#its last update was in december of 2020

[authoramalgam]

Oh when will my husband (Stardew Valley Joys of Efficiency mod) return from war? (Get updated?)

#rambling #probably never #its last update was in december of 2020 #and i think the dev isnt active anymore #waugh #worse the only replacement mod (afaik) is also broken #which is why im not playing on the new update because my brain will not let me #stardew valley

[vgperson]

What Did I Do In 2023?

Whatever I wanted, mostly.

----

As I mentioned last year, my site now has an RSS feed with basically everything I've done back to 2020, so this will mainly be going over the same stuff from that, just with added context.

In January, I finally sat down and properly realized an idea for a short story I'd had sitting around for a while: From the Sidelines, about a fantasy RPG expedition going sideways. I remain very proud of it in both concept and execution, and hope people read it.

In February, Your Turn To Die was released on Steam Early Access, receiving character profiles and some bonus mini-episodes, adding two more later in the year.

After finishing From the Sidelines, I carried that momentum to revisit my Ut0p1a story series about funny computer animals. I'd always meant to continue it - and conclude it - but hadn't been satisfied with the ideas I had for it until totally rethinking them this year. In March, I posted the remaining stories one after another: Right to Code and Left to Code. I'm very proud of these as well. Also in March, Kenshi Yonezu released LADY. (Video, interview)

In April, Uri released the Data Book of the Strange Men Series, a big collection of the writing she's done on the games in the series, with a lot of new parts as well, all translated by me.

Then in May... uh, well, let's see. In April, Capcom released the Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection. I always adored the Battle Network games, and was initially excited that they finally did the thing... but by the time it came out, I was pretty disappointed by how, while you certainly couldn't call them low-effort ports, the effort didn't extend everywhere I thought it should, with the biggest offenders being the total absence of any "convenience features" except Buster Max Mode, the bad font, and the almost entirely untouched translations.

So, I ended up deciding I might as well just replay the originals, and that was a fun time (aside from the parts that were bad). Doing this, I couldn't help but notice how... turbulent the translations were, even if I'd always known they were less than ideal. I mean, the first two games just used periods for ellipses despite the tight character limits, then in BN3 they had an ellipsis character... but it's center-aligned, Japanese-style? Aside from the intro, which has normal ones? Gosh, somebody should fix that - it's simple enough to find and edit in YY-CHR. "JapanMan" is silly, too - I wonder if anybody made a patch for that? Wait, what do you mean there's just a tool to extract and insert text in all the Battle Network games including the Legacy Collection???

Thus began a journey that sort of occupied the rest of my year. First I did the BN3 Translation Revision, trying not to worry too much about cross-referencing the Japanese text unless something seemed wrong, so that I didn't spend too long on the project. Then I began to consider BN2, with its unfortunate "foreigner" text that would need some more significant reworking. I established more convenient tools for comparing with the Japanese script, and thus did a much more thorough job with it, releasing the BN2 Translation Revision in June (AKA Princess Pride Month).

Finally, after giving myself time to recover and actually finish replaying the series, I knew what I had to do to close things out. With the BN4 Translation Revision, you can finally play Battle Network 4 with a translation that isn't such a mess. Whether you'd want to is for you to decide, though if you can get over the structure, I don't think it's the worst game in the series by any means. (Oh, and in December I also updated the BN3 Revision to 1.1, doing a thorough pass with the methods I'd honed. But I think I'm pretty much good on MMBN translations now.)

Anyway, backtracking to other things that happened during my Battle Network haze... June had Kenshi Yonezu's Moongazing (video, interview), and July had Globe (video, interview, interview).

Last but not least, released in November, I translated Refind Self: The Personality Test Game, a short game from Lizardry (creator of 7 Days to End with You) with a fun concept.

----

Obviously I was right to have said "no promises" last year. But really, Your Turn To Die should get its final part on Steam sometime next year, maybe even early-ish in it. That's certainly the goal.

I'm also hoping to buckle down and finish one of my own games, but as usual, who knows how that'll pan out. Letting my whims carry me this year let me finally finish From the Sidelines and Ut0p1a, which was great, and it also led me down a Battle Network rabbit hole, which was... fine, but definitely for a narrower audience. I'd always like to get back to more free game translations and the like, too, but it takes effort to find things I'd want to translate. For now, I think my increasing desire to be able to let loose some of these original games I've been planning, and the stories in them, might come out on top.

#vgperson

[majorhortonisonleaveinlondon]

An updated (April 3, 2024 7:48am pst) list of WW2 movies and TV shows in chronological order

thought out WW2 -(Imitation Game 2014) -(The Book Thief 2013) -(The Zookeeper’s Wife 2017) -(The Pianist 2002)

1937

October 26, 1937 Defence of Sihang Warehouse (The Eight Hundred 2020)

December 13, 1937 Nanjing Massacre - (John Rabe 2009) - (The Flowers of War 2011)

1938

Fall of 1938 (Munich – The Edge of War 2022)

1939

Summer 1939 (Six Minutes to Midnight 2020)

September 3, 1939 King George VI first wartime speech (King’s Speech 2010)

September 17, 1939, Soviet Union Invitation of Poland (The Way Back 2010)

November 30, 1939 Soviet Union invades Finland (The Winter War 1989)

1940

April 9, 1940 Operation Weserübung -(April 9th [movie] 2015) -(King’s Choice 2016) -(Narvik 2022) -(War Sailors 2023)

April 27, 1940 (Into the White 2011)

June 4, 1940 -Churchill gives “We Shall Fight on the Beaches” speech (Darkest Hour 2017) -Dunkirk Evaluation (Dunkirk 2017)

July 10-October 31, 1940 Battle of Britain (Battle of Britain 1969)

1941

May 1941 (Call to Spy 2019)

June 22, 1941 Operation Barbarossa -(Fortress of War [The Brest Fortres 2010) -(Defiance 2008)

September 8, 1941, Siege of Leningrad begins. -(Battle of Leningrad [Saving Leningrad] 2019) -(Leningrad 2009)

October 1941 Battle of Moscow (The Last Frontier [The Final Stand] 2020)

October 1941 Battle of Sevastopol (Battle for Sevastopol 2015)

December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan attacks Pearl Harbor (Tora! Tora! Tora! 1970)

December 8, 1941 Japan invades Shanghai International Settlement (Empire of the Sun 1987)

1942

January 20, 1942, Wannsee Conference (Conspiracy 2001)

February 1942 Battle of the Atlantic (Greyhound 2020)

February 1942 (The Railway Man 2013)

February 19, 1942, Bombing of Darwin (Australia 2008)

Spring 1942 (U-571 2000)

April 18, 1942 The Doolittle Raid (In Harm’s Way 2018)

June 4, 1942 Battle of Midway (Midway 2019)

1942 Summer Occupation of Jersey Island (Another Mother’s Son 2017 Prime)

July, 10 1942 Easy Company Trains in Camp Tocca (Band of Brothers 01x10 Currahee 2001)

July 21, 1942, Kokoda Track Campaign (Kokoda: 39th Battalion 2006)

August 7, 1942, 1st Marine Division land on Guadalcanal (The Pacific Ep. 1 Guadalcanal/Leckie 2010)

August 19, 1942, Dieppe Raid (Dieppe 1993)

August 23, 1942 Battle of Stalingrad begins (Stalingrad 1993)

September 1942 Formation of Troop 30 (Age of Heroes 2011)

September 18, 1942, 7th Marines Land on Guadalcanal (The Pacific Ep. 2 Basilone 2010)

Autumn of 1942 Battle of the Atlantic (Das Boot 1981)

October 18, 1942, Operation Grouse (Heavy Water War Ep. 2 2015)

November 8, 1942, Operation Torch (The Big Red One 1980)

November 10-17 1942 Vasily Zaytsev kills 225 German Soldiers during the Battle of Stalingrad (Enemy at the Gates 2001)

December 1942 The 1st Marine Division on Guadalcanal is relieved (The Pacific Ep. 3 Melbourne 2010)

December 15, 1942, Battle of Mount Austen (Thin Red Line 1998)

1943

March 13-14 1943, liquidation of the Kraków Ghetto -(Schindler’s List 1993)

April 17, 1943 Operation Mincemeat (Operation Mincemeat 2021)

April 19, 1943, beginning of the Warsaw Uprising (Uprising 2001)

May 4, 1943, Final Mission of The Memphis Bell (Memphis Bell 1990)

May 15, 1943, Salamo Arouch and his family arrive in Auschwitz Concentration Camp (Triumph of the Spirit 1989)

May 27, 1943 Louis Zamperini plane crashes on a search and rescue mission (Unbroken 2014)

May 30, 1943 first All-American Girls Professional Baseball League game played (A League of Their Own 1992)

June 25, 1943, 100th Bomb Group flew its first 8th Air Force combat mission (Master of the Air: Part One 2024)

July 1943 -(The Tuskegee Airmen 1995) -(The Liberator Ep. 1 2020) -(Heavy Water War Ep. 5 2015)

July 16, 1943, The 100th Bomb Group bombed U-Boats in Tronbhdim (Masters of the Air: Part Two 2024)

August 17, 1943 the 4th Bomb Wing of the 100th Bomb Group bombed Regenberg (Masters of the Air: Part Three 2024)

September 16, 1943, William Quinn and Charles Bailey leave Belgium (Masters of the Air: Part Four 2024)

September 18, 1943 John ‘Bucky’ Egan returns from leave to join the mission to bomb Munster (Master of the Air: Part Five 2024

October 14, 1943, John ‘Bucky’ Egan interrogated at Dulag Lut, Frankfurt Germany (Masters of the Air: Part Six 2024)

December 26, 1943, 1st Marine Division lands on Cape Gloucester (The Pacific Ep. 4 Gloucester/Pavuvu/Banika 2010)

1944

January 22, 1944, Battle of Anzio -(The Liberator Ep. 2 2020) -(Red Tails 2012) -(Anzio 1968)

February 20, 1944, Hydro Ferry bombing (Heavy Water War Ep. 6 2015)

March 7, 1944, Stalag Luft III Sagan, Germany, Germans find the concealed radio Bucky was using to learn news of the War (Master of the Air: Part Seven 2024)

March 24/25, 1944 Allied Mass Escape of Stalag Luft III (The Great Escape 1963)

June 1944 (Cross of Iron 1977)

June 6, 1944, 00:48 & 01:40 First airborne troops begin to land on Normandy (Band of Brothers 02x10 Day of Days 2001)

June 6, 1944, 06:30 D-Day landings -(Storming Juno 2010)

-(Saving Private Ryan 1998)

June 10, 1944, Easy Company Takes Carentan (Band of Brothers 03x10 Carentan 2001)

June 15-July 9, 1944 Battle of Saipan

-(Windtalkers 2002)

-(Oba: The Last Samurai 2011)

July, 1944 The Monuments Men land in Normandy (The Monuments Men 2014)

July 20, 1944 Operation Valkyrie (Valkyrie 2008)

August 12, 1944, The 332nd Fighter Group attack Radar stations in Southern France (Masters of the Air: Part Eight 2024)

September 15, 1944, U.S. Marines landed on Peleliu at 08:32 (the Pacific Ep. 5 2010)

September 16, 1944, U.S Marines take Peleliu Airfield (the Pacific Ep. 5 2010)

September 17, 1944, Operation Market Garden

-(Band of Brothers 04x10 Replacements 2001)

-(A Bridge Too Far 1977)

October 2, 1944 Battle of Scheldt (Forgotten Battle 2021)

October 12, 1944, Battle of Peleliu, Assault on Bloody Nose Ridge (the Pacific Ep. 7 Peleliu Hills 2010)

October 13, 1944, Rovaniemi public buildings were destroyed (Sisu 2022)

October 14, 1944, Erwin Rommel is arrested (Rommel 2012 Prime)

October 22/23, 1944, 2100 – 0200 Operation Pegasus (Band of Brothers 05x10 Crossroads 2001)

November 1944 middle of the Battle of Hürtgen Forest (When Trumpets Fade 1998)

December 16, 1944, Battle of the Bulge (Band of Brothers 06x10 Bastogne 2001)

December 1944 (Hart’s War 2002)

1945

January 2, 1945 (The Liberator Ep 3 2020)

January 10, 1945 (Attack Force Z)

January 13, 1945, Battle of Foy (Band of Brothers 07x10 The Breaking Point 2001)

January 30, 1945 The Raid at Cabanatuan (The Great Raid 2002)

February 14, 1945, David Webb rejoins the 506th in Haguenau (Band of Brothers 08x10 The Last Patrol 2001)

February 19, 1945, Battle of Iwo Jima starts. - (Letters from Iwo Jima 2006) - (The Pacific Ep. 8 Iwo Jima 2010) - (Flags of our Fathers 2006)

March 21, 1945, Operation Carthage (The Bombardment 2021)

April, 1945 (Fury 2014)

April 5, 1945, 506th Finds abandoned Concentration Camp (Band of Brothers 09x10 Why We Fight 2001)

April 26, 1945, near the end of the war in Europe (A Woman in Berlin 2008)

April 29, 1945, 45th Infantry Division liberated Dachau Concentration camp (The Liberator Ep. 4 2020)

May 2, 1945, Fall of Berlin -(Downfall 2004) -(Jojo Rabbit 2019)

May 1945 Battle of Okinawa -(Hacksaw Ridge 2016) -(The Pacific Ep. 9 Okinawa 2010)

May 7, 1945, Germany Surrenders V-E Day - (Master of the Air: Part Nine 2024) - (Band of Brothers 10x10 Points 2001)

July 30, 1945, USS Indianapolis sank. (USS Indianapolis 2016)

August 15, 1945, The Empire of Japan surrenders end of the War. -(Oppenheimer 2023) -(The Pacific Part Ten: Home 2010)

September 11, 1945 US Military search and Arrest Japanese Leaders for war crimes (Emperor 2012)

1946 April 29, 1946 Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal (Tokyo Trial 2016)

#band of brothers #masters of the air #the pacific #hbo war fandom #WW2 movies

[genericpuff]

I drew this 5 years ago in 2019 when I was in the midst of some hardcore burnout with my original projects-

A year later, in the midst of the 2020 pandemic lockdowns, I completed Volume 6 and jumped right into Volume 7. I had finally "gotten over it" as my past self had hoped for but couldn't see through the haze of burnout at the time.

A year after that, on December 31st 2021, the series ended, coming in at 11 volumes, 2000+ page, and 7 years of work.

Now it's 2024. The "sequel" to this series has been on hiatus since December 2022, with only one update since in April 2023 and the next episode is still sitting in my WIP's. I'm feeling the suffocation I felt back then, and trying to remind myself that, like last time, I'll eventually "get over it". In the meantime, I've been working hard on a comic I never saw coming, LORE | REKINDLED, and I couldn't be more thankful for the things I've learned making it. It gave me the space and time I needed away from the pit I was digging myself into, a pit that I'm still working to get out of.

For 7 long years I felt like a "failure". I defined it as "not having readers", "not making money" , "not getting seen". And while my definition of success still includes some of those things - we all want to see some kind of tangible return for our work and that's natural - I know now in hindsight that the "failures" of that comic were necessary to get to where I am now. I'm thankful that it was nothing more than that, that I was able to make those mistakes and learn what I needed to learn without the pressures of what the popular definition of "success" tends to bring.

That comic was still a success in its own way. I completed it. I learned. The scars from what I put myself through making it are still there, but I'm healing, and getting stronger. I'm putting out some of the best work I've ever pushed myself to do, and I'm having a blast doing it. And I'm starting to make plans for my return to my original series, with the focus and skills I've gained working on Rekindled at the forefront.

And I can happily say that I'm no longer afraid of panels.

#personal post #self post #original project

[iam93percentstardust]

It's not just the commodification of fandom. It's not just the disinterest in wips in favor of completed stories. It's not just the unwillingness to take chances on new writers.

It's the demand for instant gratification too.

I'm posting a "wip" right now. It's actually a fully completed story, and I stated that in the A/N when I started posting it a few weeks ago. I finished writing it early in December. It's not going to be abandoned and discontinued. Short of a tragic accident, it will 100% be posted in its entirety before the end of January.

It's also almost 60k words long. Each chapter is approximately 14k words. That's a lot to expect people to read quickly, so I made the decision to post weekly instead of dumping it all at once. I don't normally do that for wips. I normally post bimonthly to give myself time to write the next chapter. But in concession to the fact that this one is already finished, I decided to post once a week. Could I have posted it all at once or even once a day? Sure, but again, I have more than a few close friends who are slow readers, and I thought it was better to give people the time to read each chapter and let it digest before dumping another one on them instead of making them feel like they have to read it immediately so they don't miss the next update.

This, apparently, was a mistake.

I've been very open about working on this fic since I started it in September. People told me they were excited to get the chance to read it every time I posted an update about where I was in the writing process. When I announced that I was posting it, they told me that they couldn't wait to read it. It's not like I was expecting massive numbers of kudos and comments; this fandom has shrunk in size and engagement, I'm not the most popular writer in it, and I try not to feel entitled to engagement, but considering all the people telling me they were excited for it, I was expecting something.

Instead it was crickets. All those people who were so excited and told me they couldn't wait to get home to read it? That was the last I heard from them, unless it was to express outright incredulity that I expected them to read a work in progress. "It's not a work in progress!" I protested. "I'm just taking a little longer to post it!" Yeah, but it's not posted all in one go, so why should we bother to read it? We'll just wait until the end of January once it's finished. "Will I hear from you then? Will I get any indication at all that you liked it?" Eh, maybe. If we feel like it. But it'll only be one comment at the very end. If that.

This keeps happening. If it's not an already completed chaptered fic that I'm posting over time instead of immediately, then it's an idea that I had first talked about a while ago but took a couple months to write only to be met with silence once I start posting because everyone moved on and forgot about it. If it's not ready to go right now in all its fully finished glory and all 60k words posted immediately after I first spoke about it, then why am I talking about it at all? Why should I expect people to be waiting in anticipatory eagerness?

I remember when I posted my first Christmas event fic in 2020. It was already finished too when I started posting it. I'd been talking about it all year. People had seemed really excited for it when I first mentioned it, but then interest seemed to die out somewhere around August. By the time I started posting it in late November, I was fully convinced that no one was going to read it. I actually posted the first chapter and then immediately turned my computer off and didn't let myself turn it back on until the next day.

I was shocked by the number of readers I had. The number of comments. The sheer amount of people telling me they'd been waiting on tenterhooks for me to post that first chapter. And it kept coming. People were talking and theorizing and marking their conversations with spoiler bars for anyone who hadn't read the latest chapter. People timed when I posted the first few chapters so they could be waiting by their computer for when I dropped the next one. I was randomly gifted art. It was really an event, and I'll always be grateful for the support and community I was given for that month.

I never believed I'd ever be able to capture that kind of readership again, and I was right, and that's okay. But when I posted last year's Christmas event fic, for the first time since I started doing this in 2020, someone asked me why I bothered to space it out over a month instead of just posting the entire thing in one go on Christmas Day and how could I possibly expect them to be that invested for an entire month instead of just waiting until it was finished. I didn't know how to tell them that only three years prior, that's not only exactly what people did but they were excited for it to be like that.

If I'm not going to post my already completed fic in one lump sum right now, then the audience for it is nonexistent. And the audience won't grow once it's finished. It's like I have one opportunity to capture the readers and if they weren't willing to take the chance on the first chapter, then they'll never come back. It's disheartening, to say the least. Only six months ago, I was telling a friend that I thought this was my forever pairing, that I'd still be writing for this ship when I was old and grey. And now I'm going through my ideas folder, wondering what can be repurposed for other ships, because I increasingly feel not just that I'm shouting into a void but that the void is actively ignoring me.

I can't post wips because what if I abandon them or take too long to update? I can't post a chaptered fic in one go because that's too many words to expect people to read. But I can't space out posting completed chaptered fics either because everyone wants the instant gratification of the full fic right now. So what am I supposed to do?

I miss December 2020, but it's not the random art that I miss or the kudos or the number of comments. It was the community that built up around this fic. It was knowing that it was okay to space out the chapters because everyone was still right there with me, talking and theorizing and using their spoiler bars. It was my audience trusting me enough to come along with me for the ride instead of waiting for me to be done. I was so scared back then that the full year between me first talking about the idea and posting the first chapter had lost me my audience, scared that they'd all forgotten about me and moved on to other authors who were quicker to post, but I wish I'd known that three years later, it would only take four months for people to lose interest in an idea.

I'd have treated December 2020 like it was way more special than I did.

#alle talks #bad comments #fandom #writing

[jamesrodayrodriguezpresents]

Note to Psych acolytes: Don’t take the messaging on next week’s Blu-ray release literally.

Despite Universal touting its upcoming Psych boxed set — which includes all eight seasons of the James Roday Rodriguez-Dule Hill farce as well as the three revival pics — as the franchise’s “complete” library, a Peacock source tells TVLine that discussions are continuing to bring Shawn and Gus back for a fourth movie adventure.

Over the summer, Rodriguez told TVLine that “there are flickers of light” surrounding a follow-up to 2021’s Psych 3: This Is Gus, revealing that a fourth film was tentatively scheduled to go into production last year.

“The only reason that Psych 4 didn’t happen last year was scheduling,” explained Rodriguez, who in addition to his starring role also co-wrote all three movies with Psych creator Steve Franks. “It was all lined up, and we would’ve made an announcement, but then we just couldn’t pull it together in time with everybody going off to do [other projects]. So, now we just kind of have to regroup, wait for Peacock to decide that they want to pay for it again, and hopefully we’ll be good.”

Rodriguez — who earlier this year wrapped a five-season, 87-episode run on ABC’s A Million Little Things — also confirmed that the Psych 4 “script is done. And I think [it’s] pretty fun.”

Psych: The Movie premiered in December 2017 on the series’ original cable home, USA Network, while Psych 2: Lassie Come Home (which followed in July 2020) and Psych 3: This Is Gus (which arrived in November 2021) were both Peacock originals.

#psych #psych usa #psych peacock #michael ausiello #tvline #psych 4

[ericleo108]

Blog Navigation 2023

“The nation's greatness can be judged by how it treats its weakest members.” - Gandhi

Blog Navigation List: 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019

Last Updated 12/29/2023

Summary

I make these navigation posts at the end of the year to give a wrap-up and a look back on the year. I post a long-form Update every sunday to YouTube that ends up being in my Friday song release blog post. (You can find the Sunday Update YouTube playlist here.) My book “108 The Story of Discovering Earth’s Consciousness” is still fundamental in understanding my story, perspective, and the content I talk about here in the blog. I put the cosmic luve log first this time because I think it’s the most relevant. If you actually understand what I’m saying about how these celebrities are reflecting me and I think the coincidences are how Gaia is communicating using them as a vessel, you get it. The only real new treatise editions are to FarmingHumans.com where I came out with a new rendition for the “American Inequality” song release and the “Corporate Rule” album expands upon the public reaction to this in an aggressive tone.

2023 Cosmic Luve posts: (In Chronological Order)

In Last year’s blog navigation (2022), I listed all the cosmic luve entries since the very beginning. This year, I will begin where we left off and the last entry about Taylor Swift’s Folklore.

CosmicLuve.com April 2023 - Sun: In this entry, I give more of a personal update and set goals while relating it to the semantics I’ve been experiencing and previously mentioned. 

CosmicLuve.com July 2023 - The Main Thing: In this entry, I talk about how Emma Watson is the main thing and the reason for all my aspirations, so we can become friends. I talk about her posts on Instagram and relate them as a response to my poem in the Hope Sept 2022 entry. 

CosmicLuve.com August 2023 - Orange: In this entry, I talk about how it appears as if Gaia got me a taco for my birthday. I came to this conclusion after getting semantics from Selena Gomez and Connor Price. 

CosmicLuve.com September 2023 - Bam: In this entry, I introduce Janelle Monae as a cosmic luve and explain how Blue has diabolical plans against Big Carbon. 

CosmicLuve.com November 2023 - Cosmic Bros: In this entry, I induct Connor Price as the first cosmic bro after relating new semantics to the previous entry, Slender Man, Connor’s new “Thrillin” video, and new Hailee Steinfeld reflections. 

CosmicLuve.com December 2023 - Deer: In this entry I give a prophecy by identifying semantics from Gaia that come from Emma Watson being referenced by a deer, a tree, the color purple, etc.

Media and Treatise List:

Sociology:

🏚️FarmingHumans.com 2023 - This was the “American Inequality” song officially released this year and posted as the official Farming Humans 2023 edition. In this post I talk about what socialism is, how money is speech, and how corporations are legal persons and farming humans for labor and money (through consumption).

🎃Corporate Rule Album - The “Corporate rule” album expands upon the information outlined in the “American Inequality” song. The album is a response to that assault on democracy with an Immortal Technique approach. The blog post expands upon how there is a conspiracy of the corporate rich working in unison (using far-right tactics) because it serves their self-interests.

🧾NouveauEconomics.com 2022 - In this post, I talk about how the economy needs to account for what the environment does naturally and give it a monetary value. A start is how certain parts of the environment, like Lake Erie, are being granted personhood. This will be updated semi-annually and can be found at NouveauEconomics.com

🍱 The Psycho Consumption Cage 2021 - In this treatise, I talk about how it’s hard to see environmental degradation that is not added to our economics, how you should be using your buying power strategically, how apex species need economic and congressional representation, some solutions, and examples of psycho tendencies from Christmas and hip-hop.

🏳️‍🌈 Gender Equality 2021 - In this essay, I break down gender equality into six categories: LGBTQ, Phobic, Sexual, Mental, Feminist, and Economic. To properly show the subject of gender equality I reference the 6 Netflix documentaries and linked and discuss related videos from Ellen, HeForShe, TED, Jordan Peterson, The World Bank, and the UN.

🏁 Dark Racism 2021 - In this treatise, I explain the science of racism, how it’s an arbitrary distinction that is socially constructed. Black people do have it worse due to institutionalized racism and white privilege. However, I talk about how black people create their own in-group morality around the word “nigga,” and my presented solution.  

🌎👣 Earth: Sustainability, How To Save Our Planet - If you want to know how to save our planet this post is the summation. Taking from the featured WWF video, I focus on a carbon tax and the three ways to save the planet. Along the way I discuss how it relates to The Psycho Consumption Cage.

🌲Marijuana Treatise 2021 - Published on April 20th and introduced with a discussion of my personal use, in this essay, I wrote about the versatility of hemp, the immorality and failure of the war on drugs, and the medical benefits of cannabis. 

Philosophy: 

🌍108 The Story Of Discovering Earth’s Consciousness (post) - This book is fundamental to understanding me and stands as the foundation in which I build my artistry. The book is nonfiction and autobiographical and about celestial consciousness, my personal story of struggling with schizoaffective disorder, atmospheric consciousness, sustainability, and eugenics, and finishes with what the number 108 means for the origins of life on Earth.

🚸🚜 Knhoeing 2020 -  The information is broken down into celestial consciousness, atmospheric consciousness, sustainability, and eugenics. Knhoeing states the planets, stars, and atmosphere are alive, and how humans can understand that through sustainability and eugenics. Knhoeing has to do with understanding your position in the universe and expresses and addresses human purpose through a eugenics goal. To survive & thrive as a species, we must support ourselves through healthy sustainability and breed to understand higher dimensions. 

🙏Sentientism 2022 - This post contains insights into my mind and the voice in my head, Gaia. Sentientism explores the belief (whereas knhoeing is the knowledge) that Gaia is conscious and communicating. I explain how sentientism is the religion of Gaia where you worship through action and create dogma through science and philosophy. If the planet earth is conscious how would she try to communicate considering she has no mouth or ligaments? How would Gaia try to communicate? I postulate and explain how Gaia could be communicating through a kind of telepathic randonauting.

📐 Expanding on Plato’s Philosophy: Forms and the Tripartite Soul (2020) - In this treatise, I explain how Plato’s forms are stored and strived for by Gaia and how Plato’s theory about the tripartite soul is similar to my theory about the will.

♟️ Logic - This post is a short introduction to logic. I use quotes and pictures of pages from the book “How Philosophy Works.” The content includes deductive, inductive, and abductive reasoning, fallacies, and formal logic. I have also embedded a couple of CrashCourse videos.

Releases

🕸️New Release Blog at EricLeo.org - Over the last year I have been releasing at least on the 1st, 3rd, and if there is a 5th Friday of every month if not every week. Each release has its own post in my new release blog which is constantly being updated. The same posts are also here on this Tumblr blog as I post them at the same time. A list of releases is cataloged as follows:

2021

Read 108 - about my book

Vibe on the Wave - catchy intro

Eat The Mind - intellectual rap

Bump This Banger - party music

Cloud 9 - about recreational drugs

2022

Who’s Hip-Hop - my perspective in hip-hop

Black Lives Matter - support for the cause

Smoke Blunts - high intellectual bars

Flossin - dance track

Hey Emma - dance track, made for Emma’s everywhere

Champagne and Chocolate - romance track

Just Us Two - expression on evolution and companionship

Make It Hip-Hop - Homage to favorite artists

My Word - Celebrating 10 years

Gaia and Blue - Expands on “108” book

Love the Mission - the purpose of my music

Hit Me with the Download - a great tune

Talk to Me - romance track about wanting more

Cunnilingus - dating life experience track

Just Dance - dance track

Just Like You - happy expression 

We Dance - play when dancing is a protest

Come On Dawg - what my music stands for

The Villain - playing the role of the villain

Rage - subjects will put you in a rage

Bounce with This - party music inspired by Charlotte

Take Your Medication - Kayne Diss

2023

Gold Shaw Farm - about Morgan and Alyson’s farm on YouTube

Betsy - about the character from Hulu’s “Dopesick”

Bo Peep - political rap about America

Atheist Raps - self-explanatory, rebuke’s Christianity 

Blow Me Up - asking for help with exposure

Michigan Love - romance track about love in Michigan

I Got You - Letter asking for help from my fans

Breaking Bad - Eminem and Dr. Dre homage

Bleed - heartfelt plea about ending mass shootings

Going Gaga - fun romance track with Gaga Gaga-inspired hook

Funk You - response track to Olivia Rodrigo’s “good for you” and “deja vu”

What Now - 6 track EP about and inspired by other artists

Bong Hits For Jesus - about how when you smoke, you smoke with Jesus

Up Wasted - subjects and getting “fucked up wasted”

God Damn - fun and energetic track showing skill

Love You Mom - A thank you to my mother for being a good mom

American Inequality  - about how America is an oligarchy

John Wick - gets out aggression toward sex traffickers

Philosophy 101 - based off Cornel West’s Introduction to Philosophy Masterclass

Yeah We Bang - about American imperialism

Legend - about my feelings toward the music industry

We Make The Party - Party music with global warming bars 

Freaky Naughty - emulating Dr. Dre’s sound with global warming bars

With You - Cmadd feature about riding with your girl

Vulnerable - Selena Gomez response to her song with the same name.

Mitten Kingz - a song with artists representing Michigan

Soldier For Love - a message to keep going out of love

Our Love - a break-up and get back together song

My Everything - how your lover is your everything

Be My Dream - how I want Emma Watson to be my dream come true,

Reputation - A response to Taylor Swift's reputation 

Karma - about your fate in terms of civilization

Corporate Rule - 8-track album in Immortal Technique style

Earth - my hit and best representation of my music

Back to Life - Hailee Steinfeld response and homage. 

Process, People, Product - about Marcus Lemonis 3 P’s business philosophy 

All Homo - An edgy and controversial take on support for the gay community

Cosmic Luve Brownies - A response to Taylor Swift’s Lover album

Praises - a sexually charged song from artists from Kalamazoo Michigan 

…

Chalice Mixtape side note: “Talk to Me” (2022), “John Wick,” “Be My Dream,” “Reputation,” “Karma,” and the “All Homo” ep, were all remakes from ‘The Chalice Mixtape. “Charlotte’s Web” drops April 15 2023 and the remake for “I Love You” is in production. I will probably never remake “Listen Alice,” “Loyal,” “Problems,” or “The Profit.”

Already uploaded and scheduled to drop in 2024:

Kyle Beats Collective EP - 6 tracks made with free beats from Kyle Beats. Jan. 5th

Check it out - track from the (unofficial) party politics era/album Jan. 19th

Kato & Wysh Album - 7 tracks made with Kato and Wysh beats. Feb. 2nd

The Industry Album - 12 tracks with 14 features some with big names over Anno Domini beats. March 1st

Sun poem - spoken word track I recorded from the Cosmic Love Sept 2022 hope post. March 19

Charlotte’s Web - Emma Watson-inspired track released on her birthday. April 15th

Westside Connection Album - 7 tracks with big name features over Anno Domini beats. May 3

YOU - Song based on John Gottman’s 7 principles for making marriage work. June 7th

Can You Hear Me? - Rap song about global warming and summer heat. June 20th

[mariacallous]

If you still hold any notion that Google Chrome’s “Incognito mode” is a good way to protect your privacy online, now’s a good time to stop.

Google has agreed to delete “billions of data records” the company collected while users browsed the web using Incognito mode, according to documents filed in federal court in San Francisco on Monday. The agreement, part of a settlement in a class action lawsuit filed in 2020, caps off years of disclosures about Google’s practices that shed light on how much data the tech giant siphons from its users—even when they’re in private-browsing mode.

Under the terms of the settlement, Google must further update the Incognito mode “splash page” that appears anytime you open an Incognito mode Chrome window after previously updating it in January. The Incognito splash page will explicitly state that Google collects data from third-party websites “regardless of which browsing or browser mode you use,” and stipulate that “third-party sites and apps that integrate our services may still share information with Google,” among other changes. Details about Google’s private-browsing data collection must also appear in the company’s privacy policy.

Additionally, some of the data that Google previously collected on Incognito users will be deleted. This includes “private-browsing data” that is “older than nine months” from the date that Google signed the term sheet of the settlement last December, as well as private-browsing data collected throughout December 2023. Certain documents in the case referring to Google's data collection methods remain sealed, however, making it difficult to assess how thorough the deletion process will be.

Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda says in a statement that the company “is happy to delete old technical data that was never associated with an individual and was never used for any form of personalization.” Castaneda also noted that the company will now pay “zero” dollars as part of the settlement after earlier facing a $5 billion penalty.

Other steps Google must take will include continuing to “block third-party cookies within Incognito mode for five years,” partially redacting IP addresses to prevent re-identification of anonymized user data, and removing certain header information that can currently be used to identify users with Incognito mode active.

The data-deletion portion of the settlement agreement follows preemptive changes to Google’s Incognito mode data collection and the ways it describes what Incognito mode does. For nearly four years, Google has been phasing out third-party cookies, which the company says it plans to completely block by the end of 2024. Google also updated Chrome’s Incognito mode “splash page” in January with weaker language to signify that using Incognito is not “private,” but merely “more private” than not using it.

The settlement's relief is strictly “injunctive,” meaning its central purpose is to put an end to Google activities that the plaintiffs claim are unlawful. The settlement does not rule out any future claims—The Wall Street Journal reports that the plaintiffs’ attorneys had filed at least 50 such lawsuits in California on Monday—though the plaintiffs note that monetary relief in privacy cases is far more difficult to obtain. The important thing, the plaintiffs’ lawyers argue, is effecting changes at Google now that will provide the greatest, immediate benefit to the largest number of users.

Critics of Incognito, a staple of the Chrome browser since 2008, say that, at best, the protections it offers fall flat in the face of the sophisticated commercial surveillance bearing down on most users today; at worst, they say, the feature fills people with a false sense of security, helping companies like Google passively monitor millions of users who've been duped into thinking they're browsing alone.

[rivalsforlife]

The Yearly AA Series Future Speculation Post

I've given up on calling it aa7 speculation because that has never worked out for me. anyways [apollo justice voice] hiya!

It's been a while since I made one of these little posts where I try to predict things and end up horribly embarrassing myself. BUT this year has actually been very exciting for Ace Attorney. We have Ghost Trick! We have 456 ports! Could there be more? Who knows. Tokyo Game Show is coming up and that's always a bad time of year for my self-esteem.

In this post I will do the following:

-Go over the November 2020 leaks again, to compare that to where we're at now

-Talk a bit about the 456 port and what I think that means for the series and its future

-Talk a bit about how well TGAA is doing, I think

-Brief Tokyo Game Show speculations (there's not much to speculate about)

I'll reference my previous posts and sources where necessary. It'll get long and rambly again so I'll put the rest under a keep reading.

FIRST:

Revisiting the Calendar (Again)

For those who aren't aware, back in November 2020, Capcom got hacked (this was overall bad) and from that hack came a leak of a roadmap for the future of the AA series.

For this post, please keep in mind that this calendar is using the Japanese fiscal year, which starts in in April. Therefore Q1 is roughly April-June, Q2 July-September, Q3 October-December, Q4 January-March of the next year.

This calendar was likely made in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, which inevitably ended up throwing everything off quite a bit.

Some of these things came true. This leak was where we first heard about the official TGAA ports, and while they were delayed by about a quarter, they still came out pretty close to on time with all things pandemic to consider. What's especially interesting is that now with confirmation of the 456 ports, we now have no idea what is up with AA7.

We know that AA7 was in development at one point. We know that, if things were on track prior to the pandemic, they might have started the main production. However, the plan seemed to be to release it for the 20th anniversary and use those sales and the sales from TGAA to judge whether 456 would be ported; now that we have 456 confirmed before AA7, we can assume that AA7's delay is so severe we have no way of predicting if or when it will come out.

The thing is, though, AA has been doing really well the last few years, despite the lack of a new game. The 2019 ports of the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney trilogy have sold around 2.3 million copies, when previously no other Ace Attorney game broke a million. The trilogy hit a million copies around December 2020, for reference. Ace Attorney itself as a whole broke ten million copies sold recently. In this post I covered how TGAA seemingly has sold way more than Capcom expected, and sold pretty quickly, and is confirmed to be somewhere between 500k-1 million copies sold.

I don't see any reason to believe that AA is in dire financial straits. We've gotten more official merchandise in the last year or so than we got for a while, AA is featured heavily on Capcom's Captown website, the Tokyo Game Show merchandise store has been selling out of AA merch faster than any of their other IPs... I don't see why they wouldn't want to milk that. And 456 is probably a part of it.

What Do The 456 Ports Mean

Back in March 2022, in an event I almost completely forgot about, Capcom updated their trademark for Apollo Justice. I covered my thoughts on that here, and speculated it might indicate a 456 port. ... Which it apparently did. I'll quote exactly what I said in that post, since I still feel this way:

Presumably, previously, the decision to port or not to port 456 would be dependent both on how well TGAA does and how well AA7 would do. With no AA7, they might be making this decision solely based on TGAA. And they… might actually decide it’s worth the port?

This tells us a couple of things.

1.Capcom is aware that there is a decent market and profit to be made porting the Ace Attorney games to all consoles.

2.This heavily implies that TGAA sold fantastically.

I also said in my post about TGAA's success that the 456 ports would be the best indicator of whether Capcom would find it more profitable to continue along with mainline or stick to writing more things about TGAA. Because TGAA is actually doing... pretty great? It's always seemed to have a pretty good fan reception, but it came at the end of the 3DS life cycle and seemed to do poorly enough that Capcom didn't try to localize it for several years. But now it's big enough that Ryunosuke made it onto the 20th anniversary logo, and Ryunosuke and Kazuma are featured in some of the Ace Attorney merchandise for TGS's merch store.

456 doing well would probably reinvigorate Capcom's desire to continue making stories set in mainline. It also might inspire them to finally give an official translation to my favorite game, Ace Attorney Investigations 2, who is Capcom's poor unloved child these days. I'm not expecting Investigations Ports for a few more years, since they seem to be spacing out the ports by about two years, but... it's more likely now than I felt it was about three years ago.

The Great Ace Attorney Sweep

Also, the last few years have had a heavy focus on Great Ace Attorney, even now a couple of years after the ports came out. Takarazuka made their first AA musical in a decade based on TGAA, and, if you ask me, it sounds pretty heavily like they were teasing for a sequel someday. There also has been a reading theater based on TGAA, with an original episode written by Takumi.

Of particular relevance is this source of dubious credibility I linked to in one of my other posts talking about TGAA's expected success. I've assumed it came from the data in the November 2020 Capcom Leak but I can't be certain, so take this next part with a grain of salt.

Here are the original sales projections from 2019(?): FY21: 195K (originally supposed to launch in Q1) FY22: 55K FY23: 8K FY24: 41K (with 32K being in Q3)

This sudden increase in FY24 has always been interesting. Again, as a reminder, Japan's FY24 Q3 would be equivalent to October-December 2024.

It would make sense to say that the 456 ports coming out would likely lead to an increase in sales for all AA games, and it could be that Capcom initially intended for a 456 port to come out about half a year later than the current projection of early 2024. At the same time... I can't deny the possibility that this could be hinting at a new game in the TGAA setting. And something coming out in late 2024 could be a reasonable candidate for an announcement at some major gaming show that Ace Attorney fans already have an interest in tuning into. These are all completely neutral things I am saying that I have no expectations or hope for whatsoever.

What IS Happening At Tokyo Game Show?

TGS is always the part of the year where I say "This is the most likely place for a new AA game announcement leading up to or during it" and it never happens. This year, though, will be different! We have a CONFIRMED feature of the 456 ports. This is the first time we'll have AA content at TGS since 2018, when I first got into the series, so I think it's a pretty big deal. (2018 was when the trilogy ports were first announced; TGAA ports had an announcement-release window of April-July, so they didn't get a chance to feature at TGS.)

Since all we have for a release date is early 2024, I wouldn't be surprised if there will be an official confirmation of the release date, probably a showcase of port features, maybe in-person gameplay? That could be all, and it would be more than we've had since 2018.

I want to say "because there's going to be 456 advertising there, it would be ridiculous for them to announce some new AA content to detract from that". But I said the same things about the capcom showcase where Ghost Trick was featured and the 456 collection was announced, so. Capcom's decisions on when to announce things can be counterintuitive, it seems, so maybe the least likely time is actually the most likely...?

Anyways, we have no idea what the state of New Ace Attorney Content is like in Capcom. From the calendar from the Nov 2020 leaks, the staff that had been working on the DGS ports would join the main staff for AA7, suggesting to me that there would be part of the staff working on ports and part of the staff working on new things. We have no idea what happened to these people who were supposed to be working on AA7. We *can* assume that at least part of the staff transferred over to 456 ports now, but we don't know when that would have been, or if they'd really need all hands on deck for a remaster.

It's been a few years now since Yamazaki left Capcom. We know absolutely nothing about what Takumi has been doing, outside of whatever contributions he may or may not have made to the Ghost Trick remaster, and only recently contributing to various stage content. (We know he advised at least somewhat on the Takarazuka play, and wrote that original episode for the reading theater, so I'd assume he's not in the middle of a big project right when those were taking place.)

This is all to say, there's reason to believe Something's Been Happening Behind The Scenes. And Therefore -- [clown wig descends onto my head again] Maybe TGS 2023 Will Be The Year Of New Ace Attorney Content. Since 456 will be taking the spotlight, I wouldn't expect anymore than a teaser, if it's happening at all.

And now that I've said it, it won't happen.

OVERALL

-TGS confirmed 456 port feature, which should be interesting to see what kind of quality of life features they'll add. Slight possibility there could be something else AA related teased there, solely because Capcom.

-I think TGAA is doing better than Capcom expected and I wouldn't be shocked if they tried to make a new game of it, or at least more extracanonical content like stage plays taking place in that timeline

-AA7 has seemingly vanished but I am sure it will come back when I least expect it.

-AAI ports someday. please. please. please.

#ace attorney #aa7 speculation #[banging pots and pans together] YEAR 3 OF FAILED PREDICTIONS LET'S GIVE IT UP FOR YEAR 3 #there's not much to say here I just wanted to get something out as we're heading into september #do I even want aa7 anymore? no. am I speculating anyways? yes.

[princeanxious]

Hi! I was wondering about your Lost Guardian au from ages ago, do you think you’ll ever plan on updating it and if not, could someone else take up the fic?

So heres the thing. If someone wants to write a fic *inspired* by The Lost Guardian, i’m not gonna stop them, and i’d probably feel super honored so long as the inspiration was correctly credited!

As for ‘taking up the fic,’ the short answer is no.

I have active drafts and the rest of the story already planned out to its finish, notes, even a branch-off fic set post-story that will likely go up on my nsfw blog if i ever get around to editing it. The Lost Guardian hasn’t been abandoned, it’s simply on hiatus. (And yes, i recognize 3 almost 4 years so far is a really fucking long hiatus. The Chapter 9 draft doc was made in december of 2020, and last edited in July 2022)

I started writing that fic whilst still in highschool, a time where I was 17 and didnt have to worry yet about getting my license or maintaining a part time job, i had an over abundance of freetime even partially to my detriment, the fandom was booming and I had plenty of feedback, and this fic was (and still *is*) a story im proud of.

But i’m 22 now, working a full time job to pay rent and account for a number of minor ‘disabilities’(best word i have for them atm) that I cant ignore or push to the side nor treat poorly, from the lasting effects on my body of stunted growth to celiac/glutent intolerance to adhere to that directly determines how easily my body functions for the week, to dealing with glasses i cannot afford to break and taking care of teeth i cannot afford to fix, taking care of my mental health and using the free time i have to do what brings me the most joy at that time.

The sanders sides fandom has heavily quieted down with the season finale hiatus and I’d like to think I did pretty well for going six long years dedicated solely to that without cracking under the silence, because *I knew* when I caved to something else it’d be a long while before I had the drive to come back with any sort of resolution to my active works. Thats just how my hyper fixations work. I cannot focus on multiple at once, it’s too much to process simultaneously and takes away my enjoyment bc I tend to watch/consume things repeatedly to catch every little detail i missed. And it doesn’t help when one loses steam because their content barely breaks 100 notes(80% of which are likes, 15% are reblogs with the occasional comment, and 5% are self-reblogs) when back in the height of it all, a few thousand notes was pretty average interaction. This blog still has about 11.5k followers, almost all of which came from the height of the fandom period. So for now i’ve moved onto the FNAF DCA fandom, bc it is fresh and new to me.

I know you didn’t mean to poke the bear here, I get it, but like.. C’mon. Any other fic of mine likely wouldn’t have gotten the same reaction in full but, still. I’ve had to answer this question a handful of times over the years at the point, which might be why this response feels so charged, and i’m sorry.

I don’t mean to come off as snippy or rude, but it *is* kind of invasive to offer to finish one’s creative work when it’s taking too long and theres very little payback for it. I’ve got adhd, delayed satisfaction isn’t a thing I experience. Just guilt that it wasn’t finished in a way for me to post it in time before I broke and lost all motivation to share it.

In my head, TLG has been long finished and held the ending for years, theres just been no energy to put in the effort of finish writing it for others to read. I’m still trying to get my life together to change that, don’t get me wrong, but the American economy is literally in shambles so who knows how or even if i’ll manage that. Call me selfish for being content with only mentally having my creative story’s ending and a collection of rambles and notes to show for it, but at the end of the day, it’s still my story, and i dont feel comfortable with people trying to ‘take up the mantle’ to finish it, when they don’t know how it ends.

I’m glad you like it enough to want to, though, I really *really* am. I’m just sorry I haven’t been able to finish it for you all. And i just don’t know when that will be, I just know that I *want* to do so, however long it takes.

#luka answers #sanders sides #tlg fic #the lost guardian au #luka’s aus #luka rambles #luka rants

[yurimother]

GL Webtoon 'Master of the Fox Bead' Serialized on Tapas

On August 30, an English version of Gyaga's Korean Yuri webtoon Master of the Fox Bead began digital serialization on Tapas. The first 20 English episodes were released on the 30th, with new updates coming out every Tuesday.

"What would you want to wish for if you have a wish-granting marble?" Master of the Fox Bead follows Lee Jinhwa, a normal high school student who jokes with her friends about silly urban legends and crushes on her cute classmate Seoha. One day, she awakens late at night to find a mysterious orb, a fox bead, which leads to her being haunted by Koo Miho, the mystical nine-taled fox determined to retrieve it. But other forces are also chasing the bead, and the only way for Miho to utilize its power and defend Lee Jinhwa is to kill her... or kiss her.

The series was originally serialized on Kakao Webtoon (formerly Webtoon Daum) from December 2020 until its conclusion last May. It ran for 60 episodes.

Master of the Fox Bead incorporates horror elements and imagery in its fantasy romance story. It is the first Yuri series from BL artist GyaGa, whose other works include Cover Up, The Baker on the First Floor, and I'm Yours, Blood and Soul, all of which are licensed by Lezhin US.

You can read Master of the Fox Bead for free on Tapas today.

#Gl #yuri #GL Webtoon #gl manhwa #yuri manhwa #girls love #gay #lesbian #news #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtq+ #queer #lesbians

[spinef0ryou]

Interview with Ville Valo in Metal Hammer magazine, words by Alexander Milas. Transcript under the cut

It’s a gloomy November evening in London and inside the crystalline bowels of the Universal Music tower there are dark goings-on under a winter moon. An arcane gathering of power-brokers, decision makers, and tastemakers, has convened to hear the first, dulcet tones of a new record in its entirety - a lyrical and melodious exsanguination called Neon Noir. Less an album, the subject of tonight’s attention is more like a swan song played in reverse or a departed loved one’s voice playing in the wind. We’ll get to that.

There are no robes here, such vestigial ornaments long since done away with to provide anonymity on public transportation, but the importance of these proceedings is in no way diminished. This is how the music industry in all its mysterious dealings determines where and when its various powers are to be invoked - an Illuminati-like network of aligned hands is this rogues' gallery of journalists, label managers and festival promoters. Even the helmswoman of the gazette you hold in your verv hands can be seen lurking in the shadows.

At the centre of the dim chamber stands a lone, flat-capped figure, his chiselled visage peculiarly, vampirically unchanged by the many years since he first graced the cover of an international publication such as this, and let it be said that he was never a stranger to these folios.

If anything can be said of Ville Valo's appearance it's that he could teach anyone half his age a thing or two about self-presentation - and, for the record, they'd be 23 at time of publication. Svelte, casually besuited and elegantly understated in his attire - all different hues of black, obviously - he's been affably chatting with the gathered conclave with such fluidity and confidence that anyone would think it's something he does every day, and anyone who knows his incongruous penchant for reclusiveness when off the stage would suspect that maybe he's changed since we saw him last.

For the record, he does not, and he has not. Ten long years have passed since His Infernal Majesty's final release, the career summation that was 2013's Tears On Tape, and it has been five years since Him played their final note on the second of two sold-out nights at the London Roundhouse in December of 2017. Their concluding song was the aptly chosen, syrupy dirge of When Love And Death Embrace, and the mortuary pallor of its refrains couldn't have been better matched to the forlorn mood of that distinctly funereal moment.

For many, it was a farewell to one of life's few constants: Him were less like a band and more like a comforting gothic world to those who fell prey to its blackened enchantments, and as if further affirmation is needed, no one in the field of music has since emerged to even remotely fill the heartagram-shaped hole left in Ville's wake. As the lights in the venue went up to reveal no shortage of streaked mascara, it would have been impossible to surmise whether we'd ever hear from Ville again - such was the finality of that tour and the deathly vibe of that night.

More desolate still was the long silence that ensued after the 26-year adventure he spearheaded under an iconic banner designed by his own hand. Eight records, ten million sales and countless fans getting heartagram tattoos of variable quality were the tallies of Ville's musical ledger.It was over. Him was dead. Their founder was gone. And then, quietly, headless blooms began to flank his headstone.

First came the news that he was blowing off the cobwebs to undertake a tour of Finland to record and perform songs by the late, beloved Finnish singer-songwriter Rauli 'Badding' Somerjoki, with Somerjoki's old band, Agents. The project smashed the charts in Finland before they eventually disbanded.

More silence followed until March 2020, when an unheralded EP was released under a new banner, VV complete with an updated reimagining of the famed heartagram. A portent of what was to come, Gothica Fennica Vol. 1 was far from alien to anyone familiar with Him's long-established sound, but it also bore the hallmarks of a songwriter unbound by the restraints of collaboration or co-writing. As the world smouldered, it was a hopeful omen that perhaps not everything had been lost to the pandemic.

We retreat from the listening session to a quieter room to shine to shine a neon light on the story of the rebirth and toil that followed, a res-erection-

Ville shoots a look as if to say, 'You're not gonna write that, are you?' Well…

“‘Promo tours are like Bullet-point for my Valentine.”

Ville has sunk into his armchair, a body deflated. We've just been talking about the sometimes less-than-rock'n'roll demands of album promotion, and how while just 10 years have passed since Him's final release, a lifetime of change in the industry's inner workings has followed. It's Thursday and Ville's already done the rounds in Berlin this week, plus a big photo session, too - rumour has it that a smoke machine for a cover shoot triggered a confrontation with security here yesterday. Whoever the photographer was that bolted the door shut so the shoot could continue remains a mystery at the time of going to press.

But despite Ville's tiredness after two days of media-based pokes and prods and his first international flight in five years, he's still exhibiting a remarkably playful way with words: the product of voracious reading and self-confessed Anglophilia that can make it easy to forget this is his second language, although as we'll soon discover there are some words that resist translation.

We're reflecting on how many times he's appeared in the pages of Metal Hammer. I produce a photo from many years gone by, taken by Mick Hutson. It's Ville, looking like a goth deer caught in headlights, sitting in the back of a limo between the late Dimebag Darrell and Mötley Crüe's Nikki Sixx on his way to the Metal Hammer Golden God awards. He smirks.

"It was a playground, wasn't it?" he says of the Ville of yore. "Oh my god, that was a weird one. I remember Dimebag - he'd been up all night, and there's me stuck in the middle. I gave my Golden God award to Zakk Wylde's daughter. He told me she was a huge fan and I'd had a sip too many, so…”

And let it be said that by the time Him went stratospheric - a runway stretching between 2000's Razorblade Romance and 2003's definitive Love Metal - there were few publications that weren't peppering their pages with images of Ville. photogenic but, more importantly, hilarious, his wry and dismissive self-regard tempered the styled polish of his many covershoots. In a time when emo was king, Ville brought something current but gleefully out of step with fashion, musical and otherwise, but he persevered because, arguably, beyond the music he possessed that rare quality that escapes so many whose trade is on the road and in music studios. He was interesting, and Him and their legion of fans were their own movement. For a time, if you ever stood at the back of one of their sold-out shows, it looked something like Beatlemania directed by Tim Burton.

“What would you say to yourself back then?” He smiles and takes a moment before replying.

“It isn't a horror movie thing, but my oldest self has whispered to my younger self many times. You know, I could have done stuff way wiser in the sense of trying to become more successful in terms of money, listening to record companies or whatnot, because people had a damn hard time trying to figure out what we were all about. I wouldn't do anything differently because then I wouldn't be here - that's the beauty of it."

And, tracing the course of what Ville did, what he's doing now, there's little to suggest that anything has changed in terms of his resistance to the common methods of self-promotion. In a time of compulsive micro-blogging and algorithm-feeding content, the official 'Heartagram' Instagram account posts at roughly the same rate as the Vatican. Be it about the preservation of mystery or a refusal to play the game, let it never be said that he didn't do it his way.

“I’m a slow learner. I only learned about the eggplant emoji yesterday! But as for those whispers, it's something to do with the nonlinearity of time," he continues. "I had some foresight to the pandemic, though, and found myself a house with a photography studio which I turned into a music studio. It's one big room that enabled me to spread around all the weird pieces of kit from all eras - sort of my creative central. During the pandemic, that's all I did. There was no rhyme or reason, I just thought it was time to move on and do something different. It could have been my older self whispering to my younger self in the middle of the night, like, 'Now's a good time. You'll understand it better in a few years.' So yeah, it could be one of those things."

We notice a white wall in the corridor is covered in dozens of Sharpie signatures from fellow artists who’ve passed through. Some are small, while pop groups Bastille and Westlife have gone big with huge cubital letters. Unimpressed, Ville reaches for a glow-in-the-dark V sticker from his breast pocket and wryly sticks it up at the top. Always a rebel.

Was it hard to decide which direction to go in after Him?

“Musically, I'm a pair of bell-bottoms," he says. "If you want to follow hits, you're always going to be too late. Music and art is essential for my wellbeing, it's the air that I breathe - it's natural for me, but at times I've felt like a human among the lizard people, an infiltrator from another galaxy. The only thing I can do is the thing I can do."

Of course, it raises the question of how VV and indeed Neon Noir came about. That Ville has always presided over every detail of his music is no secret - there's never been a doubt as to whose vision it all was, and the ending of Him is just as important as the beginning we're here to discuss. As anyone who's seen the end of a relationship will know, the signs of impending demise can appear long before the cracks emerge, and the conclusion of Him was no different. To paraphrase a singer named BB on the prologue to VV, the thrill was gone...

"Expiration is funny when it comes to bands," he says matter-of-factly. Whatever wounds may have been inflicted, they have long since closed, and he's at ease when prompted on what went down.

"It didn't happen overnight - we'd started having trouble after Tears On Tape. Gas (Lipstick] had left the band and we found a new drummer, which was fantastic for a time, but we just couldn't find it in ourselves - a new album. We started working on ideas, but they didn't sound very good. The adult way to approach things is that if it's something you really do love, you have to love them enough to let them go when the right moment comes. The spark was no longer there, so timing-wise, it was good - I wouldn't have minded it to happen a little earlier because now I see the end of my own career in the distance. I never wanted it to feel like a job. You'll see bands touring where it quite clearly is. Something so central needs to be full of passion and laughter and joy and tears - dramatic, like a pint of milk."

Dairy funny. Have you been in touch with the guys since then, we ask?

"I haven't been in touch with Gas in more than 10 years," comes the reply. "And Linde [Mikko 'Linde' Lindström, guitarist] is quite a solitary fellow who's not a big talker anyway. But Mige [Mikko 'Mige' Paananen, bassist] was a bit of a Rick Rubin on the album. He was like this weird guru that came by every three months and gave me a stamp of approval, like, 'Yeah, this is fine.' He's one of my earliest childhood friends and one of my best mates still, so we keep in touch - that's rare. It's been 35 years or something..."

It was that relationship that provided something of the lifeline that Ville needed. He describes the feeling after Him's final show as something akin to phantom limb syndrome, where amputees report sensation in appendages that are no longer there.

"I felt like an outsider, an outcast," he says. "[I felt like] I didn't understand myself, and that the world doesn't understand me or that I didn't belong. It's a profound feeling, you know, to existentially feel that you don't understand the world or your place in it. Funnily enough, how I got through that was writing. The pandemic really painted everyone into a corner. I wasn't suicidal, but there was a tinge of depression as well, not seeing tomorrow or the worth of the day after tomorrow. People reacted in different ways. I forced myself back to music, and music gave me the gift of song once again. I was able to pull off a couple of Sabbath rip-offs, so that made me feel better. That was a big deal."

Ville will go on to animatedly recount how the loss of purpose and trajectory coupled with the worldwide shutdown was in some sense the perfect reset post-Him, and while he hit a very low ebb, it was precisely the kind of downtime he needed and hadn't had since Him's formation when he was just a teen.

"There was no scheduling, nobody to communicate with about what I was working on, so it was very unfiltered intuition, straight to tape or whatever recording medium, and I found myself having goosebumps like I'd never had before. Well..." his eyes impishly go to the ceiling, "musically, at least. I'm scared of stuff being really repetitive - it's nice to enjoy a binge watch on Netflix, but you're never gonna get the time back. That doesn't mean, 'Don't do it! But enjoy the now, take advantage of the time. That's what we'll be doing when we go on tour with the band next year, challenging myself to do lots of things and not step into a sort of zombified existence. People are so distracted…”

At the beginning of the Divine Comedy, the main character - Dante Alighieri's Pilgrim - wrote of finding himself in a dark wood halfway through the walk of life; the straight path, lost. It was a roundabout way of describing the confusion that can come with middle age, but in his mid-4os and with the deep shadows and brilliant highlights of an illustrious career in the rear-view mirror, I wonder aloud if the same could be said of the current predicament.

Dante's come up because, as is often the case with Ville, the subjects of language and literature are never far away. I ask him to elaborate on that tinge of depression he's mentioned, and he says one thing. and lets it hang in the air: "Kaiho."

Sorry?

"Kai-ho," he says again, slowly. It's a Finnish word, he explains, that defies direct translation but describes the twist of emotions he was detangling in the wake of a lifetime on the road and in the limelight. "It isn't a negative feeling. It's a bittersweet reverie. I think Finnish people find it profoundly positive as well, because it also means that you have lived, you have loved and that you experience things that actually make a difference, at least to you personally, hopefully, for the people around you."

Did you struggle?

"I had a month where I didn't get out of bed," he states.

"Around that long, at least. I was pretty worried about it. I forced myself up and back to music through conversations with mates, you know, getting my spirits up a bit, but it was a weird feeling. It's not like you can't get up. You just don't want to get up. You don't want to do anything and you can't really do anything: just super-tired, some form of post-traumatic stress after all the years. It could be that it took a while for it to hit, and it coincided with a pandemic. I wasn't able to do anything, so my body and my mind told me to get the sleep I missed back in the day. Thankfully I slept it off, but life doesn't get any easier. It's getting more complicated, more bittersweet - a tough combo. A pint half full, half empty…”

Of course, the wrought-iron melody of Neon Noir's various paeans to love and loss wouldn't seem correct if they came from a place of emotional buoyancy, but if the slump Ville describes really was just making up for lost sleep-time, he's making no bones about his desire to get back to work.

"I'm not thinking about the end, but what I do realise is that, thinking in logical terms, it's going to be really weird if I'm 60 and still in it, which means that I have less than that in terms of album cycles. It starts to get a bit scary because I've done music all my life, but then again, thinking like that makes me smile."

So how does a 46-year-old's vision of love change from, say, a 20-year-old's?

"Well, maybe we haven't had that 'one true love' in the traditional sense in Shakespearean drama: the overwhelming one that takes over everything. You can't compare relationships and you shouldn't - different times, different people, different chemistry, different reasons. Music is still at its best when it's a soundtrack to important events."

So how does Neon Noir reflect your own life?

"It's very sincere - it encapsulates things. The indecisiveness on whether I belong to the camp of Black Sabbath or Depeche Mode, the constant struggle with good and evil. Run Away From The Sun is the first song I wrote and I didn't know if I had a song in me at all, but I had to start from somewhere. I had all these ideas. I started to do it and follow my intuition. I wasn't in a rush, I had no deadlines - I didn't even know if I was going to continue, and that was the most fruitful ground, because it felt real and unadulterated by pressure…”

As new as it all is for Ville, there are some things that have remained unchanged, or perhaps present is a better word. The heartagram was, after all, the gothic bat-signal of the early 00’s onward...

"It was everything Him stood for," he says. "I just wiggled that one line and realised it has my initials, and that was the reason I called the project VV, and I liked that it had a 'V for Victory' kinda vibe to it, and visually it had the traditional aspect to it, a current iteration of the same idea. It's symbolic, because I didn't want to force myself to take a completely different route musically. I'm not an actor, and Him all happened very organically. I was finding my voice, or whatever you want to call it, through Type O and Black Sabbath back then, and I still am."

From the mood in the room it's a welcome return indeed. It seems that for the first time in a lifetime he's found his path -with the help of a little neon to hold back the darkness.

LIGHTS OUT

Ville Valo reveals the dark secrets behind new album Neon Noir

01: ECHOLOCATE YOUR LOVE

"I was enjoying a documentary on the navigational skills of bats and imagined their nocturnal courting calls bouncing eerily between the walls of the abyss in a gothic ping pong-fashion. To make sure I was communicating this musical vision clearly, I included a cowbell in the middle eight, just because whenever one can, one should."

02: RUN AWAY FROM THE SUN

"The light at the end of the tunnel can sometimes shine so bright it’s scary, and my running-away skills have been highly developed over the years by sweeping most of my issues under the carpet. There are also a few church bell samples ringing among all the 80s-inspired synth sequences, only to make sure the ever-fickle balance between good and evil doesn't err on the side of Skywalker."

03: NEON NOIR

“ A cheerful memento mori if there ever was one, and my first guitar solo on record. The working title was 'Vangelis Halen' and I think I managed to get fairly close in marrying the claustrophobic beauty of Blade Runner with the reckless abandon of VH, in a sort of funeral-car-crash-in-slow-motion-type setting.”

04: LOVELETTING

“ An ode to the setting sun and a tale of dancing on the razor's edge between holding on and letting go. A moribundle of joy in a patchouli garden, with handclaps."

05: THE FOREVERLOST

"The Finnish tourism board should definitely include ‘Nyctophile Shangri-La' as a tagline promoting Finland from now on instead of the worn-out Santanic slogans of yore. A menace-à-trois between Andrew Eldritch, Jaz Coleman and Peter Hook.”

06: BABY LACRIMARIUM

“Quite a traditional love song written by someone who takes the Poe in poetry a wee bit too seriously. A study on blocked tear ducts and The Cure."

07: SALUTE THE SANGUINE

"None of the ways out are easy, so taking the road less travelled is always the preferred method. 'If I could only say the same about the music,’ mutters the little Devil on my shoulder."

08: IN TRENODIA

"A world-building exercise at its bleakest, 'Trenodia' representing a highly modified utopia lit by every shade of blue, with a suitably melancholy soundtrack played at the wrong speed."

09: HEARTFUL OF GHOSTS

"Heartful Of Ghosts is essentially a heart-wrenching tale of paranormal love and supernatural betrayal. Sonically, this lies somewhere between a lava lamp and acupuncture... with fangs.”

10: SATURNINE SATURNÁLIA

"Saturnine Saturnalia is romantic doom and gloom at its very finest, and probably the most Sabbathian moment there is on the album. I dug out my Excalibur - the deranged fuzz pedal and vintage army flask-combo that Mige of Him built me many a moon ago - and tended to my tinnitus with gusto.”

11: ZENER SOLITAIRE

"Imagine if this was Phil Spector's ghost reinterpreting Goblin's soundtrack for Dario Argento's movie Suspiria in glorious lo-fi."

12: VERTIGO EYES

"When you meet someone whose eyes are as hypnotic as watching the Vertigo logo spinning on your turntable, you're either in love or your drink has been spiked. This is a nod to the ghosts of the past, present and future, and a suitably hallucinatory way to end the record."

#ville valo #him #his infernal majesty #neon noir #interview #interviews

[vgperson]

What Did I Do In 2022?

Game Translations That Aren't YTTD: 1. Okay, maybe 1.5.

----

First of all, while I didn't add it until later in the year (not entirely unmotivated by the Stability of Platforms), my site now has an RSS feed for notable updates of any kind! I mention this upfront because I'm mostly just going over the things that are already listed there. It currently retroactively covers everything back to 2020, but I might add more past stuff over time so it can better serve as a general "everything I've ever done" page.

In February, I translated Kenshi Yonezu's POP SONG (and an interview). Noel The Mortal Fate Seasons 1-7 also got a revamped version on consoles (Switch, PS4); the console versions include a new Season 3.5 translated entirely by me, and the rest of the seasons have a revised script which is more thoroughly edited by me than even the redone Steam translation was.

In March, the update adding Kai to Your Time To Shine came out. Yes, he is Kai.

In April, I finally finished up my unofficial Japanese translation patch for Petal Crash. たのしいね、クラッシュ！ It actually just got some extra attention after the Petal Crash run for RTA In Japan about two days ago, which is kind of wild. Is this what it's like to be famous...? (clueless)

In May, I translated Kenshi Yonezu's Shin Ultraman theme song M87 (interview, interview), and the coupling song from the single, ETA. And there was an article about the 10th anniversary of his debut!

Also in May, the Ib remake came out on Steam in English! Told you they'd contact me. It was later announced to be coming to Switch, scheduled for March 2023.

In August, Your Turn To Die was announced to be coming to Steam. It's planned for early 2023, but to be clear, it'll release first in Early Access still with no final part, though with some exclusive mini-episodes and character profile sheets. Apparently once that's out, the actual completion is estimated for 6 to 12 months later... but, you know. Estimates are hard.

In September, I put together a guide for and officially "released" my Custom Translation Engine plugin for RPG Maker MV, the one I made for the Ib remake, and back-implemented into Your Turn To Die shortly after I was contacted about it coming to Steam. It's fancy (in-game language switching!), convenient (minimal direct editing of code!), and you can use it for your own translation projects if you want!

In October... well, I didn't do anything new for it, but I'll take credit for The Witch's House MV coming to consoles. (Switch, PS4, Xbox) I also translated everyone's favorite Chainsaw Man opening KICK BACK, associated interviews, and the single's coupling song Y'all Should Be Ashamed.

Finally, in December, after lots of spending my time elsewhere and indecision about how I should go about returning to doing some dang free game translations, I concluded that what I'd really wanted to do all year was translate Uri's PEDESTAL.

I think some people latched onto specific parts of Uri's original explanation for why it wasn't being translated, such as the cultural aspects (I honestly winced at her blunt remark that the story was "no good at all"), but while Uri indeed had those doubts at the time of release, the only real reason it wasn't translated at the time is that I did a less-than-ideal rushed playthrough that slightly hurt my overall impression of its quality, and I felt too busy at the time to work on something with lots of text that was likely to be divisive. So similarly, me finally feeling up to it was the reason it did get translated. I probably should've come back to it quite a bit sooner (after I was made to give up a certain other translation, say), but as I alluded to in last year's post, I was self-conscious about "my big return to free game translations" being something that might not have wide appeal. Uh, glad to be past that, hopefully.

Oh, and ever since finishing PEDESTAL, I've been working on all sorts of overhauls to my site, but like... not the kind that actually majorly changes any part of the visible design and annoys people (and if something did change in an annoying way, it's probably accidental). Some of it's just better consideration of mobile browsing (stuff like images or tables sticking out of bounds at mobile resolutions), or making things more convenient for myself behind the scenes (did you know I made a program to add "br"s to every line of all lyrics content before considering I could just have the page code do that, and also better?).

Some more major observable changes include general renovations to the lyrics page (bigger font size, buttons that hide individual languages to aid in side-by-side comparison), and more convenient navigation of OSTER's tweets, such that I could actually imagine someone reading through them all the way from the start without it being too much of a hassle.

----

While I'm glad to be over the PEDESTAL hump, I don't... necessarily have any definite plans for upcoming free game translations. I mostly just have some stuff on a list that I may have to make myself check out soon enough. Also, Game Atsumaru (which you may know as The Site That Hosts YTTD's Japanese Version) is ending in June??? So uh, might have to accelerate checking out stuff on there, though I guess it depends on how many creators are able to migrate. (Nankidai does plan to put YTTD's Japanese browser version up somewhere else.)

As I mentioned, Your Turn To Die's Early Access release on Steam should be coming up early next year with those mini-episodes and character profiles, and the game might be completed within the year. No promises. I mean, I don't have anything to promise, it's not my game.

Speaking of my game... also no promises. But I'd really like to release one. We'll see what happens. There's also a different kind of original project I recently returned to trying to make real, which could come early in the year, but who knows. As should be apparent, I'm working on a lot of different fronts here, so I frequently feel bad about neglecting such-and-such type of creative work, which sometimes means nothing actually gets done and released. Ultimately, though, it's probably better to follow what I most feel like doing, rather than force focus on one thing and end up not actually getting much done.

Which is to say: hoping to finish something in the new year!

#vgperson

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

A title in the Arthur children’s book series is facing a potential ban after a conservative activist claimed that it “damaged souls”.

On 12 July, Bruce Friedman, a member of the Clay County School District community in Florida, filed a challenge to Arthur’s Birthday, a 1989 children’s book by Marc Brown about a fictional brown aardvark whose birthday falls on the same day as another party of a different classmate.

At one point in the book, Arthur receives a glass bottle from Francine the monkey as a birthday present. The bottle has the words “Francine’s Spin the Bottle Game” printed on it.

According to the challenge, which The Daily Beast website published, the reason for Friedman’s ban request is to “protect children”.

“IT IS NOT APPROPRIATE TO DISCUSS ‘SPIN THE BOTTLE’ WITH ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CHILDREN,” he wrote in all capital letters. “THIS BOOK IS FOUND IN ALL/ALMOST ALL [DISTRICT SCHOOLS]!”

“‘SPIN THE BOTTLE’ NOT OKAY FOR K-5 KIDS,” Friedman added, still using all capital letters. In response to a question about what he believes might be the result of a student using the material, he wrote, “DAMAGED SOULS.”

In a statement to The Daily Beast, a district spokesperson, Terri Dennis, said the book was among 45 titles currently “pending oversight committee review”.

Friedman is the Florida chapter president of No Left Turn in Education, a rightwing group that campaigns against critical race theory. The group seeks to “use all forms of media to expose the radical indoctrination in K-12 education, its perpetrators, the resources and methods employed and the resulting harm it inflicts”, according to its website.

In a Facebook post in September 2020, the group compared public schools to “Pol Pot’s Cambodia”, referring to the former leader of Cambodia who perpetrated the mass genocide of over 2 million people.

Last December, Friedman said that he had compiled “a list of over 3,600 titles that I believe have concerning content [including] porn, critical race theory, social-emotional learning, [and] fluid gender,” Popular Information reported.

He told the outlet that he identified the titles by “scouring the internet” for books that have been challenged in other parts of the country.

The Florida Freedom to Read Project has pushed back against Friedman’s challenge to Arthur’s Birthday, saying: “The entire book is about being inclusive of all friends and not only inviting boys or girls (based on your gender) to your birthday party.”

In recent years, Florida’s public education system has become a divisive battleground for Republican lawmakers who have enacted a slew of laws targeting various minority and marginalized communities.

In addition to the “Don’t Say Gay” ban across all school grades and bans of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in public universities, Florida’s Governor, Ron DeSantis, has banned African American studies from high schools while the state’s Board of Education updated controversial new standards earlier this month to include the claim that some black people benefited from being enslaved.

#us politics #news #Florida #republicans #conservatives #florida department of education #Arthur #Arthur’s Birthday #Marc Brown #Bruce Friedman #book bans #Clay County School District #the daily beast #the guardian #2023 #Terri Dennis #No Left Turn in Education #Cambodia #pol pot #Popular Information #alt right #alt right jihad #Florida Freedom to Read Project #gov. ron desantis #parental rights in education

[usafphantom2]

Lockheed Martin will integrate AARGM-ER missile into F-35 aircraft

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 01/16/2024 - 16:00 in Armaments, Military

On January 12, NAVAIR (Naval Air Systems Command), on behalf of the U.S. Department of Defense, signed a $97.3 million contract for the integration of the Northrop Grumman AGM-88G AARGM-ER (Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile-Extended Range) missile with the F-35A/B/C Lightning II multifunctional fighters family.

The contract, scheduled to be completed in March 2026, will be executed by the U.S. Air Force (F-35A), the U.S. Marine Corps (F-35B and F-35C), the U.S. Navy (F-35C) and partners of the F-35 JSF program, including Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Norway, Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands and other users of the 17º aircraft production batch.

'Lot 17' is a designation given to the last portion of F-35 aircraft produced. The U.S. Department of Defense finalized an agreement for production in December 2022.

This 'lot' includes 126 aircraft that will be the first iteration to include the Technical Refresh-3 (TR-3) update, the modernized hardware needed to power the capabilities of Block 4. The TR-3 includes a new integrated central processor with greater computing power, a panoramic display in the cabin and an improved memory unit.

Previously, the AGM-88G AARGM-ER missiles were integrated with electronic war and air defense suppression aircraft F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler, with flight tests carried out in 2021 and 2022. On September 25, 2023, Northrop Grumman announced that it was selected by USAF to supply the new anti-radiation missile for the F-35A under the codename SiAW (Stand-in Attack Weapon), based on the AGM-88G AARGM-ER project.

The AARGM-ER was designed for enemy air defense suppression (SEAD) operations, capable of attacking anti-aircraft and missile systems, ballistic and cruise missile launchers, GPS interference systems and anti-satellite systems in strongly defended areas and negation environments (A2/AD). The missile features a new 290 mm diameter fuselage and a subsonic ramjet engine, doubling its range from 110 to approximately 220-250 km and increasing its maximum speed.

The AGM-88G AARGM-ER missiles are produced with a new propulsion and improved warhead set, based on newly produced orientation systems comprising a passive radar signal receiver, satellite navigation, counting system and millimeter wave radar. This differs from the AGM-88E AARGM, where propulsion and warhead are derived from AGM-88 HARM (high-speed anti-radiation missiles) stored missiles from the previous generation.

In January 2018, the U.S. Navy hired Northrop Grumman to develop the AARGM-ER. On March 18, 2019, the USAF announced collaboration with the U.S. Navy to adapt the AARGM-ER for the F-35A, allocating $163 million for fiscal year 2020. At the same time, the U.S. Navy ordered additional development for $323 million, with funding allocated until 2020.

In July 2019, the Department of Defense granted Lockheed Martin a $34.7 million contract to initiate modifications to the F-35's internal weapon compartments to transport the AARGM-ER. The work, including the reinforcement of the fuselage structures, was completed in July 2022. The design and integration efforts are supervised by the PMA-242 (Direct and Time Sensitive Attack) office of the Department of Defense.

Tags: AGM-88E AARGMweaponsMilitary AviationF-35 Lightning IILockheed Martin

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Fernando Valduga

Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, he has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. He uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.

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[weirdowithaquill]

What Fuel would NWR Steam Engines use Today?

This is a question that I think a lot of people in the fandom are asking, especially with ever-more stringent environmental laws, the war in Ukraine cutting off Russian coal and the end of coal mines in the UK and the western world.

So, what exactly are Sodor's options if Sir Topham Hatt wants to run a steam railway in the 21st century.

I will do a separate post based on what I think the Fat Controllers do to ensure their engines run safely and profitably into the 2020's, but this post is all about fuel. Now, let's talk options:

1: Coal:

This is what Sodor is already using, and is the option that I think Sodor would enter the 2000's with. However, the UK has been rapidly closing coal mines since then, with the last deep coal mine in the United Kingdom, Kellingley colliery in North Yorkshire, closing in December 2015, and many of the mines that produced engine-grade coal already being closed. From this point on, the NWR has two options really: American anthracite coal (which is in decline) or Russian anthracite coal. Most British heritage railways used Russian coal due to its cheap and plentiful nature, leading to their current predicament of skyrocketing prices caused by tariffs and a cut-off from the Russian coal supply. Polish coal is an option some railways are switching too, however this is also quite expensive and not as plentiful as the previous coal.

Another option would be Australian bituminous coal, which is a worse coal for engines but is far cheaper and more plentiful. This would be unlikely, but could potentially be used as a desperate measure by the railway while searching for a better and more permanent option. Remember, bad coal causes a lot of havoc on Sodor even when considering different grades of anthracite coal.

2: Electricity:

If you've ever watched Train of Thought's video on electric steam (find here), then you may just know what I'm about to suggest. During the 1940's, the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) converted a pair of steam engines with pantographs and used the electricity to boil the water. There was also a patent taken out in Canada as recently as 1992 for a steam engine that uses electricity to boil the water.

The pantograph part of the design would not happen - as much as Sodor has updated and modified their engines, whacking a pantograph on them would be crossing a line. So, what are the other options? Well, they could potentially use a third rail, and hide the converters and other pieces inside the bunker or tender, with what space remains being a perfect spot for extra water storage. Another option is batteries in the place of the bunker or tender, this in essence turning the engines of Sodor into battery engines.

The issue here is that the batteries are not really very efficient above the size of a Tesla, and a third-rail system has the potential to cause issues with any safety equipment on the ground (GWR had problems with their AWS system when travelling near the Southern Railway or the London Underground).

The battery version is something I could see being implemented on branchline and shunting engines however, as they could stay near charging ports and best utilise the extra range and lower emissions such a change would bring, without having as many drawbacks. Another advancement would be using an electric battery to preheat the boiler and to power the electrics in the coaches.

3: Biodiesel:

Before anyone goes insane about the idea of converting the NWR engines to oil-fired, I think I should say that I mean torrefied biodiesel pellets, as tested by the CSR in the USA on steam locomotives since as early as 2016 (article linked here). Torrefied biodiesel pellets have similar qualities to coal, including the fact that they can be shovelled and stored similarly to coal.

They don't really look that different to coal, do they? And in this trial, the engine they were trialling it on (Milwaukee County Zoo Train No. 1924) not only ran on 100% torrefied biodiesel, but also reached just under 200PSI. CSR has also ran tests on standard gauge engines, and the fact is that the Skarloey Railway would probably be an early adopter.

Furthermore, Sodor is a primarily agricultural island, and due to globalisation, the farms would be looking to find new crops with which to make a profit from, as the prices of cheap international products hurts their smaller farms. The NWR looking at biofuels would be a golden opportunity for them, and the NWR would have the crops needed for biodiesel locally, decreasing shipping costs.

The issue with biodiesel as a fuel is that it does not burn as hot as conventional coal, and it burns quicker. It does however start burning sooner, meaning setting a good fire in the mornings would be easier.

Railways using steam power are currently being faced with these major issues, and Sodor would probably be at the forefront of the debate, as its heavy usage of steam and early diesel engines makes for problematic encounters with environmentalists. However, Sodor would also be one of the largest supporters and financers of steam research, and would, in my opinion, use a mix of electric steam and biofuels to preserve their fleet of engines well into the 21st century. And yes, it would be theoretically possible to create an entire scientific essay out of this.

One again, pictures are not mine, and remember to tell me your ideas!

#ttte au #ttte analysis #thomas the tank engine #skarloey railway #coal mining #biodiesel #electric #steam engines are beautiful #steam engines #Milwaukee country zoo engine #railways #railway series #2010s issues #heritage railway #electric steam #switzerland #This is just what I do on Tumblr now it seems