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dicenne · 10 days ago

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Dicenne, or should I say, Captain Azeroth's performance from Succulent Tart's After Dark on 11/16/2024

Also doubling as my Day #1 for November DWC! Word & Warning: Sexy

Sure enough, Captain Azeroth struts onto the stage in all his superhero glory, like he just stepped straight off the page of a comic book! Impeccably coiffed blond hair, baby blue eyes, a slightly stubbled cheek to emphasize that sharp jaw but also maintain a more rugged look, and the blue, red, and white uniform fitted snugly against his chiseled body. It’s obviously Dicenne, but he sure does look picture-perfect! The round shield strapped to his back tops of the entire ensemble as a bright spotlight backlights him, creating a statuesque silhouette.

He strikes a confident pose: Hands on his hips, shoulders back, chin up, and gaze fixated off into the distance as the spotlight slowly fades and he gives a salute. He strikes a few of Captain Azeroth’s most iconic, battle-ready poses. Removing his shield and holding it at the ready, he turns his back to the audience and offers a hardened look over his shoulder - and an excellent view of that beautifully sculpted rear end, hugged tight and accentuated by those blue pants: That is most definitely Azeroth’s ass.

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As the next song begins to build, he holds his pose and a playful little grin tugs at one corner of those plush lips. Once the driving beat finally kicks in, hips begin to rock in a suggestive sway. With a brief prep, he vaults off of his free hand into a backwards handspring, keeping his shield tucked in against his body. When both boots hit the stage he immediately pivots and jumps into a soaring whirlwind kick: Spinning 540 degrees while taking off, kicking, and then landing all on the same leg.

He touches down gracefully and returns the shield to its holster against his back. He falls forwards, catching himself with his hands before his body smacks into the stage and promptly begins some reps of push-ups. Regular push-ups quickly turn into clap push-ups, where at the peak of the move both hands push off the ground and clap together, and eventually ends with doing one-handed push-ups, swapping from right to left with each repetition.

Both hands return to the stage and he kicks up into a balanced handstand, dropping legs forward and back into a stag split. In this new position, he resumes his push-ups, showcasing the extreme strength and discipline he possesses in not just both arms, but in his entire body as well. This man is not even breaking a sweat, this is just a warm-up!

He completes the walkover and falls to his knees at the front of the stage. Gloved hands grope down the sides of his neck, over his chest, and over the tops of those thick thighs before slipping between and spreading his knees wide open. Sitting back against his heels, he unclasps his gloves and pulls them free from his hands, chucking them towards the wings of the stage.

Cap's now bare hands claw up along his inner thighs, over top the generous swell of his crotch, back over his chest and up the front of his neck. All the while his torso and hips resume a gyrating and grinding motion, dragging a hand across his lips and catching the tip of his finger between his teeth as he gives a devilish wink to the crowd. A pleasing mix of strength and sensuality, Captain Azeroth clearly knows how to work a crowd!

That enticing, baby blue gaze surveys the audience before hopping up and running to the edge of the stage where he jumps, rotating mid-air twice around with his body in a spinning flip, positioned nearly parallel to the ground until the last moment. He lands in the quintessential superhero pose: One knee on the ground, opposite fist on the ground, back arm slightly raised; he plays the part well!

Now on his feet, he points to Fiorenze and then Sana, beckoning them to join him at the front and positioning them on either side of him, all facing the audience. Kneeling behind them, he coaxes them to sit on his shoulders and hold on!

He curls his arms up around their thighs, keeping his biceps parallel to the ground so they have an easier time staying in place. He then stands up, lifting them off the ground and keeping them firmly held atop his shoulders and arms, turning his back to the audience. Easily holding the pose for a while longer, he executes a series of deep squats to flaunt those powerful legs and, more importantly, those perfectly forged glutes. Those cheeks are just asking for gold coins to be bounced off of them! With one final squat, he sets them both down and allows them to return to their seats, but not before offering a kiss to their knuckles for being such lovely volunteers.

He returns to the stage, removing his shield to rest face down on the ground nearby. Hands reach behind his back, fiddling with something along his spine as he smirks at the audience, hips still popping to that lively beat. His collar and the sides of that leather top immediately go slack and he’s able to pull the garment down his arms, freeing it entirely from his person. Chiseled muscles glisten beneath the spotlight, the contours of his abs more prominent today than usual. The tight leather pants ride low on his body, emphasizing the cut V-line of his hips that disappears beneath the garment. The red runic tattoo that typically covers his right side is even glamoured away to more align his look with the character he’s portraying.

Captain Azeroth stomps on the curved edge of his shield so it flips up, then catches and affixes it to his right arm, giving the straps an extra hard yank to keep it in place. Sauntering down the stairs to seek his next subject, he stops in front of Talthorn and offers his free hand out to bring them up on stage with him. Kneeling down, the shield is raised and braced atop his shoulder, creating a nice parallel platform of which he then urges his volunteer to sit upon.

After they get comfortable, he rises up from his knees to stand at his full height all while keeping his shield and participant balanced. But he doesn’t stop there! Freeing his arm from the straps, he grips opposite edges of the shield and begins to lift it, and its passenger, steadily over top of his head! His rippling obliques tense and tighten, pronouncing themselves even further with the effort. With a bit of adjusting and balancing until hands are at the center of the shield, he gradually retracts his right hand, balancing shield and Talthorn over his head with only his left arm!

He flashes the audience a triumphant grin, then swaps left arm to right arm without even looking or bobbling his aloft companion! He could do this all day! Gradually he lowers his shield in the same manner it was lifted, kneeling and bracing it atop his shoulder so they could have an easier dismount. With a respectful salute, he sends them back to their seat and sets his shield aside.

He wastes no time in running to the front of the stage, jumping and appearing as if he’s just about to dive into the crowd. At the last moment, he tucks his legs into a stall front flip, landing on both feet just in front of %t before dropping onto his knees to straddle their thighs. That brawny torso rolls in excruciatingly slow waves in order to accentuate those impressive abs, welcoming his current subject to touch if they so desire. Dexterous fingers are quick to unfasten his utility belt, yanking it off and draping it around %t’s neck, bestowing one final grind of his bared flesh flush against them.

He returns to the stage and with his back to the audience, he slowly lowers into a crouch; knees spread with hands resting upon his knees and an alluring glance given over his shoulder. With a bounce, he *SLAPS* his hands down against his inner thighs and as he stands, there’s a POP-POP-POPPING sound of buttons unsnapping. You guessed it, pants are abruptly ripped away from his person, revealing his marvelously muscular and shapely rear *almost* in its full glory! The small strip and triangle of blue fabric of his thong does not leave anything to the imagination, at least on his backside. Azeroth’s ass indeed!

Cap turns to face the audience, the blue thong with white mesh stars leaves very little to the imagination. Yes, Captain Azeroth is absolutely gifted with abundance and the material does very little to contain the overflow. He picks up his shield and paces around the front of the stage, scanning the audience with a flirtatious expression, welcoming and encouraging the lascivious gazes and wicked thoughts. Those powerful muscles flex with every movement; a flawless body passionately sculpted by duty and by tenacity over the years.

He conceals his ample groin with his shield, free hand beckoning the audience to shout out what they want before fingertips begin to fiddle with what one can assume is the side of his thong. Captain Azeroth isn’t so innocent after all!

Cap tugs at the edge of the material, and with a soft *snap*, he pulls the thong free from behind the shield, giving it a twirl and releases it towards, probably, Leon. As is custom.

Is he? Isn’t he? Everyone has already seen a good amount of bare flesh this evening. The chivalry is strong, but so is the eroticism.

He gives a bow, keeping himself covered with the shield, probably much to the dismay of some. …BUT! He then does turn to one side and then to the other for his final bows, purposefully allowing tantalizing, shadowed glimpses of that legendary length now fully freed behind his shield. Captain Azeroth sure has a tremendous ~and~ tempting…talent! He wasn’t going to walk away without at least a teasing peek! Turning to walk off stage, he offers one final glimpse of his delectable, unclad backside before disappearing behind the curtain.

@succulent-tart @fio-renze @twosidedsana @talthorn-sylvoran @daily-writing-challenge

#story #performance #succulent tart #dicenne #dwc2024 #novemberdwc2024 #Youtube

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stevebattle · 2 months ago

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S.A.M by "Bill" (1978). "S.A.M (Short for "Sentient, Autonomous Mechanism" or "Smart Ass Machine", depending on his (and my) mood on a given day, was one of my first real robot projects, started in 1978 when I was around 15. His "brain" was a single-board Z-80 computer (the big square object in the middle of his "back" in this picture), with many bits of TTL I/O, a couple of serial ports, a bunch of counter-timers, and several D/A & A/D channels. The base was taken from the book "How to Build a Computer Controlled Robot" by Todd Loofbourrow - I had built the robot in the book, and had used my KIM-1 to control it. Later, I decided that just a little platform was kind of boring, so I added the upper torso shown here. The torso (mounted on a "lazy-susan" turntable bearing) is rotated by a heavy-duty gear motor driving a chain and sprocket assembly from a bicycle. The base is powered by two of the (apparently no longer available, which is sad) all-metal rubber-tired "motorized wheel" assemblies that Herbach & Rademan used to sell, with a large rubber-tired caster in front. The head platform (mounted on a small "lazy-susan" bearing) was originally rotated by a surplus gearbox from a Mattel "Big Trak" with some rubber-tired wheels mounted on the output shafts. This arrangement was later replaced by a small gear-head motor driving a large gear mounted to the center of the turntable. The device in the head with the tubes sticking out the front is a directional light tracking device. Each tube has a CDS photocell at the bottom, and is painted flat black inside. A comparator circuit tells the computer which direction the brightest light is coming from. This device could also tilt up and down with a small gear-head motor, to track light sources vertically. Most of the circuitry was installed on small plug-boards from Radio Shack, mounted in a card rack below the CPU card. This rack could be tipped back 90 degrees to facilitate easier access for testing. In addition to motor driver circuits, there was a "Sweet Talker" speech synthesizer board so he could talk. Power came from a large "gel-cell" marine battery (for powering trolling motors on boats), which was slung near the ground in the center of the base. Two 6V lantern batteries (later replaced by a 12V motorcycle battery) provided separate power for the electronics. All motors were isolated from the electronics via relays and/or opto-isolators. After these pictures were taken, a set of metal panels was installed on the "facets" of the base, with lever switches behind them for collision sensing. A Polaroid sonar range-finder was also added later. If you check out the other photos of S.A.M., you will notice an "arm" sticking out the front. This was a prototype made from an old swing-arm desk lamp and some "fingers" from a robot hand design using brass tubing, bicycle chain, and 1/16" steel cable to allow natural bending of each finger. It was later replaced with a much heavier duty aluminum framework arm operated by two 12VDC linear actuators." – My Home Robot Projects, by Bill.

#cybernetics #robot #1978

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cutepethut · 1 month ago

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10 mind-blowing facts about cats that are sure to impress:

1. Cats Can Jump 6 Times Their Length 🐱🚀 Cats are incredible jumpers, able to leap up to six times their body length in a single bound!

2. They Have a 'Third Eyelid' 👁️🐾 Cats have a protective inner eyelid called the "haw" that helps keep their eyes moist and protected.

3. Their Purring Has Healing Powers 💖✨ A cat's purr vibrates at a frequency of 25-150 Hz, which has been shown to promote healing of bones and tissues.

4. Cats Sweat Through Their Paws 🐾💦 Cats don't sweat like humans—they only sweat through the pads on their paws!

5. They Have More Bones Than Humans ��🐱 While humans have 206 bones, cats have around 230 bones—many of them in their flexible spine and tail.

6. Whiskers Help Cats 'See' in the Dark 🌑👀 Cats use their whiskers to sense the environment, detecting changes in air currents and nearby objects, even in low light.

7. Cats Spend 70% of Their Lives Sleeping 😴⏳ On average, cats sleep 13-16 hours a day, which adds up to 70% of their lifetime!

8. They Can Rotate Their Ears 180 Degrees 🔄👂 Cats have 32 muscles in each ear, allowing them to rotate their ears independently to detect the faintest sounds.

9. Their Nose Prints Are Unique 👃🐾 Just like human fingerprints, no two cats have the same nose print—each one is one of a kind!

10. Cats Can’t Taste Sweet Things 🍬❌ Unlike humans, cats lack the taste receptors for sweetness, so they aren’t tempted by sugary treats.

These feline facts are pretty wild, right? 😸

#black cats #cats #petlove #cat #cute cats #kittens #kitty #orange cat #cats of tumblr #cat facts

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chitty-chitty-bang-bang-bang · 3 months ago

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“Dress to Impress” (Deacon x reader)

Word count: 1, 274 words

Age restrictions: 16+ (vulgar language)

Tags: Fluff, crack, you determine whether the relationship is platonic or romantic

Synopsis: You’re having a party planned for the New Year’s Eve, so your undead friend decided to offer his helping hand in picking a presentable outfit.

Author’s note: Yes, I named it after a Roblox game. No, I’m not twelve years old.

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Ever since you heard about your coworker throwing a New Year’s Eve party and inviting you over, it hadn’t left your mind. You just started working at this company at the end of November and you felt a bit awkward, because of the lack of friends and connections. So this was a perfect opportunity to make a good impression on your new colleagues and be the social butterfly you hoped you’d be someday.

Today was the day. 31st of December, almost 7pm. You still had plenty of time to get your shit together, since the even started at nine and the venue was at a walking distance from your apartment. You dug through your full closet, trying to find that one outfit, that would blow everyone away in a matter of seconds. Something classy, but not pretentious. Something to show personality without making you look like a weirdo. Something to be eye-catching without it seeming like you’re trying too hard.

Finally, it presented itself. Falling from the top shelf and landing right onto your head was a beautiful gift from destiny. It was your old blazer with dress-pants, that you wore to a friend’s wedding. Pair this up with any top you want and you’ll look like you pay your taxes on time. Perfectly styled for a responsible office worker.

You put it on, messed a bit with your hair, until you could finally say you tolerated that person in the mirror and was about to start cleaning the mess of unworn clothes that you made, but the sound of a bat squeaking outside of your window stopped you. Seems like your dear friend came again and waited to be invited inside.

You met Deacon about two years ago, when you worked as a shopping assistant in a thrift store. It was almost the end of your shift, when some guy in a vampire costume knocked on the door of the shop and asked to be invited in. You thought this was a bit and found it rather funny, so you invited him in, without questioning. He entered and navigated his way to an oversized leather jacket with furry collar.

He put it on and turned to you: “How does it fit?”

“There’s a mirror right over there.” His question threw you off a bit.

“I need your opinion.” He rotated 360 degrees in front of you. You found it just as amusing, as you did confusing.

“It fits nicely. I think it suits your aesthetic rather well. But…” You thought out loud.

“But?” He was getting a bit impatient.

“But maybe you shouldn’t button it all the way up? Like leave it a little loose at the top. Makes it look hot.” You mentally facepalmed and quickly added. “With all due respect.”

He followed your advice, buttoning it down and fixing the collars a bit. He proceeded to do another spin. “Better now?”

“Oh, yes. You look very good.” You smiled.

“Good. Thank you…” He squinted his eyes at your name tag. “[reader].”

“You’re welcome…”

“Deacon.” He said.

“Deacon.” You mentally noted his name, just in case he comes back. Customers liked it, when you remembered their names.

After this brief interaction your late customer simply headed for the door, without regards for the simple rules or retail. Which is paying for the item, that he currently had on. You cleared your throat to get his attention. “You didn’t pay.”

He waved his palm at your face and said: “I don’t need to pay for this jacket.” Then left the store.

You weren’t paid enough to care and your negligence towards your own job turned out to worth it! Because he returned the next night… and the night after… and the night after the night after. So now, despite losing your job for letting a robbery happen at least 12 times, you had a cool vampire friend, who continued to visit you almost nightly, even after you stopped working in the thrift store.

“Please, come in.” You told him and the bat flew in through the window, turning into a hundred and something year old vampire on your couch.

“What in the world do you have on?” He looked you up and down.

“My Saturday Night’s best.” You chuckled.

“Where are you going?”

“I should remind you, it’s usually more proper to greet a person, before starting an interrogation, but I am going to a very important party tonight.” You sat in the armchair.

“In that?”

“Yeah, why?”

Despite your confusion, he examined your clothes again and looked away. “Nothing.”

“Come on, spit it out. What’s wrong?”

“I have never seen anything more bland than this. It’s not how you usually dress.” He finally gave in.

“How I usually dress is not suitable for a colleague’s get-together.” You looked at your clothes on the floor. “If I put on something like this…” You picked up a brown pair of pants with fake human and animal teeth sawn into them. “It wouldn’t make a good impression. I want to look approachable. Not like a manic psychopath with evident violent tendencies.”

“But now you look like what Nick probably dressed like, before he stole my style.” He huffed.

“No need to attack me like that.” You playfully scoffed. “Look, it’s my favourite colour. Already showing some personality, huh? A good conversation starter, I say.”

“If you’re planning on being this boring the whole time, I am leaving.” Deacon pointed at the window.

“Okay, fine… What do you suggest?” You almost felt, like a movie montage of you trying out clothes with Deacon would start, but unfortunately it didn’t.

He stood up and started searching through the stuff you had lying on the floor. Whenever he found something that looked presentable, he threw it on the couch. Soon enough, there was a full set of clothes. A velvet jumpsuit, a turtleneck and a belt with chains, because it’s fun. “And you’ll take my coat.” He added.

“Won’t you be cold? It’s like zero degrees outside.”

“I’m a vampire. I’ll be fine.” He insisted.

You looked at the clock. Still an hour left. Naturally, you took the clothes and changed in the next room. You returned into the room like a model doing a catwalk. After spinning around you stopped.

“I don’t know… What if everyone else will come in black tie and I’ll be there like this?” You gestured at your new attire.

“Then you’ll be showing personality.” That made you smile and gave you the last bit of confidence you needed to wing the night.

You spent a bunch of time just hanging around in your apartment, while you cleaned up the mess that inevitably occurred whenever Deacon showed up for some reason. You got caught up in talking to the point of completely losing track of time.

“Shit, I’m running late!” You scurried from the couch. “Can you, like… fly me there? It’s about to start in two minutes.” You begged with the expression of a kicked puppy.

“Fine, come on.” You got onto the fire escape outside of your window and he floated you to your friend’s house, avoiding any curious bystanders.

“Thank you so much!” You exclaimed and quickly gave him a warm hug, before running up the stairs to your coworker’s apartment, leaving Deacon to stare at you from behind.

Turned out, that this wasn’t exactly a ‘party’ in the traditional sense of the word, that you thought of. It was more of a casual evening. Everyone was dressed down, the same way you’d come to a close friend’s house. Everyone, except for you.

Well, at least you showed plenty of personality ;)

#what we do in the shadows x reader #wwdits fanfic #wwdits x reader #what we do in the shadows #wwdits #deacon x reader #deacon wwdits #deacon brücke #deacon brücke x reader #what we do in the shadows movie #deacon

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starqueensthings · 8 months ago

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Foreword | Prev | Next | ao3

WARNINGS: brief allusions to a traumatic past (June), but no detail provided. Moderate medical anxiety (Howzer). Moderately graphic descriptions of medical injuries. Repeated mentions of blood and discomfort/pain. RATING: 16+ for mature themes and mild to moderate whump. WC: 4500ish. (This chapter and the next were never intended to be separated, but it accumulated to nearly 8k words, and pruning certain aspects of this encounter in the name of brevity would only do a disservice to this story, so I apologize for the somewhat abrupt way this chapter ends). PLEASE ENSURE YOU’VE READ THE FOREWORD BEFORE PROCEEDING FOR AN IN-DEPTH DESCRIPTION OF WHAT DEGREE OF CONTENT YOU CAN EXPECT THROUGHOUT THIS STORY.

“Uh… yeah?”

The responding voice was barely discernible over the cacophony radiating down that bustling hall, though was both unmistakably bathed in the accented intonation of a clone soldier, and seemingly quite confused by the civility of her gesture.

With a preparatory sigh, June prodded the control panel on the wall adjacent to the door and stepped back for it to permit her entry. Immediately apparent directly opposite that threshold, and sitting somewhat stooped atop that pathetic excuse of a paper bed sheet, was CT-5863.

If the Gods of technology were to ever bless it with the power of human deduction, the chrono on the wall behind him would have asserted that those blue eyes locked on his for the span of only a second; barely half of an inhale, a torpid blink at most. But, surely, too much had happened in that moment of unprecedented placidity for a mere “second” to have been all that passed.

Those armoured legs, wholly encrusted with the evidence of several rotations in grueling action, instantly ceased their absentminded swing over the long edge of that uncomfortably rigid gurney. The way his brows softened only enough for those gleaming brown eyes to widen in unrestrained surprise had her famined stomach plummeting near-painfully toward her toes in a sensation she was both unfamiliar with and unprepared for, and had the highly polished durasteel floor beneath her sneakers not continued to reflect the abhorrent fluorescent light overhead, that feeling only would have her entirely convinced she was now freefalling toward the cobblestone courtyard some eight stories below.

“Hi,” she squeaked as his expression continued to soften, that unprofessionally casual address escaping her tongue completely void of intention and thought, and had she not felt her jaw shift to let it pass through her lips, it could have been entirely feasible to believe that the salutation came from a third party.

If there was any semblance of a response waiting atop his tongue, it remained inhibited by the stupefaction still working its way across that tanned face. Lips initially contracted against the relentless gnaw of pain, now parting enough to expose their ragged and wind burnt nature and convey his unbridled bewilderment; those brows once furrowed beneath the act of being left to wallow for hours in the virile discomfort of a neglected wound, shifting to diminish that charming crease between them.

“Hi,” he echoed, reddened lips drawn slowly toward his ear ahead the beginnings of a one-sided smile that promised to only intensify her already befuddling paralysis.

June swallowed, that brief constriction of the throat reorienting the contents of her stomach momentarily granting her the abeyance to wrench her gaze from his, a gesture worthy of recognition based solely on how absurdly arduous of a task it seemed. ‘What am I doing here again?’ she asked herself, right hand thoughtlessly moving to retrieve the datapad from its clamp beneath her arm and bringing that lifeless screen toward her nose.

“Right,” she whispered to the sight of her distorted reflection, before clearing her throat and unsticking her sneakers from the floor.

The holocomputer, set atop a rolling desk at the foot of the bed, rose to life upon the frenetic poke of her finger. Though June had always been what her brother had previously deemed “embarrassingly deficient in stature”, that monitor sat just shy of successfully hiding him from view, and her composure was once again diminished by the heat surging to her cheeks upon the quick affirmation that his gaze had followed her every step across the room.

“You’re not a droid,” the soldier offered slowly, eyes narrowing under a perplexed sense of intrigue as a blood stained finger trailed to and fro across his chapped lip. “I mean— I don’t think so. Not like any I’ve ever seen…”

The acceptable reply would have been to offer him a laugh, a small scoff. Kriff, even an unsupported snort would have been sufficient to humour such an unintentionally comical assertion, but the continued prickle atop her skin and the nascent disquiet in her mind quickly devoured all potential for a moment of light-hearted banter.

“Nope,” she agreed, immediately thankful that her tone had forgone the shrill squawk of her first greeting and returned to her normal tambre. “They called the big guns in for you.”

“Uh oh. Why do I feel like that might not be a good thing?”

She risked another peek over the shield of her holoscreen, instantly and regretfully noting the delightfully sharp angle of where his jaw met his ear, that contour accentuated by the expanse of a bashful smile now doming both cheeks.

‘What the hell,’ she demanded silently as she failed, again, to offer him the titter he deserved. Aghast that the professionalism and charismatic bedside manner she’d spent long years and countless tears mastering had been ripped from her by something as immaterial as basic eye contact, she flicked her ponytail petulantly off her shoulder and refocussed her attention to the task at hand: logging into the Hospital’s charting software.

‘He’s just a soldier,’ she reminded herself with a snort of self-directed derision, desperately trying to extract her password from the depths of her distracted brain.

And he was. There was nothing overtly different or unusual about CT–5863 in relation to the hundred-or-so other clones that had passed in and out of her care since the war began. Quite frankly, there couldn’t be anything different about him, it was genetically impossible. So why had one look from this set of honeyed eyes seen her stomach careening into the next dimension and her nerves prickling as if every shift of his gaze left a trail atop her skin?

Thrice she tried and failed to enter her secure information into that software, yet its repeated beeps toward the inevitable system lock-out fell on entirely deaf ears, and it wasn’t until the screen strobed that she’d near-reached the maximum login attempts did some glimmer of awareness surge back to her.

“I’m Dr. Kiore,” June told him, attempting to banish that myriad of improper thoughts by corralling every cooperating neuron into entering her password, and the breath she’d unintentionally held in her lungs was granted their escape atop a sigh of relief as that familiar landing screen emerged in front of her. “What’s your name?”

“CT–58—”

“No, Captain, your name.”

“My name?” A puzzled pause preceded her answer, that brief second of hesitation having failed to lessen any of the obvious confusion behind those two words, and the notion that she may have to formally explain such a simple concept was the first to pull a smile to June’s lips.

But, “Howzer.” He recovered quickly, offering his name in the same tone he’d used upon hearing her tap on the door, and the small creases now wreathing those twinkling eyes as they narrowed in something close to suspicion entirely laid bare his continued bewilderment at her behaviour.

“Howzer,” she repeated, offering him a casual smile as she swiped her finger across the monitor and entered the information next to his designation number. “It’s nice to meet you.”

A moment’s innocent silence fell between them as she typed, masterfully toggling between different pages of his medical chart and familiarizing herself with the details of his treatment history. For an active soldier, particularly one that appeared as if he’d spent several respite-free rotations laying in the foreign dirt of a distant planet, his chart was remarkably vacant, the only few noted injuries being quickly treated in the field and recorded somewhat haphazardly by the trio of different medics who had seen him.

“I– I think that might be the first time a civilian’s asked me that,” he contemplated under his breath, eyes unfocussing as he rubbed that dirty palm across the stubble on his chin

“Yeah, well… they were supposed to ask downstairs,” June scoffed, the grumble swaddling her tone readily exposing the disdain for the repeated shortcomings of her colleagues. “I’ve asked them four billion times to try and remember, but of course no one listens to the youngest.”

While his lungs expanded to utter what was undoubtedly going to be another humorous quip, the sentiment was stolen off his tongue by a sudden and salient cringe of discomfort. In that otherwise banal motion of sitting up straight, hand reaching upward to thoughtlessly push those dark waves further back from his forehead, a spasm of pain quickly froze his actions, that sharp jaw quickly clenching behind olive cheeks as a muted grunt rumbled in his chest.

Harrowingly familiar with the discomfited sounds of a trooper in agony, June darted from behind the computer without a second glance, feet taking her earnestly to his bedside where Howzer continued to grit his teeth against the pain of attempting to lower his elbow back down.

She stopped when she reached his beside, and too determined to somehow minimize his discomfort, her focussed eyes entirely missed the way shame had forced his gaze away from her. In a gesture that inexplicably attuned her concentration nearly as thoroughly as it further chilled her skin, she tugged the sleeves of her labcoat toward her elbows.

It took barely a breath of being within arms-length of the stranger for the pathetic remnants of his shirt, and the implications of its destruction, to resonate; that typically tight compression top now sliced into misshapen shards thanks to the expanse of an immense gash in the material. Yet more gruesome than the soaked integrity of that metallic cloth— its creation having once promised to prevent such wounds from occurring —was a piteous patch of gauze so saturated with blood that it had begun to leak a small cataract down his side, that seemingly limitless river of blood having already stained the exposed skin of which it bordered.

“Sheesh,” June mumbled under her breath, reaching slowly toward him until her fingers wrapped carefully around the elbow he was subconsciously attempting to use as a protective barrier.

Howzer’s breath hitched sharply in his throat as her fingers found their mark, though despite that unintentional huff of trepidation, he offered no resistance as she began to cautiously lift that arm back upward mere millimeters at a time until the sight of that grisly gash reappeared. The sheer size of that weeping laceration, stretching across the anatomically labelled “quadrant 6”, and reaching all the way from central rib cage to interior scapula, made ascertaining the true degree of the injury quite a challenge from her standing position in front of him. As June battled the need for a better vantage against attempting to prevent causing Howzer can any extraneous pain, it became apparent nothing short of clambering onto the bed beside him and simply straddling his left hip could allot her the unobstructed view she needed to formulate an appropriate treatment plan.

“I can’t get a great look from here,” she admitted with an apologetic grimace, now cautiously redirecting his arm forward in an effort to ascertain precisely how far back this horrid laceration reached from its inception below his left armpit. “Bear with me just for a sec… it’s gonna hurt a smidge.”

“It’s fine,” he answered, though wrapped in little more than a tight-lipped mumble, his reassurances fell flat in their task of convincing her. “It doesn’t hurt. I jus– ugh…”

A series of murmured apologies left her lips as something near a jolt of pain robbed his tongue of that white lie, and she tactfully refrained from commenting as she watched that silly cotton square fail to contain another surging red waterfall.

“You know,” she started as his jaw rutted forward to repress another hum of discomfort. “If you had just let them give you an NBA injection downstairs, this wouldn’t be so bad.”

“Don’t need one,” he grunted back as she flicked away those soaked and frayed fabric shards and began to pluck that impetuously placed patch of medical gauze from his side. “I told you, it doesn’t hurt.”

“It doesn’t hurt, but you couldn’t get your shirt off?”

That delicate accusation left her lips before the gates of professional restraint could corral it. The implications of second-guessing both a patient’s feedback and their subjective symptoms was highly unprincipled, yet despite his continued refusals, there was no ignoring the fact that, while half of his battered and abused armament sat stacked in one of the chairs by the door, he’d been unable to pull that snug garment from his torso.

To her relief, that same lop-sided smirk inched back across those dehydrated lips, eyes softening as they danced lightly across her features, and June was immediately grateful for the trivial need to extract an unopened sterile gauze pack from her pocket as her cheeks tingled anew.

“Alright, smartypants, you got me,” he admitted, the tips of his ears reddening under the unfamiliar vulnerability of his confession. “Maybe I just don’t like injections. Maybe they freak me out… a little.”

An ephemeral glance was all it took to identify the nature of his budding embarrassment; the reaffixture of his gaze upon his lap, the tiny flitter of his cheek as he chewed on whether he ought to defend his admission or not, the horrid clicking of his molars as discomfort had them relentlessly grinding against each other. Yet it was not the professional obligation to advocate for a medicinal intervention that saw June’s hands hesitate on their way to fully rid him of that incapacitated bandage, but an inexplicable and damn-near irrepressible urge to console him.

“Hold this here for me,” she instructed delicately as if she hadn’t heard him, indicating her need with a small tap of the finger whilst pressing that new fresh fabric to his wound in the void of its sodden counterpart. “Just for a minute while I grab some goodies, but firm pressure— hold it like you mean it.”

He shifted instantly on his seat to assent to her request, right hand forgoing its docile perch atop his thigh to cross his torso and clamp that material into place; those grimy fingers momentarily weaving their way into hers in his haste to comply.

That inadvertent touch set her very nerves alight, the ceaseless prickle lurking behind every inch of her skin intensifying to a degree that promised to expropriate the floor from beneath her feet again, and having been largely unable to resurrect her stomach from the depths of her toes where it had buried itself at first sight of him, June hurried to snatch her fingers from his and depart his bedside. The unprecedented euphoria of his skin brushing atop her own amidst that otherwise innocuous motion had virtually supplanted all evidence of the preceding sympathy, and replaced it with a moment of attraction so potent, she’d failed to digest any of the apology he’d quickly stammered during her retreat.

‘Maker have mercy, would you get a grip…’ she silently scolded, eyes scanning the assortment of supplies on the shelves in front of her as she forced a slow breath through pursed lips. ‘You’re being ridiculous. So he’s a little pretty… You just feel bad for him. It’s just pity. He’s been sitting here a long time, and he’s obviously uncomfortable… that’s all.’

But that weak justification had barely gained any potential momentum before it was squashed by the reality she could not deny. Attributing the peculiar undulation of this interaction to pity alone was both ignorant and ludicrous, as Howzer was not the first soldier to admit having a distaste for injections; the majority of her combat patients shirked from even the mention of that so-dreaded injector. In fact, most were deeply suspicious of anything even distantly related to the field of medicine, many turning pugnacious in their discomfort, and eyeing Lumi with a powerful mistrust as if that hovering medical assistant was concealing a murderous motive behind those yellow oculars. Others flinched at the mere thought of sedation, often demanding to hear any and all available treatment alternatives before consenting to whatever procedural route they deemed most tolerable regardless of its diminished efficacy, and it was this perpetual argument, this consistent mentality, that had June entirely convinced the clones in her care harboured significant trauma from their Kaminoan upbringing.

So if pity was to blame for the tingle atop her skin as the music of his familiar accent danced in her ears, why today? Why this ailing soldier, and not one of the hundred or so others she’d previously treated and discharged without pause. Why not Bolts, whose cheeks became stained with uncontrollable tears during those brief moments of lucidity when he awoke to be scanned at tragically frequent intervals? Why not the Commander from three rotations ago who’d begged her to falsify a clean bill of health so he could return to the front lines where his brothers were undoubtedly being slaughtered in his absence? What was it about this man… this objectively meaningless encounter… that had the hairs on the back of her neck standing upright as if there was something lingering in the next second? Why was this set of brown eyes imbued with the power to lasso her lungs into her stomach? Steal the floor from beneath her feet? Freeze time as if the universe itself had held its breath at first sight of him?

‘You’re better than this,’ she told herself as she rustled noisily around those laden shelves, heaping an array of various supplies into her arms. ‘Swallow whatever this weird attraction is and get on with it so you can go home. You’re tired and starving.’

Sighing heavily through her nose, she pulled the cauterizing pen from the top shelf and added it to the pile of tools clamped against her chest atop an small tub of her preferred burn salve, a USI injection tool, a single-use bottle of saline for wound disinfection purposes, and a handful of the standard 4 x 8 inch dermabacta patches.

Keeping her eyes deliberately downward, she nudged that locker door closed with her hip and started back toward the bed. After pausing briefly to power on and deposit the cauterizing pen beside the computer, June tipped forward and dumped the remaining products onto the paper sheet beside his waiting figure, attempting to ignore the return of his warm gaze by reaffixing her eyes to the tattered vestiges of his top.

“Shirt’s gotta come off,” she advised him, placing her hands on her hips and gesturing with a small nod to the garment he’d deferred removing as long as possible. “Contamination risk is too high if it stays flapping around the wound after I disinfect the area. Think you can pull it off without too much… ouchie?”

Those ensanguined fingers drummed nervously against the gauze he continued to press in place, a contemplative hum issuing from his nose as his lips shifted to a grimace. “I can give it a shot,” he finally assented amid a doubtful chuckle. “Unless maybe cutting it off is an option, and I can try to preserve what’s left of my dignity?”

“I mean– I could,” she agreed half-heartedly, though the image of her hands drifting carefully atop his skin whilst snipping that cloth from his bare chest nearly overpowered the awareness of that option being the least practical. “But we’d be sending you out of here shirtless afterward and it’s not exactly the warmest time of year.”

“Fair point,” he apprehensively agreed. “Maybe there’s a hospital gown or something that could pass as blacks until I can sneak my way into barracks?”

“Not unless blacks are covered in purple cogs and tied together behind your neck,” June scoffed. “And, honestly, if that doesn't send your dignity to the grave, I don’t know what would.”

Had such a disappointed huff not left his nose in that subsequent moment, the mental image of him trying to awkwardly stuff the excess material of that scratchy, violet gown behind his chest plate likely would have had a small snicker escape her lips, yet the unease dominating his expression instead resurrected that mystifying need to commiserate with this alluring stranger.

“We can handle this,” she asserted, watching him thoughtfully chew the inside of his cheek while picking uselessly at a blemish in the teal paint on his thigh plate. “If I help, you won’t even need to lift your arms. Plus– once it’s off, I can throw it in the Cleanser Tube and get it washed while I’m patching you up. That way the purple robe can stay in the cupboard, and you’ll have your shirt back to walk outta here dignity intact. Deal?”

His gaze shifted upward, darting back and forth between her eyes as if searching their depths for any semblance of the ulterior motive he’d seemingly grown to expect.

“Okay,” he agreed a sigh later, evidently failing to find anything other than quiet confidence behind that sapphire blue. “But if I start weeping, do your best not to laugh.”

“I’ll try,” she answered in mock intensity, waiting for his timorous gaze to meet hers again before offering a jesting smile. “Though in all honesty, Captain, just wait until you feel my hands. I’ll be more surprised if you don’t start weeping.”

Stepping intentionally around his armoured knees toward the head of the bed, she watched him steel himself by straightening his posture and taking a deep breath. “I’ll pull on your sleeve,” she told him, permitting herself only a moment to appreciate the endearing quartet of freckles on the right side of his neck. “You pull your arm.”

She guided her thumbs under the elastic cuff of his top, that deceivingly thin fabric instantly reminding her of the wetsuit she’d once donned during a diving trip on Naboo, though there was something significantly more tutelary about this injected material, as if the microthreads used to create it had been fibers of some pliable steel.

“I appreciate you being so… helpful,” he spoke, wincing slightly as his hand disappeared into the darkness of his sleeve and redirected itself downward through the trunk of the garment. “I guess I did need the big guns.”

June hesitated, barely able to repress the small smile promising to peel across her lips as she rolled and bunched the hem of his shirt in her fists, waiting until his palm had firmly planted itself beside his hip before proceeding.

“Can I tell you something?” she asked him in what she hoped was a casual tone despite her heart pounding loudly in her ears at his indirect laudation.

“‘Course,” he answered, squeezing his eyes closed as she began to stretch and guide that narrow collar past his ear and over his meticulously cropped hair.

“You’re not the only soldier who hates injections. You’re one of very many, actually… and one of even more that tries to hide it under this very unnecessary ‘tough guy’ attitude. While I don’t personally understand the fear behind a microdose of medication, that doesn’t mean I don’t understand being very wary of something, and that by no means makes you a wuss.”

He emerged from the depths of his shirt with a smoldering look that she’d never seen adorn the eyes of a soldier before, and the intensity of how he gazed sternly yet somewhat reverently into hers near-forced a paralytic shiver down her spine.

She near-cowered under its magnitude, and growing increasingly aware of how her body continued to betray her demand for professionalism by relentlessly inflaming her cheeks, she stepped carefully back around his knees and stuffed her fingers under the cuff of the other sleeve.

“Ready?” she asked as he upheld a pensive silence, waiting for him to consent before hooking one hand under the hem of that top now draped over his shoulder, and directing it carefully down the muscular arm he shifted to grant the garments removal.

She didn’t wait to see if he’d further acknowledge her expostulation before wadding up that soaked and soiled fabric and departing the bedside, crossing the room to where the Cleanser Tube sat recessed into the wall. After opening the door and shoving the clothing inside, she activated a sonic cycle with a quick poke of a button and turned to the adjacent Hand Sanitary Station.

Both pieces of machinery were considered to be state of the art medical technology, and were proprietary pieces licensed to only this medical facility while the patent approval process remained clogged behind far more consequential senatorial matters. The Cleanser Tube, designed to wash, sanitize and dry textiles in a fraction of the time that a traditional washing machine took, was installed on every floor, ensuring the sanitation droids could efficiently reuse the ludicrous amount of bedding the hospital exploited daily. Its pseudo-partner in technological advancement, the Sanitary Station, had demanded significantly more adaptability from the medical staff upon its installation, most of whom had spent several expensive years learning to meticulously disinfect their hands prior to any patient contact. While not all that different in concept to the Cleanser beside it, the absence of friction in hand washing was a foreign concept for a surgeon used to scrubbing their skin to within an inch of its already shoddy integrity before initiating a procedure. Nevertheless, the benefit of its efficiency had proved largely pivotal for those increasingly numerous days where surgeries were booked back to back.

Its familiar ion aroma wafted upward into June’s nose the second she approached and forced her fists through each of the two side-by-side valves. Sensing the new additions in its chamber, the machine activated automatically, tightening the silicone grip around each wrist to near-discomfort while cool, damp air began to circulate between her fingers. An inappropriately loud chime moments later alerted what felt like the entire hospital that the disinfection cycle had completed, and the machine ceased its vibration for only a moment before those sophisticated motors kicked back into life, preparing to swaddle her hands in a thin layer of purple nitrile. When all ten of her fingers had been appropriately coated, the valves released their complete encirclement of her wrists, and she pulled her hands from the tubes, fingers flexing habitually against the irksome constriction.

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#starqueenswrittenworks #The Only Exception #Captain Howzer x fem!OC #fem!OC x Captain Howzer #fem!OC x Howzer #Howzer x fem!OC #3rd pov #bad batch fan fic #howzer bad batch #bad batch howzer #medical anxiety #medical injuries #whump #light angst #light whump #angst

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onthegreatsea · 3 months ago

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my friend mentioned that the 30th anniversary of Goldeneye is coming up in a few years and encouraged me to pick up my mod again i had forgotten how exciting it is seeing my work running on real N64 hardware honestly. and im kinda shocked at how much better it looks on a CRT too sometimes i think "wow importing this thing is taking hours and it'd take me 5 seconds in the unreal engine, why am i subjecting myself to this?". but i cant get unreal working on an N64 can i? so i will struggle and struggle because the end result makes me so happy :)

i love making low poly art but i especially love making low poly art for the N64. its hardware has so many neat quirks.

did you know a texture will load faster if its wider than taller? the same texture rotated 90 degrees and you can save a whole bunch of memory loads. i love squishing down a texture vertically, by one or two lines of pixels at a time, just to see how low i can push it while still looking good in context you dont even have to use mip maps and can make higher res textures that way. 32x32 becomes 32x64. or you go 16 colours and you can max out at 64x64 but you can also go like 64x49 and suddenly have enough room in T(exture)MEM(ory) to fit two mips. and with some custom work you can make something that has a lovely balance between the blurriness of Goldeneye and the aliased mess of a PS1 game. its fun making custom mip maps (im insane i know) and im so used to making things for modern hardware that i never worry about UV splits in my textures. but every time you split a UV thats basically another vertex to render. so on hardware as limited as the N64 how you use UVs is actually super important. i've been redoing some old models with this in mind.

i just love how thoughtful you have to be. every polygon and every texture and every texel and every vertex matters anyway have a pic:

#hypatia's models #n64 #nintendo 64 #low poly #3d model #retro gaming #goldeneye #goldeneye 007 #game dev #hypatia rambles

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xtruss · 10 months ago

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‘Like Going To The Moon’: The World’s Most Terrifying Ocean Crossing

— Julia Buckley, CNN | Monday February 5, 2024

The Drake Passage is feared by travelers and sailors alike. Gerald Corsi/iStockphoto/Getty Images

It’s the body of water that instils fear and inspires sailors in equal measure. Six hundred miles of open sea, and some of the roughest conditions on the planet – with an equally inhospitable land of snow and ice awaiting you at the end of it.

“The most dreaded bit of ocean on the globe – and rightly so,” Alfred Lansing wrote of explorer Ernest Shackleton’s 1916 voyage across it in a small lifeboat. It is, of course, the Drake Passage, connecting the southern tip of the South American continent with the northernmost point of the Antarctic Peninsula.

Once the preserve of explorers and sea dogs, the Drake is today a daunting challenge for an ever-increasing number of travelers to Antarctica – and not just because it takes up to 48 hours to cross it. For many, being able to boast of surviving the “Drake shake” is part of the attraction of going to the “white continent.”

But what causes those “Shakes,” which can see waves topping nearly 50 feet battering the ships? And how do sailors navigate the planet’s wildest waters?

For oceanographers, it turns out, the Drake is a fascinating place because of what’s going on under the surface of those thrashing waters. And for ship captains, it’s a challenge that needs to be approached with a healthy dose of fear.

The World’s Strongest Storms

The Drake Passage can see waves of up to 49 feet. Mike Hill/Stone RF/Getty Images

At around 600 miles wide and up to 6,000 meters (nearly four miles) deep, the Drake is objectively a vast body of water. To us, that is. To the planet as a whole, less so.

The Antarctic Peninsula, where tourists visit, isn’t even Antarctica proper. It’s a thinning peninsula, rotating northwards from the vast continent of Antarctica, and reaching towards the southern tip of South America – the two pointing towards each other, a bit like a tectonic version of Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam” in the Sistine Chapel.

That creates a pinch point effect, with the water being squeezed between the two land masses – the ocean is surging through the gap between the continents.

“It’s the only place in the world where those winds can push all around the globe without hitting land – and land tends to dampen storms,” says oceanographer Alexander Brearley, head of open oceans at the British Antarctic Survey.

Winds tend to blow west to east, he says – and the latitudes of 40 to 60 are notorious for strong winds. Hence their nicknames of the “roaring forties,” “furious fifties” and “screaming sixties” (Antarctica officially starts at 60 degrees).

But winds are slowed by landmass – which is why Atlantic storms tend to smash into Ireland and the UK (as they did, causing havoc, with Storm Isha in January buffeting planes to entirely different countries) and then weaken as they continue east to the European continent.

With no land to slow them down at the Drake’s latitude anywhere on the planet, winds can hurtle around the globe, gathering pace – and smashing into ships.

“In the middle of the Drake Passage the winds may have blown over thousands of kilometers to where you are,” says Brearley. “Kinetic energy is converted from wind into waves, and builds up storm waves.” Those can reach up to 15 meters, or 49 feet, he says. Although before you get too alarmed, know that the mean wave height on the Drake is rather less – four to five meters, or 13-16 feet. That’s still double what you’ll find in the Atlantic, by way of comparison.

And it’s not just the winds making the waters rough – the Drake is basically one big surge of water.

“The Southern Ocean is very stormy in general [but] in the Drake you’re really squeezing [the water] between the Antarctic and the southern hemisphere,” he adds. “That intensifies the storms as they come through.” He calls it a “funneling effect.”

Then there’s the speed at which the water is thrashing through. The Drake is part of the most voluminous ocean current in the world, with up to 5,300 million cubic feet flowing per second. Squeezed into the narrow passage, the current increases, traveling west to east. Brearley says that at surface level, that current is less perceptible – just a couple of knots – so you won’t really sense it onboard. “But it does mean you’ll travel a bit more slowly,” he says.

For oceanographers, he says, the Drake is “a fascinating place.”

It’s home to what he calls “underwater mountains” below the surface – and the enormous current squeezing through the (relatively) narrow passage causes waves to break against them underwater. These “internal waves,” as he calls them, create vortices which bring colder water from the depths of the ocean higher up – important for the planet’s climate.

“It’s not just turbulent at the surface, though obviously that’s what you feel the most – but it’s actually turbulent all the way through the water column,” says Brearley, who regularly crosses the Drake on a research ship. Does he get scared? “I don’t think I’ve ever been really fearful, but it can be very unpleasant in terms of how rough it is,” he says candidly.

Fear Breeds Fear

In 2010, tourist ship Clelia II declared an emergency after suffering engine failure in the Drake. Fiona Stewart, Garett McIntosh/AP

One other key thing that makes the Drake so scary: our fear of the Drake itself.

Brearley points out that until the Panama Canal opened in 1914, ships going from Europe to the west coast of the Americas had to dip round Cape Horn – the southern tip of South America – and then trundle up the Pacific coast.

“Let’s say you were shipping goods from western Europe to California. You either had to offload them in New York and do the journey across the US, or you had to go all the way around,” he says. It wasn’t just large cargo ships, either; passenger ships made the same route.

There’s even a monument at the tip of Cape Horn, in memorial of the more than 10,000 sailors who are believed to have died traveling through.

“The routes between the south of South Africa and Australia, or Australia or New Zealand to Antarctica, don’t really lie on any major shipping routes,” says Brearley. “The reason it’s been so feared over the centuries is because the Drake is where ships really have to go. Other parts [of the Southern Ocean] can be avoided.”

‘We Don’t Gamble’

Captain Stanislas Devorsine regularly crosses the Drake. Sue Flood/Ponant Photo Ambassador

Navigating the Drake is an extremely complex task that demands humility and a side of fear, says Captain Stanislas Devorsine, one of three captains of Le Commandant Charcot, a polar vessel of adventure cruise company Ponant.

“You have to have a healthy fear,” he says of the Drake. “It’s something that keeps you focused, alert, sensitive to the ship and the weather. You need to be aware that it can be dangerous – that it’s never routine.”

Devorsine made his Drake debut as a captain over 20 years ago, sailing an icebreaker full of scientists over to Antarctica for a research stint.

“We had very, very rough seas – more than 20 meter [66 feet] swells,” he says. “It was very windy, very rough.” Not that Ponant’s clients face anything like that. Devorsine is quick to point out that the comfort levels for a research ship – and the conditions it will sail in – are very different from those for a cruise.

“We are extremely cautious – the ocean is stronger than us,” he says. “We’re not able to go in terrible weather. We go in rough seas but always with a big safety margin. We’re not gambling.”

Even with that extra safety margin, though, he admits that crossing the Drake can be a hairy experience. “It can be very rough and very dangerous, so we take special care,” he says.

“We have to choose the best time to cross the Drake. We have to adapt our course – sometimes we don’t head in our final direction, we alter the course to have a better angle with the waves. We might slow down to leave a low pressure path ahead, or speed up to pass one before it arrives.”

The ‘Drake Shake’ and Broken Plates

Captains check the weather up to six times a day before departure to ensure a safe crossing. Jamie Lafferty

Of course, every time you get on a ship – whether it’s a simple ferry ride or a fancy cruise – the crew will already have meticulously planned the journey, checking everything from the weather to the tides and currents. But planning for a crossing of the Drake is on a whole new level.

Weather forecasting has improved in the two decades since Devorsine’s first ride, he says – and these days crew start planning the voyage while passengers are making their way to South America from all over the globe.

Sometimes they leave late; sometimes they head back early, to beat bad weather. Devorsine – who makes the return journey about six to eight times per year – estimates that the unusually calm “Drake lake” effect happens once in every 10 crossings, with particularly rough conditions (that “Drake shake”) once or twice in every 10 journeys.

Of course, he knows what’s in store long before the passengers reach the ship.

“We look ahead to have the best option to cross. Normally I look at the weather 10 days or a week before, just to have an idea of what it could be,” he says.

“Then I check the forecast once per day, then two or three days before departure I start looking at it twice per day. If it’s going to be a challenging passage you look every six hours. If you have to adjust your departure time, then you look at it very closely to be very accurate.”

His safety margin means that he’s calculating a route that will get you across not just alive, but also as comfortably as possible. Hearing an anecdote about broken crockery and furniture on another operator, he sighs, “That’s a bit too far for me.”

“Before you have any issue with a storm, you have to keep a comfortable ship,” he says. The safety margin is to be sure that the guests will enjoy being in Antarctica, and that we won’t turn around because we have a problem… like injured people.”

In extreme conditions, he orders extra weather advice from Ponant HQ, but if you’re imagining the staff on the bridge desperately radioing for advice as waves batter the ship, think again.

“It would never happen to be in the middle of the Drake with bad conditions, needing assistance from headquarters because it would mean we didn’t have any safety margin before departure. When we cross and it’s going to be challenging, we have a big safety margin and the ship is not at all in danger.”

They are in contact with headquarters with high level satellite antennae throughout the crossing, with both satellite and radio backup if needed – Devorsine says he can’t imagine ever losing contact, whatever the weather.

Antarctica cruise: The last frontier for a big at-last luxury adventure

A Dangerous Thrill

Aurora Expeditions' Greg Mortimer ship has a patented bow to make a Drake crossing more stable. Tyson Mayr/Aurora Expeditions

Devorsine, who now spends 90% of his time sailing in polar waters, feels at home on the Drake. “When I was a little child, I read books about the maritime adventures of sailors and polar heroes,” he says. “I was attracted by tough things – I like challenges. This is why I followed the path to be able to sail in these areas.”

His first experience of the area was doing a “race around the world” in a sailboat as a youngster, heading south from his native France and rounding Cape Horn.

“It was my dream because it’s difficult, dangerous and challenging,” he says.

He’s not the only one. Some guests are drawn to Antarctica trips because of the tough journey. “I guess [they] are attracted by these areas [of the Southern Ocean] because it’s wild, it can be rough, and it’s a unique experience to go there,” he says.

Not everone’s a thrill-seeker though. As managing director of Mundy Adventures, an adventure travel agency, Edwina Lonsdale is dealing with a clientele already used to discomfort – yet she says crossing the Drake is a “conversation topic” during booking.

“it’s something we would raise to make sure people are completely aware of what they’re buying,” she says. “[Going to Antarctica] is a huge investment – you need to talk through every aspect and make sure nothing’s an absolute no.”

Lonsdale advises that passengers nervous of feeling sick should choose their ship carefully. In the past, vessels heading to Antarctica tended to be uncomfortable metal boxes built to take a heavy beating. But in recent years, companies have introduced more technically advanced vessels: like Le Commandant Charcot, which was the world’s first passenger vessel with a Polar Class 2 hull – meaning it can go deeper and further into the ice in polar regions – when it debuted in 2021.

Two of Aurora Expeditions’ ships, the Greg Mortimer and Sylvia Earle, use a patented inverted bow, designed to slide gently through the waves, reducing impact and vibration and improving stability, rather than “punching” through the water as a regular bow shape does, which makes the bow rock up and down.

Lonsdale says that the fancier the vessel and the offerings onboard, the more distractions you’ll have if bad weather hits. Newer boats often have more spacious rooms and bigger windows so that you can watch the horizon, which helps to lessen seasickness. If the budget allows, she says, book a suite – you won’t just get more space, you’ll (likely) have floor-to-ceiling windows, too.

But a word of advice – she recommends a careful selection not just of the right operator for you, but of the ship itself.

“Just because a company has a fleet with a very modern ship doesn’t mean the whole fleet will be like that,” she says.

‘Act Before You Start Spewing’

At Cape Horn there's a monument marking the 10,000 sailors thought to have died navigating the Drake. DreamPictures/Photodisc/Getty Images

So you’ve conquered your fears, booked your ticket and you’re about to set sail. Bad news: the captain is predicting the Drake shake. What to do?

Hopefully you’ve come prepared. Most ships have ginger candies on offer during bad weather, but bring your own, as well as any anti-seasickness medication you want to take. Some passengers swear by acupressure “seeds”: tiny spikes, attached to your ears with a sticking plaster, designed to stimulate acupuncture points. Some ships offer acupuncture onboard; alternatively you can get it done beforehand, since the seeds last for some time.

Devorsine’s top tips are to keep your eyes on the horizon, hold onto the handrail when walking around, be careful around doors, and “don’t jump out of bed.”

Jamie Lafferty, a photographer who leads excursions on Antarctic cruises, says that of his 30-odd crossings, “I’ve had one where it felt like I was going to fall out of bed and that was the second time, way back in 2010 when there was a lot more guesswork involved. Crossing the Drake Passage is much, much more benign than it used to be thanks to the accuracy of modern forecasting models and stabilizers on more modern cruise ships. This doesn’t mean it’ll be smooth, but it’s vastly less chaotic and unpredictable than it used to be.”

His top tip? “Take seasickness medication before heading out into open sea – once you start spewing, tablets aren’t going to be any use.”

Warren Cairns, senior researcher at the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council of Italy, has a bit of extra help.

“The only thing that works for me is going to the ship’s medic for a scopolamine patch,” he says. “It’s so rough, normal seasickness pills are just to get me to the infirmary.” Although he has it worse than the average tourist – on trips to Antarctica, their research ships have to pause for hours to take samples. “The waves come from all sorts of directions as the thrusters keep it in place,” he says. “When you’re underway it’s a much more regular motion.”

Lonsdale says it’s important not to fight it if you feel ill: “Just go to bed.” But equally, she says, don’t expect it: “It may be calm. You may not feel ill.”

People suffer differently from seasickness she says. “The Pacific has very long, slow swells, Channel crossings [between the UK and France] have quite a bouncy experience. Lots of people say crossing the Drake in very rough weather is uneven enough to not make them ill at all.” On that plate-smashing crossing, for example, this reporter – who was watching 40-foot waves from the observation deck – never got sick.

Remember that however it feels, you’re safe. “There’s an extraordinary level of safety in the build of those ships doing this,” says Lonsdale. Add in the safety margins that the likes of Devorsine build in, and you’re in uncomfortable, but not dangerous, territory.

And if all else fails, remember why you’re there.

“The motivation and excitement to discover those latitudes is very important to fight the seasickness,” says Devorsine. Lonsdale agrees.

“If you were going to the moon, you’d expect the journey to be uncomfortable but it’d be worth it,” she says. “You just have to think, ‘This is what I need to get from one world to another.’”

#World 🌎#Ocean 🌊 World 🌎#Terrifying Ocean 🌊#World’s Strongest Storms ☔️ ☔️ ☔️#Drake Passage #Ernest Shackleton #Antarctica 🇦🇶#The Antarctic 🇦🇶 Peninsula #Oceanographer Alexander Brearley | British 🇬🇧 Antarctic Survey.#Fear #Drake Shake | Broken Plates #Dangerous Thrill #Cape Horn #Actions | Alertness‼️ 🚨 🔔#Warren Cairns #Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council | Italy 🇮🇹#Julia Buckley | CNN

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faithintaiwan · 4 months ago

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july 16 - national palace museum & chiang kai shek shilin residence

It was so hard to wake up this morning after staying up late with Fanny and Caleb to watch Love Island, but I had a savior coming: the party bus!! We finally didn't have to squeeze into and wait for the MRT and walk in 96 degree daily heat to get places! Our first stop was the National Palace Museum which houses almost 700,000 artifacts from the Forbidden Palace. Everything was absolutely gorgeous including the stone that looked like a braised pork! I'm just so sad that the cabbage was not on display too. I tried to convince Fanny to buy a mini version of the pork and cabbage but her dad told her not to since they aren't real jade... That blue bowl up above that's about the size of my hand is estimated to be worth about 34 million dollars too.

Then we went to lunch at a Mongolian BBQ place. Peter said we had to eat at least five bowls but I was wiped by my second one. I really packed in the meat, though, so I felt like it was enough. After, we went to Chiang Kai Shek's home that he stayed in the longest out of all his residences and walked around. Fanny and I were so sleepy, though, so as soon as we got back to the hotel I knocked out only to awake to her laughing...

Its ok I guess because we got mcdonalds and chips and drinks and yapped... Bar crawl tomorrow could save us!!

Academic Reflection

The National Palace Museum was our first stop. Peter explained how the treasures are all from the Forbidden Palace and were transported to the lower regions of China when Japan was invading then to Taiwan during the civil war. Almost 700,000 artifacts were packed into over 20,000 large crates for the transport and the museum has so many that they rotate them every three months. There were various kinds of relics in different exhibits from furniture that royals used to use opium to various porcelain pieces decorated with dragons. Only the emperor could use dragons with five claws and lower officials could use three. Counting the number of claws on different treasures to find out who used it was so fun! Peter also pointed out an ivory ball with 24 different layers and explained that in the past commissioning and creating such an intricate thing was easy because the emperor would just threaten the artist's whole family!!

Then we went to Chiang Kai Shek's residence that he stayed in for 26 years according to Peter. Him and his wife would host dignitaries from many countries including Dwight D Eisenhower and Nixon in their living spaces. His wife was also an artist who would often paint plants to display on the walls or as gifts for guests. They can be seen in some of the photos above. As devout Christians, their upstairs living space was used for prayer and Bible study so on the wall there is a photo of Jesus and Chiang Kai Shek's mother.

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stargatebarbie · 6 months ago

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Getting to Know You Meme

Tagged by @spurious 😊

01) Are you currently in a serious relationship? Yes! 7 years this November

02) What was your dream growing up? I wanted to be a psychologist for a long time but tbh glad I didn't end up doing that I am not suited to it

03) What talent do you wish you had? It'd be cool to have an idetic memory. Or even just like, a good one. My memory is shot lol

04) If someone bought you a drink what would it be? I could really use a proper coffee rn

05) Favorite vegetable? like good cherry tomatoes. the home grown kind. Or maybe potatoes

06) What was the last book you read? I'm currently reading Dungeon Meshi! I'm really enjoying the anime and decided to pick up the manga, just finished the first volume

07) What zodiac sign are you? Cancer 🦀

08) Any Tattoos and/or Piercings? Yeah ears stretched a little, I think they're only 1cm & septum piercing. I haven't gotten around to getting any tattoos atp, shit's expensive, but I absolutely want them

09) Worst Habit? stealing all the cups and forks in the house

10) What is your favorite sport? not to be a stereotype but I don't really do sport. ig hockey?

11) Do you have a Pessimistic or Optimistic attitude? naturally pessimistic but i really try to like. practice optimism

12) Tell me one weird fact about you. one time I was locked in a bathroom with a goat

13) Do you have any pets? Yes! A cat named Moon :)

14) Do you think clowns are cute or scary? Scary for sure. I blame my mum she hung a clown puppet in my room as a baby

15) If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be? boy howdy would I love a breast reduction

16) What color eyes do you have? grey/blue

17) Ever been arrested? No but I have been detained for like. safety reasons oop

18) Bottle or can soda? Bottle i suppose? I don't really drink a lot of soft drink though

19) If you won $10,000 today, what would you do with it? probably fund my move out of state

20) What's your favorite place to hang out at? home tbh. or the beach when it's not too crowded or cold

21) Do you believe in ghosts? No, to almost a cartoonish degree. I saw a ghost as a child & I still don't believe in them

22) Favorite thing to do in your spare time? any of my 8 million art/crafts/creative hobbies (currently mostly crochet, tatting, & drawing) & binge watching tv

23) Do you swear a lot? Ohhhh yeah. not only am I Australian, I'm from mining country

24) Biggest pet peeve? People being willfully inconsiderate of others in public spaces. trolley parked across the isle, tiktoks with no headphones on the bus, talking on the phone at the cash register, that sort of garbage

25) In one word, how would you describe yourself? um. weird?

26) Do you believe/appreciate romance? Yeah but like. I suck at it lol

27) Favourite and least favourite food? fave: potato bake & least: sausages

28) Do you believe in God? Nope lifelong athiest

29) What makes you happy: hanging out with my cat, rotating the blorbos in the brain microwave, finishing a project (in theory), and uhhh I'm replaying totk with my gf right now that's pretty great

30) Currently listening/the last thing you listened to: listening to a country & folk playlist, folsom prison blues just came on shuffle

31) Favourite place to spend time: uh yeah home

32) Favourite lyric: truly i hate to choose favourites there are so many um. okay

I'll be the jester as long as you are my queen Make a fool out of me I wanna be the source of your laughter

33) Recommend a film: I almost never watch movies uhhh. I recently forced my gf to watch the Birdcage with me bc she'd never seen it, it's so good

34) Recommend a book: Peter Darling by Austin Chant my beloved. Also I'm reading Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke rn and I'm really enjoying it if you work in an office and have slack or similar then I highly recommend especially

35) Recommend a band, a song, or album: Stick Season by Noah Kahan is just SUCH a good album

36) Recommend a TV show: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend - great for lovers of musical theatre and/or the mentally ill 😌

37) Where are you from, and do you still live there? Where have you lived? I'm from Queensland and currently live in Tasmania. I've moved back and forth between QLD and TAS a few times, and plan on moving to Melbourne eventually

38) Do you have any pets or animals in your life? How did you find/get them? The aforementioned cat, I got him from a shelter & they got him from a dumpster <333

39) What's the most unusual thing you've ever eaten? during a drinking game I once took a shot that included; soy sauce, fish sauce, Worcestershire sauce, vodka, a warhead (sour lolly), fanta, and probably some other stuff I'm not sure I was very drunk and 18 year olds should not be unsupervised with that much alcohol bc they'll invent the world's worst drinking games

40) How did you 'find' fandom? A friend of mine sat me down in front of her family computer in their bible library (not a joke, whole library of bibles & Christian religious texts) & said hey. have you heard there are people on the internet who write stories about these two guys from this one series kissing? and I was immediately hooked lol

41) Make a list of 5 things that you see without getting up. work laptop (bc I am on the clock oops), personal PC, crochet project, calcifer plush, & my cat glaring at me from my computer tower bc I wouldn't let him sit on my keyboard

42) How do you style your hair? Well it was a mullet but it's super grown out now so it's more of a shag & I mostly just chuck it in a bun or something. I desperately want to shave it but it's so cold, idk maybe I'll just make a few beanies & buzz it anyway

If you want to join in please consider yourself tagged! 💖

#juno.txt #tag games

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evaludate · 6 months ago

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Evaludate Episode 102: Hystorica, Oklahoma (Tyril I Lister of even if Tempest, Part Four)

Summary:

Today on Evaludate: Madelyn's opinion on Tyril completes its 360-degree rotation, the game gets a little bit Hayes Code-y, and the religious world-building needs a little work.

Content Warnings: We spend a lot of time in this episode discussing sexual assault and rape, please take care in listening or skip if you need to.

Suicide: 13:44 - 14:11, 1:29:16 - 1:30:23

Child Abuse: 50:44 - 53:42

Incest: 1:13:40 - 1:15:00

Self Harm: 1:14:17 - 1:14:32

#episode 102 #series: even if tempest #character: tyril i lister

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changingplumbob · 11 months ago

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My top 23 gameplay moments

Thanks to @anamoon63 for tagging me! You've probably seen my top 23 screenshots but as I was trying to narrow them all down I did feel like my favourite storyline moments were not the same as my favourite pictures. So I'm going to take this tag and tell you the top 23 gameplay events I've had this year. Not all have screenshots as some of them happened before I started writing down and capturing my gameplay.

23. I did actually enjoy writing Bella and Mortimer pulling away from each other as Mortimer began to prioritise his writing over his family.

22. Seeing in thought bubbles that Paris and Samir both had crushes on the sims I wanted them crushing on. Sweet success!

21. Back when my game correctly did university grades and three out of five of my university students earned their degrees with honors! Devin, Luna and Cassandra.

20. Adding in Dina and Nina Caliente. Sadly Mortimer died so they haven't gotten a lot of screentime yet BUT I think they look great and have plans to bring them back in in time, they still control the Goth fortune after all.

19. Getting Bob his dog Dale which allowed Bob to get fit and healthy. He's still heavy set but it's mostly muscle now.

18. When Reece got a pop up about his crush randomly showing up at football practice despite his actual crush Samir being on the football team...

17. When Deanna and Paris completely ruined my story plans by kissing during a shopping trip in a different rotation, and I had to do sneaky screenshots so you couldn't see them in the background. Then when I went back to play Deanna she still had the first kiss option so I could write things my way.

16. When I was able to edit settings so that Devin and Luna could have kids that would be genetically related to them both. I usually like to keep my gameplay semi realistic when it comes to having kids but I knew Devin would not get pregnant being an actress and wanted the chance of a kid that looked like her.

15. My sims commiting home invasion before it became EA official. See Devin walking into the Pancakes house like modern day Goldilocks. Taking a bath, cooking a white cake, and only half eating some food.

14. Joey's glow up from little kid to attractive young adult was a nice surprise. I'm so glad he rolled wanting kids because if I can't get a Devin lookalike, maybe I can get a Joey lookalike down the line. Note to self, put eyelashes on more of my male sims.

13. When this new blonde girl in high school kept looking miserably at Deanna during the lesson. And I had Deanna go cheer her up only to discover when looking through her traits that she was also a lesbian. Cheers Paris for spawning at just the right time.

12. Kelly rolling the evil trait after being a destructive toddler was hilarious. I never would have picked it by myself but now I revel in writing him being a jerk to others.

11. When I got Milton to waddle across the road after Bella went missing. And again when I got him to ditch Dina and Nina and run away to see Alexander.

10. Rahul repeatedly spawning outside the Goth house for no apparent reason. This of course led to a friendship and eventual romance with Cassandra. Stalking may pay off???

9. Just watching Kaori ski has honestly been so fun. I look forward to it when I play her household. For those that don't know Charlie used Mix & Mingle for a blind date and Kaori was the second woman she met from that.

8. INFANTS! Specifically playing with alien infants like Silas and Pollock who are even more adorable and hilarious than human infants.

7. Writing Bob and Eliza as being in love. Taking the opposite nature of their personalities and finding a way where they actually work well together. I always smile when they go to woohoo and Eliza also dumps her clothes on the floor like Bob rather than in the basket.

6. When Reece got a crush on Samir after literally saying one thing to him, guess they'd been bonding off screen. In the York rotation Samir had come over and yelled at Reece, and my brain went he's probably just a closeted gay. Then I checked and he actually was! For storyline purposes though I have him as never being in denial of that.

5. Savannah and Mercedes being mini clones of Rahul. I love it so much. I also have really liked playing this latest storyline where they are not pleased at the idea of a sibling, they can be two little terrors.

4. Adam accepting the birth of both of his kids despite not wanting children. I didn't know if I could do enough to get him there but each time he was able to.

3. Keira getting sick during her Halloween party date and Marta looking after her. Not planned but ended up pretty sweet.

2. James proposing to Alexander when he was a townie, despite autonomous proposals being turned off and the fact that he had a living wife at that point. You rebel against the code James!

1. When Adam ignored autonomous proposals being turned off, and showed up in the middle of Suzanna's shift at the science lab to propose. They were living together by this point and clearly he got sick of me ignoring his wants while I played him at home.

So @azuhrasims @marcishaun @sharona-sims and anyone really if you have some top gameplay events from this year, doesn't have to be a whole 23, want to share? Also @julesbbsea17 I KNOW you must have had some kind of crazy memorable gameplay events in your game this year... *flashes back to that random unknown thing bobbing in the water beside your lot in Sulani that we still don't have the identity of*

#sims 4 #the sims #the sims 4 #Top 23 #simblr #Dag dag or tag tag

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xenosaurus · 2 years ago

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somehow without knowing anything about them. mod is now my favorite. pls share more information so i can rotate them in my mind

Mod is a main character so you’re in luck, I have a lot of her!

I described Mod as ambiguously heroic, and I’m sticking with that— the ethics behind her are kind of fucked. Mod is, at the core of her character, three things: incredibly important, impossible to replace, and far too emotionally invested.

Mod is in her mid-30s and has been the core of the superhero scene since she was 16. Her telepathic network stays up even when she’s asleep, and has never been breached by villains or the police. She knows everyone’s secret identities and, while connecting to her network generally requires mutual consent, she HAS proven to be able to get into people’s heads while they’re drunk, exhausted, or in pain without their permission.

The heroes are over reliant on her to an alarming degree. They have few to no communications backups, largely because of a prevailing feeling that going off of Mod’s network means you’re hiding something from the other heroes— which is another problem, because they are using a single woman as their gauge of trust. There are a few truly independent heroes, but the others don’t work with them.

This all creates a lot of opportunity for manipulation and abuse, and while Mod is generally well meaning and disciplined, she is also biased. She prioritizes her lover and her closest friends over heroes she doesn’t know well, which is understandable but a HUGE fucking problem when she’s the central hub for trusted information.

She’s also a physically fragile (comparatively to heroes, at least) workaholic, which necessitates a careful routine of protection and care to make sure she doesn’t get found out or sick.

Mod is a kind, if neurotic, person who tries to do good, but has too much influence to avoid the temptation to use it to benefit her loved ones. It’s a mixed bag of a situation!

#original stuff

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rogueshadeaux · 1 year ago

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Chapter Twenty-Six — Crossfire

I could see a bit of the sky now from where I was, since we were on the edge of the bridge. I couldn’t really see the stars anymore, something I’d grown accustomed to in Chapman’s ruralness and reinforced by Salmon Bay. It was the dead of night, and I couldn’t wait to get off of the floor and sleep the rest of the way to wherever this guy lived, even if that’d only be another hour. But that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?

4.9k words | 16 min read time | TRIGGER WARNINGS: Canon-typical violence, Erosionverse-typical violence, guns, shooting, arguing, depression ? is that a tw?

It took three and a half days before we even crossed the border into Louisiana.

Brent, Dad, and Dr. Sims would rotate who would drive — Brent only allowed to do so at day — and when I begged for a chance, not only did Dad brush me off, but he wouldn’t even let me leave my spot in the back of the truck. Every pit stop, every leg stretch, every dine-in at some fast food place — Dad was there, closer than my own shadow, policing everything I could do in that moment.

I was about to fucking lose it.

I get that something was wrong with me. I understand that he’s seen me have a breakdown more than once in the past few days and was probably worried. But I wasn’t glass! He used to be big on independence, on letting us make our own mistakes and touting how he wanted us to live how we wanted, and just wanted to give advice when we wanted it. Now? I had no space, at all, and was seconds from going feral.

Brent could see it. He didn’t say much at all, not audibly, but he did at some point message me are you okay? and sighed when I shrugged. I laid the phone back on my lap and it stayed there for all of seventeen seconds before it pinged again and I flipped it, a screenshot in the messages.

Mei and Brent were still chatting away, Mei explaining how no one from the original group talked to Tommy much at all anymore. Even Cat stopped signing to her cousin. We’re all really worried about Jean, though…you’re sure she’s okay? We thought we saw her die in that footage of the seattle fight.

She’s fine, Brent promised, just a bit banged up.

Reese wants to talk to her. I mean we all do but Reese…well, you know her. She’s been at my house since new years and its been a challenge trying to get her to eat. Do you think Jean would want to reach out to her?

In the textbox was Brent’s message to me, a simple would you wanna? that he knew I’d see.

And I looked at him and shook my head, turning away to look back out of the window before he could convince me otherwise.

I couldn’t take the concerns or questions right now. I didn’t want to explain to them how something was wrong with me. And, God, how do I face them after what I did to Seattle? Why would they want to know someone like me, someone who could wipe them off of the face of the earth in an instant on some stupid mistake?

They were safer in Portland, with me in their past.

I was surprised by just how warm it got the farther south we went. Like, sure, I knew some people would rush to the south during winter to avoid the snow — but it was spring weather down here! Sixty, seventy degrees Fahrenheit! We didn’t get those sort of numbers in Chapman till May. I even threw off the woven blanket at some point, storing it on the floorboard simply because it felt too good to need the extra heat.

As we made a gas stop in Baton Rouge and everyone got out to stretch, Brent stripped off his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, complaining. “God, it feels gross out here,”

Dad seemed to agree, and Dr. Sims was too far away to join in the conversation — but he also stripped off his coat as he walked towards the convenience store, slinging it over his shoulder.

Was it warm? Sure. But it didn’t warrant the forehead swipes or the gripes. “Maybe your steel insides have changed how you deal with temperature or something, because it feels amazing,” I said, hopping up from the tire so I could sit on the edge of the truck’s bed.

Brent looked at me like I was insane. “Are you serious? It’s so muggy,”

“That’s gotta be the marshes,” Dad hummed, rolling up his own sleeves.

“You’re both dramatic,” I teased. “I’d kill for Portland to feel like this,”

Brent’s bewilderment on his face grew as Dad regarded me for a moment before a half-smile broke on his face. “Do you feel the humidity?” he asked me.

“What humidity?”

He laughed, sliding the gas nozzle back into place. “That’s why you feel good — you’re probably in Conduit heaven. It’s humid right now, Jean. There’s so much water in the air it feels sticky,”

I had no idea what he was talking about.

Well, now that he mentioned it, that soreness between my shoulder blades I could never seem to shake was nearly gone, and my wounds weren’t all that itchy or in pain. I even felt confident enough to move around without the arm sling, my braced arm free to the elements. That’s what Dad concentrated on — my exposed arm with no support. “Jean, you should put your sling back on—”

“I’m fine, Dad,” I swore, hoping I’d be able to stop this in its tracks before it got bad. I hopped from my place on the truck and said, “I need to go to the bathroom,”

“Hold on, let me get—” Dad started, reaching into the truck for something.

“Dad.” I deadened. “I’m just going to the restroom. I’ll be right back.”

I scurried off into the dark before he could protest more, desperate to catch fifteen seconds to myself.

We were so close to this special person that supposedly had all the answers. I couldn’t remember the guy’s name, I was always bad at that — but I did remember how Dr. Sims insisted he was important. He’s the closest we will ever get to talking to Cole MacGrath.

Cole MacGrath. The DUP had spent so much time painting him as a demon that even now you’ll find people that consider him a terrorist. They’d always point to the footage of him blowing up that section of Empire City and scream how he killed thousands. But there were stories from refugees from New Marais or people who snuck out of Empire City before it was decimated that touted him a hero. Footage from some old newscasters that snuck past the quarantine line to interview survivors of the explosion that happened in the city repeating the same: that he was a champion. Saving people, defeating rogue gangs that rose up in the aftermath of the explosion.

The other side would always scream back That he caused!

After the DUP fell and the government had to declassify a bunch of documents in their UN case, people were forced to acknowledge he actually wasn’t that bad a guy. How different was he from Dad? Not much. And that’s what I held on to initially; he was a guy trying to do the right thing. Even if he fucked up, he did more than others. Definitely more than the government did during the quarantine. Isn’t that enough?

I wonder how much guilt he carried to the end over everyone he couldn’t help.

Either way, he was the first recorded Conduit, apparently someone who’s seen tar like Augustine’s, and we’d have to go to the next best source to learn more since we couldn’t ask MacGrath without performing a séance. What kind of guy — normal guy, apparently — was a good enough replacement source for the Cole MacGrath?

There was a sudden knock on the door of the women’s restroom and both the woman walking towards a stall and the one washing her hands with me froze. We glanced at each other the way strangers in situations did; awkward, wordless side glances as we debated whether or not it was worth speaking up to talk to each other. Who knocks on a multi-stall restroom door?

Unfortunately, I knew exactly who.

“Jean?” Dad’s voice called from the other side. I felt like I was going to explode from embarrassment, my face in the mirror quickly turning red. “You in there?”

“Oh my God,” I whispered, thinking about going humid on the spot and never returning to my solid body. He could not be doing this and not see that it was absolutely humiliating! The other women definitely sensed my embarrassment, both turning to regard me as I mumbled some sort of apology, shook my hands out till the water from the sink seeped in, and gripped the handle of the door with white knuckles, barely able to take a deep breath before opening it.

Dad was there against the wall, barely allowing enough room for anyone to pass — and closing that space immediately when I stepped out. “Hey, there you are,” He greeted, like he wasn’t trying to infantilize me. “I told you to wait for m—”

“I can piss on my own, Dad.” I snipped, shoving myself into that small space between him and the wall and slipping past, briskly walking away.

Dad caught up with ease, falling in step beside me as the automatic doors to the gas station’s convenience store opened. “You shouldn’t be going anywhere alone right now,” he stressed, ignoring my bite. “You’re not…”

“I’m not what?” I demanded, spinning on him. “Capable? Competent? It’s the bathroom, Dad! I get that I fucked up and I’m broken now—”

“Jean, don’t curse—”

“—And that I can’t do anything right, but that doesn’t mean you’ve got to treat me like a toddler! I’m not going to drown anyone while washing my hands.”

Something in Dad’s eyes changed. “That’s not what I meant—”

I didn’t want to hear it. Any excuse he would have given me would have just made it worse. I shot a hand up to stop his tangent, and demanded, “Don’t, Dad, just — how far’s New Marais?”

Dad’s eyebrows sewed closer together. He had that look, that expression he’d reserve for analyzing people on the stands. “It’s about an hour and a half away.”

“Let’s just go,” I said stiffly, walking off towards the truck. The sooner we got this over with, and the sooner we found a fix for whatever in me was fucked up, the sooner I’d get Dad off of my back.

Still, I put in my headphones and made sure my music was loud enough that everyone else in the car could hear its reverberation, just to make sure I didn’t have to deal with anything else along the way.

Brent got to drive us towards New Marais, and not only because he was Dad’s special little Conduit that wasn’t a walking hazard sign; in between choruses in my ears, I could hear Dad and Dr. Sims begin debating on whether or not we would be able to take back roads the rest of the way. “They don’t have cops that can do something about that?” Dad asked from the passengers’ seat.

Dr. Sims shrugged beside me. “There’s not enough of them. Too many older cops are retiring without any replacements, and those that do replace the old ones…well, there’s a big turnover rate. Criminals and wanna-bees have figured this out and—”

“And now they snipe drivers?” Dad scoffed, amazed that’s where their criminal minds went.

“Why am I driving, again?” Brent asked sheepishly.

“Because you’re the only one with built-in armor, and it frees Eugene and I up so we can protect you both. There’s really no other way?” Dad spun in place to ask Dr. Sims.

Dr. Sims shook his head. “Not until we cross the Lake Bonheur Causeway. It’ll take us into the city center and we can ride the backroads to the reclaimed swampland.”

“Man couldn’t live in a condo,” Dad grumbled, turning to face the front again.

I took out my headphones and put them away, the clack of their charge box catching Dad’s attention. “Jean, hey,” he started. “We’re—”

“I know,” I cut off. “I heard.”

Something simple changed in his eyes as he looked at me, but he didn’t mention it, instead continuing, “Okay, good. I’m going to need you to get on the floorboard.”

I blinked. “The—Dad—”

“You can’t be in view of any windows,” he cut me off with that aggravating finality in his voice, honed by years of law bullshit. “Eugene will be able to protect you if something happens, but you need to stay low.”

“Stay out of the way, you mean.” I grumbled.

Not low enough for Dad not to hear. “Stay safe. None of us are outrunning a bullet, but you’re the only one that’s not gonna recover.” The truck did that slight lurch as we went from asphalt to concrete, the start of this infamous Bonheur Causeway lit up in the night by the amber lights screwed to the suspensions above. I remember this bridge from one of Brent’s infodumps; it was one of the longest bridges over water in the country, no land for miles. Just concrete, steel, water, electric roadsigns — and four Conduits that could control them all.

Not that Dad wanted me to. “Jean.” He commanded, voice firm. “Down. Now.”

I scoffed, rolling my eyes and undoing my seatbelt. “Better hope Brent doesn’t crash either,” I snipped.

“Hey—” Brent started. I didn’t get to hear much else, I was already trying to fit myself in the small space between my seat and Brent’s.

This was humiliating. I was stored away on the bottom of the truck’s floor like some wine cooler they didn’t want the cops seeing, and I was, what, supposed to just be okay with it? I was shoved next to the plastic bag that held our trash — and right now, felt no better than it.

The cab of Dad’s truck flashed amber as we passed under lamplights, and Dad rolled down the windows of the truck, letting in this damp and dank smell that was part salt and part rotting egg. The smell definitely was enough to get a reaction from Brent. “Eugh, Dad—” he began to complain.

“Shh.” Dad commanded immediately.

I could see Dr. Sims from my spot on the floor — he was really the only thing I could see. He leaned over ever so slightly so he could look past the front seats and out of the windshield to the bridge, eyes scanning from behind the glare of his glasses. His one hand crept to the middle seat, closest to my head, and tensed, like he was preparing to call those angels up any minute now.

I couldn’t remember how long the bridge was; I was sure if I asked Brent, he’d be able to rattle off a number down to the centimeters, but I didn’t dare break the silence of the truck’s cab. Not even as my legs began to cramp from how I was crouched and the bridge gained some light from more variable-message signs appearing, directing the flow of traffic to different parts of New Marais. “Merge left,” Dad simply said, the click of the turn signal coming on almost immediately.

“We’re almost off the bridge.” Dr. Sims muttered above me. I didn’t realize he meant it to be a reassurance until his eyes flashed down to look at me.

Good. The sooner I could get out of this uncomfortable crouch, the better.

But that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?

The truck hit another crack in the bridge, rocking around a bit with the force. The things in the back bounced around a bit, the ice in Dad’s cup rattled — and, under it all, something clicked. Dr. Sims heard the noise too as it rang around very slightly outside of the windows, warning, “Del—”

He was cut off by the back windshield suddenly shattering, a bullet flying through the space between Dad and Brent and impaling the radio, sending sparks and glass flying around. I shielded my head as glass rained down on me, poking away at my arms as Brent yelled, “Dad!”

“Just keep driving!” He demanded, unclipping his seatbelt. The window began to roll down as he added. “Steel on, now!”

Dr. Sims’ arms lit up and he spun in place, looking through the shattered window and out to the bridge. “D, we’re being followed!” He warned.

There was sudden tire screeching, and Brent cursed under his breath before the truck jerked right. “Dad!” He shouted, more urgent this time.

“Keep going, get off the bridge!”

“Where are you going?”

I could barely see the bottom of Dad’s feet from where I was as he pulled himself up onto the roof of the truck through the window. It creaked a bit under his weight, a resounding thunk that barely covered up the sound of a handgun cocking. I could feel the vibration from Brent’s hit as he smacked his driver’s side door, the plastic of the cab’s interior being overtaken by rapidly-growing steel, the encasing just finishing its growth as it became dented from bullets. Dr. Sims had a hand out of the gap the shattered windshield left, the blue around his wrists spinning like Doctor Strange gauntlets before pulsing bright and shooting off actual swords towards whoever was behind us.

I was thrown over onto Dr. Sims’ feet as whoever was on the right of us slammed into the truck in an effort to make it spin out, Brent’s overcorrection throwing me back just as quickly. I went from being on my knees, to my face, to my ass — all in perfect time to see Dad’s form as he fell from on top of the roof.

“Delsin!” Dr. Sims yelled out.

Dr. Sims was too distracted; he watched what I assumed had to be Dad’s body as it hit the pavement, concentrating more on that than whoever was behind us now returning fire. He was hit in his right arm, in that meat just below the elbow, the bullet tearing through him entirely and lodging into the back of the passenger side seat. Dr. Sims choked out a couple choice curse words, gripping his arm close and slouching down out of the view of the back windshield.

“Does anyone see Dad?” Brent demanded from up front before cursing again. The truck jerked around once more as he avoided something — or someone. “Jean, do you see him?”

I shook my head like Brent could see me, panic beginning to settle in my chest as I looked at the bit of sky the broken windshield allowed me to. Where was he? Dr. Sims looked all but useless; his face was going gray as he looked at the wound, and he made no move to sit back up and keep fighting. Could he even do it with an injury like that? There were pieces of tissue hanging out of the hole in his rolled-up sleeve. There was another bullet that blasted past and narrowly missed Brent’s head, taking out the front windshield instead.

I couldn’t stay here and just wait to see who’d recover or die first. I couldn’t stay on this dirty and glass-covered floorboard waiting to see what happened to Dad. I had to do something.

There was a stint I went through in Sophomore year, where action movies were my everything. I had just gotten into the idea of comic writing, and wanted something thrilling. Something exciting, something that’d catch an audience’s attention enough that they’d ditch the Valentine Crime Noirs and maybe I could bring an interest back to the storytelling form. Dad was all for it; it gave him the chance to introduce me to some of his favorite movies, and while some of them absolutely sucked, there was one that I adored watching with him again and again: John Wick. This guy had reached his limit after everything was taken from him, and God, the fight scenes — they were something else entirely. Not just action packed and exhilarating, but accurate.

It was there that I learned a bullet is useless in water so long as you’ve got a few feet between yourself and the gun. That’s all I needed to give us — a few feet of water.

I pushed up from the floorboard and laid my hand on the seat, a nice shard of glass immediately introducing itself into my palm through the space in my cast. I didn’t let that stop me, nor when Dr. Sims seemed to try to make some sound of objection through his sharp gasps; I flitted through the shattered window on my own wave of water, landing atop someone’s bag and nearly tripping as I resolidified.

There were two trucks, one directly beside us and swerving to try and push us into the guardrail of the bridge, another behind with at least four masked people in them. All armed.

No Dad. He was nowhere to be seen.

“Jean, what the fuck are you doing?” Brent yelled from the truck.

I steadied myself and rose, trying my best to look at the hood of the car behind us without worrying about the fact that everyone in it looked ready to mow me down with their weapons if given the chance. I definitely was giving them plenty. Water pushed down from my shoulders and began to swirl around my forearms as I let that tenseness push into my chest, a hold binding my ribs closer and closer until I pushed out and the pressure burst away with it.

A halo of water expanded quickly, this giant forcefield of wet that washed over me and everything else in the back of the truck, pushing over its roof and all the way to the front and farther still. I extended my arms from in front of me to beside me, holding them as steady as I could as I built more into the bubbling shield, trying to pile on enough to make it an actual wall and not just a barrier.

It felt…different, this time. Something about pushing around this much water…it didn’t feel like it used to. There was more strain to it, an ache in my shoulders even though I knew, without a doubt, I didn’t need to drain. The truck on our left inched closer still, tried to push past that barrier I was making and force its way into my little bubble, and a hole opened up in the siding Brent had built so he could stick his hand our and shoot a volley of steel spheres, the metal rusting the moment they hit my water and exploding upon impact with the highway robbers’ car. The windows shattered with the hit, causing the truck to swerve away with a squeal of the tires.

Even with the swirls of the swell I tried to keep the water clear enough to see through. I wasn’t exactly wanting Brent to drive the truck straight into a median barrier, after all. But it left things clear enough for me to see the muzzle of an assault rifle settle on the center console of the truck behind us. I was suddenly back in that alley somehow, a gun pointed at my forehead, at my family, the threat that tore so much apart in the blink of an eye.

I was not going to be the damsel in distress this time.

I moved my right hand in front of me, pushing more water into the barrier between us and the truck following close behind just as their gun let off a volley of bullets, shattering the windscreen on the front of their truck and sending a good dozen bullets straight for me.

The first three managed to make it through the water, each narrowly missing me — one even snagged the flannel I had tied around my waist, shredding a hole through the fabric. But as the water caught up with my intentions and became denser, the other bullets stuttered to a stop in their shots, wavering in the water before slowly falling away and onto the road.

There was a sudden shift in the shadows, a flash in the darkness between street lamps, and Dad was on the roof of their truck, smoke dissipating from his form. He gripped the barrel of the gun sticking out of the truck and pushed some sort of heat into it from his blackened hand, the barrel going red-hot before he bent it to a ninety degree angle. The people in the truck reacted to his presence, shouting, one lifting another gun, but it didn’t stop Dad; he turned back into a plume of smoke and darted into the truck from its shattered windscreen.

I could only describe what happened next as a movie scene; Dad disappeared and reappeared again and again, choking out someone in the backseat as a cloud of smoke, solidifying to kick the other one in the side of the jaw. He was gone again and suddenly in the front, elbowing the person in the passenger’s seat before grabbing the steering wheel and trying to fight it away from the driver.

The driver gave him a hard time, managing to land a headbutt that sent Dad reeling back and prompted him to turn to smoke. The embers and ash rushed out of a window and to the top of the vehicle, resettling as Dad on the roof again.

The smoke didn’t dissipate from him; it stayed close, swirling around him like a twister, pulling in as he stayed crouched, the ash around his arm turning bright red as it shifted to literal fire. Could he control fire?

The guys on our left swerved suddenly, and pushed into the side of Dad’s truck, throwing me off balance — and making the water shield around us disappear. I had to drop fast in order to not be thrown out of the car, something roughly popping in my side and making me cry out in pain.

“Jean, get back in the truck!” Brent demanded somewhere behind me. The guys beside us had their own guns, and an entire clip was emptied just over my head. I ducked low, covering my head with my arms, barely able to see Dad through the gaps between them.

He jumped, a plume of ash and red-hot embers as he shot to the sky like rockets, all burning fuel and smog. He was nearly touching the peak of the bridge’s suspension arch when he formed from the ash, suspended in midair for only a moment before turning in the sky, aiming for the truck behind us, and shooting down like a missile, heat on the tail of his form.

There was this brief half-second of calm that came in the pause of the guy in the truck beside us reloading his gun that gave me the chance to turn into a small wave and flit back into the truck, landing on the cushion of the back seat — and sorta on Dr. Sims’ leg. “Shit, sorry,” I apologized immediately.

He didn’t care, he wasn’t even paying attention; he was looking out of the back window at Dad’s form as it zeroed in on the hood of the trunk behind us, yelling, “Hold on to something!” before blue light took over his arms.

I couldn’t really keep track of what happened next.

Dad slammed into the hood of the truck behind us, his body sinking away into smoke and ash the moment it touched the gloss of the truck. Smoke coupled and pushed out as the truck’s front pushed down into the street under it, axel snapping away. Then there was blue, a wall of hard light as that smoke billowed outward in all directions, a blast force behind it.

The back of the truck lifted, the smoke hitting the near-opaque wall and pushing around it. Unfortunately, this also pushed the truck around, and before I knew it, I was thrown into the door as it flipped on its side, the steel on it barely doing anything to cushion me. My vision blacked out and I wasn’t sure if that was from the smoke, the rolling, or simply from me.

The truck skidded some ways before it stopped, Dr. Sims only kept from landing on me by the seat belt around his body. There was no sound outside of the truck. All I could see past the window was the remains of smoke as it dissipated in the air, and smelt nothing but burnt rubber and fumes. I let my head settle, sucking in a shaken breath and coughing out the exhale, lungs screaming for air that didn’t burn. Brent was visible from where I was, head leaned against the steel wall at his side, unmoving and unsteeled. “Brent?” I coughed.

He didn’t move.

#infamous second son #infamous erosion #delsin rowe #brent posting #jean posting #infamous 2 #infamous #cole macgrath #Eugene Sims #I FINALLY GOT TO WRITE AN ULT THIS WAS SO FUN BRO #fanfic #sucker punch productions #hey wanna watch me get hunted for sport when my friends reach the cliffhanger?#god I love putting guys in situations

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