#i am actually pretty excited about this

[egophiliac]

I DID IT I GOT MY PINK HAYATE now I am never doing that again!

(at least until they give me, like, a frilly unicorn Kamui or something)

[yuwuta]

JJK OLYMPICS OHHH YOURE A GENIUS

head spinning w sooooooo many athlete aus rn….. 

satoru honestly isn’t half as cocky as the media makes him out to be but he could be because you bring up world champion men’s freestyle swim times and it’s his name on the scoreboard ten times before someone else shows up. he’s faster than himself by fifteen seconds all around, he’s earned a bit of cockiness. mentioned in the last post that whenever he’s at a competition and he finishes a race, he looks at the camera and signs a little infinity sign and then blows a kiss to you. some bitter old coach always calls him out on it, and gets him fined for unsportsmanlike conduct, and he’s happy to pay the fees if it means getting a message home to you, but eventually you two come up with a new code; and at his next race, he places gold, turns to the camera, crosses his middle finger over his pointer finger and smiles. when he’s in his post-race interview, he makes sure to explain that he does it for you with the widest smile on his face.

megumi nepotism baby but not in the same sport. toji was a multi gold medalist back in his heyday for shooting, so it’s not really a surprise to anybody that megumi has scary good aim, but he takes to archery instead of shooting. actually the idea of megumi being an emo little kid and throwing rocks at a tree when his dad pissed him off his hilarious, and even funnier is toji watching him, slightly amused and a little scared because megumi is maybe six and hitting the exact same spot every single time. he grows to be very blase about it—it’s more of a release/hobby for him that he happens to be really good at, and well, now good enough to earn a few olympic medals. megumi is not a fan of having his dad ruffle his hair on international television after he’s won, but he supposes it can’t be helped.

i don’t know where to put yuuta…. tennis…. tempting….. him in his little white shorts…. little grunts after he serves…. cries….. a complete 180 in his personality when he’s playing vs doing anything else. so charming and sweet and kinda shy when he’s being interviewed, and the second he steps on the court his eyes are so cold it’s scary…. need him… extremely nerdy about his rackets, and shoes, and clothes, and rambles to you about aerodynamics and posture and torque whenever you ask him to teach you, and you always have to shutup him up with a kiss and remind him that yeah you sort of want to learn to play tennis for him, but mostly you came bc he looks hot doing it. once he got asked in an interview if he ever thinks about you while he’s playing and his response was very concise, “no, never. it would be a big distraction,” and did not realize the implications of his heavily televised words. 

also…. not to make this post 40% yuuta but we could pull from canon a bit and make his sport fencing. he doesn’t excel because he’s the strongest, it’s because he’s learned to treat the sword as an extension of himself and a good strategist… also because i like the image of him pulling the helmet/mask off and shaking his hair out………..

don’t even know where to put yuuji…. volleyball? basketball? track and field??? the irony of him easily being the most athletic but canonically does not want to play sports 😭 but i can see him playing a sport because someone scouts him and it turns out to be a way to make steady money to support himself and his grandpa :( by the time he’s qualified and made it to the olympics, wasuke is doing much better (thanks to yuuji having landed some preemptive sponsorships and being able to afford better medical care), but not so well enough that he can travel across the world to watch yuuji play. wasuke tells you that you should travel and be with yuuji, but yuuji is so touched by the idea that you would stay with his grandpa and be by his side when he’s away :(( he wins gold, of course, and he doesn’t even wait until the closing ceremony—which, he’d mentioned in all of his interviews, so nobody can be too upset. he’s on record saying, “i’m excited to play, but i’m even happier to be going home. my girlfriend and my grandpa are watching me and i miss them!” several times— he’s on the first flight home with flowers, and tears in his eyes. puts his gold medal on his grandpa’s neck as a thank you, and spends probably thirty minutes straight hugging you and kissing you and honestly don’t put it past him to propose now that he’s got nike ambassador money 

nanami started judo as a way to relieve the stress of his overbearing job, and someone at the gym/training center notices he seems to be a natural despite being a beginner. he starts to draw a crowd, which annoys him at first because the point of judo was discipline and release from having to deal with too many people at his office job, but nanami supposes he can’t be too mad when you introduce yourself as a talent scout and offer him professional training. there’s irony in him accepting your offer, because it was definitely not based in professionalism at all… quitting his job as a salaryman to become a professional athlete in his mid-twenties was not on his bingo chart, but if it means he will have met you, then so be it. you’re with him all the way, through his training, competitions, world championships, qualifiers, all the way until he’s on the podium. you’re the first to congratulate him, but he interjects by telling you he’s quitting. you ask him why—he just won at the olympics for crying out loud, but nanami just shakes his head, puts down his flowers and his medal so his hands are free to hold your face and tell you, “it would be unethical to kiss my manager, so i am quitting.” (later, when everything is said and done, and you two are cuddling, you mention to him that he could just hire a new manager, and not quit his new career, to which he blushes because yeah… that’s probably more rational, but rational was not in his train of thought at the time)

[dramatic-dolphin]

one time i was at a folk museum and got talking with an older lady folk artist (like late 60s/70s) who was doing bead weaving, and she told me that she's been working here for a while, but only started bead weaving recently, because they asked her "hey, do you know bead weaving? if yes, can you demonstrate it for the visitors?" and she was just like "yeah, of course i know how! no problem :)" and then went home and typed "bead weaving tutorial for beginners" into youtube.

i left that conversation with a lot of bead weaving tips, but the real lesson i learned was "lie to your employers, the skill can't be THAT hard to master." ❤️

[ghostofsnails]

so did you guys know theres this character called tristan vik disventure camp and

[lune-redd]

Clickteam Lolbit

[itspileofgoodthings]

my seniors have been so quiet all year and it’s been fine cause we’ve had a lot of writing/research to do but I need them to talk to me now so i was hit by a bolt of inspiration two days ago and I made them all tell me their comfort level with sharing aloud, rating themselves on a scale of 1-10. I then averaged the class score and they’re a 4.5. I then told them yesterday we needed to raise the score the tiniest bit. And the 1’s and 2’s didn’t need to be 10’s just maybe 3’s and 4’s. And they tried! They talked more 😭

[adhdtsukasa]

totally not what i intended to post today but also whatever, we ball. pinocchiop is my favorite vocap and i'm very autistic about both him and wxs, so, to honor the song campaign clues that we got today, allow me to present to you the reincarnation apple wxs cover line distribution i did some time ago — and why, in my humble opinion, it fits wxs much more than it fits niigo,

(the lyrics where the color changes each word are where the characters both sing at the same time but my notes app doesn't have the option to do a gradient)

i'm in no way expecting it to be an official line distribution because i did it based on my personal interpretation of the lyrics — and i feel like dedicating almost a whole big part of the song to each member might mess up with the game cut, but i also really would like to see them have solos of those parts — but they're here to help me explain my point better my point. so!

what i like about wandasho covers is that they are performers — and it should give them more creative liberty when it comes to their covers. that's why the reincarnation in this song could be simply treated as them getting into roles, reliving countless lives as actors. even though the accuracy of the lines sung is always nicely welcomed, the covers don't have to always be 100% fitting. and that's fine. especially in wxs' case, because that is a yet another story that they want to tell us.

people often say that the storyline fits niigo but i... don't see it at all? i mean, yeah, ena as the artist and kanade as the savior, that much is obvious (and i guess you could also say that mizuki as a revolutionary, but that is kind of a reach?). but what about the part describing the inventor that matches rui's backstory so well? what if you put main story tsukasa in the artist's place and draw the similiarities? what if you think about emu as the savior, comparing the savior's unconditional love to her wanting to save wonder stage and make everyone smile? the only match that doesn't fit quite well is nene and the revolutionary, but you can't have anything i guess. and then the adventurer part, which is a call back to the our happy ending set (i set out in search of an ideal — emu deciding to go with wxs in order to expand her knowledge and horizons) (and then you know, the end has come with the reincarnation apple)... and then lines like i'm not smart enough and i don't have a great cause could resonate with how people viewed emu and rui in the past.

"oh but isn't the start of the song a bit too dark and depressing for it to be a wxs cover?" kami no manimani starts in a similiar way and yet it still is a wxs cover.

and, putting lyrics aside, it just doesn't feel like a niigo song from the instrumental alone. i'm not a music expert so i don't have strong arguments for it, but for me it sounds absolutely like a wxs song. it even reminds me of sekahaji in a way.

does that mean you're in the wrong for wanting niigo to cover it? nope! i just simply want to explain why it fits. and i don't want people to complain that it doesn't make sense for it to end up as a wxs cover. because i will cry.

tldr: reincarnation as a metaphore for acting save me

[satans-knitwear]

Summer daze 😌🌼

Treat me ~ Tip me ~ More of me

[emioliravioli]

ok uh staying away from social media until AFTER i watch the movie today!

[black-queen-rising]

The people taking this dialogue as a legitimate “character flaw” or literally just at face value at all and not as a continuation of the blatant disrespect the writers have not just towards Rhaenyra as the heir of twenty years, but towards anything that could even vaguely be construed as “women’s work”, is the most perfect encapsulation of just how entrenched misogyny is into the very heart of our pop culture and how the popularization of fantasy has managed to worsen our societal view of soft power by painting it as not only weak, but frivolously feminine, unimportant, and a waste of time.

Since the beginning of the show the writers have almost exclusively portrayed Rhaenyra as disinterested if not opposed to her role as heir, as a politician, and a woman in power broadly all against the original canon and all glaringly, not to make her look worse or better or likable or incompetent (they do all those things, almost every episode, with however they need her to affect the plot in that given moment because they’re incapable of having the characters drive it organically) because it’s not truly about her at all. It’s simply because they cannot fathom a story where a woman is politically adept and as a result either 1. evil or 2. boring, and that is fundamentally because once again they are so biased and against portraying anything that could even vaguely be construed as women’s work or at all “feminine-coded” in an even neutral-but-interesting way they do for (stereotypically) masculine-coded activities like sword fighting, horse back riding, dragon riding, hunting, archery, not to mention just the concept of the political conversations that drive these stories, let alone an actually positive way.

They have taken a story that at its core was always an indictment of structural misogyny and how it will literally cause societies to tear themselves apart over nothing. But because they decided at the outset they wouldn’t and couldn’t portray the structural part of said misogyny without scaring away their intended audience, and decided instead to base this all around ultimately meaningless ~team discourse~ (because literally everyone meeting their downfall as a result of the consequences of systemic misogyny is the point) their alternate path has been to over-exaggerate and ultimately turn to spectacle every single woman involved’s individual suffering at the expense of everything else about their characters. It doesn’t matter if that was the intent or not the principle result of this adaptation has been the continual disempowerment and degradation of women and their agency combined with an almost impressively voyeuristic portrayal of their suffering.

The women in this show are not allowed to have interests or hobbies unless it’s to serve to make them seem “bad” in someway, whether that be the discomfort around Helaena’s bugs, the total lack of any positive representation of Alicent’s religiosity, or how the women dragon riders are broadly painted as aggressive, violent, and unnatural. I don’t even have specific examples to list from the other “team” because in order to be portrayed as “likable” to the general audience the women of Team Black are barely allowed to have personalities, let alone distinguishing interests or characterizing hobbies. The agency and autonomy they have been stripped of, collectively, from both historical precedent and actual ASoIaF, is almost entirely in their refusal to allow women’s work to be portrayed positively. There are no balls, no sewing circles, no garden parties, no trappings of power and contests of will in the jewels and gowns Rhaenyra must now loathe to be (their deeply narrow and biased view of) “likable”, there are no female mentorships, and no female friendships, and at every chance they have had to portray these things at both a societal and personal level they have chosen to veer away and instead reinforce their suffering. They have removed women’s avenues and halls of power from this story, while making it very clear there are no others that exist in this world, and they cannot participate in the men’s; if they could this story wouldn’t exist. So we are left with a group of people who are supposedly driving this story, who this story is supposedly about, but they are internally and externally isolated, largely removed from the public eye, angry or distressed to be there on the rare occasions they’re present, disempowered, stripped of personal agency and will, and we’re still told they have power. But if we search for it the only logical conclusion is that any power which does not center on how much suffering they have been through, or how much more they may be dealt, is not only gone, it was never there in the first place.

I don’t enjoy Rhaenyra’s quasi domestic abuse any more than Alicent’s visceral sexual shame and I don’t enjoy the infantilization of Helaena’s character any more than the erasure of Rhaena’s and it is deeply concerning how many people look at these decisions, and nod their heads and say “yes, this is realistic, and not only is it realistic it’s, GOOD, because without horrific psychological and physical abuse and ultimately a complete reduction to every female character as peace loving victims of powerful men’s cruel machinations we could never even SEE how misogyny is so damaging.” And the mindset that drives people to claim that those of us who call out how this is, the definition of benevolent misogyny and say we’re crazy, that we can’t see the complexity, that actually we’re the ones somehow falling back into sexist tropes, or asking for a black and white story when instead the black and white has simply become an insultingly reductive view of evil men versus helpless women and when all else fails, accusing us of wanting a boring story because it’s either not focused on gratuitous individual female suffering, or is focused on the kind of political power every single featured female character on both sides of this conflict wielded in the original book instead of evil man conversations and eviler man dragon-battles, is at its heart why we have come to a place in pop culture where one of its most marquee properties displays and embodies these problems so glaringly in the fucking first place.

[batsplat]

“og 4 aliens very particular vibe in being ‘three distinct flavours of socially awkward loner and also valentino rossi’” LMAO I WAS JUST THINKING THIS!!!!!! That he has the funniest possible 3 foils in that era bc like…those three guys could not be less his vibe ~personality wise if they tried. And actually tbf I do think they WERE trying a lot of the time. Feeling very curious if you think there’s anything to the idea of how Marc was the first alien-era rival he had who was more on his level all around? Like early days Marc was kind of just 😀😀😀 all the time but I do think he can be v charming and is clearly extroverted as hell (tho like…notably also a loner but like…not by choice??). Like idk where im going w this but the contrast is interesting to me. IDK

to some extent! I'm not sure I'd necessarily call marc an extrovert, you can be charismatic and cheerful without being an extrovert - but also this is splitting hairs. the og four aliens are one guy who's on the 'roughly as extroverted as you can possibly get as a professional athlete' end of the spectrum and three guys who are on the 'roughly as introverted as you can possibly get as a professional athlete' end. now, tbh, I don't think valentino massively minded this. he's extroverted but crucially he's also got enough charm going for him that he could get his rivals to chat with him if he was so inclined. he had an increasingly friendly relationship with dani, there's real genuine warmth in how both of them talk about each other - ultimately dani might have been quite sullen and withdrawn in general, especially in his early years, but he got on well with valentino. casey and valentino had perfectly decent interpersonal chemistry, they got on well, and tbh they were still warm with each in-person long past the point where that relationship had rhetorically soured. with jorge... I mean, okay, no chemistry there, but that was also very much valentino's choice. I do not fundamentally doubt valentino's ability to charm twenty year old jorge lorenzo. I think just because they were DIFFERENT characters, that doesn't necessarily mean they weren't valentino's *type* personality-wise, like he does seem to be happy enough to be the chatty one who draws them out of their shells in that scenario. unless competitive necessity requires otherwise!! but as marc discovered, somewhat higher levels of extroversion does not protect you if that's the case

I will say I know you do put alien-era as a caveat, but it is still important to point out that marc is very much not the first valentino rival who doesn't fall in the introverted loner camp. valentino had a rival who matched his vibe!! who he had a real proper off-track friendship with, who he went on holidays with, who he had a warm relationship with for substantially longer than the marc/valentino honeymoon lasted. I think you can see the early marc era as a bit of a return to the friendlier vibes of the early noughties, but crucially it is a return. the early noughties was the last gasp before the sport came to be completely dominated by a bunch of young prodigies who had been moulded into perfect athletes and had less chance to grow into people outside of the sport - valentino is already part of that camp in everything but temperament, cf the contrast with biaggi. in the early noughties, he was surrounded by a bunch of older riders who varied dramatically in disposition... biaggi was the guy everyone had issues with, capirossi was always fond of valentino, kr jr he got on well with, he played a mentoring role for in hayden's rookie season... and of course, most importantly, the friendship with sete - now there's an obscenely friendly rivalry right until the very moment when it isn't. 2013-14 is a bit of a return to that more congenial climate, but at the end of the day that lot were still less likely to socialise than riders were back in the day. they just didn't have the time lol

so yeah, I mean. valentino clearly did take to marc on a personal level, and marc is definitely closer to valentino on the introversion/extroversion spectrum than the three other aliens are. though that is also... not difficult. there is something quite funny about how 2006-07 went from valentino's pov. the engine regs changed, valentino literally blinked and suddenly all his opps were toddlers. went from goofing off with capirossi on the sepang 2006 podium to running a daycare centre overnight. and marc is part of that! it's also a massive change in that suddenly, valentino was surrounded by rivals who had been influenced by watching him ride as they grew up and were all really, really, really weird about him. marc with his little bike collection, jorge with his dabbling in pseudoscientific schools of psychology, casey and his championship-winning shirt, dani... well, tbf, I do actually think dani was pretty normal about valentino - probably because he'd known him the longest. had gotten drunk with valentino in the days when the bloke was just an idol and not a god. which is an underrated reason why the dani/valentino relationship never got so weird imo, one that goes beyond competitive calculus - dani was the most capable of interacting with valentino as just another guy. with all three of marc/jorge/casey, that idolisation dynamic does contribute significantly to the interpersonal turmoil

but that's a topic for another day! in conclusion, marc defo the dispositionally cheeriest foil of the alien lot, albeit somewhat by default, and WAS part of the reason why motogp got a bit of a mood lift in that 2013-14 period after what had just been a dire few years vibes-wise. mediocre racing, devastation caused by the financial crisis, tragedy... motogp was feeling quite lifeless in 2011-12 in particular, and those years do have a bit of a drab energy to them. in that sense, what followed was a bit of a reversion to the mean until the vibes completely went off the cliff. have they ever recovered? who can say

[betweenblackberrybranches]

Castle in the sky AU

Chapter 1: Under the Sun

@succulent-momma because you wanted to be tagged

The clouds beneath you moved fast when you looked out of the small window, your left hand pressed against the slightly vibrating glass. Just as you thought you might catch a glimps of green between the white masses a big hand grabbed your shoulder and ripped you back upright into your seat. "Dont dream, The steering in the back s  makin trouble again!" Grimacing you ducked under the bawly mans arm to crawl into the dusty backside of the crammed flying engine. The back was your least favourite place in this ship especally when in the air. the windpressure wipped it around quite agressively in these hights and after you had reattached the outer walls two times, the last few months, because they had fallen off mid flight, you did not trust it to hold your weight. But the steering was luckily a quick fix most of the time. Nothing that a medium sized slap and a bit of grease couldnt do. "Hand in joint!!" you yelled out to let the two others know not to move the steering while you work. Carefully moving not to put too much weight on the outer casing or to touch one of the boiling hot tubes you dabed the grease on the joint with the back of your thick leather glove and hoped that Drill in the cockpit would be mindfull of your fingers. The drumming humm of the engin was almost bearable back here but there is nothing that would make you truely consider staying in this part of the craft.

Though it is really the only reason Drill and Rusty had taken you with them on this flight in the first place. You were small and agile enough to reach even the smaller spaces, making you important for a long distance flight like this, being able to quickly fix these things in the air instead of landing. This is the first time you had been asked to acompany them on an actual gig. For years you had worked yourself up from running small errants, still as a snot nosed child, to Rusty taking you on as one of his apprenticess, to one of the better mechanics of the little workshop. There surely were better ones but there deffinetly were worse ones. Well but lucky for you Rod had to stay home this time to watch over his wife after she had given birth so they had asked you to come with them. Yea, you had been on test flights before but it just was not the same. They never flew this high when you were with them before...

Slowly you crawled backwards accidently hitting Rustys back with your feet when trying to wiggle out of the small space.

"Hey brat s the steering fine again?" Rustys broad hands closed down around your ancles and dragged you out all the way out of the hole, that you had used as your entrance to the tailend. Now looking back you were surprised that you had even fit in there and that you hadnt cut yourself open on the sharp metal edges when Rusty had pulled you out. His big hands immidiatly janked you back to your seat and rested on your shulders as he stood up to poke his head into the cockpit above.

"Try it out... yea? ... yea okay!"

You hadn't been able to hear the other side of the conversation but by the little squint around Rustys eyes when he sat back down you figued everything worked fine again.

"Good work, kiddo."

You chuckled as you fully settled down again. To those two you would probably allways be the little snotty kid that you were when you first met. But it didnt bother you at all.

You looked up after a while. Rusty had his eyes on the various meters of the mashine, displaying heat of the engine, how full the tank was, oil and many other things he had tried to teach you numerous times but that just dont seem to want to stay in your head. Well he was eyeing them, his actual attention was on the newspapers he had in his hands. You would have to ask him if you could have a look at them later but for now you craned you neck slightly trying to get a look of the guy next to Drill in the cockpit. The guy who charterd the plane, asking for the strongest engine to fly extremely high and long flights with. Usually this plane was used for delivering important packages. Atleast that was what the guys called it, you were never naive enough to belive that, there were too many shady deals and secret night flights. But you werent one to snoop because this was your second family in some way and they payed extremely well. This guy didnt seem to be transporting any "important packages" though. It seemed more like he was seaching for something giving Drill coordinates now and then and commenting on some landmarks. You didnt hear most of it but the little bits that had found their way to your ears had peaked your curiosity. Without thinking you had gotten up off your seat slightly to peek through into the cockpit. The man was sleek looking, suit and all, the type that you might see smoking a cigar. He looked wildly out of place next to the gruff giant on the pilot seat. His hands fiddeling with something out of sight to you and his brows knitted together in concentration. With his graying slicked back hair and wild stubbly mustache he looked around the age of Drill and Rusty but he had a sleaziness around him that you could not quite pinpoint.

Rusty yanked you down by the back of your shirt and you scrunched your face thinking of how that surely left oily stains that would stick to your neck later.

"Head down" Rusty grunted as he pressed you on your seat again. After a small pause he gently shoved you towards that small bullhole you had practicly been fused to for the last few hours. And your eyes almost grew to be the size of dinnerplates as you gawked out at the mountains peaking out of the thick clouds. You never had seen mountains like this before.

You almost didnt notice the amused snort from behind you as you gripped the sides of the window with both of your hands, pressing your nose against the glass.

"Whoa shit this really is it huh" you breathed out as your eyes followed the outlines of the massive stone formations deep below. A small chuckle escaped Rusty before he went back to studying the thin letters of the newspapers.

You werent sure if it had been another hour or more when Drill spoke up, loud enough for even the both of you down under to hear.

"Thats MADNESS  We will NOT risk our life for a so called HUNCH of yours!"

You looked up, at Rusty who looked back at you with a simmilar expression of concern. Just as you wanted to stand up Rusty already climed over you into the cockpit starting to discuss something you couldnt quite understand with the two men upstairs. A heated argument seemed to break out between the suited man and the brothers as you wiggled out between Rustys legs. The aircaft bopped as it entered into a strong aircurrent and stumbeling forwards, having freed yourself from Rustys legs you hit your head slightly on the tubing leading the coolant to the engin. Luckily those were the ones that were not boiling hot or this would have not just ended in you yelping and holding your head where you now had a tender spot. But now cowering on the ground, looking up you saw what you figued that argument over you was about. Looking through the small window directly up you saw gigantic dark clouds, now and then lighting up with lightning. The kind that, if seen on the horizon, would make the sheep herders at home franticly call for their animals to come to shelter. The kind that, if you saw them while planning a test flight you would just, not fly. But with the course you were going you would have to pass throu it unless Drill would somehow manage to steer sharply to the side or dip above it. As the argument over your head intesified you could not tear your eyes from the ever moving cloud mass as the hair on your body started to stand up to an almost painfull degree. Every second that Drill was not evading this, the chance to get away dwindled more. Somewhere from the back of your brain the fact that you were sitting in the middle of the sky, only a thin metal box protecting you from the forces of nature, from that big storm up ahead, emergend and scared you shitless. You knew that this ship was sturdy enough, hell you yourself had been the one to help Rusty and Drill check it through just this morning, but a dread you had never felt before filled your bones as the first outstretched arm of the cloud wall reached the ship and parted around it. Fabric shifted above you as Rusty climbed back down into the lower part of the ship. He clenched his jaw and then stopped as he peered at you laying on the ground.

"Get up and give me a hand up here kiddo"

You scrambled to your feet, still having to crouch in the crammed space and helped him open one of the storage spaces. He leaned in, shoving a few supplies to the side and for a moment you were sure you had seen the glimmer of a big gun of some sort. Instinctively you patted the back of your pants for the outline of your knife but you quickly took your hand back before he pressed four big packets of fabric and iron buckles into your hands.

"You know what to do right? Bring two to the guys up there, leave one for me"

You stared at him in disbelieve.

"Are we really gonna go in there?!?! Thats arcenine!?" You all but hissed and by the way his jaw flexed you knew he thought so too.

Quickly climbing up into the cockpit you threw one of the chutes to the customer and helped Drill into his, so that he didnt have to take his hands off the contolls. Now looking through the much bigger window up here, your heart sank into your stomache. That wall of clouds was way closer than you liked it to be and the different air currents around it seemed to almost fight for controll. The clouds around the ship got sucked up into the slowly spinning vortex at an alarming speed. Your hands started shaking as you failed again and again to fasten the last buckle around Drills chest until one of his caloused hands shoved itself before your eyes.

"S' fine dont worry twerp"

Your fingers finally stilled enough to get the chute all set up and your hands found Drills shoulders for a moment, giving them a small squeeze before hastily climbing back down to put on your own chute. Down there Rusty already waited for you, helping you put the gastly thing onto your shoulders. This would be your only lifeline if things went south and you dreaded nothing more than having to use it.

You clawed at the seat when the air current finally took a hold of the craft, making the engin roar and the matal outer casing groan under the sudde  pressure change. Rustys newspaper had been hastily thrown to the ground as he now stared at the displays with furrowed brows. The ship rattled as it pressed forwards into the dark clouds and a small lightning danced over the window, lighting the insides uncomfortably for a few seconds before letting it sink back into a comfotable darkness. You pressed your eyes shut digging your nails further into the old leather of the seat. The roaring thunder let you flinch and the pressure settled in your ears making your head feel a swimming sensation.

Suddenly it was all gone. Natural sunlight momentarly lighted up the lower part of the ship.

"Left! THERE!! ITS THERE!!"

The man in the cockpit yelled allmost extasic and you looked up just to blink at what you saw.

There were trees, and some sort of deffinetly man made structure. But this couldnt be, you were higher than the highest mountains would reach.. this was impossible.

"THE CITY IN THE SKY!!!"

That man was surely crazy, but so were you aparently because you deffinetly saw something out there.

As fast as you had caught a glimpse of it it had already hid behind the clouds though and the pressure on your ears had returned, now turning into a throbbing headache. But the man in the cockpit above started yelling at Drill to turn back to bring him there. You didnt hear what Drill said, it was lost in the groaning of the ship as another current grabbed it and pushed its right side up agressively, making you slam into the outer wall next to you.

You tried to regain your bearings holding your head as you scrunched up your face. Why had Drill not steered against this current? He was a brillant pilot why did he not see this coming?

Until you realized and looked up in horror seing Rusty looking back at you with a face that said it all. "Steerings jammed again." You stammered with a finality to it, it was not a question.

"Twerp! The steering or we are all good as dead!!" Drill yelled fighting against being drowned out by the engin. There was something unspoken in it. Stay safe.

Rusty squeezed your arm tightly before you crawled back into the shaking tail end of the plane. Thanking whatever higher power that you were small enough to fit even with the chute strapped to you, eventhough the metal buckles dug painfully into your chest and sides. Your breath hitched with every inch, with every testing shift of weight and as you reached the steering and yelled the usual "Hand in joint!" you even feared that the yelling itself might dislodge the part of the outer casing you were holding onto at that point. To your horror you discovered that a medium slap did not do the trick this time as the joint just wouldnt move. "Fuck!" You punched the joint with as much force as you could muster up but it did not budge

"Fuck! No Fuck this!" You yelled as you looked around franticly to think of something. But the panic had already set in. You peered back at Rusty, out of reach, who stayed at the entrance of the tail end holding the sharp edges so tightly you worried he might cut himslef. You had only once seen the man with a look like that on his face. Glazed over like when an engin had disconected from a craft while going on repairs and had crushed Pipes leg. What you saw right there on his face was pure fear, and you wished you had not looked back. All you could do to make your heart calm down was close your eyes.

So you did. And when you opened them again you had a plan. It was a bad one but better than nothing. With shaky hands you smeared as much of the grease as you could onto the joint hoping the next part would do the trick. You turned onto your back, which was a feat in itself in this small space. You looked back at Rusty for a last time giving him a lopsided grin. Then you kicked the steering with all you had.

Once.

"Kiddo! Stop!!"

Twice.

"You gonna fall!!"

You felt bad, hearing his pleading tone but Drill was right. If you didnt get the steering to work you were all dead.

So you would up for one more kick. And to your surprise the steering moved! The grease spreading and making it go smooth. You looked back again seeing Rustys face light up shakily, stretching his arms out towards you as much as he could so he could pull you out swiftly. You ginned and moved to turn onto your stomache again so you could crawl the little distance you had to go to meet him.

But as you moved your knee the casing beneathe you gave way halfway, only being held up by one side. Your breath hitched and your eyes flicked towards Rustys. You saw the panic in his eyes as he took a breath to tell you something. You didnt hear what because as he brought out the first sound the other side of the casing gave way and your whole being focused on holding on for dear life, cutting open your hands on exposed, broken bolts. And as another shudder went through the engine and Rusty yelled your name you lost grip and plummited, your chute getting stuck and ripped slightly as it opened prematurely almost decapitating you. An air current immidiatly took hold of the it ripping you up and wirling you around until you fully lost sight of the small red aircraft. You had no idea what was up or down as your limbs got tangled in the lines of the chute and all you could think was that this surely was worse than just falling to your death. One of the line suddenly wipped around hitting you in the face hard enough to make you see stars and white splotches started to creep their way into your vision until you fainted.

The first thing you noticed was a red, warm glow behind your eyelids. Then the pain set in and your eyes flew open on instinct looking around to asses the situation. To your surprise you were alife. To the point that every little movement made it clear how very painfully alife you were. First you only saw clouds below or above you, you werent sure and the strings of the chute in which you were pretty badly tangled. Looking up, you guessed, you saw that the chute had settled in the branches of a tree. Looking down you saw.. nothing.

You went slightly rigit at that realization. But after a moment of nothing happening but the tree slowly swaying in the wind you started trying to untagle yourself, swinging slightly towards the tree to hopefully get a grip on one of the lower hanging branches. Grabbing blindly at a thick branch you winced, a throbbing pain washing over your hands. But you did not let go instead you hoisted one of your legs over the branch to get your hands free. As you looked at them you realized how deep the slashes really were. These should probably be sewn up. But first you had to eskape the plummet to your death. Slowly you managed to curl one of your legs around the trunk of the tree dragging youself closer until you could hold onto it with both your legs and arms. Your whole body screamed, the chutes lines digging into your skin but your mind finally settled down now that you could securely hold onto something. Carfully reaching back you beamed as you realized your knife was somehow still secure in your pants and you used it to cut yourself loose, not able to untangle yourslef any further on your own. Slowly sliding down the smooth bark until your feet touched the grounds right next to the cliff into the nothingness. Stumbling back you tried to bring as much room between you and the crumbling ridge as possible, scrambling on the dusty ground.

For a while you just laid there. Your chest heeving as you grabbed the ground tightly with one and your knife with the other trying to ground yourself, closing your eyes. After some time you started to actually hear the world around you, that had been so eeryily quiet while you had fought for your life high on adrenalin. The wind rustled the leaves of thesurounding trees gently, insects sirred around and even the beconing calles of some birds echoed through the air. And faintly, far away you could hear the croaking of frogs.

Water!

Sitting up you stared at the caked dirt in and around the wounds on your hands, little stones nestleing in between the sand. Ouch.

You decided that you could probably leave the chute unatended for a while to clean your hands and get rid of that terribly burning feeling in your throat. You didnt even care if the water was dirty, eventhough you knew you should.

Walking on wobbly legs, knife still in your hand, you followed the sounds of croaking, steping through thick bushes and on a carpet of dead leaves and needsles from surrounding trees.

A slow dripping steered you sharply to the right as you stepped through some reed and suddenly found yourself on a moss riddled white cobblestone platform. Flat stepps lead into a shallow basain of water under a mostly broken down arch, most likely once part of an aqueduct but now laying in ruin.

Your jaw slacked at seing this but before your thoughts could fully catch up to you, you already found yourself kneeling down at the stepps leading down to the clear water and washing your hands. Then you dipped your whole head into it trying to cool off your head. Under the seering sun it had actually become quite warm and you head felt like it was filled with the stuff you had to scrape off an engine after it overheats, gooey mainly.

Your face burned in the cold water making you realize that the line hitting you in the head probably did more damage than you had thought. You knew you should be getting up to figue out if there was anyone you could ask for help around, if you were lucky Drill had landed the plane somewhere around here and the others were looking for you. You scoffed, yea as if. Your chance of surviving that fall and the chute malfunction were so low he would never put all their lives in even more danger by turning around. You knew him well enough to know that and respected him for it. It was a miracle you were still alife afterall.

Laying on your back in tha half shade of a tree bowing over the basain, the wet backside of your hands laying on your burning face you tried to come to terms with your situation. This was definetly the place you had seen through the clouds for just a moment, right? Because you would have never in a milion years survived the fall to the actual ground, not with the chute ripped and all tangled up. You only got away from it with bruised arms and legs because the actual fall was not that far.

An old tale for children that your grandmother used to tell you came to mind.. something about a king and princes and floating cities ... an ancient kingdom, huh?

But it just didnt quite come back to you, maybe it had been too long since you had heard it last or maybe your exhaustion just caught up with you as you felt all tention leave your body, sleepieness slowly pulling you under.

Until a sudden rustleing of leaves made you sit straight up, staring in the direction it came from. Nothing could have prepared you for what you saw before you. You had thought maybe a large animal or bird had made the noises, maybe even another human. But there, balancing on top of a crumling wall reaching out towards a large fruit on a high branch, uselessly swinging around its arm to close the last little gap, stood a being made of shiny metal. A little noise akin to a gasp escaped your lips as you sprung to your feet, immidiatly regretting it, the world spinning around you dizzingly for a moment. Now the being made of metal had noticed you too, turning their head towards you and staying still for a moment before opening their mouth and produching a kind of squeeling sound. The fruit hung forgotten as the big creature hastily turned around fully and lost their footing falling face first into the dust. It wasnt a far fall but you still cringed at the sound of rock scratching against metal and took a few stepps towards it, worried that it might have.. died? Or whatever the equivalent in this situation was. But it already jumped back to its feet and after just two strides closed the distance between the two of you, cooing at you while grabbing your shoulders, turning and staring at you like an interesting rock it just found. Big fingers traced a line over your face and grabbed your hands, inspecting them gently. Now looking up you were sure you heard about these kinds of beings before, ancient machines, used as workers and soldiers before the fall of that certain kingdom in a story turned fairytale... but this one looked different then what was pictured in the books, less spiky. It was the most beautiful thing you had ever seen. A dark bronze body radiating warmth, probably because this guy had heated up in the sun. Speaking of which its face had the shape of a stylized sun front row and back row of turning slowly, into different directions, retracting now and then, acompanied by a constant clicking noise.

"Wow" you breathed out as you stared at its gigantic hands working your fingers through them and taking a closer look at the intricate joints fitting perfectly, not even showing a seam, whoever had made this was a master of their craft. You looked up as a melodic, chime like cascade of sound, came from the metal being and rolled through the air. A thin tin layer had partially moved itself in front of the white shining glass eyes giving them a gentle, happy form. Whatever it had tried to express right now might have gone over your head but you were certain that it was in a good mood.

You grinned at it awkwardly, picking a little at the small bits of flaking yellow paint on its fingers. Its face really was the only place the paint was mostly intact, showing flowing details in orange and gold. You knew you were staring but so was the big guy in front of you, who now started to go over your arms and legs closely prodding at forming bruises and abrasions, almost as if evaluating them. You only stopped it when those large hands moved to hitch up your shirt, likely in search for more wounds. But you had non of it pushing the hands away from you and taking a step back. You werent going to let this big metal guy strip you down like that even if it.. he? only ment well.

His.. yea his, you decided, face turned on its head rays retracting slowly and shooting out again one after another around its face. Thinking. You guessed.

Chiming noises spilled out of the metal beings chest as he suddenly went and picked you up, arms outstretched as if he thought you would claw at him like a wild animal. The scratchmarks on his casing painted a wild picture and you couldnt help but crack a little smile at the thought of him picking up an dangerous predator like a little pet.

You werent in danger, somehow you knew.

[pardonmydelays]

i have a confession to make: i'm actually doing better than i ever was

[isfjmel-phleg]

🙄

[sysig]

Bowtie Charm! Inspired by @zarla-s​‘ super cute rendition hehe 💕 (Patreon)

Bonus collar breakdowns:

Changes depending on the doodle!