This is only a proven if you park your bike drained.
If you use this for topping off, it's a great system.
Gaza has collapsed. It is beset by famine and starvation. Widespread unavailability of fuel is exacerbating the collapse of infrastructure and systems essential to preserve life. Gaza is in large parts no longer habitable.
I'm so sick of articles saying it's on "the edge of collapse" or "teetering on famine" or "soon to be uninhabitable".
It happened. It's a killing field. All life in Gaza is now persisting in spite of efforts to extinguish it. Nursing mothers cannot produce milk. The elderly die for lack of basic 20th century medicines. No food can grow and what water there is is tainted and unsafe to drink. Hospitals are barely more thanpiles of rubble at which the doctors who've not yet been assassinated tearfully go to provide insufficient care to the dying on sites that were once known as houses of modern medicine.
We are watching a ruthless genocide and no humanitarian need can be fulfilled without ending the brutal blockade intended to kill all living on this land. And this is not a "looming" or "imminent" risk, it's reality.
I don't believe you could really meaningfully deter their operations through casual poor performance. I think either you'd have to directly sabotage them or you'd have to be complicit.
I do think everyone should flood their applications systems with time-wasting fake applications, but actually interviewing and getting hired is unlikely to be productive.
I want to set aside my skepticism that this philosophy can be separated from misogyny.
Even if it could, it hurts the practitioner. This is a philosophy of nihilistic abandon and self-harm. If someone has adopted a radical belief in their own hopelessness and worthlessness, and the associated beliefs that life for them can hold nothing but suffering, that person is in crisis and needs help. There isn't a healthy version of that, and we should consider those people at great risk and in need of assistance.
It does hurt someone. It hurts the person who is adopting these views.
The ending of this is bad. I don't know why they did that. I really want to see Ironheart eventually become an actual superhero, but I don't know what is going to happen to her now.
She never actually became a superhero. She never actually developed a sense of justice or a desire to do good. She never actually took to helping anyone besides her self. And then at the end, she just makes a deal with a demon to resurrect her best friend? For an origin story, this felt more like a retirement. She has no public persona or identity or motivating purpose or network. At least Kate Bishop met an Avenger and declared an intent to fight crime. But what kind of future adventures are we expecting to get with Ironheart, either solo or in an ensemble? It was a superhero origin story where no superhero originated. And it's made worse by my concerns that we'll even see this character in another show or movie. Is this just her whole arc? Is Ironheart in the MCU done now?
What a bummer. I really hope they correct course. Make this a dream or something. I want real Ironheart.
Yeah, I'm just trying to imagine the reactions. Her mom should be pissed that she revived Natalie but didn't ask for Gary too. And Xavier is gonna be all over the place. And then of course we have no idea how Natalie is going to feel about it.
Also, how do you get a drivers license or a social security card? Do you just say, 'Well you see, I was resurected by magic. Yes, my death certificate is 100% valid. It was not a mistake. I was reconstituted from nothing by the devil in a pact made by my best friend for her soul. Yes, really. Yes, I mean this literally, not figuratively. No, no super-science or time travel. No, not THE devil, but yes and actual demon. My original body? Well that's kind of macabre. I hadn't thought about it. I think since I reappeared in a summoning circle there's about a 50-50 chance that either my corpse is still in the cemetery or an urn or that it disappeared at the same time my living body appeared. I don't know. Age? I don't know, um, it's been 5 years, so why don't you just leave my birthday unchanged. Blipped? Hmm, I don't recall. It hasn't come up so I don't really know if I was blipped or not. Lets say yes, that seems to make things easier, right? Thanks.'
It was such a strange choice, because she'd made the wrong decision at literally every point. So having her do so at the last moment felt like the opposite of narrative arrival.
It was like listening to someone tell a joke that goes 'A guy goes into the bar and asks for . Then a second guy goes into the bar and asks for . Finally, a third guy goes into the bar. The bartender asks what he wants. And he asks for .'
It makes no sense, structurally. It was a fall from grace story with no fall.
Also, why are they doing this to a character we're supposed to like? They are really doing Riri Williams so dirty. We all so badly want to like Ironheart, and she's got such an almost impossible challenge ahead of her because she's going to invariably have to weather comparisons to Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man. And I can forgive trying and failing, but at the end it seems they're not even going to try? They're just going to make her a heel? That's fucking nuts.
Also, what is their plan for this? This show and character don't seem nearly strong enough to be essential viewing or a tent-pole storyline. But if they don't get a second season or make her a major character in films then I'm worried this is the end of Riri. If this is the complete Ironheart ark we get from Disney and Feige then it's going to be one of the biggest television betrayals since Wanda Maximov was turned evil and then shoved unceremoniously off to her death. Why do this? The stories are already disappointing so many fans. Why make choices that make it worse?
If I can try to build on this constructively, I think sometimes conversations about diversity in media become a little bit too categorical, and dare I say overly race-focused.
I want to see characters like Riri Williams because her lived experience is different than that of Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner, and so on. It's not just that she's got melanin. It's that her age and place of birth and the resources available to her and the obstacles that she faces are different from those of those other characters. It makes stories fresh. It gives people from that background more media with which they can more closely relate, and it gives people who aren't from that background an ability to better relate to and appreciate the experiences of those who are.
I just feel like this sometimes doesn't get acknowledged enough. I'm not looking for more "black people". I'm just looking for more people. And black people happen to be among many kinds of people we haven't seen as much of in these stories so far.
I've been very disappointed. My brother shared a podcast with me that was talking about it, and I thought they captured a lot of my feelings very well: https://www.theringer.com/podcasts/midnight-boys/2025/06/26/ironheart-episodes-1-3-and-fantastic-four-final-trailer-reactions-the-midnight-boys
They came at it -- like I do -- from a place of love. I loved Riri in Wakanda Forever, I love the idea of the character, I really like the actors and I really want to like this show. Ultimately, I think it has not been a good show, but I do believe it was made with love, and I absolutely want everyone involved to get more chances to make this better.
It's very weird. It should've been listed for $44 million.
This was a better episode than the last few for me because there was less story. The story has been bothering me for making no sense, and it still does bother me and makes no sense here, but at least we see some fighting which gives us a break.
That said, WTF is wrong with Riri's support system? Her Mom is like 'This is our home!': c'mon! Get the fuck outta town! You're gonna lose your daughter! You lost your husband to street violence and you clearly don't get how this works! Get to safety! The solution to all these problems is not more powered armor! And Xavier: how did he come around on the Natalie AI? He's right! Riri is wrong! Why are the writers of this taking her side??
Lastly, my biggest issue: the portrayal of Zeke when he finds out he's been turned into a drone is... a choice. They went with comedy? He's issuing apologies while his body is used to kill people? This is the greatest form of violation. It reads like the old 80's comedies like Porkies or Revenge of the Nerds back when writers rooms seemed to think non-consensual sex was a great source of comedy. I don't get how the writers chose to go this way, and the director, and the actor. No one at any point said, 'This isn't gonna play on screen. This is pure distilled horror and the character is reading as embarrassed instead of desperately wanting to be dead.'
I will finish the show and keep hoping for a better version of this character. I like Ironheart and I like Dominique Thorne, but this show is killing me slowly.
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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/7878389
I’m not sure why but I’ve always found the Civil Defense to be really cool, and I often try to work it into my stories in one form or another (though none of those have been published yet). When I was helping with reorganizing FA!’s box text on the military, I thought it’d be a good addition.
It fulfills the role of being an organized, primarily civilian, primarily voluntary disaster relief organization. It has a long history in dozens of countries, in one form or another, all around the world. Its provided training, search and rescue, preventative measures, emergency response, and recovery, in everything from wars, to natural disasters, and even the Chernobyl disaster. And the different formats used in all those countries give us a historical precident for almost any organizational structure we choose. Want to make it an auxiliary of a military branch? The US did that at some points. Directly part of the military? Some Soviet countries ran it that way. A purely civilian volunteer charity? Britain has recently revived theirs and is running it like that. They can even function as a volunteer militia, like the British home guard, or the American Civil Air Patrol who Wikipedia claims once dropped bombs on axis submarines.
And they have history. People like that kind of lineage, the sense of being part of something that dug people out of rubble in the blitz, that cleared radioactive debris in Chernobyl. There's a long history of sacrifice and service to draw on. And one with comparatively few atrocities on the record.
They're even pretty cool visually. They have the iconic blue triangle motif common in most countries, and a blue and white color scheme not really associated with combat.
Whether you need someone to respond to wildfires, to assist paramedics, to build levees in a flood, or to distribute and build tornado shelters, it's not a far leap from what they've already done. Like Noir said on the discord, given the scale of the Global Climate Wars in the game’s backstory, it seems pretty likely that every government on the planet would start handing out shovels and white helmets again.
And I think it fits the anarchist influences in solarpunk. Putting some of the responsibilities and capabilities for disaster relief back in the hands of the community. It's also a decent role for a varied cast of characters in a RPG. People with regular lives and skills who can be tasked with a quest and be granted some degree of official legitimacy.
When I wrote up the Civil Defense section for the game manual, I tried to provide enough flexibility to allow players and GMs the option to adjust the local Civil Defense chapter to fit their campaign. I like the idea of modern chapters tracing their lineage to different local groups, a postwar militia here, a wildland fire fighter unit there. Like the Defense served as a way to bring various factions (especially armed ones) into the fold, providing them with improved legitimacy in trade for increasing oversight and standardization. So while they’re supplied and trained by the same organization, at the unit level they have some leeway in how they operate and what they specialize in, which can conveniently fit any campaign that wants to use them.
Mayhem is a super-tough MMA fighter anarchist. He's very into Anarchy. If you have a friend who is really into anarchy (and/or MMA), we've got the premade character for them!
Joaquin Krikorian was born to Melissa Krikorian and Alexandar Keith in Slab City in 2093. Melissa was a programmer and musician, and Alexandar was a busker, traditional story-teller, mime, and philosophy professor at Reed College.
Joaquin’s family split their time between Portland and Tijuana for most of his childhood. In 2108, when he was 15, Melissa’s band was eager to see and perform on Mars, and at the same time the Reed Philosophy Department was looking for professor to visit and attend a philosophy conference. They invited Joaquin, but he preferred to stay with family friends in Los Angeles. He spent this time dating, and getting to know himself and the land of Southern California. He delighted in sports from a young age (a passion that would be hard to satisfy during a trip to Mars) and began to get increasingly active in martial arts, along with meditation and psionic mental discipline training.
In 2111 Joaquin got his endurance upgrade mod, and a year later got a brain trauma resistance mod. Joaquin reunified with his mother when she returned that year, though she returned without Alexandar, who stayed on Mars for another Martian year. By 2113 Joaquin was 20 and starting to compete seriously in mixed martial arts when he wasn’t doing Ayahuasca with his girlfriend Nahr. Mayhem (as he’d come to be known in the ring and out) and Nahr then accompanied Melissa on a musical tour of Patagonia, continuing to fight and love and expand his mind, both with books and also with drugs.
Alexandar returned to Earth in 2114. The family made Portland their home base for the next few years. Over this time, Mayhem got his short-duration athletics boost mod and his armored skin mod. Mayhem got more active in social organizing with the Oregon Anarchist Party. In 2117 Mayhem and Nahr adopted a young Canaan dog named Poodle.
In 2119 Mayhem followed Nahr back to Los Angeles for her to join a prestigious documentary film production collective. Mayhem decided to try serving their community as a protector, but after a few months with the LA Protector League there was a mutual agreement that it wasn't a great fit. Now he serves as a protector with the more ideologically aligned Free Protector Network.
That seems far fetched, but who knows. I think that would be very misguided.