Let's Not and Say We Wanted To

(Source: BlueSky)

Okay, brief summary.

In the early 1960s, the "Vatican II" ecumenical council enacted a bunch of reforms...as bad as you might think the Catholic Church is, it used to be worse. Needless to say, there was a bunch of people who didn't care for this newfangled stuff like "liturgy in something other than Latin" or "women have a role in the Church other than Nun and Mother." One such organized group is the Secret Society of Super-Villains Society of St. Pius X. Back in the 70s they tried anointing their own bishops and a lot of them got excommunicated for it. The rest played by the rules and were a constant voice of dissent against all these "debasements" of the Church.

Well, we're hitting the point that there's not a lot of SSPX'er bishops left alive (they were careful to not get EVERYONE kicked out in the 70s), and without new bishops they can't ordain new priests who will follow their "it's not a schism, it's the True Church" precepts. Unlike a lot of Protestant confessions where someone can just sort of start up a church if they can get followers, Catholic Priests have to be properly ordained by Catholic Bishops who in turn have to be approved by the Pope. He doesn't have to directly ordain them, but he does need to issue an official "yeah, go for it" statement.

In the morning of July 1, 2026, in Switzerland (a stronghold of the PX'ers) one of the surviving bishops (the guy on the left of the image above) ran a big ceremony where a number of new bishops were ordained ("apostolic succession" being the technical term, the guy in the middle being one of the new supposed bishops), and when they got to the part where the Pope's statement is supposed to be read, he just said they didn't need an obviously wrong-headed Pope's permission (not in those words, but I am told that the flowery language employed counted as very bitchy in ecclesiastic terms) and went ahead with it.

So, after letting most of the day go by, the Pope's office just issued a statement that the "Lefebvrians" (the guy who started the Secret Society of Super-Pious) had excommunicated themselves by doing something that was clearly a no-no. No specific action required by the Pope, there's actions that have long been considered self-excommunicating, and ordaining bishops without permission or accepting such an ordination are on the list. (A while back I looked up the list of recent excommunications, most of them had to do with "someone ordained someone else without permission.")

no seriously

RATING: RELIABLE

And then I went to the USAmerican Midwest

Rains frequently, but the worst is like standing under a bathroom shower. Genuinely inhospitable rainstorms are uncommon.

Along the coast, it's pretty easy in most areas to walk to at least one store, or else there's usually a bus or shuttle available. There are sidewalks and bike lanes everywhere.

It's a temperate boreal rainforest, so while there are many freshwater lakes and rivers, they're usually pretty cold. The biggest danger is typically getting caught in a strong current, and the most dangerous animals in swimming distance are on land.

Earthquakes happen almost every day, but the vast majority go unnoticed. Buildings are designed to withstand bigger seismic activity, so unless it's a 5 or higher it just kind of feels like having low blood sugar for a second. There are no tornados

Rural Illinois, USA:

One minute it's sunny, then ten minutes later that distant smudge on the horizon has swallowed the entire sky in black clouds and the water is coming down like waterfall and you literally CANNOT SEE. Then there's a crash like cymbals and you need to get indoors because the thunder and lightening are on TOP of you

No sidewalks until you are in the smack dab center of town, which is a three hour walk or twenty minute drive from wherever you are.

There aren't many natural bodies of water other than small ponds and creeks, and because the environment is so much warmer, those are filled with snapping turtles that can grow bigger than a nine year old child and water snakes that are incredibly venomous. These are paired with leeches and mosquitos for that sweet umami flavor.

Location: Oregon

Date: May

We ask that discussion under questions be limited to how you came to your conclusion, not what your conclusion was.

Answer hidden under the cut.

and that actually is something we have an answer to!

Bolaire did immediately start researching Termina (the big book that he sat in front of and had the mechanism that turned pages was supposed to be about her) and got no information from that.

But there was no sense of urgency- Termina was, as far as Bolaire knew, dead, and there was no reason at this point to think otherwise. And, personally, I think if my sister's corpse almost killed my best friend's not-wife, but was safe if the box was shut, and a bunch of other real bad scary weird stuff was going on, I also might backburner that particular project. Like, for emotional and personal safety reasons, they had bigger fish to fry- or seemed to.

But also: the DM straight told them that they weren't going to be able to glean much more from the box, they'd have to get outside information

like, earlier in this scene, Brennan straight up told them 'Above table, I'm totally fine if you don't' open the box. (The transcript has an error and attributes this line to Taliesin accidentally, so it's not included because it's confusing.)

and we now know that the information Brennan told them to look for straight up wasn't available through their normal resources, because the box was commissioned by a secret organization through another secret organization, and very recently (we knew the latter bit already). it simply wasn't available through their usual resources.

Essentially: Brennan set this plot point up to come up later, and then it came up later. when it was plot relevant, in fact, because the next bit is clearly going to be more centralized around Bolaire and the Panto.

It is one of the biggest errors in world history and here’s why:

Although starting in the middle of summer with a few small battles, it eventually dragged on for almost six more months into a brutal winter

The Russians’ scorched earth policy surprised the French and made the French’s advances much more treacherous and costly

Napoleon’s thirst for a full victory were impossible to satisfy because the Russians refused to engage in any prolonged battles, instead wisely choosing to use guerrilla tactics to decimate an already broken, famished, and sickened French Army.

Dashcon was a disaster because:

Everyone was relying on an intricate network of trade. So, if the materials from location A were delayed, that would affect the production of materials at location B, and people C would end up without the final products. These chains were multilayered, so if something went wrong in one place, the dominoes would start falling in all directions all at once.

There was a similar intricate network of political alliances that could also unravel at a moment’s notice.

Stress on the trade networks would put stress on the political network, and vice versa. Basically, society was a tightly wound tinderbox kept in a grain store.

In a very short space of time, a couple of events threw metaphorical lit matches at this explosive society, namely: new technologies, wars, plagues, droughts, and volcanoes. Any one of these things, perhaps even two or three of these things, might have been survivable. All of them at once was apocalyptic.

This is where Dashcon comes in; some people blame it for the destruction of Mycenaean Greece. Like, the whole thing. Others argue this is one of those internet rumour mill exaggerations.

Dashcon was a disaster because:

Early online fandom was a dumpster fire of cliques, Big Name Fans vying for attention, and people drunk on the idea of reinventing themselves behind usernames.

Harry Potter fandom, in particular, was a mess of in-groups and small posting venues moderated according to the whim of individuals.

It was easy (and relatively common) to create additional accounts that would fan the flames and agree with a user whenever they needed back-up - these accounts were called ‘sock puppets’ after the kind of old-fashioned homemade toy we elder fans played with because they were children before the internet.

In addition to the shipping wars, there’s a fake stalker, a fake nanny, and MsScribe even harassed a woman dying of cancer, all in her quest to be the centre of attention.

Dashcon was a disaster because:

Operators reduced power to reactor #4 in preparation for a safety test, timed to correspond with a routine maintenance shutdown. They wanted to test if the plant’s turbines, which would still be spinning, would provide enough power to keep the reactor cool in the event of a power failure.

In order to conduct the test without interference, the operators disabled reactor #4’s emergency cooling system.

Power in the reactor stabilized at too low a level to conduct the test. To raise power, the operators removed almost all of the control rods from the reactor.

The test began, and then there was an unexpected power surge. In response, the operators tried to scram the reactor (emergency shutdown), but the control rods jammed going in. The reactor’s power surge caused a massive increase in steam pressure inside the reaction vessel, which caused the fuel cladding to fail and release fuel into the water coolant.

The increased steam pressure caused a steam explosion, which blew the roof off of the reactor building, ruptured more fuel rods, and severed the coolant lines that fed more water into the reactor. The remaining coolant flashed to steam, leaving the core exposed with nothing to cool it down.

A second explosion, much more powerful, sent chunks of graphite from the control rods flying out of the building. These lumps of hot moderator caught fire, increasing the spread of radioactivity from the destroyed reactor.

No the problems with Dashcon started with its construction and refit.

Dashcon was a hub of a network of oil and gas pipes from 36 different wells. Shutting off the flow from these wells required authorization.

The Dashcon platform had been built for oil, but when it was refit for gas, the original safety principles were not followed: while dangerous modules had been initially separated by distance and firewalls, after the refit, hydrocarbon modules like gas compression ended up adjacent to control room modules.

Condensate pump A was taken offline for maintenance, and multiple work orders resulted in its pressure safety valve being replaced with a disk cover for recertification. This was noted on the PSV work order, but not both. Personnel were busy during the shift change and the PSV work order was misplaced.

Fire control pumps were put under manual control, which was a normal procedure during off-platform dives, to protect divers from being sucked up into the automated fire suppression system.

Pump B experienced a failure and could not restart. Without the PSV work order, the crew believed it was safe to restart pump A. Pump A began leaking gas through the disk cover, which almost immediately ignited and exploded.

The firewalls had been built for oil production, and were not designed to withstand gas explosions. Coupled with the unanticipated proximity of the control modules to the production modules, this led to damage of the control room.

With the fire pumps in manual mode and the control room inaccessible, crews could not activate the fire suppression systems.

As Dashcon disintegrated, the fire eventually spread through the network of pipes to other events.

The real tragedy of Dashcon was the eminently preventable poor decision-making, lies, and overconfidence:

Like many other communities from Illinois, the organizers of Dashcon decided to leave the the eastern U.S. for the recently acquired land in Oregon and California. They wanted to leave their financial troubles, start new businesses, and seek their fortunes.

However, the Dashcon group started their journey dangerously late in the year.

As they travelled west, they were given news about a new route called the Hastings Cutoff, which promised a quicker and easier passage over the mountains than the notoriously difficult standard route west. They didn’t know that the information about the Hastings Cutoff had been fudged and exaggerated to promote business for the town near the route, though they were warned against it by some travellers who had experience with the area.

The group split, with some taking the standard route and some deciding to turn south and take the Hastings Cutoff.

They struggled through the difficult terrain. The Utah desert was much wider than Hastings had promised, and oxen died of thirst or were stolen by local Native peoples. The wagon groups increasingly broke off into smaller cliques mistrustful of the others. The Hastings Cutoff, rather than being a shortcut, ended up being a longer and more perilous way.

They made it to the steep and difficult mountain pass across the Sierra Nevadas in October; while up at Truckee Lake (now known as Dashcon Lake), snow began to fall, quickly rising to five feet deep or more and stranding the party in the mountains. They built cabins from logs and their wagons, and planned to camp for the winter.

They had little luck hunting, and didn’t know how to fish in the lake. Their food stores ran out, and they began to eat the oxen that had since starved to death, and then the oxhides that made up the wagon and cabin roofs.

A small party set off on snowshoes to try to cross the pass on foot.

They got lost and confused in a blizzard a few days into their trek; several men died, and the remaining party butchered and ate them (though the two Miwok Native American guides with them refused to eat human flesh).

As more people died on the quest, they were eaten too.

Eventually, one of the party shot and murdered the Native guides, Salvador and Luis (who were at that point weaker than the rest from having refused human meat) in order to eat them too.

Shortly thereafter, the party encountered a Native American village; the people there gave them what food they had, and brought them to a ranch down the mountain for help.

By February, two successive rescue parties were raised to go back for the group who had stayed back at Truckee Lake.

In March and April, two further rescue parties found and retrieved everyone left in the mountains. Several of them had also resorted to cannibalizing the bodies of those who froze or starved to death.

Of the 89 people who had entered the mountains, only 48 came back down the other side alive.

for the set up alone we were quoted 1200

So when I say that, I'm talking about a single small A/C unit for a single room. The goal here is to just make your bedroom cool enough to sleep in.

And right now, in the UK, you'll have a hard time doing it because all of the small A/Cs like that are largely sold out or marked up because of the heat wave. (Do not buy a swamp cooler. The humidity is too high for those to do shit there). You'll have to wait until the late fall to invest in one for next year.

If you're in the US, you'll have better luck.

Midea makes a small portable A/C that will cool a single room for less than $350. These are easy to set up with almost any kind of window. I use an older version of that model that's effectively the same in my office and bedroom. If you can do a traditional window unit you can go even cheaper. Hell, for $400 you can probably buy two small window units that work just as well and cool two bed rooms.

If you have a choice between a window unit and a portable unit, the window unit will work much, much, much, much better. Only use a portable unit if the better options won't work in your situation (e.g., an apartment where the windows aren't compatible with a window unit and you cannot make changes to the physical structure).

>remembers Campaign 4 won't be back for 7 weeks

HOWEVER, when it comes to things that are NOT people, I do think there is something to be said for the fact that every single person who sees the skull of Udanoceratops comes away with the conclusion that this is the one dinosaur capable of malice and hate.

Very much did in the sense that I literally do not know where my job is at the moment. But, for the time being I haven't been let go because nobody else including the store owner knows where it is either.

So, I don't wanna risk doxxing myself by posting pictures but goddamn am I tempted because this is not a believable event. This is a cartoon problem. For looneytoons.

But yeah, so, I work(ed?) at a kiosk selling boba tea, right? Freestanding kiosk in the mall with full water and electrical hookups and multiple fridges and sinks and a mini kitchen and the works. Fully functional tea shop. Very important to note that it was there last night, The work chat was discussing another issue last night at closing time. I'll get back to this.

It's been showing signs of being on the way out with how business is being handled lately and I've been considering other options, which is probably why I'm not as torn up about this as I should be, but maybe it just hasn't set in yet, but that's not the point. The point is there's been a lot of shit breaking and not being replaced and nobody mentioning anything about it until I walk into work in the morning and have to figure out why shit like the fucking cash register isn't there today. So I'm kinda used to having to ask questions about big things that nobody bothered to update me on. I was out for two weeks recovering from a surgery, so I came to work this morning assuming there'd be some kind of bullshit, yeah?

So, the question I had to ask the chat this morning was:

Not a text I ever thought I'd have to send in sincerity, but there it is. Because what I found instead was a fenced off patch of discolored tiles and a few holes in the floor where my entire place of employment used to be.

And the answer? Nobody knows! It was there last night when the mall closed, and every single trace of the structure and all its contents including drink making supplies and our safe and cashbox was gone when it opened again. And when I say nobody knows, I mean everyone from last night's closers to the actual (former?) owner of the store jad no fucking clue about this until getting that text from me this morning. For once I am actually the first to know. 🎉.

So. I guess I didn't so much lose my job as had it stolen. Not by AI, but good old fashioned hands-on human beings picking it up and carrying it away somehow. All mall security would tell me was that they were instructed not to tell me anything and have us contact our management. Who also don't know anything. And later on I came across some construction workers around the gravesite of the kiosk discussing filling in the holes, asked them about it, and was told that they "weren't at liberty to say".

So, not only is my job gone in the most literal physical sense of the word, but it was taken in some kind of super secret kiosk extraction in the dead of night without any warning or witnesses and nobody is allowed to speak of it. The store owner said she was gonna figure it out 10 hours ago and still no word back.

My mother in law thinks the FBI took it.

Not any of the other stores around the state. Just the one little kiosk.

Why? Because she loves a conspiracy and is just a little bit extra.

Also because she was around for the massive crackdown on Yakuza-owned businesses in Waikiki (in her homestate) that did actually involve the FBI seizing stores (no confirmation of making kiosks cleanly disappear in the middle of the night though).

Still no word from my job on what's actually going on, but the most likely theory so far is that maybe the kiosk was on lease and got repossessed? The mystery continues

According to the owner, based on what she's been able to find out, the kiosk was not removed legally and they're starting a potentially long process of legal action. I hope she gets to sue the shit out of whoever did it but for now at least I know for sure I'm unemployed.

Really hoping for more details in terms of who/why/how, so I'll keep updating if I learn anything.

For now the summary is: An unnamed entity that is most likely mall management (on account of mall security cooperating with them) stole an entire kiosk and all the contents including money and machinery with barely a trace in the middle of the night grinch-style, with zero warning or explanation, and ensured the silence of both security and the construction crew, in an action that was definitely preplanned and illegal, and as far as I know nobody knows its whereabouts.

Enjoy the unintentionally funniest text I've ever sent in my life

Aaand a close-up:

HEY HI HELLO THIS ONE'S MY FAVORITE

Some have called "they pay me in woims" Sluggo's catch phrase. It's not. He said it once, and folks on Bluesky loved it so much they say it all the time, especially in response to the Nancy Comics by Ernie Bushmiller account. Here's the original "they pay me in woims" from February 22, 1978:

And, another mention of woims from September 13, 1949:

And the Woims Wednesday (aka Woimsday) image that gets posted almost every week because of the popularity of the word: