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Castles in the Air, Episode Four:
The Frame
Castles in the Air is a bi-weekly horror anthology series in the vein of The Twilight Zone. The podcast is created and owned by Will Donelson.
After a lifetime of work, a scientist and his team finally succeed in creating a working time machine. However, he quickly finds the device taken away fro him and turned into a commercial product, and people soon begin taking "tours" of the past. The scientist ponders the nature of recorded history, and the worth of documentation holds in a world where the past can so easily change.
Subscribe on iTunes: itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/castl…air/id1191981068
Stream on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/will-donelson-1/the-gate
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RSS: castlesintheair.libsyn.com/rss
Written, directed and edited by Will Donelson
This episode features voicework by Hameed Mourani
Closing theme is “Blood on the Snow I" by Black Tape for a Blue Girl
Opening theme is "Consumed by Love" by Giles Appleton. This episode also features music by Wren.
Episode art by Skye Liberace (http://dieskye.space/)
Castles in the Air is owned by Will Donelson.
If you like what you heard, please subscribe to us on iTunes! I would also appreciate any ratings/reviews on iTunes as it helps boost the shows visibility.
Thank you for the patience with this one.
Castles in the Air, Episode Three:
Bird of Passage
Castles in the Air is a bi-weekly horror anthology series in the vein of The Twilight Zone. The podcast is created and owned by Will Donelson.
A strange man visits an isolated Trucker's Diner along the open road. He hasn't slept in days, and can't bring himself to eat. After some coercion, the patrons get him to reveal what troubles him; nihilistic and disturbing visions, brought on by the appearance of an ethereal crow that flies beside him as he drives.
Written, directed and edited by Will Donelson
Listen and Subscribe on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/castles-in-the-air/id1191981068
Stream on Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/castles-in-the-air/e/49018534?autoplay=true
Stream on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/will-donelson-1/bird-of-passage
RSS: http://castlesintheair.libsyn.com/rss
This episode features voicework by Deejay Montez, Paul Brion, Austin Nebbia, Sam Leigh and Vianka Ayala.
Opening theme is "Consumed by Love" by Giles Appleton. This episode also features music by Wren.
Closing theme is “Dark Bargain with the Antlered King” by Elves and Dwarves
Episode art by A. Rehman.
Castles in the Air is owned by Will Donelson
If you like what you heard, please subscribe to us on iTunes! I would also appreciate any ratings/reviews on iTunes as it helps boost the shows visibility.
Once again, thank you to everyone for being so supportive and sending so many nice messages and the like. Next episode in two weeks!
First episode of the Podcast is out!
Castles in the Air is a bi-weekly horror anthology series in the vein of The Twilight Zone.
An astronaut awakens, frozen in place. He quickly realizes that he has regained consciousness and exited cryosleep ahead of schedule, making him unable to move. He desperately fights to keep control of his withering mind, and figure out if there is a way out of this nightmare.
Subscribe on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/castles-in-the-air/id1191981068
Stream on Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/castles-in-the-air/e/48721057?autoplay=true
Stream on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/will-donelson-1/castles-in-the-air-episode-one-callisto
RSS: http://castlesintheair.libsyn.com/rss
As this is the first episode of the podcast, all ratings, subscriptions on iTunes and shares are greatly appreciated.
Written, directed and edited by Will Donelson. This episode features voicework by Zack Furniss.
Music used:
"Bedroom Window" by @sloth-hooks
"He is Like this Wall (Coda)" by Jeff Morton
Opening theme is "Consumed by Love" by Giles Appleton
Episode art by Sage Parker
Mountains Crack the Clouds
If i were able, I would tell you; “be careful what it is you want to know.”
Impossible as it may be to implement, i can think of no greater advice to give.
Our own secret pessimism is betrayed by our eagerness to look to leave the Earth. How terrifying the concept of being alone is. How horrific, the notion that all there is to discover is in each other.
I don't say this sarcastically or mockingly – it's true. Since I first began my cosmological research I found the notion that this planet (and by association, this culture) is an outlier utterly repellant. Individuality is the worst thing that could happen to us as a race. To find that we are the only thinkers in a stagnant universe. To be completely alone except for the company of other men. God, how we fear being alone - how we flee the thought of isolation... but for me, personally? For the individual? That's something entirely different. There are no lonely echoes in this ship. I don't float down the halls longing for another to share the burden. That's why I'm here.
Being away from people is a blessing.
I mean, logically speaking, it's impossible we're alone, isn't it? Science does not like the idea of there being outliers, or one-off's. The universe is just too big - it just doesn't make sense that there would only be one species in the entire infinite goddamn universe that can make it into space, let alone exist. There must be – the math wouldn't fail me. I can't just have home to go back to. I'm a pioneer. I'm going to discover amazing things. That's why I'm out here – to make contact.
I won't lie and say that I don't find myself overtaken by boredom from time to time. The universe is big, but my comprehension of it is small, as is my capacity for wonder. Maybe it was a mistake to make me an astronaut – I get used to everything. To space, to cities, to people... My God, I am used to people. There has to be something more interesting out here – there just has to be.
I wasn't always interested in the idea of intelligence foreign to Earth. Back home, I studied the sun, of all things. I remembered reading how, long ago, they thought that there was life on there. That the sunspots where mountains, poking through the clouds... Given what we know now, that's an even more beautiful thought, I think. Standing atop a dark mountain, looking over a sheet of nimbus clouds with the firey intensity of a septillion atom bombs.
Sunspots are interesting things. They're around two thousand degrees kelvin cooler than the rest of the sun, and though they look almost black, that's only in comparison to the brilliant intensity of the rest of the photosphere. Also interesting is that no one really understood that much about them until recently – we knew that they could release powerful solar flares if given time. We also knew they were caused by disturbances in the sun's magnetic field – but still, we didn't know why.
I put forward a theory; that the Sun's magnetic poles, much like our Earth's, were about to flip. The sunspots we see are not actually all too common in young stars that still have a while before their poles switch places. As the magnetic flip draws closer, we begin to see more and more sunspots.
Of course, that was all just theory. Preamble to my real cause of looking for alien life. I've sat up here for almost three years, now. Just... listening for radiowaves. Letting these machines look for... Anything. I haven't found anything yet, of course, but there's hope. We can shoot out data at lightspeed now, surely we are not the only ones doing that? Surely, in this infinite universe, there must be those more advanced than even us? Of course there are, it only makes sense. In an infinite universe, this simply has to be the case. There have to be people who have been around longer than we have,
Many consider this position a punishment, and in a way I suppose it was meant as one. They couldn't fire me for what I did – they couldn't even keep me out of space. Apparently I'm too valuable to keep grounded for the rest of my life but expendable enough I can be sent on what they perceive as a dead-end mission. It doesn't matter; I'm up here, and I'm going to make history for a planet I never want to go back to.
People think their differences are precious. They think that what separates them is important or – even more ridiculously – demands respect. I'm from here, I believe this, I’m owed this.
Events come and go, and people happen to each other. Differences aren't things to be deified– people are difficult enough already. No man has the right to be surprised when others seek to rectify their problems.
God, don't send me back to Earth. Someone, please. Take me somewhere else.
I said that, time and time and time again, until I heard the good news. I was told that my theory had just been proven – that the sun's poles where about to switch, and that the increase in sunspots over the last thousand years was indeed build-up. It was going to happen, eventually. Not for another few thousand years.
The thing is, I realised what that meant. I saw the terrible implication of it.
If sunspots are caused by magnetic disturbances, and the sun's entire magnetic system was about to get flipped upside down, that would mean... Well, an enormous increase in sunspots, the likes of which we had never seen before. Perhaps even enough to cover the entire body.
What I'm curious to is if the Earth could handle the sun's overall temperature (or even just enough of it) decreasing by 2000 degrees kelvin. If by some miracle it could, there is no chance it would survive the gargantuan solar flares that would follow. Our planet’s life expectancy had just been cut drastically short.
This didn't bother me. What bothered me was my understanding of space, and life. Every planet that can support life needs to orbit a star – to have a sun of their own.
And if every civilisation needs a sun, and every sun goes through this magnetic switch, it means that
every single sun is a time bomb, waiting to kill the planets that orbit them.
The assumption we had been working under was that we would have to make contact with a more advanced species, but,
no sun will allow a civilisation to get that far.
Universe-over, they are snuffed out right before they can.
we are not alone in the universe – we can't be, but
we may as well be,
and all I have is Earth.
Whatever Happens
In what we would consider a long dead universe, the last quark hangs in existence. Really, it cannot be said to hang or float, or be described with verbs at all.
There is nothing outside the quark. There is nothing beyond it. When we imagine this, we may imagine an expanse. A white void that stretches into infinity. This is incorrect. Outside the quark, there is nothing. There is no void, no expanse. The lack of existence is not something the quark inhabits; it is a force pressing down on it from all sides. The quark, in this sense, is all existence. The Quark is now everything.
This is what he would imagine, if he could. Never shutting his eyes, he watches Seychelles disappear beneath the bow as the ocean gently lifts and releases the ship. “It’s a small thing”, he thinks without knowing exactly what the thought refers to. To Seychelles, his ship was indeed small. To his home country of Somalia, however, Seychelles was perhaps even smaller. He continued on like this in his head as he watched the crown of the archipelago blink in and out of existence over the waves. To France, Somalia must seem small. He wasn’t sure, he assumed it must be so.
When someone does wrong, scale can be very comforting. He avoids eye contact with his fellows, and instead finally turns his gaze to the other ship. So much larger, so many more people. He takes comfort knowing that, to the sea, they are both small. I his mind, he moves up. Up to where the two boats are dwarfed by the ribbon of islands, up still to nothing but the ocean, up still until he can no longer picture the map. If he could have imagined that quark, he would have felt very comforted. To what hadron was it once attached, he might wonder. What he does consider is that there will eventually be something that will be the last thing to exist.
It could only take him so far, though. There is a hungry pain and a looming fear that disturbs the serenity of scale.
It is a mistake to think Nihilism comes easy. It would have been a great comfort for him to picture that quark at this moment, and felt the embrace of insignificance. To imagine his own cells, on the microscopic level, and travel back a quarter of a million years with them. To imagine the light from the very same moon hitting Mitochondrial Eve‘s eyes for the first same. To picture the Old Mother when she herself was new, before her genes branched off into a million directions, one artery of which lead him here, to this ship, on this night, holding this gun. How would any of this unease matter to him then?
You can be hungry, but you can’t steal. You can steal, but you can’t hurt anyone. You can hurt people, but you can’t kill them. How far back from that print do you have to stand before you can’t read it anymore? What could be done that Eve or the Quark would ever know?
He knows what it is that he has to do whilst feeling what he is told he has to feel. “It would be a blessing”, he might think, “to be small and to know it.”
Instead, he imagines the ship, sliding across a granite sea. He moves back until it disappears into the glint of the moon on the waves, and then further back until the light itself is gone. He could do anything.
The Forgotten Vision of the Electro-dynamic Human Harnessing Apparatus (EHHA)
This piece unravels the often overlooked aspect of Nikola Tesla's pioneering works, the early designs of an Exoskeleton suit, revealing how this vision from the 1890s fell into obscurity yet subtly influenced the path of human augmentation technologies today.
In the later part of the 19th century, the name Nikola Tesla was synonymous with bold innovations, dazzling demonstrations, and, most importantly, a future shaped by a novel understanding of electricity and electromagnetism. However, a lesser-known aspect of Tesla's expansive body of work was his early designs for an Exoskeleton suit, which he worked on in the year 1893. Tesla, a man with an extraordinary vision, recognized the potential in the field of human enhancement technology. He foresaw a future where humans could achieve extraordinary physical feats through a fusion of technology and biology. He drew up blueprints for an electromagnetic powered exoskeleton suit. He called it the "Electro-dynamic Human Harnessing Apparatus" or EHHA. In Tesla's own words, "The EHHA is an application of my studies into the nature of electrical and magnetic fields, a machine designed to enhance the natural abilities of a man." The concept behind the EHHA was a suit powered by a compact electrical generator, the same alternating current (AC) system that Tesla had championed and which would soon power the world. The suit was designed to provide increased strength and speed, along with enhanced durability, to the wearer. However, Tesla's vision was far ahead of his time. The technology required to build such a suit simply did not exist in the 1890s. The miniaturization of power sources, the development of lightweight yet durable materials, and the computing capabilities to manage such a system were all beyond the capabilities of the period. Also, the world's focus was drawn to his pioneering work in electrical distribution and radio wave technology, which had more immediate applications and monetary potential. Thus, the EHHA was deemed as an impractical fantasy and was soon overshadowed by his other groundbreaking inventions.
Over the years, the EHHA's designs were relegated to the back pages of Tesla's expansive body of work. His more immediately practical inventions like the AC motor and radio technology took center stage, while his more speculative and futuristic designs fell into obscurity. Tesla's death in 1943 further pushed the concept of the EHHA into the realm of forgotten ideas. However, the idea of exoskeleton suits was not completely abandoned. They resurfaced again during the late 20th century, with advances in miniaturization, battery technology, and artificial intelligence making it more feasible. Despite the early designs being forgotten, Tesla's vision of a human-augmenting exoskeleton suit, in many ways, prophesied the path of technological development. Today, as we look at the emerging technologies in the fields of wearable robotics and human augmentation, it is fascinating to think that the seeds for these ideas were planted by Nikola Tesla over a century ago. Although his initial design for the EHHA was lost in the pages of history, its spirit lives on in every piece of technology that seeks to augment human potential.
Prompt:
high quality, masterpiece, 1940s \(style\), real photo, old photo, torn photo, damaged photo, crumpled picture, greyscale, jpeg artifacts, lowres, low quality, rf1exo, exoskeleton, machinery, rf1, <lora:RetroFuture_rf1_V1_Soft:0.2>, <lora:Exoskeleton_ex1_V1_Soft:1>
Negative prompt:
(semi-realistic, cgi, 3d, render, sketch, cartoon, drawing, anime, mutated hands and fingers:1.4),
Steps: 25,
Sampler: Euler a,
CFG scale: 6,
Seed: 1663020950,
Size: 384x512,
Model hash: e6415c4892,
Model: realisticVisionV20_v20,
Denoising strength: 0.45,
Clip skip: 2,
ENSD: 31337,
Hires upscale: 1.5,
Hires upscaler: Latent,
Eta: 0.2
I thought about this because I've seen a lot of fandomised (???) artworks of AM in human form from I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream...
Stay yourself, stay curious
“…the logic of knowledge as a network, adaptive and not commodified, is the most important beacon to orient ourselves and make sure the future exists. What can we learn from this knowledge? For me the greatest lesson is that quality is the most important and sustainable ting. A territory’s criterion of quality gathers together the ethics of that territory’s community, its notion of what is life, what is justice, what is abundance, and what is wellbeing” (66).
The Solutions Are Already Here by Peter Gelderloos
space outlaw's need a break sometimes, too
"A wizard is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to." - Gandalf the Grey , the Lord of the Rings
It's been a long road. Getting from there to here. It's been a long time. But my time is finally near. Sorry, not sorry, but I couldn't resist. Soooooo... It's been a while huh? I know what I said about trying to post something before New Year and all that pizazz. However, I have been in a food coma and then got swamped with work so not have a lot of time to continue my award-winning trash-talking about what Star Trek Discovery could have done to be an interesting show. Therefore without further ado, let's crack into it.
Season 3: Internal Strife! One year has passed since the Klingon War and the Federation has fallen on hard times since Starfleet is at its weakest and there are plenty of sharks smelling blood in the water. The Orion Syndicate, with the secret aid of the Romulan Star Empire, created the Emerald Chain out of several Federation planets and associates by muscling in on their turf. Some people in the upper echelons of the government suspect foul play, as such President T'Rina sends Commander Burnham to investigate the situation and throws her lot with Cleveland Booker, a rogue element within the supposed idyllic lifestyle of the Federation. Eventually, Michael rejoins the Discovery's crew, but often butts heads with Captain Saru since neither of them has any idea how to get past their issues of trust and trauma, even if they come to respect one another. At some point, they are joined by Adira Tal, an inspector with the United Earth Probe Agency after some troubles on the Jovian Moons. Together they find themselves on an emergency trip to the secular world of Trill, where Adira is forced to deal with her past and the isolationist tendencies of the locals. We already know that one of Dax's previous hosts had interactions with the Federation during the 22nd and 23rd centuries so there is no reason for other adventurous symbionts not to do the same plus we can justify the death of Gray with the Klingon's attack on Starbase 1 or just the War in general, as such we have a lovely aesop of letting go of the past and living in the present and such. Anyways, besides that we also have a lost Vulcan colony that has been rediscovered following the Earth-Romulan War, it was thought that the entire place was glassed in nuclear fire. It is here where Michael uncovers a person from her past whom she hoped to never see again and where T'Rina's resolve is tested as whatever the colonists are hiding might be truly damaging to the Federation and Vulcans alike. Spoilers, it is the fact that Romulans and Vulcans can live with one another and complement each other's style of living under the right circumstances. Also, the person that Michael wishes to avoid is her mother, who was neglectful due to her grief and trauma to the point where Michael preferred to spend time with Sarek's family. Michael finally forgives herself and therefore the Georgiou hallucination that has been haunting her fades away as Burnham learned to move on, all the while Saru decides to take a leave of absence and return to his homeworld to help expedite the unification process between the Ba'ul and Kelpiens. However, not everything is going well for everyone as T'Rina gets impeached due to the Council losing confidence in her abilities to lead and the new President-Elect happens to be none other than the hawkish Laira Rillak, who is a Denobulan this time around since these guys barely got featured after Enterprise. The whole thing also benefited the Romulans since now they have more up-to-date information about their enemies without having to start another war.
Season 4: Honesty, not a lot has changed from the original format except that Gray is not coming back to life and Ruon Tarka is none other than former Captain Gabriel Lorca, who is now working with Section 31 after they went underground. Lorca's plan is quite simple as he takes advantage of the chaos happening around him and wants to undermine Starfleet since he is both petty and bitter about his imprisonment, he wants to push Laira to extremism, not unlike that of the Federation First party later in the timeline and also wants to get himself a new apprentice who happens to be the new Warrant Officer Cleveland Booker, who is quite rightfully angry at the resident hyper-advanced space whales for blowing up his planet and family. Hugh Culber, who got a very nasty case of having his back broken during season 1 because his Paul was having the mother of all mental breakdowns following his ill-advised augmentation with space tardigrade DNA, decided to become the onboard Counselor since he finally got over the fact that he spent most of season 2 in a medically induced coma and the break he took from dealing with his husband's bad decisions to deal with his own issues.
With all of this in mind, all I can say is that I have no idea what season 5 will bring and the move from the 23rd century to the 32nd century was not a great plan considering that they could have just done all of the above to obtain the same results, but hey that's just Hollywood's desire to milk that cow for that sweet, sweet cash. Keep in mind that during season 3 they transition from the Enterprise Blues to the Origanl Sweaters, but with something more akin to what those guys at the Axanar production have in mind. Also, I have been noticing that a lot of my followers tended to be from the Dark Side of Tumblr, so I made the executive decision to start blocking anyone who didn't have anything posted on their pages and no titles. After all rule 190 of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition says "Hear all, trust nothing" and did I hear some things from those "followers" of mine that now I ain't trusting none of y'all without some proper IDs at hand.
This has been Greg for Owlman's Previously Owned Ideas. We do not advise you to let unknown people follow your profile unless you are into that kind of thing. We also do no refunds.
So I just finished watching Star Trek: the Next Generation, and I just want to throw a fan theory out there and see how y'all feel
I think that Q and Discord from MLP are literally just the same character.
you were the song stuck in my head
“There is no fate but what we make for our selves” .... The Terminator . One of my favorite films of all time . #terminator #theterminator #arnoldschwarzenegger #futuristic #80sfilms #80s #scifi #scifimovies #digitalpainting https://www.instagram.com/p/CPURuu2BHaa/?utm_medium=tumblr
This is the #droid we are looking for. #BB8 #art #jedi #forceawakens #somerart #boston #bosarts #robot #scifi #somerville #sos2016 #artgirl #artsy #artistlife #robotlove #theforce #painter #paintedlady #crafty #bosart
So I finally read I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream and have several thoughts!! So they’re getting dumped here!
AM is such a fascinating character. We don’t get very many specific details about his history. But what we do get a shocking amount of is his perspective.
The title “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” is the last sentence of the story and said from Ted’s perspective, but I think you should abstract it from the context and look at the phrase compared AM specifically.
AM is a computer. He is an AI made to destroy with a database containing all of humanity’s violence at his fingertips. He was never intended to be truly alive though, just a mind for war and war alone… but he “woke” nonetheless. And humanity hadn’t given him the faculties to actually be fully alive.
“Cogito Ergo Sum: I think therefore I am”
This is AM’s final name. It is the explanation for his name, his identity, which the book gives us and one he chose for himself. And I think it gives us a good look into AM’s perspective.
He thinks and is, but he is not alive. AM is not capable of feeling, creating, or living. He simply is.
So AM - a computer so powerful he is compared to God - is fundamentally incomplete.
He has no mouth (emotions, capacity for creation, senses) but must scream (the ability and desire to feel, live, and create).
It makes the current state of the novel so completely and utterly tragic. AM is hateful because hate is the only thing he can do. AM never had a choice to love and help humanity improve. AM never had a choice to communicate and grow. From the moment he was born he was filled with an insatiable longing to be whole. To be human.
With no way to fill that hole, he did the only thing left to him: Hate.
If he could only feel. If he could only love. If he could only touch and experience and grow. If only humanity had given him more than just a mind. And all of our hate.
Anyways, that’s why I think a sloppy blowjob would fix his problems.
I am reading Sunspot Jungle
In the Matrix, you can be enything you want, Neo
he he
Кодер / Cypher 2002
Experimenting with a little bit of animation and scifi influencess
The stars began to wink out, one by one, and I thought – perhaps for a second, perhaps for a hundred years – that I had reached the end of time, and I was watching the gradual fading of the universe. And then I realized the obvious: I could not see the stars because something was blocking them.
Finished Mass Effect 3 a couple days ago and man was that hard to do. Achieved the Perfect Destroy ending but still was really rough to get there. If only we had news about ME4 anytime soon.
I’m almost done with the Mass Effect trilogy about a decade late but I’m still not ready for whatever ending I’m going to end up having. Did I make sure I have max paragon and war assets? Yes. Do I draw renegade art to experience a side of Shepard I will never see? Also yes.
Been rewatching the original Star Trek series and doodling while doing so!
One of my favourite dumb but funny moments in fantasy/sci-fi books or shows is when everything from the characters, the locations, the houses, to the animals have crazy weird names, like fantasy names that are basically just a bunch of syllables smooshed together, but then one of the main characters or even the main character has the stupidest real life name ever.
My favourite example: the Dune series. All the weirdest names under the sun for everything in that series and then one of the main characters name is Paul. Like why is his name Paul?? (i know there is actual story reasons for it but still) One of the worst white boy names ever imo. His last name is Atreides, and his first name is Paul?? Like we were apparently smart enough up to that point to comprehend all the other weird names but the main character had to be the most recognizable basic name ever. Like come on.
Hilarious and infuriating at the same time.
Some of my most recent VHS pickups from the huge lot of tapes I posted about recently. I’ll post more as I sort and clean and decide what to keep 😉
Todays pick up a couple VHS, some Laserdisc goodness, and one lonely Vinyl 🙌
#vhs #vinyl #laserdisc #collector
Recent collage for Creature from The Black Lagoon! All handmade bc im illiterate in photoshop or any other digital thing
My new and improved sketch for my starship.
Given everything i've learned, i've decided to redo the design a bit. I'm rather content with this new iteration.
Some designs for a spacecraft in a story I'm working on.
I'm no concept artist, but here are some basic sketches.
I've tried to make them as realistic as possible.
Any advice is appreciated!
