even worse than Andrew Jackson's white house
Acquired Stardust

blake kathryn
almost home

Andulka

tannertan36
KIROKAZE

pixel skylines
ojovivo

Discoholic 🪩

if i look back, i am lost
NASA
Aqua Utopia|海の底で記憶を紡ぐ

❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
art blog(derogatory)
Three Goblin Art

Kiana Khansmith
DEAR READER
wallacepolsom

Kaledo Art
RMH

seen from Malaysia
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from China

seen from Malaysia
seen from Bosnia & Herzegovina
seen from Canada

seen from Malaysia

seen from Türkiye
seen from Netherlands
seen from Venezuela
seen from Venezuela

seen from Venezuela
seen from Venezuela
seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
@theoryofweirdness
even worse than Andrew Jackson's white house
If Project Hail Mary taught us anything it's that forced romance subplots have ruined movies. Too many stories about guys sacrificing themselves to save girls and not enough movies about guys sacrificing themselves to save their cool rock alien friend.
Some panel redraws because drawing them is Still a struggle
Rocky hears Grace laugh for the first time
“Why Grace expel air out of lungs abruptly multiple times, and flex face muscles away from lower face orifice, question? Also make sound go ‘Ha-Ha’”
“It’s a laugh, Rock. Something humans do when we find something humorous or absurd.”
“Eridians have that too.” Rocky proceeds to do that chirping thing he does where he also bounces up and down slightly
“Now why the hell did you act so confused when your laugh sounds practically the same to mine?”
“Different things going on physically. Rocky practice human biology terms and mess with you.”
Big fan of the idea that, from Erid's perspective, Grace is probably kinda scary, at first.
Like his language consists of noises that are simultaneously very simple compared to the overlapping eridian notes, and weird clicking/hard sounds that no one could even begin to try to imitate. To begin with, that's a weird combination.
And there's a popular headcanon going around that Grace can pronounce certain simple words in eridian without his piano thingy, and he would sound like a pebble learning to speak. Let's make it creepy and assume eridians also have a fear of the uncanny valley.
Grace getting better with time at imitating simple words, therefore accidentally making himself sound more and more like a pebble, sounding right enough, but not quite. That shit would be creepy as fuck.
Imagine an alien that can imitate the way the children of your species sound like. At first you'd freak out! Yeah he saved your planet but. It's like a fucking mimic. Then you'd see him trip over nothing and fall face first and you'd calm down.
This is probably a stretch but I don't care. I like to imagine eridians and humans have some very similar fears, and the uncanny valley potential is just too good to ignore.
Eva "violates patent law and kidnaps scientists for the chance of .1% more efficiency" Stratt and Ryland "I saved an entire planet from certain extinction, and I still feel bad that I asked them to make me a wristwatch" Grace, the commander and her second in command.
More vatling hcs that's been floating around my brain:
- the speaker system on the vat is usually off save for announcements, but Stratt noticed that many had trouble adjusting to living on a ship with no clear timezone and started playing white noise every morning and night to help the crew adjust (birdsong to wake them/soft instrumentals at night)
- but one morning (well after April Fools) the entire ship woke to sea shanties blasting through the system (Ilyukhina swears she had nothing to do with it cause why would she ever disturb her own precious hours of rest, Stratt gave her a look but dismissed her, while somewhere on the ship, Hatch was bent over laughing over his success)
- when first arriving on the vat, it can be hard for vatlings to adjust to the rise and fall of the waves beneath them, but after a while it becomes easier to walk and work even during rough waters
- that doesn't stop the sea sickness, though, after a particularly bad storm much of the crew was left incapacitated and nauseous including Eva (who would never admit it, but for once replaced her third cup of coffee with ginger tea), Grace (who couldn't stomach anything longer than half an hour), and Lokken (Grace finds her doubled over and in a rare moment of civility held her hair back as she threw up in a Petrova Task Force sickness bag)
- that experience was so terrible that Lamai ended up developing an anti-nausea medication that didn't induce drowsiness (which was promptly sold to Big Pharma to help support the vatjectives)
- when the next storm arrives, she is hailed a hero and employee of the month (ending Grace's three month streak)
- there are two universal truths of Stratt's Vat: one, the vatccent posses all, and two, no matter how strong your core strength is, the curse of sea legs comes for all
- after months of not stepping on stable land, the flight crew and the primary team of the PTF are invited to a last minute gala mainly for pr sake (much to the chagrin of Eva) which of course meant relearning how to walk on dry land in their hotel rooms
- it was much easier for some more than others, years of training gave the astronauts an advantage (though that did not stop Shapiro and DuBois from holding the other up, if anything it gave them an excuse), but the primary team, however, struggled to keep their balance straight
- if you were to analyze the pictures taken that night, you'd notice how the second in command kept a steady arm hooked around his Director, the two rarely apart when standing (for all her capabilities, heels and sea legs do not mix well)
- each part of the vat is given a notice board to place complaints and requests, but over time this evolved into being a space to post pictures taken of one another, and a silent competition formed of vatlings attempting to take the most candid photo of each other
- many photos of crew members sleeping in wild positions or even on top each other are posted (including a flight crew dog pile, komorov and lokken after a long day of testing a mini astrophage-powered centrifuge, and one posted by Carl who, during a traffic pile up after yet another meeting with some world power, snapped a selfie of Ryland and Eva asleep in the back seat, Ryland's head on Eva's shoulder, who in turn rested her own head on his)
- that photo went missing soon after, tucked away in a certain office drawer containing a fox charm and rosary
- a cat somehow ended up on board the ship and was only discovered hours after it sailed from harbour by a poor member of security who thought he could escape his allergies, only to be assaulted by cat fur
- he failed to capture the animal, and hours later it is found sleeping and huddled up in Eva's office under her desk
- it quickly grew on her, and the vat did have some loose mice running around so she allowed it to stay
- Grace named it Sol since it was perfectly orange, but no one realized it was pregnant until Lamai caught a rare sight of it while giving a report to Eva
- she ended up giving birth to three healthy kittens right under Eva's desk, and votes were held throughout the ship to name them
- the white one was unsurprisingly named Luna, the black kitten was named Astro for its fiesty personality and love for biting people, and the orange one was originally named Garfield since it was mistaken as a boy
- but as it grew it became obvious as being the sole girl in the litter, and after spending so much time around Eva grew an attachment to the woman, and a running joke was spread of the kitten being like her daughter, where the name Eve quickly spread and was adopted
- the four cats now roam the ship and were given the official title of chief mice repellent
- Sol now rests in Grace's room the most, Luna in the break room, Astro in Little Russia, while Eve remains in Stratt's office and room, often making an appearance during her online meetings
AND IT FUCKING WORKED
The death of joy. #MAGA
Links from memory
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.
Given that no company walks away from European consumers voluntarily the phones are going to change and once they change for Europe the rest of the world will ask why theirs still do not.