#hq 312

[radioactive-metal]

the creativity harvest is bountiful tonight

This is my third post today and so the silly people in my skull have started breaking furniture to power the comically old, steam powered and poorly made machine known as my creativity. And so I have finished a random project that’s been lying around for a while. It isn’t great, but anything is better than nothing eh?

Ill probably rewrite if I ever get the motivation

enjoy:

Tyler:

“No rest for the wicked, and even less for the pious, amirite golden boy?”

Finians characteristic snark shook me from my thoughts as I stared down at the data pad. Legion HQ has assigned us poor little war heroes in squad 312 to command squad on a legion Polearm class frigate.

The polearms are the next step up from the longbows, larger, tougher, punchier. Each one is crewed by 6 squads, with 6 of each stream to work aboard. 6 alphas made up the bridge crew, 6 gearheads stop the inevitable plasma leaks, fires, and other such problems that came with having 6 brains and six aces aboard one vessel (2 aces flying the frigate itself, 4 others flying fleet defense fighters). 

In all honesty, I was sad that we weren’t being reassigned to longbow duty, despite such a thing being “unfitting” of a squad of our caliber. I didn’t look forward to having to deal with the grumbling of 5 other alphas moaning about being stuck under me, nor did I want to share the bridge with anyone but my squad. The one saving grace was that, on a technicality, Aurora was promoted to an honorary Ace, due to the destruction of at least 6 enemy vessels in three future (don’t ask me how that makes sense). 

She also seemed to be a natural at flying, but the way she did it reminded me of someone….

Of an old friend….

Scar

I wandered in to the briefing room, dark patches under my eyes from lack of sleep 

‘Worth it’ I thought to myself as I saw the hickeys on my neck reflected on the gleaming table.

Tyler also noticed them, before glancing between me and finian with the look of a parent who just caught their child with a hand in the cookie jar.

“We are gonna have a looooooong talk finian”

“About what sir?”

Tyler remained impassive at the jab, deciding it wasn’t worth it in the end (I could read that despite his trademark neutral expression, benefits of being half psychic right?)

“Off duty… activities aside, we have been given a new assignment”

A collective groan from around the table, shared by all but Kal and Tyler.

“Save it folks, it gets worse. It’s Polearm duty, as lead squad. Hope you guys enjoy having to herd cats like I do all the time with you!”

The slightest hint of a smug smile danced across  Tyler’s face before vanishing again. I was not looking forward to having to corral my fellow faces…

Finian:

I was not looking forward to having to deal with my fellow gearheads. I use the words fellow and gearheads very lightly though. As I’ve previously said, I’d bet a good chunk of them couldn’t count to ten without taking off their socks… and from the way scar looks, I doubt she feels much better.

Everyone looks to the empty chair when Zila should be… 

“Thank the maker zila doesn’t have to do it… her disrupter would need recharging before we even left the docks”

The joke draws out a few laughs, but we all sit in rembrance of the two members of the squad who we left behind. Both gone… but neither forgotten.

Tyler:

“Alright squad, let’s get moving. Scheduled to leave at 15:00 ships time. We are off to the wonderful wonderful Jia system to fend off some pirates attacking the new technical development colony of Bei. Dismissed!”

I notice Aurora check her watch, mumble something I can’t quite make out, and look at Kal.

I wonder what trouble Saedii has gotten herself into.

Knowing her, she’s probably cut the thumbs of a adept for sneezing and then punched a draakan just for giggles….

Maker I miss her.

Aurora:

As I settle into the pilots chair on our new ship, a Polearm designated “AP-231” I run the systems through their boot up, memories that aren’t quite mine guiding my hands to switches and knobs. Cats parting gift to me is especially touching, It means that in a little way, she still lives on through me.

As we push back from the dock, and move towards the fold gate, the radio crackles

“AP-231, Gate beacon has you locked. You are cleared for fold entry”

I pause for a moment, then I press the ‘transmit’ button

“Roger that Aurora. Pour me a shot, I’ll be back for last call.”

I intend to make good on that promise.

For Cat, and for Zila.

[klbmsw]

What is wrong with these people??!! Why?? Just Why??

[thebibliomancer]

Iiiits Acts of Vengeance Wednesday, featuring the Avengers!

After the destruction of Avengers Island (RIP beautiful HQ), the Avengers relocate to the sub-basement under Avengers Park, formerly Avengers Mansion. Then Freedom Force attacks for some reason.

It’s not a good Act of Vengeance because the Avengers have fought these goobers before. You had one job, big event! Do new fights!

Anyway, look for the post on Avengers #312 this afternoon at 6 PM EST!

[haikyuu-is-madness]

Holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit

[thegigabite]

How poetic of you, Kenma

[heretictales]

Methinks some big Kageyama +Hinata combo move’s coming.

Why?

The last few chapters, everytime Hinata’s failed attempts have been highlighted, Kageyama’s expression has been shown right alongside. 

Chapter 310:

Chapter 312:

Payback’s coming, guys. 

[fukunagas-eyebrows]

PUT 👏 HIM 👏 IN 👏 COACH 👏

[justanotherdamnkitten]

Tsukishima, this is not the right time for that

[techurou]

i don't understand how some people think nekoma's "sudden power-up" is so stupid like???? its not even sudden, it has been stated again and again and again that karasuno has NEVER won against nekoma?????? plus, we never saw what nekoma was up to during the training arcs (is that what you call it) which involved karasuno's first years so who knows what the fuck they did to prepare??

[derikisu]

[hungarianmudkip69]

rewatching season 3 of hq and i forgot how important both oikawa with glasses and tsukishima without them is to me

[shoukohime]

Rare yaku gremlin. Reblog for good luck

[busra-tr]

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[writers-hq]

Hello. We need to ask you something pretttyyy important.

So.

Right.

Ugh this sucks.

Right.

As you know the pandemic has proper knackered arts orgs and artists all over the shop and that, unfortunately, includes us. For the last 18 months, we’ve been unable to run our live events safely and, honestly? It’s left a huge hole in our beeswax. Add to the nightmare with the cowboy web developers and things at Writers' HQ are a little on the precarious side.

Recently the Arts Council decided we weren’t allowed to apply for the Culture Recovery Fund because we asked for both too much and too little (we don’t understand either)*. We have absolutely maxed out all available credit and aren’t eligible for any of the other covid support packages and eeesh it has left us in a very bum-clenchy situation.

Since the beginning of the pandemic we have run hundreds of free online workshops and courses for writers stuck in covid hell and worked our little butts off to make sure no one missed out on the community they needed during the weird-ass timeline we forked into in early 2020.

Last year, we awarded over 20 bursaries to systemically excluded writers, ran 312 webinars and workshops and saw our writers rack up over 200 publications and 50 longlistings, shortlistings and competition wins. One longlist had TEN Writers’ HQers on it, and one anthology featured SEVEN of you writerly maniacs.

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[haikyuu-is-madness]

THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID

[iannageorge]

Why Chicago?

Another behind-the-scenes look of my fanfic, “Strategist”. Also a bit of an explainer, since not all readers are from Chicagoland or the US.

Whatever Rick may say in the future, (my) Malcolm Pace will always come from Chicago. The City of Chicago is central to his character. To a certain degree, Chicago is the heart of the story, even if nearly the entire novel is set in New York State.

Chicago is there in the novel’s dinkuses (the section breaks of chapters that are typically three asterisks—yes, that’s what they’re called). The dinkus for this fic shares the four six-point stars of the city’s flag: ✶ ✶ ✶ ✶ .

Chicago is also in the first emoji hint of what’s to come. For chapter 1, it was 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥💨💨💨💨💨💨💨🏙🏙🏙. The hint stands for the Great Chicago Fire, the Windy City, and the Home of the Skyscraper. Alternatively, it could refer to how, after the Great Fire, the city transformed into an architectural masterpiece. The number of each emoji is also a hint; 773 is one Chicago’s area codes.

Chicago is even there in the date chosen for the grand opening of New Athens: March 12th, as Chiara had revealed in chapter 5. 312 is another of Chicago’s area codes (the downtown area specifically).

Chicago is also there in the graphs in chapter 3—not just in the data but the colors of the chart as well. The red and the blue match the colors of the city's flag.

Chicago is there, too, in the story playlist, in a selection of featured songs/artists, like “Memories On 47th St.” by Vic Mensa. About 32 of the songs, in fact, with even more that are closely related—not that they're all listed yet. (Regrettably, the playlist does have a particular artist who did have really thoughtful messages in his old songs but has really become… bleh. Those tracks are there for their messages and vibes, not for the people who created them.)

And Chicago is also there in the inspiration behind New Athens (like the urban planning elements that borrow from Daniel Burnham’s ideas), it is a bit there in the lingo (e.g., Chapter 2 has a little Chicago slang, like “tweaking” and “lacking”), and it is very much in all the references to the Great Lakes or the Midwest or Illinois or “four states away” or a bunch of other things: Kenwood, Jane Addams, Jon Burge, the Bulls, IMSA, UChicago, the Chicago Boys, giardiniera, Malört, and other things that Malcolm might happen to think about in his daily life.

As for why...

So. Malcolm was first supposed to come from another state I lived in. Except that state wasn’t interesting enough for a story, in my opinion. Ha.

Then I thought... Interesting... Hmm. Arizona. Arizona’s interesting. There’s the Grand Canyon… There’s Sedona… Oh, and there's the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation HQ in Scottsdale, called Taliesin West, which was also FLW’s winter home and lab. That made for a nice connection to Annabeth. (In the atrocious and incomplete original draft of the capture the flag fic that this novel spawned from, Malcolm is from there, and there’s a mention of Taliesin West. [Percy wanted to take Annabeth there on a date lol.])

But Malcolm gave me city boy vibes, like, BIG big city boy vibes, so he had to come from one of the top metropolitan areas and not a suburb. The Phoenix metropolitan area (which includes the suburb of Scottsdale) is not that.

Because I made him the chief policymaker of New Athens, I also wanted to pick a place that really fueled his need—not just a desire—to build the city. What would make him want to wish so friggin badly that he could sort of raze down a country (burn it all down perhaps?) to rebuild it from scratch? And what would make him consider a solution like that?

What immediately came to mind was Chicago—and that his wish did kinda happen there, through the City Beautiful Movement, shortly after the Great Fire of 1871. The movement, which flourished from the 1890s to the 1920s, was an urban planning philosophy that was supposed to create moral civic virtue and fix certain social issues like poverty. But in the end, the City Beautiful Movement was still way more about architecture—the physical components of a city (what Annabeth's interested in). The movement failed to rectify the deep-rooted, seemingly impossible-to-solve social problems that Chicagoans had experienced and that remain to this day, like segregation, violence, and poverty (what Malcolm's interested in). This was explored/compared in chapter 4:

In the land of the bereaved and home of the depraved, they’d build an enclave with better problems.  New Athens would be everything the Second City should have become after that great blaze. Paralleling the wonders of the City Beautiful was simple enough. With a park system to make Bennett proud and a Burnham-inspired guarantee that not a foot of the shores would be appropriated to the exclusion of the people, New Athens could easily be established as “City in a Garden” and “City by the Sound”. New Athens could, too, boast the togetherness and unshakeable optimism of Malcolm’s kind of town.  But this city wouldn’t squander its chance to start from scratch. New Athens would be the place hailed as the City that Works—that did work, and for all. 

I really liked that Malcolm and Annabeth could have that connection of complementary yet opposing goals (physical and intangible institutions; permanence vs. change), which I tried to illustrate in chapter 3:

‘Something permanent,’ she’d told him. Like the architectural masterpiece Wright et al. had brought to life for the most beautiful great city left in the world.  Malcolm scoffed. Were you blind or dumb, Wright?   Some things were just too permanent. 

Chicago also has an even better connection to Frank Lloyd Wright (and other architects) than Scottsdale/Phoenix, so Malcolm could also still get that bond with Annabeth. As indicated in chapter 3, I head-canon Annabeth spending parts of two summers in Chicago with Malcolm, exploring art museums, going on architecture tours, and seeing everything there related to FLW. I honestly don’t remember if canon Annabeth had ever left camp before Percy came around. (I feel like it’s a no? But I don’t care at this point.) It just seemed like such a worthwhile, life-changing, and perfect thing if she had visited Chicago as a child. Kid-Annabeth deserves to have gone to the Sears Tower Skydeck and to have seen all those FLW buildings in person. And she deserves to have been taken on an architectural boat tour on her birthday to see those skyscrapers and drawbridges by the Chicago River. To me, it was this head-canon trip to Chicago that cemented the architectural focus of her wish for “something permanent”. What better inspiration than the very city her hero supposedly called “the most beautiful great city left in the world”?

Without revealing too much, I will say that Chicago will continue to be there throughout “Strategist”—the good, the bad, the myths, and more.