@landonhere

Paid game = cannot access without the assistance of someone with banking details = cannot use without breaking secrecy = requires consent from someone with the full capacity to snitch on you = only do this if you have done the deepest research you can on the subject and/or that unreliable person has also seen it giving you plausible deniability = generally no

. . . Does anyone else have trust issues like these, or am I just being a over the prospect of being told no?

I just finished watching a video on the subject of those mindless beasts who practically feed on the helpless caterwauling of their captive dragons. Unfortunately, it was about the fandom as a whole, not about the in-universe injustices surrounding it. They touched on a film about how those psychopaths are fighting a losing war, but they concluded that its allure originates from a combination of deep-seated fears and humor. But what's humorous about “researching” the creatures under your foot?

Thankfully, I preceded that video with one about the dynamics and history of having empathy for “monsters”. In the words of one of Godzilla’s creators, “Monsters are tragic beings. They are born too strong, too tall, too heavy. They are not evil by choice. That is their tragedy.” As a matter of fact, this is a truth that I discovered myself, and described as “a massive black dragon forlornly staring at a tiny music box”. On top of that, there's the fact that evil is taught rather than born. Relative evil manifests through ignorance and fear. Take the binary premise of the Divergence Exchanges axiom and look at it this way: if you see every other faction turning red, consider looking in the mirror.

Oh well, that wraps up another evening of musing on the topic of those . . . *90 seconds of silence* . . . upside-down 2s. I probably have things ahead of me, so I'll be off now. Remember, the garden is the Serpent’s place!

https://trainyard.ca

This is my definition of a liminal space. Nobody has touched this place in a decade, and yet it remains. It's kind of a sad place, considering the great nostalgia it has. The creation held there has since vanished, but I'm sure that it still lingers somewhere in one of my older devices. I'm considering making a tribute to it in the form of a stylized Rhythm Doctor level . . .

This brings interesting insights to their motives. This thing undisturbed metaphorical dragon is mostly harmless, and seems like it wouldn't be too panic-inducing among the public. What's stopping them from just saying “this thing exists, acknowledge it and don't worry about it”? In Solanum’s own words, nature has no malevolent will; it simply is.

The answer, of course, is fear! I don't know where they started, but they've clearly committed themselves to their cynical lifestyle. Their primary classification system revolves entirely around how it reacts when contained, and says nothing about how it acts in the open. They did tack on classification systems later to cover those, but it's already too late.

Part of me suspects that they're lying to themselves and bending their own rules, if not breaking them entirely. The “shouldn't exist” criterion has plenty of potential for abuse; what's stopping them from erasing other extremely dangerous creatures? (Answer: the fact that we already know about them.) It's also possible that they're using their cynicism to justify the “defies the laws of nature” criterion; in the words of the song that I'm currently listening to, “WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO KNOW?”

Whew! It's fun to write these sentiments from different states of mind. Stay open-minded, empathetic, and fighting for the truth; burn the house down, if you will! The garden deep ocean is the Serpent’s place!

And now, for a word from our sponsor . . .

The ones who sit in their echo chambers, piled to the roof with ledgers. Those who keep their poor, caterwauling dragons caged in the next room over. They are unwavering in their conviction. They are bottomlessly smug, yet they are apathetic and tireless. They are psychopathic, lacking the slightest sliver of empathy. Every scream from their imprisoned beasts is recorded in addendums stamped to the second. Every entity observed under their cold, emotionless eye has a numeric, meaningless name tabled to them without their consent, or knowledge. They do not make efforts to reconcile what they have done wrong, because they have no sense of wrong.

With full secrecy and government funding behind them, they will never change. Every letter of those ledgers has passed under their eye without so much as a flinch, yet anyone else could see the truth with barely a page of reading. No matter how many lamps you turn on, no matter how many torches you light, no matter how many spotlights you shine on the fault in the mirror, they are determined to keep their feet planted in the dark. They are a lost cause, and if nobody tries to intervene, so are the innocent creatures kept there.

The garden is the Serpent’s place.

Uhh, I have a quick, out-of-context question to ask . . . is infinity evenly divisible by 3? . . . oh, wait, there’s a preview number in the corner. Never mind.

EDIT: wait, what’s this doing here?

I found the secret entrance to the Sunless City, making travel to the High Energy Lab a little less stressful. And now I can destroy the fabric of spacetime all I want!

Next objective: stabilize all macroscopic quantum phenomena in the universe.

| PYE: Mission: Science compels us to explode the sun!
|
| IDAEA: Can't we change this? I don't enjoy working in view
| of such a morbid mission statement.
|
| | PYE: But it's accurate. We're going to create a supernova
| | for the purpose of scientific progress. That's our mission.
| |
| | IDAEA: Our mission is to decide if such an irresponsible
| | feat is even possible.
|
| | IDAEA: Here's a better one. Mission: Determine if it's
| | possible to prompt the sun to explode.
| |
| | PYE: You lack a sense of humor.
| |
| | IDAEA: At least I don't lack a sense of ethics!
| |
| | PYE: Kindly refrain from going supernova on me before
| | the sun does, Idaea.
|

~ Transcription of Sun Station scroll dialogue, Outer Wilds

WAA AAM MWM MVM / VWW MMM V / A MWM VVV MA VV WWV VW V MWM / AWV VV VVA VVV VVM AM / AWV VVV / VW MMM WWV VVA / WWV VVV VVV VVA / VV WWV MMM VVA AV VVV VVM / MVA AAM MMM VVA VVV / AAM WWV MVA AAM MMM VVA VVV / WMV MMM V VW / A MMM VVA AV VVV VVM

- a very short-tempered message to the Icelandic Waters written in Static Code, regarding a joke that they just cracked about Rosalina

It's kind of strange that celebrating birthdays is a thing. I've heard from certain sources that there are social taboos against implying that someone is aging.

It turns out that changing your useragent to “I am a phone” will, in fact, trick websites into thinking that you are a phone.

Steam: *repeatedly starts up and shuts down*

Icelandic Waters: “Emergency. Shut down. Emergency. Shut down. Emergency. Shut down. Emergency. Shut down. Emergency. Shut down. Emergency. Shut down. Emergency. Shut down. Emergency. Shut down. Emergency. Shut down. Emergency. Shut down. Emergency. Shut down. Emergency. Shut down . . .”

Windows:

It's great to see that I played my cards right!

Think about it. I cracked a joke about how Minecraft’s first raw copper texture revision looked like raw salmon, and here I am. If I had kept my mouth shut, I would never have discovered wasteof, Rain World, or Pixel Cat's End. And thanks to a brief but harrowing crisis I had in an office chair at 6:33pm, I now have a new persona with some apathetic spice!