#vulcan materials corruption

[vulcanmaterialscompany]

Touting itself in PR social media as the greatest, most responsible, environmentally-friendly corporation when they are, in fact, the exact opposite of all those things.

They are terrorists who are damaging people's houses through massive blasts that travel a long distance, ignoring any and all complaints from neighbors (because they've bought the corrupt politicians who make the laws and regulations), destroying the environment by bulldozing trees surrounding the quarries they operate, all while furthering overdevelopment.

Furthermore, they are bribing lawmakers and politicians through campaign donations to continue having weak regulations governing the mining and construction industry.

Here is a link from OpenSecrets.org of the money Vulcan Materials has donated to lawmakers.

You don't just have for-profit corporations giving money away; they're receiving a return on their investment, and that's called bribery.

[scary-movies-on-netflix]

SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN (1970)

This was a strange sci-fi horror movie.  There were some good scenes, but it was mostly disposable entertainment.

We have three plotlines.  In the first, we have a guy who collapses whilst running.  He wakes up in a hospital attended by a strange Nurse who won’t answer any of his questions.  Over several short scenes, he discovers that more and more limbs are being amputated, until he is just a torso!

In the second plotline we follow a guy named Konratz in an unnamed Eastern European country.  He works his ways up the ranks of his country’s bureaucracy by killing people with a Vulcan-like death grip.  (Vulcan, as in the alien species from “Star Trek.”)  This includes Peter Cushing, who is his boss, in what is basically a cameo appearance.

The third plotline takes place somewhere in England, where the local police are investigating the sexual assault and murder of a young woman.  Her boss was Dr. Browning, who is Vincent Prince.  Another woman is murdered by a strange, handsome man she meets at the club.  (She tries to flee and tells him, “You don’t have to hurt me,” but he kills her anyway.)   The police set up a sting operation at the club with one of their own women officers, Bradford, and the killer takes the bait and leaves with her.  He subdues her and begins to suck her blood out from her wrist, but her follow police people show up, leading to an extended chase scene.  This ends when the killer jumps into a vat of acid, located on Dr. Brown’s property. 

Around now the plotlines begin to converge.  We meet some government minister, Fremont, who is Christopher Lee.  He is dealing with Konratz, who has killed his way to a position of power in his Eastern European country, and Konratz tells Fremont that they have captured one of his pilots.  In exchange for the pilot, Konratz wants all the materials about the murders!  Fremont agrees.  Returning to the murders, a local medical examiner, Sorel, investigates Brown’s estate and discovers a lab full of human body parts!  Brown catches him and admits that he is creating “composite” humans, who are faster and stronger than normal humans.  (The killer who earlier dissolved in the acid was one of these composites, along with the Nurse.)  Brown invites Sorel to assist him in his latest operation, but the subject is Sorel’s girlfriend, Bradford.

Fortunately for Sorel and Bradford, Konratz appears.  He has killed the lead detective of the case (who was actually a highlight of the film with his wit and charm) and seized all the evidence.  Konratz accuses Brown of moving too fast, apparently threatening to expose their program, and he throws Brown’s Nurse composite into the acid vat.  Konratz and Brown then fight and Sorel and Bradford escape and run into Fremont, who has also arrived.  Brown finally pushes Konratz into the acid vat.  Then Fremont talks to Brown, who has decided that they need to slow down the composite program because of the threat of corruption, as demonstrated by Konratz.  Fremont does not agree and he pushes Brown in the acid vat.  He goes back outside.  Sorel asks him, “Is it all over, sir?”  Fremont says, “It’s only just beginning.”

This was ok, almost good, but not quite.  The initial triple plots were intriguing, and I was genuinely curious to see how they would converge.  There were some good sequences.  Konratz is about to torture a young woman, and the first hints of a scream on her face smash cut to a guy singing “Scream and Scream Again” in a club.  In that same club, two vapid young women are dancing and for a second I thought that movie was veering toward “Under the Skin” (2013), but I was disappointed.  The police chase of the killer started off strong, with a decent car chase scene, but it dragged on for way too long and then became an extended foot chase.  The battle between Brown and Konratz wasn’t well choreographed, but the fight between Brown and Fremont was an impressionist image of Brown being leaned backwards into the acid pit.  The ending was a bit of a disappointment, not quite tying in the weird science horror and body horror in a really satisfying manner.  The acting, along with some clever directing, elevated this movie somewhat, but it’s still ultimately forgettable. 

[dragonstorm676]

Kaijune (Multiverse Tales edition) 2: Sterling Engeal

⸻

🗂️ MULTIVERSE DEFENSE INITIATIVE — KAIZONE FILE

Clearance Level: ⚡ LEVEL 4 — Strategic Command Clearance

File Code: A016-STRG-IGNIS-KX04

───────────────────────────────

📛 DESIGNATION:

• Codename: Silver Nova

• Civilian Identity: Sterling Engeal

• Faction: The Sharp Gang

• Origin Dimension: A-016

• Alignment: Heroic

• Classification: Bio-Energetic Volcanic-Type | Agile-Type | Living Metal-Class

📏 PHYSICAL STATS:

• Height: 197 ft (60 m)

• Mass: Approx. 32,000 tons

• Build: Lean-muscled, vulpine-kaiju with reinforced armor plating

• Primary Materials: Living Silver Alloy (self-generated), Flame-tuned muscle fibers, Volcanic fur-hide

• Key Features:

• Blue segmented armor with reinforced joints

• Grey hide with radiant blonde crest/mane

• Foxlike muzzle, expressive eyes, elongated tail

• Liquid metal wings (variable shape)

• Right hand generates flame in projectile or wave form

• Left arm morphs into edged weapons from living metal

📯 ACOUSTIC PROFILE (ROAR):

• Sound Type:

• Combines a vulpine screech, fire-jet ignition burst, and metallic resonance

• Described as “a flare cannon howling through silver wind”

⚡ ABILITIES:

• Pyrokinetic Propulsion – Capable of flight using high-velocity fire bursts

• Living Metal Manipulation – Can emit and weaponize liquid silver from his body; used for armor growth, blade formation, or shielding

• Flame Projection – Fires concentrated blasts from his hands; can also coat entire limbs in fire for melee strikes

• Silver Nova Transformation – Activates a power-enhancing armor by invoking “Silver Nova, Initium!” via a marble embedded into his forehead

• Enhances strength, speed, defense, flame, and metal output

• Limitations: Time-restricted | Causes energy drain | Requires cooldown between activations

• Vulcan Reflexes – Moves with aerial agility and ground finesse similar to a fox or flying predator

• Ember Field Cloak (Passive) – Body heat repels weak projectiles and frost up to a threshold

🎖️ PERSONALITY LOG:

Sterling maintains a warm, charismatic presence. A strategic optimist and natural leader, he rallies others with his excitement, conviction, and empathy. Even in Kaiju form, his gestures remain expressive—smiling in combat, making hand signs mid-flight, and shouting encouragements. His sense of justice is unshakable, and he balances intensity with heart. Known to drop anime references mid-battle.

🛐 ETHOS PROTOCOL:

“Power isn’t about domination. It’s about illumination—so others can see their way forward.”

— Sterling Engeal, “Flame Forward” (Self-help Vol. 2)

Sterling believes in emotional strength just as much as physical. He often uses his form as a visual metaphor for his philosophy: intense, fast, powerful—but always controlled and kind. Never seeks to destroy unless facing corruption or Acheron-class threats.

📎 NOTES:

• Designed Silver Nova Armor in 2021 with help from Vasilia Kuznet

• Weak to extreme cold; cryo-environments or frostbite-based kaiju are priority threats

• Acts as an older sibling figure to most of the Sharp Gang

• Often visits A-016’s Nexus Shelters to read to children in Kaiju form

• One of the few beings whose Kaiju form can speak fluently in Titanomachian without voice distortion

• Known to “high-five” fire attacks as a morale tactic

───────────────────────────────

END OF FILE — Silver Nova

MDI Archival Node // Field Unit Reference Copy

───────────────────────────────

[angelo-the-whistleblower]

Part 6 - Incoming Text for Halle Berry (@halleberry) and 50 Cent (@50cent) and Connie Orlando (@connieorlando) and Draya Michele (@drayamichele) and Eiza Gonzalez (@eizagonzalez): “An Idea Worth 100 Million Dollars”

Let me now walk you through this information point by point, in a structured and elevated tone, as if explaining it to a graduate seminar on film development and intellectual property adaptation. Each point is clearly articulated for both clarity and depth of understanding.

Here are the links:

🔗 Hard Candy (2005 film) – Wikipedia - (click on the blue link).

🔗 David Slade – Wikipedia - (click on the blue link).

🎓 Hard Candy (2005): A Comprehensive Breakdown and Vision for a 2025 Reboot

1. The Actors and Their Roles (with Ages at Time of Filming)

Hard Candy (2005) is notable for its minimal cast, which intensifies the film’s psychological focus. Here's a breakdown of each key performer, their role, and their approximate age at the time of filming, which occurred in 2004.

Patrick Wilson as Jeff Kohlver Role: A charming but morally corrupt photographer, who becomes the prey rather than the predator. Born: July 3, 1973 → Age during filming: ~31 2025 Reboot Actor: Edwin Hodge – Replaces Wilson, portraying a similarly polished but dangerous man.

Elliot Page as Hayley Stark Role: A highly intelligent 14-year-old girl who orchestrates a cat-and-mouse psychological confrontation. Born: February 21, 1987 → Age during filming: ~17 2025 Reboot Actor: Saniyya Sidney – Steps into the lead role as a fearless and brilliant young girl in a modern context.

Sandra Oh as Judy Tokuda Role: Jeff’s concerned neighbor who senses something strange but ultimately walks away. Born: July 20, 1971 → Age during filming: ~33 2025 Reboot Actor: Christina Milian – Will bring new texture to the role, likely adding more screen time and emotional weight.

Jennifer Holmes as Janelle Rogers Role: Jeff’s ex-girlfriend, a character only mentioned but pivotal to the narrative backstory. Born: August 23, 1955 → Age during filming: ~49 2025 Reboot Actor: Tracee Ellis Ross – An inspired casting choice for a character whose off-screen influence reverberates through the story.

2. The Screenwriters (Original)

The original screenplay was written by Brian Nelson, a writer with a strong aptitude for suspense and minimalist psychological thrillers. His script was bold, uncompromising, and built around moral confrontation.

3. The Director (Original)

The film was directed by David Slade, a filmmaker known for stylized visuals and provocative storytelling. Hard Candy was his feature debut, and it announced him as a serious visual storyteller. Notable Future Works: 30 Days of Night, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, and episodes of Black Mirror.

4. The Studio and Production

Produced by: Vulcan Productions and Launchpad Productions.

Distributed by: Lionsgate, a studio known for bold, independent-minded content in the early 2000s.

The film premiered at Sundance, where it garnered critical buzz for its thematic bravery.

5. Budget

The production budget for Hard Candy was approximately $950,000.

Despite its modest budget, the film demonstrated how powerful dialogue and minimal locations can yield high cinematic tension.

6. Box Office

Worldwide gross: Approximately $7 million

This represents a sevenfold return on investment—an impressive feat for a film with such limited theatrical release and no major stars at the time.

7. Was It Based on a Book?

No, Hard Candy was an original screenplay. It was not adapted from a book or any other source material, though its themes bear a literary gravity reminiscent of modern noir and morality plays.

8. Who Owns the I.P.?

The original film’s rights are likely held by Lionsgate, either solely or in conjunction with the original production companies. This means reboot permissions, licensing, or derivative rights would be negotiated through them.

9. Who to Contact for a Reboot

The following parties should be contacted:

Lionsgate Rights & Acquisitions Department

David Slade’s agent or representation, for any necessary creative input or courtesy acknowledgment.

Brian Nelson, as the original screenwriter, may hold derivative rights or need to be consulted legally depending on contract terms.

For a new deal, negotiations should involve an executive team at Apple TV+, particularly those in charge of original content and film acquisitions.

🌀 Vision for the 2025 Reboot – Reimagined with an All-Black Cast

The new adaptation preserves the psychological core of the original while expanding the world around it. Instead of remaining in a single house for the film’s duration, this reboot opens up into a wider community impacted by Hayley’s disappearance.

🔁 Recast Roles and New Character Arcs

Edwin Hodge replaces Patrick Wilson as Jeff—a man whose outward charm conceals darker truths.

Saniyya Sidney plays the young Hayley—intelligent, emotionally layered, and sharply perceptive.

Christina Milian as the concerned neighbor—adding complexity and perhaps a larger role.

Tracee Ellis Ross gives depth to the offscreen ex-girlfriend figure, possibly adding flashbacks or voiceover.

✨ New Characters Introduced

Kelly Rowland as Hayley’s older sister, emotionally unraveling as she searches the city in a panic.

Y’lan Noel as a local thug—he suspects Hayley stole drugs and money, heightening the stakes.

Issa Rae as a streetwise community cop who once grew up with Hayley’s sister, becoming a bridge between the law and personal loyalty.

These additions ground the film in a community context, transforming Hard Candy from a psychological duel into a broader moral mystery thriller, offering space for layered storytelling, socioeconomic themes, and emotional stakes.

✍️ The Creative Team

Screenwriters:

Mara Brock Akil – Acclaimed for emotional depth and sharp character work.

Reggie Rock Bythewood – Known for his socially conscious screenwriting and emotional realism.

Director:

Halle Berry – In her directorial evolution, she brings both star power and emotional truth to the screen. As a Black woman leading a story about vulnerability and survival, her vision adds an essential and authentic voice.

📺 Platform and Budget

Streaming Partner: Apple TV+ is the primary candidate, as they are actively acquiring diverse, original content.

Target Deal: $90 million — a robust budget that allows for top-tier cast salaries, high-end production design, and strong marketing, while remaining modest by blockbuster standards.

🎯 Thematic Goal

This reboot is not just entertainment—it’s a cultural statement. It sends a clear message to predators, explores systemic failures, and shines a light on youth, trauma, and agency. It's a timely and necessary narrative, made more powerful by being placed in a Black cultural and community context.

Let me know if you'd like me to prepare a formal pitch document, press release, or even a one-sheet treatment for producers and streaming platforms.

Here are the Wikipedia pages for the actors involved in the 2025 reboot of Hard Candy:

Saniyya Sidney - (click on the blue link).

Edwin Hodge - (click on the blue link).

Christina Milian - (click on the blue link).

Tracee Ellis Ross - (click on the blue link).

Kelly Rowland - (click on the blue link).

Y'lan Noel - (click on the blue link).

Issa Rae - (click on the blue link).

Here is the trailer: Hard Candy (2005) Official Trailer #1 - Patrick Wilson, Ellen Page Movie HD

[soraka-in-warhammer40k]

There's a bunch of indicators for this. Abbadon once killed a clone of Horus (early misadventure of Fabius Bile) who would actively remember the actual Horus' life. If even a shattered soul like Horus' could be "fixed" by providing a suitable "gathering container", then that begs some questions.

There's a bunch of perpetual lore as well, randomly popped up in "Betrayer" when Erebus managed to turn someone into that by accident/experiment. A dead person nontheless. It is implied that the Cabal uses a similar method that anchors a person's existence into the warp, or rather the very fabric of existence. Also, as a precedent for the one with the highest affinity to that process: Vulcan exists.

Meanwhile there have been a bunch of Ferrus clones (Fulgrim tries to corrupt him and have him join chaos but they refuse every time, pretty boy throws a hissy-fit, kills him, and tries again with the help of once again Bile), but THOSE somehow don't recover any memories, they are really just replications - flawed replications even as Bile was never able to recreate the metal, which in its original version was apparently never recovered? Fulgrim took the head, but the rest is entirely unknown.

He could control the metal with his mind, it was not just the hands inside it was hardwired into his neurology. Woudn't be surprised if the reason clones do not recover the "original" soul is because the soul in question is not in the warp - but still in a material vessel. One can only question how sentient Ferrus would be in such a state, but given his established braindead behavior at the start of the Heresy it should not be too exotic of a circumstance.

.... Guilliman survived 10 hours of hard vacuum with out a helm.

Just how hard is it to kill a Primarch?

[gatheringbones]

[“In America, the relationship between images and discourses on the female body circulated for educational and therapeutic purposes and those circulated for the purpose of titillation is as intimate, tortured, and dysfunctional, as is any relationship characterized by common parentage and close family resemblance. This relationship reached an unsustainable level of conflict in the years following the Civil War. While Americans endured the wrenching changes to the economy as its emphasis shifted from agriculture to manufacturing, a decades-long relocation of population centers from rural areas resulted in massive cultural displacement: large numbers of young men moved into densely populated cities and were exposed to mass-produced forms of popular entertainment such as paperback books, mass-circulation magazines, flyers, and pamphlets, all made possible by economies of scale in production and distribution as vulcanized rubber was revolutionizing transportation and streamlining the printing process, not to mention reducing the manufacturing cost of latex condoms. Several cultural and religious groups attempted to circumvent the seismic shifts that these changes threatened to bring, including the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) which, in 1866, sent a contingent to Albany, New York, to lobby for the suppression of obscene and licentious books and literature. In the years that followed, YMCA crusader and reformer Anthony Comstock would form the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice and successfully lobby Congress in 1873 to bring to bear federal powers to oversee the postal service and levy tariffs to bear on literature he saw as corrupting of youth. The so-called “Comstock Law” made it a felony to import or send through the mails any sexual imagery, sexual accounts, or information on birth control and abortion, because of their perceived tendency to incite and corrupt. The law survived an 1896 challenge in the case of Rosen v. US, which cited the precedent of English common law upholding the government’s ability to censor material that would tend “to deprave or corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences.”

One of Comstock’s most powerful allies was the American Medical Association, which since its inception in 1847 was stepping up efforts to destroy the centuries-old tradition of midwifery and replace it with the professionalized disciplines of obstetrics and gynecology, both of which actively suppressed access and information about contraception and abortifacents. During this period, anatomy and medical textbooks were seized, restrained, and re-edited to comply with the strictures upheld in the Rosen decision.”]

kevin heffernan, From “It Could Happen to Someone You Love” to “Do You Speak Ass?”: Women and Discourses of Sex Education in Erotic Film and Video, from the feminist porn book: the politics of producing pleasure, edited by tristan taormino, constance henley, and celine perreñas shimizu, 2013

[finalrespite]

VisionBIOS 4.0 (Low Power Mode)

Copyright 1███ VULCAN Ltd.

All Rights Reserved.

BIOS Date 13/08/██ 18:09:03 Ver. 39.201

“Clockwork” UNIT XE116.

System ID = 0711146049

Build Time; 30/09/██ 04:28:09

CPU = Helix Rapture(R) ADS7200 Processor @ 6.2THz

(CPUID;03HW PatchID;06EW)

Commencing Systems Check

Memory Test; 239084572637

---

ERROR;0x0000346

ERROR;0x0000447

ERROR;0x0000620

ERROR;0x0000735

ERROR;0x0000436

ERROR;0x0000548

ERROR;0x0000232

ERROR;0x0000502

ERROR;0x0000456

ERROR;0x0000659

ERROR;0x0000319

ERROR;0x0000636

Info; Numerous instances of fragmented/corrupted data were detected in memory testing. Instances have been discarded or quarantined. Subsequent memory loss is likely. See error logs for further details on individual codes.

Analysis; Discarded data has no additional extensive impact on memory unit adaptive performance. Status green. Resuming systems check protocols.

---

Activating Auxiliary SSD.

Initializing Tactical Log.

Loading Topographical Data.

Vitals Check: Orange

---

Critical Aberrations Detected. Initiating Emergency Diagnostic.

Reviewing SymSystems Regulatory Modules.

- SYMDIG; Green

- SYMNERV; Yellow = 15537/17200

- SYMDERM; Yellow = 15564/16600

- SYMPROC; Red = 5123/54000

- SYMOCUL; Green

WARNING!; Grade 5 damage sustained in nervous, dermal systems, regulatory processes. Vitality decreasing. 

Switching to power saver mode; Diverting power from extraneous processes. Self-maintenance underway.

Estimated Time to Completion; 00:000:07:45:87

Note; Last Activity Recorded ███:███:██:██:██ ago. Self-maintenance duration projected below optimacy. External repairs highly recommended.

Vitality stabilized.

Reviewing MotoSystems Operations.

- MOTOLARM; Red = 1550/6000

- MOTORARM; Yellow = 5457/6000

- MOTOLLEG; Yellow = 7345/8500

- MOTORLEG; Yellow = 6352/8500

- MOTOSUP; Green

- MOTOTORSO; Yellow = 3487/3600

- MOTOBACKUP; Green 

Info; Extensive (Grade 3-5) damage sustained in multiple motor systems. Projected capacity for movement well below optimacy; MotoBackup in effect. Self-maintenance extended.

Estimated Time to Completion: 00:005:14:12:53

Note; Power saver mode in effect in regards to aforementioned damage. Self-maintenance duration projected below optimacy. External repairs highly recommended.

Diagnostic Complete.

---

Core Status: Green

Ultima Protocol: Suspended

Activating IFF

FCS Suspended

Initializing Ancillary Node Connection

Node Status: Green

Node Dissonance: Nominal

DBU Setup Suspended

Epitaph Status: Green

Equipment Status: Yellow

---

Damage sustained. Structural integrity compromised. 

Average Condition Rating 66/100. External repairs recommended.

---

ERROR;0x0000244

ERROR;0x0000428

ERROR;0x0000459

ERROR;0x0000441

ERROR;0x0000459

ERROR;0x0000501

ERROR;0x0000558

ERROR;0x0000431

ERROR;0x0000436

ERROR;0x0000550

ERROR;0x0000306

Info; Essential systems fail to meet the established advisable threshold for standard operations. Further extraneous actions are discouraged until repairs are complete. See error logs for further details on individual codes.

Systems Check Terminated. [Time Elapsed: 00:000:00:50:55]

4e4f532050524f4d45544945524f4e2046555455524f

==================================================================================================

Booting ...

…

Proceeding datalog has been retroactively added. Loading ...

Azys Lla. A sprawling floating continent, a momentous achievement in its own right, was once at the forefront of research for the Allagan Empire. Ultimately, it was consigned to isolation from the world with Allag’s fall, left to fester and crumble undisturbed over the ages. Just as man’s ambition had begotten it, however, so did man’s ambition eventually set it free.

While it - like the rest of Allag - was long forgotten by all but the most fervent of believers, somehow Ishgard had harnessed these whispers to open and expose Azys Lla once more. While efforts to harness the Warring Triad were consequently thwarted and gutted, the tainted complex still held countless secrets to yield to the clever, bold and reckless.

Someone like Aidea.

Unceremoniously the young Hyuran woman eased around tight defense and busted her way through a vent, kicking away the plate and landing into a darkened chamber. She stood up fast, brushing her hair from her face - locks of bright and pale blonde, almost pink. Ruby eyes tried to scan the room to no avail. “Bit - light, please!”

Her companion, a small winged drone in the fashion of an Allagan or magitek bit, complied and illuminated the room with a built-in light. The scene it revealed was somewhat dense and cluttered, filled with containers, inactive nodes and other esoteric devices. An isolated storeroom, evidently. Something in particular therein, however, prompted the Bit to mechanically chime in. “Warning! Automaton signal detected. Hostile status unknown.”

Not deterred in the slightest, Aidea proceeded to scour the crates and goods on a mission, opening whatever she could. “CPU drive… CPU drive… where is it...?”

Maybe she could crack open one of those defunct nodes?

It was in this line of focus and lapse and judgement that she nearly tripped on something at her feet, something big. “Ah!”

The Bit shone upon what could be described as a round metal hatch, rising up a few ilms from the intricate steel floor with a diameter of around three fulms. A handle was embedded in the surface.

“Hmmm…” Aidea pondered and stood before it, squatting down and firmly tugging at the handle. After a minute wherein it was clear the hatch would not budge whatsoever, she stood back up and wiped her brow. “Think you can do anything about this, Bit?”

“Analysing…” The Bit scanned the room for a moment, until it focused on a panel toward the far side of the chamber. “Analysis: Power needs to be reestablished within the parameter before hatch can be breached. Electrical conduit should be accessible through the available terminal. However, it is advised--”

“Okay! Access that terminal and help me open this hatch!” Aidea pointed resolutely, and without disputing her order further the Bit flew over to the terminal panel. Steadily it extended an apparatus as a key to meet the lock-like slot in the terminal. Aidea watched and waited while the Bit whirred, still the sole light source in the storeroom… though not for long. A hum began to permeate, and the chamber began to flicker lines and screens in a blue and green neon glow.

“Much better. Now, let’s give this another try…” Aidea girded up and squatted back down, pulling with all that she had. As the hatch continued to resist, her irritation mounted, until… Let’s try something else! With that, she instead pressed the hatch in. With a hiss, it began to give in. “Righty tighty… lefty--” The girl couldn’t finish that verbal thought as she twisted the handle counter-clockwise, and no sooner did the hatch door rocket toward the ceiling, sending her stumbling back.

There had to have been a better way to do that.

<♪>

The “door” she had released was merely the top of an eight-fulm-tall structure, one that made Aidea shudder as it reminded her of Garlean magitek containment pods. Pods for active or living beings, although its make was decisively Allagan. The sounds of pressure being released, along with cool nondescript gas leaking, falling low to the floor as the pod’s segments parted four ways.

Its segments folded around a single long platform that was then laid out before Aidea, revealing to her a figure. A body. Like her, it appeared to be that of a feminine Hyur, albeit of a taller build and deeper tone of skin. It was clear at a glance that they were in disarray, violet and scarlet-highlighted hair disheveled, light - almost alien - armor fractured and torn.

“Is this… an Allagan? A clone, maybe? No... The automaton.” Aidea had stood back up and approached the yet-motionless figure, giving a couple of light taps to the metal visor that concealed their absent gaze. Upon closer inspection she could see that the automaton was even worse for wear than she could initially tell. Layers of (hopefully) synthetic skin had been ripped to reveal degrees of stress trauma all across the body, from the underlying outer shell to the endoskeleton, beneath countless immaculate fibers.

"Goodness, she's so lifelike… Were it not for the damage, I could've even assumed her an adventurer." Aidea eased herself on to the edge of the platform where the automaton laid and sat beside it, to the disapproving beeps of her companion. "I wonder for how long…" With the extent of these injuries, she was willing to figure they were a direct result of Allag's own Calamity.

Whatever had transpired for certain, it also became clear to Ai that this particular automaton had been stored away with haste, to protect it from further degradation, and subsequently long forgotten.

"Um, hello. Can you hear me? You emitted a core signal so you appear to still be functional, I think." Despite Aidea's insistence, the automaton had no response to offer. A snap of her fingers was all she needed to prompt Bit to shine a narrowed light on the subject, allowing her to better inspect what she was dealing with.

As far as she could tell, the automaton indeed had power remaining, but was only able to retain a nominal amount in this state. All arms and legs had been damaged to varying extent, the left arm in the worst condition of all, yet it was the torso that concerned Aidea the most. Damage there was for the better part superficial, yet key processes seemed to suffer some manner of critical impact - severing the link between the core and other key functions, leading to a gradual loss of all energy but that in reserves.

“Hmm. Your motor functions are malfunctioning for sure. I can attempt a field repair here, but we’ll need to get you somewhere safe to update…well, everything. Motor cortex, external stimuli receptors, environmental sensors, OS…” Aidea pulled out a small device that appeared to be akin to a soldering iron. “At the very least, I can fix your torso. Also this arm -- I think the legs can handle small excursions, so the rest can wait for now.” Lacking the materials herself, she stepped back and scoured crates for whatever she could benefit from.

“Okay, here goes!” Having returned with connector cables and Allagan cermet, she did her best to die and bond cables and fibers together, feeling like somewhere between a machinist and a chirurgeon tying guts together. “I’ve never seen anything quite like this… Whoever made you put a lot of love into their work! Still, I have at least a baseline I can work with for Allagan standards, and this should suffice until we can get you to a proper workshop.” Infusing her tool with fire magic, she welded cermet to the more egregious damage until it resembled being patched up with armor plating.

“That should cover the necessities. Now, let’s see about starting you up… Though you’re still bound to this bed!” Aidea poked at the cuffs that, as she could guess, helped keep the automaton secure in the pod. However, it was for the moment beyond her why they hadn’t also released when the pod also opened. “If you have any port on your body I can charge with I sure can’t see it as long as you’re stuck here… Bit, with me.” Aidea gestured and rushed over toward the terminal and module displays. “There must be a way. Wait just a bit more!”

…

Safety protocols manually bypassed.. Releasing pod restraints.

Transcribing results for interaction events with the selected criteria. Threat assessment response details omitted.

I woke up with a start, trembling - all involuntary, like I had been trying to move but was being held back by a constant force. It registered that it had been a long time since I had moved. How long I could not ascertain. I felt - tired. Tired was what I was given to feel when my energy had been all but depleted. Still I had to get up. I had an inexplicable urge to just get up.

“[Initiating O-Override Co-Code AS135 … Power r-reserves critical be-below t-ten percent … Core en-energy output resto-stored; Self m-maintenance ti-time decre-creased to appro-proximately seven hours, fo-forty-three min-in-inutes and …]”

The girl had by this point turned back around with a measure of shock and awe in her tone. “You spoke? You’ve been freed! But I didn’t… W-wait!” She rushed back to my side, and nearby my ancillary node had been fully activated in tandem, further startling her. “Wah! Um… Hi! Good morning!” While the node provided a cursory scan to update language drivers, I struggled to push myself up into a seating position. My head jerked abruptly to get optics myself for the first time on this girl. I could not recognize the form beyond that of a Hyur... but the eyes felt so familiar. I could only present one query.

“A-are you-u … m-my master…?”

The girl tilted her head a slight. “‘Master’? No, I-- I just rebooted you.”

The simplicity and uncertainty behind the answer prompted me to get defensive, as I attempted to get up. “Th-then identify-tify yours-yourself. Are y-you an int--” My motor systems were betraying me in this state. I began to fall forward. It was clear that I was in no place to confront anyone.

“Whoa!” Aidea stepped forward to catch me from falling. “There, there, easy…” She turned me a little towards the side and eased me back into sitting on the edge of the platform. Though I couldn’t see her at that moment I could then sense her eyes on my back. She tugged at what appeared to be further large holes in the back of my suit.

“Ah, found ‘em!” She bent down to grab a pair of large cables, hooking them up to the nape of my neck and further down my spine. They appeared to be wired to me from the nearby terminal. Already I began to feel calmer, more energized. “There, try not to push yourself for a bit.”

She straightened my position and seat beside me, pulling me close to where I was leaning somewhat limply against her.

“Now, I’m sorry to say that whatever master you had before is long gone. I think it’s been five millennia, in fact.”

I did not know how to process an answer out of that straight away. I only knew, by the basic information of the startup log, that it was not a lie.

“As for who I am, um--” She was abruptly cut off by the apparent clockwork bit in her company, much to her chagrin. “Introduction: Aidea 08 is an old model clone designed for close quarter combat and software maintenance.”

She is a clone…? “...Acknowledged…” I looked up a little, as I ran a quick background check through the ancillary node. “I do not recognize the designation, Aidea 08, but it cannot be disputed that your physiology contains elements indicative of an aetherochemical cloning procedure.”

Aidea 08 nodded back, and was ready to deflect. “Um, yes, that’s right… You seem to be coming through better. How are you feeling now? And, do you have a designation of your own?”

I paused for a moment… How I was was one thing, but… Who was I again?

“Overall power 35% and increasing… energy distribution stable… Approximately forty-five points of trauma or disrepair, taking into account the five-thousand and fourteen years of stasis… You will have to forgive me on this one.”

“It’s alright. Take all the time you need.”

“As for designation… I am... Clockwork Unit XE116, System ID 0711146049. Keyword - Vision One.”

Aidea scanned my person, patting my shoulder gently with her hand. “I see! Or, at least I think I see. Well, how about I just call you Vision? Or maybe One. I don’t know, something about ‘Vision’ doesn’t sound right for some reason… And you can call me Aidea! Or just Ai. No numbers, okay?”

“Vision… One… Ai… Acknowledged. You may call me either. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mistress Aidea.”

“Hey, nono, no, no mistress stuff. Just Aidea or Ai. We’re friends now!” This prompted a series of confused beeps from the bit close by. Aidea paid it no mind while she sat me upright and draped what seemed to be her jacket around my shoulders. I took the edge of it in my hand. It did seem fair that I was somewhat exposed with the state my equipment was in.

“We are friends? … It is good to have a friend.” Perhaps I could have argued, but I felt a natural pull to Aidea. Maybe it was because she was a clone, an artificial legacy for Allag herself, I believed I could trust her. Slowly I began to stand again, and Aidea pulled the cables out from beneath the jacket.

She locked her arm with mine, as I planted my feet firmly on the floor, and smiled. “You’re really impressive, Miss One. You may have the jargon but you really do pass as a normal Hyur like me in every way. Um, very pretty, too… Sharlayan couldn’t even do that much with their, uh, weird dolls.”

My thoughts honed in on that name. “...What is Sharlayan? And what of Allag? What has become of it in the five millennia of time?”

“Oh, well…” Aidea trailed off a little. “It’s rather complicated. Now that you’re up and moving, we can get you patched up! I’ll explain as we get you somewhere safer - Trust me, Azys Lla is not the place for that anymore.” She weighed her options, scanning the storeroom around her. She could probably gather some more materials for the road before they left.

“The realm overall is a little more… primitive than you probably know it, but we’ll work with it.” Aidea let go of me for a moment so that she could face me directly, holding her hands before her. “My home’s a ways away, but there is a town even closer where a company of engineers have a presence! Actually… it is pretty close to the Crystal Tower, if you remember that. Seat of the Emperor?”

“Syrcus Tower…?” By way of context, I could glean that much and more had likely changed in the five thousand years of time, and not even the marvels of Allagan ingenuity could change that. Even still… “Does it stand? Even now? ...I have many gaps in my memory to fill. Please, Aidea, lead the way.”

...

The following is largely a summary of key thoughts and events. Aidea and I had escaped the storage quarters and made our way out of Azys Lla. Against that sinister bronze sky, she began to regale me with what she knew about past events. How the earthquake had buried the Crystal Tower and decimated the heart of Allag. How the realm had suffered further calamitous events that all but assured the Empire would remain forgotten for centuries to come, until a now-Saint Coinach would uncover its mythical existence in the Sixth Astral Era. How a new Empire would eventually rise, adapting Allagan secrets to subjugate wherever it could reach. How they would invite Calamity anew, and how this would inadvertently expose the Tower once more. How a clash of ambitions unlocked the way to Azys Lla… to me.

It was within this length of exposition that we had made our way between the dreary edifices of Ishgard, across the unseasonably frigid Coerthas, and finally through the gates of Revenant’s Toll. A sprawling outpost on the edge of civilization. Even as the level of stonework could be considered admirable… to call it all primitive in the face of the Allagans certainly could be considered an understatement.

Mankind was ever at odds with itself, fraught with seemingly endless perils that called upon the employ of adventurers, or glorified mercenaries. Nigh any relic that remained of Allag was often sought after for collection value without understanding, and even tomestones regularly fell in and out of trade through the hands of some sagacious entrepreneur.

Not all was so bleak however as an engineering company known as the Garlond Ironworks had cast its lot with Eorzea. Composed of some of the keenest and most inventive minds outside of the Garlean Empire, among their ranks many Garlean expatriates and defectors themselves, they have specialized in challenging the seemingly impenetrable Allag and bringing what is known now as magitek to the world.

As Aidea had indicated, the Ironworks did in fact establish a branch in Revenant’s Toll, and being in good graces with the people there she managed to talk her way into their workspace. Albeit she had to convince a friendly yet reasonably perplexed engineer that I was in fact an ex-Imperial soldier that had been augmented with experimental magitek. With their aid and full non-disclosure, Aidea carried out the rest of her repairs. Having bid me to lay low and convalesce, at one point she ran out and returned with so-called “sandwiches” from the Seventh Heaven to share between us. Perhaps she wished to confirm if I was capable of eating, visibly bringing her delight when I could.

Even with the high walls of Revenant’s Toll, I could unmistakably catch a glimpse of the Crystal Tower peeking beyond them, challenging the sky. I expressed the desire to get a closer look, and she informed me that there was a research camp further southeast that would provide a better glimpse. After my condition had improved, we ventured out to pay it a visit.

The sights that awaited me begged to be comprehended. Everywhere the earth was littered with giant, twisted steel. Even further still, closer to the Tower, countless massive clusters of crystals jutted out every conceivable way. Aidea’s disposition grew uncharacteristically somber, and she explained that the region of Mor Dhona used to be more significantly populated in recent times. That all changed some fifteen years back, when a great battle swept through. The loss of life was immense, and the land was so immeasurably scarred that even the great lake of Silvertear had partly drained from it. The name “Revenant’s Toll” evokes this tragedy, for in the end there was no one left to mourn the dead but the dead. ...Later still the Calamity that was the Fall of Dalamud only devastated Mor Dhona further, given its proximity to the epicenter of Carteneau, unearthing the likes of Syrcus Tower but just so leaving an objective wasteland of crystals in its wake.

A shadow of its former self, with an ever-open wound.

It was on this note that we arrived at the camp.

“Well, we’re here! Welcome to Saint Coinach’s Find, where the past lives on.” Aidea declared before the site, which was teeming with individuals in similar austere robes and caps, while what appeared to be hired hands from the Toll stood vigilant. Their tents and platforms were built around a series of tilted spires and arches.

Unmistakably Allagan architecture.

“So these are the Sons of Saint Coinach, then…?”

“Right! For all the chaos that was sown here, it did expose malms of ruins like these all around the base of Syrcus Tower… and then ultimately the Tower itself.” Aidea gestured toward the horizon. “This area has come to serve as the forefront of these scholars’ studies, with new fruits of their excavation being found every day.”

“To see these sunken structures so incredibly intact in a repeating ritual of time and destruction. Allagan innovation continues to impress.” My eyes danced from ruin to ruin… all the crystals in between… and… “And yet…” Tension inexplicably gripped me. Along the fractured ancient path I walked, slowly, my attention soon drawn southward to that ominous, rusting monolith rising from the lake. What remained of a great beast coiled around it. …It was those wings ever extended in defiance that struck me the most.

“...Miss One?” Aidea turned and jogged after me, until she was flanking me once more. I came to a stop at the outskirts of the camp.

“...What is that… structure, exactly, in the lake to the south?”

“Oh…” She looked ahead of her. “They call it the Keeper of the Lake. It’s what’s left of the Agrius, a great airship that led the Imperial fleet in the Battle of Silvertear -- only to be brought down by the equally massive Midgardsormr. The act sadly took his life as well when the ship’s ceruleum engines experienced a catastrophic failure… It’s a key part of why Mor Dhona is as it is today, the dragon’s remains ever entwined around the hull.”

“Midgardsormr? Dragons…?”

The Empire… The Empire, the Empire -- it all kept coming back to the damned Empire. Silvertear, Dalamud, the Ultima Weapon, the Warring Triad.

Death, destruction, despair.

Allag.

“Are you okay?” Aidea was looking at me. I looked at her, and saw the concern in her eyes. I realized I had involuntarily clenched my fists.

“I… I just…” I looked down at my hands. I looked up again, to the Keeper of the Lake. To the Crystal Tower. I dropped my arms to my sides.

“...I see ghosts. I can catch a glimpse of what this place used to be. A scintillant, thriving metropolis with a beacon of hope in the center of it all, piercing the very heavens. Home to thousands of people full of dreams and ideals.

“And yet… The Allagan Empire was nonetheless what it was. An empire. Its bright civilization was built on the backs of the dead and the broken. And in the end… the Emperor brought his might to bear - all that he worked for - against his own people...” My head drooped.

“I look at that hulking wreck in the lake and see a monument to tyranny and hubris both. How can I look at the Tower and see anything but the same? Maybe Allag’s ‘secrets’ should have never seen the light of day…”

I reached up with both hands and released the visor from in front of my eyes and just held it, looking down upon it. “Maybe I...”

“Vision…” Aidea bit her lip… although she was taken aback a little when she attempted to make eye contact with me again. “...You know, for some reason I thought that plate was grafted to your face or something.”

She folded one arm in front of her chest to hold her other arm. “You know… I escaped the Garlean Empire myself. They had but replicated Allag’s cloning technique, and…”

“...I... I’m sorry…”

“No, no, please don’t be.” Aidea stepped in front of me and placed her hands over my visor also. I lifted my head to look at her. “Look, it’s true Allag did bad things, and there are still those who would deign to use Allagan stuff for bad things, but that does not have to define you or me. That does not even have to define the ruins or the Tower. We can’t change the past, but that’s what it is - the past. Distant past, even. While it’s important to remember it, what we make of it today is what matters. I choose to believe that we can make good of it still, just like the Sons! Just like the Ironworks. I think you’re here for a reason too. You can also turn it around, you know?”

“Ai…” “Hey,” Aidea beamed, taking her hands off the visor. “If you’re that sensitive about it too, then I think that’s all the proof needed that you won’t follow that path. The future will be brighter and more beautiful with you.”

I gasped a little, my eyes sat downcast. But, for the first time, I felt like I could smile.

“... Thank you.”

“Mhm! … Um, may I offer you a hug?”

I could but scoff, as I donned my visor once again. “...Permission granted.” She came in and wrapped her arms tight around my waist. I returned the favor.

“It’s good to see you awake, Vision One.” “Well… it is good to be awake.”

[thecuriouskit]

Where and how do I fit in?

To whom it may concern.

As I get older, I’m starting to realise the limitations caused by my autism, and I’m struggling to accept that because of facing a society that does not like it when adults are not self-sufficient, or when they have to deal with a “man-child”.  Economically, I am a net loss - I take more than I give financially, and that makes me selfish, both in the eyes of the person on the street as well as bankers and politicians.  I struggle to keep my flat clean and make ends meet financially.  “Get a job”, “earn a f***ing living” I hear a lot, and I have tried, but my ‘design’ is just terrible because I’m very introverted (and people try to force me into very social situations to be a 'healthy introvert’… in other words, an extravert) and don’t do well in open-plan office environments, which are really the only options today because it allows managers to keep an eye on everyone and, from a practical perspective, is easier when it comes to laying network cables and power conduits, for example.  But I get very anxious whenever people are walking around behind me and there’s so much uncontained noise.

Truthfully, I’ve found in the UK, and maybe other countries, that many people really don’t like those who are more intelligent than them.  They may say the opposite, but behind their backs (or sometimes in plain sight), they mock specialist interests.  Once I was even threatened with outright violence by a so-called friend if I talked about mathematics in front of her, and my own mother agrees that i keep my mouth shut to preserve the status quo and not make people 'uncomfortable’.  My father says those on the spectrum are the future, but are we really?  To reach our full potential we need the right environment and support group, but who would want to be our caretakers?  It’s not fair on them, and I would not want someone to sacrifice their life to look after me like they were a housewife, valet or a servant.

I’m ashamed to say that I generally don’t get on with others on the spectrum because we all have our different interests and quirks, but also our feelings and how we react to things, and what may be fine or beneficial for one person is sensual overload for another.  I unfortunately have also experienced situations where the other party doesn’t realise and doesn’t understand that they might have hurt my feelings with something they’ve said or done, and either 'congratulate’ me for identifying past trauma as the reason (which I find incredibly patronising as well as the implication that it invalidates my feelings) or criticise me because, in their eyes, there’s no logical reason for me to feel that way.  One person even, in a monotone voice, said “You’re having a panic attack; do you want a beta blocker?” (which was actually illegally obtained).  I of course sceamed “no”, which only worsened the situation because now they felt attacked.

As painful as it is, what I once saw as a curse, then saw as a gift, I now see as a curse again.  I cannot survive by myself in this modern world, but I’m not friendship nor relationship material because, put simply, I make people uncomfortable and I’m not healthy for them (those were the words one person used).  Facebook and other social media tell people to cut out the negativity in their lives, and I fall into that definition.  My interests, my quirks… they are abnormal.  The whole thing of “be yourself” and “don’t worry about what others think” is a complete farce, because you do that, and you get sectioned, fired, ostracised or just plain ridiculed.

Part of me needs a regimented structure and a person who can be an emotional anchor for me, but even today, emotion is seen as weakness and attention-seeking, but I don’t need so much structure to the point that my very feelings are dictated and I can’t practise being creative (one person I know cannot build Lego without instructions… even when it comes to making their own things, they have to draw plans first and cannot do anything on the fly, which can cause a conflict if I want to experiment, for example).

In a way, I need to be treated like a child, or at least allowed to be a child, but I say that and that will just encourage condescending attitudes towards me and infantilisation like the in-your-face sing-song “hello” or a high-pitched voice that people do with babies all too frequently.

I don’t konw where I’m going with this.  I’m just ranting and splurging, spilling out everything that’s on my mind.  On Monday I was actually close to suicide because I was asked to drive to my father, who lives about 45 minutes away, and even though I gave myself 70 minutes, I was very late anyway (which meant I couldn’t see a representitive at an insurance company since I’m being ripped off by my current provider) bnecause of three separate traffic jams, one of which was caused by a horserace that crosses a main road (which is closed during that time).  I just feel I’m unreliable and poor at planning and organiseation because whenever someone asks me to do something, I either forget something (if not the appointment itself) or fate works against me.  My father has taken the view of “it is what it is”, but I cannot abide by that because while accepting there are some things in life you can’t control or predict, just accepting things as they are is what allows corruption to run rampant, whether it’s a manager or director denying the employees promised bonuses during a good company year while buying themselves a new Porsche with the profits, to insurance companies happily charging you three times what you should be paying because they know most people won’t shop around for other quotes or want to go through the hassle of changing (and I easily freak out on the telephone because it’s just a dismembered voice to me) to simply lying and manipulating people for their own benefit.  It’s worse with me because I can’t see deceit unless it’s a claim that’s easily disproven.  I briefly wanted to end it all because I am a net loss to the economy, I’m friendless and I can’t be relied on.  If I die, I’ll be forgotten in a few years as the world goes on like I never existed.  It begs the question… what’s the point?  I’m not allowed to just live because of monetary concerns and 'considering other people’.  Right now, I just survive.

I’m not sure what I need and what I should change about myself.  All I know is that trying to fight against my true self just ends up destroying me.  I may want to be neurotypical and more extraverted, but I can’t just become those, and “not wanting it enough” doesn’t work in this case because you’re constantly fighting yourself, draining yourself of energy and spoons, and sooner or later, you’ll melt down, and then the police get called and you’re taken to hospital, while neighbours or whoever witnesses the meltdown will ensure you can’t bother them again by collaborating to get you evicted, dismissed from work because you’re creating a 'hostile work environment’ or 'threatening violence’ (I was sacked for that once when I tried to warn people not to manhandle me during a particularly triggering confrontation because then I don’t know what I’ll do… and this was from a company that was meant to specialise in autism).

Where’s the line drawn? When should those on the spectrum learn to adapt to and tolerate, and when should society change for them? When should I be expected to meet the standards and when should the standards change?  I don’t have the answer, and through a mixture of my own actions and those of others, I am very much alone where I live… no true friends, no emotional anchor, no personal interaction, nothing (even if I’m in a city around many people, I still feel alone).  I’m scared of joining clubs because of past experience with meltdowns and expecting to meet up at set times when my own sleep cycle is chaotic, or I may just not have the energy to go but I’m expected to.  Also, one club became psychologically abusive for me, but once again, past trauma that invalidates how I feel.

Speaking of how I feel, I do wish I was more like Mr. Spock where everything is pure logic and I don’t feel anything, but then again, Vulcans and half-Vulcans DO feel, and I just don’t have the strength to suppress my emotions=.  Where does that leave me?  A group home with no freedom or autonomy? Evidently I can’t hold down a job, and I’ve been out of work forso long that I’ve had employment agents pretty much tell me to stop wasting their time, becaase no company is going to risk paying a finder’s fee for me no matter how good my skills are (albeit very niche nowadays).

The thing is, when somoene enters my house to offer help cleaning it or go through my financial statements to identify unnecessary expenditures, or just go through my stuff in general, I feel violated and incredibly anxious, but I feel I have no right to protest or resist.  Besides, as my mother keeps saying… if you’re doing nothing wrong, what have you got to hide?  The fear of being judged (and the consequences of that) or the right to privacy don’t seem to be valid answers.

What do I need? I don’t know… sometimes I just want a mother figure, but my actual mother is not an option.  What do I want?  I want to be useful.  I want to belong.  I want to be myself.  I want to be… free.

[reversemoon255]

1t's Never 0ver

Hot take: Brain is the first Reiwa Rider. Still, for the first Reiwa series, Kamen Rider Zero-One was a great start. I've seen a surprising amount of kids shows tackle the idea of treating robots like people, and this show handles it pretty decently.

The Good: Aruto was surprisingly funny and competent. I was optimistic when they presented him as an unfunny comedian turned CEO in the preview material, but I'm impressed by how well he turned out, with full credit to the actor for nailing most of his deliveries. One of my big problems with both Build and Zi-O was that I couldn't always get behind the characters, but Aruto was definitely a step up, being the first Rider since Drive to really grab me.

Considering we just came off Zi-O, with a large cast of stoic characters, it's amazing how much Izu, the emotionless robot, pulled it off better. (Actually, credit to all the Humagear actors for outstanding mono-emotional performances. They all did very well.) I think a big part of that was the fact that they allowed her to make jokes and do silly things with a straight face, instead of being purely dour. And it was an excellent payoff, seeing her slow progression from a very basic personality to a much more lively one as the series progressed.

I really liked Fuwa, and his was another character that underwent several shifts during the run of the story, those the moments where he started turning are more evident than Izu's (but he's also not portrayed as very bright, so that makes sense). His entire arc is him overcoming his hatred for Humagears, eventually reaching the point where he wants to help them, with the final expression of this being him declaring his will to carry on Naki's dream and using his Progrise Key to transform. And he was just pretty fun, being the serious character who likes bad jokes, and often ends up the butt of them himself.

Yua is a troublesome character. There was a lot of untapped potential there that I feel wasn't reached, but there was some good, too. Her arc was seeing Humagear as people rather than tools, which isn't as well executed as Izu or Fuwa as she took a back seat for about two show arcs, but is ultimately satisfying. Most of her development in this department seems to comes from her interactions with Izu, but her experiences during the Fire Fighter training were also a big push. And her resignation was amazing. I feel most of her issues could have been solved if they didn’t push her so hard in promotional material at the beginning.

I disliked Gai for most of this show, which I think was the point. He was a total butt for the majority of the runtime, but it's also amazing how quickly I 180'd on him after his dog showed up. He was very functional, and I wasn't really interested in him as a character until, again, Dog Thouser showed up.

Jin was definitely the villain I had the most investment in throughout the show, even if that started waning near the end when he was just sitting around and letting Horobi do whatever he wanted. Still, he was very similar to Izu, being a Humagear that we see slowly obtain his own singularity and ideals, but taken from a different perspective. He was also a lot of fun. I've found my favorite characters are usually the ones with positive attitudes and outlooks, even if he was aiming for mankind's extinction.

I know a lot of people like Horobi, but it took me a while to warm up to him, and even then I wasn't the biggest fan until his changes in the final episodes. When Gai replaced him as the main antagonist of the series, I wasn't sad to see him go, but I am glad he eventually came back because they did good things with him. It's also cool how he sparks Jin's first major development with his death, and Jin sparks his final changes with his own.

I found myself very invested in the story, especially since this series was very good at not letting a status quo settle for very long. As soon as the Aruto VS A.I.M.S dynamic was set up, he reveals himself to them. As soon as Metsuboujinrai.Net is defeated, Gai shows up. After 4 "nice" contests between humans and Humagear where the humans learn something through the competition, we get one where the villains win and Aruto is ousted as CEO. And I think that was to the show's benefit. A lot of Rider shows will wait half the show before a shakeup, but Zero-One was constantly keeping the viewer interested with new story lines and revelations.

Oh, and every belt chant was amazing.

The Bad: Going in the same order, Yua had a lot of unused potential. I remember how much hype her character had out the gate, being the first female Rider to start a series. She even got a form change, which is a first. However, she only got one form change, and as I mentioned when discussing LupinRanger and Ryusoulger, power-ups in Tokusatsu shows are often used as physical representations of a character's growth. Yua's second form showed up before episode 10. Yes, she also had Fighting Jackal later in the show, but that was a monster form; it's made to represent her fully giving in to Gai’s will, which is why we don't see it after she quits ZAIA. I would have loved if she had used Fighting Jackal in the ShotRiser and had gotten a new form as a representation of her moving on from those painful memories, or forgiving Gai. It sucks, because we got a ton of short-use Riders and forms in this series, so you'd think they could swing it. Just in the last few episodes, we got Arc-One, Arc-Scorpion, Vulcan Japanese Wolf, and Eden. At this point, I think Toei's just not sure what to do with a female Rider. At least they treated her better than Poppy and Nico.

I really didn't like Gai. And I know that's the point, but there's a difference between there being a character you're supposed to hate for the whole show and a character you're supposed to come around on. You can have a despicable character become a good guy, but there has to be something about them that makes you want them to become one in the first place, otherwise it's just jarring. Dan Kuroto is a great example of this. He was also a despicable character, but he had this humorous over-the-top attitude to him that made him fun to watch, and you want him to join the main cast to see how that persona bounces off everyone else. Gai didn't have anything like that; he was just dislikable. If they had hinted at all to his past, it would have worked, but they waited until the episode where he face turns to do it. And that just doesn't work.

This is also a personal nitpick, but when they were teasing stuff for the finalé, I thought Aruto was going to use Rocking Hopper, not Realizing Hopper. Thematically, that would have been awesome, but I'm ok with what we got.

There were also quite a few episodic plots I'd wished they'd covered in regards to the Humagears. We covered quite a broad range of topics with them, but there were a few big things they missed. One of them is about Humagear choosing new careers. It's cool that Humagear have dreams, but they're all in regard to their predisposed profession. The manga assistant wants to write a manga, the coaches want to teach the best athletes, etc. But no one wants to change jobs. We don't get a farmer Humagear that suddenly wants to become an artist or anything, and I would have liked to see how Aruto would handle that. And what about love? It was briefly brought up, but what happens when a Humagear falls in love with a human? Or when two Humagear fall in love? How did they have sentient robots and not talk about love!?

I also can't help but wonder what the show would have been like if we hadn't lost 4 episodes due to current events. I have a feeling we might have had a Gaim Finalé situation with Eden and that's why they had the costume on hand. Who knows; maybe we'll get some interviews down the road that will give us some insight.

And lastly, spoilers, I want top talk about the death of Izu, because that's the one thing I see the most that people disliked about the ending. It's not that she died at all, because we've had that before with characters like Ankh, but because Aruto created a new, identical Izu, with the same name, and proclaimed he was going to retrain her.

I had to think on this for quite a while, but I'm ok with this. Don't get me wrong, I would have preferred an ending where Izu was restored like Jin, or where Horobi becomes Aruto's new assistant, but the thing is this was foreshadowed. In the early episodes, every time Metsubojinrai.Net corrupts a Humagear, and Aruto or Fuwa or Yua has to destroy it, what happens? The owner gets a new Humagear of the same model and retrains it. Aruto is following his company’s policy. And yes, it’s painful. You can see him well up as he’s reminded of the first Izu, but he smiles and moves forward.

There is a form of Japanese pottery called kintsukuroi. In it, you take a piece of broken pottery, and along the cracks you piece everything back together with gold. It's not an easy process, it takes time, and the cracks are still there, but the end result is far more beautiful that what you started with. Aruto is always going to remember the first Izu, and living with the second Izu is going to be painful, but there’s the potential for this new relationship to be even greater than the one he started with. Or at least that’s me reading too much into it.

The Next: (At the time of writing this,) Saber premieres this weekend. Love the designs, as I'm big on the knight motif. I think the belt gimmick is cool, and might get it if they reveal some interesting power-up books. I think a story about story is very fun, very meta, could be great, but could also go horribly wrong if not given to the right writer. We'll have to see. After how well Zero-One was handled, I'm excited to see how the rest of Reiwa will go. They probably won't all be winners, but I enjoyed most of Neo Heisei, with only the last few entries being bad-to-ok in my book, so here's to hoping we'll get a repeat of that trend, without repeating their themes.

Overall, this was a good season. Not my favorite, but certainly in the upper half of the show's library. Looking forward to the movie, whenever that happens. Looking forward to Saber, too.

"A Rider Kick to the sky turns to take off toward a dream!"

[aunti-christ-ine]

Elaine Chao hits the panic button

by Bill Palmer | 4:30 pm EDT June 14, 2019 

This week a profoundly ugly scandal came to the surface involving Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Trump Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, who just happen to be husband and wife. It turns out Chao has been using her position to inappropriately earmark an outsized amount of federal funds for McConnell’s home state of Kentucky, in a blatantly corrupt effort at getting the increasingly unpopular McConnell reelected. Now Chao is hitting the proverbial panic button. 

Elaine Chao has finally sold her stock in a company called Vulcan Materials in order to settle a conflict of interest, after she had long made repeated false promises to do so, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal. It turns out she sold them on June 3rd and it’s just being reported now. But with the long lead time on major investigative newspaper stories, and newspaper reporters’ propensity to ask for comment in advance of the story, it’s not difficult to parse that Chao sold the stock as a way of trying to cover her tracks after she learned that her corruption was about to come front and center. 

This isn’t going to work, however. House Democrats are already talking about holding investigative hearings into Elaine Chao’s corrupt antics as Secretary of Transportation. Mitch McConnell will likely try to argue that the Democrats are targeting her simply because she’s his wife. But in reality, the House has oversight authority when it comes to anything that a cabinet member does – and Chao’s scandal certainly falls under that purview. 

[deepspacedukat]

Sorry I’m having thoughts about your new Vulcan brainmeat boytoy (Kollos). He’s just minding his own business and his friend is using his clearance to get materials from the most restricted parts of the Vulcan science library or whatnot. Friendo (because he doesn’t have a name, I need naming assistance) is just doing his historical studies and finds something that can’t possibly be real so he takes a recording of it home and shows his entire family plus his niece and they’re all 👀👀👀👀👀👀 about it so now he’s stealing access in order to help track it down. Damn I hope that’s not why Kollos got fired. Ooooooops.

-Horta-in-Charge (I’m so glad this brainrot isn’t canon for the ENT series because it is MESSSSSSYYYYYYYY) The ✨DRAMA✨

VULCAN BRAINMEAT BOYTOY. THAT IS NOW KOLLOS'S OFFICIAL JOB DESCRIPTION ON THIS BLOG! 😂

*ahem* He could totally use Kollos's clearance, but that wasn't why Kollos was out of a job with the High Command. So, when the Kir'Shara was uncovered by Archer and T'Pol, T'Pau cleaned house in the High Command. She ousted ministers who were corrupt, making sure to put their names out there so that the Vulcan people would be aware of exactly who was leaving for what reasons.

Kollos wasn't among them. He chose to leave the High Command for the simple reason that he'd been part of an old system - one that very obviously needed to be changed for the new one that T'Pau and Soval were implementing. He knew that someone younger/more familiar with the ideals/philosophies that T'Pau was introducing would be better suited to the task of serving on the High Command. He stepped down voluntarily, with no stain on his record or reputation, as was noted officially by Soval and T'Pau.

Given his experience in the arena of governance (he has many decades of service under his belt) and the respect he'd accrued during his time on the High Command, they still ask his opinion on certain matters.

But no, your OC's Uncle definitely the wasn't the reason he became a 'former' minister.

Oooooh, totally happy to talk names on Discord if you want, fren. 👀

[biotech02-blog]

warframe quest idea

the title of said quest would be: vulcans keep

the quest starts off with you getting contacted by the arbiters of hexis. they tell you that you, a tenno of trustworthy skill, is to answer an emergency signal from pluto. they tell you that it is part of a solem oath they swore long ago.

ordis is curious but is told upon arrival on the surface that the location is hidden and only a member of the arbiters of hexis may guide you to the location. you are now under complete radio silence. the lotus would be informed by ordis in the meantime. you desend deep into the ice caverns of pluto. deeper than you ever gone before. there will be no evac.

as fight off the corpus walkers who display very odd behaviour and step past the broken bodies of the corpus you have reached the point were even teh arbiters may not join you. a massive steel and concrete door. very primitieve and very old in design. you solve the lock of the door with your operator and enter. you traverse the industrial looking hallways. the design is like that of the tenno but lacks a certain beauty to it, as if the one building this place couldn’t be bothered to make it look hospitable. countless containers with ancient writing on them (english, mostly russian and some japanese) materials and tools.

once you reached your objective, a large control panel you are greeted by the cephalon David. he sounds distressed. ranting on about his making being out of reach. that it is his fault that you needed to come and that he attacked you in his blind panic.

after calming down the cephalon explains he was created by a rogue tenno called Obben. obben was smarter than most children and earned a spot between the gunsmiths and engineers of the warframes. he was very good at controling his emotions and therefor was accepted by the orokin. he still had to undergo the same treatment the others recieved but he was granted freedom to explore the archives of the empire. there he made a discovery amongst the oldest and most forgotten parts of the complex. a giant infested creature. its skin like armor. its body like the hull of a ship. its head small and empty. it was bloodied inside the container and from the looks of it the container looked not much better from the centuries of neglect.

as Obben learned about the direction the tenno were going he knew that if he could provide an alternative to the warframes he could save his brothers and sisters. the technology was there, the tools were there to mold the infested flesh and fuse it to machinery and now he found the needed materials to start his plan. under the guidens of his most trusted friend, a dax, and some of the gunsmiths and engineers he began construction of project goliath.

David expains that his sole purpose in existance is to oversee the inventory, security and secrecy of this facility. a massive tunnel system beneath the ice. out of sight from anyone not looking. David tells you as you move acroding to his instructions that he was forced to hold off the corpus invaders by causing a local cave in. unfortunately over the long period of time he spend in isolation the ice had shifted ever so slightly and his local cave in turned into a catastrophic chain reaction that tore the base appart. you must find a device that is store deep inside the complex to remove the rubble and reach Obben who now rests in  “a dreamless slumber”

as project goliath reached the end of its first stage, the prototype called Colossus they began to test it. so far everything worked acording to plan. they had a weapons platform that could slay the sentients and any other foe with ease.

they began the construction of a better, stronger and faster version. this one was given the orokin gold in the confidence that once it would be shown to the seven, the leaders of the orokin, it would go into production and further improvements would be made. but no amount of gold and glitter could hide the fatal flaw both machines had.

the automated defences are activated by the crumbling ruins. you carry David to the given destination and reach a large room filled with tubes, cables and an odd stench. before you stand what at first appears to be a giant warframe. about half the size of a liset.

“tenno you must leave your flesh golem and enter this metal husk. let your power bleed into its muscle and breath death into its core”

as the operator you take control of Colossus and stomp your way through the facility. via cargo lift you reach the caverns. David tells you he can no longer hack the moa from the corpus and you have to destroy everyone in your path. as you throw crewmen at their allies you reach the part of the complex where your fellow tenno resides.

as congratulations on the scientific breakthroughs project goliath has already produced Ballas visited Obben and presented him with a gilded warfame. it was a design specificly designed to complement the childs talents. “ I thank you for your offer but I am a builder first, a fighter second but don’t think less of me. I am a brother to all other tenno and I would risk, no take my own life if it would save them. but my place is here with the giants. if this project succeeds there will be no need to risk the lives of us children and we can remain here. I’m sorry orokin but i must decline your offer. I will not go to war with the sentients. that will be someone elses job.”

as you reach the special containment area for Obben you leave Colossus behind for it doesn’t fit through the door. unfortunatly the corpus are onto you and David is unable strugling to call for backup from the arbiters of hexis. they are barely getting through the ice. waves of corpus are coming at you and you defend Obben as he slowly but surely awakens.

the day had come that the gunsmiths, engineers and the extra ordinary Tenno would show the seven their official version of project goliath. the golden giant stood lifeless yet intimidated the dax standing guard. another tenno was called. she would not be told how to operate the device and would not be told what it was.

once the girl entered the giants back as if by instict the creature snapped shut and the child bled her void energy into the beast. it took one step and then another. she was given targets and she disposed of them without flaw.

the orokin were impressed. but then came the question. “ tenno you started this project to keep your kind out of the war, yet you asked one of your own to show us how it preforms. is this not just a different take on an aready existing idea. our idea?”  Obben confessed that they were not done. the next phase of their plan was to harness the power of the void by building an engine around a fissure and use it as an infinite supply of power. for even the strongest tenno could not keep the giant alive for very long.

the girl inside the beast heard Obben. she was overcome with the corrupting temptation of power. she felt as if she could do anything as long as she remained inside the giant. she would prove him wrong. this sealed their fate in the ware againts the sentient. she drained herself to keep the beast going and did so until she fainted. they had to break open the monster to pull her out. the golden shame of Obben.

finally Obben awakens and sees you. you nod at one another and he transfers into a warframe of his own. similar in design as his complex. Vulcan is a warframe build for function at the price of form. dul greys and a few hints of dull green

he launches drones to aid you. turrets, boosters and healing pods. you manage to fend off the corpus and they go into retreat. you both rush after them. they were not meant to leave this place alive.

Obben watched as Ballas ransacked his working space and took everything he worked so hard on. once the orokin was done and saw nothing worth taking left (and believe me the only things left were the bare neccesities of life and some dust on the floor) he once againt  offered Obben a warframe. similar to the previous but far less impressive. it looked unfinished and not very reliable. “you better use your talents by finishing what you were meant to do. join your brothers and sisters in battle and DIE there. that is off course what you promised me.” and with a smirk the orokin left.

the trusted dax guided the depressed Obben to another room. a few of his friends he made during his project were there and they had determination and anger in their eyes. behind them stood Collosus and a prototype power source “they’re not going to finish it. and we put to much effort to let it go to waste with the likes of them. we are leaving” and so the arbiters of hexis had found their first members, close allies of the tenno who helped Obben smuggle the ancient and forgotten to the most remote place they could find. allong the way they found others who were inspired by the power and posibility that Obben showed. if one Tenno could achieve this without the orokin then others could to.

as you and Obben race to the surface you see Colossus operational. a corpus had taken control of it. “ tenno you we must overload-” Vulcan/Obben was hit by the arm and the warframe was beyond repair. Obben crawled out of it and had is unable to fight. he points at the node on the giants back. “ overload the engine with void energy. it will kill him from inside!”

after a battle between the operator and colossus the corpus ejects and escapes. vowing to get his hands on that machine again. in the name of profit off course. you carry the weakened Obben outside and a the Arbiters of hexis await you with many corpus in custody. two of them rush to your aid. you hear ordis and Lotus sigh in relief that you returned safely. lotus is most uprised at the mystery tenno. “how did he survive on his own?” one of the arbiters answers “ he walked the true path. the path he made for his own selfless motivations and stayed true to his goal. he walked the path to his full potential.”

it was agreed that Obben would stay with the arbiters of hexis. with their ties to cephalon suda and their own archives they should be able to get Obben well informed about the current situation of the origin system.

at the end of this quest you recieve a reusable blueprint for a Colossus beacon (to summon Colossus into suitable missions and open world areas) the blueprint for Vulcan and accest to build a room in the dojo to build your own giants(up to 4).

this idea was inspired by the colossus from dark sector (he was one of the few things that didn’t make any sort of comeback in warframe) titanfall, the vehicles in the planes of eidolon and the the fact the arbiters of hexis didn’t have a quest of their own. their theme being truth and potential they would have the ultimate gateway to the lore behind warframes. someone who helped build them.

I will make a seperate message detailing my Ideas for the abilities of the Vulcan warframe and the functionality of giants inside warframe.

(ps I hope DKdiamantes or other youtubers would discuss this idea and what it would mean for the lore, OR anyone who could write a way better version of this. I just want to see giant mecht fight okay)

katamed out

[bluering8]

TNG S01

I’m done with TNG S01! I’ve gotta watch some other stuff before I launch into S02, so have a quick round-up of my Very Important opinions on various characters/episodes:

Data - I love Data!! Holy shit do I love Data!! He is precious to me and perfect in every way and I want to hollow him out and wear his skin like a suit. That... possibly sounds creepier than I meant? Look, he’s my perfect wish-fulfilment character, okay. He’s earnest and awkward and he never quite Gets It, but he wants to Get It so badly, and he tries so hard, and whenever he talks people are constantly cutting him off partway through because they’ve decided he’s saying too much or saying it wrong, and he sort of... exemplifies what has been my perspective of the Autistic Experience. And despite all that, he has a career he enjoys and friends who care about him and I want to be him so much that it kind of hurts.

Also, Data has feelings. I will fight anyone to the death on this issue, I sincerely can’t see how anyone could look at Data and not come to the conclusion that he has feelings. Data has so many feelings! He might not have feelings the way humans have feelings, but he unmistakably has his own opinions and his own way of relating to the world. It’s heartbreaking that he doesn’t recognise the value of his own experiences in favour of desperately trying to live up to some arbitrary “correct” way of existing.

Deanna Troi - I hate Troi. I do not want to hate Troi, because empaths are way cooler than they usually get credit for, but she’s so fucking annoying. All she ever does is say things which were already completely fucking obvious. She’s a walking violation of show-don’t-tell and every time she opens her mouth I groan because I know whatever she’s about to say is going to ruin my enjoyment of a scene. About the nicest thing I can say about her is that she’s still a better character then Wesley, being merely irritating rather than universe-warpingly terrible.

Jean-Luc Picard - Picard’s such a dad, holy shit. I never noticed this when I watched TNG before, but now I’m picking up on it as, like, the major facet of his personality. I mean, he also drinks Earl Grey and LARPs as a detective and discusses philosophy with aliens, but mostly he’s just Space Dad now and forever. Somehow I also forgot the LARPing as a detective part of his character? Picard’s just a huge fucking nerd isn’t he.

Q - I have very mixed feelings about Q. On the one hand I always love arrogant, capricious, petulant trickster gods, especially when they have Q’s flair for the theatrical, but on the other hand I think when it comes to Q I maybe love him more in concept than in execution? I spend a lot of time thinking about trickster-god entities and how a nigh-omnipotent creature unbound by linear time and the laws of physics might relate to the universe, and Q’s a very mundane example of the character type. On the gripping hand, Q’s super fun and whenever he shows up I know I’m in for a good time. I strongly suspect that if I were a Q I would also spend an obnoxious amount of time trolling Picard. He’s just so delightfully trollable!

Tasha Yar - Yar falls into a lot of tropes which I absolutely hate, but despite that I kind of... love her anyway?? I just don’t get enough masculine female characters to not love them even when they have rape-y backstories and secret desires to be more feminine and Issues feat. their emotional vulnerabilities, I guess. She was kind of frustrating at first because she kept randomly attacking people, but in the later episodes she seemed to mellow out a lot and started acting the way I’d expect of a security chief, ie 101% willing to solve problems with violence but no longer functioning on a hairtrigger. I’m sad that she died, I would’ve loved to see what she could have grown into as the show developed.

Also she was bros with Worf! Somehow I completely forgot about that, but I love it. This is an extra layer of tragedy in her death, Yar&Worf is a delightful friendship and if it’d had space to develop I sincerely believe it could have toppled Data&Geordi as my most beloved Trek brotp. This is what fanfiction is for, I suppose.

Wesley Crusher - I know it’s kind of Trek cliché to loathe Wesley but boy do I ever loathe Wesley!! The funny thing is that I actually liked him for the first two or three episodes: he was a bright and enthusiastic kid who was transparently desperate for Picard to be his father figure (and Picard was transparently disinterested in being his father figure, which is hilarious), but then he was allowed on the bridge despite not being part of Starfleet or even an acting-cadet at the time, and then the action paused in the middle of an episode so Picard could get lectured on how Wesley is the bestest most wonderfulest, and then... you get the point.

I’m not here to shit on wish-fulfilment characters (I mean, that’d be hypocritical as fuck considering my feelings about Data), I’m here to shit on wish-fulfilment characters who are so devoted to wish-fulfilment that they stop functioning adequately as a character. The universe warps itself into a pretzel so that Wesley can be the bestest most wonderfulest and it really really pisses me off.

S01E01E02 Encounter at Farpoint - You know, for a nigh-omnipotent weird space being, Q is amazingly fucking dumb. Like, who agrees to judge people based on a test without realising that if you tell people you’re testing them they’ll go out of their way to be on their best behaviour? You’re not gonna be getting any kind of reliable data here, Q.

S01E07 Lonely Among Us - What the fuck was this episode, I mean seriously. Okay, so we open with two groups of diplomats who super super hate each other and the Enterprise has to transport them to a meeting, so you’d assume that the episode would revolve around dealing with the conflict between the two groups right? Except no, that’s like the d-plot, the a-plot is there’s a weird space thing and the b-plot is Data has a crush on Sherlock Holmes. The c-plot is Wesley does his homework. And then the episode ends with the news that one group of diplomats has cooked and eaten a member of the other group and Picard’s like “lmao I don’t give a shit, Riker you deal with this I’m gonna go take a nap.” What the fuck, basically.

In other news, spacefuture meat is all cruelty-free synthesised magic apparently. I wonder if vegetarians still exist? Other than vulcans, I guess. I don’t know enough about the philosophy behind not shoving delicious chunks of animal corpse into your face to work out the answer here.

S01E08 Justice - I talked about this episode already and honestly that’s all you really need to know. People try to talk to Picard about Wesley’s impending death and Picard immediately changes the topic to talking about the weird space thing, rinse and repeat.

Anyway I was recently reading about a guy who was transporting prisoners when some of the prisoners escaped. The punishment for letting prisoners escape was death, so he released the rest of the prisoners then ran off to be an outlaw because it wasn’t like they could kill him any more then they were already going to. Then he became Emperor! Anyway the moral of the story is that Light Yagami is a moron escalating punishments are important and if someone knows you’re gonna kill them for something they did then they have basically no reason not to go and do a bunch of other crimes also.

S01E10 Hide and Q - Hey, quick quiz: you encounter a nigh-omnipotent entity who has previously mocked your species for being savage and violent. Said entity dumps you on a planet with a bunch of weird monsters. Do you: a) attempt to communicate with these monsters in the hopes of reaching a peaceful solution, or b) savagely resort to violence by shooting them with your space guns? If you picked option b, then congratulations! You are the crew of the Enterprise. This technically wasn’t the point of the episode, but come on! Step up your mind-game game, Q.

Also Picard yells at Q for constantly changing his costume and it’s like, Picard, dude, you’re aware the thing you’re yelling at isn’t actually Q? Q isn’t a human with superpowers, he’s an incomprehensible entity who occasionally puppets around a meatsack so you can have something convenient to yell at. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from Greek mythology and also Lovecraft, it’s that you super super do not want to see the incomprehensible entity’s true form.

S01E13 Datalore - I LOVE DATA AND I LOVE HIS HORRIBLE BROTHER!! but also, fuck Wesley. I hate Wesley. He’s immediately suspicious of Lore-as-Data purely on the basis of he sees “Data” doing Lore’s facial tic despite the fact that at the beginning of the episode he walked in on Data attempting to mimic sneezing, and despite the fact that there are several other characters with much better reasons to find Lore-as-Data suspicious.

Actually, you know what my dream rewrite for this episode would be? Someone becoming suspicious of Lore-as-Data, not because they think he’s Lore, but because they think he’s Data. The crew had previously been discussing whether or not they could trust Data now that he’d found links outside of Starfleet, so having that issue play out onscreen would’ve been fantastic. (Especially if it influenced their behaviour towards Data and Lore tried to take advantage of that as a “your friends are dicks, betray them and join me” kind of thing. I’m Here(tm) 24/7 for manipulation and corruption, my dude.)

S01E17 When the Bough Breaks - You know, this entire episode could’ve been solved with cloning. I mean actually it couldn’t, but the problem they thought they were having could’ve been solved with cloning. Ask the Enterprise for some unfucked genetic material and you can make your own kids! As many kids as you want!! More than six kids because seriously I don’t know what you were expecting to achieve with that, that’s not enough people to keep your planet alive.

S01E19 Coming of Age - This episode is an excellent example of What’s Wrong With Wesley. Wesley does an exam, and he loses some points in order to help another person with the exam, and at the end he’s told the other person passed but he didn’t, and the other person’s like “oh but that only happened because Wesley lost points by helping me!!”, because Wesley is so bestest most wonderfulest that the only reason he fails is because he sacrificed himself to help someone else to succeed. There’s a vague attempt at suggesting “oh, but there were other reasons Wesley failed!!” but like, fuck you, you don’t get to show me nothing but Wesley succeeding and then attempt to salvage this mess by telling me there were other factors at play, especially not when there’s so much attention devoted to Wesley helping the other person.

S01E22 Symbiosis - Everyone spends this episode focusing on the wrong thing. See, the Brekkians are selling medicine to the Ornarans, except actually it’s not medicine it’s addictive drugs, and this is bad because... drugs are bad? Don’t do drugs kids!! Why are you all focusing on the part where there are drugs and not the part where the Brekkians are lying shitbags taking relentless advantage of the Ornarans so that they can live like parasite kings in a capitalist hellscape castle?

“Golly gosh I sure can’t understand why anyone would voluntarily become dependent on a drug!!” says FUCKING WESLEY, THE WORST CHARACTER, completely missing the part where the drug actually is medicine and the Ornarans are entirely unaware that they no longer have the plague the drug is medicine for and thus believe that they have literally no other choice than to take the drug if they want to live. There is nothing “voluntary” about this at all, Wesley you absolute fuckwad!! Somebody shove this kid into a locker already.

S01E23 Skin of Evil - There are no pockets in Starfleet uniforms so everyone spends this episode wandering around with stuff awkwardly glued to their sides and it’s terrible and hilarious. I’m pretty sure this is true of other episodes but this is the one where I found it really really noticeable and couldn’t stop laughing.

...this episode was just obnoxiously funny in general actually, Goo Man is trying so hard to be super evil and scary and grimdark but nobody really gives a fuck about it, he’s more just like majorly inconvenient and kind of irritating than he is actually threatening at any point. “You don’t understand! I don’t serve evil, I am evil!!” the Goo Man wails. Picard categorically does not give any kind of a shit in response.

tl;dr: Data is precious and perfect and every time he’s onscreen I start weeping. YOU’RE DOING GREAT, DATA! I’M SO PROUD OF YOU!!

[tristanvswriting-blog]

lit review draft #2

Lit Review

Introduction

From my research as to what is sneaker culture? I’ve come to find that sneaker are far more than shoes, so much is said and thought about sneakers that they carry with them an intrinsic value to the consumer. This value is provided by demand, Influence, and identity.

 Identity

Sneakers came from humble beginnings, sneakers where originally and indicator of a working-class individual, the rubber dipped soles of shoes provided better longevity and traction for laborers (Duc Nhat Huy 6 and Chrisman-Campbell). This has evolved to the point where almost everyone has at least one pair of sneakers. Now there are more sneakers than even imaginable, giving the consumer to option to buy shoes that speak to their character. Rob Dyrdek, professional skate boarder and CO-Owner of DC Shoes was quoted in the documentary Sneakerheadz saying, “There are a handful of things that can define who you are without saying a word; shoes, are one of those things (Friendly and Partridge)”. This is where ideas of race, gender, sexual orientation, and personality descriptors come into play. KIMBERLY CHRISMAN-CAMPBELL explains in her Atlantic article, “Sneakers Have Always Been Political Shoes”, as verity grew shoes took on different meaning, for example Vans and other canvas shoes became the staple shoes of youth rebellion (Chrisman-Campbell). In Michael Jordan, Inc. They talk about the ides of race and how by just being the greatest athlete ever black lives were brought into white-household conversation. Thus, provided a backing for the Jordan shoes be a signifier of black excellence as well as promote racial equality (Andrews 47). Other operations to promote the Identity include gender and sexuality. It can be noted that there has been a shift away from the “shrink it and pink it” mentality that used to summarize women in the sneaker industry, to a more natural and comprehensive relationship with women’s sneaker design including using celebrity influence similar to how they’ve marketed to men for years (Miller 42-49). There is also a Nike’s line of Pride shoes that incorporate rainbows in poplar shoe design to show gay pride and support. There have also been interesting movements such as Adidas has a Parley collaboration, Parley be a recycled textiles distributor, who work with Adidas to create popular adidas shoes out of recycled materials. This helped people who identify as social activist to wear a shoe that promote their ideals. Identity is prevalent in all pieces of clothing but from the information collected it seems as though sneakers in particular has had a strong role in helping current, past, and future consumers show the world who they are.

 Influence

Much of sneaker culture as we understand it today can be attributed to how people of status make us feel about sneakers. According to a thesis written by Rodney M. Miller, we can attribute the growth of the industry to three key components: physical activity, professional sport, and hip hop culture (Miller VII). Beginning with hip hop culture, Garrett Kalel Grant researched the brand associations attributed to Yeezy brand. Yeezy is a company collaboration between Adidas and Kanye West. According to Grants’ study, “The aggregation stage provided the researcher with eleven associations directly connected to Yeezy brand based on mention: Kanye, expensive, Adidas, overrated, trendy, athleisure, sneaker, Kardashian, fashion, shoes, popular.” Kanye, trendy, Kardashian, and popular; the significance of these is that when solely asked to name things associated with the brand Yeezy (Grant 49-50), the most common and immediate responses contained two celebrities names and multiple forms terms referring to reputation. This is an example of how a sneaker can generate influence beyond its designs as well as the influential impact celebrities have on branding, particularly in the hip hop industry. Next is physical activity. Physical activity has become a mainstream thing, where as in the past it was something only for athletes. This said, the necessity for exercise has influenced an increased demand for sneakers in order to participate in the socially expected (working out). This has influenced athletics companies to create a different shoe for every niche or activity, from walking shoes to lifting shoes; cross-trainer to lifestyle (Archer 56). Lastly, and likely most prominent in the sneaker industry, are athletes. Athletes are placed on a podium, a class of super humans that others aspire to be. That said it has become the status quo that if you are a star athlete you have a signature sneaker. Often people first think of Jordan for his revered line of shoes, but the first athlete with a signature sneaker actually dates back to 1917 when the galosh company Converse created their first signature sneaker; the Chuck Taylor All-Star; named after basketball player Charlie Taylor. From then one we as consumers have been buying signature shoes because we want to “be like mike” or whatever athlete you so choose. There is also an interesting concept of how shoe marketing has influenced males in particular that are presented in the art thesis of Justin Cloud. He ideates that the primal/ carnal impulse and obsession that is instilled in men by marketing has permeated its way into modern art, particularly sighting the sneaker industry and to pieces of his portfolio that are takes on the shoe of the future (Cloud 12-14).

 Value

Shoe prices have increased dramatically since the birth of sneakers. Much faster than the rate of inflation. In 1957 Chuck Taylors cost $3.95 (Bengtson), 40 years after they were released. Directly adjusted for inflation they should cost $25.91 today; but on converse.com they cost $55. Also, for essentially the same shoe, but a street wear designer take on the classic silhouette, the Converse Chuck Taylor All-Star Vulcanized Hi Off-White sells on StockX (a popular secondary shoe market) for roughly $1100. Shoes have taken on insane amounts of value because all the things they represent beyond just a devise to be worn on your foot. Often the value of sought-after sneaker will inflate to insane rates immediately following release do to a supply that is lower than the demand for the shoe. Alex Rakestraw says,

“a sneaker’s coolness is inversely related to how many people can potentially get their hands on it… if you’re the only one in your group with a specific shoe, the bragging rights are almost built-in. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but “1/100” is hard, fast, and objectively fresh” (Rakestraw).

He would later explain the conflict for valuable shoes by saying, “The thirst for inherent exclusivity creates an innately competitive culture where the goal is naturally adversarial” (Rakestraw). This has created new industry around shoes from reselling to cleaning like Mai Nhat Huy talks about in her bachelor thesis on Helsinki’s Sneaker Spa, the first provider of sport shoes and sneakers professional cleaning service. Often sneakers are treated like commodities, rather than shoes. This has created a movement of people who collect them like coins, as opposed to buying them to wearing them (Duc Nhat Huy 32). This has created a market similar to that of stock where any one particular shoe can increase of decrease in value at any given time based on external influence as well as demand.

       Works Cited

Andrews, David L. Michael Jordan, Inc.: Corporate Sport, Media Culture, and Late Modern America. State University of New York Press, 2001.

Michael Jordan Inc. Is a look into how media and capitalism influence sports culture. Being that Michael is highly regarded as being one of the greatest athletes to ever live, the author thought it best to use him as a focus for his book. The reading has themes of corruption and influenced both on behalf of athletes and consumers. Most often though, corporations making or incentivizing a certain behavior  to draw a rise from the consumer. “Nike has played a key role in promoting [certain] values and is thus is a major cultural force, a socializer and arbitrator of cultural and social values, as well as being a shoe company.” This quote directly ties into my research because we have to look into what sneaker culture is, and where it comes from. This implies that it may all be based on the influence of companies rather than the consumers who wear the shoes. This reading will also shed light on the influence of celebrities on the shoes we buy as well as how we value them.

Archer, Jean. “Anatomy of a Sneaker.” Network Journal, vol. 23, no. 2, 2016, p. 56.

Jean Archer, doctor of podiatrie medicine and foot surgery, is a podiatrist at Omnicare Multispecialty Center in Brooklyn, New York. He wrote this article to break down each individual component of a sneaker, and what that contributes to a shoe. He does so because as he puts it, “Most people lack the basic knowledge of what to look for in an athletic shoe.” Archer also talk about how many different sneakers there are for so many different activities. The reason I see this information to be important is a term like “sneaker” can be very ambiguous. For me to base a paper on it I think it best my audience and I be on the same page. Which is why I’d like to use this article from The Network journal, to help lay down some basic components that identify a sneaker, that way me and my reader can be on the same page.Cloud, Justin. “Ruin Runes.”

Bengtson, Russ. “50 Things You Didn't Know About Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars.” Complex, Complex, 20 Oct. 2016, www.complex.com/sneakers/2013/05/50-things-you-didnt-know-about-converse-chuck-taylor-all-stars/.

         Russ Bengtson is the former editor-and-chief of Slam magazine, also the ditor for complex sneakers. This article is trying to a paint a picture of the Converse Chuck Taylor All-Star, keing in on interesting facts. This is pertinent to my research because the All-Star is the birth of the modern sneaker as we know it today. So to really understand sneakers you first have to understand Converse. To summarize what converse is Benington says, “ [Converse have] gone from the world's most prevalent basketball sneaker to a lifestyle staple. It remains beloved both for its history and its simplicity.” Converse have a staying power unlike any other shoe, dating back to their creation in 1917 they have been on constant production with no signs of stopping. Converse is doing something right, and without them it is possible that we wouldn’t have a sneaker culture at all.

Cloud, Justin. “Ruin Runes.” CUNY Academy Works, 21 May 2018, https://academicworks.cuny.edu/hc_sas_etds/299/.

Justin Cloud has a Master of Fine Arts form Hunter College, where he wrote his thesis about the correlation between male ideals and how its leaked into his art. In this thesis he aims to draw a connection between male ego and fetishization of things like cares, SHOES, and survivalist mentality; to his modern sculpture movement that involves and invasion of industrial materials. Making lucid the ideas that are pounded into to the heads of men by modern marketing. The idea he presents is that these ideals have become such a staple that they are becoming a fluid part of who Justin Cloud is and therefore cannot be removed from anything he does, in this case: art. I seek to use this thesis, to help support some of the ideas about how shoes have become more than just something you need to wear. Cloud puts it well when he says, “Sneakers culture has completely ascended beyond that of practical footwear.” He goes on to talk about how sneakers are a practical solution for anyone, and marketers know that. So however you identify yourself, there is a shoe marketed towards you. Clouds adds on by saying how this marketing ideology has created a culture –specifically in men—that uses shoes to reinforce who they want to be.

Chrisman-Campbell, Kimberly. ���The Long Political History of the Sneaker.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 28 Dec. 2016, www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/12/sneakers-have-always-been-political-shoes/511628/.

Campbell tell the origin of sneakers as well as the political weight with which they carry. She is an author of an upcoming book entitled: Worn on This Day: The Clothes That Made History. In this article, as well as in her book, she focusses on the choices of consumers and industry to say certain things with their clothing. The article starts off with talking about how New Balances support of Trump created outrage with their consumers. It forces people to adopt their brands for the wrong reason (a Neo Nazi group claim that New Balance is the official shoe of white people). This led to bad press, as well as loss of previously held consumers. Even warranted a rebuttal from Nike, whom themselves had faced scandal for supporting specific celebrities. Campbell quotes Elizabeth Semmelhack in her article. Semmelhack is the Acclaimed shoe historian Elizabeth Semmelhack is senior curator at the Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto; also, the author of and curator of the book and exhibit Outside The Box. Semmelhack is quoted saying, “The cultural meaning behind sneakers is a constantly evolving dialogue between the people who produce the sneakers and the people who wear them.” Further contributing to the idea that sneakers have a voice, one that lends itself to self-expression or identity. The article contains themes of race, politics, and class; that push peoples interest in shoes beyond simple design.

Friendly, David T and Mick Partridge, directors. Sneakerheadz. Complex, 2015.

         This is a documentary produced by the famed pop culture outlet Complex, known for doing in-depth research and explanations on things important to the teens and young adults. The documentary uses almost exclusively interviews with some of the most famed contributors and creators of modern sneaker culture. They talk about things like, where did the culture come from, how has the culture changed, what did they do to contribute to the culture, their fondest memories involving shoes, their favorite shoes and more. Why? Well because as Rob Dyrdek puts it,” There are a handful of things that can define who you are without saying a word; shoes, are one of those things.” Similar to others this work talks on history, but the documentary takes a look into many different backgrounds, while talking about things like design, selling, reselling, and collecting.Giving both a well rounded and more global perspective on the sneaker industry.

Grant, Garrett Kalel, “A Case Study of Brand Associations for Yeezy Brand” (2018). LSU Master’s Theses. 4716.https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses/4716

This is a thesis based on the clothing brand Yeezy, Kanye’s brand underneath the Adidas franchise. The goal was to see how and what consumers associate with the brand Yeezy. They then took this information and saw how it would affect things like brand involvement and brand awareness. While this is a market research report I think it is interesting to understand how consumers preserve brand within the sneaker market. This could inform the obsessive nature of the sneaker consumers or even help us understand why we view shoe companies the way we do. Being also that Yeezy is a co-branded company between Kanye and Adidas, this thesis will talk about the influence of celebrity endorsements on the clothing market. The author says, “The aggregation stage provided the researcher with eleven associations directly connected to Yeezy brand based on mention: Kanye, expensive, Adidas, overrated, trendy, athleisure, sneaker, Kardashian, fashion, shoes, popular. Only the first seven associations could be directly connected to map based on their link strength.” This goes to show us that there are more to brands than just the name and what they sell, we draw external connections and that is what creates influence. I believe these influence could be the creates a culture in the sneaker industry if it is not the brands themselves as is implied in Michael Jordan, Inc.

 Miller, Rodney M. Jr, “If the Shoe Fits: A Historical Exploration of Gender Bias in the U.S. Sneaker Industry” (2019). Senior Projects Spring 2019. 80. https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2019/80

Miller gives a history of how the sneaker industry began and has grown over the course of the last one hundred years or so. Citing three key components to growth in the industry; physical activity, professional sports, and Hip-Hop culture. Where Miller differs from other research is he focus on how the sneaker industry is polarizing particularly toward women. He explains how each of the three influences have brought with them their own set of biases towards women. Roughly summed up the author outs it this way: “n, women were discouraged from participating in physical activities because of misplaced fears that exercising was actually worse for women’s health. Additionally, competitive and professional sports show a historic bias against women because of beliefs that women were not anatomically structured to compete in sports. Lastly, Hip-Hop is a culture that has consistently placed constraints on women and ties their value based on their worth and their offerings to the men in their life.” This thesis could help to show who it is that comprise the sneaker culture. If it is found to be true that the culture really is a boy’s club it could warrant extra research as to why that is and the effect that has one women. This thesis also brings forth a interesting concept that is becoming fairly mainstream in modern culture. This being that boys are now the ones who collect and have ore shoes than they could wear, where in the past that had been ideal often associated with women. This thesis helps round out the history of how sneakers have gotten to where they are today.

Nhat Huy Mai. ”Helsinki’s Sneaker Spa Business Evaluation And Service Design.” Laurea University of Applied Sciences, October 2017, https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/154656/MaiDucNhatHuy_ThesisFinal.pdf?sequence=1

Duc Nhat Huy Mai is Degree Program in Restaurant Entrepreneurship, who wrote a bachelor thesis on Helsinki’s Sneaker Spa, the first provider of sport shoes and sneakers professional cleaning service, started by young entrepreneurs in 2017. While the goal of her these is to create a business plan for the Sneaker Spa, Mai does an amazing job of research to the growth of the sneaker industry and the how it is blossoming into new emerging markets such as shoe cleaning. My goal is to use her research to paint some of the back story of where sneakers come from; as well as, since her research is based in Finland, talk about the globalization of sneaker culture and some of the difference between areas. She says, “sneakers were invented in 18th century in US, when low class attached rubber to their sole to make the shoes more durable”. And I want know how we went from that to sneaker culture as we know it today.

Rakestraw, Alex. “Sneaker Culture Is a Reminder That We’re All Just Animals.” Highsnobiety, Highsnobiety, 5 Sept. 2017, www.highsnobiety.com/2017/09/04/sneaker-culture-competition-or-community/.

Rakestraw write this article to talk about how the search for rare shoes reverts the consumer to a primal state. This is one of the darker sides of the sneaker industry and sadly is often what outsider hear about sneaker culture. The want, or need in the mind a sneakerhead, can cause people to do some crazy things. We hear story of people being trampled robbed or even killed for their shoes. Rakestraw equates this to, “The thirst for inherent exclusivity creates an innately competitive culture where the goal is naturally adversarial: if your friend has a dope exclusive shoe, then your search for a more exclusive (and therefore more desirable) shoe is an ongoing challenge”. This poses interesting ideas as to whether the sneaker culture is a good thing or a bad thing. There are many sources that show he community and family oriented nature of the sneaker community, but what makes the main stream media of the outlandishly bad things the come from the sneaker community, as is the case with many news stories. This will help shape the image of what it looks like to be inside the sneaker culture. Painting the picture of what creates demand and how desire is influence by exclusivity.

[juditmiltz]

South Florida’s most head-turning lawsuits of 2018

From left: Craig Studnicky, John Yanopoulus, Philip Spiegelman, and Brenda Nestor

In 2018, South Florida’s real estate industry saw longtime business partners going through bitter divorces, buyers seeking to get out of luxury condo deals by accusing developers of construction delays and false advertising, foreign governments and investors suing local companies over allegedly fraudulent real estate investments and sizzling disputes over allegedly unpaid six-and-seven-figure commissions. Here’s a look back at the 10 most scandalous lawsuits filed in the past 12 months:

1. Craig Studnicky and Philip Spiegelman built International Sales Group into one of the region’s leading luxury condo brokerages during a quarter century’s worth of peaks and valleys in South Florida’s real estate cycles. The company outlasted recessions and the market bottoming out in 2008, but it may not survive an internal civil war between the ISG founders.

Over the summer, Studnicky and Spiegelman sued each other in Miami-Dade Circuit Court over control of ISG. Studnicky wants to force Spiegelman out and keep ISG in business. Studnicky wants a judge to dissolve the company. Both partners made scathing allegations against the other. Spiegelman accuses Studnicky of burning “through large amounts of cash” that ISG made in sales commissions, and failing to deliver any profits. Studnicky alleges Spiegelman’s “overbearing narcissism and obnoxious personality” alienated an original founding partner, employees and clients.

2. Vulcan Investment Partners, a fund founded by a group of leading Mexican businessmen and financial experts, had plans to go on a voracious buying binge when it announced six years ago that it planned to invest $150 million to purchase 1,200 single family homes throughout South Florida. Turns out that 41 properties Vulcan ended up buying were actually financed with allegedly pilfered funds from the Mexican state of Veracruz. The state sued Vulcan Dynamic Realty Fund and its CEO Inaki Negrete, Miami-based Nexxos Realty and its managing member Ana Maria Velasquez, and Delaware-based ACE Realty Holdings.

The Veracruz government claims the money used to buy the properties was stolen by Javier Duarte De Ochoa during his term as the Mexican state’s from 2010 to 2016. Duarte is currently awaiting trial on corruption charges in Veracruz after he was captured last year in Guatemala. Veracruz is seeking at least $25 million in compensatory damages and additional punitive damages, as well as control over the properties.

3. Jupiter developer Nicholas Mastroianni II has become somewhat of a guru in the world of EB-5 financing and investing. As founder of U.S. Immigration Fund for EB-5 Investment, Mastroianni has raised tens of millions of dollars for a number of major projects, including his own $170 million Harbourside Place in Jupiter. But nearly 80 Chinese investors in the Jupiter development sued Mastroianni in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, alleging he defrauded them by intentionally falling short of a $100 million capital fundraising goal.

Mastroianni, who’s been linked to President Trump’s longtime attorney, Michael Cohen, as well as to the Kushner Companies, vehemently denies the allegations and in a statement said that his company invested close to an additional $34 million in equity to “ensure all investors would receive their immigration benefits…. In addition, all investors have been, and continue to be, paid interest and their investment remains superior to the developers equity.”

More than 60 of the 78 plaintiffs have received their green cards, but have not been paid back, according to their attorneys.

4. Brenda Nestor lorded over Victor Posner’s estate for nearly 15 years until she was abruptly removed as its personal representative in 2016 for allegedly disobeying court orders to provide a full accounting of her management of the late corporate raider’s assets. So earlier this year, she sued the national law firm Akerman for breach of fiduciary duty, legal malpractice and civil conspiracy.

Nestor, a former-girlfriend-turned-business-associate of Posner’s who was named the primary beneficiary of his $321 million estate in 2002, alleged that she suffered damages as a result of “negligent and reckless” legal advice Akerman provided to her court-appointed successor of Posner’s estate. That successor, Philip von Kahle, sued the estate’s insurer to claim a $23.1 million bond she had posted back in 2002 that allowed her to operate Posner’s real estate business through his estate.

Von Kahle alleged that Nestor caused the Posner estate to lose $375 million in value to negative $50 million during her tenure as personal representative. In November, Nestor voluntarily dismissed the complaint.

5. Canadian developer Pierre Heafey and the Peluga family helped save the long-troubled Conrad Fort Lauderdale Beach project two years ago by becoming 51 percent owners and infusing $100 million in the development. But shortly after the condo-hotel finally opened this year, Heafey and the Pelugas, who own the NFL’s Buffalo Bills, became entangled in a legal battle with the Conrad’s original developers, Jose and Joseph Cabanas.

Between February and March, both sides sued each other for breaches of contract, self-dealing arrangements and delaying a $40.9 million sale of the property at 551 North Fort Lauderdale Beach Boulevard. The Heafey-Pegula company alleges that the Cabanas partnership has refused to execute part of the agreement that allows the Heafey-Pegula company to buy 20 percent of the condo-hotel units. The lawsuit claims the Cabanas partnership initially agreed to consummate the deal after Heafey and Pegula raised their offer from $37.5 million to $40.9 million last October, when the Conrad Fort Lauderdale Beach opened for business.

6. Stephen Hess was expecting to have 3,635 square feet of living space in the three units he bought at Muse Residences in Sunny Isles Beach. Instead, he lost about 400 square feet in each unit after realizing the floor plans included exterior areas such as columns, corridors and balconies that are not part of the units, according to a Miami-Dade Circuit Court lawsuit Hess filed against development entity PMG-S2 Sunny Isles LLC, which is controlled by Property Markets Group.

Hess is seeking to recoup more than $7 million in deposits he put down in 2014 and 2015. The buyer alleges a disclaimer in the sales materials was tiny and unreadable. Hess clams it violates Florida law regarding conspicuous type, which requires at least 10-point bold type. Attorneys for the developers refuted the allegations.

7. Local developer Ari Pearl agreed to leave a joint venture with the Chetrit family in 2017 to develop a massive five-phase development on the Miami River, consisting of 1,678 residential units, 330 hotel rooms, 266,000 square feet of retail and office space, and more than 2,000 parking spaces. But more than a year later, Pearl is trying to collect half of the $2.25 million that was part of the separation package.

Pearl is suing the Chetrit-controlled Miami River JV LLC in Miami-Dade Circuit Court for $1.125 million, the third and final payout as part of a settlement between the two. By paying Pearl, the Delaware-based joint venture company agreed to release and waive all claims against the joint venture, including “his employment by JV or his acting as a consultant to or on their behalf,” according to a 2017 contract that’s attached to the suit as an exhibit.

8. Yamile Espinosa and her company Miami Grand Realty brought a big-time buyer to look at units at Marina Palms Yacht Club and Residences. But when her client closed on a $5.5 million and a $440,000 boat slip, the developers and their in-house sales director muscled her out of a commission, Espinosa alleges in a May lawsuit filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court. Espinosa claims she is owed roughly $356,400, representing the 6 percent commission she would have made on the sale.

Espinosa sued Marina Palms Realty, its manager Michael Internoscia, and Marina Palms Residences North and Marina Palms Residences South, the development entities. All three companies are owned by The Plaza Group and The Devstar Group, which built the two-tower project at 17201 Biscayne Boulevard through a joint venture. According to the lawsuit, Internoscia sold the penthouse and the boat slip in early 2017 to Pablo Otero and his company Blue Marlin without Espinosa’s knowledge or participation, even though Espinosa is alleging he was aware that she represented the buyer in previous transactions at Marina Palms.

9. Hotelier John Yanopoulos, who developed the W Fort Lauderdale, allegedly keeps disappearing on high-profile friends who give him six figure sums for investments. Former NFL running back Julius Jones, who claims Yanopoulos befriended him during one of his South Florida vacation, is suing the hotel developer in Miami-Dade Circuit Court for failing to repay $300,000 from a $500,000 loan. Yanopoulos missed a September 2013 deadline to satisfy the loan and it took him another two years to pay back $200,000, Jones alleges.

To date, Yanopoulos has not repaid the balance, yet was able to purchase a $3.1 million mansion in Pinecrest in March 2017, according to the suit. In 2016, Magic City Casino co-owner Isadore Havenick sued Yanopoulos for allegedly welching on a $500,000 loan.

10. Christopher Benjamin, an indigent man born with Albinism which caused him to develop problems with his sight, forced the Florida Realtors Association to place its member brokers on notice about violating local laws against discriminating against low-income renters. Benjamin filed civil lawsuits against 46 Miami-Dade and Broward brokerages and dozens of listing agents for allegedly engaging in discriminatory advertising practices, according to court documents.

The lawsuits allege realtor associates working for the defendant brokerages listed rental property advertisements that rejected individuals who receive Section 8 assistance, a federal program which pays landlords the balance of a rent payment that exceeds 30 percent of a renter’s monthly income. The Florida Realtors Association sent out an urgent legal alert to its membership to remind them that discriminating against Section 8 tenants violates Miami-Dade and Broward laws.

from The Real Deal Miami https://therealdeal.com/miami/2018/12/24/south-floridas-most-head-turning-lawsuits-of-2018/ via IFTTT

[alfredrserrano]

South Florida’s most head-turning lawsuits of 2018

From left: Craig Studnicky, John Yanopoulus, Philip Spiegelman, and Brenda Nestor

In 2018, South Florida’s real estate industry saw longtime business partners going through bitter divorces, buyers seeking to get out of luxury condo deals by accusing developers of construction delays and false advertising, foreign governments and investors suing local companies over allegedly fraudulent real estate investments and sizzling disputes over allegedly unpaid six-and-seven-figure commissions. Here’s a look back at the 10 most scandalous lawsuits filed in the past 12 months:

1. Craig Studnicky and Philip Spiegelman built International Sales Group into one of the region’s leading luxury condo brokerages during a quarter century’s worth of peaks and valleys in South Florida’s real estate cycles. The company outlasted recessions and the market bottoming out in 2008, but it may not survive an internal civil war between the ISG founders.

Over the summer, Studnicky and Spiegelman sued each other in Miami-Dade Circuit Court over control of ISG. Studnicky wants to force Spiegelman out and keep ISG in business. Studnicky wants a judge to dissolve the company. Both partners made scathing allegations against the other. Spiegelman accuses Studnicky of burning “through large amounts of cash” that ISG made in sales commissions, and failing to deliver any profits. Studnicky alleges Spiegelman’s “overbearing narcissism and obnoxious personality” alienated an original founding partner, employees and clients.

2. Vulcan Investment Partners, a fund founded by a group of leading Mexican businessmen and financial experts, had plans to go on a voracious buying binge when it announced six years ago that it planned to invest $150 million to purchase 1,200 single family homes throughout South Florida. Turns out that 41 properties Vulcan ended up buying were actually financed with allegedly pilfered funds from the Mexican state of Veracruz. The state sued Vulcan Dynamic Realty Fund and its CEO Inaki Negrete, Miami-based Nexxos Realty and its managing member Ana Maria Velasquez, and Delaware-based ACE Realty Holdings.

The Veracruz government claims the money used to buy the properties was stolen by Javier Duarte De Ochoa during his term as the Mexican state’s from 2010 to 2016. Duarte is currently awaiting trial on corruption charges in Veracruz after he was captured last year in Guatemala. Veracruz is seeking at least $25 million in compensatory damages and additional punitive damages, as well as control over the properties.

3. Jupiter developer Nicholas Mastroianni II has become somewhat of a guru in the world of EB-5 financing and investing. As founder of U.S. Immigration Fund for EB-5 Investment, Mastroianni has raised tens of millions of dollars for a number of major projects, including his own $170 million Harbourside Place in Jupiter. But nearly 80 Chinese investors in the Jupiter development sued Mastroianni in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, alleging he defrauded them by intentionally falling short of a $100 million capital fundraising goal.

Mastroianni, who’s been linked to President Trump’s longtime attorney, Michael Cohen, as well as to the Kushner Companies, vehemently denies the allegations and in a statement said that his company invested close to an additional $34 million in equity to “ensure all investors would receive their immigration benefits…. In addition, all investors have been, and continue to be, paid interest and their investment remains superior to the developers equity.”

More than 60 of the 78 plaintiffs have received their green cards, but have not been paid back, according to their attorneys.

4. Brenda Nestor lorded over Victor Posner’s estate for nearly 15 years until she was abruptly removed as its personal representative in 2016 for allegedly disobeying court orders to provide a full accounting of her management of the late corporate raider’s assets. So earlier this year, she sued the national law firm Akerman for breach of fiduciary duty, legal malpractice and civil conspiracy.

Nestor, a former-girlfriend-turned-business-associate of Posner’s who was named the primary beneficiary of his $321 million estate in 2002, alleged that she suffered damages as a result of “negligent and reckless” legal advice Akerman provided to her court-appointed successor of Posner’s estate. That successor, Philip von Kahle, sued the estate’s insurer to claim a $23.1 million bond she had posted back in 2002 that allowed her to operate Posner’s real estate business through his estate.

Von Kahle alleged that Nestor caused the Posner estate to lose $375 million in value to negative $50 million during her tenure as personal representative. In November, Nestor voluntarily dismissed the complaint.

5. Canadian developer Pierre Heafey and the Peluga family helped save the long-troubled Conrad Fort Lauderdale Beach project two years ago by becoming 51 percent owners and infusing $100 million in the development. But shortly after the condo-hotel finally opened this year, Heafey and the Pelugas, who own the NFL’s Buffalo Bills, became entangled in a legal battle with the Conrad’s original developers, Jose and Joseph Cabanas.

Between February and March, both sides sued each other for breaches of contract, self-dealing arrangements and delaying a $40.9 million sale of the property at 551 North Fort Lauderdale Beach Boulevard. The Heafey-Pegula company alleges that the Cabanas partnership has refused to execute part of the agreement that allows the Heafey-Pegula company to buy 20 percent of the condo-hotel units. The lawsuit claims the Cabanas partnership initially agreed to consummate the deal after Heafey and Pegula raised their offer from $37.5 million to $40.9 million last October, when the Conrad Fort Lauderdale Beach opened for business.

6. Stephen Hess was expecting to have 3,635 square feet of living space in the three units he bought at Muse Residences in Sunny Isles Beach. Instead, he lost about 400 square feet in each unit after realizing the floor plans included exterior areas such as columns, corridors and balconies that are not part of the units, according to a Miami-Dade Circuit Court lawsuit Hess filed against development entity PMG-S2 Sunny Isles LLC, which is controlled by Property Markets Group.

Hess is seeking to recoup more than $7 million in deposits he put down in 2014 and 2015. The buyer alleges a disclaimer in the sales materials was tiny and unreadable. Hess clams it violates Florida law regarding conspicuous type, which requires at least 10-point bold type. Attorneys for the developers refuted the allegations.

7. Local developer Ari Pearl agreed to leave a joint venture with the Chetrit family in 2017 to develop a massive five-phase development on the Miami River, consisting of 1,678 residential units, 330 hotel rooms, 266,000 square feet of retail and office space, and more than 2,000 parking spaces. But more than a year later, Pearl is trying to collect half of the $2.25 million that was part of the separation package.

Pearl is suing the Chetrit-controlled Miami River JV LLC in Miami-Dade Circuit Court for $1.125 million, the third and final payout as part of a settlement between the two. By paying Pearl, the Delaware-based joint venture company agreed to release and waive all claims against the joint venture, including “his employment by JV or his acting as a consultant to or on their behalf,” according to a 2017 contract that’s attached to the suit as an exhibit.

8. Yamile Espinosa and her company Miami Grand Realty brought a big-time buyer to look at units at Marina Palms Yacht Club and Residences. But when her client closed on a $5.5 million and a $440,000 boat slip, the developers and their in-house sales director muscled her out of a commission, Espinosa alleges in a May lawsuit filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court. Espinosa claims she is owed roughly $356,400, representing the 6 percent commission she would have made on the sale.

Espinosa sued Marina Palms Realty, its manager Michael Internoscia, and Marina Palms Residences North and Marina Palms Residences South, the development entities. All three companies are owned by The Plaza Group and The Devstar Group, which built the two-tower project at 17201 Biscayne Boulevard through a joint venture. According to the lawsuit, Internoscia sold the penthouse and the boat slip in early 2017 to Pablo Otero and his company Blue Marlin without Espinosa’s knowledge or participation, even though Espinosa is alleging he was aware that she represented the buyer in previous transactions at Marina Palms.

9. Hotelier John Yanopoulos, who developed the W Fort Lauderdale, allegedly keeps disappearing on high-profile friends who give him six figure sums for investments. Former NFL running back Julius Jones, who claims Yanopoulos befriended him during one of his South Florida vacation, is suing the hotel developer in Miami-Dade Circuit Court for failing to repay $300,000 from a $500,000 loan. Yanopoulos missed a September 2013 deadline to satisfy the loan and it took him another two years to pay back $200,000, Jones alleges.

To date, Yanopoulos has not repaid the balance, yet was able to purchase a $3.1 million mansion in Pinecrest in March 2017, according to the suit. In 2016, Magic City Casino co-owner Isadore Havenick sued Yanopoulos for allegedly welching on a $500,000 loan.

10. Christopher Benjamin, an indigent man born with Albinism which caused him to develop problems with his sight, forced the Florida Realtors Association to place its member brokers on notice about violating local laws against discriminating against low-income renters. Benjamin filed civil lawsuits against 46 Miami-Dade and Broward brokerages and dozens of listing agents for allegedly engaging in discriminatory advertising practices, according to court documents.

The lawsuits allege realtor associates working for the defendant brokerages listed rental property advertisements that rejected individuals who receive Section 8 assistance, a federal program which pays landlords the balance of a rent payment that exceeds 30 percent of a renter’s monthly income. The Florida Realtors Association sent out an urgent legal alert to its membership to remind them that discriminating against Section 8 tenants violates Miami-Dade and Broward laws.

from The Real Deal Miami https://therealdeal.com/miami/2018/12/24/south-floridas-most-head-turning-lawsuits-of-2018/ via IFTTT