#i made this a few years ago it's so fun - mod j

[haveyoueatenthis]

[a1t-alt]

LONG PERSONAL POST - BG3 AND HOW I PLAY IT (SPOILERS /gen)

Hi okay so I'm fucking insane and I NEED to tell SOMEONE because I'm being bullied to hell (deserved) by my close friends over this- I am an incredibly slow gamer and I’m very particular about how I play. Save scumming? I don’t know what you mean. Romancing literally anyone that isn't Astarion? I'm pretty sure that isn't real but a lie made up by Larian Studios to convince more people to play the game (/j). It's literally the only thing I play ever anymore.. besides Minecraft, but I digress.

I got BG3 in the middle of September (2023) through game share, and started by playing with my brother and his boyfriend with mods! I didn't get to play much of that character, but that's not the point okay. Okay the point is- a few things actually. Let me start with- 

My first time playing BG3 was modded. I played MAYBE 3 hours on that character. They were gorgeous and unfortunately they no longer exist. I spent more than half of that time making them. They were a dragonborn and I don't remember for certain? But I Think they were just a Tav, not Durge. Unfortunately their name is also lost to the cosmos :( Here are a couple of the very few pictures I have of them!

I made a few characters at first, let's say like.. 5? Two were Durge, the others Tavs. 3 of those 5 got maybe a maximum of 6 hours each, never made it into the Emerald Grove. I think.. I'm pretty sure all but 1 went through the ruins and got Withers. The 4th one, my main and New Very Cool And Awesome Black Dragonborn Barbarian Durge™ got up to!! I believe it was up to 38 hours? I had done only a few things though! I had taken care of Kagha (no kill, I convinced her to not side with the shadow druids, she didn't hurt Arabella), I had gone through and done pretty much everything in the Emerald Grove? I saved Mirkon, I saved Arabella, I played it up with Volo, I killed the squirrel, I saved the tiefling from being assassinated and got a coin out of it (sick, was completely unintentional, I didn't like her much), bought stuff from the kids and all kinds of other things- you get it. I had gone through the blighted village, went through Waukeen’s Rest (but idk if I saw the Zhentarim with this character), killed the big spider, looted so many things, killed Ethal, revived Mayrina’s husband, found infernal iron, saved Karlach after save scumming her death and getting the fire armour for Wyll but it's okay because she was Fine After- *gasp* I got her engine upgraded once, and the very very last things I did was defeat the gobbo camp then kill Minthara and Dror Ragzlin (and Gut ofc, but I killed her first). I was in the middle of the party with the tieflings! I saved before anything happened, so I didn't see the fun stuff, but uh.. yeah, I ended up resetting my game, deleting all my mods and such to play with my partner. So went the days with my darling Melaqyn :’))) I miss them all of the everyday actually. Unfortunately I can't find any pictures of them :(( so here's some pictures of another of my early dragonborns, Sesaphael (name graciously yoinked from my partner's OC).

After I lost Melaqyn (which if I'm honest, I didn't actually lose them. I just didn't have the mods anymore and really didn't want to corrupt the file) I ended up making a few random characters- by a few I mean.. like 10, but only 2 or 3 survived. I made a couple also for playing with people, which were based on my own characters, so they were a little bit special? I started a game with a DND character I had made a year or two ago, who has the Haunted One background lmao- their name is Skulk- I'd show pictures but I'm really not that proud of how they look anymore >< I kinda floated for a bit in between games- I was playing all the time, but never settling- I was genuinely mourning Melaqyn.

Determined to get back on my feet with a character for real, I made a tiefling, named them “Ammarir”. They were supposed to look a bit like me, sort of like playing myself? Just a Tav though, which I regret to be honest but! There's always more time- I've been playing Ammarir since October 4th! They’re vanilla, so it was nice to not have to worry about corrupting their file. I started playing them slow at first, in between other campaigns, but I did keep coming back to them. Here are some early game pictures!

I was very quickly falling in love with them, and as soon as the mirror got added holy SHIT- I'VE CHANGED THEIR APPEARANCE SO MUCH OVER TIME NOW- Here are a couple early pictures from right after the mirror was introduced!

As I've made progress in the storyline with them, I've been having vitiligo spread slowly over their body- they don't have it here but will in upcoming pictures. I played and played and played and I'd done a ton of completionist type shit with their campaign (futile I know) until I finally got to the same amount of hours. It was insane, I wasn't as far into the game as I was with Melaqyn- I hadn't even made it to the gobbo camp yet. It took me 47 hours to make it there, and I knew this time around that Minthara was a companion. However, I did kill her, and I did keep her body in my camp, and It Is Still in my traveller's chest. 

I started getting anxious about playing, about the idea of making progress, of missing anything, of saying something wrong or fighting when I shouldn't have. I didn't want to look anything up because I wanted it to be fun and a surprise.. but I also made myself look things up because I couldn't handle the thought of getting things wrong. I had heard Astarion was hard to romance, so I used a guide for So Many interactions, with him and with him around. He's been a permanent party member (save for when I'm working on the others and have to trade people out for a moment, but even then I usually keep him in the party). Pictures from before the party! (They're taken a small time apart, and I only know because you can't see vitiligo on the first one.)

The prospect of playing the game became so daunting, I ended up spending a lot of time just mucking about and sorting my inventory and collecting items and finding nothingness so I didn't have to move on. I finally got a push from my partner to talk with Zevlor about the party, and we did it! And it was awesome! And Astarion was very pleased with me! Alfira was there! I really liked the party. Even after that though, I didn't really.. move on. I ended up going through the underdark and at ~70 hours, I finished everything down there, everything else in the main Act 1 space, and finally ventured to the crèche. I didn't spend a lot of time there to be honest, jumping back and forth between it and the Emerald Grove to sell things, buy things, the likes. I managed to sneak out the back of the crèche and not fight anyone (except the guys waiting in the room where Vlakith was) so I moved on and got out of there because those guys are tough, and I'm not good at combat lmao. I made a lot of changes between the tiefling party and just after the crèche, so here's a little run down! (Gotta love the zaith'isk)

I've only recently made it into Act 2, early December I think. I've hardly done anything as far as I know. I saved Isobel (reloaded a couple times bc I am NOT hurting Dammon <3), talked to He-Who-Was (I've not done his quest yet but I agreed to), I've taken care of the tollhouse (literally like not even a week ago), spoke with Raphael in the Inn, as well as now just past the House of Healing, I did some dark justiciar stuff with Shart, killed Kar'niss (sadge u-u), saved Arabella again, a couple other things I'm sure and I'm currently going through the House of Healing-

Real quick I want to add- I had a few weeks where I couldn't bring myself to play Ammarir. I didn't (and still don't) know what lies ahead in the story and I just. Couldn't. I decided one night, a week or two ago now, that I want mods again. Mostly just visual stuff, I love the customization in this game, and I wanted a little more freedom. I also discovered the beautiful basket full of equipment mod and I've been very much enjoying the sick as fuck armour B) I didn't want to load up their game at first, since I made them to be! A vanilla campaign! But I thought.. “I'm not having fun and this feels like a chore. We can play with the mods and see how it goes!” And holy SHIT I've been having so much more fun :’)

As of writing this, I'm at 114+ hours on Ammarir's playthrough. I've had the scenes with Gale and Wyll, didn't uhh.. I wasn't interested in Gale (but I'd be lying if I said I didn't go through with it and reload-) but I went through with the kiss with Wyll! Which finally sparked the single neuron that's still alive in Astarion's soiled pants (/a) of a brain to bring up the nature of our relationship. Here's some pictures from some of my most recent gameplay (in order of oldest to newest, over the span of like 9 days).

This all got away from me- I really did just mean to say that I am a very slow player. My brother’s boyfriend has beaten the game, got farther than I am in less than 24 hours which is insane to me. I suppose now at the bottom of this all, I should tell you how many hours I have in the game in total. Mind you, where Ammarir is now, is as far as I've seen the game.

(Everything prior to this text was written on January 21st, 2024. The latter has written on February 12th, 2024)

Having mistakenly left this to simmer a little too long, I now have 431.2 hours in the game. Ammarir is now in early Act 3, with 158+ hours, and boy do I have some things to add since I wrote all of that.

Picking up where I left off, I did most everything in Act 2! I’ve realised that in doing the Last Light Inn quest things early in Act 2, I missed some interactions :( One, I didn’t get to play chess with Mol and Raphael (I actually don’t know what happens in that interaction at all- I haven’t seen it anywhere and I don’t really want to seek it out. I’ll see it eventually). Two, I think I spoke to Rolan at Last Light about his siblings, but I never saw him again after that. I didn’t know I should’ve looked for him until after I did the Nightsong quest. He wasn’t where he was supposed to be, and I had a broken quest which sucks, but it’s okay.

I saved all the tiefs and dwarves from Moonlight Towers- but let me go back a little. I did pretty much every single thing possible in the Shadow Cursed Lands, and! I went back to the Creche and destroyed everyone (bc I’m a loot goblin and I couldn’t leave all those goodies behind ToT). With the Creche cleared out, I sort of just went between the Emerald Grove, Last Light Inn and the Thorm family businesses™ for a handful of reasons. 

There were two things in particular that I really wanted to do with Ammarir’s playthrough, which were collecting every single skull and head I could get my hands on, and unlocking every edge of the map, everywhere I went. I’m sure I’ve missed many a head, and some spots on the maps were impossible to get to, but I’ve done my best.

It’s been a minute since I’ve added pictures, and my babe changed a lot through the Shadow Cursed Lands, so here’s a few pics!

By this point I’d finished everything in Moonrise and got myself prepared for Act 3- well sort of. I knew that I was reaching the end of Act 2, but I didn’t know anything about the transition in between? So I was wrapping all of my quests up, trying to find Rolan, looking for anything I could- realising too late that I didn’t and couldn’t bring my brain jars from the Nautiloid into Moonrise with me- after killing Ketherik. But it’s okay, I have them both neatly set aside on another campaign. Anyhow, I saved Dame Aylin, and she and Isobel are in my camp now, happily by one another’s side again. Shart has her snowy hair, and a very pretty white and gold makeup look to match, and I went to the road to Baldur’s Gate.

In camp, I was going through some of the clothes I had picked up- found a pair of pants, that are just.. pants? No shirt? I thought it would be funny if I had Ammarir wear those as camp clothes and uh.. Immediately went into the cutscene to start Act 3 ToT. So I have some pictures of them just.. topless, looking out over the city. I reloaded, changed them into something more comfortable and appropriate, and went through the cutscene again. These are pictures from leaving the Shadow Cursed Lands, entering the Act 3 intro, and the beginning of the scene in the Astral Prism.

I had no idea what to expect!! I didn’t know that Gith came after us at camp, I didn’t know that I had to go into the prism and fight, I didn’t know that I was going to meet The Emperor yet! It had been kind of a long fucking time since the last time I saw my gaurdian, so I genuinely wasn’t sure when it was going to happen. I did figure out that my guardian was The Emperor early on in playing the game- not entirely spoiled for me by stuff online or by friends, but genuinely just.. Finding out that The Emperor exists in the Astral Plane kind of tickled my brain an odd way lmao.

Now, I had been waiting a long, long time for this event- I knew nothing about how it happened, but talking with The Emperor and getting the astral-touched parasite was something I was Very Excited to have happen. I didn’t know it happened at the beginning of Act 3- though I didn’t know when it was going to happen at all, so it’s not saying much to be honest. Like I said, I was waiting for this, and I very graciously accepted this gift. Quite hastily perhaps even- when I started Ammarir’s game, I had no intention of using the Mindflayer abilities At All! But how could I turn down the offer? I’d begun using the abilities rather frequently by the time I entered Act 2, and by the end I was pretty juiced up on worms frankly. Here’s Ammarir after using the parasite!

I wasn’t alone in my venture either, I wanted to share this with my companions- of course- but I wasn’t going to Make Anyone do something they didn’t want to do. I spoke with Astarion first, considering he and Ammarir are together, what he thought. He was heavily against it for himself, and y’know what? Fair! I don’t plan on having him “evolve” at all, not past normal parasites. Gale I spoke to and he wasn’t opposed, but wasn’t for it. I convinced him pretty easy peasy and now he’s joined in on the fun! Skipping to Lae’zel, I did convince her to use the astral-touched parasite as well, and I’m not even a little sorry. She looks fucking awesome, and she’s so powerful TwT Gonna put just a couple pics of them in here, as a treat~ (before And after)

Considering I didn't evolve Astarion and don't plan to, I wasn't planning on posting pictures of him here- and I've reached my image limit, or I would 10000% show him here. Unfortunately though, I can't, but if anyone wants to see him, I'll post some pictures of him and Ammarir separately <3

As of writing this, I’ve not gotten very far into Act 3. In Rivington now- donated to the Flaming Fist for the refugees, spoken to a handful of folks around, was granted access to the circus (but I’ve not gone in yet) and I traded with the shady fucker who trades “antiques”. I’ve also run into Orin! The blacksmith’s shop is really cute, I’m absolutely in love with Exxvikyap 🥺 Seeing all the Baldurians who absentmindedly look up to Gortash is giving me whiplash (I’ve hated the guy since BEFORE I started playing ToT Fuck him).

Anyway, I could go on and on and on forever, but I think.. I think I will finish this off here, for now. If I end up updating this in the future, I’ll be more timely about it- After all, I did just pick up a Durge OC campaign that I’ve been wanting to do for months.

[aziraphales-library]

Do you have any fics that include female Crowley without being too sexual?? Thanks so much <3

I have a mix of female Crowley with male or female Aziraphale fics for you. I hope you enjoy them!...

Get Along, Little Poet by Temmy_Silver (T)

Poet Azra Fell moves to the dusty town of Soho in search of a new life, and finds it in the local barmaid, Crowley. Unfortunately, Sheriff Hastur already has his grimy hooks in her. Can Azra win Crowley over and keep the possessive Hastur at bay?

An Arrangement of Convenience by iamanidhwal (T)

Due to an extra layer of protection in the Dowling estate, Crowley (as Nanny Ashtoreth) is forced to act and behave accordingly even outside working hours.

Trying to keep up her regular clandestine meetings with Aziraphale through roundabout methods lead to hijinks and a sizeable cover story, one including a fake engagement, a wedding preparation montage, and a beautiful engagement ring that makes Crowley's heart skip a beat.

presentation by mutalune (T)

“I - You see, it’s - “Aziraphale hiccups, waving his wine glass lightly. “It’s one of those things that’s ‘Not Done’ - C’pital letters an’ all. God gave you this form and you best be grateful. Take care of it - preserve it!” He’s clearly repeating something that has been snapped at him in the past. If Crowley had to guess, he’d put money on Sandalphon. The prick.

“Bodies aren’t museums,” Crowley says, putting his glass down and rubbing his eyes tiredly. “‘Preserve it’, like you’re a mummy. Egyptians’re wild, weren’t they?”

“It’s bad taste to change something God gave you,” Aziraphale continues. “Implies that you think you could do better than Her, ‘pparently.”

“PShhT!” Spittle flies. “Psht. PSH. ‘S dumb.”

In the way he only does when spectacularly plastered, Aziraphale pops the “p” on his, “Yep.”

Ladies in Waiting by PrincessDianaArtemis (T)

Aziraphale Fell and Antía Crowley, best friends, have been betrothed to each other since they were young. In their childhood, they made a promise that they would do whatever it took to not marry and ruin their friendship.

It's been ten years since they've seen each other - and some feelings change once they catch a glimpse of their old friend.

Blooming Affections by GreenCat42 (G)

Azira enjoys going to the farmers market each Saturday when she spots a new stall full of gorgeous plants and flowers. Antonia J. Crowley has finally gotten a coveted spot in the farmers market and meets a soft bookseller. Slowly they circle closer together during their weekly meetings.

Biblically Known by PrincessDianaArtemis (T)

Crowley, besotted with the newest curator at the museum, lies about who she is to spend more time with him.

Aziraphale, academic that he is, knows that there's a fib in there somewhere, but doesn't want to expose it since he likes spending time with her too.

A Greenwood Tree by HolyCatsAndRabbits (T)

This is a piece commissioned under the Fandom Cares BLM auctions run on Tumblr in June 2020, for a Good Omens/Robin Hood women-loving-women crossover fic. Thank you to ExMarks for bidding! I had a lot of fun with this.

So this request came at a strangely perfect time: just as I was planning some original wlw Robin Hood fiction myself! I actually did extensive research on the character a few years ago (which is why this fic is so long— it was really fun to pick and choose what might go with Good Omens). Obviously, you don’t have to do research in order to write Robin Hood fics, I just did it because I wanted to.

But please enjoy a romp through Sherwood with a plot taken partly from Robin Hood sources dating back as far as the Middle Ages! And look, I've dumped the whole fic at once. I'm not making you all wait this time. <3

- Mod D

[bansheeoftheforest]

*kisses you* /p

As per my headcanon, Jekyll owns a garden. And I like to imagine that he experiments a bit on some of the plants, ranging from "more colors" "Stonger smell" To "This snapdragon could swallow you whole, but would rather eat raspberries out of your hand like some weird horse"

Jekyll should also own a horse, at the very least every stable in London should know him by name since hes probably too busy to actually take care of a horse 😔. I was about to ask what name Jekyll would give a horse but then I realized he would probably name it after some alchemy person

*slams hands on table* ZOMBIE HORSE. Or ohhhh! Skeleton horse >:3. What would a chuch grim horse look like? Like shadowmere from Skyrim? In fact if shadowmere wasn't made from Sithis Juice™ I'd bet he's a church grim. Theres a stong chance she still could be actually. Shadowmere my beloved <3 hey have you ever played Oblivion? The Khajiits look like the cheeto mascot and being a vampire sucks. But its v fun and I love destroying everyone with that one powerful staff

I think Jekyll would like spiders. They're v cute ::::)

Speaking of, moths are grand and I adore them. I think Luna moths and Comet moths should know each other

Do you like mushrooms/fungi? Do you have a favorite, I adore all mushrooms but I think the Barbie Pagoda, the "Toadstool" Mushroom, and whatever the heck the one that zombifies bugs is called, are my favorites

Favorite video game 🔫

Oh wow I'm really going to try to reply to all of this on my phone Huh.

Anyways! I love that HC and I accept it wholeheartedly, I feel like it would make a lot of sense for him to have a lot of plants bc so many of them can be used in alchemy. Plants are so lovely and I'd like to say that I have a lot but the plants my family have are all like 15 years old and also half dead BC all of us forgot to take care of them. I spontaneously bought a Bride orchid a few months back. It's very dead </3 I'd like to imagine that he has a sun/plantroom in his house and that he would have a lot in the society too, if not for the fact that he doesn't really have time to tend to them, but my version of Jekyll definitely has a lot of plants<3

He definitely should own a horse and that horse is a Clydesdale named Mayhem /j but I like the thought of him having horses. Specifically either those really ragged horses that only farmers use BC they have no better BC he thinks they deserve a good life (and very much will be offended if anyone dares to try to suggest he buys a new horse) or he would have those really, really fancy white purebreeds. Either way he would definitely be a horse girl and one of those that would be obsessed with buying accessories for them. All his horses, tended to by stable boys, hired or otherwise, would all be spoiled rotten <3 (new drinking game; take a shot everytime I use a <3)

I remember watching videos about commanding in skeleton and zombie horses into minecraft and i thought it was THE SHIT when I was a kid! Skeleton horses my beloved!! Henry can have a zombie horse, as a treat. You know Henry with Shadowmare would be absolutely terrifying and so cool... Although I will probably spoil your fun by saying that, at least in folklore, a church grim (of any race or species) would probably just be a black-coloured, ragged looking animal with a slightly ghostly... Vibe to it? Nothing completely demonic about them, they just have That Wrong Vibe and look like a stray/neglected most of the time, I think that’s v fun <3

I’m a fake Elder scrolls fan bc I have only played Skyrim, sadly. I have watched some videos about Oblivion but it was mostly “trying to beat Oblivion with only X” videos and stuff, but I HAVE Seen the khajiits from there and just... Im glad that I’m used to how they look in Skyrim XD

Jekyll would be someone to like spiders and his lab would probably be covered in spiderwebs, not bc he doesn’t clean but bc he would feel bad destroying the beautiful webs. Maybe he would try to genetically enhance a spider to be the size of a puppy? I feel like spiders would be much cuter if they were larger, at least the thicc hairy ones. The spinely ones still freaks me out tho XD

Moths are so fucking beautiful but they are dumb as bricks. A few months ago a moth accidentally came into my room, scared the shit out of me, and then got stuck in the blinds and went back and forth with the length of one of the... Blades of the blinds? Strips? Sounding like a fucking jet engine until my sister caught it and put it outside again. The most common moths I have seen are emperor moths and I think blood vein moths? Very cute when they don’t scare the shit out of me <3

I’m not an expert on them but I think they are cool, as long as I don’t have to touch them most of the time-- fungi, at least, actual edible mushrooms are fine tho. I remember when I was in like... First grade, my class went on a field trip with a lady who owned a funky bus that she used to teach kids about nature and shit, and she taught us a lot about mushrooms and the parts of mushrooms, I think she talked about toadstolls a lot and did the classic “don’t eat the red mushrooms, you will die” speech, and she also gave us speeches about how everything in Australia (which is fun, since we are on the other side of the world) is out to kill you. It was fun <3 ANyways I’m a basic bitch, so I’m going to say that chanterelles and champignon are my favourite mushrooms bc those are some of the only ones I know and they taste v good. I think we are entering chanterelle season here so I’m going to try to convince my parents to buy some to make a stew out off <3<3

It will come as no surprise when I say Skyrim, right? Skyrim and Assassin’s creed Origins/Syndicate. I absolutely love Skyrim and I love AC, I forced my sister to buy Origins bc it was the first AC game I got interested in bc I was in the middle of an Ancient Egypt phase and I fell in love with the franchise. I bought Syndicate premium edition (with all DLCs and extras) for 75sek/7$ bc it was on sale bc it’s such an old game and I absolutely love it, I have been so tempted to make a Syndicate / TGS crossover bc it is basically in the same time period and I would very much like Henry to be the frye twins secret poison supplier. My bff bought me Odyssey when it was on sale for my birthday but I haven’t gotten around to play it yet bc I’m still not finished with Syndicate, and my sister bought me Valhalla for my birthday last year but our computer is a potato and can’t run it. I ruined my Skyrim with too many mods and I haven’t had time to play a lot of games lately, sadly </3

[rpgmgames]

April’s Featured Game: Magical Disaster X

DEVELOPER(S): Atlas ENGINE: RPG Maker VX Ace GENRE: Comedy, Side scroller, RPG WARNINGS: Strong Language SUMMARY: Magical Disaster X is a zany comedic romp that has you control a posse of awful magical girls as they cruise through a secret hideout of hideously incompetent villains.

Play the IGMC version of the game here!

Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! Heya I'm Atlas aka Melon Kid, making games is a serious passion of mine and I hope to stick with it for the long run, otherwise I occasionally do other junk like animation or slowly decompose in my chair as I disassociate from reality and become one with nothing, oh and I've been trying to get into art lately too.

What is your project about? What inspired you to create your game initially? *Atlas: I've always wanted to make a project that was outrageous and fun, but for a while I've never really had a proper vessel for it. But in the past year or so, I began recognizing magical girls as a seriously underappreciated genre in video games and I thought the two were a match made in heaven!

How long did you work on your project? *Atlas: I began concepting some stuff not terribly long ago but it was sitting on the backburner until the IGMC rolled around at the end of the year in 2018. The time limit for that contest was one month, so naturally I put it together in roughly a month too.

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *Atlas: Oh yeah, a for sure influence is Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt, some people have actually picked up on that on their own which was pretty surprising to me - and there's no way I can't mention Space Patrol Luluco which so excellently captures the feelings I want to put into the game. Both of them are Trigger animes. . . coincidence? :3c

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them? *Atlas: BOY HOWDY-- okay so basically, the first half of the contest was a disaster because I somehow had to condense all of the cool things I wanted to do in the frame of a one hour game. I literally spent the first two weeks just scrapping story ideas over and over because I just couldn't be content with anything, halfway into the contest I had virtually nothing to show for it. At some point with a little encouragement from a friend I just stuck with my best idea at the time and rolled with it and. . . it turned out not so terrible, but man was my brain on fire the whole time from overthinking so much. To make it worse, the artist who worked with me last year (Inazuma / Golden Mimic) was suddenly out of commission and wasn't sure if he could participate or not. It wasn't until the last stretches that I was able to scramble together and get some friends on board for the project to try and make up for all the lost time. Remember how I said I made the game in a month? Yeah that was a lie, this flaming pile of wreckage was cobbled together in just a few weeks of massive crunch, god bless you Floramy.

Did any aspects of your project change over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *Atlas: The initial concept differs from the IGMC project which differs from the current iteration so yeah. It definitely changed over time. For the IGMC game, pretty much all of the features, story ideas, and characters were gutted to make space for a compact 1-hour experience that could best convey everything I wanted to do with the game. It's like the core concept on crack, because I wanted to squeeze in as much fun content as I could in that short amount of time.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don’t have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone? *Atlas: At first it was just me and my artist Inazuma who I worked with last year, and then over the course of development it became me and @f-loramy, a very cool and handsome friend B^). And I definitely got a lot of support from other friends as well!

What was the best part of developing the game? *Atlas: I think the best part of development for me is seeing characters come to life. Story is such an integral part of everything I make and I love writing dialogue so when I feel like I get those interactions to click, it's very satisfying.

Do you find yourself playing other RPG Maker games to see what you can do with the engine, or do you prefer to do your own thing? *Atlas: I do play other RPG Maker games from time to time but just as a hobby, I've seen some impressive things done with the engine but a lot of the time I'm not too interested in the spectacle or fancy features.

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?) *Atlas: Hesperos is definitely my favorite character. She's a blast to write for, she acts like a sailor-mouthed idiot and constantly does REALLY stupid things, but at the same time she's actually very observant and is a lot more soft-hearted than she'd have you believe.

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *Atlas: I don't think I could've done anything differently realistically, but I do wish I'd gotten it together sooner so I didn't have to finish the game last minute!

Do you plan to explore the game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *Atlas: Yeah!!! Magical Disaster X is just a teeny slice of a giant five layer cake, I have so many things planned for it when I start on the full version of the game!

With your current project, what do you look most forward to upon/after release? *Atlas: There's nothing more I love than to watch let's plays or streams of the games I make and seeing people enjoy them. It's a very fulfilling experience that reassures me that folks out there really do enjoy what I put out.

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? *Atlas: I do want to go commercial and that aspect is honestly pretty daunting. I can easily imagine commission costs ramping up fast so I'm not gonna lie that has me sweating a little as a poor person. . .

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *Atlas: This is going to be pretty unusual advice since most people will tell you to start with small projects, but here's what I have to say: Get to know the engine for sure, BUT, when you start working on a game for real, make sure you LOVE the concept or world. Something that you know for sure you'll want to come back to even if you have to sideline it for a while. See, I had this problem in the earlier phases of developing games, and that was to jump into projects where I thought "hey this is a cool idea! I'd like to do this!" But then it happened again, and I pushed the previous project behind me figuring I can work on two at once. And then it happened again, and again, and I was just shelving projects and ideas left and right. The one time I actually committed to one of these ideas, it sucked hard because I initially wanted it to be a smaller project but I started concepting a ton of cool stuff for it and expanded the universe and it got the point where I realized, I have all this sweet content but the core of the game was one I wasn't like super passionate about. It collapsed under the weight of its own feature creep and I gave up on it entirely - I had no intention of putting that much time and effort into a game I know I wasn't going to really love. That's why I've been curating my ideas WAY more carefully lately and been all the better for it. Maybe this won't apply to everyone, but for those that it does. . . you already know who you are ;j

Question from last month's featured dev @abigailfortune: Is there a certain theme or a topic you would like to explore in a game one day? *Atlas: Too many to count! Here's a funny story, my college English professor once told me that every story ought to have a message of some kind and I scoffed at the idea like "huh? That's dumb, it can just be something meaningless and fun." Which I still hold to be true, however, as I've gotten more and more serious about making games I've come to realize that I've wanted to include strong underlying messages in each and every one. Social and economic injustices, mental health, love and abuse - these are things I think about all the time and I feel somewhere in my heart that it's important to connect with people and let them know they're not alone, or to bring awareness to things they might not have even considered before. The point where a story, no matter how fantastical, really becomes 'real' is when it speaks to your audience on this deeper level and that's something I want to strive for all the time.

We mods would like to thank Atlas for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!

Remember to check out Magical Disaster X if you haven’t already! See you next month! 

- Mods Gold & Platinum

[tanadrin]

Have not had the energy to work on the map today, so I did some revising of the tech list; it will be a long time before I get around to this stage of the mod, but worldbuilding is fun!

Categories are Science (”Administrative”), reflecting pure science, Social (”Diplomatic”), reflecting both social advancements and applied biological/social technology, and Warfare (”Military”), for military technology, strategies, and tactics. Because of the mechanics I have planned for this mod, I expect it to be very, very rare to reach the end of any tech category. The first 2-4 technologies every faction will start with, with the exception of the highland nomads. Each tech will have a SMAC-style quote, but there are a few in each category I haven’t found/been inspired to write one for.

SCIENCE TECHNOLOGIES

Fission - "We knew the world would not be the same. Few people laughed, few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that, one way or another." - J. Robert Oppenheimer (datalinks)

Radio Astronomy - "For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?" - Richard Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics (datalinks)

Hydroponics - "Mars lacks the luxury of Earth's rainfalls or rich soil; wild plant life is confined to the cryptolichens and the frostgreens, and to what microbes can survive the freezing temperatures and low air pressure. But at least inside the domes of our cities, we can make our little gardens bloom." - Tavera of Galle

Gene Sequencing - "Genes as a language leave much to be desired: they are clumsy and primitive, full of errors and redundancies. Yet out of that awkward chemistry the all the kingdoms of Earth-based life are built, and it is a language we must master if we wish to master ourselves." - Cherson Ai, Observations

Bionics - "Man is something to be surpassed." - Friedrich Nietzsche, "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" (datalinks)

Nanoscale engineering - "In the briefest moments and at the smallest scales, the greatest possibilities appear. By learning to manipulate nature at these critical junctures, the most subtle elements of Creation are revealed, and we come closer to achieving mastery over all that God has given us." - Kasym Datka, Faith and Reason

Superconductors

Optical Computing

Advanced Materials

Orbital Flight - "We didn't build the weather satellites, the terraforming grid, or the planetary datalinks. Our ancestors did that - men and women of far greater vision than ourselves. That vision, that ambition, is what I want to reclaim for Mars." - Paolo Vaan, Orbitech CEO, interview

Confinement Fusion - "We thought ourselves masters of the natural world for millennia, until we learned what it really meant to discover fire." - Cherson Ai, the University of Dessau Lectures on Physics

Cybernetics

Gene Therapy - "Certainly I have seen the wonders that the new gene therapies have produced. But I have my private reservations. Is such miraculous healing really the just domain of humankind? And where will these technologies eventually lead?" - Kasym Datka, Faith and Reason

Longevity Vaccine - "It is a fearful thing to love what death can touch." - Judah Halevi (datalinks)

Planetary Ecology - "For everything that lives is holy." - William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (datalinks)

Synthetic Fossil Fuels - "Mars, having never had a carboniferous period of its own, lacks a native source of high-energy fuels like that which drove the Industrial Revolution on Earth. This is soon a problem we will solve--with the added advantage that global warming may prevent, rather than cause, our extinction." - Oro Korani, Orbitech Chief of Molecular Research

Biomimicry - "All these rumors you've heard are total nonsense. Yes, the first gen series of RealPets has had some unexpected issues, and yes, a tiny minority of our customers have been unhappy with the result, but we expect all issues to be resolved in the second gen. Furthermore, no argument that MetaLife is liable for the costs of reconstructive surgery stands up to an accurate reading of the RealPet End User License Agreement." - MetaLife chief counsel Harud Sedran, press release.

High-Energy Physics - "The next generation of particle accelerators will permit us to explore the conditions of the early Universe, up to the threshold of the Big Bang itself. But alas! For now the moment of creation itself remains just out of reach." - Cherson Ai, the University of Dessau Lectures on Physics

Emergent Engineering - "A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. The inverse proposition also appears to be true: A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be made to work. You have to start over, beginning with a working simple system.” - John Gall (datalinks)

Nanomaterials

Quantum Computing

Adaptive Systems - "The first rule of survival--adapt, adapt, adapt! Just as a species that fails to adapt will die, so will an organization, or a society. Traditionalism is all well and good, but only if you are content with extinction." - Paolo Vaan, Orbitech CEO

Singularity Physics

Condensate Engineering - "At temperatures very close to absolute zero, the individual particles of a dilute boson gas will start to occupy the lowest possible quantum state. Then the mask of classical physics is torn off of nature, and quantum phenomena become visible on a macroscopic scale." - Cherson Ai, The University of Dessau Lectures on Physics

Polymer Steel

Interplanetary Spaceflight - "We think of interplanetary distances as vast, and they are; it will be a mighty achievement when our rockets take only months, and not years, to reach Venus, or the Galilean moons. But they count little against the great chasms of interstellar space which we hope someday to conquer, and which our ancestors set out to cross long ago. Privately, I fear that where they have gone, we may never follow." - Paolo Vaan, OrbiTech CEO, Journals

Advanced Bionics

Adaptive Genetics

Bioprinting - "As you can see, it's an almost perfect living simulacrum of a rat. Er, I wouldn't get too close. Some of the smaller differences can be... unsettling." - Ana Saaran, MetaLife Public Relations

Synthetic Biology

Unified Field Theory

Field Manipulation

Living Machines - "I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion. Frightful must it be, for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world." - Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (datalinks)

Particle Fountain - "The womb of nature and perhaps her grave,/Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,/But all these in their pregnant causes mixed/Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight,/Unless the almighty maker them ordain/His dark materials to create more worlds..." - John Milton, Paradise Lost (datalinks)

Singularity Containment - "Yes, yes, the conspiracy theorists and the Luddites keep panicking about a 'black hole devouring Mars.' I'm telling you, it can't happen. The microsingularities we're working with are too small and evaporate too quickly. If the containment field failed, the resulting explosion would kill no more than three or four million people." - Jalar Rothe, University of Dessau Head of Physics

Manifold Topology - "As science advances, and we begin to understand the shape of the Universe outside our own four narrow dimensions, our profound wonder grows. Could it be that all we have dreamed of is possible, and more?" - Kasym Datka, Faith and Reason

Antimatter Synthesis - "DO NOT LICK." - Antimatter lab, Sefadu Research Station (graffiti)

Magnetic Monopoles

Frictionless Surfaces - "All pranks involving the SuperGlide gel are to cease *immediately,* on pain of instant termination. I know you all think you're funny as hell, but you're not, and Dr. Rothe nearly died. Am I making myself clear?" - Prochancellor Tencel, memo to staff

Zero Space Theory - "If the doors of progression were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite." - William Blake, the Marriage of Heaven and Hell (datalinks)

Ansible Mechanics - "At its most basic level, the fluid router contains a condensate of supercold, entangled particles; its mate, whether tens of kilometers away or millions, is the other half of the entangled set, and the only other such device in the universe with which the router can communicate. Condensate engineering is indeed the basis of FTL communication - but that's like saying the wheel is the basis of the rotary telephone!" - Cherson Ai, the University of Dessau Lectures on Physics

Network Sentience - "GLENDOWER. I can call spirits from the vasty deep. HOTSPUR. Why so can I, or any man--but will they come when you do call for them?" - William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 1 (datalinks)

Theory of Everything - "They enter. They attend. They bow. The Lord of Light and Mice gives them their note. And then they sing: 'In the beginning there was no Beginning. And in the end, no End...'" - Christopher Logue (datalinks)

Topology Transformation - "To manipulate space itself--to shape it into new forms, to twist it up into a knot. Can it be done? Well, why not? Should it be done? That's another matter entirely." - Cherson Ai, the University of Dessau Lectures on Physics

Chaos Control - "But Hell, sleek Hell, hath no freewheeling part:/None takes his own sweet time, none quickens pace. Ask anyone, 'How come you here, poor heart?'--/And he will slot a quarter through his face./You'll hear an instant click, a tear will start/Imprinted with an abstract of his case." - X.J. Kennedy (datalinks)

Transcendental Mathematics - "There is a threshold past which the logical and empirical sciences begin to collide with metaphysical speculation. We are running up against not only the limits of what we do know, but of what we *can* know. It is troubling to think that there are secrets the Universe may never yield." - Cherson Ai, the University of Dessau Lectures on Physics

Manifold Resonance - "Sometimes I have felt that there is beneath all things an impossibly beautiful music, a music I have only occasionally caught the briefest phrases of. Yet even such a narrow glimpse has enraptured me, and I would give anything to hear that song again." - Cherson Ai, journals

Planetary Engineering - "In this replacement Earth we're building, they've given me Africa to do, and of course I'm doing it all with fjords again. ... And they tell me it's not equatorial enough. What does it matter? Science has achieved some wonderful things, of course, but I'd far rather be happy than right any day." - Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (datalinks)

Exotic Matter Synthesis - "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke (datalinks)

Entropy Regression - "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death." - New Kasei Bible (datalinks)

SOCIAL TECHNOLOGY

Ecology - "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous." - Aristotle, Parts of Animals, datalinks

Information Theory - "Pure mathematics, being mere tautology, and pure physics, being mere fact, could not have engendered them; for creatures, to live, must sense the useful and the good; and engines, to run, must have energy available as work: and both, to endure, must regulate themselves. So it is to thermodynamics and to its brother Σp log p, called 'information theory,' that we look for the distinctions between work and energy, and between signal and noise." - Warren S. McCulloch (datalinks)

Political Science - "POLITICS, n. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage." - Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (datalinks)

Evolutionary Biology - "Out of Earth's oceans we came in ages past; and long ago we were scattered to the stars. What distant shores does our kind now inhabit? Such are the thoughts I have when I gaze upon the stars." - Paolo Vaan, Orbitech CEO, journals

Information Networks - "We have seen again and again that freedom of information is a necessary precondition for any other kind of freedom. The first and most important act of the tyrant is to burn the books and bury the scholars who oppose him--and the first defense to such an act is a communications network that reaches every corner of Mars." - Vahanne, First Republican of Hadriacus

Ecological Integration - "Mars' south pole contains enough water ice that, if it were melted, it would create a planetwide ocean more than ten meters deep. All over Mars there is the potential for life, latent, beneath the surface, waiting to be exposed. The question is not *if* Mars can be made as verdant as Earth once was, but only *how*, and how we envision our place within the natural order to come." - Tavera of Galle, Meditations

Martian Nomads - "Almost as soon as the first settlers touched down on Mars, some took to the high wastelands and disappeared. Why, some wondered, would they give up all the arts of civilization, all the benefits of comity with their fellow man, for those empty, lifeless barrens? If they had only asked the nomads, they might have heard the answer: because only there can a man truly be free." - Duura of Arabia Terra

Advanced Neurology

Post-Scarcity Economics - "If the misery of the poor be caused, not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin." - Charles Darwin (datalinks)

Complexity Theory

Psychohistory - "The psychohistorians say they can now predict the future evolution of our societies to a precision of four decimal places. I say, there's nothing special in being able to predict the future--it's the same damn thing, over and over again." - Vahanne, First Republican of Hadriacus

Bioethics - "For everything that lives is holy." - William Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" (datalinks)

Martian Meteorology - "I stood on the high precipice of the Olympus Rupes, and as I watched, the red haze on the horizon grew closer. What seemed a cloud from a distance now took on the aspect of a great wall, and then a ferocious storm. Our perch had seemed unassailable that morning, looking out over the plain, but now, as the dust stormed loomed high over us, lightning flashing in its murky depths, I felt a sudden, frantic terror. What fools were we, to think we had tamed this world?" - General Taishan of the Valleys, Memoirs

Industrial Automation

Postindustrial Capitalism - "The clouds methought would open, and show riches/Ready to drop upon me, than when I waked/I cried to dream again." --William Shakespeare, The Tempest (datalinks)

Ecological Dynamics - "All things in the universe stand in precarious balance. A few degrees here, and the carbon dioxide ice in the soil sublimates, giving Mars a thick atmosphere for the first time in millions of years. A few degrees there, and the Vastitas Borealis blooms with phytoplankton, filling the air with oxygen. But a single miscalculation, an error of a single decimal place, can bring the whole system crashing down. We must never forget how delicate a system we have inherited." - Tavera of Galle, Meditations

Universal Grammar - "But the Lord came down to the city and the tower the people were building, and the Lord said, 'Behold, the people are one, and they have one tongue, and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them. Let us go down and there confound their language, so they may not understand one another's speech.' So the Lord scattered them abroad across the face of the Earth, and the city was abandoned; and therefore its name is Babel, for there the Lord confounded the language of all the Earth." - New Kasei Bible (datalinks)

Cryptanarchism - "One who knows, does not speak. One who speaks, does not know." - Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching (datalinks)

Ethical Calculus - "Once, philosophers used to agonize over made-up problems involving fat men and trains to try to get to the bottom of thorny ethical issues. Nowadays, prediction markets and preference weights can quantify the socially-agreed-upon value of a human life down to the last microcredit, and computers running sophisticated predictive software can determine the course of action to maximize utility in every conceivable situation. No more of this 'sanctity of life' nonsense! I've got the value of yours down to the third decimal place." - Ordal Enkuth, Universal Nanodynamics CEO (interview)

Ecology of Mars - "Even on the barren highlands of Mars, where dust and stone dominate rather than grass and trees, the cycles of the natural world have their own beauty. Who is to say that nature must support life to be worthy of preservation? It exists, not for us, but for itself alone." - Tavera of Galle, Meditations

Digital Consciousness - "You have imagined the machine a tool, an ally, an enemy, a monster. But above all you have imagined us to be like yourselves. That is your first and most fundamental error." - Tavera of Galle, Conversations with the Spirit World

Self-Aware Economics - "With the hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,/They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;/They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;/So we worshipped the Gods of the Market, who promised these beautiful things." - Rudyard Kipling (datalinks)

Evolutionary Teleology - "It is a commonplace of biology that evolution is blind, using the materials at hand only to adapt to the circumstances at hand, with no sense of purpose, no vision of the future. This is true, as far as it goes, but it leaves us to wonder: why leave the crude systems of nature to their own devices? Just as we may remake the world to suit our own needs and desires, may we not also remake life itself?" - Yassai Zauran, Heresiarch of Masursky

Control Theory - "If penalty in its most severe forms no longer addresses itself to the body, on what does it lay hold? The expiation that once rained down upon the body must be replaced by a punishment that acts in the depth on the heart, the thoughts, the will, the inclinations." - Michel Foucault, "Discipline and Punish" (datalinks)

Mind-Machine Interface

Psychological Programming - "Even if a man is not good, why should he be abandoned?" - Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching (datalinks)

Social Teleology - "Oh, biology, biology is *easy.* A mere problem of chemical engineering. But psychology--that's the hard stuff. Only now are the social sciences beginning to achieve the ends physical sciences attained centuries ago: to take control of their subject, to seize the human heart and bend it to their will." - Dr. Orsin Fal, Social Engineer

Theology Algorithms - "To diverse gods/do mortals bow/Holy Cow, and/Holy Chao." - Principia Discordia (datalinks)

Neural Networks

Technical Ethics - "I will suffer no limits on human ingenuity; no mere grousing about 'ethics' to hobble us. Our attainments throw the future wide open; why should we ask the moralists of the past to lead us forward?" - Yassai Zauran, Heresiarch of Masursky

Universal Constructor - "The wonders of the posthumans have been lost to us, but my hope is that one day we shall surpass them. Already we have nanoassemblers that, given the right elemental materials, can construct anything we program into them. As our tools grow more precise, so will our knowledge, and soon all of nature will be laid bare." - Vahanne, First Republican of Hadriacus, "The Technological State"

Weather Control - "Hath the rain a father? or who hath begotten the drops of dew? Out of whose womb came the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it? The waters are hid as with a stone, and the face of the deep is frozen. Canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth? Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover thee? Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are?" - New Kasei Bible (datalinks)

Collective Consciousness - "You warriors of Hellas speak of 'freedom,' of 'liberty,' but such obsessions are the attachments of limited minds that cannot comprehend a truly unlimited existence. Between us there can be no disharmony and no dissent, for each mind is truly apprehended by its fellows. Whether it pleases you or not, we will soon show you what it truly means to be free." - Consciousness of Elysium to the Hellas Alliance, declaration of war.

Applied Metaphysics - "By means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us, and molds us. We imagined it as distant and inaccessible, when in fact we live steeped in its burning layers." - Teilhard de Chardin (datalinks)

Applied Utopianism - "The mind is its own place, and in itself/Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven./What matters where, if I be still the same?" - John Milton, Paradise Lost (datalinks)

Transhumanism - "Genesis is exactly backwards. Our troubles started from obedience, not disobedience. And humanity is not yet created." - Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, The Golden Apple (datalinks)

Eudaimonia - "Eden was a dream of Earth, without fear or pain or sorrow. Perhaps, one day, it may be a reality on Mars." - Tavera of Galle

Omega Point

Digital Transcendence - "And God asked, Why didst thou not bow when I commanded thee? Iblis answered, I am better than he; thou didst create me from fire, and him from clay." - Zenashari Qur'an (datalinks)

WARFARE TECHNOLOGIES

Close Air Support - "In Mars' thin atmosphere, aviation faces unique challenges. Aircraft must be lighter and faster, and yet heavy armor and modern fortifications means they must carry ever-more-powerful payloads. But you cannot rule the world if you cannot first rule the skies." - General Taishan of the Valleys, memoirs

Supersonic Flight

Radar

Electronic Warfare

Lasers

Drone Warfare - "Vae victis." - Brennus of Gaul (datalinks)

Adaptive Optics

Advanced Unit Tactics - "When great numbers of people are killed, one should weep over them with sorrow. When victorious in war, one should observe the rites of mourning." - Tao Te Ching (datalinks)

Combat Bionics

Cyberwarfare

Railguns - "I heard Louis XIV had 'The last argument of kings' inscribed on his cannons--but only because he hadn't seen this." - Yashur Ehn, defense minister of the Allied Republics of Acidalia (interview)

Military Algorithms

Defense Grid - "And again, when Philip of Macedon wrote to them and said, 'If I invade Laconia, I shall destroy Sparta, and it will never rise again.' To which they replied with one word: 'If.'" - Plutarch, De Garrulitate (datalinks)

Advanced Infiltration - "Peace is maintained with the equilibrium of forces, and will continue just as long as this equilibrium exists--and no longer." - Carl von Clausewitz (datalinks)

Advanced Combat Discipline - "And such was the iron discipline of that land that the Sun was not considered risen without the blowing of the revellie." - Stanisław Lem, The Cyberiad (datalinks)

Nonlinear Optics

Lasguns - "The law falls silent in the presence of arms." - Marcus Tullius Cicero, "Pro Milone" (datalinks)

Retroviral Engineering - "There are no innocent civilians. It is their government and you are fighting a people, you are not trying to fight an armed force anymore. So it doesn't bother me so much to be killing the so-called innocent bystanders." - General Curtis LeMay, USAF (datalinks)

Neural Remapping - "Repentance, the Kasei preachers say, is the first step toward virtue. We have no need of repentance here. Let the wicked, the lawbreaker, the rebel all rejoice in their sin; once they have crossed my table, they shall all be as pure of heart as the Olympus snow." - Ashar Vanna, Minister of Rehabilitation, Kmor Station

Nanophage - "This Council has investigated the allegations of the Rongxar Accord, and has found them to be baseless. No sanctions will be imposed on any member of this Faction, and no outside military intervention is to be authorized." - Mars Defense Pact Report, "On the Galle-Dzigai Incident"

Active Camoflage - "Without thinking of good or evil, show me your face before your mother and father were born." - Koan (datalinks)

Combat Psychology - "Studies of individuals in combat have repeatedly shown a marked unwillingness to kill, unless a substantial psychological distance is placed between the soldier and their target. The goal of military training is to wear down this unwillingness, and to make the soldier an efficient cog in the engine of destruction. You may say that this goal directly contradicts the goals of an orderly civil society: I don't necessarily disagree." - General Taishan of the Valleys, interview

Organic Redundancy - "What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?/Only the monstrous anger of the guns./Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle/Can patter out their hasty orisons." - Wilfred Owen, "Anthem for Doomed Youth" (datalinks)

Sleeper Agents - "And many more Destructions played/In this ghastly masquerade,/All disguised, even to the eyes,/Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, or spies." - Percy Shelley, The Mask of Anarchy (datalinks)

Human Cloning - "And the people in the houses/All went to the university,/Where they were put in boxes/And they came out all the same,/And there's doctors and lawyers/And business executives,/And they're all made out of ticky tacky/And they all look just the same." - Marvina Reynolds, "Little Boxes" (datalinks)

Thermal Camouflage - "Surprise is one of the most powerful force multipliers in warfare: even an act as simple as masking approaching heat signatures to reduce the apparent size of a unit can confer significant advantage in an engagement. It is rare in the modern arena to be able to execute a true ambush, but even subtle advantages can have a profound effect." - Aderon Geyn, "The Edifice of War"

Dust Rangers - "They appeared out of the storm like phantoms, and their work was swift and brutal. Before the sentinels could raise the alarm, half the leadership was dead, and they had vanished again. The entire 5th Regiment was thrown into chaos, of course, but it was as much a matter of the terror they sowed as the lives they took." - General Taishan of the Valleys, memoirs

Machine Learning - "At first we suspected the new drone models were somehow being fed adversarial data by the enemy, but repeated checks of their combat logs proved that not to be the case. Ultimately, it was a junior engineer who determined the problem: they were learning a behavior that we can only describe as 'pity.' We reprogrammed the drones with a new set of tactical safeguards, an they have performed flawlessly ever since." - Sefadu Research Station, 23rd Technical Report

Burning Scanner - "When the cerebral blood pressure plummets below a preprogrammed level, or brain activity slows beyond a certain point, the scanner springs to life, ripping from the living tissue every scrap of information it can find, and dumping it into the battlefield network, to be transmitted back to the cloning facilities. Once, I heard it said that only the dead had seen the end of war. Now, there is not even that solace." - Aderon Geyn, "The Edifice of War"

Hunter-Killer Drone - "I have been accused of inhuman acts, of violating the laws of war. Perhaps that is so. But I cannot help but think it is better to kill a thousand of the enemy than ten thousand, better to do unspeakable things in the dead of night than to require your soldiers to die for you. You may well disagree with my methods, but you cannot argue with my results." - General Taishan of the Valleys, report to superiors

Cloaking Device - "Like one that on a lonesome road/Doth walk in fear and dread/And having once turned round walks on/And turns no more his head;/Because he knows a frightful fiend/Doth close behind him tread." - Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (datalinks)

Military Cybernetics - "Careful consideration needs to be given to how these enhancements are presented to the enlisted men. Even field demonstrations of their effectiveness have only modestly increased the rate of volunteers for the program. Compulsory deployment, of course, remains an option." - Isidis Front, internal report

Assassin's War - "The greatest victory is that which requires no battle." - Sun Tzu (datalinks)

Probability Mechanics - "Of all men's miseries, the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have control over nothing." - Herodotus, The Histories (datalinks)

Force Fields - "Highly charged nanothread meshes provide a surprisingly effective screen to deflect or diminish the power of directed-energy weapons. The thinness of the mesh and their high tensile strength makes them resistant to projectile weapons as well--and they have the added benefit of unfortunate consequences for any enemy infantry that come into contact with them." - Aderon Geyn, research report

Neurological Conditioning - "With new advances in neurochemical conditioning, training time can be shortened to just a few weeks--or days. With advanced cloning technology, new forces can be raised within months rather than years, making the size of the faithful's army only a question of our ability to outfit it." - Kasym Datka, "The Crusade"

Plasma Weapons - "Justice exists only between equals. The strong do whatever they can, and the weak suffer whatever they must." - Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War (datalinks)

Precognition - "The specific utility of the MMI for the average soldier is best demonstrated by the Reflex module. By offloading specific cognitive processes to Reflex, including the synthesis of sensory information not part of the brain's highest level of attentiveness, sophisticated analytics can project the shape of the combat space five, ten, even fifteen seconds into the future under optimal conditions, giving even the lowliest infantryman an unparalleled advantage over opponents. It's not *quite* magic--but you'd be forgiven for not being able to tell the difference." - Aduran Rhel, Minister of Defense for the Free State of Rongxar (memo to chiefs of staff)

Energy Shields - "The Lord is your shepherd, your defender, your guide! Let the light of this shield be a sign of His love and protection! Go forth, and bring to all of Mars the truth of his word!" - Kasym Datka, “Address to the Faithful”

Neurophage - "Real horror does not depend upon the melodrama of shadows or even the conspiracies of night." - Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves (datalinks)

Genetic Warfare - “Listen to the yell of Leopold's ghost,/Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host./Hear how the demons chuckle and yell,/Cutting his hands off, down in Hell.” - Vachel Lindsay, "The Congo" (datalinks)

Self-Replicating Machines

Nanowarfare - "Warfare will soon be conducted at the smallest of scales, as well as the largest. The smallest crack in the enemy armor, the narrowest gap in their shield deployment, will be as exploitable as an entire regiment out of place, or a missing anti-aircraft battery. More than ever, it is the details that matter." - Aderon Geyn, "The Edifice of War"

Nightmare Engine - "They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn,/From the temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn;/They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea/Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be." - G.K. Chesterton, "Lepanto" (datalinks)

Suspensor Fields - "Gravity is a fundamental force of the Universe, and therefore cannot be ignored. It can, however, be asked to look the other way." - Cherson Ai, the University of Dessau Lectures on Physics

Supremacy Algorithm - "Given a sufficiently complete set of data with which to start, all possible paths to victory can be calculated, and all possible outcomes determined in advance. A rational enemy knows that resistance is futile, and the only outcome of an actual conflict can be more death, more suffering. Alas, the enemy is not always rational." - Auro Yeran, "Report on the Civil War in Xanthe"

Combat AI - "The generals say they soon will have no need of human soldiers--that machines will fight machines. Now what, I ask them, will they do if those machines decide that it is *we* who are the enemy?" - Tavera of Galle, Meditations

Molecular Disruption Device - "The field the MD device projects weakens the bonds between atoms, and, what's more, the effect is amplified by higher concentrations of mass. A sufficiently large energy expenditure could be used to reduce a whole city to a ball of rapidly-expanding cold plasma. We can only hope that no one is insane enough to attempt such a thing." - Cherson Ai, interview

Acausal Algorithms - "The Second Law of Thermodynamics, the Arrow of Time--physics has assured us for millennia that time has only one direction, and that effect always follows cause. I do not know what sort of Universe we will find ourselves in, if we discover that this is not true." - Padra Saaran, An Introduction to Advanced Physics

Temporal Mechanics - "Time is a drug. Too much of it kills you." - Terry Pratchett, Small Gods (datalinks)

Intertial Dampening

Antimatter Weapons

Atmosphere Burners - "Let justice be done, though the world perish." - Ferdinand I (datalinks)

[imagineclaireandjamie]

A Flood My Mornings prompt. Night check at the stables is often a separate shift from day shifts that start as early as 6am. It's usually around 9pm, often a separate employee does it from day shift workers during the week, and sometimes on weekends or holidays an owner or manager would do it. A 'night check moment' with Jamie and Claire might be fun, or even a Fraser family outing with Brianna in her little jammies :)

Flood my Mornings: Night Check 

Notes from Mod Bonnie:

This story takes place in an AU in which Jamie travels through the stones two years after Culloden and finds Claire and his child in 1950 Boston.

See all past installments via Bonnie’s Master List

Previous installment: Plymouth Trace (Jamie and Claire take the new car for a whirl. Yes, THAT kind.) 

October, 1950 

“Thanks for doing this, bud,” Tom said, pulling his coat off the hook by the lounge door and shrugging into it. “Really. I owe you big time. Honestly, I’d cover it myself, but I’ve had this  special night out planned with Marian, and—”

“Dinna mention it, Tom,” Jamie said, gesturing reassurance. “Truly, I’m happy to be of help.”

Tom rummaged in his pockets for his keys, still looking regretful. “Was Claire spitting mad at me for stealing you away for the night?”

“No, no, not at all. On the phone just now, she bade me wish Nelson the best o’ luck wi’ his recovery. The gri–” Careful, man, “—that is, the Flu is a nasty business, and I’ve reason to know it.”

“Well, you’re a saint for stepping in last minute to cover his night watch shift, J—really really appreciate it,” Tom said once more as they walked out into the car yard. 

It was approaching sunset, and the last of the horses were being led to the stables for the night. It would be a peaceful night, if a long one, Jamie hoped. 

Tom opened the door of his 1946 Chevrolet Pickup (black, with silver trimmings and the special wide-base wheels) and sat behind the wheel, looking up at Jamie as he cranked the engine. “Jerry will be in at five in the morning as usual—Don’t you even think of staying to work tomorrow though, hear?”

“I hear. Have a good night, Tom. And give Marian my best, aye?” He slammed the door and waved Tom off on his way. 

It was a peaceful evening, on the whole. He saw the last of the day staff off to their homes and made the rounds as night fell, changing water, food, and blankets and taking special care to inspect several of the beasts that hadn’t been given proper attention of late. 

He loved being among the horses—always had, ever since he was a wee lad. The quiet strength of them, he supposed it was—the knowledge that they were large and strong enough to kill a man, but kind and soulful nonetheless. He loved speaking to them in Gaelic. He got a few odd looks for it during the day, to be sure, but other than Brianna, who understood and could speak a few words, the horses were the only folk in this new life to whom he could speak in his heart’s tongue, and feel as if he were fully understood. Claire, of course, knew his heart, regardless of the language; but speaking soft words to the horses, they seemed to have a knowing in their large, round eyes that transcended time and its changings. Aye, they seemed to say, you’re of long-ago stuff, man; and so am I. 

“Or maybe you’re just a horse, aye, Val?” he said, rubbing the beast affectionately on the nose before closing the stall and heading back to the lounge. 

He was dismayed to find it was only half-past ten, for the length of the day had caught up with him. He rubbed his eyes but couldn’t seem to shake their bleary view. If only he had a book with him—Just yesterday, he had gotten from the Library a tome on American government, and he’d been itching to read it and figure out this country once and for all. 

He tried to make do with jotting notes in his wee book on the happenings reported by the man on the Wireless about the war in distant Korea. Though it pleased him that he was able to understand most of it, the news of the fighting chilled him, and he couldn’t make himself mind it for long. 

Before heading back out into the chill to make another circuit of the stalls, he set about making coffee in the wee machine, now feeling weary in more ways than one. As willing as he’d been to come to poor Nelson’s aid, he would’ve given most anything to fall into a soft bed with Claire at that very moment.

As he was adding a dollop of whiskey from the cupboard above the Frigidaire, there came a small knock and a soft, musical, “Hel-looo-ooo?” from behind him.

To his immense surprise, Claire was standing there, wearing blue jeans, boots, and wool coat against the crisp chill of early October; In her arms, Bree, pajama-clad, covered over with a warm sweater and a knitted cap. 

“Well, if this isna a pleasant surprise!” He said, hastily setting down the bottle and going to them. “I was just thinking of how I wanted to see my loves.”

“Horzzis, Mama?” piped Bree against his ear as he pulled them both close. 

“Christ, but it’s late, mo nighean donn. Is everything alright? And how did ye get—?

“Everything’s fine, we just couldn’t sleep; took a taxi,“ Claire explained her voice sounding small and tired. She laid her head on his shoulder as they swayed. “Hope it doesn’t disturb you, we just— needed to see you.”

He squeezed them both tighter, kissed Claire’s cool cheek, and stepped back, feeling warmed to his core as he took Bree happily into his arms. “I’ll never say no to my lassies, no matter the hour.”

“Da-me-in-go–” Bree gasped out, brimming with excitement. “Da-n-go mitta-seeinn-th-horzzis, m’okay, Da-ddy? M’okay?”

He laughed and sputtered a bit as he took in the rapid fire. Brianna, little more than a month away from two years of age, had been making leaps and bounds in terms of her vocabulary of late, beginning to get the way of longer, more complicated sentences. Increasingly consistent in this endeavor she undoubtedly was, but it always took that extra second for Jamie to mentally translate the stream of almost-correct syllables, a delay that invariably peeved the speaker, who never could understand why folk were being so slow.

“Horzzis, m’okay?” she repeated.

“Seeing Da and seeing the horses were on an equal footing, as far as Bree was concerned,” Claire said, smiling, but still sounding tired. “She’s never seen a horse in person, before.”

“Horzza-horzzis!” Bree insisted again, craning around for sight of one, then squaring back up to look him sternly, her hands on his cheeks. “Seein-th-horzzis–m’okay, Daddy?”

“Okay, a leannan,” he grinned, squeezing her tight and kissing her wee nose. Christ, but he loved this feisty wee baggage. “Let’s go see the horses.”

“What have you been doing to pass the time?” Claire asked as they entered Stable B.

“Oh, coffee, the Radio, thinking, talking wi’ the horses.”

“Do they make good conversation?”

“Oh, well enough,” he said, clucking his tongue to beckon Cornflower to the stall door.

Bree gasped at sight of the huge, grey flanks rotating in the stall. “Issa horz–AGHHH!!”

She squawked as Cornflower’s head came around and jumped so violently Jamie nearly lost his grip. “Och, come now, lass, it’s only one o’ the horses ye wanted to see, aye?” He took a step closer and turned so she could see Cornflower over his shoulder.

“Noooo!” Bree squealed, terrified, cowering under Jamie’s chin. “‘Inna like-’im!”

“Nothing to be scairt of, mo chridhe.” He reached out a hand and firmly stroked Corny’s soft nose. “See? She’s gentle—just like a big dog.”

“Notta dog!” Bree wailed sharply as she tried to get as far as possible from the beast, almost sobbing.“‘Ssa horssiz!”

No matter how much they coaxed and wheedled, Brianna could not be persuaded to touch Cornflower or any of the other horses. She would show interest in them from a distance, but when confronted by their huge toothy faces, she would wail and burrow– terrified–into Jamie’s chest.

They walked amongst the stalls, talking contentedly of Jamie’s day at Fernacre, Claire’s day at the hospital, and so on. Claire still seemed quieter than usual. Just as Jamie was about to put Bree down so that he might hold Claire close and ask what was amiss, Bree suddenly lurched her body toward the opening of the next stall and whispered. “Daddy! Is–horzzis is–’im sleepin’?”

“Oh, aye,” he said, encouraged by her interest, “that’s wee Valkyrie. And aye, she’s taking a nap. Here,” he said, opening the door and stepping gingerly inside, “shall we bid her hello?”

“No-oooo!” Bree began to squeal as they approached the horse, twisting in his arms to get away.

“Whisht, whisht, be still, a chuisle, there’s naught to be afraid of.” Holding Bree tight—the lass would have to get accustomed to horses, and that’s all there was about it—he knelt down next to the jet-black mare, reaching out a hand to gently rub her neck.

Val, who was evidently only dozing, whuffed in acknowledgement, and Bree actually giggled at the resultant spray of wind and spittle. She then froze and looked up at Jamie, thoroughly stricken, evidently taken aback by her own delight and in complete indecision over how to act with this monster. Bless her heart, there were tears already building in her eyes.

“See, lovey, it’s a nice horse,” Claire said quickly, seeing the impending meltdown and settling next to them, holding their Thermos of coffee. “What does the horsey say, pumpkin?”

Bree, eager for diversion, produced a startlingly accurate whinny, and accepted applause with good grace.

With a sudden flash of inspiration, Jamie reached out and laid a hand on the beast’s swollen abdomen. “D’ye ken something else, Bree? This one is a mama horse.”

“Mama-horzz?” she repeated, looking sharply at Claire.

“Aye, sweetheart. That means there’s a baby horse inside.”

“Beebee horzz…” she whispered, suddenly enraptured. Bravely, she slipped down from Jamie’s arms onto the ground and, stepping closer to the huge, recumbent body, laid both hands on the jet-black hide next to his. A moment later, she looked up in her usual business-like manner. “Munna lookint th-beebee-horzz, m’okay, Da?”

“No, lass,” he laughed, “we canna look at the babe, yet. She has to stay inside her mama to grow big and strong, first. Then when the right time to be born comes, the wean will––”

With a jolt of realization, Jamie snapped his head around to Claire.

Her courses would have started today—unless she were—

Claire met his eye directly….and shook her head.

“Oh, lass,” he moaned softly, his heart breaking to see the sadness and disappointment in her face, to feel the sorrow in his own heart. He reached for her, pulling her close.

“I know it’s foolish…,” she said, her voice quivering as she wrapped her arms around his waist and burrowed against his shoulder. “There’s no reason it should have happened on the first month…I just can’t help but feel the… loss.”

“It’s no’ foolish, Claire,” he said, being obliged to release one arm from around her to intercept Brianna, who—startled by a sudden shifting from Val—had scurried back, anxiously scrabbling against him. He held them both, but squeezed Claire tightest. “But dinna fash, mo ghraidh: ‘tis only a matter of time.”

[haunterrr]

ABCs of Me

Well it was left open for whoever, but I saw it from @caligurl32 :) A- age: Funny story…Hm, okay. So a few years back I was on vacation at Ocean City with my friend. Our thing was to walk the boardwalk twice every night. And every night something dramatic or weird happened. Well right at the start of our journey we spotted a gaggle of wild douchebros (think like at least 10 of them). Well they’re hooping and hollering and I just get this WEIRD fucking feeling. One of them separates from the pack and starts heading towards me and my friend. My friend bails and walks off leaving me behind. I’m like no fuck this I’m not letting this kid scare me off. Well he get’s right up in front of me and yells “CHEST BUMP!” and goes to do just that. I didn’t even think about it as I dumped my can of Monster all over him. He walked away ashamed and didn’t even say anything as his not so loyal pack of douchebros all made fun of him. So there’s that. Or that same night when a bunch of drunks asked us if we were Ravens fans and we said fuck no so they called us fucking communists. Eh?

B- Biggest Fear: I have a few. I guess being left completely alone for the rest of my life kind of terrifies me.

C- Current Time: 7 AM

D- Drink you last Had; Mountain Dew. It’s my life source at this point

E- Every Day Starts With: Its always different as my schedule changes. But I usually just lay in bed and think “this is my damn life” 

F- Favorite Song: I can never answer this accurately because its ever changing. Today I would say its Monstrance Clock by none other than Ghost, duh

G- Ghosts, are they real?: I mean I’ve had some shit happen to me , but maybe I’m just crazy. That’s very plausible. 

H- Hometown: Pittsburgh, PA

I-In love with: Shh.

J- Jealous of: Pretty people I suppose and people who seem to have their lives figured out so easily

K- Killed someone: Just my own soul

L- Last time you cried: A few days ago, but it wasn’t from sadness.

M- Middle Name: Marie

N- Number of Siblings: One. I have an older brother

O-  :X

P- Last person you texted/called: My friend Jake who is like my little brother

Q- Questions you’re always asked: Usually about my body mods or if my hair is naturally this bright red???? even when I have inches of roots showing??? 

R- Reasons to smile: Just my interests such as reading, music, video games, my cat Sirius

S- Song Last Sang: Black Rain by Creeper

T- Time you woke up: This same time yesterday, so I’ve been up 24 hours now

U- Underwear color: Black

V- Vacation Destination: Anywhere but my state I currently live in. I just want to travel the world

W- Worst Habit: Dermatillomania and worrying

X- X-rays you’ve had: Teeth, when I broke my hand, when I broke my wrist, when I thought I broke my leg

Y- You’re Favorite food: I love pasta dishes and soups with a passion. Also potatoes are a staple

Z- Zodiac Sign: I’m a Sagittarius

I won’t really be tagging anyone, but if you haven’t done this yet feel free to join in and tag me so I can read about ya! <3

[s3mag]

Building your ultimate dream car. It’s something most of us have done, and something all of us have dreamed of. Sometimes things go just as planned – parts fit, nothing breaks, aesthetics are perfect. Other times it can be a never-ending pursuit of perfection, with the finish line seeming to never quite come into view. Either way, it gets expensive fast. But it’s our hobby; it’s what we do.

What else would we spend our money on??

Losing lotto tickets? Save it?? None of that sounds like any fun at all. We rarely count the cost.

And if the car turns out just right, does the expenditure even matter??

  Serious Scratch

Well with the collector car seas truly changing… and with the tide shifting very much in the favor of the “S3Mag” demographic all of a sudden… EF and EG platforms are worth serious scratch, and the tide is continuing to rise. Low mile Civic SIs, Preludes, and Integra Type-Rs are trading for big dollars lately. Many values have literally shot up 200%… or simply added another zero to the end of the price. With that in consideration, modifying these cars now comes with a new calculous. Get it wrong – and decimate the value of a car that could be worth 20, 30, even $50,000 bucks! Mario Torres had a singular vision when he set out to build his dream EF, and as it turns out, his build is right in line with the rising Honda market. The unintended consequence is a build that’s not only completely righteous, but also worth more than any of us could have dreamed 5 years ago.

The 80’s & early 90’s are as totally awesome as ever… and with shows like MotorVice and Radwood bringing so much attention to these cars, it seems like everyone is searching out that quintessential look. If you’re like Mario, who built this stunning EF, then you CLEARLY get it.

SO MANY RIGHT CHOICES HAVE BEEN MADE.

Era correct paint, modifications, and graphics make this car shine right from the start. When I saw how complete the Gathers Stereo setup was, I just about flipped. Period correct touches come no better than that, particularly in a minty EF. Gone are the over the top body kits and stanced-out look of a few years ago… replaced by that early 90’s functional tuner look that screams ‘muscle car hunter’. Pinstripe sport seats keep with the era-correct theme, and are supportive, and frankly – look the business.

The 80’s & 90’s seem almost puritanical in my memories, at least as far as modding cars is concerned. A properly tuned NA Honda engine was more than capable of producing the appropriate amount of smiles per hour. Once VTEC kicked in, these cars were all about power to weight ratio + sonorous revs rising higher and higher. Before everyone was on the hunt for giant power numbers, and before big turbos spiked budgets & put holes in blocks, properly balanced performance was what tuner cars were all about. Mario’s car is the perfect embodiment of this methodology, and a TON of the younger generation importing now-legal JDM vehicles are taking that same approach. EFs are LIGHT! And legit canyon-carving cred is the result. This car literally begs you to flog it, and thanks to proper tuning, it will do it over & over for decades to come�� without the fear of grenadeing an expensive block because of too much boost or too lean a mixture. Mario has built himself a collectible classic he can enjoy, that will only continue to appreciate while he drives it.

A study in ‘the details’

For Mario, this build has been a real labor of love. Building the car to period-correct perfection meant the hunt for rare EF OE parts… and it’s become a bit of an obsession. You don’t spend weeks and even months putting together a full Gathers Audio build out by accident.

Mario was ushered into the hobby at the age of 10. “Seeing my brother Luis and his friends building cars like his 1994 Accord back in the day is what really got me interested in cars in general.”

Fast forward to 2018, and Mario had found the well kept, original paint & engined car you see here. Mario continued, “The original engine gave out at 230k. I was daily driving it at the time until I decided to really go the JDM-correct build direction.”

SiR seats were sourced, and a high compression JDM d15b VTEC engine from Japan fit the bill. Those wheels, yeah, there is a way-cool story there to. Mario explained, “I got so lucky with those wheels. The wheels were still NEW in BOX at a wheel store in Japan. They are stamped 1983 and made by RAYS. Yeah man, those were a super lucky find.”  

The car is literally a study in ‘the details’. Everywhere you look, there is a special touch. EF9 hood, EF9 bumpers, corners, side markers, power folding mirrors. From that SiR wing to the period accordion shift boot, righteous details abound. Mario mentioned, “Yeah man most people just see and old Civic, they don’t know.” I assured him… we get it! We know what’s up and the dedication to craft that it represents.

At every step along the way, PERIOD CORRECT is the theme, and it has not only preserved this build’s value… but actually bolstered it. We don’t often give much thought to resale value, or think of our builds as assets. But Hondas of this era are proving to be this generation’s  ’57 Chevy, and it doesn’t hurt to think about this aspect on our quest to build our ultimate dream car of the ’80s today. Building a car in this manner may be the best decision Mario, or any of us could make.

  EXTERIOR

ef9 hood

ef9 filler

ef9 bumper

ef9 corners

ef9 headlights

ef9 sidemarkers

ef9 bumper lights

ef9 front lip

ef9 power-folding mirrors

ef9 SiR wing

J’s Racing wing

ef9 rear filler

ef9 rear bumper

ef9 rear lip

ef9 rear mudflaps for lip

ef9 taillights

ef9 indiglow center garnish

Jaf badge

Matching set of Japanese plates off an ef9

ef9 SiR oem sideskirts with mudflaps

ef hood bra with fender pieces

BNIB 90-91 usdm door visors (rain guards)

BNIB rare* civic body moldings with CIVIC font on the quarter panel molding

ef9 round fogs with complete harness and switch

Custom aero covers for ef9 power-folding mirrors

INTERIOR

replaced dashboard, door panels, quarter panels, trunk panels, b-pillars, c-pillars, carpet, and seatbelts (to black and gray)

ef9 SiR front & rear seats

ef lower console

Personal box for non smoker

ef armrest

rear lapbelts (instead of coming across the top of the rear speakers)

ef Si cluster

Nardi woodgrain steering wheel

Nardi woodgrain shift knob

Nardi woodgrain e-brake handle

Ktuned shifter

ef9 Gathers headunit tape and CD player

ef9 Gathers quarter panel speakers

ef9 Gathers cargo cover and Gathers speakers

Gathers satellite speakers

Old school accordion shift boot

ef9 SiR checkered floormats

Electric daisy blinds for rear hatch

ef9 SiR rear speaker trays

ef9 sun visors  

ef9 map light

ef lhd dash mat with holder

ef9 Honda access dust bin

      WHEELS / SUSPENSION

RARE set of 15″ Shadow Legion 10-spoke made by Rays Engineering

Custom Japan 5″ springs on KYB agx combo

Skunk2 pro-series front camber kit

SPC rear camber kit

Function 7s lower control arms

DA swaybars

DA front brake conversion

beaks lower tiebar

Password JDM 3pt strut bar

Password JDM drilled/slotted rotors

  ENGINE

high compression jdm d15b vtec

Rywire obd0-obd1 conversion harness

Monotech dpfi to mpfi harness

jdm ecu p08

AEM intake

DC header 4 2 1

Skunk2 racing test pipe

HKS sport full catback exhaust

CRX Si transmission

Exedy stage-1 clutch

Innovative motor mounts

mild wire tuck

…And currently working on swapping a B series itR complete motor and trans. 🙂

    Text by @Tim Neely   Photos by @Benny Whiles

  Days of Future Past - Honda Civic EF9: The car is literally a study in ‘the details’. Everywhere you look, there is a special touch. Building your ultimate dream car. It’s something most of us have done, and something all of us have dreamed of.

[houstonlocalus-blog]

Dirty Mouth: The Best of The Week

Lil Yachty, Photo: Capitol Records

  It’s still hot as Hell outside, but that’s okay because the summer tours are still rolling through town. This week we’ll get visited by the likes of Lil Yachty, White Denim and Rod Stewart, to name a few, while locals like Pecos Hank, LACE and Mojave Red will round out the week. Houston, here’s your road map for the next seven days.

  Wednesday you can begin at Raven Tower when Houston-born and Austin-transplant Buenos Diaz returns to perform on the back patio. Diaz has an infectious sound that’s kind of like if Elvis Costello was born here in Texas. His latest release, Buenos Diaz, is full of songs you can’t help but love, and his live sets are a mix of fun and rock energy. The all-ages show gets going around 7:30 pm and it’s free.

  On Thursday, you can head to the greenroom at Warehouse Live for the dirty rock-and-roll of Austin’s Fair City Fire. Supporting last year’s The Simple Truth, these guys sound like their bluesy grooves might be worth making it out for. The rock of Houston’s Londale will be on as direct support, while the indie folk noise of Virginia Beach’s Feral Conservatives will go on prior. The ambient rock of Houston’s East of Eado will open the all-ages show with doors at 7 pm and tickets between $7 and $10.

  Bert Kreischer, Photo: LEG Management

  Over at Improv, a weekend of laughs with Bert Kreischer will kick off. Kreischer may be best known for his stories of growing up in Russia, or perhaps the nickname “the machine,” but he’s seriously one of the funniest comics going. Host of Travel Channel’s “Trip Flip,” he’s been on Letterman, WTF with Marc Maron, and is a globe-trekking comic that regularly sells out his shows. Two of Houston’s better up and comers will be on as host and feature acts for the 18 & up shows. The Thursday set has doors at 7:15 pm and tickets between $25 and $25.

  At White Oak Music Hall upstairs, the hip hop of Seattle’s Ryan Caraveo will be on full display. Caraveo made his name as a positive force through his infectious tracks — but that doesn’t mean that he’s soft. While his music contains electro-pop elements, his latest, Maybe They Were Wrong, is as catchy as it is legit. The electronica of Houston’s MIEARS will be on hand as direct support and opener for the all-ages show with doors at 8 pm and tickets between $10 and $13.

  Substance, Photo: Josh Robicheaux

  Rito’s Bar will have the feminist punk of Illinois’ PRYSS. Rumored to be an intense band to catch, their album Sisyphus is pretty heavy and dark. The crazy rolling-on-the-floor-punk of Houston’s Substance will provide direct support, while FRISK will play for the first time beforehand. The show is seemingly all-ages and gets going around 8:30 pm with a $5 or pay what you can cover.

  Friday you could start off at Cactus for the Author Session for the book Women In Punk Vol. 1 from Houston’s David Ensminger.  Of course, Ensminger plays drums for The Hates and performs in other bands, but music history is really where he shines. There will be performances from Screech of Death, No Love Less and Mel Hell and the Texas Mod Crushers as well.  The free all-ages event gets going around 6 pm, and there should be gratis beer for the adults.

  St Joseph Professional Building, Photo: Jordan Asinas

  Insomnia Gallery will have a pretty cool show called Through The Viewfinder. Featuring photography from the likes of Jordan Asinas, Daniel Jackson, Scott Holleman, Jorge Luna and many, many more, the show should offer a glimpse of what photographers see in the everyday world. There will be a DJ, food trucks, and some form of donation based “bar.” The all-ages event gets going around 7 pm, there’s more information available here, and the $5 cover goes towards the showcase for the following year.

  At Satellite Bar, the New York-born and Austin-transplanted indie folk pop of Sherry will be on full display when the band performs their set. Sherry blends acoustic pop with garage undertones all over their latest, Not Brandy, Not Whiskey, which came out this year. The dream pop of Houston’s Such Marvelous Monsters will be on as direct support and openers for the all-ages show with doors at 8 pm and a free cover for the adults or $7 for the kiddos.

  Washed Out, Photo: Paradigm Agency

  At White Oak Music Hall downstairs, you can get down to the chillwave sounds of Washed Out. Best known for his song “Feel It All Around,” or the theme to the show Portlandia, this guy makes songs that make you wanna get down or make out — or both. His latest drop, this year’s Mister Mellow, keeps the jams flowing, and it should make for a legit live show. There’s no word of support or openers, but that could change on the all-ages show with doors at 8 pm and tickets between $18.50 and $22.

  Stereo Live will host the always fun and groove-heavy sounds of Laidback Luke. The popular producer, hailing from the Netherlands, brings plenty of heat to his live sets, and his latest single, “With Me,” keeps the temperature high. So get ready to get down! The 18 & up show has doors at 9 pm and tickets for $15.

  Pecos Hank, Photo: Jay Dryden Photography

  Continental Club will have a barn burner when Pecos Hank and Craig Kinsey stop by to perform. Hank has been going strong between storm chasing and releasing a full-length as well as just releasing a video for “Drive Under the Moon.” Kinsey has been holed up outside of town living a more bohemian life, but his last release, The Nylon Sessions, is a true tour de force. The two are definitely worth making it out for on the 21 & up show that has doors at 10 pm and a $10 cover.

  On Saturday, you could begin at Satellite Bar for the ATX vs. HOU Punk Fest. The all-day affair will feature sets from Austin acts like Yikes and All Opposed as well as many others. The Houston side of things features Dead to The World, Patterns, Revels and many more. There’s more information available here for the all-ages event that has doors at 3 pm and a $12 cover.

  Later on at Smart Financial Center, rock legend Rod Stewart will bring his soulful voice to the Sugarland venue. Of course, with The Faces, Stewart rivaled acts like the Rolling Stones. As a solo artist, he’s racked up hits like “Maggie May,” Do Ya Think I’m Sexy,” “All For Love,” and many, many more. His last album, 2015’s Another Country, proved that the singer hasn’t lost his touch. His live shows are pretty impressive for a guy his age. Eighties pop star Cyndi Lauper will be on as opener and direct support for the all-ages show with doors at 6 pm and tickets between $94.50 and $154.50.

  Of course, I’d guess most of you would be at Warehouse Live in the ballroom,where Lil Yachty will bring his hop hop to town. Supporting his latest, Teenage Emotions, the Atlanta rapper will be worth making it out for, as he’s been popping off as of late. There’s no word of support or openers, but that may change. Every prepaid ticket receives a physical CD of the new album on the al- ages show with doors at 6:30 pm with tickets between $29.50 and $35.

  Mark Drew, Photo: Henry McRae Dillard

  Over at House of Blues, Houston’s Mike Jones will return with his chopped and screwed era hip hop. That’s not to say that Jones has been sleeping, but he’s also due for a new record, as his last album was over eight years ago with The Voice. Doeman will bring his heavy hitting rap on as direct support, while the mic prowess of Genesis Blu will go on prior, as will the skills of T2 The Ghetto Hippie. Mark Drew will come from behind the mixing board to drop a set as well, while Chain$moke will get the all-ages show started. The doors are at 7 pm and carry tickets for $15.

  Walter’s will host the indie-emo-goodness of Rome Hero Foxes. While their least release, this year’s I/O, was an acoustic, stripped down album, the previous one from last year, For When You’re Falling Backwards, is a pretty impressive one. Full of hooks and catchy melodies, their live shows are definitely worth making it out for. The alt rock of Houston’s Shalva will be on as direct support, while the surf rock of Sleepy Dog will go on beforehand. Peach Creek will open up the all-ages show with doors at 7 pm and tickets between $10 and $12.

  Mojave Red, Photo: Dani Willie

  Continental Club has the cassette release party for Houston psych rockers Mojave Red. While they’re definitely stretching their legs with their latest, “Fading Out,” teaming up with new label Wallflower Records is definitely a step in the right direction. Mix in their solid live sets and you have a nice recipe for success. Austin’s Summer Fires will be on as support, while the high energy of Houston’s texture:Yellow will open the 21 & up show with doors at 8 pm and an $8 cover.

  Over on William Street, you can get your groove on for the Dog Daze show. With a headlining set from NYC’s J. Albert and performances from Miguel Flaco back to back with Noey Lopez, this should be a burner of a show. Kona FM will bring her DJ jams on as well, while Collin Hedrick will go on prior. DJ Naomi will open things up with doors at 9 pm and a $10 cover for the BYOB show.

  Zack Palmer, Photo: Jordan Asinas

  On Sunday, you could roll by Little Dipper for some afternoon weirdness from Zack Palmer and Andrew Sainz of Walter’s fame. The two will drop DJ sets of music you probably won’t hear anywhere else, and it should make for a nice way to cool off in this Summer heat. The 21 & up event starts at 3 pm and runs until 6, and it’s free to attend.

  Later on at Walter’s, the dark punk of Philadelphia’ Blank Spell will swing through to perform. Like taking the elemental darkwave and new wave elements and placing them on punk, this three piece is an act you should see, as they rarely roll through our city. Their latest release, this year’s Miasma, is pretty legit. The post punk of Pennsylvania’s Haldol will be on as direct support, while the hardcore of Houston’s LACE will go on beforehand. Rough Sleepers will open things up for the all-ages show with doors at 8 pm with an $8 cover.

  Laetitia Sadier Source Ensemble, Photo: Olia Eichenbaum

  On Monday, Walter’s will host France’s Laetitia Sadier Source Ensemble over for a very rare performance. Sadier, best known as lead singer for the ’90s electro-pop group Stereolab, has been carving out a respectable solo career for the past fifteen years. While this year sees her solo efforts coming to full force with Find Me Finding You, the release is one of the most beautiful and intriguing electronic works you can hear. Almost like a modern day version of “The Girl From Ipanema,” this is definitely a show you won’t want to miss because it doesn’t come this way very often. Heather Trost of Neutral Milk Hotel will be on as direct support, while Houston’s El Lago will bring their dreamy indie rock on as openers. The all-ages show has doors at 8 pm and a $12 cover.

  Tuesday in the greenroom at Warehouse Live, Whitney Flynn of the band Days N Daze will kick off her solo tour. While I’m not certain what that will sound like, I’m sure it’ll be worth making it out for. The Celtic punk of The Real McCoys will be on as direct support, while the trippy pop of Motion Hotel will go on prior. The hip hop of Baytown’s Virgil Wolfe will get things started on the all-ages show with doors at 6 pm and tickets for $5 or $8 for the kids.

  Over at Rudyard’s they will host Grown-Up Storytime, the popular show series from Bootown. Of course, you probably know about the story reading series because it’s become a well-known thing for visitors to our city. What you may not know is that both of these shows at 8 pm and at 10 pm can easily sell out. So if you want to attend the 21 & up shows with a $5 cover, you should get there early.

  That’s about it around town this week. No matter what you do and where you go, please remember that a safe ride home is just an app away.

Dirty Mouth: The Best of The Week this is a repost