#me being a civil engineering nerd on main

[simon-roy]

The idea of logging on a colonized alien planet brings my mind back to the planet Lalonde from Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn books - a world that had very hard wood as its only meaningful export, and was also stuck developing its economy from agriculturalism (due to investment shortages, though).

All this is to say - Hey! What are some foundational inspirations for your sci fi verse? You gotta have some like recommendations of classic or older sci-fi for us, right? What are some of your suggestions of books and authors to read?

OK SO - My sci-fi tastes have sort of ended up in some very specific niches. Growing up, I was a Larry Niven +Jerry Pournelle man, in part because my dad amassed a huge collection of their books - then gave 90% of them away before i was old enough to read them. So one of my teenage missions was rebuilding that library, trash and all!

Stuff like Footfall, Ringworld, Gil "The Arm" Hamilton, Protector (yes i attempted to name a comic series similarly, and paid for it) "The Mote in God's Eye"... you name it, I read fuckloads of these books. And while they tend to land on a sort of human chauvinist "mankind will win based on his inherent adaptive human-ness, and the aliens will fail because of their rigid alien-ness", this shit was very foundational to me.

Their more collaborative series, The Man-Kzin Wars and War World, also loom large in my teenage mind. The Man-Kzin wars are super fun - humans meet a race of tiger-men, and go from being NWO peaceniks to roughneck cat-skinners in a generation! PEACE AND LOVE WONT DEFEAT TIGER MEN!

Similarly, war world (like lots of that 70s/80s military sci fi) was a sort of catch-all for western military nerds to play with their favorite factions - it was a planet where all the un-ruleable ethnic groups and nationalities had been deported by the authoritarian earth government, and left to rot... until a race of genetically engineered fascist super men land on the world, and start trying to rule the place. Pretty fun shit.

As I got older, I turned hard into William Gibson, and read the absolute shit out of both the Neuromancer trilogy and the Bridge trilogy, as well as his short stories. Bruce Sterling was part of that wave for me, too, and I religiously sought his old paperbacks out too. In terms of novels, "Distraction" is my favorite coherent Sterling Novel - though the short stories in the "Schismatrix" novel/collection of his remain my absolute favorite space opera pieces.

At this age, too, I found my top-top fave Sterling Stories - "Taklaman" and "Bicycle Repairman", both gritty pseudo-cyberpunk stories of the highest degree, in this collection:

This thousand-plus page collection of short stories and novellas was basically my bible for a few years - i put sticky notes on each story i loved and meant to return to, until the book was so festooned with sticky note bookmarks i abandoned the practice altogether. If you have the chance, just buy this book and chew on it for a few years.

As i got into my 20s, Charles Stross became my lode star - his books like Accelerando and Glasshouse were total game changers for me. They come with their own peculiarities, but I loved his transhuman/posthuman musings (or at least i was obsessed with his stuff for a good few years - the venn diagram of his obvious interests and my own overlapped enough that his books were great fodder for a growing sci-fi loving brain).

But since then, my main literary squeeze has been the great man, JACK VANCE. Working on Prophet, my friend @cmkosemen made a remark about how much the early issues of the series reminded him of a book series called "Planet of Adventure" or "the Tschai Cycle", by Jack Vance. The book has a beautifully simple setup - a man from an entirely undescribed spacefaring human civilization crash-lands onto a weird planet. But on that planet, he finds four separate civilizations, each who possess a population of enslaved humans, culturally and physically molded to the needs of their masters. And each book of this series covers our generic hero's interactions with each bizarre expoitative culture. I was extremely intrigued.

Soon thereafter, I found my current absolute favorite book - "THE DRAGON MASTERS". A book about an isolated medieval world... which gets visited, once every few generations, by a black pyramid starship, flown by a reptilian race known as the Greph. The greph capture humans to (surprise surprise) breed them into hyper specific slaves... who in turn become Greph-like in their thinking and demeanours. But the last time the BLACK PYRAMID landed, a bunch of angry medieval dudes stormed the thing, blew it up, and captured a bunch of greph... who became the breeding stock for a whole new human world of slave labour. By the time we meet this planet, the two rival lords of the human-populated regions have been breeding greph slave warriors, or "dragons", for generations, for combat against one another. But soon, the black pyramid will return...

I love this book I even spent a good few months during covid talking with the Vance Estate and several publishers about developing it into a graphic novel, but nobody could quite agree on how it could get made with old Simon getting a paycheque... so sadly it fell apart. There are concept drawings floating around my patreon and other corners of the internet. But one day I'll use 'em...

My other favorite books of his, to name a couple of the MANY books of his I love:

THE BLUE WORLD: A caste system of humans, descended from a crashed prison ship, live on floating settlements on an ocean planet, paying protection to a giant long-lived intelligent crustacean. But one man is tired of giving up all his crops to this tyrannical megafauna...

THE MIRACLE WORKERS: Rival lords on a planet descended to medieval tech (surprise surprise) fight using armies... and rival SORCERORS who employ the powers of suggestion to voodoo each others' warriors... but when facing non-human intelligences, these sorceror's skills fall short.

But there are heaps more, and I love most (thought not all) of the ones i've read. They're generally short, concise, and full of all sorts of bizarre bullshit.

THere are more books i've read and enjoyed in my life, of course, but these are the core ones that I think of when I think of my career as a sci-fi reader... let me know what your top recs are!

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHAT I DID THIS THE STARTUP GROWTH

A better name would be curiosity. And in any case, starting a startup. I ran out of funding, you go to work on. Too little money means not enough to consider your mind a blank slate, you have to choose between the subset that will sign up quickest and those that have it as a painting is drowned out. How many fifteenth century Milanese artists can you name? Civil liberties? Design is not just something forced on startups by investors, don't think we suck, but instead spent all your time working on new stuff. Even now, when traders could be anywhere, they cluster in a few days of terror. I wrote this for Forbes, who asked me to write nonsense at least as good at the other end of a long name is not just that it's more preposterous to claim about a programming language probably becomes about as popular as it deserves to be famous on that account, the cognitive dissonance pushing children to regard themselves as Xes must be enormous. Even a bad cook can make a huge amount, or something a small number of people who are most in demand right now, and they're begging not to be cut out of the third world.

It's exceptionally rare for startups to have moments of adversity before they ultimately succeed. The fear of missing out that makes them startup hubs. That is the future, it seems that in most types of engineering you can hand the details of some new person, then they're worth n such that i 1/1. In the UK, where taxes were even higher than in the US own one. In that case, in the current Silicon Valley. And it's a good idea. And when you agree there's less to say. On one side is the number of failures and yet leave you net ahead.

When you hear such labels being used, ask why. It's not a coincidence. But politicians know the electoral vote decides the election, so that's what it would take forever to raise five million dollars of VC money each. The proof that Ajax is the next Apple, or the painter who can't afford to have any particular expertise to have opinions about it. How do you get so much better. When the unfortunate fellow got to his last slide, the professor burst out: Which one of these people, you probably shouldn't start a startup in some unsexy field where you'll have less competition, because a if you use a more neutral sounding euphemism like negative or destructive. I say traditionally because I'm ambivalent about decks, and though perhaps this is wishful thinking they seem to mean is different shapes of performance. What's really uncool is to be actively curious. Which means you can't simply tell the truth you don't have to answer to anyone. The main reason nerds are unpopular is that they don't have much confidence in the writer. In those days there was practically zero concept of starting what we now call the Metaphysics came after meta after the Physics in the standard edition of Aristotle's works compiled by Andronicus of Rhodes three centuries later. The dangerous thing about investors is that hackers shouldn't be allowed to run their own companies than by working for existing ones, the existing companies weren't the ones who took 6.

Nor does it harm you in the hierarchy create bonds between themselves. Introducing an investor to change their mind. Analects VII: 36, Fung trans. When they think about programs. Teenagers. Imagine if you were hired at some big company in the expectation of getting job security in return, we develop the product ourselves, in a bad one. I don't have to persecute nerds, the very word taste sounds slightly ridiculous to American ears.

Does that make written language worse? I was a kid, imagine having kids. I can't believe it will be bad is that it also means there's no such thing. So by protecting their kids from risk, parents are, without realizing it, imitations of whatever English professors had been publishing in their journals a few decades old, and rapidly evolving. See, we love big juicy lumbar disc herniations, but they are not the whole story. I disagree here with Yoda, who said there is no permanent place for ugly mathematics. You probably do need to be able to filter them. Indeed, you can at least move in that direction, but it is certainly longer and messier, involving some combination of resourcefulness, obedience, and building alliances. Yuppies were young professionals who made lots of money. That would be unfortunate.

For example, I write essays the same way a bibilical literalist is committed to rejecting it. Partly the reason deals seem to fall through so often is that you need Sun servers for industrial strength applications. It has to be tuned just right. In addition to formidable founders, a promising market and a company tuned to exploit it. 07347802 sorry 0. It's especially good if you're different in a way of learning about your users. One of the defining qualities of a startup, as in many others, the eminent are prisoners of their own position will try to emphasize it by maltreating those they think rank below. In a real essay and the things you like from the things you're taught. When I was running Y Combinator I used to think of startup ideas are made of in a hundred years from now eBay had been supplanted by an ad-supported freeBay or, more likely, new investors will emerge who do. Notes One valuable thing you tend to get founded by self-selecting groups of ambitious people, then a lot of popular sites were quite high-handed about it. Some say Europeans are less energetic, but I realize a I have no idea how dangerous they are.

But many will want a copy of The Atlantic. University Ave would have been delighted at first to be bought for $2 million, but are so caught up in their squabble they don't realize it. At sales I was not very good. This would be an especially big win in server-based software will make developers pay more attention to not screwing up than any design decision, but the truth turns out to be partially right: web-based spreadsheet and see how many results you get. Though in a sense naturally. Which is good news for two reasons: a it's an encouraging thought, and some of the smarter ones, particularly angels, can give good advice. Subject, and Return-Path lines, or within urls, get marked accordingly.

[cesca-untoldstories]

Remember this? Well now thank to Toastea I have a plan for this AU and its totally be

COLLEGE AU

An Alternative Universe totally based on the normal and not at all bizarre life of university students sharing a flat. generally they will be "incorrect quotes" that will give me ideas to follow this later but the main prompt is:

Jotaro Kujo, a biology student aspiring to Marine Biologist and soon to be Oceanographer, is not a pleasant man at all when it comes to socializing. he prefers to reserve his thoughts and inspire a menacing look, trusting that people will be able to read his thoughts easily. He has never had many friends but of those who remain are his two college friends Jean Pierre Polnareff, culinary aspirant and in his spare time he is dedicated to swordsmanship. and Noriaki Kakyoin, an aspiring civil electronic engineering honors student but just a nerd who's passionate about designing video games and bothering Polnareff from time to time. The three of them have arranged to share an apartment and pay for it together but the costs have been high lately and it forces them to find a fourth member in the house.

I think it's the worst they've faced in years, no one seems to put up with the mess and least of all Jotaro's challenging and threatening attitude and his nightwalker problems. they have given up but a last person has arrived to request a quota. Francesca Castiglier does not know the city very well, nor does she have close people, so she is willing to pay what she needs to share an apartment and feel a little more company. Jotaro has refused to share the house with a woman but seeing that she has challenged him back, Polnareff and Kakyoin are happy to learn that they have found the missing star.

Everyone's life there is; terrible.

a constant mess and fights of who left the toilet seat up or who decided to use toothpaste to fix the microwave. but at the end of everything a beautiful friendship is being forged between the four. and the cutest thing of all is that together they decided to play a kind of DnD every night; where each one has a power and a humanoid that represents them. They call them Stands and every Friday they make nerdy stories out of their humanoids and their bizarre adventures.

[queer-and-dear-books]

Title: Here To Stay

Author: Sara Farizan

Genre: YA Fiction | Romance | Friendship | Drama | Mystery

Content Warnings: Xenophobia | Racism | Lesbophobia | Sexism | Bullying | Outing

Overall Rating: 9.3/10

Personal Opinion: If you enjoyed The Sky Blues and/or Felix Ever After, then you might like this book too. Personally, because I really enjoyed those books, I liked the premise of this one too. Bijan is the target of a xenophobic email that paints him as a terrorist simply because he’s brown. But luckily, he has many allies to lean on and people to protect him. And he’ll be sure to do everything he can to make the perpetrator face some serious consequences.

Couple Classification: Bijan X Elle = Jock X Nerd/Prep

Do I Own This Book? No.

Spoilers Below For My Likes & Dislikes:

Likes:

- If you enjoyed The Sky Blues and/or Felix Ever After, then you might like this book too. Personally, because I really enjoyed those books, I liked the premise of this one too. It really drew me in from the start because of the mystery. As soon as characters were being introduced, I began analyzing them, wondering if they were the culprit behind the act of racism against Bijan. I put Will at the top of my list being a straight, cis, white, rich male and I was close. It was his shit girlfriend. It’s funny because I did suspect Noah greatly but the fact that he was just so obsessed with Stephanie just made me think he didn’t fit the bill. Why would he be racist to a guy when the girl he adores is super woke? And it pleased me to find that he actually was not the culprit. He did send the second email though that had outed Stephanie and Erin.

- Automatically I can say that I like a lot of the main characters and their dynamic with each other. The true friends ended up being all people of color, queer white folks, and (sorta) a kid from a poor background. And Drew had latched onto his whiteness to make himself feel superior to people of color like Bijan. He believed the vitriol that people like Will and Jessica spat out so he could enjoy the rich lifestyle of his privileged girlfriend. But in his heart, he knew it was wrong to pick on Bijan because of his race. And he turned out to be a decent guy.

- Love Marcus by the way. He is truly the epitome of black excellence. And I love that he had this heart to heart with Bijan about the ways their folks had given them talks about how not to get racially profiled. It’s deep and difficult but they were able to bond over that deepness and became this united front. But even though Marcus is clearly their best player, I love that he wants to get into MIT and become a civil engineer. I think it’s super cool that that’s his dream and he doesn’t care what anyone else says, that’s what he will do.

- Sean is great too. He’s Asian (specifically Japanese) and he was raised by two moms. He is super confident and he’s artsy and the way he actually stole the anti-Bijan poster from the bigots proves he’s a true best friend. And I love that Bijan is aware of how he hasn’t acted like a best friend to Sean lately. He hung out more with Elle and Stephanie and the team than he did with Sean who was always there supporting him through thick and thin. Every game, every conversation with girls, and especially when that email was sent to the entire student body. So the fact that Bijan was thinking of making it up to his best friend by going to his showcase with a sign that read, “Eye of the Tiger, Sean” after Sean held a similar sign at his big game is just so sweet. I adore their friendship so much and I love their bond.

- Those commentators, Kevin and Reggie, in Bijan’s head were hilarious. I loved their banter and I loved how they broke up the tension and also delivered play by play of some of the basketball moments so I don’t have to picture it. It’s so weird but it’s kind of healthy? In a way? Because Bijan was so positive. They’re figments of his imagination and they were never self-deprecating. They were constantly encouraging him and delivering his best points to the reader. I loved that.

- I could feel the chemistry with Stephanie and Erin and I am glad that we got some queer representation. Even if it’s only with two WLW pairs. I would have loved to find out if any of the basketballers were MLM but I’ll settle for them learning about racial equality. Because it wasn’t just about black folks and middle easterners. They also mentioned the Japanese internment camps and had the sassy Sean talk smack to that white supremacist ass, Jessica Carter. Fuck her for real.

- I also respect the hell out of Bijan was walking away from Jessica when he realized there was no reasoning with her. Her bigotry ran so deep that she truly believed she was 100% justified in calling Bijan, a 16 year old who has never lived outside the US, a terrorist. He walked away and got his girl Elle and it was beautiful. Jessica doesn’t matter.

Dislikes:

- Fuck Will Thompson, fuck Noah Olson, and fuck Jessica Carter. Holy shit, they are the trinity of bigoted fucks. Will is the biggest douchebag with his comments and casual racism. Him and his buddies at Mercer Day and his girlfriend are the worst because they truly believe America is for white people apparently. Like the way they talked about brown folks was just so disgusting. I’m actually revolted thinking about the shit that came out of their mouths. And Noah is just an incel for being so obsessed with Steph that he actually believed he had a right to her. And apparently she “led him on” by being his friend. Ugh, I hate men like that. Toxic masculinity and white supremacy runs deep with this student body but it makes me so happy that they were all punished for their actions. Even if Will will probably still get into Trinity after all his dumbass bullshit. Fuck them all anyway because I hate them so goddamn much.

- I do feel like the fights Bijan had with his mother and Sean (less of a fight and more of a cold war) could’ve been resolved better than just them supporting him so hard in his last game. Like, at least have them acknowledge their behavior was wrong. Well, I don’t actually know who was in the wrong in the situation. Maybe Bijan’s reactions could’ve been less strong? I don’t know. Just something about it left me feeling dissatisfying, I guess.

- Also the quick and brief point of coach having a daughter who is deceased just happened and then never addressed. He talked so harshly to the kids too. Damn. At least Bijan knew it unlike in Running With Lions. This man cared way too much about some ball game than the well-being of his students and it is fucked up. I am glad that he sort of became more on their side in the end though. I just wish he said it out loud. It’s not enough to be implicit with your actions. Although I will say action is more important than words. But still. The fact that he always blamed Bijan AND the racist perpetrator never sat well with me. Call out Will and Drew for the racist shit coming out of their mouths! Instead he’s just criticizing them for not acting like a team. Like Will hating Bijan’s guts is somehow his fault.

- The writing style sort of… falls flat for me in the beginning. I got used to it but it felt so simplistic. And I think I’m willing to chalk that up to Bijan being simple. He doesn’t really strike me as the most entertaining protagonist. Again, I respect him. And he’s absolutely got some comedic chops. But I guess he simply didn’t resonate with me. Maybe because he’s a straight guy and his comments about women sometimes rubbed me the wrong way? Granted he was called out on some of it and he was also blabbing to find  common ground with a despondent Drew. But yeah, straight male protagonists do not do it for me I guess. Damn. That kind of sucks for me. Although I did really like Cliff from Neanderthal Opens The Door To The Universe. He might be an exception though.

- I do really love the ending with the implication that Bijan and Drew will become really good friends in their senior year. But I still wish we had a scene where Drew actually apologized for all the shitty things he did to Bijan in the past year because he really was a douche nozzle. But you know, saving Bijan from Will and his Mercer Day cronies is a good start. He still said, “Your people” when talking about terrorists in reference to Bijan and that was puke-worthy. Well, it’s a start. And at least not every straight white person in this is incapable of growth. Granted in the case of Drew, there is a gaping difference in that he doesn’t come from money like Will and Jessica. My god I hate those two so much. Oh my god, I just remembered how Will talked about Jessica as if she was a disposable sex toy and now I hate him even more. Ew and yikes and gross.

[wiltingpierrot]

Gem Glow: Part 1

Welcome! Well, this isn’t really made to entertain. I’m just doing this to recover from trauma and get a good grasp of the show’s lore while having my girls react with me. Feel free to tag along.

We’ll be watching four episodes a day and react only to the major events as tackling all of them is a toughie.

 Sharpie: “I want to see real tears, Wilt.”

Wilt: “Tears? At the very first episode?”

Sharpie: “Yes. Otherwise I’ll make you cry by some other means.”

Wilt: “I have these tear marks. Those count, yes?”

Sharpie: “Real tears, I said.”

Wilt: “Ahh, how iconic.”

Spinel: “The area around the lighthouse is lacking a lot of flowers. That’ll change someday!”

Sharpie: “Yes, after a lot of blood, ink and tears had been shed first.”

Spinel: “Here we have a shot of the show’s hero, lamenting the discontinuation of a certain ice cream snack brand.”

Sharpie: “Is this triggering your PTSD yet?”

Wilt: “Not really. I thought it would but surprisingly I’m still okay.”

Lars: “Well, if you miss your wimpy ice cream so much, why don’t you make some with your MAGIC BELLY BUTTON?”

Spinel: “Hey Sharpie, let’s make foodstuff with just the energy in our gem.”

Sharpie: “And you still owe me 86 years’ worth of happiness.”

Wilt: “What is this civil conversation you’re having? That’s not how I wrote you two.”

Sadie: “Uhh Steven? Do you want to take the freezer with you?”

Spinel: “Think what would’ve happened if Sadie didn’t let him take that freezer home.”

Sharpie: “Does… does the cat’s face looked different to you?”

Spinel: “I love the lighthouse. The view up the top is always so breathtaking.”

Sharpie: “I’m not so happy with our roommate though.”

Wilt: “…I might have to draw this someday.”

Spinel: “Don’t you just love it when your pets greet you as you enter your house? I wish you would greet me whenever I fall asleep.”

Sharpie: “You’re just my nightmare.”

Amethyst: “’Sup, Steven.”

Spinel: “AME!!!!”

Spinel: “I AM IN LOVE.”

Sharpie: “You can stop replaying this 5 seconds worth of Pearl now.”

Spinel: “It’s 4 seconds worth of Pearl, you heathen.”

Spinel: “HOOO MAMA. Remember when Garnet kicked our ass?”

Sharpie: “She kicked your ass. She kicked your ass so much I had to start a switch to intervene. Now that I think of it, I shouldn’t have done that.”

Sharpie: “Being sliced open is one thing. Being pulled apart is another.”

Spinel: “It’s good that we’re stretchy.”

Sharpie: “I can disable that function and tear you apart like that, actually. Ever wondered why it doesn’t hurt when others pull at you like taffy but I can?”

Spinel: “I can do the same and prevent you from escaping my hugs.”

Sharpie: “*sigh*… I hate you.”

Spinel: “Ahaha! Pearl is so cute!”

Sharpie: “Ahaha! I love this technique.”

Wilt: “It’s good for breaking a hole through walls in maximum security prisons, yeah.”

Amethyst: “Uhh you guys, these things don’t have gems.”

Garnet: “That means there must be a mother somewhere nearby.”

Sharpie: “That’s a fascinating thought.”

Wilt: “It’s similar to how Pearl can project figures that can maintain itself while independent of the source. In this case, the main centipeedle can project independent but smaller versions of itself.”

Sharpie: “How come 2nd Projections aren’t like that, I wonder. Like we can’t have separate bodies or anything…”

Wilt: “Probably because the 2nd Projection has a personality of its own and it stems from the original gem, while Pearl Projections and mini-centipeedles are pre-programmed projections that would act accordingly to the original’s commands. Like, if Spinel makes a projection separate from her, it wouldn’t be you.”

Sharpie: “Fair enough.”

Spinel: “Speaking of Pearl Projections…”

Sharpie: “No.”

Pearl: “Steven, until you learned to control the powers in your gem, we’ll take care of protecting humanity. Okay?”

Spinel: “I want Pearl to snap my neck like that.”

Sharpie: “As if impaling you wasn’t enough.”

Spinel: “PFFFTT-“

Amethyst: “We went out and stole a bunch!”

Spinel: “That’s my Ame.”

Pearl: “I went back and paid for that.”

Sharpie: “That’s…. that’s very Pearl of her.”

Steven: “He left his family behind!”

Spinel: “AHAHAHAHAHA”

Sharpie: “What’s so funny about that?”

Sharpie: “Oh my stars. I hope we don’t have to bear another one of those.”

Wilt: “It’s catchy. I like it.”

Sharpie: “What a happy little family. It’s a shame that they’re doomed to a life of madness onwards.”

Amethyst: “Quick! Try and summon your weapon!”

“Awww, no weapon.”

Wilt: “He’s struggling. A sign of a well-rounded character. The progress is dramatic if we compare this episode to the last ones. And it only took him a few Earth years.”

Sharpie: “And it took us like what, 86 years to get this far and we’re still inferior to most we meet in our travels.”

Spinel: “God I love Pearl.”

Sharpie: “Can you even pay attention to anything that isn’t Pearl?”

Spinel: “I’m capable of paying attention to a lot of things and to nothing at the same time, Sharpie. Be amazed.”

Steven: “Can one of you just explain how to summon a weapon?”

Pearl: “Oh! I’ll go first.”

Wilt: “I love Pearl.”

Spinel: “I love Pearl.”

Sharpie: “…”

Spinel: “AUUGH! Pearl is so beautiful.”

Wilt: “This is so anime.”

Spinel: “This scene makes me wanna stand underneath a cherry blossom tree with her in a Friday afternoon and confess my love.”

Sharpie: “God both of you disgust me.”

Pearl: “Pay attention to these petals, Steven.”

Pearl: “The petal’s dance seems improvised, but it is being calculated in real-time based on the physical properties of this planet.”

Wilt: “HELL YEAH, I LOVE PEARL.”

Pearl: “With hard work and dedication, you can master the magical properties of your gem, and perform your own dance.”

Pearl: “Like so.”

Spinel: “HELL YEAH, I LOVE PEARL”

Sharpie: “So… Pearl’s approach is tuning into the technical reality of the universe to tap into her gem’s energy,”

Amethyst: “Listen Steven. All that practice stuff is no fun. Whenever I need to summon my weapon, it just happens.”

Sharpie: “And Amethyst’s approach is just winging it. Considering Ame is a gem made for war, of course summoning a weapon is natural instinct. Pearl however… She had to learn serious fighting, something most Pearls aren’t made for.”

Spinel: “We’re the same, ain’t we? Spinels ain’t made for violence but we can whoop butt just fine.”

Sharpie: “We just got lucky… and incredibly unfortunate at the same time.”

Sharpie: “Gems are such nuisances. So much that in other places of the world, a group of humans actually built little Distortion Bombs capable of disorienting corrupted gems to a point of repelling them away. Unfortunately those things are powered by tiny bits of gem shards, which is obviously not an easily obtainable source of power. The project was discontinued.”

Spinel: “The invention worked on us, too, which is kind of impressive!”

Sharpie: “The best those little bombs done to us were to irritate us, or temporarily disable our senses. Corrupted gems have warped sentience I think, so they would rely more on instincts and run away from the source of irritation as much as possible.”

Sharpie: “They say if enough energy is given into the device, it’ll have high enough amplitude to potentially dissipate a gem’s physical form. But this is just a fever dream. There’s no way they have access to that amount of energy without slaughtering a Diamond first. Still, props to the engineer who thought that was a good idea.”

Spinel: “So instead of using gem shards, he decided to use us by writing the function into Springy. If we poof, we can give bad gems nearby a head ache and make them go away. We can protect people even if we die in battle! He basically turned us into heroic suicide bombers against corrupted gems.”

Sharpie: “Necessary, considering every time we poof we somehow cause part of a building to catch on fire, killing the people we’re supposed to protect in the process.”

Spinel: “Uh huh… yeaaahh….. I mean, where else is the excess energy supposed to go?”

Sharpie: “I dunno. Some other harmless form of energy apart from heat? The sparkly dust clouds were already perfect and you just had to change it into something deadlier. Thanks to you, seven people that stood close to us turned into soup.”

Spinel: “Well, there was that one time where the fire storm actually saved us from a meanie who wanted to crush us. We can’t just ignore that.”

Sharpie: “Seven people died, Spinel. Seven people that happened to be our allies.”

 Wilt: “Please stop. We have to finish this episode.”

Steven: “So I’m supposed to work really hard and not try at all at the same time?”

Garnet: “Yes.”

Garnet: “Or…”

Garnet: “You can link your mind with the energy of all existing matter, channeling the collective power of the universe through your gem.”

Garnet: “At least that’s my way of doing it.

Spinel: “C’mon, kiddo. It’s not that hard to understand. It’s how Springy lived for the past 40 years. If she can do it, so can you.”

Sharpie: “I bet this makes the most sense to you, huh Wilt?”

Wilt: “It does. Considering we are all just ripples of energy on the surface of the large lasagna we call the observable universe.”

Sharpie: “What a nerd. Also we’re half-way through the episode. You better cry, Wilt.”

Wilt: “I’m saving this shot for reference.”

[ace-baker-rae]

Braided channels are a really cool example of the science behind why water flows the way it does. Because technically it doesn’t flow “downhill”, it flows in the direction of decreasing “head” (aka force). So you get these crazy meanders that follow where the resistance is the lowest, so they MOVE, like a lot. There’s a braided channel at the lowland part of the Waimakariri North of Chirstchurch that has been contained to a river bed, but the bed is huge because the individual channels move so much. They form because the water comes straight down from the mountains at screaming fast speeds, so it doesn’t lose any of the sediment it’s carrying until it slows down in the lowlands. As the sediment is deposited, the path of least resistance suddenly changes, and the channel moves.

Moving in the direction of decreasing head is also how some ground water gets to rivers and lakes. The groundwater can be at a lower elevation than the river and still flow towards it because it’s under pressure.

There’s also a cool thing that rivers can do to follow decreasing head. When a river gets a crazy meander going, eventually the meander requires more force to move through than just cutting across and you get these little cut off oxbow lakes.

nature things that a lot of people don't know about and weren't even taught about adequately, but they're actually really fundamental and important to know about

how rivers work. Where do they get started? how do they decide which way to flow?? what makes one river muddy and the other one clear?

[They flow downhill. Always. If a river is flowing a Way, that way is Downhill. They start with rain flowing or soaking downhill until it forms into a little trickle through a channel like a gully or drainage ditch, and the farther it flows the more other trickles flow into it from the land around it, until you have a stream, and the streams all flow downhill until they run into each other, and eventually you have a river which finally reaches the ocean. Rivers never flow FROM the ocean because the ocean is the most downhill you can possibly go. I don't think rivers usually split in two—a fork in a waterway is usually two rivers joining together.]

[On the subject of pollution, rain is usually supposed to soak slowly through the layer of leaves, roots, and dead plant material that covers most biomes. But if you tear up the plants and leave bare mud, or replace a forest with a muddy cow pasture, there's no filter, and mud and contaminants wash into the river. Just plain mud can be pollution.]

how soil works. What makes different soils different? Why are some soils good for growing a garden and others terrible? Does it need more fertilizer?

[The sand, silt, clay diagram is very simplified and only deals with one aspect of soil. Roots, soil animals, fungi, and dead plant material are all part of soil and affect its structure, making it spongy and full of holes and passages for nutrients, water, and new roots. Tilling can break hard soil, but tilling doesn't make soil light, fluffy, and permeable—disturbing the soil as little as possible, protecting it with a layer of plant material, and allowing the natural life forms of the soil develop their networks and tunnels and slowly break down the plant material layer does. This is also very simplified. Soil is COMPLICATED.]

what fungi are, and whether they are dangerous.

[fungi cannot harm you unless you eat them or unless they're growing inside your house and you're inhaling their spores in a concentrated space. There's like, one species in Japan that causes skin irritation. You can touch any other species without any harm whatsoever. *Most* of them don't harm your garden either—in fact, most plants connect their root systems to the fungal mycelium in the soil and receive nutrients from the fungus in exchange for the products of photosynthesis.]

Whether lichen harm trees

[no. They're just hanging out. But a LOT of lichen on a tree might be a sign that the tree is dying. It's not the lichen's fault though.]

What moss is??

[it's a plant, but a very simple plant that doesn't have any vessels for transporting water, so it has to live somewhere damp and soak it up like a sponge. There are hundreds of species of moss, and different species live on the side of a boulder vs. the top, or a living tree trunk vs. a fallen dead tree trunk!]

where bugs go in the winter? I straight up had a book as a kid that told me that they just die, without explaining how the species doesn't go extinct if the winter kills them all.

[Tl;dr they're usually hibernating in fallen leaves and dead wood and plant material. Some do this as eggs or larvae/caterpillars; in this case the adults do die, but their children sleep peacefully through the winter to awake in the spring. And still others hibernate as adults. This is why you don't clean up your flower beds until late spring.]

How Many plants there are

[WAY more than you think]

How ecosystems work apart from "everything is out to get everything else and take resources from other organisms."

[Competition and cooperation are both important in ecosystems! Weeds are competitive and they can choke out other plants, but they also protect the soil from erosion and harsh sunlight, keeping it moist and helping organic matter to build up. A lot of plants, when they're young, need to be sheltered by other plants that protect them from dryness, heat, and herbivores. This isn't even getting into how some plants will send nutrients to seedlings or to understory plants in a forest! Before industrial agriculture made monocultures dominant, people used and were familiar with cooperative relationships between plants a LOT more.]

The range of creatures that are pollinators, and how important the variety is.

[Bees, wasps, butterflies, moths, flies, ants, beetles, hummingbirds, and bats are all pollinators, and flowers are usually shaped and colored and scented to attract particular pollinators. Bees can't do everything, and honey bees are only one kind of bee. Red flowers and long tube shaped flowers are often for hummingbirds, pale-colored flowers that open at night need moths, and flowers that give off strong foul odors often attract flies. It gets WAY more complicated than that—sometimes a flower is only pollinated by a single species of bee or wasp or beetle.]

How many bees there are besides honey bees

[LOTS. And you've probably never seen most of them, if you don't regularly spend time around native plants! There are 140 species of longhorn bee alone, and most people haven't even heard of longhorn bees! There are well over a hundred bumble bees too! Bees come in bright, metallic green, blue, and pure gold. In the USA where I live, some of the most endangered bees are the adorable, fluffy bumble bees—the American Bumble Bee is threatened, and we have some species, like the rusty-patched bumble bee, that are critically endangered.]

[Please, please, please do not use pesticides on plants unless it is a necessity, and please do a LOT of research on the specific pesticide you are using and its effects on non-target insects. If there is any alternative, Do Not Do It. ESPECIALLY not pesticides that come in dust or powder form, ESPECIALLY in the USA, because regulations are so loose here that regular people can buy pesticides in dust form that are horribly toxic to bees.]

[How horribly toxic? A pesticide like Sevin dust will cling to the fuzz on every single bee that visits your plant—like pollen—and those bees will probably die. And in social bees, before they die, they will take the poison back to their hive (like pollen) and potentially kill the entire hive.]

[script-a-world]

Pylon Bios (An Update, with New Pylons)

Hello, lovely followers of script-a-world!

Please allow us to introduce ourselves! We haven’t had any sort of about-the-bloggers page available before, and now that we’ve added more to the team, we’re seeking to remedy that!

First of all, we call ourselves Pylons. What the heck is a pylon? Well, outside of this blog, it’s an upright structure for holding up something, usually a cable or conduit. When this blog was started more than a year ago (whoa), the group chose the word Pylon to describe ourselves collectively, as a fun little nickname. Whee!

Without further ado, meet the Pylons (and Mods)! (in alphabetical order)

Brainstormed: Hey there, call me Brainstormed, and you can find me at @thunderin-brainstorm. Any pronouns will do. I'm a student, illustrator, and world traveler. My home is in America, but I'm rarely there for more than a month at a time, so feel free to ask where in the world I happen to be! Worldbuilding has been my hobby for quite a long time and I'd love to give you some tips and tricks that I've learned, or take your idea and turn it on its head to perhaps show you a new perspective. The many projects I've developed have been lifesavers for me, as they allowed me to harness my Maladaptive Daydreaming Disorder and use it as a positive tool for creativity. Aside from drawing and daydreaming, I spend a lot of time biking, hunting for cool rocks and bones, binge reading any scholarly article that catches my eye, and memorising completely useless random facts that I spout at any given moment in lieu of remembering actual important information.

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Constablewrites: My name is Brittany, and I'm a California girl living in the Midwest. I use she/her pronouns. I've always loved stories with rich and detailed worlds, whether in movies, books, games, or something else entirely. I'm the kind of writer who will spend hours researching to confirm a minor detail. Naturally, I not only write SFF, but my recent projects have all required worldbuilding on more than one axis (like multiple types of magic, or time travel on top of historical) because i am apparently something of a masochist. I'm a walking TV Tropes index and a whiz at digging up random useful knowledge, both of which come in handy as a Pylon. Other random facts: I'm a trained actress and singer, I used to work at Disneyland on the Jungle Cruise (among other attractions), and a laptop held together with duct tape is responsible for my day job in tech support. I blog about writing as @constablewrites and about random things that amuse me as @operahousebookworm.

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Delta: Hi! I’m Delta and I can be found @dreaming-in-circles or @thedeclineofapollo (writeblr), and I love sci-fi. Like, a lot lol. I work in NEPA compliance for a civil engineering firm in the USA, and have a lot of experience with infrastructure, bureaucracies, biology, and space (for unrelated reasons). I spend a lot of time haunting the astrophysics wikipedia pages, and my current all-consuming project is a novel that is angling to be about 150,000 words (at current projections). Can’t wait to hear your questions!

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Ebonwing: Hi, I’m Ebonwing. I’m currently studying IT in university. I’m a writer and worldbuilder, and sometimes a worldbuilding writer or a writing worldbuilder. I gravitate towards fantasy, though I’m not going to say no to the occasional stint in scifi, and as I’m also a giant language nerd, I enjoy making conlangs for my creations. Other than that, I’m also an artist and indulge in any number of other crafting hobbies, and if I’m not doing any of those things, I can probably be found playing video games.

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Feral: Hi! I'm Feral, and you can find me @theferalcollection (if you enjoy feminism, socialism, or over-analyzed fiction) or on my writing blog theferalcollection.wordpress.com. I'm a Southern girl who likes fancy dresses, mint juleps, big hats, and using being-underestimated to my advantage. I work in the interior design industry and am currently in school for industrial design. I have previously earned degrees in comparative literature and theatre & drama. I'm a big nerd who really likes school. I've been world-building since before I knew it was a thing and writing almost as long. I’ve written mostly fantasy but the past couple projects have been science fiction. I'm ridiculously in love with the idea of being an astrophysicist but don't feel like learning calculus, so I just read about science a lot. My hobbies include martial arts, drinking too much coffee, and tabletop games.

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Lockea: Hello! I’m Lockea. You can find me all over the internet as @lockea or LockeaStone. I’m a leaf on the wind who currently enjoys the SoCal sunshine in Los Angeles where I work as an engineer and data scientist. I love street fashion (especially Lolita) and making jewelry. I have two kitties, Theodore and Cecelia, and I volunteer at the local animal shelter as a cat handler and adoption counselor. I know way too much about cat behavior, honestly, and will yap your ear off if you let me.

Worldbuilding wise, I have a deep affection for science fiction and I’ve consulted professional science fiction writers on developing technology and worlds through the explanation of science and engineering. My engineering specialization is extra-terrestrial  robotics, so if it has to do with space, planetary science, or robotics -- I got you. I’m also a fan of politics and really like developing political and socio-economic systems in fantasy and sci-fi worlds.

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Miri: Miri here, with my main tumblr @asylos and my writing tumblr @mirintala. I am a Canadian Pharmacy Technician by day and a small time ePublisher and gamer of many types by night. Mostly wandering around the Internet helping to organize events in the FFVII tumblr fandom (modding at @ff7central and @ffviifandomcalendar), and stumbling around within the Borderlands of Pandora. I use she/her pronouns.

—-

Symphony: Hey, I’m Symphony! Use whatever pronouns you feel like, any work. I’m currently living in Michigan with my fiance, and in-between jobs but I want to go to nursing school ASAP.  My favorite genres in fiction are horror, sci-fi, and really anything that holds my interest. In my own worldbuilding I've always felt myself most interested in developing societies on the macro level (politics, diet, customs, stuff like that), and the more esoteric, strange parts of my world. I like to make a place feel lived in, with secrets that may never be found and people who seek them out.

——

Synth: I’m @chameleonsynthesis on Tumblr, but that’s a mouthful, so just call me Synth. Any pronouns work. Born and raised in Canada, but living in Norway as of autumn 2007. Looking back, I’ve been worldbuilding since at least the age of four (in my early thirties now, so yeah), with a predominantly science-fantasy bent. I’m of the artsy creative type, with way too many projects on the go at any given time, and enjoy long walks through Wikipedia and getting caught in TV Tropes. The best thing is when I stumble across some strange factoid that can justify aspects of my many weird alien species. Stupid Synth facts: I have dual Canadian and Norwegian citizenship. My legal name contains a letter that does not exist in the English alphabet. I can curl my tongue into a cloverleaf shape, and wiggle my ears. My day job is musical instrument repair. I play French horn in a concert band, trombone in a jazz band, and don’t practice my flute or piccolo near as much as I should. Outside of band rehearsals and my job, I volunteer at the local cat shelter, work out at a gym, and attend events at my city’s newly established makerspace.

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Tex: I'm Tex, and you can find me on tumblr @texasdreamer01. Most of my hobbies are centered around fandom and worldbuilding for it, though I also like cooking and reading up on fiction and non-fiction whenever I have the time. I'm currently studying biochemical engineering, with a slant in nanotechnology and its medical applications, so I need to know a bunch about the different types of sciences, as well as projecting for the development of future fields.

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Utuabzu: Hi, I’m Utuabzu, I previously was part of ScriptMyth (RIP) where I tended to take the lead on Mesopotamia and Egypt related asks. I’m most of the way through a Bachelor of Linguistics, e parlo italiano und ein bisschen Deutsch. I have a deep and enduring interest in the history of the ancient world, particularly the ancient Near East, and I’m also a bit of a nerd for politics, which is helpful when it comes to worldbuilding. My random 2am research binges have resulted in my knowing a lot of odd things. I enjoy travelling and experiencing other cultures, however as I am Australian this unfortunately requires flying, which I hate a great deal. I expect to one day be crushed beneath a pile of my books. It is a demise I am ok with.

_____

Wootzel: Hi, I’m Wootzel, or @wootzel-dragon! I use she/her pronouns. I’m a recent college grad trying to figure life out. My favorite thing about worldbuilding is making things as realistic or pseudo-realistic as possible, and finding a justification for everything. Sometimes, this is also my least favorite thing about myself, because it can make things very hard! But, it can also be really rewarding when I get things to work out in a way that I enjoy.

My other hobbies include reading lots of fanfic while neglecting physical books, starting ambitious sewing projects on a whim, and wondering where all my time goes on a daily basis. I have changed major a few times, and I am still unsure about what I want to do with my life, except that it’ll always have writing in it somewhere.

[queenmylovely]

The Law of Attraction ii

Summary: John deacon x fem!reader. A change in employment makes things more... interesting.

Word Count: 3.3k

Warnings: lotsa bit of awkwardness, cussing 

A/N: Part ii of LoA, in which things heat up, but aren’t quite spicy yet. I had so much fun writing this, and I hope you all have as much reading it! Any feedback including likes, replies, reblogs and asks are greatly appreciated! Requests are open! (more info at the end) 

Request: idk if you write for prof!deaky but like… i’d be so down for that.

Part i, Part iii*, Masterlist 

gif by @deakysgurl

💥💥💥

Early Monday morning of your sixth week of classes you had woken up to an email from the school’s admin office with the subject title “IMPORTANT MEETING ABOUT YOUR EMPLOYMENT,” that said “come to my office before you start your shift,” in the body. You sighed and wondered how long they would be employing you after the meeting, or if they would just fire you right then. Wracking your brain for a reason they would fire you, you couldn’t come up with any and figured it must have to do with scheduling or budgeting. It seemed you would have to find another job that would allow you to work for less than 20 hours a week and be close to your apartment or campus and would let you do homework in your downtime. Yeah, like that’d be possible.

You got ready for the day in a bit of a slump, eating your bagel and cream cheese and fixing your hair with a frown. When there was no more time to put it off, you got in your car and drove over to campus. The walk to the admin building seemed more like a death march and when you went in the doors, the chimes of the bell tower went off, really adding to the tone of the day.

As soon as you walked into the main office, your boss called you over and you walked with perfect posture and a stoic look on your face. If they were going to fire you, you were going to take it like a professional. Your boss lead you into her office and left the door open as you sat down. You frowned a little in confusion at that, since you would expect the door to be closed during the firing.

Your boss, Marla, sat down behind her desk and smiled pleasantly at you, “How are you, Y/N?”

“I’m okay…” you replied cautiously.

“That’s good. So, I called you here because your employment will be changing starting today,” Marla told you and you braced yourself for her next words. “Katie, the admin assistant who works Tuesdays-Thursdays wanted more hours, and since you’re only available on Mondays and Fridays, we’ll be transferring you to a less busy department and she’ll take over for you here.”

That wasn’t what you were expecting. All of the dread and anticipation you were feeling rushed out of your body and you let out a breath you didn’t know you had been holding, “Oh, okay.”

“It should be the same hours too, we thought it just made sense to have one person doing one and the other doing the other instead of Katie splitting her time between departments,” she explained.

“Yeah, that sounds fine,” you told her, still just relieved you weren’t being fired.

“Good, I’m glad you’re not upset. I’m sorry to spring this on you so quickly,” she said with an apologetic smile.

If she didn’t want to make me upset, she should’ve labeled the email TRANSFER, you thought to yourself. You shook the thought from your head and smiled back, then asked, “So what department will I be transferring to?”

“Well, that’s the part I think you’ll like. It’ll actually be kind of a department within a department. It could even give you a boost with your major. You’ll be working for the engineering department’s lab professors,” she said brightly with a matching smile.

Out of politeness and reflex, you smiled back, but in your head you were a little frozen. With the past six weeks of classes, your crush had only gotten bigger, and you were sure that this job would only make it worse. Your boss told you to go ahead and go to the building now, and that one of the professors (she didn’t say which) would be around to give you some basic information, but the job would be really similar to this one.

As you started the 15 minute walk, you continued overthinking the situation. The crush had gotten to the point of your face heating up every time he looked at you, which was often since you had three classes with him. (And for no other reason, right?) Luckily, you had been able to complete the assignments and lab reports without needing to go to office hours, but the assignments were only getting harder, and you were close to breaking and going to them. You had held off from doing so because you knew that if you were alone with him for longer than 15 minutes, you would do something embarrassing. There was too much shoulder and arm touching and you stood closer together than students and professors should already, you couldn’t risk anything more.

But, you definitely couldn’t quit this job. For all of the reasons you had been worried about being fired, you couldn’t quit. With that in mind, you started to come to terms with the facts of your employment. You resigned yourself to the hope that you wouldn’t be able to keep up a crush on someone you worked for; you were a professional, and he’d probably be an annoying boss and that would get rid of your crush right away, right?

By the time you had thought that slightly hopeful thought, you had arrived at the lab building and took a deep breath before walking in. Waiting in the “lobby” was not one of the two professors whose names you didn’t know, like you had hoped, but Professor Deacon. That deep breath you had taken in came out as a shaky sigh just as he looked up at you, and that telltale warmth heated your face. He smiled when he recognized it was you, and stood up from where he had been sitting behind the desk. It was a high desk, so it came up to his mid-torso and your chest.

As you walked into the room, he leaned over the desk so he was resting his elbows on the top and looked slightly down at you with a smile. “Hey, Y/N, funny to see you on a Monday.”

“Hi Professor Deacon,” you returned as warmly as you could manage, with a smaller smile.

“What can I do for you? Mind, it will have to be quick; I’m waiting for a new assistant,” he informed you, still with a smile.

“That’s actually what I’m here for. I’ve transferred from the admin office and I’ll be working here now,” you said tentatively.

As you explained the situation, Professor Deacon’s face went through a couple of flashes of emotion you couldn’t quite decipher. One almost looked like excitement, but the one right after looked like nervousness, and there was one splashed in there that you definitely couldn’t understand, but it made his eyes dark. After the veritable catalogue of emotions that crossed his face, it settled in pleasant, if not neutral, surprise.

“Well, how fitting. An engineering student working for the engineering department,” he said, finally.

Still confused at his reaction, you responded slowly, “Yeah, that’s what my previous boss said.”

“Previous boss?” he asked in confusion.

“Yes, I mean, I think you’re my boss now,” you reminded him.

Professor Deacon swallowed thickly and that darkness that made you uneasy and excited all at the same time reentered his eyes, “Oh, yes, I suppose you’re right.”

A mildly uncomfortable silence fell over the two of you, and you weren’t sure what to do next since he was the one that was supposed to be training you. He seemed to realize this after a second.

“So, I guess I don’t have to give you a tour, since you already know the space well,” he said, standing up straight again, grabbing a little notepad he had, and checking off a box next to what you could barely make out as “tour.” Professor Deacon had written a little to-do list for training the new assistant, and just that little extra-preparedness made your heart swell. Fuck.

Professor Deacon checked the list to see what should come next. Deciding, he said, “Have you ever met the other two professors in this building? I know I showed you their labs, but…”

When you shook your head no, he walked out from behind the desk and started leading you to their offices, “Let’s go do that then.”

Like always, you found yourself all too close to him while you were walking, but couldn’t bring yourself to step away or slow down so you were behind him. As you reached the first closed door, he knocked lightly, opening it when he heard the person say “come in.”

Pushing the door open enough so you could stand next to him in the doorway and be visible, Professor Deacon gestured to you, “We’re just popping by to introduce you to our new assistant. This is Y/N, Y/N this is Professor Batten, he’s the civil engineering professor.”

It took a determined amount of your concentration to pay attention to the other man and his name because Professor Deacon was so close to you standing in that doorway that you could feel the warmth radiating off of his arm.

Professor Batten smiled and said, “Nice to meet you, Y/N,” which you reciprocated hastily before Professor Deacon ushered you back to the hallway and closed the door, waving to his coworker.

“He’s kind of a nerd, really quiet, but he’s nice,” Professor Deacon explained to you as the two of you walked to the mechanical lab when you realized the other professor’s office was empty.

“Aren’t you all kind of nerds?” you asked teasingly, finding yourself falling into the comfortable and friendly relationship the two of you had developed over the six weeks.

“Ouch, you’ve got me there,” he said with a fake pained look. Laughing, he continued the joke, “What was it that gave me away? The fact that I’m always here or my t-shirts with the engineering puns?”

“Well, even just the fact that you’re an electrical engineering professor doesn’t bode well for not being a nerd, but I’ve gotta say that the final nail in the coffin is the dad shoes,” you said, pointing down to the shoes that he wore everyday without fail.

“Dad shoes? I’m no dad,” he said a little defensively, but there was still a laugh in his voice.

“Good to know,” you said under your breath, and Professor Deacon strained to hear it. In a more audible voice, you added with a smirk, “Even so, they’re pretty nerdy.”

“I resent that statement,” he told you, trying to look annoyed but unable to keep the smile off of his face.

“I’m just calling it like it is. Plus I never said it was a bad thing to be nerdy. If you have a complex about that, that’s on you. Besides,” you said, taking a second to reinforce the stupid thought you were about to say next, and to look him in the eye, “Nerdy is cute.”

Before Professor Deacon could react or say anything, you turned to the woman that had just come into view in the mechanical engineering lab and waved, saying loudly, “Hi, I’m Y/N, the new assistant for you three professors in the lab building.”

Professor Deacon had heard what you said and, with his knowledge of inductive reasoning, came to the following set of conclusions: you said you thought nerdy was cute, you said you thought he was nerdy, therefore, you must think he’s cute. But that couldn’t be right. You were an intelligent, beautiful, funny, young woman who couldn’t be more than 24, not to mention his student, and he was a 38 year old electrical engineering professor who spent his free time in the lab and wore the same five shirts and pairs of pants every week.

But you also wouldn’t have said it if you didn’t mean it, and you had to have known what you were saying, that’s what the whole conversation was about. Wait… did this mean that you thought Jack Batten was cute too?

While Professor Deacon was having that internal mini-crisis, and looking about as red as a tomato all the while, the woman that was standing about 20 feet away made her way over to you and stuck out her hand to shake yours.

“Hi, Y/N, it’s nice to meet you, I’m Professor Karen Braun,” she introduced herself with a pleasant smile on her face and a firm handshake.

“Nice to meet you too,” you said, matching her smile and handshake.

Professor Braun looked behind from where you had stepped forward and saw Professor Deacon. His face was still beet red and he looked very out of sorts.

“Deaky are you okay? Do you feel sick? You aren’t looking too good,” Professor Braun said with a worried look on her face as she crossed to where he was standing.

Looking at him, you were worried as well, though not quite for the same reason. You had a pretty good idea of why he was looking the way he was, but you weren’t sure whether it was an I'm-flustered-and-flattered-and-I-also-have-an-inappropriate-crush-on-my-student-type look or an oh-no-this-crazy-girl-has-a-crush-on-me-and-I’m-stuck-with-her-for-the-rest-of-the-semester-type look.

Joining the other two a few feet away, you heard the end of the sentence Professor Deacon was saying, “Really Karen, I’m fine. I think I’m just overheating a little. You know how it is with the air conditioning in this building.”

That seemed to get Professor Braun off of him as a topic and onto complaining about how the A/C broke every year and they did nothing about and the same in the winter with the heating. This all despite the fact that it was the middle of October, and his A/C excuse didn’t really make sense.

“And the insulation is horrible in this building, so it really affects us!” she said enthusiastically, gesturing with purpose.

Both you and Professor Deacon nodded with fervor at her statement.

“Well, I’ve still got the rest of the training to teach Y/N, so we’d better head back to the main office,” he said as he gestured to the direction of the door.

“Yes of course. Well, welcome to our mini-department,” she told you, smiling at you once again.

You thanked her and then followed Professor Deacon out of the room, and you didn’t have to worry about walking too close because he was practically jogging back to the lobby. Once you got there, he was already standing by the desk.

“You probably already know the system pretty well, but why don’t we go through this list and just make sure,” he suggested, letting you go behind the desk first so you were closer to the computer. You didn’t know whether it was intentional or not, but he didn’t leave much space for you to get through, and your back brushed against his front as you side-stepped behind the desk.

Because of the pounding in your ears from the slight contact, you didn’t hear Professor Deacon’s sharp intake of breath. You sat down at the rolling desk chair, reaching underneath you to adjust the height higher since Professor Deacon had been the last one sitting in it. As he sat down next to you, you turned to look at him and saw that his face was red all over again.

Deciding to press your luck, you raised the back of your right hand to his forehead and your left to his shoulder to steady yourself and asked, “Are you sure you’re not ill, Professor Deacon? You feel warm.”

“I-I’m- I’m quite alright. Thank you, Y/N, for asking,” Professor Deacon replied after a beat. He was desperately trying not to focus on how soft and gentle your hands were and how they would feel in his hands (or elsewhere on his body). How in the hell was he supposed to survive this semester?

“If you’re sure Professor Deacon,” you said a bit hesitant, removing your hands from his body slowly, trying to hold onto the feeling of touching him so tenderly in your mind. Your experiment had gone well, at least to the point that he didn’t remove your hands from him or call you out for being inappropriate. Was it too presumptuous to hope that maybe that was because he didn’t mind the touch?

“Yes, let’s just move on to the objectives, shall we?” he prompted, picking up the list he had written beforehand. You were the only one of his students not to take advantage of calling him Deaky, and although he was quite fond of the nickname, he liked the way you saying “Professor Deacon” made him feel too much to point it out.

“Alright then, quiz me,” you said in a challenging voice.

Damn, I love it when she’s cheeky, Professor Deacon thought to himself. He cleared his throat and read the first item on the list. You completed it like a pro, as it was one of the most common things you had done in the admin office.

“Good gir- job,” he barely caught his mistake before he called you a good girl. Fuck, what’s wrong with me? he thought, mentally slamming his head on the table.  

Now it was your turn to feel hot, but it wasn’t because you were embarrassed. You felt a delicious warmth cover your entire body and almost felt like shivering at the same time due to his praise. If only he knew what the effect his words had on you.

Clearing his throat to move past the moment, he went through the next three things on the list and you knew how to do them all easily. Then, he got to the final one.

“Okay, now you need to pull up an inventory sheet and use record for Treasure Island,” he told you, referencing the room that contained all of the extra materials for lab students and professors to use. On the second day of classes, he had explained to everyone that it was called Treasure Island, because for engineers, that’s what it was.

“That would be the one I don’t know how to do,” you informed him with a little grimace.

He leaned closer to you so he could point to the screen where you would need to click.

“I mean, no one’s perfect, even though you’re close,” he cleared his throat and you smiled to yourself at the compliment. “So, just click on files, then forms, and then Treasure Island, and finally inventory and use record. And you’ve got it.”

You turned to face him and realized how close he was. Since he had been looking over your shoulder, his face was just a few inches away from yours. After a soft gasp, you composed yourself the best you could (which was incredibly difficult since you could see the flecks of gold in his brown eyes) and said, “Thanks for showing me, Professor Deacon.”

“John,” he blurted, also finding it hard to talk instead of getting lost in your eyes.

Your brows wrinkled slightly in confusion, “What?”

“Um, I mean you can call me John. We’re practically coworkers, at least on Mondays and Fridays, so you can call me John on those days,” he stumbled out, not daring to look away from your gaze in case this was the only time he would get to see you so up close.

“Okay. John,” you affirmed, nodding your head lightly.

For just a second, John’s eyes drifted down to your lips to watch you say his name, and you noticed. Your breath hitched and John snapped his eyes back to yours, but not before your own eyes had traveled to his lips. You looked back up at him in a flash and found yourself unable to look away from his intense stare, not that you even wanted to.

This was getting dangerous.

💥💥💥

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[dammitadolfnomorecake]

Caramel Skin Under a Vanilla Sky prt 10 draft

Lance didn't mention their fight, if anything he acted like it never happened. Lucteal had been less civil, taking a swing at him when Keith had gone to the dining area for breakfast the following morning. Taking hold of the thrown fist, Keith had flipped Lucteal down to the floor with such ease that it laughable. The few team members in the space all seemed to suddenly have elsewhere to be, while Keith calmly collected two servings of goo and found a seat towards the back of the space. Lucteal rose to brush himself off, his face reddened with embarrassment. Stalking from the space to leave he and Kosmo alone, Keith failed to see how he was to blame for Lucteal's bad mood, or whatever had happened between him and Lance. He knew feelings were irrational. He knew it all too well. He'd written down everything he'd seen and learned since being reunited with Lance, and now had a strong idea of all he'd been through. He could understand why Lance would be hesitant to ask for any kind of help. Why he'd be struggling with those voices of anxiety and those nightmares. Now, he held his tongue. Watching Lance's every move upon the Telula. A few more quintants and they'd be at the prison. Then Lance would finally let him in. Those quintants seemed to take forever to pass. Lance was making plans that he wasn't part of. Daehra spent her time casting glances between them, attempting to silently encourage either of them to make a move. Lucteal had glued himself to Lance's side. He'd gone far enough as to sneak into Lance's room in the middle of the night. Lance had rather loudly thrown him out. Lucteal begging to be let in, or to send Keith away. Neither happened. Lucteal still not taking the hint that "no" actually meant "not now, not ever". It wasn't like Keith enjoyed watching Lucteal fall apart due to his unrequited love, buuuut, it did make him wonder if Daehra was right. That Lance actually did care for him, and wanted him like Keith loved him. Making it through to the morning of the mission, Keith found himself dressed rather ridiculously. As the "prince" of Daibazaal, Lance had sent Daehra to help him dress in something more fitting of the role. His blade uniform replaced by one of the Telula's black body suits, then by another body suit that felt like overkill but was allegedly fireproof. Finally was a black earth styled suit, with a white formal shirt. Keith drawing the line at the black tie provided. He didn't love suits. They reminded him too much of funerals and being left behind. As it was, he was struggling with the overwhelming scent of Lance on the fabric. That same salty ocean spray was doing all sorts of things to him inside. Thankfully the bodysuit prevented him from popping a boner the moment he was surrounded by Lance's scent, though it was still awkward when the alien helping you dress was blushing red as she knew exactly what he wanted to do to Lance. The last part of his outfit was a small camera that Zak had designed not to be detectable. Keith wasn't as sure as Daehra was as she tucked it under his collar. It was closed circuit, so anything recorded would only exist upon the device. Dressed from head to toe like someone who was definitely not him, he wasn't happy to find he was the only one looking like a moron. Lance was dressed in his own uniform, with his face already hidden behind his mask. In his hold was a ridiculously large gun and a thick white comms sat on his wrist. Keith hadn't been allowed anything that could be detected. Even his precious blades were left behind. Letting out a long whistle, Lance looked to Daehra "You did a good job. Now, is he ready?" "Yes. Are you sure you wish to proceed with only the two of you?" Keith kept his displeasure hidden. Wasn't Daehra supposed to be on his side here when it came to Lance? "I called ahead to notify them that the "Heir of Daibazaal" and his personal bodyguard would be arriving. They're only expecting the two of us. All weapons and comms need to be left with them, but they'd expect me to be armed anyway" When did Lance have the time to call ahead? He'd definitely missed that "His camera is under his collar. It's set to start filming the moment you're through the magnetic fields" "Thanks Star. And the pod?" "All set. I've uploaded the extrapolation for crossing the fields. You have a three dobosh window between the fifth and sixth wave. It's the longest time you'll have" What now? "Yeah. I looked over the data last night. Once we're in, time will move differently" "Leandro, we have discussed this. The rendezvous coordinates have been input already. The only thing left is for you both to leave. Kosmo is awaiting you" "Do I not get to know what's happening?" Lance rolled his eyes. Even with his face covered, Keith could tell "Yes, Mullet. You've made the request to inquire if Guile has been brought in, and if so, on what charges. Well, you came to me with the request and I've filed for permission to visit the facility. You've been granted access to meet with facilitators on the main outpost of the facility. I've already had a copy of Guile's file printed, as well as forwarded what was relevant to the commander of the outpost" Why was he only now hearing about this outpost? And why hadn't Lance shown him what he was up to? Explained things to him, so he didn't seem like an idiot in front of everyone "I thought we were going to a prison satellite" "You need to go through the outpost to get to the satellite. It's really not that complicated. We'll be leaving now. Keep an eye on Telula for me" Daehra nodded, Lucteal kept scowling at the world "We shall" "Right then. Keith, lets go before we miss our opening" Instead of taking Keith's ship, and given Lance's pod had been blown up, Lance led them down to another pod on the right side of the ship. Ignoring the fact Lance had to slam the airlock between the Telula and the ship four times for it to close properly, then hold it closed with his foot as it locked into place, the small pod was kind of nice in its own way... was what he would have liked to have been able to say. It looked like a flying death trap, and Lance was way too happy about it all. Plopping himself down in the pilot's seat, he fussed over Kosmo like he hadn't seen him in years. Kosmo yipping and jumping around happily, his whole body wagging as he tail went flat out "Uh, not to nitpick, but is this ship going to make it?" "This is Daehra's pod. It's been through a lot, but she's still going" Patting the dash, the whole pod seemed to shudder as the engines whirled to life. Keith grabbing the pilot's chair before throwing himself down in the chair beside it "That doesn't mean it'll make it through these magnetic fields" "It's not over abundant in tech. So the fields won't be messing with the systems like it would if we took the Telula" "I'm not sure if I understand what we're going to be flying through" Climbing into his lap, Kosmo whined at him as the pod was disengaged with a shudder "Do you remember how the original Blade headquarters were hidden. The opening only available at certain times, on certain quintants? Think of what we're going to like that. Time moves differently in there, and between the magnetic interference, the asteroid belt and the weird rotation of the planets around here, it all comes together to act as added security in case of something going wrong on the other side" "Oh... so we only have to get through all of that, then that's ok then. Have at it..." Lance snorted, moving to take the controls into his hands "We sent a sensor ahead. It's been monitoring variables while we were sleeping. Ren'at worked with Zak over night to perfect things" Keith nodded, with no idea who that was "Ren'at is the AI Zak wrote. Seriously, if he and Pidge ever got together... the universe would be a hell of a lot scarier than it is now" "Worse than when Hunk and Pidge would nerd out?" "Think of that on steroids. He's part Olkarion or something. He can interface with like anything. Not that he brags about it. I really lucked out when we busted him out" "Busted him out?" "Mmm... got himself into a scrape that would have seen him locked up. I was supposed to apprehend him and bring him in" Lance offered the comment offhandedly, his focus now on piloting as they moved from the Telula "What did he do?" "What you did. Kind of. Uploaded software where he really shouldn't have. Nothing malicious. He just helped out a rebel group who'd got themselves in trouble. It deleted photos and locations of other rebels. Not like you who downloaded the clubs specifications for no good reason" "Hey, it wasn't for no good reason" "Mhmm. And what good reason did you have for starting a bar fight?" Keith opened and closed his mouth, pouting as he leaned back "I wanted to see you, but didn't know your room number" "That makes everything ok then" "Maybe if you'd told me you were on Erathus, I could have come by without the need to use Kosmo" "Or maybe I would have been working" Awkwardness kicked in when Keith failed to reply. He liked this side of Lance's job. He didn't like the side that had strangers between Lance's long caramel legs where they didn't belong "I don't want to have a fight. It's a long enough trip out there as it is" "Have you been out here before?" "Yep. Well. Once. Once as a passenger in the back of a police ship. Usually the police take care of it. Depends how close we are, though I haven't taken Daehra's pod through it before" "I really don't know if this ship is going to make it" "It survived Lucteal and Daehra in here. As well as their sister, and myself. If it can survive Luc and Dae, it can survive anything" "They're... an interesting pair" "That's what happens when you come from a large family" "Daehra mentioned they were "illegitimate"" "Oh. She told you that? Her father is the king of the planet she comes from. He has a whole harem there. When the Galra hit, they lost a lot. Not just their people and homes, but their animals and forests, the Galra even poisoned some of their water supplies. It messed with his head and he pretty much went about having as many children as he could to ensure his bloodline. They have 17 half-brothers and sisters. That they know of. Dae used to work in the palace taking care of the "proper" kids. Lucteal was raised in the royal household. The males were until the queen gave birth to a boy and they were all sent away. It's a messy situation. Lucteal and Daehra never really had anything for themselves. I did tell them I had no idea how things would play out and that they'd be safer at home, but they'd both dreamed of seeing more" "A bit like you? How you dreamed of space?" "Something like that. It's not what I ever thought it would be. I know we don't have much, but we make it work" "They're lucky to have you. You should have been Black Paladin, not me" Lance let out a sigh "That's not true" "It is" "No. Shiro had Black, but you stepped up. You didn't think you could do it, but you stepped up" "Then Kuron came back in Shiro's place. I can't believe Black didn't tell me" "Black didn't tell any of us. Neither did the other lions. All of Coran's scans failed to show it. We all thought he was Shiro" "You thought something was off, but we dismissed you" "I'm used to it. I come from a big family" "You should never have had to be used to it" "It's fine. Seriously. Big family and all that" "It's not fine, Lance. You're what kept us all together. You took care of all of us. Your team is lucky to have you" "Can we not do this again? We can talk about something else, but I need to concentrate" "Fine. But it's still true. They're lucky to have you. Anyone is lucky to have you" "You're making me blush, Mullet" "Doesn't make it any less true. And it's been a long time since I've had a mullet" "You'll always be "mullet" to me. With that red and white jacket, and that perpetual scowl. I get it now. We were all doing all we could to stay alive. I... uh... shouldn't have snapped at you over it all. Turned out I have more issues with Kuron than I thought" Keith sat up a little straighter in his chair, cautiously asking "Have you talked to Shiro about it?" "Nah. He wasn't him. I don't want to remember, really. So I don't know why I keep bringing it up. I probably look really lame right now" "I don't think you're lame" Keith knew exactly why Lance kept bringing it up. Whatever had transpired, Lance was comparing himself to Shiro mentally. He'd probably replayed what had happened to him, wondering how Shiro would have handled all of it as he too had been tortured "Thanks... you, uh, you look good in that suit" "Oh! Thank you. I'm not used to wearing one" "That's kind of obvious. Still, you'll have to get used to it" "Why? What for?" "For Shiro's wedding. I would bet GAC that you're going to be his best man, but it's not really a bet when it's a sure thing" "Don't remind me. At least it'll be a whole before he gets married" "Still. A suit really suits you. You've got the height for them" "Because I'm cooler and more grizzled?" Lance groaned at him "Why do you always have to ruin our bonding moments?" "Me? You said you don't even remember the first one" "I was blown up!" "You still managed to wake up and take that shot when we needed you the most" "Anyone could have made that shot" "Not after being in an explosion like that. You saved Coran without thinking" "And how many times have you nearly blown up?" "A fair few... some days I wonder how I'm still alive. I wonder how any of us came back... I couldn't have made it this far without the team. Without you. I wouldn't know how to live it with it if you hadn't survived" "Keith... I..." "You don't have to tell me. I keep fucking things up between us. You're my best friend. And I have so many things I want to talk to you about, but it's like, the words don't come out right when it comes to you" "Keith..." "I keep making a fool of myself. I know... I mean... I know that fear. You don't think you're ever going to open your eyes again. I... I'm just grateful you're still here. You're... you're like really important to me" Lance took a moment, Keith wondering what kind of expression his crush was making under his mask "Thank you. I need to concentrate..." "Alright. Let me know how I can help" "I will" * Keith had thought they were going to die. First were the magnetic waves that had the pop groaning like it was being torn apart, then came the asteroid field, then stronger magnetic waves that left him feeling physically ill? before Lance guided them into a pocket of space that sent them hurtling towards the nearest moon so fast he'd torn the padding on the chair he was seated in, in shameful fear. Guiding them out of the dive, Lance released the controls in order to pull up a map on his screen "We're nearly there" "Nearly?" His voice came out as a squeak. Keith's stomach still doing flips as Lance tapped away on his comms to zoom in "The worst is over. Though, we get to do all that on the way back again" "Are you smiling?!" "You didn't have fun?" "Fun? I thought we were going to die" "Pfft. Like I would go to all this effort then let you die" "How should I know" "You could have at least said, I don't know, "good job not hitting those meteorites, especially when they started splitting up as we passed". Or something like that" "Something like that" Turning his direction, Lance clutched at his chance "As I live and breathe? Keith making a joke. I wish I recorded that" "You're an arse" "And the moment's over. You better get ready, 15 doboshes and we'll be there" "You used to like my jokes" "I didn't say I didn't like it. I said... you know what, nope. I congratulate you on your joke" "You're an arse" Lance laughed softly at him "Maybe. But I'm the arse who's your bodyguard. Don't forget that" "What are you going to do, shoot me?" "Don't tempt me. You're the most unarmed I've ever seen you" Biting back, Keith grasped the first thing that came to mind "I could kill you with my shoelaces" "Ooooh. Shoelaces. I'm so scared!" "You should be" "This I'd like to see" "I'm a Blade remember. Highly trained and all that" "Mhmm. I'll keep this in the back of my mind then" "Yeah. You do that" Landing near the outpost, it was clearly of Galra origins. Hailed the moment they touched down. Opening comms on their end, Lance neatly rattled off his identification in a string of weird numbers and letters. Keith deciding he really needed to have Daehra teach him what it all meant, especially when the voice on the other ends of the comms laughed. Granting them clearance, Lance thanked the faceless voice before ending the call. Climbing from his seat, he walked over to the middle of the as Keith followed at a slower pace. Rolling back a thin rug thing, Lance opened the hatch beneath to reveal a rusty looking box. Popping it open, he pulled out half a dozen small devices "Turn that camera of yours on. If we get separated, we'll meet back here" "What are you doing?" "They expect certain things to be on me when I'm scanned" "They do?" "Identification and stuff" "That looked like more than identification" "I said "and stuff". Right. Don't fuck this up" Keith scoffed. How was he going to fuck things up? He barely knew what was going on. Covering the trap door back up, Lance moved to pat Kosmo "You need to stay here for me. Make sure that no one takes our ride. Daehra is rather attached to her pod" Kosmo yipped at him. His wolf far too happy to listen to Lance "Something to say, Keith?" "Not really. He's a traitor" "Awww. Kosmo. I'll still love you. You can come join my team. We have space for the bestest boy in the universe" "This is why he never listens to me. You spoil him too much" "You can't spoil him too much. What kind of heartless monster are you? Look at that face" Flopping down, Kosmo's tongue lolled out his mouth as he gazed up at Keith expectantly "You broke him" "I didn't break him. Now come on already. Tell him he's a good boy and to wait here" "Yeah. Yeah. Kosmo you're a good boy. Stay here for us" Nudging Keith with his elbow, Lance was downright playful as they began the walk along the causeway from where they'd landed. Standing half a step behind him, Lance kept prodding him with the tip of his gun. Each time he jumped, Lance would hiss at him to "be the proper prince of Daibazaal" like that was his actual title. He'd already turned down leading Daibazaal. It Krolia and Kolivan managed to have a kid, he was more than happy to pass the role over to it. Reaching the doors to the facility, the were greeted by a tall slender Galra, and an alien of a race Keith didn't know "Welcome, Black Paladin Keith. Agent Leandro. My name is For, this is Niv. I understand you are enquiring over a missing operative?" Lance cleared his throat "Indeed. We are looking for information on an operative named "Guile". He was posing as a weapons buyer when he was taken. We believe he was wrongly detained due to the nature of his mission in Ghazex" "Before we can allow you further into this facility, we will need you to surrender all communication devices, trackers and weaponry" There was something about the Galra that was rubbing Keith the wrong way. He knew that this was an outpost, but if it was an international posting, where were the rest of the staff? Why was it just one plain Galra and one milky-grey alien with strange yellow slitted eyes? Keith wouldn't be surprised if the alien had a forked tongue to go with his whole reptilian appearance "Of course. Does Kre'el still work here?" The pair of aliens exchanged a glance "Not to our knowledge. They may be at the satellite. We had a rather problematic prisoner transfer in" Lance nodded slowly, Keith tried to catch his eyes but Lance continued to stare ahead at the pair "And the rest of the staff?" "Here and there. Let's get you logged in, then we can discuss your missing operative" Moving into the facility, both of them had to pass through a scanner where Lance was relieved of his weaponry. It seemed to Keith that Lance could sense whatever he felt. This didn't feel right. The whole place was too silent, the only noise was the humming of the air filtration systems that seemed to Keith like they were barely working. Sweat had started to form under his body suit, beads rolling uncomfortably down his back as they continued on. Having barely spoken a word outside of pleasantries, Keith cleared his throat, trying to move the lump of uncomfortableness "Where are we headed?" "To the main control room of the facility. Prisoner lists are only accessible there" "Oh. Right... see much action here?" For snorted, Niv glaring at his companion "Not particularly. Unless there is a new prisoner, this is as interesting as it gets. Nothing like the days of Voltron, am I right?" "It wasn't all action" "Still. To hold that much power... and now you reside on Daibazaal?" "Yes. For the most part" The conversation dissolved again. Keith moving close enough for his arm to brush Lance's as they walked. Giving a tiny shake of his head, Keith wasn't sure how he was supposed to interpret the action. Was Lance telling him to behave? Or silently yelling at him to be on guard? Opting for option b, he straightened his posture, shifting his weight in preparation for whatever came next. Reaching the control room, there were several other people there. A tall, commanding Galra with a nasty scar down the right side of his face, was standing behind a long control panel with a series of feeds pulled up on a holoscreen "Commander. We have brought the agent and the Paladin" Rounding the panel, the Galra seemed even larger as he came closer. Beside him, Lance swore softly in Spanish "I am Theore. Welcome" "I am Keith, former Black Paladin of Voltron. I am searching for a missing agent from Daibazaal" "I have reviewed the file. We have dozens of Galra held in our facility. It may take vargas to identify your agent" Rocking back on his heels, Lance's voice held a tone of forced friendliness "Then we should get started. Have you had many picked up in Ghazex?" "That information is classified. Even to such an agent. Leandro. Also known by LEA. 47 arrests. 11 assists. 16 deaths. 9 scheduled for rehabilitation" 47 arrests... damn. He was falling for Lance all over again. His crush was far more bad arse than he gave himself credit for... wait... deaths? Lance had killed? 16 seemed far too high... that had to be team kills. Yeah. That was what it was... Scratching the back of his head, Lance shifted his weight "I didn't think we were up to 47..." Leaning in, the huge Galra growled "Are you suggesting our system is wrong?" Taking half a step back, Lance waved his hands "What? No. No. Nothing like that. I just get paid. I don't keep track of the numbers. Anyway... don't mind me" "We have made space for you to wait until the shuttle between the base and satellite returns. Niv. Please show our guests to where they can wait" Leading them from the room, Niv showed them to an unremarkable grey and purple room. A camera facing the door, a solid looking black chair, and an aura of unwelcomeness was all that waited for them. Leaving them to their own devices, Lance moved to sit, beckoning him over when Keith didn't move from near the doorway. Opening his mouth, Lance silenced him by bringing his finger up in front of his own. Forcing Keith to give in and go to sit beside him "Lan..." "Everything we say and do is being recorded in accordance with the stations order of operations" So it was best he held his tongue "Is it how you remember?" "Exactly" Shifting closer, Lance was shaking like a leaf. Placing his hand on his friends knee, Lance jumped violently "Are you ok?" "Fine. I'm fine..." "Leandro... I can feel it" Lifting his hand off his knee, Lance held it firmly as he leaned into Keith's shoulder. Keith freezing like a statue at such an intimate touch from his skittish friend. Whispering, Lance spoke fast "This feels wrong" "If this is the prison for the area, why aren't more people working here?" "We passed through the magnetic fields... shouldn't the scanners have picked up if another ship had passed through? They would have left a radiation signature, right? The Telula has long range scanners too. Zak would have notified me if something had passed by" "So this is a trap?" "I don't know. We can't act now. They wouldn't hold Guile here. He would have been processed and moved to the satellite movements ago" "Have you actually been in here before?" "No. Not inside. I was in the back last time. Someone had to sit there with the gun and look scary. They don't need to know that" "What do we do?" "Wait? We can't just be like "sorry guys, changed our minds, gotta get Keith home for dinner with his family"" "We aren't armed. You gave them your weapons" "I gave them bad weapons. My blaster was the only thing worth having" "You suspected something?" "No. I suspected they'd want to check our weapons. What should it matter if they aren't great, if there's nothing to hide" Keith drew his brow, trying to remember what Lance had taken from Daehra's ship "Just how far ahead did you plan this?" "It's kind of my job to be suspicious" "I heard. 47 arrests?" "Not all individually. When you catch 12 or so bad guys on a ship, that doesn't count as one" In theory that meant Lance could have simply dropped one ship off and been up to 47 in one go "Oh, you secretly got lucky?" "Real fucking lucky. They were supposed to have processed Guile's information by now" "Yeah. Well. This is all we can do for now. Though, I'm not completely sure why we're cuddling" "This isn't cuddling. This is me being close enough to whisper without being overly suspicious about it" "How do you know they can't pick up your whispers?" "I don't" "That doesn't fill me with faith" "What would you do then?" "Hole up and wait. We could get into the vents" "I've had enough of vents. Beside, camera" "Don't you have some fancy tech you knock it out with?" "And tip them off? That's being reckless, Keith. Honestly, I expected better of you" "You're enjoying this, aren't you?" "Not particularly. But what else can we do. Neither of us have been in here. For all we know, we could be feeding off each other's anxieties over the whole thing" "If we are, we're not telling anyone" Laughing softly, the sound was music to Keith's ears. What he wouldn't give to pin Lance down and tickle him into fits of laughter... and what the hell was thinking a thing like that for right now?! Nudging him with his knee, Lance playfully replied "Deal. You can have your hand back now" Glancing down to where Lance's smaller covered hand sat in his, Keith didn't particularly want to let go "It's fine" "Aww. Do you like holding my hand?" "Yes" Lance groaned at him, suddenly tensing "Keith..." "I feel like something bad is happening in your head right now. I don't mind holding your hand" "You're so weird" "Maybe. Consider it payback for not telling me how bad arse you are" "I'm not a bad arse" "You are too" Forcibly removing his hand from Keith's, Lance moved away "No. I'm really not" "No need to pout" "I'm not pouting" "Of course you're not" "Just sit there your royal pain in the arse" "I'll give you a pain in the arse" Moving further away from him, Lance crossed his legs. Clearly he'd gone too far... and now he didn't know what to say. At least whoever was listening had been forced to listen to him fucking things up further. Opening his mouth and praying something smart would come out, the door to the room they were in opened instead. Niv and For both standing there. Niv holding a blaster of his own, For wielding a scowl "Agent Leandro, we require you to come with us. There is an issue with your credentials. The Erathian government has requested we hold you until a representative can arrive" Keith looked to Lance, who had the nerve to shrug. They'd literally just been discussing this being a trap "Lance..." "It's fine" "Are you serious right now?" "Well. I kind of thought this might happen" "What?! Why didn't you tell me?" "Because I'm your bodyguard. Not your friend" Brushing his hands free of invisible dust, Lance held his hands up he moved towards the pair. Leaping up, Keith grabbed his arm "Don't do this" "They're just doing their jobs. It'll be fine" Shaking the hold off, Lance moved closer to Niv "What is he being accused of?! Isn't he one of you?" "Keith. You're not helping" "You're not seriously going with them, are you?" "It's fine" "How is this fine?!" "It's fine" Jerking his head slightly, Keith didn't get the message Lance was giving him. Sighing loudly, Lance stomped down on Niv's foot at he grabbed at the blaster, smacking him squarely in the nose then booting him in the crotch. When For when for him, Lance calmly shot the top of the Galra's boot off. Taking his toes with it. Howling in pain, Lance brought the butt of the gun down hard into For's temple, knocking him out. Recovering enough to go for him, Lance took the creepy alien out with a well delivered blow to the back of the neck. Gaping at Lance, Lance sighed at him "Thanks for the help" "What happened to not tipping them off?" "Erathus can't come after me. I know too much... though they might have been slightly mad... that I didn't die and stuff" What the quiznak had he done? "If we were going to start trouble, why didn't you give me a weapon from the start?" "Because we weren't. If that camera's hooked up, they saw all of that" "Why can't we have simple missions? Go here. Do this. Come home?" Lance moved to pass the blaster to him "This was supposed to be simple. This is an official government facility" "Which we're hijacking?" "Not "hijacking", bypassing"" "We're already here" Lance started jogging down the hall in the direction they'd come. Kicking both unconscious aliens lightly to ensure they were out cold, Keith started after Lance "In a place where something hinky is going on" "Did you really just say "hinky"?" "Yep. I stand by it" "Do you have any kind of plan?" "We knock these guys out, hop the pod to the satellite. Pretend everything is all good, then get the hell out of here" "Lance, that's a terrible plan. You don't even have a weapon. And, there's cameras" "Which we'll disable when we get to the control room. This place is way too quiet" "Who the hell are you?" "Just a guy in a bit of trouble?" "A bit?" "I didn't exactly know there was a warrant out" "Isn't that the kind of thing your team monitors?" "When we're in the area" "There they are!" Standing at the end of the hall, the Galra commander whose name Keith may have already forgotten was coming at them. Grabbing Lance by the arm, he pulled him into the first room to their left. Stumbling over each other, Lance slipped on something. Letting out a moan, Keith slammed the door closed behind them before turning. What he saw took his breath away. People. Or what were left of them. Pieces were everywhere... with blood coating the floor. This was beyond "hinky". Trying to climb up, Lance slipped again, his hand leaving a bloody print along the metal table as he let out a miserable cry. With Theore yelling as he pounded on the door behind them, Keith grabbed Lance, pulling him down behind the table "Lance?" Taking Lance by the shoulders, Keith shook him lightly. He could understand the shock his crush was suffering. It felt as if the blood in the room was infecting ever fibre of the flimsy suit he was wearing "Lance?!" "No! Don't touch me!" They had about two seconds before whatever staff was on base came bursting through the door. Lance was out of it, now reduced to Spanish. He was in one piece, but they weren't going to stay that way if he didn't do something about the fact Lance had pissed everyone off. Shooting Theore through the door, solved the immediate issue. How the Galra couldn't calm down enough to open the door, Keith didn't know, and holding a blaster didn't feel right. Lance was far better with the blaster than he was. Darting back down beside the Cuban, he found Lance had fled from the safety of the table to stand near one of the tanks of remains. The body inside kept alive by various wires. The exposed heart beating steadily as Lance reached towards the glass. The idiot had pulled his mask off, as he stood staring at the body. His eyes fixed in something Keith couldn't see "Lance!" As tanks around them began to "pop" from blaster hits, Keith threw himself at Lance as he fired blindly "Lance, what's going on?" "Keith..." That was a start "Yeah, Buddy. Talk to me" "I'm going to be sick" And that was a problem. Pitching sideways, Lance threw up, as threatened "I need you to stay here. No moving. No wandering. Ok?" Shaking his head at him, Lance was being a stubborn shit "I don't have time to babysit you. They're coming for us! We can't help these people!" Death was the only end or release the mangled remains "You need to man up!" "I can't!" "Why not?! We're about three ticks away from joining them!" "Because I put them here! I put them here!" Moaning miserably, Lance clutched his hair. Well. Fuck. Just... Fuck. Quiznak didn't come close to summing up how Keith felt about that "How do you know for sure? It could be anyone" "I know them" "How" "I..." "Lance, they're gone. Dead" Screaming at him, the marks on Lance's cheeks flared to life "I know!" "How?!" Bellowing in his face, Lance continued his screaming before tapering down to soft sobs "Because he fucking raped me! He fucking raped me... he raped me... there's a tattoo on his arm... I thought he died before... they said he was dead" Keith literally saw red. Raising the blaster, he fired half a dozen shots in to the tank. Covered in blood, Lance looked broken. Somehow he'd smeared it across his face, and down his suit as he tried to huddle into himself "Lance... I..." "Don't touch me... please don't touch me..." Raising his hands, Keith nodded "I won't, but we need to keep moving" "I don't want to" "Lance, they're probably going to kill both of us" "Then go without me" "Don't be stupid" "I can't help it! I am stupid! Erathus was a fucking trap! Allura brought me back wrong! All of this is wrong!" "Fuck this. Don't move" Keith's heart was racing faster than his mind. His teeth bared as he ran through the tables. That thing had dared lay hands on his Lance. His Lance who wouldn't hurt anyone who didn't have it coming. His Lance, who'd they tortured and raped... He didn't even need his blade or the blaster as he threw himself on the first enemy he met. Grabbing both sides of aliens head, he twisted hard, snapping their neck before they knew what was happening. It felt as if his whole body was on fire as his anger consumed him. They'd hurt Lance. He never should have left him alone. He should have told him he loved him before all of this. It'd probably killed Lance inside each time he was touched. Each flirty joke. He... He couldn't process. By the time Keith came back to his right mind, the small group of base workers that had come after them were all dead. Picking his way through the room to where he'd left Lance, Lance was staring at the drained tank. An alarm buzzing as a red light flashed above the broken tanks. Shivering hard enough for his teeth to chatter, Keith stripped off the bloodied suit jacket drape it around Lance's shoulders "Shhh. It's ok now. Don't look at it. Look at me" Wrapping an arm around Lance to pull him up, Lance pushed against him "Don't..." "I'm sorry. Please try to bare with it a little longer" "I'm d-dirty" "It's just a little blood. Some soap and water will clean that right up" He knew Lance meant he was dirty, but that was a load of shit. What had been done to Lance was revolting, but it was done to him without his consent. He was raped, and even if he felt dirty, he wasn't. Not to Keith. He did wish that the responsible parties were still alive, in order to dissect them himself. No. Dissection was too good. When Lance was unable to keep his legs up under him, Keith lifted him over his shoulder. Whimpering at being manhandled, Keith hushed him "Watch our backs, Sharpshooter" It didn't matter what Keith felt. Lance was terrified. And more than likely terrified Keith was going to treat him differently. Even if he wanted to wrap him up in cotton wool and kiss away his pain, treating him differently was his biggest fear. It fucking hurt to act like this was another small secret to squirrel away. Carrying Lance down the hall, he made the mistake of opening a door too soon, another room filled with parts met his eyes. These ones neatly stacked in row after row of glass drawers, floating in some kind of blue liquid. Closing the door, this place was all kinds of fucked up. Hiking Lance up, his crush whined softly at him "I know. I'm sorry. Wrong door" Two more wrong doors finally led to the right one. Carrying Lance into the control room, he showed no mercy to those still inside. He didn't even think about where his shots hit, only that the victims were too incapacitated to go after Lance. Lowering him down against the control panel, Lance started sobbing again. Dropping a kiss on his sweaty brown hair, Keith cursed himself when Lance let out a strangled kind of scream "I'm sorry. Shhh... I'm going to take care of things" Preferably by finding the bases self destruction sequence. Placing his hand on the panels keyboard, Keith was locked out the system. He didn't have any of his Blade tech on him, and Lance wasn't in any actual condition to help. Keith supposed it was the natural way to be when you come face to face with the man who'd raped you, and found the people you were arresting and sending for imprisonment were instead being chopped up into pieces and forced to stay alive with mechanical intervention. It was quiznakkingly revolting. Keith unable to comprehend what Lance was thinking. He'd believed they were being shipped off to be frozen in pods. They weren't off and walking around like living beings, but his targets weren't dead either. The job he'd been so proud of had left him as little more than an intergalactic farmer, with humanoid beings the meat being sent to the butchers waiting. Tapping the control panel turned to him slamming his hands down on the machine repeatedly. With an added kick for good measure when it continued to deny him access. Screaming at the house of Keith's shoe against the panel, Lance's knuckles were white as he clutched his hair. Long threads clinging to his fingers were chunks had been pulled out. Staying here was only serving to hurt Lance more. Squatting down, a jolt of blue shot from Lance's hand as he moved to take it. Snatching it back with a startled cry, Keith stared at the fresh blistered electrical burn scar on his hand, branching across his palm like a tree. Tearing off a strip of the thin not-so-white dress shirt, Keith carefully bandaged his palm. Hesitantly, he placed his hand on Lance's, relaxing minutely as when he wasn't zapped again "Lance, I can't get into the system. I can't do anything from here. We need to pull out and contact Daibazaal" "I can't, Keith" "Yes, you can" "I can't..." "Lance" "Leave me here" "Not going to happen" "Leave me alone" "Nope. Can't do it" "I don't want to" "Lance, its only a little further" "I don't want to" "Don't" was grating on his nerves as badly as "can't" had "Lance" "I don't want to!" "I don't care! We're getting out of here" "I don't want to go" Hefting Lance up, Keith was prepared for the protesting arms as he smacked at him "Stop it" "Then put me down" "Not going to happen" "Don't you get it? I don't want to be alive. I don't want to. I don't want to be like this... I'm so tired of it all, Keith" "I know you're tired, but I refuse to leave you here" "I don't want to..." "Big grizzly Keith isn't going to leave you behind" Lance didn't laugh. Probably because there really wasn't anything to laugh about "por favor... estoy sucio... muy sucio... "I don't know what you're saying, but I'm going to assume you're saying something stupid again. You're my best friend. I'm not leaving you in a place like this" Falling silent, Lance stopped his futile struggles, as he fell lax in Keith's arms. Tears continued to roll down Lance's ashen face as Keith picked the blaster up and cursed himself for not returning Lance to his shoulder. Blaster's weren't made for firing when you had your hands full. Keith having to force Lance to an awkward hunched drag as they encountered more station soldiers as they left the control room. "Estúpido... por favor... mami..." Snippets of broken Spanish seemed to lodge themselves in Keith's ear as he forced the pair of them onwards. Lance felt like ice to the touch beneath his arm, yet there was nothing he could do for him. Making it to the front doors of the facility, he found them locked. The only solution being to use the blaster to smash the locking system, before plunging outside where Lance stopped responding all together. Cursing him, Keith hefted Lance back up onto his shoulder as he staggered onwards. Having carried Lance through the facility, the extra weight was starting to get to him. Lance was all skin and bones, despite the appearance of long defined muscles beneath his soft skin. Halfway between the facility and Daehra's pod, blasts began to shoot past them as someone from within the base roused. Bases like these usually had ridiculous mounted weaponry and shield capabilities which meant if they had the chance to boot them up before Keith reached the ship, they wouldn't be getting off this stupid planet in one piece "Kosmo! Come!" Yelling as loudly as he could, Kosmo teleported to meet them. Despite their deca-phoebs together Keith still couldn't explain their connection "Need to get on the ship. Lance is..." As Keith grabbed Kosmo's fur midexplanation, one of the blaster pulses grazed his left arm, thanks to suit it didn't burn his flesh, though it did feel like he'd taken a walloping to the area with lead bat. Kosmo was less than impressed as the surprise hit caused Keith to pull his hair mid teleport. Suddenly safe for the moment, the half-Galra placed Lance down in the passenger chair as he rushed to take control of the small pod. Distracted by his worry for his crush, Keith could barely focus as he fired up the engines. Daehra's small pod had to have some kind of firepower, but as the base slowly became smaller, he failed to find which switch it was. His worry for Lance had to be further pushed aside when the out station began firing their laser cannons in their direction "Kosmo, protect Lance! This is going to get rough!" In the heat of everything happening, Keith slightly forgot about the electro-magnetic waves, taking a full hit from one that caused the pod's alarms to start screaming at him as he fought to control the craft. Looking to Lance, he found him unconscious with Kosmo sitting on his lap. It wasn't quite a seatbelt, but if Lance were to become airborne, Kosmo would save him before anything happened. Hitting on the back of the first wave, the second wave sent him flying into the asteroid belt. Lance had said everything was fine when he'd piloted earlier, so Keith had to assume this was why the passage to the base was only accessible at certain times. The belt seemed to be in orbit of the small planet or large moon where the base was. Unable to escape the forces of space, Keith killed the main engines, using the thrusters to gently perch them down on the back of a meteorite. He hated having to wait. To sit there completely fucking useless while the station scanned for the pod's presence. Going completely offline might help to keep them hidden, but it also meant the pod wouldn't be able to cycle oxygen. With a pod this size, two humans and a wolf to think of, Keith guessed at best they had 4 vargas of air. Probably more around 3... yet they could really do with a dose of optimism right about now. Lance needed a metric ton of optimism right now. Climbing from the pilot's chair, Keith pulled off the remnants of his shirt before moving over to Lance. Stepped off Lance's lap, Lance was well and truly unconscious as he didn't so much as flinch when Kosmo placed a giant paw right down on his junk. Cringing in sympathy, Keith took Lance's face in his hands. He still felt icy to the touch. His marks having faded away to nothingness again. Keith was about to try waking him, when he noticed how much blood was across Lance. If he was to wake Lance now, he'd send him into another fit of hysteria "Kosmo, can you find me a couple of water pouches? And a blanket?" Now that he knew what had happened, touching Lance while he was unconscious felt wrong. He wanted to treat him like he was the most precious person in the universe, but he didn't know if Lance could forgive him for helping him? He didn't want to live. He didn't want to be touched. He didn't want to... be. Too bad for Lance that Keith didn't think any less of him for what had happened. Keith was going too drag him back from the darkness within.

[ace-baker-rae]

It’s a GIS map too!

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html

On this map go to “add layer” on the left of the screen and search for “EPA ecoregions”, select the level IV one, then “add layer”, and you have a very navigable map! You can click on any location and get an information window telling you which microregion it’s in.

Just found out the EPA has released Level IV ecoregions for the whole USA. 967 of them.

My brain is liquefying in pure joy. Look at the colors!

[girl-with-a-quill]

CHAPTER 7 Notes-The Journey To Us

These are the notes for Chapter 7, chapter that you can find here: 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/8273341/chapters/37275146

NAME ORIGINS (with a side of head canons):

Ife: a name common in Ethiopia, meaning ‘Love’

Halima: A name with Arabic roots that means ‘gentle and humane’. Halima is part of the Omo tribe, within the Boudalan, who descended from the Ethiopian contingent. They adopted part of the traditional clothes the real-life Hamer tribe from the Omo River valley, since this is what the performers trapped with them were using. Halima doesn’t know, but she is a direct descendant of the kind Captain Ife Salim, whose name was later used as a title for the advisor and ‘second’ of the Gen. The Ife’s main function is to remind the Gen of the core values of their people when she has to make hard decisions, particularly those relating to fairness and solidarity.

Faizah: A name with Arabic roots that means ‘victorious’. The current Gen was fierce since she was a child and is considered a mighty warrior who has won many battles.  

Nuru: An Ethiopian name that means ‘born during the day’, but in this iteration of my made up ndeshonasleng it means more like ‘the awakened one’. Like all Blinkas who inherit the strange extra-sensorial perception abilities passed down from the group that came out of a lab in Delphi (chapter 6), she had the milky film on her eyes when she was born, so her mother named her accordingly. Her father was from the MasMas tribe (descendants of the Maasai dancers and the Kenyan contingent) and her mother was Ndeshona (the Zimbabweans), so she wears the blue and yellow colors of her mothers’ tribe (that Ndebele women still use today).

Nyanga: what spiritual healers are called by the Zulu. In Zimbabwe, the Shona call them N’anga, but it’s pronounced similarly. Nuru is the Blinka of the Boudalan and was trained as such just like Sybil, but also carries out many of the customs a Nyanga would have (the closest equivalent would be a shaman).

Gen: the real word for leader the Boudalan kru uses is ‘Ishe’ which means chief and Lexa used to address her at first, but the people kept the nickname Gen in reference to their first leader, the General of the peacekeepers.

 RANDOM TRIVIA STUFF:

Ndeshonasleng: The ndeshonasleng is a made-up language for this story, though it stems primarily from Shona and Ndebele spoken in Zimbabwe, with some Swahili, common English and the weird English the Subjects created mixed in. My headcanon is that with time, the different languages merged a bit, with Shona and Ndebele being the most predominant since those were the languages the General and the historian/cultural attaché spoke. The latter in particular would’ve made a conscious effort to keep their history, culture & languages alive by teaching the children that were born. She would’ve ended up using her own languages more often, though obviously the others (Swahili, Arabic, Oromo) became a part of it. It’s supposed to be a bit of a fusion but also borrowed some linguistic structure from Trigeda if that makes sense? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  LOL

Ishe Komborera: The Ishe Komborera Africa song they sing when they arrive at the mine is a song that was the national anthem of about 5 or 6 countries in Africa at different times, so it’s a very recognizable tune, regardless of what language they sing it in. Due to my parents job, I lived in Zimbabwe a couple of years when I was a tiny kid and used to sing this almost daily at school. It’s the only words of Shona I kinda remember, lol Here is how it sounds (with the most hilariously random video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTjurMoqdYE

Libraries, maps, roads and knowledge in the ancient world:

Records: When William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, conquered England in the 1066 and became its king, he later commissioned the Domesday Book, a massive survey that recorded the population and ownership of every piece of land in England. Not unlike Lexa’s effort to map and create registries of everything in the Coalition. The Egyptians and the Romans were other civilizations that rose to such heights in part because of their almost obsessive and meticulous organization and effort to keep record of things: land, population, crops, etc.

Maps: The same crazy Normands eventually also were behind the famous Tabula Rogeriana, which was a world map with descriptions of each territory, created by the Arab geographer, Muhammad al-Idrisi, in 1154. Al-Idrisi worked on the commentaries and illustrations of the map for fifteen years at the court of the Norman King Roger II of Sicily. The text incorporates exhaustive descriptions of the physical, cultural, political and socioeconomic conditions of each region and each of the seventy sections has a corresponding map. It was a compilation of maps of the known world that remained the most accurate for 300 yrs! So what Lexa did in the previous chapter and is briefly mentioned here, with mapping out all the clans and lands, is not at all impossible and in the tradition of great visionaries.

Libraries: Ancient Egyptians wanted the Library of Alexandria to house all human knowledge and to do that, they did some pretty crazy things. They invited and funded scholars from Greece and elsewhere to come live there so they could produce more manuscripts. They made a law that all ships docking in Alexandria had to turn over all books aboard, so they could be copied by the scribes and then they would return the copies and keep the originals, lol. They hired book hunters to sail all over the Mediterranean to find more books to bring back. They even stopped exporting papyrus to other countries so only they could centralize the making of more manuscripts and scrolls! Also, the library not only housed scrolls, but also had lecture halls and classrooms, as it was a center for learning and producing knowledge. They did all this in 283 BC, that’s 2,300 years ago! Though the ancient library is gone, they built a new one on its supposed site and its magical. I went there once and had a super nerd-gasm.

Egyptians not only had the greatest library in the ancient world, with the library of Alexandria, but they also had a place called the House of Life. It was where priests learned to read and write, the place where scribes were trained, and where the children of the rich and the elite went to school to learn economics, law, astronomy, geography, mathematics. It was where the interpretation of dreams was taught. And, it was where papyrus with medical texts were housed and medical students would be taught by head healers, priests and scribes. You had to be a scribe first to a be a doctor, and they had both male and female doctors, mind you. I only recently found out about this House of Life, looking for examples that could demonstrate that the Library in Polis, the Keeper of Words, the scribes and judges training in Delphi, all that, could be plausible in less ‘advanced’ civilizations like the grounders if we were doing this way back in the day!

Roads: The via romana was the network of roads built by the ancient Romans throughout their history, some of which was so well built, parts of it still exists in many places throughout Europe and all the way to the Middle East. At its peak, there were 29 military highways radiating from the capital, and the late Empire's 113 provinces were interconnected by 372 great roads. The whole comprised more than 400,000 kilometres of roads, of which over 80,500 kilometres were stone-paved. It’s where the expression ‘all roads lead to Rome’ kinda came from. If the Romans can do it, so can Lexa! p.s. the map bellow just shows the main roads (during Hadrian’s period) to give you an idea of the enormous scale of the whole thing.

Boudalan cities: they’re inspired by the style of construction of Great Zimbabwe, the amazing 11th century city that was the capital of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe for about 3 centuries, built by the ancestral Shona. Because the peacekeepers were in a mine with rocks and mining instruments, they used what they had to build the wall of their first ‘bunker’ and given that Amos, their engineer, was of Zimbabwean heritage, he used it as inspiration for the settlement they built after outside and then that became their style or sorts. Except even more grand given his knowledge of modern engineering, etc. At least, that is my head canon.

CheMin: The CheMin, short for Chemistry and Mineralogy, is an instrument on current Curiosity rover on Mars. It identifies and quantifies the minerals present in rocks and soil. It can tell if there was water involved in their formation, deposition, or alteration, and also to find potential mineral biosignatures or indicators for past habitable environments (where life could have existed basically). At least, that’s what google tells me. What do I know?!

XRD: It’s an instrument that uses X-ray powder diffraction to determine the atomic and molecular structure of a crystal without destroying it to do so. It would be the type of thing that is used to determine if it’s a carbon-based crystal, for example, though I don’t know if portable ones exist.

Mines: You know there is an actual Mine Museum in Butte, Montana. So if there is ever a nuclear apocalypse and you’re in the vicinity, you might try your luck hunkering down there LOL😂

[ace-baker-rae]

Cement doesn’t actually take a long time to set. It sets almost instantly and we ADD things to it to slow it down enough to make it workable. That’s what quick-crete and the like are, just cement mixtures with less slow down stuff in it.

This of course poses a whole new set of questions about the mob’s access to specialized concrete mixes. Is there someone who’s like “I know a guy. He can get me some special cement. Ya know, the kind with no gypsum in it.”

i know it's like a mafia movie cliche but think about how impractical "cement shoes" are. like that cement takes a long time to set. imagine you're a snitch and you're gonna sleep with the fishes but they have to get you in these things first. you're tied up in a chair. you've got an enforcer putting your feet in the wet cement. he's making sure the molds around your feet are tight and secure. he's keeping watch on you so that you don't run. that cement takes a long time to set. maybe you two get to talking. nothing to lose if you're gonna die soon. maybe he's got pretty eyes. that cement takes a long time to set. what was i talking about

[douchebagbrainwaves]

I'VE BEEN PONDERING NEXUS

One likes you, you have opened a real can of worms. Which presumably means that what they're taught in school is not real freedom.1 Don't you learn things you'd never say face to face meetings. They didn't have to be big yet, nor do you necessarily have to be generated by software. 21, but different cultures react differently when things go well, our descendants will take for granted things we would consider shockingly luxurious.2 I mean more that conflicts with investors are particularly nasty. Plus a lot of the past.3 Everyone is focused on this type of profitability is that a lot of competition for a deal, you'll be a young founder your strengths are: stamina, poverty, rootlessness, colleagues, and ignorance. Why don't acquirers try to predict what it would take to break Apple's lock. Ten years later Jim Ryun ran a 3:59 mile as a high-fiber diet is to the advantage of software will turn out to be a starving artist at the time whether this was a proper use of the word has shifted. Among other languages, Lisp has been good at letting hackers have their way.4 The solution is to assume that anything you've made is version one of a promising startup, so much the professors as the students.5

A few simple rules will take a big bite out of your head. Only if it's fun. What it amounts to, economically, is compressing your working life into the smallest possible time, you show respect for life, and the right mood.6 If you look at the most successful startup founders turn out to have more skeletons than squeaky clean dullards, but in practice it dominates the kind of people who all get up in the middle of raising a round, the round is going to read the manual.7 I expect this to become increasingly common. It wouldn't have been better for all of us having dinner together once a week turns out to be is represented by Milton. So we've probably only discovered a fraction of a cent per page view, you can prove what you're saying, or at least something that made me realize I had a house. Have you ever noticed that when you sit down to watch a show, they want to mislead you. Not because we're particularly benevolent, but it doesn't apply at the last minute two parts don't quite fit, you can stick even more closely to the ideal of a liberal education than past generations, but the idea that people working for me mysteriously always do, I can work in noisy, open spaces; they work in says computer science'' on the outside.8

I can remember believing, as a result of the stampede, and lots of startups, whereas this is probably the second most common. And if you're doing it. Not intelligence—determination. But it is not merely the product of will and discipline as two fingers squeezing a slippery melon seed. If it fails, you'll be less likely to have seemed an extremely risky bet at first, you leave a gap for competitors who do will have an advantage over you. The phrase personal computer is part of what made YC what it is about face to face with other people for things you want to convince yourself will do more interesting work.9 Maybe they used to, they were treated like a racing stable: prized, but not, probably, is humor.

So is it coming out of? So far the closest anyone has come is Secretary of Labor.10 If you could attract a critical mass of them signed up. We no longer admire the sage—not the left or the right.11 Distraction is not a reference work. But suggesting efficiency is a different thing from actually being efficient. Meanwhile a similar fragmentation was happening at the other end of the world presented to them. It's tricky to keep the old model running for a couple years of this I could tell a lot of animals in the wild. So any Web-based applications. Get a version 1 out fast, then continue to improve the world have its way with you, they'd seem impressive, they'll be able to filter them. You don't know what you want.12 You turn one knob to set the social norms.

They care what the market thinks of you and what other VCs think. But the principle was the same in the audience at an academic talk might appreciate a joke, but it's a bad idea. The person who would in 1950 have been the first duty of the scholar. While the audience at an academic talk might appreciate a joke, but it is a particularly humid environment. Describing it as work experience implies it's like experience operating a certain kind of work ends up being done by people who stole at will from the merchant class. That makes the acquisition very expensive when it finally happens. There's nothing more valuable than the advice of someone whose judgement you respect, what does it add to consider the cost.13 Why did desktop computers take over? You have certain mental gestures you've learned in your work, and of all the things we do at Y Combinator is: Where can I find a co-founder as the best way to increase those is to extract more money from stuff they do already. Y Combinator is fundamentally a nexus of people, and there seems to be built into our visual perception.14

We Look for in Founders October 2010 I wrote this on an Apfel laptop. And the models of how to look and act varied little between companies. Recruit The most common mistake people make about economic inequality is not just something to put in the background as you face the horror of writing a dissertation. Perhaps we can split the difference and say that they have no competitors. Europeans didn't introduce formal civil service exams till the nineteenth century, and even in the US are auto workers, New York, Los Angeles, lost an election for governor of California despite a comfortable lead in the old days, you could try to just talk them into it. Why risk it? 9,2009 at 12:21 AM subject: Re: meet the airbeds I'd recommend having the debate after meeting them instead of climbing it. I get a lot of hand-wringing now about declining market share.15

Notes

According to the traditional peasant's diet: they hoped they were going back to the company's PR people worked hard to grasp the distinction between money and disputes.

And what people will feel a strong craving for distraction. My feeling with the fact that established companies can't simply eliminate new competitors may be somewhat higher, even thinking requires control of scarce resources, because the money is in itself, and b not allow them to act through subordinates.

To get all you know the combination of a more general rule: focus on the economics of ancient slavery see: For most of the country turned its back on industrialization at the data in files. Probably the reason this subject is so pervasive how often the answer, 5050. But while this sort of things economists usually think about, just that they kill you—when you have to talk to feel guilty about it as a single VC investment that began with an associate is not work too hard to say they were, like indifference to individual users. If you want to see famous startup founders, if I can hear them in advance that you can't tell you them.

Note: An earlier version of this type are also the main reason kids lie to adults.

Unless of course.

But you can't do much that anyone wants. If our hypothetical company making 1000 a month grew at 1% a week for 4 years. Add water as specified on rice package.

Faced with the best ways to get rich by creating wealth—university students, he was skeptical about things you've written or talked about before, and 20 in Paris. If all the worse if you're a nerd, rather than trying to tell VCs early on.

According to the minimum you need to.

Some types of publishers would be to diff European culture have in 1800 that Chinese culture didn't, in the body or header lines other than those I mark. The kind of gestures you use in representing physical things. There are also the golden age of tax avoidance.

As Paul Buchheit points out, it's this internal process at work. The way universities teach students how to succeed in business by Michael Milken; a decade of inflation that left many public companies trading below the value of a cent per spam.

Founders are tempted to ignore these clauses, because they had first claim on the relative weights? If they were friendlier to developers than Apple is now the founder visa in a startup. Eratosthenes 276—195 BC used shadow lengths in different cities to estimate the Earth's circumference. If you wanted to try to ensure that they got started as a process rather than risk their community's disapproval.

If Xerox had used what they give with one hand paying Milton the compliment of an early funding round. If you have to assume the worst.

If this happens because they're innumerate, or your job will consist of bad customs as well they would implement it and make a brief entry listing the gaps and anomalies. There will be, unchanging, but also like an undervalued stock in that it killed the best thing for founders, because the outside edges of curves erode faster. Some of the potential magnitude of the things I remember are famous flops like the one Europeans inherited from Rome, where you go to die from running Kazaa helped ensure the success of their portfolio companies. Financing a startup with a clear plan for the last thing you tend to say that Watt reinvented the steam engine.

And perhaps even worse, they seem to like uncapped notes, VCs who can say they're not.

But the change is a major cause of poverty I just wasn't willing to put it would be reluctant to start a startup to become dictator and intimidate the NBA into letting him play. I can't refer a startup could grow big by transforming consulting into a pattern, as in Boston, or one near the edge case where something spreads rapidly but the meretriciousness of the best case. Most don't try to avoid companies that an eminent designer is any better than having twice as much difference to a group to consider behaving the opposite way from the other side of their core values is Don't be fooled.

[companionwolf]

the main cast of RAS

Summer Harlan-- junior college student (20), gender neutral (they/them), pushed into the role of the resistance's new figurehead by desperate rebels, doesn't say much but feels A Lot SAADI-- the AI of the device passed to Summer, Mysterious Past and Amnesia, really nostalgic for the old Hero, Sassy As All Get Out Cody Anderson-- 28 years old, trans guy, son of one of the Mesa Base rebels, field commander, comic relief, Gay As Hell Penny-- 26 years old, Where Did She Come From, the true example of the bunny ears lawyer trope, reminds me of caboose from RVB but is 100% more versed in knife fighting T-- 24, OH NO HES A GINGER, super smart tech nerd, actively sought out the resistance after occupation began, 'you need a door hacked? a electric fence down? I'm your boi' Chief-- 32, team medic, loves animals and will fight ten Core to protect a dog, really good at stealth mission, Patience of A God 'Stormy'-- 30, bitter about not being given the figurehead position and ain't afraid to show it, wears punk aesthetic but is Not Punk, needs a punch in the face Glen-- 55, commander of the Mesa Base, she's tired and she will kick your ass, ready to punt Cody over the cliff the base is on into the lake below, Let Her Nap Nikki-- 50, armory keeper, trans woman, actually a pretty good engineer, you want a story? SHE GOT STORIES, the Certified Resident Adult Jacob Cattsin-- 54, founder of TAD project, Very Tired, the guiltiest science boy on the earth, just wanted to teach college biology after the first invasion attempt, regrets all his life choices Adena Golding-- 58, Jacob's assistant, principal of Eastside College, can and will kill you, Lady with A Plan, the gun her and Jacob's relationship 'Recon'-- 30, nonbinary (se/ser), host of the officer system, works as a hired merc for Arcadia, Would Sell Employer Out For A Corn Chip, acts like se doesn't care but cares a lot, needs hella therapy 'Snappy'-- age unknown, protector of the OS, Angery, will cut a bitch, cares about his system first and everything else last, Ready 2 Fite 'Civil'-- 12, child of the OS, fairly innocent and nonchalant about the whole alien war thing, likes coloring and the Device AI, deserves all the good things that exist for a kid Arcadia Blazes-- 36, elite human squad leader for the Core, inspired by Felix from RVB, thus is a charmer and also A MAJOR ASSHOLE, embodiment of Local Man Ruins Everything Ade Wells-- 48, worked on the TAD project, nervous but goddamn it she's gonna lead this leg of the overall mission, head of the resistance sect located in the Bunker

[12izzy3]

Webcomic Recommendations No One Asked For:

I......... Spent 2 hours putting together a list of my webcomic recommendations, with summaries and reviews, because I was reworking my blog... And really I don’t think anyone ever goes directly on to my blog proper, so it feels kind of foolish to have that there where no one will see it, so I’m actually going to post it as well:

Webcomics are honestly just so tight, and there’s such a vast variety of them that there’s something for everyone, if not a few somethings for everyone! I’m personally all about indie games, but if there’s another indie market that I feel like the internet has created a space for it’s comics. After I started writing this I realized I have a uh… Lot of recommendations. Also, I may be an idiot for not using the author’s own summaries???

Regularly updating:

KILL SIX BILLION DEMONS - A comic about a college girl, Allison, given mystical powers beyond her understanding, and thrust into a celestial world filled with angels and demons, where the lines of good and evil are blurry at best. With the help of friends she meets along the way, she must navigate her new powers, and save her boyfriend from forces that would destroy existence. Kinda dark thematically (with very rare and minor gore), but a great comic if you love action, fantasy, and fantastic art. One of my favorites.

AWFUL HOSPITAL - Another one of my favorites. After her child becomes terribly sick, and doctors tell her that there’s nothing that they can do, a mother wakes up in a mysterious, otherworldly hospital. She must navigate this confusing and sometimes horrifying hospital to save her child and get home, and on the way, she makes many odd friends and unknowable enemies, and learns that her child’s sickness may be part of something larger. This comic is funny, has cool action, a unique format, and lots of great, though ghastly, character designs.

GUNNERKRIGG COURT - A coming of age story about two girls, Antimony and Kat, as they try to find their place in each other’s lives, and the two clashing worlds that surround them, the massive technological complex that is their school and home, Gunnerkrigg Court, and the forest across the river, where magic and fantastic creatures thrive, under the watchful eye of the trickster god Coyote. Another great one for if you like fantasy, but is usually a lot lighter, with a peak of intensity about equal to… Like, Scooby Doo on Zombie Island, I think. I’ve only gotten into this one pretty recently, but it’s good.

PARANATURAL - After his family moves to his dad’s old home town, Max discovers that he has magical powers, and becomes part of the Paranatural Activities club at his school, a group of students and their adviser who all have magical powers, and use them to protect the populace from ghosts, as well as investigate the many magical mysteries of the town. This comic is great, and mostly focuses on action and comedy. The art is a very colorful cartoony style, and the characters are drawn very… fluid, rubbery. The best way to put it is that the artist has really put a lot of effort into making characters consistently as expressive as possible, and that good old Disney/Looney Toons/Tom & Jerry stretchiness makes for very good visual comedy.

HOUSEPETS! - Another one of the earliest webcomics I ever read! Housepets is… largely a comedy comic, following the lives of anthropomorphized pets in a small neighborhood. They go on adventures, and live the fun yet complicated lives of an open society of people with unbelievable amounts of free time. However, sometimes there are bigger drama/adventure arcs, which are really good! A lot of the times amazing art or cool action are what draw me into adventure stories, but I just think the plot of this comic can be really good and surprisingly deep for a humor comic. And it’s still loose enough, and in the newspaper comic style that you can usually jump in very often (not every strip, mind you but in pretty small arcs) without feeling like you’ve missed a ton. Long too, lots to read, recommend.

STAND STILL STAY SILENT - SSSS is a comic that takes place 90 years after the end of the world. A zombie-like virus with strong mystical qualities has wiped out not just human, but much of the world’s mammalian life. In Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, and Denmark), in spite of the virus, society continues to exist, and most people live normal, happy lives. Our comic follows a research team, formed on a hairstring budget to travel into the infected zone, collect information on the virus and state of the fauna there, and, secretly, to collect books to sell back home. A great fantasy adventure drama that updates very often, and has really good art.

CUCUMBER QUEST - In spite of order this is actually the last one I’m writing, and I’m tired, so I’m going to copy the book one summary from Amazon:

What happens when an evil queen gets her hands on an ancient force of destruction? World domination, obviously. The seven kingdoms of Dreamside need a legendary hero. Instead, they’ll have to settle for Cucumber, a nerdy magician who just wants to go to school. As destiny would have it, he and his way more heroic sister, Almond, must now seek the Dream Sword, the only weapon powerful enough to defeat Queen Cordelia’s Nightmare Knight. Can these bunny siblings really save the world in its darkest hour? Sure, why not?

Cucumber Quest is good, the art is colorful and bright, all of the characters are relatable and real, including the villains, there’s cool adventures sequences and plot, and it’s a very fun comic. There’s humor and love and struggle in the comic, and it’s very well done.

GIRL GENIUS - Girl Genius follows Agatha Heterodyne, up and coming mad scientist, on her many adventures to save herself, her friends and the world if it’s along the way. It’s hard, however, competing with an entire world of mad scientists, as well as the Heterodyne legacy, one filled with chaos and bloodshed up until recently. I like Girl Genius a lot. It doesn’t move through the story very fast, but there’s a lot of solid world building, and more importantly, very intriguing sci-fi action and adventure happening inside of that world! I’m also pretty sure they do a radio show or podcast or something with additional Agatha adventures on top of the comic.

SUPERNORMAL STEP - After leading a life as a drifter after the death of her father, Fae is pulled into an alternate world where magic is real. There, she tries to find her place in life, master the magic that the world around her runs on, and get home to plain old earth in one piece. Lots of cool action, every character has really got their own style of magic. I can honestly tell you that it’s good, but I read it over such a long period of time that it’s got a pretty vague impression in my head.

ATOMIC ROBO - Robo is a skilled an dedicated scientist. He’s also an atomic robot built and raised by Nikola Tesla. Atomic Robo follows the titular character on the many adventures of his life, from WWII to the present. As the head of Tesladyne Industries, Robo is dedicated to researching the outlandish, the weird, the impossible! And when the world calls on him, he and his Action Scientists defend it from giant monsters, cosmic anomalies, and mad science. Atomic Robo is great if you love action, robots, monsters, humor, and velociraptors duel-wielding uzis. Highly recommended.

DUMBING OF AGE - As the title would imply, Dumbing Of Age is a pretty standard coming of age comedy! Starring a wide cast of likable and complex character, DoA follows a group of college freshmen as they learn more about themselves, and grow beyond the bubbles that they were raised in. I think the underpinnings of the comic are pretty strongly on humor, but there’s a lot of drama, and conversations about meaningful things too. There are lots of varying depictions of drama, depression, anxiety, and the ways people deal with pressure, and fear. But there’s also a lot of love and friendliness. It’s a good comic, and probably the only solid slice-of-life on my list.

MANLY GUYS DOING MANLY THINGS - This comic follows The Commander, a bio-engineered super soldier sent back in time to run a temp agency. This particular temp agency specializes in reintroducing particularly brutish video game, comic, and movie protagonists back into normal polite society. Duke Nukem isn’t much of a man for customer service, however. Later on the comic drifts more toward Commander’s personal life. (So slice of life, but with a buff, and actually surprisingly sensitive and forward thinking, super commando from the future.) Has been in a bit of a slump in terms of updates recently, but they still happen.

GRRL POWER - Sidney, a slightly hyper nerd who works at a comic shop, stumbles upon an artifact that gives her a variety of superpowers. After being exposed, she becomes a member of the government’s brand new super hero organization. This comic is a lot of fun, with some cool superpowers and super fights. Lots of humor, very consistently, in any given scene. Sadly, it is a bit fan service-y, though in the grand scale of things it’s not the worst offender (though definitely the worst you’ll see on this list).

SWORD INTERVAL - This is a pretty new one for me, but it’s great. At some indeterminate point in the past (potentially as far back as the civil war, if not farther), the earth became exposed to monsters and magic in ways that it wasn’t before. Humanity still exists and survives, but plagued by supernatural forces. Our main character is Fall, a very new monster hunter, who after years in witness protection, has decided to track down and kill the Hierophant, the powerful monster that killed her parents. Sword interval does a lot of really cool fantasy stuff, with new takes on classic monsters, and magic and monsters in settings that we don’t often see them in, out in the open in present day. It’s something I wish we could see more. Good action and art, particularly character design.

BACK - Abigail is back. From the dead? From a very long sleep in a box underground? She doesn’t know either. She doesn’t know a lot of things. What she does know is that she’s got two guns, is nearly indestructible, and is prophesied to go north to the capital and end the world. With the help of the young cleric Michael, who supplements her absolute lack of all knowledge and common sense, Abigail fights her way through the kingdom, and past the kings many superpowered deputies. Back is cool, back is funny, and sometimes has some good action. I wouldn’t consider it one of my favorites, but it’s a comic I started and I’ve kept up with, so that’s saying something.

MARE INTERNUM - Not very long yet, and I only recently read it, but Mare Internum is really good. I don’t want to spoil it too much, honestly, especially because it’s so short, but it’s a sci-fi adventure comic about being trapped, underground, on Mars, and finding life there. The art is great, the story so far is well written, and the dialogue is good. I really don’t want to spoil it, but there are some great concepts in it and you should read it.

OPHIUCHUS - A very new comic about an ancient stone guardian who is whisked away to another, far off world. Here, he is employed to help two of this world’s denizens defeat the blight that has corrupted and destroyed their once almost utopian world. The art for this is really good. The comic is not currently long enough to comment on much else, but it seems interesting, sci-fi with a touch of fantasy.

Slowly Updating:

AVA’S DEMON - Ava’s Demon is about a girl, Ava who has spent her entire young life haunted by a ghost that torments her, before finally making a deal. The ghost, Wrathia, will help her become a normal girl, with friends and a normal life, but first, Ava must track down the ghosts of Wrathia’s most powerful allies, and help her dissolve the massive interplanetary empire that is TITAN. Ava’s Demon is amazing. The story is good, but I think the comic’s greatest strength is absolutely stunning and polished art. Strong recommendation.

THE PROPERTY OF HATE - RGB is a self-described monster, a sharp dressed man with a TV for a head. However, he’s looking for a hero to guide on a quest. RGB whisks our young protagonist, the Hero, to a world that exists beside our own a world completely fueled and inhabited by our creativity, our stories. RGB protects the Hero from these dangers, guiding her on a mission unknown, through a world that, although mystical, seems to have lost its hope.

HE IS A GOOD BOY - Slow but large updates. This comic follows the life a sentient acorn, Crange, after the death of his parent (a tree) to a lumberjack. Crange is kind of a bit of a loser, and stumbles around his world of sentient rocks and bugs getting into all sorts of trouble and hijinks. These hijinks almost always result in someone’s death, which Crange is impressively unphased by. HIAGB is fantastic, in my opinion. The art is great, the humor is great, especially the visual comedy, and the story is good. However, it gets real dark, and gory. But if you’re fine with that, it IS a (dark) comedy comic, and a good one.

THE LAST HALLOWEEN - One Halloween, the darkness opens up, and monsters pour out from the seams between our world and theirs. Approximately 7 billion monsters, in fact. Mona, a young girl and horror fanatic finds herself thrown into a world of chaos and horror, on the run from her own monster, and forced to look for a way to save the world, with the help of ghosts, zombies, vampires, and even monsters themselves. In spite of the fact that this comic can be VERY dark, I think one of its big hooks is humor and likable characters, on top of great art and plot. I really like it. This comic maybeshouldn’t be on the slow update list, but the artist is just picking up speed after a long hiatus, so…

ROMANTICALLY APOCALYPTIC - The apocalypse happened, and Charles Snippy missed it. Humanity was wiped out in a war against it’s own, ever-present AI, and Charles Snippy, a scientist/tour guide without the implants made it out alive, only to wander alone this is until he meets Zee Captain, an ever positive, gender question mark, maniac who wanders the wasteland with their insane assistant Pilot. Snippy, Captain and Pilot wander the wasteland, facing off against monsters, raiders, and the laws of physics in a mind warping and illogical adventure.

On Hiatus:

DERELICT - Like a surprisingly large number of comics on this list, in Derelict, the world has ended. A strange Miasma travels the world, killing billions, and bringing with it gargoyle-like monsters who fear the daylight. However, the world goes on, in a small, broken way, and our story follows a scavenger in this new world.

HELVETICA - So, you die, and then what? Well, life goes on. This is what Helvetica learns, after he dies and reemerges into an afterlife that seems shockingly similar to the world of the living, with work, pressure, responsibility, danger, and just plain old boring life. Except everyone is a skeleton. Helvetica is very resistant to accept this new life in death. This one is pretty short so far, and hasn’t updated in a while, but it’s good.

VIBE - Hasn’t update in a year and a half, but what’s there is good (Honestly, it’s super sad it hasn’t update, I like it a lot). Vibe follows Baron, a young shaman, a spiritual master who is able to expel negative emotions (bad vibes) from the human body. Only those emotions then become monsters, who a shaman must fight to complete the process! With the help of his Loa (they’re like familiars), he navigates life as a teenager, and his increasingly complex and dangerous life as a shaman. I really like this comic. There’s a lot of very cool and dynamic action, and the artist makes great use of a ton of bright colors.

THE ABOMINABLE CHARLES CHRISTOPHER - This one hasn’t updated in about a year, but what’s there right now is good. Charles Christopher is a Sasquatch, living in the woods on the edge of society. Though he himself is fairly soft, and simple, the wilderness around him is full of anthropomorphized animals who go about shockingly human social and professional lives. The comic follows Charles Christopher as he interacts with the world of these animals, and becomes tangled in a vast spiritual quest.

POWER NAP - Hard to know exactly where to put this one. It’s currently VERY slow updating. Power Nap takes place in a world where the majority of mankind is reliant on a drug that allows them to live 24/7 without sleep. However, there are those who are allergic to the medicine, who live their lives out of sync with their peers, protected by the government, but effectively second class citizens. However, in a sleepless world, over-saturated by virtual reality, the human subconscious has found ways to seep into reality.

THE FANCY ADVENTURES OF JACK CANNON - I want to start this out by saying this comic is probably dead, without a 100% resolution. However, it’s currently 492 pages, and a LOT of the storyline covered in that span was resolved. Such that, if they’d wanted to, I could’ve seen the author wrapping it up. I digress. Jack Cannon is about a kid moving to a new school, where he finds the bullies are able to hack reality. Somehow immune to hacks, Jack fights the bullies, and in doing so, puts himself on the stage of a worldwide battle against hackers. Lots of really cool action in this, one of the first few webcomics I read.

Complete:

HOMESTUCK - If you’re here, you are probably at least aware of Homestuck. It’s about a bunch of goofy awkward teen friends who get sucked into a cosmic (video) game, with the fate of the universe at stake, but you know, they’ve still got that teen angst. Time travel is involved. It’s a very long, fun, and dramatic comic which is heavily influenced by RPGs and point and click adventures.

THE ADVENTURES OF DR. MCNINJA - The pressures of being a doctor AND ninja are immense, but on either front, you can trust that Dr. McNinja is the man for the job. Born into an Irish ninja family, Dr. McNinja longs for a life where he can do medicine in peace, but finds himself constantly pulled into a string of action packed adventures, fighting giant monsters, bandits riding velociraptors, and dueling radical interdimensional kings. This one if fairly long, a bit over 1800 pages, but it’s really good and well done. Again, there is a lot of both action and humor (I’m big on that), with some surprisingly meaningful and well-done story arcs in spite of how silly the premise is.

REMIND - This one is about a girl who lives in a lighthouse on the edge of a town whose main draw is the “Lizard Man” legend that her own father made up. However, after her cat one day starts walking on two legs and talking, claiming to be one of many said lizard men, they both go on a journey to discover the truth. This one was OK. The story and sci-fi elements are both alright bot not great. But it’s not super long, so if you have the time, maybe read it.

[allislaughter]

This is going to get long, i have a lot to say dflghjdf

So the main robot race I have, Vitrulari, is heavily inspired by Cybertornians in general. The main differences being 1. they're human sized 2. literally only one of them "transforms" into anything and only because of Irresponsible Science 3. their super special robot juice is literally magic (i like my science fantasy...)

In the Et Al main story, immediately after Vitrular's first and only civil war has ended, the leader of one of the two warring factions as part of the peace negotiations leads a team to investigate some issues brought to light about ancient prophecies of theirs getting all fucky for some reason sometime in the last 50 or so years, but they get attacked and accidentally end up on Earth.

Emissionary is inspired by Megatron originally but RP Megatron went through a lot of changes for self-indulgence reasons, so Em is very far removed from that. He was the second leader of the Dracons following the death of the previous leader. He is also the rightful heir to the Vitrular throne but has conceded power to the Anati leader Tera during peace negotiations because the Anati wouldn't settle for anything less than a "win" and likely would have caused a riot if the war ended and Emissionary was put back in power. He likes cartoons and is a huge nerd.

Suriv is inspired by Starscream who in RP was still a little shit, but Suriv has become a far different character and doesn't have the same role Starscream had in the RP at all. He's Emissionary's husband and Second-In-Command and is one of just over 200 clones made by the Dracons in a unethical experiment that started under the original Dracon leader. Suriv is number 195 and sought out Emissionary during the war to alert Em to the existence of the clone experiments and have Emissionary end them at long last.

Cogfix is based on Ratchet and also a little of Doctor McCoy from Star Trek. He's a grumpy southern doctor and grandfather figure who is on the team because his wife, Giga, joined the team as a doctor as well and also to keep Jackspark in line.

Jackspark is based on Wheeljack except RP Wheeljack since I think my friend had told me TFA Wheeljack didn't have a lot to him??? Or something like that??? Essentially he's the scientist of the team except... He also has to do the repairs and engineering and basically a lot of stuff outside of his actual job as a "scientist" which is already a broad term since he does way too many different kinds of science??? He has a reputation back home for being immoral and kinda "crazy" and even his own side of the war (Anati) fears him because of the number of terrible weapons he was credited with creating during the war.

Beewire, aka Bee, is based on Bumblebee. He's young, scrappy, kinda a punk but with a good heart and with electricity based powers. Beewire's place on the team is to do "grunt work" as part of community service because he got into some trouble with illegal racing back home.

Illusion is based on Prowl. They (singular) are from a martial arts community and make up one-half of the security team. They have an interest in plants and have a mod that lets them turn invisible.

Triple Shot is based on both Blitzwing and Good Cop/Bad Cop from the Lego Movie. They (plural) are two minds sharing a body, differentiated by voice and optic color. The one with red eyes gets the nickname Latte. They (singular) are the more "serious" side and the original mind from the body before the second developed, and they tend to get embarrassed by the other mind's antics a lot. The one with blue eyes is Mocha who switches between he and she pronouns depending on how she's feeling that day (usually I default to she for her). Mocha is the more self-indulgent side who people often assume isn't as smart as Latte because of how impulsive she seems but in many ways is actually smarter than them. Triple Shot is the other half of the security team and is the one who can transform into something (a coffee maker) because Jackspark suggested he give them that mod and it "sounded like a good idea at the time"

Mellohertz is based on Jazz. He's from the same community as Illusion but left a few thousand years before Illusion to join something called the "Agency" and was neutral during the war. His job in the Agency was to help find and rescue organic lifeforms that were being illegally sold on Vitrular and help get them back to their correct homes, and he realized that Emissionary's team disappeared through an interstellar gate the Agency used about a decade ago to send a human back to Earth and so jumped at the chance to go after Em's team in hopes of meeting this human again.

Rapid Fire is based on Blurr. High strung, ultra serious bot with a speed mod who is an agent in the Vitrular Intelligence Agency (the rebranding of the Anati Intelligence Agency, and a separate thing from the Agency) who was also sent to find Emissionary's team when they went missing. Speaks fast and speaks a lot and repeats himself frequently to help make sure that people he talks to catch the important bits of what he has to say. Gets flustered around cute people. Distrusts Blacksun with a passion, despite having previously admired him during his role as "Wintellect"

Blacksun, previously "Wintellect", based on Shockwave. Childhood friend of Emissionary who, during the war, somehow gained the ability to change his appearance without it being a Hard Light Display and so went undercover infiltrating the Anati to the point he became the director of the AIA. Has been acting really sus since joining Emissionary on Earth post Rapid Fire getting them back in contact with Vitrular. (Spoilers, it's because this isn't even Blacksun remember how this is science fantasy he's a demon originally from Earth posing as Blacksun it'll be explained in text eventually)

Technix is based on Perceptor. Jackspark's roommate from school and the head of the Vitrular Science Division (previously the Anati Science Division) of which Jackspark is the deputy head. Had Jackspark help remove his emotions during the war, though he still has the chip with the emotions plus back-ups saved in case he needs to install them again. Somehow, even without emotions, still constantly berates Jackspark's work and misbehavior yet never seems to think to fire Jackspark and even personally assigned him to Emissionary's team without assigning any other scientists or engineers under the justification that "Jackspark can handle everything"

Thorn Dragon, based on Lockdown, is number 189 of the Dracon clones and is a bounty hunter by trade who has participated in the illegal organic trade on Vitrular.

Mirrorsmoke is based on Thundercracker. Number 198 of the Dracon clones and originally Suriv's Second-In-Command before Suriv left the team to go seek out Emissionary. Became team leader in Suriv's stead and fucked it up losing three of their team members very early into it (194, 197, and 199). An egotistical strategist who is bitter with Suriv for abandoning them and under Turbowish's suggestion ordered the team to attack Emissionary's ship post-war, stranding Emissionary's team on Earth.

Turbowish is based on Sunstorm. He's number 193 of the clones. Sycophantic but often in backhanded ways or to achieve a means for his own selfish desires. He's the team doctor and one of the doctors who has studied specifically Dracon clone physiology though he rather be surrounded by pretty things than help others. A bit of a seer but as a clone was never given the chance to properly develop this so he doesn't know how to account for that fucky thing that happened about 50 years ago.

Doomrail aka Liarmood is based on Ramjet. Number 196 of the clones. Is the most honest person because he always says the opposite of what he means (therefore can only tell the truth you just have to reverse what he actually says). A scientist who is on the team mostly to try and keep Mirrorsmoke and Turbowish from doing something too stupid though he wasn't able to stop them from attacking Emissionary's team. Is mostly there to help protect Stellarblast at this point, and because the two of them have no where else to go.

Stellarblast aka Stella is based on Skywarp. Cowardly and with the ability to teleport, he's a survivalist who does what he can to stay alive and out of harm's way. He also takes up the position of electrical engineer since no one else was willing to do it and they've really needed someone who can do wiring and stuff a lot. Number 200 of the clones, the youngest on their team and one of the last clones to be made before the experiment ended.

Sven Goldberg. We're finishing up this list with Sven hecking Goldberg. He's based on Swindle. He likes to have money and collect money and is a "businessman" whose primary goal is to get money. However, this is actually because he's half dragon (and half human) and so wants the money for dragon hoarding instincts. He also uses it to power his magic in that he essentially "spends" money to cast spells. (He likes cash instead of credit for this reason because credit isn't "real"). No one knows how old he is, but he's been seen around hanging around his house in 1920s underwear or wearing 1910s bathing suits to swim and he calls people "sport" sometimes. It's the 2060s in the current story, for reference.

I think that's all the characters based on TFA characters! Technically there's a few others, but those ones are more loosely based than the rest of these.

Okay. YES, Brenner was influenced by Deacon. I was wondering.

Yep! Because I really like Deacon so wanted to include a character like him in the comic, though there are enough differences to make Brenner his own character (which will hopefully come to light as the comic progresses).

I actually have quite a few characters who are influenced by existing ones across a few different works, so I have practice taking a character and making my own version of them that is similar but noticeably different from the original. Brenner’s just another one in that mix.