#aft landing skid

[sw5w]

Sith Apprentice on Tatooine

STAR WARS EPISODE I: The Phantom Menace 00:51:33

[specialagentartemis]

trick or treat!! 🎃

Unfortunately I cannot stop thinking about Daemon AU. FORTUNATELY FOR YOU I cannot stop thinking about Daemon AU.

Have some Network Effect panic times.

---

“I don’t know,” Overse said, “I don’t know, the internal comm is down—”

“Are we damaged?” Ratthi asked.

“I mean, the internal comm is down because the router was on the baseship and the baseship left us,” Overse said.  Her dragonfly daemon zipped around in frantic, angry circles, and Ratthi had to resist the instinct to swat at it.  He was distressed, because Overse was distressed, and that was because they didn’t know where Arada or Amena or SecUnit were—

Ratthi’s own daemon dug her little claws into his shirt.  He scooped her up and held her, distractedly.

“So the question is,” Ratthi said, grimly, “how long do we wait?”

“How long until they breach the hull?” Overse fired back.  “There are a dozen alarms going off already, how will we know—”

She was cut off by the rising sound of hoofbeats coming down the corridor; Overse’s heart leapt in her throat, both relieved at the familiar sound and anxious because why hadn’t Arada been on the baseship—

She knew why, of course.  Neither of them wanted to be the one to leave SecUnit behind.  But Overse still wished her wife was safe on the baseship and not careening toward the raiders here.

Arada turned the corner, crouched low over the back of Dela.  One advantage to having a pony daemon—“one of the few,” Arada would joke, even as Dela snorted through her nostils affrontedly and Arada would have to laugh and pet her daemon’s nose to mollify her.  Dela’s hooves clattered and skidded on the slick metal floor.  She stopped short, reared, and pranced anxiously as Arada slid off and stumbled over to hug Overse.  “Babe!” she said.  “The baseship—they detached—”

“I know,” Overse said, “I know.  We need to get out, now.”

Arada hesitated.  “If SecUnit and Amena are still here—”

It hurt to say, but it was true.  “—it would tell us to get to the safepods.”

Arada took a breath, but nodded.  “It would.  And—”  She glanced back.  “There’s only one safepod that will fit Dela.  There’s only one place it knows we’ll be going.”

“Where are the oversize safepods from here?” Ratthi asked.  None of them had expected to need the safepods, but also, Ratthi’s daemon was a squirrel; she was currently hiding under his shirt.  He wouldn’t need to remember where the standard-requirement oversized pod for people with large daemons was.

But, whether as Survey Lead or as someone with an entire pony she needed to evacuate, Arada did.  “Port side pod bank, aft end,” she said, already taking off again.

Overse’s daemon landed and nestled in her hair.  Overse and Ratthi took off to follow.

——

They waited as long as they could for SecUnit and Amena.  They never showed up.  SecUnit had no daemon and Amena’s was still unsettled so they could have headed for the starboard pod bank, or done some wild different maneuver that SecUnit had come up with, but it hadn’t come here, and the local feed warnings were flashing an alert that the hull had been breached.

Arada gave the command.  “We need to get out.  Now.”

The pod wasn’t spacious, and with three people and a pony crammed in it felt even less so.  And launching off from the ship would have its own dangers.  The port side faced the raider’s ship; they’d be launching in their direction, rather than away.

Arada made a note to bring up with Station Security the real need for multiple oversized safepods per ship, after all this was over.

(She had to believe it would be over soon and smoothly and with everyone safe.  She had to.)

But before she cycled the hatch closed, a voice echoed down the hallway, “Wait!”

They all turned sharply.  “What—?” Ratthi began.

Thiago—what was he doing still here?—sprinted up towards them.

“Dr. Lesmana—” Ratthi began, and Overse said “Thiago, what are you doing?”

Arada had the presence of mind to say, “You weren’t with Amena?”

“I couldn’t find her!”  He was obviously coming apart with distress about this.  Overse didn’t like this—where was Amena? Where was SecUnit?—but wherever they were, she was sure SecUnit could take care of the situation better than she could by wandering through the lab dome, so as Arada frantically gestured she just said “Come on, then, get in, we need to leave!”

And Thiago still balked.

“Come on,” Overse said, and Thiago hesitated, and asked, “Are you… all right with that?”

“What?” asked Ratthi, and Overse stared at him.  It was Arada who went, “oh!” and Dela, quick on her heels, addressed Thiago, “Yes, I don’t mind, get in.”

It belatedly occurred to Overse that with the limited space in the pod, it would be almost impossible to avoid squishing up against Dela.  She and Ratthi already had been, barely thinking about it; they’d both been cheerfully snuggling with Dela for years, and she enjoyed when they stroked her side or pet her nose.  But if Thiago was going to die for propriety—

Arada disentangled herself from the pod, grabbed Thiago’s sleeve cuff, and dragged him in.  His little black terrier daemon scrambled in to follow.

“Sorry,” Thiago mumbled, as he ended up pressed awkwardly against Dela’s flank.  Dela nickered sarcastically and met Arada’s eyes.

“Be nice,” Arada said.  Then to Thiago, “In all likelihood I’ll trip over yours before we’re out of here, so I guess fair is fair.”

“Maybe,” Thiago mumbled, and Overse didn’t care because she pulled down the lever that sealed the pod with a clank, tried to avoid crushing her daemon as the pod detached and the gravity shifted (wouldn’t that be an embarrassing way to go), and then the pod launched out into space, toward the baseship.

[lonestarflight]

Cancelled Spacecraft: TRW Janus, Manned Orbital Spacecraft with Stage Re-Entry, aka landing with extra steps

"American manned spaceplane. Study 1965. This TRW design of 1965 used a unique concept - a lifting body main stage, that provided both ascent propulsion and re-entry protection.

TRW'S STAGED REENTRY SPACECRAFT VIEWED FROM ABOVE AND AFT. A = JET AIRPLANE COCKPIT CANOPY; B = PANEL COVERING JET AIRPLANE NOSE; C = TOP SURFACE OF JET AIRPLANE FUSELAGE AND WINGS; D = FLAT LIFTING BODY TOP SURFACE; E = JET AIRPLANE HORIZONTAL FLAP (1 OF 2); F = TUBBY LIFTING BODY BELLY; G = EJECTABLE ABORT ROCKET MOTORS (1 OF 2); H = DEORBIT/ABORT ROCKET MOTOR; I = PARACHUTE/LANDING AIDS COMPARTMENT COVER; J = MOVABLE CONTROL FLAP WITH ACTUATOR (1 OF 4); K = FLAT AFT BULKHEAD; L = AIRLOCK OUTER HATCH

"CUTAWAY DRAWING SHOWING JET PLANE (BLUE) NESTED IN UPPER HALF OF LIFTING BODY "POD." NOTE THE JET'S DOWN-TURNED VERTICAL STABILIZERS, ONE OF WHICH IS VISIBLE IN THIS SIDE VIEW."

Status: Study 1965. Gross mass: 7,300 kg (16,000 lb). Height: 8.17 m (26.80 ft). Span: 4.88 m (16.01 ft).

RIDING THE RAILS: TRW'S METHOD FOR MOVING ASTRONAUTS BETWEEN THE LIFTING BODY POD AND THE JET AIRPLANE COCKPIT.

THE JET PLANE SEPARATES FROM THE LIFTING BODY POD. A = EMPTY ABORT ROCKET COMPARTMENT (1 OF 2); B = LIFTING BODY PAYLOAD; C = JET AIRPLANE SEPARATION MECHANISM (1 OF 3); D = PANEL COVERING SUBSYSTEMS (FOR EXAMPLE, LIFE SUPPORT); E = JET ENGINE; F = VERTICAL STABILIZER (1 OF 2); G = VERTICAL CONTROL SURFACE (1 OF 2); H = LANDING SKID (1 OF 2).

The main stage was 8.17 m long, had a 4.88 m wingspan, and could accommodate a payload of 24.4 cubic meter volume. The 7300 kg gross weight included a separable manned aircraft of 6.4 m length, which had a delta wing of 62 degrees sweep and a span of 4.05 m. The vertical stabilizers turned down from each wingtip. After the mother ship had re-entered the atmosphere, the manned aircraft would separate at Mach 0.6 and 9150 m altitude. Equipped with a single turbojet, a nose wheel, and aft landing skids, it would proceed to a landing at a conventional airfield. The main stage would descend to earth under a parachute and be recovered for re-use. The whole concept was strikingly similar to Chelomei's Kosmoplan, which was being cancelled in the Soviet Union just as the TRW study was completed."

-Information from astronautix.com: link

"The pod descends on parachutes and the crew flies to it's preselected landing site."

Photos from April 1965 edition of Space World

Posted on Flickr: link, link, link, link

Photos from Wired.com: link

Photos from SecretProjects.co.uk: link

[flipomatic]

Say It - Chapter 2: I Burn

First Chapter

Author Note: I made a slight change to the framing device in the first chapter and realized what I want the titles for the chapters to be.

__________________________________________________________

Combat training had been a part of Yang’s life as long as she could remember. One of her earliest memories involved her jovially imitating Summer’s fighting stance, using a stick to take aim at the tree in front of their house. Even before enrolling in a combat academy, she had always been learning to fight and honing her skills. That hadn’t changed here at Beacon. If anything, she trained even more than she did before.

The main change was who she spent her time training with. It used to be her dad or uncle Qrow, and then sometimes Ruby before Yang started at Signal Academy. After building her weapons, she spent more of her time training alone. Many a training session over the last couple years had been spent solely with her punching bag, a trusty companion that didn’t mind being burned or toppled over by Ember Celica.

Now that Yang was part of team RWBY, she trained almost exclusively with them. Much of her time became dedicated to learning to fight both against and alongside her teammates. To say it hadn’t taken some adjustment would’ve been a lie; her usual style of charging headfirst into battle didn’t quite align with the rest of the team.

They had ways of reminding her to stay with the group, between Ruby’s calls for her to pull back or Weiss’ exaggerated eye rolls. The most effective way though was when Gambol Shroud appeared by her hand, its line outstretched from a long throw, beckoning her to join its wielder in her attack.

That was what Yang and Blake were working on today, the move that Ruby affectionately named bumblebee. They occupied one of the indoor training halls, which resembled a small gymnasium. It was well lit with lights across the ceiling and, most importantly, there was plenty of space for the two of them to practice without interruption. They needed to get ready for the Vytal festival, and what better way to do so than by improving their team attack. When they used this move in the past Yang executed it from a regular running speed, but she wanted to go faster and hit harder.

The pair’s last attempt hadn’t gone well at all. Blake stood ready in the center of the room, bow on her head twitching as she listened for Yang’s position. She threw Gambol Shroud to her right, while Yang fired Ember Celica behind her own back to gain speed along the wall. At the center she reached out with one arm extended to grab the weapon. If the pieces aligned, it would’ve fallen right into her hand. This was not the case as it landed just behind her reach, forcing Yang to skid to a halt and just barely avoid hitting the back wall.

“Too fast again…” She muttered, grimacing as she looked down at the weapons on her arms for a moment before turning her attention to Blake. Her partner was frowning, which was not an unusual expression for her. “I didn’t realize this would involve so much math!” Yang called over to her, following the statement with a loud forced chuckle. Blake, also in a very expected manner, did not laugh.

“I can throw it a little earlier.” Blake’s reply was blunt and to the point. Gambol Shroud still lied on the floor, and she pulled it back to her in a single smooth motion.

Yang knew what that meant, so she nodded in reply and turned to walk back to her starting position. They were doing this again. Once she reached the corner of the room, she called over to Blake, “Ready?”

“Yes.”

Once again Yang began running and firing her weapon behind her. She counted the number of seconds between each shot, making sure to hold the last one half a second longer than before. This time, she was in luck. Blake threw the weapon perfectly in time and when Yang reached her left arm out to grab it, Gambol Shroud fell right within her grasp.

Unfortunately, that was where her good luck ended. After Yang closed her hand around the hilt of the blade, she moved to fire her right arm weapon one more time to solidify her momentum.

This turned out to be the biggest mistake of all.

As the string snapped tight, with Blake still holding on to her end of the weapon, it almost slipped right out of Yang’s grasp. It yanked her left arm hard, much harder than it had before. Yang could feel the moment her balance shifted, the trill of panic as her whole body extended left to follow the blade and forced her right arm to lift out of its proper position. Just because she knew it was going wrong, that didn’t mean she could prevent it from happening. The process had already begun.

When Ember Celica fired, it blasted the wall to her right. Her momentum suddenly shifted, being pulled inward by Gambol Shroud and propelled away from the wall by the blast. This new trajectory was headed, well, straight towards the center of the room.

She barely had a moment to call out, “Bla-“ before smashing directly into her partner’s side. She just barely saw Blake’s wide eyes before she hit, as she had turned her head towards the sound of her shout. The pair both fell to the round, rolling from the impact.

Yang’s aura protected her from the brunt of the collision, first from crashing into her partner and then from the hardness of the floor. She bounced once before settling, though she didn’t stay down for long.

Even though her inner ear wasn’t quite ready to rise, Yang forced herself to her feet with a stumble. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.” She hurried to where Blake laid stunned on the ground. Her eyes were open, blinking a few times towards the ceiling, and she didn’t appear to have any injuries. “Are you hurt?”

Blake sat up slowly, with both of her hands on the ground to steady her. After a moment she looked up at Yang. “Just a little dazed but I’ll be alright, are you?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.” Yang reached down with one hand to offer to help Blake up, which she accepted. Once Blake was on her feet, Yang watched as she fetched Gambol Shroud from the corner it had flown to. Her steps appeared slow and steady, as they usually were.

The blade at the end of the long cord also seemed unharmed by the incident, which Yang was happy to see; she wouldn’t have been able to forgive herself if she hurt her partner or her weapon in training like this. She couldn’t help a cold chill running down her spine though, as she watched Blake wind the weapon back up.

This had happened before, not exactly this of course but other events like it. Training accidents, damaged equipment, scrapes and bruises, these all came with the territory of fighting with Yang. The others would get this look in their eyes, one that Yang couldn’t define but knew exactly what it meant. The excuses to leave would come next.

She watched Blake carefully for any sign of it, any hint that her trust in Yang had shifted.

There was nothing of the sort in her gaze, instead she almost looked bemused as she walked over to where Yang stood. “We might’ve gone too fast.”

“Just a bit.” Yang couldn’t help but smile, a wave of relief washing over her. “Half as many shots should do the trick.” She lifted her arms and cocked Ember Celica.

Blake nodded back at her, determination steeling her gaze. One of her hands came up to the top of her head, tugging at the piece of fabric tied there. It came away in only a moment and revealed a pair of small cat ears. Even though Yang had seen them before, back after Blake and Weiss had their big fight, that had been the only time. Blake usually kept them covered since most of the school didn’t know, even in their dorm room.

Back then, Yang hadn’t gotten that good of a look at them. It was dark at the docks and she’d been far more worried about her teammates making up. Now though, in the well lit space of the training hall, she could see them clearly.

Cute wasn’t a word that she often associated with Blake, cool and moody were usually her go to choices, but it was the only one coming to mind about her ears. The words easily rose to Yang’s lips before she could fully process them, ready to casually flirt and compliment as she so often did. Something stopped her, a spiking feeling in her chest. Even though the words were there, she didn’t let them out. They felt different, burning the back of her throat as she considered speaking them.

Blake’s ears stood upright at first, in what must’ve been their usual position, before one flicked in Yang’s direction.

“No offense, but I need to be able to hear your position better.” Blake commented dryly, answering a different question than the one Yang grappled with. “Let’s try again.” Without hesitation, Blake turned to return to the center of the training hall.

That was Yang’s cue to return to her starting position as well, back in the corner of the room. She let the words she’d been holding in fade away, pushing them to the back of her mind for another time. For now, she needed to focus all of her energy on perfecting this move.

She counted the number of shots she would need, and then took off again down the wall. The interval was twice as long between them now and her speed was slower as a result. When Yang reached the center, Gambol Shroud was right there waiting for her.

This time when she grabbed it, the pull against her was perfect. She held back her next shot and swung around the edge of the room, making a full circle before her feet hit the ground again.

When she looked over at Blake, her partner raised one fist in the air in a celebratory gesture. Her ears were perked up as she smiled, an expression that for once reached her eyes.

Yang’s chest felt warm as she returned the gesture, letting out a whoop of excitement. The line of Gambol Shroud connected them across the open space, spreading the feeling like electricity.

They continued to train after that, carefully adding in more bullets to the second half of the move. Soon it would be perfect, ready to use in the upcoming combat tournament. Yang enjoyed every minute of it, even when she crashed straight into the opposite wall on their next attempt.

Blake was right there in an instant, helping her back to her feet.

Yang could get used to this, the feeling of having a partner by her side.

Next Chapter

[awfulwordmonger]

O3-123-4L Living on the USS Kitty Hawk

That was my address: three levels above the main deck, also known as the Hangar Deck, the O3 level put me directly below the Flight Deck, where all the noisy stuff happened. 123 “frames” aft of the bow of the ship - roughly amidships. 4L was a “living” space, a six-man bunk room for JOs on the port side of the ship, relative to the midline. Our space was also called the “Bowling Alley” due to its narrowness, roughly 8-10 feet wide and its length, around 20-30 feet. It was divided length-wise into three smaller rooms running fore an aft along the ship.

The “front room” opened in from a ladder well coming up from three stories below, and contained four “lockers” which, since we were Junior Officers, had a portion for clothing on hangers and two or three drawers on the bottom for or other stuff. The remainder of the space was filled by “desks” - aluminum planks attached to the wall on either side and a couple of ancient (non-rolling) metal government chairs. Fluorescent lights were placed above the desks and on the overhead (ceiling).

:readmore:

The second room held two more lockers and two stacks of three bunks. The bunks each had a thin mattress on top of a wire mesh suspended from springs along the frame. They were slightly wider than a body, but not as wide as a standard single bed. The ship was about twenty years old at this time. Having been home to many, many people by then, the springs were pretty tired and when weight was applied were more like a hammock than any other sort of bed. The first time I tried to sleep on board the ship, I woke up feeling like I had been in a cocoon all night. When your body sinks completely below the level of the bed frame, there’s no rolling over. Just getting out of bed was a formidable task! At least I was in the middle of the three-stack. That meant my feet were pretty close to the floor when I swung out from between the almost floor level bottom bunk and the head-height upper bunk. Each bunk also had its own small reading light, supplemented by large fluorescent lights on the ceiling. This was the sleeping room, though, and the overhead lights were almost never on. One never knew when someone might be catching up from a late night. For our first two month stint motoring in circles in the Indian Ocean, I was the night watch officer in the CVIC (the ship’s intelligence center) so I came to appreciate the consideration from my roommates!

The third room, past the bunk room, was a tiny space with two sinks, one on either side, with mirrors above them. The middle of the room was dominated by a vertical ventilation tube about two feet in diameter running, I was told, straight down to one of Kitty Hawk’s four engine rooms.

The noise? Imagine having an Auxiliary Power Unit from a 747 running just outside your bedroom, 24/7. That was the ventilator shaft, running Dow to (I believe) one of the ship’s boiler rooms. Add to that, our “air conditioner” in the bunk room - a unit that was supposed to provide cooler air, but probably hadn’t been maintained since the ship was built. It sounded a little like an idling chainsaw. Then, maybe less than three feet above the room, was the flight deck: inches (feet?) of armor plate covered in thick non-skid coating. Being a runway that handled up to a couple hundred departures and arrivals every day, there’s a lot of noise generated! Aircraft taxiing, launching at maximum power, landing (also at max power) with a tail hook dragging along until it snags a two-inch steel cable at more than a hundred miles per hour, a “bolter” (missed landing, when the aircraft has to go around for another try at the cables), disengaging the cable after landing… All of the above are amazingly noisy, believe it or not. At the time I described the noise as anything from a freight train running over your head with a flat wheel (the sound of a tail hook banging across multiple “pad eyes” which allow a plane to be chained to the deck in any location) to a truckload of bowling balls falling on the ceiling of your bedroom (the sound of a huge cable going slack and falling to the deck, plus a metal hook slamming down, sometimes repeatedly, as the now-stopped plane tries to get free of the cable) and the sound of the jets still at max power after stopping, until the pilot’s scrambled brain realizes it’s not still flying. Now… you’ve worked all night and finally crawled into your “rack” at about 10 AM. You fall asleep, only to be interrupted within the next one hour and forty-five minutes by the start of another flight of aircraft getting ready for the “cyclic ops” to repeat and repeat and repeat all day long - first the departures, a lull and then the arrivals of all those who departed earlier. Each event typically includes 10-20 aircraft. And I learned to sleep through the whole thing, about 6 feet below the center of the runway. I lived with that for a little over two months, during our first at-sea period in the Indian Ocean.

Another interesting feature of living in a space that was clearly an afterthought: we were outside the range of all of the ships PA system, aka the "1MC". Any important announcements, like say "General Quarters" (Battle stations), had to be relayed by telephone, which rarely worked, or by a person making the trip to our door as fast as humanly possible! Because we worked odd hours, and might be asleep when the drills (and they were almost always drills), it was always a very near thing for someone to haul ass from our squadron ready room, up 4 decks to the O3 level, across the ship and about 30-40 yards aft, wake everyone up and then get back to where they were supposed to be before all the watertight hatches, etc. were slammed shut at the end of four minutes! Once General Quarters was set, one could only open a watertight hatch with the permission of Damage Control Central. Not a pretty thing, once it was logged, the squadron CO was notified, etc. I was lucky - my Battle Station was in the ship's CVIC (Intelligence Center), also on the O3 level and about 20 yards from my bunkroom! My five roommates weren't so lucky, having to traverse the ship as fast as they could to the ready room.

The rules for getting around the ship during the four minutes when setting GQ was in progress:

Up and forward on the starboard side

Down and aft on the port side

If a watertight hatch or door is already closed, call DC Central to get permission to open it, and prepare to get your ass chewed.

Hope to God that you don't have to visit the head during GQ, as the nearest head might be on the wrong side of a watertight door!

AWM

[booksnotyetwritten]

Excerpt #643

The orange junk sped over the ocean toward a bulbous white cloud.

"Scan for cover!" Shouted the captain as she steered the ship from aft. The rest of the crew were running to finish their assigned tasks, a sense of deep urgency in their step. The captain glanced over her shoulder at the Commerce runner in the distance and cursed. "Tim," she said, her first mate turned to her, "have Donovan prep two blasters and a smoker." He nodded, stepped forward to the railing, and took a huge breath.

“Don!" He bellowed. "Two blasters! One smoker!" A woman with one arm skidded to a halt on the deck and saluted.

"Aye sir!" She replied, racing to the foredeck for the explosives.

"We diving captain?" Asked Tim. She gritted her teeth and nodded. "Crew check breathers!" Everyone onboard took a moment to ensure that their dive breathers were clipped to their belts were squared away. The junk slipped into the cloud, heading for dead center. There was a buzz of a line as Crow Easton landed nimbly on the main deck. They raced to the captain with a small cloth in hand. The captain studied the hastily scrawled map and nodded to the raven-haired crewman before sighing heavily.

“Best cover is five breaths north east.” She whispered, glancing at Tim as he stood in the white haze of the cloud. The first mate clenched his eyes shut. A dive of three breaths was a murderous endeavour but five was unthinkable. He knew what awaited them if they didn’t attempt however. As if on cue the first of the runner’s concussion charges exploded behind them. The clap of the explosion stung their ears and brief though it was though a stiff wind blew over the deck of the ship. Crewmen froze on deck, unsure of what to do. They looked up at the captain who only signaled for them to affix their diving breathers. The hands of the crewmen flew to their sides as they grabbed the clear, rubbery hoods from their belts, and stretched them over their heads. There were initial laboured gasps for breath but eventually they all raised their hands with thumbs up.

"We dive at next charge." She hissed at Tim. He nodded and walked to the rail. He locked eyes with Don who nodded up to him. He raised his hand, turning back toward the captain. The crew stood in silent anxiety, waiting. There was a muffled crump and an instant later a blast wave pushed over the deck. The captain dropped the lever and Tom dropped his hand. As the ship fell Don fired three pods from a single tube shaped cannon ahead of them. A massive pillar of black smoke shot up from the murk, enveloping the ship like a cloak. As they dipped into the toxic swirl of gasses the two charges below them exploded to complete the illusion. When the stern of the ship dipped into the murk the captain leveled it off.

[olivia200312]

Accident~ RID2015! Optimus x Human! Reader

Plot: Y/N got into an accident in her house.

So, this is a true one-shot. This is NOT a lie. I got into an accident this morning. I woke up normally like every other human but when I wanted to move my head, I felt a massive intense pain at the back of my neck and head area. When I stood up, I felt dizzy. I moved a bit but it got so worse that I wanted to lay back down. But I collapsed and my face made contact with the floor. Luckily not hard but I did get a bloody nose. I felt very hot and was pale. But this all stopped when I laid down and slept a bit. My grandmother called my mom and she arrived s fast she can. The ambulance was called and they took me to the hospital. They checked my health and I was allowed to go. I also bit my lip a little bit hard so it's swollen when I fell. I wear a case around my neck and have to take it easy. This all happened on July 16th.

This continues after You're No Alone and Author! Check them out!

Author: one-shot where I became a self-published author on July 10th.

You're Not Alone: on February 5th, my grandfather passed away.

Head area:

Brain: Processor / Brain Module

Head: Helm

Face: Face plate

Ears: Audio receptors / Receptor Orifice / Audials

Nose: Enstril / Olfactory Sensor

Eye brow: Optical Ridge

Eyes: Optics

Mouth: Intake

Lips: Dermas

Teeth: Denta/Dentas

Tongue: Glossa

Chest area:

Chest: Chassis / Thoraxal Cavity

Back: Hexa-Lateral Scapula

Spine: Bipedalism cord / Back Strut

Chest and back armour:

Chest plate

Back plate

Mid-section plating

Neck guard

Side plating

Arm area:

Arms: Arms / Restarlueus

Forearms: Bitarlueus

Hands: Servos

Fingers: Digits

Arm armour:

Gantlets

Shoulder pads

Arm guard

Lower area:

Pelvis: Pelvis

Butt: Aft / Skid-Plate

Thighs: Tibulen

Calves: Cadulen

Feet: Pedes - the high heel bits are called Struts or Heel Struts.

Lower armour:

Skirt plates

Aft plate / Skid plate

Thigh guard

Ankle guard

General/Internal components:

Muscles: Cables / Pistons - It depends on the area in question.

Veins: Fual lines

Stomach: Tanks

Lungs: Vents - used to stop the con/bot from over heating.

Heart: Spark

Tattoos: D-con/A-bot Insignias and the lark

T-Cog: The thing that allows all Cybertronians to transform, be that their arms or their whole body.

Bonus:

Penis: Spike

Vagina: Valve

Body: Frame

-----------------------------------------------------

The alarm clock went off through Y/N's phone. She groaned and reached to put it off. Just as she wanted to move her head, she felt an intense massive pain at the back of her neck and head area. The pain was so intense and aggressive that it paralyzed Y/N to move. She nearly cried because it was very painful! But she managed to push the tears down. She moved her head very carefully. She then managed to stand up but she felt extremely dizzy and hot. She even was pale! Just as she grabbed her things like her phone, the charger, her wristwatch, and her headphones, it got far worse. She wanted to lay down again. She really tried to reach the bed but then... she collapsed. Her face made contact with the ground. It wasn't luckily hard, but she, either way, felt her nose drip out blood. She bit her lip a little bit hard that it will be sure swollen later. She even felt hot! Due to collapsing, she dropped her stuff, creating noises.

There were fast footsteps heard and the door of her bedroom opened. It was her grandmother. The poor woman looked panicked once she saw her granddaughter laying on the floor. "N/N, are you ok?" She immediately helped her up and made sure that she laid down on the bed.

"I f-feel weak."

The grandmother then saw blood drops on the floor, the carpet. She picked up her granddaughter's stuff that was dropped and laid them on the table. "I'll call your mother and clean the blood. Oh my god..." She immediately left the bedroom to call Y/N's mother and once it was done, she started cleaning to get the blood off. Once it was done, she sat down on Y/N's bed and kept an eye on her.

There were noises heard since Y/N's granny lived in an apartment. There was an elevator. Y/N heard the elevator clearly and it stopped on the floor where Y/N's granny lived. The doors opened and she entered the place. She immediately entered the bedroom. Her eyes widened when she saw her daughter in a weak state. "What happened?"

"I-I don't know. She collapsed on the ground. She has a high temperature."

That's when Y/N heard that her mother will call the ambulance. Oh no... Please no needles! Y/N didn't have enough strength to respond she took small naps until the ambulance arrived. It was two grown-up adult males. They were friendly. At that time, Y/N managed to sit up on her bed, her feet touching the carpet floor. She explained everything to the men while her family watched worriedly. They checked her blood pressure and her temperature. Like this one thing where you put your finger in. Y/N's temperature went down back to normal quite fast and she even stood up! She even moved and she felt no dizziness! Huh, looks like her body took the action quickly. Y/N wanted not to get tested but her mother wanted her to. God... She's an overprotective mother since she's single and loved her child dearly.

Y/N's grandmother helped her granddaughter to actually put her pants on before the ambulance arrived. She carefully stood up while the men made sure that she didn't collapse again. Y/N's mother packed like Y/N's phone, wallet, and the book she published. She had to wait for a few days to finally hold her book in her hands. What's stupid was that she had to pay for her own book instead of getting it for free since she's the author after all. The world was so stupid sometimes...

For the first time in her whole life, she rode in an ambulance car. One man was driving while the other was with Y/N, writing important information of Y/N's mother's card ID. Y/N herself was 17, almost 18. Let's just say that the accident happened on the day when her mother was supposed to come over and hand her daughter the book. It was honestly a very sad day for Y/N... She was excited to hold her book in her hands but look t that... a freaking accident.

The ambulance finally arrived at the hospital and Y/N was checked this time by a nurse. Everything went fine. The doctor came to check on her and Y/N explained everything. The doctor explained that the pain might be caused due to sleeping positions or other reasons. And the attack of dizziness, it could be caused by stress.

"Ever since my father's passing, she had a very hard time accepting that he's not here anymore. I see her constantly trapped with her feelings and emotions. She might have possible autism but it's not sure yet because the tests didn't happen yet. She even confessed that she wanted to commit suicide by taking pills. We are going to a psychiatrist but it doesn't help sometimes." When Y/N looked at her mother, she had a sad and soft look.

The doctor looked shocked by Y/N's mother's story. He couldn't help but feel sad for the teenage girl. She suffered a lot and still does. No one deserved to go through this, especially a kid. He looked to Y/N's mother and told her that it's better to continue to go to a psychiatrist. That's when Y/N was finally letten go with her mother. But however, before they can ride fully home, she heard her mother make an appointment with the doctor for a blood test. Oh, come on!

Later~

Optimus heard the news of what had happened. He got very worried when he heard that Y/N fainted. In his processor, he knew that it could be from the stress. Ever since her grandfather's passing, she never got better. She would cry for days, she didn't eat for 3 days which caused her to feel dizziness and headaches. She nearly landed in the hospital because of this. She started having trouble with her emotions and feelings. Not only that, but 2 months later after Y/N's grandfather's passing, her mother had a discussion with her, and guess what she found out, Y/N's other grandfather passed away on December 23th! Y/N never met her other grandfather before. She never saw him but she did saw how he looked from photos. His death was kept a secret for 2 FREAKING MONTHS! Y/N's father went to live in England with his new 'family'. Y/N's father did everything, especially paying the bills but he found out that his girlfriend had enough money to actually pay the bills! She lied the entire time! Y/N's father quickly broke up with her so he lived alone now. Y/N remembered the day very well when she heard the news that her other grandfather passed away in December. She cried. Yes, she may have never met him but she's sad that she lost someone that she could never meet. She wanted always to meet him! But he mysteriously disappeared after Y/N's parent's wedding day! Y/N had so many questions at that time. Had he ever heard of her? Did he know that he had a granddaughter? And many other questions. Y/N was right to be mad at her family. She was furious for days and there's still anger in her, she just doesn't show it. She rather keeps it hidden.

On the 3rd of July, just as summer vacation began, Y/N traveled to Poland with her mother. Since her grandfather passed away in Poland, both mother and daughter had difficulties traveling. Corona was still out there and the airports were controlling the passengers. You need to have important documents and proof that you are fully vaccinated or negative. Y/N was not vaccinated so she had to the test and let me tell you, it was disgusting! You know, the long thick thin stick in your nose to get the cells? Y/N's mother was also not vaccinated so she had to do the test as well. On the 4th of July; she went to visit her grandfather's grave. It was so painful... Y/N's mother believed that it would ease the pain, but she was so wrong, it didn't ease at all! Y/N wanted badly to talk to her grandfather alone but her two aunts and her mother stood close by. She didn't get privacy at all. She was mad. Y/N refused to eat for hours as well. But eventually, she came to eat when it was time for dinner.

2 days later, she returned back to the cemetery. She was alone this time with her mom. She had one minute of silence with her mother and FINALLY, Y/N got the privacy she needed. She must have at least talked for 1 hour to her grandfather's grave because she spoke a lot. She was thankful that her mom understood her. She said at the end her goodbyes and wanted to hug his grave, but she felt ashamed, shy, and embarrassed so she only touched the cross and cried. She cried the whole time.

At that time, Y/N was fighting was depression for months now. It was not easy due to the loss of a loved one instead of an animal. She missed of course her pet friends she lost, but with people was very different. When you lose someone for the first time, it's so painful. It can take a long time to get over with or part pain will stay forever inside of you. Depression cannot be 'cured' but you can control it with your power. It's not easy and it can be stressful, exhausting, and painful as well. Pain can be felt in your heart. What's one of the most important things to NOT ever do to a depressed person was yelling. It happened to Y/N. Her aunt, or her second mother, who lived in Poland, texted her and asked how she was doing. Y/N responded that she's fine. But she also told also that texted if she doesn't get better because of her possible autism or mental illnesses, then she will not go to work. But what Y/N's second mother send next, made Y/N mad. She responded like she doesn't have mental illnesses and that she needed only more explanation. Seriously? That made Y/N cry! Why was she reacting fast? Why was she quickly angry? Why was she having bad days? Why was she losing interest in her activities sometimes? Why had she dark thoughts? Why would she cry a lot? Why was she having trouble with emotions and feelings? Think about other symptoms. Those were clear signs of depression. According to an American's website where the experts knew everything about the loss of a loved one and what can happen further in the future if you don't get better in like 5-6 months after you lost someone, the chances were high that you had depression but it's important to go to a doctor where it helps you and asked questions. It's important, to tell the truth. once it was done, the doctor will finally give you the diagnoses that you were waiting for what's happening inside of you.

Y/N had to wait sadly. Still waiting. It can take up to almost 1 year or 2 to meet the doctor where the diagnoses can be finally revealed. She had possible autism as well. It was very possible Asperger's Syndrome. It's autism where people have difficulties communicating with other people but also having trouble understanding. The person can talk very well but sometimes can be quiet as a mouse too. People who have it were very unique. They even don't like to be touched all the time and don't like to make eye contact. Y/N's grandmother was the first one to notice the symptoms and told her daughter, Y/N's mother, to bring her to the doctor but Y/N's mother didn't notice anything until finally years later when her father passed away. So, they're on the waiting list. I mean, they had to be.

But anyway, Y/N's mother caught her daughter crying after she was done chatting with her second mother. Sometimes, Y/N doesn't want to talk about why she's crying but she's sometimes being pushed a little bit too hard which was not smart at all. When Y/N explained why, let's just say that later, Y/N's own mother, started to yell at her. Yes, Y/N had been fighting for months but seriously? Y/N wanted to scream and fight back but she couldn't! But when the fight was finally done, Y/N's heart was full of pain and felt hopeless as well. Y/N's mother should have never yelled at her! The results will be only crying! Sometimes, it can give results of an attack or worse...

Later~

Y/N walked carefully while not wearing a cervical collar around her neck. The doctor said that she didn't have to wear it all the time and recommended to at least sometimes move carefully her neck. Y/N felt pain sometimes but it's healing. She couldn't laugh hard, not yawn widely, etc. It was so annoying! She still couldn't forget her mother's yelling inside her head and those memories will probably haunt her. She already got her first corona vaccine and tomorrow, she needed to take a blood test because ever since the accident, her health was getting suspicious. Y/N decided to confront her mother at the doctor tomorrow and teach her a lesson that yelling at a depressed person was not smart at all. Now that she's a self-published author, she's busy writing about her life to inspire and teach others. Her mother needed to learn too.

"Sweetspark, when I heard about your accident, I was very worried," Optimus said, who randomly appeared behind her.

Y/N turned around fully to let her neck heal. "I am fine now. Just giving my neck time to heal. Sorry about worrying you..." She felt ashamed.

Optimus wrapped her arms around her waist, causing her to relax and lean gently against him. "Please remember that you're not alone, sweetspark. We all are here to help you. What your carrier did was not smart but I am proud of you that you'll confront her about it."

Y/N only hummed and couldn't help but smile when she felt him leaving soft kisses where she felt pain at her neck and head area. She giggled and Optimus smiled.

P.S. when Y/N became an author, only her second ex, her family, and her followers on Wattpad congratulated her. None of her friends did. Do you consider this disrespectful rude or heartless?

Yes, readers. Every detail left there is all the truth, including the yelling as well. I got the first shot of the corona vaccine and I feel still small pain but it's not bad luckily like the HPV vaccine I got once. So painfully... But my mother feared that soon the entire country will force everyone to get vaccinated, except kids under 12. Sorry to disappoint you all about the shot... The part at the end of my friends not congratulating me is also the truth :(. Darn blood test tomorrow! I have a phobia of needles...

[skyfire85]

FLIGHTLINE: 191- SAAB 37 VIGGEN ("BOLT" OR "TUFTED DUCK")

-A SAAB 37 Viggen in the '70s and '80s era splinter camouflage. | Photo: Swedish Air Force

FLIGHTLINE: 191- SAAB 37 VIGGEN ("BOLT" OR "TUFTED DUCK")

Designed to replace older fighters and attack aircraft in the Swedish Air Force, the Viggen served from the early 70s into the early 2000s.

Development of the Viggen began almost before the planes it was intended to replace, the SAAB 32 Lansen and 35 Draken, took their maiden flights, with the Swedish Air Force beginning work on requirements in 1955. Included were integration into the STRIL-60 electronic air defense system, supersonic speed at low level and Mach 2 performance at altitude, and the ability to land and take off from short, rough fields or even stretches of highway. The latter was further codified in Bas 60, a system of dispersal bases and alternate runways developed by the Swedish Air Force starting in 1958. In the event of war, individual squadrons would be dispersed to krigsflygbaser ("wartime air bases") which had been established ahead of time. Additionally, civilian air ports and specially built sections of the national highway system could also be used as alternatives. As a result, the new aircraft would need to be able to land and take off in 500 meters or less, and further requirements included a modest landing speed at low angles of attack in order to avoid damaging ad hoc runways.

SAAB began design work on a new aircraft between 1952 and 1957, examining and discarding over 100 concepts along the way. Aircraft with one or two engines, tailless delta wings, double deltas, canard designs, and VTOL aircraft incorporating lift jets were all conceived, but by 1963 the new plane, officially titled Aircraft System 37, had taken the form of a single engined aircraft with a double-delta wing mounted low and to the stern, with a large canard foreplane mounted high on the intakes. This configuration had been proven to give the best balance of performance at low and high altitude as well as the needed STOL capability and maneuverability expected of a front-line strike fighter. A defense treaty signed between Sweden and the United States in 1960 allowed access to US research and technology, which resulted in SAAB selecting a license built P&W turbofan to power the System 37. The following year, construction of the first prototype of what became the Viggen began.

DESIGN AND SPECIFICATIONS

-Orthograph of the J 37 Viggen. | Illustration: Kaboldy

The SAAB 37 was roughly the same size as the J 35 Draken, being 16.4m long, with a wingspan of 10.6m, and a height of 5.9m. Empty weight was 9,500kg, while max TO weight varied from 16,400kg to 17,000kg depending on the variant. Maximum speed was Mach 2.1 (2,231 kph) at 11,000 meters, while maximum altitude was 18,000 meters. Six fuel tanks within the aircraft provided a capacity of 5,000 liters of fuel, giving the Viggen a combat radius of 1,000km and a ferry range of 1,800km, while an auxiliary drop tank of 1,500l could also be added to further increase the range. Power was provided by a Volvo RM8A turbofan, a modified and license-built version of the P&W JT8D originally designed for the Boeing 727 and 737. Volvo modified the P&W engine design, with more robust materials going into the manufacture to withstand sustained flight at Mach 2, as well as the addition of an afterburner and thrust reverser, making it the first turbofan so equipped. The RM8A had a dry thrust of 65.6kN and with AB this increased to 115.6kN. As the 37 was designed to be both mechanically simple and easy to maintain, the inlets were D-shaped and without adjustable geometry ramps as on contemporary fighters like the F-4, instead only simple boundary layer splitter plates were incorporated. The thrust-reverser could be preset to engage once the nose gear strut compressed, an innovative feature. Electrical power was provided through a 60kVA generator, and in emergencies a ram-air turbine capable of generating 6kVA was automatically deployed.

The 37's airframe was composed of an aluminum honeycomb structure; a ring aft of the engine was fabricated from titanium for heat-resistance. In order to pull the Viggen into smaller hangars and hardened shelters, the vertical stabilizer cold be folded down via an actuator. The main landing gear, designed for short, rough fields as well as temporary landing strips or stretches of highway, had two wheels arranged in tandem; both wheels were fitted with anti-skid brakes.

-A Viggen being towed from a low-ceilinged hardened shelter. | Photo: Swedish Air Force

The Viggen used a sophisticated suite of avionics, including the Central Kalkylator 37 (CK37, "Central Calculator 37), the first airborne computer to utilize integrated circuits. This digital computer replaced the analogue machines used on earlier aircraft, such as the J 35, which had proven to be difficult to maintain as well as inaccurate in use. On later models of the Viggen, the CK37 was replaced by a license-built copy of the American CD107, which was more powerful. The Viggen used electronics countermeasure equipment developed by Satt Elektronik, including radar warning receivers in the wings and tail, as well as infrared warning receivers. Optionally, an optional Ericsson Erijammer pod and/or SAAB BOZ-100 chaff/flare pod could be added. All told, the SAAB 37 carried 600kg of avionics, a substantial load for single-seat, single engine fighter of the era. Depending on the variant, the Viggen was equipped with either the Ericsson PS 37 or PS 46 radar, both of which operated in the X-band. The PS 37 was capable of air-to-ground and air-to-air telemetry, search, track, terrain-avoidance and cartography, while the more advanced PS 46 had a look-down/shoot-down capacity in excess of 50km, and which could track two targets simultaneously.

The cockpit displays of the 37 included traditional "steam gauge" instruments, as well as a HUD and three CRT screen, which were used to display radar imagery, computer-generated maps, as well as flight and weapons information. During the late 1990s, these CRTs were replaced by LCD screens. The right side of the console panel had dedicated controls and indicators for weapons as well as navigation, oxygen, windshield de-fogging, IFF, and lighting. Situated on the left side were controls for the radar, as well as the landing gear handle, radio controls and the cabin pressure indicator.

-Cockpit of a AJSF 37 Viggen. | Photo: Per80

The pilot was seated on a Raketstol 37 ("Rocket chair 37"), designed for low-altitude, high-speed ejections, and was the last Saab-designed seat used. Once triggered, the entire ejection sequence was automated, including separation of the seat from the pilot. Manual triggers were included in case of malfunction. On twin-seat versions, the pilot in the front cockpit can trigger ejection for both seats.

VARIANTS AND WEAPONS

There were five variants of the Viggen, along with several upgrades and service-life extensions. The AJ 37 (Attack Jakt, "Strike Fighter") was the first to enter service, and was an attack variant with a secondary fighter mission. As such, the AJ's seven pylons could carry 7,000kg of stores, including unguided bombs and pods, such as the Bofors M70, for rockets, as well as the Rb04 anti-ship missile and the Rb05 air-to-surface missile (roughly equivalent to the American Bullpup). No cannon was fitted, though one or two pods could be carried, each of which housed a license-built Aden 30mm cannon and 150 rounds of ammunition. Finally, license-built copies of the AIM-9 Sidewinder, known as the Rb24, could be carried for self-defense. The Viggen was also cleared to carry AIM-4 Falcons, known as the Rb28 in Swedish service, but these were in the process of being phased out. The AJ 37's radar was not spec'd for BVR missiles. 109 AJ 37s were produced.

-Schematic of the AJ 37 carrying various loads. | Illustration: airvectors.com

The second model was the SF 37 (Spanings Foto, "Photo Reconnaissance"), which was a modification of the AJ fuselage, with a new nose containing 7 cameras replacing the radar of the strike version. The camera fit included vertical and oblique cameras, as well as an infrared line scanner and data recording unit. Additional pods could be carried under the intakes, including a "Red Barron" night recon unit or a forward-looking long-range optical (LORP) pod. The SF 37 was fitted with radar-warning receivers and countermeasures pods, and could carry self-defense Sidewinders, but the plane lacked a radar, and was not fitted with a gunsight. 28 total SF 37s were completed.

-Orthograph of the SF 37 carrying drop-tanks and camera pods. | Illustration: wp.scn.ru

The third variant was the SH 37 (Spanings Havsoevervakning, "Coastal Surveillance & Reconnaissance") model, which was externally identical to the AJ 37, but the nose contained a new Ericsson PS-371/A radar, which was optimized for maritime surveillance. Like the SF 37, the SH could carry the Red Barron or LORP camera pods, but like the AJ it could also carry the Rb04 anti-ship missile, as well as the other offensive and defensive equipment of the strike version. 27 SH 37 aircraft were built between 1977 and 1979, and Flygvapnet reconnaissance squadrons operated a mix of the SF 37 and SH 37.

-Scale model of an SH 37, armed with Rb04 missiles. | Photo: trickyrich

A two-seat trainer variant was not initially ordered, but the Swedish Air Force reversed itself, and one of the prototypes was completed as a trainer, designated the Sk 37 (Skol, "School"). Based on the AJ 37 airframe, a second cockpit was grafted onto the fuselage, with part of a fuel tank being removed to make space. Two periscopes were added to the instructor's cockpit to improve his view. The tail fin was also modified, with a 10cm extension added to the top of the fin. The trainer version did not have a radar, and although stores could be fitted the the accurate delivery of bombs was somewhat compromised. Interestingly, the Sk retained the fairings for the radar warning gear, though the RWR equipment was not carried. 17 Sk 37s were produced.

-Schematic showing the difference in appearance of the SF and Sk 37 models. | Illustration: airvectors.com

The final production variant was the JA 37 (Jakt, "Fighter"), which saw a longer development as the Flygvapnet felt no rush to retire the J 35 Draken. The JA variant had the same tail extension as the Sk 37, and the fuselage was also stretched 10cm ahead of the wing to accommodate the more powerful RM8B engine, which had a maximum output of 125kN with afterburner. The interceptor had four elevator actuators versus the three present on the other models of Viggen, as the Flygvapnet saw the need for additional maneuverability, and the structure was reinforced to withstand higher stresses. In total, a JA 37 was approximately 400kg heavier than an AJ 37. The fighter carried different avionics than the other Viggen as well, including a PS-46/A radar, with look-down/shoot-down capacity and a range of 48km. The JA 37 also carried a more powerful central computer, the Garrett LD-5 digital air data computer (the same unit carried on the F-14 Tomcat), and one of the first digital flight-control systems. The fighter version was armed with a single Oerlikon KCA 30mm cannon, which had more range and punch than the Aden cannon carried by the AJ 37. The JA 37 had the same seven pylons as other models, with the center hardpoint being the only "wet" (capable of carrying a fuel tank) one. The other pylons could carry up to four Rb24 Sidewinders, as well as two Rb71 Skyflash semi-active radar homing (SARH) missiles. The JA 37 could carry the M70 rocket pods, with the gunsight being used for aiming, but the type was not capable of carrying the other bombs and missiles available to the AJ 37.

-Cutaway drawing of the JA 37, showing internal systems and armaments. | Illustration: SAAB

TESTING AND OPERATIONAL HISTORY

The first Viggen prototype was rolled out of the factory on 24 November 1966, with maiden flight occurring on 8 February 1967, the flight lasting 43 minutes. The second Viggen followed in flight on 21 September '67, and the third on 29 March 1968. By April 1969, all six of the single seat prototypes were flying in different trials for the forthcoming AJ 37 variant. The first aircraft was involved in a fatal accident on 31 May 1968 when the pilot dropped a flight checklist and in reaching for it triggered the ejection seat. Being an early model, it was not a true "zero-zero" seat, and the parachute did not open in time, killing test pilot Lennart Fryoe. The aircraft was repaired and returned to flight shortly thereafter. The fourth prototype was written off after leaving the runway and rolling over during a test on the thrust reverser on 7 May 1969, though the pilot was not seriously injured. That same month, the Viggen made its first public world-wide appearance at the Paris Air Show. On 5 April 1968, a production order for 175 Viggens, a mix of AJ, SF, SH and Sk variants, was placed, with the first production AJ 37 having its maiden flight on 23 February 1971 and delivery to the Flygvapnet in June of that year.

-Five of the Viggen prototypes lined up at the Linköping Testing Center in 1969. | Photo: SAAB

-Viggens under construction at SAAB's factory. In the background are J 35 Drakens for the Danish Air Force. | Photo: SAAB

The Skaraborg Air Force Wing became the first wing to receive the Viggen in 1971, with pilots completing a 450 hour course, first in the SAAB 105 trainer, then the J 32 Lansen before graduating to the Sk 37 tainer and finally the AJ 37. Dedicated simulators were also used, which was later cited as a major factor in pilot's ease of flying the new plane. Still, it took until October 1973 for the Wing to reach full effectiveness; by May 1974 two squadrons were fully operational with the third rapidly approaching complete status. The SH 37 maritime recon variant was officially introduced in 1975, followed in 1977 by the SF photo recon version. In September 1980 the JA 37 fighter model was added, with the Bråvalla Air Force Wing being the first to convert. By the mid-1980s, the Viggen was the Flygvapnet's primary air-defense platform, with the older Lansen relegated to target-tugs and electronics warfare, while the last J 35F wing converted in 1985.

-In order to maximize tactical flexibility, recon missions were often flown by an SH and an SF model, in this photo the SH is in the foreground and armed with a pair of Rb04 while the SF is in the background. | Photo: Flygvapnet

-A fully-loaded JA 37 on a test flight, armed with Sidewinders, Skyflash and cannon. | Photo: Flygvapnet

-Operationally the JA 37 flew in an air-superiority camo scheme of light and dark gray, while the other models sported the tri-color splinter scheme. | Photo: Paul Nann

The Viggen proved to be as easy to maintain as SAAB's engineers intended, with a team of five conscripts under the supervision of one chief mechanic able to keep a plane flying. Refueling and rearming a Viggen could be accomplished in as little as ten minutes, and an engine change could be completed in four hours. The 37 required 9 hours of front-line maintenance and 22 hours of depot level maintenance per flight hour, compared to the J 35, which required a total of 50 hours of maintenance per flight hour.

The effectiveness of the Viggen, as well as the Swedish air defense network as a whole, was demonstrated in the 1980s when, on several occasions. JA 37s tracked USAF SR-71 Blackbirds on their tracks into and out of Soviet airspace. Aided by the predicable course of the Blackbirds, and fed intercept data from ground controllers, the Viggen became the only aircraft acknowledged to have achieved radar lock-on of an SR-71, despite heavy jamming efforts by the American spy planes. These intercepts were kept classified well into the 2000s.

In the early 1990s, an upgrade program was started to modify the AJ, SF and SH variants to a single common configuration, known as the AJS 37. The modified Viggen would be a multi-role aircraft, and numerous upgrades were completed on the aircraft, including the addition of a new data bus and radar, which allowed the AJS 37s to carry AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles (license-built as the Rb99). The upgraded Viggen were also capable of carrying the Rb75, a license-built copy of the AGM-65 Maverick and the Rb15F, an upgrade of the Rb4 anti-ship missile. In all, 115 AJS 37 were completed, with maiden flight of the first converted aircraft occurring on 4 June 1996.

Ten Sk 37s, meanwhile, were converted to electronics warfare trainers between 1998 and 2000, which allowed the planes to act as aggressors during training exercises. This conversion was fairly involved, adding a new data bus, a GPS receiver and comprehensive reworking of the former instructor pilot's cockpit which included flat-panel displays, jammer controls and a separate radio for the electronics warfare officer. The Sk37 E Stoer ("Jammer") was also modified to carry a built-in radar jammer as well as external ECM and flare/chaff pods. The Stoer could also act operationally if the need arose.

The JA 37 fighters also received a series of upgrades in the 90s, including glass cockpit displays, new mission computers and data busses, improved ECM capabilities, a Synthetic Attitude Heading Reference System (SAHRS) to improve navigation, and an upgraded radar that allowed them to also carry the Rb99 AMRAAM missile.

-A JA 37D carrying 3 Rb99 and two Rb24, along with an electronics warfare pod, during an intercept mission. | Photo: Flygvapnet

Despite these upgrades, the Viggens were rapidly approaching the end of their service lives, and in fact had received several extensions due to the protracted development and production of the JAS 39 Grippen that was to take their place. These issues were finally sorted out in the early 2000s, and the final JA 37D was retired from Swedish service in 2005, while the Sk 37E held on until 2007. There were no export operators of the Viggen, despite the proposed 37X variant for Norway in the late 60s, and an attempt in 1975 to sell the 37E model to NATO as a replacement for the F-104 Starfighter.

SURVIVORS

Two Viggen, an AJS and an Sk, are registered to the Swedish Air Force Historic Flight association and are maintained in flight-worthy condition, registered as SE-DXN and SE-DXO respectively. Nearly two dozen Viggen, in part or in whole, are on display in Sweden and across Europe.

-SE-DXN on its inaugural flight after restoration. | Photo: Ragnhild & Neil Crawford

-An AJS 37, in a commemorative red paint scheme, at the Swedish Air Force Museum, Malmslätt. | Photo: Mangan2002

[usafphantom2]

kitchener.lord Following

Martin XB-26H

This strange-looking tandem gear, mounted on a U.S. Army Air Forces Martin B-26 Marauder, is the Glenn L. Martin Co.'s answer to a problem of stowing heavy, bulky landing gears in the thinner wings required for new multi-jet planes. Two main wheels, fore and aft of the wing, retract into the fuselage, while smaller outrigger wheels on either wing will aid the pilot in balancing the plane while taxiing. Here, the small wheels are located in the engine nacelles. On jet planes, they will be on the wing tips. Burning rubber and deep skid marks at the Glenn L. Martin Middle River Airport indicate the severe tests to which the new type tandem gear was put by Martin test pilots.

(U.S. Air Force photo)

[sw5w]

Lord Maul Arrives on Tatooine

STAR WARS EPISODE I: The Phantom Menace 00:51:28

[the-delta-42]

The Return

The Return

Cody and Frankie froze when they heard the klaxon, the Citywide comm crackled to life, as Prowl spoke; “Autobots, Mobilise! Get all the Humans to the safe zones, The Decepticons are attacking!”

Rewind climbed up the fire pole, “Blaster sent me up to get you two, the rescue team is already heading to the safe zones.”

Frankie jumped to her feet and head towards Rewind.

“I’ll come in a minute,” Said Cody, inputting commands into his console, “I need to seal up the tunnels.”

Frankie paused and looked at Cody, who looked up, “I’ll be right behind you, I promise.”

Rewind guided Frankie to the pole and sent her down, “I’ll be watching for you.”

Cody nodded and continued closing the tunnels. Rewind headed down to Frankie and Blaster, the Autobot already having deployed Steeljaw, Ramhorn, Eject and Blockrock. The five mini-cons prepared to leave with Frankie, as the building started to seal up.

“We have five minutes to leave before we’re stuck in here,” Said Blaster, picking Frankie up and walking out the door, “Cody’s still got the exit tunnels to seal up before he can leave.”

“Will he be, okay?” Asked Frankie, looking behind Blaster as he moved away from the Firehouse.

“I’m sure he’ll be fine, Prowl’s nearby.” Dismissed Blaster, as the mini-cons scattered out to guide the humans to the safe zones.

TR

Drift looked up from Russell and Hank’s game when he heard a siren sound.

“That sounds like…” Sideswipe trailed as Bumblebee jumped into action.

“Autobots, Rev up and Roll Out!” Without waiting for the other, Bumblebee transformed and drove off, Grimlock and Strongarm following him, Drift summoned his mini-cons, transformed and followed them, leaving Sideswipe to bring up the rear. Fixit quickly guided the humans towards the remains of the Alchemor, activating the defence systems.

TR

Kade froze at the siren, before turning to all the humans around him, “Alright, everyone heard the warning, get to the safe zones!”

Soon enough, a sea of humans was being guided to the safe zones, while the Autobots took up positions around the City, waiting for the Decepticons to show themselves. Prowl watched as Brawn helped a group of humans to the ground.

The ground a few feet away from them exploded, with Skywarp landed not far from the group. The Decepticon sneered at the human, before levelling his cannon at them. Brawn saw him, before charging at the Decepticon, a single shot entering his shoulder. Brawn grunted, as more Decepticons landed and started shooting at the Autobots and the fleeing humans, the Autobot snarled and punched Skywarp in the face.

Jazz grabbed the barrel of a tank and yanked it upwards, Brawl transformed and threw the Autobot to the ground. A shot hit Brawl’s side, as Bumblebee transformed and skidded under the Decepticon. Prowl’s head rocked to the side, as Barricade punched him, Blaster fired his sonic cannon and sent Barricade into a fountain.

The Autobots held their defence, as the Decepticons started surrounding the city. Quickshadow jumped onto Blitzwing’s back and kicked him in the back of the head. Starscream watched as his loyalists attacked, Megatronus stood behind him and smirked.

“Soon, we will have our revenge.” Said The Fallen, as he dispatched Fracture to the makeshift prison the Autobot’s constructed, “My brothers couldn’t stop this.”

Back in the battle, Prowl, yelled as his door wings were shot off. Bumblebee rolled out of the way of Blitzwing’s rocket, before hooking his hands around the Triple Changers arm and launching himself into the air, grabbing a rocket as he did so. Bumblebee landed on Blitzwing’s shoulder and ripped panels and wires out of the Decepticon. As Blitzwing screamed, Bumblebee jammed the rocket into the hole he made and jumped away, shooting the rocket.

Blitzwing’s death silence the battlefield, the headless Decepticon toppled to the ground. Everyone was silence, before Brawn hefted Skywarp up and slammed him into the ground, allowing Grimlock to knock a vehicon into Astrotrain. Skyward managed to free himself of Brawn, before shooting into the air and firing a series of shots into Brawn’s back. The Autobot collapsed to his knees, before his spark flickered out and fell dead where he once stood.

A space bridge opened, granting Arcee, Bulkhead, Ultra Magnus, Smokescreen and Wheeljack access to the battle.

“What’s happening?” Asked Arcee, shooting at the Decepticons.

“Decepticon’s attacked, Blitzwing’s dead and Skywarp killed Brawn.” Reported Prowl, as Bulkhead charged Skywarp.

TR

Cody skidded to a halt as he reached the safe zone, “Kade, have you seen Frankie?”

Kade shook his head, before he could ask why, Cody ran off and started asking around for Frankie. Every person he asked, he received a negative answer. Cody worried his bottom lip, before steeling his nerves and running back out the entrance.

“CODY!” Yelled Kade, going to follow but being stopped by Hayley.

“Kade, it’s too dangerous.” Said his fiancé, desperately trying to get him to stay.

“Cody’s out there.” Protested Kade, as Dani contacted Blades.

“Blades, Cody’s just ran out the door, I think he’s looking for Frankie.” Said Dani, getting a grunt from Blades.

“I’ll send him your way if I see him, right now I have Vortex on my aft.” Said Blades.

“Stay safe, partner.” Said Dani, before shutting her comm off.

Cody ducked under an upturned car, avoiding a Decepticon chasing a stray family. The mother tripped and tried to scramble away. Cody spotted some of Wheeljack’s inventions in the middle of the road, the Wrecker must’ve come back when the Decepticons attacked. Cody grabbed the boomsticks, ran out and jammed one of the explosives into the Decepticons foot. When the Decepticon fell, Cody pulled the hunting knife Dani got him and stabbed the Decepticon’s eyes. Once he was certain the Decepticon was blinded, Cody shoved the second one of the boomsticks into the crater where the Decepticon’s eye was. Cody quickly helped the mother to her feet and pulled her and her family away from the Decepticon as it’s head exploded.

“They’re a safe zone a block away, head there.” Said Cody, already heading in the opposite direction.

“What about you?” Asked the mother, as her husband started to lead the children to the safe zone.

“I’m looking for someone,” Called Cody, as the ground shook and dust fell, “don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

The woman watched Cody get further away, before following after her family.

TR

Miko and Raf helped triage the injured, as Jack helped the medical staff. Jack just finished dressing a wound, when Frankie came up behind him, “We need some more gauze.”

“There should be some in supply closet 12.” Said Jack, helping his patient up, “It’s down the hall and numbered.”

Frankie nodded and raced off, Doc Greene and Professor Baranova were helping with moving the patient to a seating area. Jack winced as a loud explosion shook the ground. Frankie was coming back from the supply closet with the gauze, when her phone went off.

“Kade?” Answered Frankie, handing Dr McSwaine the gauze, “What’s wrong?”

Frankie stiffened, “He what? I…I’ll called Quickshadow, she’ll find him.”

“Frankie, what wrong?” Asked Miko, looking at the younger girl.

“Cody’s out in the battle zone,” Choked Frankie, trying to keep calm, “Kade said he’s looking for me.”

Miko froze, before glancing over at Jack, “Cody’s going to be fine, he’s a fighter, Frankie. I’m sure Cody will be bringing people through the doors soon.”

TR

Cody’s left hand ached as he kept it close to his side, his right hand held a blaster he’d taken off a Decepticon Mini-Con. He aimed his blaster at the nearest Decepticon’s ankle and fired. The ‘Con collapsed to the ground, allowing Cody to shove a boomstick into it’s eye. Cody had killed seven Decepticon this way and he’d just used the last boomstick he’d come across. Cody quickly sent the other humans toward the safe zones and looked up. Cody spotted Prowl fighting Barricade, before he pointed the blaster up at the Decepticon’s head and pulled the trigger.

Barricade’s head rocked to the side; his left optic completely destroyed. Prowl took his change and fired several shots into Barricade’s spark. Barricade fell to the ground, dead. Prowl looked at the origin of the shot and did a double take at Cody.

“Cody, what are you doing here?” Demanded Prowl, crouching in front of Cody.

“I can’t find Frankie, she’s not in the safe zone.” Said Cody, shooting at Brawl’s ankle.

Prowl frowned and looked at Cody, before he looked up again. Prowl saw Thundercracker aiming at Cody, a sick grin on his face. Thundercracker fired and Prowl jumped in front of the shot. Cody looked up as his guardian jerked and stepped backwards over him. Prowl had a hole in his midsection, before another shot made a second hole in his shoulder and another into his chest. Cody saw Prowl’s optics flicker orange, before smoke started to pour out of the Autobot’s mouth. There was a splintering sound as Prowl’s optics shattered. The autobot took a few steps forwards, before Thundercracker sent a final shot into his spark. Prowl fell backwards, Cody scrambled out of the way, but got his leg crushed by Prowl’s head, a shard of metal piercing Cody’s leg and crushed the limb. Prowl’s body suddenly jerked as his chest exploded. Cody stared at Prowl’s remains, unable to look away from them.

Thundercracker took a step forwards, but was knocked back from a tank shell.

“Autobots! Attack!” Yelled Warpath, as Quickshadow, lifted Prowl’s head and pulled Cody out from under the spike.

“What?” Asked Cody, looking up at Quickshadow, tears streaming down his cheeks, “Where are we going? We can’t leave him! Please, Prowl needs help.”

“Prowl’s dead, Cody!” Said Quickshadow, forcefully, “And if we don’t get you out of here, you’ll be too.”

Quickshadow started running towards the Medical safe zone, Cody resting in her hands. The boy watched as Beachcomber was shot in the neck and fell dead over his lifeless guardian. Ironhide shot at Thundercrack, but the Decepticon flew away. Quickshadow passed the smouldering remains of Windcharger, while Hound provided covering fire.

Quickshadow came to a halt and knocked on the door, Raf poked his head out and saw Cody, “Jesus! Thanks, Quickshadow.”

Quickshadow nodded, before standing up. The femme turned around and was immediately hit in the face with a rocket. Quickshadow’s remains fell, with her head rolling off as soon as she hit the ground.

Cody and Raf stared at the dead Autobot.

“We need to get you inside.” Said Raf, helping Cody through the doors, “Guys, we have one who’s legs been crushed!”

Miko looked up and saw Cody, looking much paler than when she’d last seen him. June spotted them and walked over, she frowned and looked at the leg, “That’s got energon poisoning, we need to amputate.”

“There’s a room down the hall where we can remove it.” Said a nurse, taking Cody from Raf.

June nodded, before heading over to a box that held surgical tools. June immediately found the surgeon and informed her of the situation.

No one noticed Frankie’s frozen form as she watched Cody come in and be taken to have his leg taken off.

TR

Skywarp’s dead body hit the ground, Huffer fired a shot at Starscream, as received a shot to the face. Bumblebee and Arcee didn’t glance at Huffer’s corpse, while Strongarm stared at it. Hound came crashing down, with Starscream knocking the top of his helm off and shooting him in the back of the head.

Arcee transformed and sped towards Starscream, before transforming again and jamming her fist into his head. She activated her blaster and fired round after round into Starscream’s head, all that was left was a smoking hole where his helm used to be. Starscream’s body fell, just as the Fallen dropped down from the sky. The Prime landed on his back and started to scramble to his feet, when the most unexpected Bot stood on his chest. Optimus Prime glared down at his brother, before activating his weapons and fired a single shot into Megatronus’s chest.

Optimus watched at the life left his brothers eyes. Silence reigned the battlefield, The Autobots looked around, seeing that all the Decepticons, who weren’t dead, had fled.

“It can’t be.” Uttered Ultra Magnus, stepping forwards, “Optimus.”

“Hello, old friend.” Said Optimus, as he spotted the remains of Hound and Huffer, “How many did we lose?”

“Seven in total, sir,” Said Ultra Magnus, looking up at Optimus, “but they died defending the humans.”

“Some were wounded as they were evacuated.” Reported Ultra Magnus, as Arcee walked towards Optimus.

“We lost Prowl, Brawn, Beachcomber, Quickshadow, Windcharger, Hound and Huffer,” Listed Arcee, “Blaster and Ironhide received minor wounds, while Jazz, Sideswipe and the Rescue Bots are going to require some new limbs.”

“And what of the humans that were wounded?” Asked Optimus, making Arcee tense.

“Some were wounded heading to the safe zones…” Arcee sighed, “Optimus, some of the humans were saved by Cody Burns.”

“While that is pleasing to hear, I fail to see how that correlates to the wounded.” Stated Optimus, raising an eyebrow.

“Cody was wounded when Prowl died.” Said Arcee, glancing up at Optimus, “He also took out a few Decepticons.”

Optimus frowned, before stepping forwards, “Take me to him.”

TR

Frankie sat beside Cody, her eyes resting on the point just above his left knee where his lower leg was missing. The energon that had infected his wound had literally started cooking the leg while Cody was still alive. Her parents were out looking around the city for any more wounded, Jack was locating the dead and Raf was off with Ratchet working on the Autobots that’d survived. Miko sat in the corner, watching Cody and Frankie.

“He’s going to be okay, you know?” Asked Miko, carefully watching Frankie.

“You don’t know that.” Responded Frankie, not looking at the woman.

“I do know,” Assured Miko, getting up and walking towards her, “I may not have been maimed helping the Autobots, but he’s going to be okay.”

“How?!” Demanded Frankie, whipping around to glare at her, “How can you know if he’ll be okay if you’ve never gone through what he has?!”

“Because he’s got us, and Jack and Raf, and the Bots.” Said Miko, simply, “We’ll be there for him, it may take some time, weeks, months or even years, but we’ll be there to help him and, one day, he’ll be okay.”

“An excellent observation, Miko.” Said a deep baritone that made the woman freeze.

Miko turned and came face-to-chest with a man, that was undoubtedly a holoform.

“Optimus?” Asked Miko, dumbstruck.

The holoform, Optimus, nodded, “Arcee informed me of Cody’s situation, especially after the loss of Prowl.”

Frankie wiped her eyes and got up to leave, “I’ll go help with the search.”

“I do not think Cody would want his spark mate to leave.” Said Optimus, evenly.

“Spark mate?” Questioned Frankie, looking at Miko.

“Cybertron’s equivalent for significant other.” Explained Miko, folding her arms, “And Optimus is right, Cody wouldn’t want you to leave and worry. I’m sure he’d want you to be here when he wakes up.”

Frankie wiped her eyes, before nodding and sitting back down, “What if he doesn’t want to see me?”

“Francine,” Said Optimus, getting her attention, “Cody cares enough for you to head out into a war zone to ensure you were safe.”

“But Prowl…” Frankie trailed off.

“Prowl would’ve died either way,” Said Optimus, placing his hands behind his back, “you cannot hold yourself accountable for actions out of your control.”

Frankie was silent, only moving to hold Cody’s hand.

TR

Word spread of Optimus’s return and the defeat of the Decepticons. Cody woke up a week after the battle, after the socket for his leg had been attached. A couple days after, Cody was walking with a cane out of the hospital. Cody paused at the sight of the rescue team.

Boulder now sported massive wheels and Chase’s headlights were now on his chest. Heatwave’s ladder was split into two parts and Blades sported a face plate over his mouth and four rotor blades opposed to two.

“Cody!” Gasped Blades, crouching down in front of the boy, “We were so worried.”

“I’ll be okay, guy.” Said Cody, trying not to look at Prowl’s former space.

“I mean, it’s not everyday you survive Thundercracker.” Continued Blades, rambling, “There are rumours that he’s somewhere nearby, waiting to get revenge.”

“Blades, intelligence reported that they picked up his signal several miles out.” Said Heatwave, looking at the helicopter.

“It’s good to have you back, Cody.” Said Boulder, as Frankie embraced the boy, “We all missed you.”

“Some more than others, huh?” Joked Cody, as Frankie buried her face in his neck.

“We also heard about your actions in the battle, Mr Decepticon Killer.” Jested Heatwave, making Cody laugh.

“I only did what someone else would’ve.” Dismissed Cody, resting his cheek against Frankie’s head, “I’m going to head up, I’m pretty tired.”

Cody detangled himself from Frankie and heading to the lift, “I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

Once the lift doors closed, Cody sighed and slumped against the wall, he’d wait until everyone was asleep and then go. He managed to take a bag of Wheeljack’s weapons without anyone noticing, of course, they’d probably be wondering why he left his school stuff at the base. Cody sighed through his nose, he saw where Thundercracker had been hanging around, he knew where he was. Thundercracker was going to pay.

[giant-of-steel]

Dropping in for a Visit

@captainseamech

An SR-71 Blackbird flew over Tides ship, banking a hard right as its nose aimed towards the ships deck. As the aircraft began a quick descent, worn, slightly rusted parts began to shift and scrape as Jetfire changed to his bot-form mid air.

"Oh bugger me! Coming in a bit hot! Deploy flaps!" Jetfire barked. In response, half of his flaps activated, and of those half two of the smaller flaps broke off completely.

Primus damn these old parts! Alright, I might be able to stick the landing if I angle my shutes just right-

The loud thud and scraping of metal plating on the ships deck would have alerted anyone on board that Jetfire did not stick the landing, nor was he able to deploy his shutes, but rather slammed right onto the deck and skidded to a halt. With a painful groan, more so to his pride, the old bot got to his pedes right as his parachutes deployed, sending him right back onto his aft.

What followed was a few loudly shouted obscenity, directed at the current state of his parts and the gravitational pull on this particular planet.

[xiu21chen99]

hxh headcanon!!

/imagine ofc!! everyone expected another, i hope shhdjdkf

umm... my art?? I'll be transferring it to digi-art tomorrow or sth but uh be nice pls, im new to dis

the art is related to the hc,,, anYWAYS DARK CONTINENT ARC TIMELINE and... TW! blood, violence and death. this is what i envision the "battle for hisokas head" arc story thingey would go

ON THE BLACK WHALE!

Hisoka has killed most of the spiders already, all that was left were Illumi, Kalluto, Chrollo, Shizuku and Bonolenov (bc the latter three formed a group truce rmmbr)

he decides to save the Zoldycks for last so he hunts for the mf who mangled his face and literally killed him

Hisoka makes quick work of killing Bono and Shizuku (nooo my bby ;-;)

Chrollo and he have a sort of stalemate stance bc they're in a discrete room in the Black Whale, they're meters apart and they're literally just walking in a circle to see who'd make the first move

Bono and Shizuku's bodies are in the same room

Illumi comes in with Kalluto in tow and the two siblings stop dead in their tracks to watch

that's when Hisoka moves in for the kill

but Chrollo counters w a spell he pulled from his book- an explosion erupts, tho it's a small, kind of controlled one but still, everyone in the room are forced back

Hisoka's thrown to a wall while the other three skid back on the feet

the emergency alarms ring in the room, the automated doors move to close

Illumi and Kalluto make eye contact before Kalluto runs for it, Illumi goes to block the door when he left, making sure Chrollo doesn't follow suit before walking towards Hisoka

"what are you doing?" Chrollo asks when Illumi helps the clown to his feet.

"oh, did i not tell you?" Illumi pulls out a few needles from his outfit "Hisoka has also commissioned for your head, but only under the circumstance where he could see."

"no, you forgot to mention that." Chrollo humors, book in hand and a forced smile on his lips

"oh this should be fun," Hisoka adds beside him, cracking his neck with a sinister grin

"i take it you were serious about the... engagement ring you mentioned earlier?" Chrollo asks as he flips to a page in his book

"quite, yes. i have already told my brother to not contact our parents about it, hence why he was with me up until now." Illumi explains, pins glowing with violet nen

"how boring, i had hoped you'd at least introduce me to my in-laws before we get on with it." Hisoka teases, cards in hand

"disgusting." Chrollo sneers, and the tension in the room snaps.

There's another explosion, quite bigger and definitely stronger. Illumi blocks the stray debris from his eyes with a hand, squinted eyes taking in everything that was to see.

Hisoka was still beside him though his head was snapping from left to right trying to navigate their common target

There's whispering, then Chrollo's puppets appear behind them, seeming to have grown from the concrete ground

they were mindless pawns, Hisoka gladly kicked them all til they returned to dust

what came next were Bono and Shizuku, though Illumi could have sworn they were dead earlier

"it's a stolen power, they might still be able to use their nen." Hisoka warns, and as if to prove his point Shizuku attacks Illumi with Blinky

"cut off their heads!" Hisoka yells, disappearing into the still present dust cloud of the post-explosion

Shizuku was the easier target, death made her think that vacuum of hers was a sword. Illumi pins her to the wall and snaps her head off

Bono was more clever, he hid in the dust and used his whistle like body to distract Illumi from where he actually was

Then he attacks when he had his back turned to him

But Illumi soon gets the hang of it, whips back to his right to catch Bono mid jump, and crushes his neck like paper

He drops the twice killed body and wipes his hands on his pants

There's strong aura somewhere in the room, so he follows his instincts through the smog

Another explosion, but this time actual smoke builds up in the room, triggering the fire alarms and the sprinklers

"you fucking bitch!"

"you should have stayed dead, Hisoka!"

Illumi follows the voices and now obvious sounds of fighting

as the smoke clears, he sees multiple figures go after who he assumes was Hisoka. Logically speaking, he was the only target of those useless puppets

Illumi jumps to his feet to help him, throwing pins at the three running to Hisoka at stumbling speed

He lands behind Hisoka with grace, feet as silent as ever.

the smoke is nearly gone now, so when Illumi turns to see if Hisoka was alright he's shocked to find a rock figurine, roughly formed to Hisoka's shape and build

"Hisoka-"

"i can't believe you fell for that" Chrollo says behind him, but Illumi has already sent needles flying his way

"what did you do?"

unprepared, Chrollo's sent to the wall, hands pinned and spread. there were matching pins buried deep into the palms of his hands making him unable to move

"I just killed the bastard who shouldn't have come for my friends."

his hands needed to touch something to detonate. with two more pins each added to his hands (and two more to each of his feet), Chrollo's made to float with Illumi's Manipulation

(hc power here bc i think he could do this, but he only saves it for special occasions or enemies lol)

Illumi pulls forth a mind control needle amd jams it into Chrollo’s forehead, “answer my questions, and answer me truthfully"

"what did you do to Hisoka, you could not have killed him in that short amount of time. I should have been able to sense something if you did. he is not in this room, so where is he?"

Chrollo groans, "he's trapped in the room i laid out for him"

"explain."

"i stole some random passenger's teleportation ability. its' condition is to only be able to open a portal if the room's closed and only has one door. i opened the portal and left him in the in between."

"you have been planning this, correct?"

"i only came up with it when Shizuku encountered the man with this power. he's still alive of course, but if i kill him then his nen portals would cease, and Hisoka will be trapped in that limbo forever."

"and nen after death..?"

"he adores the spiders, he surely won't hold a grudge if i killed him for this."

"this is a well executed plan." Illumi complements despite the situation

"thanks."

"open the portal, bring him back."

"why should i?"

Illumi grabs another pin from his shirt, this time giving it a lick before jamming it into Chrollo's arm

"i am already annoyed at how everything has turned out, just pull Hisoka out of the portal."

life slowly drains from Chrollo's eyes, as he goes limp against Illumi's pins that kept him afloat and away from any possible detonation medium

Chrollo-puppet, now on his own two feet, pulls out his book and flips to a page. The wall behind him opens, the metal folding out as if crumpled then Hisoka walks out, in shock. The wall closes silently, as if it never opened to begin with

Hisoka snaps out of it quickly, lips curving into a pleased smile, "nice work, Illu!"

Illumi waves a hand dismissively. "would you like to do the honors?"

"ooh~ don't mind if i do," Hisoka pulls out a card from somewhere and approaches the still Chrollo.

Illumi walks to a wall to lean against it, knowing Hisoka would take his time.

"you've married an idiot, Illumi Zoldyck." a voice said beside him, and he snaps his head up to see Hisoka's killing slash

"wait-"

But it was too late

another explosion, this time strong enough to blow the doors open and the walls broken

Illumi's once again pushed to the wall, back through the metal it poked him with blisters

As the dust settled for a third time, Chrollo stood in the middle of the room, unharmed and unpinned.

Under his foot, Hisoka. Dead?

"no-" Illumi coughs, dust filling his lungs

Illumi stumbles to the pair as Chrollo backs away, to the door now open

"Hisoka-" he falls to his knees beside the man, cradles the head to his lap. This was real, this was really Hisoka. he felt it- he felt the last ebbs of his presence fade along with the explosion.

He was really dead...

Was his Bungee Gum/after death nen a one time thing?

He was so stupid, he should have noticed that Chrollo was a fake. It had been too easy. Fuck.

Hisoka coughs, and Illumi zeroes in on it, on the way his once steady chest heaves with labored breaths. "Hiso- Hisoka?"

"Illu..." he drawls, unable to say it clearly

"what do i do?"

"ta... take m-" he coughs again, "take my heart, Illu."

"what do you mean?" Illumi presses a hand to the side of Hisoka's neck, trying to find a pulse

"this is my nen condition-" heave- "Bungee gum will help me get the engagement ring to you. it's in my heart, literally-"

"Hisoka, you are not making any sense-"

"just kill me already, illu-" cough- "and carve out my heart. you'll find the ring there."

"o-oh" Illumi's eyes widen

"do it, illu. before my-" heave again "nen runs out."

Hisoka's smiling. his glamour of texture surprise has worn off already, so his nose-less, peeling face stared back at Illumi

"go on, love."

with no other choice, Illumi elongates his nails and digs into the crevice between Hisoka's rib cage. his blood felt hot and sticky between his fingers, but Illumi dug deeper.

his heart was still beating though weakly, as if it still had a chance to live on

"bye, love." were Hisoka's last breathy words as Illumi pulls the organ out. It was shrouded in pink nen, Bungee Gum he thought, its distinct tint a permanent brand in Illumi's mind

gore slid down his hand, as illumi held it closer to his face for inspection

for a few fleeting moments it continued throbbing, but now it's stilled to a mere heart.

Illumi has done this method of killing before, but this is the first heart he thought held value

blood dripped from his hand down to Hisoka's smiling face, eyes open and gaze somewhere to Illumi's direction

as the Bungee Gum lifted, a ring popped out from an outward ventricle.

a bloody ring

how did he manage to do this?

despite the crimson, Illumi slips it to his ring finger with a grim smile

even after death, Hisoka still amazed him

He gently puts Hisoka's head to the ground, off his lap, and closes his golden eyes

Illumi's en grows with unbridled rage that it covered the whole ship. Chrollo is just a few hallways down

Bloodlust up in new heights, Illumi lets his presence explode, making sure nen and non nen users alike felt his hunger to kill

Finding Chrollo was too easy, but this time he's sure it was the real one. he was at the balcony, looking out into the sunset.

"i take it, you loved him?"

Illumi doesn't answer, instead walks closer with eery silence

"if you loved him then why didn't you tell him?"

one step forward, two, three. just a few more left.

"he wouldn't have reciprocated? blah, he was of peculiar taste, I'm sure he would've accepted you."

pins, needles, hell even a card he got from Hisoka. he threw all of it to Chrollo, aiming for where he was and the surrounding spots he could have gone to, to avoid them

pinned down and bleeding, Chrollo continues "or were you not aware you loved him until you saw him die right before your eyes?"

Illumi, more than once, said that assassins don't need friends. didn't have a need for anyone else but family.

but

"he was my friend. that's all there was to it."

Chrollo's head rolls to the balcony, falls off and to the sea. a king of hearts was placed where the head should be, engraved into the floor.

later that day, Illumi went back to the room where Hisoka was, to find Kalluto there. His kimono was bunched up by his hands to make sure blood didn't touch the ends.

"aniki, what happened here? where's danchou?"

"kallu, i want you to help me with something." Illumi said instead, "can you help me clean him up?"

"should we throw him overboard?" Kalluto gestured to Hisoka.

"no, i want to fix him up and find a coffin in this ship. i will bury him when we get back to the mainland."

"why?"

"because..." Illumi fiddled with the bloodied ring, "he was my husband."

for those of u confused don't worry, i am too. basically chrollo used a bomb dummy of himself and that’s the one hisoka killed but uh got him killed instead. shjsjfkf sorry if this was shitty it's 2:30am nd i just wanted to write this before i forgot. I'll fix it tomorrow hopefully

also the hc is the ring in hisokas heart thingey and maybe the room trap plan bc togashi wouldnt have introduced that bitch if he didnt plan on using him for the plot shjsjdkfkgl good night!

[platonicteenwolf]

Wolf Moon (S1E1) Part IV

Teen Wolf x Reader Series Rewrite

A/N: Hey! Thank you all for the positive feedback! Sorry the schedule has been so slow, I’ve just recently started my last year of school so there’s a lot going on for me. I appreciate all of your patience!

They/Them Pronouns Version

He/Him Pronouns Version

Next Part / Masterlist

Warnings: none

Scott comes out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist when someone walks into his room.

“Is this a party or a date?”

Scott jumps, startled. His Mom has the car keys held out in her hand.

“Maybe both.”

He reaches for the keys, but she pulls back.

“And her name is?”

“Allison.”

She hands him the keys.

“We don’t need to have a talk do we?”

“Mom, I’m not having the safe sex talk with you.”

“Oh, oh my god, no I meant about keeping the tank full. Give me those back.”

“Are you serious?”

“You bet your ass I’m serious. I am not going to be on some reality show with a sixteen year-old pregnant girl.”

—————

Scott pulls up to the curb outside Allison’s house. Drumming his fingers on the steering wheel in anticipation, the front door of the house opens and Allison steps out. Looking absolutely stunning under the glow of the streetlights, she approaches the car while pushing a strand of hair from her eyes.

Suddenly realizing he’s still in the car with his mouth hanging open, Scott scrambles to get out and open the door for her.

Driving, Scott and Allison sit in silence. Absolute and agonizing silence.

“Is it okay if I turn on the radio?”

“Uh, yes. But you can’t,” she gives him a confused look as he continues, “Sorry, it’s broken. We’ve been meaning to get it fixed.”

“No worries. You mind if I put on some music anyways?”

Now it’s Scott’s turn to give a confused look. But Allison has her phone out. She turns the volume up and puts it on speaker.

“Nice taste in music.”

“What? You think all girls listen to is Lady Gaga?”

“I listen to Lady Gaga,” Scott mutters.

She does a double take. He’s serious. And she laughs.

“So do I.”

She puts her hand over his on the middle console, their fingers intertwining. Scott tries to hide his smile to play it cool. But he can’t. For just a moment, everything is absolutely perfect.

—————

Teenagers jam the outside of the house by the pool. Some already drunk, some high. Scott and Allison walk through the crowd. But Scott pauses when he hears a dog barking. A huge Rottweiler in the yard next door just beyond a chain link fence. And it’s barking at Derek.

He stands behind the fire pit, staring straight at Scott. But then he shoots a look at the Rottweiler. The dog stops barking instantly. Eyes locked on the animal, Derek gives an almost imperceptible nod. Tail between its legs, the Rottweiler submissively lowers to a sitting position. Satisfied, Derek turns back to a surprised Scott.

“You okay?” Allison asks.

“What? Oh... Yeah. Fine.”

When he looks back, Derek is gone. Movement catches his eye and he glances up to the roof of the pool house where a shadowy figure seems to disappear just past the chimney. Scott steps back, trying to see if he actually did just witness Derek leaping twenty feet off the ground. But there’s nothing there.

Allison then holds her hand out to Scott. Letting his fear go, he takes her hand with a smile. In the crowd, they start dancing. As they come closer and closer, as Allison starts to smile back at him, the usually timid Scott begins to let go.

His hands reach around her waist with the other teens pushing them closer. Bodies pressed against each other, her cheek brushes lightly against his.

Then through the crowd, Scott notices Lydia dancing with Jackson, grinding close to him, her fingers wrapped around the back of his neck. She presses her lips to Jackson’s locking him in a passionate kiss. As he eagerly kisses her back, sliding his hands down past her waist, Lydia opens her eyes and looks right at Scott.

Staring at him as Jackson goes at her neck. Unused to the attention of one beautiful girl, much less two, Scott finds himself dumbstruck until the bodies of the dancing teens push together to leave him alone with Allison again.

As Scott peers into her eyes, he realizes they’re about to kiss. Then the music begins driving almost like the quickening of a heartbeat. Scott’s heartbeat. The sounds around him intensify. His fingers clench back, veins at the surface of his hands as he presses against the fabric of Allison’s shirt. His upper lip pulls up momentarily to reveal a sharpened incisor.

Lights glaring in his eyes, Scott’s breathing tightens, sweat at his temples. He steps back, pulling away from her.

“Sorry... I... I’ll be right back.”

“Are you okay?” She asks for the second time tonight.

But he hurries past her and into the house.

—————

“Yo, Scott, you good?”

Hearing Stiles’s voice I look over and see Scott stumbling through the house, hand holding his head in pain.

As he makes his way towards where I’m at by the bathroom I try to get his attention.

“Scott? You all right?”

But he doesn’t answer, continuing to push through the crowd. I look towards Stiles searching for an explanation but all I got was a worried look. Is this the full moon? Is Scott about to turn into a werewolf?

—————

Finally, shoving past everyone, Scott charges out the front door. When he turns the corner, he glances up to the sky where the full moon shines brilliantly in the night.

Gasps now starting to sound like animalistic growls, he reaches his mother’s car. Just getting the keys from his pocket seems an almost colossal effort.

A second later, the car tears away from the curb as Allison comes out of Lydia’s house, looking around. No idea where Scott is.

“Allison.” She turns to see Derek coming toward her.

“I’m a friend of Scott’s. My name’s Derek.” He steps under the street light his deep black eyes, strangely hypnotic.

—————

Scott stumbles into his darkened bedroom, slamming the door shut and flipping the lock. Sweat at his brow, Scott charges into the bathroom. He flips the cold water knob on the shower, letting it pour over him. And then he notices something... his fingernails. Seeming to tear free, bone-like claws pushing them out from the tips.

Terrified, he stumbles out and to the mirror where he wipes away the steam to reveal rapidly growing fangs and two glowing, yellow eyes staring back at him.

—————

I stand in the upstairs hallway of the McCall house as Stiles pounds on the door of Scott’s room.

“Scott, it’s me.”

“Go away!”

Scott voice was laced with panic. I could only imagine what was going on out there. Footsteps could be heard inside the room and suddenly Scott had unlocked the door but only allowed it to open an inch.

“Scott, let us in,” Stiles urges.

“Come on dude we can help! Whatever it is.”

“No!” Eyes burning yellow, he stays hidden behind the door, face shrouded in darkness as Stiles tries to peer through.

“Listen, you have to find Allison.”

Remember seeing her when Stiles and I were running out of the house I reassure Scott, “She’s fine. I saw her get a ride. She’s totally fine.”

“No, I think I know who it is.” I could hear the pain in his voice as he continued talking.

I know Stiles could hear it too because he kept pushing the door open harder.

“Just let us and we can talk.”

“It’s Derek. Derek Hale’s the werewolf. He’s the one who bit me. He’s the one who killed the girl in the woods.”

Wait- Derek? But he’s.. “Scott... Derek’s the one who drove Allison from the party,” I say.

The weight of realization falling on him, Scott slams the door shut, locking it.

Realizing he can’t get in Stiles starts to bang on the door more urgently.

“Scott! Scott, wait--“

—————

Through the open bedroom window, Scott launches himself out from the second story. The full moon looming in the sky behind him, his hands slam down on the wet pavement.

Now, Scott’s crouched figure slowly draws up to reveal he’s no longer struggling against the transformation. He’s given into it.

Not a hulking beast but a leaner, more human monster. Both powerfully muscular and strangely seductive with gleaming yellow eyes, incisors reformed into fangs, ears tapered to points over thickened, wilder hair and fingernails grown to razor sharp claws.

The sixteen year-old boy is gone. Scott is now a werewolf, charging down the driveway and then suddenly up, leaping to the branch of one tree, hurtling to the next and then finally into the dark of the woods. In search of Allison and the danger she faces.

—————

Down winding roads and through twisting paths, flashes of moonlight briefly illuminate the outline of a figure moving impossibly fast.

At the tree-shrouded entrance to the Beacon Hills Preserve, Derek’s black Dodge Challenger sits in the parking lot.

Scott leaps down, landing right on the roof of the car. He peers through the windshield to see the vehicle is empty and then leaps off in search of its owner.

Charging out from the shadows, Scott lands on a moonlit fallen tree. Clawed hands resting on the dead trunk, his breath comes out in steamy gasps. His crouched and silhouetted body twists around, trying to catch a scent in the air.

—————

Stiles’s jeep skids to a halt just outside Allison’s darkened house. A second later, he’s scrambled out of the drivers seat and heading towards the steps to ringing the bell as I follow in hot pursuit.

Stiles‘ pounding on the door, finally stops when lights come on inside. The door clicks open and Mrs. Argent looks at us, confused.

“Hi,” Stiles starts, “We’re friends of Allison’s and this is going to sound kind of crazy. Actually really crazy. Actually crazy doesn’t even begin to--“

As his rambling continues on I cut him off to explain. “We’re looking for Allison.”

After giving me a warm smile, Mrs. Argent turns back inside and calls Allison from her room.

Stiles opens his mouth to speak again but then stops, Allison walks out of her room facing us from the banister. Wait, so if she’s fine then...

As a distant howl can be heard, Stiles and I turns to the sound, a look of understanding shared between us. It’s not Allison Derek was after.

It’s Scott.

—————

Racing into a clearing, Scott slows, looking up to find an unexpected and very strange sight-- a jacket.

It’s Allison’s. The jacket she was wearing at the party, now used to lure him here.

Something moves in the shadows. Scott whirls around, launching himself up as Derek comes out of the darkness and drags him back to the ground. They almost look like dogs grappling as they go up and then slam back down to the leaves and brush below them.

Derek holds him down, one hand wrapped around Scott’s throat. He’s unchanged in the full moon, except for a strange blue tint to his eyes.

“Where is she?” Scott’s voice is deeper, strangely demonic.

“She’s safe. From you.”

“What did you do?“

“Quiet,” His voice comes like a knife into Scott’s head, making him wince. Derek glances up to the woods around them, listening. “It’s too late.”

Scott’s yellow eyes flick left and right as if he senses something else in the woods as well.

“They’re already here,” Derek turns back to Scott, a hint of fear in his eyes. “Run.”

A second later Derek is on his feet, moving so fast he’s almost a blur. Scott barely has time to react when something comes soaring out of the darkness.

An arrow lands in the trunk of a nearby tree. The bolt explodes with a brilliant flash. Scott stumbles back, yellow eyes blinking furiously. Something about the flash has perfectly compromised his vision. When he looks up, Derek is gone. In his place, three figures emerge from the shadows. Silhouettes at first, they approach with purpose.

They look like hunters. One carries a Remington pistol grip shotgun. Another chambers a round in a Glock 21 handgun. The third and obvious leader of the pack, wields a much stranger weapon, a crossbow. Steel-tipped bolt pulled back and ready to fire.

Practically blinded, Scott can barely see a thing. Until his eyes focus on the determined face of the Leader, raising the crossbow to fire again. Scott tries to turn and run, but the arrow soars, tearing through the darkness and right into Scott’s forearm, pinning it to a tree.

As Scott howls in pain, the leader lowers the crossbow, allowing himself the slightest of satisfied smiles. Turning towards the other hunters he orders,

“Take him...”

The first Hunter comes forward, but then a large figure comes barreling towards him. Clawed hands grab the first Hunter by the back of his jacket and hurl him into the air, easily tossing him into the second Hunter.

The Leader retreats back, calmly and quickly redrawing his crossbow as Derek tears out of the shadows toward Scott. In one swift motion he snaps the shaft of the arrow in Scott’s arm and pulls him free.

“Go!” Derek shouts.

Scott charges forward, racing out of the clearing and back into the woods with Derek right behind him.

A shotgun blast fires just over their heads followed by a volley of gunfire.

“Faster!”

But Scott eventually slows and underneath his damp hair, his face has returned to normal. He’s back in human form. He staggers to a stop in the woods, gasping for breath.

When he looks up, Derek steps out of the darkness to face him. He doesn’t breathe hard at all, seemingly in perfect control of his abilities.

“Who were they?”

“Hunters. The kind who’ve been hunting us for centuries.”

Suddenly, the severity of the situation hits Scott. His anger level spikes as he realizes this is all Derek’s doing. “Us? You mean you. You did this to me!”

“Is it that bad, Scott? That you can see better, hear more clearly, move faster than any human could ever hope? You’ve been given something most people would kill for. The bite is a gift.”

“I don’t want it.”

“You will. And you’re going to need me if you want to learn to control it. You and me Scott. We’re brothers now.”

—————

The morning sun beating down on an empty tree-shrouded road. As Stiles and I drive down the highway, I notice Scott walking down the middle of the street.

Rolling down the window, I call his name, trying to get his attention.

“Scott? Are you okay? We’ve been driving all over looking for you.”

Exhausted, Scott slowly turns towards us as Stiles slows down next to him.

“You guys were right. About all of it.” As I clamber into the back-seat so Scott can sit in the front, Stiles tosses a jacket towards the wolf since he’s still only clad in pajamas. “You know what actually worries me most?”

Stiles scoffs and turns towards his best friend, briefly taking his eyes off the road.

“If you say Allison, I’m going to punch you in the head.”

“She probably hates me now,” Scott retorts.

Looking up at Scott from where I’m sitting in the back, I could tell he genuinely cared for this girl.

“I doubt she hates you dude. You should probably apologize though for ditching her the other night and come up with an explanation why.”

Butting in, Stiles adds on to my suggestion.

“Yeah or just tell her the truth and revel in the awesomeness of the fact that you’re a freaking werewolf.” Scott gives him a sideways glare, head still hanging low with disdain. “Okay, bad idea. We’ll get through this. If I have to, I’ll chain you up myself on full moon nights and feed you live mice. I had a boa once. I can do it.”

And finally, the tiniest smile is coaxed out of Scott.

—————

Waiting on a bench outside school, Scott jumps to his feet when he sees Allison come out the double doors.

“What happened to you last night? You left me stranded at the party.”

“I know and I’m sorry. I really am. But just trust me on this... I had a really good reason.”

“Did you get sick?”

“I definitely had an attack of something.”

Exasperated with his lack of answers, Allison asks, “Am I going to get an explanation?”

“For now... could you find it in your heart to just trust me?”

“Am I going to regret this?”

“Probably.” Scott takes a steps closer to her. “So are we agreeing on yes to a second chance?”

“Definitely yes.”

Then, just as it looks like they’re about to kiss, a horn beeps. An SUV pulling up to the front of the school.

“That’s my Dad,” Allison explains, “I better go.”

Scott nods, turning to head back. But then he pauses, head tilting up with an intake of breath. He’s caught a familiar scent. Glancing back, he sees Allison’s father. The face is instantly recognizable. It’s the man with the crossbow. The leader of the hunters.

He throws Scott a friendly smile, clearly not recognizing the boy as his prey from last night.

With the full weight of realization hitting Scott, the father of the girl he loves is also now his sworn enemy, his face clouds with dread, darkness surrounding him.

END OF EP 1

—————

Tag List: @linkpk88 @mochminnie @im-a-stranger-thing

[ltwilliammowett]

Filling the Waist

A frigate was as inconsistent in its design as the other higher-ranking ships. Especially noticeable is here that these ships had no closed upper deck and also no gundeck. Interestingly a frigate describes only a fast and usually small warship which already appeared in the 16th century. It may sound strange that the HMS Naseby, an 80 gun, ship-of-the-line from 1655 was called a frigate. What we know today as a frigate only appeared in the 1740s.

The models are above the descriptive text that belongs to this picture

Model of a 24-gun, 6th-rate, ca 1745

This ship had two decks, but no ports and layed deep in the water. Because on ships the gundecks are the only thing that counts, these ships were only a one-decker. The early specimens, did not have a continuous deck either. A longer quarterdeck and a larger fore ship were introduced, also adding a board capping strip over the waist gunwales. This may have been wide enough for an agile sailor to use as a shortcut from one deck to another, but it was far from any kind of gangway.

Model of HMS Amazon, 5th-rate, 32- guns, 1773 - a so called true frigate

The so-called true frigate is based on the studies made on carved French frigates. The new French frigates between 1740- 48, already had a gundeck and a kind of upper deck on which lighter cannons and swivel guns were placed. This was of course copied and refined a little bit more ( they started to place guns on the quaterdeck) which became the standard for frigates at sea. With these true frigate came a broading of this capping strip into a gangway. Although this was still very narrow, it allowed men and swivel gun mountings to be to be disposed along the waist, which was important in close action when boarding was a potential threat. From about 1757 quaterdecks were biuld with short extentions forward at each side, called on draughts 'the fixed part of the gangways' usually forming landings for the steps down into the waist. They were fixed in the sense that they were structural whereas the gangway boards were just a light platform. At this stage there was still a step down on to the gangway.

Model of HMS Mermaid,5th rate, 32-guns, 1784

In 1782 there was a general order to raise the waist of frigates and to make the gangways flush with the decks fore and aft. They remained fairly narrow and were not integrated- the run of planking was not carried from forecastle and quaterdeck into the gangways.

Model of a 32- gun, 5th rate, 1780

This coincided with the fitting of moveable skid beams across the waist to carry the spare spars and an increasing outfit of boats. The gangways now needed greater support to hold the hole constellation.

Model of HMS Diana, 5th rate, 38-guns, 1793

This was a short live expedient and by the 1790′s frigates had fixed skid beams fitted under the gangways.

Model of HMS Lacedaemonian, 5th- rate, 38-guns, 1812

An order of 1805 integrated the gangways fore and aft so the upperworks, in effect, now formed one continous deck. Structurally this was achieved by making the skids standard deck beams and supporting the gangways with the same beam-and carling system that underpinned the forecastle and quaterdeck. This was recognised in 1809 when the breastworks that had marked the limits of quaterdeck and forecastle wre abolished. From 1810 some frigates began to fill the remaining open space in the waist with light gratings, to produce a makeshift spar deck.

Model of HMS Vernon, 5th- rate, 50-guns, 1832

After 1815 there was a short lived flirtation with double banked frigates, mounting a complete battery on what was called the spar deck, but the waist guns interfered with sail handling so badly that the ship could not be fought and monoevred at the same time- a crucial consideration in a single ship action. Thereafter, evne though there was effectively a continuous upper deck, there might be a break in the bulwarks amidships and openings over the waist- regarded as useful in the battle to help disperse gun smoke from the gundeck.

[autisticlalna]

caution & crisis, part 2

fun fact: i wrote all of c&c over the course of about 2 days and am now just splitting it up into chunks so its easier to post. this might be one of the only times i do this. someone please stop me.

caution & crisis: 1 / 2

Grian finally found out that his shadow has a power, and decided to counter it in a very stupid way. now he’s lost in another dimension, and its up to him to find a way out... or up to the other Architechs to find a way to save their missing friend.

content warnings: jigsaw does some more bastardly actions, discussion of abandonment + isolation

-

    Grian was falling.

    There was no wind whistling in his ears like when he did a high-speed elytra dive, no rush of adrenaline telling him to push it, to wait ‘til the last second to fire his rocket and skid just above the ground while Ren or whoever else decided to challenge him hit it at terminal velocity. There were no clouds up above him, no light, nothing but darkness surrounding him as he dropped into infinity. It reminded him of his trips to the End; it brought up memories of flying out into the farthest islands with Tango, with nothing to catch him if he fell.

    Like he was doing now.

    His mind spun with questions. What just happened? Somehow, Jigsaw had dragged him into… well, the Shadow Realm, he guessed. Wherever shadows went when they weren’t summoned to the Overworld. If this endless void was all there was, though, then… He actually felt a little bad for them. He’d be pretty grumpy too if he got yanked out of the endless void only to get stabbed for sweet loot and sent back.

    Just when Grian was wondering if he was ever going to stop falling, ground rushed up to meet him. The collision knocked the wind out of him; he half-expected to be exploded into items and XP orbs on impact, and every part of his brain was telling him he should not have survived it, but… here he was. Laying on the ground in another dimension, disoriented and with no idea how he was going to get out of here.

    The landscape around him was made of what looked like an unrefined version of the black stone that made up the construction of the shadow temples back on the Overworld-- reminiscent of obsidian, but with the texture of smooth stone as he ran his hand over it. He was surrounded as far as he could see by void, broken up only by massive rough black stone cliffs and mountains that stretched up to build height. He’d been lucky to land on one of many ledges sticking out of one of the taller cliffs; below him, outcroppings jutted out of the massive pillar-like formation in the vague approximation of stairs leading down deeper into the flat darkness. Grian shivered.

    He craned his head back to look for where he’d fallen from and saw nothing but the shimmering patterns of the dark sky. There was no Grian-shaped hole he’d dropped out of, as hilarious as the mental image was to him, just… more darkness. Had he mentioned it was dark yet? At least his eyes were starting to adjust to the minimal light.

When staring into the abyss got him nothing, he settled for staring down at himself instead, the only splash of colour in this entire place that he could see. Everything else was just varying shades of black and grey. A thought occurred to him-- what if there were mobs here? He stuck out like a sore thumb. Would he be able to fight them off?

    He needed to find shelter. He had plenty of food on him, but that alone didn’t mean he’d be able to survive in a strange, hostile dimension he didn’t understand. With nothing else to do, Grian drew his sword and journeyed deeper into the dark.

    It wasn’t long before he was completely, utterly lost.

    Maybe going down had been the wrong idea, but it hadn’t looked like going up was going to do him any favours either. The further down he went, the darker it got-- he’d heard the phrase “darker than dark” before, and this place seemed to take it to heart. He’d tried to mark his path with torches, at first, but the instant he even held one in his hand the light would go out; after several tries, he’d given up and instead taken to mining out some of the stone every ten blocks or so to build tiny landmarks of “hey, I’ve been here”. Pale particles danced around in the air like fireflies; it wasn’t until Grian had ventured even further into the all-consuming darkness that they got bright enough and common enough for him to recognize them as the triangle particles the shadows constantly gave off. They kicked up off the ground with each step he took, blowing and twisting in an unseen wind; he watched as some of them stuck to his jumper like glitter, then twinkled and burnt out.

    He’d been at this for a while now, and he’d seen no sight of there being any inhabitants except for him. That sounded wrong in his head-- there had to be mobs here, right? This was where the shadows were from, so why hadn’t he found any? He thought he’d seen glimpses of something out of the corner of his eye-- something gold, the feeling of eyes boring into his back-- but every time he’d turned to look he’d just seen more clouds of particles. It was starting to seriously creep him out, but it wasn’t like he was able to do anything about it.

He sat down under a rocky overhang and sighed, feeling the cold atmosphere sink into him. The last message his communicator showed was an advancement notification; he’d tried sending several messages, including whispering Xisuma, but all of them had failed to deliver. Whatever this place was was wreaking havoc on his connection to the rest of Hermitcraft; hopefully it was a bug, rather than a feature, but either way it meant he was completely cut off from everyone.

    “This is how I die,” he moaned. “Banished to the shadow realm for my idiocy.” He flopped down on his back. “I hope Mumbo builds me a nice gravestone. Puts an inspirational quote on it.” His voice echoed in the silence. “Who will take up the mantle of Poultry Man when I’m gone? Iskall? Someone needs to be dispensing egg-y vigilantism!” Still no response from the desolate world. Grian pulled his communicator back out as if it would have started working again in the few minutes since he’d last checked. It hadn’t, obviously. He was starting to get restless.

    “...what if they never find me?” Grian asked in a small voice that sounded loud in his ears. The possibility was starting to feel very, very real. What if he died here but just respawned back up at the top, in an endless loop forever like Bdubs dropping from the sky? What if no one ever found out what happened to him other than a mysterious advancement notification? What if Jigsaw ran loose on the server forever, killing and torturing everyone it pleased until it got bored?

    “What if they never find me?” a far too familiar voice mocked. Grian froze as something landed on the overhang and dangled down to stare at him: a highlighter-yellow glowing copy of himself with solid black eyes. Grian gasped as he sat up and fumbled for his sword; the mysterious mob gave the impression of rolling its eyes (or so he guessed, it wasn’t like he could tell) and dropped down onto the ground in front of him. Ignoring the sword pointed at it, the mob grabbed him and hauled him to his feet to snarl at him. “You should’ve thought of that before you did something so… so stupid!”

    Grian leaned back as far as he could with the mob holding him fast. Great, so this clone of him was mean, too. Just his luck. Except… He tilted his head a little. The mob had a pair of familiar triangular spiral markings on its cheeks, the same black as its eyes. The same markings he’d seen far too often, and the same markings that had been one of the factors behind a certain shadow settling on a certain nickname.

No way. He stared at the mob, incredulous. “Jigsaw?”

    “Aaaand we have a winner!” Jigsaw let go of him and crossed its arms. “Congratulations, Grian, here’s your prize: being trapped in the Shadowlands! Because some~body decided to spoil my fun just when it was about to get good…”

    Grian crossed his arms as well in a mirror of his… shadow? It felt weird calling it that. It looked more like living light, glowing in the dark like he sometimes joked about Keralis’s shadow doing. If he squinted, he could see pinpricks of lights off in the distance-- what he’d assumed to be more of those triangle particles were most likely far-away shadow echoes dotting the landscape, ike Endermen in the End. “It was worth it,” he snapped. “At least you’re here too, instead of running off and hurting my friends…”

    Jigsaw exploded into raucous laughter. Grian took a step back as his shadow doubled over, clutching its stomach; it wiped at its face once its laughter subsided, although a malicious giggle still worked its way into its voice. “Oh, Grian, Grian, Grian… You really have no idea at all, don’t you?” It lifted its head up, flashing black teeth at him in a fierce grin. “This isn’t really me, Grian! This is just what gets left behind. You can’t cast a shadow without a bright light, you know~!” Its horrible laughter rang in his ears, echoing off the cliffs and into the endless void. “And guess what? As long as you’re here, you can’t do anything to stop me! Even your stupid sword is about as good as a butter knife.”

    “Yeah?” Grian snapped. “Well-- well you look like butter, so--!” Jigsaw gave him an unimpressed look as his sword swing swiped right through it, like he’d taken a swing at someone else’s shadow instead.

    “You really need to work on your one-liners,” Jigsaw grumbled. “Ah, but it’s such a shame that you won’t be there to see your friends beg once I’m through with them…~ Oh well! I’ll just have to tell you about it. Give you the play-by-play.” Another useless slash that did absolutely nothing passed through the shadow, and it gave an exaggerated yawn. “Well, bye-bye, Grian! Have fun being lost in the dark~”

    “Wait!” Grian grabbed Jigsaw by the sleeve. “How-- how do I get back?!”

    His shadow lolled its head back over its shoulder to look at him with that awful catlike smile that made Grian seethe with rage. “You don’t!” it chirped. “Didn’t you hear me earlier? You’re trapped! Hope you enjoy the view, because it’s the last thing you’ll ever see.” It flashed him a wicked grin, then vanished into a cloud of triangle particles before Grian could reply. He stood there, arm still outstretched from where he’d been holding his shadow, and stared at the drifting particles in despair.

    -

    Mumbo frowned down at his communicator. “Grian has made the advancement… ‘Into The Abyss’?” he read aloud. Iskall nodded from where he was looking at his own device; Murmur made an unhappy noise, and the diamond-eyed Architech held it out so the shadow could see the message as well. Chat was already starting to flood with questions from the other hermits; no one had seen Grian, nor had anyone heard of any new advancements that had been added in the latest patch. Enter the other two members of Architech, who were equally confused and worried about the radio silence from their missing friend.

    “No, but, look at that--” Mumbo scrolled up in chat and jabbed a finger at an alert from a few minutes before the mysterious message. “ ‘Grian’s shadow has been summoned’-- that means he summoned Jigsaw again.” He winced as he felt rather than heard a rumble of static; the glittering particles around his shadow jittered about like leaves in a storm until he placed a hand on its back and Murmur eased off with an apologetic look. "I'm not happy about it either," he admitted. "What's he doing?"

Iskall shrugged. "Whatever he did, it got him an advancement." He tapped the green text; a tooltip popped up, and he frowned as he read it. " 'Reach the Shadowlands'," he read. "Murmur? What's the Shadowlands?" It started signing rapidly in response; Iskall waited as its summoner tried to keep up.

"He says it's where the shadows are from," Mumbo translated. "It's another dimension…" The three exchanged glances. "You get there by-- I'm sorry, what?"

Murmur repeated the gestures, only a few of which Iskall recognized. The Architechs had been learning ASL with varying levels of success; Murmur's inability to talk made it a necessity, but Iskall only knew the basics and military sign thanks to the annoyance that was his own shadow. Killshot could talk, he was pretty sure-- but it preferred to view conversations with Iskall as "understand me or die". Mumbo, meanwhile, was around his shadow 24/7, so learning how to communicate was vital.

"You… use your shadow… as a portal?" Mumbo struggled. Murmur gave him a thumbs up. "Why? I mean-- why would you go there?"

"New dungeons?" Iskall suggested. "Maybe it's like why we go Endbusting-- you know, raiding dangerous dimensions for loot." He adjusted the straps of his elytra and checked his communicator again before putting it away. "We should go to the shadow temple-- make sure it's all clear when he gets back. It would suck if he came back with all this cool stuff and then got jumped."

Mumbo and Murmur both nodded in agreement. “Sounds good,” Mumbo confirmed. “Just… watch your back, okay? I don’t like the thought of his shadow being on the loose…”

    Despite the threat of Grian’s shadow looming over them, though, their trip to the shadow temple was rather uneventful. There were no traps, no ambushes, or really any sign of Jigsaw at all; Mumbo still moved cautiously, unwilling to let his guard down for even a second, but they got all the way to the entrance without any interruptions.

    Somehow that made it worse. Was this a new form of psychological warfare? Was Jigsaw taking a page out of Killshot’s book and going into hiding until they’d even forgot it was summoned so it could spring, unexpected, and kidnap them or shove them into its newest trap before they had any time to react? What if this was all just part of its game-- disposing of Grian, then baiting out all the hermits so it could do whatever it wanted to them?

    Iskall raised an arm and Mumbo walked into it. “Something’s wrong,” Iskall muttered. Mumbo squinted for any signs of redstone; in the low light, it would be easy for someone to hide pressure plates or tripwires, but try as he might he couldn't see anything. He told Iskall as much, and the bearded hermit shook his head. "No-- you can't see it? Look at the walls."

Confused, Mumbo did as instructed. There. Just barely visible was a pattern shifting over the walls and entryway; it stuck to the stone like a shiny film, although nothing happened when he poked at it. Behind him, Murmur tensed up and took a step back despite its altered instincts instructing it to stay as close to its summoner as possible. "It… it looks like its enchanted?" He turned to Iskall, wondering if that could really be the case. Iskall shrugged.

"Looks that way. I'm not sure how… you can't really enchant buildings, right?" Mumbo returned the shrug. Iskall stuck one leg through the doorway, sword at the ready. Nothing. "...Huh." He took another step in, then another, and Mumbo followed behind so that Iskall wouldn't leave him in the dust.

Murmur hovered near the door anxiously as its summoner headed deeper into the temple. It had a bad feeling about this. None of this had felt right, not since the advancement notification, but the two hermits pressed on anyway. "Wait--" Murmur braced itself, then stepped over the threshold as well. A wave of static washed over it, causing it to falter, but… but it was inside now, completely fine if a bit rattled. The static effect was still there when it took a step back out of the structure, but it wasn't preventing it from leaving. Murmur hopped back-and-forth a couple of times, adjusting to the uncomfortable feeling of passing through the near-invisible barrier, then remembered oh, right, Mumbo and ran down the hall after them.

"Grian?" Mumbo called out, uneasy, as they drew closer to the door to the summoning altar. The chest of materials was half-open, like someone had forgotten to close it in their hurry; there were no new signs placed, no books shoved in the chest, nothing Grian could've used to leave a message. It was like he'd just… vanished.

The door opened easily when Iskall tried it. The trio of would-be rescuers filed into the room and looked around; just like every room before now, it was empty. Grian hadn't even replaced the armor stand.

"Boo!"

Mumbo & Iskall screamed as a patch of darkness on the ground shot up into a three-dimensional figure. Grian's shadow cackled and hunched over, hands on its knees, before collecting itself and grinning at the group. "Hi there! Did you miss me?"

"No," Murmur hissed. Jigsaw pouted.

"Well, that's just rude." It leaned against one of the pillars and made a show of checking its nails. "Let me guess… you're here looking for Grian, aren'tcha?" It tucked its hands away in its pockets and leered at them mischievously. "I guess you haven't heard the news, then!"

"News..?" Mumbo knew that, whatever Jigsaw's plan was, he was falling for it. His shadow stepped in front of him, bristling and shooting Jigsaw an intense glare; he leaned around Murmur to try and see, even as his shadow shuffled around to try and stay as a barrier between him and the dangerous entity taunting them. "What news?"

Jigsaw's grin was venomous. "Grian's gone! Never coming back! Fell out of the world, lost in the void, whatever you'd like to call it!" It laughed at the look of horror on Mumbo's face. "I gave him a one-way ticket to oblivion!"

Iskall… didn't look impressed. "You're lying," he drawled. "We saw the advancement. Why would Mojang add a dimension you can't get back from?"

"Ah-- Er--" Jigsaw was taken aback. "Well… because…"

"And if Grian isn't here to stop you," the hitman continued, "why are you still here?"

"B- Because--" The flat black of Jigsaw's skin turned a bit darker as the shadow flushed with embarrassment. "Because shut up, is why!" It was now Iskall’s turn to look smug as the shadow scrambled for a better rebuttal. “Maybe I don’t wanna, huh? You ever think of that? Maybe-- Maybe--”

It clicked. “You’re… stuck?” Mumbo asked, incredulous. “Like-- like you’re trapped here?” The mysterious barrier came to mind immediately. Jigsaw’s angry seething was all the answer the Architechs needed.

    Murmur turned around and got Mumbo’s attention. It’s so Grian can get back, his shadow signed with a look of dawning realization. He can’t leave!

    “HEY!” Jigsaw barked. “Don’t turn your back on me! What’s-- what’s he saying? Murmur! Hey!” Murmur ignored it. Iskall muffled a snort of laughter; with the danger removed, Jigsaw was… more like just an annoying brat.

    “He’s saying you can’t leave,” Mumbo translated, more for Iskall’s benefit than Jigsaw’s. “You are stuck!” He couldn’t help it-- he laughed. “We can just leave you here!”

    “NO!” He’d let his guard down. Jigsaw launched at Mumbo and grabbed him by the suit lapels, eyes burning with fury. “I am not a joke! Stop it!” Its deathgrip released suddenly as Murmur yanked it back by the jumper and tossed the rowdy shadow to the floor; it tried to get back up, but was stopped by Iskall pointing a sword at him. “...you know that doesn’t do anything, right?”

    “Yes,” Iskall admitted, “but it’ll feel good.”

    Jigsaw sat cross-legged on the floor and crossed its arms, scowling. Iskall kept his sword leveled at it, while Murmur stepped back in front of Mumbo to act as a shield. After a few minutes of the stand-off, Jigsaw grinned and leaned back to look up at them. “Besides,” it teased, “even if you could kill me, you shouldn’t~ You kill me, you kill Grian’s only exit! So no asking Killshot for help this time~”

    Iskall’s eye widened and he took a step back. Jigsaw rested its head in its hands and smiled, pleased with itself. Mumbo tapped Iskall on the arm and the two and a half Architechs got into a group huddle to whisper at each other. “What are we going to do?” Mumbo asked, worried. “If he’s right, then… then Grian’s stuck. How do we get him out?”

    We could leave him there, Murmur suggested as a mean joke. It wasn’t so much as Murmur hated Grian, just… highly disapproved of just about everything he did when it came to his shadow. Mumbo gave it a distraught look. “Sorry,” it said out loud with a sheepish expression. Back to signing: Jigsaw’s right about being Grian’s exit. Killing him is not going to work.

    Iskall listened as Mumbo translated, then smirked. “Hold on, boys, I’ve got an idea.” He clapped them both on the back and broke away from the huddle to turn and face Jigsaw again. “Sooo, Jigsaw…” The shadow perked up as it was addressed. “So if I’m understanding this right… Grian’s out of the picture for now, yes? There’s nothing stopping you from doing whatever you want to anyone on the server?”

    “Correct!” Jigsaw beamed. “Why, are you volunteering?”

    “No, it’s just…” Iskall folded his arms behind his back and kicked at the floor. He tilted his head back to hide his smile as he continued. “Well, you can’t leave, though, right? At all?”

    Jigsaw hesitated. “...I don’t like where this is going.”

    Target locked. Iskall leaned down so he could look the living problem in the eyes. “Sooo… as long as Grian is in the Shadowlands, you’re stuck. You can’t do anything. Ever. No more traps, no more pranks, no more kidnapping, no more chaos, no more fun, no more games…” Jigsaw stared up at him with dawning horror. “Sure, we can’t kill you, but… you know there’s other shadow temples on the server, right? We can just… y’know, board this one off. Seal it up. Leave you here.”

    “You wouldn’t,” Jigsaw gasped. “You’re-- you’re not that cruel!”

    Iskall smirked. “Wanna find out?” He straightened up and spun on one heel, then spread his arms to escort Mumbo and Murmur towards the door. “Let’s go tell Xisuma the good news, eh? Maybe Admin can find a way to get Grian back…”

    “W- Wait! No! Nononono-- DON’T LEAVE ME HERE!”