#nebular crush

[gatheringfiki]

The following ficlet was written by @i-am-still-bb based on this photoset.

Fili/Kili, Teen.

You might also be able to read this story on AO3.

If you’ve enjoyed this story, please leave a comment either in replies or on AO3. :)

Planet Killer

---

Fili remembered the first time he heard the term “Planet Killer.”

He was sitting in his 2nd grade classroom. The room smelled of chalk and rubber-soled sneakers that squeaked on the scuffed and worn tiled floors. Their desks were clustered in groups of four. Fili was near the front simply by virtue of his last name starting with a letter near the beginning of the alphabet.

He was working on the math worksheet that was that night’s homework when Ms. Bechdel rolled in a TV cart and tuned the television to a news station. It did not matter which one, they were all reporting on the meteor that they were calling Pompey. Everyone was tracking the comet that was going to come so close to Earth that they would be able to see it in the sky during daylight hours for days. Soon enough every channel, news or not, would be broadcasting the news.

Fili had looked for it that morning, but had no luck.

They watched the newscast and then they talked about the differences between an asteroid, meteor, meteorite, comet, and other planetary bodies. It was fantastic timing according to their teacher because they were presently in their space module. Fili had made a diorama of Pluto and its moon, Chiron, only two weeks before Pompey started making news. He had used purple and gray Play-Doh that had hardened into a rock when he left it out overnight. He had painted the box black and flicked silver paint into it to make stars. He had even painted a green and purple nebular in a corner and a small silver spaceship. Fili had begged his mother to buy him glow in the dark stars after they started the module. He had created his favorite constellations on his bedroom walls; Orion, Ursa Major, and Andromeda. They glowed dimly until their light faded long after he had fallen asleep.

Pompey was supposed to pass by. A “near miss” they said. But normally “near misses” were measured in hundreds of thousands of miles not passing between the Earth and the Moon. 

Small fragments had been flashing through the night sky for days. Fili insisted on staying up until it was properly dark so he could see the falling stars through the rapidly de-leafing trees in the backyard. He and his mother sat on a picnic blanket covered in soft, fleece blankets watching the dark night sky. Kili had fallen asleep under his blanket before it even got properly dark. 

He shared all he knew about “falling stars” with her, including that they were not really stars. When his mother had told him to make a wish on one of the flashes of light he told that rocks did not care about his wishes with all the imperiousness of an eight year old. His mother made a wish, but refused to tell him what she had wished for.

Fili remembered how the windows shook when the first fragment impacted.

The shockwave was felt more than 500 miles away. 

The news played videos of the impact and the shockwave that devastated central Florida. All that Fili knew about Florida was what he had seen when they had gone there for vacation last winter—Disney World and the relentless ocean. 

Tampa was gone. 

The Epcot sphere was crushed and lying on its side.

The news coverage was endless. Constant videos provided by people who had been there or had traveled there simply to get the footage so they could have their 30 seconds of fame on the news. 

Fili had nightmares of red fire and crumpled buildings for months afterwards. And they still returned to haunt him well into adulthood.

Kili did not remember any of that.

Kili remembered the car ride, but even then he was not sure if he actually remembered it or if he was just told of it so often that he thought that he remembered. He said he remembered it because it had been silent. There was no radio, no movies on their iPads, nothing. Just silence and endless hills, then endless cornfields rolling past. 

-

Everyone in the family made fun of Nori and his “compound” in Middle-of-Nowhere, Nebraska. 

But then Pompey came. And the whole family had ended up in Nori’s bunker (really a converted ICBM silo) to wait it out and hope. Both boys had problems remembering what ICBM stood for, and pronouncing it when they did—Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. A remnant of a war that no longer mattered between countries that no longer existed.

-

“Do you have everything you need?” Dis asked, eyes wide and frantic. She clutched a bag in her own hand. 

Fili nodded. He had his backpack filled with the necessities. 

“What about my Nintendo?” Kili asked, clutching the black plastic box to his chest.

Dis shook her head. “No. Pick a book. I don’t know if we’ll have electricity. I need you to have something you can actually use.”

“But I want my Nintendo!” Kili shouted. 

Fili had slipped upstairs then to grab Kili’s favorite book and the stuffed otter from Kili’s bed.

“Fili!” The panic in his mother’s voice set Fili on edge. He nearly fell down the stairs in his haste. “What were you doing? Get in the car! We need to leave!”

-

That had been the last normal day.

-

Fili woke up. He ate his brightly colored cereal and then sat down in front of the television to watch cartoons. Kili joined him sometime later still dressed in his pajamas with a package of Pop-Tarts clutched in his fist. They watched cartoons in silence. 

And then the screen turned red and an ear splitting noise emitted from it. Kili covered his ears and Fili flipped cushions onto the floor in his search for the remote to turn the volume down. But the remote did nothing. The painful, terrifying noise would not turn down. And the television would not turn off. 

Kili was crying.

“What on earth—” Their mother was swearing when she came into the living room. Her hair was a mess and she was tying the belt of her robe. Then she froze. 

Fili could read the alert, but it did not make sense to him. He did not know what a lot of the words meant. 

Presidential probably had to do with the president, but evacuation? And what did shelter in place mean? He knew what the individual words meant, but as a phrase he was lost. He did recognize the name Pompey though. Had something happened to the meteor?

“Mom, what is it?” Fili asked. When she did not respond he said, “Mom. Mom. What is it? What’s happening?”

The noise stopped.

Kili tugged at her sleeve. “What happened to the cartoons? Put them back.”

“Shush!” She shouted. “Quiet!” She yelled when they did not shush themselves. 

-

Two days later he saw his dad for the last time.

-

“I’ll meet you there.” He handed Kili over and ruffled Fili’s hair.

-

He did not meet them there.

They waited for him to return with his parents.

But after 12 hours their mother did as he had told her to do. She loaded Fili and Kili into the SUV and drove west, racing against the clock. They did not stop for more than a few minutes until they pulled into Nori’s compound.

Everyone else was already there. It would have felt festive with everyone together like the holidays if not for the sharp edge to the wind, their words, and their emotions. 

-

And then the sky turned red. 

The sky had been weird for days. Fili watched the flashes smear through the sky. It was almost pretty.

But the red was not pretty. It looked like fire. It reminded him of the news coverage of Tampa.

They were all rushed into the bunkers. Told to go to the lowest level, the safest level. Fili stayed by the door until it was closed. Waiting. Watching. Hoping. He refused to leave even when the door was closed. Thorin had to carry him, kicking and screaming, down into the silo and away from the surface.

He remembered how the earth shook.

The noise it made.

How everything went black.

And how the quakes kept happening.

-

There were other people out there; other people had survived Pompey the Planet Killer. There had been radio broadcasts in the beginning. They were mostly stories of chaos, death, murder, and greed. Their mother would turn the radio off and shoo Fili and Kili into a different room to “stretch their legs.” So they would run up and down the spiral staircase that ran all the way to the bottom of the silo and back. It was not much fun, but it was all they had.

They spent over a year in the bunker without opening the door; two Christmases, two of Kili’s birthdays, one of Fili’s.

-

And things were not the same when they did.

-

It was two years after they opened the door from the silo for the first time that they encountered Them. 

-

“Is that them?” Kili asked, not lowering the binoculars and pointing.

Fili grabbed for the beat up binoculars. They had found them in the bottom of their dad’s bag. They were a treasured item that were wrapped in a sweatshirt whenever they took them out. When not in use Fili kept them in the back of his drawer. “Let me see.” 

Kili reluctantly handed them over. “Just there,” he said, pointing even though Fili could not see his pointing.

“It looks like it.” Fili adjusted the focus. “What are they carrying?” 

“A deer?” Kili offered. “They did take their guns and the bows that they got from those people over the river. Do you think Mom will let me have one for my birthday if I ask nicely?”

“Absolutely not,” Fili answered without hesitating. He fiddles with the focus some more and squints. “It doesn’t look like a deer.” Fili frowned. He handed the binoculars back over when Kili grabbed for them. 

Kili started mumbling numbers.

“What are you doing?”

“Counting.”

“I know that. Why?”

“Didn’t seven of them go?” Kili lowered the binoculars and looked at Fili. 

“Thorin, Dwalin, Gloin, Jackson, Oin, that new guy Bilbo, and Aron,” Fili listed off, “I think?”

“I only see six.”

Fili snatched the binoculars back. “One, two, three…” 

“Maybe someone fell and hurt their leg?” Kili offered. “And is being carried?”

“I don’t see Dwalin,” Fili said as the group grew close enough for him to pick out which figure was who. “We should go down just in case they need help.” 

Kili nodded and helped Fili pack up the binoculars, blanket, and the remnants of their snack. They descended from the tree-stand and made their way towards the silo so that they would intersect with Thorin’s party. The dry grass crunched beneath their feet. It had been several weeks since they had had a good long rain. 

“Get inside! Now!” Thorin roared at them as soon as he was close enough to be heard.

Fili and Kili looked at one another. “Why?” Kili whispered.

Fili shrugged. “No idea.

“Come on,” he plucked at Kili’s shirt sleeve. “We better listen or else he’ll be even madder.”

“He looks mad enough already,” Kili grumbled.

-

Thorin was scared.

-

Thorin slammed the door and turned the handle for the big deadbolt to slide into place with an ominous metallic thud. Fili hated that noise. It always reminded him of that first time. When they had been locked in darkness for months, Fili never wanted to live through that again. This time felt as final as the first. 

“Someone get the lights!” someone, Fili thought it was Gloin, shouted. 

There was the metallic clanging, and a lot of swearing and grumbling before there was the staticy hum of electricity when the switch was flipped. 

“How bad is it?” Thorin asked.

Fili and Kili shoved in behind him to see what it was that everyone was looking at.

“It’s nothing,” Dwalin growled. 

“It is not!” Bilbo snapped. His hand looked comically small when he pushed on Dwalin’s shoulder to prevent him from getting up.

“What happened?” Kili asked anybody who would answer him.

No one answered.

Dwalin was propped up on his elbows. Beneath him was the triangle stretcher they used to haul supplies out into the wilderness and to haul their catch back to the silo. His face was pale, his shirt smeared with blood, and there was a bloody bandage made out of someone’s torn up t-shirt around his arm. 

“Boys,” he growled when he saw them looking down at him. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Let them stay,” Thorin said. “They’re old enough, and if we’re going to have to deal with those… those things from now on, they should know.”

Dwalin raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“What was it?” Fili asked.

“Not now,” Thorin said. “Let’s get him down to one of the lower levels,” he said to the other men. 

Fili and Kili trailed along behind as Dwalin half-walked, was half-carried down to the living quarters. 

The silo always smelled faintly of metal and rust, but it was stronger now with Dwalin’s blood added to the mix. The metal stairs clanged and echoed beneath their impatient feet. 

“What do you think happened?” Kili asked Fili as they walked behind the adults.

Fili shrugged. “I’m sure they’ll tell us. You heard Uncle Thorin.”

“Do you think it was a wolf?” Kili asked excitedly, “Or a polar bear?”

“Polar bears aren’t this far south. And Uncle Thorin knows what wolves are. He’s told us about seeing them before. Why would he say ‘thing’ this time?”

Kili jumped the last few steps, “Maybe it was a mutant wolf!” 

The crowd around Dwalin was thicker now, but thinned as parents took their children into the private living spaces. 

Oin was issuing orders to whoever would listen. “Hot water, clean cloth, any antibiotics that we have left…”

“I don’t know if antibiotics will work against anything that that thing was carrying,” Dwalin grumbled.

Kili settled down by Dwalin’s head. “Was it a mutant wolf, Mr. Dwalin?” Kili asked from his cross-legged position. 

Dwalin twisted to look at Kili. “No, lad. It wasn’t a wolf.” Then he looked to Thorin, who gave a quick nod. Dwalin sighed. “It wasn’t an animal at all.”

Fili was holding the bowl of “hot” water that his mother had given him with the instructions to do as Oin or Bilbo ordered. “What was it then?” Fili carefully lowered himself to his knees and set the bowl on the floor in front of his knees.

Dwalin looked at Thorin again. He licked his lips, but before he could speak Oin started pulling away the dirty t-shirt bandage.

“Fuck!” Dwalin swore. “That hurts!”

“Not in front of my children,” their mother tapped him firmly on the top of the head.

“They swear plenty without Dwalin’s help,” Gloin offered with a grin.

“And that’s his fault.” 

“Can’t help it,” Dwalin said tightly.

Fili leaned forward to get a closer look at the marks that were revealed when Oin pulled away the last of the bandage. “Are those animal teeth?” he asked, even though he thought he already knew the answer.

“Depends on what you call an animal,” Dwalin growled. “It certainly looked human.” He winced as Oin started cleaning the wound. “But it didn’t act like a person.”

“Did it walk on all four legs like a dog?” Kili asked.

“No,” Thorin said. “It didn’t. It walked just like you or I.”

“We would have known something was wrong if it had walked on all fours like a beast,” said Dwalin. Dwalin flinched. “Careful with that! I’d like to keep my arm!”

“You’re more likely to lose it if I don’t clean it,” Oin snapped. “Now quit whining.”

“Who was it? Was it the people that gave us the bows?” asked Fili. 

“It better not be,” Thorin gritted out. “There’s more of them than us so we’d be well and truly fucked if it is them.”

“Language!” Dis scolded.

Fili looked expectantly at Thorin, who was rubbing his face roughly. He looked older than Fili remembered. All of the adults aged dramatically after the Planet Killer’s impact. Their mother had seemed to sprout gray and silver hair overnight. 

Thorin pulled a chair close and sat down heavily. The rest of the party was standing close, shuffling their feet, and whispering amongst themselves and more were joining from elsewhere in the silo as word spread that something had happened, an attack, and that someone had been injured. Loved ones came in with frantic looks in their eyes until they spotted their family, friends, or lover. Then relief ran over them like the sun coming out after a storm.

“I don’t know what it was,” Thorin finally said. His normally warm skin was ashen. Everyone was watching him. 

Waiting.

“The only word I can think of to describe it is…” Thorin took a deep breath and looked around the room at all of the anxious faces watching him, people who looked to him as their leader even though he had never volunteered for the position, it had just happened. “Vampire.”

“Vampires aren’t real,” Kili pipped in. 

“They’re only stories in books,” another child added.

Thorin shrugged helplessly. “It looked human. It spoke to us. But when it was close enough…” he gestured to Dwalin who was currently gritting his teeth while Oin stitched the wound with hemp thread. They were trying to locate a book that would tell them how to make catgut (a thread made from finely woven sheep intestines) for stitches. “It did that. It bit Dwalin. It moved so fast.”

Fili looked sharply away from Dwalin to Thorin at the despair in Thorin’s voice.

“And then we just stood there, frozen. Like cowards—”

Someone tried to interrupt then, but Thorin spoke over them.

“It was only Bilbo that did anything. He buried that little knife of his in the thing’s head. That seemed to wake us all up. We managed to get it off of Dwalin. It had a few arrows sticking out of its body by the end, but it did not stop coming until I used my ax. It only stopped trying when it no longer had a head.” Thorin shivered in distaste. “It had fangs. It’s teeth were like a wolf’s, with those long teeth.” Thorin indicated length with his hands. 

No one spoke. 

-

Fili did not see one of Them, as they had taken to calling the creatures—Vampire was too laden with old horror stories—for several years. He and Kili were kept close and were rarely allowed outside without an adult present even if they were just going to be weeding the ever expanding garden. It was the same for all of the children. 

They all learned not to trust. 

They longer visited their neighbors who had given them the bows. Their leader Thranduil refused to listen to Thorin and his stories about vampires. And then one of Thranduil’s men had been killed by Aron’s son who had assumed that the human shape had been one of Them. 

Any one of them could have easily done the same.

More than once Fili had hesitated too long. He had received his own stitches at Oin’s now expert hand. And there were other times that his fingers twitched on his ax, fear making him want to strike out. He had been breathes away from killing someone who was just as human as he was.

-

“Kili!” Fili shouted when he saw his brother walking up the long overgrown gravel path.

Kili raised the hand not carrying the duffle bag in greeting and grinned.

Fili slid his ax into metal rings on the frog that hung from his belt. “You were gone a long time this time,” he said when Kili got close enough that they did not need to shout to be heard. 

Kili shrugged. “It took longer than normal.”

“What did you find?”

Kili set the duffle bag on the ground. Fili could see by how the worn leather sagged and folded that it was not even close to being full. 

“Better than nothing,” Fili said stoically.

Kili pressed his lips into a thin line. “I wish I had found more.”

Fili squeezed Kili’s shoulder comfortingly. “Did you encounter any of Them?” Fili’s voice was barely above a whisper. But still a rush of wind came up and made them both shiver despite their layers and the warmth of their bodies. Fili looked over his shoulder. The dense pine forest was a comfort, but also a source of anxiety for all of them. It provided wood, shelter, cover, but it provided Them with the same things. They could sneak up on a person with barely a noise on the soft piles of needles. 

Fili fought back the shiver of fear that ran up his spine. They had never been seen this close to the compound before. But Fili still looked over his shoulder. But all he saw were the bare trunks of pine trees, needleless branches, bare earth, and the breeze scented with pine and snow. They were all surprised that it had not snowed more by this point. They usually had at least several inches by the start of the holidays. And they were nervous; worried that less snow now meant more snow later, or that the snow would stick around well into May or even June. 

Kili shook his head. “I didn’t even see any signs. Nobody has seen one in almost two years. Maybe They have moved on?”

“Probably too much to hope for,” Fili said darkly. “Come on, let’s get back. Mom’s been waiting for you. I’m pretty sure she would make the rest of us wait for our holidays until you made it back.”

“She could try,” Kili laughed. “But I think Gimli and the rest of the kids would have something to say about that.”

“She would withhold whatever sweets she has managed to conjure up.”

“That might do it.” Kili laughed and all of Fili’s apprehension slipped away. Things were always better when they were together.

-

The holidays were not postponed.

A tree had been erected in one of the common rooms and it had been decorated with whatever ornaments the children had made or had been found over the years. Handprints of the now-teenagers featured prominently. But there were also chains of construction paper that Fili remembered making during that first long year. They had wound the garland along the railing in an attempt to make the space feel festive. It had not worked particularly well. There had been no gifts, no feast other than the same canned food that they always ate. But now there was an actual tree, actual ornaments, candles, and electricity provided by the solar panels that had just been installed. 

There had been music that first year. And there was music now. Many people had brought their instruments with them and the long hours gave them giant swaths of freetime when they could practice. They had very little sheet music though, so the carols were never quite right, but the spirit was there. And that warmed everyone.

There was plenty of food now, vegetables from the garden in the compound, and an elk that Thorin and Dwalin had brought in the week earlier. 

Tonight they drank and ate. 

Tomorrow things will go back to the new normal. They will go back to watching for Them. But they will not talk about Them or the other things that have changed since the Planet Killer. This was just how things were. There were things in the woods, Them, that were not there before, and they may never understand what They are or how They came to be—had they always been there or at the Planet Killer created them—but tonight that did not matter. Tonight they are warm, safe, and happy together. And once they have all drank too much they will talk about those that they have lost. Most of them were lost to the Planet Killer, but some were lost after that to Them or to illness and accident. 

Fili wrapped his arm around Kili’s shoulders and gave him a firm squeeze. They both grinned and watched the kids play while the adults laughed and talked and smiled and played music just like they had before everything changed.

[alpha-beta-gamer]

Nebular Crush is a strange psychedelic shooter in which two bros shred and shoot their way through bizarre dimensions.

Read More & Play The Alpha Demo Build, Free (Windows)

[ladyryukyo]

yu und kenta moving in together when they're older for like. college or something. oh my god they were roommates.

it's absolute chaos. yu is an extremely messy person, leaving his clothes everywhere, not even just his room (though it looks like a warzone and kenta never even pokes his head through the doorway) but in the living room, the kitchen, the bathroom and, worst of all, in kenta's room, too. kenta is not overly clean or anything but yu's levels of messiness make him want to go on a cleaning spree and never stop. kenta realizes they need to lay down some ground rules.

first things first. no entering each other's rooms without permission. cleaning up behind themselves in the shared areas of the apartment which means everywhere except their own room. split chores evenly.

kenta and yu both agree that that seems doable. but it soon becomes apparent that learning to live with each other is a lot more difficult than establishing a few rules.

kenta wants to paint a wall in his room yellow but he buys way too much paint. he asks yu if he wants to use the remaining paint and yu is enthusiastic about it until he realizes he'd rather paint his room blue. guess what, he also buys way too much paint so now they have a bucket of yellow paint and a bucket of blue paint and neither of them knows what to do with it. yu calls tsubasa who suggests painting a wall in their living room green so that's what they do.

yu buys a bunch of color changing fairy lights, one of which he and kenta hang up in the living room above the couch. only now they can't agree on what color the fairy lights should be and are fighting for the remote almost constantly. kenta likes it best purple, yu wants it to be red, so most of the time they want to watch tv together, they will first grapple for the remote that changes the color of the fairy lights.

yu lent kenta his bluetooth speakers once and now every time kenta starts spotify, his phone automatically connects to yu's bluetooth speakers and yu will get an earful of kenta's weird music taste. kenta grew up with his grandparents which is why he primarily listens to older songs of artists that were popular fifty years ago and that no one in his generation has ever heard of. to add to that, kenta likes to listen to music when he is studying and because his time management is shit, he often studies late at night, so yu gets woken up at two in the morning by some japanese rock song from the 1960s.

yu goes with tsubasa to a flee market and comes back with an absolutely atrocious painting. kenta doesn't really care what yu hangs up in his room but it's really so ugly and then yu proclaims that they should hang it on the wall above the dining table and, no. just no.

they go grocery shopping and take turns pushing each other in the cart through the store until yu buries kenta under a mountain of groceries and kenta can't get out anymore. he is too scared to accidentally crush something if he forces his way out so he stays inside the cart until they're at the checkout, cheeks burning with embarrassment when the clerk stares at them but doesn't say anything. yu is laughing his ass off at kenta's mortification despite kenta doing his best to try and telepathically communicate to him to shut up.

kenta feels bad for waking yu up in the middle of the night so often and since he knows that yu does not know at all how to take care of himself, he makes an extra effort to wake up early so that he can make yu breakfast. kenta is not a morning person but decides it's worth it when he sees yu's face light up with excitement at what kenta prepared for him.

yu sometimes still has nightmares from his time in the dark nebular and from before, when he lived all alone in the desert where every day was a struggle for survival. kenta doesn't really understand, having been raised safe and sheltered by his grandparents, but he tries his best to comfort yu and distract him with happier thoughts. some nights, when yu can't ignore the dark thoughts creeping in, he knocks at kenta's door. kenta is almost always still awake and studying when yu comes to him but he will leave it on his desk and guide yu to lie down on his bed before joining him and embracing him tightly and yu will know that kenta will always be there for him.

on the day of their final exam for the semester, yu and kenta decide to celebrate with a dance party. they push all their furniture against the walls, kenta connects his phone with yu's bluetooth speakers, and they dance exuberantly around the living room, both of them sleep-deprived and high on caffeine and relief. yu is holding the remote for the fairy lights in his hand and is clicking wildly through the different colors to simulate disco lights. they both climb up on the small coffee table and yu tries to dip kenta like a disney princess but then one of the legs of the table gives and they both crash to the floor, laughing hysterically.

they buy a new coffee table. figuring out the instructions is an impossible task and yu and kenta spend a whole day bickering about how to assemble the table correctly. kenta gets so annoyed that he throws a handful of loose screws at yu and then yu retaliates and then they waste the whole afternoon looking for all the screws they lost. in the evening, when they're finally almost done assembling all the pieces, they realize the screw for the last step is missing.

inspired by @love-me-a-good-prompt roommates ideas posts!

[unknownxgift]

“Azi Dakaha— The pure god of evil. What is your purpose?” {“………..”} “Don’t play coy with me, you shitty dragon...! If you say the word ‘amusement’, then you have clear desires or goals! Then what are they!? Like other demon lords, some selfish, egotistical reason - you have one! Am I wrong!?” Under the circumstances where there would be no wonder if he was killed at any moment, Izayoi used all his strength and asked this of the Demon Lord. This was the final condemnation of a man who had lived as he pleased. “If…….If your goal was to simply destroy, then fine. If we compared our desires, tried to kill each other over our ideals, and I lost, that would at least be acceptable. But you're different! Even when you fought this hard, and you destroyed so much, you still aren’t satisfied! You probably won’t be satisfied if you kill me either! Then where is your motive, your desire…..

“Where is your Justice?!” Ignoring the blood that poured out of his body, Izayoi yelled fervently. If he didn’t, he felt like he wouldn’t be able to die in peace. “This is Sakamaki Izayoi’s…….last inquiry in his life. Answer me, demon lord Azi Dakaha. ” {“So you ask where lies my Justice……….eh? You are indeed a human that amuses me to no end”} laughed Azi Dakaha. To answer the inquiry, it gathered its energy into its fist. The three heads and six eyes each looked in different directions, and embraced the sky. Its crimson eyes reflected beyond the nebular cloud, and held an air of serenity. While its figure was no doubt a monster, in this moment, he looked incredibly solemn. “This body has crushed everything its eyes beheld ever since its birth. Life, cities, cultures. Societies, achievements, order, crime, public evil, proud justice and hideous depravities. Like a storm, like a tsunami, like a rain of thunder, this body has bared its fangs against everything in existence equally. But I…….am not a “natural disaster”. I am a being that wields the destruction that only a natural disaster should be able to wield, with a single will, and destroys anything by his impulses. That can no longer be called a natural disaster. Inevitably my being, the single word of evil I carry, is the final destination for all heroes to cross……!”  Azi Dakaha’s eyes shone clearly. The red flag that had “evil” etched into fluttered harshly. Carrying the unparalleled word on its back, the demon lord opened its six eyes on three heads and declared,

“Rise, HERO… Over my dead body - THAT is where your ‘JUSTICE’ lies!!!!”

[printdesign]

Photography represents a mode of conceptual, material and historical enquiry for Melbourne-born, Frankfurt-based artist James Tunks. An expansion from his 2017 solo exhibition Elsewhereat the Centre for Contemporary Photography (Melbourne), his debut book Into Dust sees Tunks construct fake astronomical photographs using found and accumulated materials – crushed and pulverised to mimic interstellar nebular. Design by Bureau Collective.

[marketusme]

Huawei nova 2

Packed with some impressive specs the Huawei nova 8 and Huawei nova Y60 are here and ready to be discovered. Will one of them be your next phone, Gen-Zer?

Charging power

(Image credit: Huawei)

If you’ve got plans to be out and about with your friends, then a smartphone that offers a long-lasting battery is important, especially if you want to capture your day with pics or enjoy some music streaming on your phone. The Huawei nova 8 has the 66W Huawei SuperCharge support, which saves users the trouble of charging the device frequently. Your phone can also be charged to 60% in just 15 minutes and 100% in 35 minutes, so even if you had forgotten to charge it earlier, you can still charge up while you’re busy getting ready to meet up with the gang.

The Huawei nova Y60, on the other hand, is equipped with a 5000mAh large battery and Huawei’s power-saving AI Algorithms, which lets users explore as much as they like with their phone without worrying about the battery dying. Coupled with the Ultra Power Saving mode, the smartphone can last longer even when the battery level is low, which is a great if you’re out and about for a longer time than you planned. 

Incredible picture quality

If you’re looking to jumpstart your influencer career or just love a good picture, then the Huawei nova 8 is a good start because it gives you the best camera features, and the price tag is just right for a Gen-Zer’s pocket. The Huawei nova 8 is fitted with a 64MP high resolution rear camera that lets you take vividly sharp photos. When taking photos at night, Huawei nova 8 Super Night Mode makes sure that you still capture your best angles. The Main Camera and Ultra-Wide Angle Camera on the back of the Huawei nova 8 work together to enable Dual-View Video, which is perfect for taking group selfies and fun videos.

The Huawei nova Y60 can hold its own with the camera features, with a solid AI Triple Camera, allowing users to capture clearer photos of everyday moments with ease. The 13MP Main Camera has an f/1.8 large aperture – the bigger the aperture, the more light your smartphone camera can gather, which is needed to get great quality pictures.

It’s all in the appearance

(Image credit: Huawei)

The Huawei nova 8 comes in a spectacular Blush Gold colour and has a thin and light body that weighs only 169 g. From the back, the universe-inspired Nebular Camera System sits elegantly on the exquisite glass panel, giving the device a unique and a striking appearance.

Coated with a simple yet trendy hood, the Huawei nova Y60 is available in two classic colours – Crush Green and Midnight Black. It adopts a 3D design with smooth, rounded edges to ensure a comfortable grip, which is made even better by its handy on-screen navigation.

(Image credit: Huawei)

SPECIAL DEALS!

The Huawei nova Series is designed to bring out the best you possible. Be part of this cool journey and unlock your next best level by buying these devices sooner rather than later.

The Huawei nova 8 will be on sale on the Huawei Online Store from 1 September 2021 for R12 999 and receive a bundle deal with the Huawei FreeBuds 4i for R12 999.

You can also buy the Huawei nova Y60 for R3 099 and get a free Bluetooth headset valued at R699.

Both these smartphones come with a two-year warranty, one-time free screen guard service, free unboxing service at store and 50-days screen insurance. Also available from Vodacom, MTN, Telkom, Cell C and Takealot. 

Source Link Huawei nova 2

[thisisjcuso]

Week 3 - 20/3

These are some books brought in by other students that they believe have a good design. I love looking at books like these because there is such an intense contrast between most of them. 

For example, ‘The Exquisite Book’ is full of different and beautiful illustrations. It is colourful and there is so much to look at. ‘James Tunks Into Dusk’ is the complete opposite; it is very minimalistic. This book is like looking at nothing and everything. The book “sees Tunks construct fake astronomical photographs using found and accumulated materials – crushed and pulverised to mimic interstellar nebular.” (https://perimeterbooks.com/James-Tunks-Into-Dust)

I’d like to collect more books like these. The problem with collecting things is that it takes time. I’d like to have a vast collection of beautifully designed books now but I’ll get there. Hopefully in about 5 years time I’ll have the start of an inspiring collection.

[whenjocastasayyesnobodycansayno]

GEO Test

-Earth is 4.56 billion years old, we know bc radioactive decay of certain elements known since 1952 -13.8 billion years old is the universe, more significant -Powers of 10 used to express super small or large numbers (logs) -All parts of Universe are flying away from each other, 15 billion years ago they were all in one place. Then bigbang happened STARS -Use light spectrum to determine what it is, using prism. Dark lines will pop out due to the wavelength of certain gases absorbing the light. Different chemical elements absorb different wavelengths. -Red to purple, fast to slowest. Slower colors refract more. -Radio, radar, infrared, visible, ultraviolet, x-rays, gamma -Electrons get excited and absorbs energy and goes from ground to excited. Amount of energy absorbed can be attributed to an exact element. BIGBANG -Georges Lamaitre was like “cosmic egg that exploded -Edwin Hubble was like “Red Shift”, which was stars further away from us show greatest shift in their absorption lines towards red art in spectrum. -Doppler effect, change in frequency from velocity of object. can be used to calculate retreat velocity. Light is not effected because it moves too fast. However, the change in frequency does not represent the earth and sun moving in different directions but just the relative velocities they have, they’re moving in the same direction, one is just faster. Galaxies that are farther away are moving faster. SYNTHESIS OF ELEMENTS -He H and a bit of Li in the beginning -pther elements came from large stars through nuclear fusion -Use up hydrogen/helium? they explode. become supernova. one supernova per century per galaxy. These keep converting 2% of galaxies H (73%) and He (25%) into heavier elements. -To do this, nuclear fusions occur at 15 million degrees STARS HEATING -It gets bigger and heavier elements burn at the center, creating heavier elements. Needs more heat to do this. NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS -heavier elements hit each other lose kinetic energy and get hot and form a ball -dust particles hit each other and make planets. Planetesimals make terrestial planets, -Mars sized planet hit Earth, a bunch of debris is released. Gravity pulled it back in and it eventually became the Moon. It tilted the Earth too. CHEMISTRY -Planets dominated by Fe. Si, O, Mg -Odd numbered protons of elements are less abundant METEORITES -hits planets and could fall on Earth, like from Mars EARLY EARTH -accretion of meter sized bodies -transfer of kinetic energy to heat -compression (gravitational collapse) -radioactive decay of elements CORE OF EARTH -200-100 million years after accretion, temperatures at depths of 400-800 km below Earth’s surface reach Fe’s melting point -Fe pulled into center’s core, 1/6 of the volume and 1/3 of the mass. Moon doesn’t have much iron. LAYERS OF EARTH -Crust until 40 km -Mantle until 2890km -Liquid iron Outer Core until 5150 -Solid iron inner core until 6370 EARTH -Oxygen 30% -Iron 35% -silicone 15% -Mg 13% -others are calcium aluminum sulfur and nickel -crust has more of everything MINERAL -a homogenous natural solid, with a definite but not fixed chemical composition -formed by inorganic processes usually IONIC BONDING -ions of opposite charges attracted to each other. non-directional bonds (NaCl) -covalent bonding is when electrons are shared between atoms. much stronger and more stable. Directional (CO2 or diamonds) -metallic bonds, moderately strong and non directional (copper) good electric conductor -van der waals, weak, electostatic, nondirectional SIZES -Cations smaller than all anions -Ionic Radius determines what can fit around it, known as co-ordination POLYMORPHS -have same chemical formulas different structures -sheets bonded together with van der waals bonds MINERALS -SOHCNBSPS -oxygen is the most common anion -silicone is the most common cation in the crust -silicates are most common in crust. feldspar most common one -Difference in Electronegativity correlates with ionic bonding in silicates -tetrahedrons make up silicates, Si-O is the strongest bond. Negative triangles bonded thru positively charged ions -Types: isolated (olivine) ,Single chain (pyroxene), double chain (Mica), sheet silicate (Muscovite or Talc), and framework silicate (feldspar or quartz) CARBONATES -absorbs CO2 - second most abundant group in crust -common in limestone -calcite (double refraction occurs), aragonite, dolomite -CO4 impossible bc carbon cation is too small. CO3 forms instead.  HARDNESS diamond > corundum > topaz > quartz > feldspar > apatite > fluorite > calcite > gypsum > talc CLEAVAGE -mineral breaks into specific planes and places. into a specific orientation -fracture, the way a mineral breaks in the absence of cleavage (conchoidal, fibrous, and irregular)  -idiochromatic is when color is always the same, allochromatic is when trace elements can be seen, opaque just reflect light off their surface -Earth is cooling down by radiation conduction and convection of heat -We know this bc meteorites and seismic waves. Earthquakes happen when bodies of rock move past each other. A fault is a locus of earthquake movement. Normal Faults, Thrust faults (cause tsunamis). Long term predictions are imprecise and short term ones are precise but hard.  SEISMIC WAVES -waves that begin in the initial compression or tension of the rock -measured with seismographs -p-waves (compressional) 6-8 km per second. parallel to direction of movement. Similar to sound waves. -s-waves (shear) 4-5 km per second. Perpendicular to direction of movement. Do not pass through liquids. Similar to ocean waves.  -Surface waves, slowest but most damaging -Velocity depends on the type of material and pressure -when waves move from one type of material to another, they change speed and direction. -In light (refraction), velocity decreases as density increases bc denser things have more chemical bonds which slow the light down. -Seismic velocities, upward curves in p and s waves in mantle show that it’s increasing downwards. Refraction occurs in outer core bc liquid for p-waves.  DENSITY OF EARTH -continental crush 2.8 g/cm3 -oceanic crust 3.2  -asthenosphere 3.3 -in seismic topography, hotter regions are less dense  ISOSTASY -Buoyancy of low-density rock masses that are “floating on” higher density rocks. this explains roots of mountain belts - continents are like icebergs. what’s above the surface is balanced by material below surfaces. Higher ones must be thicker. GLACIAL REBOUND -glacier forms and thickens. crust bends downwards to support. warming happens, ice melts. ground rebounds. EARTH’S INTERNAL HEAT -original heat -conduction -convection -radioactive decay -temperature increases with depth, the geotherm curve MAGNETIC FIELD -declination is the horizontal angle between the magnetic north and true north -inclination is an angle made with horizontal. -Magnetic reversals exist, a change in polarity. Abrupt, takes only 1000 years.  -Magnetic Epoch is a period of time when magnetism is dominantly one polarity -north oriented polarity is called normal, south oriented polarity is called reverse -geomagnetic time-scale helps us track reversals ROCKS -Igneous, melting of rocks in hot deep crust and upper mantle, formed by crystallization. -genetic classification, intrusive means they were crystallized from slowly cooling magma intruded from the crust. extrusive means they were crystallized from rapidly cooling magma extruded on the surface of the earth as lava or pyroclastic material.  -others include felsic, intermediate, mafic, ultramafic.  -sedimentary, weathering and erosion of rocks exposed at surface, formed by deposition, burial, and lithification -resulted from consolidation of previously existing rock and accumulated in layers. classified based on size of particles.  -ice is a transport medium. sediments using this are called tillite.  -metamorphic, rocks under high temperatures in deep crust and upper mantle, formed by recrystallization with new minerals.  ROCK CYCLES Metamorphic + Migmitization and Melting = Igneous  + Weathering, Erosion, Deposition, and transportation= sedimentary + Burial, Heat, Pressure= Metamorphic PLATE TECTONICS -Outer portion of Earth has 20 plates that move relative to each other. This causes mountain ranges. Can help predict locations of earthquakes and volcanoes -Lithosphere- outer rigid shell of earth. Where plates are -asthenosphere- mantle beneath lithosphere, acts as its conveyor belt -transform fault boundary, slide horizontally by each other, divergent boundaries, plates move apart and create new lithosphere, convergent boundaries, plates collide and one is pulled into the mantle and recycled.  -three types of convergent boundaries, ocean-ocean (linear belts of high seismic activity, high heat flow arc of volcanoes, bordered by submarine trenches)  , ocean-continent (active volcano, compression of upper crust), continent-continent (subduction or deformation of crust) CONTINENTAL DRIFT - The concept that large-scale horizontal movements of outer portions of the earth are what’s responsible for major topographical features such as mountains or ocean basins.  -Geographic fit of all the continents is used as evidence. Pangea -Evidence from sea floor included the age of the ocean’s crust, bathymetry, magnetic data. Sea floor had significant variance in magnetic field. These changes reflected Earth’s changes in the magnetic field. None of the rocks were older than 100-200 Ma, while on continents they could be up to 4000 Ma ROCKS ACHIEVING MAGNETISM -Magnetic objects align with Earths magnetic field once they cool below 580 celsius or Curie’s Temperature -Anomaly, change in intensity of magnetic field at some point.  OCEAN? -Ocean crust being constantly formed, crystallized from magma and into basalt -Earth maintains a constant diameter, so despite the new growth, old crust is being destroyed in trenches and sent back to the mantle DEFROMATION -happens alongside metamorphism -different fabrics form different grade  - Diagenesis, Low Grade, Intermediate Grade, High Grade TRANSPORT IN SEDIMENTARY ROCKS -affects roundness and sphericity and sorting  -sorting is the measure of variation in the range of grain sizes of a rock or sediment. If they’re well-sorted, they’ve been acted on by water or wind. Poorly sorted sediment hasn’t left it’s original place or was deposited by a glacier.  PROPORTIONS OF SEDIMENTARY ROCK -Siltstone and Mudstone and Shale is 75% -carbonate rocks are 14% -sandstone conglomerate are 11% -calcium carbonate is less soluble in warm water WEATHERING TERMS -bedrock is unaltered rock -broken pieces of rock above the bedrock is the regolith -mineral and organic material is called soil MECHANICAL WEATHERING -Frost is when water expands by 9% upon freezing  -Thermal Expansion is when different thermal expansion of minerals causes stress in rocks -Organic Activity could be from tree roots to microorganisms -Mechanical Abrasion is when things go bump CHEMICAL WEATHERING -Principal agent is water -minerals need this bc when they’re formed deep inside Earth they can’t be stable on conditions on the surface of Earth -bicarbonate ions hasten weathering CARBON CYCLE -Low temperatures and decreases in CO2 reduce weathering leading to an increase in CO2, leads to warming which leads to more weathering which reduces CO2 which leads to cooling.  WIND -rate of sand transport moves exponentially with wind speed.  -Deflation is when strong winds gradually lower the elevation of the ground by removing sand particles.  -Desert Pavement is a surface of gravel too big for wind to transport, a deflation lag. Concentrated by selective removal of finer-grained sediment. -Loess is wind blown dust WATER -Only 4.04% of Earth’s water is freshwater.  POROSITY -Percent void space in a rock or sediment.  -amount of water that could be potentially stored in rock -Varies with sorting, amount of cement, fracturing  PERMEABILITY -ability of a material to transfer a fluid -aquifer is a geological unit capable of storing water in sufficient quantities to supply wells -Types of Aquifer’s include: Unconfined (the permeable layer extends to surface), confined (p. layer is overlain and underlain by less p. layer) WATER TABLE -top of saturated zone in groundwater -level that water will rise in a hole -level to which water will rise in an unconfined aquifer HYDROTHERMAL SYSTEMS -Hot springs, which form when heated groundwater reaches the surface -Geysers form when a complicated plumbing system allows steam pressure to be built up, causing intermittent eruptions. RHYTHM OF ICE AGES -Eccentricity of Earth’s orbit around the sun (100k years) -Tilt of Earth’s rotation axis (41k) -Precession (rotational wobble, 19k-21k years) -Earth went from greenhouse to icehouse SNOWBALL EARTH HYPOTHESIS -some say all of Earth was covered in glacial ice and only melted when volcanoes erupted, raising CO2 content, facilitating global warming -Earth seems to do this in cycles. Ice builds up due to runaway albedo effect, with white ice reflecting radiation back into space. Then without weathering due to the ice, CO2 couldn’t be taken up by it. Buildup of CO2 causes warming again. RELATIVE DATING -How old a rock is compared to surrounding rocks -Younger ones on the top -principle of superposition is when the oldest rocks are on the bottom -Principle of Original Horizontality is when layered strata are deposited in horizontal or nearly horizontal or nearly parallel to the Earth’s surface ABSOLUTE DATING -actual number of years since rock was formed PALEONTOLOGY -study of life in past based on the fossil of plants and animals -used to help determine r. age and envionment of deposition -unconformity is a buried surface of erosion -disconformity is a break in deposition. no erosion -If there is deformation, angular unconformity is produced Carbon has a half life of 5730 years

AGES -Universe is about 15Ga Solar system is 4.6 Ga Oldest rock is 4000 Ma ZIRCON DATING used to help determine age. Uranium can substitute in small quantities.  -its dense and easy to separate. Each Zircon makes it possible to obtain two ages and see if they agree.  OLDEST PARTS OF CONTINENTS -shields or cratons  -central, older portions of continents -lower elevation and relatively flat -basement complex of metamorphic and igneous rocks

[rovlemhageslibrary]

WBJ2019-Diaries of Straud: Prompt 17

Year 10 Day 1: grounded

(What’s medicine and healthcare like in your world?)

Just got back from the hospital I knew I should have insisted on a full engine tear-down. Oh well no one died and nothing that couldn’t be repaired or replaced got broken. I’ve been having some odd readings from some engines on my cargo shuttle... I figured it was just usual wear and tear and went  told the mechanics to just regular routine it. That backfired when an outside lift load forced me to redline the engines which... caused the engine to fail the shuttle rolled and I threw twenty thousand Wocreds—oh yeah we sort of came up with a half way decent name for the work credits, it’s at least fun to say—of uh... sorry I’m audio logging this. Hard to type with a broken arm and full of pain meds... I was talking about something. Oh right thirty thousand credits of nutrition bars—the typical bland cardboard food bars in sci-fi everywhere—over the airfield fence and scattered them all over the landscape and cratered the airfield.

My shuttles dented and the damaged engine was crushed by the impact but from what the mechanics have told me it wasn’t repairable anyway so no huge loss I guess. In any case I also got thrown around, I have a bad habit of half standing when trying to lift outside underslung loads so i wasn’t in my seat with my seat-belts on. I got a concussion a broken arm and a cracked femur bone... least I think it was the femur. I’mmm... sure I’ll remember when it, when whichever bone it is starts to hurt when the meds wear off.

Oooh yeah. We got nice medicine same as most colonies. Medicine is mostly the same as it has been for humanity sense the twentieth century... ... Scientists and doctors working together to find new and creative ways to cure what ails you or letting germs grow old and feeble before putting them into body for your system to learn how to fight the less young... old germs of their type.

There’s a bit of herbalism mixed in new planets new plants new compounds new ways to deal with old issues. New plants... oh right I did get some progress on popped nebular berries if you dry them out to about twenty percent original water they pop without throwing oil and hot liquid everywhere they are great and actually sort of... uh... crunchy but not... ... ... *audio log terminated long silence detected.*

Uh those pain meds really sneak up on you, well the really good stuff they gave me before I left does anyway. I’m on the less awesome, less effective, less make you sound like an idiot stuff right now. And I can confirm it was in fact my femur that was fractured. Anyway medicine I’mma keep this short and sweet because I wanna get back to sleep. We got hospitals and doctors, and shrinks. Like I rambled on before twentieth century medicine but better for one our implants tend to work better with less failure rates. Pills are more effective and have less side-effects, vaccines cover more deceases and are somehow made even safer than they used to. Yadda Yadda. I’m going to sleep now

[thekillogiceffect-blog]

🛑 List Of The Best FREE Indie Games (NEW) Game Play (itch.io)

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***Nebular Crush Review*** https://youtu.be/DNBFEcAv_p8

________________________________________________________________ https://www.facebook.com/Computersgam... Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/thekillogice... https://www.facebook.com/Killogic.Filth/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thekillogic... Twitter - https://twitter.com/KillogicFilth Filthy Vision - https://www.facebook.com/FilthyVision/ https://twitter.com/Filthy_Vision https://thekillogiceffect.weebly.com/ ________________________________________________________________

[ciathyzareposts]

Rex Nebular – Won!

Written by TBD.

Rex Nebular’s Log: Stardate – Ides of March, 44 BC: I was just sitting down in the Senate before work when all the senators came in. After my good friend Brutus hugged me I felt a sharp pain in my bac… … Sorry, wrong log… … I won. I’ve completed my mission and escaped the evil women with help from an inexplicably homeless person. Let me tell you how I did it…

Well, I left off last time having gotten a bad ending and being stuck and asking for help. I received help from gboukensha, Charles and Leo Velles. Thank you all.

I looked at gboukensha’s hints first.

1. You need to distract the dog

Well, I already knew that and if I wasn’t somewhat impatient I would have tried a few more things before looking at the second clue. But that clue could easily mean I needed an item I didn’t yet have and I was already impatient, so…

2. You should use the bones to do that

Okay. I had the bones and I’d tried throwing the bones to the dog one at a time and he just ate them up until I ran out.

So I go back to the auto shop and start throwing bones around willy-nilly. After a few aborted attempts to throw (There’s really no need to throw the bones at the manhole…) the action line changes from Throw bones at item to…

Aha. When I point at the fence AT gets replaced with OVER

I throw the bones over the fence and the dog jumps over the fence, which leads to a sheer drop to the level below.

Pleased that I can now explore a new area, I enter the garage through the side door. When I arrive, something jumps through the broken window.

Note: really fast dogs look kind of like brown trains.

As for how the dog got back here from jumping off a cliff, I’m going with the same cartoon logic that allows Wile E Coyote to live through the first minute of every cartoon he’s in.

Avoiding walking to the area the dog’s barking in, I look around, and apart from other things in the area, I can press a down button or up button to raise or lower the car. The area below the car is named…

You can be my wingman any time, Maverick!

Hmmm. Would this be the kind of game that makes me murder a dog? Let’s find out.

Rex is pleased that he did this. Rex is a bastard.

I tried this puzzle again after switching to NICE mode, thinking the dog might just run away instead of get crushed or the whole section might be covered with a CENSORED sign but no, he gets crushed just as bloodily and we see it all – weird.

Now that I can explore the area fully without danger, I do so and take some POLYCEMENT and a REARVIEW MIRROR.

I know immediately what to use those items on, so I start with the REARVIEW MIRROR and go back to Bruce’s house in the Residential area.

Aha. So my idea of reflecting the beam to blast open the safe was correct!

With a hole in the safe, I open it and take the key to the video store that I got last time when I tried MEDIUM difficulty. I found it interesting that the safe combination wasn’t available at all in HARD, and presumably using the first mirror on the laser beam in MEDIUM serves no purpose at all.

Using my newfound key on the video store door and looking around shows me a bit of a difference of opinion between Rex and the narrator.

Well, yes, Rex. There are. Let’s take some.

Gee narrator. No need to get snippy.

Looking at the items in the video store gives me lots of jokes, but the only item I seem able to interact with is a cordless phone. I can take it, and remove the batteries. I can also put the batteries I took from the penlight into the phone and put it on the charging station which lights up red. Thinking that perhaps the reason the penlight didn’t do anything whenever I’d used it previously was because the batteries were dead, I leave the batteries to charge and leave the store.

Now, I became stuck again here. I had my polycement, rearview mirror and phone batteries, but still didn’t have any idea what I should do next.

Do you think I went back to the clues the helpful readers had left me after a small amount of time of trying other things? You bet I did…

Charles had said…

Now, if I’m not mistaken, you have missed something else. Just in case the dog puzzle isn’t enough to get you unstuck:

Well, the dog puzzle wasn’t enough to get me unstuck and Leo Velles had also confirmed that Charles’ hints could help, so let’s look at Charles’ first hint.

You may want to check the 9 locations again, but not for items

This clue made me think I’d missed a location somewhere. Most likely a door or exit I didn’t realise I could use. I went back to the 9 locations and found it… after doing an entire lap of the area and ending up exactly where I started – back ouside the video store…

See that “GO” sign. That’s an alley.

I can see why I missed this alley because it looks like the road just curls around to the left here instead of also having something branch off to the right. In my defense I’ll add that each screen in Machopolis has similar GO cursors that just tell me I can’t use them once I watch Rex attempt to walk there. This very screen has two of those GO cursors at the obvious roads to the south and west. Here’s a compilation of useless GO cursors.

Yes, I made this GIF purely as an attempt to validate my ability to miss the alley!

Anyway, I enter this well hidden alley, and find a hermit. His name is Herman.

For some reason I had to fight an overwhelming urge to cry over him.

Herman tells me that the vase I’m after is likely housed in the tallest building in the city, which was owned by the governor who was also the local art collector. He also tells me about the war, and that he was a teenager when it ended.

Now, after talking to Herman I note that he seems to live in a cardboard box in this alley, but he also has access to a nearby teleporter and has explored the city as thoroughly as he can without my particular set of skills and items. Why doesn’t he live in someone’s abandoned home? Bruce’s house is close enough that he could get there on foot. There’s probably somewhere even closer if he needs it. Anyway, ignoring his residential choices, I keep asking him questions.

Most usefully, Herman mentions that he’s upset that he can’t listen to his squalkman (walkman (iPod  to younger readers) ) any more because he’s out of batteries. Well, I happen to have some freshly charged phone batteries with me now.

Of course, his squalkman needs four batteries and I only have two, so I have to go back to the video store and get my batteries back from the phone charger.

I give him all four batteries and he gives me the Fake id he’s been using to get around town. Then he moonwalks away.

Now that I have a fake ID, I should be able to enter the two doors that need security cards. Let’s take a look.

This ID made me laugh. Well done, Herman. Well done!

I use my fake ID on the elevator and it works! It takes me to a high ledge, where I find a non-working teleporter, a skeleton containing some more bones, and a proper ID. I also find some cement pylons, one of which contains a hook. I attach my fishing line to the hook.

I go back to the other security card-barred entrance, and even though I have a better ID, I use Herman’s first to see what happens.

I like to imagine Herman getting crushed by a giant boxing glove here too.

I use the professional ID card instead, and enter the security room. I take some detonators and find some useful-looking weapons.

Unfortunately I never get to use any of these weapons.

I try attaching the detonators to my charge cases.

Turning my charge cases into bombs explains why I couldn’t blow anything up yet. And I’ve tried to blow up a lot of things, including the display cases the weapons are behind in this very room!

Well, now I go back to my idea I had a few posts ago of blowing up the viewport to the ocean. On prompting from the narrator, I put the timer module on the bombs to create a timebomb, put in on the viewport and set it.

Then I go to where the boat is on the ground and attach the dangling end of the fishing line that I’d previously attached to a hook on the upper ledge.

I don’t think this boat is big enough for me to take two of every animal.

I was hoping to sit in the boat and ride the wave as the place flooded, but I still can’t get in the boat. And the car also won’t go back to the place with the teleporter in it. Before I have time to come up with a plan C, the bomb goes off.

Well, after reloading, I decide to try getting higher before the flood. This time I go to the upper ledge after securing the boat, and I remain safe after the area floods. I pull the fishing line and get on the boat.

Now, the one place I can see in the distance must be the governor’s tower where the vase is. I’m sure I’m close to the end of the game now! I go towards the tower.

Unfortunately the game won’t let me just drive around the monster.

I throw food and bones at the sea monster, but after a small time he sticks me with his tongue and eats me.

I try a lot of things here and was actually stuck for quite a while. I can drive back to the ledge, but each time I try to go toward the tower the monster pops up again. On the ledge, I can use my binoculars to look at the tower and see the vase glinting temptingly. Remembering how I eventually got rid of the dog, I tried throwing the bones at various parts of the water but the monster didn’t budge. After a surprisingly long time I tried putting my bomb in the chicken.

With the sea monster dead, I continue along towards the tower, picking up a floating bottle on the way. After entering the penthouse window I find the vase. I suspect a trap but try to take it anyway.

Should’ve put the rearview mirror on my rear.

With Raiders of the Lost Ark being one of my favourite movies, I’d already guessed the likely solution. Going back to the window, I partly fill my empty bottle with sea water. I can ½ fill it, ¼ fill it, ¾ fill it, or completely fill it. You can guess what happens when I fill the bottle too much or not enough, but when it’s exactly half full, I Indiana Jones it with the vase.

So, now that I have the vase, I use the governor’s personal teleporter to go back to the launchpad I’d used last time when I got the bad ending.

Just for fun, I try to make Rex’s dangerous trip totally pointless.

Aw.

I apply my polycement to the crack in my cockpit window and take off, hoping that the cement will let my cockpit survive the vacuum of space. It does, and I get in a short battle with the ship that shot mine down at the beginning of the game.

Alright! I’ve blown up those evil women and escaped. Now time to get my reward

We now return to the opening scene of the game, after Rex started to tell Colonel Stone what he went through to get the vase. I’ll admit I’d kind of forgotten that this entire game was a flashback.

That ending was… extremely abrupt.

And I’ve won! After all that effort, Rex carelessly knocking the vase over and breaking it is very in character for the incompetent hero he (along with a lot of comedy adventure game protagonists) seems to be. And going straight to the credits rather than show me the aftermath of the breakage is a valid comedic choice, though it did take me by surprise and I generally prefer to sit back and watch a detailed ending after finishing a game.

All in all – I had fun. It had enough funny moments to keep me interested, and I overall found this game good enough, but not excellent. We’ll see next week how it fares with the PISSED rating system but I’m expecting a middling score. See you then!

Session time: 1 hour 50 minutes Total time: 8 hours 40 minutes

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/rex-nebular-won/

[kahunacrush]

S U N A M I C O Presents ...

Tonight at Long Winter the KAHUNAWARE team will be aiding the master Wizards at Sunamico to perform the very first and formal NEBULAR CRUSH TEST.

With microcosmic cascades of fragmented digital universes - this one will have you at the edge of your mind, and will keep your head spinning with a fever of decomposing data long after the test is done ...

[theeartofyum]

[kahunakrush-blog]

$ MEGA CRUSH $

<a href="http://hereticalobjects.bandcamp.com/album/tepping-tone-single" data-mce-href="http://hereticalobjects.bandcamp.com/album/tepping-tone-single">$TEPPING $TONE (SINGLE) by KAHUNA</a>

[aodmo]

From the depths of the technocomputosphere to the industrial textile factory wasteland... - - - - KAHUNAWARE LAUNCHES THEIR SPRING APPAREL - - - Surf's into the sunset and forget the world's troubles with our radical new tanktops ! - - - - DON'T GET CRUSHED! STAY NEBULAR WITH KAHUNAWARE.

[surfsupdeathisland-blog]

SPOOKY SATURDAY.

NEBULAR CRUSH, PETRAGLYNT, CTRL PHREAK AND MORE