#anyways.. the gals.. repurposed for the modern era...

[autistic-shaiapouf]

@ravenfeet222 come see these ladies 👀

Also yes I said the name of the Accurséd Webcomic on main, what of it 👀 not even gonna bother explaining what happened in the actual canon that I modified bc I changed so much it doesn't actually matter lmao

So, this gang of seven girls was initially tied to a monarchy, they were all childhood friends of the king in power and acted as close confidantes to him. While the king was the face of the monarchy, the queen did all the real work with politics and diplomacy and this is something that was known to everyone; the king was the public face because he was generally a pretty sweet guy, not the smartest but a good man at heart. Quick cut and dry plot is that war breaks out and the queen is the one who actually enters the battlefield and dies in combat, leaving her husband and his friends to take up the helm. Her husband is not smart enough to do this and is ousted because everyone is certain war will break out again with this guy in power; the girls don't flee with him, but when they leave they all go together in a "we're not related, but sisters don't leave each other behind" kind of way, with their exit being motivated by having been so close with the former king and knowing the citizens will start questioning why they didn't do anything, why they knew he was incompetent but let him step up anyways, making them complicit in a political disaster. Some time passes in exile and they band together as a gang to prepare to defend themselves from any threats but nothing truly comes to arise. Eventually, the former king wanders back in, they all thought he'd been killed, and they give him the position of being their leader - a functionally useless title, he's kind of just being tacked on, but he's their friend at the end of the day and they just wanna make him feel included.

I can expand on that and give a more detailed summary but this is about the girls so that's what we're jumping to 👀 I did make them at least a decade ago, there's 7, what comes in 7s that I enjoyed at the time? They're named after the 7 deadly sins, though now I think those are just code names they gave each other to evade identification if the need arose.

This is the most recent art I have of all of them together bc it's been so long since I've actually thought about them 😭 from left to right:

"Snowflake" - the former king, not very book smart but surprisingly emotionally intelligent; he loves his friends to death and would lay down his life if it came down to it. Generally an upbeat little guy, he's an optimist. Still processing the grief of losing his wife and his entire home, but the girls are close enough to be considered family so that helps ease the pain. Lowkey is the golden retriever boy and at this point is exclusively friends with women who are all more talented and competent than he is.

"Sloth" - She's got that type of depression where you're just tired all the time, you look into her eyes and you can see she's just exhausted. She's got psychokinetic abilities, moving and manipulating objects with her mind, her hands glow when this activates; like a physical ability, the more she uses it, the easier it gets and the longer she can use it for, so there are days when she'll just sit there and move the same thing across the room for hours at a time. 100% the first one to leave a party and request the music be turned down. Deadpan and dry sense of humor. Also the tallest at 7'2, but frequently slouches over while standing; genuinely a little scary when she straightens out to her full height and she knows it well.

"Greed" - The de facto leader of the group. She's in a constant state of low level stress trying to ensure everyone's safety, even with all the reassurance that all the animosity from the kingdom has died down and the people have moved on. She tends to be lost in thought, picking up hobby after hobby to try to keep busy, she's currently on a cooking kick and has a special heavy ladle salvaged from the palace, something she keeps on herself as a weapon. She's amongst the most competent of the group, having a wide skillset from every new thing she's picked up or tried to learn, with the rest unanimously voting for her to be the one has the final say in decisions amongst all of them. I'm adding everyone's heights, she's 5'6

"Pride" - The gremlin of the group, she's the one who announces she's bored and wants to set something on fire to alleviate it. She's obnoxious, loud, a prankster, and has supernaturally good luck; after a series of accidents, everyone realized she is borderline immune to injury. Genuine attempts on her life can be made and each attempt will fail in a spectacular looney toons style disaster. Her weapon of choice is a minigun that's at least half the size of her - she's the shortest, standing at only 4'9

"Gluttony" - What can't she do? She's the sweetest and friendliest of the girls by far, as well as the most book smart. She'll destroy in you in chess, correct your spelling, talk you in circles when it comes to philosophy, she would be overqualified for any job she could ever apply to. She's not the best at social situations, often missing subtext the others pick up, but it's small compared to how highly competent she is in every other field. An incredible planner and fantastic ice breaker, she's everyone's best friend. Like Greed, she's roughly average height at 5'6

"Lust" - Another highly competent woman, her designated name was a little tongue in cheek; while her clothing is a little on the showier side, in all likelihood, she's probably asexual, she just finds comfort in not feeling restricted by having too much fabric on herself. She's generally pretty calm and level headed, with the ability to see into alternate pasts and futures for other universes and timelines, but never her own; she can only make approximations or educated guesses about possibilities for herself and her group. It takes a lot of focus for her to see these, she can't do it on the spot, so there's a designated meditation room specifically for her to use to observe. Her weapon of choice is a machete in each hand, something she flourishes and actively works into a sort of color guard esque style dance. She's got technical abilities nailed down and is the person to go to if you need to talk about an issue. Good listener and avid reader. She stands at 6' even

"Wrath" - As opposed to Lust, Wrath's name fit more than intended. She's got a low threshold for annoyance and isn't afraid of confrontation or speaking up about her frustrations. In spite of this, she's actually an excellent communicator and everyone knows where her limits are, treating her less like a ticking bomb and more as someone who needs a little more space than the rest of them. She's the most outwardly feminine of the group, liking makeup and designer fashion; she's also physically the strongest, having a semi-dedicated workout routine that gave her visible abs and arm muscles. Her ability is quite physical as well - if she hits someone hard enough, be it with an object or her bare hands, she can physically knock them into another universe/timeline. It took a little bit of testing and a few unfortunate accidents to figure out exactly how much force it took, as well as Lust doing some observations of other timelines to look for consistent factors. She's on the taller side at 5'8

"Envy" - She's the most vacant of the group. They all know she's got a complex mind, but if you look in her eyes, there just doesn't seem to be anything there. She's friendly in a way that feels superficial, almost like she's hiding something. Sustained a nasty injury to her face as a child, but had no damage to her eye in spite of the wicked scarring. She's a seamstress, with doll replicas of the entire gang that reflect their psychological states; if someone's not doing well, physical damage shows in the doll. It can't be manually fixed - it's only a portrait of what's happening. She is fully aware of how everyone is feeling at any given moment, passing the information along without really handling it herself. While she is a little more on the enigmatic side and tends to say exactly what she's thinking without concern for how it sounds, she's still valued in the group, in that her absence would leave a noticeable gap. Claims to perform "social experiments" while never clarifying the details. A wild card like Pride, but without having an idea of what to expect. When she does open up, she's got the sharpest manipulation skills and makes leaps in logic no one else can, though she doesn't go as far as to do this to her friends; basically a psych major gone awry. The team medic as well. She stands at 6'4

There's plot for how all of them reunite that I've already elaborated on, but it becomes slice of life after that point ✨️

Okay okay okay okay who wants to hear about my girl gang OCs actually

[itsworn]

Bakersfield’s Youthful Banger Gang Is Disturbing The Peace In Style

Youth.

Anyone who’s attended Famoso Raceway’s March Meet or the NHRA California Hot Rod Reunion during the last decade has seen them. You can’t miss the whippersnappers prominently positioned near the finish line. Are they the real deal or merely posers playing the role of traditional, blue-collar, junkyard-scrounging hot rodders twice each year? Are their primered, primitive Model A and Model T Fords just noisy props? Contrasting with hundreds of highly powered, flawlessly finished cars displayed just behind the bleachers, are these weather-beaten beaters the in-progress projects they appear to be, or are the mismatched panels cleverly arranged to create that impression? The cars are suspiciously positioned along the pitside fence at the crack of dawn, before spectators arrive. Hmmmm, do these local kids actually drive stock four-bangers on the “Streets of Bakersfield” immortalized in the Buck Owens song, or does a buddy working a secret back gate sneak their trailered relics through the pits before an unsuspecting public shows up to witness the deception? HOT ROD Deluxe determined to learn the truth. We even followed two of the youngsters home, just to be sure.

You know it’s a young gang when the de facto boss is all of 33. The gang’s vehicles of choice were manufactured in the late 1920s or first two model years of the 1930s. Their preferred powerplants are nothing like the big, powerful V8s flexing muscle in the car-show area. No, these miniature motors are just like the underpowered four-bangers that those other hot rodders jerked out of their Models T and A and junked.

“A ’32 is way out of touch, pricewise,” explained Tyler Weeks, leader of the pack, at the 2017 March Meet. “From the ’32s on, the cars get expensive. Deuces are iconic, they make beautiful hot rods, and not many were made. That was the depths of the Depression, you know. A lot more Model Ts and Model As had already been built, and there are lots more parts around today. Our cars were all put together with swap-meet stuff. In fact, most of it came from right here in town, either at Famoso’s nostalgia races or horse trading with older guys in the Model A Club. Building a banger is far easier than a flathead, for a fraction of the cost. They’re just so simple: air and fuel in; spark, ignition; exhaust out. With a V8, you’ve got twice as many cylinders, two heads instead of one, more parts to buy, to break, to wear out. A stock Model A engine will run for a long time, as long as you don’t modify it radically, or try to turn it much over 2,500 rpm. Some guys will spend the money to make one breathe and spin higher, but these aren’t race engines.”

Tyler had some history with small, cheap, four-cylinder powerplants even before spotting the $3,500/OBO classified ad for the blue ’30 coupe that changed his life at 22. “Volkswagens were a good start for me,” he said. “I had one in high school, when those cars were still affordable. It was lowered, had dual Webers, a merged header, Centerline wheels. I had no experience with old Fords. My coupe came with a Model A motor, laying sideways in the framerails, that I wrongly assumed was no good. I even bought a 2.3L Pinto engine to replace it. That’s a pretty common conversion, one I thought I could handle. The previous restoration project stopped in 1966. The car had been sitting, all apart, for 41 years. A member of the local Model A Club introduced me to Rick Davis, the owner of Vintage Restorations, who talked me out of the Pinto. Rick invited me to bring the engine to his house. We pulled the head and he said, ‘This thing’ll run!’ That same engine is still in the coupe.”

We were pleasantly surprised to hear that HOT ROD Deluxe was among his earliest influences. “When I was 14 or 15, I saw the first two issues and got interested in these cars. My high school library had the Hot Rod Yearbooks, all bound inside hard covers. In 2001 or ’02, I showed the librarian that most of them hadn’t been checked out since the ’70s. I asked if any were for sale. I got them all for next to nothing. They taught me about bodywork, fiberglass, paint, everything. Tex Smith’s books and Pat Ganahl’s history books are awesome. Club members have passed down some great old books, too.”

Backed up along Famoso Raceway’s spectator fence, it’s the four-cylinder cars and trucks that seem to attract the most attention from both extremes of the crowd’s age span. Really old guys will stop and stare and smile, reminded of something from their own automotive experience. Whenever a young guy or gal works up the nerve to approach the banger gang, questions are answered fully and respectfully. If the kid seems serious, he or she might be invited to try out a driver’s seat, work the shifter, listen to the little engine pop and bang. Just like them, the owners themselves were in their teens or early twenties when they got hooked. We wondered aloud about the appeal of almost-100-year-old jalopies to a youngster who’s never ridden in a vehicle not equipped with at least one smartphone and cupholder.

“Maybe it’s Great Depression–era thinking,” Tyler speculated, “wanting to learn, not having to rely on somebody else to come do it. You can figure something out, mechanically reverse-engineer the problem. Do it for yourself! I was able to take shop classes—auto shop, welding, construction, ag—that a lot of schools don’t have now, unfortunately. But young people have all kinds of different ways to start, without necessarily spending much money. Kids might start out with BMX bikes or radio-controlled cars, learning the mechanical aspects of something. They see our stuff and say, ‘I want to build a hot rod like that! How’d you do it?’

“I tell them the same thing that I say to older people who want to get a hot-rod project going: Get something that’s complete and running and make it your own. It doesn’t matter what, as long and it runs and drives decent. That’s better than trying to piece something together, especially when you don’t have the space or tools. Otherwise, it might end up sitting, like a lot of my stuff. I had a ’40 Ford pickup that was too far gone, beyond my space requirements. I would’ve had to take it completely apart and it would’ve been all over my driveway, because I don’t have room in my garage. I had to sell it.”

Tyler also suggested getting help “from people who are looking out for your best interests. Older guys like to be asked. The [Model A] club did that for me. I don’t know why. Maybe they saw how much I wanted to learn, how much a young person appreciated all that they’d learned. Our oldest member is 95, a World War II veteran. He drives his Model A to the meetings. These guys want to pass along their knowledge, and their parts. If they see you working on something and they have a piece you need to accomplish your goal, they’ll usually work with you on price. I once got a good Model A motor for two bucks and a beer! I was hanging around Rick Davis’ restoration shop one night. He had an industrial T engine, covered with all kinds of junk, that I wanted for its standard bore. The block could’ve been cracked, for all Rick or I knew. I said, ‘C’mon, sell me that engine,’ and he said, ‘Well, get me a beer from across the street—and two bucks.’ I thought it was a joke, but I walked to the market, anyway. I brought back a tall can, pulled two dollar bills out of my wallet, and he sold me that engine.”

“Almost everything that my friends and I own was cheap, or free,” Tyler added. “A hot rodder will always find a way. I tell younger people that if you want to do something badly enough, and you’re willing to work hard enough, you’ll get to where you want to be.”

The gang’s latest banger is the remarkably original ’31 slant-window sedan that David Abla, 27, imported from the family of a late Michigan man who’d owned it since the 1950s. David replaced the blown head gasket and hit the road, ever so slowly; top speed is 55 mph. His only other repair was getting the original heater working.

Tyler Weeks, 33, is the old man of the banger gang and its go-to guy for early Ford parts and guidance. He’s also the youngest member, by a quarter-century, of the Ford Model A Club of America’s oldest chapter. Ali Dyess, a valued member at large, writes newsletter and magazine articles, keeps the club’s books, and handles hospitality. Her laptop and spreadsheets have modernized the group’s record keeping, replacing cardboard boxes full of handwritten ledgers dating back to the Bakersfield chapter’s 1957 formation. (Yes, she kept all of those files, stored lovingly at home.)

Along the top-end fence at Famoso, the old Fords that attract the most attention are the simplest and least-powerful in the lineup. None of the owners is striving for period perfection or car-show points, obviously. Affordability and practicality prevail. All of the owners proudly pointed out parts that restorers and other rodders discarded as unusable. These are working-class hot rodders on young people’s budgets whose main mission is keeping early iron on the road, by day and night. Alternators are among the few concessions to newer technology. Scrounging for usable six-volt starters helped inspire these 12-volt conversions.

The ’30 coupe was Tyler’s first hot rod. It was taken apart in 1966 and remained in pieces until he started putting the puzzle back together in 2007 with guidance from older Model A Club members and especially a local restorer, Rick Davis.

Of the many early Fords that Weeks acquired during a decade of haggling and horse trading, these two were the only two rolling under their own power when we visited Bakersfield. Passersby overheard dissing the crude roadster pickup do not offend an owner who repurposed restorers’ cast-off junk into what he calls the P.O.S. Special. He bought the cab section, originally a ’29 roadster, and bed just to get an included ’32 grille shell that nearly matched the patina’d blue of the coupe, and now adorns that car (background). The chassis previously supported Debbie Launer’s street rod. “With a few exceptions, it’s the accumulation of pieces discarded by members of the Model A Club,” Tyler said. “These are all parts that were either on their way to the scrapyard, about to be melted down or cut up, or used to make patch panels that match the thickness of original steel.”

Blown-fuel racing at Famoso remains a 1,320-foot affair, and this prime parking area beyond the last grandstand affords the best, closest look at top-end action. Sisters Ali (left) and Sara Dyess enjoyed the last March Meet from Tyler’s P.O.S. Special.

It doesn’t get any more real than this pair, pictured on the day in 2013 when Tyler Weeks brought home his roadster pickup. The shortened bed is now attached to buddy David Abla’s T roadster. Vintage Restorations’ delivery truck is an original ’30 AA roadster pickup that shop owner Rick Davis (driving) purchased from a California artichoke farm. (Photo: Tyler Weeks)

Twice as many cylinders power the traditional roadster pickups of John Wright (seated) and David Abla (who also owns the stock ’31 sedan). Starting with just the black ’26 T shell, Wright, 28, and buddy Bob Gleim gradually located a Model A frame, ’26 bedsides, 300-inch Buick, and Turbo 350. John, a truck driver, says that the combination cruises Highway 99 happily at 75 mph.

The gray-primered ’27 roadster pickup on ’31 rails is David Abla’s interpretation of the hot rod that a young guy like him might’ve built from scratch in 1956, right down to its ’56-coded 265 Chevy block, ’39 Ford gearbox, and ’39 Columbia two-speed rearend. In overdrive (2.92:1, vs. 3.78:1), the car reportedly cruises at 110-plus. All he had five years ago were a rusty cowl and two doors. “Ninety percent of the rest came from swap meets at the drag strip,” said David, a 27-year-old crane operator.

When the garage door is down, there’s no hint from the street that the neat, suburban property shared by Tyler Weeks and Ali Dyess contains what Tyler calls “my personal junkyard of pre-1940 Fords.” At left is the Deuce grille shell that prompted his purchase of the roadster pickup at right.

That’s a Model A chassis under the ’22-’25 roadster that Weeks is building for F.A.S.T. time trials in Santa Margarita, California.

Tyler identified it as a “late-’31 Model A Deluxe doodle bug out of Rosamond, California.”

Weeks is one millennial with yard art almost a century old. Tucked out of sight are a ’26-’27 roadster and ’22 touring.

A lifetime’s worth of future projects are as close as the carport behind the house. The roadster is a bone-stock ’26, complete down to its original wooden wheels.

What stories a retired dirt-track coupe could tell! Behind the four-inch-chopped Model A are two Model A pickup beds overflowing with T and A body panels.

No pool party is complete without decorations. A hot rodder never knows when he’ll need a flathead six out of a ’37 Chrysler, right?

The post Bakersfield’s Youthful Banger Gang Is Disturbing The Peace In Style appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

from Hot Rod Network http://www.hotrod.com/articles/bakersfields-youthful-banger-gang-disturbing-peace-style/ via IFTTT