#from - just for example - jet blasts

[hug-your-face]

@airlocksandaviaries some tags for you 💜

he kinda ate with this outfit

[rcmclachlan]

wip wednesday

I was tagged by the lovely @setmeatopthepyre yesterday for Tease Tidbit Tuesday but I didn't see it until today. I promise I know what day it is (spoiler: I don't and never do).

This is one of a handful of flashback scenes from the fic I've been writing. I still don't have a concrete plan for this one but I'm having a blast with it.

+

"If it had wings of some kind, they stuck my ass in it."

Buck perked up at that, interest curling around his shoulders like a mink stole. "Not just helicopters? Planes, too? Like, uh, fighter jets?"

When Tommy's mouth split around a smile, his teeth seemed oddly bright even in the restaurant's dim lighting. It was probably due to good genes. Tommy didn't seem the type to use a whitening gel.

"Among other things," Tommy agreed.

"That is so cool." It really was. Buck was practically bouncing in his seat. He wasn't just dating a pilot; he was dating a fighter pilot. "What was the craziest thing you ever flew?"

Tommy's smile went a little odd at the edges, and Buck watched, fascinated, as the tines of Tommy's fork started tapping against his plate, a metronome etched in porcelain and vodka sauce. Eleven little tings rang out before Tommy finally answered.

"This is going to sound incredibly douchey and I really don't mean it to, but I can't tell you about that one. It's, uh, classified."

Before Tommy kissed him and blew his mind wide open, Buck would have categorized the feeling that blossomed in his belly like an algae bloom as professional jealousy. Before, the fact that Tommy was such a good pilot that he got to fly some kind of experimental aircraft for the military would have been filed away as an awesome example of his competency. Buck probably would have occasionally taken that factoid out and studied it like a diamond, turning it from side to side and marveling at how it caught the light, jittery with pride because someone as cool and experienced as Tommy wanted to be his friend.

But Buck was finally self-actualized enough to recognize the feeling for what it was: absolutely insane, toe-curling lust.

"Fuck." He gripped the edge of the table so hard the table cloth was probably going to have permanent creases in it. His thighs clenched. "Please tell me you can live without dessert."

The oddly hesitant expression on Tommy's face melted into wide-eyed realization, then amusement. "Wait, do you... really?"

"Get the check," Buck said with a grin that felt hot as a fever. "Then see if you can use some of those best-in-class piloting skills to get us back to my place in ten minutes or less."

They didn't make it out of the parking lot.

+

No pressure tags: @dadvans, @alchemistc, @firehose118, @geddyqueer, @screamlet, and @liminalmemories21

[savvymantis]

Blinded By Love?

Maybe you were a little off your rocker. But who could really blame you? Cybertronians were utterly fascinating, and despite their differences, they were still eerily similar to humans. Luckily for you, the Autobot team were rather tolerant of your questions about their biology, some even finding it flattering that you were so interested in them.

However, your friendship with them stopped you from being able to discover your less. . . kind curiosities. After all, with so much of them being similar to humans, did it also mean that their bodies reacted similarly to humans? You were too tiny to really startle any bot to see see if their equivalent of a pupil retracted from fear, and you were too weak to whack them on the knee to see if they had a reflex.

But still. . . opportunities presented themselves to you in the most interesting of circumstances.

Take, for example, the current moment. What was supposed to be an easy drive with Bumblebee led to a surprise ambush by a Decepticon jet. Which then led to you being thrown out of the car and into a ditch.

And now, towering over you with a sharp grin, was the second in command of the Decepticon army, Starscream.

"Any last words, fleshy?" He asked, wiggling his fingers at you.

Your head cocked, your own fingers brushing the fun little toy Wheeljack had snuck you some time ago. 'Just in case.' He had whispered to you with a wink.

You grinned back at Starscream, eager to test a theory that had been brewing in your brain for ages: if optics were like eyes, could they be blinded?

You threw the flash grenade, and twisted around to shield your face, ready to find out.

~

Starscream had met many a clever foe in his time. Even before the Deceptions were formed, he was known to be brutal and strategic, hard to knock off his pedes.

But even he had to admit, you smiling back at him like you were excited about being crushed did make him pause. Were you defective, he wondered briefly. No matter, you were dead regardless.

But before Starscream could finish lifting up his pede, you threw something at him. Instinctively, his optics followed it as he moved to dodge, only for it to immediately explode into a light so bright it burnt out the circuits of his optics.

Starscream let out a shriek that shook the air around him, vents firing on high as his body seared with heat and paid. He bent forward, clutching his faceplate, and swore to Primus above that he was going to kill you. Oh, he wanted to pick you apart piece by piece, but his anger controlled him, and he stomped relentlessly into the ditch where he knew you were.

But he felt nothing but the sickening earth dirt tamping beneath him. Then there was the rev of an engine and a hysterical laugh fading away into the distance.

You. . . you escaped??

Starscream raged, uncaring of what was around him. His nanites were slowly fixing the circuits lost, so he couldn't see what was there, but he felt for anything living to crush and grind away. All plants, for any animal life no doubt fled at the first sight of chaos, but snapping a tree over his knee did help him feel a little better.

"Blasted human. . ." He huffed, rubbing at his tender optics.

How had you managed to catch him so off guard? Starscream gritted his teeth, furious to have been bested by a waste of space plaguing this dirtball of a planet like a parasite. Oh, he was going to kill you the next time you dared to leave the Autobot base. He'd make it nice and slow for all your little Autobot friends to see.

He'd look at your little face, and you won't be smiling that little smile anymore! You won't be laughing that shrill laugh, no. You'll be begging for mercy, begging for him to spare your pathetic life.

Luckily for him, you left the Autobot base not a few cycles later. He chased down your guardian once more, Smokescreen this time, and ran him off the road to eject you from the seats.

"Your eyes okay?" You asked, breathless and pinned by his hand. He wasn't touching you, not yet, wanting to play with his prey, but you just gave him that damned smile. "Hope I didn't blind you back there, but with how shit your aim, I must've fucked you up."

"I'm going to kill you." Starscream ground out, the heat of anger, the thrill of an imminent victory, causing his circuits to sing. "And I am going to make sure it lasts."

You. . . You chuckled, turning your little head to rest a soft, warm cheek against one of his digits. Starscream froze again, despite the shrieking of his processor, caught by that look in your eyes. Was that. . . fondness?

"You said that last time, Screamer." You said, and suddenly a new device was in your hand. Starscream jerked, but you were quicker this time, pressing the metal tongs to the inner wires of his wrist joint. "And you'll say it next time too."

Electricity lit up his body, so powerful Starscream was forced to fold, landing on his back in his alt form. Over the buzzing in his audials, he could hear you cackling again, racing off towards the worried shouts of Smokescreen.

As his optics once again rebooted, Starscream caught sight of you throwing another little grin over your shoulder, eyes bright and hair wild.

Oh. . . a fleshbag you were. . . but maybe you were a worthy opponent. After all, not just anyone could escape his clutches twice. He'd need more than brute strength to get you, and you. . . you were worth more than your death, weren't you?

A fine hostage you would make. A fine plaything for him to poke and prod until he understood how your clever little mind worked.

Yes. . . He knew what he was going to do next time he caught.

[wisteriaiswriting]

I couldn't tell if matchups were open or not, so please ignore this if they aren't 😖

This is for tf2, dunno if I have to clarify

I'm nonbinary, and I'm okay with any pronouns, but I do like they/them the most

I've been diagnosed with adhd lately, and it puts SO many things into perspective. Such as how, when I was in school, I could finish an entire sheet and then lose it or forget to turn it in. And let me tell ya, adhd rage is real, and I might have more than anybody 😭 I'm lowkey not kidding when I say I got beef with everything

I have two cats that I live dearly and talk to like real children. Kinda. One is a chunky (big, not fat) orange tabby named Murphy like the character from interstellar. His aliases: ginger little bitch or babyboy. I have a slim tortoiseshell cat named Lyra. Her aliases: stupid bitch or babygirl. It changes based on how they're behaving. And I'll scold them lowkey like real people. "We will TUSSLE if you start messin with shit you ain't supposed to just cuz there's a fuckin fan." -literally said this today.

I'm supposed to have curly hair, but idk how to take care of it, and it's that delicate kinda curly, so it's really only ever curly after it dries after a shower. I'm pale with freckles and small moles on my body (I say they make me look like a tortilla)

I like collecting. What specifically? Cds. If I answered you on a deeper level, I'd say whatever scratches my brain when I look at/hear it. For example, I have an iron model of the Eiffel Tower that reaches my hip (I'm 5'2), a skull jar with a rubber stopper, and a black comforter with various mushrooms, plants, and bugs on it. I even have a Bob Ross plushie (along with a mountain of various sized other plushies. I have a dog plushie the same size as me that I named Bennie so I could say "Bennie and the Jets" like the Elton John song.

I'll listen to just about any genre as long as it's a good song, but I can sometimes be picky depending on my mood.

I'm pretty naturally handy. I built a duck box (those things you see standing in the middle of ponds. Basically a birdhouse for ducks) on my own in middle school after being taught how to use the tool, for example. That also kinda carries into art, too. As long as I have references, I can create any pose, and it looks pretty good. Same goes for body types. It's easy for me to mix-match the references I need.

I love singing, and I'm "learning" guitar. I don't actually know any chords or anything, but I've already written a song everybody likes after fuckin up while playing Zombie by the Cranberries. (I used two chords from the song, came up with two others, put it in ¾ time, and alternated between plucking and strumming based on whatever fit the lyrics and vibe)

I can be pretty... well idk the word I'm looking for, so I'll just give you an example of what I mean. My friends and I were on a call trying to figure our gas money and stuff, and they slipped up and told me it would also be used to get them home, so I said "getting YALL home isn't my problem" (they pretty much tried to punk me so they wouldn't have to pay for themselves)

I try to be nice and stuff, but I can get mean when I want to. I'm one of those "your secret is only as safe as you let it be. Don't tell me a secret if you plan to fuck me over in one way or another" types of people. I will not hesitate to put a mf on blast if they actin up.

Also dunno if this matters but I have a subtle southern accent that shows in words like "I", but it gets thick when I'm wound up or angry.

I love love love dogs, but I have a fear of them. I'll be death gripping someone's hand, doesn't matter who, if I hear a dog bark but can't see a dog. Even more so if I CAN see it. Dogs usually like me, though. I remember one Doberman who laid on my foot to get attention and pawed at me while I was chatting with her owners (ik it doesn't sound like a big deal, but the owners were like SUPER surprised)

I'm usually chill, but I can become extremely energetic at times. If I get excited about something, I won't be able to resist talking about it, or I won't sit still or something of that tune. I usually don't get to be the loud type of excited unless I'm amazed about something, and even then, it's usually only for a few words to express said amazement.

I'm usually quiet. I often have to repeat myself. But don't let that fool you. I can easily be louder than Soldier himself if I want to. I just don't like to.

I like to info dump about things I make to anyone who will listen. Things like the dystopian book I'm writing, my ocs who live in a world where one of them is kinda possessed by their friend and the other is a former angel being hunted by angels and they both join a voluntary hunger games-esque game show that doesn't require violence but it does allow it (the winning team gets a wish for each player on the team), and really just any of my ocs and stories and songs n stuff.

Uhhhhh I'm an intp according to the last time I took the test. I'm pretty introspective, for better or worse.

I can be creative in ways I probably shouldn't be. Like, I can come up with torture methods on the fly. I'll do it right now. Strapping someone down and having something hold their eyes open and let them dry out, only adding moisture right before the point of losing vision. Locking them in a room with their hands tied up in a way where they can't use them, even behind their back, and hiding a key and some false keys somewhere in a pile of fiberglass insulation and hair-thin needles, and they have to eat their way through it to find the right key and get out.

Anywayyyyy, moving on from the darkish stuff, I like to freak people out with my "party trick." Basically, I can put my arm behind my head, parallel to the ground. Like. My upper arm. Not my forearm.

I like to have fun, like anyone would, but I can sometimes act "motherly" (or so I'm told) when others get too wreckless. i.e. "don't do that, you'll hurt yourself," "Be CAREFULLLL," and other stuff like that.

Contradictory to popular belief, I'm a complete stoner. Once upon a time, I outsmoked someone who tends to smoke all day every day. I partially like smoking simply because things seem more goofy and partially cuz it helps with my anger. I personally think I'm more fun and outgoing when I smoke. I have one hell of a tolerance, so I really gotta puff to get a nice head high.

Sometimes, I can get really meek around people. Like, if someone I care about is mad at me, I act like a kicked puppy and go almost completely nonverbal. I like giving people things as well, but I do that whole "it's okay if you don't like it, it just made me think of you, (etc.)" spiel cuz I ain't got confidence at the worst of times.

Speaking of, I have a pretty low self-esteem. I don't always let it show, but I suspect it still slips through subconsciously. I don't think I'm a good person, and I don't exactly like my body either. Like, I way less than 100 pounds. People are not exaggerating when they say I way 100 pounds soaking wet. I don't like that. You can literally see my heartbeat if I sit still, and you can see my ribs INDIVIDUALLY if I take a deep breath and stretch. I want to put on weight and start going to the gym so I'm strong n stuff but I can't exactly do that right now. Even if I DID put on weight, I'd still be insecure. From MY PERSONAL experience, "body positivity" is only a thing when someone is 160+ pounds. And here I thought the point of the movement was for EVERYONE to be happy in their body, not just bigger people. Maybe it was just the area I was in or what the algorithms thought I was or something, but I'm still not happy being skinny. I wanna be strong with a bit of squish, but I don't have enough motivation or anything to do that 😞

But God forbid anyone else be insecure. I'll be on that "YOU'S A GOD/GODDESS, HOE. DON'T LET THEM DULL YOUR SPARKLE. LOOK IN THAT MIRROR EVERY MOTHAFUCKIN DAY AND REPEAT THE WORDS I LOVE YOU, BITCH. I AIN'T EVER GONNA STOP LOVIN YOU, BIIITCH" type shit. But fr, I will not sit idly by if someone I care about is insecure about ANYTHING. Around me, they ain't gotta worry about size, shape, abilities, "flaws," quirks, or other.

I can be very opinionated on certain topics. For example, I'm a firm believer all pdf files and 🍇ists should be forced to become eunuchs. Or get gender reassignment surgery to be a Ken doll (or Barbie doll, whichever is more accurate for each person). They won't even have a hole to pee out of, so they can have fun dying from infection. Honestly, I personally think people who only fantasize about it are almost toppling over that line, so they should have to go through intense interrogation and trials to decide whether they're safe or not.

This is probably long enough as it is, so I'll just leave it here

If you respond to this, thank you kindly

Whether or not you respond to this, have a good day/night :]

I match you with...

Engineer!

Loves seeing whatever collections you have, if you let him borrow any chs he’ll take care of them, brings them back as if he never had them.

Dell isn’t picky when it comes to music, so he’ll listen to whatever you choose.

Appreciates someone who is pretty handy, if you still want to build something then he’s your man. Just ask and he’ll teach you whatever you want.

Please sing whenever he plays his guitar, he somehow falls even harder in love. Mention learning the guitar once and he is taking as much time as you mean to teach you what you need and want to know.

While he loves helping others out he also takes no shit from someone trying to cross him, so he’s glad that you can recognize it and not fall into their trap. Always there if you don’t notice it but it’s nice to know he won’t need to hover constantly.

He’s the same with secrets, respects the person's wishes but one or two might slip when talking to you, so now they have to watch you for you both.

Always listens to everything you say and stores it in his mind, it might not seem like he’s listening at times but rest assured, he is. Out of nowhere he’ll bring your oc’s and story up and ask questions.

Is always freaked out by some of your ideas, not saying he won’t listen, so he’ll gently guide you toward Medic with all that talk.

Doesn’t really mind that you’re a smoker, he’ll keep a window or door open and keep an eye on you just to make sure that you stay safe. Won’t join you if you ask or offer.

He’s more than willing to speak for you if needed, if you want to talk he’ll encourage you to do so but takes over whenever you want. When you give him something he will not let you take it back, he loves everything you give him. Always surprised when you become loud, god forbid you get Soldier going or he got you going.

Engi - 7

Scout - 6

Medic - 5

Sniper - 4

Spy - 3

Saxton - 2

Heavy - 1

[ichbinmeltdown]

A quick guide to naming Transformers OCs

I know naming OCs can be crazy hard, it's one of the things I struggle with most (almost as much as coming up with titles for my fics) but honestly Transformers names seem easier than human ones- so here's some suggestions I have for if you need a little help naming yours! A lot of this mostly applies to G1, since that's the continuity I'm most familiar with.

Use name generators

These usually don't give great, super fitting names if you have an OC already designed, but they're fantastic if you want to pick a name then design an OC around it, and sometimes you get names that really fit!

This one is specifically for Transformers characters, though the compound word ones tend to not make a lot of sense. The compound names in this generator tend to make more sense, but since it's for fantasy locations there's not any futuristic or machine ones. This one has the same sorts of names. (One of them even gave me "Starscream Redoubt" on there once lol)

There's a lot of other generators on that site, so play around with it, these three mainly will help you understand the naming conventions of Transformers characters ^^

Look at third party figures

Go to a site like TFSource in their third party section, and look at the alternate names they gave the characters. There's a lot of names they gave them that sound like they could be real Transformers characters but aren't actually in the source media, so those are pretty much all fair game for naming your OCs! (There's also silly ones and human names too, if you want to give your character that type of name! Purple Potato and Morbus have to be my favorite silly names)

Research science, mathematics, computers, robotics, automotive and aviation words

There's so many terms in STEM stuff that are perfect names for OCs! That's how I came up with Aniline's name, for example. There's a lot of characters in canon who have automotive/aviation related names too (like Ratchet, Gears, Octane, Thrust and Tracks)

Pick a word related to their alt mode/powers/abilities

For example, Soundwave and Blaster have audio powers, Ratchet is a doctor and repairs everyone, Vortex can create tornadoes with his blades, and Mirage can turn invisible; Astrotrain is both a space shuttle and a steam train, Blast Off is a space shuttle and Ramjet is a jet. And as far as my OCs go, Sandclaw is a scorpion and Meltdown is radioactive and poisonous!

Pick a word related to their personality

It doesn't have to just be about powers! You could pick a word related to their personalities too. Meltdown is another example of this, with his name referring to both physical radioactive meltdowns and emotional ones (which he has plenty of both- admittedly though I didn't realize it fit his personality too at first until someone pointed it out). In canon, Blurr talks and moves in an extremely restless, rushed manner, Red Alert has anxiety and thinks most things/bots are a danger (his name is actually another example of one fitting both his alt mode/powers and personality) and Wildrider is pretty wild and chaotic.

Other things to keep in mind

Most combiners' names end in "-us," "-or" or "-ion" (Devastator, Menasor, Defensor, Bruticus, Superion)

Subgroups in Transformers usually have names that fit their specific personalities/powers (for example, the Constructicons and the Protectobots), but some may also have names that fit a specific theme (the Reflector bots all have camera-related names, and the Osmions- some of my OCs, a race of Cybertronians related to the Junkions- are all named after wrestling/boxing moves, for instance)

It's not a big deal if you end up using the name of a minor character from another continuity. There's so many characters (especially background characters or obscure ones who appear for maybe one episode such as Pipes or Nightbird) that it's really hard to avoid coincidences. Generally speaking, people will understand- especially since a lot of fans probably aren't going to know every single character's name from every continuity and toyline by heart, and even fewer of those who do will expect the same of everyone else.

Might update this with more advice later on ^^

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers West Coast #68: California Screaming!

March, 1991

The Reaper and the Robot Part Four ROBOT HOLOCAUST!

Is that Robby the Robot's silhouette?

Don't do a whole burning, Robby the Robot. Be good.

Also, ay yi yi, not a good time to cover a comic titled California Screaming but when will be?

At least, I can respect the wordplay.

Last times in Avengers West Coast: Grim Reaper came back to life thanks to his voodoo girlfriend and now he stabs people to death to extend his own life. Wonder Man has taken his brother's resurrection hard and believes that the blood of Reaper's victims is on his hands for not being able to stop him.

Wonder Man fucked off from the team for a bit to search for Grim Reaper on his own, mad that the Avengers were prioritizing something else.

The something else was a mysterious crop dusting helicopter coming out at night and also robot farmers. By investigating an abandoned subway tunnel, Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and Tigra discover that Ultron is behind it. Both the crop dusting and the farmers being a plan to turn humanity into robot drones, subservient to Ultron.

The three Avengers were captured and turned into robots which were sent to preemptively stop Dr Pym. The other Avengers managed to stop the Robovengers, with the help of Wonder Man. Dr Pym and Iron Man were able to mostly deroboticize the Robovengers, with a little hex help from Wanda, whose powers have maybe returned.

Also, Grim Reaper joined Ultron.

A lot going on.

But we pick up with the Avengers busting into Ultron's hidden subway lair.

Eh. It's no "we would have words with thee" but then, what is?

Anyway, Ultron isn't here right now. So it's good the Avengers didn't waste a better intro.

All that's in the base is a bunch of the Andrones, the android drones that Ultron turns people into with his roboticizing compound.

And that's why the Avengers are carrying ropes. They don't want to hurt innocent people that have been turned into robots.

(Although, Wonder Man is being unnecessarily rough because he's still preoccupied with his murder brother)

Tigra distracts a group of Andrones by doing a sweet flip overhead and then Quicksilver runs around them and ties them up.

And the other Andrones get similar treatment.

In a particularly cruel twist, Ultron has turned a small child into an Androne, specifically to lull a compassionate person into a trap.

And US Agent is that poor sap that's decided to show his heart only to get kicked in it.

Wonder Man saves him by prying the robo-child off Agent and scolds him for assuming that the Andrones couldn't talk just because they hadn't.

(For example, he should have remembered that the robot farmers talked. Although, I don't remember if they were Andrones or original robots.)

In the robo-child confusion, the Avengers miss one Androne who starts the secret subway base's secret self-destruct sequence, despite Iron Man blasting the control panel as soon as he noticed.

Iron Man orders everyone to grab the tied-up Andrones and gtfo.

US Agent: "You know what I like about the way you give orders, Iron Man? Not a blasted thing!"

Weird time to be a contrary for the sake of contrariness but at least he does grab an Androne and gtfo.

AND OF ALL THINGS, the Avengers find a cop outside the subway tunnel, about to put a parking ticket on the Avengers Quinjet like it's just standard procedure.

Random cop to Quicksilver: "This vehicle yours, sir? 'Cause if it is, so's this ticket. Don't you know this is a restricted area -- especially since last summer's tunnel explosion?"

Do you run into a lot of illegally parked jets, officer?

I mean, this is a superhero universe so the answer very well could be yes.

I actually love the idea of a cop trying to give a parking ticket to the Avengers. Sadly, the goof isn't really given space to land because the situation is too serious for the Avengers to play into the gag.

Anyway, the Avengers West Coast all rush out of the tunnel, right before it explodes. All except Wonder Man. But he's nigh-invulnerable and he doesn't even have to be blastin'. So the Avengers aren't worried about him.

Belatedly, the cop realizes that the random Quinjet belongs to the Avengers.

The Avengers are a little too distracted to pay much attention to this comic relief moment and take off in their jet without even bothering to see how this parking ticket thing is going to shake out.

In FAIRNESS, there's an Ultron on the loose and Andrones to do something with.

Within the exploded secret subway base, Wonder Man stayed behind on purpose and let himself get blown up and buried in rubble on purpose. Because he knew Grim Reaper was hanging around. And he wanted to talk to him without the Avengers butting in.

Like Wonder Man suspected, Grim Reaper went looking for Ultron after their last conversation. And Grim Reaper says he joined Ultron and said he'd watch his base.

Of course, Grim Reaper was lying. He and Ultron are mutually planning on betraying each other. Ultron was going to let the Reaper serve him for a while and then get rid of him. And the Grim Reaper is planning on betraying him before that.

Villains, amirite. Aside from groups that actually like each other like the Wrecking Crew, they just can't play nice.

That's why stuff like Acts of Vengeance was doomed to fail and why the Old Man Logan universe is merely the stuff of twisted fantasy.

Wonder Man asks why Grim Reaper even pretended to join team Ultron if he just wanted to kill him. And Grim Reaper explains it.

The explanation is fucking nonsense. But it is an explanation and in a superhero universe we must accept the fucking nonsense.

Grim Reaper: "While he's been 'robotizing' people, there's been a subtle feedback into his own system. In a nutshell, he's been absorbing human energy -- humanity itself -- in the process. That, in turn, leaves him increasingly vulnerable to my scythe. Otherwise, I could never have damaged his adamantium body, like I did last night."

... Sure!

That makes no sense at all! But we must accept it.

Grim Reaper also explains his angle. He knows what Ultron's plans are. He's going to turn a whole hell of a lot of people to Andrones all in one swell foop.

A lot more people than Grim Reaper would eat in years.

So his proposal is a needs of the many/lesser evil argument.

He'll tell Wonder Man where Ultron is planning to strike. In exchange, Wonder Man must swear to stop getting in Grim Reaper's way. And Grim Reaper will only eat one person a day.

Lives saved in the long run! All of humanity saved in the long run!

Grim Reaper: "Now, what could be fairer than that?"

Wonder Man protests that would be a monstrous bargain. But Grim Reaper is hard carrying a villain card right now so it being sick and twisted is why he's in favor. Wonder Man also objects that how can he be sure that the Reaper will stick to just one delicious human life a day. And the undead menace says that if he did eat more people, Wonder Man would find out.

It's not like Grim Reaper's feedings can be mistaken as normal deaths!

Grim Reaper: "Now, don't be bitter, little brother. After all, when you save all those people, you'll be an even greater hero than you are now. And no one but you and I will ever know that all it cost the world -- is a paltry 365 human lives a year. One more in leap years, of course... !"

Wow, you are loving this, Grim Reaper.

You're kind of a dick.

Anyway, back at the Avengers West Coast Compound, Hawkeye is reverting.

The infrared cure last issue didn't fully derobotize him. He was still left with some metal parts. And it seems that remaining metal means he's still susceptible to Ultron's influence.

Semi-Androne Hawkeye starts shooting off arrows and trying to blow up the infrared bombarder that Hank Pym is building to cure people affected by the robotizing.

Wasp tzaps Hawkeye but since he's part metal her stings aren't having any effect.

Sigh. Remember when Wasp's stings had evolved to the point where she could blow up a house?

Byrne hard reset her to ineffectual nuisance and Hank's ego fluffer. And the Thomas run isn't bringing her back to her cool Shooter/Stern heights.

SIIIIIIGH.

Hank tries to shrink Hawkeye because shrinking his problems usually makes his problems smaller! Like when he shrank Tigra and then forgot about her and the problem resolved itself!

grumble.

But the Pym Particles aren't working on Hawkeye. Which confuses Hank. Pym Particles worked on the robot farmers. They made them explode.

Wait. Were you trying to explode Hawkeye, Hank??

Scarlet Witch decides that since her powers maybe worked last time, that means her powers are fully back and reliable, so she tries using them on Hawkeye but instead it maybe causes a huge piece of equipment start to fall over on Hank Pym.

Hank is able to shrink THAT so he doesn't get the squish. But I wonder if Wanda has been reset back to when her hex power was as likely to screw the Avengers over as their opponents.

Fuckin

can any of the ladies keep their sweet gains??

Anyway, Hawkeye nearly escapes out the open hanger door but then he collapses.

A random comment that Wasp makes has Hank realize that it wasn't the Pym Particles that made the robot farmers explode! It was vibrations of Rover's engines! And Rover and the Quinjet have similar engines!

So is the weakness of the robotizing infrared or sound vibrations? Pick a thing.

Anyway, Wonder Man signals the team that he needs them so they all take off to meet him.

To Pasadena! Where the Rose Parade is being held! With a very sci-fi 'world of tomorrow' theme to it in this modern year of 1991.

Wonder Man and Grim Reaper are already there. With Wonder Man having secretly signaled the Avengers as soon as Grim Reaper revealed where Ultron was going to strike. Pretty sneaky, Simon!

Grim Reaper explains that Ultron is hiding in one of the blimps that's flying over the parade - one branded with a big SEANKAI, which the parade announcers don't recognize.

A blimp isn't Ultron's usual choice of vehicles but Reaper explains that it will let the robot get near thousands of potential Androne recruits without anyone expecting it.

Wonder Man's doubtful reaction to learning the location does prove Grim Reaper's point that the Avengers wouldn't have suspected Ultron could possibly be in a blimp.

A security guard appears to yell at Grim Reaper and Wonder Man for being in a prohibited area.

To Grim Reaper's delight. He'd hoped for some breakfast before the fight with Ultron!

Seriously. He calls the security guard breakfast.

Wonder Man grabs Grim Reaper and flies out of the building, scolding him no advance payment on the deal before defeating Ultron.

The security guard is just left confused by the whole thing. Reporting in that Wonder Man and some guy with a sickle hand were looking for food.

Womp womp!

Wonder Man flies towards the big SEANKAI dirigible with Grim Reaper. He's spotted by the parade announcers but since the parade has a sci-fi theme, they dismiss the sighting as probably just part of the parade.

Hilariously ironically, the announcers also say that the sophisticated modern person knows that robots are nothing like the menacing monsters of old sci-fi.

IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE.

Which has Ultron and the Sentinels and more. Robots are exactly like the menacing monsters of old sci-fi because that's what they were inspired by.

Sometimes, comic universe are a little too world outside your window and not enough world outside their window. The average Marvel citizen lives in a confusing fantasy sci-fi spec fic kitchen sink world.

Anyway.

Wonder Man OH YEAHs through the side of the blimp and reveals its no blimp dirigible, it's a hi-tech anti-gravity airship disguised as a blimp! Pretty sneaky, Ultron!

Ultron: "I should never have trusted you, Grim Reaper. But actually, in point of fact -- I never really did. I simply do not deign you worth fearing."

Ya burnt, Eric.

But Ultron better start deigning because he's very surprised when Grim Reaper stabs him and starts draining energy out of him. The human life force that Ultron has somehow absorbed by turning people into robots even though the roboticization process is not being directly by Ultron but by a chemical process. Human energy is still ending up in the big bad Mr Roboto and Grim Reaper is still slurping it up like a delicious milkshake!

Even Ultron doesn't really understand exactly how what he was doing resulted in absorbing life energy. He's willing to roll with the concept and operate off that basis now that it's been made clear that is what the story is going with. But he doesn't understand it either.

Meanwhile, down in the parade, the robots decorating all the sci-fi floats come to life.

I also don't know why this is happening.

One can assume Ultron rigged them up to menace. And that they were accidentally activated with Grim Reaper throwing Ultron into so many computer panels. But either way they're menacing the parade and it gives the newly arriving Avengers West something to contribute in this issue while Wonder Man is having a personal arc play out.

One of the marching band ladies trips so she can be menaced by Gort et al. Making the cover an actual true and accurate representation of a moment from the comic!

Except she's dressed in green, not red.

Dangit, cover, you were SO close!

Iron Man tackles Gort and ties him up in a lamppost. Quicksilver runs around and around Robot the robot, accomplishing nothing. Then Scarlet Witch gestures and Robot falls over.

(These announcers have approximate knowledge of many things.)

Meanwhile, US Agent, Dr Pym, and Wasp tackle Robby the Robot. Hank shrinks him down with Pym Particles, instantly winning the fight. Because with Hank Pym, if he can shrink you, he probably wins.

Meanwhile, Grim Reaper has absorbed a whole hell of a lot of energy and seemingly defeated Ultron. And he gloats about it.

But surprise, Wonder Man reneges on the deal.

He's not an honor before reason type. He promised he'd let Grim Reaper eat a person a day only so he could find and stop Ultron. And now that Ultron is stopped, he's going to try to stop Grim Reaper too.

Good on you for lying, Wonder Man.

And Grim Reaper is perversely proud of him for it, too. Simon is finally growing up and whatnot.

Not that it will stop Reaper from beating Wonder Man to death with his bare hand.

Because his scythe doesn't work well on him, see? But his bare fist shouldn't either. Wonder Man is vaguely in Thor's weight class. Grim Reaper isn't. Although Reaper did just slurp a whole bunch of energy out of Ultron. So, eh, fair enough.

Wonder Man proclaims that Grim Reaper isn't really the brother he knew because that brother wanted to protect him. In a really fucked up possessive delusional way that sometimes involved putting him in a giant blender. But Wonder Man can tell that Grim Reaper is really trying to kill him.

Grim Reaper: "You got that right, at least? Why should you go on living, while I'm -- the way I am? Answer: you shouldn't. Answer... you won't!"

This is the first hint that we've got that Grim Reaper actually resents his undead condition. Huh. Depth.

Ultron isn't quite dead, because he had battery backups, and he gets back up to get Reaper back for getting him got.

And then Hawkeye flies through the blimp hole and rams into Grim Reaper.

Being partially roboticized meant he had a homing instinct toward Ultron. That's how he found them. Neat.

Also, he's got his own agency back. Also neat.

But Grim Reaper deflects the arrow Hawkeye shoots at him. Then slices his bow up.

Then Ultron starts shooting MIND CONTROL CIRCLES at Hawkeye, trying to subvert his will and turn him into a weapon. While Grim Reaper stabs Hawkeye and tries to drain his life energy.

And both attempts are cancelling each other out. But also fucking up Hawkeye.

Wonder Man tackles Hawkeye out of the crossfire, which leaves Ultron and Grim Reaper to bonk torsos and knock each other out.

The rest of the Avengers West show up to find Wonder Man and Hawkeye in bad condition and Ultron and Grim Reaper out cold.

Not sure why both lurched forward like that but dammit, we needed a resolution!

Hawkeye: "Just m-my luck, ain't it? I get turned practically... into a freakin' metal robot... and I still get knocked around...!"

Yeah, but in the future people will love you for what a trash fire you are. So, it kind of balances out.

Iron Man: "We're going to do everything that's humanly possible to cure you, once and for all, Avenger... emphasis on the 'humanly'!"

Iron Man flies Hawkeye out of the notblimp, to get him medical attention.

Even as banged up as Wonder Man is, he tries to go help the unconscious Grim Reaper.

Wonder Man: "G-got to help Eric, Wanda... don't you see? He may be... walking dead... even a murderer... But... he's s-still... my brotherr*"

And he passes the fuck out, with the Avengers deciding he's earned a long snooze after everything that's happened.

Tigra: "So -- Happy New Year, everybody!" Wasp: "Yeah. Right."

Ugh. Things almost lined up where this issue would have posted on New Years Day! But it didn't because of the weeks I'd missed. It doesn't matter but wouldn't it have been neat?

Anyway.

The Reaper and the Robot arc. Hmm...

Well, Reaper coming back as a zombie and needing to eat people to live gave him a new motivation that wasn't his obsession with Simon. Eating people. It flipped the script and made Wonder Man the one obsessively chasing after his brother.

We got some good drama out of it. And it interrupted the attempts to ship Wanda and Simon together. Which are attempts I do not care for.

And on the robot side of things, Ultron's new scheme is also new sinister ground for him. He's going to turn all of humanity into robots. But robot extensions of himself.

The two villains, erstwhile allies, have radically opposed motivations so they inevitably clash. With Wonder Man in the middle.

The ending gets a little weird with Ultron being a pinata of human energy. Granted, that's just the kind of nonsense that one needs to expect from comic books.

And this is such a Wonder Man story that the obvious emotional hook for Hank Pym just isn't there. Ultron is his worst invention. Which is now attempting to transform and enslave all of humanity. The last time he faced Ultron, there was a good Ultron who had turned over a new leaf but which got killed by an evil Ultron who hadn't gone through that character development. Hank should feel more dialed into the plot but he's firmly operating as the Brains and the Leader (the role, not the gamma guy) and Wonder Man is taking up all the drama so Hank just kinda exists and makes good decisions.

But, whatever.

Anyway. Speaking of bonkers conclusions, the bonkers conclusion to the Avengers arc with the Tetrarchs of Entropy next week. And next next week, issue 69 of Avengers West Coast.

That is one of the funny numbers.

Follow @essential-avengers. Like and reblog. Comment. Dance like nobody is watching, not even Uatu.

[mysticalflyte]

so uhhh... should I watch the LOGH remake or the seventy-billion-episode original? What's your opinion on them? Is one better than the other?

Hey there! I’m no authority on this, but my personal opinion from having watched both to completion is that the original 110 episode OVA is better :D

Here are some reasons:

1) The Character Designs - the OVA has beautiful and distinguishable character designs, on top of voice acting, that will always remain classic to me. As a fan artist, I vastly prefer the looks of the cast in the OVA over the versions of everyone in DNT. For example, Walter von Schonkopf’s face in DNT looks more plain and generic than his OVA counterpart:

2) The Music - DNT has fine modern orchestral arrangements, but the OVA actually inserts lots of classical music throughout the show, adding to the grandeur of the experience! For example, there’s a particularly memorable part where a small fleet of fighter jet spaceships launch out into space to do battle with Spanish Dance from Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky blasting in the background that I’ll never forget 😆

3) The Story Itself - As the original source material is actually a series of novels, the story is adapted slightly differently between the OVA and DNT! DNT is arguably more accurate to the books in its order of events and pacing, while the OVA takes more creative liberties by adding more depth to certain background characters that are brushed over in the original material, while also slowing the pacing down a bit. I have talked to someone else who also has watched both and they said that they could Feel the passion and love that the OVA creators felt for each character more that way! For example, Admiral the Cat is totally an OVA invention and is so fun to watch! Yang Wen Li, my favorite character, seems less infallible and more endearingly dorky and tired of being pushed around in the OVA compared to his more perfect DNT counterpart. There are also so many more humorous verbal quips littered throughout the OVA that are very memorable. 😀

Ultimately I think it’s up to you! Keep in mind that the OVA is already fully complete while DNT has only covered like 30-40%(?) of the story at this time. Even if you were to start DNT, you would most likely have to hop over to the novels or OVA anyway later.

In all fairness, I’ll also give some more positive points on DNT:

1) Being Modern - it’s modern, so the animation quality is probably easier to get used to as it’s done by Production IG starting in 2018

2) The Battles and Ship Designs are Flashier - there is usage of CGI models for the space battles but honestly they do a pretty good job blending everything in with flashier effects not present in the OVA

That’s about it! Just my opinions, feel free to do with this information what you will :)

[yourfavsasdragondescriptions]

Oh, you gotta do the Harrister, baby.

Let's see how this shall go.

Indeed we shall.

Due to his mutton chops, I see the dragon that Harrier Du Bois would be as an East Asian dragon like the one below.

However, since East Asian dragons are more associated with water than fire, I’ll have Dragon!Harrier’s breath weapon be a highly pressurized blast of fog. This fog can have a variety of effects depending on what skill is his signature skill at the moment. And he’s immune to the effects of his own fog. For example…

* Logic - Necrosis of the extremities, starting with fingers, then hands, then arms.

* Encyclopedia - Overloads the minds of those who breathe in the fog with forbidden knowledge, leaving them catatonic at best and violently insane at worst.

* Rhetoric - Turns allies against each other through arguments amongst themselves.

* Drama - Forces those who breathe it in to speak like they’re characters in Shakespeare stories.

* Conceptualization - Seems to affect the environment that comes into contact with the fog rather than people, causing architecture to manifest from nearby materials, and this can entomb living creatures unlucky enough to also be in the fog.

* Visual Calculus - Less of a practical skill and more for reconstructing crime scenes via casting projections of past events.

* Volition - Causes people who breathe the fog in to never tell a lie or, if they have committed a crime that Harrier is investigating, to confess on the spot.

* Inland Empire - Animates objects that come into contact with the fog and puts them under Harrier’s command. They deanimate when Harrier no longer has need of them.

* Empathy - Causes anyone who comes into contact with the gas, if they are about to do harm to someone or something, to immediately stop what they are doing and apologize. Also functions as a cure for sociopathy and narcissistic personality disorder.

* Authority - Basically mind control gas. Can also be used to make the dead speak (as long as said dead still have the proper organs to talk).

* Esprit de Corps - Gives Harrier’s fellow police officers seemingly superhuman abilities.

* Suggestion - Replaces the fog with a very thick smog with a color that just screams “this gas is cancer incarnate do NOT breathe it in”. And yes, the smog is a carcinogen.

* Endurance - Rapidly eats away at the muscle tissue of any living thing that enters it while not damaging bone, skin or flesh.

* Pain Threshold - Takes whatever pains you’re feeling at the moment and amplifies it a thousandfold. A Dark Eldar’s wet dream.

* Physical Instrument - MASSIVELY increases the pressurization of the steam jet, enabling it to punch through almost a mile of dense bedrock.

* Electrochemistry - Turns the fog into a hallucinogenic gas so potent that just breathing in even a single molecule of the stuff is enough to cause an overdose.

* Shivers - Electrically charges the fog to a point that it fires off lightning bolts in all directions. Though the bolts contain more than enough volts to kill a man in one strike, the charged fog is short-lived and vanishes seconds after it manifests.

* Half Light - Makes the fog highly explosive, catching alight within seconds of contact with the air and has a blast strength strong enough to level buildings if the gas is indoors.

* Hand-Eye Coordination - A gas with anomalous properties that cause whatever is in the gas that isn’t nailed down (up to the size of a truck) to be lifted up and thrown at Harry’s target at the same speed as… well, a bullet.

* Perception - Overloads the senses of those in the fog. Smells become so pungent they drown out all else, quiet whispers become a deafening clarion, and more.

* Reaction Speed - Speeds up the perception of time to whatever breathes the fog in. Can cause insanity to those who breathe the stuff in.

* Savoir Faire - Causes the muscles of whoever breathes the fog in to involuntarily twitch and shudder, the phenomenon becoming increasingly intense over time until organs rip like paper and eyes burst.

* Interfacing - If there is a broken machine in the fog, it repairs itself. Causes scrap metal to bundle together into what I can best describe as an approximation of a machine.

* Composure - Turns whoever breathes in the fog into stone. This isn’t immediate, but a gradual process outside of the fog. This phenomenon greatly accelerates inside the fog, with affected persons and animals turning to stone in seconds.

I’d do more about his appearance, but the breath weapon thing really gave my brain a workout, so I’ll leave you to interpret it on your own.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Mission accomplished for Integral, ESA's gamma-ray telescope

Today, the European Space Agency's gamma-ray telescope ends its observations. During its 22 years in space, Integral has reshaped our view of the most dramatic events in the universe. The high-energy observatory played a pivotal role in revealing the nature of the cosmic explosions known as gamma-ray bursts and in uncovering the origin of gravitational wave events. Recently, it delivered unique insights into how thermonuclear blasts drive jets in neutron stars and captured the giant flare from an extragalactic magnetar.

ESA's Integral was launched on 17 October 2002, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, on a mission to observe the ever-changing, powerful, and extreme cosmos.

"For over two decades, Integral has shown us time and time again how important it is to look at the sky in gamma-ray light," notes Jan-Uwe Ness, ESA's Integral Project Scientist. "Some of the bursts of light associated with extreme physical events in our universe can only be fully understood if we catch the rays that come from the very core of the blasts: the gamma rays."

Unlike visible and radio light coming from space, which we can observe from the ground, cosmic gamma rays can only be captured in space. This is because Earth's atmosphere acts as a shield to protect us from these harmful rays.

"Integral has transformed our understanding of the dynamic high-energy universe and physics in extreme conditions," adds Prof. Carole Mundell, ESA Director of Science.

"That Integral's spacecraft and instrumentation have performed so exquisitely well for so many years is testament to the quality of the technology developed by the European scientific community and space industry at the turn of the millennium, and the science and engineering teams at ESA who have operated this mission ever since. Congratulations to all our communities for their dedication and achievements."

Solving mysteries and breaking new ground

Integral's observations have been key to solving the mysteries of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), the powerful flashes of energetic light that flare up somewhere in the sky about once per day. These flashes often shine brighter than all other gamma-ray sources together.

Nowadays, scientists trace the origin of "longer" GRB events lasting several seconds to the runaway collapse of massive stars that go supernova, while shorter bursts are due to black holes and neutron stars smashing into each other.

"What I find impressive about Integral are its unexpected discoveries," remarks Jan-Uwe. "It turned out that Integral was ideal for tasks not at all foreseen when the mission was conceived. An example is its ability to track down the sources in the sky that generated some of the gravitational waves and ultrahigh-energy neutrinos caught by specialized instruments on the ground."

At the time of Integral's launch, scientists were not even sure whether gravitational waves could ever be directly detected; the first observation of these elusive ripples in spacetime was made 13 years after Integral's launch by the LIGO gravitational wave detectors in the US, in 2015.

Breakthroughs kept coming.

"Just in the last two years or so, I was stunned by exciting new results. Integral captured the most powerful gamma-ray flash ever observed, and the blast impacted the atmosphere's protective ozone layer," continues Jan-Uwe. "This GRB took place in a galaxy almost two billion light-years away—it is mind-boggling to think that Earth can be affected by an event that took place in a remote corner of the universe, two billion years ago."

Two more recent findings focus on an extremely rare 0.1-second magnetar outburst that emitted as much energy as our sun produces in half a million years, and the discovery that thermonuclear explosions drive jets in a neutron star.

Sharp gamma-ray eyes

At the time of launch, Integral was the most advanced gamma-ray observatory and the first space observatory able to see celestial objects simultaneously in gamma rays, X-rays,and visible light.

Three features of Integral's instrumentation have made these many discoveries possible: a very large field-of-view covering about 900 square degrees of the sky in the most energetic X- and gamma rays; the ability to obtain, simultaneously, detailed images and spectra at the highest energies; the monitoring capability of the X-ray and optical cameras to help pinpoint the gamma-ray sources.

Ramping down

"After 2,886 orbits and 22 years gazing into the depths of our cosmos, today Integral's sensitive instruments will stop collecting scientific data. But the legacy of ESA's gamma-ray observatory will serve scientists for many more years to come," concludes Matthias Ehle, Integral's Mission Manager at ESA.

"The wealth of data collected over two decades will be stored at the Integral Science Legacy Archive. It will be essential for future research and to inspire a new generation of astronomers and engineers to develop exciting new missions."

Following the end of its science observations, the spacecraft will continue to orbit Earth for four more years. ESA engineers will monitor the satellite until it re-enters Earth's atmosphere in early 2029. Thanks to a special four-thruster burn executed back in 2015, the satellite's entry into the atmosphere will meet ESA's pledge to minimize space debris.

TOP IMAGE: The artistic impression depicts the effect of a powerful blast of gamma rays that provoked a significant disturbance in our planet’s ionosphere. This is the result of a gamma-ray burst (GRB) from a star’s supernova explosion, in a galaxy almost two billion light-years away. The event took place at 14:21 BST / 15:21 CEST on 9 October 2022 and was detected by many of the high-energy satellites in orbit close to Earth, including ESA's Integral mission—shown on the left of the illustration. Instruments in Germany picked up signs that the Earth's ionosphere was disturbed for several hours by the blast. Credit: European Space Agency

LOWER IMAGE: Integral instruments. Credit: European Space Agency

[quirkwizard]

So I know you’ve done a post where you replaced the 6 ofa quirks. Could you do this but you’re limited to just mutant quirks. If this is too difficult then transformation, and if is still difficult the just emitters but your free to keep some like black whip for example

The issue with Mutant types is that they are too strong as they are, involve some physical enhancements, or just aren't that interesting. When picking out Quirks for this, I prefer the idea of weak Quirks growing stronger and that the new Quirks are worthwhile features, not further supporting the already immense power of "One For All". So I will try to stick to the two categories. I will give an honorable mention to "Beast" though. It is redundant with all the strength boosts, but hey, it could work as the dangerous super mode and could have a lot of fun design choices.

Zoom: Considering the lack of sensory abilities with the Quirk, this could help a lot with that. This could result in either growing to include more kinds of refined senses or being able to develop more kinds of senses in the eyes, either of which could be useful. Even then, it could have a cool to see it charged with "One For All", maybe going into a speed thinking state similar to "Overclock".

Jet: This is kind of redundant with Izuku's abilities, but I think would add another layer to it. Besides the consistent flight offered, it could be neat to see Izuku open up holes at any point in his body to project the air, using it to augment other parts his body, suddenly push himself around to redirect his body, or use it to make more focused, powerful blasts of his air attacks at any point.

Pliabody: This could wear a lot of hats for Deku. It's could help with ability to work in rescue, increase his survivability with evasion, and the stretchiness could a lot of fun options with the enhance physic. Rather then simply increasing the power output of "One For All", it simply gives the user more options to apply it. Think something like the various tricks Luffy has pulled off in his story.

Scales: I did consider "Hardening" because of how well it fit thematically, but I went with "Scales" since I think it had more to offer. Not only do I think that the grow scales could be fun to play around with, like making weapons out of them or firing them out on bursts of wind, they could have some fun combinations, like applying an effect through shooting out the scales, such as making bursts of air come out of them when used with "Jet".

Tape: While it could simply be my enjoyment of "Blackwhip" making me want to pick this, I think "Tape" can bring it's own to the table. Not only could Izuku use it to swing around and bind people, but I think would be great with rescue work, similar to how Sero uses it but on a larger scale, tying back whole structures together. Then it has some fun potential with other abilities, like using it with "Pliabody" to effectively make it act more like rubber.

Quad Arms: This may seem like a silly choice, but I think this would make for an interesting for one of the earlier Quirks for "One For All". Imagine instead of simply having two arms, it lets you duplicates parts like "Dupli Arms", but all around you body. Not only could this create so many interesting attack combos, but could be giving him more chances to apply the other Quirks, like more eyes for "Zoom", or combing the Quirks in other ways, like making super massive arms made from the "Scales".

[silyabeeodess]

Fusionfall Headcanons: Boardwalk Bullies

The last thing you'll have to worry about is destroyed sandcastles and salt water splashed in your eyes with this beach bully: You'll be too busy simply running for your life. These fusion monsters appear along in both Orchid Bay and Bravo Beach, waiting for the next victim to crush against the shoals.

As explained in their description, Boardwalk Bullies are primarily made of boat parts and beach gear. These parts include tires, speakers, pieces and engines, and water sports equipment like jet skis. At first glance, it can look like a giant scrap pile, disarming their targets. However, despite the mess of equipment they're fashioned from, their design can actually be pretty sophisticated when compared to other fusion monsters. One example of this is their hands, which are most similar to a human's.

They use their powerful bodies to slam straight into their opponents, crushing them. Besides their armor, their heavy torso and overall large size also makes any attempt to damage them difficult. They have incredibly few weaknesses. From concept art, we see only a few exposed areas on their bodies. Thankfully, these includes certain key points, like the knee, and their smaller, skinnier right hand, but while targeting these areas may handicap the Boardwalk Bullies, it won't take them down.

A soldier's best chance at destroying one of them is to use explosives and/or heavy weaponry. Swords and typical guns aren't really going to do the trick. Ideally, you'll want to target any engine pieces or similar machinery attached to their body. If there is any fuel or gas residue left on these pieces, you can potentially cause them to erupt by firing at them. This can sometimes lead to massive amounts of damage against the Bullies--just be sure you're standing far enough away not to get caught in the blast.

The Bullies have one more disadvantage: They have extremely poor visibility. They have no neck to easily turn their heads and, even if they did, the massive armor guarding their shoulders and the backs of their heads limits their vision still. As such, with careful planning, you can get the jump on them.

To the frustration of everyone at the docks in Orchid Bay, these monsters like to stay closeby, often lurking around the shipping crates. Their main goal seems to be disrupting the large amounts of imports and exports conducted there. Secondly, it's the easiest location for them to secure parts to create more of themselves. Defending shipments against these tanks is a regular duty there.

There is one other variant of this species, the Beach Bully. Despite what they're name implies, they aren't actually found all too close to the water, but rather up near the beach houses overlooking the shore. This is possibly due to wealthy residents who owned boats that were then abandoned during the invasion. The fusion fighters don't have a strong presence in this area aside from some a Monkey Skyway Agent checkpoint, which is what allowed this population to linger. Not having access to the same materials, they tend to be less durable and take a longer time to repair themselves.

These fusion monsters are one of the rarer types that copy the habits of the creatures that inspired their design without any connection to their original purpose. Like actual bullies, it seems that they will steal things like money from others in order to indulge themselves. One key example of this is from the mission "Those are a Few of His Favorite Things," in which the Beach Bullies are caught enjoying ice cream and soda pop after getting Johnny's wallet. The full concept of trade might be hard for them to grasp and it's more than likely that they endangered the vendors they got the food from, but this shows that they have the basic idea down. (If it was Fusion Bubbles that bought it for them after knocking out Johnny, she likely would've kept the wallet on her. Either way, they were caught trying to enjoy the treats despite not even having a visible mouth.)

[prcdo]

have you heard from NICOLAS PRADO yet? back home they’re said to work as a REAL ESTATE COPYWRITER.  before this trip to blackwood pines, i’ve heard that they’re known to be ACTIVE, JOCULAR, AND ADAPTABLE. but on the downside, they’re known to be BRASH, COMPETITIVE AND BLUNT. when you think about them, you’ll probably see JERSEY NUMBERS WORN LIKE MILITARY MEDALS, BURST BOXING BAGS, CRUSHED SODA CANS, TARNISHED TROPHIES, AND KNUCKLES BRUISED TO THE HUE OF BUSINESS SUITS. and because of that, i would say that they’re known to be THE JOCK.

STATS. 

full name.  nicolas meza prado. 

nicknames.  nick is, in fact, his preferred name. nods at variations thereof with the notable exception of nicky.

date of birth.  13 october. 

place of birth.  odessa, texas, usa.  

current residence.  detroit, michigan, usa. 

languages.  fluent in english and spanish.

education.  has an mba from michigan state. paid for by a sports scholarship, of course.

occupation.  real estate copywriter. 

gender.  cisgender male. he/him. 

orientation.  bisexual. 

marital status.  dating, more often than not.

family.  a father, a mother, and two siblings sandwiching him into a suffocating space stuffed with birth order stereotypes.

PERSONALITY. 

the brief.  in one word, nick is winning. not a moment in his life has been spent without incredible drive, nor with any consideration as to local speed limits. he holds his head high and, in the process, can lose track of the bigger picture as easily as he can paint a new landscape of goals with loaded words and laborious action. whether this is concerning or endearing depends on a lot of factors, but he’s not dead yet, so he can’t be too insufferable. or maybe the team just needs some muscle. that’s probably it.

the good.  nick wants to help people. although he’s a primary proponent of self-love, he leads by example and is eager to learn whatever he can from whoever he can – the dumb jock stereotype didn’t pop up without any strict basis in reality, after all – and he’d sooner exile himself to an athlete’s foot locker than force someone to take a risk he wouldn’t seize first. 

the bad.  nick wants to help people with the absolute outlier of himself. he builds his plans around others, if he has any plans at all, yet has shoved his expectations for everyone above the stratosphere to the point where he feels personally degraded should anyone reject his get-pushed-in-the-pool-to-learn-how-to-swim teaching techniques. he does not deal well with having his opinions ignored in any capacity and nurses grudges as well as anyone with a doctorate in self-centredness would.

the ugly.  nick needs to be needed. being disliked macerates his mind into this mush of desperate people-pleasing, even if he knows the only path to justice is the one paved with potholes. if a friend asked him to jump off a cliff, he’d only ask if they wanted to film him doing a flip on the way down.

APPEARANCE. 

height.   5’9. good posture and a gleaming smile had most intramural coaches thinking otherwise.

build.  athletic, with a mean leanness that puts both his obsessive gym-going in adolescence and overwhelmingly green diet in adulthood on full blast. you know, as if he’s not enthusiastic enough about divulging all the sordid, sweaty

style.  comfort over couture. everything in his closet but his collection of immaculate basketball sneakers is best described as devil-may-care. colours stay neutral and t-shirt graphics stay slightly crude. sleeves must be rolled up regardless of weather and whether he’s even wearing something with long sleeves.

notable features.  jet black hair styled with water and confidence. the uncertain beginnings of a bristly moustache. a tattoo of the number one in a compact collegiate font on his right shoulder blade.

BIOGRAPHY.  content warnings for brief mentions of hazing and injury.

tl;dr.  annoyingly smirky middle child stomps his way into acquiring eldest child syndrome + a humiliating defeat to cap off his last collegiate basketball season, and proceeds to do everything in his power to not become the guy who peaked in school. which actually amounts to just throwing himself into work with little regard for sleep schedule or personal relationships, but a quick winter getaway could help him unwind a little, right? right.

first quarter.  nick’s a good kid, but good isn’t always good enough. his parents drill that lesson into his skull as soon as he’s out the hospital and in the prado household’s singular bedroom. they do it unintentionally, which is how they do a lot of things, but however much he wants to play hercules by hurling his weight around the run-down playground, every time he slices one head off the hydra of approval by joining this club or scoring that letter, another two pop up in its place, born of his brothers’ very existence. the one who came before him is their meal ticket making his way through med school, the one who came after him is already on track to become an accountant, and he’s… good at throwing things in hoops. things being homework, hoops being over trash bins. but he’s always been a good-natured kid, so when he secures a spot on the jv basketball team after trying out as a total joke, he soaks up the sugared electrolytes, the electric sound of applause, and the endless opportunities to sink his energy into something until the end of time. or until 6pm. you know, whenever practice ends.

second quarter.  nick’s a good guy. his parents call him the fun one, which might not be a compliment, but warping any and all descriptors into compliments is how nick’s become something of a casanova and kept his name relatively clear of any scandals. that is, until he semi-consciously continues a secret hazing ritual that results in the severe incapacitation of his fraternity brothers and a wicked hangover that, gasp, results in him ruining the next week’s championship game. then he blows his birthday money on veneers of all kinds to coast through police interviews and changes his course from sports officiating to business administration. then he realises that being impressive is way more important to the status of being good than making a squeaky-clean good impression.

third quarter.  nick’s living the good life. sure, he’s got little to no time for recreation, but he’s strongarmed his way up the corporate ladder and isn’t coming down at any cost. also, he can still toss his assignments in the trash can. he’s got a photocopier now. his friends tell him there’s no place better than blackwood pines, and if only to prove them wrong (and maybe prevent himself from getting hypertension at thirty) nick brings himself and a basketball along for the ride to the rockies.

fourth quarter.  nick’s story may or may not have a good ending. aka this is the part where i’ll put summaries of all super important life-changing in-character events so i don’t lose track of them <3

MISCELLANEOUS. 

radio.  beastie boys. no doubt. oasis. rage against the machine. red hot chili peppers.

potential relationships.

childhood friends.  people who witnessed his evolution from tryhard to hard-ass and has, by some miracle, decided to stick around. nick’s definitely drafted up at least one microsoft word nda regarding his tragic past and its secrecy for these folks. whether or not they unblocked him long enough to read the final document is trivial.

college classmates.  nick may or may not be the reason the general public does not desire a 5’9 brown-eyed man in finance. while not as egoistic as he was in his younger years, his enthusiasm for extra credit was well recorded.

former teammates.  while he never went pro, nick’s played basketball for as long as he’s been alive and was a volunteer coach at a couple of summer camps in his must-join-every-extracurricular-ever-or-perish days. whether you knew him as the point guard of your dreams or the gatorade purist of your nightmares, nick was sure to make games interesting.

gym sibs.  they stay hungry, they devour, put in the work, put in the hours, et cetera.

former coworkers/clients/employers.  nick’s had a host of less-than-dignified jobs with less-than-humane pay, including but not limited to arcade janitor, junior assistant dishwasher at a fast food joint, and human directional.

current coworkers/clients/employers.  being a real estate agent isn’t much more dignified when you get to the cold calling, door-slamming phase, but at least nick gets to do it in a fancy suit! and maybe you want to do things in a fancy suit too. or own a beautiful home in the suburbs with so much fluorescent lighting you’ll never think of going to the hospital again.

flings.  nick commits to everything except for relationships. go figure. he’s never lied about what he wants out of a night or two, but he has driven off way more than two dates by insulting their interior decorating skills during pillow talk.

assorted headcanons.  has a southern twang to his voice that gets exponentially stronger on the rare occasion he experiences an emotion aside from pride. says that he bikes everywhere for health reasons but has actually been banned from several buses for playing his super hype playlists without headphones. also hates cars because the smell and sight of exhaust pipe smoke reminds him of his older brother lolol. doesn’t curse much in general but absolutely refuses to do so in the presence of a lady thanks to mami, even if she has a sailor’s mouth of her own. very physically, if not emotionally, protective; will not hesitate to be someone’s meat shield in any given situation.

[jlf23tumble]

wait can you widen your perspective here?

https://www.tumblr.com/jlf23tumble/728321025349189632/cant-believe-louis-does-free-meet-and-greets?source=share

Do people not thirst over Louis here?? So the blouiesm pillar started from Tumblr was facts all along 😳. Damn, no one calls Louis daddy here?? That's just sad and boring tbh...

I love a bad-faith read, but this one's on me for not clarifying it in the simplest way possible, I guess! Hell yeah, daddy Louis has been a thing on tumblr for years (huge fan, personally, reading/rec'ing for years), but self-insert daddy Louis is a lot less of a thing here. For example, I have yet to see someone on tumblr post a Louis from a show, slowed down and zoomed in for max dickitude, with the caption (and I quote): "i need a jet-stream of his cum to hit the back of throat and blast my tonsils off like a pressure washer cleaning barnacles off a boat" If you know of people dropping that kind of content on tumblr.edu, drop the rec!

[sailorsol]

So most of this is true. We are very good at making things boil to create steam to make the spinny thing give us power. But. We are also very good at making things EXPLODE to make the spinny thing give us power.

This was touched on briefly in regards to internal combustion engines, but this is true for any gas turbine engine. If you cram a bunch of oxygen into a small space and add some fuel and then EXPLODE it, you get a lot of hot air pushing out of that area really quickly, which will make your turbine spin as well. This is a gas turbine, most commonly seen in jet engines, but there are also industrial gas engines (as seen at natural gas power plants, for example) that are basically GIANT jet engines that don't fly.

Part of the reason natural gas is more efficient for energy generation is because you don't have to heat the water to make the steam to turn the turbine to get the power, you just explode the gas. You also get a lot fewer problems with the turbine when steam isn't involved, because steam has a habit of causing pitting on the turbine blades if it isn't dry enough. (Yeah, dry steam is a thing. Try not to think about it too hard else you'll break your brain.) This means having to replace the turbine a lot more often--which is fine if your cooling loop is separate from your primary heating loop, like in most types of nuclear reactors, but if you've got a boiling water reactor, your turbine is exposed to irradiated steam so maintenance becomes a lot harder.

All that being said--we have been using water and wind to generate power for thousands of years. Not electricity, but power, which is really what we're talking about when we talk about making the spinny thing go. Because the spinny thing is creating mechanical power, which is then used to make an electric engine go WEEEEEEEE to give us electric power. But mechanical power can be used directly for things like pumping water or grinding grain or operating bellows to fuel really huge blast furnaces for smelting iron.

Humans have been really good at finding ways to make mechanical power and reduce the amount of energy we are personally required to put into getting that mechanical power. Because humans are relatively weak and generally lazy in the sense that we're always looking for an easier way to do something difficult.

Steam power, in the grand scheme of things, is relatively new, and frankly it took a lot of trial and error (and explosions) before it could be used reliably and efficiently, which is also partly why we don't see things like steam powered cars or nuclear powered jet engines (though they tried, for both). It just isn't efficient or practical. And inherently one of the ways to make steam power more efficient is to pressurize all that lovely boiling water (whatever the heat source), which is where the explosions come in. Think about a bottle of soda exploding, but now imagine that with a giant metal tank and boiling water, and you have the horror of late 19th century steam power. The number of trains and ships that exploded was not inconsequential. There was an entire insurance company created just to deal with steam boilers because no one else wanted to touch them. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers was basically created because a bunch of engineers got together and said "right, there has to be some way to do this without blowing people up" and the pressure vessel regulations came into existence. But that was in 1880, and if you look at the development of steam powered energy, not much has changed except the source of the heat.

(Yes, Vitruvius created a bladeless radial steam engine in ~30 BCE, but you'll note that it never really took off, mostly because it lacked a good way to do anything with all the spinning, like turning a gear shaft.)

So yes. Nuclear power is really no different from coal power, they just use different sources to make sources hot. And steam power is great, but at the end of the day, we have come up with lots of better ways to create power. Steam is just the best way we've found so far to create a lot of power all at once. And with nuclear power in particular, we can get a lot of electrical power out of the system with very little energy being put into it. One uranium fuel pellet that can fit in your hand is equivalent to 40 tons of coal, the size of a large dump truck.

So if you need lots of electrical power, steam is one of your best options. But if you're just looking for mechanical power, there are lots of better options.

nuclear power is impressive until you get up to why. "we use the most precisely engineered machinery ever created to split atoms to release energy" oh yeah how come? "boil water to turn a fan" get the fuck out

[is-this-murder-ethical]

Are explosions an unethical way to murder somebody?

If so, would it still be unethical if you tell the person you plan on killing before blowing them up?

Please forgive me if you have already outlined whether or not explosions are ethical, I haven't seen all your posts yet

You are forgiven my child! Thank you for asking >:] I haven’t outlined much on my blog but this question has me pondering.

Short answer:

Explosions are unethical

I think you could find a way to make it ethical

Extremely long answer:

I try to avoid making personal judgments and just follow the rules I wrote because it’s funnier that way but bc I wrote it under the circumstances I did, sometimes it really requires some subjective interpretation (Like the Bible) but i usually give specific examples that help clarify a lot, and I tend to default to those.

So explosions are considered UNETHICAL!!! because and I quote, “pick a weapon based off skin. Your victim cannot be killed by the weapon easier than they are simply wounded. (Firearms, bombs, most machinery, and flais)”

So firearms is prohibited and so is bombs and I would assume explosions. But it is more interesting if you tell someone “I am about to explode you rn”

There is a section too abstract to post without editing lmao where i basically talk about a situation where if you are pointing a gun at a animal you are hunting and someone stands in front of the barrel and refuses to move. If you tell them repeatedly I am going to pull the trigger, you try to reason with them, warn them, and they still don’t move. You cannot be faulted for pulling the trigger.

I give some other examples but Basically I’m trying to express the idea of someone putting themselves in danger at your hands without your consent. Someone forcing your hand.

What’s interesting to me about this section Is I specifically given an example involving firearms which are again UNETHICAL!

But it talks about someone forcing your hand in the same section it also states “motive, mindset, execution, victim, and circumstance” as the quote “five pillars of murder”(amazing sentence) and that it’s possible to have an ethical execution but an unethical motive. BUT I also say that motive and circumstance can override the others in situations of self defense and ‘unwillingness’

So. I think you have found a loophole where you COULD kill somebody by explosion! But it would have to be under specific circumstances

1. In self defense under any conditions you can explode someone

2. If you have a well marked bomb or explosive that you are using to defend your property or wtv and it is just so clear that if you walk here you will explode and someone does it anyways

3. If you were like a scientist doing an explosion experiment and some guy refused to move out of the blast zone even after you asked him multiple times

But it would be UNETHICAL if you hid a bomb and simply told someone “I am about to explode you” and then did it. Because it was your intention from the beginning to explode that guy. Or if you set off on explosion that wasn’t supposed to be for murder originally but you knew someone unsuspecting would be killed in the process

Sorry for any typos I’m extremely jet lagged and dyslexic but I’ll use any excuse to analyze the text

[xxdoubledaisyxx]

I am Nick's raging wrath.

I am not getting up to write this.

The only possible way the system could be this inefficient and ineffective as a civil government for veterans and citizens with disabilities is if there was a mass global conspiracy to purposely make it inconvenient as a personal attack against my individual life, which threatens them who conspire for the same reason.

The first provocative reason for an attack is an evil one.

"of course."

"We only did this to you because we want to hurt Israel."

The only reason Israel will be hurt is because I hurt you to make it possible for them to know what it was you did to be hurt by it.

The fact of the matter is that they left my Christ dive to be eaten by rats, where the remains of that are to this day. I know not. I resurrected immediately upon the ejection of the moment, like a suicide bomb dropped out of a jet on its way to a greater good.

It was at this time that the scientists in their mad lust for power realized what that magical object of mystery was that they had brought deepest into the heart of their lair to study and understand the power of.

Perhaps they will learn something, but it will be knowledge lost entirely with their lives as they pay the price for knowing it.

(It was a poop rocket. A mega super poop rocket.)

I don't think I will ever stop laughing at this turn of events!

This is also why government work is supposed to have standards. That is truly a catastrophe, but it worked out in the happiest of accidents. I didn't drop a "poop rocket", I dropped a solemn Christ life of my own that I was leaving behind for a higher calling. What the government believed that was to experiment with in a ridiculous pseudoscience project became the ultimate poop rocket of all time and destroyed more than any other poop rocket had ever destroyed any organization ever.

That is why those problems are called "poop rockets". They always go off under confinement in a small space from a smaller space and ruin everyone's day. The best you can possibly hope to do is aim the blast away from you, probably to your subordinates. (they are going to be pissed)

... god damn it. Thanks a lot guys. Now we are going port and starboard for the next three months. Not to mention hot-racking.

Oh no... I did't not just brush my hand against a coarse cotton fabric. Nope. Never happened. ***

For example the scandal in recent decades with Catholic priests sexually abusing minors was a poop rocket of such a scale. The only comparative example of such filthy vileness to compare what the USA government did themselves to the USA people.

Your rib hooked underneath and removed with one forceful pull. Abram's Revenge, Lethal Strike of the Jew Style, fatal to maidens. One of the Five Forms of the Warlord's Fist. The martial expression of the first Shade of Darkness, Void.