#Salvage Crew

[rrcraft-and-lore]

instead of a shitpost/meme, I just say this: Hey, would you be kind enough to spread the word about my new epic silk road fantasy book? Would you buy a copy please? :)

Available everywhere books are sold

"Crafted with patience, passion, and most importantly, tremendous love. Read R.R. Virdi!"- Jim Butcher, NYT bestselling author of the Dresden Files

"Rich world-building, plenty of action, and devious twists abound. Very highly recommended!" ―Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of V-Wars and Kagen the Damned

"R.R. Virdi's The First Binding is engrossing and beautiful, joyous and painful―always entertaining, sometimes profound. This book makes me remember why I love epic fantasy."―Kevin J. Anderson, New York Times bestselling coauthor of Dune: House Atreides

"An epic like no other - grand, sweeping, dramatic, a love letter to fantasy burning with the dust and heat and mythos of South Asia. It reads like magic and tastes like saffron." ―Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, Washington Post bestselling author of the Salvage Crew

[spoimf]

Found this in google docs, a few years old now.

I hold a weight over my eye. 

The weight becomes a threat, the fact that at any moment something of most any power could end my life. 

It becomes a proof of my own strength, I am holding back both ruin and the concept of entropy. 

It becomes a way of restricting worldview, as my eye cannot see anything other than what might cause its doom, screaming to my arm to take the weight away while my brain does not listen, cold and calculating and unfeeling until the pain receptors tell me i have it resting on my skull, the surrounding bone that protects not just the eye but the brain as well. 

It becomes an annoyance, my right eye has no context for the complaints of the left, and its own arm does nothing to help. 

It becomes a statement, the power held by a person is contextualized against something far worse, something unfeeling.

It becomes an ideology, something that believes in itself enough that it becomes a reality, but it is controlled by the same race that it is trying to help or hinder, the humans.

It becomes a train, racing towards Artyom before he slams the door shut and proves the savages wrong by his existence. 

It becomes the rain that Noah must build an Ark to flee, my left arm becomes god, able to take away the pain in an instant. 

It becomes a fact, a physical group of atoms that could part the atoms which hold my head together.

It becomes all of this, branching out in a beautiful tree of metaphor, then slams back into being a weight as my grip slips. My right arm is quick to help as my brain realizes what it is using its tools for, and my body sings together in complete harmony, wanting the pain to go away as my arms drag the weight from where it landed just next to my head. 

And the act of all of this sinks into metaphor as it sinks into memory.

[littlereadsandteas]

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Claire Kovalik is days away from being unemployed—made obsolete—when her beacon repair crew picks up a strange distress signal. With nothing to lose and no desire to return to Earth, Claire and her team decide to investigate.

What they find at the other end of the signal is a shock: the Aurora, a famous luxury space-liner that vanished on its maiden tour of the solar system more than twenty years ago. A salvage claim like this could set Claire and her crew up for life. But a quick trip through the Aurora reveals something isn’t right.

Whispers in the dark. Flickers of movement. Words scrawled in blood. Claire must fight to hold onto her sanity and find out what really happened on the Aurora, before she and her crew meet the same ghastly fate.

[forbiddentaako]

more monochrome practice I suppose

[ixtaek]

Look I know we normally use fanfic to fix like, major problems in canon or fulfill our wildest dreams or whatever. But can I please reject the specific piece of canon that there are no fish in the whole Great Sea?

[gotyouanyway]

journey to the centre of the tardis should’ve been a time’s crucible adaptation

[caterjunes]

uh oh uh oh gundam oc activated

[shvdowsdrowned]

I was just about to post about how well I flipped these potatoes n then I tried it again and half of them landed on the counter <3

[waxscentedcandles]

It's almost a shame that the MV Glory was repaired and course-corrected, looks like the SCA learned a thing or two, the suez canal is no longer blocked, officially, as of a day or so ago.

[bisclavret]

PLEASE... bresson's style takes some getting used to because he was french and pretentious and only made this film with a budget of like 10 francs but his vision was unshakeable and very much in line with the things we enjoy in our corner of arthuriana imo

here's four entire minutes of (french) sir gawain on the literal edge of his seat losing his mind watching lancelot sweep the floor with everyone at a jousting match and saying "lanslo" (french for "lancelot") to king arthur every time he wins just in case arthur missed it. one of the many ways arthurian cinema peaked with lancelot du lac (1974) dir. robert bresson

[izvmimi]

A typical Thursday night has you and Izuku both home early and on this night in particular, you find yourself straddling him in bed, his body prone and back exposed to you so you can knead his shoulder and back muscles in a makeshift massage.

You let gentle pulses of electricity smooth and relax each muscle, carefully tracing along each roughened and scarred patch of skin for new scars, and gently rotate his joints. You’re not as good as the physical therapist who works at your new hospital, but you’re good enough, and as you feel your husband’s body ease up whatever has him tense, you feel a satisfaction deep in your chest. Slowing down your movements, you let your body lay against him, chest to back.

“Do you feel better?” you ask.

His face is still muffled into the pillow as he murmurs “yes.” You wonder if he’s started to fall asleep, but he reaches his arms overhead and backwards to reach for your head, then patting it gently once he’s found it. You laugh at the way he fumbles to look for it at first and roll off his body so that you’re next to him, and he turns onto his side, pulling you in closer, while beaming.

“Not to say that that new healer isn’t great, but it just doesn’t feel the same when it’s not you.”

You pout a little.

“Oh, what’s she doing wrong?” you ask, quick to offer constructive feedback. He frowns for a second, wondering if he misspoke, then instead presses a kiss to your forehead.

“I don’t think it’s anything wrong per se, it’s just-” he trails off for a moment then pauses, thinking about the best way to phrase the next sentence, then continues - “she’s not you.”

He tries to keep his voice light and not demanding to make sure that you don’t feel any guilt, but it’s hard not to. The few months where you worked in the same agency as Izuku must have made him so happy, and you easily recall the practical smile on his face when you arrived as part of the salvage and resuscitation crew or whenever he walked into the infirmary and you were free. 

But the truth of the matter is that hero work wasn’t your calling in that manner and would never be, and he understands that. You've just started at your new place a few months ago, and the adjustment is hard, but you've seemed overall happy even if you're no longer together as often.

He must sense the twinge of discomfort because he cups your face, kissing you first on the lips before pulling back and giving you a reassuring nod.

“I know it’s an unfair standard to meet though,” he says. “How can anyone compare to my perfect wife?”

The way he lays it on thick makes you chuckle.

“I need you to adjust your standards a bit, you’re just far too used to me.”

He makes a show of rolling his eyes, but wraps his arms around your waist, pulling you so that you’re on top of him. 

“I think you should allow me to praise you,” he says.

“Not to someone else’s detriment,” you protest, pressing your chin to his chest as you look at him. 

He frowns. “I didn’t say ‘the healer at my job sucks’, all I said is it doesn’t feel the same. Maybe, just maybe, I just like the extra love I feel when you touch me.”

You grin, now filled with mischief. “Well, maybe I could offer her some pointers in that respect too...”

His nose crinkles. “Stop that right now.” He holds you tighter, and you let your legs kick as he rocks the both of you back and forth playfully.

“Regardless, you always have me to come back to and I’ll always be willing to kiss your booboo so don’t be too sad,” you add.

He laughs, petting your head. “I’m just being a baby, aren’t I?”

“A little, but you’re my baby,” you remind him, as you cuddle, but you make note of the additional indirect message that he always loves and misses you too.

[raudart]

contemplating unexplained imprinting phenomena such as that of donor organs being imprinted with the traits and habits of their previous owners showing up in recipients post-surgery, and the case of eastern air lines flight 401, from which salvaged parts were used in other planes and the deceased crew members were reported to have been seen by the crew of these new planes up until the parts were replaced

imagine this in the context of cybertronian medics salvaging parts from cadavers and using them to repair soldiers, who then go on experiencing personality shifts, changes in habits, tastes and preferences reminiscent of their deceased donors, perhaps even culminating in unexplainable voices heard in their audials and familiar-but-not visages greeting them in their reflections...

[bandtrees]

the thing about curly is that it feels like a copout to describe him as "too nice" but i think that really is the situation with him. i feel when talking about him as a leader there's a lot of talk about the anya and jimmy stuff but i feel not a lot about the parts that show his passiveness causing problems before then.

most notably, that he let daisuke aboard a ship not made for five people, and that he told the others about the layoffs before he was meant to. both very well-intentioned, interpersonally Nice things to do, that were welcome as a friend who cares about the crew, but less so as an authority figure who's supposed to have a spine about those sorts of things.

he's not really thinking about the repercussions for revealing this information, or the impact it'll have on his crew's mental states in the months they have left for their last haul, because in his eyes - and this is something he tells both anya and jimmy - they'll Get Through It Together. curly is someone who reassures the people around him a lot in his dialogue. he cares a lot about people but does, in fact, care too much, and when it comes down to it, he can't do much except care.

an important thing to note with the anya situation (specifically in contrast to the "curly only cared about jimmy" take i see around) is that curly does reassure her, and i think did genuinely believe what he was saying when he told her everything was going to be okay and that they'd figure it out together. it's just that he also told those things to jimmy, and when you're a person as passive as curly, if you don't put your foot down people are going to weasel in and use that as an opening.

curly was a good friend, but not a good leader. there's only so much that reassurances without tangible action can do for someone in the state anya was in. he likely let daisuke board because he felt for and liked him, disregarding the fact it was literally unsafe for him to do so because of the pod situation. he told the crew they were getting laid off because it felt right for him to do so, he acted as a "friend" and not as a "leader".

and this is really cool contrast to jimmy, imo, who has no sense of compassion and is quick to take impulsive, ruthless decisions he expects praise for by sole virtue of being hard. jimmy would rather mouthwash someone's open wounds and force another to commit cannibalism than mercy-kill them - because someone dying under his care means he failed, and he can't have that, and so he will drag out their suffering for as long as humanly possible. he can't actually face the consequences of his actions.

both of them have this mantra of "i can fix it" without actually fixing much of anything - however i think curly differs in that he's a compassionate person who doesn't mind being on the same level as his crew (for better or worse), meanwhile jimmy can never shake the title of "captain" and the inflated sense of importance it gives him and that he projects onto curly. curly cares but doesn't act, jimmy acts but doesn't care.

BUT - i think a really interesting thing here too is how they act in the immediate danger of the crash. jimmy hides with his hands on his head, catatonic, while curly rushes in to try and salvage the ship even when it'll endanger him. jimmy is unable to face the gravity of what he did, while curly - even if he's not a good captain socially - is willing to put himself in danger to fix it. it gives the impression that while curly can't raise a hand against other people, he's willing to go down with his ship and put others before himself.

and putting others before himself is his entire relationship with jimmy, no? curly's dialogue with his crewmates is very reassuring, with a generous "we'll fix it together" attitude (see his patience with daisuke in the foam scene, and how he offers to do jimmy's psych eval when anya doesn't want to (compared to how jimmy would likely handle those situations, as we see when he yells at anya when asked to do tasks for her)) - BUT i would argue it's even moreso apparent with jimmy.

curly's povs, in my mind, offer the views on characters we don't see from jimmy's perspective, as jimmy cherrypicks scenes to paint anya as incompetent, daisuke as stupid and spoiled, swansea as mean and unstable - with curly, we see anya is gossipy and likes to joke around, daisuke is willing to fix problems by himself even if he struggles, et cetera. and with curly, we see, in how he talks to and about jimmy, he's very... concerned for him? and walks on eggshells around him.

^^^ after jimmy has pivoted a conversation curly was having about his life to be about his insecurities, and curly takes the bait and reassures him.

in general, he seems wary of jimmy as someone who will blow up if not reassured.

and he talks to, and about him, like he's taken on this quasi-therapist "responsible" role for him. he has this very... mental health-centered way of talking to jimmy - we'll fix it together, one day at a time, hey i believe in you, etc. which gives me the impression of, and this happens very often, a very trusting and overly-empathetic guy who's been roped into a relationship with someone whose safety and actions have been made his responsibility.

(i obviously don't mean this to woobify curly, or to diminish the game's commentary on rape culture, but rather to express that there's more to curly's behavior around jimmy than "shitty men cover for eachother".)

and i think one of the ultimate tragedies of curly's character is that, in the end, what jimmy projects on him -

-was true. this is how curly thought, before he was forced to come to terms, via experiencing jimmy's abuse of him, witnessing anya's suicide and the others' bodies, that jimmy was a monster who was never going to care about curly the way curly cared about him.

but, because jimmy views curly, now disabled, as a complete blank slate because he physically cannot speak for himself, jimmy continues to project upon him the dynamic that did exist between them - no matter the horrors he puts curly through, because if curly let him get away with it then, he'd let him get away with it now, right?

and when curly didn't put his foot down when it mattered, he now no longer can - and so jimmy's words, as long as he's as unable to speak for himself as he was back then, will be in his mouth forever.

:(

[muffinlance]

Zuko: I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR STUPID SMELLY BIRDS BUT YOU SHOULD CARE MORE.

@muffinlance ‘s Salvage was the first big ATLA fic I read, effectively launching me into this fandom head- first. It feels right to pick this series back up with a grumpy little Zuko fawning over the albatross-pigeons and pretending he’s not.