Oh No

– You don't know what any of this is about, do you? You work here, you see these people every day, how they live, and you just don't get it. – What do you want me to say? That I feel for them? That they got a bad break? What good would it do? – It'd be a start.

STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE (1993–1999) ⤷ Paste Tense (parts I & II)

+ bonus

Hamlet as a D&D paladin.

For example, here is the outside of the train station:

If you thought that they were only outside the station, think again!

The last dinosaur has a crab, because the region is known for seafood.

You can even buy coffee emblazoned with dinosaurs!

And that's not even getting into how you get to the nearby Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum. Behold, the Dino-Liner:

And if you're like, man I don't know how the museum will top all of these dinosaurs, boy do I have news for you.

And then you get to the cafe:

But, eventually, it was time to head back to the train station...on the dino bus.

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.  nasa employee: what?  astronaut: *loading a pistol* moon’s stuck in a time loop. do you have extra ammo? this won’t be enough. nasa employee: enough for…what? astronaut: *finding extra clip of ammo, pocketing it, and getting back on the rocket-ship* don’t worry about it!

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop. nasa employee: what?  astronaut: *emerging from supply closet with a space harpoon, getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop.

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut:   oh hey u guys are back early astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.  nasa employee: what?  astronaut: what?  nasa employee: how did you know what i was going to say?  astronaut: *punching in key pad code for base evacuation signal, getting back on the rocket-ship* i told you…moon’s stuck in a time loop. *red warning lights begin flashing*

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.  nasa employee: what?  astronaut: *rifling thru bookshelf of operating instructions, selecting one that says “AIRLOCK MANUAL OVERRIDE INSTRUCTIONS,” getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop.

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.  nasa employee: what?  astronaut: moon’s stuck in a time loop. hey, do you have anything to eat? i’m starving. *opens random drawer, finds nothing, closes it* nasa employee: a time loo- uh, we don’t have food in here…we can’t…eat in the control room, only the break-room. astronaut: *sighs* nasa employee:…my lunch is in like 10 minutes, though, and if my lunch is actually STILL THERE and not STOLEN, AGAIN, i can share it with yo- astronaut: nah, that’s ok…no time. *loading a pistol and getting back on the rocket-ship* or…too much time. but thanks, anyway. OK, bye! *alarm begins blaring* nasa employee: you’re…welcome? wait, a TIME LOOP?!

I thought ppl made up Cardassians bickering to flirt to fit their Garashir fics. YOURE TELLING ME THAT WAS REAL THE WHOLE TIME???

The thing I love about Terry’s writing is that he loved - loved - civil society.  He loved the correct functioning of the social contract.  He loved technology, loved innovation, but also loved nature and the ways of living that work with and through it.   He loved Britain, but hated empire (see “Jingo”) - he was a ruralist who hated provincialism, a capitalist who hated wealth, an urbanist who reveled in stories of pollution, crime and decay.  He was above all a man who loved systems, of nature, of thought, of tradition and of culture.  He believed in the best of humanity and knew that we could be even better if we just thought a little more.

As a writer: how skillful, how prolific, how consistent.  The yearly event of a new Discworld book has been a part of my life for more than two decades, and in that barrage of material there have been so few disappointments, so many surprises… to come out with a book as fresh and inspired as “Monstrous Regiment” as the 31st novel in your big fantasy series?  Ludicrous.  He was just full of treasure.  What a thing to have had, what a thing to have lost.

I can tell you the answer, but to do so, we're gonna have to talk about a completely different TTRPG.

If you've read @makapatag's truly excellent Filipino martial arts TTRPG Gubat Banwa (and if you haven't, here it is), you may notice that every single character class description (with one notable exception) ends with one of these babies:

I am not Makapatag, and I cannot write with quite as much grace and eloquence as he can, but I will try:

If you choose to become a Lancer, ask yourself why you mock the name of peace with these weapons of war. You call yourself a saviour, but your steed was forged from the murder of a world. You stride across the sky in a colossus built in your own image, so why are you too cowardly to give it your face? Why do you believe these machines of death can preserve life?

It is important to note that the admonitions in Gubat Banwa are not just there to make you feel bad; they are there as legitimate questions. The Sword Isles have seen so much blood, death and tragedy. Wars are not glorious and killing is not a game. So, knowing all of that, why have you taken up this discipline - no matter how noble and virtuous it might claim to be - to shed more blood, to bring more death, to write more tragedy? What could possibly drive you to this? What need is so great that you must kill?

The thing with Gubat Banwa is that there are legitimate answers to these questions! There are bad people doing bad things, and some of them will not be stopped with words or kindness. Sometimes, as sorrowful as it is, killing is the correct choice to prevent greater suffering and deeper tragedy - but adding less misery and death to the world is still adding some amount of it. Even the most necessary wars will drench the ground in the blood of the innocent.

A sword is a tool meant to kill humans; while it can be used for other things, it is not well-suited to anything other than this. A mech is, in its most basic essence, just a very complicated sword: it's usually used on things larger than a person, but it's still a tool built to kill.

So why have you taken up this path? Humanity was saved from the brink of extinction and has created wondrous technologies like printers, cold fusion and mind-machine interface, and yet you use them to play soldier in a giant metal man. Why do you choose to take up this machine of death, built by the greedy and pitiless? Why do you think these machines can ever make things right?

Because sometimes, despite everything, they can.

Warhammer 40K shows an awful world full of monsters and monstrosity, and in the darkest moments of its history, Lancer's world looked just as bleak, but Lancer's world differs in one crucial way. Warhammer's world has long given up trying to be better, but Lancer's world never did. Lancer's world kept insisting a better world is possible, and it used what tools it had to make it so.

Sometimes the correct choice, no matter how bitter it may seem, is to kill someone. When you need to do this, a sword is a perfectly good choice for the job.

If you find yourself discomforted by the fact that all the people you can buy mechs from are corrupt and immoral - good! You have correctly engaged with the text. You have understood that the sort of people who would make giant walking death machines and sell them for profit are not good people. But you still have a job to do, and you need the correct tools, and those people have them.

Hey now, you’re an all star

listen to what I orchestrated

I was a production assistant on “Deep Space Nine”. 

One day I was in a hurry, and decided to shave a half minute off my journey but zipping through a soundstage and out the other side. It was Stage Four, and held Ops, some personal quarters, Sisko’s quarters, the Cargo Bay.. and hallways. 

It was lit, because we were moving there later in the afternoon. I began jogging through the corridor and stopped right in the middle, where I could see neither end of the set piece. Suddenly, I WAS THERE. I was on the station. It was a complete alternate reality feeling, almost deja-vu, a deep familiarity. I paused, and a chill ran down my spine. 

But I was in a hurry, and my feet took me quickly to the end of the set, and I looked back… yep, just a lit set, all alone on the soundstage, nothing I hadn’t seen a thousand times. 

And yet. I had been there. On the station. For a split second, I was no longer on Stage Four, on the Paramount lot, in the middle of Los Angeles. I was in Bajoran space, on a station in the stars. It was only a moment… but the feeling and the memory has never, ever left me. 

SO YOU WRITE DOWN A WORD

BUT ITS NOT THE RIGHT WORD

SO YOU TRY A NEW WORD

BUT YOU HATE THE NEW WORD

AND YOU NEED A GOOD WORD

BUT YOU CANT FIND THE WORD

OH WHERE IS IT

WHAT IS IT

WHAT IS IT

WHERE IS IT-