Very Disappointing. That’s Nowhere Near Enough Shuttlecraft For Voyager. I Demand At Least 42 Shuttlecraft

Dream big, Madiha. In the meantime, take a look at an old Charles Stross called Missile Gap. Something very strange happens to the Earth in the early 1970s and the Soviet Union builds ekranoplans to explore its new neighborhood. He also has an older story called A Colder War, which has no ekranoplans, but the Great Old Ones are weaponized by the superpowers during the Cold War and Oliver North becomes the death of worlds.

someday im gonna write a battle where ekranoplans are the key to victory

My own theory is that a majority of the new Air Nation is made up of former Earth Kingdom subjects for two main reasons. First of all, the simple fact that the Earth Kingdom is the most populous nation in the world means that, if the number of people developing airbending was equally distributed, the lion’s share of new airbenders would appear in the Earth Kingdom. Secondly, it seems like Tenzin got the majority of his “recruits” from Ba Sing Se, where they were refugees fleeing conscription and had no choice but to leave the EK, while others presumably came to Republic City as civil war broke out falling the Earth Queen’s assassination. By contrast, the Korra-era Fire Nation and the two Water Tribes were relatively stable and humane places, so the new airbenders probably had less of an impetus to emigrate. I imagine some did, but it wasn’t a matter of life or death for them. As for the airbenders who stayed behind in the Earth Kingdom, I had a dark idea about that. A few years ago, I was playing with story ideas for a potential Kuvira fic, and I hit upon this idea of a bunch of pro-Kuvira EK airbenders joining her army and being put into a special unit. With a training regiment crudely based off of whatever old books about airbending were floating around the EK, these airbenders would learn to control and manipulate poison gas as an offensive weapon against opposing armies and in fortification-clearing operations. While they would seem rather graceless and clumsy compared to someone like Tenzin, the fact that these “gasbenders” would be wielding clouds of the Avatarverse’s equivalents of mustard gas, phosgene, and chlorine would make them terrifying in their own right, and they would be one of the many things that turned the world against Kuvira. Sadly I never came up with an actual story to put this idea in, but I still have the gasbenders in my back pocket for a rainy day.

Were there no new Air benders in the Fire Nation of Water Tribes? We saw the Air benders pop up in Republic City (EK colony) and Lin had reports of Air benders in the Earth Kingdom.

Does this mean Air benders come from “the people of the earth element” or that the other two nations just kept quiet about it?  It certainly would have been interesting to see how the modern Fire Nation deals Air benders in their midst. 

Where did the Air benders come from in the pre- fire- conquest days? Where they all born within the nomadic- monk society? That seems very unlikely. Where they born elsewhere and joined the order as a “higher calling”? Where they Air benders from all nations or just the Earth kingdom? and if so, why? 

While Tenzin & Krew pressured the new Air benders to join it was a voluntary choice in the end. Was it always that way?  what I’m getting at is … there may be people with Air bending abilities that are not part of the Air bending culture/ society. Are they self taught? are they lying dormant? What are the stories of the non joiners?

Madiha, the truth is...you never stopped watching Betterman. You’ve been watching Betterman this whole time. You’ve been in your room since March watching Betterman. Your family misses you. Please wake up. Please.

im reading a light novel literally called gaogaigar vs betterman. idk whether im blessed or deeply cursed by this

Most of what you've written jibes with my experience with B:I. All the Bioshock games had convoluted development histories, but B:I feels like there was never a clear idea as to what the game should ultimately be. (As an example, all those Vox weapons you find late in the game are the only surviving trace of a multiplayer mode the game was supposed to have.) Apparently it got so bad that after four and a half years in development, the publisher had to send in a producer to hammer the game into a playable form in six months to meet the final ship date. As for BaS...I only played the first one, and it felt weird, like a jerry-rigged version of B1′s combat manhandled into B:I’s mechanics, with a heavy emphasis on survival and stealth. As for plot, it does retcon a fair amount of detail from B1 while trying to pretend B2 never happened, and none of the changes are really for the better. I never played BaS2, which was even heavier on stealth, but what I’ve heard makes it sound like a scorched-earth epilogue to Infinite (and a fix-it fic for Daisy Fitzroy that just makes things worse).

Well, I just finished Bioshock Infinite. Some probably not very well-formed thoughts, plenty of spoilers, and a question for those who’ve played it, under the cut…

Keep reading

You’ve hit the nail on the head. While I have a conservative temperament, I don’t agree with a lot of traditional North American conservatism. And yet I’ve loyally read the works of a few conservative writers for years now, because they shared the qualities you listed. They’re able to articulate their beliefs so you can understand where they’re coming from, they try not to caricature their opponents and give credit where credit is due (sometimes), and they have a lively awareness of themselves and their blind spots. (Having a sense of humor about all of this is also a big help.)

I don’t think the solution is to follow a bunch of people from across the political spectrum to ensure that you’re not ensconcing yourself in an echo chamber, but to follow smart people. Period. People who aren’t afraid to criticize their own tribe. People who don’t speak entirely in buzzwords. People who’ve given some indication that there’s a brain in there, not just a collection of ideological talking points.

She’s trying her best. :3

I've good a good Kuvira sketch idea for you: little Kuv, age 10, in a homemade Avatar Kyoshi costume (think store-bought or low-rent Halloween) and messy makeup, taking her role VERY seriously.

Daily Kuvira #136

Someone help this poor child.

Nasty little beastie, but a good doggo nonetheless

Who’s a good ghost doggo?!

I’m barely social on this social website, but I saw @coppermarigolds do this and I figured why not.

Rules: Tag 9 people you want to know better or just because you feel like it.

Relationship status: Single. Deeply, deeply, deeply single.

Favorite color: I generally like cooler colors, so depending on my mood I switch between forest green and navy blue, but I won’t turn my nose up at a nice burgundy or black.

Lipstick or chapstick: Neither. Lipstick ain’t my scene, and I have skin issues that make chapstick worth the hassle.

Last song I listened to: Gonna make it a twofer with “Gibraltar Bridge” and “Derailed,” two unreleased songs from the Wolfenstein: The New Order soundtrack that were put on Youtube by a fan.

Last movie I watched: Our Man in Havana, a delightful farce from 1960 that stars Alec Guinness as a hapless vacuum cleaner salesman in prerevolutionary Havana that is mistakenly recruited as a spy and starts sending in reports full of made-up stuff just to earn a paycheck. Imagine a version of Burn After Reading that still has faith in mankind.

Top 3 TV Shows: I’m not much of a TV guy anymore, but if I had to name three...Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season 1 of True Detective, and The Legend of Korra.

Top 3 Characters: Kuvira, Richard III, Jean-Luc Picard.

Top 3 Bands: Because I am essentially a moody teenage girl, I’m going to go with mind.in.a.box, VNV Nation, and whatever Trent Reznor’s up to.

Books I’m reading: I’m between books at the moment, but I’m going to be picking up L. E. Modesitt’s Of Tangible Ghosts this weekend. It’s the first book of an alternate history trilogy set in a world where North America was primarily colonized by the Dutch and ghosts are real.

Those two facts may not be connected. 

I will forgo the tagging because I’m not sure that I actually know nine people in real life. :p

I don’t watch Westworld, but I always like hearing people re-orchestrate songs into different genres, and this is a damn fine example from a show full of them.