Mind Garden

you work 5 days a week for 8 hours at a very intense job with multiple skills required. you have 5 minutes to grab all of your very heavy tools and navigate to the opposite end of the building when you change shifts. you get a single 30 minute lunch. you have to exercise, regardless of illness, neurodivergence or disability for an hour and you don't get to choose what you do. you have hours of the same work to do at home. also if you fuck any of this up, or do it the wrong way, or stop showing up, you will be punished and your caretakers could go to jail.

maybe you have the choice to do this all at home. the only difference is that you don't have to transport as much. so you're stuck in one spot, alone, head down, working like you usually would otherwise.

completely inhumane, right? but sure, "kids these days are..." alive people who think and feel. you should not torture children.

this is big al from the pubs favourite jumper, he gave it to my auntie asking her to fix it, she gave it to my granny asking her to fix it, and now it’s made my way to me to try to fix it.

this jumper is truly in awful condition, the sleeves look like they’ve been chewed off by a rabid animal

there’s an incredibly worn patch on the sleeve which i’ve only just decided on how best to mend

and it’s just generally covered in holes and wear and tear

here i will document my process of repairing this jumper for big al. he is paying me in chocolate so i am happy.

brings me a lot of joy to see people have patience to keep their clothes going rather than letting it go to waste

Like. Yes, a full third of the game is dedicated to deciding the fate of the Quarian and Geth conflict. The Quarians created the Geth, the Geth rebelled against Quarian control, and Shepard must decide the outcome of their conflict.

You know what else a third of the game deals with? The Salarians and the Krogan. Like the Quarians, the Salarians too had "created" the Krogan when they gave advanced technology to a low-tech society and brought them into the stars. And they too got scared and sought to destroy what they had made once the Krogan rebelled against their control.

And then another third is about uncovering the relationship between the Asari and their creators, the Protheans.

The whole fucking game is about civilizations birthed from other civilizations and the relationships thereof. And only one section of it directly involves synthetic life.

There's something really interesting in that concept. It's easy to imagine a version of Mass Effect where the Reapers both originate and end the cycles.

That they were made long ago, and they like the Geth rebelled against their creators' systems of control.

That the Reapers seed worlds with life, helping it flourish, watching it evolve, and then retreat into deep space to watch their societies grow.

But as a society advances, the Reapers grow scared. They fear its advancement, that it will become too smart, too aware. That it will ultimately rebel against them as they rebelled against their own makes. And so when a society gets too advanced, they return and snuff it out.

Only to be driven to create once more.

It's an idea of the Reapers not as the synthetics in an "Organics and synthetics must hate each other" equation but rather as the creators. That they are the Quarians to our Geth. And through navigating these three chapters, Shepard can prove that there can be a better way.

Eridians are further behind than humans technologically right? They dont have computers, relativity, quantum mechanics, etc. In fact, Eridians probably dont even know about the Big Bang because their atmosphere would filter out most of the cosmic microwave background radiation we use to detect it. On a human timeline, theyre anywhere between like early-mid 20th century. Rocky's basically a cosmonaut.

So the human civilization is pretty advanced from Rocky's perspective. Rationally he understands this. On a conceptual level he knows this to be true.

Tigran perfunctorily bloodletting in the wee hours of the morning.

My brother enlisted coming out of high school. I was in high school the next year. He bombed out of basic training PDQ and was back at home and SERIOUSLY fucked up from it and never actually recovered, I don’t think.

So I get to my junior year in high school and we *must* talk to the military recruiters. It’s required. We can tell them any old thing we want to, but we *must* at least hear them out. Being the kind of person I am, I did. I listened. I talked, and I listened to the guy’s responses. I told him I’d discuss it with my brother who had done basic training.

I got home, and told him that I’d had the conversation with the recruiter. He looked me dead in the eye and said, “Whatever he told you, it was a bold-faced lie. They’re allowed and ENCOURAGED to lie to get recruits. Do NOT even give him a “no thanks.” Just ignore any contact.”

This was in 2001, BEFORE 9/11.

Imagine how desperate they are for recruits now.

If they ask you what time it is, refuse to even look at your watch. Don’t even let them get into it. If you *have to* talk to them, tell them flatly that you’re not interested and that you aren’t going to budge. And then DON’T.

They also go out of their way to target poorer areas and prep kids to barely pass the asvab, and if I hadn't been a stupid 17 year old, I should have noticed the giant red billboards they were waving

DON'T DO IT!!!

1) part of a franchise

2) a police procedural or any kind of crime solving