The title being, Retcon - not A Retcon

----

Jet remembered the day she’d fused herself with her hardsuit, and what’d finally sparked her into going ahead with trying the damned thing on.

It all came down to one man who insisted she didn’t need to mix oil in with her car’s petrol, and that she was absolutely going to ruin the car’s engine if she put it in there. Of course, he knew better, and didn’t let her try to educate him on the matter.

Her car needed two-stroke oil in the fuel to lubricate its seals.

And he droned on in depth on what oil, coolant and petrol were for, and warned that her husband would be fairly fucking angry if she wrecked his car on him.

In that moment, her temper boiled and she resolved to put on the damned suit and prove what she could do.

At the same time, she remembered making the story up as something to fill out a character - a moment in time that seemed worthless, but could give the spark life to a new identity - something she’d assumed would be normal for a ‘real’ woman who’d looked like her puppet it did.

A moment that could be equally cliche, but relatable by anyone. Car enthusiasts and women both sympathised immediately.

And then it had become real. Ten years after creating it, Jet could swear blind that it happened. She could smell the petrol tingling in her nostrils. She could hear the peculiar rattle of the fuel pump, sounding like a single stray marble was being whirled around inside it and the gurgle of the straw-coloured petrol pouring down the dark throat of the tank. The fingers of a cool spring breeze made her regret wearing such a short skirt and tights, rather than a decent pair of jeans or trousers. Heeled shoes clicked on the bricks of the garage forecourt and she walked to the shop to pay.

Her reflection stared back at her from the mirror, her hair darker and longer than it had become. A leather jacket clung tight to her torso - while somehow still given a view down at her cleavage for the lucky few who happened to be taller than her. She’d already gotten her wallet out of her pocket…

At that point Ford had told her that a woman who dressed like that would normally be carrying a handbag and purse - it’d be strange to have a wallet like that, or a pocket to put in.

Jet’s mind had patched the hole and it all made sense. She carried a wallet at the time - it went in a pocket. Her hand moved and it was gone.

In the moment, like a dream, it all made sense.The world in her mind worked the way she thought it would, rather than the way it did.

In reality, she’d been forced to learn the differences. Men wouldn’t always notice - women would. A few subtle tells which might only raise an eyebrow in public, could raise hell in hostile company. On their own, they’d become quirks. Together they poked holes in her cover, and made her seem less like the person she’d claimed to be.

The way she’d gotten into her car that day, would’ve given everyone on the garage forecourt a flash of her underwear. Jet hadn’t fully mastered the art until sometime after Mackie’s awakening.

Driving in high heels could be done, but not in a way that could slip beneath her notice.

She found herself home alone again, getting ready for that night, freshly showered with a towel around her waist. Long legs picked their way on tip-toes through a bedroom which looked like the aftermath of a bomber raid on a comic-book and hobby shop - one which’d blown up the nearby Penney’s as collateral damage, mixing old clothes in with half-finished kits, toolboxes and a snarl of power cables which gave life to a collection of old Hi-fi equipment.

The clothes hinted at the truth. They obviously didn’t belong to her.

Her wardrobe had nothing ordinary in it. Nothing for a lazy day or a comfortable evening. Nothing in the underwear drawer that could be called ‘plain jane’, for the days when all she needed was a barrier between her body and her clothes.

Nothing she could’ve actually afforded at the time.

In reality, it’d all been bought to fill out Sylia Stingray’s character as the successful businesswoman, who wasn’t afraid to dress like it. Some of the underwear had obviously been bought for a mission that required her to ‘fill in’ for one of the girls at Candy Apple Red’s. ‘Sylia’ had never needed any nightwear - she’d never truly slept.

It all fit. The garters had to be specially ordered due to the length of her legs - a reminder that her body didn’t exactly need to, and hadn’t be built to confirm to, the usual natural proportions.

The image in the mirror, confirmed as much. Her hands pressed against her chest, sharpening the textures of soft cotton and delicate lace in her mind’s eye. Electric sparks of sensation shivered inside her breasts, filling them out before shooting down her spin. She felt wire under the brassiere tighten as she breathed, rubbing against soft skin.

A scent of antiseptic and steel tinged nostrils, mingled with that lustrous, fruity perfume she always associated with A.C Peters, chased by the sensation that something was missing - a sense of detachment from the moment like she was watching a video from inside somebody else’s body.

The memory thinned out, like looking at a colour image, where one of the three colour channels had been muted right down.

The first time she’d worn that underwear, had been the first day she’d tried her puppet body on. Jet recalled the shock sensations of cold air on bare skin for the first time in years, tempered by the muted sensations of her own armoured body still lingering beneath the surface, acting as a ground.

She remembered how wrong it seemed at the time to see a naked woman mirroring her movements. Her mind’s rejection of the image, had been tempered by the presence of her self beneath it all. A little like wearing a VR headset in a game with a female avatar - she could still feel her true self underneath the image on screen.

It had been nice to be able to touch things again. Ford enjoyed that body.

Her thoughts shifted back to her first time with another woman, lying naked, her whole body shivering, like she’d contacted a live wire. The moment of ecstasy washed everything else out of her mind.

Her thoughts shifted to her first time with another man, with an altogether deeper sort of of pleasure from a figure who’s appearance was lost in shadows. All detail had evaporated beyond the sensation of her body moulding itself to accept what was now moving inside it.

Both were tainted by the same sense of detachment - like only half being there. A large part of herself, hadn’t been in the room on either night.

When she sat down and thought about it, both times had been with Ford, and both on her first night with that body. Once as an introduction, and then as an experiment. It had been Ford’s turn to try the prosthetic on. Or had that been with a Boskone operative, who’d needed to be distracted while Jet herself ransacked his computer?

Ford preferred the puppet - to her it felt more intimate, more genuine, more like both of them were taking part and less like assisted masturbation. Jet hated the sense of not being in the room, preferring her own body - her own self - even if it limited what either of them could do for the other. As much as Jet enjoyed a rotary polisher, there was only so much enjoyment her partner could get out of it

Ultimately, intimacy had become a sacrifice one had to make on behalf of the other. By the time they broke up, it added stress, rather than adding strength.

Jet had begun considering giving up her armour, for Ford’s sake. They broke up, before she could bring herself to talk about it. The chance of waking up slowly and feeling bedsheets again almost made her go for it anyway.

The puppet could never do that. Jet couldn’t remember a single night’s sleep she’d ever had, before she became Jet.

The reflection in the mirror had finished with its makeup. Nothing fancy, nothing aggressive - just enough to make it appear as if she was wearing none at all. Luscious red lipstick completed the look. Elegant, natural, and beautiful. A pair of pear earrings shone on both her ears.

Her blouse had one, singular strong button, that held it across her chest, giving a strong, deep neckline, and a tall, bare stomach. It balanced on the razor’s edge of being obviously high class, while still showing more bare skin thatn most people’s swimsuits.

It’d began as a power move by Sylia Stingray, to stand over and above those who worked in suits. It’d been backported to a weekday game of Pathfinder that happened years before Sylia’s identity was born on paper, where she stood out amongst a group of friends who’d come either in their most casual clothes, or straight from work in a factory jacket.

She didn’t belong. Something different had happened that night.

The party died in a tower, either crushed by falling bells, or dive-bombed by an angry Lamia. Jet thought she had the solution, but the GM insisted it would fail. The Boskone had used the same tactic against her and…

…they didn’t even exist at the time the game actually happened.

Frustration boiled over. She’d asked the players to wait, while she showed them what she’d been working on with the wave in the shed. They’d already suspected something. Some even suspected she’d used to wave on her body - nobody could naturally have a figure like that.

She remembered undressing herself, and the cold Autumn air nipping at her body. She recalled the dry scent of concrete mingling with acrid varnish and vaguely metallic taint of the Wave itself. She could feel the roughness of the floor beneath her bare feet.

The inner liner of the hardsuit had been built from a wetsuit. She recalled rolling it up her body, one leg at a time, and how aggressively tight it was. It crawled inside her body, reminding her of parts she’d long forgotten.

Of course the suit highlighted her bellybutton and nipples. It shouldn’t have been possible, but the rules of fanservice demanded it. A plastic gusset plate saved her embarrassment otherwise, while providing a connection point for any biological concerns.

Jet stood opposite the suit for the last time, aware of her reflection flowing across the polished surface and felt nothing but excitement thrilling in her body. Finally she could try it on.

She felt her feet slide against cold vinyl as her legs disappeared for the last time into the darkness of the suit itself. Armour clamped tight around her thighs and waist. She leant forward against the breastplate, plunging her arms down both sleeves.

One switch activated the suit, pulling her upright and closing it around her body for the final time.

She’d taken a breath, feeling her chest press against the gel lining, and couldn’t recall a time in her life when she’d felt more secure, or more powerful - while still being clearly a woman. She’d made a point to sculpt the armour to highlight that particular fact. Her whole body had begun to tingle with excitement, little currents of electricity sparking across her skin.

It wasn’t until the next morning, long after the party had been impressed by what she’d done with herself, that she realised the suit had permanently fused itself to her body.

Jet remembered explaining this all to A.C. Peters, shortly after Mackie had awakened. A.C had then played back her own voice from ten years previous, explaining how she’d gotten herself drunk, accidentally drank a bottle of the same ‘wave she made the hardsuit out of, blacked out and woke up inside the damn thing.

She recalled her mind’s utter rejection of her own voice - even while her soul knew it to be true. That moment of terror and dissociation passed over her, as she came to realise that she really had done damage to her very self, and it could never be undone.

Secretly Jet preferred the retconned version and wished it to be true. As much as it was wrong, it seemed less stupid - more respectable somehow.

The real mistake was the same. The Wave hadn’t been trained to make a hardsuit. It’d been trained to make a Knight Saber - a subtly different thing. When she, or he, or whomever had come along, they’d provided the final piece of the puzzle the Wave had been longing to finish.

The defining moment of her self had been the same. When asked who and what she was supposed to be, Jet could point to that moment where she first launched herself into orbit and took a selfie with the planet - that singular sensation of freedom and speed and the sense that she literally could go anywhere or do anything.

When Jet became Jet, and once the shock had died down, she’d felt perfectly fine with what she saw in the mirror - figure and face. The glint of light as it played across the curves of her armour - the way it flowed up over her hip in a way that echoed the underwear that should’ve been beneath.

She felt perfectly fine with her appearance, but still preferred to identify as Male. Another memory from her true self, and one that brought a smile to her face. She’d spoken to a counselor at the time, for a few sessions only, and been given a sort of colour map of her identity - a spectrum of her ‘self’ that matched how she felt.

It matched how truly alien that puppet had felt, and how uncomfortable it had been to wear it for more than a few hours at a time. Like wearing underwear a size to small, or a shoe with a small stone in it. Tolerable in the moment, but the longer it went on, the worst it got.

Years later, after Mackie’s awakening, she took the same test. The shape of the graph remained the same, but the tones had shifted. One whole colour channel had been cut cleanly out, with the other shifting themselves to compensate. A little bit of the depth of herself had gone.

Mackie needed a sister. The Wave found one in Jet. She’d remained the same person - just getting there by a different route.

She lost a part of her self, but gained a brother who she’d loved - and was loved by in return. A fair trade, she’d concluded. Life was better with him.

Who she was today, had come about as a sum of all her experience to that point, And who she was today, had recoloured those experiences, to match what the Wave needed her to be. It needed one line on her ID card to change so Mackie could have a sister.

But now he was gone, and she could be a sister to no-one - that one thread hung loose.

As of 8am EDT today:

   

According to AO3's tumblr page:

Quote:A group presenting themselves as a collective of religiously and politically motivated hackers has claimed responsibility for the DDoS attack. This group has attacked other sites before, including those of government organizations and large corporations. However, cybersecurity experts do not believe the group is honest about their motivation, so we urge caution in believing any reasoning this group provides for targeting AO3.

Photos here.

I just upgraded Firefox to 115.0.1 on my Win10 box, and now I can't play any media files. I can download them and play them locally just fine, I just can't play them in the browser. Is anybody else having this issue?

Since we don't appear to have a thread for podcasts worth recommending to others, here's one. Don't forget to tell folks where to find your recommendations.

I'll start the thread off with a series (or two series, depending on whether you count each year as a different podcast) about writing. Ever wonder what it would be like to step outside of your comfort zone and write something completely different? Three comedy writers did, and the result was the podcast Let’s Make A Sci-Fi!

They started at "What kind of story do we want to tell?", went through the process with some help from various Hollywood insiders, and ended up with a full read-through of the script for episode 1 of a reasonably-hard-SF series they call "Progeny". You may have heard of the voice talent they recruited for the script read-through: Mark "Commander Shepard" Meer, Rainn "Dwight Schrute" Wilson, Suleka "Arlene Branch" Mathew, Carly "Lucinda Pearl" Pope, Ashleigh "Rainbow Dash" Ball, Alessandro "Felix Gaeta" Juliani, Richard "Megatron" Newman, and more.

The project went over so well -- as a podcast, not a pitch to a network * -- that they did it again with Let’s Make A Rom-Com. I think they pulled in all of their favours for the first season's read-through; the read-through for "His Ex-Girlfriend is Salma Hayek" was done by the writers and their spouses.

Both are available at the "Lets Make A" page on CBC Listen or Podtail. Presumably one can find them "wherever you get your podcasts" as well.


* Which is a shame, because I'd love to see "Progeny" as a TV series (preferably not produced by Sy-Fy, though; this isn't space opera), or maybe an anime (if Takashi Watanabe is looking for work and he directs it like he did Starship Operators). Maybe we can add it to My Apartment Manager is not an Isekai Character if we ever get that setting into space.

link

Effect: Anyone in Doug's AoE who causes harm immediately suffers it visited back three times over. Doug is also included, but knows to (and how to) perform more gentle takedowns if needed, and it can work well for escapes or in a situation where there's a wild brawl or two sets of enemies fighting and he doesn't want to be directly and/or visibly involved.

uSpud musician Stewart Copeland has done a full album of Police songs arranged for orchestra and female vocals, making them available on an official official playlist. Quality is pretty good, and I'm sure there's at least a few of the originals in Doug's repertoire already, to adapt some variations of with the new performance. (wasn't Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic what he used to turn Lisa Vanette into Sailor Loon the first time? Maybe it'll work for a different girl, or different power set, with the new one...)

Hm, and has he tried sending letters home with Message In Bottle? It sounds like as good a possibility of any if it didn't have any preexisting effect. It might be more likely to turn into something like that mnaga or LN or whatever it is about an issekai protagonist chatroom given the last verse, but worth a try

Something just for fun. Here's a list (echoed to the wiki) of who is the absolute best of the humans in Refuge in various skills and abilities. (Yes, of course nobody can beat a Celestial without divine retribution, so we won't bother listing how Belldandy's better than anyone else at almost everything.)

Of course, the superlative doesn't necessarily need to be something that people think is a good thing.

Since My Apartment Manager is not an Isekai Character is a deconstruction, nobody should be the best at more than one thing. That isn't realistic.

I think these are pretty safe to start the list with:

• Closest to Mary Sue: Akari Mizunashi
  
• Greatest scientific genius in the multiverse: Washuu-chan
  
• Most skilled martial artist: Happosai
  
• Most skilled motorcycle racer: Chihiro Fujimi
  

While rooting in the Medicine Cabinet, perchance I found:



These were issued 20 years ago - in the paranoia that followed 9/11 and with Wars and Death and Pestilence, the the entire state was issued with a box of these. One per household - up until about 2008. In the interim period, they have been lost, found, lost again, left in the back of the hot-press, mistaken for paracetamol and generally been left aside as a reminder of a bad joke once played on the national population and something which passed into the annals of what, in Ireland, we call the Grotesque, Unbelieveable, Bizarre and Unprecedented. (Sincerely - it's a book called GUBU nation)

We now cast our minds back to the distant year 2001. Ireland has hope for the future.  The sun is up and the celtic tiger is roaring.  Patios are heated. Properties in the Balkans are bought. We're all partying. There is a sense of all around the land, that each one of us had simultaneously won the Lotto and are finally joining the ranks of the Real countries. Notions abound.

What happens if there's an accident at a British nuclear power plant? The Shadow of the World Trade Centre still falls across the world. What if they go somewhere else next? Somewhere - with substantially more fallout?

The Minister of the day comes on to the radio to calm people's fears. What do we do in the event of a Nuclear Accident?

This was the result as Joe Jacob comes on to the radio to talk to RTE's Marian Finucane (Note: The article is framed by current events - but the interview is the important thing)

It's 30 minutes long. It can be summarised in one line:

"But What do I do now Minister?"

You think it's a skit at first. But by the end, you realise that, all along, Ireland never changed. And maybe, have an inkling why people are suspicious of nuclear power on this island to this day. 

God help us if they ever give these people responsibility over anything that could possibly have consequences.

From the member profile, which I won't quote in its entirety because there's a link in it:

Quote:Location: COCKAYNE, York

Wikipedia Wrote:Cockaigne or Cockayne (/kɒˈkeɪn/) is a land of plenty in medieval myth, an imaginary place of extreme luxury and ease where physical comforts and pleasures are always immediately at hand and where the harshness of medieval peasant life does not exist.