#so Mechi and I have that in common

[pushing500]

Mechi has come to the very intelligent conclusion that the best course of action he could take right now is to make the Void angrier so it sends more scary things to attack us.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?), he got the plague before he could do anything stupid. Looks like he'll spend a few days curled up in bed living off coffee. Hopefully, that's the only bad thing in store for him in the near future–

Randy is so very cruel...

First | Next | Previous

[booknerdmechi]

Book Review of the week: After by Anna Todd

10/10

I can't even begin to express what I'm feeling right now with this book.

Probably I'll just say that this is one of those books that I can't stop reading, like literally. About 1, 280 (in my reader) pages and I can't even put it down. I have read it for 15 straight hours (Now, my eyes are sore and I don't care 'cause who doesn't love Hardin Scott, right?😂).

The After series is all about Tessa, the perfect innocent girl with an on point planner of her life, who met Hardin Scott, the tattoed bad boy who has issues and dirty secrets. To find that they are constant fighting and bickering in the beginning of this book then falling in love unexpectedly is, if you will think, is some sort of common story for novels with this type of genre.

However,

Though it is somewhat a common storyline, but the chills and feelings the characters show off is so unnatural, you'll forget the word oxygen. Somehow, Anna Todd manage to put all the emotions of her characters into words that's why it is so easy to dive in to Tessa and Hardin's world, the main reason why I gave this a perfect score.

There's also no part of this book that is dull, every chapters are either intense, hot or will put tears at your pillow. I fell in love with Hardin Scott eventhough I'm not a fan of bad guys that much.

He makes me want to go and find a boyfriend with a lof of tattoos and piercings, and whose twisted in his own ways😂

To be honest, this series has been stucked in my shelf for months now yet I decided to re-read it just now. Yep, re-read is the term bros and girls! This story was actually posted in wattpad app before (I'm not sure if it's still up there until now) where I first encountered this. And no offense miss author and the other fans of this story online... but I didn't like the wattpad version that much. I sort of hate it, I did not even finished its second book. The wattpad version is too redundant for me. HOWEVER, I am very thankful that they published this book and I am able to re-read it in its edited version. Because now it is one of the best!😭❤

Thank you so much❤

Lastly, (because this is now getting too long, ugh the effect of Hardin Scott in me) I have yet to see the movie adaptation of this. What do you think guys? Any thoughts about the movie? Someone give me a heads up pleaseee! Anyways, it's 10:35 pm here and now I'm going, not to sleep of course, but to start the 2nd book to this series. See you!

-mechi

[i-belong-in-space]

Naia: A Character Bio

Name: Naia Addington

Appears in: La Vie en Bleu

Character Summary:

Star Sign: Pisces

Personality Type: ENFJ,-A/-T

Physical description: Naia is of Japanese descent like her creator. He made her as a homage to his lost country. She has soft brown eyes and black hair that she keeps cut just above her shoulders. She usually pulls her hair back and in the later books ties it up in a red kerchief as she’s working about her sweet shop. She’s described as having a proud but kind face.

Break-down: Naia is a Mechi, or an advanced form of AI. Mechi are sentient at this point in Lacuna history but they still face much prejudice and are of the working class. They aren’t very trusted and most humans in Zenith do not afford them their basic rights. Most Zenith laws are against Mechi, not for them, and so of course this springs many troubles. Being one of the first generation of sentient Mechi, Naia faces much backlash and emotional abuse by those who do not understand Mechi and she feels the sting once she is  pushed out into the world. She barely has time to learn about the world around her and to develop her personality when her creator sells her.

Her first job comes in the form of the Addington family who buys her as a maid. She keeps her head down and does her job, ignoring the gossip and tittering of the other servants,that is until the eldest son of the family arrives home from the boarding school he was forcefully shipped off to for his strong personality. Her first encounter with a decent human being becomes a passionate affair that must be kept secret in a world that would see her love for a human as a crime. Naia’s personality eventually reveals itself to be kind and loyal, someone who will always be there in times of need. Later in life she becomes an independent Mechi and a pioneer for others in her position.

Relationships:

Loki (sibling)

Details: Naia and Loki were made by the same creator and so they refer to one another as siblings. They have a short time together after they’re made, learning with one another before they are seperated and pushed into different forms of labor as the Zenith law decrees. Later in the series, Loki and Naia do reunite and keep in close contact. They continue to see one another as family and Naia eventually uses her status in a high ranking corporate family to help Loki throughout his own tumultuous journey towards autonomy and freedom.

Isaiah (romantic)

Details: When Isaiah Addington comes home from boarding school, Naia isn’t sure what to think of him, but as they get to know one another, and she learns to trust him, the boundaries between human and Mechi are blurred and she finds herself falling in love. Isaiah treats her as what she is, a sentient being with thoughts and emotions and together they navigate this strange new world.  Their story spans decades and her love for this human carries her through an often difficult life to an end no one expects. 

Miel “Blue” Vauquelin (friend)

Details: Naia meets Blue through Loki and becomes a fast friend to her brother’s cherished lover. As Blue comes into his own, Naia is there to hold out her hand to him and help him along. She’s a very generous individual and Blue feels a genuine connection with her because she’s the only family that Loki has in the world. Naia sees in Blue the struggle she had to go through being a Mechi that harbored feelings for a human. She understands the pain and heartache that follows these forbidden unions and will do anything to help someone walking in her shoes.

Excerpt:

“Is this the new model?” A woman’s voice came from somewhere above me but I kept my head down, waiting to be acknowledged personally. I was used to people talking over my head as if I wasn’t there. In their minds, I wasn’t really. I was just a shell, a body that walked and talked but didn’t really have thoughts of its own. I was an it, and had been one since I was created.

“It’s in much better shape than the last one,” The woman said with a dismissive sniff. “Girl, what’s your name?” I glanced up, keeping my face smooth as my creator taught me.

“They do not know what I have made here,”  he had told me once. “I have played God, and you are the result.”

“Naia,” My voice sounded so quiet, a little bird chirping, trying to find its way out of a house it didn’t belong in.

“You will take the surname Addington,” The woman said. Her eyes looked down her nose at me, sharp flints of jade. My new mistress seemed to be made of sharp angles; her face, her tone, her personality. They all cut with razor sharp precision.

And so I became Naia Addington and I learned to walk on tiptoe, a nice accompaniment to my bent head. I hardly ever enjoyed the sea in those first days as I learned my new role. I could smell it on the air, the scent of salt water, and something putrid. Dead fish, the Mechi butler had whispered to me once. We always talked in whispers if we talked at all. The only reprieve we had was our noon break and the moment we fell into bed, not to sleep, but to give the mistress and master of the house their own reprieve from our strange presence. We could have worked into the night, but the master was kind and he pushed his wife’s hands on many occasions in favor of the servants of the house.

I would lie awake in bed at night, resting my system, looking at the whorls of wood in the ceiling above me, smelling salt and dead fish on the air.  

“In Greek a naiad was a water nymph,” Loki had explained in the first few weeks of our creation, as we were learning about the world around us, our hands touching, sharing information. “You were named after that. How curious.”

My room was in the basement of the house, hidden away with the other metal objects and discarded antiques. Sometimes in the dead of night I would wind my way through the stacks of dressers and books, and once or twice I slipped from its hiding place, an old world photograph book. In the book were photographs of generations of Addingtons. This particular home had seen a century of the same bloodline filing through its grand doors. I always admired humans for their ability to procreate, something that wasn’t within my grasp.

As I looked at the faces, sweeping by with each turn of old brittle pages, I noticed a pattern to the family; they all had fine, handsome faces. Only a few had had abnormalities about them and the pictures of those particular relatives were scant and few between as if to hide away their human imperfections. Humans were amusing. My mouth had tilted slightly at the corner as my fingers danced their way through history. When I had gone through all the photographs, I slipped each book carefully in its place. I had gotten very good at placing objects exactly where they had been left.

A few times the mistress of the house thought to test me. She would move a book from the bookshelf and place it on a coffee table, or leave a glass of water sitting somewhere unseen, and often changes were barely detectable, a candle moved a centimeter out of place. She would know if I had cleaned thoroughly, and I always did. When she was certain I was thorough, she began to leave me to myself and objects stopped moving unless I picked them up to clean under and around them.

“You’re clever,”  Ethos the butler said when I had worked for the Addingtons a month. “More so than the last. I hope for your sake that you remain clever.” Something in his tone, in the way his eyes shifted away from me and swept the room made me wonder what he was truly speaking about. This was before it was common for humans to take Mechi lovers, and I had barely been alive a year, a child really.

I never had eyes for the master of the house. He was handsome as all the Addingtons were but he was also old, kind, and reminded me of my creator. He would compliment my work when he was about the house which was rare, and then drift away to more important things. It was the mistress who dealt with the servants, her calculating gaze was what mattered, what kept us all trying to please her. We didn’t want to end up on the scrap pile earlier than our expiration date.

If you would like to know more about the series this character is from, stay tuned to this writeblr. I’m going to put up many more character bios and short stories, or stop by my website https://amdailybooks.com/ for more info and many freebies/short stories that will be popping up soon! I’m always up for asks and will talk nonstop about these beloved babies.

This story will be free on the website when it is completed!

[yarnings]

Domestic Science

Brianna glared at the cookbook she had picked up in Wilmington. This was her third time trying the cake recipe, and she didn’t think that the sow needed any more sweets in her diet. She had fired the fancy oven built into the fireplace this morning, and the bread and biscuits that she had started it with were cooling, and the pies had just gone in.

In addition to the cookbook, Bree had picked up a set of calibrated measures. Well, labelled ones. They appeared, at least, to have some resemblance to the volumetric measures they were supposed to contain. Brianna carefully used her best Grade 7 Home Ec spoon and sweep1 technique for measuring the flour.

After measuring the dry ingredients into bowls, she carefully packed the butter into the measure, hoping that her butter had the same density as what she was used to seeing in the store, since the recipe gave that measure by weight, not volume. Washing her hands again, she set to creaming the butter, using the technique she had picked up by surreptitiously watching Mrs. Bug years ago. Once it matched her Home Ec memories of what properly creamed butter looked like, she added the ground sugar and kept going.

Once her hands were washed and the batter poured into a cake ring, Brianna removed the pies from the oven, and stuck a hand inside, moving her lips silently as she counted how long she could hold her hand in the oven. Just as she pulled it out, she heard her mother.

“Mama, could you come and help me test the oven temperature?”

Claire came into the kitchen and looked curiously at Brianna.

“I’m sorry if you forgot, dear, but this oven doesn’t come with temperature settings. You fire it, it bakes bread, muffins, pies, sweets and dries stuff out. Have you considered that there’s more than just the different ingredients and lack of recipes that makes cooking in this time a challenge?” But she took an empty pan, and sprinkled some flour into it, and stuck it in the oven, replacing the door. At Brianna’s confused look she explained.

“Mrs. Bug once checked the temperature by seeing if flour browned. She is the only person I’ve had cook cakes for me in such a primitive setting, so I take her as my exemplar.”

“That sounds much more comfortable, and less subjective, than trying to go by how long I can hold my arm in the oven. The lady at Colonial Williamsburg did say she knew it for herself, not in general, didn’t she?”

Claire nodded. “Standardization isn’t really a thing yet. Every oven is different, everyone’s cup size for measuring is different, butter and eggs vary farm to farm; hell, even the flour is different because people are planting different varieties of wheat, and having them ground on whatever the local equipment is. Once you consider all of that, why worry so much about the temperature? Most things that you and I would consider a science are more of an art here. Like trying to dose my patients when my medicines come in plant form rather than pre-measured vials.” She looked at where Brianna’s marked measuring cups (carefully engraved with their volumes by Brianna, so that she wouldn’t mix up the unfamiliar measurements) lay on the table. “What is it you say about measuring? Measure with –“

“Measure with a micrometer, mark with chalk, cut with an axe.”2

“Exactly. At some point, it really doesn’t matter how careful you are, you’re limited by how careful the people before you were. You’re using a cookbook where the author used her own technique for determining the measurements, measuring cups and ingredients that may or may not match the ones she used, and carefully measuring your ingredients and oven temperature to an inch of their lives.”

Brianna glared at her mother. Claire bit her lip to keep from laughing.

“Bree, you lived here before; you studied history. You know that this is actually a different time, not just your regular life with long skirts and stays added in. It was in my lifetime, heck it was technically in your lifetime , that baking a cake stopped being considered a culinary feat, rather than just something to throw together. The amount of skill required to simply follow a recipe right now would get you labelled a cooking genius then. Mandy will survive not having a cake for her birthday. Jem adapted to the 20th century, and is adapting again to being back here. She will follow his lead.”

As Claire opened the oven door to take out the flour and check it’s colour, Brianna took a long breath through her nose and breathed it back out.

“How did you do it? You manage just fine here most of the time. How did you manage to deal with the fact that what used to involve grabbing a box off the pantry shelf and adding eggs and milk now requires the equivalent of a graduate degree in baking?”

Claire dropped the pan of browned flour on the towel she had used to take it out of the oven, and smiled at Brianna.

“I don’t try to bake cakes.”

1 A rejected plot device had me discovering in my research that these days you’re apparently supposed to scoop and sweep after all? But they never announced that and expected people to just magically switch. But it doesn’t really matter, because Bree took her Home Ec classes more than fifty years ago.

2 I don’t know, where micrometers common enough 50 years ago that mechies learned that one? What about 40 years ago, at her job?

[surroundedbyselcouth]

Meiche?

Okay, so a while ago I came across this weird story: 

From The Metrical Dindshenchas, poem 13

“Berba

The Barrow, enduring its silence, that flows through the folk of old Ailbe; a labour it is to learn the cause whence is called Barrow, flower of all famous names. No motion in it made the ashes of Mechi the strongly smitten: the stream made sodden and silent past recovery  the fell filth of the old serpent. Three turns the serpent made; it sought out the soldier to consume him; it would have wasted by its nature all the kine of the indolent hosts of ancient Erin. Therefore Diancecht slew it: there was rude reason for clean destroying it, for preventing it for ever from wasting above every resort, from consuming utterly. Known to me is its grave where he cast it, a tomb without walls or roof-tree; its evil ashes,–no ornament to the region found silent burial in noble Barrow.”

And from this, was quoted a different version: 

“Into this river were flung the three snakes that were (found) in the heart of the Morrìgan's son Méiche after he was slain by Diancécht on Magh Méichi: which plain's name at the first was Magh Fertaige. The three hearts that were in Méiche bore the shape of three serpents' heads and, had not the killing of him come to pass, those snakes would have grown in his belly and eventually left no animals alive in Ireland. When he had slain Méiche Dian Cécht burned the snakes and their ashes he committed to that current, with the effect that it seethed and digested (i.e. boiled to rags) all living things that therein were.

Méiche’s hearts, hard the wound Have been drowned in the Barrow; Their ashes, after being burnt by you, Mac Cécht, slayer of a hundred, cast in.”

So this is all very weird, because a) the Morrigan has a son? and b) where on earth did this end-of-the-world thing come from? Irish myth doesn’t really have the sense of future doom as say, Norse mythology does. And it’s just...a cool little story here with the doctor-hero fighting a guy made of snakes. And it’s been driving me crazy because I don’t know quite what to make of it. 

Same paper quoted above (which tries to do the weird all myths-are-connected-look-at-these-far-fetched-connections thing) points out the discrepancy between whether it’s Dian Cécht or his son who kills Méiche, but Dian Cécht is more likely. It then goes on to talk about the Morrigan (Morrígu), Méiche’s mother, essentially distilling her name to “Ghost Queen” (note: I’ve also seen her name described as “Great Queen” so take that with a grain of salt) and linking her with destruction and the underworld (referencing her prophesy after the second battle of Moytura, meeting the Dagda on Samain, etc...). 

For the record, the Morrigan’s prophecy about the end of the world in Cath Maige Tuired, the Second Battle of Moytura, is given after she announces that there will be peace. So it really feels like something spoken about the future, implying that the peace at the end of the battle is only temporary, and will be broken again:

"I shall not see a world Which will be dear to me: Summer without blossoms, Cattle will be without milk, Women without modesty, Men without valor. Conquests without a king . . . Woods without mast. Sea without produce. . . . False judgements of old men. False precedents of lawyers, Every man a betrayer. Every son a reaver. The son will go to the bed of his father, The father will go to the bed of his son. Each his brother's brother-in-law. He will not seek any woman outside his house. . . . An evil time, Son will deceive his father, Daughter will deceive . . ."

Still no mention of any evil world-destroying snake sons, though. 

From the texts we’ve got that Mechi/Méiche was killed by probably Dian Cécht and thrown into the river, and he’s associated with serpents (either is a serpent or has three hearts containing serpents). Dude also seems to have been likely to destroy everything alive in Ireland, so it’s probably good he’s dead. 

What I’m interested in, though, is where this Méiche-destroying-eveyrthing comes from. He’s not mentioned in other texts, outside of a few different versions of the same story. And there’s really never much mention of world-destroying anyway, so why is he here? 

MEICHE, MIACH, AND THE DOCTOR DIAN CECHT

Another interesting observation made while searching for clues: Dian Cécht has two children, Miach and Airmid, both of whom are in the family business of medicine. When Miach make a better prosthetic hand for Nuada than Dian Cécht himself, Dian Cécht is jealous and kills his son (which is a little crazy, right?):

Dian Cecht did not like that cure. He hurled a sword at the crown of his son's head and cut his skin to the flesh. The young man healed it by means of his skill. He struck him again and cut his flesh until he reached the bone. The young man healed it by the same means. He struck the third blow and reached the membrane of his brain. The young man healed this too by the same means. Then he struck the fourth blow and cut out the brain, so that Miach died; and Dian Cecht said that no physician could heal him of that blow.

This is also from Cath Maige Tuired, by the way. What’s really interesting here to me is that slight resonance between the names Miach and Meiche. There is also some evidence (page 113) to suggest that this case of filicide is a latter addition, not quite integrated into the older, better-established myth. It doesn’t show up in other accounts of Dian Cécht’s adventures, Miach himself doesn’t play a role in making Nuada’s hand in another version found in the Book of Leinster, Miach is alive again later in the same text, and there’s oddly no consequences for his action given here (which is weird in a mythology with so much focus on order and doing things properly, and where every wrong action results in at least a poet making fun of you). And the way they die is similar: through extraction of a vital organ (Miach’s brain, Meiche’s heart). This author (page 116) makes an argument that the Meiche story came first, and Miach is just a creative addition of that story to another. In which case this connection is interesting, but still doesn’t explain Meiche. 

SNAKES IN THE WATER?

So what’s the deal with the serpents? There are other cases in Irish myth where a hero encounters a “water monster,” often described as a serpent, and has to do battle. Two examples off the top of my head: 

1. Freach in Tain bo Freach - dude is tested by Ailill and Medb because he wants to run away with their daughter FIndabair. He’s sent into the river to fetch berries from the other side (Findabair admiring him the whole time from the riverbank), and encounters a serpent/monster. He catches the monster with a spear thrown to him by Ailill and cuts off its head with a sword from Findabair. 

2. Fergus mac Léti - Gets the ability to breathe/swim underwater from the probably-leprechauns-who-live-underwater, dives into a lake and meets a water monster - muirdris - who frightens him so greatly it distorts his facial features. Since in Irish myth, kings have to be beautiful (king reflects the state of the land), this is a problem. So everyone tries to hide the horrifying changes from him for years, until finally somebody mocks him and he realizes what happened. Fergus goes back to the lake and doesn’t return until a fierce battle ends in him bringing back the monster’s head. 

What these stories have in common with Meiche: water (in more stories than these, a place of testing and trial, also where invaders/things outside society come from), some sort of monster (not always so explicitly a serpent), and killing the monster via removal of vital organs (head, most often, but not the Meiche story). A lot of this is interesting, but I still feel like it doesn’t shed much light on Meiche, which isn’t much of a hero-trial story (Dian Cecht is already famous), and Meiche isn’t exactly a mindless beast encountered in the wilderness.

On a less serious note, Méiche delights me, because he presents a possible link to use in my modern-day Norse/Irish mythology crossover comic. World-destroying snake dude thrown into the water reminds me of a certain serpent-baby Jormungandr...and hey, it’s not that far-fetched to think that some aspects of the story could be imported - there’s evidence for influence in both directions in other stories. 

So what is this story anyway? An intrusion from an outside tradition? A story invented by a later writer? A long-lost apocalyptic tale? Conflation of multiple stories? A metaphor? It doesn’t really matter. Stories resonate and change and become stranger with time, and this is no exception. It is fun to think about though, especially since we always want to make some cohesive narrative where we can. 

[linabrigette]

Ripple fans compared to “Flat Earthers” by a prominent Bitcoin [BTC] enthusiast and trader

Tone Vays, a prominent trader, Bitcoin enthusiast and head of research tweeted that having a debate between prominent people in the Bitcoin community and those in the XRP and Ripple community would be like a conversation between “Geologists” and “Flat Earthers”.

@Zerpryder tweeted that it would be “very educational” if there was a debate between members of the XRP and BTC community like David Schwartz [CTO of Ripple], Adam Back [CEO of Blockstream], Peter Todd [Cryptographer], Brad Garlinghouse [CEO of Ripple], Saifedean Ammous [Bitcoin economist and Author], Ryan Zagone [Director of Regulatory Relations of Ripple], Trace Mayer and Tone Vays.

Tone Vays retweeted @Zerpryder’s tweet saying:

“No, it would be more like Geologists debating Falt Earthers or those who still think the Earth is the Center of the Universe. — #Bitcoin — I was initially going to say “Creationists” but that would be disrespectful. The earth being 6,000 yrs old makes way more sense than $XRP”

There are people in the community who are against Ripple and XRP and are under the impression that Ripple and XRP is not a blockchain or decentralized. This is not a new revelation for Ripple as it faces a lot of heat especially when it comes to the topics of decentralization.

Tone Vays continued:

“Just to be clear, #Bitcoin & #Ripple have absolutely NOTHING in common besides being on @CoinMarketCap. $XRP is NOT money/currency, it’s a #security of @Ripple Corp, like all #ICO. If @SEC_Enforcement actually did their job, this would’ve already been clarified by @SEC_News”

A Twitter user, @Gannvan commented:

“Bitcoin core’s most prized developer thinks the earth is at the centre of the universe, so they might agree on something at least.”

Another user @Vovano commented:

“Omagad I fell in love with @ToneVays on this tweet. Why would anyone confuse XRP with a store of value”

@zerpryder tweeted:

“Hey @cryptomanran this I’m sure would draw a large audience. I for one would clear my calendar for the entire day to witness this. Anyone else have someone in mind to Host/Moderate?”

Subscribe to AMBCrypto’s Newsletter

Follow us on Telegram | Twitter | Facebook

Akash is your usual Mechie with an unusual interest in cryptos and day trading, ergo, a full-time journalist at AMBCrypto. Holds XRP due to peer pressure but otherwise found day trading with what little capital that he owns.

source: http://bit.ly/2HKbA1g

The post Ripple fans compared to “Flat Earthers” by a prominent Bitcoin [BTC] enthusiast and trader appeared first on BTC News Today.

from WordPress http://bit.ly/2WMUS52 via IFTTT

[pushing500]

So i was looking into the canon romworld lore and, learning that spaceships cant do any warp speed travel bc they never developed it immediately had me thinking of mechi and his sister :(. Like, i'm just imagining the angst of mechi going home with kwahu, thinking its only been like 10 years and its actually been 100 or something bc cryosleep.... could definately be a reason why the two would go for the ideology or anomoly ending

Yeah, it would make for a very heartbreaking story if Yamka wasn't every bit as stubborn and reckless as her brother. She followed him all the way to the Rim and dragged their parents along as well. They're on the planet somewhere, but as Mechi and Kwahu aren't particularly inclined to build hotels for interaction with other factions, it may take us a long time to encounter them (if we ever do).

I'm sure Mechi imagines that their reunion will begin with a long-awaited hug, but Yamka is absolutely going to punch him first. She was not happy that he decided to go galavanting about the galaxy without her, and she'll probably be torn between yelling and crying when (if) they do meet again. Mechi will be suitably chastened, I'm sure. Maybe Kwahu, too, even though he technically never did anything wrong.