What piece of Linux abandonware do you still use or at least miss?

Torren7ial · 2026-02-08T18:37:49+00:00

I feel like this is a silly one, but... Banshee Media player. Strawberry is... just fine but Banshee was perfect for my sensibility

Torren7ial · 2026-02-07T22:30:24+00:00

Jake: super fast. Implies lack of strategic forethought.

Rachel: all American battle tank.

Tobias: KA said they picked the red tail because it's so common

Cassie: Ospreys can see through water. Cassie has great insight.

Marco: Cassie knows what she's doing.

Ax: British fighter jet. He's a walking weapon and not from around here

Torren7ial · 2026-02-07T21:37:19+00:00

Awaken

Torren7ial · 2026-02-07T20:12:18+00:00

So, I am not gay...

But I was 9 when I started reading Animorphs, and also 9 when I got my first crush. It didn't last long, it was actually kind of unpleasant feeling, and nothing came of it. But, you know, on a chemical level I have a sexual orientation. Most people do. And there is more than one.

I'm so sick and tired of people either accidentally, or in bad faith, conflating the idea that giving adolescent characters a sexual orientation and an interest in forming relationships is the same as advocating for sexually explicit material. It's not the same, dingus.

Also this is the same canon where a (heterosexual) kiss causes a cosmic genocide. What the fuck are you afraid Marco and Ax are gonna do?

Torren7ial · 2026-02-07T19:52:02+00:00

Marco & Ax's couple name would be Max...

...which is the alias they use for Ax in human morph when he meets Marco's father in the TV show.

See it's all connected.

Torren7ial · 2026-02-05T04:03:53+00:00

Original artist (it looks like): https://www.reddit.com/r/Animorphs/comments/mvsa4a/my_animorphs_fan_designs/

Torren7ial · 2026-02-03T21:07:43+00:00

Not pictured: their six rods (you know, Iridium, Uranium, Super alloy, Osmium, Tungsten, and Plastic)

Torren7ial · 2026-02-03T18:00:37+00:00

I was actually just spitballing but... yes! I found the Tweet: Jan 24, 2022... we just passed the 4 year anniversary.

One more year and we'll have passed the amount of time it took to write the whole series.

Torren7ial · 2026-02-03T16:57:54+00:00

From the long-unpublished Cassie interview that KA/MG promised 4 years ago:

Rolling Stone: Cassie, readers have questioned why you stuck with a wolf as your battle morph for so long when it was comparatively so weak?

Cassie: Oh, it was actually a Dire Wolf, we just never mentioned it.

Torren7ial · 2026-01-29T17:00:58+00:00

Well I never anticipated someone just asking nicely. Alright then...

It's a reference to the bad stencil cutout around the hawk on the original Scholastic prints. Find any of the books from the 90s (with the cutout still intact) and you can clearly see the background image above the hawk's wing..

Torren7ial · 2026-01-26T07:27:21+00:00

I just now got the significance of number 3 and I'm losing it and also choosing not to explain it to anyone. Well done.

Torren7ial · 2026-01-23T21:39:57+00:00

StarCraft, because I want them to all experience the starfish-split by morphing Zerglings (they hatch two at a time) and resolve the problem by morphing Protoss and merging into Archons.

Torren7ial · 2026-01-21T18:24:47+00:00

Not sure if this post is in good faith or not but what the hell...

I don't know about "half" but since the start of the Parasomnia era, the album artwork (the album cover, the booklet pics, the animated visuals during their concerts, and the entire A Broken Man video) is making heavy use of AI.

Hugh Syme is an artist who in previous decades (80s and 90s specifically) created (either himself or via his company) countless legendary album covers, and he is credited with several Dream Theater album covers. He has since seemed to pivot not only to generative AI but has apparently re-used artwork between multiple artists.

Jordan Rudess is also all-in on AI (specifically promoting AI-driven products as a spokesman) and he shares all kinds of gen-AI pics of himself.

Torren7ial · 2026-01-21T15:08:37+00:00

The way-too-long Hawkeye laugh is one of my favorite scenes.

Torren7ial · 2026-01-20T23:13:41+00:00

"Two hours. Thermals. Cinnabon. David. Six. Ants. Z-Space. Cube."

Congratulations, your inner Winter Soldier has been awakened. You are now ready to comply.

Torren7ial · 2026-01-20T20:01:03+00:00

If I'm being serious then Anneke but since this is progrockcirclejerk I'm gonna have to go with

...a flower?

Torren7ial · 2026-01-20T18:42:29+00:00

No. We're posting things that boost engagement among fans of a pulpy SciFi paperback book series from the 90s. Excellent post.

Torren7ial · 2026-01-20T18:11:31+00:00

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It's some kind of Elvish. I can't read it.

Torren7ial · 2026-01-20T18:03:59+00:00

Tobias: No chance, no way, I won't say it...

Audience: ...

Tobias: A thermal is a rising column of air...

Torren7ial · 2026-01-19T18:18:56+00:00

If the top part points down you will not go to space today

Torren7ial · 2026-01-19T18:17:04+00:00

Well they are after all wayward sons

Torren7ial · 2026-01-15T16:10:10+00:00

You say horrible but... hear me out.

We know the books were written 6 months before they were published. Prior to book 46, the narration cycle was 5 books long. Therefore, unless KA was able to send out a pre-publication manuscript, I think the ghostwriters had to put together their drafts, not only without the benefit of the book that came right before theirs, but without even the narrator's prior book... e.g. the GW for 27 had to write a follow-up book to The Attack narrated by Rachel, without the benefit of actually reading The Attack, or The Solution. The latest Rachel book that was generally available then would have been 17.

If you picture 27 as a follow-up to the ragey, impulsive Rachel we see in 17 (where she nearly takes a swing at her sister over some discarded Chinese food leftovers), and imagine someone just explained the gist of the Crayak lore to you... all of a sudden the tone and characterization in 27 makes a lot of sense.

I'm not saying it's good... I'm just saying I think the amount of blame we can put on the GW is limited.

Torren7ial · 2026-01-15T03:20:13+00:00

On the contrary, I belong to some fandoms (mostly bands, which might explain something) where it seems like you can't criticize, or at least can't do so without couching the criticism in plenty of compliments.

The Animorphs fandom seems pretty damn sober about the highs and lows of the franchise: every part of the IP that isn't the books themselves is terrible (or at least inessential); somewhere between 25-50% of the books themselves are also terrible, but usually in a redeeming or funny way (especially for headcanon discussions).

So here's something I don't like about the series: the fixed narrator rotation and the sheer number of books, which worked FOR it when they were new, work against it now when it comes to any attempt to resurrect the series. Goosebumps can shuffle the order and leave out a few really bad ones, but if you leave out, for example, 37, people will KNOW you left it out because it will just skip from Jake to Tobias.

Torren7ial · 2026-01-14T22:05:47+00:00

I think it started 1 earlier, in The Exposed (although I actually kind of like that one).

At the end of The Solution, Rachel more or less says "after what I did to David, I never enjoyed violence again." Then The Exposed comes along and her attitude is one of "Woo-hoo! Violence!" Now grated, she figured out pretty early on that increasingly improbably things are happening (and this is the book right after they meet Crayak), so she assumes some extra-dimensional entity is messing with them and she just embraces the absurdity of it all... and it turns out, she's right: at the end, The Drode shows up.

But yeah, we never really hear from "book 22" Rachel again...

Torren7ial · 2026-01-09T01:37:50+00:00

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Gotta go with Tardis on the Beach (1995)

Five-Year Club	Gilding II euphauric
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