#i had no idea how to design medals for this bastard

[dionysianfilth]

Captain Kim from @sierra-roe ‘s WIP she let me read 🧡

thank you @morgue-xiiv for the kim diagrams to fix some details (i’m gonna make u a fake phd certificate in kim studies if you keep being an amazing resource fjslfsl)

[munsster]

STRANGER THINGS MASTERLIST

back to main masterlist

(*) NSFW

(♪) songfic

STEVE HARRINGTON

Goddamn Chest Hair* — This new development on Steve’s upper body is incredibly attractive and too good to be true.

That Everything Feeling — (Henderson!Reader) You despise Steve Harrington, but the end of the world (and your little brother's gang) has other plans for you.

Angel Shot Neat — You run into a bit of trouble while bar hopping alone.

Loudmouth* — Steve Harrington is the noisiest bastard in all of Hawkins.

Hitched? — Steve gives you a cold proposal, maybe you just need to warm up to the idea?

Gut Feeling — You have big feelings for Steve, he’s just not sure he feels the same way.

Girl’s Night — You and Steve have a platonic girl’s night. Just you and Steve. Platonically.

Best Friends Kiss — What’s a heartfelt makeout sesh between good friends?

Sober Thoughts — If drunk words are sober thoughts, Steve sure is talkative when he’s had a few.

Hold My Hand Through It — Even if there ends up being someone else to turn to, he hopes you always pick him. Especially now, battered and sore and desperate.

Dull Domestication — You and a sleepy Steve have a very domestic conversation about the future.

Series

Winter in Hawkins — (Frozen AU) Steve falls in love with his best friend as the weather gets colder, loosely based on songs and characters from the Frozen franchise!

Headcanons

steve teaches you how to drive

domestic!steve and his little family

domestic!steve and his little family (2)

domestic!steve and his little spouse*

domestic!steve and his little family (3)

BILLY HARGROVE

Road Maniac* — Billy gets you jealous at a houseparty, and he's pretty sure he likes it.

Thick-skulled — Billy’s not sure he’s ever felt the way he does around you.

Gold-skinned Eager Baby♪ — “He’s gentle when he wants to be/So I think he wants to be gentle with me.”

Shut-eye — Billy Hargrove loves sleep and you.

Too Much Tongue* — You tell Billy he kisses with too much tongue. Billy proves you right.

Nightingale* — Billy can’t resist when you beg him to take your virginity.

Bedhead — Billy wakes with the desire to get rid of his hair eating away at him.

Designated Loverboy — Billy makes sure you know how pretty you are, even when you’re drunk.

Series

Breaking The Ice — (Hockey AU) Billy finds himself quickly falling for the broody anti-fan always eyeing him from the stands. And you just might find yourself falling, too.

Headcanons

love languages with billy hargrove

billy and his cheerleader girlfriend

10 things i hate about billy hargrove

10 things i hate about billy hargrove headcanons

billy with a wealthy s/o

EDDIE MUNSON

Heavy Metal Hands* — Eddie happens to be really good at playing guitar. And you.

It’ll Last Longer*— You show Eddie your new camera, and he already has a few ideas.

Lover’s Pyrotechnics — You drag Eddie to an up-close and personal fireworks show.

Whispered Big Hand* — Eddie is really good at letting you know how good you are for him.

Metalhead Grievance — You air your grievances in the face of Hawkins’ favorite outcast.

Waxing Kissable — Eddie kissed you. But why the hell didn’t you kiss him back?

Brain Like a Sieve — Eddie’s on top of the world when you tell him you love him. So much so, in fact, that he forgets to say it back.

Red Wine Supernova♪ — (Bimbo!Reader) “Baby, why don't you come over? / Red wine supernova, falling into me”

Rockstar Standards — (90s AU) Corroded Coffin starts to gain some traction, and you can't help feeling stranded.

Headcanons

eddie with a wealthy s/o

ROBIN BUCKLEY

Redemption Make Out Sesh — You go a little green when Robin mentions the girl she used to crush on.

Gold Medal Babe — Robin still doesn’t understand everyone’s apparent obsession with Steve. Turns out, neither do you!

Bloodshot Bad News — You know firsthand how worried Robin gets over the smallest things. You just never figured you’d be one of them.

And One Night Only — Steve finds it silly how flustered you get in front of your long term crush at the carnival.

Curtain Call*— (TheaterKid!Reader) The band kid and the theater kid getting together behind the scenes: what could possibly go wrong?

Kiss and Tell All — Robin admits she’s never been kissed. Until now.

The Hell Outta Dodge — Robin has big plans, and in every single one of them, you’re there.

Tête-à-tête — (Byers!Reader) Soft and sweaty and close proximity pillow talk with the sweetest girl ever.

Come Up Short — Robin is stunned you don’t see yourself the way she always has.

Two Left Feet — Your new, shared apartment wouldn’t be the same without its first dance.

Redeem the Cursed — Sometimes, the right words have their way of coming out at just the right times. Sometimes.

JONATHAN BYERS

Fall Into Place — Jonathan comes home to find you fully adopted into the Byers’ daily routine. When did that happen?

Headcanons

getting high with jonathan

STEDDIE X READER

Ill and Idle Talk — Your boys never want you to be scared of telling them anything. But sometimes, it’s fated.

STOBIN X READER

Bright Shiny Object — When the pressure of a secret girlfriend and a fake boyfriend becomes too much, what can you do?

WALTER “KEYS” MCKEY

Free Life On Earth — He thought he was just out getting coffee. But then he bumped into his cybercrush.

Cropped — You convince your easily flustered boyfriend to put on a crop top.

Headcanons

keys surprising you with a dog

KURT KUNKLE

Headcanons

kurt kunkle and his bimbo girlfriend

[elencelebrindal]

Saint Seiya - Legend Of Sanctuary

Ok, I need to rant a little bit about this. This movie, as amazing as it looked, could have been way better than it is. 

And the worst thing is, it started off really well!

The opening scene with the fight between Aiolos, Shura and Saga was absolutely amazing, captivating even. A perfect way to introduce the story, instead of jumping straight to the present day like the Classic Series does. 

Arles then appears, and the visuals of Athena’s colossus are stunning, but when the Bronze Saints are introduced... well, I have to say I was disappointed in how they decided to represent the Cloths.  On their own, all the Cloths are amazing. But, if you ask me about them while keeping them in the Saint Seiya universe, I can only say they were wrong. Instead of, I don’t know, sacred and whatnot, the seemed technological, much more like the Steel Saints from the 80′s series. The same goes for the Gold Cloths, with the added damage of being so damn full of stuff it’s too much for one armor. 

Looks aside, we then get to know their personalities, and to me they seemed a bit... off. I don’t know, but I had a hard time recognizing Seiya & co as the characters I loved in the original. They were weird.  Seiya, especially, was a damn dumbass, and I hated him. I already don’t like his character a whole lot, being full of bullshit and protagonist luck more than actual skill, but this made everything worse for me. 

Then, Phtolemy (listen, I don’t know how to call this excuse of a man, in Italy he has a different name so I hope I got it right) appeared out of nowhere with a friggin crossbow and shot Athena, who is fine?! I mean, yeah, we then learn it was a mean for Saga to get her cosmos (a bullshit on its own), but come on!  Thank goodness for Ikki, the only character who I genuinely loved from start to finish (ok, maybe Shiryu gets the silver medal, but whatever).

And now, everyone off to the Sanctuary, that is some floating stuff coming straight from a crossover between Marvel’s Asgard, futuristic architecture, ancient architecture and egyptian references.  What a mess. What a horrible mess.  Again, on its own, the Sanctuary is amazing. The visuals are perfect, the idea fascinating, but my goodness it’s so wrong in this context!

You don’t understand how happy that scene with Shiryu talking and no one listening made me, a little bit of good humor in this movie after Seiya acting like an idiot. 

And now, onto the 12 Temples.  Aries, the first one, met my expectations. I didn’t like how they designed Mu, but I enjoyed every second of this part. They got his character right, they got Shiryu knowing him right, and that’s enough for me.  Taurus, the second. I absolutely loved it. Aldebaran had an amazing personality, which they got right from the original series, and the fight scene was really good. I don’t like Seiya, but what’s there is there.  They straight up avoided Gemini’s Temple, so... that’s a strike for me. Cancer. My god, Cancer. I don’t even know how I felt during that. They took one of the best bastards of the Sanctuary and turned him into... a singing diva with murderous tendencies? Yeah, no. Cool, but not for him. Moreover, the Italian dub of the movie added another pearl to the string of irony, with his voice actor being the same one who voices Mr. Crab (a crab, got it?). I cringed so much during that part, I was grateful for Shiryu to the point of tears.  Aquarius, because for whatever damn reason, the order got completely ignored. But fine, this was the best of them all. The characters were perfect, the fight scene was cool, and I only felt bad for how little screen time Camus received. All in all, a good part. Leo started as a good one, but then got lost in whatever plot device they chose to have Shaka intervene instead of him being faithful to the Grand Pope’s orders like he should have been. Visuals and fight scene get a 10/10 from me, but that’s it.  We didn’t get to see two Temples after this, so straight to the Scorpio Temple. Only for Seiya and Shun to be yeeted away to the next house, because apparently Milo (who for some reason is a woman but fine, at this point I don’t care, and besides she was good for being wrong) hates people ruining her Temple. I loved her fighting style, the Scarlett Needle was the best part of this movie I swear.  But yeah, the Sagittarius Temple is perfect for Shura too, right? Another Temple we’re not going to see, since Capricorn decided to fight there. No reason explained. But, oh well, Excalibur wasn’t bad.  Ikki’s entrance best arrival of the century? Hell yeah. Too bad he gets wrecked by Shura three seconds later. 

And what happens during all this?  Athena, who’s still able to use her cosmos, saves the situation and BOOM, everyone is happy and an ally after five seconds of talking. What a miracle. 

And let me tell you, poor Aphrodite. He gets less than a minute of screentime (and how many? 16 words spoken in the Italian dub) before being sent to the Shadow Realm Another Dimension. That was the worst, for me. He deserved so much better than that crap and less than a pained word for him from Mu. So. Much. Better. He was one of the best designed Saints too! 

At this point, the story only felt rushed. There was no logic anymore, no sense of plot, nothing.  Arles revealed himself as Saga (oh what a surprise), and... what? I mean, up to him wrecking Seiya I followed, but after? What the hell was that? What the hell was everything that happened!? And, on top of that, why in the Seven Hells would the Sagittarius Cloth work like that on Seiya, but normally on Aiolos? It made no fucking sense! None!

But yeah, Seiya saves the day because why do you even need the other Saints when you’re the most bullshitted protagonist out there, and the movie ends with Athena giving a speech? And a hidden scene of her birthday party?

I was so done with this movie.  Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t hate it. Taken on its own, it’s good. The problem is, this movie cannot be taken on its own.  You need background knowledge to understand what’s happening with the plot, and that background knowledge is what ruins everything. You can’t make a movie that requires you to know about the original series, only to take the original series and warp it in every which way possible. 

Anyways, kudos to designers and animators, they’re the real heroes out there.  Maybe I’ll rant more specifically on the Cloths on another day, maybe I won’t. But I needed to get this out of my system.  Really needed to. 

[iloveyouthree-thousand]

Stark: An American Musical

So this is an idea I dreamed up a while ago: a series of loosely connected one-shots based on the songs from Hamilton. I have no explanation for it other than, like, it sounded fun? And I kinda want to rip your hearts out with It's Quiet Uptown. Pre-Endgame. Post CACW.

Track #1 // Anthony Stark

"Holy mother of—you bastard, orphan, son of a—good God that hurts," Rhodes hissed through through his teeth as Tony tightened the metal device around his leg.

"I thought cripples weren't supposed to feel pain," Tony said, feeling Rhodey's nails sink into his skin, "and didn't you go through special ops training? Shouldn't this feel like nothing to you?"

"You want to try it on and see how it feels?"

"If it means I get to be the one digging my ridiculously long fingernails into your arm, then maybe. Seriously buddy, when's the last time you trimmed these talons?"

Rhodes dug his nails in deeper.

"Fu—okay, that was uncalled for," he winced as he rubbed his arm, "and you know what else was uncalled for? The orphan comment. Little soon, don't you think?"

"It's been over thirty years."

Tony frowned, now working on tightening the device on the other leg.

"God I'm old. Which means you're even older. FRIDAY, remind me to look at nursing homes for my geriatric pal here later this week." He grinned as Rhodey narrowed his eyes and smacked him across the chest.

"Just because I'm a paraplegic doesn't mean I won't kick your ass Tony."

He just laughed. "Alright buddy, all done. How does that feel?"

His friend stood up and took a hesitant walk down the hallway.

"You know, I feel like I should write down the date, maybe put it in a scrapbook. Rhodey's first steps. This is such a proud father moment for me. It's exciting for you, too, of course, but mostly for me."

Rhodes rolled his eyes. The injury was still fresh, and he was still coming to terms with his decreased mobility. It was hard, for both of them, but they had hope.

Tony had been working on the contraption, forgetting to sleep at times, designing and creating in a guilt-ridden, coffee-driven haze. A smirk never failed to light up Tony's eyes, but Rhodey would never not notice the dark circles drooping just below. He knew better.

He also knew better than to try and tear Tony away from a project, especially one driven by the overwhelming sense of responsibility he never seemed to shake.

"Save the proud father moments for your protégé. Don't think I haven't seen the new models of his suit lying all over this complex while mine, I might add, is still parachute-less. Traitorous bastard."

Rhodes had slid carefully onto the floor, the act of walking taking a lot more energy now that his limbs were rather uncooperative. It killed Tony a little bit, to see his best friend drained from a task that had once been so menial. At least it was progress.

He wordlessly joined him on the ground.

"Actually, I think it was bastard, orphan, son-of-a-bitch," he corrected. "I think that'd be a good title for my autobiography. Maybe I'll write it on my headstone... actually, that's definitely what I want. Make a note of that for my funeral plans. And as long as we're making plans, I want you to give the eulogy."

If there was a look for 'you've finally crossed the threshold to insanity', it was emanating off of Rhodes right now.

"You must be out of your damn mind."

Tony feigned hurt, pressing his hand over the spot where his arc reactor used to rest.

"Why? Because you think you'll die first? Come on, I've got a death wish and, like, zero regard for danger. You live ten years longer than I do, minimum."

"I don't have a parachute."

"Exactly! You didn't even have a parachute and you're still a living, whining, pain in the ass."

He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "Can't Pepper give the damn eulogy?"

Tony's face twisted exaggeratedly, like that was the most absurd comment he'd heard in his entire life.

"What, and put her through even more than she'd already have gone through? We both know I'm going to go out in spectacular, gut-wrenching fashion, don't tell me you'd actually make her get up there and give a whole speech after that. She'll have enough on her plate."

"Oh, so she'll be too emotionally vulnerable but, sure, let's make your best friend get up there and do it instead."

Tony's mouth pulled to the side of his face. "Careful, pal. I never fully committed to you being my best friend. I do live with Pepper, tell her all my dark, dirty secrets. You're easily a close second, though."

His eyes narrowed in a glare.

"You say something stupid like that again and I'll be the reason you're having a funeral."

"Rhodey, you know I love you both—just in different ways." A smirk was practically eating his face, but his friend was having none of it.

"Oh yeah? Who'd you give a suit to, Tony? I don't see Pepper up there kicking ass next to you."

"One—if I recall correctly, you stole the suit. Two—I'm pretty sure Pepper has killed at least half of the guys I've gone up against. And three—if we're basing friendships off of suits, as you mentioned earlier, then Peter Parker is my best friend... speaking of, he should be here any minute."

Tony lifted his watch to his face, the screen lighting up as he checked the time.

"Remind me again why the fifteen-year-old is always over here now?"

"He's helpful. He helped me design that," he pointed at the metal device Tony had been painfully tightening onto Rhodey's leg a few minutes earlier. "It's much more ergonomic than the last one."

Rhodes raised an eyebrow. "The kid helped you design this?"

"Don't doubt him, he's practically a genius—probably smarter than you."

He punched Tony in the arm.

"I went to M.I.T. too, remember? Degree in Aerospace Engineering? Give me some credit, man."

"Huh. See, I have vague memories of that, but I was busy having fun in college—,"

"You were busy destroying your liver."

"I was living out my glory days."

"Oh, trust me, there was nothing glorious about puking all over our bathroom every other weekend."

Tony pressed his lips together. "Yea... let's maybe not bring that up in front of Pete."

A look that Tony couldn't decipher passed Rhodey's face. "What exactly is the deal with you and this kid? Did some of that fun in college have some permanent, teenaged consequences?"

His friend had noticed several different trials of red and blue Spider-Man suits lying around for a few weeks now, but he hadn't questioned it because Tony had always outfitted the team and, well, the team was pretty sparse as of late.

Of course, Tony still had a new prototype for Captain America's shield in the works and some upgraded arrows for Clint lying around on a workbench somewhere, among other things.

He could only work on them for so long, though, before the gadgets just became glaring reminders of the faces that were now absent from the Compound.

Making suits for Spider-Man kept Tony busy. It made him feel productive. Worthwhile. He wasn't left with such an empty feeling in his chest.

Tony scoffed. "Jesus, Rhodey, he isn't mine. Thank God. I've already screwed with his life enough." He took his tinted glasses off and fiddled with them in his hands. "I just found the kid online, but no one was going to take him seriously in his homemade Halloween costume, so I gave him a little upgrade."

Rhodey might've believed that, if it weren't for the Midtown High sweatshirt draped across one of the couches or the newspaper clippings of the spandex-wearing superhero clandestinely taped to Tony's desk.

"That still doesn't explain why he's over here all the time."

"I was just going to give him the suit and let him go back to doing his own thing... but he managed to break all the security locks I set in a little over a week and then decided to single-handedly take on Sam Wilson's evil alter-ego."

"You gave a child genius a million-dollar toy and you didn't think he'd play with it?"

Tony turned to face him before deadpanning, "I don't have a lot of experience with teenagers, okay? It was stupid, I know, but I'm trying to make up for that by having him over here—letting him have a say in the design process and actually teaching him how to use it—because he has little regard for my built-in training protocols. And he's good help."

Rhodey was about to ask if Peter's more frequent visits had anything to do with the quiet silence that now haunted the compound whenever he or Pepper were out, but he was interrupted by one-hundred and forty-one pounds of pure excitement practically bounding out of the elevator.

"Mr. Stark! So there was this guy on the subway today who tried to swipe a phone from this other guy, and I saw the whole thing happen but I couldn't do anything about it because he was too far away and I couldn't squeeze through all the people, but—oh, h-hey Mr.—Mr. Col. Rhodes, Sir."

Tony looked amused.

"Pete, I'd like you to my best pal Mr. Col. Rhodes, also known as Rhodey, also known as War Machine... it is War Machine, right? We're officially over the Iron Patriot thing?"

He ignored Tony, pushing against his shoulder to stand up, before reaching out to shake Peter's hand.

"It's nice to meet you, Peter." He shot his attention over to the other man in the room. "And what happened to 'Pepper's my best friend', huh, Tony?"

Tony held out a hand to Peter, who obligingly helped him up to his feet, while maintaining eye contact with Rhodes.

"I mean, you are the one giving my eulogy."

"Am not."

"Rhodey, come on, you give the best speeches. Remember that one you gave in like 2009? At the White House? FRIDAY, play the speech."

"No. FRI—,"

"Playing Colonel Rhodes' Presidential Medal of Honor Introduction Speech."

Peter stood awkwardly in front of the two men, terribly confused, as a familiar voice rang out over the speakers in the compound.

"I've been asked over and over again if I ever suspected my best friend was a superhero. The answer to that is—I've always known that he was different, and not just because he's a hell of a lot smarter than the rest of us. He grew up in the legacy of Howard Stark. No one was surprised when he turned out to be a genius—at fifteen, they placed him in advanced classes at M.I.T-,"

"FRIDAY, mute."

"FRIDAY, override."

"...but there's more to Tony than just brilliance. He's a self-starter. The only thing standing between him and what he wants is himself. When he saw his future dripping down the drain in Afghanistan, brought to his knees by weapons his company he'd created, left with nothing but ruined pride—something new inside broke through. Anyone else might've been dead in a week but Tony—he wouldn't let himself go out like that."

"FRIDAY, stop."

"FRIDAY, don't even think about it."

"...he put a pencil to paper and with nothing more than some scrap metal and the help of a new friend he plotted his way out of hell. He overcame certain death in a cave, but he didn't stop with self-preservation. He rewrote the game in the defense private sector. He saved his own life and then he saved countless others, and because of him, the world will never be the same."

"FRIDAY—," Rhodes threatened.

Tony cut him off. "Oh, come on, this is the best part." The recording kept playing.

"I know you already know his name, but it is my honor to present the medal of honor to my best friend, Tony Stark... Or, as many of you may know him: Iron Man."

"FRIDAY, off," Rhodes said, and Tony finally didn't protest. "Tell me you don't keep that around just to boost your ego. You know I only did that because the President asked me to. It wasn't for you."

"You keep telling yourself that."

The two men kept bantering, but throughout it all, Peter was eerily quiet. It only took a few seconds of his silence for Tony to realize something was up.

"Hey Pete, you look like you swallowed a frog. Everything all right up there?" he asked, raising his hand to gently pat him on the head.

The kid shook as if coming out of a trance. "Yea—yea, everything... everything's fine, it's just... aren't eulogies, like, the things you say at funerals?"

Rhodey answered, "Yes, they are. See, Tony, he thinks it's weird too."

Peter still looked like he had gotten kicked in the shins.

"No... I mean yeah, kinda, but that's not—Mr. Stark... are you dying?"

Tony looked confused for a second before... oh.

"God, kid, no—I'm not dying. I was just trying to mess with Rhodey here, I didn't mean to—."

"Oh thank God," Peter said, visibly relaxing, "don't scare me like that."

Then, he did something that made Rhodey nearly slide to the floor. Again.

His deceptively small arms wrapped around Tony's torso, and Tony hesitated for half of a second before tentatively and quickly returning the gesture.

For a second, it was a picture-worthy moment. But the second passed and the moment came to an end as both parties seemed to realize instantaneously that they were crossing boundaries.

"Right," Tony coughed, "Peter, why don't you show Rhodey some of the new features you dreamed up. I'm going to go get... some coffee. Try not to talk his ear off, he's the only one who still sometimes listens to me around here."

James Rhodes had known Tony for what felt like an eternity. He fought with him. Trusted him. And if the situation ever arose, he would die for the damn fool.

But the man who exited the room as if the soles of his shoes had caught fire, a wisp of crimson warmth on his cheeks, looked like a new man entirely.

There were a million things he suddenly wanted to ask Tony, a million places to prod, and he couldn't wait to do exactly that after the boy returned to his apartment in Queens for the night.

Right now, though, the kid was showing him the new thrusters Tony had built into the heels of the devices.

"...and if you do this, then the repulsors activate—,"

Peter pressed a button, and the chorus of T.N.T. came blaring through the room as the repulsors sent Rhodey crashing into the wall behind him.

Tony sauntered back into the room, a cup of coffee in hand and a snort on his face as he surveyed the scene. A flustered Peter Parker tried to hold back a laugh as he attempted to help a cussing, high-ranking military official up from a muddled heap on the floor.

"Oh yea. There's a bit of a learning curve. You'll figure it out," he garbled, mouth stuffed with a muffin that he had hidden in his other hand, "For now... consider this recompense for the orphan comment." He clapped a hand on the boy's shoulder, ushering him toward the shop, his friend still lying in an annoyed mess on the ground.

He'd help him later, of course, but the look on Rhodey's face gave him a pure, childlike joy that few things could. If Rhodes kicked his ass later—paraplegia and all—it would have been worth it a hundred times over.

So he led a mildly concerned Peter Parker away, chuckling as his best friend's voice faded into the background.

"Don't you even think about walking away without teaching me how to use these things. Tony... Tony Stark you better not be walking away from me. Don't be a dick. Come back here, you heartless, pompous, snowflake... I know you know I'll get you back for this... quit acting like a teenaged punk... Anthony Stark!"

Tony laughed under his breath and kept walking. Rhodes always came up with the nicest things to call him.

[mechagalaxy]

John T. Mainer: The Smoking Gnu

The Smoking Gnu

There are strange things to be seen in Mecha Galaxy. You think you have seen them all, but then you turn the corner and find you were wrong. I turned the corner in Cogwork Port. I was coming from a long vigil at the Temple of the Cog where we were attempting to heal the damaged machine spirit of a Cyclops recovered in the war. The Mandori 8000+ chess computer in the AI had a decent enough heuristic program that it could learn to control its body with the guidance of a skilled pilot over time. The one we recovered in the war had been force grown to level 50 by Evil Santa using forbidden technologies from the dark age of Yule, and honestly we may just have reloaded it with niodes and ran the wee beastie through a couple more times to bring him up to twice that level before strapping in.

Poor wee thing went all buggy when it woke up in a great big machine with twice the weapons slots, and dozens of equipment slots it had no idea what to do with. It went into an electronic corner to cry and melt down. We took it to the Temple of the Cog where the tech-priests could chant machine code at it and allow its spirit to grow and suffuse the machine, to remember it was a battle titan, a god machine designed to stalk the battlefield and conquer worlds, not sit in a corner and replay Kasparov vs Big Blue and dream of dot matrix printers.

A whole evening chanting and breathing that damned incense and you get hungry, thirsty, and more than a little messed up, so when I saw the sign of the Smoking Gnu Pancake House, I had to stop. The sign had a holographic dancing Regis trying to slap the flames out on an Aspis whose ass was on fire. The smoking gnu I presume. I approached the doors, and two small Regis bots grabbed the oversized door handles in their mechanical teeth and opened for me.

Inside there was a fat man of Asian extraction with a scraggly beard and pristine white apron polishing a coffee cup while behind him in the kitchen I observed a tall skeletally thin white woman with fierce eyes moving at enhanced speed caring for a long grill, served at each end by a…..well flame breathing Aspis.

Both the man at the counter and woman at the grill had obvious pilot implants, obvious battle scars, and faded clan tattoos. I am a sucker for stories, and there was one here. I slid onto a stool before the counter and ordered some pancakes and bacon, coffee, and stared at the sign and then the man at the counter, raising an eyebrow in obvious curiosity.

“So, smoking Gnu. There has to be a story here. I mean for one thing Ignus generally get the fire weapons, and for another, there are at least two 90 ton mecha on standby in your staff parking lot, according to my sensors. Not exactly your usual commuting vehicle for mom and pop diners.” I asked casually as I sipped my coffee.

He grunted and gave me the stink eye, saying nothing. There was sharp ping and I glanced over his shoulder to see the cook grinning at me as she shoved my plate across the serving counter. She had one real and one artificial eye, an engaging grin, and scar that bisected her face that she hadn’t bothered to get reconstructed. Her eyes twinkled and she shouted from the kitchen over the roaring of the grill flames and fans.

“Tell him Gnu, or I will, and you always complain I do it wrong!” She chortled, and by the way he rolled his eyes and sighed, she was right.

He handed me my breakfast, refilled my coffee and began the story.

“You see, we used to be pilots, me and Dolores back there. We fought with the Steampunk Dragons, and we rode the cutting edge of tech, daring things nobody else did. We were up against Phoenix, and we were beta testing some new kit. I was running Firecracker AI, Midori Boots and Acer Engines, a mix of lasers and fire for weapons on my Gnu. Delores, she tricker out her Regis, Grinner, with every kind of nasty laser you could think of, Psychic Enhancers to give her crit kill and damage stacking, then a new radical engine to make her faster. Some stupid freaking disaster called the Quantum Bus” He squeaked and jumped in the air unexpectedly.

There was a crack like a pistol shot and he jumped about six inches off the ground. I saw the towel in the chef’s hands only as a blur. She had definite opinions on the worth of the Quantum Bus engine, or just didn’t like having her Regis bad mouthed. If she targeted her lasers like her towel, she would have been deadly.

Glaring at her, he resumed his story.

“Never beta test equipment. Sure it’s the next best thing, the latest thing out of the labs. At least Tory is honest when she tries to kill you, the rest don’t shoot you, they give you new gear and sit back in the lab and watch you burn. Like I burned. Freaking Quantum bus garbage. “ This time he intercepted the towel by ducking a stack of menus behind his back to take the second strike on his ass from Delores towel. He glared at her, then looked back at me and sighed, continuing the story.

The idea was, I spread the damage around, and keep their heads down, while she either critical kills them or blows big smoking craters where they used to stand. I had a little auto repair, but she had so many of those Medbots she could keep us both alive indefinitely. In theory.”

Now he refilled my coffee cup, and I saw the burns along his hairless and deeply scarred forarms.

“Let me tell you one little bit they left out, one difference between medbots and nanobots of your autorepair. Your auto repair has a template of what you look like at 100% and tries to get you there. Medbots aren’t from your mecha, so they take a snapshot of how they see you, and restore you to that, the you at the start of the fight they take the snapshot at. No matter what state you are in.”

Let me take you back

------Clan War 3348, Day 3 Gold medal fight Steampunk Dragons vs (Blackstar) Phoenix-------

‘ “Aaaaahh, frack, I’m on fire. Delores, take out the damned Kami before he finishes me”

My Aspis was on fire, its rear engulfed in flames, my shield spines beginning to short circuit from the heat and the pain flooding my pilot implant as Gnu filled with smoke. Delores roared, or her Regis did, it was hard to tell the one I heard through my ears and armour and the one I heard from my comms, but a Blue Dragon screamed from her open throat, and cored that Kami good.

“Hold on Hiro, you look like a smoking Gnu, let me turn my Quantum Bus medbots loose, then we strike deep and finish these bozos!” Delores, oh Delores hadn’t turned the damned things on yet, so they took their snapshot now.

We went into the next fight, I felt a wave of missiles break over me as something ate the whole rank in front of us and damned near trampled me into scrap. I felt the medbots start to work. My Gnu went from shattered cockpit, staggering and shieldless to powered up, cockpit sealed, weapons hot and…….

“Aaaaahh, frack, I’m on fire. Delores, your damned medbots fixed the new damage and put the old damage back. MY ASS IS ON FIRE AGAIN”

Delores stopped laughing long enough to kill the Apatotron in front of her. I stomped a Humbaba to scrap, and every single stomp sent up a new wave of sparks and I had to open my cockpit vents to clear the smoke.

“Oh wow Hiro, I guess you are stuck this way, a smoking Gnu!” She didn’t sound sorry, she was laughing too hard.

Well that is the way it worked. Every time I got smashed to bits, if I wasn’t killed outright the medbots from the Quantum Pulse would return me to my natural state, ass on fire, cockpit filled with smoke and flames. After my lungs got replaced and my eyes redone the second time, I packed it in and retired to open this pancake house. Delores came along because since the whole thing, I am not so good around fire.

I tell you this free buddy, if you got somebody in your company that has that POC engine, you make them prove they took a snapshot of you all fixed in the hanger, or you shoot that bastard down, or you will end up a smoking gnu yourself.’

I tipped well, half because it’s a damned good story and half because it’s a damned good tip. I didn’t have much experience with the Medbots, but I knew a few pieces of our gear used it. I hadn’t really thought about the differences between medbots and your internal auto repair nanobots, and that was a mistake. Always something new in Mecha Galaxy, in this case something smoking gnu.

John T Mainer 28840

[academersatz]

Travelogue: Kazakstan 2: Electric Boogaloo!

Let’s dance!

Ew, gross, don’t dance on that. Thankfully, there’s no bloody blisters to report this time. I know, I know. Bodily injury is why you keep coming back to read about my exploits. If I’m not snapping, freezing, cutting or maiming something, it’s just not as funny.

Well, tough shit.

In a nice bit of parallel structure, I was invited back to Astana, Kazakhstan for the closing ceremony of Expo 2017. Like last time, I had three flights spread out over what would normally be my bed time, and I arrived incredibly tired. Unlike last time, I didn’t have 5 hours of free time to burn on a nap. After one hour of pretending to sleep, I was dragged out of bed and into the street and shot. (Just seeing if you’re still with me here.)

Much like Kazakhstan - Day the Best, I spent the first part of the day wandering around the expo. We started in Nur Alem, the giant glass testicle at the center of the expo park. But I had already seen it, and I was given leave to visit pavilions. 

Let’s talk Japan real quick, and compare it to the lazy American pavilion. Expos are corporate things--I know that. Japan’s expo was sponsored by car companies and wind turbine companies and other companies, all making things they want you and your government to buy. But Japan’s expo began with a video about how Japan has no traditional natural resources--none of that delicious oil that dictates much of American foreign policy. So instead of giving in and buying it from a neighbor such as Russia, Japan began MacGuyvering its way into the future. Their second video had an actual point! (The gall of those crafty Asians and their brain-thinking!) Hydrogen is the energy source of the future, and Japan wants to make and sell you the technology to make it the energy source of today. That’s it. No stock video of Japanese cities and cherry blossoms and waterfalls and that one painting everyone knows.

Instead, they crafted a fine video promoting hydrogen. 

The future’s gonna be ... interesting. 

The last part of the pavilion had something to do with VR, but there was a huge line, and I was getting hungry. I wandered down the sidewalk to the Korean pavilion, and there were hundreds of people in line to see it. As I walked away, I noticed a sign for a Korean restaurant, and suddenly I was a cartoon character.

I climbed the--frankly--too many goddamn stairs to get to the Korean restaurant above the pavilions, and I had kimchi kimbap and soup. 

The kimbap was a little plain (no carrots, no green slime, no brown things, no pickled stuff), just rice and kimchi, but it was genuine. The whole staff was made up of Koreans, so that probably helped.

After lunch, I had second lunch, yes, just like a bearded hobbit, but my experience last time in Kazakhstan had taught me to always eat whenever I had the opportunity, because I often didn’t have that opportunity. My official lunch was one of those times--the menu was about 75% meat. No exchanges, no substitutions. So Korea saved the day. Again. Kamsamnida, bitches! 

There were a couple boring press conferences, and I did my actual work, writing an article and embellishing what I had seen and experienced with things from my previous journey (fake news! fake news!), and then I rushed over to the awards ceremony. I really wanted to be there in case Finland, you know, the country that sent me here, won an award. But the award was so stuffed with pomp that they barely gave away anything, before I had to leave for dinner.

And Finland won a goddamn award. And not just any award, the goddamn gold goddamn medal. My article has two sentences about Finland, and one of them I cribbed from the pavilion designer’s website. Go Finland.

Dinner was another stand up smorgasbord, but this time, oh this time, I didn’t have a blister, didn’t have a fresh article to write, and I drank myself stupid. It didn’t take much, as I was already running on fumes. I remember ... pasta? And salad in tumbler glasses. And cognac. Lots of cognac. Or maybe bourbon. At that point, it was just whiskey-flavored sleepy drink.

The second (and last) day began with me semi-rested (I slept like the dead for at least 7 hours), going on a tour of the city. I thought it would be a repeat of last time, but it was entirely new places, with one exception. But I didn’t have to take all the pictures, so I’m actually in some of them this time.

We started at an ethnic fair, and I realized halway through that my lens hood was screwed on wrong.

This next one reminds me of something, but I can’t quite put my ... ah, finger on it. Our tour guide explained that hunters used it to store a warm, white fluid.

Horse milk. What were you thinking?

Inside a yert. Yurt. Jurt. Goddamn it, Finland, you’ve made me forget how to spell. It’s a fancy Jabba the Hut tent.

Hun. Whatever.

There were falcons. They were huge and terrifying. I haven’t actually felt afraid of an animal in a while, but Kazakhstan fixed that for me.

Next up, we went to the tree ball egg statue building in the center of Astana. I got a picture.

Look at that jolly motherfucker there. #SantaInTraining #AmishChic

Next we briefly visited the National Museum. We had less than an hour to visit allegedly one of the ten largest national museums in the world. Let’s begin. 

Who’s that? No idea. Probably a Kazakh.

Do you like modern art? Contemporary art? Too bad, no time.

Are these terra cotta warriors, like real ones? From China? Probably.

Who’s this asshole? Why is he covered in gold?

Are those metal-as-fuck horse bones? Possibly.

I cut the trip at the museum short by 5 minutes so I could check out the gift shop. But there was just handmade knick-knacks and what-not. No museum branded stuff, little Kazakhstan-branded stuff, and WAY too expensive for a poor bastard like me.

Onto the closing ceremony. And the free cola. So much free cola. My poor poor body. Hey, there’s your bodily harm. It may take a few decades, but it’ll get there. 

First, just a word about organisation. Zation! Dammit, Finland!

We arrived at 15.00 and were told that the ceremony began at 17. In a few minutes, that became 18. Then we were told in a Whatsapp blast, that it was now 20. Coffee at 18. Hey, do you want some coffee? Come on! (Time 17.20, literally two minutes after I received word of the coffee break at 18.)

A poor DJ began flipping tunes (that’s what DJs do, right?) at 18, but it started raining immediately, because God hates dubstep. Even traditional Kazakkh-inspired dubstep. The audience melted away, and I started reading Cracked. Or watching YouTube. Something. Anything to whittle away the time. See, I could have written my article, but I had no information. The livestream wouldn’t tell me who the DJ was. And the announcers spoke only Russian (or probably Kazakh, which sound the same to me.) The DJ became a pop girl group, then a live band with a rain-drenched female singer, then a jazzy pop band. It all stopped when the actual ceremony began. There was some interpretative dance bullshit, lazers, lots of people on wires pretending to do stuff like scuba dive and fly around on hoverboards, which was admittely awesome. Then some speeches by some guys, a flag got folded up and handed over, and the President of Kazakhstan, who probably approved banning tumblr from his country, forcing me to use a VPN, which has slowed my internet down so much that I can’t upload pictures of any of this crap until I get back home to the corpse-like embrace of my adoptive home Finland (gray, cold, clammy) ... uh ... what? Necrophili--

You might wonder why I don’t have pictures of any of this. This is because we were locked inside the media building with absolutely no way out, and even if we did get out, our badges had their access revoked, so we wouldn’t be allowed back in. We watched all of this on big TVs. 

Anyway, the show was pomp and ended with a sky-shattering display of fireworks. Again. Directly over the building (with skylights) that we were stationed in. You could hear the fireworks casings hit the roof after the last huge explosion, and the hall filled with the stink of sulfur. 

Finally, we were transferred back to the hotel, which required our driver to navigate the labyrinthine security cordons, and even then, he just told us all to get out and walk a couple blocks in the end. That Kazakh tradition of hospitality apparently doesn’t extend to bus drivers.

The next morning--the same night really--I had to leave for the airport at 4 am. Which turned into 5.30 am, because some other reporter was drunk or sleeping or something. My last moments in Kazakhstan were standing in line at the airport for over an hour, at our gate, while the sign above the gate claimed we were boarding. We were not. It was like Kazakhstan saying, “No, don’t go!” Or possibly Aeroflot saying, “Ha ha, fuck you and your sore feet!”

Probably the latter. 

Dasvidahnia, Kazakhstan!

[mechagalaxy]

John T Mainer 28840: Meat Shields

Meat Shields

The war was not going well. Rockets Raccoons were up against the Mullah's of Mayhem, a threepeat gold clan in the division the Raccoons had found themselves advancing into as the fresh meat. Out of the gate the Mullah's of Mayhem issued a fatwa calling Racoons trespassers in Division X and an abomination in the sight of the Craftsmen. They were ordered to burn their own mecha, or burn in them. The Racoons washed down a plate of bacon with a fifth of bourbon and told the Mullah's of Mayhem where they could insert their gold medals, and offered a boot to pound it home. They expected to have some time to scout before things got hot, that is the way things worked in Division W. Turns out Division X is more intense.

The second the clock struck O murder hundred, the Mullah's struck. Rolling out of the darkness in a tide of niode powered intolerance, they cut through Rockets Raccoons like a Galaxy Eye through an open cockpit. Two of the Raccoons were in specialist lineups to go hit the Mullah's scouts, just a few minutes from ready to hit the badlands to go hunting, but caught in tens and twenties when the Mullah's Kami, Notas, and Charon tore through, freezing, burning and stomping everything in their path.

My job is usually pretty chill. I pilot a third rank Magnus in Chubby's Cherubs. Me (Grinner) and Sweet Meat Stevenson act as flankers for Isabella in her Regis. We have a bit of niode gear here and there, but our guns are pure crystal. Best guns forward is the Raccoon creed, but each of our lines is designed to fight as a line. Me and Sweet Meat have pretty decent freeze, good trample, hit hard with missiles or cannon. Sweet meat has a lot of forking missiles, nothing super hot, but it spreads the love around. I pack a mix of good crystal cannons and OK crystal cannons. We keep being promised upgrades as soon as we score some loot, but every time I get a good one, I get a new weapon slot, so retiring my third rate guns keeps getting put off.

Isabella though, her Regis "Body-Count" is a real killer. I mean, sure her guns do less damage than mine on paper, but her lizard is a real laserbrain, and gets almost as much extra out of them as a Red Ant would, and packs about three times as many. It also loves to kill. I mean its not the fastest beast out there, but it loves to get the pure kill shot, often passing up an opening to wound to wait for the clean kill. Grinner and Sweet Meat our Magnus are sluggers, but Body Count is a pure killer, so is Isabella. We make a good team. Or we did until the Mullah's of Mayhem hit us. Isabella was shut down by trample before we even knew the second rank was under fire. I had my Lightning Shield on, so I lived, but I got frozen by the forking hit on Meat Shiled and never got my guns to lock on before both my legs got taken out by some kind of advanced plasma weapon I have never seen before. Some kind of Vortex crap that I will be having wet dreams about owning probably forever after seeing it burn through my Magnus legs like hot coffee through a sugar cube.

Sweet Meat got off three shots before he fell. One miss, two clean hits, one forking, and the Mullah Notas and Charon didn't even notice. The hits exploded all over the shields in their niode perfection and didn't even break their concentration. No weapon we had could touch them. They were just outclassing our crystal machines, too fast, too many guns, and shields we could not even scratch. There was literally no point in my Grinner and Sweet Meat firing at all.

As we were getting anti-radiation chelation therapy at the aid station, I made the mistake of bitching to Isabella about how useless we were against those bastards.

"We can't beat their shields, what is the point of even trying?" I complained.

Isabella slapped me so hard my head just about hit my shoulder it snapped so far around. She was furious. All five two of her. She should have looked ridiculous, little her tearing both my own six two, two forty, and Sweat Meats six even three fifty a new exhaust port, but all she looked was fierce and intimidating, because she was not intimidated. Her response was pure Isabella, as irrational as it was inspirational. She had a point.

"Sheilds? You are worried about their shields? I will teach them to fear MINE!" Isabella shouted.

Sweet Meat kneaded his temples, the big Chinese pilot looked like a defeated Buddha, and his words were filled with dump shock and despair.

"I know you have some good fire shields, but honestly each of us has one niode shield, but the rest of yours are nothing to write home about, I mean my own Magnus probably has better shields than you when you crunch the numbers" Sweet meat was a bit of an analyst, as well as manic depressive, magnus pilot, and avid gardener. What can I say, a weird dude.

Isabella gripped both of us by the back of the neck and pulled our heads together against hers in a fierce hug. She continued her rant low and intense, practically the same height standing as we were sitting getting our blood cleaned of the radiation from our engine breaches.

"No you morons, not my mecha shields, my meat shields. You two losers are going to keep me alive long enough to EAT THEIR SOULS!" She was scary intense sometimes, but there was a reason she anchored the third line, if we were needed, it was bad, and when it got bad, you needed somethign scarier on your side. We had Isabella. She kept on, finally getting through to us. "OK, so they are faster, stronger, tougher than we are. So what? I will swap out my niode shields with you guys for anything you have against trample and fork. I am maxed out to do two things, strike first, and kill things. You losers only have to stand upright, look, big stupid and ugly, to keep their attention while I tear their hearts out. It almost like you are over qualified!"

Sweet Meat and I started to laugh. What could you do? The Mullah's of Mayhem had read from their Scrolls of Holy Ass Whooping, so now maybe it was time to read them a passage from The Book of Payback. Payback is a bitch they say, and her name is Isabella.

This time we were the ones attacking. Not the brightest idea in the world, but Raccoons are curious critters by nature, and there was loot to the victors, if you had the nerve to dig for it. Nerve we had, so dig we didl.

Our front line can match anyone out there. The boss is a badass. We always wondered why he stayed with us when the big outfits kept offering a place in their own ranks. He laughed it off. He got through the first two of their ranks before they got him. With the front rank gone, that was 70% of our niode weapons, all our niode BFM, the next rank was niode heavies, but the gear was mixed, the weapons were mostly crystal. They were pretty chewed before they stepped to the line, and only got one kill before they got eaten alive. A smart man would have made a career change at that point, but I stopped thinking when Isabella screamed.

"EAT THEIR SOULS!" She screamed as her Regis roared and charged forward.

I opened up my own engine amplifiers wide, Race Engines spooling up pure power for my engines and guns, Lantern engines howling power into my limbs and overcharging my capacitors (also making me a huge target for any wandering missile, but life is like that). We charged at her side, two gun metal grey Ogers flanking a hunting dragon. We got hammered. Something called a Rift Beam hit Bubba on the left wing square, and the Xango that fired it milked every erg out of it. Damned thing had so much power that after blowing him right the heck up, it tracked right to take me where I was shielding Isabella's flank.

Alarms went off everywhere, my gun capacitors overloaded and exploded. I had NO GUNS. I had no sensors operating beyond peeking out the cockpit and seeing bad guys that a way. I was able to move because I needed no external data to do that, but was helpless as a newborn babe. Helpless, not useless.

Isabella cut loose with a Galaxy Eye and caught a Kami that had just ignited Sweet Meat's Magnus. Her beam was a pale thing against the bright fury of the flashing niode powered laser shields that fed that monster, and even healed it as they did so. On its own, the Galaxy Eye lacked the power to even warm the Kami's paint. Isabella on the other hand was a matadora. In her hand a slender blade that you could stop with a thick button could slide into and out of the heart of a charging rhino before it even realized it was dead. That Galaxy Eye flowed through an eddy where shield emitter zones interfered with each other, splashed against a plasma charging chamber feeding the Kami's own guns and caused a dissonance in their own shielding. The plasma to punch through shields, armour, and still have enough power to devour two mecha at a time was released INSIDE the Kami, and it died in a shattering explosion.

Isabella and Body Count screamed their joy to the world, and we, her meat shields, howled with her.

The Xango pilot was a veteran, and spotted the threat, swinging his Planetary Defense laser to take her under fire. It could punch through her laser shields and blow her reactor core through the rank behind her. It could not punch through her meat shields and do it. I stepped my tottering and shut down Magnus into the path, and snapped my arm cannon mounts up to bring his cockpit into line with their gaping muzzles. Reflex triggered his burst before thought could interfere. His coherent light death beam wasted itself in incoherent frustration as it screamed through my already shut down mecha. Sure, it gutted me and shut down the Yallan to my rear (poor tyke looked like it was about to trip and fall on my exploding ass too), but Isabella's splash shiled shrugged off the hit like rain on a dragons arse as she triggered a Vulcan Phaser. The Xango did not live long and prosper.

The Charon did not take that well and closed with its great claws to tear Isabella in half. His Leviathan punched with killing force, but Sweet Meat took it on the chest plate. Freeze fractures shattered his chest and took his right arm when he tried to take a step forward. The Charon's claws were deep inside Sweet Meat, ripping his torso off his legs when the Flavian Spear took him in the armpit. Nanobots contained in the great tanks flash activated from the laser energy bleed and instantly absolute zero was achieved in the crystal metal matrix of the bones of the mecha. DIfferential cooling of the couplings caused the unstoppable power of the Charon to be, well, unstoppered. Charon got to ride his own ferry across the Styx as Isabella gave him a taste of what he fed Sweet Meat.

The Apatotron that remained in the line cut loose with a Heartbreaker missile swarm, and without us to shield her, what little armour remained on her Regis failed under the 75mm armour piercing warheads coming in two converging swarms to overwhelm her point defense lasers and ECM lures of her missile shields. She fell, but not before gutting that line. The fourth line buried the Apatotron in fire, as it spent its last rockets on a Yallan that was already shut down anyway. Our boys carried the fight. It wasn't pretty or cheap, but it was a win.

We pulled Isabella from Body Count, what was left of her noble Regis. She was bleeding and laughing (she was that kind of girl) and hugged us as we slapped trauma patches on the bits that were spurting not dripping. She was almost shouting before the trauma patches drugs took her into unconciousness.

"Meat shields over niode shields boys! Those bastards got Raccooned! We got it done"

Sweet meat listened to her rambling as she drifted into unconciousness. He was grinning his soft Buddha grin. He looked at me and said what we both were thinking.

"She's crazy as a bed bug. She's right too,, but crazier than a pet raccoon" He held up his fist to me.

"Meat shield!" He said.

I banged my fist into his

"Meat shield!" I swore.

Welcome to Mecha Galaxy. Prepare to be Raccooned.

John T Mainer 28840