“The only thing flat earthers have to fear… is sphere itself.”
— Truth in punningIsekai: Epilogue
(based on the feedback, I’ve touched up the first paragraph to anchor it better)
Where do you hide a world? In a room full of doors full of rooms full of… you get the idea. I was being sent back, but at least this time I’d been given a pair of pants. And a whole lot more. I resisted the urge to look in the backpack again; bigger on the inside gave me a headache.
“So there are people there now?”
The old man/god/whatever-he-was chuckled. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
“Elves, dwarves, goblins, dragons, Demon Lords?”
“That last one’s a bit comic-book for my tastes, but it could happen; you spent a few years looking for one, after all, thanks to her interference. Unfinished worlds are shaped by desire and expectation, which is why I’d left you in stasis. Mortal desire can change even finished worlds, though few ever try, and as the only one there, waking, sleeping, expecting, you shaped this one quite a bit.”
“Are we, then? Mortal, I mean, the three of us.”
“They weren’t, until you named them. They didn’t age because they weren’t finished yet, and you didn’t age because your world wasn’t; you were all missing pieces. It was your mutual desire for completion that reshaped the door to let them in and lock her out.”
“So you’re saying that deep down, I just wanted a loli and a catgirl?”
His eyes twinkled, and I mean that literally. “Is that really what you got?”
He finished making changes to the door, and it opened to reveal a familiar rock, with two even more familiar shapes curled up together on top of it, stirring softly.
“Go home, son, they’re waiting for you. You won’t need to wake them with a kiss, but I recommend it.”
There were still a lot of questions I wanted to ask, for Angel and Ariel as well as for me, but I knew he wouldn’t give me the answers, at least not today. A new one popped into my head as I stepped through the door, though.
“Hey, how did I end up on that rock in the first place?”
“You were run over by a truck.”
(second story, from her point of view…)
All done!
Port-a-pod-y
Pod-stacking
It’s a good thing Nespresso’s marketing plan doesn’t involve selling their branded coffee pods on retail shelves, because the sleeves are just plain annoying. They don’t stand upright without custom supports, they don’t stand out on a shelf if they’re stored flat, and even if you do store them flat, they’re slippery little suckers that will not stay neatly stacked.
There’s also the problem that there are far too many varieties to stock for all but the most determined specialty store; even without trying hard, I have 21 different varieties, most in multiples. Peet’s and Illy each only sell 5 (with one of them a decaf), both in the same excellently-designed retail packaging by a company called JDE, Jacobs Douwe Egberts, who also makes the L’OR brand of pods.
Most of the commercial and 3D-printable holders either showcase the distinctive sleeves or the unsleeved, jewel-like pods. I just wanted to be able to store the damn things without them sliding off each other, so I made this 3x5 grid, designed to print at 0.3mm layer height and 0.4mm line width, without infill or supports. It fits on my Dremel 3D45 with room to spare, and prints in exactly 2.5 hours.
It’s just snug enough to store them vertically or horizontally while still allowing them to slide freely in and out, which also means that you need to dial in your Z-height pretty well or apply appropriate elephant’s-foot compensation.
OpenSCAD source:
// Nespresso Original sleeve storage grid
include <BOSL/constants.scad>
use <BOSL/shapes.scad>
use <BOSL/transforms.scad>
/* [Basic Parameters] */
columns = 3;
rows = 5;
height = 12;
divider = 1.2;
border = 2.4;
/* [Sleeve Size] */
sleeve_h = 39;
sleeve_w = 38;
/* [Curve Rendering] */
$fs = 0.5; $fa = 0.5;
w = sleeve_w * columns + divider * (columns - 1) + 2 * border;
h = sleeve_h * rows + divider * (rows - 1) + 2 * border;
grid=[sleeve_w + divider, sleeve_h + divider];
difference() {
cuboid([w, h, height], fillet=divider, edges=EDGES_Z_ALL, align=V_TOP);
down(0.01)
grid2d(cols=columns, rows=rows, spacing=grid)
cuboid([sleeve_w, sleeve_h, height+0.02], align=V_TOP);
}
Once, there was an Outback
Now, there’s nothing left but a Bag O’ Crab. Seriously, that’s what replaced the Outback Steakhouse in Salinas.
Seems kinda cheesy to me.
Amazon Prime Choices
I just can’t make up my mind here…
Adventures in Gaslighting
Courtesy of Ace of Spades, two examples of the ever-encroaching arrogance of a fraction of a percent of the privileged 1%, gaslighting the bejeezus out of the entire world. If the trans community wants to know what’s keeping people from accepting them, this is it:
(that’s “Not Safe For SuperStraights”, because these assclowns have redefined straight to mean “straight men willing to suck dick”, perhaps the most jaw-dropping example of “Bi Erasure” in the modern LBTQROFLMAOWTFBBQ community; see also SuperLesbian, for “lesbians unwilling to suck dick”)
Nobody hates them as much as they hate themselves.
Unrelated,
Something I left out in yesterday’s glamour photography rant: do not use wide-angle lenses at close range. I don’t care how flat a Japanese girl’s ass is, perspective distortion gives her monstrous thighs, calves, and feet. Just cram the underwear into her crack like everyone else does if you need to pretend she’s got back.
Isekai: 3.10
The cranky old martial-arts instructor who’d lived upstairs, who’d taught me more than I’d understood, strode in through the half-open door, swinging his cane like the prop I’d never known it was. “It’s not her name until you say it to her face; it will change her, and I can’t allow that, not yet. We need her just the way she is for a little while longer, warts and all.”
I’d expected that line to draw an angry remark from her, but a quick glance showed she was more stunned than I was. Apparently the game was four-dimensional Twister.
He misinterpreted my look. “Not physical warts, boy, character flaws. Ones that we’ve carefully nurtured for centuries.”
I didn’t know what he was, but I thought about all the pain and loneliness Angel and Ariel had gone through before I met them. He’d nurtured them, too.
My hands curled into fists. “And what were you nurturing me to be?”
“A hero, like your father before you.”
“My dad was a bank teller.”
“…who gave up his dreams to love a woman he knew would die young, and raised their child to be a protector, once he found something worth protecting. We do have something like valkyries, son, and they’re never wrong about heroes. I liked him, so I picked up where he left off.”
“Time for you to get back to it, I think. Don’t worry about this one; I’ve got one last job for her before Graduation, and I guarantee it will keep her out of your hair.”
Isekai: 3.9
She fell back onto her glorious ass and her hands flew up to cover her face. “Yu bwoke by nodse!”
“You haven’t changed. I have. If you can’t send me home, take me to the entrance. Maybe I can get in without you.”
She dropped her hands and grinned wickedly. Not a mark on her. “I’ll just pull you out again, and next time I won’t give you the chance to say no. I’ll fuck their stupid names right out of your head, and when I’m done, you’ll do as you’re told. Forever.”
Names. Names had power over them. Power to change them, make them grow. And we’d named her, together, Angel and I.
“You’ll pull us all out, Vir-”
“Yamero!”
I stopped dead, reflexively obeying the command. After all, he’d drilled me mercilessly, back in the life I’d thought was so simple.
“Sensei?!?”
Surprise!
J's Rules Of Invisible Glamour Photographers
If the first thing I notice is the lighting, you’re doing it wrong.
If the first thing I notice is the framing, you’re doing it wrong.
If the first thing I notice is the angle, you’re doing it wrong.
If the first thing I notice is the focus, you’re doing it wrong.
If the first thing I notice is the filtering, you’re doing it wrong.
If the first thing I notice is the makeup, you’re doing it wrong.
If the first thing I notice is the fashion, you’re doing it wrong.
If the first thing I notice is the pose, you’re doing it wrong.
If the first thing I notice is the setting, you’re doing it wrong.
If the first thing I notice are the props, you’re doing it wrong.
If the first thing I notice is the pretty girl, keep doing that.
Editing tip: edit.
Bonus tip: most models under the age of 25 are not capable of “sultry”; stick to smiles or at least neutral-but-breathing expressions, or they’ll look angry, constipated, bored, and/or dead.
Isekai: 3.8
She shrugged, her dress artfully falling open. She was recovering her composure, slipping back into character. “We’re connected, intimately, and you signed that contract at least a dozen times, in something better than blood. I can find you anywhere, and when I couldn’t go to you, I pulled you back to me.”
Her lips curled in a faint sneer as she continued. “Your little princesses never gave it up, did they? That’s why you left them behind. You’re my hero, and I’m going to make you forget them right now.”
She stood up; her clothes stayed in the chair. She was a wet dream walking, making promises that I knew she’d deliver on, again and again, as long as I served her needs. I thought of Angel, Ariel, and our hard life in that empty world, holding them up against the soft sweetness that was swaying toward me, and then I hit that. Hard.
In the face. With my fist. Bitch.
Isekai: 3.7
She counted it off on her fingers. “Slay the dragon, save the kingdom, bed the princess: Heroing 101. I always start at the end, to make sure they’re motivated and don’t ask too many questions.”
It had certainly worked on me. If she had come back in five months, or maybe even five years, I’d have slain any dragon she pointed me at, with a salt shaker and a butter knife if necessary. She’d been extremely motivating.
“Problem was, you weren’t one of mine. You were protected, maybe by the Power that made that world, maybe by something else that had just stashed you there. It took me three days to fuck you back to consciousness and forge a connection to your lifeline.”
“I’m sorry I missed that.”
The mental image of that magnificent body riding me for three days straight was causing a painful reminder that it had been thirteen years for me, and it had been her the last time, too. She noticed, and a raised eyebrow was enough to make the offer: Hero Wanted, Apply Within.
I forced some blood back up to my brain and focused on what I really wanted. “If you couldn’t get in, how did you get me out?”
The state of the state
Lockdown fatigue
It’s become increasingly evident over the past few weeks that if it weren’t for porch cats and package deliveries, I’d have no real validation of my existence. And I’m fresh out of Amazon orders. Several times now, I’ve found myself trolling my wish lists and recommendations just to find something vaguely useful to buy. I usually don’t, in the end, but even indirect human contact is so rare now that if an unmasked JW showed up at my door tomorrow, I’d learn Spanish just to keep them from going away immediately.
Okay, maybe only if it was another young hot one.
Do you recall?
My only disappointment with the increasingly-likely recall vote for Benito Newsom is that it doesn’t include the entire California state government. He may be the most malignant, but it’s cancer all the way down, and they’re all responsible for how fucked-up California is.
But they’ll keep their jobs, because the so-called “Covid relief” bill is actually a pension-fund bailout for California and New York, saving them from the consequences of some of their many other failures. And if the voting “reform” bill passes into law without a successful Constitutional challenge, they’ll be secure in their grift forever.
