reappears at some point.)

Somewhat related to the Brotherhood stuff, I was also interested to see how the writers handled what we might call the power armour question. Basically, it's depicted as being, well, powerful, but it's also clear that Max doesn't really know what he's doing, so his T-60 doesn't turn into any kind of Disk One Nuke. (As the Ghoul puts it, "you should've read the manual" after Max gets his leg stuck after landing on a surface that couldn't take his weight.)

As for the Ghoul and what his agenda is, at two episodes in, it's hard to say, and there's not enough evidence to even begin to speculate. However, one detail I did notice was that Lucy's father seems distinctly unsurprised (if horrified) by the break-in to the Vault. Also, while I couldn't entirely sure, he seemed to recognise Moldaver and doesn't seem particularly-surprised to see her there. Moldaver's comment to Lucy - "you look just like your mother" - also seems to confirm that she has some prior history with Lucy's family.

Then there's the vault attack itself. For the Wasteland, the survival-rate among the residents its actually rather high. The Raiders could very easily have exterminated them … and they don't. "Restraint" and "mercy" are not qualities we associate with Raiders, so this is an interesting turn of events. (The "hostages and bomb" scene in particular had a bit of a dog-and-pony-show sense to it - notably, the delay on the bomb is long enough for the hostage vault-dwellers to make an escape, almost as if it was never really intended to kill them in the first place.) There also seemed to be a suggestion that Moldaver wanted them to stay inside the vault, which is interesting for its implications.

Anyway, I look forward to the chance to see future episodes. This has proved to be the most interesting TV experience in some time.

[leam1983]

The Menu - Thoughts

My father used to be a Real Estate Appraiser for most of his career, first on the private sector and then for Montreal's City Hall. It's the kind of job that doesn't come with a lot of perks, except for an office-paid Expenses account that allows for small displays of largesse, mostly to flatter a client's ego or appease someone else's doubts. Repeated exposures would sometimes result in small, more personal perks; like getting to know someplace's sous-chef by their first name, cracking jokes in out-of-office settings and eventually scoring the occasional token of friendship. Say a pass at an exceedingly ritzy table, the kind where everything is deconstructed, remixed, replated, revised and reviewed, and a table for three with four courses each goes for well over a few thousand bucks. Normally.

I say normally, because I grew up with the sous-chef's daughter, skinned my knees on the same rough concrete stairs in Montreal. She was my friend for a long time. We shared toys, hobbies, game consoles - and the occasional table.

Twice in all my life, I was given a rare gift.

Take what I've just described, convince yourself that you'll never taste it, see it for yourself, spend years thinking that food's just something you use to either find comfort or fuel yourself - and then get invited at that kind of table.

Not because you've got the cash for it, not because you're their usual clientèle, far from it - but because you're a friend.

The one course that's etched into my brain is a kind of phyllo pastry, but lighter and bigger than your usual stuff - like a blown-out and refined spanakopita, except it's not just feta cheese and spinach. Oh, no. It's organic goat cheese fresh from this morning, with a drizzle of sorrel sauce. The plate is eons above your pay grade and at the time, if you're me, you're still a teen eking out a living with some volunteer work that occasionally translates to a paycheck. A few hundred words here and there and bam - the big finish. Three hundred bucks richer.

That plate was something I could've never afforded, something I was never so much as born to eat. But there it is. Sorrel sauce and goat cheese, with puff pastry's snootier cousin crackling between my teeth, ever-so-sweet.

What tasted the best in it was the friendship I could sense. The exclusivity of the moment. I'd earned my way to this dish for free with years of bad barbecues, of letting Jenny win at Mario Kart, of helping her out with French while she tortured multiplication tables out of me. This was something some bougie asshat would've paid for with a Platinum Amex; and it was something I'd paid for in time. In patience. In kindness. In realizing that food, sometimes, is a gift. When that gift is given freely, it tastes all the better.

The Menu, directed by Mark Mylod, is what you'd get if some of the chefs I ended up getting to know could speak freely, sometimes, or what you'd get if Ratatouille's Anton Ego had been an ass and had driven Remy the Rat to nadirs of obsession. We follow one Margot Mills (Anya Taylor-Joy) as she seemingly serves as the accompaniment to foodie Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) during an evening at Hawthorne's.

What is Hawthorne's, you might ask? It's the isolated island restaurant helmed by the ultra-perfectionist Julian Slowik, played by Ralph Fiennes. Forget your usual celebrity chefs, Slowik is someone that's talked about but rarely seen, the exclusive priest of Epicurus to an even more exclusive table - the kind of place that invites you by text, instead of waiting for you to place a reservation. Apparently, it's a bit like a geisha house: if you know someone who knows someone, you have a chance to get in. This fosters a very small black book's worth of clients - and obviously limits it to the ultra-wealthy or to those with a desperate need of being seen.

As you'd expect of a horror-comedy with a very serrated edge, there's plenty of odd shit right off the bat and the menu only gets spicier once Slowik introduces one of the courses, titled The Mess, by asking of one of his maîtres de partie that they shoot themselves in the mouth in full view of the paying customers.

You laugh because everyone plays it off, predictably. They all think it's part of some sort of act - Murder Mystery on the house, except the victim is the culprit and everyone knows about it - but then the staff makes it clear that everyone is going to die, tonight.

Diners and staff included.

As this is The Menu, a tale of bloody vengeance on a Molecular Cuisine-sourced mix of absolutely luscious Food Porn, served as cold as biting cynicism demands.

A few courses in, I'm reminded of Peter Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and her Lover, its similar piles of food and the way the lavishness of the setting reflects the odiousness of those involved. There's no gangster styling themselves as a gourmand in sight, though, no Albert Spica expies to torture. Instead, each table gets its own just desserts, pun intended, and the wider assembly gets a few darkly-amusing digs at the cruelty of the fine dining experience in its own right.

The amuse-bouche, for instance, is a plate of oils and infused creams, obviously intended to serve as dippings or garnishings for bread - but no bread is ever provided. Instead, the guests have access to a little paper in the same plate, on which is stated that the bread they will not be eating will be sourced from and served to a struggling community's food bank. We never see the more deserving bread-havers, but just knowing that somewhere out there is someone who might be having the best baguette of their lives while these caricatures of Upper Crust asshats have to dab little wood spoons in tarragon oil and pretend to like it is brilliant.

Suffice it to say, things go progressively to thematically-appropriate levels of shit and the movie delights in torturing everyone between has-been movie stars begging for scraps to Wall Street finance bros glad-handing one another for "crushing it at work" while their personal lives implode. It's gleeful like I haven't seen a horror movie be in several years, and extremely self-aware in its own tone, like an actor who's told to act all snooty and snobbish but who then lets it slip that they're entirely aware of the clownishness of it all.

A few tropes are on offer, I won't say which ones, and their placement is predictable, but the pacing is perfect. You see everything coming a mile a minute, but this is Grand Guignol-grade, in the sense that you'll delight in seeing it all coming. Unlike the chefs featured, who give their lives to Art in the very literal sense, the movie very clearly has fun in setting up its own stakes, in deconstructing its own recipe and serving you a final payoff that, like its two last dishes, are the epitome of comfort foods.

Suffice it to say, Walter loved The Menu and is now combing the Web for an exact listing of the dishes created, associated recipes - and if it's possible to whip up variations on them on a tighter budget.

I mean, all three of us are foodies, sure, but pine nuts are beyond prohibitive and truffle oil is better off being seen as something you make last over several years, like that one perfume bottle you splurged on six years ago and that your S.O. insists on using sparingly.

Unless you're rich, that is, in which case you can probably bathe in the stuff if you'd care - but you know what we say about the rich while at the table, right? Wink-wink and whatnot...

[honeyhotteoks]

Genuine question, what made you an atiny?

so this is a little bit of a long story, and it's all wrapped up in how i found kpop, because prior to the fall of 2021.... i didn't like kpop at all. it was mostly not knowing it and assuming i wouldn't like it, but i had pretty much no exposure.

i met up with a friend from school that i hadn't see in years, and she asked me if i would give her an hour of my time to see if i liked some of the music. i did, and then that turned into hanging at her house and getting a 12 hour kpop music video knowledge download.

she's not super into ateez, but she did show me them briefly. specifically she showed me their kq fellaz dance videos and their kingdom performance of the real. i remembered *really* liking them, but not remembering their name in the information overload, so much so that i asked her about them later by saying "who were the ones who were like professional dancers you know the ones" 💀

fast forward a couple of months, i'm casually listening to kpop but still not really into any groups or anything. kpop in general had just become another spotify genre, but genuinely.... i kept thinking about the kq fellaz dance video but didn't know how to find it again without typing "kpop dancers" into youtube and you can imagine how well that went.

i did start to know ateez's music though, and was drawn to it in the playlists i had. one night i was paying a friend through venmo, and saw in my venmo feed two random people i used to work with (like YEARS ago) paying each other, and their venmo description was "ateez tickets 💸" - i immediately googled and saw that they were playing in newark a few days later and then jokingly i messaged the girl who got me into kpop about it. she bought tickets in the nosebleeds, and suddenly we had a fun kpop concert to go to. i didn't know what to expect AT ALL, and i watched relay dances trying to remember their names so i could keep up at the show.

i essentially went into that concert fully blind, with the exception of knowing some songs and finally, FINALLY remembering their names. i walked out of that venue three hours later a full blown atiny. i started writing aurora a few weeks later and haven't looked back since.

to be honest.... i'm really, really glad that my introduction to them even in 2021 was still their kq fellaz performances. for me, it says a lot about ateez that those videos caught my attention so hard even when pre-kpop chai really couldn't care at all about kpop or boy bands etc. etc.

as an aside.... as far as biases go..... in the beginning i was so fixated on san when watching the music videos and relays.... but i distinctly remember hearing yunho do his little spiderman bit at the concert and it just made me laugh. i kept looking at him throughout the show, and then a couple weeks later on valentine's day they posted their little atiny chocolate bar photos and i realized i was only looking for his.