It's called Forward and it's described as centrist. Let's hope it has better luck than past attempts at third parties have had.

Article here.

After ten months, sweat, tears, and more pain than I really want to dwell on, my quarter sleeve is finally finished and healed:



And, as a happy accident, the pigments used in the orange and pink are UV-active:




A big shout-out to my artist, Matt, who took a vague idea and turned it into something amazing.  Thanks, Matt!

Once upon a time in a subsection of the fan fiction community there was a distinction between a crossover fic and a fusion fic.

A crossover fic meant characters from one series got dropped into another. E.g. "Ranma goes to Juban and meets the Sailor Senshi."

A fusion fic implied rewriting of the two histories to justify that they were always the same setting. E.g. "Buffy Summers was never a Vampire Slayer. She is however a licensed Vampire Executioner in the State of California and is not happy that her colleague Anita Blake is intruding in her territory."

Now it has been many years since I bothered grumbling about fanfic being labeled as crossover fic when it was clearly fusion fic; but this morning I noticed that the Battletech / Girl Genius fic I was reading (Natasha Kerensky and the Adventure of the Purple Fang) was tagged as 'pastiche.'

From the context of that one fic, 'pastiche' might refer to something like fusion fic once did. 

From the context of skimming the first couple pages of AO3 results for that tag it is a mystery what 'pastiche' refers to.

Have other people encountered 'pastiche' in the fic they read?

If so, what meaning was applied to it?

So says The Huffington Post.

Quote:Assistant U.S. Attorney Molly Gaston said during closing arguments that the subpoenas were straightforward and that Bannon chose to blow them off.

“Our government only works if people show up. It only works if people play by the rules, and it only works if people are held accountable when they do not,” Gaston said, according to NBC News.

Based on a famous Irish language novel.

Available behind this link here from the State's Irish Language Channel


As Gaeilge, ach tá fotheidil ann.....

Hermione Granger and The Boy-Who-Lived got an interlude this week.

EDIT: The story by "Jackpot-kun", not the other one.

From a Chinese social network's banned words list.

A short summary
'Winnie the Pooh',
'Diabetic Pooh',   (Diabeetus the Pooh - ed)
'Shithole Art of War',
'Heil Xitler',
'Ph.D. in physics who believes in theism',
'Leader of China's Offshore Hidden Asset Management Leading Group',
'Undressed and embroidered on one shoulder, carrying Maiguang, pulling and rolling crooked neck, throwing coins, primary school doctor emperor' (WTF),
 Cicada 3301 XD - (Remember that?)

A lot of them get a little lost in translation.


Link to Translate list

The Original Chinese, incase that Xit's the bed

ACRONYM Creation Rationalizations, Or: Naming Your Machinery

I've asked this kind of question before, because I tend to have only accidental success at it myself, but anyoine have suggestions for why a power armor might be officially referred to with the letters EZLS? Best I've got so far is Enhanced Zero/zero Light Suit, probably appended to something like Cyberpunk's ACPA as a catch-all for the general class of Armored Combat Power Armor, with zero/zero being either referring to being able to deploy from the air like an ejection seat (zero altitude/zero airspeed to as high as the vehicle can take it) or something like zero reduced agility/zero added sensor signature compared to a normal foot soldier.

Or as the troopers call it, Easy Alice, 'cause it's hot and tight and any conscript farm kid can get in and ride as soon as they get out of Basic Training, but even the old hands have to admit it's damn good fun. Despite not matching the unit's official designation in any way, this also leads to the more complicated recon/spec ops suits (with a notoriously PITA active camo system) being called "Bitchy Betty."

I don't like the Z/Z part as it stands, though, so if anyone can come up with a better rationale to fit the flavor text, it would be welcomed.

Likewise, if anyone's got a piece of gear they want help naming, let 'er rip; I may not be much help but I can try.

link

So, the obvious application of this is that everyone in range gets a happy level of buzz on for the duration, which is short but not as short as the average V&V combat in-character, so quite viable as a Doug-grenade style distraction. As usual, though, the effects don't last beyond a few seconds after the music ends, which itself can be quite handy depending on the plan and circumstances.

The less obvious application is that that any toxic substance affecting anyone in Doug's AoE will be limited to "feeling a little unsteady" for the duration, by the simple expedient of Doug's power vanishing any amount of it in their systems that would result in a stronger effect -- and while his conjurations and direct influence fades rapidly, material that's gone stays gone. This means two and a half minutes of grace even in a cloud of die-in-seconds nerve gas or swimming in a vat of Menacing Green Villain Goop, etc., and in one-and-done cases like snakebite, chemical accidents, or something along those lines, probably not even needing serious attention to recover unless it's something the body can't deal with in even the smallest quantity.

Only works on substances that affect the target by chemical means, (ie not physical trauma) with caustics and nanotech as a grey area that probably depend more on Doug's subconscious perception of them than strict interpretation of physical science - it won't help with the cut left by a poisoned blade, for example, or a telepathic attack simulating the target getting blackout drunk and falling asleep.

Likewise, physical defenses or effects that prevent mental attacks but couldn't help against the target having a buzz due to to blood alcohol level (or an equivalent for the subject's biology, if sufficiently different for alcohol to be ineffective or too lethal for recreational use) won't stop Doug from bringing on the party, with robots and more exotic infomorphs like Hooloovoo in another grey area going that way.

May backfire if used on Jackie Chan, but if you're fighting on the other side from Jackie Chan you should take a real close look to make sure you're on the right side to begin with.

(Because I'd really love to see a scene where Doug rocks up to the villain's front door and draws a mob of minions, then gets them all drunk and has a slapstick mass brawl. Jackie Chan team-up optional, but enthusiastically and emphatically encouraged.)

No tl;dr - read it all.