#thank for this

[ghostsandmirrors]

➹ Jessica Szohr

send me a ➹ and a fc ;; i’ll create a character on the spot !!!

meet Natalie Almas. more specifically, battle operator Natalie Almas.

(just like Joseph Castle's, this got long...)

she was born in 1992 to Michelle (née Johnson) and Endre Almas in Anchorage, Alaska, USA. she was the eldest of three children, with the second oldest being Joshua Almas (born 1995), and the youngest being Abigail Almas (born 1996).

growing up with the rise in technology and the jarring shifts, Natalie always found it interesting. neither of her siblings were as into it as she was growing up--though that changed in their teen years--but Natalie was always interested in the software side of things. she wanted to know how it worked and slowly grew to learn it.

her first job was in web design, because there wasn't much else she could do besides mod The Sims 2.

when Trespasser appeared on the coast of San Francisco in 2013, Natalie's life didn't really change. she was in Anchorage, still, and despite being fixated on the news like they were talking about a horrific pile-up, there really was no change in her life besides the family conversations becoming about Trespasser instead of whether or not Abigail was dating yet; their parents had given up on both Natalie and Joshua's love lives after they decided their careers would be in web design and car repairs. if they'd asked, they may have found out Joshua was in a polyamorous relationship.

Natalie only knew because he'd asked if he should just bring his partners to their parents' house for Christmas and she said that maybe he should warn them first.

the kaiju kept coming, though; six months after Trespasser was Hundun attacking Manila, then four months after Hundan was Kaiceph in Cabo San Lucas, then Scissure in Sydney in 2014, and they kept coming.

when the jaegers were made, when there were calls for people who could help build them and maintain them, all three of the Almas siblings signed up and were positioned at the Anchorage Shatterdome. Natalie and Joshua worked in J-Tech, Abigail in K-Science. After Danger was taken out of action by Knifehead, the J-Tech siblings were moved onto another jaeger, then another when that one was taken out of action, and then another and another until they were eventually moved to the Hong Kong Shatterdome with the rest of the Anchorage crew. Abigail, by this point, had moved into the civilian fields, worried about what kaiju blue might be doing to her despite the safety precautions. their parents were glad; they were eternally worried about her, since her siblings had far safer jobs than she did.

Natalie continued to work on battle operations, upgrading the UI and user side of things for the pilots and sometimes customising them, if asked. Joshua continued to work as a jaeger engineer, focused on maintenance and repairs to keep the remaining jaegers up and running.

she was often described as a joy to have in class, which was code for, 'very quiet, well behaved, may or may not be easy to remember depending on the teacher and the class'. while Abigail was the straight man to Joshua's nonsense, Natalie was the impulse control to both of them; there were multiple times that she'd had to talk Abigail out of something, though she was generally far less impulsive than their brother.

somewhat of a perfectionist--though that could be argued as a hazard of the job when working with software and coding related to mechas that were being used to protect the planet--there was never a job that Natalie would do 'well enough' when she could do it far better. there was no 'good enough'; she either did it to the best of her ability regardless of the detriment to herself or she didn't do it at all because she knew she couldn't and would rather hand it off to someone else.

she was always closer to Joshua than the rest of their family. her parents expressed their uncertainty with her life choices and while she got on with her sister, Abigail tended to run in very different circles to her. there were no truly bad feelings in the family, just different points of view.

a workaholic to the core, she could often be found at the desk, seeing what she could improve on with a cup of cheap coffee by her side. half of the J-Tech and LOCCENT officers seemed to be surviving on coffee, though, so it wasn't particularly unusual to find a small group of them sharing a space, giving ideas, sometimes sending someone on a coffee run as punishment for an idea the majority disagreed with. it was in these moments that she would shine; she generally kept her quiet nature into her adulthood, but a topic she knew about? she thrived surrounded by those working in her field and made plenty of friends with her fellow officers, in addition to a number of the other J-Tech crews. the pilots weren't her favourite people, but she could admire them.

and that's battle operator Natalie Almas of the Anchorage and then Hong Kong Shatterdomes.

[gayfrasier]

i love the phrase "which could mean nothing" i think its my favorite thing to come out of the internet ever i love saying it. it could mean nothing but we all know better. we know the truth.

[anonpolls]

Thanks, Anon!

-submit your poll!-

[archivegeo]

got a major pest problem this year actually

[fl3a-bag]

It’s their greatest invention as of yet

[nightmare-from-heaven]

Hey. Your brain needs to de-frag. Literally it needs you to sit there and space out.

If you want your memory or executive function to improve, stare out a window at the skyline or sidewalk or trees or birds on the electrical wires for like 20+ minutes per day. (With no other stimulation like a podcast or TV if you can manage but hey baby steps innit). If you're fortunate enough to have safe outside with any bits of nature, go stare closely at a 1 meter square of grass and trip out on the bugs and shapes of grasses and stuff.

Literally this will make you smarter. Our brains HAVE TO HAVE this zone out time to do important stuff behind the scenes. This does not happen during sleep, it's something else.

That weird pressurized feeling you get sometimes might be your brain on no defrag.

Give your brain a Daily Dose Of De-Frag.

[mintaii]

a wandering knight, drawn to the quiet of the forest. her touch may be a blessing or a curse.

[noodles-and-tea]

[word-count-bullet-count]

I've been seeing a lot of knight posts recently. pretty great

[woodsdyke]

having viral posts is all fun and games until you have clowns in your mentions being like "well, op, i bet you also didn't know THIS" [haughtily explains something i absolutely would and do know] like add whatever to my posts that you think is informative just don't direct it at ME! i know! i just didn't include it in the post i made in 20 seconds because i didn't think 30,000 of you would see it!

[evilgoodguys]

he’d forgotten how much he missed that smile.

[yesornopolls]

do you think you could take a vampire?

[anonpolls]

Thanks, Anon!

-submit your poll!-

[recklessmoss]

WEEE!! WEEEE!!! WEEE!!! YAYYY!! YIPPIE! WAHOO! AWAWAWA!!! WEE WEE WAA WAA WAA! ZWEEM !! BABABABA! YAHOOO WEE YAY WYEE !! WEWEWEE!!