Rat

Return By Death does happen, but we actually never see it. We see only the “successful” life, or at least one that goes pretty far.

It would be especially juicy if this happened in Arc 6, when Subaru contracts terrible, terrible amnesia.

Seeing him suddenly go from cringy, happy go lucky to dazed, confused, and maybe even faint from the trauma only he still remembers; watching him interpret information in very unexpected ways or predict outcomes with uncanny precision.

We already experience this in the show, but what must it actually be like to experience Subaru second hand? What’s it like to watch this man go through days and days of trauma and character growth in a split second?

The European Union already forced Apple to abandon its proprietary charging port and adopt USB-C across its entire iPhone lineup. It just did something bigger. A new EU mandate requires every smartphone sold in Europe including Apple devices to feature a battery that can be replaced by the user without specialist tools, without voiding a warranty, and without sending the device to a manufacturer approved service center. Batteries must maintain a minimum capacity threshold after a set number of charge cycles and replacement parts must remain available for up to ten years after a model goes on sale.

The consumer electronics industry built its current business model around batteries that degrade, cannot be replaced at home, and create a natural upgrade cycle every two to three years. The EU just legislated that model out of existence in the world's largest regulatory market.

Apple, Samsung, and every other manufacturer now faces a choice between redesigning their devices for the European market or accepting that their current hardware architecture is no longer legally sellable there.

Typing this from Graphene now, in fact. But, both of those take the Android Open Source Project, without all the bloatware--and largely de-Google the whole thing. They give you much more control over privacy and what the apps you choose to install can do and access on your phone.

I know Graphene sandboxes everything, including the optionally installed Google Play Services which a lot of apps unfortunately require to run. (Lineage uses an alternative to Play Services instead.) So, you can install what would normally be unacceptably intrusive apps and just lock them away from pulling any funny shit with your data, or phoning home. Including the couple of Google things I do still keep around.

I also prefer running much more transparent, privacy-respecting open source apps where possible. Besides the transparency, I'd rather avoid the shitty tech corps entirely where I can. There are pretty good alternatives available for a lot of the usual suspects.

An alternative app store:

UPDATE || Thursday May 28th || 2026

--Current readers, click *here* for the update--

* NEW READERS || PATREON || BLUESKY || INSTAGRAM *

Special thank you to @barbelzoa who works super hard coloring panels alongside me each week!! <3