#they took those tools and built something of their own with them

[justicode]

something I love though is that the Protheans gave the asari all these advantages in the hopes they’d become leaders in the next cycle, and they did — but not how the Protheans intended. they meant for the asari to lead as they had: ruthlessly. yet rather than conquer and command the other species they encountered, the asari approached them with diplomacy and partnership. they created a cooperative galactic government that thrives on diversity. they are not perfect nor is the galactic community they helped shape, but their influence did become a keystone for galactic survival in a way the Protheans did not predict.

the Prothean — and likely most, if not all, cycles that had come before — were undone by their homogeneity. one civilization rose to the apex and conquered the rest of the galaxy, if only in majority. this streamlined the Reaper invasion. one cultural mindset, one economy, one military, one approach to war — you can rip through the majority of the galaxy like tissue paper and then clean up the leftovers at your own pace. by accepting and even celebrating galactic diversity, the asari made it just that much harder for the Reapers. it didn’t stop them, but it arguably slowed them down.

[ketchuppee]

During the 2008 recession, my aunt lost her job. Her, her partner, and my three cousins moved across the country to stay with us while they got back on their feet. My house turned from a family of four to a family of nine overnight, complete with three dogs and five cats between us.

It took a few years for them to get a place of their own, but after a few rentals and apartments, they now own a split level ranch in a town nearby. I’ve lost track of how many coworkers and friends have stayed with them when they were in a tight spot. A mother and son getting out of an abusive relationship, a divorcee trying to stay local for his kids while they work out a custody agreement, you name it. My aunt and uncle knew first hand what that kindness meant, and always find space for someone who needed it, the way my parents had for them.

That same aunt and uncle visited me in [redacted] city last year. They are prolific drinkers, so we spent most of the day bar hopping. As we wandered the city, any time we passed a homeless person, my uncle would pull out a fresh cigarette and ask them if they had a light. Regardless of if they had a lighter on hand or not, he offered them a few bucks in exchange, which he explained to me after was because he felt it would be easier for them to accept in exchange for a service, no matter how small.

I work for a company that produces a lot of fabric waste. Every few weeks, I bring two big black trash bags full of discarded material over to a woman who works down the hall. She distributes them to local churches, quilting clubs, and teachers who can use them for crafts. She’s currently in the process of working with our building to set up a recycling program for the smaller pieces of fabric that are harder to find use for.

One of my best friends gives monthly donations to four or five local organizations. She’s fortunate enough to have a tech job that gives her a good salary, and she knows that a recurring donation is more valuable to a non-profit because they can rely on that money month after month, and can plan ways to stretch that dollar for maximum impact. One of those organizations is a native plant trust, and once she’s out of her apartment complex and in a home with a yard, she has plans to convert it into a haven of local flora.

My partner works for a company that is working to help regulate crypto and hold the current bad actors in the space accountable for their actions. We unfortunately live in a time where technology develops far too fast for bureaucracy to keep up with, but just because people use a technology for ill gain doesn’t mean the technology itself is bad. The blockchain is something that she finds fascinating and powerful, and she is using her degree and her expertise to turn it into a tool for good.

I knew someone who always had a bag of treats in their purse, on the odd chance they came across a stray cat or dog, they had something to offer them.

I follow artists who post about every local election they know of, because they know their platform gives them more reach than the average person, and that they can leverage that platform to encourage people to vote in elections that get less attention, but in many ways have more impact on the direction our country is going to go.

All of this to say, there’s more than one way to do good in the world. Social media leads us to believe that the loudest, the most vocal, the most prolific poster is the most virtuous, but they are only a piece of the puzzle. (And if virtue for virtues sake is your end goal, you’ve already lost, but that’s a different post). Community is built of people leveraging their privileges to help those without them. We need people doing all of those things and more, because no individual can or should do all of it. You would be stretched too thin, your efforts valiant, but less effective in your ambition.

None of this is to encourage inaction. Identify your unique strengths, skills, and privileges, and put them to use. Determine what causes are important to you, and commit to doing what you can to help them. Collective action is how change is made, but don’t forget that we need diversity in actions taken.

[shmaba]

I’m going to assume that at this point you’ve all seen Critical Role’s new show Candela Obscura and at least skimmed through the Quickstart Guide (you have done all that riiiight??) So I wanted to compile all the things I’ve done that have been shown so far. Its long so read below the line!

I’m going to try to avoid spoilers. So feel free to read without worry. I’m also going to try and avoid breaking any NDA like a good professional. So I will not be doing some deep dive behind the scenes thing. Only visuals that have already been publicly shared are going to be on here

The very first thing I did on this show was the concepts for the main set. Everything is practical. Nothing is green screen or cg or whatever. Some people think it’s just good cg but nope that's all real. You could touch it! (don’t touch it, there are ghosts)

There were multiple iterations on the design, each with their own vibe and statement piece. CR narrowed it down to what you see in the show: a sort of storage hall with an odd clock contraption behind the GM. I think I called this design version the “Abyssal Hall” or something like that (I gave the different versions names to better keep track of which design was being discussed)

The company Flip This Bitch built the physical set. They turned my silly little art into a real thing. So they did all the actual magic of making this set come together in the end! They deserve a lot of the credit for it looking so good in the end.

Also that little piece of art in the bottom left of the preshow is a section from the final concept art of the set.

That contraption behind Matt is based on astrolabes and clocks. This isn’t really meant to be a literal astrolabe or a clock as we would use them in our world. Narratively this isn’t a device that measures either of the things that a traditional astrolabe or clock does. This is a special magickal tool that does a secret third thing.

Also I did concepts for the GM screen. You don't really see it besides in the fancy-shmancy preshow. There were a number of more intricate designs for it but CR went with the simpler option since the only part that would be visible on stream is the top, so that's where I put the most detail.

I should also note that I did not design the logo! It’s pretty prominent on the GM screen but I was supplied an already existing logo for this.

NEXT is the Taliesin enclosure set that you see in the trailer. This is actually meant to be like the lantern room on the top of a lighthouse, minus the big light beacon (You could say Taliesin is the beacon).

Also in the trailer you see a couple brief sketches I did for some world building concepts:

Speaking of sketches there are a number of art pieces of mine in the Quickstart guide

A lot of my art is sketches. They’re all meant to be like notes and drawings from members of Candela as they travel and notate their findings. Most of the notes on these sketches are my actually my notes when I was doing world building concepts, but they replaced my handwriting with a font because my handwriting sucks lmao (also likely for ease of future localization).

Also the cover of the Quickstart guide uses line art of a part of that astrolabe clock set piece. This line art was part of the deliverables that was sent over to Flip This Bitch for construction. They’re just using pieces of those set concepts everywhere!

As you can see I’ve done a lot of art for this project. I was part of this project when it was still early in development. It’s changed quite a bit from where we started. 

I wasn’t the only one that made all this art happen though. Other artists, writers, and designers got to add their own vision to this. It was very much a collaborative effort that took a long time to happen. It’s very exciting to see everyone’s hard work come to fruition and there is a lot more to come!

[probablyasocialecologist]

When you look at Instagram or Facebook, I want you to try and think of them less as social networks, and more as a form of anthropological experiment. Every single thing you see on either platform is built or selected to make you spend more time on the app and see more things that Meta wants you to see, be they ads, sponsored content, or suggested groups that you can interact with, thus increasing the amount of your “time spent” on the app, and increasing the amount of “meaningful interactions” you have with content. I also want you to realize that anything bad that you see on the platform is a symptom of Mark Zuckerberg’s unwillingness to rate-limit or sufficiently moderate the platform. Logically-speaking, one would think that Meta would want you to have a high-quality Facebook experience, pruning content that might be incendiary, spammy, scammy or unhelpful, or at the very least, comes primarily from those within your own network, but when your only concern is growth, content moderation is more of an emergency measure.  And to be clear, this is part of Meta’s cultural DNA. In an interview with journalist Jeff Horwitz in his book Broken Code, Facebook’s former VP of Ads and Partnerships Brian Bolland said that “building things is way more fun than making things secure and safe…[and] until there’s a regulatory or press fire, you don’t deal with it.”  Horwitz also cites that Meta engineers’ greatest frustration was that the company “perpetually [needed] something to fail — often fucking spectacularly — to drive interest in fixing it.” Horwitz’s book describes Meta’s approach to moderation as “having a light touch,” considering it “a moral virtue” and that the company “wasn’t failing to supervise what users did — it was neutral.” As I’ve briefly explained, the logic here is that the more stuff there is on Facebook or Instagram, the more likely you are to run into something you’ll interact with, even if said interaction is genuinely bad. Horwitz notes that in April 2016, Meta analyzed Facebook’s most successful political groups, finding that a third of them “routinely featured content that was racist and conspiracy-minded,” with their growth heavily-driven by Facebook’s “Groups You Should Join” and “Discover” features, algorithmic tools that Facebook used to recommend content. The researcher in question added that “sixty-four percent of all extremist group joins are due to our recommendation tools.” When the researcher took their concerns to Facebook’s “Protect and Care” team, they were told that there was nothing the team could do as “the accounts creating the content were real people, and Facebook intentionally had no rules mandating truth, balance or good faith.” Meta, at its core, is a rot economy empire, entirely engineered to grow metrics and revenue at the expense of anything else. In practice, this means allowing almost any activity that might “grow” the platform, even if it means groups that balloon by tens or hundreds of thousands of people a day, or allowing people to friend 50 or more people in a single day. It means allowing almost any content other than that which it’s legally required to police like mutilation and child pornography, even if the content it allows in makes the platform significantly worse.  As a result, Meta is kind of like an absentee parent, occasionally looking up from their phone and muttering “don’t do that” when something obviously awful happens, and even then they’re extremely hesitant to intervene. 

[some-pers0n]

Okay after seeing that nuclear bad take about Albatross being a "fucking psycho", here!! Get another one of these emotional rants of mine.

Albatross is a character I think a lot of people misunderstand. I think a good chunk of the reason why this somewhat new obsession I have over him was kick-started by just how many times I saw people on Reddit or in YouTube video comments go on and on about how he was insane in the membrane and was a pure evil dragon. It reminds me of my thoughts on Orca as well, where I don't want to take her at face value and see her as this dragon who just wanted to take over the throne. That's boring. I like the idea of her being something more.

But with Albatross? We've got a lot more evidence pointing to him being more than just "crazy old dragon". Reading the text, you see that Albatross is just kinda..sad? He's miserable and I personally get the feeling that he regrets having spent decades being bossed around by Lagoon. That he's tired of being seen as this freak-show dragon who could snap at any moment. He did once all of those years ago, and now it haunts him ever since.

Lagoon (and Sapphire to an extent) and their impact on Albatross's life is one that I find extremely overlooked. I don't know how people can think Albatross had no reason to do any of this and was just "snapping because he lost all of his soul" when Lagoon literally was egging him on just minutes before the massacre happened. He was being shown like a disfigured and disturbing trophy to the SkyWings. Statues of herself built by Albatross for no other reason than to have statues of herself. Lagoon flaunted her control over him and how he could do anything for her, mentioning ideas for enchantments that'll make her immortal. When Albatross speaks up, she shuts him down. She emotionally manipulates him by bringing up Sapphire again, saying that he'll never live it down. She then goes on to say how happy she is about how Fathom is an animus, excited to finally replaced her old, snappy, and unreasonable brother.

How much more obvious can you get that Lagoon was manipulating and controlling Albatross? For god's sake we even see this in the guide as well, with Lagoon bringing up Sapphire again. Lagoon uses that one tramatic event as leverage for everything. Something that she did is now Albatross's fault forever because he swiped back. He didn't want to be beaten down and made fun of anymore. He didn't want to be tormented by them any longer.

It's a moment that haunts Albatross. He regrets it deeply. It was an accident, but Lagoon won't ever make him forget it. She used the guilt that Albatross felt and made him do anything she wanted. How could he do such a thing? Cut off his sister's talons and drive her to madness? Lagoon knew how much this incident impacted Albatross. She wanted to make sure he always knew that it was his fault. That, no matter what, he will never live down being the one to ruin Sapphire's life.

His entire life he's more or less been just a means for Lagoon to exploit. A tool for her to use whenever she wanted something. The Summer Palace was more or less a vanity project, where Lagoon could show off how she has two palaces now. I don't think he ever used animus magic for himself. The only time he acted of his own accord, he would be snapped at by Lagoon. Him being mentioned to have traumatized dragonets by setting the trees ablaze during a Talons of Power ceremony was, again, brought up by Lagoon so that she could remind him of how he's unstable and should listen to her.

Not to also mention that he was described by Fathom as kind, albiet distant and somewhat cold at times. I don't think he was evil. He was a dragon who was spat into a world that was unkind and took advantage of him at every moment. Him being different than the others was the catalyist for everything. He was told he would be nothing more than an unstable, murderous dragon who could snap at any moment.

And he did just that, didn't he?

[adaptacy]

Survivor!Leland Dad Headcanons

i am so so so so head over heels for this gorgeous ball of fluff i cannot even explain. literally spent the past like 4 hours rambling about him i cant get over him hes so MMM

Cw: mild angst, i'll make the angsty paragraphs purple so you can avoid them if you just want fluff :)

!!WARNING!!: you will get baby fever.

Leland is a country boy at heart, and he definitely chooses to settle down with you on a small ranch complete with a few acres of property, just in case you ever want to have livestock or expand, but also because he wants room to build playsets and make sure his kids are getting out and have space to play outside.

He'd buy the wood to make a playset, and he'd get all of his dad's tools together and stand out back, staring at the pile of scrap, trying to figure out what to do with it. He wasn't all that familiar with it, but he wanted something handmade- he wanted to be able to build a play set so he could tell his kids about it. You'd go out back and chat with him about it, and every time he explained his vision to you, it was something different.

After about a month, you ended up just purchasing one of those store-made play sets and gave him some of the supplies as well as the instructions. However, he used the wood parts he'd gotten for the bulk of it. The playset ended up looking a little strange- most of it was natural wood, but then the roof and stairs were plastic, and the slide, and the railings, but it had a bit of charm to it. And Leland loved bragging about how he built it himself. You still remember the large grin he wore when he presented it to you, and then leaned down, speaking to your stomach and telling your baby how about all the fun they were going to have on it.

He spent the next two-weeks baby proofing it. Padding everywhere, he managed to static-proof the slide, he added extra stability to the fences, and it ended up looking even more... unique. You teased him about it, telling him that kids were going to find a way to get hurt no matter how much he baby proofed it, but he was stubborn that some was better than none. You let him get away with it, until...

He started baby proofing the house. Some, you understood. Outlet covers. Cabinet locks. Baby gates by the stairs- that was all fine. But then he started putting rubber softeners against every sharp surface, he moved around all of the silverware so that it was out of reach- out of your reach, too, and hardly organized. You put an end to this really quickly, and although he was clearly anxious about your kids finding a way to hurt themselves, you'd tell him that- yeah, they were kids. That's what they were great at. He was just making your lives harder without really doing anything. So, he took it back a notch, though you did notice him sprinkle in random rubber rounders on sharp corners. You didn't call him out on it, and he eventually was satisfied, and stopped, leaving it to rest.

He dresses his babies in overalls and cow-print onesies, the fabric always has some sort of pattern on it, whether its small horses or sunflowers- whatever it was, it had a pattern on it. He wasn't very good at picking out outfits for them, as they very often clashed and he didn't understand that you can't just mix patterns, but with a bit of guidance from you (and you supervising him when you shop for clothes), he slowly got better at picking out outfits for them, and also started getting a bit better at picking out his own outfits as a bonus.

While it wasn't a terrible case, you did suffer from a bit of postpartum depression, especially with your first, and Leland felt awful about it, like genuinely gut-wrenchingly bad, so he did everything possible to make things easier on you. He always offered to be the one on wake-up duty, refusing to let you get up out of bed when the baby started crying. If you wanted, he'd go and get them and hand them off to you, letting you hold them for a little while and let them fall back asleep before he returned them to the nursery.

One night, you'd waken up to the baby crying, but Leland reassured you that he'd take care of them, so you went back to sleep. When you woke up about an hour later, Leland still wasn't there, and you grew a little worried. You got up out of bed and checked the nursery, and both of them were gone. You immediately went into a panic, and you headed down the stairs, only to find Leland on the living room carpet with your baby, leaning against the couch as he dangled a foil toy above them. He yawned; he looked absolutely exhausted, and he was dozing off as he bobbed the toy up and down.

"Lee?" "Huh-? I'm awake, I'm awake, where is she?" He jolted awake, looking around until he spotted your daughter reaching up for the toy above her head, and he let out a breath of relief. "Sorry, she just would not go back to sleep. I came down to start the coffee, and set her down here, and.... Guess I just dozed off." You laughed, walking over to him and sitting next to him, leaning your head against his shoulder. "Do you wanna go get some sleep? I don't mind starting some coffee and watching her." "Are you sure?" "Positive. Go get some sleep, babe, you're all good," you reassured. He kissed your cheek, and then kissed his daughter's forehead before heading back upstairs.

Especially for your first kid, he got really anxious when they'd cry. He'd try all sorts of things- tried burping them, tried feeding them, tried playing with them, anything he could think of. And it took a lot of persuasion for him to realize that, no, your kid was not dying, they were a baby, and babies cry. He got a lot more accustomed to this idea by the second, and then the third, and was pretty much a pro by the fourth kid.

Oh yeah, four kids. Three girls and one boy. He is SUCH a girl dad and I will not be accepting criticism on this.

Every single time you gave birth, you'd hold the baby for about fifteen minutes before passing it off to Leland, who refused to give it back for at least an hour. He'd tell you to just get some rest, you deserved it, and he just wanted to take the trouble off your hands. "Our baby is not trouble," you'd remind, but he'd shush you, and as time went on, your kids started chiming in, telling you "Just get some sleep, mom!", and you'd pretend to go to sleep, and Leland would sit on the floor with them, letting them see their new sibling.

He wouldn't let them be held by any of your kids, he didn't want to risk the worst, but he'd talk it through with the kids, explaining the story that Mom worked really really hard for their new sibling, so they needed to be gentle with them, and be patient. The older ones understood it, but the younger ones had a little trouble grasping the fact that babies could be loud, and annoying, and frustrating, but he'd explain to them that babies can't do anything else because they don't know much. Exactly the way that you'd first reassured him about his anxieties with the baby crying.

Another thing that never changed were his occasional anxiety attacks, usually after a bad nightmare back to the event, or when he couldn't sleep despite his meds, and he paced in the bathroom, running his fingers through his hair over, and over, and over again. Thinking about the what if's. Thinking about all of it. And he'd get on the edge of tears, the edge of really breaking down, before he'd go into the nursery and sit next to the crib. He'd set his hand inside, and the moment that his baby's tiny fingers wrapped around one of his, he'd let out a tense exhale, managing a smile. Even when they were grown, he'd stand in the frame of their door in the middle of the night, reassuring himself that he'd done fine. That he'd made a life for himself. Made a family for himself. That they'd be proud of him. And while it never got easier, he got better at understanding it, at calming himself down, at reassuring himself.

As his kids get older, they start asking about his scars. You overhear it from where you're cleaning in the kitchen, and you step closer, listening in. At first, you worry that he'll shut down- you know how sensitive subject it is for him, and there's silence.

"Daddy?" Your daughter asked, and you could hear a sniffle. He let out a soft chuckle. "Yeah, see, you aren't s'posed to know about 'em. Stuff you don't wanna know about your daddy, kiddo," he'd respond, and you could practically see the pout on her face. It was his fault he spoiled them so much. "C'mon, daddy, tell me! Please? I promise I won't tell anyone else," she hummed. "Nobody? Not even your brother?" "Nobody," she assured, and he sighed. "Well, before you were born... I went on a lot of adventures. Me and my friends. See, we had to fight these real bad guys. During the battle, they got a good couple of hits on me, and that's what the scars are from." "Did you win?" There was another pause. "Yeah, sugar, I won." "Where are your friends now?" Another pause. "They're out there protectin' others. They don't have kids like me and your mom. I had to retire from kickin' butt," he teased. "You're still my hero, daddy." You smiled, and you could hear his voice break as he replied with, "I love you, baby. Don't ever forget that, alright? No matter what happens." "I know, I love you too, dad."

It wasn't long before your kids started to touch his scars in passing, when they were playing with him, or when he was sitting on the couch next to him. They'd lean against his shoulder and touch the ones on his forceps, ones that you knew were far too small to be sensitive. But then they'd touch the ones on his back, and you'd hear him let out a quiet grunt, trying to shift- not shift away, but shift so that his back faced them, and they'd ease up their pressure. He'd remind them to be gentle, and they'd oblige, gently tracing the scars on his back.

He understood that they were curious; they were young, and touch was how they explored. He would've been curious too, at their age. So he was patient with them, and understanding. Even when they'd accidentally poke at a sensitive spot, and his jaw would tighten, but he never got angry at them. Sometimes, he'd give you a look, and you'd understand immediately, and distract the kids with something else so he could have his personal space.

It wasn't long before a lot of his scars were named. The ones on his back were Billy and Jessie, and the one on his chest was Hugh. The others had names too, but they changed pretty often. Those three remained the same, though. Sometimes the kids would line them with colorful markers, drawing wings around them or drawing faces on the scar tissue, and he got used to them messing with the scars, and it started to affect him less.

From the minute they grasp the concept of walking, those kids are dancing. Or, at the very least, bouncing as Leland danced around them, singing to whatever was on the radio at that moment. He loved having dance parties with his kids, and you'd join in, and he'd twirl you, your kids acting as a hype squad as the two of you danced. He liked letting his kids pick out something from his vinyl collection and putting it on, dancing along to his favorites and teaching them how to dosey-doe and square dance.

The first time his daughter fell off of her bike, he cried way more than she did. She was already back on the bike, asking for Leland to help her, and he was practically bawling, talking about how he was so proud of her for being so strong. You'd laugh, and step in, helping her out while he collected himself.

The moment that his daughters have enough hair to clip a bow on, he's doing it for them. He does it for every outing, all the way until they graduate. Every prom, he set up one of the bedrooms as a sort of salon, and he did all of their hair for them, even the ones who weren't going to prom that year. And every year, he was teary-eyed as he did it, rambling about how much they've grown up.

With his son, most people expected him to go hog wild with the sports dad thing, but he was entirely the opposite. he didn't want his son to get hurt, so he never even encouraged the idea of sports.

"Lee, you were in football in high school. Don't you want that opportunity for him?" "I knew a guy who was paralyzed from football." "You knew a guy, or you heard it on the radio?" "..................I'm not takin' any risks."

He swears your hormones are contagious. If he walks in on you crying, he starts crying, and he never cried before you had kids. And then both of you would be crying, and neither of you would know why, so you'd start laughing, and then you'd go back to crying again. He didn't understand it in the slightest, but he was fine as long as you and his kids were.

Speaking of hormones, you had to sit him down when your oldest daughter got about 12, and you gave him a very in depth discussion about how periods work, what he should expect, and what he can do to help.

The next time he came back from the store, he had a box of every single brand of pad and tampon. And he assured you that it was important because you never know what might work. Well, what worked was the first box that they tried, and now Leland was left with a lot of boxes and a lot of period products. So, what did he do?

He broke down the boxes and took out all of the period products. And he made a fort with the boxes, using the pads as adhesive and using the tampons as decoration. You and your two daughters stumbled across him working in the living room, laying on his back as he used a pad to tape two boxes together.

"Dad...? What are you doing?" Your eldest asked, the three of you exchanging a glance. "Are you okay, daddy?" The younger one added, and he sat up, turning towards the three of you with the happiest, most proud-dad grin on his face. "It's a period palace!" He laughed, showing off his work.

The kids didn't play in it much, but he and Jacs had their fun with it, and before long it was thrown out, probably for the best.

When referring to him in conversation with your kids, you'd refer to him as Dad, or Daddy, and he'd refer to you as Mom. However, when he was being more affectionate, he'd refer to you as Mama instead.

[instructionsnotincluded]

True North - John "Bucky" Egan x Original Female Character

Summary: Struggling to defy expectations during the height of WWII, Captain Stella Frank is determined to prove her worth as an Air Transport Auxiliary Pilot in the male-dominated world of aviation. As she navigates the skies with skill and determination, she encounters a diverse array of characters, each with their own struggles and triumphs. Among them is John "Bucky" Egan, whose charm, bravery, and dedication to his fellow pilots catch Frank's attention amidst the chaos of war. Can they navigate not only the treacherous skies but also the complexities of love and loyalty in a time of uncertainty and sacrifice? Or are they doomed to go down in flames like the world around them?

Chapter I

Excerpt:

Planes dotted the landscape, the tower looming in the background. Most of the planes would find homes on other bases or airfields, another tool for the boys to use in their battles. For a while it felt like production was stalling, they had so few to ferry around, but it seemed in the last year or so it had definitely picked up, so many different classes of aircraft ready to be delivered to the Allies. Frank hadn’t yet flown into Thorpe Abbotts, the Royal Air Force station just a handful of miles to the east of Diss, Norfolk. It was fairly new, having been built the previous year, but once the United States Army Air Forces took possession of the airfield, it seemed like activity was picking up. 

The boys at Thorpe Abbotts seemed to be going through planes like candy, and Frank was pretty sure this was their fifth ferry to the airfield in less than two weeks. Typically they flew to the smaller satellite bases once a month, maybe twice if there were mechanical issues, but five timesin two weeks? Something was definitely going on in East Anglia. She’d heard low rumblings of the amount of planes that went down during their missions from the British pilots—the men criticizing the Americans for bombing during the day rather than waiting until evening. One conversation she overheard at dinner a few weeks ago seemed to be about the recently arrived 100th Bombardment Group and how they kept losing men to dumb tactical decisions. “It’s war,” one of the heavier accented men had said, slumped backwards in his chair as he rested a beer on the table, “you do what you need to survive.”

“...are you listening to a word I’m saying?”

Frank’s eyes snapped back to those of Commander Dorothy Skylar’s, the three gold stripes she wore on the shoulder strap of her jacket seeming to catch in what little sunlight they had today, making Frank’s two stripes seem even less important than they already felt. “Yes, sorry,” Frank shook her head and the memories away, forcing herself back into the present, “I was just thinking about Thorpe Abbotts and some of the conversations that I’ve heard in passing about it.”

“They’re losing men and planes at a rapid rate of speed,” Dorothy nodded, glancing down at the folder of papers Frank just realized the woman was carrying, “I don’t think this will be your last ferry there.”

“No,” Frank turned her head as she watched the massive Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress come into view, eyes slowly taking in the matte green of the plane, white lettering and stars decorating the wings and body, “no, I don’t think it will be either.”

[eyesandtentacles]

People only like Toji because he's attractive

I saw a comment on Tik Tok saying something along those lines and honestly it didn't sit right with me.

Of course, people are free to have their own opinion and you don't have to like Toji, but I believe that there is much more to his character.

So this is a post where I talk about the things that I personally appreciate about Toji Fushiguro. We'll start simple and get deeper as we go on. So strap yourselves in because this is going to be a long one.

Spoilers for the upcoming season 2 of Jujutsu Kaisen.

First let me start by saying that yes,

Toji is indeed very attractive

Look at this fine specimen of a man. No wonder the fandom goes crazy for him.

His design is certainly aesthetically pleasing. The worm curling around his body and the tight shirt and baggy pants he's wearing emphasize his muscles and tiny waist making your eyes run all over him. His black hair falls on his handsome face nicely and the scar on his lips draws attention to it and adds a little bit of spice, just enough to tie this whole meal together.

He is built like a snack and boy am I hungry!

But enough about his looks. Looks isn't the only thing he has to offer.

Toji has a superhuman body

Similarly to Maki, Toji is affected by Heavenly Restriction. His body is incredibly strong and fast and in exchange he possesses no cursed energy. But he doesn't even need cursed energy to see curses, because his senses are just that sharp and enhanced! He truly is an anomaly and if the jujutsu society recognised his potential instead of abusing him for being different, he would definitely be classified as a special grade sorcerer.

Dude's a beast so he makes any battle that he takes part in fun and exciting to watch. He also had some interesting matchups allowing him to show off how skilled he is as a fighter.

We got to see him battle with Gojo,Geto and a disaster curse, all of them considered special grade and he won all but one of his encounters with them. However, that one loss was from the second battle with Gojo AKA the strongest sorcerer alive, who he almost killed on their first one, so that shows how superior his combat skills can really be.

But Toji doesn't only depend on his body to do the work.

Toji is smart

When tasked with the mission to kill Riko Amanai, instead of charging in right away, he simply sits and waits while others try their hand on the assassination.

But why is Toji waiting?

It's because he knows that Gojo is protecting this girl and he knows what he is capable off, so he chose to take things slow. By putting the money reward for the job on the internet and offering it to anyone who was successful in killing the target, he ensured that the protection squad would be constantly on edge. He even put a time limit on the offer to deceive them into believing that they only needed to be careful for a certain amount of time. As a result, when the time limit had passed and the group let their guard down Toji striked by putting a sword through Gojo's chest, an attack that would be lethal if it weren't faced with such a strong opponent.

He also took advantage of the fact that his lack of cursed energy makes him invisible to the security system of Jujutsu High and to the sorcerers around him. He made sure that his first strike against Gojo was with a normal sword and switched to a cursed tool when the surprise attack didn't work.

But where did that tool come from? And if it has cursed energy wouldn't it be detected?

Well that's where the worm comes in....

So basically, in order to keep the advantage of being invisible due to the lack of cursed energy and to always have weapons available, Toji keeps this cursed spirit on his stomach and whenever he needs something he simply vomits it out and does his thing. Kinda gross but very effective.

Honestly it's terrifying how this man can use his body and anything else that is available to quickly come up with a strategy to kick your ass. Being his opponent must be a total nightmare since Toji is brutal and cares only about one thing and that is money.

Or maybe there is something more........

Toji cares about his family

Now I know what you're going to say and I agree.

Toji is a terrible father.

Not only did he abandon his son but he also sold him to the Zenins. That ain't exactly father of the year material. Despite this, there are moments that show that he loves his family.

One of those moments is when he recalls Megumi and that he was the one who named him. I refuse to believe that Toji woke up and chose a random name for his son, especially since Megumi means Blessing so he must have put some thought into it.

Additionally, in his dying moments he thought about his son and his wife and it was obvious that it's a memory that's dear to him. At first he chose to not say anything when asked about his last words, but changed his mind when he remembered Megumi, informing Gojo that he will be sold in the Zenin family and to do with that as he pleases. That ensured Gojo taking Megumi under his care and protection.

Another moment is when Toji is back as a mindless puppet in Shibuya, fighting purely on instinct the strongest person in the room and when that person happened to be Megumi he froze, his eyes literally softening at the sight of his boy and he regained control long enough to ask a question and then kill himself to ensure that he won't bring him any more harm.

But wait, you may ask, if he cares this much about Megumi why did he abandon and sell him?

Well the answer to that is a simple but sad one.

Toji is a broken man

Toji is a Zenin, a member of one of the most important clans in jujutsu society. But because he was born with no cursed energy he was abused by the family and left it completely unstable.

Look at this panel. His eyes look so empty and tired. This was before he left from the clan and started to work as an assassin.

However, even while he was away from this toxic environment, the damage had been done. Toji definitely had issues regarding his self-worth. He kept trying to prove that someone like him can be strong and defeat sorcerers. He referred to himself as a ''useless monkey who can't even use jujutsu''. He kept saying while selling his son that unlike him, his son had potential since he had a cursed technique.

And in the end, in the battle that led to his death, instead of fleeing, he chose to stay and fight because he was facing Gojo and being able to crush him, the strongest sorcerer alive, would discredit the society that deemed him worthless.

His trauma caused him to ignore his survival instincts and led to his demise.

This trauma was also the reason why he abandoned and sold Megumi. When he met his wife, Toji was able to calm down and become a bit more stable. He loved and really cared about this woman. But she died soon after Megumi was born, leaving Toji once again unstable but with a baby in his care.

At this point, his issues about his worth once again kicked in and he probably felt that he wouldn't be able to raise his son properly. So he sold him to the Zenin family, promising them that the kid would develop a good cursed technique and asking them to take care of him. In his mind, the place that he grew up would be better for Megumi since he had potential.

I'm guessing that before dying he realised that that environment would still be bad even for Megumi so he told Gojo about the deal maybe because he was hopeful that Gojo would help the kid. And of course that's exactly what happened.

So when Toji appears once again in Shibuya and comes face to face with Megumi he asks him a simple question.

What's your name?

And when Megumi replied with Fushiguro instead of Zenin I'm sure that that made Toji feel happy and relieved.

All of this of course doesn't excuse any of his actions but it certainly explains them.

And all of his actions had some effect on the story.

Toji is an important part of the plot

Before he even appears in the anime, Toji has already made his impact. He was considered an anomaly and his mere existence was bound to affect the story in some way.

There were so many moments where we see how he affected it.

By almost killing Gojo, he made him realise his full potential and become the strongest.

By killing Riko Amanai, he caused Geto's spiral and existential crisis leading him to leave Jujutsu High and become a villain, only to later die and have his body used by Kenjaku for his big plan.

By killing Riko Amanai, he also stopped the merging with Master Tengen, something that had massive consequences and would be taken advantage of by Kenjaku in the future.

By telling Gojo about Megumi, he caused Gojo to take him under his protection, training him and raising him with much more care that the Zenin family ever would.

All of these moments are vital.

All of them caused by him.

Toji was an important piece to the whole puzzle of this story and without him Jujutsu Kaisen would not be complete.

And just like that, we have reached the end.

Once again I'd like to say that you can believe whatever you want about Toji but simply reducing him to just an attractive character is a bit of a disservice to him, no?

Apologies for the chaotic writing I have way too many thoughts and can't articulate them properly.

Thank you to anyone who has read this far <3

[ryuuka-balaen]

I'd dug it up earlier to send to someone as it had been relevant in conversation recently, so may as well post it here too; a lil bit of CatLore(tm) for my main Warhammer Army; the Knights of Noble House Valere.

When I decided that it would be healthy for me to try to partake in physical hobbies more often rather than spending all my free time online and having almost exclusively online friendships, the first thing I went to try was Warhammer. I'd been trying to get into it for nearly a decade and I've always loved my funny little minis and models so it was the most obvious choice to me, especially being that I'd just been given a new 3d printer I could make terrain and models with. However, this came with a small issue; I didn't like the style of the models I already had as much as I used to. Which meant I needed to browse through which factions 40k had to choose from, and find something with an aesthetic I did enjoy.

What I found that i liked was the Imperial Knights and Grey Knights.

First, some official lore as Context;

Imperial Knights are huge mechs owned by influential families called Noble Houses. Before the founding of The Imperium of Man wherein the God-Emperor took the Golden Throne, the Noble Houses were some of the first humans to leave Terra and colonize the galaxy in an event referred to as The Long March. For the purpose of this colonization, they built huge agricultural mechs with chainsaws that could reave forests for lumber, explosives that could level mountains for construction, etc. Of course, these tools were repurposed into weapons of war. The mechs were equipped with armour that can withstand a nuke and autocannons that shoot shells wider than a man is tall. The planets colonized by these Noble Houses are referred to as Feudal Worlds. When the Age of Strife began and humanity lost a significant portion of the knowledge required to create and upkeep their most advanced technologies, contact between distant worlds was also lost. Many Feudal Worlds that were isolated from this regression have yet to be rediscovered by The Imperium.

Grey Knights are the God-Emperor's Special Boys who live on Saturn's moon Titan in a Grand Fortress-Monestary. unlike other chapters of space marines, there are only every 800 Grey Knights at any one time, and every single one of them is a psyker and has mad wizard powers. They also all wear ~Special Boy~ armour that's been sanctified and blessed with Mystical Rituals that makes them harder to kill than your average Space Marine. They exist only to fight invasions of the Daemon forces of Chaos, and will take any measure to do so. The whole thing is very edgy and they try very hard to be cool.

Unfortunately, the rules of warhammer40k don't normally allow one person to use models from two different factions in their army at the same time, and doing so is referred to as a "Soup Army" which is generally very frowned upon by the gaming community. Regardless, I happen to be and continue to be a fool of a kitty that likes my funny little Knights, and what I wanted to do was run an army that's made half and half of the two factions I like.

That begs the question though; Why would these two factions be fighting together? the Grey Knights are Daemon Hunters, and as such only fight against those corrupted by Chaos, and while the Noble Houses of the Feudal Worlds which have been rediscovered by The Imperium do fight alongside The Imperium, they don't do so Often or Consistently. (And, by game rules, while any imperium army is permitted to field either one large or up to three small Imperial Knights models, that isnt enough for me)

While I do like the Imperial Knights official lore, I'm pretty neutral on that of the Grey Knights (as much as I do like to make fun of them, the idea of an order of paladins that'll show up anywhere, anytime to lay the smackdown on some demons is pretty cool). So, my solution to that question was; What if they aren't Grey Knights? Any military that's fielding gigantic irreplaceable Death Mechs is also going to employ footsoldiers, aren't they?

The Knights I paint and play are of the Noble House Valere, one of the many to take part in The Long March and the many to still be isolated following the Age of Strife. The House, however, has not been idle in it's isolation. From the time contact was lost in the 25th millennium House Valere has continued to make technological progress, re-engineering the systems utilized in their great Knights to smaller and more compact forms, to create Exosuits in which even an untrained wearer could rival a Space Marine in combat. While this is surely impressive, the real feat of innovation achieved by Valere's researchers is undoubtedly their progress in harnessing The Warp. Normally only Psykers would be able to utilize the reality-bending power of The Warp, however the continued study and research between the 25th to the 41st millennium has seen these researchers engineer methods for machines to make use of The Warp, and integrating this into the Exosuits of House Valere's Knights allows every one of their footsoldiers to wield the power of a Psyker.

The current Standing Army of House Valere, which is to say the models I currently have (though many are currently unpainted), numbers at six Knight Mechs, one Armoured Troop Transport, and seventeen Exosuit Soldiers.

In Game Terms that's;

one Knight Preceptor, two Armiger Helverins, and two Armiger Warglaives for 1,000points of Imperial Knights,

one Nemesis DreadKnight, one Brother-Captain, one Brotherhood Champion, one Razorback, five Terminators, five Grey Knights, and five Purifiers for 1,000points of Grey Knights,

which all together makes a happy Tournament-Standard sized army roster of 2,000points.

House Valere's age of peace is not to last much longer, as the universe permits none to escape it's wrath and there are a great many who, whether for Tech-Heresy, claims of territory, or simply Hunger, would see The House's citizens dead.

As a footnote; I do want to clarify that when i wrote this i felt like an absolute madwoman and it seemed very Chuuni / "9th-grader's Overpowered Self-Insert OC" but fuck it cringe is dead, I'm having fun, and others have said its neat so im keeping it.

[hephaesta]

Study session...

Question: Where to first?

Response 1: Bug Deema while she's in a good mood.

Response 2: Library.

You give Deema some time to mellow in her feelings before you say, 'Remember Dessa? She had some questions about weather inland.'

Deema cracks an eye open and closes it again. 'She should have her own resources.'

'Well, yeah, ideally... but she said they were hard to come by - most stuff's written by and for us on the coast. She said she does most of the work herself.'

Deema sighs. 'Where is she based?'

'Not far off the south end of the Great Alpine Road, near the mountains.'

She nods thoughtfully. 'She won't find much there. But I have some works by Tiffany of the Spurs that may be of interest. What does she need?'

You flip through your notebook to find the page with Dessa's much neater handwriting. 'Information on heat fluctuation and air flow. And calibrating tools, because they're all built along the coast.'

Deema takes her time turning the questions over in her mind and then, as close to uncertain as you've ever heard her, says, 'I can't help with that.'

'Woah,' you whisper.

'My time inland wasn't extensive enough to give sufficient answers,' she amends.

She sits up. 'Go to the library. Borrow *On Mountain Winds. I gave it up to them after I lost one of their books,' she adds bitterly.

'Sounds like a sore memory.'

She scowls.

'Doesn't this make fun bonding? We're like two investigators.'

'Get out.'

--

The treatise remains out of reach despite your best efforts trawling the library shelves. You admit defeat and talk to a librarian.

He drums his fingers on his desk thoughtfully. 'That doesn't seem like something many people here will have a use for. It may be held in the town archives. Let me have a look.'

He leaves you alone at his desk. You take great interest in the wood grain.

You're close to giving up when the librarian returns with a narrow, pale green book. 'I think this was donated by your...'

'Uh... yeah. We'll bring it back,' you say awkwardly.

'Be sure you do.' You can only hope the amusement in his voice means there's no bad blood.

You resist the urge to swing your legs as he writes out a receipt.

'Thanks,' you mumble as you slip the book in your bag. 'See you soon.'

'Happy reading,' he replies, still amused.

--

Deema's spent the time you were out collating booklets from her own collection. 'Your friend can have these.'

She may be Deema's new favourite. 'And I have this,' you say, holding the thin book between your fingers.

Deema grimaces.

'I think I'll take some notes before posting these out.'

Your plan was to leave Deema alone to read while you took notes but those plans are dashed when she reads out points for you to jot down while you try to summarise the information in her booklets.

It's a small mercy when she announces her fingers have had enough of turning the pages.

[shuttershocky]

I find it hilarious that Narita and Sanda care way more about type-moon lore than Nasu himself does. Nasu will just change his mind willy-nilly and make exceptions whenever whereas the other two spend entire light novel series picking out and referencing the most obscure bits of lore from 20 years ago and double checking with Nasu to make sure everything they add is okayed

I wouldn't say it's not an issue of "caring" more than it is a fundamental difference in creative approaches. I think Nasu cares a lot about his creations, but for him, what is important (what he considers to be the true lore) are the emotional arcs and themes of what characters represent rather than the details of a setting.

Nasu always wrote his lore to act as a Loose Guide for Cool Fantasy Shit rather than as a rigid setting. It's not so important to know the exact details about how every facet of society works over knowing what tools you have at your disposal to make your supernatural look cool or scary: There are mages, there are monsters, and there are Christians.

However, you DO have to keep in mind the ideas your characters and their relationships represent. One of the things to come out with the Tsukihime Remake was Nasu's notes from rereading the original Arcueid route. While most of the notes were basically "haha wow this did not age well" or "I was so inexperienced back then!" there were notes about how important it was to keep the feeling of the mutual danger Arcueid and Shiki posed to each other, how the route was built on the horror foundation of basic predatory instinct vs higher reasoning (Arcueid wants to eat Shiki, Shiki wants to kill Arcueid, and how these subconscious feelings grow as their relationship grows) and how important this was to keep for the Remake even as the characters themselves would be greatly rewritten.

The result was that the general consensus over the Remake Arcueid route was that it was the exact same as the original only with better art and one vampire changed out. But while people's memories of the original Tsukihime are fuzzy, mine is not. There are SO many improvements in the writing, the world, and especially in how Arcueid is given far more agency and competence in just the first vampire fight of the Remake and how even when her raw strength is gone, her experience in hunting monsters is almost unrivaled.

But the thing is, it DOES feel the same. It feels ridiculously faithful, even if the route has been expanded so much that by the time you finish reading the original Arc route, you're only in Day 5 in the Remake and even if there's like 8 new characters that weren't there before. That's because Nasu spent so much time putting into words what the original made you FEEL, and making sure that would be perfectly preserved.

How the audience engaged with his stories, what they took away with them even as the specific details fade from memory, THAT'S the lore Nasu cares a lot about and works so hard to preserve. He's always talking about people's reactions to works or characters in his interviews because those interactions are how he defines his own works. He even has Shirou say exactly this at the end of the Fate route when he and Rin are walking to school, and Rin asks him how he's holding up now that Saber's gone, and Shirou says

Narita and Sanda on the other hand, are the Classic Lore Nerd type that write wikis because nobody is getting the info right and all the talent for rote memorization and recall that probably should have gone to history class went into things they love instead. They're the type of creators that are GREAT for hiring to work on worlds that are not their own, specifically because they can be trusted they'd never irreversibly blow up your setting because they'd rather die than write something that isn't lore-compliant (no matter how hard Nasu tries to encourage them to do so).

These two were single-handedly keeping Tsukihime alive in Type-Moon during the 12 years the series went without a single update and for that alone I'm eternally grateful. You can tell Nasu trusts them with handling any of the original Type-Moon cast too, as Sanda wrote in El Melloi Adventures 2 what an honor it was that he was allowed to use Kokutou Mikiya when he's considered a "sacred cow" within Type-Moon, and both of them are able to use Rin within Strange Fake and El-Melloi Adventures.

[pale-blue-writing]

Nothing

In a sudden bang, the universe was born for the first time, and nothing happened. No matter coalesced into great stars, for no matter persisted long enough for any forces to move it. Eons of the great nothingness passed, though it mattered little as nobody ever existed to experience it. Still, the nothing was something, for even the nothing came to a definitive end.

The second time the universe was born, matter existed long enough to dance. Atoms formed and pushed each other away, propelling themselves into great unknown distances, with no gravity to pull them back, until this universe was indistinguishable from the nothing before it. Nothing experienced the great eons that passed, and then the nothing came to an end once more.

When the universe was born anew for the third time, atoms formed immense gravitational bonds. As they started to hold hands, they emitted great beams of light, as if to finally say, "I exist!" Briefly, shades of red, blue, yellow, and white shot like laserbeams across the greatness of space, and for a moment, the beauty of the nothingness was at last illuminated. The great dance was brief, though, as gravity quickly pulled the stars into dark singularities, and even these dark singularities were pulled towards one another until a single, immense black hole existed. Even the black hole was incapable of experiencing the eons as they passed, until it, too, fizzled out in an end.

The fourth time the universe formed, the stars began anew. They persisted, dancing together in great webs of dust that swirled in beautiful, massive whirlpools. Photons bounced playfully from dust cloud to dust cloud. As the stars died, they formed brilliant nebulae of every possible color. New stars rose from the ashes like phoenixes, conjuring planets from the whirling dust alongside them. Still, it mattered little, as nobody could ever exist here to experience the great dance that took place. And as before, all the great things fizzled as they expanded over eons into an infinite nothingness that tore atoms apart, particle by particle.

Once the universe was born for the fifth time, it at last opened many eyes. It felt water slip past its scales as it swam and hopped through the waves. It ducked and dodged as it hunted itself for the sustenance it needed to continue experiencing existence. It opened great leaves through which it felt the warm light of the sun. It crawled onto land with leathery hands, feeling muddy dirt between its fingers, and it took air deep into its lungs. It opened feathery wings and flew, listening to clouds rushing around its ears as the beautiful colors of sunset fell upon the sky. Night after night, it looked into the sky, where stars of many colors brightly dotted the great firmament, and it eventually grew the brains with which to wonder about those luminous dots.

In human after human, the universe built great tools to ensure its survival. It made spears with which to hunt, and fire that kept it warm. It built communities in which to care for itself, and it began to wonder, Why am I here? In some of its human lives, the universe developed great Gods through which it explained its existence. Feeling the need to defend its Gods, it developed crossbows, swords, guns, and eventually bombs - all things it used to destroy sentient pieces of itself, for it only experienced the world one human at a time. Other iterations of this universe's life picked up the pieces. It cradled and fed the refugees of its wars without knowing that it was really mending itself. It rebuilt the homes that it had bombed, and reset its own bones as it brokered peace.

Its spirit was seemingly built to understand itself. And so, it built telescopes through which it observed the great nebulae and galaxies that had formed eons ago. It again pondered where it came from. It hypothesized, and it dug deep into the cosmos to find the answers. It built rockets that propelled it beyobd the Earth. It studied how its planet’s moon circled, and it watched as stars rose and died great distances away. It looked at cells under microscopes, and it watched as these cells intently carried molecules to their needed destinations. In the immensely large and immensely small scales through which it discovered the mechanisms of this universe, it arrived at one striking conclusion: “I am but an ant - insignificant - I am nothing”. Still, even this nothing had been something. It had cuddled and loved itself, sharing kisses under cool moonlight. It had appreciated the beauty of vast mountains capped with snow. It watched as bees bounced from delicate flower to flower, leaf to leaf, and it had tasted the honey. This nothing had felt a million pains - the pain of a papercut, of a broken limb, of loved ones lost in pointless wars - and it had felt a million loves. It dipped its toes into salty seas, and it felt the sun burn its skin. And after it was done experiencing a trillion human lives, a trillion heartaches, a trillion triumphs, and a trillion deaths, even this nothing had been something, for it, too, came to an end.

[leighsartworks216]

I Missed You

Head Engineer Mark x transmasc!reader

I'm tired sleepy but I had this thought and wanted to get it out so yeah

Wrote this in my notes app and stuff so formatting might suck (Edit: Fixed it so it’s formatted the same as my other fics now)

Warnings: being (unintentionally) misgendered, uhhh yeah that's it I guess

Word Count: 519

Masterlist

Nearly every day since you stepped onto the Invincible II, your head engineer would give you an odd look. Even when you first arrived, he paused in his greeting, tilted his head, and seemed to shake himself back to his senses.

And yet, after weeks of being aboard, he couldn't figure out where he'd seen you before.

You knew, of course. When you two would hang out and play as kids, he was always taking things apart and putting them back together. His hands never stilled; he built wonderful (if useless) gadgets. As you grew up, and your families took you further away from each other, you changed.

Your chest was flat now, without aid from an uncomfortable binder. Your voice was deeper, your hair was different. You looked like a strapping young lad, not a girl.

But as Mark looked at you from across the Bridge, coffee not quite to his lips, he couldn't place your face on any male friends he'd once had. And that knowing grin you gave him certainly didn't help.

"Something on your mind, Mark?"

He nearly sloshed his coffee as he pulled it away from his face. "Huh, what? No." He cleared his throat and stood up straighter. "No, I was, uh, just thinking about the... coolant."

You tilted your head at him. "The coolant?"

This was the lie he was digging his grave with. "Mhm, yeah, it's uh... cold." And not his area of expertise. He wished he was better at coming up with bullshit on the spot.

"I think it's supposed to be." Your eyes shined with mirth and mischief.

He sighed, shoulders slumping. "I just- You look like someone I was friends with a long time ago."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. She was cool." His eyes focused on nothing as he reminisced on those old, hot summer days. "We used to ride our bikes up and down the neighborhood. She had cardboard wings attached to hers. She, uh, always wanted to be a pilot. And we'd go to my dad's garage and find some spare parts and tools and mess around until they kicked us out. It was... I miss her, Captain, that's all."

You smiled at the fond memories. "Mrs. T used to yell at us all the time," you added.

Mark laughed. "Yeah, she did. And for what? Riding over the very edge of her lawn? We put instant mash-" His eyes suddenly came back to focus. "Wait a minute. How did you know about Mrs. T?"

Your grin got wider. He was so clueless, really. He stared at you, wide eyed, waiting for an answer.

"I got my pilot's license," you told him. Your voice was soft, quiet, as if you were telling him a secret.

"You're...?"

His coffee was forgotten, mug shattering on the ground as he bodied you with a strong hug. If anybody had questions about what the hell was going on, they didn't say anything.

"I missed you, Airhead," he murmured into your jumpsuit's shoulder.

You held him tighter, fingers unconsciously curling into the back of his own uniform. "I missed you, too, Bolt Brain."

[elonmuskfansgossipblog]

part 3

VOGELS "Everyone wants to date a successful tech founder until they see what kind of fuel the internal engine runs on."

When they got off the plane it felt strange, there should have been some people there, but it was completely silent, gray, cold and fog started to rise. A car was waiting at the bottom, a black Tesla with dark windows.

- Get in - he announced. She, still wearing her warm robe and carrying her purse, climbed into the limousine. There was no driver. He jumped in from the other side.

-Let's go - and the car started moving. - If you could, I would ask you not to say anything and preferably not to think about anything in particular, hahaha, just relax.

- Why?

- So that we won't be traced. Your frequencies are specific, they're tracking your signal.

- I think I know what you're talking about, although I don't fully understand. - She felt emotions boiling inside her, she watched them carefully, she felt that she was in the right place, but... no, she had no answer.

They were driving very fast, certainly exceeding the speed limit, but the city was still asleep and the streets were almost empty. She looked out the window at the lamps going out and the birds perched on the branches. The road led along the Seine, after a while she spotted the Louvre and laughed to herself "sex in the Louvre?"

- No... Kanye did it first and now sex in the museum is passe - he laughed loudly and gave her the look of a hungry wolf, he would swallow her to have her as close as possible she felt. He pulled her to him, opened her robe, slipped his hand between her close thighs and kissed her gently on the face.

They stopped in front of a rather large, old, gray building. Simple columns surrounded a grand door with stairs leading to it. Without asking anything, he pulled her with him. They entered a huge hall, something is being built here, this is his workshop. She felt dizzy again and her vision seemed blurry, but next to him the bliss was indescribable and it was as if she recognized this place. He crouched down next to one of the structures lying on the floor along the hall and started working. She wanted to be helpful, she took a piece of net for the next element: "I'll help since I'm here, the hall is empty, just us." She strained her eyes to find the tools, they were some complicated, mechanical devices. He watched her silently when the door opened and people entered the hall, about 40 engineers. They saw her immediately, no one was surprised, but they silently returned to their positions. Confused, she replied:

- Then I won't disturb you, I'll take my things and go. - he followed her to old, wooden wardrobes. She opened the rather large door and, still having poor eyesight, saw that the wardrobe was filled with all the bags she had ever owned! There are worn-out ones lying on the shelves, each separately, illuminated, even those from her high school days, and various old coats of hers on hangers. Her legs gave way under her. She asked:

- Which are my favorites? -almost inaudible, because it was also difficult for her to speak. She slid to the floor, she realized that she had no idea what was going on here, and what she saw meant that she lived here! "How long they all know me?" He led her to the couch. They sat down together when the doctor finally came, an older, short, fat guy, and looked at her closely. "They know everything about me, what's going on?" her thoughts were swirling. The doctor spoke dispassionately:

- You felt better when you were in London than in Berlin. - "I'm amazed what he's talking to me about, I know Berlin, but what was I doing in London? Was the climate there better? How does he know about Berlin?" she thought. She didn't want to cause any trouble.

-Then I'll go to London - she said, but saw from their reaction it's something ridiculous. The doctor sensed the situation and announced:

- You have vortex fission.

- What do I have?! - she got scared, she took her phone and wanted to google what it was, but typing was very difficult, she couldn't hit the letters, she couldn't read it, she started shaking. They both watched her as she began to twitch, as her body began to shiver, vibrate, turned transparent, and then she disappeared.

- AAAAAAAA  FUUUUUUCK!!! - a terrifying scream echoed throughout the building, the window panes shook. When there was silence again, the doctor's caring whisper reached his ears:

- Did you have sex with her?

- Many times, but she remembers the last two - he replied, suppressing tears.

- Okay, have you implemented the password?

- Yes, Sundream.

to be continued… this story leads somewhere

Love it!!!! ❤️

[monroeknoxwrites]

shopping trip for the luskren triplets, please! 👀💖

Early Sunday mornings were exclusively for the trade market. Three floors underground, with a projected morning sky on the ceiling overhead, all the residence of their district gathered to barter goods. No one really had money to spend except on food and essentials.

Everything else could be found here for the proper trade.

Vanith came bearing a blanket and her tools, setting up in her usual corner right on the stone floor. She'd fix things for people in exchange for any interesting gadgets or junk they found. And things for her sisters too.

The market wasn't packed in those first couple hours but she and Vanit still took turns accompanying Vanis on her never-ending search for books she hadn't read a hundred times. Maybe a pretty skirt too. A pretty skirt and a blouse if she couldn't find an interesting book.

On her own, Vanit browsed seemingly without interest or purpose. She didn't know what she wanted until she saw it. Sometimes it'd be a knife, a cooking pot, a pre-invasion era leather jacket. Once she returned to Vanith's repair patch the proud new owner of an unused yet worn makeup hexagon, the different sides opening to eye shadow, lip gloss, perfumed lotion, etc. It was the kind of luxury item no one in their district could afford. Vanit didn't ask how the previous owner found it. She never asked questions and that's why the shadier barterers liked her.

On this outing, Vanith looked up from replacing parts in a practically ancient flashlight, at her sisters return, Vanis's arm hooked around Vanit's and pressed in close, their cloth bag heavy with some prize.

"Three books," Vanis explained, her good mood evident in how she rested her head on Vanit's shoulder and invaded her personal space brazenly. "That old nosy bitch Ms. Drets let them go for gossip from our building."

"Don't know why she cares so much about other people's business," Vanit said.

"Auntie says she's old and living on gossip alone," Vanith said around the screws held between her lips.

Vanit let herself be pulled down to sit by Vanis, clicking her tongue. "She better keep her nose out of our business."

"No secrets in this family," Vanis said, lacing their fingers together. Her leg stretched out to brush Vanith's.

Vanit rolled her eyes but allowed her hand to be held hostage, grabbing a set of glass bottles one-handed out of the bag. They were different shades of light pink.

Vanith leaned in to examine them then remembered to be the disapproving older sister. "Alcohol?"

"I wish."

Vanit sloshed the bottles back and forth, little bubbles forming at the top. She and Vanis' expressions matched as realization dawned in their sister's wide eyes.

"Carbonation!? They banned that. It's banned. How–" Vanith cut herself off with a shake of her head. She dropped her voice to a hush. "Right, no questions. I can't believe you found carbonats! And one for each of us too."

Vanit placed them back in the bag. "I'm not a fan, take mine."

"But it's your find."

Vanis bumped her leg gently. "It's all for you, Van. The fizz is gross going down."

Vanith nearly swallowed the screws. She was bubbly like those pink drinks until Vanit said, "Pay us back by cleaning the bathroom this month."

"You're bribing me with drinks you traded for my repairs." Vanith pointed her screwdriver at Vanit and Vanis in turn, accusatory.

"Shut up, you love them." Vanit showed no remorse.

"You want us to trade them back?" Vanis was no better.

Vanith spat the screws in her lap. "Of course I do and no you won't. Twisty, you're both so twisty sometimes I can't stand it."

Vanis bumped her leg again. "Trapped in that 'responsible big sis' net you built all by yourself, Van. Don't blame us for exploiting it."

"Twisty."

Remorseless, Vanit wandered off to find something else and Vanis began her book, head pillowed in Vanith's lap – making her repair work all the harder.

[stardusthuntress]

you guys, there are WAY TOO MANY LOOSE ENDS regarding Tech there at the end....

(fair warning, this is another one of my longwinded rants)

"the only thing we were able to recover", his goggles...

which he records everything with... Hemlock knew each of the men and quickly caught on to their paternal attachment to Omega, do you really think he didn't do his homework and find out Tech records everything as a hobby? It wouldn't be hard to figure out. video files are pretty big, so why does a clone like him have petabytes of data? Oh, because they're all recordings of his experiences! gold mine of data, right there. Even if Hemlock couldn't access the files, the quantity, and regularity of how often they were uploaded to his personal data (I'm guessing after every mission or two) relative to how long each mission took would be a pretty clear indicator of what they are

so, what did they see? What did the goggles see? And what did the Empire see in his last moments? What recordings did they pull from his goggles, and what did they leave behind for the batch to find when they download his last recordings? You know Echo is gonna wanna see it. Or did Tech use those last moments as he fell to wipe all his data to protect his family?

they didn't recover ANYTHING from his datapad?

none of his tools from his belt? You're telling me the man doesn't carry duplicates of his intel?

and someone pointed out his goggles were UNDER his helmet... I'd like to add to that, that while that could explain how it survived since it was protected by his helmet, it also seems weird. The goggles mark the weak point in his helmet. His face is only partially protected. that visor doesn't really shield his eyes, and the goggles only sorta make up for that... why are the lenses shattered and everything else is completely intact? That doesn't seem weird to anyone else?

Tech is enhanced. The Empire, and that creep Hemlock, totally would steal anything they could from his remains, including his DNA - so like blood samples or stem cell samples or anything to help them figure out how to make more like him, or to make future clones even less like him (so like easier to brainwash)

And besides, Hunter brushed off a huge tumble down a mountain at the end of season 1. Yeah, he used his knife, the mountain, and the trees to slow his fall, but do you really think Tech didn't have SOMETHING ready for a scenario like this? Sure, this is still a little too high to really prepare for.... but we know jetpacks were even supplied if they wanted them! Do you really think he didn't manage to get a hold of, or build one of his own that could be hidden in that backpack of his?

the backpack, which he is wearing when he falls!

No parachute? Nothing to help break a fall? He already had a box fall on him earlier in the season, you think he wouldn't have something ready to go so that doesn't happen again. Whether it's something falling on him, or him falling on top of something else, it's basically the same thing. Nothing? The genius was not prepared to save a life in the blink of an eye? That doesn't sound like Tech to me

and the parallels to Echo's "end" at the Citadel! We only see his goggles, not his remains. When Echo "died" the first time, we only saw his helmet and Fives' reaction to it. We did not see his body. Echo survived a ship exploding in his face... a ship no doubt loaded with lots of very explosive stuff. Gregor survived the same thing, with a hell of a lot more explosive stuff. They built the clones to be tough as nails! Wrecker and Gregor take multiple stun blasts to drop! And you're gonna tell me the most brilliant mind of them all didn't see a way to survive a fall? While that is technically feasible, it seems very un-Star-Wars-like to me. This is a universe where people survive shit they shouldn't all the time.

Maybe I'm doing this because I'm in denial... maybe. Because I will not accept a Star Wars universe that does not include Tech from this point on.

But I firmly believe there are far too many loose ends here to confirm anything. But of course, they're gonna torture us with it for at least a year, until the next season comes out. They tortured us with Echo's death for far longer than that. And it's not like we didn't all start watching Clone Wars not knowing how it ends. Same goes for Andor. They're gonna use him to torture us for as long as they please. After all, the same man whose job it is to come up with Palpatine's plans is also running this show.... but anyways. Sure, it fits with the tragedy that is Star Wars, but remember how attached Dave also is to hope - it is the star wars catchphrase after all - and to loopholes? He brought Ahsoka back! Now that he knows how much Tech means to us, will he do the right thing and bring him back? I don't think he really realized the extent of Tech's importance to the fanbase, especially after the development he was given this season

What was that he told Omega in the cave, again? Something about we always find a way?