#Combat Lifesaver Course

[kipkoh]

Owl House prompt!

Human Darius carrying baby Hunter in a chest carrier. I love the art you did of that and would love a fic for it.

Also available on AO3.

The winter air was brisk as it caressed the visible skin on Darius’ face. He took a sip of his coffee as he waited for the bus, sighing at the warmth spreading throughout his body to combat the chill threatening to overtake it from the outside.

Thankfully, Hunter didn’t seem to have a problem with the cold – all bundled up and swaddled in the warmth his father radiated, comfortable enough to have fallen fast asleep with his cheek pressed to Darius’ chest. He was getting a little too old for a carrier, but Darius couldn’t deny how easy it was to carry around an overactive toddler in a sling soft enough to frequently knock him out. The positive reactions he’d experience from those observing him wasn’t exactly a downside either.

“Aw, how cute!”

“What a good dad.”   “That baby looks so sweet…”

Darius took another sip of his coffee, choosing to pretend he didn’t hear the whispers. If someone wasn’t talking directly to him, then he wouldn’t insert himself into the conversation unnecessarily.

“I wonder where the mom is… That poor baby.”

“That child is going to freeze to death! Clearly that man isn’t fit to be a father.”

Of course, not all the whispers were always good. Darius especially went out of his way to ignore those kinds. He didn’t need baseless critiques from strangers to cloud his mind and ruin his day.

He finished his coffee, threw away the cup, and checked his watch, starting to grow impatient at how late the bus was that morning. It was a good thing Hunter was asleep or Darius might have felt bad for having to feed him a later lunch than usual. 

When the bus finally arrived, Darius clambered on with the rest of the crowd, frowning at how little space was available for him to squeeze into. The seats were filled and so he stood up close to the front, hand gripped onto the handle above his head, trying his best to make sure no one bumped into Hunter by angling him away from everyone as much as possible. The jostle of the bus as it sped through traffic made that goal that much more difficult, and Darius considered himself lucky when at one point, Hunter’s carrier accidentally bumped one of the seats, but aside from a small murmur, Hunter did not make any indication his sleep was disturbed by the contact.

As dense as the crowd was, Darius would have held Hunter anyway had he not been in a carrier, but having his hands free to play defense against the bombardment of movement and people was a lifesaver. It would be a shame to have to get rid of it eventually, but Darius was going to make sure to use it for as long as he possibly could – whether that be when Hunter outgrew it or when Hunter was no longer small enough to want to do anything but run around in blissful freedom, unconfined to a fabric prison.

Darius exited the bus when it reached his stop, sighing in relief at the fresh air and unoccupied space all around him. He began walking to his destination, steps careful and calculated to make sure the stride was as even and uneventful as possible so as to not disturb Hunter. The last thing Darius wanted was to trip on a crack in the sidewalk and frighten Hunter awake with a fall.

It was a short walk, but the way the breeze picked up made him worry, and so just to be sure, Darius pulled his glove off just enough to press a finger against Hunter’s cheek. It wasn’t warm, but it didn’t feel to be uncomfortably cold, and Hunter’s sleep still appeared to be peaceful enough to where Darius could assume he was fine.

Being a father was a strange experience, and before, Darius never would have imagined himself in the position he was currently in – a single man with a toddler dangling from his chest that brought him constant worry alongside an overwhelming love. It wasn’t as if Darius hated kids in general, but parenthood had never been something he considered for himself until Hunter came along.

He certainly didn’t regret it. That sweet little boy with his face tucked into the fabric of Darius’ jacket was Darius’ entire world. He tried to imagine himself in that instance without the weight hanging off him and had to stop at the sense of mourning the idea brought about. A life without his son was a life he no longer wanted now that he’d experienced the love his presence brought about.

“I love you,” Darius whispered, leaning down to kiss the top of Hunter’s head.

He wasn’t sure if it was coincidence, but just after, he heard Hunter mumbled something and watched as he slowly came to, opening his eyes and yawning as he reawakened to the world.

“Have a good nap?” Darius asked.

“Mhm,” Hunter hummed, still groggy as he looked around to take in his new surroundings.

Darius smiled and continued walking down the block until he reached his destination, opening the door to the bakery and stepping inside, immediately getting assaulted by the warm heat of the building and the smell of freshly baked bread. Hunter experienced it all the same, realizing where they were and wiggling to indicate it was time for him to be let out. It would have been impossible for anyone to tell he’d just been sleeping with how much energy suddenly engulfed him in that moment.

Darius obliged the silent request and lifted Hunter from the carrier, setting him down on his feet on the floor and watching as he quickly ran up to the display case to take in the sight of all the sweet treats Darius knew he’d try and get him to buy.

“I want that one, daddy!” Hunter practically yelled, just as Darius expected, while pointing to something inside the case.

“Are you sure you want that one? You’re only getting one so you might want to look at everything first,” Darius reminded.

“Two?”

“One,” Darius gently said again. Hunter wasn’t a big eater and probably wouldn’t even make it all the way through one pastry.

“One,” Hunter whispered to himself, his face so close to the glass his breath fogged it up. Darius put a hand on his shoulder and directed him to take a step back.

It took a few seconds but Hunter finally decided, pointing to a different pastry than the first and excitedly announcing, “That one.”

Before he could change his mind again, Darius bought him the pastry along with one for himself and ushered Hunter over to a small table by the window, watching him climb onto the seat and waiting in case he needed help. When Hunter was situated, Darius took his own seat beside him and handed him his treat, which he happily began to consume like he hadn’t eaten a big breakfast just a few hours prior. 

Darius loved moments like that – moments where he could just sit somewhere peaceful and enjoy a domestic moment with his son. He was a busy man with a busy job, so he wanted to be able to take every opportunity possible to be there for Hunter to make up for that. He wanted Hunter to grow up knowing what it was like to have a parent willing to take him out and just enjoy a small treat with him every so often. Darius was careful to make sure Hunter understood he was loved, but he wanted to make sure he expressed it in all the little ways he could think of and not with just a simple statement followed by an aura of indifference that might possibly suggest otherwise, because that wasn’t what Hunter deserved.

“Is it good, daddy?”

Darius was pulled out of his thoughts, his eyes drawn to Hunter’s finger. He was pointing to the pastry in Darius’ hand, only a few bites taken out of it.

“Yes, it’s very good,” Darius assured, taking another bite as if to prove that point further, “Do you like yours?”

“Mhm!” Hunter hummed after taking another bite of his own, smile wide on his face and his little legs kicking under the table in glee.

Surprisingly, Hunter did end up finishing his food, but didn’t ask for anymore. He just sat and chatted Darius’ ear off while Darius cleaned up the table and tossed their garbage into the bin behind him. Then, Darius helped Hunter out of his seat and made sure his winter wrappings were still snug and warm around his body as they prepared to once again trek through the cold.

“Do you want to walk or be carried?” Darius asked.

Hunter thought about it for a few moments before tapping his feet against the floor and reaching up to slip his hand into Darius’.

“Walk,” he announced, body practically vibrating with pent up energy, barely even able to stand still.

Yeah, the carrier was a long shot, but Darius could still try. Maybe once they’ve walked enough, Hunter would get bored or tired and request to be carried, but until then, Darius squeezed his hand as they walked out the door and journeyed onwards to their next destination.

[blushweddinggowns]

“Just hold still…and done!” Nancy grinned as she capped the eyeliner. She brushed a lock of hair out of his face before declaring, “You’re officially stage-ready.”

Eddie turned to look at himself in the mirror, instantly pleased with what he saw. Steve always said that his big-ass Bambi eyes were his best feature, and the eyeliner really was making them pop. Add that with the tight jeans, the leather jacket, and the combat boots, and Eddie actually looked like he belonged on a stage. 

He looked good, but he only cared so much about his own thoughts, “You think Steve will like it?”

Nancy rolled her eyes, “Like you have to ask. We’ll be lucky if he doesn’t have a heart attack.”

Eddie grinned at that. He could only hope that his reaction would be that good, “And it will last all night?”

“At least for 12 hours,” She reassured, “I used the good stuff. This eyeliner lasted on my mom for a fifteen-hour plane ride once, with layovers. You’re ready.”

Eddie nodded. That was basically equivalent to spending a wild night with Steve, the odds were in his favor. He reached over to give Nancy a one-armed hug, taking the time to hover for a second before she gave him a subtle nod. 

“God, you’re such a lifesaver,” Eddie sighed as he squeezed her to his side, “You sure you don’t want to come?”

Nancy snorted, “Are you kidding me? My dad would ground me for the next five years if I got caught. And you know I love you guys but I can barely deal with Steve gushing over you on a normal day, let alone one where you actually look hot.”

“Awwww, you think I’m hot?” Eddie cooed, laughing at the way it made her cringe.

She was already gathering everything back up into her makeup bag, trying and failing to hide her little smile, “Don’t push it.”

But he did, of course he did, the whole way back to the Wheeler house, earning himself a sharp pinch to his arm more than once. He dropped her off at home, promising that they would call her first thing in the morning to say how it went. Then he picked up his boys and the four of them were off, all of them excited out of their minds. 

Eddie had never imagined that he would be playing on a real stage, in a real city. It had been a silly little radio contest for a charity event, first five callers got the privilege to audition to be a one-time opener for Metallica, a band that Eddie adored but the rest of the world hadn’t seemed to have caught on to yet. It was a one-time thing, paired with some great luck for the station to catch them for a single night before their next album release. But still, it was a big deal, especially for people like them that had less than zero connections. Steve was the one who insisted that they call in. Eddie had just never thought that they would have actually won. 

But they had, and the prize was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet a band that Eddie just knew was going to be huge one day. Plus, free hotel rooms for the weekend? What more could a guy ask for? 

It was a fun drive, of course it was. You couldn’t get Eddie, Freak, Gareth, and Jeff in a room together without it being a blast. The only problem was that he already missed Steve. Which was, admittedly, stupid as fuck considering that he’d see him in a matter of hours. He just hated that he had to sneak out for this. Or more aptly, he hated that his parents forced him to sneak out for this. But they had a good plan here. 

He’d lie and say he was going to bed early to prepare some bullshit elaborate date for Nancy, one that would involve him being gone for all of Saturday. He’d sneak out his window by seven, drive the two hours to be there just in time for the curtains opening at nine-thirty. Then they’d spend the night together like they had been every night for years, his parents none the wiser.

The shitheads. 

Saturday night and Sunday would be a little trickier, but Steve was coasting off the fact that his parents usually forgot to say goodbye when they left for a trip. They had a red-eye flight at 3 am, and Nancy was already prepped to make a fake phone call to ask if he could stay for dinner Saturday. With any luck, they would forget about him entirely, both of them too tired to think about the fact that they wouldn't have seen their son for nearly two days. The last bit was more of a gamble, but Steve wasn’t about to let his parents' wrath ruin his shot at a romantic and paid-for weekend with his boyfriend. Besides, when it came to Nancy, his mom basically never questioned anything. Hell, she was basically on the edge of planning their fucking wedding at this point, beyond ecstatic that Steve had finally gotten himself a permanent girlfriend. 

God, that girl really was a lifesaver. Eddie was almost surprised at just how much he liked her, and not even because she was beyond useful when it came to hiding their relationship. She was just…kind of cool? He didn’t know how else to describe it, but her whole gun-toting, no-nonsense, and slightly bitchy persona was really doing it for him. Honestly, on a bad day, Eddie was slightly afraid of her, but he kind of liked that too. The fact that she could go from scarily intense to sarcastically hilarious just equated to a winning personality in his book. And that wasn’t even counting how happy she made Steve, and vice versa. 

Sometimes he’d wander into the room that they were supposed to be studying in, only to find the two of them completely off the rails either talking about their shared passion for musicals, high school gossip, or more often than not, Steve Harrington approved seduction methods for her to try out on Jonathan Beyers. Or Tom Cruise, depending on the timing. 

They wouldn’t even notice that he walked in most of the time, too caught up in laughing with each other. Maybe it was weird, but sometimes Eddie would just watch them for a minute. Steve would be all giggly and smiling and adorable, and it just made Eddie feel warm. Hell, even seeing Nancy happy was enough to make him smile most days, the girl deserved it after everything she’d been through last year. She was a good person and a good friend. And Eddie was going to get her so many corny Indy souvenirs for covering their asses tonight. 

They were all nervous as hell when they finally got there, but actually getting to meet the band while they were setting up went surprisingly well. Though that mostly had to do with the fact that they had prepared for it. They had a fool-proof system of aggressively stepping on each other’s feet when one got a bit too fangirly. And though it left all four with some bruises, it did manage to stop Gareth from telling James Hetfield that he would totally marry him if he was a chick. They made a good impression, Eddie was pretty damn sure of it considering they offered free tickets for their next tour. 

It was fun, even if he was still nervous as all hell when it was their time to play. He had never felt this anxious walking out on stage before. Maybe that had to do with the fact that it was a real stage, but still. He wasn’t the type to be nervous about performing at all, whether that be at the Hideout or hopping on lunch tables for an impassioned speech. 

He swallowed as he looked out into the crowd, heart pounding in his chest as he realized just how many people were there. It was a far cry from the Hideout where they would be lucky to get ten people to actually notice when they were finished. But this had to be a hundred plus. Eddie’s eyes zeroed into the front row, scanning it for the one thing that could calm him down. It didn’t take long to spot him. 

There he was, smack dab in the middle of the row, completely out of place with his adorable pink polo. He was leaning against the railing, hearts in his eyes as he waved up at him. Eddie grinned, his nerves disappearing the second Steve blew him a kiss. Just the sight of him was enough to bring Eddie back down to earth.

He stepped up to the mic, guitar in hand, and started to sing.

Excerpt from chapter 14 of this fic

[leviathans-watching]

mfil - 04

-` ♡ ´- m.list | no taglist | next

-` ♡ ´- a/n: thanks to those liking, reblogging, and commenting!! much appreciated ^^

*NOT CLICKBAIT!!!* when asmo learns that you, the newest exchange student has a youtube account and following somewhat comparable to his own, he decided right then and there not to like you. however, after an unfortunate (and misleading) exchange goes viral, he has no choice but to fake date you in order to save face. will asmo crush you and put you into place like you deserve? or are those funny feelings in his stomach not hate, like he had thought? like, subscribe, and maybe fall in love (with this smau) to find out!!

asmo takes a deep breath, stepping out of his car. he’s just got to give you your uniform and then he can leave.

but wait, what if you try to keep him? or are so overwhelmed by his presence you want to take a pic? oh god, he’s going to have to force a smile, isn’t he?

as he gets close to the door to diavolo’s castle, it swings open before he can knock, and barbatos welcomes him in.

“hello, asmodeus,” barbatos says, that all-knowing (and all-infuriating!) glint in his eye. “here to drop off the things for mc?”

“yep!” asmo says, sensing a chance. “and i’m actually in a hurry so can i just leave them with you? i’ve really got to get going.”

“i’m here!” a voice calls, and he sees you practically run into the room. you’re dressed simply, unlike his completely put-together and gorgeous outfit, and your hair is a complete mess. resisting the urge to fix it for you, he offers you a charming smile.

“you must me mc. i’m asmodeus. pleasure to meet you.” as he speaks, he calls upon his charm, eyes glowing pink.

“nice to meet you,” you return brightly, offering a hand. somehow completely unaffected by his powers.

swallowing a scowl, asmo forces more charm into his voice, taking your hand delicately and pressing a kiss to the back of it instead of shaking it. you jerk back slightly but recover admirably. annoyingly. whatever.

“thank you so much for taking the time to drop this off,” you blabber on. “i know you’re probably really busy and what not, but i appreciate it. you’re literally a lifesaver.”

“well, of course i’d help our newest exchange student,” asmo hums. “especially since you’re so cute~”

you laugh. laugh! at him!

“well aren’t you a charmer,” you say. “i was warned about you, and i guess the rumors are true. you’re just as flirty in real life as you are online.”

“you’re a fan?” asmo asks, acting like he hadn’t spent the last hour doing a deep dive into all of your accounts to see if you were following him, if you’d liked his posts, et cetera.

“i wouldn’t call myself a fan,” you dismiss easily. “but i’m definitely aware of your online persona. a lot of my fans are also fans of yours so i see your name pop up in my comment section sometimes.”

“oh, yes, i saw that you also do youtube,” asmo says. “diy videos, yes? how cute.”

as if you didn’t even notice the barb he just threw your way, you smile. “thanks! i’m still pretty new to the whole thing, but it’s been really fun so far.”

asmo returns your smile, lips thinly pressed together. “well. as nice as it’s been to meet you, i really must be on my way…”

“oh! yes, of course!” you exclaim. “again, thank you so much for dropping this off,” you say, gesturing to the neatly folded uniform asmo has deposited onto the nearby counter. he’d taken the liberty of switching the shirt lucifer had selected for a larger size and wondered what you’d do to combat that on the first day of school. petty? maybe. but fun? definitely. “i really appreciate it! i hope we’ll see each other around at rad.”

“mhm, i’m sure we will!” asmo chirps. “and you’re welcome. i hope you enjoy your time here. and good luck on your channel! if you ever need any help or have any questions, let me know. i am kind of an expert.” unlike you, he implies.

“oh, definitely!” you reply, again not even seeming to register his snark, or his attempt at using his powers. what is wrong with you?! “i’ll keep that in mind. have a good day!”

“you too!” he says, sickly sweet, then takes his leave, only letting his mask fall once he pulls out of the driveway. i’ll show you, he thinks angrily, coming here, acting all famous… i’ll show you.

leviathans-watching's work - please do not copy, repost, or claim as your own

[licensedproldier]

(finished finale part 1) honestly another reason why i love this system so much is because of how highly specialized each of the pc's class feature are, combined with how MUCH they can DO, thanks to having two sets of abilities (one for deployment and one for personal). and THANKS to that, it makes it so much more devastating when an individual member is in danger during a ship fight

of course in other standard dnd fights and parties members have builds that cover different necessary roles but there's something much scarier about your PILOT going down than there is about your paladin. ESPECIALLY because being deployed on the ship means they're all naturally separated into their own areas and have minimal healing thanks to the nature of the setting. AND each person is so extremely the best at what they're supposed to be doing they can't easily replace each other. sid and gunnie have proficiency in piloting but they have none of skip's class features, etc.

like each person in this crew has SO many different support and supplemental abilities that when even one person is taken out the hit is devastating. we have two gunners but we lose a whole set of abilities if either sid or barry are down and they're infinitely more effective together. gunnie and skip go unsaid there's no one else built for mechanics and piloting like them. riva is literally the lifeline of their communications and a powerhouse in utility, and marge is sending ALL of the important emails and getting them out of pinches (critical analysis is a lifesaver).

that first round of enemy combat where everyone took turns pitching in with abilities so they could make the saving throws was truly incredible. that level of teamwork in this season makes the moments where they're split up or incapacitated so scary. because suddenly we've lost access to all of the lifeline's we've been used to falling back on.

anyway starstruck odyssey good.

[thatonebabybat]

I always see people who are interested in alt fashion ask goths where to get good clothes (that aren't overpriced) so here's a few good places from my own experiences: - BANDCAMP. Not all goth bands have merch, but the ones who do always have incredible designs and they can be fairly inexpensive! The smaller the artist, the more likely their merch will be affordable, and the more they need the support. So go do some digging~ (I find a lot of niche bands through playlists, Never Resting Soul on youtube has some good ones and so does Obscura Undead) - Thrift stores. I know this one gets talked about a lot but I see people say "My thrift store just has granny clothes" and I just want to say... It's about the way you search and the way you style pieces. I like to beeline towards the black sections since my thrift store is sorted by color but yours might be different. After that I usually like to look at reds and purples, but green or even white can also be pretty cool if you style em right. See what calls to you. Look for good fabrics. Lace, velvet (or fake velvet), leather (I'm vegetarian so I hate to say it, but fake leather kind of sucks ass and crumbles apart within a few wears most of the time. Look for real leather if you want to buy it), or normal fabrics with interesting prints. I'm plus size and I've found some really good items doing this. Also, sometimes something that looks like a "grandma" piece on its own looks stunning when you pair it with the right accessories. Invest in some good belts and jewelry and you can make the most basic black t shirt and jeans or skirt look super alternative and pretty. - DIY. A lot of people assume you need some decent sewing skills to do this and while that's certainly helpful for more complicated DIYs, I'm here to tell you: You can just bullshit things with paint and safety pins and fabric glue and cheap craft supplies. Want a chain belt? the crafts section of walmart has chains you can throw on literally anything if you have a will and some safety pins (which you can also buy at walmart) and I hear hardware stores have longer chains way cheaper. You can also write things with that puffy paint you probably remember from when you were a kid. or use a cheap paintbrush to actually paint with it if you want. If you have patches you can fabric glue them or safety pin them (seriously those things are lifesavers) or both for good measure. Key rings are also great for projects that have a lot of chains or other hardware on them. you can make a chain with them or you can attach chains together with them or just like throw em on any piece of black clothing you want or honestly like 50 other things I'm probably not thinking of rn. Of course, you can also just shred tf out of things if that's more your style. Tights, denim, shirts, whatever. Distressed clothes are always an easy mention. (shredding denim is weirdly therapeutic if you have pent up frustration, try it out sometime) You can also draw or write on colored things with markers for a cool effect. I have a whole playlist for alt DIYs if you're looking for some inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLK4LkzpKtOvIFkJadZDUnfN4ntztkU70q - Finally, and I hate to say it, but.. Fast fashion. I don't recommend it if you can avoid it, but sometimes it's all you got and I don't really judge anyone for buying it. I got my current pair of combat boots at target and there's plenty of pieces you can style in alternative ways there. Lots of good basics and they usually have a pretty decent belt selection. They also have combat boots for around $20 last time I checked. (Don't buy from shein if you can help it though that shit is toxic and I don't just mean it in the metaphorical way.) You can also get good pieces for DIY projects like I mentioned above, or you can find cool tights to pair with your outfits.

[ortodelmondo]

Peter van Agtmael | Disco Night Sept. 11

Wounded' soldiers are treated during a combat lifesaving course that attempts to train soldiers to treat common wounds during simulated combat. South Carolina, USA. 2011.

[anxietytwist]

𝐀𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐲𝐧 𝐝𝐞 𝐕𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐞

“𝐀𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫”

[ 𝟸𝟶 | 𝟻'𝟷𝟶" | NB | Demiro Bi | ❤️𝗩𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁 ]

•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•

⊰𝑭𝒂𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒐𝒏⊱

Rosean: “𝘓𝘰𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘤 & 𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘴”

Vesphirian: “...” (paired with a 𝘷𝘪𝘣𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘧𝘶𝘳 𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘢𝘬)

Practical “hunting/combat” wear (really the only time they DON'T wear all white, as white armor, can be a hard to find)

⚝ Their favourite accessories (besides the 𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘬𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝗖𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 gave them) are 𝘣𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘴 with simple/understated designs

•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•

⊰𝑵𝒐𝒕𝒆𝒔⊱

ᴛᴀʀᴏᴛ ᴀʀᴄʜᴇᴛʏᴘᴇ➙ 𝘋𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩

ᴘʀᴏɴᴏᴜɴꜱ➙ They/Them ʙᴜɪʟᴅ➙ 𝘔𝘶𝘴𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘳 ᴘʀᴇꜰᴇʀʀᴇᴅ ʟᴇꜱꜱᴏɴ➙ Physical (🏹/🗡️) ʜᴏʙʙʏ➙ Gardening 🪴 “ᴄᴏᴘɪɴɢ” ᴍᴇᴛʜᴏᴅꜱ➙ Overworking & Excessive sleeping (whenever they AREN'T working they're passed out somewhere 🛌) ᴘᴇᴛ➙ Boar (Red river hog: 𝘉𝘢𝘣𝘺/ 𝘈𝘥𝘶𝘭𝘵)

✧ 𝐀𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 has a tattoo of 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗿'𝘀 name (surrounded by stars) on the inside of their RT arm; placed so it's only visible to them unless someone looks hard enough 💪😘

✦ Their keepsake from home is their father's sword (which they plan to use at a later date... for self-defence, of course 😉)

✧ 𝐀𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 no longer feels a burning need for revenge & has instead turned their focus to finding out the TRUTH (even if it proves that 𝘾𝙖𝙩𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙖 IS a murderer... at least their family was killed for a reason & not pointlessly slaughtered based on misinformation) 🤔

✦ As a child, before their family was killed, they were a huge crybaby; they've vowed to NEVER let another person see them “weak” EVER AGAIN 😠 (they have a hard time being open/vulnerable, even with those they wholeheartedly trust)

✧ 𝐀𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 keeps their hair 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘵 simply because it reminds them of their brother (the twins enjoyed looking as identical as possible when 𝘼𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙞𝙧 was still alive 🥲)... if it gets too long they quickly cut it or else they'll meltdown

✦ They absolutely refuse to wear any colour other than white 💀 (NOBODY is going to take their mourning away 😔... they'll only stop wearing white when either THEY or 𝙇𝙪𝙘𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙨 is dead)

✧ 𝐀𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 does their best to temper their rage with fake smiles & meticulously crafted words (they're especially restrained when interacting with any “innocent parties”), they reserve their crueler jabs for 𝗟𝘂𝗰𝗲𝗿𝗶𝘀 & anyone overtly hostile towards them (everything is hidden behind well crafted, sarcastic quips 🙃)

✦ Over the years, they've come to view 𝗛𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿 & 𝗟𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗼𝘁 as their “family” (as an adult, they've become more standoffish towards 𝙇𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚𝙡𝙤𝙩, though, his loyalties & heart will ALWAYS lie with 𝙇𝙪𝙘𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙨; they doubt he's capable of caring enough about THEM to actully stop 𝙇𝙪𝙘𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙨 from harming them again 😒)

✧ 𝐀𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 refers to their journal as “𝑪𝒐𝒏𝒇𝒊𝒅𝒂𝒏𝒕”, & while they DO write in it often, simple mundane topics are all that's hidden inside 📖

✦ 𝗙𝗮𝗱𝗶𝘆𝗮 is the best friend they didn't know they were missing/needed, the support she (+ her mother, 𝙉𝙖𝙞𝙢𝙖) gives them is truly lifesaving 🥺

✧ 𝐀𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 feels like they should have died with their family that night (they're waiting for the day they finally get to see them all again)... so far nothing has changed their outlook 😮‍💨 (once 𝙇𝙪𝙘𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙨 is “dealt with”, or they find out that 𝘾𝙖𝙩𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙖 IS guilty, they plan to join their family in death ⚰️)

✦ They only celebrate their birthday as a way to honour 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗿'𝘀 spirit (otherwise the day is just another reminder of everything/everyone they've lost) 😢🎉

✧ 𝐀𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 takes their role as 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑜𝑟𝑡 quite seriously often to the point of exhausting themselves (no matter how “fake” it is... at least it gives them something tangible to focus on) 😮‍💨

✦ As adults, the best way to describe their relationship with 𝗩𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁—pre-FWB—would be playfully antagonistic: only “flirting” with him when they know it'll annoy him (“You wanna **** me so bad it makes you look stupid” 😏)

✧ 𝐀𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 is very casual when it comes to their “intimate” connections (their most recent “partner” was 𝙀𝙖𝙙𝙧𝙚𝙙 🥴); it takes time for them to develop romantic feelings... which honestly suits their situation just fine (they'd HATE having to go to 𝙇𝙪𝙘𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙨 & get his “permission”... + their current plan for the future isn't a very long one 💀)

✦ Their 𝘣𝘰𝘢𝘳 is named “...”, ___ helps out in the garden 🌱🐗

✧ 𝐀𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 enjoys referring to 𝗟𝘂𝗰𝗲𝗿𝗶𝘀 as their “husband” (they absolutely love making him squirm, especially when others are witness to it 😈)

✦ Flirting with 𝗘𝗮𝗱𝗿𝗲𝗱 is always fun; his reactions are adorable (especially after they've “laid” together 😘)

✧ No physical place truly feels like home to them... for them, it's the people they've chosen to care about that are their “home” 🫂

✦ Bearing witness to 𝗟𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗼𝘁 & 𝗟𝘂𝗰𝗲𝗿𝗶𝘀' relationship has tainted their outlook on love 😞 (if love makes you capable of overlooking disgusting crimes then they want absolutely NO part in it )

✧ ...

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𝐼𝐹: @coeluvr

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[Mature heights]

Picrew used:

[creative-anchorage]

When a wild orangutan in Sumatra recently suffered a facial wound, apparently after fighting with another male, he did something that caught the attention of the scientists observing him. The animal chewed the leaves of a liana vine – a plant not normally eaten by apes. Over several days, the orangutan carefully applied the juice to its wound, then covered it with a paste of chewed-up liana. The wound healed with only a faint scar. The tropical plant he selected has antibacterial and antioxidant properties and is known to alleviate pain, fever, bleeding and inflammation. [T]he scientists stated that this is “the first systematically documented case of active wound treatment by a wild animal” with a biologically active plant. To me, the behavior of the orangutan sounded familiar. As a historian [...] I was reminded of similar cases reported by Aristotle, Pliny the Elder, Aelian and other naturalists from antiquity. A remarkable body of accounts from ancient to medieval times describes self-medication by many different animals. The animals used plants to treat illness, repel parasites, neutralize poisons and heal wounds. ... Some of the earliest written examples of animal self-medication appear in Aristotle’s “History of Animals” from the fourth century BCE, such as the well-known habit of dogs to eat grass when ill, probably for purging and deworming. Aristotle also noted that after hibernation, bears seek wild garlic as their first food. It is rich in vitamin C, iron and magnesium, healthful nutrients after a long winter’s nap. The Latin name reflects this folk belief: Allium ursinum translates to “bear lily,” and the common name in many other languages refers to bears. ... When elephants accidentally swallowed chameleons hidden on green foliage, they ate olive leaves, a natural antibiotic to combat salmonella harbored by lizards. Pliny said ravens eat chameleons, but then ingest bay leaves to counter the lizards’ toxicity. Antibacterial bay leaves relieve diarrhea and gastrointestinal distress. Pliny noted that blackbirds, partridges, jays and pigeons also eat bay leaves for digestive problems. ... Of course, these premodern observations were folk knowledge, not formal science. But the stories reveal long-term observation and imitation of diverse animal species self-doctoring with bioactive plants. Just as traditional Indigenous ethnobotany is leading to lifesaving drugs today, scientific testing of the ancient and medieval claims could lead to discoveries of new therapeutic plants. Animal self-medication has become a rapidly growing scientific discipline. [...] One surprising observation is that finches and sparrows collect cigarette butts. The nicotine kills mites in bird nests. Some veterinarians even allow ailing dogs, horses and other domestic animals to choose their own prescriptions by sniffing various botanical compounds.

[marsipanda]

Phoebe! My reploid OC. (She's currently undrgoing a small redesign.)

Phoebe is a Virologist working for the Maverick hunters to look for a cure for the Sigma virus. She’s more often tucked away in the more obscure parts of the hunter HQ and her presence and work detail are top secret. As far as anyone knows beyond Signas, lifesaver and likely X, she is a mundane lab technician in the hunters research operations that occasionally helps out with reploid autopsies and other unpleasant sides of the medical ward.

(Continues in read more)

Phoebe has no currently known combat capabilities but is built as a specialist model for reploid medical science. One of her prime features is being able to modify her body temperature down as much to -80 degrees Celsius temps to handle medical samples without them thawing, while rapidly processing and analysing malicious codes and cataloguing her findings to a heavily guarded database. She has an internal drive built in to keep her research constantly up to date and backed up in case of emergency.

While she isn’t combat capable, she does have very quick reflexes and speed, opting to primarily evade and escape potentially violent encounters with mavericks. She is easy to startle and has an overly cautious exterior to her personality, however this doesn’t stop her from trying to be approachable and friendly, even having a cheeky, endearing playful side to those she lowers her guard around.

Built under the hand of the reploid scientist; Dr Elio, Phoebe is the youngest of 4 ‘Caladrius’ units built as specialist assistants for their father reploid unit. Each being a conduit and a ‘back up’ for the labs precious research data.

Elio however, gathered Sigmas attention by getting too close to comfort towards a huge breakthrough towards the cure. The doctor’s lab having long been infiltrated and spied on by the mavericks, Elio knew he had limited time, thus moved quick to protect his legacy and modified Phoebe hurriedly to act as a tool to do such.

As planned, Phoebe is the sole survivor of the inevitable attack upon the labs, dragged out the ruins barely alive and covered by the remains of her creator who sacrificed himself to keep her intact…. As well as everyone else to keep his research exclusive, unknown to Phoebe until later when she became suspect of being an accomplice to his plans where it was made clear to her that he was also responsible for the death of as many innocent reploids as the Mavericks were to avoid data leaks. Eventually her name was cleared, but of course she had no choice but to continue Elios research under the watchful eye of the hunters.

She strives for some semblance of a normal life and see’s her work with the hunters as a new chance to move on and redeem herself, while coming to terms with her creators actions and struggling with her guilt of being an unwitting tool to a horrible means to an end.

[supersaiyanjedi14]

RWBY COMBAT ANALYSIS: JAMES IRONWOOD

"You can label me whatever you'd like, but the fact of the matter is I was right! The minute I softened, let my guard down, that's when Salem had her opening. All excellent philosophical points that won't matter if Salem wins. […]  I am done letting others' inability to see the big picture get in the way of doing what's right. Robyn, the council, this Kingdom... even you.”

PHYSICAL

A human male, General James Ironwood’s exact age during the events of the series is unstated, though as a peer of the likes of Qrow Branwen, Jacques Schnee and Arthur Watts, I’d estimate him to be in his late 40s to early 50s.  By the time of his death, two years after the Fall of Beacon, Ironwood had spent the bulk of his career as part of the Atlas Armed Forces, raising in the ranks to eventually become commander in chief of the Atlas army and later headmaster of Atlas Huntsman Academy.  These joint positions earned him an unprecedented two seats on the Atlas Council, a factor that flavored the rest of his controversial life.  However, while he represented the standard to which Atlesian Huntsmen and soldiers were compared, Ironwood was far from a conventional specimen.  His most defining trait was his extensive cybernetic implants, his chosen treatment option for the multitude of combat injuries he sustained over the course of his life.  By the end of the Atlas crisis, Ironwood had replaced both of his arms, his right leg, and the entire right half of his torso with robotic prosthetics, while an additional implant was installed into his forehead to link up the cybernetics with his higher brain function.  While the full extent of Ironwood’s torso cybernetics in relation to his biological body has never been explored, I believe a good frame of reference would be those of the Star Wars antagonist Darth Vader, who was outfitted with various replacement organs to supplement his respirator and artificial bones and ligaments to reinforce his skeleton.  However, where Vader’s reconstruction was restricted by the severity of his injuries and the need to preserve as much of his living flesh as possible, most of Ironwood’s cybernetics were merely a treatment option rather than lifesaving necessities, and he was all too willing to sacrifice his physical form in the name of continuing the fight.  As a result, Ironwood’s prosthetics were both far more intrusive than was standard and designed to be combatively reliable, James’ ultimate goal being to become something more than human in order to combat the horrors of Salem.

While Ironwood’s willingness to discard his body for metal boded poorly for his restraint and principles, their practical benefits more than made up for it, making him one of the most physically powerful combatants of his day.  Standing at a towering 6’6”, Ironwood’s cybernetic proportions closely approximated the muscular athletic build he no doubt sported as a young man, further distinguished by his graying black hair and beard, blue eyes, and pale skin tone.  The most visible advantage of Ironwood’s metallic body was his incredible physical might, taking his already heavy-handed approach to combat and augmenting it with the benefits of robotics.  He has casually manhandled high-caliber Grimm with his bare hands, lifted and thrown adult humans with an outstretched arm, crushed stone in his grip, and even smashed his own tactical console to pieces with a pair of slammed fists in a fit of anger.  Given that his Aura was depleted when he lifted Arthur Watts over the Amity Arena lava pit, I feel comfortable saying that Ironwood’s baseline strength level was superhuman, his prosthetics specifically designed to surpass what his “weaker” flesh and blood could achieve.  Compared to his peers, though few of Ironwood’s adversaries were particularly domineering, I think it is only reasonable to assume that only similar heavyweights could realistically challenge his strength.  The only instance of Ironwood lacking confidence in his muscles and servos was against Penny Polendina, a designed and built combat drone far beyond mortal athleticism, motivating him to draw Due Process’s energy cannon instead.  Despite this heavy emphasis on strength, the general’s other attributes were also polished.  Though he favored grounded footwork and postures, rarely employing acrobatics, Ironwood was still quick on his feet, covering ground with power jumps, combat rolls, and running charges.  While they appeared to be nimbler, neither Watts nor Lie Ren appeared to have any meaningful speed advantage over Ironwood, who kept up with them in close quarters and even overpowered them.  While Winter Schnee was conclusively faster than him, this is no sign of weakness given her status as one of the most accomplished acrobats in the setting, and even then, his stalwart foundation and footwork allowed him to keep up with her.  Furthermore, Ironwood’s reflexes were still polished enough to avoid point-blank gunfire, and he was skilled in the use of combat propellants to enable more dynamic maneuvers, freely using the gravity Dust in Due Process’s black half to launch himself across the battlefield.  While the metal fingers of his cybernetic arms likely hampered his fine dexterity, Ironwood was still able to execute controlled technique-based attacks in battle, expertly wielding his guns as bludgeons on multiple occasions and easily keeping up with Lie Ren in a fist fight.

As has already been stated, Ironwood was a lifelong veteran soldier and Huntsman with a history of severe injury, the extensiveness of his cybernetics pointing to the amount of punishment he has had to endure.  Between his prosthetics functioning as natural armor and his own incredible will to fight, Ironwood possessed an astronomical tolerance for pain and injury.  During the Fall of Beacon, Ironwood endured a shuttle crash when his hacked AK-200 drones turned on him, and despite his clothing getting ripped apart, indicating an at least damaged Aura, he powered through and went on to demolish scores of drones in the battle.  During his confrontation with Watts, Ironwood was regularly battered against the anti-gravity biome’s walls, was struck by several of Watts’ standard and Dust bullets, and finally broke his Aura when he tackled Watts off a platform and struck the arena floor.  When Watts trapped his arm in a hard light barrier, Ironwood endured the agony of burning off his own skin to escape, sacrificing his arm before beating the scientist into the dirt.  Even his defeats have only come from overwhelming force.  At Atlas Academy, Ironwood was only brought down by the combined might of Team JNOR, Emerald Sustrai and Winter Schnee, subjecting him to a kick to the face, a flurry of thrown ice shards, multiple hits from the Long Memory, a direct hit from a charged Magnhild, getting run down by a charging Summoned Manticore, and finally a slash across the abdomen before he went down.  Winter only defeated Ironwood when she assumed the power of the Winter Maiden and deflected a shot from Due Process’s energy cannon back in his face, bringing him to his knees.  However, while Ironwood’s cybernetics allowed him to maintain his output in the long term, his overall stamina was surprisingly lackluster.  By the time the Watts fight reached its final bout after only a few minutes, Ironwood was visibly fatigued, displaying labored breathing and less crisp transitions in his style.  While the force he was up against at the academy was far greater than anyone could ever deal with, Ironwood still burned out fast, and it is worth noting that the general is one of the few characters who has actually lost consciousness when his Aura broke.  Furthermore, despite his military discipline, Ironwood’s unwillingness to back down has led him to bite off more than he can chew and ignore dangers, needlessly subjecting himself to injury to force his way to victory.  Accordingly, his ultimate fall was a long-term grind, his composure whittled away by his growing paranoia and his body beaten to the point where he couldn’t even regain his feet, dying under the crushing weight of Atlas itself.

While Ironwood almost certainly wore combat armor during his early years as an Atlas soldier, even continuing to own a pair of pauldrons for emergencies, his role as Academy Headmaster and a member of the Atlas Council meant that he was rarely deployed into active combat.  As such, his usual choice of wardrobe was the Atlas Military Dress Uniform, though like other high-ranking Atlas operatives, his personal set was heavily personalized.  During Atlas’s last days, Ironwood’s uniform consisted of a dress shirt and tie underneath a double-breasted white jacket, military style trousers, steel-toed boots, and a heavy white overcoat.  He accessorized with a belt, bandolier, and a pair of white gloves, though after losing his left arm, he deliberately left the black prosthesis bare.  With his cybernetics functioning as built-in armor, Ironwood’s wardrobe could afford to emphasize mobility over protection, leaving him free to leverage his mechanical physique to its fullest.

RANKING: Tier 1, Baseline Superhuman

Cybernetic enhancement generally affords significant practical advantages in physical combat, but their general limitedness often prevents them from drastically elevating physical performance level, and most cyborgs are merely squishy meatbags with slightly less squishy bits.  However, James Ironwood’s extremely extensive cybernetics push him far beyond the standard, his prosthetics serving as both remedies to hold his body together and a preemptive measure to prevent him from breaking again.  Ironwood is inarguably one of the toughest and strongest combatants in the setting, demonstrating physical might far beyond a mortal man’s and an absolutely inhuman tolerance for injury.  Considering that James was perfectly willing to burn off his own arm, there is no telling how far this man will go to achieve victory.  Ironwood’s only real limitation is his poor sustainability, indicating that he does have a limit to his performance and made all the worse by his refusal to cut his losses.  Fatigue, both physical and mental, is James Ironwood’s biggest handicap, but pushing the general to that point will be an incredibly uphill battle, given that he is, quite literally, built like a tank.

MARTIAL

James Ironwood was armed with a paired set of heavy pistols known as Due Process, an ironic name if there ever was one. Combining aspects of both a revolver and semi-automatic pistol, each gun appeared to be about a foot and a half long, 5 inches thick, and designed with floral patterns engraved on the slide.  Each pistol featured a secondary trigger that enabled it to fire specialized ammunition alongside standard rounds.  The primary weapon was silver colored and loaded with explosive rounds, the yield strong enough to knock an alpha Beowolf into the air and reduce entire squads of AK-200 combat drones to shrapnel.  The second pistol had a black finish along the slide and grips and was loaded with gravity Dust bullets, capable of generating shockwaves powerful enough to propel Ironwood through the air.  Given that Ironwood was prepared to immediately execute Marrow Amin with the black pistol after the Faunus went AWOL, it is entirely possible that the Dust rounds were powerful enough to either break or penetrate Auras with a solid direct hit.  Furthermore, the pistols were durable enough to be used as bludgeons in close quarters combat, one of Ironwood’s favorite tactics being to grab the weapon by the barrel and use it as a club when out of ammo. Overall, a simple yet reliably lethal weapon set, perfect for Atlas’s perfect soldier.

As the head of the Atlas Military and a professional Huntsman, James Ironwood obviously possessed the standard training background of his contemporaries, likely graduating from Atlas Huntsman Academy before enlisting his talents in the Special Operatives Division just as his later subordinates Winter Schnee and Clover Ebi did.  Accordingly, he was familiar with the various ways to dispatch the creatures of Grimm and trained in the use of various military grade weapons and advanced hand to hand combat.  A hardened soldier, his talents as a marksman and martial artist were built up through rigorous battlefield experience, and while his role as academy headmaster and government councilor meant he was rarely seen in the field, he clearly stayed on top of his training.  By the end of his life, Ironwood stood as one of the most skilled and tenacious martial combatants of his day, effectively setting the mold for what Atlas Academy expected of its students.  Ironwood’s personal fighting style was extremely physical, taking full advantage of his cybernetics to deliver a devastating offensive barrage, launching everything he had at the enemy and refusing to give an inch of ground.  When at a distance, Ironwood relied on his exceptional marksmanship to dispatch opponents, alternating between single shots and dual wielding bullet swarms.  Though he could expertly chain together sporadic bursts of gunfire to force opponents back, he overwhelmingly favored single shot takedowns.  Against single adversaries, he homed in on his target and sought to destroy it with a precise killshot, nailing direct hits on Arthur Watts twice during their battle at Amity Colosseum.  In group engagements, Ironwood switched over to explosive rounds, clearing away large groups of enemies with a single blow, as seen when he destroyed large squads of AK-200s during the Fall of Beacon.  When forced to close the distance, Ironwood relied heavily on brutal close quarters combat techniques to overpower his enemies, wielding his guns as extensions of his body.  His pistol whips were swift, powerful, and decidedly lethal, even when utilizing heavy ordnance analogous to Due Process’s energy cannon.  When completely unarmed, Ironwood fully leveraged his cyborg strength through devastating punches, kicks, grapples, and tackles intended to subdue the enemy as directly and efficiently as possible.  Despite this blunt offensive stance, Ironwood was not some mindless brawler flailing around. His unarmed skills were in fact quite sophisticated, clearly holding a dominant edge over Watts and fighting evenly with Lie Ren despite the latter having access to his weapons.  If forced to defend, Ironwood’s policy was “endure and power through”, holding his ground and shrugging off hits before resuming the offensive.  He employed deft evasions and sidesteps when dodging bullets, and when in close quarters he used his armored limbs to block attacks before manhandling the opponent to force open their defenses.  Additionally, Ironwood’s understanding of his weapons’ functions allowed him to leverage the recoil for practical purposes, regaining his stance by blasting himself back to his feet.  He bolstered his focused offensive technique with his Semblance and Dust loadout, striking with absolute commitment and intensity while adding more power to his attacks with elemental fury.

Ironwood was a reasonably capable military strategist, clearly understanding the value of his army’s strength and building his approach around leveraging this as fully as possible.  However, Ironwood was no planner, his strategies mostly boiling down to building up his foundation to make an instrument that could overpower virtually any challenger while also being nearly impossible to overpower in turn.  He expressed this both in preparing his forces and training his own students, investing heavily in the development of the Atlesian Knight drones and enjoying regular sparring matches with Oscar Pine.  When commanding armies, he deployed his heavily armed and armored troops in as great numbers as possible, bringing down the hammer with an unstoppable force of offensive might.  This approach proved successful at the Breach and in the early stages of the Battle of Atlas, the Atlas troops’ superior weapons and equipment allowing them to steamroll the various creatures of Grimm while also halting their advance long enough to develop a devastating counteroffensive.  When he was personally fighting, Ironwood used these same tactics to turn battles into slugging matches where his cyborg strength and heavy guns could dominate.  When confronted by the Alpha Beowolf at Amity, Ironwood rushed in and attacked directly, bracing up against the beast’s charge before shooting an explosive round into the ground, blowing it off its feet and allowing Ironwood to more easily manhandle it before shooting it in the head.  As seen in his battle with Arthur Watts two years later, Ironwood was an expert at alternating his offensive abilities to keep up the pressure.  He would propel himself with his guns’ recoil to close the distance then rapidly switch between standard, explosive, and Dust ammunition to hammer the target’s defenses.  In close quarters, he employed the same methodology with his unarmed skills and pistol whips, each strike aimed at staggering or subduing the enemy in one fell swoop.  His confrontation with Team JNR at Atlas Academy showed his ability to apply his tactics to group engagements, managing to overmatch the attacks of Jaune Arc, Oscar Pine and Lie Ren by seizing their arms and weapons and forcing open their defenses.

In all things Ironwood showed an emphasis on overwhelming power as a solid general-purpose solution, dominating his opponents rather than undermining or subverting them.  Appropriately, his ultimate trump cards were the most devastating weapons he could get his hands on.  Against Salem’s army, Ironwood used his troops to stall for time as he prepared a Dust warhead to obliterate the Monstra.  In personable combat, Ironwood literally pulled out the big guns by outfitting Due Process with a large cannon.  Less wieldy but more powerful, the cannon fired massive bolts of green energy capable of destroying heavy machinery and overpowering advanced ethereal defenses, punching through a hard-light Dust prison cell like wet paper and later overwhelming Winter Schnee’s black glyphs.  Even with the extra heft of the cannon, Ironwood was still perfectly capable of swinging it around as a bludgeon, demonstrating the intensity and commitment that Ironwood brought to all of his skills.  However, Ironwood’s tactics also demonstrate his serious weaknesses as a tactical thinker, weaknesses worsened by his pride and fear.  Because his entire approach was built around leveraging strength and power for maximum effect, Ironwood was ineffective against more defensive and subversive opponents who could prevent him from bringing his full might to bear, while his overreliance on offense left him exposed to retaliation and tunnel vision.  Despite being a physical lightweight with minimal dedication to physical combat, Watts was able to contend with Ironwood by maintaining a slippery retreat through the anti-gravity biome, forcing the general to chase after him while he chipped away at him from a distance.  Ironwood was either unaware or unconcerned that he was being baited, continuing to come after Watts and getting his arm caught in the ring trap for his trouble.  A similar fate befell him at the academy, his focus on each of his opponents individually leaving him blind to the various counters they levied against him, wearing him down.  While Ironwood has displayed clever maneuvers in the past, such as when he outflanked Watts and Amity and surprised Winter with a pistol whip, these displays were a major exception to the rule. Whenever his preferred methods were questioned or his plans fell apart, Ironwood doubled down and fought harder, essentially forcing problems to become a nail for his hammer.  

Ironwood’s tactical tunnel vision was most visibly demonstrated in his grand strategy blunders, stubbornly maintaining a military presence at the Vytal Festival and continuing the Amity Project while ignoring the concerns and protests his actions sparked in Mantle.  Ironwood was at his best when his blunt approach was tempered by his more moderate allies, deferring to Ozpin’s subtler methods on multiple occasions despite their disagreements.  When leading the charge, however, his stubborn persistence was his greatest undoing, allowing Salem and Cinder Fall to exploit and manipulate him on several occasions and essentially do their work of dividing humanity for them.  When Cinder infiltrated the academy, Ironwood, convinced that Salem’s forces were with her, decided to abandon the Amity project and use the Staff of Creation to raise Atlas further into the atmosphere, abandoning Mantle to the Grimm.  While Team RWBY’s attempts to talk sense into Ironwood fell on deaf ears partially due to their previous withholding of information, Ironwood’s flat admittance of the severity of his decision showed his commitment to a decision regardless of the consequences.  Between ordering RWBY and co.’s arrests, murdering Councilman Sleet, attempting to execute the defecting Marrow Amin, and finally deciding to drop the Dust warhead on Mantle, Ironwood demonstrated an increasingly severe disregard for outside input or the questioning of what he and he alone saw as what was best for others.  This arrogant short-sightedness directly contributed to his inability to anticipate the actions of his adversaries, underestimating Ruby’s resolve to save both Atlas and Mantle and being caught completely off guard by JNR’s ambush.  When Watts disabled Ironwood’s cell during Cinder’s orchestrated chaos, the general emerged as a vessel of petty vengeance, murdering Jacques Schnee out of sheer contempt and triggering a pointless confrontation with Winter in the Relic vault to claim the Staff.  While the two were able to fight on even footing, Ironwood’s brutal offensive allowed him to bully through Winter’s more delicate style and overpower her, proving that his martial might was extremely formidable despite its straightforwardness.  Unfortunately, Ironwood was finally confronted by someone he could not simply overpower when Winter received the Maiden’s power upon Penny Polendina’s death, blasted into a crater by his own deflected shot.

RANKING: Tier 3, Standard Mastery

James Ironwood’s track record demonstrates a powerful, flexible, and ruthless martial combatant, capable of operating in just about any combat scenario with similar levels of comfort while bringing overwhelming force in all areas.  His solid general-purpose weapon complements his fighting style and provides him with a solid array of offensive options, while his perseverance under fire allows him to keep up the pressure even in the face of staunch resistance.  However, though certainly not unintelligent, Ironwood’s demonstrations also highlight his inability to think outside the box, failing to subvert his opponents or control the fight in a broad sense, and more disastrously, failing to prevent the opponent from doing the same to him.  While political controversy obviously does not factor heavily into combative effectiveness, his ineffectual leadership in the crises of Volumes 7 and 8 does offer insight into his tactical failings.  His only recourse to any situation being to throw brute force at it and keep it up until the enemy finally breaks, and he has nothing to fall back on if sheer strength fails.  Still, this does not make Ironwood’s method ineffective or crude. His power and skill is undeniable, and anyone who opposed the general would be in for a whole Kingdom of pain.

SPECIAL

James Ironwood’s Semblance was an ability he called “Mettle”.  A passive power, Mettle allowed Ironwood to strengthen his resolve and hyper-focus on his chosen goals, blocking out interference from both the world around him and his own reservations in order to drive him forward.  When using this ability, injuries, odds, and even morality were non-issues to the general, turning himself into a deliberate machine of war who will achieve his goal or die trying.  Unsurprisingly for anyone who’s been with the show since this Semblance’s reveal, the exact nature and effect of Mettle is not clearly defined, especially since its properties are so heavily tied to Ironwood’s personality and character arc.  However, I do believe that Mettle’s specifics can be reasonably inferred based on what we do know.  A common element whenever this power is shown or heavily implied to be in effect is Ironwood’s calm, borderline soulless, demeanor, even if the instance is shortly after a strong emotional outburst.  When he decided to bomb Mantle, Ironwood was collected and relaxed (at least in a general sense) despite having smashed his tactical map to pieces in a fit of frustration not a minute earlier.  As such, it is my belief that Mettle, in practice, serves as a naturally induced stress relief agent, numbing Ironwood’s nerves to help him regain and maintain his composure, a critical asset for a soldier in the field.  To reference Star Wars again, Mettle has a lot of elements in common with the Expanded Universe power known as Battlemind, an inwardly directed telepathic mediation that Force-sensitives used to improve their focus and composure in combat.*  Battlemind is also known to enable users to dispel negative emotion and telepathic attacks, and the former seems to be precisely how Mettle seems to work.  With this power, Ironwood could essentially induce a state of mind where he could power through any obstacle, injury or distraction by simply ignoring it, homing in on his goal and pursuing it with all the unrestricted power he could bring to bear.  Unfortunately, this factor also contributed heavily to his tactical limitations, so focused on his given objective that he was often blind to outside factors.  Narrowing your focus might be a good call when you’re throwing hands with a rabid Beowolf or sniping someone, but trying to do the same in a tense political situation or a cunning trickster will leave you unable to see the forest for the trees.

Outside of his Semblance, Ironwood also incorporated Dust into his standard combat equipment, specifically gravity Dust bullets incorporated into the black half of Due Process.  While most of the information here was already brough up in the Martial Arts assessment, the nature of these rounds still demonstrate an additional combative layer to Ironwood’s abilities.  Black or purple in color, gravity Dust could affect gravitational fields to generate fields of force to either propel or attract outside objects.  When used by Huntsmen in battle, gravity Dust often functioned as a form of limited telekinesis, manipulating the trajectory of weapons or projectiles for sustained or directed flight or generating powerful concussive shockwaves.  In Ironwood’s case, the use of Dust in his pistol rounds was based around the latter application.  The most obvious advantage of this feature, like most Dust ammunition, was enhancing the power of the projectiles, drastically enhancing the stopping power.  Though seemingly a conventional power, Ironwood has utilized this property very inventively, particularly regarding the recoil.  Similarly to Ruby Rose’s own use of Dust ammo in Crescent Rose, Ironwood utilized the shockwaves created by the gravity field to propel himself though the battlefield, functionally flying through the air.  With only a few shots, he was able to reach Watts’ high ground position while also evading the scientist’s own attacks, and when he was caught in a geyser, Ironwood only needed a single bullet to arrest his fall and return to the platform almost immediately.  Given that Ironwood is obviously not being blasted back into walls every time he shoots the black gun, it is likely that he incorporated technology into the pistol to enable some degree of control over the energy level, adjusting the intensity for different purposes.  Where the full-powered blasts were enough to launch him up to great heights, a direct hit from one of the more controlled rounds sent Watts tumbling across the platforms but otherwise did not harm him, appropriate given Ironwood’s objective in capturing Watts rather than killing him.  Furthermore, Ironwood’s attempted execution of Marrow Amin with the black Due Process leads me to believe that the Dust rounds could penetrate, or at least damage, passive Auras when used at the higher levels.

Ironwood’s Semblance and Dust loadout served as direct supplements to his martial methods, elevating his ruthless offensive with artificially induced focus and intensity and elemental warfare by way of his special ammunition.  Leveraging Mettle has led to some of Ironwood’s most compelling accomplishments, powering through seemingly impossible odds to achieve his chosen objective regardless of what happened in the process.  At Beacon, he charged the Alpha Beowolf head-on and was able to cooly overpower the creature in the bind.  Against Watt’s, Ironwood’s determination allowed him to eventually close the distance with Watt’s slippery retreat and eventually overpower him, responding to the doctor’s subversions and traps as mere speedbumps rather than distractions.  Even his own pain and injuries were able to be overlooked in this manner.  However, therein lies his weakness.  Despite these advantages and his range of applications, Ironwood’s special abilities fail to truly diversify his loadout, as all of his options are merely another tool to allow him to overpower the opponent directly rather than control the fight in a broad sense.  More severely, they in fact contribute to his lack of tactical foresight.  Where other combatants with metaphysical semblances, such as Qrow Branwen and Maria Calavera, have been able to adapt their powers to help control the flow of the engagement, Ironwood simply leaned on the basic properties of his abilities to force his way through situations.  While a combination of Mettle and his own iron will allowed him to escape the ring trap and defeat Watts, Ironwood still subjected himself to unnecessary injury in order to attack Watts directly, throwing away his arm in pursuit of victory.  Even beforehand when Watts caught his ankle in ice, Ironwood’s decision was to shoot it free so as to continue his pressure regardless of the tool he was taking.  As Ironwood continued to slip into madness, his intense focus made him shortsighted and blind to other threats, his decision to bomb Mantle and complete unwillingness to budge on the idea alienating the last of his allies, up to and including the previously loyal Winter.

RANKING: Tier 3, Specialized Combat

Even if my theories of how Mettle works are wrong, there is no denying that James Ironwood’s special abilities elevate his fighting style into something greater than the sum of its parts.  With Mettle’s hyper focus and his Dust’s devastating power, he brings his already domineering approach to battle to new heights by focusing his intensity and empowering his attacks.  Despite this, Ironwood’s use of his abilities remains in a very narrow fashion, simply relying on the mind-numbing properties of Mettle and the power generated by his Dust to continue battering the opposition with brute strength.  Ironwood has certainly mastered his traits and capitalized on their benefits, but his mastery functionally amounts to a one-trick pony.  Instead of using Mettle to improve his laser focus where and when he needs it, Ironwood constantly spammed it so that he could ignore all distractions while he overpowered the opponent directly.  Rather than providing him with options and versatility, Ironwood’s powers were just another club in his hands, and his use of them was ultimately devoid of subtly or tactical considerations.  Instead, James Ironwood’s special abilities followed the mindset of “Once I see you, I’m going to beat the crap out of you.”

OVERALL RANKING: TIER 3, ADVANCED HUNTSMAN

As an overall combatant, James Ironwood serves as a quintessential example of the best that can be achieved through the direct application of power.    Between his cybernetic enhancements, masterful marksmanship, expert unarmed combat skills, hyper focusing Semblance, and powerful Dust ammunition, Ironwood possessed all the tools he needed to overpower nearly any potential challenger, be it a battle of body, arms, or spells, all brought to a pint by an obscene will to fight.  The problem is that this is all he can do, and his straightforward tactics mean that he doesn’t have the means or willingness to adjust his approach to different situations.  Despite his superhuman physique, Ironwood’s capabilities are not so overwhelming that less physically able opponents cannot contend, and it ultimately does not drastically offset his more consistent standing as a martial artist or ethereal combatant.  Like many other Tier 3s, Ironwood is flexible but not to the point of actual versatility, all his offensive options being ONLY offensive options.  Given how his fighting style is built upon fully capitalizing on his physical capabilities, it is only appropriate that Ironwood’s body is the perfect metaphor for his strengths and weaknesses.  Ironwood is trying to be the strongest piece on the board that can stand up and defeat any potential threat, just as he adopted increasingly intrusive prosthetics to make himself stronger than any other human.  However, just as no one person can fight a war on their own, Ironwood’s body is too weak to shoulder all the demands he is placing on it in the long term.  Just because you can fight to the death does not mean you need to fight to the death.  Ironwood will ignore injuries and continue fighting until he is dead, but as a result, he’s burning his candle from both ends by forcing his way through hits he doesn’t need to take.  Rather than building himself into an unstoppable juggernaut, Ironwood is a gas guzzler that can only go one way- forward.

For all his power, James Ironwood ultimately failed to become the mighty hero he believed himself to be, both because he was operating way out of his area of expertise and because he was afflicted by an overwhelming hubris.  Despite his military mindset, Ironwood has spent the past decade or so prior to Volumes 7 and 8 as a peacetime politician and academic administrator rather than a frontline commander.  While his snap judgements and demands of unwavering obedience are viable on the battlefield, where questioning the commander always leads to disaster and death, his attempts to apply that same mentality to grand strategy and government policy left him with an increasingly ruthless need for control.  Ironically similar to Adam Taurus, Ironwood believed that he and he alone could bring about the success of his mission, and anything that challenged this perspective was a threat to be quashed. To Ironwood, if one did not approach the war with Salem with his views and strategies, they were ineffectual, naive, or simply too weak to do what had to be done. And rather than take in input from others, he simply surrounded himself with blindly obedient followers who would lay down their lives in service to him, all while insisting that others be grateful for his “hard decisions” even as they suffered for them.  James Ironwood was a powerful warrior, but he was overly aggressive, bull headed, short sighted, and dare I say it, tactless.  Instead of seeing Salem as the deceptive chess master she was or Ruby as a source of valid concern for his actions, Ironwood only saw more nails for him to hammer.  And by the time he realized his hammer was broken, it was too little too late, having burned all his bridges fighting his friends rather than uniting against his enemies.

*originally posted on RoosterTeeth Community page on 12-10-21*

* images taken from RWBY Wiki *

RWBY Combat Analysis

*(Wookiepedia article on Battlemind)

[tgrailwar-zero]

So, uh... Rider, would you care to ask Caster what we're supposed to do now?

"Right. With one Trigger Key in tow, what's our next plan of action?"

CASTER smiled.

"Unfortunately, there's not much time for rest. Assassin just notified us that two Blue Faction Servants have been spotted at the Port Town."

...Right. That's where... AVENGER and FOREIGNER were headed...

"The Blue Faction is struggling. Avenger's summoning was fortuitous for them, but not lifesaving. Ruler may have slipped away, but she's injured and may be killed by a Lair Servant or Enemy Program sooner or later, they're missing an entire Servant- leaving them with six participants instead of seven, and based on Assassin's intel, the two Blue Servants that arrived at the Port Town are engaged in combat with one of their own."

She nodded her head, with a solemn, yet resolute expression.

"I'm sure you understand the meaning of striking when the iron is hot? Either they kill each other, or they weaken each other enough that you can sweep them off their feet and end them swiftly."

RIDER grimaced a bit, though the question on his face was apparent.

'Weren't you all the Masters of Avenger?'

He thought, but managed to say:

"...Good. I can handle a mission such as that."

With a satisfied grin, CASTER clapped her hands together.

"Good! Very good. Of course, I won't send you there alone. You'll be accompanied by Lancer. You're a pious man, aren't you, Rider? You seem as such. Perhaps you'll get along with him, then."

[tkmasquerade]

Reploids having some fun

By Witch Anon

Summary: Axl drags X into making the stoic bot called Zero to laugh and have fun.

Warnings: This is a tickling fanfic, nothing sexual, tickle and fluff, if you don't like, don't read.

It was a fine day in the Maverick Hunter Head Quarters (MHHQ), patrols were deployed like always on the lookout for mavericks or to assist humans in different tasks, training sessions were taking place in the several training rooms, lots and lots of paperwork, it was a normal day. Even though for anyone would be a boring day, for the reploids was good enough, normal days like these were signal that no mavericks were causing trouble or anything more serious or dangerous was going on, days like these were just peaceful.

In the training room things were active as usual, several junior hunters were in target practice, others in close combat, each team following the instructions of their superiors. Certain blue bot named X was doing just that, supervising his team while they were shooting targets with their busters.

"Alright team, cease fire!" orders X, the team instantly obeyed and looked at their superior "You're doing just great, we can take a 10-minute break"

The reploids answered with a loud "Yes sir!", glad to have a little break to recharge and talk among themselves. X exchanged a few words with them, answering a couple of questions and suggesting one to re-calibrate their buster. But something caught his eye.

Axl, the junior hunter was there, he was supposed to be in the next training room with his team, what was he doing there? He looked like was concentrated looking at something in the room, while drinking water from a bottle. X walked over, noticing how Axl was so concentrated in whatever he was looking that he didn't even notice the elder hunter approaching. The blue hunter just chuckled, shaking his head softly as he approached.

"If you keep concentrating like that you're going to overheat" he warned once he was really close.

The young reploid gave a shriek and a little jump, clearly not expecting anyone.

"Holy motherboard, X! why don't you wear a bell or something?" said Axl mildly annoyed, with a hand over his chest plate like if he was having a heart attack, making X chuckle a bit more.

"Care to explain why are you here and not in training?" said X, crossing his arms.

"They gave us a 15 minute break" answered Axl "And I wanted to see how you guys were doing over here"

"Yeah well, you sure were concentrated over here, what were you watching?"

"Hm? oh! I was looking at Zero" Axl points to the other end of the room.

X looks over were Axl is pointing, and sure enough, there was Zero, the crimson hunter, moving his Z Saber with expertise, teaching his own team the movements, the young reploids using simple metal bars to train, not being mature enough to own their sabers yet.

"Oh yeah" said X after a minute of watching "He asked me if it was okay if we shared the room today… but I doubt that's the only reason you were looking at him so intensely, what, are you planning on joining his team or something? you know he is pretty strict"

"Do I look like a kamikaze bot? of course not, besides, you know my only weapon of choice are these beauties~" he smirks, pulling out his twin pistols, making them spin and putting them away like if he was a cowboy "Nah, I was looking at him because… well… "

"Yes?"

"Well… be honest with me X, have you ever seen Zero happy? he is always too serious, too strict, scary even when he is angry… have you ever seen him you know, laugh or something?" asked the young reploid, looking over to the blue hunter.

X blinked, looking at Axl, actually having a bit of trouble to remember if he ever saw Zero actually laughing or easy going.

"I…. don't really remember, i mean, he has his moments like any other bot here of course" said X, not really sure.

"But moments were he wasn’t teasing others or being polite laughing at Lifesaver's bad jokes" said Axl.

"… alright you have a point there" said X with a sigh "but what about it?"

"Well that can't be good, maybe he just needs a little push? you know, have fun? like laughing for real" explained the young reploid.

"Well… ok, but how do you plan to do that" asked X.

Axl actually smirked, in a way that told X that whatever he was thinking was a bad idea and he should run.

"I might have a good idea, we can just…" and he gets closer to X to whisper to his ear.

X listened for a second and then looked at the young reploid with a surprised face, he couldn't be serious.

"Ok I’ve heard several bad ideas from you with this takes the energy tank" said X.

"Aww come on X! it could work!"

"Axl you're only going to manage to make him angry at us for daring to do that stunt on him"

"You don't know that! I’m sure it's a great idea and it could work!"

"And why are you so sure? Remember that he is not a reploid like you Axl, what if he is built a different way?"

"I already thought on that! and the answer is simple hehehe, you're not a reploid either, and it works with you, am i right?"

X was going to reply but he couldn't, he had nothing to counter, the junior reploid was right. He let out a sigh and placed a hand over his face.

"Soooooo are you going to help me? pweeeeease?" asked Axl, doing the puppy eyes thing, and it melted the elder bot.

"…. I am going to regret this" groaned X "Alright alright I’ll help you"

"AWESOME!" Axl threw a fist on the air.

"When are you planning to do it? i hope you don't say right now, in front of everyone he is going to murder us" warned the blue bot.

"Of course not, we can do it tonight, if I’m not mistaken, he often comes to the training rooms past midnight while everyone else is sleeping so he can train alone and without distractions, we can do it then" explained the young reploid, already a bit giddy for what was coming.

"Alright, tonight past midnight, got it" sighed the elder bot, already regretting his life decisions "Now go back to training, the break i gave is almost over"

"Right right" Axl waved a hand, walking to the exit "See ya tonight partner" he smirked, going out.

X just stood there, looking at the door the young reploid went through, wondering if he was going to get out alive that night.

As the day went by, training sessions came and went, reports were made, patrols were deployed and arrived without mayor incident, until as the moon was rising, the day reploids were retiring to their rooms to rest for the night, and the MHHQ was slowly getting void of movement, only the night guards reploids who were on alert in case of any emergency, but they were a few, asides from that, the place was in sleep mode.

However, back in the training room area, inside one of the rooms could be heard some intense battle, it was none other than Zero, the sword wielding reploid, who was fighting holographic enemies, swinging his beam sword with such skill, not missing any targets, counterattacking when was right and overall just destroying his targets. The simulation comes to an end, Zero sighed and went to check his score.

“Tsk, 98% accuracy… I can do better than that” he said more to himself, putting his Z saber away.

“Again training late Zero?”

The crimson hunter turned to see X and Axl who just entered the room, the sliding door closing behind them.

“Heh, you know me, is never too much training for me” said Zero, turning off the program and fully turning to see them “But what are you two doing here? I thought you both were sleeping by now”

“Well uhhh” X started saying, not really knowing what excuse to tell, he then felt Axl giving him a little hit with his elbow “I-I needed to fill some more reports, and I got too caught up into them hehe”

“And I didn’t want to go to sleep yet” smiled Axl “I was walking in the hallways when I saw X and just went along with him, we just happen to walk by and heard you”

Zero raised an eyebrow, not entirely believing them but, he just nodded.

“So how much was your score?” asked Axl casually.

“Well… 98%, I still have to work on it” sighed Zero, closing his eyes.

“HA, I bet I can beat that~” replied the young hunter, very smug.

Zero actually gave him an incredulous look “Yeah right, Axl do I have to remind you your previous score? It was 70%”

Axl pouted “That was forever ago”

“It was last week” said X, smirking at the kid.

“ACK! X! what side are you?” cried Axl.

Both elder bots chuckled.

“Look Axl, no offense but nor you or X could get more than a 50% on this training session, it’s aimed only to close combat hunters, and everyone knows shooting type hunters can’t do well in close combat” Zero said in a matter-of-fact voice, shrugging.

“Oh wait excuse me Zero? You know I can do well” X said, like taking offense but it was obvious he was just pretending and more in a playful manner.

“Yeah but no better than me” smirked Zero.

“Ok old man, you’re asking for it!” said Axl, smirking “I bet me and X can take you down without buster or guns”

“HAH! And how are you planning to do that?” asked Zero, not taking it seriously.

Axl exchanged a knowing look with X, he gulped, knowing it was time.

“Weeeeeeell now that you ask” started Axl but suddenly he cried out “NOW X”

Everything went too fast, and the fact that the crimson hunter didn't expect it played in the favor of the other two bots. When he was able to comprehend what just happened, he was laying on the training room's floor, face up, without being able to lower his hands and his head resting on something soft, X used the abilities in close combat the red hunter taught him to catch him, he was on the floor too, with his arms hugging Zero's right arm and with his legs hugging his left arm in a lock, Zero was resting his head on the blue bot's stomach. Axl was sitting on his legs, smirking at the red hunter, it worked! Zero was helpless.

"Sooooo you were saying that reploids build for shooting can't perform well in close combat?" taunted the young reploid.

Zero groaned a bit, trying to get free, but X's hold was solid, he wasn’t going to get away so easily "Alright alright, you guys win, now let me up!"

"Nuh uh!" giggled Axl, catching Zero's attention "You see, now that we're here, there's something i wanted to test about you"

"Huh? what is it? and is necessary to hold me here?" asked the red bot, annoyed.

"We don't know, depends on how much you squirm after i do this" giggled Axl, reaching with his hand forward.

Before Zero could ask Axl what did he meant, he felt something that made him go frozen, Axel was oh so slowly dragging a finger in circles around the red hunter's stomach. Zero twitched a bit, a very silent snicker escaping his throat, that he tried to silence, but too bad, it didn't go unnoticed by the other two bots.

Axl smiled wide "Ohhhhh what's this?? Zero are you ticklish by any chance?" he asked in amusement.

Zero then realized what was going on and tried his best to control himself and not laugh, but damn! more of those blasted snickers escaped when he felt the young reploid poking all around his stomach, he squirmed a bit against X's hold, but to no avail, said bot in question couldn't believe it, his best friend was ticklish! he was just holding back.

"Come ooooon~ we know you want to lauuuuugh~ just let it out!" said Axl in an almost sing-a-song voice.

He was poking all around the older bot's stomach, smirking as he watched him twitch, jump and squirm in his place. Zero let out a few more snickers, he bit his lip and tried to hold his breath to not make any more sounds, but it was obvious he was close to break.

"Pffft! D-don't!" the red hunter managed to say in his effort to not laugh, of course he was ticklish! it was just nobody ever dared to do it at all, and he was too proud to show it, but his pride was going to a drain right now, his lips were starting to curl into an involuntary grin.

"There's no use in hiding it anymore Zero! just laugh, you know you wanna" giggled the young reploid "You need it anyways, you're always so serious, just have fun for once in a while!"

Zero was going to say something in reply, but at that moment, Axl decided to take him by surprise and started scribbling all ten fingers on his sides and his lower ribs that weren't covered by his chest plate. It was all that was needed, that overloaded Zero's senses for a split second and he exploded in loud belly laughter, surprising both bots there with him.

"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA NOHOHOHOHO!!" shrieked Zero, squirming in his place and trying hard to get free.

"HAH! i told you X! he is ticklish!" Axl said triumphantly at the blue bot, who couldn't help to be amused by the sight of his best friend just laughing that loud.

"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA NAHAHAT THERE!" Zero mentally thanked that no one else was there to see him in that predicament, such sigh would be embarrassing to explain “AXL!! P-PLEASE! I-IT TICKLES TOO MUHUHUHUHUHUHUCH!!”

"Ohhh i found a good spot huh?" Axl taunted, focusing on scribbling over Zero's lower ribs, it seemed like that was his weak spot since he squirmed and laughed like crazy, kicking at the air behind the young reploid "OH yeeees is a fun spot hereeee~!" he taunted in a fake evil voice.

X couldn't help to giggle a little, Zero's laughter was as rare as contagious "Now Axl play nice, don't be mean with him" warned the blue bot.

“BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! OH, STOP!! I-IT TICKLES SO MUCH!!” Zero howled, thrashing around in X grip, he shook his head from side to side and squirmed as hard as he could to try to buck off Axl, without success "Y-YOU TWO ARE SO DEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEAD!"

"Ohhhh how scary! Nah, you know you're not easily taken seriously when you're laughing like that" Axl stuck out his tongue at the elder hunter, who in growing desperation started to stomp his feet behind the younger one "But look at the bright side! you're having fun! can't deny it, now admit it!"

"N-NEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEVER!" crackled Zero, still howling with laughter.

Axl let out a playful growl "Oh yeah? we will see now" he stopped the tickling.

Zero laid there, panting softly and giggling, still feeling the tingling sensation over his midsection, too busy recovering to notice what Axl was doing. Said reploid turned around, taking advantage of Zero catching his breath, sat on his legs with his back turned to him, with one arm holding the top of Zero's feet to prevent them from moving too much, Axl smirked as he held his free hand and wiggled his fingers so Zero could watch him.

Zero gasped "N-no no no no don't you dare!" he panicked, knowing full well what was going to happen.

Axl giggled "Yes i dare! unless you admit you're having fun!"

Zero growled at him "NEVER!"

Axl shrugged "Your funeral then"

The young reploid didn't wanted any more time and started scribbling his fingers all over the elder reploid's foot, and the result was priceless.

"AAAIIIIIIEEEEEEAHAHAHAHA!" it sounded like a shriek and a cackle, which surprised Axl and X, but continued attacking "NOHOHOHOHOHOHO! NAHAHAT THEHEHEHEHEHEHERE!" Zero howled, his squirming so bad that it was starting to slip X's grip, but he couldn't help it as Axl attacked his death spot.

Even covered in armor, his feet were quite sensitive, normally his systems (and all reploids') had sensors that turned off the sensitivity when stepping on something dangerous, like lava, ice, broken glass, etc, but since Zero wasn’t in real danger, he could feel everything, each cursed digits of Axl's scribbling and scratching all over his feet, starting to drive him crazy, but he would die first before admitting defeat.

"Admit it Zeroooo~!" taunted Axl, focusing on a particularly sensitive spot over the soles, making Zero squeal "Admit you're having fun, we can do this all night!"

“AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAXL!!” Zero screamed, throwing his head back with crackles “I-I CAN’T TAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAKE IT!!” Axl shook his head no, smirking "Coochie, coochie, coo~!" he teased, as Zero continued to squirm and scream with laughter "Say it!"

Zero was about to hit his breaking point, he couldn't give up! his pride was too big.

He then did the unthinkable.

He took all the strength that was left on him to make a sudden movement, jerking his right arm out of X grip, who was weakened by Zero's constant struggles, managing to set his arm free, and before the blue hunter could even process what was happening, Zero turned as much as he could, taking a deep breath and blowing the biggest raspberry right in the center of the bot's belly.

“EEEYAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!" X let out an unholy squeal followed by a high-pitched laughter, letting go of Zero right that instant, setting him free.

Axl stopped and turned to see what was going on, but the red hunter was fast, and at the same time Axl realized what was happening, he was grabbed and tossed gently right along X, who was still giggling and clutching his belly. Both bots were trapped by a very angry crimson hunter, who held them down with both hands. X and Axl gulped, knowing by Zero's evil smirk that they were pretty much dead.

"W-wait Zero, i-it was a joke! a light hearted joke!" said Axl very nervous and trying to squirm away, but Zero help down tightly.

"C-come on Zero it w-was all in good fun you know?" tried to say X, nervous as well.

"Ohhh it was so funny for you two huh?" Zero said with a predatory glint, smirking at the two "Sooo much funny huh?" he cracked his knuckles, making the other two shiver "But you know, it's selfish of me to be the only one laughing, so let's fix that"

"N-now now, there's no need foHOHOHOHOHO NAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!" X let out a crackle when he felt Zero's hand starting to scribble all over his belly.

Axl didn't had time to even say anything either as the other hand of the red hunter attacked him in the same way, now both bots laughing hard and squirming like fishes out of the water, Zero just chuckled evilly, sitting on them to not let them escape and keeping up the attack, scribbling, squeezing and poking all over, keeping the two in stitches.

"Z-ZERO WE'RE SOHOHOHOHORRYYYYYY!" screamed Axl between fits of laughter, feeling zero wiggle his fingers over his lower ribs "NAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!"

"Better save your breaths" Zero chuckled "You're going to need it"

For at least 20 minutes the sounds of hysterical laughter boomed in the training room, squeals and child-like giggling, pleads and cries for mercy, until after a long while, it stopped.

X and Axl were reduced to a giggling pile on the floor of the training room, Zero was sitting on the floor, dusting his hands.

"Now let's hope you kids learned your lesson" said Zero, smirking and crossing his arms, looking at the two.

"N-never pulling that stunt on you again" giggled X, slowly recovering his breath.

"E-ever again" giggled Axl, in the same state as X.

"You know" Zero offered a hand over to X, who took it to start to sit "I believe Axl would dare to do such thing, but you X? this is new"

X, slowly sitting with the help of Zero "Yeah well, Axl was right in one thing tho, you always seem so serious and angry, i guess i just wanted to see you happy?" X rubbed the back of his neck, sheepishly.

"I appreciate the thought and the concern, but there are better ways" sighed Zero… and then smirked, pulling X in a headlock and giving him a noogie "AND next time you try to do that again, i won't be as merciful!" he smirked.

Axl smiled seeing the blue reploid laugh and squirm on Zero's grip "Oh come on! Zero you have to admit, it was fun! i know you at least had a bit of fun"

Zero stopped and released a giggling X, crossing his arms "…" he groans "fineee fine fine ok!… it was childish… but it was fun" he stated "There, you happy?"

Axl threw his fist up in victory with a loud “YEAH”, so fast that he lost balance a couple of seconds later and fell sitting between the X and Zero, making the two elder bots chuckle a bit. Axl could be reckless and crazy sometimes but he was a good kid, and both bots knew it.

“One of these days those crazy ideas of yours will get us in trouble Axl” smirked X as he put his hand over Axl helmet as if he was ruffling his hair.

[mariacallous]

Good tourniquets save lives. Bad ones kill soldiers. The global market is awash with cheaply-made knock-offs: Handles that shear off under tension, rubber tubes that won’t tighten around a limb, devices that fail when they’re needed most. That’s why most armies buy in bulk from trusted suppliers. But Evgen Vorobiov prefers Amazon. Top of his Wish List at the moment are combat application tourniquets (CATs) from North American Rescue (five stars from 1,720 reviewers). Also on the list: burn dressings, compact chest seals, trauma shears and “The Original Rescue Essentials Brand QuikLitter”—a black canvas stretcher which promises low-cost casualty evacuation and patient transfer.

Before Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Vorobiov, a lawyer, worked for the Ukrainian central bank and then on international projects trying to reform Ukraine’s financial system—“banking regulations, consumer protection, that kind of thing.” But, with Russian troops massing on Ukraine’s borders, he took some courses in tactical medicine, hoping to make himself useful if the worst happened. It did.

The Ukrainian army, dwarfed by its opponent, was supposed to collapse in days. But remarkably, it held the line, bolstered by a huge wave of volunteers and reservists. Trucks filled with Kalashnikov rifles drove into Kyiv’s neighborhoods and handed out weapons to anyone who wanted to join the fight. Engaged in constant combat for days on end, the armed forces quickly ran short of supplies. Vorobiov, with his basic knowledge of combat medicine, started reaching out to anyone he knew overseas who could help find CAT tourniquets, trauma bandages, chest seals and other lifesaving equipment. He and a couple of colleagues sourced gear from the UK, US, and the Netherlands and got it to Poland. Anyone they knew coming back to Ukraine via Poland was asked to bring bags of supplies, forming “a human chain” stretching from Europe to the frontline.

Eighteen months on, his operation has blossomed. Vorobiov’s intimate understanding of Ukrainian bureaucracy means he’s been particularly effective at getting sensitive shipments over the border, making him a focal point for other donors. He’s built a potent fundraising operation on social media, tapping into an international community of supporters to raise money and find supplies. And, by driving back and forth across Ukraine, delivering right into the hands of combat medics, he’s forged relationships with units who can tell him exactly what they need and when, creating a personalized military logistics operation from his living room in downtown Kyiv. In May, Vorobiov got a call from a medic working at a makeshift field hospital close to Bakhmut, the burned-out ruin of a town that was a bloody pivot point for the frontline in the first half of 2023. They were in desperate need of a portable ultrasound machine to scan casualties for internal injuries. Vorobiov tapped his network for money, and found a secondhand device in Poland for $3,400. When we meet, it’s sitting in his apartment waiting to go east, and he’s turned his attention to getting hold of a portable charging unit for a defibrillator. Soldiers ask for everything: Drones for artillery and reconnaissance units, portable generators, Starlink satellite internet terminals, 4x4s, the things they need to keep them online and alive, which are often the same thing in a war defined by the use of technology on the frontline.

For decades, Ukrainian civil society has been built horizontally. Rather than rely on government agencies for help, people have leant on personal connections—everyone knows someone who knows someone who can get what you need, help you out. This parallel state has been providing vital aid in eastern Ukraine since Russian proxies invaded in 2014. Since the full-scale invasion began it’s become super-charged, using social media and messaging platforms to go global. Vorobiov is just one link in a relay of money, supplies, innovations, and solidarity that is keeping Ukraine’s soldiers in the fight.

The Front Line Kitchen occupies a few cramped ground-floor rooms and a shed off a sloping street on the edge of Lviv’s picturesque old town. In the courtyard, volunteer cooks peel mountains of potatoes and beets among the organized chaos of plastic vegetable crates, cardboard boxes and IKEA bags overflowing with baked goods. Inside, fridge-sized dryers are filled with shredded vegetables, meat and mushrooms, waiting to go into vacuum-sealed ration packs.

The kitchen started years before the full-scale invasion, in the aftermath of the “Euromaidan” demonstrations and “Revolution of Dignity” in late 2013 and early 2014. Protests against the Kremlin-backed government of Viktor Yanukovich in Kyiv’s Independence Square—Maidan Nezalezhnosti—were met with a bloody crackdown by security forces. As the violence escalated, protesters formed self-defense forces and medical units, repelling assaults and even storming government buildings. In February 2014, Yanukovich fled Kyiv. Days later, Russia illegally annexed Crimea, and its proxies seized government buildings in Donetsk and Luhansk in the east of Ukraine, declaring themselves independent of Ukraine. They met little formal resistance: Under Yanukovich, Ukraine’s armed forces and intelligence agencies had been gutted.

That spring, Ukraine raised volunteer battalions, some directly linked to the self-defense units formed in Maidan. They were still ill-equipped, so they came to rely on other volunteers to supply them with basics—food, uniforms, medicines, vehicles—even weaponry. “The volunteers essentially replaced the function of the government for supplying the necessary resources,” says Roman Makukhin, a member of the National Interests Advocacy Network, a Kyiv-based NGO. “Protecting basically their neighbors, their friends, their brothers and sons.”

Oksana Mazar and Lyuda Kuvayskova, the Front Line Kitchen’s founders, met sewing camouflage nets and balaclavas for the volunteer detachments. Many of their friends, and Kuvayskova’s son, had been at Maidan. “The war had started, even if it wasn’t talked about like it’s a war,” Mazar says. “We just wanted to help, as the guys didn't have anything. No clothes, no shoes, and no food—because it was not [officially] a war.”

They started cooking meals for soldiers, experimenting with ways to turn home-made borscht and holubtsi (cabbage rolls) into ration packs that would survive the 1,000-kilometer journey to the Donbass, usually in the back of cars or trucks after being handed over to anyone heading that way. The cooks worked in small batches, drying food in friends’ kitchens, before they were gifted their current premises. They raised enough money to buy their own dryers, and gradually expanded. After the full-scale invasion began, the kitchen’s front yard was filled with volunteers and people bringing supplies. “They knew that we were doing food for the military, and they wanted to help,” Mazar says.

With 1 million Ukrainians mobilized to fight the Russians, the need has grown massively. The kitchen is now putting out 20,000 meals a day, sending truckloads of food east, and taking orders direct from the military. To scale up they’ve relied on donations, often sourced via the @frontlinekit Twitter account. The account is run by Richard Woodruff, who came to Ukraine from the UK early in the war, intending to join one of the international brigades in the Ukrainian army, despite having no military training. After seeing footage of the ferocious defense of Kyiv, “I kind of rethought my chances of survival,” he says. Instead, he arrived at Lviv train station a few weeks after the full scale invasion began, and soon found his way to the kitchen.

If the 1991 Gulf War was the first major conflict broadcast live on TV, the defense of Ukraine is the first full-scale interstate conflict to be shown in real time on Twitter. Ukrainians posted from the early hours of the invasion—air raid sirens sounding over a European capital in 2022; queues at the recruiting centers, calls for aid and statements of defiance. They recorded acts of insane valor, videoing themselves as they ambushed Russian columns with anti-tank missile launchers they’d barely been trained to use. Civilian drones pressed into service as surveillance tools provided a steady stream of high-definition footage made for phone screens, giving a gamer’s-eye view to the fighting. As Russian forces were pushed back, and the Ukrainian armed forces reclaimed land, the atrocities and scenes of destruction were shown live, along with poignant videos of liberating soldiers greeted by their ecstatic families. For those that wanted to see them, there were graphic videos: helmet cams showed firefights, drones dropping grenades on Russian soldiers and into the hatches of occupied vehicles.

Many of Ukraine’s new volunteers were “terminally online”—ordinary digital natives forced into a brutal conflict. Gen-Z recruits did dance videos for TikTok. Their meme game was wild. Woodruff’s Twitter bio reads “British Chef Fella”—a reference to the North Atlantic Fellas Organization, or NAFO—an online movement of Ukraine-supporting shitposters with shiba inu avatars who flood social media with memes mocking the “Vatniks” (Russian propagandists).

The NAFO movement taunted Russia, at one stage managing to send the country’s ambassador in Vienna into a public meltdown. “Imagine, literally getting a world-class ambassador to speak with cartoon dogs on Twitter,” says Ivana Stradner, an adviser to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank in Washington DC, an expert on misinformation and propaganda, and NAFO member. “This is the future of information warfare.”

NAFO does what state-backed information warriors, particularly those from democracies, can’t do. Its members make insane, often tasteless jokes, moving quickly to jump on trends. They’re good at memes, and flood the zone with infectious pro-Ukrainian vibes, humanizing, entertaining, and explaining to people far from the war why they should care. “I think NAFO, by boosting certain narratives, can actually also help people understand the severity of the situation and what's going on there,” Stradner says.

NAFO has helped raise millions of dollars through sales of merchandise (“I invaded Belgorod and all I got was this lousy T-shirt”) and crowdfunding campaigns. Now its avatars appear on the Twitter profiles of European politicians, on official Ukrainian defense channels, and on military equipment headed to the front. It has funded everything from food to medical supplies to a mobile artillery piece to the Georgian Legion, a unit of overseas volunteers that has been fighting since 2014. When the Frontline Kitchen’s vegetable shredder broke, Woodruff put out a call for funds to buy a new one. In the time it took him to drive to the supplier, the money had already been deposited in his account.

Social media works in tandem with the tight networks of Ukrainian society. This is a war being fought close to home—everyone knows someone at the front, and the soldiers are in constant contact. Link people like Vorobiov can connect those in the trenches with supporters in Kyiv or overseas. A unit under fire can ask for drones on Telegram, and within hours there’s a call for donations out on Twitter or Instagram. Vorobiov can deliver tourniquets to a combat medic near the front, and record a thank-you video to send directly to donors.

“I see a spike in donations when there is a story that I can tell of how donations help,” Vorobiov says. “Yesterday, I received a very long message from one of the medics, and she was telling me how medical supplies we brought to her helped her basically provide care to two servicemen. I posted that story on Twitter and folks started to donate.”

Sometimes, donors become more active participants. Last February, Polish filmmaker Maciej Zabojszcz was watching the conflict unfold over Twitter, and thinking about selling some of his military memorabilia to help raise money for a 4x4 for the Ukrainian army. But then, a graphic video emerged, apparently shot by Russian soldiers, of a Ukrainian prisoner of war being horrifically mutilated. “I felt like something changed,” he says. “I said, listen, let's not only buy one car.”

In the spring of 2022 he drove his first vehicle, a Nissan pickup, to Kyiv to deliver to the Georgian Legion. While there, he met Vorobiov, who was collecting some drones from Exen, another Polish volunteer. From then on, Zabojszcz was part of the network. Because they couldn’t order supplies online to be delivered to Ukraine, Vorobiov and others started putting Zabojszcz’s home as the delivery address. Each time he drives a car to Ukraine, he’s carrying helmets, body armor, drones, all kinds of medical supplies. When we met in March in Warsaw, he’d delivered seven 4x4s, and was fixing up an eighth.

Some Ukrainian units have a tradition of naming their vehicles, and the seventh car that Zabojszcz delivered, a Land Rover, was christened Mathilda. It was used to shuttle men from their barracks to the frontline through thick mud. “The whole unit was driving the car,” Zabojszcz says. “They were crazy about Mathilda.”

But after ten days of constant driving, Mathilda broke down. Another Polish volunteer found a local mechanic specialized in Land Rovers. They arranged an online consultation. The mechanic helped the soldiers figure out what was wrong and identify the part they needed to replace. The car broke on Monday. On Tuesday, a volunteer delivered the replacement part. “And on Thursday the car was fixed,” Zabojszcz says. “This is how this network works.”

Absorbing donations has required a degree of flexibility from the military establishment. Armies typically don’t like amateurs pitching in, turning up in warzones with stuff they’ve brought from home. Getting goods into Ukraine can be challenging—it’s understandably not legal for just anyone to move military equipment across borders—and even bringing in theoretically civilian items like cars, consumer drones, and generators requires customs forms and other paperwork. But volunteers say once they’ve got donations into the country, working with the military has been fairly easy. There’s still some admin, and donors have to have forms showing that the goods they’re delivering have been specifically asked for by a soldier, but mostly, they’ve integrated relatively seamlessly with the supply chains, with commanders on the ground sometimes turning a blind eye to help their soldiers get what they need.

This acceptance is driven partly by necessity—the military simply couldn’t supply its troops to the level it needed, and unlike its adversary, doesn’t want to send them into battle with tourniquets that snap under pressure and rations years past their expiration date. Volunteer networks can take orders, source, and deliver in a way that a centralized bureaucracy can’t. They’ve helped feed the battlefield innovations that have given outnumbered soldiers an edge, linking into the networks of workshops jury-rigging consumer drones; bringing 3D printers to the frontline to help turn hand grenades into air-dropped bombs.

“For the chaotic time after the invasion, these organizations created a stopgap solution for markets that the army could not operate,” says Simon Schlegel, senior Ukraine analyst at the Crisis Group think tank. “The army is good at buying in bulk, but these smaller operations are good at finding five pieces of Chinese-made drones in different countries and shipping them to Ukraine.”

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy understands this. He has, since the early days of the conflict, often made his social media addresses direct to citizens of other countries, not just to his fellow leaders. Volunteers—and the state’s own propagandists—have built a formidable ground game on social media, which has helped with donations, but also contributed to the ratcheting up of material being sent to the frontline by NATO partners. With public support for Ukraine high in their own countries, western leaders feel emboldened to hand over money and weapons. When those weapons deliver battlefield successes, the resulting content feeds back into the loop. “I think Ukraine is literally right now the superpower in this information war,” says Stradner.

The war, as seen through the filter of social media, has an oddly gamified quality. At times it seems it’s being won by jokes, by Ukrainian farmers pulling tanks behind tractors, by “Saint Javelin” (the “patron saint” of anti-tank missiles), and shiba inu soldiers. But it hasn’t been won yet, and many people at the far end of the volunteer supply chain have taken incredible risks, and exposed themselves to unspeakable horrors. In Lviv, I met Ernest Polanski, a Ukrainian volunteer taking a brief rest on his way back from delivering equipment to troops near Bakhmut.

What he saw there, he says, was “hell.” There was constant shelling, and the smell of corpses hung over the area. Whenever the bombardment stopped for longer than a few minutes, he wondered if something worse was about to come, “like a nuclear bomb,” he says. On the way back, he rescued three bedraggled kittens from the ruins.

Polanski has been driving back and forth from the frontlines since the early days of the war, and has lost count of the number of journeys he’s made, bringing generators, trench periscopes, medical gear and other supplies. Like other volunteers, he’s formed a special connection with a single unit, which he devotes most of his journeys to. He’s currently looking for €6,000 ($6,480) to buy new wheels for one of the unit’s 4x4s. “Not a lot of people want to go to this area,” he says. “But we have a special friendship with [this unit], and we want to help.”

The volunteer networks are made up of people from all over the world, but outside of Ukraine itself the cause has resonated more than anywhere in former Soviet nations, and in particular Baltic states like Lithuania, which see themselves as next in line if Ukraine falls. Traveling with Polanski on this journey to the front is one of his most committed supporters, the Lithuanian kickboxing champion Sergej Maslobojev. “Our country had the same problem years ago,” he says. “We feel their pain in our hearts.”

Maslobojev’s profile at home has meant he’s been able to fundraise for supplies, but, he says, it’s important for him to get out into the field to witness, and show the sacrifices still being made in the trenches of eastern and southern Ukraine. “When we listen to our news, usually we’re thinking that they're winning the war. Everything is going great. Why do we need to donate?” he says. “But when you go to the frontline and help those military guys, give them ammunition, extra food and the stuff that they really need. And they look at you with almost tears in their eyes and say, ‘nobody comes to us’. And then you understand why, in this moment.”

The day after Polanski and Maslobojev returned from Bakhmut, reports came through that the town had finally fallen. Individual defeats are hard to talk about in the context of fundraising campaigns and propaganda drives that are buoyed by a sense of inevitable victory. But they also underline the fragility of life close to the front. Almost all of the volunteers I spoke to in Ukraine had their own story of raising funds, or sourcing gear, only for the intended recipient to fall in battle before it could be delivered. All that does is make them more committed. Most say their supporters are also holding the line, a year and a half into the war.

“Sometimes it feels like this continuing western support is contingent on possible breakthroughs and huge victories. But I don't feel that, at least among my donors,” Vorobiov says. “You cannot afford hopelessness, because no one is going to support a lost cause. And we Ukrainians believe in winning this war. We have to infect others with that belief. But complacency is equally dangerous.”

[rabbitcruiser]

U.S. Coast Guard Birthday 

Show your support for the brave men and women of the US Coast Guard who put their lives on the line to save ours, from fishing boats accidents to hurricanes.

US Coast Guard Birthday honors the courageous work of coast guards. When Hurricane Katrina struck the Atlantic coast of the United States in 2005, the US Coast Guards saved over 33,500 lives, an estimated 24,000 of these were rescued from peril in severely dangerous conditions. And that just scratches the surface of the important work that these brave men and women do. So get excited, because it is time to celebrate the US Coast Guard Birthday!

History of US Coast Guard Birthday

The history of the coast guard in the United States can be traced back to the year 1790 when it was established by the first Congress who allowed Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton to combat smuggling and tariff evaders with his fleet of ten ships. Originally called the Revenue Marine Service, or Revenue Cutter Service, the service was combined in 1915 with the US Lifesaving Service to become the Coast Guard.

During times of peace, the US Coast Guard acts as part of the Department of Homeland Security and then becomes part of the Department of Defense in times of war. Now, with more than 230 years of history, this important entity offers a great deal of support through navigation, port security, environmental protection and wartime readiness.

In the United States, there are thousands of events nation-wide for people to get involved in and show their support. In the UK, although not directly associated with HM Coast Guard, the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) is a charity organization with the sole aim of rescuing those in distress at sea. They launch over 6500 times a year, and have saved over 134,000 lives since their founding. Pakistan Coast Guard Day is celebrated on September 8.

So bake a cake, throw a party and get appropriately excited about celebrating and enjoying the US Coast Guard Birthday this summer!

How to Celebrate US Coast Guard Birthday

Have a blast with the observance of celebration of this important day. Join in on a wide variety of activities for the US Coast Guard Birthday, including some of these:

Throw a US Coast Guard Birthday Party

Those who have been members of the coast guard, who have benefited from the work of the coast guard, or even those who just appreciate it can celebrate by doing what people often do for birthdays – throw a party! Just like any party, the US Coast Guard Birthday deserves festive decorations such as balloons and streamers, some good music, a gathering of friends and, of course, a big cake!

Make it a coast guard themed party by decorating with boats, anchors and all sorts of sea-themed ideas, as well as employing the American flag and the US Coast Guard flag. The snacks can also be of a maritime theme, with a cake made in the shape of a ship, cookies decorated like life preservers, and even a bowl full of individually wrapped Life Savers candies! Don’t forget to play the US Coast Guard Theme Song in the background, “Semper Paratus”.

Learn More About the US Coast Guard

The US Coast Guard Birthday celebration is a great motivation to learn a bit more about this important service. Do a bit of online research, check out some books from the local library, or head on over to the National Coast Guard Museum in New London, Connecticut.

Make a US Coast Guard Birthday Playlist

Have loads of fun celebrating the US Coast Guard Birthday with music! Create a playlist that includes maritime and coastal themed songs, getting started with some of these tunes:

Beyond the Sea by Bobby Darin (1959)

(Sittin’ on the) Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding (1967)

If I Had a Boat by Lyle Lovett (1987)

Banana Boat (Day-O) by Harry Belafonte (1956)

Source

[zhuzoorinfratech]

Why Should You Look for Wholesale Crash Barrier Suppliers in India?

Crash resistance barriers save lives by preventing dangerous vehicle trajectories while softening and redirecting impacts to drivers wherever possible.  

An improperly designed crash resistance barrier can make incidents even more dangerous by increasing the chance of rollover, stopping the vehicle too quickly, or shifting the car in unpredictable ways. One such solution is the metal beam crash barrier. This component is the core element in increasing road safety by wholesale Crash Barrier suppliers in India today. 

Metal Beam Crash Barriers Come in Two Variants: 

W-beam barrier and 

Thrie-beam barrier. 

The barriers we have on roads today are the product of research on thousands of crashes involving concrete and cable medians and guardrails. 

One of the most prominent features of road travel is the crash barriers. These steel constructions are designed to prevent the vehicles from leaving the road in the event of an incident while dissipating some of the impact energy. 

Guardrails and Barriers  

Drivers may swerve out of their lanes and off the road for many reasons. A car may stop too quickly in front of them, causing them to avoid a crash, fatigue, or not paying attention to the road, and inclement weather leads drivers to depart from the road every day. 

Traffic engineers have gathered data for almost as long as automobiles have been around to create safer driving environments. Measures have been inducted into highways that help drivers stay on the road during a crash and avoid rollovers and other dangers of off-road crashes. State and local agencies test different barriers and consult with engineers to create the safest and softest collisions possible for drivers who hit them. Crash barriers are an extremely useful tool to combat fatal auto crashes. 

Crash resistance barriers have been proven to save lives through thorough research in numerous independent studies. They have earned a reputation as lifesaving pieces of highway equipment that provide a shield not only to those involved directly in crashes but also to pedestrians and property. 

How do Crash Resistance Barriers Work?  

A guardrail or crash barrier primarily prevents drivers from exiting a road when the off-road environment would be increasingly dangerous than crashing into a barrier. However, suppose there is flat grassy land beyond the road's shoulder. In that case, forgoing a barrier may be a safer option. There are often steep drops, ditches, trees, or other obstacles that would be incredibly dangerous to drivers should they leave the road. Engineers will weigh the pros and cons of installing barriers or guardrails on any stretch of road that will offer the safest course for drivers. 

Crash barriers work by redistributing impact in less harmful ways to drivers and absorbing as much shock as possible to lighten any blow to the car. This intends to provide two or more layers of energy absorption before any impact is passed on to the vehicle's occupants. The first layer is the softening of the blow from the barrier itself. The guardrails and cement median barriers are angled in such a way and built to soak up and redirect energy. The second layer of shock absorption will be from your car, designed to crumple metal to soften the impact. Other safety features such as seatbelts and airbags will further multiply the safety of all in even seemingly intense crashes. 

Role of the Metal Beam Crash Barriers in Road Safety 

The metal beam crash barrier helps redirect vehicles that have strayed from the road and prevents them from colliding with the objects like trees, poles, etc. 

By absorbing and distributing the vehicle's collision force, it prevents severe accidents, minimizes injury and fatal risk to drivers, and improves the overall safety of roadways. 

Metal beam crash barriers are often installed in the median of divided highways to prevent vehicles from crossing over. 

Metal beam crash barriers also safeguard other roadside infrastructure and elements like traffic signs, utility poles, and other fixtures. By absorbing the impact force, they prevent vehicles from hitting these things directly. 

It has a reflective surface that also helps to enhance visibility during low-light conditions, and metal beam crash barriers are also helpful in giving drivers another caution to stay on the correct route; this helps them to recognize possible risks and road borders. 

Metal beam crash barriers need little maintenance and are made to last a long time. Because they are resistant to various adverse weather conditions and environmental elements, they are one of the most cost-effective options for long-term road safety. 

Generally, in the design and installation of crash barriers, the defined safety criteria and recommendations are followed. By adhering to these rules and standards, the barriers are guaranteed to satisfy particular crashworthiness standards, offering drivers and road users a dependable degree of safety. 

Metal beam crash barriers are often prefabricated and can be quickly installed along roadways. This significantly helps implement safety measures without causing any disturbance to traffic flow. 

[daquanshell]

“Once a Marine”

I’ve been meaning to publish more content about my day job but for the most part I keep getting distracted by my own military aspirations. There are so many things I miss about the Marines that it’s sometimes hard to focus, although it’s important that I take some time to talk about what I actually do for work since it’s not only relevant to my career as a whole, it’s pretty much a requirement if I ever want to improve my income without completely sacrificing my quality of life.

I work in the Higher Education Department of a Company called “CMD Outsourcing and Investments”. It’s a small company with an office in Hunt Valley, although I virtually never go into the office nowadays. I’ve been working there for about 9 months, the pay is alright (better than the Marines), and for the most part the work is fairly straightforward, although largely mind numbing at times.

My New Home

I’ve been looking for a new school ever since my old school closed down, and wanting to continue my education was one the driving reasons I joined the Military. If I was smart, I would have skipped the Marines and went straight into the Navy, avoiding the annoyance of “Marine Corps Recruiting”, the endless waivers, the general stupidity, and the constant interviews for security clearance. At the same time, if given the opportunity, I would join the Marines again, especially now that I now the secret:

“Feel free to ask questions, but don’t say anything other than what the other person wants to hear”

This means that the next time I go to a recruiter, pretty much all I’m gonna do is “act like nothing is wrong”, and say “I’d like to get into service as soon as possible”. I’m sure the same strategy would work for the Navy, although I’ll probably be a little more careful when choosing a job.

The Most Important Thing

I’ve learned that the most important thing when choosing both a branch and MOS is the uniforms.

Despite all the individuals in the above photograph clearly wearing MARPAT, none of them are actually Marines. Apparently, there are jobs in the Navy that allow you to wear the Marine Corps Combat Utility Uniform, namely the following:

Navy Corpsman

Navy Medical Personnel

Navy Religious Personnel

and Navy Officers

In addition to the above jobs, I’m also very much interested in the Mass Communication Specialist (MC) Rate that the Navy Offers. I’ve also heard the Navy is having a bit of a harder time recruiting, which typically means it’s easier to get in the front door. The easier PT would also be a lifesaver in the long run. There are more women in the Navy (not that I’m joining to date) and the higher age limit means not only would I personally have an easier time getting in, it would be easier to recruit my friends. While my opportunity in the Marines ages like milk, my opportunity in the Navy ages like wine.

Also, while I think the Marine Corps definitely has the better Enlisted Uniforms (I’ll write about them more later) The Navy has a Spectacular Set of Uniforms for its Officers and SNCOs.

Realistically, I could start school in the Spring, go to boot camp in the Summer, and go back to school once I’ve made it too the fleet.

Alternatively, I could keep working where I’m working now, get my drivers and insurance licenses, and transition to school part time, insurance part time, and the military part time. If I reenlist in the Marines, this is likely the best option.

Of course, that means waiting even longer to re-enlist, the idea of which I am not a fan of. At the same time, I feel it would be worth it to take the extra time to really work on my case a little better, changing the narrative to this:

10 Reasons why I Joined the Marines

The Call -> The Few, The Proud

The Challenge -> it’s not too late

Water Survival

Self Defense

Service Rifle

Continuing Education

Intelligence

Home Defense

Religious Obligation

Service -> I have so much more to give (Leadership)

I was hoping to get this blog post done before midnight, but I did work a full day today, and after work I needed a little bit more time to myself before finding the inspiration. That being said, I think the right thing to do at the moment is wait, since after writing all the above bullet points, I think they would make a great essay, and one that I absolutely need to write as soon as possible. Maybe not tomorrow, but hopefully over the weekend.

Lastly, I’ll close this by using a word I spent a literally a hour looking for, a word that perfectly resonates with my literary style and an idiom that I think perfectly captures the way I feel about the Marine Corps.

The word is Anapodota, plural for an anapodoton.

It is a figure of speech that is an incomplete sentence, a standalone clause that implies (a main clause), but this is not actually provided.

As an intentional rhetorical device, it is generally used for set phrases, where the full form is understood, and would thus be tedious to spell out.

Some famous examples are:

When in Rome (Do as the Romans)

A Frog in a Well (Cannot Conceive of the Ocean)

Birds of a Feather (Flock Together)

Back when I worked in Consulting, we would use these during team building exercises, where the leader would say the stated part, and the congregation would say the implied part.

The leader would say “Why be Average?”

The congregation says “When I am a Savage?”

In this case, rather than a leader and congregation, it is a recruiter speaking to a prior service member.

The recruiter says:

“Once a Marine”

and the prior service member says:

“Always a Marine”