#easy airplane models

[gremlinmodetweeker]

König is Naturally Nerd!König

A lot of people suggest nerd!König (which is essentially regular König in my books) would be into DnD, or Star Wars, or Lego, but I disagree.

Normal and Nerd!König are obsessed with miniature armies. He has little models of airplanes and tanks that he puts on display in his room. He only has two World War models (and even then it's WW1), and those are the planes that Baron von Richthofen flew. Otherwise, he collects medieval minis and paints them.

He creates whole dioramas of them, and they're surprisingly good. He has the money to sink into his hobby, and it fills his time when he's not at work. He fidgets a lot, but he's gotten good at doing fine detail work. They're not award winning, but they're really quite good.

In addition, he's a major reader. If you want to know more about what König reads, check out this post here. If you don't want to read it, the gist of it is that König loves reading and reads all the time. He's probably the type to sniff and say the book was better than the movie. He's right, but he doesn't need to be so snobby about it.

Through the military, he has an extensive knife and gun collection. He can use all of them, sure, but he really doesn't need that many. He used to have only one room dedicated to them, but he's since had to move twice and torn down a wall most recently to make a big enough room for everything. He kinda sucks that way. He really takes up a lot of space.

However, Nerd!König didn't end up joining the military. He instead went into nuclear engineering and earned an excellent living to fund his expensive hobbies. He also ended up having more time to devote to his crafts, which led to...

More under the cut.

Nerd!König is a Snob

König is a pathfinder 2e type of guy. He's that pedantic. He'll have the rule books memorized, and he has links to download the pdfs ready at the flick of a wrist. He's ready to convert you. Your DnD supplies will be absorbed into his Pathfinder 2E.

A big reason he's into Pathfinder 2E is because he was introduced at a young age and so collected the supplies, but when he heard about the Wizards of the Coast scandals he decided he'd use that as his reasoning. He gets up on a soapbox about it whenever he can. He really, really hates Wizards of the Coast. It's a firey rage that burns within.

He also likes Warhammer. He's a disgusting Warhammer lover. He plays a ridiculous Adeptus Mechanicus army that he's painted himself. It's surprisingly good painting, too. Having painted Adeptus Mech before, I'm telling you it's really hard. He makes it looks easy with craft paint and crazy glue. He's disgustingly good at it. I hate him for it. How dare he be so good. He is genuinely a fantastic painter. That said, we saw what happened with the last Austrian painter, so maybe it's a good thing he stuck to painting minis.

Nerd!König also loves to collect ancient weaponry. To make it worse, he actually practises with it and has become pretty decent with it. He's feared among the LARPing community because he's known to be a fearsome competitor. He'd be more well liked if he didn't accidentally break people's wooden shields so often. As it is, he's not fully blacklisted, but he's skating on thin ice. He'd be banned for sure if it weren't for the fact that the forest on his property is amazing for LARPing.

Finally, he's into Renaissance fairs. He goes and does public sword fighting, once again, LARPing. He'll also show off his weaponry collections, and will gladly go on hour long spiels to anyone unfortunate to ask about the history of an item on his table. He is on good terms with the blacksmiths, and he's always having to pay the local seamstress to fix his clothing back in the traditional style. He will also go up to the ferret keeper and play with their ferrets, and then beg you to get some. He just wants a cute little ferret. Can't he have a couple? No, not one! They need playmates. You need at least three.

Either way, Nerd!König is a big silly guy. He's a bit friendlier and gentler than regular König honestly. He also is super passionate about his hobbies. He's so excited to show you his hobbies, and he really wants you to enjoy them too.

Just so you know, all these hobbies are expensive. Very expensive. It's a good thing he's making so much money, because otherwise you'd go bankrupt overnight, because, "Games Workshop released a new edition of the walkers! I need them for my army!"

[runwayrunway]

id be interested in seeing you rank plane emojis from different platforms (by their livery, or by whatever else) just for fun, if you want!

You're right. I WILL do this for fun, because this is fun. Not based on livery, since they're mostly white with blue wings - just how much I like them. I'll be adding a rating out of 10 for each one because I think that's the tradition for this sort of thing.

Apple - 4/10

I mean, because I have an iPhone this is my default conception of an airplane emoji - I think it's fine, I just find it a bit offputting how they model the individual flaps and cockpit windows but the rest of it is a white airbrushed tube. It's a weird contrast.

It's fine, I think. Acceptable. I maybe think emojis by default aren't the most aesthetically pleasing.

Google Noto Color Emoji - 4.5/10

I think this is a slight improvement over the Apple version because of the more consistent stylization. It's also a little more contemporary, since most airliners that are flying now have two engines. I like that they added a few windows and highlights to keep the cabin interesting, and I think it's a bit...something that they took off the flaps but added flap track fairings. Cockpit windows look awful though.

Samsung - 2/10

This is a bit more of a realistic shape for an airplane but for some reason I don't like it. Maybe it's the fact that you can barely recognize that there's a tailfin at all, or the cockpit window looking weirdly...shiny? I think what gets me the most, though, is that those engines look like Super Mario pipes.

Microsoft - 1/10

She's a little...phallic somehow. I just think a top-down view of an airplane is almost always going to look worse if you make it super round and blobby. On the bright side, it's still recognizable as a plane.

WhatsApp - 7.5/10

I really like the way this one is red. Way to stand out in a crowd. It's also quite realistic without giving up on being stylized. My one issue is with the cockpit windows, which look a bit out-of-place and weird. This seems to be a common point of failure for this sort of emoji. Also, I'm unsure if this is meant to be a two-engined 747, but if it is points off for those not existing.

Twitter - 6/10

I hate to ever hand it to Twitter but this is just solid. That's an airplane, just a very simplified and round one. Even the cockpit windows on this one look okay.

Facebook - 3.5/10

Maybe airplane emojis with airbrush shading just look bad to me. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with the shape of this but I don't think they differentiated the tailfin from the fuselage enough. It looks like a stub. Also, what is up with that miserably short wing chord?

Telegram - 7/10

I mean, it looks like a 3D version of the Apple one, but it's surprising how much making it 3D improves it. Plus, gotta hand it to them deciding their emoji was being flown by Tex Johnston. I admire that sort of verve.

Microsoft Teams - 0/10

On the flipside, animating this one and making it 3D makes it so much worse! It looks like it was made right when people just figured out that 3D animation was a thing that was possible to do, back in the 50s or something. And boy are those pixels crunchy - I wouldn't mind this if it weren't already heinous. Seriously, how is that tailfin even attached?

Skype - 10/10

Now this I really like. Most of these are impossible to assign a model to but this distinctly looks to me like one of the earlier, stubbier 737s, just really short with a pointy nose, and she's waving at you. Crisp, nice smooth animation, just fantastic.

Twitter Emoji Stickers - 0/10

Looks bad. One of the few of these which are very easy to recognize as a specific model of airplane - this is clearly a 747, based on the inclusion of the hump. There is a reason basically none of the others are trying to be a 747. Adding a weird lump to the front of your emoji doesn't really make it any less weird-looking, and rendering a plane from above tends to be weird-looking already. It looks like she was stung by a bee.

JoyPixels - 6.5/10

As with the WhatsApp red, I appreciate anything setting itself aside in color, so I have to compliment the choice of this sort of toothpastey green. This is one of the better simplified airplanes we've gone over today, and the only thing I really dislike is that it has the same issues with the tailfin Facebook does.

Toss Face - 0/10

I can barely tell this is supposed to be an airplane. It makes me want to, excuse the mental image, toss face.

JoyPixels Animations - 10/10

Now THIS is what I'm talking about! Just a nice little pixel aircraft, doing the same sort of smooth wriggling as the Skype airplane - no criticisms.

Sony PlayStation - small/10

Adequate, but too small to really assess further - but the fact that I don't dislike anything about it is honestly a credit at this point.

Noto Emoji Font - 3.5/10

This just looks like the Samsung emoji but rendered with plain lines. Removing detail from these tends to improve them.

OpenMoji - 0/10

Oh, no, I take it back! Too few details! It's like a torpedo with wings awkwardly stapled on. A really phallic one at that.

emojidex - what the hell/10

I think this more or less looks fine, and the livery it has also looks fine, but I'm so thrown off by the fact that I don't think this is a real airplane. I am obviously not an authority on every model of airplane ever built but I'm reasonably sure this isn't a real one. It most resembles a BAe 146/Avro RJ, the only four-engined t-tail plane intended for passengers rather than heavy cargo. But the 146/RJ has high wings, located above the cabin windows, so...what is this airplane? What does emojidex know that they're not telling us?

Messenger - 7/10

While not ugly per se, it's a bit futuristic for my taste. Still, the choice to model it from a position other than directly from the top avoids a lot of the pitfalls that make many of these so bad to look at.

LG - 4/10

Boring? Yeah, without question. But this is just a good representation of an airplane, and at this point I'll accept that. Does the tail thing, though.

HTC - 3/10

Something about the way this is shaped makes this look more like a rocketship than an airplane. Or a Convair Pogo.

SoftBank - 5/10

A decent pictoral representation of an airplane. See: LG. Fixes the tail thing.

Docomo - 5.5/10

Also a decent pictoral representation of an airplane, but I think rendering it in silhouette gets rid of many of the pitfalls associated with airplane emojis. No details to mess up, just the shape of an airplane. Why do the majority of these have four engines? Seriously, there are only three four-engine airliners in passenger service right now. Have the people designing these not flown since the early aughts?

au by KDDI - 2.5/10

Okay, I know I've been saying being a good representation of an airplane is good enough but this is just simplifying too far. This isn't an emoji, it's a unicode character.

Mozilla - 1/10

Why pointy but only sometimes? Why does the tail pinch in like that? It's ugly, Mozilla, you made an ugly one.

[griffonsgrove]

Haiii!! These headcanons have been amazing!!! Could I perhaps ask for a Dr.Flug X Reader where they're a famous popstar, please?? tysm!! <3

Dr. Flug X Popstar!Reader

a/n: eeee of course I can write this!! This is a really cute idea, I hope you enjoy!! Im working my way through a few of your guy's requests so bare with me! I plan on maybe doing a few drabbles or headcanons for some other fandoms within the following days so keep a look out for that!

fandom: Villainous/Villainos words: 1026 cw: none! just super cute fluff!

(PLATONIC):

Now that you were starting to gain more and more popularity amongst people, you had been wanting to expand your musical talent to all reaches of life, whether it be good or bad.

Being a famous popstar made it easy to get connections, thankfully, and a little birdie had told you about the infamous ‘Hat Island” that was rumored to be crawling with villains, owned by none other ‘Lord Black Hat’ himself.

You were by no means a saint, let alone a hero, and thought that everyone deserved to have the joy of music, even those of lower status. So what do you do? Schedule a meeting with the most feared villain known to man!

Imagine Flug's surprise when he opens the door to see you standing there.

The man about damn near faints on the spot. A famous super-star, standing right in front of him? AND they're cute?? Oh boy.

He had heard of you when Demencia would loudly blast her music from her boombox, Obnoxious yes, but he would absentmindedly find himself humming your tunes or tapping his foot to the beat while he worked in the lab, much to his dismay.

Eventually that led to him listening to you in his (very little) free time, and he, actually?? Enjoyed?? It??

Now, the tricky part was going to be trying to convince Black Hat to let you hold a concert on his island, This old man  intimidated tf out of you, if looks could kill you’d be dead before you even stepped into his office. But, you tried to remain confident.

You offer to pay him for compensation, and give him a small percentage of the profits from your show. How can he refuse that offer? It’s money! He reluctantly agrees to your proposition, and you sign a temporary contract.

For extra gratitude you offer him and his henchman VIP tickets for your show, Black Hat scowls, saying something along the lines of “that frivolous techno music gives me a headache..” But! He doesn't deny his henchmen going!

Of course you don't leave without the eldritch putting the fear of god into you.

Demencia vigorously shakes Flug in excitement, when she finds out they have VIP tickets to your performance, for once the doctor’s eyes light up.

The night of your performance happened to be one of his best memories, he was absolutely enthralled by your singing, and he got to witness all up close!

When he comes backstage to meet you after the show he nearly faints again. You thought he was kind of cute for that really.

You excitedly greet him and his group and chat for a while. Answering questions and sharing stories, you actually find out the two of you have a lot in common! As the evening wraps up you pull him aside privately to give him your number, if he ever wanted to chat. HE NEARLY FAINTS AGAIN.

(ROMANTIC):

That’s how you two began talking. You texted frequently, excitedly sharing each other's interests. Sometimes you’d snap a photo before or after a performance, and he’d send you pictures of his latest invention, or his model airplane collection.

It’s actually you, that ends up asking him out on a date. Through a video call, his reaction was adorable, he looked almost in disbelief but dumbly nodded his head to your confession.

The both of you lead busy lives, so you carefully plan out when you can visit and when he can get the time off. (He sucks up to Black Hat for an entire week).

You settle on something quiet and not far away, you didn’t want to be bombarded by fans or paparazzi during your small visit. It’s at a small cafe, Flug claimed it made the best coffee he’s ever had.

He watches all of your shows btw. Man’s is committed. Whether that be streaming the concert on his phone while he works or going to your shows/events in person whenever you visit the island again. It’s also a plus that he enjoys your music!

You singing to him, ouGHHHH. He’s starstruck every time, entranced by your voice. He really thinks of you as an angel, maybe a siren.

Love songs!! You write several dedicated to him while your dating, he nearly cries when you reveal this to him. Who am I kidding? He totally cried.

He makes you cute little gadgets to make your life a little easier. Like a custom-made microphone for your shows, you use it every time <3.

You SPOIL him. You get that bag (pun intended) and you think he deserves to be treated with everything he could possibly want.

If you ever meet 5.0.5 you best believe you’re treating that bear like your own son. He’s such a sweetie, how could you not? And if you sing him little lullabies to help him fall asleep?? Flug’s heart almost bursts out of his chest. How did he get so lucky??

He often wonders how he bagged you (pun intended). He's pretty insecure of himself already, it really is a mystery to him. He almost feels like he doesn't deserve any of it at all. But of course, you see right through his act, and reassure him endlessly.

You both keep the relationship on the downlow, mainly for your sake. He didn't want your reputation to be ruined if the press found out you were dating a notorious supervillain. You had told him you didn't care what the public thought, but he insisted.

There are numerous photos of you on his phone, not in a creepy way though. Most of them are selfies of two of you, or from photoshoots/concerts. He def has you as his screensaver.

You loooove peppering his bagged face with kisses. He gets so flustered it's adorable!! He secretly loves them. If you wear lipstick, you love seeing the aftermath of your kiss attack, his face painted in a lovely shade of red.

Overall, being in a long-distance relationship definitely has its ups and downs, but Flug thinks it’s all worth it, especially for you, he’s willing to give it a try. How romantic.

[tagsecretsanta]

From @thalassastra

From @thalassastra to @niffler-gold

Prompt given:

1. Scott comfort. 2. After Jeff's return. 3. Scott finally getting the weight lifted of him (could be mentally or literally).

Would rather it just be focused on the brothers and dad not really any other characters.

Only warning is um it discusses the existence of Santa?! 

The New Old-Fashioned Way

“Scott! Santa’s been!” Gordon bounced on teenage Scott Tracy’s bed, a present clutched to his chest and a cheerful grin on his face. “Uuuurggghhh. Too early Gordon.”

“But Santa’s been, look!” “Santa isn’t real,” Scott grumbled uncharitably, and tried to pull the covers over his head. Gordon wasn’t having any of that and pulled them back down.

“Of course he’s real.”

“You know it’s Dad. You’ve known that for at least two years now.”

“Yeah so? Dad’s real. Dad is Santa. Therefore, Santa is real.” He jabbed Scott with the still-wrapped present. “And he’s been. Look, you have one too!” He bounced to the bottom of the bed and picked up a shiny blue package adorned with cartoon Santas.

“Hey, gimme. That one is mine.” Fully awake now Scott took the present from Gordon and sat up, wiggling over so that his brother could climb in next to him. Grinning, they opened their gifts. Gordon squealed in delight as a cuddly fish fell from the package. Scott’s grin grew wider as a kit for a model airplane tumbled out. It was almost a joke present these days - he got a different kit each year, which he attempted to build and paint. Sometimes he even finished them. He always looked forward to seeing which model “Santa” had got him. “Come on, let’s go show everyone what we got!” Gordon jumped off his bed with a thump.

Scott finally glanced at his clock to see if he should be letting Gordon wake everyone up.

“Gordon, wait!  It's five in the morning!”

—-------------------------------------------------

Many years later… 

It was Christmas Eve. Sort of. When your work made you regularly cross time zones it was sometimes tricky to keep track. Still. Gone midnight on Tracy Island, so yes, Christmas Eve. Still the day before in New York, which was where Scott currently was, and still dark for another hour or so.

It was easy to think he had all day today and tomorrow to sort everything out. But the time he had gained going west he would lose again heading east. But he was in New York. Lots of shops! He could get those last-minute gifts. Head into the office to chase whoever was lingering out of it. Technically the office was closed as from lunch time for the Christmas break; they gave all their staff the week off. Some of them would hang about finishing things off though. Scott didn’t approve. They needed to get home to their families. He could finish up any paperwork and make sure that the staff got home on time. Or go to do their Christmas shopping. He really should have started that already. It was almost stereotypical, a man of his age leaving it until Christmas Eve. But he’d been busy. But Dad was home! He had to make this Christmas the best one yet! 

He gritted his teeth as the beam lying across his shoulders shifted. A trickle of dust poured down through his torchlight, glittering in a mockery of the season’s decorations. He glanced down at the shop workers huddled together in the narrow space he was holding open. He was under no illusions; he knew he wasn’t holding the whole shop up on his back, just keeping something in balance that was holding something that was holding something else and stopping the situation from getting worse… but it certainly felt like he was holding the whole building up.

“How’s it going there, Virgil?” he grunted through gritted teeth.

“Nearly with you. Hold on.”

“Holding on.” Don’t think about the weight. Think about other stuff. Like the orders that still need to be put through for the new year. Like that loose connection in Thunderbird One that kept telling him that the port light was out even though they’d checked it and it was fine, but what if the light really did go out and he ignored it thinking it was just a faulty warning? Like should he buy brussels sprouts cause no one except John and Virgil really liked them but it was kind of a tradition? Besides they would complain that it was the only time they got to eat them and they were nice. Nice. Huh. 

The beam shifted again, the weight pushing him down to one knee.

“Virgil!”

Light. 

The space that had been confined was illuminated in a bright white, the cold air of the night brushed past his fingers, and the weight was gone.

The shopworkers scrambled to get out.

Scott sat down with a thump and took a deep breath, feeling it filling his chest, stretching his aching shoulders, holding it for just a moment, before slowly breathing out the tension and relaxing. He’d done it. They were out.

“Hey, Scott.” Virgil put a hand on his shoulder; it was sore, but he welcomed his brother’s reassuring touch anyway. “Not a good idea to rest here, bro. Come on. Everyone’s out, and Two’s got our morning coffee waiting.”

Scott laughed.

“Morning? Was evening when we left the island.”

“Evening hot chocolate then,” Virgil gave him a gentle tug. “Come on, on your feet.”

He helped Scott up and they climbed over the rubble and away from the flashing lights and cameras, back up into Two’s module.

“I’ll clear up,” Virgil offered. “Take a break. You've been up for hours. In fact, get John to fly One back. I'll fly home and you can sleep.”

Scott yawned and looked at his watch. 

“No, the shops will be open in a couple of hours. I'll head to the office, grab a shower and get those orders in, then I can head over to the store-”

“Seriously, Scott? Take a break. We're all having Christmas day off. If you wear yourself out today you're just going to spend it sleeping.” 

“Yeah but I've still got stuff to do.” He ran his hand through his hair. “It's gotta be perfect, you know? Dad-”

“Dad doesn't expect anything other than for you to be there to celebrate with him. Awake. Come on, Scott. You don't have to do everything for him, you know. He's Dad.” “He was stranded in space for eight years, Virgil.”

“Yeah?” his brother started shifting some boxes, replacing tools and supplies that had been dragged out when he’d arrived. Scott leaned back on a crate, watching.

“You can’t act like everything is just going back to the way it was before.” 

“I don’t. I’m well aware of how far he’s progressed with the physio, how far he still has to go, and the physical damage that likely won’t be healed. But he’s still Dad. His mind is still as sharp as ever, and he hasn’t lost any of that determination that he had before.” Virgil grunted, lifting another box. “The problem is, Scott, that you are not letting anything go back to the way it was. He’s capable. He’s already not the same guy you pulled off that rock a few months ago.”

“I know. I’ve read his progress reports too.”

“Do you, though?” Virgil paused in his rearrangement of Two’s hold to stare at Scott. “‘Cause I get the feeling you don’t really believe them, and you’re not going to until you see Dad start to do more.” He shifted another box. “Which you’re not going to see until you slow down a bit and pay attention.”

“Yeah, well,” At a loss for how to argue against that, Scott pushed himself off the crate, stretching and ignoring the crack his shoulder produced. “I’m going to the shops. I’ll be back for bedtime.”

Virgil gave him a disbelieving look.

“I promise. Someone’s gotta go get your disgusting sprouts.”

“Fine. I’ll wait here to fly you home. If you’re not back in five hours I’m going to come get you.”

“You won’t need to.”

“Good. ‘Cause that would be very inconvenient. I still have to add more glitter to the card I’m making for you.”

“Uh, I said no glitter this year! It gets everywhere.”

“Tough. Christmas is sparkly. You shall have sparkles.”

“See you later, Virgil!”

“Five hours.”

Scott threw a wave over his shoulder as he departed for the offices.

A shower, a clean outfit and a coffee later and Scott was feeling… well, tired, if he were honest. But he had an hour to sort the paperwork and three hours to shop before Virgil would be after him.

Of course nothing was that simple, though, because the paperwork he thought he’d completed last week had been bounced back, and he could delegate it, but he wasn’t going to do that to anyone on Christmas Eve. Or Christmas Eve Eve. Still the 23rd here, he reminded himself. It wouldn’t take long.

Two and a half hours later he pushed the last of what he was going to do away and rubbed his eyes. There was more to be done, but it could wait. It might mean a bit of a crunch in the New Year, but he needed to do the shopping.  He needed to make this Christmas perfect for his Dad’s homecoming. 

Whenever John went shopping, it was a precise operation. He would look at the footfall trends, the weather reports and optimise the route to visit the shops he wanted to go to in the order that required the least doubling back. John would never, ever, have ventured into the shops two days before Christmas. Scott had to admit, his brother was onto something.

The crowds jostled and heaved, queues to check out stretched back into stores, blocking access to the shelves. It wasn’t so much that Scott minded crowds, certainly they didn’t bother him as much as they did John, but it was frustratingly inconvenient when he was in a rush.

There were some things he knew he had to get; A few fresh items that he hadn’t remembered to list on the last supply run; (bag of sprouts, some chestnuts, a bunch of fresh sage to make stuffing with,) some Eggnog, and chocolate after dinner mints, (because he’d always liked getting an extra sweet after dessert.)  

As he piled the food into his basket he tried to work out what time he’d have to start cooking in the morning to make sure everything was ready, then decided he’d figure that out later. He was too tired right now. He (eventually) checked out with his purchase and belatedly realised that it would have been far more sensible to leave what he knew he needed until last, because now he had to carry it around while he browsed for gifts.  

Luckily Kayo was easy to shop for; in the weeks leading up to Christmas she would always make sure to leave magazines or website pages open with things she wanted. It was just a matter of “stumbling” on what she had been browsing and coordinating with his brothers to make sure they didn’t all buy the same thing.  This year he had been allocated a kimono wrap style silk top with a turquoise and pink floral print, which he knew he could get from one of the big department stores, because he had actually checked that some time ago with the intention to call in and get it bought early. He hoped there would be something he could get to go with it there too, because he’d always thought it was more exciting to at least have something that was a surprise, even if it was just a pack of sparkly hair bobbles. (Kayo had actually declared that a very thoughtful gift because hair bobbles would frequently vanish.)

May as well start with that, he thought as he wound his way down the street.  He was still lacking a good present for Gordon, and had no idea whatsoever what he should get his Dad. What do you get the guy who both owned an island and had lived with nothing for nearly a decade? He’d had everything and nothing. A box of chocolates just didn’t seem to cut it.

A man in a tophat and tails opened the door for him as he entered and Scott nodded his thanks, giving a smile that was perhaps starting to verge on the side of a grimace. Tables decorated with whimsical Christmas scenes interspersed shelves of nuts, biscuits, chocolates and dried fruits. Further on makeup, bath bombs, soaps… He scanned the goods on display as he wound his way to the clothes department, hoping that inspiration would strike. 

He’d barely reached the silk tops, (stopping only to pick up a jumper for Gordon that he’d spotted on the way,) when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He fished it out to see Virgil’s name across the screen.

“It can’t have been-” a glance at the time told him that it had, in fact, been five hours since he’d set off from Two. He did consider ignoring it and pretending that he just hadn’t heard the ringtone in the busy store, but he wouldn’t have put it past his brother to suddenly appear out of the crowd, pick him up and carry him out. He reluctantly swiped to connect the call.

“Hello.”

“Time’s up. Meet me back at Two, I’ll fly you home.”

“I’ve still got to buy a few things…I haven’t checked out here yet. …and I haven’t got Dad anything.”

“Scott, he doesn’t need anything. Just grab him some food. Honestly, he’s still loving anything with a taste, he’ll appreciate it.”

“It just feels so impersonal, you know?” 

“You’re overthinking things again. Seriously. I’ll give you an extra twenty minutes. Look around the store you’re in, grab something that reminds you of Dad, even if it’s just a little toy plane, and come back.”

“Thirty minutes?”

“Twenty. You’ve got to allow time to walk back here and if we don’t leave soon we’ll miss the evening at home, Christmas Eve movie together, remember?”

“..okay.” He hung up and then marched as quickly as he could through the store thinking; something that reminds me of Dad, something that reminds me of Dad…

“You get something?” Virgil asked as Scott came jogging up to Two. 

“Yeah…” Scott ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not sure I did so well on the presents front this year. I should have started thinking about it earlier.”

“Relax Scott. All done now. We should be back before midday, enough time to get a sleep in before tonight. Try to have Christmas off from worrying.” 

Scott frowned as he followed Virgil to the flightdeck and settled into the co-pilot seat and tried to relax for the flight home. He couldn’t help but do a bit of worrying though. Christmas had always been a big deal in the Tracy household; and this was the first time in eight years that his Dad would have a proper one. What if it didn’t live up to the memories? He closed his eyes so Virgil would think he was trying to get some sleep while he ran through the dinner plans in his head again.

—----------------------------------------------

The lights on the tree were multicoloured, because everyone agreed that even though they were rich now, “classy” plain white lights were boring. The only other light was from the projector, playing the first movie of the night. They hadn’t been able to decide between “A Muppet Christmas Carol” and “Die Hard” so it was a back-to-back, with festive drinks and snacks. 

Scott was sitting on the sofa, shoulder to shoulder with Virgil and his Dad. It was warm, the lights were soft, the muppets were singing. His eyes were heavy. 

He couldn’t go to sleep yet. It’s not like he hadn’t grabbed a few hours when they’d gotten back earlier. There were still things to do. Still things he needed to prepare for the morning, presents as yet still unwrapped… 

“Might want to hold off on starting Die Hard, Virgil,” Jeff said softly as the first movie ended.

Virgil looked over to see Scott slumped on his Dad’s shoulder, mouth slightly open, eyes shut and breathing deeply.

“I’d leave him, but he’s not as light as he used to be. And he’s going to get a cricked neck at this rate. We’d better wake him and send him to bed.”

“Don’t wake him. I’ll take him. I’ve done it before.”

Jeff frowned at his son, then raised his eyebrows in surprise as Virgil stood and picked Scott up, with a smooth enough motion that the older brother slept through being moved.

“Does this happen often?” he asked the room at large as he watched Virgil carry Scott out.

“Does Virgil try to pick Scott up and take him to bed? Yes,” Gordon grinned. “Does it work? Most of the time, no.” 

“He normally wakes up, unless he’s very tired,” John clarified.

“Then they have an argument about it. Then Scott goes to bed. Then they make friends again in the morning when they apologise to each other,” Alan added, oblivious to his older brothers shooting him a look that said he could have left the arguing part out.

“I see,” Jeff frowned. The Scott he remembered was meticulous about getting enough sleep; always wanting to make sure he was fit enough for anything the day threw at him. That he didn’t always, well, that was news to him.

Virgil returned a few minutes later, giving a thumbs up.

Good he’s getting some rest now, Jeff thought, that’s something I’ll have to have to deal with. But for now, there were other things to think about. One son asleep, four more to go.

—----------------------------------------------------

“Scott! Santa’s been!” Gordon crashed onto his brother’s bed, no longer a small boy, but a rather heavy man. Scott woke up with a start as he was bounced off the mattress.

“What?! Gordon?” He rubbed his eyes sleepily. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.” Gordon was grinning at him. “Santa’s been.” He waved a present in his face.

“Santa?” Scott repeated with a sleepy frown.  He didn’t remember coming to bed. In fact he was still wearing his clothes from the night before. He wiggled up onto his elbows and looked down at the foot of his bed. Sure enough, there was a blue gift, wrapped with a silver ribbon, and a label with his name in cursive attached to it.

“Well?” Gordon didn’t grab the present as he so often had in years gone by. This one was for Scott and he knew Scott needed to be the one to pick it up first. 

For what seemed like the longest time to an impatient Gordon, Scott just started at the present, convinced that he was dreaming. Eventually he sat up and crawled to the end of the bed. Picked up the package, running his fingers over the ribbon and re-reading the name on the label. It wasn’t his father’s handwriting - it was Santa’s. It was the same script his Dad had used to disguise his own hand when he took the role.

“Santa’s been,” he whispered. “Santa’s back.” He grinned and opened the present, pulling the ribbon free and ripping the paper off.

A model kit Tiger Moth fell out.

“This was the one I’d asked for when-” the tears started to run down his face, but he was still smiling.

Gordon’s eyes looked a bit glassy too, as he threw his arm over his brother’s shoulders and gave him a hug.

“Hey, shall we wake the others and show them?”

“Wake the… wait, Gordon, what time is it?”

—-----------------------------------------------

The sun was rising, golden light streaming through the windows and sparkling off tinsel and glass, causing the huge Christmas tree to glitter in a rainbow of colour. 

Underneath; a stack of presents, not all of which had been there the night before. 

Scott felt as if he were in a dream. It was the same, but different. Their childhood tree had been half the size, it would have hit the ceiling of their home otherwise. But the years-old paper and dried pasta decorations they had made at school, the over-glittered salt dough shapes they had made with their mom, still hung among the shop bought baubles. There were still candy canes that Alan claimed he didn't touch until Christmas day, yet were always fewer in number than at the start of the month 

He watched as Alan raced Gordon to the tree, sliding on their knees to stop among the presents. John and Virgil followed at a more leisurely place, having already obtained hot drinks. 

Virgil's hair was sticking up funny, and John was wrapped in an interestingly-patterned dressing gown. They were all smiling and laughing, and there was an air of excited anticipation. When was the last time they had tumbled into the living room in PJs to open presents? They’d left that long behind, always putting it off to get dressed first, because really, what was the rush? But now, Scott felt the buzz too, the remembered magic of the morning. His Dad had pulled up a seat with a good vantage point near the tree. He was dressed; smart shirt, not a hair out of place, and sipping his coffee with a knowing twinkle in his eye.

And just for a moment, he looked as he had all those years ago. Scott saw him dark haired and strong, a quiet presence while the rabble of boys dug through gifts, reading labels and pushing parcels to the recipients with enthusiastic calls of “this one's for you!” and “look what I got!” 

“Hey Scott!” Alan slid a present towards him, breaking his reverie. He grinned and forgot about the things he hadn't had time to organise, instead moving over to sit with his brothers and join in. There were gifts from his siblings, a fancy hamper of biscuits, jams, chutneys and chocolate from Lady Penelope, a jumper his grandmother had made, and, for the first time in eight years, a stocking stuffed with little gifts from “Santa”. He ripped the paper off patterned socks, a box of chocolates, a book, a puzzle and a bottle of colour changing bubble bath. Colours were compared, chocolates swapped, advice on puzzles offered and rejected. 

He dished out his gifts to his family, (hastily wrapped after Gordon had woken him), and tried not to squirm a little as he handed his present to his Dad over. 

“Get anything that reminds you of him,” Virgil had said. What had made him think this represented his Dad he had no idea, but it was what it was. 

Jeff opened the parcel to reveal a shirt with flamingos all over it, and laughed, a genuine, happy, surprised laugh.

“Your mother bought me a shirt just like this, when you were a toddler. You loved it. You'd sit on my lap and count the birds. I thought you'd be too small to remember it.” 

“I didn't,” Scott replied in surprise. “Not really. I just saw it and thought of you.” 

“It's perfect. Thank you Scott.” And he meant it.

Scott grinned. He’d really been enjoying the morning, living in the moment with his family, but the sun was getting higher and he knew he had to get on with things.  

“Well, I'd better get to the kitchen,” he looked at his watch, attempting to remember any of the timings he’d worked out on the flight home the day before.  “I think it might be a bit late starting…” 

“It's already started.” Jeff smiled and gave him a wink. “Don't worry, Scott. Santa got everything organised today.” 

“You did?” Scott blinked. “I mean… but… how?”

“I worked out how to survive on a rock for eight years and ran a multinational company for several before that. You think I couldn't figure out how to sneak a few presents home and sort a dinner?” 

Scott turned red. 

“Well, uh… I just thought…” 

Jeff laughed.

“I got some of it prepped yesterday and had a bit of help from Brains before he flew out with setting up the cooking timers. He left a little robot here, that’s quite a help in the kitchen. Honestly, it’s all in hand, and you can help me with dishing up when it’s ready.” He smiled.

“Why don't you go play some games with your brothers? Looks like Alan has a couple of new video games, and Gordon's setting up a chess board there.” 

Scott glanced over. Alan was starting up his console, while Kayo collected controllers and Gordon was carefully pouring something into a set of frosted glasses arranged on a board, while John and Virgil watched. John was seated in the opponent's chair and had a much more serious expression on his face than Virgil who was wearing a face-splitting grin.  

“Shots chess?” Scott realised. “Oh no, who got Gordon that?”  

By the time dinner was ready, both Gordon and John were tipsy, (they had had the sense to stop after one game, after all, Dad was watching), Alan had been permitted a go at the shots chess against Virgil using lemonade and cola, and Scott had found himself caught up in games and laughter and simply forgetting that he’d ever been worrying about how long to cook potatoes for. 

They settled around the big table, to roasted turkey and honeyed ham, crispy potatoes and parsnips, steamed carrots and (in Virgil and John's case) sprouts. There was sparkling wine to drink, pudding with brandy cream, for afterwards. Finally, they settled around the lounge with coffees and the after-dinner mints, allegedly to watch a movie, but in reality, to doze after having eaten slightly too much food. 

There was a pleasant lull in the afternoon; a pause where each member of the family took themselves off to have a bit of space and quiet. They knew they would come together again later, and it was in companionable silence that they arrayed themselves about the place each absorbed in their own task. John and Alan had stretched out at either end of a sofa, leaning back on the cushions, legs tangled, new Christmas socks on display.  The only noise coming from either of them was the flutter of paper as they occasionally turned a page in their respective books. Gordon and Kayo had gone for a walk, insisting that exercise helps with digestion. (John had claimed that it did nothing if you waited through a two-hour movie after dinner before you went for the walk, but was threatened to a rematch at shots chess instead, and so had conceded the point.) 

Virgil was painting on the mezzanine, trying out a set of metallic paints he had received. Scott had settled himself nearby, dragging a table into position and tipping out and sorting the parts of his kit airplane. 

He glanced down over the balcony railing to see his father sitting at his desk with a newspaper folded on his lap, and some magazines arranged before him. He was chatting softly with Grandma. It looked like they might be doing a crossword. Scott smiled, as a long-forgotten memory resurfaced of the pair of them doing word puzzles from time to time. 

Everyone was content, and calm. Scott returned to his model, concentrating on the immediate task, warm in the knowledge everyone was safe and happy and home. 

—-------------------------------

The sun set over the sea, and the stars appeared in the clear night sky. 

Scott found himself standing on the balcony outside, with a glass of whisky in hand, the salty ocean breeze mingling with the scents of the trees, and the lingering smells of pudding and cinnamon wafting from inside. Virgil was playing the piano, happily taking the requests that were thrown at him. There were a few old favourites, some classics and an ill-fated attempt at converting this year's viral Christmas hit into something that could be played on the piano. 

He took a deep breath, drinking in the scents, the sounds, the sight of the lights reflected on the pool below. It was only now he'd had time to reflect on the day he'd realised just how much he'd needed this. To let go, to be a child again. And it had been good, really good. It had, he realised, been perfect, without him obsessing over getting everything just right.

His dad joined him on the balcony, glass in hand. 

“Merry Christmas,” he raised his glass and took a sip. Scott did too, acknowledging the toast.

They stood in silence for a few moments more, his father enjoying the same sensations.

“When I was out there,” he tilted his glass towards the stars, “for a while, I thought it was the pageantry of Christmas that I missed. The lights, the colours, the food.” He shook his head. “It wasn't, really. It was seeing you and your brothers have fun.”

“It really has been. Fun, I mean. And I can't remember the last time-” he suddenly realised what he was saying and shut his mouth, then gave his Dad an awkward smile. “I hope you've had a good day too?”

Jeff laughed and clapped his son on the shoulder. 

“I've had a great day. Do you know how long it's been since I've gotten to order other people around?” He grinned. “I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of getting all this sorted without you noticing. And to see it all come together…” He gave a short laugh. “It's so refreshing, working things out again.” 

“I thought you'd have had enough of working things out, after…well you know.” Scott nodded up towards the sky. 

“There was a lot to work out there, sure, to start with,” Jeff leaned on the balcony, next to his son and looked up at the stars. “I had to figure out how to make things work, how to get sustainable food, water, power…” He shrugged. “...and then one day I'd done it. Got everything working, everything running on cycles. Got a routine. And then that's what I did, day in, day out for years. I tried to keep my mind active, of course, drew stuff, wrote things. But actually using the skills I enjoy to organise, to face a new challenge. That's something I've not done in a long time.” He smiled at Scott. “To be perfectly honest a lot of the time I was pretty bored.” 

Scott smiled in amused surprise.

“I guess I thought you were working every second, up there.”

“It was pretty quiet.” He took a sip of his drink and then gave Scott a sideways look. “I missed working with others too. Letting them take some of the burden. Collaborating. Delegating.” 

Scott huffed a gentle laugh. 

“That wasn't subtle.” 

“Subtlety was never my strong suit. Virgil told me whenever you weren't sure what to do, you'd ask yourself what I'd have done.” 

Scott mumbled something about interfering brothers. 

Jeff laughed. 

“Well for the most part, you got it right, Scott. You've achieved more than I could have ever imagined. But you got one bit wrong…” 

Scott felt his stomach drop. What had he done wrong? 

“I never even tried to take all that on my own.”

“...But you built the company from the ground up, got it going-”

“With help. Your mother's for a start. Who do you think was earning a living when I was starting out? She loved her work, yes, but even so, I wouldn't have sat at home trying to launch a business if she hadn't agreed to it. And if it hadn't been for your grandparents helping to look after you boys, well it would have never worked. And even away from family, I had a budget to get things off the ground, and that included things like paying for an accountant to help with bookkeeping when necessary… and do you think I made the website alone? I mean, I had a go, but it looked like someone had made it at the kitchen table.” He patted his son's shoulder again. “I'm not superman, son.” 

“Oh. I just, I guess I'd never thought about that.” 

They settled on the balcony, a comfortable silence passing between them while they reflected on the past. 

Scott became aware of his Grandma requesting a song. Virgil launched into “Rocking around the Christmas tree,” and she started to sing, then his brothers joined in. He smiled to himself, memories of them all singing as his mother played the piano so many years before.

“You should be CEO again,” he blurted out.

“Scott, when I said you needed to ask for help, I didn't mean I wanted to take over from you. You've been doing an excellent job and I don't want to take that away from you.”

“No, I want you to.” Scott swirled his whisky around in his glass, watching the liquid spin close to the edge. “I really hate meetings.” He gave a half smile. “And I seem to remember you quite enjoyed them.” 

Jeff wondered if that was a dig at the family meetings he'd call whenever he was trying to work out which boy was responsible for the latest mischief. 

“I thought when you came back that things had changed too much to go back to how they had been. You'd been through so much, and we've all grown up… heck, the world is different in some ways too.” He furrowed his brow in thought. “And I don't think it will go back, not exactly, not to how it was before. And I think that's why I wasn't letting anything go back at all. I think I was scared because it wouldn't be exactly the same as before, it would be like, I dunno… grasping at trying to relive those days and then finding it coming up short. But I'm not scared of that anymore.” 

“What changed?” 

Scott grinned.

“Santa came back. And it wasn't the same but it didn’t matter that it was different. I still felt those feelings again, the excitement of a bit of magic in the air.” 

Jeff grinned.

“I was a bit worried you'd think it was a foolish old man trying to relive your childhood.” 

“No. It felt…happy. I feel happy.” Scott visibly relaxed, his shoulders softening and giving a contented sigh. 

“So… you really want me to take over TI?” 

“Yep.” 

He considered it for a few moments. 

“You know, I think I'd like that. I don't think I had even thought about the fact I could go back, really.”

“So you’ll do it?”

“We’ll work something out, together. But for tonight let’s just enjoy ourselves. Come on, I want to join the others.”

The group at the piano had gotten to the end of the song and belted out at the top of their lungs:

“Everyone dancing merrily, in the new, old-fashioned wayyyyyy!”

Scott grinned as his father went inside.

“Here's to doing things in the new old-fashioned way.” He took a drink, gave the starscape one last look, and followed his Dad inside to be with his family.

[bekolxeram]

I know we've been manifesting S8 Air Ops since that photo of a hangar was posted by a member of the scouting team. And I know the other side has been mocking us for being delusional when other bts photos of an aircraft came out. So here I am, taking my shipper's goggles off, and diving into the aviation side of things. I have to admit, it left me with more questions than answers.

They already have a hangar for Air Ops in S7, they don't need another one

No. The 911!Air Ops we see in S7 is the Helinet hangar at Van Nuys Airport. Helinet is a company that rents and operates helicopters for news stations, film crews, medivac service or regular charter flights. You can compare images from 7x02 and 7x03 with Google Street Views of the Helinet Hangar.

You can also see N67TV and N29HD here.

Helinet is where ABC usually rents its news helicopters from, so it's cheaper and more convenient to film a couple scenes there when helicopters are needed. It can't be used for regular filming though, because Helinet has a business to run, and when a helicopter takes off, it's so noisy that you can't even hear each other talking, let alone shooting a scene. (I recommend watching the whole video, if you're interested in accuracy when it comes to writing fics.)

It's a plane related emergency so it must be related to Tommy

Also no. Again, I've written a piece about how Tommy was not the air tanker pilot in 2x14 before, and if he was not qualified for that, he's not qualified to fly an airliner either. It's not impossible that he flies a small turboprop aircraft like a Cessna 172, but he would never have the time to get certified as a commercial airliner pilot while working as an active firefighter since 2005.

And this is a prop for an Airbus airliner.

It's actually pretty easy to tell an Airbus aircraft from a Boeing one, as the shape of the rear cockpit windows is pretty different between the two. It's just a matter of which Airbus model it is. I believe it's a narrow body single aisle aircraft from the A320 family.

Wide body Airbus aircrafts, like this A300, have their side cockpit windows more tapered to the top. It also applies to other Airbus twin aisle aircrafts, like the A330 and the A340.

On the A320 though, the side windows are flat on the top.

So it's a pretty safe bet that the aircraft we see in that bts photo is one from the A320 family. I can't pinpoint which one it exactly is, because again, I can just see a tiny section of the cockpit, not the rest of the aircraft.

So the hangar must be for the airplane then?

The hangar itself is a former Air National Guard maintenance hangar at Ontario International Airport (ONT/KONT). It's especially used for filming. There are bigger hangars at the same airport for filming, but this one looks the best on camera.

They don't need a hangar for scenes inside of the plane, they have cockpit and cabin mock-ups at the studio for them.

You can clearly see the cabin door right here from recent bts footage. It looks just like a training facility for flight attendants.

They only film on location if they want shots of the entire aircraft from the outside. Like in 1x04, the scenes of Athena responding to an alleged unruly passenger were filmed in a set. The plane crash rescue parts of the episode though, were filmed in an actual retired 757 in a tub of water.

(Lone Star worked with this exact company for 3x08. Though, that plane was a 737 I believe.)

I can't think of any disastrous scenario happening in a maintenance hangar, where the aircraft is powered off with only maintenance staff present, no passengers or crew. Well, there have been cases of planes crashing into a hangar, but even then I don't see the need for the 118 to be there. Every major airport has at least one fire station on site with dedicated foam and crash units. In fact, there is a fire station right next to this hangar IRL.

Another problem, although I'm not sure because I don't have the actual measurements, is that the celling of the hangar looks quite low. (Refer to page 44 of this document) It was originally built in 1955 to house fighter jets. The F-102, the type of aircraft operated there in the 60s and 70s, has a total height of 6.5 meters. The tail of an A320 on the other hand can reach 11.76 m from the ground. (The shortest variant of the A320 family is actually even taller, 12.51 m.) So there could be some tail bumping action if you try to tow an A320 into this hangar.

So Air Ops is still a possibility?

Yes. This hangar is quite a bit larger than the Helinet hangar, but still not as big as the actual Air Ops facility. A helicopter is obviously much smaller than a passenger airliner that can seat over 180, you can easily fit multiple helicopters in there with plenty of space left for other set props. But the problem is, they don't have enough helicopters.

They have that one replica of N211FN that they used to film the search and rescue in 7x03, that's it. All the other helicopters you see on screen, including the real N211FN that actually flies, belong to Helinet. Sure, they can get some more fake helicopters that are empty inside just for looks, but I don't see the need to spend so much extra money just to show Tommy's place of work unless it's related to some major plot points. For now, I don't see how that would fit into the story.

There is also the possibility that the hangar has nothing to do with anything aviation related. I mean, they've filmed countless ads, music videos and movies, including Ford vs Ferrari there. Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe that's why that crew member eventually got the green light to confirm the hangar is indeed for 9-1-1, it tells us absolutely nothing.

[laceandsilkhandkerchiefs]

Perhaps a little bit inspired by my travels lately, I've been thinking about a flight attendant with a horrible, itchy, messy cold.

Personally I'm thinking about this in the so-called "golden age of flight" (late 1950s-1970s) because of the high standard of makeup and dress that flight attendants were subject to at that time, but many airlines still currently use that model so this also works perfectly well in the modern day!

Anyway, a flight attendant waking up the morning of a big flight (at least 6 hours long) with a completely blocked up nose and a sandpaper throat. They groan internally- whatever plague the man in first class on their last flight had has clearly infected them. Still, they get up and start to get ready- they won't get paid if they aren't on the flight, after all.

The pressure in their head shifts while they're in the shower, and a tickle grows in their nose. They sneeze frequently, and by the time they get out of the shower their nose is a dusty pink color. They're annoyed by this, but put makeup over it (trying to ignore how the brush irritates their nose and induces several more powerful sneezes). By the time they're dressed and ready to leave the house, they've managed to convince themselves that they'll be able to get through this flight just fine.

A few hours later, as the flight takes off and the change in pressure begins to give them a sinus headache and clogs their ears (symptoms they usually never have to deal with due to all their experience on airplanes), they begin to realize that this isn't going to be as easy as they thought. Still, they have a job to do, and they're going to do it to the best of their ability.

Flash forward to halfway through the flight, and they're not sure how much longer they can keep going. They've touched up their makeup multiple times, yet they can feel their nose becoming visibly chapped as it continues to run incessantly. Their sinus headache has reached almost unbearable levels, due in large part to the sheer number of sneezes they've been stifling and holding back. Finally, one of their coworkers tells them to go take a break, an order which they gratefully accept. They spend the next 10 minutes locked in one of the bathrooms, sneezing themselves silly (and pretending no one can hear them, even though they absolutely can). They then resolve to reapply their makeup, fix their hair and uniform (which are now decidedly askew) and muscle through the remainder of this flight.

Spoiler alert: that doesn't end well for them.

[82mitsu]

{18Trip} The 18 Questions Corner - Nishizono Renga

This is a translation for the 18 questions interview uploaded on the official Youtube channel. I suggest to read this translation alongside it!

Note: P stands for "Player", this series has a voiced male & female character for the player. The interviews are conducted by the male player in this case.

P: 18 questions for the Tourism Ward Mayors! We look forward to your cooperation!

Renga: Hmph. Interviews are nothing new to me.

What’s your name?

Nishizono Renga.

How old are you?

I'm 23 years old.

Tell us about your occupation!

The kind of celebrity even weeping children would be awestruck. 

What’s the first thing you do when waking up in the morning?

Opening the curtains and basking in the sunlight.

Anything you’re particular about with lunch?

I make sure I clean my plate. 

What pops up in your mind when it comes to “evening”?

A huge sunset!

What’s your routine before bed?

Skincare. A talent’s weapon is their appearance.

Where do you start with washing your body?

Eh, um… uuuh… hmmm.. ah, from my elbows!

What’s essential when leaving for a trip?

My sunglasses. They’re indispensable to avoid having my whereabouts leaked online. 

What do you check before traveling somewhere?

Uuuh, um… places like zoos… I-I enjoy them… 

What’s your favorite method of transportation for traveling? 

Airplanes, I am a celebrity after all.

What’s one item you’d bring to a deserted island?

One item only, hm…. the seed of a rose, perhaps.

Please give us some fanservice! 

Wha-..., ah, uuuhm- 𝚆𝚎𝚛𝚞… um.. 𝚔𝚘𝚖..𝚝𝚘𝚘…𝙷𝙰𝙼𝙰… 𝙰𝚊𝚊𝚑 𝚢𝚎𝚊𝚑… 𝙷𝚊𝚋𝚊 N𝚊𝚒𝚜𝚞 T𝚛𝚊𝚙!!

Who’s someone you’d lean on for support? 

My friend Ten… There’s also Yukikaze who’s easy to consult about different things. 

Who would you swap bodies with for a day?

Night squad’s Nagi. 

What would you want to do if that happened?

I would look after the rose garden at home. He’s an amazing guy who knows his way around flowers. 

Pass on a message to your roommates!

Kafka, as your leader I demand you to tell me whenever there’s something. And Ten… I’d be happy if we continue to get along from here on too. 

Tell us from the heart, what’s a “journey” to you? 

Something that makes you realize how unexpectedly vast the whole world is.

P: Thank you, those were all 18 questions!

Renga: Ah, it’s already over? Uh.. Hmph! Hope you realized I’m the most charming man alive, okay!?

Renga:  HAMA’s 3rd Ward Mayor, Nishizono Renga. Of course you already knew that, no? I’m an elite celebrity model making headlines in the media every day after all!

[usafphantom2]

Starting the SR-71 engines was no easy job. The J-58s’ oil, formulated to lubricate at the high temperatures at Mach 3, was virtually solid at temperatures below 86 degrees. Before each flight, the oil had to be heated, and it took one hour to warm it 10 degrees. Because this maiden flight was on a cold December day, the Buicks were obliged to hold maximum speed a little longer than usual to get both J-58s running.

The ground crews, wearing headsets, ran through their checklists. Kelly Johnson stood by in his familiar dark blue suit and tie, smiling as he had a final word for the pilots. The ambulances, the fire-rescue teams, and the fuel trucks stood at attendance. And waiting on the strip’s edge, wheels chocked in line, were three Lockheed Constellations.

Lockheed had provided two of the last 1049 models and a long-range 1649 for transportation to and from Palmdale or other places. Two of the three still had airline-configured interiors. Johnson had been behind the design of the Constellation too

. The two airplanes were together briefly, then the lighter F-104 pulled slightly out front. Gradually the Blackbird caught up and began to pull ahead. The gap grew wider as the two airplanes clawed their way into the sky. Finally, while the F-104 was still in view, the SR-71 became no more than a dark pinpoint, long gone and still pulling away.

As I stood there waiting for the SR-71’s first flight, I looked carefully around that little corner of the world. Watching the men who were there, I tried to find a simple way to describe their achievements, since I knew few would ever say much about themselves

A veteran crew chief standing next to me could only murmur, “Her enemies will never be natural.”

What he meant was the SR 71s enemies would be people as it turned out jealous people. It was not money that ended the SR 71 program. It was men that were not picked to fly this magnificent airplane.

The first official flight was December 22, 1964

Written by Jim Norris paraphrased by Linda Sheffield

@Habubrats71 via X

[my-moo-moo]

conceit brings nothing good

“Pregnancy is a walk in the park,” he naively declared a mere three months into his pregnancy, receiving death glares from all his friends. “I don’t know what you guys were complaining about.”

He had gotten pregnant his first month off the pill, despite hearing stories from friends that conceiving is not as easy as it seems. That was the beginning of his ego being delusively fed. He experienced no sickness nor aches, the only sign of pregnancy was the glow under his skin and the cute little bump that emerged— which he flaunted on his social media, making the effort to dress up in curated daily outfits. 

With his first trimester flying by like a breeze, he already started planning the rest of his year. He booked tickets for two separate babymoons, one his partner and one with his friends. He ordered a bunch of pregnancy clothes that would last him for months. 

He already signed onto modeling work a mere month postpartum. Since he had barely gained a kilogram yet, it should be easy to continue managing his pregnancy weight. He may be pregnant but he wasn’t letting go of his habit of eating healthy and working out every single day.

“You’re going to regret all these plans a couple months from now,” one of his friends cautioned. “Just you wait.”

He all but scoffed off the concern. 

In the days leading up to his ultrasound, his belly had popped. It was undeniable to any stranger he was pregnant, but it was still very manageable. He didn’t suspect anything amiss until he showed up to his routine ultrasound appointment. His heart dropped when he heard that they had discovered not one but four fetuses in his womb. No one could understand how they missed it the first time. 

He started ballooning rapidly since then, passing the max weight he set for himself to gain throughout the entire pregnancy at a mere halfway point. He mourned his once pristine baby bump as a dark line now ran straight through the middle and stretch marks littered his skin. The developing babies, struggling to find room to grow, continue to push his belly to limits in all directions. Even his ribs and hips weren’t spared from being pried apart. Not even the clothing he bought especially for pregnancy fit anymore. He resigned that a portion of his belly will always be exposed to the air.

His flat chest started swelling as well, into full on breasts that would produce enough milk for four babies. They were so itchy and sensitive that it was painful to brush over them. Milk would sporadically leak from his nipples, staining his shirts, but he had long given up on presentability. 

Forget working out, he can barely get off the bed to go to the bathroom without breaking a sweat. It was a struggle to put one feet in front of the other with his gravid belly pulling at his back and hanging in front of his thighs. Not that he felt any relief sitting and lying down either. Even when lying still, there was never a peaceful moment during the day where one of his babies wasn't kicking up a storm inside his body. He was certain all his inner organs were littered with purple bruises.

When his friends would call him, he would still lie, saying that the pregnancy was going smoothly. “I can go past the goal gestation week of 32 weeks, no problem. Besides, I’m growing quadruple the amount of babies and I still haven’t complained as much as you guys.”

It was a relief that they have not seen in person the slobber he has reduced to, but they kept reiterating they were excited to see him again for the babymoon trip.

He was going to be 7 months pregnant, yet astonishingly the doctors had cleared him to go. His partner with the loud mouth, leaked that knowledge to his friends so he had no excuse and had too much pride to cancel the trip.

That’s how he found himself in his assigned airplane seat with his ass barely fitting, and his enormous belly almost reaching the seat in front of him, and pushed up against the armrests. As soon as the plane took off, the person in front reclined his seat, as far as it would go over his belly, and completely knocked out. He bit back his wince of pain, and any complaints, not wanting to cause a scene. And so he was forced to sit still for 8 back aching hours, the pressure on his belly and bladder almost exploding. 

With the arrival to his destination did not come any relief. Turns out his friends have organized a packed schedule from the moment they landed. When they would ask him if he wanted to stay back in the hotel to rest, he would shake his head stubbornly. He clutched his belly in his arms, waddling as best he could to keep up with their pace. They would walk for hours on end until his back, legs, and pelvis were on fire, yet his fake smile never faltered.

His friends kept saying he was small for carrying quadruplets. They guilted him in thinking he wasn't doing enough for his babies so they could order him extra plates of food. In his past life, he would never think of eating this amount of calories in a week let alone a single meal, but they kept piling on his plate. He just couldn’t refuse.

The babies seem to be having a growth spurt, his suspicions proven correct when it was time to board the flight home. His belly had stretched too far outward that he could no longer fit the plane seat. It was the most embarrassing moment in his life when he was escorted off the plane, but at least his friends stood by his side. They cheer him up and suggest driving him home, making a month-long road trip out of it… and he agrees.

(Once they strap him in the backseat, they won't be bringing him home until they witness him break.)

[nadiv22]

My favorite quotes from civ VI

TECHNOLOGY

“No man ever wetted clay and then left it, as if there would be bricks by chance and fortune.” – Plutarch

“If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.” – Will Rogers

“I AM FOND OF PIGS. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” – Winston S. Churchill

“Who deserves more credit than the wife of a coal miner?” – Merle Travis

“When you find yourself in a hole, quit digging.” – Will Rogers

“I don’t believe in astrology; I’m a Sagittarius and we’re skeptical.” – Arthur C. Clarke

“Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.” -W. H. Auden

“I shot an arrow into the air. It fell to earth, I knew not where.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.” -Mark Twain

“I’m also interested in creating a lasting legacy … because bronze will last for thousands of years.” – Richard MacDonald

“MONEA, if it does not bring you happiness, will at least help you be miserable in comfort.” – Helen Gurley Brown

“A man on a horse is spiritually as well as physically bigger than a man on foot.” – John Steinbeck

“The Lord made us all out of iron. Then he turns up the heat to forge some of us into steel.” – Marie Osmond

“I cannot imagine any condition which would cause a ship to founder … Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that.” – Capt. E.J. Smith, RMS Titanic

“Create with the heart; build with the mind.” – Criss Jami

“One man’s ‘magic’ is another man’s engineering.” – Robert Heinlein

“There is no easy way to train an apprentice. My two tools are example and nagging.” – Lemony Snicket

The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one.” – Malcolm Forbes

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” – Aristotle

“Rocks in my path? I keep them all. With them I shall build my castle.” – Nemo Nox

“Not all who wander are lost.” – J.R.R. Tolkien

“People can have the Model T in any color – so long as it’s black.” – Henry Ford

“The pen might not be mightier than the sword, but maybe the printing press is heavier than the siege weapon. Just a few words can change everything.” – Terry Pratchett

“Astronomy’s much more fun when you’re not an astronomer.” – Brian May

“If facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts.” – Albert Einstein

“No one starts a war – or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so – without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it.” – Karl von Clausewitz

“Science owes more to the steam engine than the steam engine owes to science.” – Lawrence Henderson

“Bolt actions speak louder than words.” – Craig Roberts

“Never criticize a rifleman until you have walked a mile in his shoes. That way, he’ll be barefoot and you’ll be out of range.” – The 2nd Target Company

“For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.” – Leonardo da Vinci

“If you can walk away from a landing, it’s a good landing. If you use the airplane the next day, it’s an outstanding landing.” – Chuck Yeager

“Benjamin Franklin may have discovered electricity, but it was the man who invented the meter who made the money.” – Earl Wilson

“Chemists do not usually stutter. It would be very awkward if they did, seeing that they have at times to get out such words as methylethylamylophenylium.” – Sir William Crookes

“If God had really intended men to fly, He’d make it easier to get to the airport.” – George Winters

“Untutored courage is useless in the face of educated bullets.” – George Patton

“There may be no forgiveness for polyester. On this one matter, Satan and the Lord are in agreement.” – Joe Hill

“I’m a big laser believer – I really think they are the wave of the future.” – Courteney Cox

"Even though the future seems far away, it is actually beginning right now.” – Mattie Stepanek

CIVICS

“Bravery is being the only one who knows you’re afraid.” — Colonel David Hackworth

“A strong economy begins with a strong, well-educated workforce.”– Bill Owens “Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.” – Marcus Aurelius

“It was luxuries like air conditioning that brought down the Roman Empire. With air conditioning their windows were shut; they couldn’t hear the barbarians coming.” – Garrison Keillor

Divide and rule, a sound motto. Unite and lead, a better one.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” – William Shakespeare

“Invincibility lies in the defense; the possibility of victory in the attack.” – Sun Tzu

“History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

“A good navy is not a provocation to war. It is the surest guaranty of peace.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“In democracy it’s your vote that counts; in feudalism it’s your count that votes.” – Mogens Jallberg

“There are very honest people who do not think that they have had a bargain unless they have cheated a merchant.” – Anatole France

“You can’t go around arresting the Thieves’ Guild. I mean, we’d be at it all day!” – Terry Pratchett

“Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government … You can’t expect to wield supreme power just ‘cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!” – Monty Python

“In diplomacy there are two kinds of problems: small ones and large ones. The small ones will go away by themselves, and the large ones you will not be able to do anything about.” – Patrick McGuinness

“A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman’s birthday but never remembers her age.” – Robert Frost

“New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.” – John Locke

“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.” – Douglas Adams

“Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.” – Edward Wilson

“If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re mis-informed.” -Mark Twain

“Sports do not build character. They reveal it.” – Heywood Broun

“A good plan violently executed right now is far better than a perfect plan executed next week.” – George S. Patton

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” – John F. Kennedy

“Which of all my important nothings shall I tell you first?” -Jane Austen

“I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.” –Albert Einstein

[naomijoestar]

Hi! Could I request some cute M!Reader going Christmas shopping with the Bucci Gang? Like they are bad at gift giving, opting for "practical and useful gifts" which led to some... questionable (bland) everyday stuff. So, this time, they want to actually buy something the gang would enjoy? (+ extra, if you are okay with it, they are fidgety and their gaze linger around what Mista would like because favorite member/massive crush on him?) Thank you!

Masterlist here<3

Hello! I’ve never written an M!reader fic before, I tried my best tho and I hope you enjoy!

Christmas shopping for the bucci gang

Shopping for Christmas gifts had always been a challenge for you. Your practical mindset often led you to pick things like socks, cooking utensils, or stationary organizers—items the gang graciously accepted but never seemed thrilled about. This year, though, you were determined to turn things around

Walking into the bustling Christmas market with Bucciarati’s crew was intimidating. The group’s energy was palpable, especially with Narancia dragging Fugo toward a toy shop to admire model airplanes, and Giorno quietly debating over a set of luxurious silk scarves

You shuffled between stands, mentally going over what each person might like. It was hard to focus, though, because every so often, your gaze would drift toward Mista. He was bouncing from one stall to another, excitedly pointing out random knickknacks: quirky snow globes, novelty pistols, and a comically oversized Santa hat he immediately plopped onto his head

Bucciarati was easy to shop for, you spotted a leather bound journal embossed with golden filigree, it was elegant and functional, something he would enjoy

Giorno deserved something refined, so you got him a small potted tree that came with a care kit

You found a music box that played hiphop music that you were sure Narancia would appreciate, especially because it also had tiny dancing figures

You’d think shopping for Fugo was tricky, but luckily he had been not so subtly eying an expensive tie so getting it would make the perfect gift

For Abbacchio, you got an expensive set of wine glasses with beautiful designs and expensive decorations

Finally, it was Mista’s turn, and you were a mess. Every time you tried to think of something, your thoughts spiraled into nervous static. Would he like something quirky? Sentimental? Or would he just laugh at your attempt?

“Hey, what are you doing over there?” Mista’s voice jolted you. He strolled over, still wearing the ridiculous Santa hat, and peered at your empty hands. “You haven’t gotten anything for me yet, have you?”

“I, uh—no, not yet,” you stammered, shifting awkwardly. “I’m still deciding.”

His eyes lit up. “Want me to help? I’ve got great taste!”

You forced a laugh, trying not to combust under his grin. “That kinda defeats the point, doesn’t it?”

You eventually spotted a vintage revolver-shaped lighter at a nearby stand. It was unique and perfectly suited to Mista’s personality. You hesitated, though, second-guessing yourself. What if it wasn’t good enough?

As you reached for it, Mista’s hand brushed against yours. “Whoa, that’s sick! Is that for me?” he asked, grinning ear to ear

Your face burned. “Yeah… I thought you might like it.”

“Are you kidding? I love it! You’re the best.” He threw an arm around your shoulders, and you nearly forgot how to breathe

By the time you regrouped with the others, your nerves had settled… mostly. The gang admired your thoughtful choices, even Narancia, who declared his music box was “the coolest thing ever.”

And Mista? He was busy flicking the lighter on and off, smiling to himself like you’d handed him the moon

For once, you’d nailed it—and maybe, just maybe, the lingering warmth of Mista’s arm around your shoulders wasn’t just from the lighter

I hope you enjoyed this! If you’d like anything added or changed you can message me and I’ll fix it!

If you enjoyed this make sure to check out my other posts, and if you’d like anything specific written for a jjba character/squad you can request it if my requests are open!

[ohnoitsz1m]

Hi!! I wasn't sure if it was okay to post this on my blog so it's here instead but I found your shop while searching for airplane dragon adopts because one of my favourite creators now have a airplane dragon model and I bought your singular airplane dragon adopt that was somehow still left there!!

Thank you so much for making them I love them!! Please feel free to ramble on about your own airplane dragons if you do answer this I am VERY fresh to everything and I wanna learn more about them 👀

Hi!!! :D thank you for buying one of my dragons :] very glad this guy was able to find a home

Also it's totally okay to post anything you buy from me on your blog or your own accounts! BUT since you asked >:] I will tell you about these guys because I love them dearly.

This is gonna be super disorganized because I just woke up and I'm packing to leave a con so I'm alllll over the place

SO! Airplane Dragons are an original species introduced by Scpkid (very popular furry adopt artist, mostly operating out of Toyhou.se and their own website these days I believe? Very easy to look up I prommy) around 2015- they are a completely open species free for anyone to make.

They can come in any variety from heavy mech to very organic and fluffy, from anthro to feral to just a straight up plane with paws! But every artist tends to draw em differently- I tend to go for a more organic look but I can dip into more mechanical depending on my purposes, here's some of my dragons, mostly Half-Life based, but some original characters ^^

I Think (though I could definitely have this wrong) airplane dragons were originally inspired by Aeromorphs, which is more Anthro Plane and less Furry, although the Aeromorph community definitely started out non-furry and then got swallowed by the furry fandom. Kinda like bronies lol. But don't let the name fool you, airplane dragons can be ANY kind of aircraft! Helicopters, space shuttles, UAVs, you name it, if it's mechanical and flies, you can make an airplane dragon of it! There really aren't hard rules for the species and it mostly just plays off vibes and what looks good To You, so if you wanna make your own, I encourage you to go crazy!

I'm on the weirder side of the furry fandom (pooltoys, aeromorphs, therianthropy, writing essays on furry history + philosophy, etc.) and I'll gladly admit that, so I tend to use aeromorphs to soften the blow when it comes to expressing that lol

I find they're a very accessible way to get people to think differently about furries and what Is and Isn't furry, both for furries and non-furries

And also I just like them! My school is LITERALLY an airport! I get to walk through the hangar around a very pretty MD-80 on my way to class every day, sometimes there's other smaller planes and jets in there too, we have a Gulfstream in there rn. PLUS I get to watch prop planes and small jets take off while I eat lunch! So this interest in planes was inevitable,, I don't even study aviation I'm a graphic design student. There's just also planes there lol

So yeah I really like Airplanes and Furries and I think other people should too, and I started making a bunch of them for Half-Life and HLVRAI and as adoptables because I wanted more people to give em a try :]

Also if ur curious further down on my blog (or should be in #hlvrai airplane dragon au or #hlvrai aeromorph au) there's a fursuit of that Benry plane. There's also just more planeguys if you search aeromorph or airplane dragon on my blog. I started using aeromorph as a catch-all term for em for several reasons that I won't get into here lol

Uhh hope this was at least a little informative ^^ enjoy your dragon! If you ever get or make any art of them I'd love to see ^^ it's not mandatory but I love receiving updates on designs people get from me lol

[gentlemewn]

A little incorrect quotes with the Cat Bureau (+ Fursona and Nightshade)! Why myself and Nightshade? Cause why not? The more the merrier! Besides my two hyperfixations have been between The Car Returns and Earthspark so 🤷‍♂️

Drawing Nightshade is hard and they seem to have an easy model to draw 😭

I don't like how I drew their eyes but it’s to late now to go back 🫠

Besides I'm traveling tomorrow the entire morning so, drawing may or may not be the entertainment for the time in the sky (going on an airplane ✈️ ). :D

[pop-punklouis]

i don’t get how taylor can write about things like this and them not be real? that’s the hard part for me bc you can tell there’s pain there and so much pint up emotions with harry

babe, she’s a natural-born story teller. she’s a great lyricist. she’s able to take very public parts of her relationships/narratives and wrap them up into these stories of love and heartbreak and betrayal. yes, she writes from the heart and draws from her experiences like all great lyricists do, but she also knows what to emphasize or what throwaway comments to use when necessary. all the songs and even the vault songs angled towards harry feature nothing but very public references that were tied to the timeline of haylor or harry’s public image. the yacht. her blue dress. the vehicular manslaughter. the slew of models he was always seen with. him growing his hair long. the airplane necklace. his “womanizer” ways as an 18 yr old boy lmfao etc. it all tells a very specific story and leads you to it like treats for a rabbit because the references are so easy to lead back to that time period.

you can write a good song about love or heartache but adding very superficial details that everyone can instantly pin to someone you’ve been seen with is easy tabloid and fan fodder. like a song could be about anything or anyone, but the moment you add “green eyes” or “the ship tattoo on your arm” or anything very significant to another person, it can easily be about them now. it’s storytelling. many artists do it. taylor is just a master at it. both with her real and PR relationships.

and if anything, folklore and evermore proved how easy and successful she is and has been at speaking through voices and experiences that are from others or are fabricated altogether. it’s fascinating when you jump down the rabbit hole of her lyricism.

but in sum: haylor was a 2 month PR stunt babe that did it’s job bc it still creates chaos and headlines over 10 years later. even when it seems they’re both at least friendly with each other now (me specifically thinking back to the grammys this year when harry’s entire AIW performance was messed up due to the wheel malfunction and yet taylor was one of the only ones standing and dancing and clapping for him and genuinely seemed happy when he won his awards and stayed standing as he made his speeches)

[script-a-world]

Submitted via Google Form:

The post you had earlier about how quickly new technology has come in recently years is amazing and just puts things into perspective. Each decade will in fact look quite different as to what would be available. Stuff just 10 years ago can already be dated. I have a sci-fi story set in my own universe in which the story spans multiple decades. How do I create a similar advancement througout the decades? In fact, in thinking of other fictions that span decades or more - I don't really see such advancement. Some, yes, but nothing that appears and they always keep certain things 'retro' anyway. Not sure if it matters from this viewpoint but I can watch/read something, I don't find it easy to pinpoint its decade within the story just by tech cues. Whereas anything set in the last century, I generally absolutely can identify when its supposed to be. Especially if it's say... surrounding tech and not tech directly at the forefront of the story. Feels like there is something that I am missing that I could insert into my story that will explicitly date the events by its tech. Perhaps that's quite a pedantic point that most people don't really focus on, but I think it definitely would make things stand out and feel like it's an innovative society that makes advancements over the years.

Addy: I feel like there are two major possibilities for sci-fi: continued rapid development or a sort of slowed not-quite-a-plateau. In the second one, you'd see things like our developments with phones, but at a slower pace. Phones came out a while back, but they've been getting smaller (and then larger) with more features. Now they're basically mini-tablets with cell data. On another track, airplanes have certain limitations due to efficiency and interactions with air currents (flying too fast drives up your fuel consumption *rapidly*), and we also still use the SR-71 Blackbird, which came out in the 60s. Our ability to model things and develop things has improved massively, but the SR-71 still works really really well. It gets the job done and, more importantly, we already have it. Our world is a mixture of tried-and-true classics and new developments.

For sci-fi, I'd say a lot of it depends on where they turn their attention to. Can't get new developments in brightly-colored concrete if nobody's pursuing it, after all.... and a lot of that comes down to trends. Look at home development trends - the 2000s had a lot of heavy wood and whatnot, and then it swung into minimalism, and now it's slowly emerging from greige-land (gray+beige) into "some colors, but not too many (yet)." Call it around 15-20 years for a housing style to change. If you walk into a house with 70s decor, you can just tell. The style/era has characteristic features. The whole reason we have so many developments in phones is because people are interested in phones. If nobody cared, nothing would happen.

So what are people prioritizing for research, and how does that affect new developments? New methods of wood engineering, growing organs in labs (maybe there's a breakthrough that massively reduces the cost or reduces the rejection rate), vibrantly colored steel (not currently possible, to my knowledge, and I'm the steel person here), or something with temperature-sensitive plants to act as "natural" thermometers.

People want to develop and grow, it's just a matter of what we develop and when. What's the style of your era? What's the trend? How does that affect industrial research? Or, on the flip side, a new development could launch off a trend. Say you can make color-changing paint - that's going to launch a whole thing of people doing highly customizable rooms with whatever accent walls you want. And for why it doesn't take over and last forever... maybe it becomes kinda tacky after a few years. People might use color-changing paint while deciding what colors to use, but then go get proper paint for the "real thing" because color-changing paint just feels tacky and kinda outdated. Maybe it flakes off easily or is easily removable, or maybe it's super hard to remove. Either could make it feel troublesome to the layperson.

Maybe there have been some difficulties with growing most crops in lunar soil (which is basically rocks with no microbiome), and someone went "hey, if we add this chemical, that'd allow for better water penetration, which would allow for more plant variety" so now you've got a more varied diet instead of subsisting off of 2-3 plants.

One example of IRL research is someone whose project was to look at the amount of white on the wings of monarch butterflies before the migration and after the migration (seeing which butterflies survived to reproduce during that). They found that butterflies with more dappled edges did better, and that may be due to microcurrents at the edges of their wings kinda breaking up the wind. How that ties into the colors? Well, black absorbs heat and white reflects it, and that heat difference causes pressure differences that cause tiny tiny currents. That's the current theory, anyway, it's still being looked into.

People had looked into color differences a little bit, but hadn't really gotten into it properly. Maybe your world(s) didn't really think about it from that angle, and so after a certain year, all atmospheric vehicles with wings have characteristic dappled edges. Maybe those dapples change with time, like how the camouflage on military uniforms is more pixelated now to confuse cameras moreso than people. Maybe you see it on kites for children as well, or on drones or rotors or whatever else. Is the payoff worth it? Maybe not, but it's sci-fi. Why not?

For sci-fi fiction, I think that many franchises want it to appear sort of timeless, where everything kinda has the same general "sci-fi aesthetic" look to it. From that perspective, changes don't matter as much. I will say that Star Trek does have some of their aspects change over time (like more developed communicators and phasers, better EVO outfits, etc - compare Enterprise, TOS, and TNG, for example), though more slowly than in our modern day. The shapes of ships, the tools they use, etc.