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Well, new last year (Oct 9 2020) but still. Holy crap. New BOC! I am literally bouncing in my chair in excitement.

That Was Me (first on the playlist of official videos):

link

playlist of BOC videos on the Frontiers Music SRL account

According to an article published yesterday by Variety, J. Michael Straczynski is the head writer and executive producer of a complete reboot of Babylon 5 that is currently in development for The CW.

One interesting difference that's been reported is that the story will focus on Sheridan from the start rather than Sinclair. We know now that Sheridan was a substitution when Michael O'Hare left the show because of problems with mental illness; I suspect that JMS is simply returning the story to its original arc with the later character in place of the earlier.

Not much more than that has been released yet, so we'll have to wait and see what develops.

Hey gang, I haven't really been following this project (because I know better than to think I'm going to write anything significant) but the image thread and Intelligent Device discussion has gotten me more curious - is there a reading order list somewhere? The wiki would be the most likely place I suppose, but if it's there it's not set to be visible without being a member. Not even the index linked from the landing page is, apparently...

Well.  I actually came across this nearly three months ago, when we were on vacation on Long Beach Island, and promptly forgot to post it here.  I don't think anyone else has done it in the time since, but if they have, my apologies for the repost.

RWBY Volume Nine Sneak Peak:

Article here:
https://www.vox.com/recode/22673353/unem...-algorithm

While I do agree that some applicants are being a bit too ambitious in looking for a "promotion" or a different-but-similar job, it still appears that the majority of the onus is on the perspective employers for setting unrealistic expectations, failing to understand what these jobs truly entail, and refusing good applicants because they do not want to offer on-the-job training.

It's like I've said elsewhere.  I could probably have a great job managing factory automation because the Mk45 gun mount I worked on in the Navy is really no different.  It is a programmable, automated system with many moving parts, optical sensors, proximity sensors, and hydraulic solenoid valves.  It operates on a 1600psi hydraulic system with four separate hydraulic circuits, plus two low-power hydraulic pumps for maintenance and emergency use.  It's a pretty damn complex system that requires a lot of upkeep.

But do employers see in me the potential for a good maintenance technician who can keep their factory line running smooth?  Of course not.  They want someone who can not only turn a wrench and wrangle wire harnesses, but also knows like eight different programming languages because they use digital logic control units in the equipment, and they actually don't know which language they speak so they just spam a bunch of different ones in the job description. 

(As if you make your very own logic controllers with custom programming code?  Get the fuck outta town bitch.  We all know you buy the cheapest piles of shit from China or India.  And then you got the audacity to cry about them breaking all the damn time and try to pin it all on the techs working on them when there's next to no documentation, and if there is it reads like it was translated from poorly written Sanskrit by Google Translate.)

Oh, and they also want you working on the factory line with the other workers when you're not busy fixing or setting up something, and at only a couple more dollars an hour more than they are, and putting in 10-to-12 hour days six or maybe seven days a week.  Because PRODUCTIVITY!

I'm writing up an ATT page for Jack Staik and Lady Tesser's Tales of Ranma and Ranko, and there's this little throwaway bit that is driving me nuts. At one point -- no need to worry about the context -- Nabiki sings out "We've got hot water in our space ship's bathtubs", and the narration explicitly notes that it's from an "anime movie sequel" without identifying the movie.

Google turns up nothing with that line (or variations, like "starship" and so on).

Given the period when the story was written -- 2000 +/- a year or so -- should narrow things down a little, you would think, but I'm still not able to find anything. I'm hoping someone remembers the lyric or a possible translation variation and can remember from where.

Can anyone help?

Thanks.

The Name of the Game by literalsin

How to put this... it's not actually a recommendation, because the fic has approximately all the red flags, waves them proudly, and does its best to live up the their philosophical ideals, and yet it somehow kept me going past all the roll-your-eyes-and-scroll-the-page moments through thirty four chapters and ... holy fuck, 688,855 words!? And it only barely gets MC past canon's trailers and backstory into early episodes. Crikey.

Right, so, those red flags. They start strong right out of the gate with the premise being a RWBY/The Gamer/pornworld fusion Jaune In Name Only harem SI, where the sibling fetish is so all encompassing that literally the only ones who (apparently) aren't banging or pining are Qrow and Raven, with a possible exception for Winter due to only appearing in another character's flashback to Atlas' Specialist program training, which is deep into the Nazi Science long grass of mustache twirling evil complete with super-soldier experiments and Dust and drug assisted brainwashing from day one, with removing all previous emotional ties as an explicit goal. Also, out of eight of canon's female antagonists I can think of off the top of my head, three are core members of the waifu squad and one is headed that way if she lives, after being seduced for infiltration purposes.

On the other hand, one early love interest who gets ignored too long calls JINO out on it, breaks up with him, and finds another relationship, which was stable the last I remember seeing it, and is treated IC and in narration as justified and in the right to do so, if overly complacent to a related spy-subplot threat. Leaving the waifus behind to go fight the big bad for their own safety is likewise called out and accepted as having been arrogant and disrespectful and the direct cause of nearly getting killed and not-quite-apocalyptically botching the quest.

Next is the author's tendency to toss in RL politics every two or three chapters, starting at right wing and making bold attempts at achieving incel cuckoolander status, though the affection and tenderness displayed to the waifu squad (who are actually decently believable individuals with their own wants and quirks, not a list of names and haremette tropes) and sincere-at-the-IC-level attempts to just have some female characters be friends leave it falling short of that ... lofty goal ... in practice. The closest I got to dropping the fic was a visit to a Schnee company town where dose happy Faunus singin' in de mines ran off the party with a crowd throwing tomatoes and cabbages followed by rocks, for daring to come and try to offer white- human-folk jobs in de big city, which I am blatantly, shamelessly spoiling as the "savvy" characters (meaning everyone there but Blake) and the narration all treat this as if it was the only expected result. Not phrased so blatantly, and with the justification provided being semi-plausible in context, but considered without narrative immersion that may just make it all the worse after the fact. Honestly, the only good thing about that part is confirming that I still find right-wing stuff as cringey as left-wing stuff, when hanging out on mostly left-leaning sites and getting annoyed by their enthusiasm had me worrying about drifting too far right out of contrariness.

A Penny copy is a literal bind-on-equip Epic Loot quest reward, but JINO assures her that she's her own person who can do what she wants right after equipping her to a pet system slot. (Again, though, IC she gets treated very humanely and like a real member of the team, and not even waifu'd into the harem, though there is some non-sexytimes daughteru going on.)

It's a Gamer fic, so threat escalation is less a matter of power creep and more a power turbolift ride, with frequent soliloquizing about quests, skills, stats, and how quickly they're engorging his clout and/or the best ways to make them bigger faster, with a mysteriously all-encompassing and occasionally directly responsive System driving it all. Inventory based quick-change disguises enable over-complicated multiple identity shenanigans, while Instant Dungeons trivialize a lot of theft and item duping with the copied area's contents. Gamer setting elements are largely absent except for the System itself, and Instant Dungeons/Illusion Barriers are for once nicely integrated into the fusion setting's lore as being the interstitial space where negative emotional energy collects to form new Grimm along with restless spirits too attached to move on. One of which also gets attached to a pet system slot, and is the subject of a long-term quest/subplot to get waifu'd.

And yet.

Despite that.

Despite all of that.

I still want to recommend it, because the technical quality of the writing is decent, the actual plot is engaging, and as long as the fictional character incest and MF/FF bisexuality doesn't squick you out, the porn is pretty hot.

I can't bring myself to do so, but I can give you a couple links, to make up your own mind about.

NSFW, obviously.

Chapter index on AO3
The FFnet version has one less chapter, but a higher word count. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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