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dioptre-hertz · 4 years

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Pathologic 2 ending thoughts

i don’t really use tumblr much anymore, but i recently finished Pathologic 2 and i have thoughts on the ending, which i felt was somewhat incongruous with the rest of the game’s themes and ideas. and tumblr felt like the right place to put a long-form post about it. so, here i am, haha!

MAJOR spoilers for Pathologic 2 below, obviously. this post will probably only be interesting to you if you’ve already played the game, so if you haven’t, be warned! hehehe!

okay, so. i have a lot of thoughts about the ending stuff, but basically it boils down to: i think the ending as presented would have been a good ending for a different game.

quick summary: towards the end of the game, Artemy learns that the Polyhedron, a physics-defying tower and architectural wonder, is rooted into the ground with a long metal spike that pierces the Living Earth. destroying the Polyhedron would therefore open a gaping wound in the Earth, spilling rivers of blood that could be used to mass-produce a cure for the plague. however, doing so would not only destroy the Polyhedron, but also kill the Living Earth, and by extension the Kin. alternately, Artemy can choose to preserve the Polyhedron, which would prevent the Living Earth from bleeding out and dying; but it would come at the cost of the lives of everyone in the town, since the plague would then be unstoppable.

so, the ending choice is principally about this: you have to choose between preserving the magical wonders of the world, the Kin and the Polyhedron and the Living Earth, but at the expense of the actual living humans of the town; or, you save the town and all its mundanities and its ordinary people you've worked so hard to protect, but at the expense of your cultural heritage and all the magical, impossible things of the Steppe. do you choose a world that is dreamlike, enchanted and strange, even if there is no place for regular humans in that world; or do you choose an ordinary, realistic world, one in which there is life for common folk but not for magic and fairy tales?

here’s what irks me though: this dichotomy is not at all what the game is about. or, to be more precise, it never felt to me personally like this was what the narrative was setting up. the choice as presented is fine in a vacuum! there’s nothing wrong with telling a story that creates this kind of clash between magic and realism, and asks you to choose between them. but it doesn’t feel congruous with the rest of the game’s story. let me elaborate.

so, part of what’s going on here is that the game is asking you to make a sacrifice. as the game itself repeatedly tells you: “you can’t save everyone��. either the Kin, the magical steppe creatures, and the Polyhedron are destroyed; or, the ordinary humans of the town are destroyed. you can’t protect both. Pathologic 2 goes to great lengths to show you that you are not a magical fantasy RPG hero who can complete every quest, rescue every NPC, overcome any obstacle and get the Perfect Ending. that’s the whole point of the overly punishing hunger and exhaustion mechanics; that’s why you die so easily in combat, why you’re always running out of time, and why the game is perfectly willing to punish you for every single mistake you make. it’s not a game about being the chosen one, who has magic powers and is uniquely capable of saving the day. right?

except... it kind of is precisely that, if you think about it. Artemy’s story is very clearly a traditional “chosen one” narrative! he is the sole inheritor of his father’s legacy, he is the town’s only menkhu, and so much of the story revolves around his spiritual journey. over the course of the game, Artemy undergoes a coming-of-age of sorts, reconnecting with his heritage, unlocking the secrets of being a menkhu, brewing magical tinctures that slow down and ultimately cure the plague. multiple characters make it explicit that Artemy is important - Foreman Oyun, Aspity, Isidor, and various minor characters of the Kin (like Nara) all talk at length about how Artemy is special, and his role (should he embrace it) is to lead the Kin once he is ready. and the entire conflict with Rubin revolves around the fact that Rubin isn’t the “chosen one” the way Artemy is!

this whole plot thread reaches its climax when Artemy ventures into the Abattoir to seek answers. there, he undergoes a series of harrowing spiritual experiences. several really important things happen here, and i want to focus on two of them.

firstly: upon reaching the central chamber of the Abattoir, Artemy is tasked with performing “surgery” on three seemingly random objects: a candlestick, a fingernail coin, and a spindle of thread. he has a metaphysical conversation with the odongh he meets there and then “connects” these objects into a living, beating heart, and the heart speaks to him. this scene is either hallucinatory or supernatural (or both), but it doesn’t matter which; the point of the scene is that Artemy has finally learned to read the Lines, learned to see how seemingly disparate objects can be spiritually connected into a singular whole. he takes three items that appear to have nothing in common, and he forges a beating heart out of them, a living thing. as Artemy himself learns:

This system isn't symmetrical. It's not just "Nerves, Bones, Skin." Or "Nerves, Bones, Flesh." Or "Spirit, Hair, Blood." Any triad is correct.

Truth is not a set point, but an intersection and confluence of many small truths. Knowing this, I can match and connect anything.

furthermore, shortly after leaving the Abattoir, Artemy has a dream in which he returns there and speaks to the ghost of Isidor, his father. here, he learns a difficult truth: that Isidor intentionally brought the plague back to the town, believing - essentially - that it was necessary for the town’s growth. the decision seems monstrous. Isidor justifies it thus:

This town was… connected wrong. Its parts were tied with artificial seams—so different, so awkward. One could say that Simon, the Mistresses, and I held it all together by force.

So I tore it apart, so you can sew it all back, better than before. Because you're better, and smarter, than I am.

so here we have the high point of Artemy’s spiritual journey, the part of the story where he finally understands why things are the way they are, and what it is he must do.

and this is where things start going wrong, in my opinion.

because all of this, all of what we’ve seen, seems to point in one very clear direction: Artemy will find a way to connect the Kin, the Town, and the Polyhedron into a single coherent whole. it fits so perfectly! Artemy learns that there is a way to mass-produce a cure, but doing so would require him to destroy the Polyhedron and the Living Earth. it appears as though the Polyhedron, the Living Earth, and the Town cannot all coexist; something must be sacrificed. but this choice is presented right after we’re told that Artemy’s destiny is to “sew it all back, better than before”. it is presented once we’ve seen that Artemy can connect a coin, a candlestick, and a spindle of thread into a living, beating heart, no matter how impossible that may sound. knowing this, he can match and connect anything.

and yet, he... doesn’t. the game does not end with a solution that connects the Kin, the Polyhedron and the Town. ultimately, Artemy fails to sew it all back together - and it’s not just that he fails, it’s that the game itself seems utterly unconcerned with that possibility once it heads into its final act. the mere idea that there could be a solution that “connects things right“ goes unexplored. even if the game wanted to be pessimistic and suggest that it can’t be done after all, it should at least acknowledge the thought! the game does admittedly have a focus on the idea that “you can’t save everyone”; this is one of its core motifs. so, fair enough! but since it fails to address that cynicism, it feels less like a statement on the game’s part and more like a lack of awareness.

but that’s not all! there’s a second thing that really bugs me. see, there’s another major event that takes place in the Abattoir: Artemy finally has his fateful encounter with Nara, the Herb Bride who has haunted him throughout the game, insisting that their destinies are intertwined and that he will one day kill her. here, Artemy finally comes to understand what it all means. in the depths of the Abattoir, Nara is waiting for him; the other Herb Brides give Artemy a menkhu’s knife, and they task him with cutting open Nara’s body without killing her:

We know how to open things up. Our way. You know how to open things up. Your way. Do you want to know why the sand pest passes us by? Show yourself.

Cut a living sister in such a way that she stays living. You can do it, if you know the Lines.

Artemy follows through, and he converses with Nara even as he cuts into her flesh; they talk to each other right until the end, when Artemy retrieves a spindle of thread from her body, and she dies.

now, this scene is somewhat tricky to interpret; Artemy must show that he can “cut a living sister in such a way that she stays living”, but in the end, Nara does die. so was he successful or not? well, i would argue that he is; even though Nara dies, he proves that he is able to read the Lines with such precision that she can speak calmly with him until the very end.

more importantly, this scene is the high point of a recurring theme in the game: Artemy’s skill as surgeon.

on Day 1, the very first part of the game, Artemy is sent by his old friend Bad Grief to perform surgery on Piecework, one of the thugs in Bad Grief’s gang. Piecework has gotten in a fight and been stabbed in the gut with a lockpick; without Artemy’s intervention, he will die. you can choose to save him, flub the surgery and kill him, or ignore the sidequest altogether; in any case, this early quest introduces the player to the surgery mechanic and serves to establish Artemy’s unique skills as a surgeon.

on Day 11, the last day of proper gameplay, you have a repeat of this encounter. while pursuing the main quest for the day, you wind up in a pub, where a gang of local bandits have set up shop. they threaten you and order you to rescue one of their pals, who has been shot in the stomach and is about to die. here you again perform surgery to save a man’s life, but this time you don’t do it through the usual surgery minigame - it happens entirely through dialogue choices, and i’m actually not even sure if it’s possible to fail this interaction. in any case, you retrieve the bullet from the man’s stomach and inform his friends that he’ll live.

so what’s the point of all that then? well, the way i see it, the point of all this is to foreshadow a climactic conclusion: Artemy will remove the Polyhedron without killing the Living Earth.

the game spends a lot of time setting this up! on Day 1, Artemy saves a man by removing a long metal spike from his gut non-lethally; in the Abattoir, Artemy proves his spiritual growth by demonstrating that he can “cut a living sister in such a way that she stays living”; and on Day 11, the game throws yet another surgery vignette at you in a scene that frankly feels a bit out of place otherwise.

all of this feels, to me, like it's foreshadowing and setting up one very obvious result: Artemy, having mastered not only practical surgery but also the art of reading the Lines, of being a menkhu, is the one person who can remove the Polyhedron without killing the Living Earth! the game spends all this time explaining that in the Steppe culture, cutting open flesh, or the earth itself, is taboo: only a menkhu is allowed to do so, because a menkhu is someone who knows how to read the Lines, who knows how to cut in a way that will not harm the Living Earth. the culmination of the story, therefore, needs to be that Artemy puts this exact skill to use. that was the point of his character arc, right?

except... no, it isn’t. in the end, there is no way to surgically extract the metal spike from the Living Earth. the only two choices we are presented with are: botch the surgery, or leave it be.

...

in the end, i feel that the ending(s) of Pathologic 2 aren’t appropriate conclusions to the ideas, motifs, and overall narrative progression we’re shown throughout the earlier parts of the game. Pathologic 2 is in many ways brilliant, and i do not hesitate to call it a masterpiece, aforementioned criticisms notwithstanding - but that’s precisely why i cared enough to write all this down! it’s a story that gets into your head, really stays with you, and maybe that’s the reason why i have such strong feelings about the direction the story takes in its final act.

if you reached the end of this post: thank you so much for reading it! i hope you enjoyed my thoughts, and i hope you have a great day!

#pathologic #pathologic 2 #artemy burakh

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thedumbguywithaheart43 · 3 years

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Boomlords weird adventure

chapter 16 before

The next week or so went by rather quickly. Princess bubblegum started construction on a machine. Really it just looks like a fancy chair hooked up to a whole bunch of different wires and and tubing. Boom knew that a lot of science and magic went into making this as he's not quite sure if princess bubblegum or Twilight had gotten any sleep since they had begun. In fact it was safe to say that their mental state was quite fragile at this point as both of them had messy unkept hair and were covered in Grease and oil. At this point boom was worried about her mental state along with the rest of the girls. He walked over to the hard working Twilight."ok Twilight me and the girls have been talking and I think you need to go to bed."twilight ignored him continuing to work on some coding witch she picked up from princess bubblegum fairly quickly.boom picked up a Giggle from behind him the unmistakable sound of pinkie pie and rainbow Dash who were spying on his attempt to get the princesses to rest. "Okay Twilight either you're going to go to bed of your own free will or I'm going to pick you up and carry you!"his voice was serious filled with a tinge of anger but also concern for the now barely standing unicorn person."yeah yeah I'll do whatever when I'm done here."she completely ignored him. Boomlord shrugged before he grabed Twilight lifting her in the classic princess way. Right before he receives several punches to the face from Twilights protesting wails."Twilight your punches feel like a gentle jab to me."twi pouted at him."just let me finish my work!"He glared at her."let me make something very clear to you no one wants this machine done any more than I do but if you keep working like this you are going to kill yourself!Or at least cause some serious mental stain."boom scorned at her. Boom felt the chuckling increase as more of the girls and even a few banana guards.His cheeks got redder hearing this. The last few days had been pretty good between everyone even Applejack the one who trusted him the least have been unusually friendly to him for the last couple days since he had returned from the ice kingdom. The girls chatted with him more and even joined in conversations while waiting on construction, it had been admittedly strange to him as before they were far more aggressive with the exception of Spike and pinkie pie. But it now occurred to him that it was likely because rainbow Dash had spread some sort of rumor that he liked Twilight......witch was so fucking obvious. He narrowed his brow at the doorway knowing that they were getting a kick out of this. Despite this he was at least thankful that they were giving him a chance if for no other reason then it seemed they believe Twilight might like him back, a notion that he put to the side, believing it to be false.'damn she's cute when she pouts' the continuous pouting and light hits from Twilight broke his concentration of the commotion from the doorway. He made his way through the door carrying Twilight the sound of multiple people scrambling away in a hurry fill the quiet room. Princess bubblegum took notice of him leaving and was likely going to protest saying that she'd likely needed her for something but she never got the chance as Marceline came in and snatched her up in a giant bat monster grasp and flying her out the window towards the one of the towers likely being her room.

2 boom traversed the spindling staircases and surprisingly large amount of hallways within the castle. Boom believed it was a Wonder that the banana guards could ever navigate the absurd amount of turns it took to get around still they were literally made for this place so it wasn't too hard to believe. Boom eventually found his way to twilight's room it was a simple guest room comfy marshmallow bed, licorice lamp and ,other assorted candy furniture. He walked over to the bed gently placing the sleep deprived egghead onto the bed."please go to sleep Twilight I do not feel like having you pass out on me."Twilight stared up at boom grasping his arm when he tried to let go."nooooo don't gooo."her demeanor had completely changed to more like a rather adorable drunk at this point."sllllleep with me yoooouuuu don't get enough sleep either."boom face flash red again as the words hit his ears."Twilight please just go to bed I need to go."he attempted to pull his arm away from Twilight but only found she had a bit more strength to her than he would have initially thought as she pulled him down on top of her. It wasn't exactly the most subtle of positions he could have been in as he looked her right in the eyes.' oh shit this is close what do I do I..... Her eyes there like stars' He found himself gazing into her eyes for what felt like forever and she gazed back. There were no words no sound only blissful silence as they shared a moment of peace with each other. Boom wasn't exactly sure what brought him to this moment all he knew is that right now he didn't want to be anywhere else."you have a nice smile."Twilight said sounding almost like a drunk once more. And he was smiling he hadn't realized it but being around her it was a feeling he had grown to enjoy."I like your smell better it's always so honest."the words left him before he could stop them. Twilight's face had redden even more before sitting up right sobering up for a minute."is this weird what we're doing right now because I kind of like it?"Twi asked in a shy tone. Boom looked out the window before looking back at Twilight a smile still plastered on his face."Twilight I don't know if this is weird or if this makes sense I stoped making sense of things a long time ago things in my life don't happen easily."he took a big gulp of air trying to get most of the words he wanted to say out of him."and I've been through a lot I've seen things that would drive men insane and I've lost more than I think anyone will ever know the only thing that kept me sane was... My ex but even that went to shit since then I've been in a spiraling whirlpool of bullcrap and horror. But then I met you and I don't know why but you make me feel different than other people, even her... I can be real with you not a act or a joke or some other front I put up. I don't know why it is I feel this way about you and I kind of like that I don't know I guess what I'm trying to say is thank you "boom sighed."I like you a lot like a lot a lot like enough where this conversation is starting to make me feel nervous a lot."there was another very long silence the rest of them only felt very long but this one it could have lasted an hour before Twilight smiled."I love you too you big dork."before he could respond she planted a big fat kiss right on his lips.... Right before immediately passing the fuck out. Boom smiled again moving to rest next to her as he peered into the night sky of ooo."I love you too."he rested his head next to hers wrapping his arms around her never wanting to let go."not sure how I fell for a horse but I guess I'm all about being weird heh."he whisper to himself before falling asleep. And for the first time in a long time boom found himself with a gentle dream simply hundreds of stars passing his vision.

3 the next morning) Twilight awoke slowly her eyes heavy as the midday Sun lit up her room the golden cake walls being her first sight. She gave out a gentle yawn before getting up.... Except she couldn't she couldn't move and then she looked to her side and saw the sleeping form of Boom. And that's when she remembered what had occurred last night.' HOLY FUCKING SHIT WHAT DO I DO' her thoughts were in a panic as she had no idea what she was going to tell her friends much less the princesses when she finally returned home about this, specifically her newfound love for the crazy guy who broke into the castle and probably knocked out several guards to escape from his cell..... Yeah this did not look good for her at all. 'okay Twilight just calm down just tell him it was all a dream or something.... Oh who am I kidding I can't lie about that not to him!'Twilight felt sweat form on her brow unsure of what to do. Boom then suddenly pulled her closer fully embracing her in his sleep. Twilight felt herself calm down before her mind did and she simply melted in his arms it was like being hugged by a golden cloud of peanut butter.... Then she noticed he was actually glowing a slight ting of gold and his hair had darken from a blonde to Black his hair on top of that had straighten out not quite fully brushed but far neater than it had been. Then he woke slowly opening his eyes as the golden hue faded but everything else had remained the same."morning sunshine thanks for dragging me to bed.~"he teased in a flirty tone. This of course caused twilight's face to redden once more."s-shut up."boom released his tight grip over her and sat up. His gaze was now away from her."so uh how much of last night do you actually remember."Boom asked"everything boom I remember what you said and what I said and what I did and I don't regret anything I said last night."Twilight looked up waiting for his response."yeah same even if I sound like a complete and total dork."Twilight giggles before leaning and giving him a kiss on the forehead."yes you're a dork but you're still my dork."boom smiled."now that's not fair that's supposed to be my line."the two joked before embracing each other with a kiss again this one lasting a solid few minutes. Boom broke it first."so what are we going to tell the others?"Twilight blinked rapidly."holy shit what am I going to tell Spike?"Twilight blurted out.

#mlp fandom #fanfic #writing #twilight sparkle #pinkie pie #rainbow dash #princess bubblegum #marceline #adventure time #romance #comedy

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handypolymath · 5 years

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WIP challenge

I was tagged by @ellewritesfiction to post the first sentence of some of my works in progress, and I’ve been struggling with this because I’m only rarely a chronological writer, and I’m currently trying to wrap up a WIP I’ve been posting as I go since last August. I also co-write with @thassalia a lot, so sometimes the first sentence isn’t mine!

So I’m cheating all over the place with this one, in part to reassure myself that finishing and letting go of Electronic Thumb is a good thing, I’ve got some interesting places to land.

Dr. Sock Sez - where they find a baby in a lab jar

Bruce pulls the poor thing out of the gestation canister, flailing and sputtering because they’d taken out the power for the base before they realized the focus of the main lab was this baby in a fucking jar, and the only thing that keeps him from hulking out is not that Tony makes a ‘filthy Bene Tleilax’ joke, but that Steve gets it.

“That’s incredibly inappropriate,” the Captain bites out, “be useful and fetch the Bruce Out Kit.”

Blankets, Bruce thinks, would make it easier to keep a hold of this squirmy damp girl, who’s not much bigger than a handful but is putting up a good fight.

“Hey, Steve’s up to Herbert on the list!” Tony says, “If he’s up to Lovecraft does that mean we can’t call the baby Mi-Go?”

Natasha unfreezes, but her face is still blank with horror as she watches Bruce curl the tiny angry newborn against his shirt. She lunges toward the control panel and starts breaking into the system. She will find out exactly what they had done, were doing, planned to do with that girl.

Chiaroscuro - our Notorious AU

Natasha swings out the tone arm and stops the turntable, lifts the record and slips it back into the labeled sleeve. She unsheathes the next record and aligns it on the center spindle, starts the platter turning, and sets the needle into the groove.

Dr. Bruce Banner makes very few calls, but the microphones in his apartment catch more than expected. He’s a mutterer when he’s deep in thought, he hums and whistles depending on mood, and he’s carrying on a rather illuminating screaming feud with a neighbor. She’s been out of town for a couple weeks on another errand of Carter’s, a field trip with a seasoned agent and yet another test that she passed without issues. Now she’s playing catch-up on her analysis of Dr. Banner.

Clint has been in Santa Monica since Christmas. She's teased him that at least he gets to talk to the scientist he’s assigned to, instead of just listening to them whistling along with Maria Callas and trading insults with the cranky old man across the alley. In turn, Clint had described kimchi. She’d asked if he realized he was talking to a Russian about cabbage. He’d sniped that he’d eaten his own fair share of cabbage, thank you, and part of her share, and he wasn’t going to stand for any more even if Dr. Cho took offense.

Natasha sighs, and sets the needle back to the beginning of the track. It’s stifling in this room, and it’s making her careless. It’s also the hundredth time she’s listened to Dr. Banner whistle along to this aria from Manon, and a part of her brain has started choreographing a pas de deux to it.

At least he’s getting better at hitting the notes.

Go Out With A Lion’s Roar - just a working stiff on Sakaar

Hulk is sorry, and sorry for himself. He did what he could to make it right, but it’s flowers for a black eye.

The nightmare he was given lingers like a sour puke tongue, makes him feel anger like lava. What he woke up to...the anger turns in on himself.

He makes people sad, and dead. So he flicks off the screen and points the nose up.

The quinjet asks him questions, and he says, “Higher. Faster.” The machine shudders around him and talks to him about oxygen scrubbers. He flexes his hand, and pictures a scrubby sponge. He knows it’s not one of Banner’s memories, because he’s standing on a stool to reach the sink; it’s from the before time, before everything. He wasn’t always a monster. The jet levels out, and tells him about fuel levels and orbit decay.

He opens his fist, and pictures dogs shot into space. Russian dogs. He hopes the dogs weren’t lonely. They didn’t deserve that.

He punches himself in the head. He’s not a dog. He’s not a good boy. For a little while, he didn’t think he was a monster, either, but he’s less sure of that. He already knows Banner’s answer, so he wouldn’t ask him even if he could find him.

For Unlikely Carnal Knowledge - the bodyswapping one

It had been nearly 78 hours of Tony cycling through coffee, mango and algae smoothies, and scotch. Perhaps nibbling a little cheese. Pepper had last slept in her own bed three continents ago, her period was due any moment, and damn it, she was going to use her boyfriend as a heating pad whether he liked it or not.

She gets as far as nodding hello to Bruce, who's scribbling an equation onto a screen with his finger - she uses the same interface but with the financial template instead of half the Greek alphabet - and opening her mouth.

It's exactly like one of those old flash cubes going off. The spike of white blue light, the puffy sounding pop that also sounds like thin crackling glass, the whiff of hot carbon smell. The disorientation makes her grip the counter, but she still knocks her head against the screen and something jams the bridge of her nose. She pushes back, and a pair of eyeglasses go flying.

The Holtzmann Effect - Clint’s apartment building was an early work of Ivo Shandor

Steve isn’t impressed by the amount of material spread across the worktables, sheafs of blueprints and building permits, zoning board meeting notes and cloth-bound library volumes full of archeologists’ hand-drawn illustrations of bullae cuneiform, which Patty describes as Sumerian paperwork.

Steve is daunted.

“Do you drink coffee?” he asks, as Patty pulls out a used yellow legal pad and uncaps her pen with a twinkle in her eye. “I can make coffee, or go get coffee.”

“Not much of a reader?” She narrows her eyes. “Not enough action scanning primary sources for keywords? I thought you also got a boost with information processing, visual memory, that kind of thing.”

“I’m not afraid of hard work.” Steve bristles, “I want to help.”

“Then sit your ass down,” Patty shoves the thickest library book toward him, “and use your eidetic memory to find,” she flips though her pad to show him a page of Sumerian symbols carefully sketched: a stylized fish labeled ‘metal’, an athletic sock labeled ‘dog’, a striped wedge shape with a stem labeled ‘beer’, and a piece of erotic art, “anything that looks like these.”

Her frank expression dares him to give her any more guff.

“Anything to help,” Steve nod solemnly, then takes another look at the page. He points to the large pointed jar in the scene, from which the lady is drinking through a long straw while taking it from behind. “Is it safe to assume that’s also beer?”

Patty’s answer is a playful pout and, “I’m sure people are always bugging you about what you miss from back in the day. Well I wasn’t even alive for that part, but that’s my answer.”

Rust & Ague - that steampunk one

The Iron Man was the exception to every rule. Most airships were chartered cruisers, lumbering luxury liners, and official patrols, with a few oddball private ships here and there, small and ill-funded, or ostentatious fripperies. Stark's ship was a research vessel the size of a cruiser. It ran a small tight core crew, but rotated the bulk of its lower rank hands at every dock.

Those temporary crews were a potpourri mixed by the fine-boned hand of Virginie Petra Potts. She was a dynamo draped in daffodil crepe de chine, sitting on a camp chair behind a cleverly folding writing desk set midway down the dock. The Iron Man rose behind her, gleaming copper in the water, its solar sails furled into scrolls of gold, and she was her gatekeeper.

Main Vein - Jennifer Walters whistleblows on her diabolical law firm

"I...what do you know about Agent Romanoff?"

“You mean before finding out just now that she’s the pocket dynamite from the Battle of New York?” Jen’s look at him is reproachful, but in a teasing way. "I know she got me out of my apartment safe when I thought I’d be dead for sure. I know she had that jacket specially tailored around a double shoulder holster."

Bruce can't help checking the line of Natasha's back, remembering the feel of it snugged against his chest, surging against him slick with sweat. He takes a mouthful of ice water and crunches a cube.

Jen chews her own bite thoughtfully. "I find her skills comforting in a way I wouldn't have suspected a few weeks ago."

"Life is full of surprises."

Which is normally the kind of cliche conversation filler Bruce offers as a dry joke, but that's when the flash bang goes off.

#wip #i have not always been writing electronic thumb #writing is a ridiculous art

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itsworn · 7 years

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How to Measure Bump Steer

Know the effects of bump steer and how to properly measure for it

Setting up a race car can sometimes be a long and frustrating process. That’s because so many important settings are affected by another, equally important, setting.

For example, caster affects wheelbase. Camber affects track width. Ride height changes can affect corner weights. The list goes on and on, and as a result, racers often find themselves going in circles as they have to keep rechecking previously dialed in settings to make sure they haven’t changed while working on something else.

That’s why it is so important for racers to use setup tools that are not only accurate and reliable, but also quick and easy to use. If you need to measure a setting multiple times, the process must be simple or else you will be tempted to simply “hope and move on.”

That’s why we are big fans of Longacre’s analog bump steer gauge for dialing in the bump steer on a race car. Longacre’s bump steer gauge is well engineered to make it both simple to use and reliably accurate. A 3/8-inch thick billet aluminum plate bolts to the wheel hub and is laser etched with marking for measurement. Longacre allows you to order a blank wheel plate or one already drilled to work with a wide variety of bolt patterns (including Wide 5). It mates to an aluminum stand that eliminates the standard dual dial indicator setup for a simpler single dial indicator that’s still accurate to within plus or minus .001 of an inch.

Being able to measure bump steer is important because it is the phenomenon where the front wheels will change orientation (or steer themselves) without input from the steering wheel because of suspension movement. This is caused by issues with the geometry between the steering system and the lengths and orientation of the steering tie rods.

Bump is affected by two major factors: The location (and length) of the tie rods and the relationship of a line drawn through the center of the tie rod and the car’s instant center.

A race car’s instant center is an imaginary point that can be found by extending a line from the upper control arm ball joint through the same control arm’s inner pivot points to where it intersects a line from the lower ball joint and lower control arm pivot points.

Ideally, you want the steering tie-rod to be pointed directly at that point where those two lines intersect. If the line created by the extended tie rod doesn’t intersect the instant center, then the tire will bump in or out as the suspension moves.

There’s a whole lot more that goes into the science of chassis geometry and bump steer, but this story is mainly about measuring bump. There’s a lot more information on chassis geometry and setups when it comes to bump steer on CircleTrack.com by our resident setup guru, Bob Bolles. For more information, go to our website and do a search for “bump steer.”

Adjusting bump steer is almost always done by raising or lowering the outer ball joint pivot location. That’s easy to adjust, while the inner pivot location, or the location of the ball joints or inner control arm pivot points, is very hard to move without screwing up other, more important settings.

To help you figure out what changes for different bump situations, here is a down-and dirty set of guidelines to help get you in the right direction:

Wheel toes in on both compression and droop—Decrease tie rod length

Wheel toes out on both compression and droop—Increase tie rod length

Wheel toes out on compression and in on droop—Raise outer tie rod (remove shims) or, if possible, lower inner (add shims)

Wheel toes in on compression and out on droop—Lower outer tie rod (add shims) or, if possible, raise inner (remove shims)

When setting up your race car, it is vital to know how much your suspension travels at speed on the race track. This is not counting travel spikes that come from hitting holes or ruts. You only need to track your bump steer for the travel that your car will actually see on the track. For example, a dirt racer that’s not running a front sway bar will usually only track bump for 1.5 inches of compression travel on the right front and one inch of droop on the left front.

Normally, if you can get the total bump steer change under 0.100 of an inch, you are doing good. Wheels that bump in can cause a car to be skittish or jumpy, while bumping out can sometimes help a car feel more stable. Too much bump out, however, will simply scrub off valuable speed.

Checking bump steer is not the first setting you should check when dialing in your race car’s setup package, but it is critical if you want a car that handles consistently all the way around the race track.

Longacre’s bump steer gauge is the right mix of accurate and simple. We also like that it sets up quick and packs up small.

The race car we’re using is a Dirt Street Stock with a GM Metric chassis—one of the most common chassis in racing. All the pickup points are still in the stock location on this car.

You need to be able to cycle the suspension up and down easily, so step one is to pull the shock absorber.

Lots of racers have developed their own specific ways of setting a suspension at ride height when the car is up on jack stands, and this is the method that racer Jason Gulledge has found works best for him. With the car sitting on the wheels at ride height, he made these hard stops from one-inch square tubing that fit between the chassis and some part of the suspension. Now with the car in the air, Gulledge can use a jack to raise the suspension until it contacts the stop. Here, you can see that this piece of tubing is marked for the left front corner of the car, and as long as he places it at the same spot every time this method will be quite repeatable.

The suspension spring must also be removed. To help get it out, Gulledge uses this really trick Ball Joint Remover tool from Wehrs Machine. The tool slots between the upper and lower ball joints, and then you rotate it to expand the threaded section to pop one or both out of the spindle. Once one ball joint is out, the spring is a cinch to remove safely.

Use the bubble level to ensure that the plate is perfectly horizontal so that the laser-engraved scale on the plate will be accurate.

The gauge frame sets up like you see here so that it leans gently against the bump steer plate. You should also be able to use the jack to raise the suspension without the jack rolling forward and hitting the frame. We like this particular gauge because it uses one gauge and a roller bearing on the opposite side. As long as the roller bearing is touching the plate, the dial indicator will measure the bump steer change. It also eliminates any changes that come from camber gain or loss. This is definitely simpler than gauges that use two dial indicators—one on each side of the plate—which requires some extra computation.

Make sure nothing from the suspension or hub is touching the frame. If you are racing a Wide-5 lug pattern, Longacre offers a standoff kit that allows it to work with this model.

Raise or lower the suspension so that the dial indicator on the frame is centered over the zero mark on the bump steer plate. If you need it, the frame is height adjustable too. Next, zero out the indicator.

Use the floor jack to raise or lower the suspension. If the dial indicator shows the back of the plate moves in (away from the frame) then that wheel is toeing out. If it shows the back of the plate moves out, the wheel is toeing in. We suggest measuring bump in 1/4-inch increments to track how bump steer changes as the suspension moves.

If you are racing a stock-style suspension it can be quite difficult to adjust bump steer. But Allstar Performance offers a kit that—if it is legal where you race—is really trick. It replaces stock outer ball joint (top) with a heim joint and adjustable pin. You can lower the effective height of the joint by adding or removing the included shims to make it quite easy to dial in bump steer.

Sources

Allstar Performance; 269/463.8000; www.AllstarPerformance.com

Longacre Racing Products; 800/423.3110; www.LongacreRacing.com

Wehrs Machine; 877/460-7211; www.WehrsMachine.com

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