#Until you see another one of these posts

[judgeanon]

Plastic Skies - Model 5: Su-37 Berkut

After that last, highly-demanding build, I made a conscious decision that my next kit would be something simple. No hyper complex camo schemes, no funky weird tools, just a cheap little palate cleanser. At first I thought about getting another of those baby models, but I was lucky enough to find something that not only checked all the boxes, but was also one of my all-time favorite weirdo planes. This, at last, was going to be just fun, dammit.

For those who haven’t had the pleasure, the Berkut is an experimental plane built around the idea of forward-swept wings and other technologies like thrust vectoring. The project was started in the 80s, but the plane itself first took flight in 1997, and while its test results were pretty impressive, it was eventually scrapped for more conventional airplanes. Still, the sole working prototype remained in use as a test bed for further technologies, and along the way, it gained a pretty strong following. Japan in particular seems to adore the Berkut, and it has appeared in pretty much every Ace Combat game since 3. In fact, an amusingly sizeable bunch of online articles about it just straight-up use game renders of the Berkut, even if they feature markings from Ace Combat’s various fictional countries.

But anyway! Beloved weirdo plane. 95% black fuselage. No missiles because it never saw actual combat. And according to online resources, the model had the simplest landing gear doors I’d seen yet. It was fate. Especially at the price the online reseller I bought it from was asking: less than half the price of the last model. Sure, I could tell it was an old kit, but how bad could it be?

The Berkut’s construction was every bit as easy as I imagined it to be. So easy, in fact, that I built it in literally a single day. Although I did make a few ugly mistakes along the way. The biggest one, which is hard to notice unless you see it very up close and/or with the light right over it, was the paint. Thinking I’d need a lot of black, I went overboard on the paint and ended up with some really ugly brush strokes covering most of the model. The glossy varnish I picked for the finish hid some of it, but it was a lesson I’m trying to keep at the forefront of my mind for next time: chill with the paint.

I did, for once, enjoy doing the landing gears. Not just because they were hilariously easy compared to pretty much every other one I’d built, but because it (and the thrusters) gave me a chance to break out the metallic paint. Seriously, I fucking love that stuff. I’m thinking about building another MiG-21 or a Sabre or even another P-51 Mustang just so I can give them the shiniest coat of metallic paint I can find.

The white details were a bit of a problem, but that’s because white paint in general kinda vexes me. For some reason I end up needing at least twice as many coats as any other paints. Maybe it’s a matter of priming, another thing I’ve yet to try with models. But in any case, before I knew it, the Berkut was complete, moving canards and all. It was time to get my decalling on.

I dunked one of the red stars that are supposed to go on the wings on warm water, took it out, removed the excess water, put it on the fuselage and gently poked at it with a toothpick like I’d done with dozens of other decals before. And then it happened. The star shattered completely inside the paper, its points snapping off like twigs. Grimacing, I tried to hold it together, but that just obliterated it further. Before I could do anything else, the star was just a mangle of red decal on a damp piece of paper.

So that sucked, but I knew I had five more stars to use. At worst, I could just not use one of the bottom ones. But I needed to do some testing. I wanted to check if this was a freak accident or if there was something worse going on. I picked a different decal and tried again. It disintegrated even faster than the star. And I gave up on the decals.

A quick online search confirmed my fear: this model kit was released in 2000. It is old enough to drink. Surely, the protective plastic coat around the decals was a hundred times weaker than the toothpicks I used. And while I did find a few ways to solve it, they all require products that I’m not entirely sure what their local equivalents would be. So while I’m definitely gonna be doing some more research about this to try and find a solution, for now, this poor Berkut is gonna remain un-decalled.

Also, one of its tailfins is a bit curved, but ehhhhh. I got what I paid for. It’s still a nice model, and it’ll probably get a little better once I find some gray panel line/wash to really bring the fuselage out, but as it stands, I’m just happy that a couple of sellers have more modern and bigger kits of this plane available.

Like in real life, this Berkut deserved better.

[lemongogo]

they should get to kill each other at least twice .i think

[fatedroses]

And some days, I just wish you wouldn't look at me at all.

[turtleblogatlast]

Shockingly underrated thing about Leo is that he’s legitimately charming when he wants to be?

He’s the Faceman! He’s persuasive! That’s not just some random title he gave himself with no backing to it. People will listen to him. Even if they think he’s being annoying or if they’re upset at him, people listen to him anyway! There’s a reason his bros push him out front to talk to people, and when this happens, that talking nearly always works.

Moreover, Leo knows people. He looks at them and takes into account how they act and what they’re like as he makes his way through the conversations. It’s easy to forget this aspect of Leo’s character because he only brings it out when he really needs (read: wants) to, but it really is a notable part of him that always love to see.

And I say charm in particular because he has a knack for not only getting people to pay attention, but for getting people to stay and listen to what he has to say.

[stillwaterinc]

i have nowhere to put my batman thoughts so they’re going here

jason comes back as the red hood, planning to take out his little replacement or at least hurt him bad enough that he drops the suit and lets robin die but suddenly, a month before his plan is to start, robin disappears. and so does the joker.

what? jason looks, he scours security cameras and internet forums, even weasels his was into the gcpd’s files and…

nothing. there’s nothing.

no bodies reported, joker’s not in arkham or black gate or any other prison, he hasn’t finally been given the death penalty he just. disappeared.

he can’t find anything on robin either, or tim drake, for months until he stumbles upon a nearly perfect patient file in some hospital records.

nearly. it’d be perfect to anyone else but jason, even years later, can recognize bruce and barbara’s finger prints all over it. it’s a cover. a cover for what though? he reads through the file, tim drake’s file, presumably and finds… well.

someone clearly tortured the kid, and with the meds he was being prescribed it got to him. it would’ve gotten to anyone.

jason shudders reading the initial injury report. electric burns, lots of them, are what catches his eye the most but there’s all kinds of stuff. what catches his eye the most though is the lacerations that had to be stitched either side of the kid’s mouth. shit.

he doesn’t get the full picture, not yet, but pieces are starting to come together. the joker has been missing for a while, just a little longer than jason’s replacement has been in the hospital for some violent injuries.

the joker is missing.

tim drake is in the hospital.

something happened, clearly. the joker did something to tim, something awful, something bad enough that the joker disappeared and the kid’s been in the hospital for weeks.

bruce didn’t make it in time, only this time robin wasn’t dead, he’d been broken.

someone had gotten to robin, to tim drake, before jason could, had gotten to him so badly that even after he was released he wasn’t robin anymore.

not because he didn’t want to be, a few bugs here and there in the manor let him know that much, but because bruce wouldn’t let him.

it comes out, in one of these arguments, that time killed the joker. shot him dead. and jason almost wants to congratulate the kid for it, or wants to strangle bruce and ask him how the hell he let robin, who’s just a kid, tim, who’s just a fucking kid, get anywhere near a position where he had the means and desire to fatally shoot the joker.

because that’s it, isn’t it? the reason jason’s like this, doing this, is because of the joker. jason knows how to use guns because of the joker. he’ll never go to college like a normal kid because of the joker. and now tim.

tim wants to be robin, asks for it, begs bruce to let him back out in the suit and jason nearly finds himself agreeing with bruce. the joker’s gone sure but what if someone else tries the same thing? what if someone tries worse? being in the suit’s already gotten tim this much pain, why risk more?

it hits jason, one night, that he stopped being angry at tim a while ago. a long while. he can’t be angry at bruce either, because the joker is dead. there’s no one to enact vengeance for his death on anymore.

anyways most of my posts are about incest please don’t follow me for batman content

[mitchmotch]

my friend @revalito and i made an anastasia inspired au =]!

[tevintersnakes]

Some downtime doodles in my weekend

[angels-heap]

Hi, I'm back from the dead! (For approximately 28 more hours. Don't get a job, kids. Whole day I'm fucking busy, only get few money.)

Question for the void: If I were to hypothetically post the first chapter of a 5-6 chapter fic this week, knowing that it will probably be updated on my usual schedule (approximately 1.25 chapters per year), would y'all throw rocks at me?

[whiskey-tango-matcha]

not to brag, but my therapist told me today that i did incredible during our emdr session, which means i get an A for the day in therapy, something that is both normal to want and possible to achieve 🙂‍↕️😌

[thegreatyin]

and with that, evolution is complete.

i do think the scoundrel made the right choice, in the end. maybe- potentially- they think so too.

[volfoss]

it is beyond infuriating how anne rice seems to insist on marius being a positive force in anyone's life ever. like she can't fully commit to exploring the fact he groomed armand and has repeatedly taken away his consent for what marius thinks is best (take the end of TVA as an example) and just kind of flatly puts it in the narrative. there's not really much interest in how these horrific events make marius come across as the worst because EVERYONE loves him. for gods sake, lestat learns from armand exactly what marius did to him in TVL and then proceeds to go find marius and be super friendly to him in the same fucking book. even armand and pandora, two of the people who have MORE than enough right to hate him, do not. it doesnt feel like shes trying to explore the toxicity of the abusive dynamic he traps them in, it just is there. and like yeah ofc the toxic vampire romance series but i think that this should be handled with more care. and it is not ever really framed in a way that she is interested in exploring how marius should easily be one of the most horrific characters in this series because it kind of feels like sa/rape/grooming/other things of that sort are just put there to further plot and not to really get the respect that they deserve in a medium.

[boozles]

I’m not watching Love Sea yet (gonna binge it) but my dash is like fucking whiplash right now. I see a post praising a scene, then the following post is diminishing it, and it just goes on like that. It really seems like y’all are split right down the middle on what this show is doing.

I can’t wait to watch it.

[vanlegion]

TUCKER IS -

Teal! He's Teal. Hands down. I have solved it. How you ask? I'm obsessed with a certain Maroon Nerd and on a filter in my art program I hit Difference and was like 'Huh... OH!' Also this:

HA! Which makes Caroline Cyan. And then I did this for Shits and Giggles:

Hehhahaha~ I love how the show joked about first Grifs colors then Tuckers colors. X3 Hehe. And then for some more fun Sarge Red FF0000 vs Caboose Blue 0000FF Maroons hex is 800000 and is seared into my brain now along with FFA500 which is "FUCKING ORANGE" (A very bright orange) Random - I always thought York was Gold.

[mettywiththenotes]

We don’t talk enough about Dabi putting his arm around Hawks when they meet in the liberation army

[deadbeandrop]

ahem. and if i may be completely unwell about the moose and slug for a moment,

i keep thinking about a post-story scene where lumpus and slinkman's relationship is still in rocky territory, and they have like... kind of a half-arguement getting ready for bed and it doesn't really go anywhere but there's still a tension in the air, and then a moment of silence as they settle and face each other in the dark. there's a beat. and then slinkman just... reaches over to take lumpus' glasses off (he'd always been in the habit of adjusting them over the years), and he's confused for a second, and slinkman's just like "you shouldn't sleep with those on. you're going to break them" which is like, ah, yes, completely logical action, and something he's told him a million times,

but it's Also like "Oh, God. even when you don't have to anymore, and you said you'd stop doing it all the time, and you're mad at me, you're still taking care of me just because you care enough to that it's complete subconscious instinct for you to do so. i'm gonna jump off a cliff"

because, when you're in the dark, in complete silence, sharing a shoddy pull-out couch bed in the basement of your stupid hand-me-down bait-and-tackle shop with your life-long best friend, your only friend, almost a bit like you used to when you'd push your beds closer together at night the camp you loved all those years ago, well, then there's also nothing else around to distract from the fact that you appreciate that more than anything in the entire world

and so lumpus takes a second and is like ....Right. (voice crack) Of course. and turns to face the ceiling and feels like he's going to be sick <- (i love nausea being one of lumpus' gut responses to feeling things ❤️)

[rolandkaros]

i've been ruminating a lot on it because i think i'm bad at putting my thoughts into words but i need y'all to understand that while there are absolutely a lot of Not Good Things about the finals being held in saudi arabia for three years...the way people seem to treat is as morally black and white is shortsighted and unhelpful.

realistically the players traveling there will be protected. it may be uncomfortable, it's certainly not ideal, but they will travel there for a few weeks, play their tennis, then leave. there are a lot of women, a lot of queer people who actually live in saudi arabia who cannot just leave, who are actually subjected to laws and social climates...and to me it just seems very disrespectful to that actual lived experience, for everybody to sort of turn their noses up and get on their high horses. of course, if the players wish to opt out, that is their choice, but that is their choice to make. that's their judgement. not ours.

and then, what about a tournament like miami? florida is literally experiencing one of the worst active regressions that i've seen in the us (granted i'm young). things like critical race theory and lgbtq+ ed are being removed from curriculums, rights for trans youth, trans healthcare, etc. are going backwards. abortion rights? gun violence? and yes i know that the laws and climate in saudi arabia are different gravy, i understand that, but my point is, no one would ever DREAM of arguing against hosting a tournament in miami despite all of these issues. and we can extend this to a lot of other tournaments! i mean, all the outrage about fifa hosting a world cup in qatar, but we don't have any of these sentiments about doha? i've seen other people bring up that the finals were hosted in singapore when gay marriage was still illegal there. we've already talked about italy's fascist prime minister. and i could go on and on and on about the war crimes of countries like the us or the uk - is the us not participating actively in genocide right now? where is the standard? if you argue against hosting the finals in saudi arabia for the reason of human rights, to me it seems you have to uphold that standard for the location you do land on. and i can guarantee, you will not find a single country in the world with clean hands.

i want to be clear i am not arguing that hosting the finals in saudi arabia is a good thing, especially for three years, especially because it's definitely going there because of money, and not for any of the "good" reasons i think some people want us to believe about "improving the region" (which is very weirdly white savior-esque anyway). i don't really have an official "conclusion" to this discussion.

what i am arguing is that i think a lot of the protests against saudi arabiahosting the finals are more an example of implicit anti-arab bias and islamophobia, rather than genuine discussion. key word implicit: i don't think most people are purposefully trying to be anti-arab/islamophobic. or at least, i'd like to believe nobody is. but i also think, particularly in the west, there is already so much of this xenophobic sentiment ingrained. and this is why i think it's really really REALLY important to check ourselves when we talk about it instead of just jumping straight to the human rights conversation without a second thought.

i'll say it plainly: i don't think the finals should be held in saudi arabia. but for me, it has more to do with sportswashing, with the dangers of the way money is thrown around in sports, and because i think it's more evidence that the wta doesn't care about player welfare but rather about making a profit (what else is new). human rights are absolutely a concern of mine, but how is it fair to hold saudi arabia to a standard that we don't seem to care about for literally anybody else?

literally look at the us's ugly ugly history, past and present, and tell me why we deserve to host a tennis tournament.