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stcrryknights · 4 years

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1-9 for Ellis, Weston, Kai?

001. When is their birthday?

Ellis' birthday is on August 13, Weston's on April 6 & Kai's on January 1st

002. Do they do anything to celebrate their birthday?

Before the apocalypse, Ellis used to throw big parties. Afterwards he only did once during his firefly days. But I'm sure they'll throw him a party in Jackson eventually. Now West always loved singing for people ever since he reached adulthood. Even after the apocalypse he would grab his guitar and sing songs around the campfire or the hotel dinning room after he settled with the sane infected. Now Kai used to be a crazy party animal but ever since the outbreak he really doesn't. Just a drink perhaps.

003. Does your character like coffee better, or tea?

Ellis really is a man depending on the day. He loves tea but sometimes is desperate for a coffee. West used to be addicted to coffee so he tries to switch to some tea, especially since it's easier to find in the apocalypse. Kai is just a coffee lover. Coffee above all.

004. Do they prefer being alone or with others?

Ellis hates being alone. But ever since he noticed what attaching to people in such times can do to you, he started feeling better with being by himself. Especially after what happened with the fireflies. Yet honestly, he always needed someone and this is exactly why he actually took a 12 year old with him on his journey after he found him hiding in his old home even though he knew the risks. Miles was everything he needed. Now West really can't work alone. He always had people with him and would most ideally stay like that. Kai used to be a loner until the sane infected. He felt like having a group might bring him down but after meeting West's group, this changed.

005. Are they in good health?

Ellis, clearly depends on the day. He gets himself injured way too often to be in good health but at least he always gets up. Now West is in perfect health unless the leg kicks in. He is infected after all. Kai is in good health too, excluding his infection as well.

006. What sense do they most rely on?

Ellis counts on his eyes while West counts on his ears. Kai on the other hand equally balances the usage of his eyes and ears.

007. Is your character an optimist or a pessimist?

Ellis used to be an optimist but is slowly turning himself into a realistic person. Wouldn't call him a pessimist though. West still is optimistic. His smile through the storms is what makes everyone else around him smile. Now Kai was never optimistic on his life but that's because he wishes to prepare himself for the worst case scenario.

008. What is their favorite fairy tale?

Ellis has a love for stories no one has ever heard of. For example he would help Miles sleep using the story of a sailor from his hometown, San Antonio. Now West likes all the classics. Kayla was a kid once and he would read her all shorts of stories. Both love Rapunzel. The movie too, Tangled, even though he prefers Brave a bit better. Now Kai isn't really a fan of fairy tales but he's actually a sucker for Peter Pan, he just won't admit it.

009. Do they believe in happy endings?

Ellis isn't really sure anymore. He has been living, working on a lie of Dr Anderson and the fireflies for so long he started growing so hopefully only to brutally land on his feet, seeing how many kids died in vain of that hope so he stopped hoping. West is hopeful. Every day he wakes up thinking today can be the day. Today can be a happy ending. This is why the sane infected are hope in the impossible. Now Kai surprisingly does. Love taught him so.

#{gallery : ellis}#{gallery : west}#{gallery : kai}#{memes}#(thank you for the ask!)#rp memes #the last of us rp #Tlou rp #zombie apocalypse rp

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kelasparmak · 8 years

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001: Vorkosigan Saga. 002: Charles Gunn/Wesley Wyndam-Pryce.

OH MAN THIS GOT LONG

Vorkosigan Saga:

Favorite character: Hmmm, tough one. No, just kidding, everyone who’s ever met me knows Bel’s my favourite, hands down, no contest.

Least Favorite character: I mean, there are a lot of baddies to pick from. Ryoval, Ser Galen and Bruce Van Atta all rate highly.

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): This one actually is tricky, since I really really like a lot of the canon relationship dynamics. Byerly and Ivan definitely, Aral and Cordelia (and Oliver Jole, though it’s Aral and Cordelia’s dynamic that I’m particularly fond of), Ethan and Terrence, Simon and Alys, and I think Miles and Bel. (Honourable mentions go to Bel and Nicol, Ivan and Tej, and Elli and Elena, which is a pairing I’d not actually really considered until I got desperate for Vorkosigan fic and ran the Russian works on AO3 through Google Translate and found some really interesting fic.)

Character I find most attractive: My mental images of book characters are generally super vague and I’m eh about attractiveness anyway, but thinking about it I’d probably say Rish, Taura or Dono Vorrutyer.

Character I would marry: I’d be quite happy marrying an awful lot of them, really. Bel, for preference, since I’m practically in actual bona fide love with it.

Character I would be best friends with: I’d like to say Bel, but I don’t think I’m exciting enough. My actual best friends through life have mostly been more like Tej or maybe the younger Kareen, so maybe one of them? Tej and I could definitely bond over language learning. (I would also love to be best friends with Byerly, but again, I don’t think we have the same idea of a good time.)

A random thought: The first thing that springs to mind is my fascination with the fact that Bel and Jole had a fling back in the day. When was this? How (hilariously) would Miles react? I would love for Bel, Nicol, Garnet Five and Corbeau (since he’s the Barrayaran Imperium’s ambassador or attache or whatever to Quaddiespace) to visit Sergyar and pop in on Miles, and have that awkward ‘yes, we’ve met’ conversation when Miles tried to introduce them to each other. Well, awkward for Miles and Jole, at least; Bel and Cordelia would no doubt find it hilarious.

An unpopular opinion: Iiiii don’t really like that more or less everyone ended up paired off to an Appropriately Gendered Spouse, with a bureaucratic position and babies ever after. I mean, that’s an oversimplification and there are exceptions (like Elli, or Ethan and Terrence, though that’s implied rather than explicit and since Athos is men-only it feels a little ‘for lack of alternative Terrence might end up with a guy and if he does it’ll probably be Ethan’) but that’s how it feels to me. I don’t know how unpopular that opinion is, though.

My canon OTP: Aral/Cordelia

Non-canon OTP: Byerly/Ivan (I mean, we’ve essentially had this question already)

Most badass character: I think Taura or Elli, probably? Miles is definitely a contender too, but I suppose because you see him wallowing in self-pity or making it up as he goes or doing extremely silly things pretty often the overall effect is perhaps diminished a little. Though I think overall the sheer amount of obstacles, self-imposed as well as external, that he manages to overcome, might put him at the top of the list.

Pairing I am not a fan of: Leo/Silver, probably. I don’t think it was very ethical for Leo to get involved, at least not at that point - I’m not sure if she was canonically a great deal younger than him or if I’ve just imagined that, but there’s a huge gap in terms of life experience, and I think that given the way Van Atta had exploited her very very recently, Leo should have given her some space and time and the tools to figure out what she wanted before he got involved with her.

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): Bothari’s portrayal made me pretty uncomfortable at times. Not sure if it was necessarily a screwup because she writes other mental illnesses pretty well, at least as far as my understanding of them goes, but I felt like with Bothari there was a very fine line being tread between a very complex depiction of schizophrenia (specifically traumagenic schizophrenia) & cyclical abuse on the one hand, and the ‘dangerous and barely-human crazy person’ stereotype on the other.

Favourite friendship: So many. In the interests of not just repeating myself from the shipping questions, though, I really like the development of Miles and Ivan’s relationship from not really Getting each other at all in the first book (and Miles in particular being pretty contemptuous of Ivan), to a close (if constantly mutually exasperating) friendship once they’re a little older.

Gunn/Wesley

when or if I started shipping it: Gosh, it’s been absolutely years since I watched Angel and I only watched it the once, so any of these answers may be completely wrong, but honestly I think it was from the first time they argued.

my thoughts: I really liked their 'odd couple’ dynamic - it reminds me a little of a much more extreme version of Eliot and Hardison’s initial impressions of each other, in that they each have a lot of preconceptions about the type of person the other is and about their worth, but pretty quickly get over it and come to respect each other and (shockingly enough) realised that it was actually really useful that they’d had such different experiences and that they worked much better together than separately. I’d have liked more episodes dealing with their very different backgrounds and attitudes in a more casual setting - I don’t remember how often that came up but I don’t feel like it was very often, or at least not often enough for my liking :P I just wish that phase

What makes me happy about them: I guess I’ve just said it. Got a bit carried away there I guess.

What makes me sad about them: The goddamn unnecessary love triangle! And everything getting fucked up! Why did this happen! I prefer to pretend that storyline, and the Illyria storyline, and the Grimdark Wesley storyline, didn’t happen, because they were silly and unnecessary. Whedon, you didn’t even have to let my kids be happy, but making them miserable because of internal conflict that wasn’t even in-character for them wasn’t even lazy writing, it would have been lazy writing with different characters, but this required effort! To be bad! Why! (Caveat: possibly the Grimdark Wesley storyline isn’t so much objectively bad as I just didn’t like it. I don’t mind him being emo, that’s a-ok, but his behaviour toward Gunn and Fred was straight-up gross, and while I quite liked Wesley dealing with the consequences of his mistakes, I’d have been happier if he’d learned from them instead of getting worse, lol.)

Things done in fanfic that annoys me: Iiii actually have never read any fic of this series, I don’t think, so I guess I don’t know. I can imagine some things that would and that I wouldn’t be surprised to see done.

Things I look for in fanfic: Well, nothing, but I guess it would be the dynamic that I liked between them in the Good Times. Preferably a ridiculous shenanigans, some near-death experiences, actually talking about their feelings, and a healthy dose of fluff (or h/c). And Gunn being smart as hell, because he is and arguably is better at applying that in practice than Wesley.

My kinks: I am a pure and innocent soul and I don’t even know what a kink is. (Okay, but leaving out the sexual element, I guess even though I was talking about how much I hate Grimdark Wes, I’d probably be interested in hatesex fic set during that period if it was concerned with working out their frustration and betrayal rather than just uncomplicated angry sex) (Also, I can see Wesley being super into Gunn being smart as fuck generally, and specifically into his Lawyer Talk after he got essentially the entire corpus of law and G&S downloaded into his brain. In my head this is not a very sexy thing, it’s very ‘Ooh Mr Darcy’, Wesley is hopelessly enamoured and Gunn is initially bemused but flattered and very quickly gets tired of Wes swooning every time he says something smart, which is way too often for it not to have lost its effect AND YET. And especially if they’re working for Wolfram & Hart together in this scenario, in which case Gunn uses advanced legal terminology often on account of it being his job, which makes it hugely impractical for Wesley to try and jump his bones every time it happens. He’s probably just into the legal jargon and not the Gilbert and Sullivan because that would be a very weird kink and not one I can imagine being sexy at all, but now that I say it, if someone wrote that fic I would read it just out of morbid curiosity.)

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: Fred! As well as each other! Guys, polyamory, it’s a thing! (If it had to be other people, I’d probably go for Gunn with Fred and Wes with either Angel or Spike. Probably not Lilah.)

My happily ever after for them: No one dies and Gunn has high self-esteem and Wesley stops fucking up everything he touches. Nothing bad happens and The Gang never have to deal with apocalypses or implausibly huge conspiracies or anything, they just hang out being supernatural detectives and doing Season 1-2 type stuff forever. Possibly they are in a triad with Fred but this is not necessary.

#cosmictuesdays #ask games for ts #a third tag #a fourth tag #a fifth tag #that should now be enough tags to keep these out of the main tags!#ats #vorkosigan saga

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itsworn · 6 years

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Shelby’s Original Venice Crew Revives History.

The Original Venice Crew refers to a small group of fabricators, race car drivers, and builders who set out to change the automotive world. They won championships, the 24 hours of Le Mans, and they made their leaders name synonymous with greatness. They were Carroll Shelby’s original employees at his first race shop, which operated in Venice, California from 1962 to 1967. Among Shelby’s first workers was a team of talented drivers including Ken Miles and Bob Bondurant, famous aerodynamicist Peter Brock, designer of the Cobra Daytona, and world-class race car fabricator Phil Remington. Apprenticing underneath these greats were 17 and 18-year-old mechanics who had a background in performance and racing. The cars they built would become legendary and are worth millions today. One of those cars was the 1965 Ford Mustang G.T. 350 Competition Model.

This is car No. 98i, one of the two prototype cars that the OVC built at Peter Brock’s BRE shop in Las Vegas.

When Ford Motor Company partnered with Shelby American in 1964 to work on the Ford GT40 Le Mans program, they sent the new Mustang to be transformed into a race car because Lee Iacocca wanted it to have a performance reputation; Carroll Shelby at the time believed that the Mustangs was a secretary’s car. The V8 equipped K-code mustangs, sat parked at Shelby’s shop at Venice nose to tail, but many did not want to work on them. Housed in the same building were Ford GT40s, Cobras, Daytonas, and the new King Cobra, the plain white Mustangs looked pedestrian by comparison. “Some said why are we working on Mustangs when we have 427 Cobras?” Jim Marietta, Shelby mechanic (1964-1965), recalls in a recent interview.

No matter, Ford and Shelby had big plans for the seemingly plain ponycars. The Mustangs would be perfected in road racing competition. Shelby put together a race team, led by project manager Chuck Cantwell who drove the car alongside test drivers Miles and Bondurant. Marietta and Peter Bryant were assigned as mechanics, and Ted Sutton was the crew chief.

This is a period picture of 5R002, note the primer on the rear fender that Marietta flared when he was 17.

The car they worked on was called the G.T. 350 Competition, car number 5R002 or “002”. It was fitted with plexiglass side and rear windows. Brock designed a rear window that was curved on both sides with a slot at the top for air to escape, and rear fenders that were hand flared. The test drivers developed the car on-track at Riverside and Willow Springs International Raceways in California, and they reported back to Cantwell on improvements that needed to be made. Every trip to the track led to new changes, and as Marietta says, the car was constantly changing from week to week.

Car number 5R002 was entirely handmade, and its development occurred over months, even while Shelby American transitioned to a new location at 7501 West Imperial Highway near Los Angeles International Airport. Miles and Bondurant gave feedback to Cantwell, he told the young mechanics what changes needed to be made, and they set out how to implement those modifications. Marietta was tasked with flaring the fenders and coming up with a way to make the windows go up and down.

Jim Marietta shows off a hand-flared fender, the same job that he had on the Mustangs when he was 17.

“My job was to cut the plexiglass and fit them to the window frames”, says Marietta. “I came up with the idea for straps to pull up the windows. I was also one of the first guys to flare a rear fender. In the picture of 002 coming back to the shop after testing at Riverside, the grey stripe was primer. My method was to use a muffler gun to cut the piece out, then use a rose bud [torch] and a body spoon to flare the fenders. It was a crude method—a hot rodder’s way of doing it”.

Ford also developed an independent rear suspension to make the car handle even better. Marietta became the mechanic for the IRS. He worked underneath Ford Engineer Bud Ellis who came from Detroit each week to work on the suspension. Marietta recalls Ellis giving tasks as he left on Thursdays- things like figure out a way to work on the IRS alignment.

Although the Mustangs were changing in performance, they were still plain white cars, and the job of making them unique was left to Brock. He made new part designs to the body that would aid in its aerodynamics. One of those aids was a new front fascia design that directed airflow to radiators and coolers. He also came up with the paint scheme that became iconic- the blue stripes.

Here is car number 004 of the continuation run, ready for its transformation into a 1965 G.T.350 Competition model.

The G.T. 350 got its stripes because Brock idealized Briggs Cunningham and his iconic Le Mans cars when he was younger. “The American colors in Le Mans in 1963 were white with blue stripes. I emulated that,” says Brock. Ford asked Brock if he could make the Mustang look like a race car. Brock told the Ford executives, “We’ll we can do these new aerodynamic body parts for X amount [of money] or we can do these stripes”. He says Ford choose not to do the new parts because of cost, and they were initially skeptical about the stripes because they thought no one would want to drive around in a car that looked like a skunk. Ford eventually agreed, so the white Mustangs got blue stripes.

Shelby’s team massaged and modified the G.T.350 Competition “into the B production killer that it became”, says Brock. The G.T. 350 Competition became the national Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) B-production champion in dominating fashion, winning in 1965, ‘66, and ’67. Car 5R002 won the 1965 Championship with Jerry Titus behind the wheel.

“Some of the knowledge and techniques that were used in developing the race car filtered down to the production street cars”, says Marietta. Initially, only one G.T.350 model was planned for sale: the G.T. 350S, which was a street model that had “bolt-ons, intake manifolds, Cobra aluminum oil pan, removed rear seats. In addition, the quarter panel vents were replaced with windows, and for a while—override bars (traction bars), which then went to underbars” says Marietta.

The OVC has Ford’s 1963 technical schematics for the Independent Rear Suspension.

The Competition was not meant for sale. Marietta explained, “the first R’s were just for Shelby, but then he decided to sell them as copies of 002 for customers. They were for sale for everyday people, and it sold for $5,595.”

The Competition model dropped all creature comforts for the singular focus of going faster around a race track. It had no interior, glove box, radio, heater, or any personal amenities. “Anything that had any significant weight was removed,” says Marietta. However, the IRS never made it to the production cars due to costs.

In total, 562 G.T. 350’s were sold, with 506 being the 1965 G.T. 350S models, while only 36 G.T. 350 Competition models were made. There was a 37th G.T. 350 Competition model that was made, but Shelby gave it to the parts department as a gift. The G.T. 350 Competitions were only sold in 1965, with some carryovers being sold as 1966 models.

Over the years, the Competition model became known as the G.T. 350R. It took on that moniker in the ‘70s as shorthand, long after the car was out of production.

Continuation Car 001 is equipped with Ford’s 1963 prototype IRS rear suspension.

Decades passed, and the old crew disbanded. Shelby enthusiast Bob Shaw started organizing annual reunions to celebrate the original Shelby employees. For twenty years, he has held these events that brought together the old staff to reminisce on the cars they built and the championships that they won. A few years ago, Marietta pitched the idea of building another Mustang as a way to revive the camaraderie that existed among the workers.

Jim Marietta led the team, and Tim Sutton and Peter Brock joined. They sourced two 1965 K-code cars and started building them in Brock’s shop, Brock Racing Enterprises (BRE) in Las Vegas. Their plan was to make two more Competition models just like 002. The rules for the cars were that anything from the original prototype could be used, regardless if it made it on to production versions. However, it had to be something that was planned or tested on the original 1964 prototype car. This is the fortunate technicality that allows the independent rear suspension and Peter Brock’s body modifications to be included.

This car is equipped with Peter Brock’s modified fiberglass front bumper that was designed for the original prototype.

The two cars were stripped and sent out for media blasting. They came back bare, and the crew reprised their old roles as fabricators. Brock worked on implementing his front bumper design. A mold was made from an original G.T. 350’s front fascia, and a plug was made that had air ducts and a molded bumper that were angled to allowed airflow to be directed to the radiator and oil coolers. “Sutton drew out and hand fabricated the rear brake ducts. He started with chalk, drawing on Brock’s shop floor,” says Marietta. “He also helped fit the rear window, among other tasks. He is a master fabricator.” Likewise, Marietta took on his old job of cutting plexiglass and fitting them to the side window frames. He made the pull-up straps that he designed 50 years earlier and cut and hand formed the rear fenders, only this time with modern tools—no muffler gun.

A 289 block that is bored and stroked to 331 cubic inches was lowered into the car’s engine bay. “The engine puts out 450 horsepower on an engine dyno,” says Marietta. It’s mated to an aluminum-alloy Toploader transmission.

One slight change that might not be apparent is the rear window—it is more of a correction than a modification. The production windows were not built exactly to Brock’s specifications. They had a hump that was never in the design. The hump killed the aerodynamics of the window, preventing it from creating a low-pressure area that sucked air out of the car. Now, under Brock’s discerning eye, he could make sure that the windows were made exactly the way that he intended them to be 50 years ago.

Through the rear window, you can see Ted Sutton’s rear brake duct that he designed with chalk on Peter Brock’s shop floor.

Other members joined in on the homecoming builds, “The plenum and gas guard were handmade by one of the original Venice Shelby employees”, says Marietta.

The sister cars were identical twins except for the rear suspension. One car ran a 9-inch rear end, while the other ran a recreation of the Ford-developed IRS. The original 1963 Ford blueprints for the IRS were found, and original suspension parts were donated to help the team construct the elusive suspension.

The cars were painted in Wimbledon White with two blue stripes running over the top of the car’s body. Both Mustangs wear number 98 in a blue roundel that harkens back to the car that started it all 50 years before: the legendary 5R002 that Ken Miles drove to victory in Green Valley and the car that Jerry Titus drove to the 1965 SCCA championship. The lowercase “i” identifies which car is equipped with the IRS.

The gas guard and engine plenum are made by the same OVC team member who fabricated these parts on the original cars.

Once the OVC unveiled the new Competition models to the public, they were flooded with invitations to show the cars at prestigious events like Monterey’s Carmel by the Sea Concours and The Quail, and events as far away as Lillehammer, Norway to lead the 4th of July parade before traveling to France to drive a lap around Le Mans. At every location, people asked the same question that they asked Shelby when they saw the original Competition car, “Can I have one, and how much?”

The OVC crew had no plans for selling the cars, but after so much demand, they looked into what it would take to build the car as a limited production run. Marietta applied to Ford Motor Company to have the cars be officially licensed. He received approval at an in-person meeting with Ford executives on the condition that he meets their demanding standards and requirements. After Ford’s approval, he approached Shelby American and got their consent as well. Shelby American asked where they would be built; Marietta had a few locations in mind, but Neil Cummings, Co-Chairman of Shelby American, offered the warehouse portion of their Gardena, California location as the home of OVC’s Mustangs.

The 331 cu in stroker makes 450rwhp.

Today, original 1965 K-code mustangs are transformed into continuation 1965 G.T. 350 Competition models. The old crew still works on each car, fabricating parts and flaring fenders; however, they are now the masters teaching new young apprentices, fabricators, mechanics and welders. They teach them in the car fabrication methods that they used back in 1964 and ’65.

Only 36 Continuation 1965 G.T.350 Competition cars will be built. They are selling at $250,000 and can be equipped with either a solid rear axle or the IRS.

Despite the small run of cars, it looks like the fun will not stop anytime soon. When we visited OVC’s shop, two gleaming Cobras were rolled in. Marietta explained, “these are Superformace cars that the OVC crew are going to finish, installing the 427 engine and transmissions. It’s a new option that Superformance is offering its customers”. How fitting, being that Ted Sutton was the first person to stuff a 427 into a Cobra—Carrol Shelby even signed a picture saying “Thanks for the 1st 427!” It looks like the guys at OVC will be busy for a while.

Jim Marietta holds an original component from the actual 1963 Ford-developed Independent Rear Suspension.

In the Gardena shop is an actual 1965 G.T.350 Mustang hood with light patina.

The OVC G.T. 350 car number 002 is mounted to a car rotisserie to be stripped before being sent out for media blasting.

These are original transmissions ready to be rebuilt.

Here is one of the first limited-production Superformance Cobras that OVC will install 427 engines into.

Carroll Shelby thanks Ted Sutton “for the 1st 427” Cobra.

Hanging on the wall is a picture of Ted Sutton installing the first 427 engine into a Cobra.

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