#frontiers unexplored

[digitaldreams0801]

Fates Unbound Added Scenes Guide

While editing through my Digimon Frontier rewrite, I added a few scenes along the way. Here's a complete guide to all of the scenes that were added during the editing process.

Chapter Twenty-Five: Blooming Skies Added Scene: Aldamon, Yaiamon, Daipenmon, and Ceruleamon try to fight through the hoards of Void Fragment Digimon attacking Inaie.

Chapter Twenty-Five: Blooming Skies Added Scene: Lowemon fears his own inadequacy during the battle on Inaie, knowing he is unable to do anything truly helpful while stuck in his Human Spirit.

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Melting Away Added Scene: Yumiko thinks about the strange mural she saw beneath Inaie. She asks Fiore, Calanthe, and Lyseir for information about Miriamon but realizes that no one will be able to share the truth with the Legendary Warriors but Miriamon herself.

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Melting Away Added Scene: Miriamon finishes explaining the recent battle on Inaie to Alastomon and Biastamon. Once they are gone, she feels out of place and distant from the Legendary Warriors and Digimon guides.

Chapter Twenty-Eight: When Thunder Roars Added Scene: Mayumi and Haroi return home from school, but they find Yutaka is following them. They duck into the Digital World when they can to get him off their trail.

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Out of Reach Added Scene: Koichi asks his mother about the circumstances around his birth. Tomoko tells him of lights that illuminated the sky on the night of his and Koji's birth, confirming Koichi's suspicions about the Legendary Warriors' birthdays and the investigation team's search.

Chapter Thirty-One: A Welcoming Embrace Added Scene: Hinoka explains the Digital World to her sister on the heels of having her identity as a Legendary Warrior exposed.

Chapter Thirty-One: A Welcoming Embrace Added Scene: Hinoka and Koichi discuss Chiaki knowing the truth of the Legendary Warriors.

Chapter Thirty-One: A Welcoming Embrace Added Scene: Yumiko tells the other Legendary Warriors about the strange mural she found on Inaie and its connection to Miriamon.

Chapter Thirty-Two: The Souls and the Stars Added Scene: Kage continues to struggle with settling into his new family. Kana, however, thrives, something that earns her the jealousy and resentment of her brother.

Chapter Thirty-Two: The Souls and the Stars Added Scene: Kana spends time with the Fushida family and tries to adjust to her life without Kage. She grows closer with Anri and Harutaka, coming to think of them as her parents more than her adoptive parents.

Chapter Thirty-Three: Tragedy of Heaven and Earth Added Scene: AncientWisemon explains the details of the conflict against Lucemon to Kana who is shocked to learn of her brother's new cruelty.

[partyofonepod]

New Episode: FRONTIER SCUM with Christine Prevas

There's something lurking in the mines. Something angry, vengeful, and... alive what shouldn't be. But the trick is, what's above ground might be worse.

You'll Dig This Episode if You Like: Weird West stories, Blade Runner, Cowboy Bebop, Supernatural, stories about sticking it to the corporations that have ruined our lives

[reader-wandering18]

Yuu Hunter x Hunter

Strange beasts and monsters. Vast riches, hidden treasures. Terrible places, unexplored frontiers. Mysterious and unknown.

People who are drawn to the magic of those words are known as HUNTERS.

Yuu Freecs, a boy from a vast, cruel and mysterious world, came to Twisted Wonderland.

What was a boy doing at Night Raven College?

Freecs' adventures leave his friends speechless. His kind personality reaches out to all students, including those who are not human.

The first time he arrived at Night Raven College was a moment that surprised everyone at that prestigious institution.

— A child? — Why did the dark mirror bring a child?

— Say your name.

— AMAZING, A TALKING MIRROR!

His surprise and excitement were reflected on his face. The scream he gave let the most observant ones see that he was someone curious and full of energy.

— Another Cheka — Leona sighed tiredly

— What kind of gel use to keep your hair like grass? — Vil commented upon seeing his black hair with green tips. He felt like combing it himself.

If someone young like him was at Night Raven College, it was because he had really powerful magic, right?

Wrong. That child does not contain even a pinch of magic. Many could not believe it and others made fun of him, but the boy did not appear expressionless or scared.

— Magic? JUST LIKE IN THE FAIRY TALES MY AUNT MITO TOLD ME?! I'm really sorry I don't have anything like that big mirror! But I use something very different than magic!

He seemed strangely excited.

— Waaa that boy really has a lot of energy, he's the worst enemy of an introvert like me — Idia had said scared through his tablet.

After that revelation a cat burst into the room. Demanding Yuu's place.

— That cat also talks!

— I'm not a cat!

— Is that so? So you're a magical animal? Mmm I remember Kurapika told me that magical animals can talk. But you don't look like a Kiriko at all.

— What are you talking about kid? I am the great and powerful Grim!

The place caught fire and everyone started running and screaming. Among all the most outstanding was Kalim who got his butt burned. While the other dorm leaders were discussing who should catch the cat, suddenly, that boy appeared in front of them.

— Take it

— Nyaaaaa Let me go!

— !!

The dorm leaders were surprised to see Yuu in front of them when a moment ago he was in the center of the room. And in his hands he held Grim wrapped in Kalim's robe that was previously burning.

Even Kalim looked confused. Yuu appearing behind him, said he would borrow his robe and took it off without any difficulty.

— Sorry, I don't know how to extinguish the fire. Catching it was the only thing I could do.

That year would be very interesting.

In the dwarf mine, Ace, Deuce, Yuu, and Grim were resting on the outskirts of that place due to the mysterious appearance of an ink monster that forced them to retreat. Ace, Deuce, began to fight when Yuu's scream made them shut up.

— Don't worry!

They both saw how the child stood up with great determination on his face.

— They won't be expelled, I won't allow it. His dream is to study at that school. Right? If we work as a team we can beat him. Also, I can't allow you to disappoint your mother — Yuu said looking at Deuce — it must be very important to you as it is to me to look for my father.

Yuu's innocent smile made both young men leave for some strange reason strongly hit… in their ego. How could I let a child save their skin? That would be extremely humiliating!

In the end, they all returned to school with the magic stone in their hands. Thanks to teamwork.

— Being appointed supervisor at such a young age and just entering is a great achievement!

— Is-Is that so?

— Why do you look so nervous? You seem so confident when we were in the mine.

— It's just that… it's my first time in school

—……WHAT?!

Yuu explained to them how she came from another world and lived on an island called Whale Island. There was only one other child on the entire island but he didn't play with her. She never went to school but studied at home with the help of her aunt Mito.

— Hey, now that I remember. In the mine you mentioned your father, right? — Grim asked

— Or yes, he left me when I was a baby. I'm looking for him.

— Are you looking for him? Your dad left you, why do you want to go look for him?!

At that Yuu stopped which made the two teenagers who were after him do so as well. He turned around and they both noticed that in Yuu's gaze there was nothing like remorse for being abandoned. On the contrary.

There was a great curiosity in his gaze.

— My father is a hunter. I also became one, to look for him and to know the world that he chose instead of taking care of me.

Yuu smile while mentioning his father.

— Hunter?

— Hello!

— …Hello

Malleus was in Ramshackle taking his usual walk. He appeared in the dormitory as usual, but was surprised by a child who took him completely off guard the moment he appeared.

He had heard from Lilia about the arrival of a human child without magic at the school. Which surprised him. But he didn't expect to see him in the abandoned dormitory.

The child smiles at him

— My name is Yuu, Yuu Freecss! It's a pleasure!

Yuu extended his hand to what Malleus saw without being able to believe what the child was doing. But it was rude not to greet, so he shakes hands with the small human child.

— … Aren't you afraid of me?

— Mmm, It's true that your aura is strong, but I don't feel a level of threat like Hisoka.

— What are you talking about? I don't know that Hisoka… Don't you know who I am?

— No, I'm sorry. — said the boy somewhat embarrassed.

His reaction seemed genuine, there was nothing like malaise or fear. It reminded him in a way of Silver when he was younger.

— Do you live here?

— Yes, along with a cat named Grim

With each answer that Malleus gave him he could see it. That boy seemed to have so much energy.

— I see. It's a pity, I liked to take night walks around here since it's very quiet. But I guess I'll have to look for another place.

— Seriously, I'm really sorry! I didn't mean to take away your place to explore!

Yuu shouted while bowing in apology, that causes Malleus to become more curious about the human child.

— It's okay, it's not your fault that you live here. Well, I'll take my leave.

— Wait a moment.

But Malleus had disappeared in a bunch of bright lights.

— Wow, that’s amazing — Yuu said, catching one of those lights in his hands.

— I couldn’t ask him his name.

Malleus appeared in another part of the school. He felt a little dejected that his favorite place was occupied, but there was nothing he could do. He couldn’t get that kid out of the place. He looked up to see how high the moon was until he remembered.

— Now that I think about it. Lilia said that humans should sleep to have energy the next day, or they will have health problems. But that human child was awake at this time.

While, outside the dormitory, Yuu was practicing his NEN.

My Hunter x Hunter fever came back!

The first time I saw it I was very young, two or three years younger than the main characters, time has passed and now I'm older than them buuuu 😭.

Gon is my number one main character. With that personality that I met at the beginning of the anime it was love at first sight. I'm sure that if I met Malleus they would be great friends because you know. Gon being Gon.

This anime was my second Shonen and the only one I managed to stay faithful to until today. No matter the years, for me Hunter x Hunter will be the best anime.

YES YOU CAN TOGASHI!

This idea started with a fanfic of the boys' reaction to a Yuu from different worlds, including Hunter x Hunter. I liked it so much that when I wanted to read it again I realized that they had deleted the fanfic :'v that was found on Wattpad. To get that thorn out of my side I had decided to do this. I'm thinking about whether to make more parts or not. In case you noticed, I'm a person with a lot of ideas, but I never manage to finish a story.

[sinfulsalutations]

𝕨𝕖𝕚𝕣𝕕 𝕓𝕦𝕥 𝕗𝕦𝕔𝕜𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕓𝕖𝕒𝕦𝕥𝕚𝕗𝕦𝕝 ⋆*･ﾟ 𝕔𝕝𝕠𝕟𝕖 𝕥𝕣𝕠𝕠𝕡𝕖𝕣 𝕥𝕖𝕔𝕙

➼ ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ ☆ ᴛᴇᴄʜ x ꜰ!ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ

➼ ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ ☆ ᴛᴇᴄʜ'ꜱ ᴀʟᴡᴀʏꜱ ꜱᴛʀᴜɢɢʟᴇᴅ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴛʜᴇꜱᴇ ꜱᴏʀᴛ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜɪɴɢꜱ.

➼ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ ☆ ꜰʟᴜꜰꜰ, ᴍɪɴᴏʀ ꜱʟᴏᴡ ʙᴜʀɴ, ᴛᴇᴄʜ ɪꜱ ᴀᴜᴛɪꜱᴛɪᴄ/ɴᴇᴜʀᴏᴅɪᴠᴇʀɢᴇɴᴛ ᴀɴᴅ ʙᴀᴅ ᴀᴛ ꜰᴇᴇʟɪɴɢꜱ, ᴅᴇᴠᴇʟᴏᴘɪɴɢ ʀᴇʟᴀᴛɪᴏɴꜱʜɪᴘ, ꜰᴇᴇʟɪɴɢꜱ ʀᴇᴀʟɪᴢᴀᴛɪᴏɴ, ᴅᴇɴɪᴀʟ ᴏꜰ ꜰᴇᴇʟɪɴɢꜱ, ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ ɪꜱ ᴘᴀᴛɪᴇɴᴛ ᴀɴᴅ ᴜɴᴅᴇʀꜱᴛᴀɴᴅɪɴɢ, ᴘʜɪʟᴏꜱᴏᴘʜʏ, ꜰᴀᴛᴇ & ᴅᴇꜱᴛɪɴʏ, ꜱʟɪɢʜᴛ ᴍᴇᴀɴᴅᴇʀɪɴɢꜱ (ꜱᴏʀʀʏ), ꜰɪʀꜱᴛ ᴋɪꜱꜱ, ᴄʜᴀʀᴀᴄᴛᴇʀ ꜱᴛᴜᴅʏ ꜱᴏʀᴛ ᴏꜰ

➼ ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ ☆ 10ᴋ (ᴜʜʜʜʜʜʜ ᴏᴏᴘꜱ)

➼ ᴘᴏᴠ ☆ ꜱᴇᴄᴏɴᴅ ᴘᴇʀꜱᴏɴ

➼ ʀᴇꜰᴇʀᴇɴᴄᴇꜱ ☆ ᴅɪᴠɪɴᴇ ɪɴᴛᴇʀᴠᴇɴᴛɪᴏɴ ᴀʀᴛɪᴄʟᴇ ʟᴏᴏꜱᴇʟʏ ʙᴀꜱᴇᴅ ᴏɴ ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴛᴏʀʏ ᴏꜰ ᴄᴀᴛ ꜱᴛᴇᴠᴇɴꜱ/ʏᴜꜱᴜꜰ ɪꜱʟᴀᴍ, ꜰᴀɪᴛʜ ꜰᴏʀ ᴀᴛʜᴇɪꜱᴛꜱ ᴀɴᴅ ᴀɢɴᴏꜱᴛɪᴄꜱ ʙʏ ᴡᴀʟʟᴀᴄᴇ ᴀ. ᴍᴜʀᴘʜᴇᴇ

➼ ꜱᴏᴜɴᴅᴛʀᴀᴄᴋ ☆ ꜱɴᴏᴡ ᴏɴ ᴛʜᴇ ʙᴇᴀᴄʜ - ᴛᴀʏʟᴏʀ ꜱᴡɪꜰᴛ ꜰᴛ ʟᴀɴᴀ ᴅᴇʟ ʀᴇʏ, ɪɴᴠɪꜱɪʙʟᴇ ꜱᴛʀɪɴɢ - ᴛᴀʏʟᴏʀ ꜱᴡɪꜰᴛ, ʙᴀɢꜱ - ᴄʟᴀɪʀᴏ, ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ʏᴏᴜ - ᴛʜᴇ 1975

⋆ ★ ᴡʀɪᴛᴛᴇɴ ꜰᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴏɴɢꜰɪᴄ ᴛʜᴇᴍᴇᴅ @cloneficgiftexchange. ᴍʏ ɢɪꜰᴛᴇᴇ ᴡᴀꜱ @isaidonyourknees, ᴛʜᴇ ʟʏʀɪᴄꜱ ʙᴇɪɴɢ: "ʙᴜᴛ ɪᴛ ᴍɪɢʜᴛ ᴊᴜꜱᴛ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ʙᴇᴇɴ ʏᴏᴜ // ᴘᴀꜱꜱɪɴɢ ʙʏ ᴜɴʙᴇᴋɴᴏᴡɴꜱᴛ ��ᴏ ᴍᴇ" (ꜱɴᴏᴡ ᴏɴ ᴛʜᴇ ʙᴇᴀᴄʜ ʙʏ ᴛᴀʏʟᴏʀ ꜱᴡɪꜰᴛ ꜰᴛ. ʟᴀɴᴀ ᴅᴇʟ ʀᴇʏ)

ɪ ᴇɴᴅᴇᴅ ᴜᴘ ᴘᴏᴜʀɪɴɢ ᴍʏ ʜᴇᴀʀᴛ ɪɴᴛᴏ ᴛʜɪꜱ ꜰɪᴄ; ᴀꜱ ᴀ ɴᴇᴜʀᴏᴅɪᴠᴇʀɢᴇɴᴛ, ɪ ꜱᴇᴇ ᴍʏꜱᴇʟꜰ ɪɴ ᴛᴇᴄʜ ᴀ ʟᴏᴛ, ᴀɴᴅ ᴀꜱ ɪ ʙᴇɢᴀɴ ᴛᴏ ᴇxᴘʟᴏʀᴇ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ꜱɪᴅᴇ ᴏꜰ ʜɪᴍ ɪɴ ᴛʜɪꜱ ꜰɪᴄ, ɪ ᴇɴᴅᴇᴅ ᴜᴘ ᴘᴜᴛᴛɪɴɢ ᴀ ʟᴏᴛ ᴏꜰ ᴍʏꜱᴇʟꜰ ɪɴᴛᴏ ɪᴛ. ꜱᴏ ᴛʜɪꜱ ꜰɪᴄ ᴍᴇᴀɴꜱ ᴀ ʟᴏᴛ ᴛᴏ ᴍᴇ. ɪ ʜᴏᴘᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴇɴᴊᴏʏ :)

ᴀʟꜱᴏ ꜱʜᴏᴜᴛ ᴏᴜᴛ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ʜᴏʟᴏᴄʜᴇꜱꜱ ᴘᴅꜰ ᴏꜰ ᴅᴇᴊᴀʀɪᴋ ᴡʜɪᴄʜ ɪ ʀᴇꜰᴇʀᴇɴᴄᴇᴅ ʀᴇʟɪɢɪᴏᴜꜱʟʏ (ʜᴇʜ) ᴡʜɪʟᴇ ᴡʀɪᴛɪɴɢ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴊᴀʀɪᴋ ꜱᴄᴇɴᴇ.

⋆ ★ ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴏɴ ᴀᴏ3 ⋆*･ﾟ ᴛᴀɢʟɪꜱᴛ ꜰᴏʀᴍ

Tech isn’t a believer in fate.

It’s hard to believe in something so ardently human when he was conjured out of something quite inhuman. Even then, he’s always been a man of science – facts and occurrences that could be proven without falter appeal to him the most. 

The mere idea of fate comes from a natural need for most to believe in something higher than them – but Tech and his brothers had no reason to fall back on such a comforting blanket. It’s almost a shame, he could deduce, but now that he’s never depended on such a thing, Tech doesn’t know why he should ever seek it out.

Thinking of some invisible string, predestined outcome, interlinked paths and journeys leading to the same end doesn’t comfort him in the slightest. If anything, he thinks himself too intelligent to believe in such things. He won’t look down on others for having those philosophies tethered close to their chest, but no matter how hard he tries and makes himself believe, the simple, straightforward fundamentals of the universe are undeniable in his eyes.

It’s just the truth. It can’t be proven otherwise.

Now, Tech has grown significantly from the first years of the Clone Wars – despite his stubborn, know-it-all demeanor, Tech still strives to learn and adapt and evolve into his best self – and much has changed. His belief in fate remains the pillar of his mindset through even menial life, though sometimes he can feel slivers of his humanity slipping past that desperately beg him to believe.

Because on further recollection, the unfamiliar yet pleasant shiver that ran past him the day he properly met you felt far too destined to be the product of mathematical chance. 

It’s like a fresh breeze against his skin after a lifetime in blistering heat, a breath taken right before plunging into oceanic depth, unexplored. Tech never considered himself a pioneer, but the first time he speaks to you, he feels like he’s treading frontiers never seen before. Though in reality, if he were to be brutally honest with himself, it only feels so new because Tech doesn’t normally like to indulge in such things.

Though, he doesn’t know this at an initial glance, of course. It takes him countless nights to come to these conclusions.

It starts simple, and begins with stiffness; you wave in his direction when he passes by your stall in the village market. The first few times, Tech doesn’t even acknowledge it, storing the action but deducing the wave isn’t meant for him. He doesn’t notice how your smile drops and your expression turns numbly neutral again when he doesn’t notice you.

Eventually, he finally realizes that your greetings are meant for him. If you had stopped greeting him in defeat, Tech may have never realized. But your insistence on getting him to acknowledge you isn’t in vain.

Tech watches you wave with a keen smile, and he turns around, expecting to see someone avidly waving back in your direction. When he doesn’t see anyone else and turns back again, your gaze still fixed on him, he blinks once–twice, thrice– and tucks his datapad into his pouch. Something almost smug crosses your face when he begins to walk to your stall.

“Hey there stranger,” you greet playfully. 

Once Tech hears your voice properly, he begins to piece together moments of familiarity; that same voice speaking calmly to Hunter over the sound of patrons in Cid’s parlor, your eyes staring into his for a split second to exchange some nothing words about something Tech can’t recall. Based on everything else he can recall, you must’ve been in tangles (loathsome or not) with Cid, which can explain why you were speaking to them. But still, he can’t quite understand why a split moment like that would make you so comfortable to greet him like this.

“Hello,” Tech answers you politely, stiffly. You don’t seem to be bothered.

“How long have you and your brothers been on Ord Mantell this time around?” That’s your first question, palms pressing to your stall table to lean over. You still aren’t close enough to the point Tech would become uncomfortable and needs to pull away, but he takes note of your manner.

“We just arrived last night. But we’ll be staying for some time longer to restock.” Tech answers mathematically because it’s the only way he knows how to speak to someone like you– a stranger .

You hum. “No wonder it’s been a while since I’ve seen you around. Or Wrecker and Omega. They always stop by the Mantell Mix stand whenever you're here.” 

Tech sneaks a glance to his left and realizes your seamster stand is situated right next to the stand selling Mantell Mix that the Omega and Wrecker always frequent. 

That makes more sense.

“Omega’s currently resting, last I saw her,” Tech explains, though he wonders if an explanation is obligated in this situation. 

“How is she doing?” You ask.

“She’s doing well.”

You smile. “I’m glad.”

Tech flips up his visor to get a better look at you. He tries not to stare for too long – from his understanding, it’s rude – but he still takes a hefty time taking you in. You’re your own person, just like everyone else in the world is; there’s no reason for him to be enraptured by anything more. Yet his eyes keep getting caught on the curve of your neck to your shoulder, how your hairline meets your ear, how you hold your jaw up. 

It’s nothing out of the ordinary, yet that same juvenile feeling of destiny rushes through him again. A flush of red on his cheeks, a warm sense of typical affection. 

You couldn’t be the cause, could you?

It’s something about you, isn’t it?

That can’t be right.

“I haven’t talked to you much.” Your next words snap Tech out of his trance but his mind still races through different ideas. He’s not accustomed to this feeling of distraction; his thoughts are usually so methodical and precise. 

“I suppose we haven’t had the chance,” Tech finally settles on the answer, voice softening purposefully to seem less standoffish. The corner of your lips turns up at his reply.

“There’s no time like the present, right?” you respond, as peppy as ever. Though, perhaps you’re less peppy than he thinks, but just ten times livelier than him. 

“What do you do when you’re not out saving the galaxy with your brothers?” You then ask, and Tech’s first instinct is to ask what led her to believe they were doing such a thing; a worry of that’s rude and dismissive overwhelms the initial thought, and he holds his tongue.

He thinks over the question, momentarily scrambling to think of an answer that doesn’t involve discussing the batch’s next move or tactical strategies. 

“I… study. Research,” he answers vaguely, mentally berating himself for not preparing a better response.

Your jaw slacks, mouth forming a small ‘o.’ 

“That makes sense, considering you’re always on that datapad of yours.” Instinctively, almost defensively, Tech’s hand reaches for the pouch that carries his datapad, and then you’re smiling again. He isn’t lying when he speaks of studying and researching; in fact, more recently he has been studying the origins of faith and mythology. He recalls it again when he looks at you, ideas of the Maker’s beautiful handcraft. He’d like to believe in those beliefs, especially staring into your eyes now, that face so perfectly molded by a touch of godlike divinity or something else entirely–

Or perhaps he’s wishing he could believe in something so below him.

His mind shuts down any other thought, any other command, besides retreat.

“I should leave now,” he states matter-of-factly, trying not to look at how your face contorts with his change of mind. 

“I enjoyed speaking with you,” he adds at the end to soften the blow. He’s unsure if it works.

You flash a smile, more bitter than before. 

“So did I,” you say.

Tech turns on his heel and walks away. As he returns to Cid’s parlor, stomach flipping in ways he’s never felt before, Tech concludes stubbornly that you are no product of divinity, that the color of your eyes and etch of your smile aren’t utterly spectacular pigments of the Maker’s creation. A thought like that isn’t aligned with his previous beliefs, and he isn’t one to abandon something so fundamentally, provably true. Tech is a man of science, not a critic of artistic elegance.

-

Inconveniently, that isn’t the last time Tech speaks to you. Far from it.

Not only have you continued to wave his direction whenever he crosses your way – and he always waves back, no matter what, even if there’s no reason for him to familiarize himself with you – but you frequent Cid’s parlor more than he realizes. Perhaps he hadn’t taken notice of you before —just regarded you as another patron— but now he certainly has.

He sees you once again talking to Cid directly, voice hushed and chin tipped low while you speak to each other. Your expression is no more serious than what he’s seen before—it may suggest the conversation is entirely casual, but Tech knows better than to think there’s no ulterior scheming if you’re talking to Cid of all people.

Hunter’s voice cuts through like a knife, pulling him out of his previous trance.

“You’re looking at the civvy again,” he says.

Tech shakes his head adamantly, immediately.

“I’m not,” that’s how he replies to Hunter, but both of them know he’s incorrect.

“Hm,” Hunter mumbles, unbothered by Tech’s dishonesty. Instead, he moves on to the next topic. “Why don’t you talk to her?”

Tech tilts his head.

“She’s friendly,” Hunter then adds. “And I’m sure she won’t mind if you struck up a conversation.”

The idea of Tech walking up to an acquaintance, practically a stranger to drum up unnecessary conversation doesn’t sit right with him. It’s entirely unlikely. Not a viable outcome in the probability and spontaneity of the turmoil that is the galaxy.

“I’m sure she’d rather have a conversation with someone other than me. Someone as lively,” Tech says, attempting to keep an unaffected expression on his face. “Perhaps Wrecker, or Omega.”

Hunter purses his lips. And then he shrugs, which perplexes Tech.

“She talks to me and Echo just fine.”

Wrecker butts in, a level of energy above the rest as usual, and encourages him,

“Yeah! Make some friends, Tech!”

and his stomach twists, partly offended at the implication of their words, and partly discomforted by being pushed out of his comfort box out of his autonomy. Tech says something he truly feels, albeit cold, but he feels it's the only words that keep him safe and sane in his zone of stark, 

“Who said I want to make friends?”

Just then, Hunter perks up, eyes darting away from Tech and looking behind him. Tech then turns before looking back again; he’s unsure why he wants to appear so casual–perhaps it’s you, though.

“Hello boys,” You greet them all with a little wave as you lean your body on the booth’s table, looking at everyone; Hunter, who waves and smiles small and quickly; Echo, who appears relieved by the intervention; Wrecker, prepared to say hello in a booming, friendly voice; and Tech, who tilts his chin down so he can’t see that face he worries might be celestial.

“Well hello to you too!” Wrecker smiles for you big and wide, attempting to make up for the lackluster welcome you receive from the rest of the batch. You smile wider, and Tech tightens his lips. The same feeling rushes down his spine, settling in his stomach. Twice now. Twice in your proximity. If it happens thrice, Tech won’t be able to dismiss it as a coincidence.

“Are you looking for Omega?” Hunter asks, debating your reason for approaching them. “She’s asleep already. I understand you wanted to teach her a bit of Dejarik strategy…”

You shake your head loosely with a shrug.

“Not necessarily, no,” you speak like you’re bargaining, Tech notices; as though you’re trying to sell a product, or charm your buyer. “I’d like to say hello to all of you.”

Echo smiles softly. “It’s nice to see you around,” he says. Perhaps you’ve been in closer proximity to the rest of his brothers more than Tech thought.

“Yeah, very nice!” Wrecker says, still so enthusiastic Tech almost cringes.

You shift your weight on the table, one hand leaning over to keep yourself upright while the rest of your body casually careens in their general direction.

“So…” She begins, smile turning coy and probing. “What brings a band of brothers like you–”

Before she can finish her sentence, a scaly hand clasps her shoulder, and she turns. Cid looms over the booth now, seemingly unamused by the interaction. 

Though, when does Cid ever look amused? Tech things.

“Hey, bandana, goggles, the other ones,” she snubs. Tech scrunches his face. Cid gestures toward her backroom office. “Over here. I got something to discuss with you.”

She leaves it at that, and you slowly turn your gaze back to the boys, slightly squeamish. As though you shouldn’t be there. Wordlessly, you leave, and as the boys shuffle out of the booth, Tech can’t help but turn and catch a fleeting glimpse of you before disappearing into the room.

Business. That’s all Cid discusses with them. In her defense, they never exchange any other words besides those that regard business, but it still causes Tech to frown. Her interruption could’ve been saved until after you’d finished speaking; instead, Cid clapped your shoulder and dismissed you, your face painted with an expression of valid disregard, and Tech didn’t like it at all.

When the batch finishes discussing their next job with Cid, he exits the back room and is surprised to see you are still there. Instead of talking to anyone, you’re shuffling through a few credits at the bar table, nursing what looks like water. Who drinks liquor during the day, anyway?

The batch each returns to menial tasks; Hunter and Echo go to check on the ship and Omega, Wrecker finds some random patrons to play a round of darts with, and Tech’s feet find an indirect path back to you.

“Your question,” he begins monotonously. It seems his whole body moves at its own autonomy rather than his command because suddenly Tech can’t seem to recall how he got into this position. 

You turn, surprise etched into your expression.

“Excuse me?”

Tech quickly debates his limited options. Now that you’ve acknowledged him, there’s simply no way he could back out now. At least, that’s what seems courteous.

“C-Cid interrupted you. So you never got to ask your question.”

Your mouth falls into a little ‘o’ shape, so delicately parted Tech’s entire expression softens ever so slightly.

“Thanks for asking,” you answer with genuine care for his consideration. “…I was just going to ask what brings a group like you to this parlor so often.” Tech hums, encouraging to continue even when you bite your lip. “We’re not exactly very accommodating for long, and…” He picks up on your choice of the words, we’re. “…unless Cid is using you as her lapdogs—“

A momentary pause in your sentence leaves enough space for Tech, now incredibly curious, to interrupt.

“Lapdogs?”

There’s no statistical way to predict how you’ll respond. But Tech considers his past experiences with you, how you’ve replied and reacted to his abrupt words before, and he awaits a response as peppy as you usually are. Instead, it’s radio silence. Deafening, discomforting, haunting silence.

Your gaze drifts down, tongue swiping over your bottom lip momentarily as you ponder your next words. Finally, you gaze up again, and Tech’s breath returns.

“Can you forget I said that?” Is your choice of words. It’s a strange choice, perhaps, at least in Tech’s eyes, but he lets it pass. 

Only because… Only because…

“I’ll try,” Tech says.

You smile, warm and friendly and alien.

“I’ll see you, Tech.”

He does continue to see you around the parlor – quite often, actually. More often than not, you’re playing Dejarik with another patron. He’s unconsciously begun to catalog your different smiles– when you play, your smile is always smug, bordering on something nefarious. Tech has also noticed the same expression on your opponent's face every time you finish a game; the same disgruntled, disappointed look on them when they push themselves off the chair and grovel, leaving with fewer credits than they had entered with.

You seem to win so frequently and collect large wads of money, he begins to wonder if you make more money in your games of Dejarik than at your stall. However, he fears that he’ll look like a vermin invading in your business if he tries to calculate your earnings so adamantly. 

Rather, you probe him yourself.

Tech is sitting on a barstool, absentmindedly reading another research paper he scoured the holonet for. This time, he’s reading up on the phenomenon of divine intervention. Near-death experiences when someone‘s pulled out of the water right before they take their last breath, that precipice of halting existence in the material plane before you’re brought right back in, by somethingmightier than you.

He’s grazed death many times before. It’s simply a part of existence as a Jango Fett clone. He deals with the risk of death every day he steps on a new planet, even after the war has ended. Nothing has ever felt like a pull out of the water before drowning, a gust of air rushing through his lungs mere seconds before he’s taken out of this world.

Though, perhaps divine intervention doesn’t just apply to moments right before death. As he reaches the counter-rebuttal section of the paper, your voice folds and floats over his skin like silk.

“What are you researching this time?”

Tech looks up from his datapad immediately, tucking it away, as he knows if he keeps it open, his instinct will want to retract back to his comfort zone.

“The phenomenon of divine intervention,” he says, feeling no need to lie. “Or rather, stories of those who believe they’ve experienced such a thing.”

You nod, keenly interested; he’s not used to someone caring to listen to any of his ramblings. You then place your elbows on the Dejarik table, almost teasing-like, leaning toward him in invitation.

“So you’re not a believer?” Your words aren’t insulted; they still wade in pools of curiosity, and those damn eyes trap him in again.

Again, he feels no need to lie to you. Not about this.

“In divine interventions? No,” Tech shakes his head.

You huff.

“That’s a shame,” you jest, opening your arms even further, just begging for him to crawl his way further. “I’d make a joke about how I’m a divine intervention right now.”

Tech raises an eyebrow. Your smile widens.

“I’m intervening oh-so-divinely to invite you for a game,” you gesture to the Dejarik board with a mousy scrunch of your nose.

You must be in his head. That’s it. There’s no other explanation for how you burrow into it so fast, know every thought that’s been plaguing his busied mind ever since he first properly spoke with you. Perhaps he should’ve, would’ve denied you a game another time, but in an instant Tech is pulling out the chair across from you and taking a seat to play.

Only because… Only because…

Why don’t I know?

You smile again, passing him a die to roll and turning on the holograms, each piece appearing unselected.

“Let’s play,” you say.

Tech nods stiffly.

“Let’s.”

Through the years, Tech has taken a liking to Dejarik. He enjoys the mathematical element, the perfect balance of strategy and luck that can’t be faked or excused by some higher entity. Though as much as he enjoys playing, he enjoys watching others play more. Trying to pick apart their thought process as they actively spell out their strategy onto the board, whether they emerge victorious or indebted. And even though he’s playing, he’s never been more fascinated watching another.

Each of you takes turns rolling a die and picking your pieces. You don’t hesitate with your choices, divisive when you place them on your side and Tech admires the confidence on your face. He isn’t 

“Do you want to bet some credits?” Tech asks, assuming you’d want a gain out of a game. He’d never seen you play Dejarik for fun before.

You push your eyebrows together, a tiny grin gracing your face.

“I’m not trying to get money out of you. I’m playing just for fun.”

Tech shrugs.

“Just a few. Just for fun,” he shuffles through his pockets and places two credits on the table, raising an invitational eyebrow. The exhilaration that washes over your entire face is incredibly worth it.

The game begins after that. Not before you bet three credits yourself, of course.

Just as he expects from astute (neurotic) observation, you are mostly silent when you play, save for little quips as you’re deciding your next move. You move your pieces with precision, and instead of reaching him first, you let Tech’s pieces meet you in the middle.

“Fancy seeing you here,” you tease when his Houjix meets your Monnok. Tech bites the inside of his cheek, trying to avoid smiling like a fool. 

Two full turns pass after that. Tech attempts to roll back with a witty remark, but he worries it comes out swell-headed. After all, he doesn’t want you put off of him entirely. Maybe just a little. Just so he isn’t irreligiously blessed with you far too much.

Besides that, Tech’s put you in an unfavorable position. One he hadn’t expected. He’s seen you play; you move and strategize with the grace and expertise of any master swindler. But here you are, your Monnok pinned between his Ghhhk and K’lor’slug. There’s little chance you’ll be able to defend; with a power piece like Monnok against a flanked defense, he’s

“You seem to have me cornered, Tech,” you say casually, unbothered. He frowns, puzzled.

“I do.”

“Well?” You lean back, hands neatly folded on your lap, ambivalent to your defeat. Waiting for his next move.

Tech attacks your piece. It’s killed with no buffer. When his eyes return to your gaze, he doesn’t expect you to remain so nonchalant about the loss. But you’re tipping your chin down in respect and pushing the credits to his side.

“Good game,” you say. “`Really got me there.”

Tech’s frown deepens, confused by your impartial feelings.

“You were winning up until that last turn,” he says, thinking out loud for a moment. “The only thing that got me back up was that counter-kill.”

You shrug.

“Beginner’s luck?” You bargain, but Tech doesn’t like that answer. Luck is plentifully part of the universe, but it’s far too abstract and all-encompassing to play a role in one Dejarik game. One dice roll.

Instead, Tech just returns the shrug. Perhaps some things don’t have to be over-analyzed, despite the discomfort it gives him to leave it at that.

You look at him with those unholy-holy eyes of yours again, and Tech tenses his jaw.

“Another game?”

Tech doesn’t answer verbally but rather picks up a die and begins to shake. You smile.

The air between the two of you doesn’t change, the same quips and expressions exchanged– Wrecker even notices and becomes your one-man crowd– but this time, Tech is humiliated. Immediately, he loses his Attack and Mobility pieces, realizing his flaw is his flow of movement on the board far too late in the game. He can’t save his pieces before you’ve killed all of them, three of your four remaining triumphant on the board.

His mind does it again. Contradicts his previous belief. Luck is the first thought that crosses his mind when he recalls the last two games. Deliberate luck. Something incomprehensible to those on his plane to understand intentionally changing the course. Something entirely false, entirely juxtaposing everything Tech knows to be true.

You’re then bringing the five credits over to your side, shuffling them around in your palm momentarily with a smile.

“Look at that. I’m rich,” you joke. Wrecker howls out a laugh, but your eyes are only focused on Tech when he returns you the softest grin.

You’ve played him. It’s a classic little hustle. But he knows that. You know that. You know that he knows that.

His first win isn’t beginner’s luck, and your totalitarian victory isn’t just the luck of the draw. It’s clear on your face.

Perhaps you’re not much of a believer in fate either.

-

Tech allows the moment to simmer. In the back of his mind, he’s still anxious to approach you on his own with seemingly no reason other than just wanting to. It doesn’t feel right to him. Far too out of his nature to do spontaneously.

He only allows himself to indulge in a conversation once the air has settled, and only if you initiate the conversation first.

You do. Well, technically. You wave him over to your stall, and he greets you with exactly what’s been going on in his mind.

“You flank with your offensive piece and reinforce with your defensive piece.”

You blink at him, then blink again, smile slowly turning more dumbly awestruck in your surprise. Nice work, Tech. 

“I-It throws people off,” he finishes his thought. Can’t hurt to finish the blow, can it?

Your grin is all teeth and cheek, the crinkles in the corners of your eyes clear as day. Tech isn’t sure what feeling rushes through him when he notices it, but it certainly is pleasant.

“Oh?” That’s all you say. All you give Tech to work with.

He licks his lips with no aim.

“...Oh.”

You snicker, shoulders tensing, but your actions haven’t given a clear stay-away warning. He’s still in the clear.

“You open with your movement piece,” he recalls how you played last night, and the countless other times he’s watched you match against others. ��In the first game, you moved your Molator twice, and in the second, you moved the K’lor’slug only once–” You nod in agreement, which gives Tech the green light to continue rambling. “–But you didn’t break the inner circle in the first turn for either game. You wait for your opponent to move inward before you break in.”

You shrug, still grinning all wide, and that rush of fate overtakes him again. This time, he doesn’t stuff it down with an adamant rejection but rather ignores it with little regard instead.

Only because… Only because…

“Can’t argue with that,” you say. “I skirt.”

“Some would say you’re attempting a classic round-table defense tactic. But I think you’re just a strategic attacker.”

“All attackers have to be strategic.”

“Sure. But you attack as though the game lasts twenty rounds. You attack for a long-run victory. One that takes multiple games to enact.” Tech gazes away, feeling himself getting caught up in his words again, pushing up the bridge of his goggles. “It’s– It’s a playing style most people don’t expect.”

Finally, Tech gets the common sense to stop explaining to you your own strategy and clears his throat, fingers locking in and out as he lays out his next words.

“...Or, at least I think. From what I observed.”

You huff, exasperated; or maybe amused.

“You observed correctly,” you say, and Tech’s shoulders heave oh-so-subtly as he sighs in relief.

“I’ve played plenty of Dejarik before. And watched others play,” he replies as smoothly as possible.

With a hum, you tilt your head, still so enraptured in the conversation. He wonders for a split second over what enchanted you. It’s uncharacteristic… yes.

“Is that how Omega got so good?” You then ask.

Tech considers your words, his half-shrug turning into a hand gesture.

“Not exactly,” he says. “She has a knack for those sorts of games on her own. But–but that’s not the point I was trying to make.”

Your eyebrows perk up.

“Well then, please continue, Tech.”

Oh, does he love the sound of his name on your lips. It’s far too–not perfect, no–it’s far too pretty to be wrapping around something, someoneso statically unmatched for you.

“I’ve read plenty on Dejarik tactics, variants, openers… you don’t play in a way that shows you know them. That you’ve ever read them. That the idea of tactic and strategy in Dejarik even exists .”

You tilt your head, urging him to continue. You have that same look of fierce curiosity in your eyes that Tech is beginning to adore.

“You might play those tactics and moves, but it’s not on purpose. It’s by chance. Because, of course, where do those strategies come from? Those who play first.” Tech gestures toward your figure again. “You play like you’re the first to ever do it. Like you made Dejarik yourself. Like the game is yours .”

For a split second, Tech seriously considers that he may have gone too far. But your contemplative face tells you otherwise. You’re still genuinely considering what he has to say.

You let out one more disbelieving breath, head dipping down with a bashful shake of your head. 

“Well, I’m flattered you think of me that way,” you reply, biting your lip. “Though I’m afraid that’s too much to deduce from two games… don’t you think?”

“I’ve seen you play,” he says right after you finish. But it’s not long before he regrets it. He watches you tilt your head and he takes a deep breath. “...I, observed.”

You nod along, but Tech worries that you don’t believe him. But he wouldn’t believe him either.

“You’re clever,” Tech adds just to see that smile again. You give it to him, graciously.

“No one’s used that word to describe me,” you shrug. “After I beat someone, I usually get the typical pantheon of shallow insults.” Tech stares at you puzzled, and you shift your weight to ease the tension in your shoulders. 

“‘Thieving bitch,’ ‘Conniving whore,’” You list examples with a mild expression of annoyance, “Sometimes just a simple ‘Fucker’ before they’re lunging over the table.”

Tech’s eyebrows push together.

“ Lunging? ”

You laugh teasingly, but not unkindly.

“Sometimes sore losers get aggressive,” you explain. “But Cid never lets that slide.”

“Are you in close contact with her?” Is his next question, though he’s unsure how you might respond. With a purse of your lips, you lean back, increasing the distance between the two of you.

“I guess you could say that,” is your response. “It’s… complicated.”

Tech feels it. How soft and undisturbed he feels in your presence. He’s suddenly no longer having a natural urge to overthink your words and conjure up the perfect response (even if it doesn’t prove successful). He can leave what you say just as it is.

Only because…

Only because what? What makes this special? What makes you special? He’d never once questioned his stance of faith. And he won’t let something like this change it either. So how can you even exist, live, and grace his world so effortlessly as though you know nothing of the way you disrupt his being?

It’s discomforting. It’s enticing. It’s foreign.

“That’s fair, I suppose,” he says. “I think I’d respond the same if you asked me that question.”

You grin, gentler than he’s ever seen it, and Tech is left to seriously debate the existence of material contradictions. 

-

Without your own volition, you continue to occupy Tech’s mind, both in his dreams and in his wake. On missions when he isn’t forced to zero in on a threat, he’s found himself endlessly searching holonet scholars for something to justify his deviation from the objective truth.

There has to be a reason, Tech is sure of it. Why else would he look at you, someone as grounded as any other being, and feel something so divine? Something that feels almost destined?

He recalls certain stories of grand romance he’s read before. It’s like I knew you in a past life… Something drew me to you the moment we met… I looked and I just knew. It’s not an entirely inhuman idea, yet it’s so alien to Tech’s nature he can’t understand how anyone could experience that. 

Faith is not something instinctual for Tech. He’s never needed it like others have. His moral compass exists without the need of a rulebook, or a punishment if he strays away from what’s correct. 

Yet every time he sees you, his mind screams and grasps at the ideas like a lifeline. The only thing keeping him afloat when he’s in your presence.

Despite that, he does his best to keep these conflicting feelings at bay. You invite him for more games of Dejarik, though infrequent, and Tech eagerly anticipates them. Wrecker has taken a liking to watching the two of you play as well. When the two of you probe the answer as to why, Wrecker just shrugs and says “You two play well together.”

Tech would rather think of you as a scientific anomaly, he realizes; so he thinks of you as a magnet to his opposite, pulling him closer the moment your field meets his. The second you wave him over from your stall, he’s walking over with the smallest of content grins. He’s glued to your every minuscule movement, every twitch and glance. When you lean in, so does he. When you pull back, he follows the trail you leave.

Even through the discomfort, he allows himself to be pulled by your magnet.

Only because… Only because… 

“Tech?”

Hunter’s voice interrupts Tech’s mental meandering. Tech looks over at him, pushing the bridge of his goggles up.

“Yes, Hunter? Is there something you need me for?”

Hunter squints, looking past Tech. He turns to look at where Hunter has fixed his gaze, which is, inconveniently, you. Tech turns back, and Hunter grins.

“Nothing, but I did want to ask about your little staring problem,” he says. When Tech stills, Hunter just purses his lips. 

“Do you like her?” Tech huffs softly, unsure of how to answer. What a question that is.

“Of course,” he answers, still unsure of what's appropriate. “I have no reason to dislike her. She is a perfectly adequate person.” Before he can begin to overthink his choice of words, Hunter shakes his head and says,

“That’s not what I meant.”

Tech only has a slim idea of what he’s implying, and has no plan of assuming.

“I don’t understand.”

“Tech,” Hunter catches his gaze with a firm tone, and suddenly he can’t look away. “Do you have feelings for her?”

Again, what a question. Feelings are not Tech’s strong suit. He knows this. Hunter knows this. Being cornered with such a question isn’t going to receive the results Hunter wants.

“...What is the exact definition of feelings?” Tech rationalizes before trying to give a real answer. “Because I’m not sure my reflections regarding her match what you’re accusing me of.”

Hunter frowns. Tech half expects him to keep probing, but instead, he leaves it at that with a lazy shrug.

“Sure,” Hunter says, looking over at you again. “Are you going to speak to her, at least? Instead of watching from afar?”

Tech shakes his head adamantly. He isn’t exactly embarrassed to admit to his brother that he has no wish to initiate a conversation.

“Only if she approaches me first,” he says. “I don’t seem the need to otherwise.”

Hunter still has that same look on his face; puzzled with a hint of disappointment.

“If you say so. Just… Don’t limit yourself.”

Leave my comfort zone?

“I’m going to take Omega back to the ship for an early night,” he continues, patting Tech’s shoulder pad and passing by him. “Keep your comm on, just in case.”

Tech nods, but his gaze is far directed your way.

“Sounds good.”

For the most part, Tech finds himself sticking to that same mindset; he won’t approach you first. Unless there was a feeling festering in his chest, that same destined rush that he devoutly will deny, there’s no reason. 

The night grows darker, the parlor becomes more crowded with inebriated patrons having their hand at games of Dejarik. He sits on a barstool, waiting for you to leave your booth and challenge an oblivious customer, but that time never comes. Your silhouette looms in the corner, dancing in the dim light, pulling at something deep within him. Each time he tries to focus on something else, gaze away, his eyes keep finding their way back to where you sit alone, an empty glass in front of you, your fingers splayed on the table tracing invisible patterns; lost in thought.

Tech’s mind neurotically considers his options. Could he even approach you without feeling like he was giving into what he’s been rejecting so fixedly? What would he even say? How would you react? Surely, you’re observant enough to realize how he never chooses to come to you first.

The uncertainty gnaws at him, twisting his stomach, but the pull towards you is stronger. He favors you as a magnet once again and takes a deep breath to steel himself before pushing off his seat and walking toward you.

You don’t even seem to realize he’s walking toward you, eyes still glossed over with a look of apathy. Tech clears his throat awkwardly before speaking, his voice quiet, but still loud enough to grab your attention.

“Hello,” is his opener. 

Real smooth.

You blink in surprise, gazing up at him with the gentlest part of your lips. He gets the perfect view of your face, and that familiarity he once saw the first time he spoke to you return. Like an old friend, a smell that transports him to somewhere safe and warm. Somewhere he belongs and always will belong, since the beginning.

“Oh,” you speak, a soft breeze settling over his exposed skin when you talk to him. “Hi.” You gesture to the booth seat across from him, and Tech sits graciously, tipping his chin down courteously.

“How are you?” He then asks; it is the only thing he could decide upon that was the least risky.

Your expression tenses, eyebrows pushing together with a scrunch of your nose.

“I’m…” you begin, as though bargaining with yourself. “...I’m not doing great if I’m being honest. Thanks for asking.”

Tech takes a deep breath, chest heaving at your last sentence. Are you… Are you being sarcastic? Do you not appreciate his butting in? Should he–

“If you’d like me to leave, I can do so,” Tech thinks out loud, attempting to backtrack.

Your eyes widen and you reach over, preventing him from sitting up and leaving you.

“No, please, sit down with me.” Your expression is soft again, gentle with a lack of spirit that frankly makes Tech slightly uneasy. But he just nods and sits his bottom down again, clearing his throat awkwardly.

He lets the silence sit. It feels like the right thing to do. But then you start speaking again.

“Tech,” you say, blinking so rapidly he almost assumes you’re holding back tears, “you’re a scholar, right?”

Tech hums, considering your question. He’d almost forgotten what he’d first told you during your first-ever real conversation. 

“Perhaps one could call me that,” he says, “though I’ve never published any research or thesis of my own…” he watches your expression intently, and when your lips curl up, his chest seizes again. He backtracks again. “...Unless you’re teasing me.”

You shake your head rapidly.

“Oh, I’m not,” you say. “I’m sorry if it came out that way.”

Tech holds back a frown. He’s always found conversations to be a puzzle, always methodically putting it together like a typical person, but always missing the final piece to match everyone else. Something missing. Something extra. Something different. He’s never been good at this. Conversations with you are far from an exception.

He settles to clarify, “I didn’t interpret it as that,” with a softened expression. “Other’s might, perhaps. But not me.”

You nod, rerouting back to your initial question.

“So you’ve read and researched plenty of topics, right?”

Tech hums.

“I have.”

You breathe shallowly but still deep enough to push out your next words.

“Do you think you can help me with a question that’s been on my mind lately?”

Tech blinks. Now, that’s a heavy request. But he’s looking at a face borderline paradoxical, a loose bolt in the machine; what’s the point of rejecting such beauty?

“I can try.”

You smile softly, but the content doesn’t reach your eyes. Tech begins to truly wonder what’s been bothering you. With a much deeper breath, you lean your elbows on the table and begin.

“All my life, I’ve been doing what I need to do. To survive. To get by.”

Tech sits there, embarrassingly dumbfounded at what to say besides giving a sympathetic response. You hold in such a high regard– he doesn’t want to lose that.

“Many people do.”

You fool. 

But you don’t seem to notice. 

“Sure, but it’s mixed in with actual desires. Things they want to do,” you continue, rationalizing your next statement. “But with me… it feels like all I ever do is what I need to do to survive. I can’t even think of a time when I’ve done something I truly wanted.”

This time, Tech takes his time to consider your words.

“That’s… Not an uncommon experience.”

You tilt your head, considering his words for yourself.

“Really?”

“Sure,” he pushes up the bridge of his goggles before he keeps talking, recalling any relevant example he could use. If he’d like to leave this conversation in any way, it’s with you feeling comforted. “I know that my brothers and I have focused most of our lives on simple survival rather than a true passion. And sometimes, doing what you want can only come after working for a space to survive.”

You nod in understanding and what he hopes is agreement, taking a few moments yourself before replying.

“That’s not incorrect,” you say before turning it around, “but I think my problem is that I’ve worked so hard to survive that I’ve forgotten what it’s like to fulfill my wants. Not out of selfishness, but just out of… scarcity, perhaps? Of free time. Of liberty. Between finding places to stay, running the stall, making money in Dejarik, ensuring my protection–”

That’s what intrigues Tech. He doesn’t want to interrupt, but he’s doing it before he even realizes it. 

“Protection?”

You nod, rather than go silent like the last time he’d interrupted you so starkly to probe at your word choice. 

“From Cid. That’s how we know each other,” you explain. “When I first came to Ord Mantell, it was at a peak of crime and murder. Cid saw me playing Dejarik and making good credit, and we struck up a deal; she provided me protection using her connections through the city, and I gave her 25% of my earnings.”

Tech nods along, processing your words with an attending gaze. 

“That’s…” he begins, aimlessly, when in reality he should’ve been thinking more properly because then you’re interrupting him with a tinge of insecurity in your voice.

“Dumb?” you ask.

Tech shakes his head automatically.

“I don’t have the right to say that,” he says, and you exhale softly in relief. Though he isn’t sure why you’re concerned about what he might think. “…If anything, I see it as resourcefulness. As you said, you were just trying to survive.”

Then you’re grinning again, a wash of sweet calm on your face.

“I’m glad you think that.”

Then silence fills the room again. Tech seriously considers his next words. He could retract and simmer his words down, or he could take a risk. But it’s been established with you clearly; Tech won’t take many risks.

So he’s unsure what compels him.

“What’s something you’d like to do?” He asks. You perk up with a raised chin. Tech tenses. “Perhaps–perhaps we could try and complete it together, right now.”

Your eyebrows raise, and Tech can see your thinking, a slow smile beginning to spread across your face.

“If we’re talking right now…” You say coyly. “...I’d love to get out of this parlor.” A polite, yet genuine laugh erupts out of Tech, and you laugh along with him, body leaning down with the heaving of your shoulders when you giggle.

Tech regains his composure quickly, readjusting his goggles.

“Then let’s leave.”

You raise your eyebrows. Tech nods again.

“Where?” you ask. Then he purses his lips.

“I’m not sure.”

You sigh, but not in annoyance. Unexpectedly, you rise from your seat, gesturing for him to do so as well.

“C’mon,” you grin, “I know a place.”

With a leading stride, you tug on the fabric covering his wrist and swerve the two of you through the parlor. Tech half expects Cid to interrupt the two of you again, but he takes a moment to glance back and observe, relieved to see her nowhere in sight. For once, he actually can be alone with you, speak to you without such an overstimulating environment, and without the risk of being interrupted.

Once you exit the parlor, you let go of his fabric. Tech forlornly tucks it into a pocket and continues to follow you. Through backways of backways, up a winding staircase, through a hallway, then up another ladder leads him to your destination; atop a tall living complex overlooking the rest of the buildings down to the bustling life below. If Tech was a more spiritual man, he could swear he’d be able to reach up and hoist a star in the sky onto the next planet; they seemed to shine so close. He’s caught up in the view for a few moments before he remembers what he is here for; your company. But to his relief, you’re lost in the expanse as well.

“It’s quiet up here,” he comments, taking a step closer to you.

You nod, still not taking your gaze off the sky. Tech is pulled in again, unable to take his eyes off of you. 

“As far as I know, this place is more isolated,” you say. “As you saw from the climb up, it’s kind of hard to spot unless you live in the living complex.”

“I see.”

Tech’s immediate urge is to ask if you live in this living complex, but the worry that he’s overstepping overtakes him. He settles on a different question.

“Do you come here often?” He asks, glancing up at the sky, but after long he’s compelled to look back at you.

You shrug, lament, as though disappointed in yourself.

“Not as much as I wish,” you sigh. “Like I said, I rarely do what I want.”

Then, you’re walking towards the end of the building, taking a seat on the edge, legs dangling over. Tech watches you and then follows behind, taking a wary look over. You don’t seem concerned at all by the risk. So he sits beside you. He reasons with where he sits, worried about overstepping a boundary, but still sits close enough that if either of you were to scoot, your shoulders could graze. That feels reasonable to him.

“Have– have you always lived like this?” Tech stammers, folding his hands over his lap. 

“Lived like what?” You ask, seemingly confused by his question. He can feel your eyes on him, but he resists his want to look back; eye contact in a situation such as this might break him completely. 

“...Just to survive,” he clarifies for you. You mutter a soft ‘oh,’, looking away again, eyes glossy while you recall past events.

“...No. Not my whole life,” you say. He makes the mistake of looking up, because suddenly you’re looking back at him, lips parted in consideration. He thinks of the first time he properly spoke to you, the familiarity he found in your face; as though he’d seen it before in a past life, or perhaps this one; but the latter couldn’t be correct. Tech would have remembered a face such as yours if it’s struck him so now. 

You continue, unaffected by Tech’s neurotic mentation.

“Back in Nalvage, where I grew up, I did what I wanted. Survival wasn’t something I was thinking about.” You pause to take a deep breath, shoulders heaving. “I just… lived. With the pretense of survival already there for me.”

Tech thinks over your words, getting hooked onto one in particular.

“Nalvage.”

“Yeah,” you turn and tilt your head. “You know it?”

Tech holds back a snarky response. It’s you, after all.

“Of course,” he mutters, voice raising as he continues. “My first ever mission was on there. My brothers and I saved and escorted refugees out of a village the Separatists had been seizing.”

You nod, though it's more of a slight dip of your chin.

“Yeah.”

“That was almost four years ago,” he recalls. The clone wars had truly felt like an eternity, Tech realizes, despite in a vacuum, it only lasting a tenth of a tenth of a second. Living through it, fighting in it, growing up under the guise of war and bloodshed changes anyone.

He looks back again, and you seem to be lost in thought. Your eyes are downset, lip swiping over your lips. Then you gaze up again, eyebrows pushed together.

“Do you know how long I’ve lived on Ord Mantell, Tech?” You ask. Unsure of where you were heading in this conversation, take just shakes his head, awaiting you to fill the gaps.

“Three and a half years.”

Tech purses his lips, trying to connect the dots in his head. A flush of deeply rooted history between you two festers, but he pushes it down as he attempts to rationalize. Additionally, he’d rather you fill in the gaps for yourself than let him assume possibly incorrectly.

“Three and a half years,” he repeats to himself under his breath. You catch it and smile softly, breathlessly. “And you’re from Nalvage?”

You nod wordlessly, then provide him the clarity he’d been waiting for.

“The village you helped evacuate was mine, Tech.”

Tech’s never been good at conversations. When he can’t find a missing piece, little people make the effort to help him fill it in. He’s left just a tack behind the rest, inept and foolish for even trying when it comes to easy for others. But you take the time to fill it in for him. And as he looks at you, it’s like he’s been waiting for this along. Waiting for someone like you. Or… just you.

Now you’re looking at him with that same expression of familiarity. Perhaps it’s been there all along, and Tech was too lost in his monologue to realize. But it’s so prominent he begins to feel guilt pounding in his heart. You knew this whole time, yet didn’t share. He must’ve made you uncomfortable. He must’ve hurt your feelings when it seemed he didn’t recognize him. 

“I–you–I apologize–” He stammers through, fingers starting to tremble. He combats it by taking a cold grip on his jean-clad thighs.

“No, it’s okay,” you say. “I was younger then. I looked much more alive back then compared to now.” Your tone is joking, but the playfulness doesn’t reach your eyes. “And you were saving so many people. I’m not surprised you don’t remember me.”

“It’s not that,” Tech denies with a firm shake of his head. “I couldn’t recognize you until now, but… I thought I knew your face.”

You tilt your head, intrigued. He’s pulled into your magnetic field again, just another opposite for you to latch with.

“Is that right?” You ask.

Tech nods.

“The first time we ever spoke properly, at your stall I believe,” he adds a tone of slight recollection so he doesn’t appear as enraptured by your every move and interaction as he absolutely is. “You looked so familiar, yet… distant. I suppose I couldn’t put my finger on it. But now I know.”

“All those years ago,” you say. Tech nods, but he’s already deep in thought again, digging his mind for any memory he can scrounge up of you. Your complexion against the lush green of Nalvage, then later smoke. That same scrunch of your eyebrows, your eyes wide, intensely focused on the task at hand, your voice…

“We spoke back then,” he mutters. In the corner of his eye, you nod. 

“We did.”

“I asked you to take some children off my hands while I took down a group of clankers.”

“Single-handedly,” you add, and Tech just shrugs. You grin. “You had the same voice, same eyes, same goggles of yours. Just more… youthful,I guess.”

Tech agrees with a shy nod, still struggling to process that any of this is truly happening. “You certainly look much older now.”

You huff, only one side of your mouth tilting up.

“Well, that makes sense,” you remark blankly. Tech bites his lip, realizing the ill-intent you might’ve interpreted.

“Wait,” he begins, “I’m sorry if that–”

You shake your head before he can even finish. Then, you scoot closer. As Tech predicted, now your shoulders graze against each other.

“No, Tech. I wasn’t offended,” you say, your soft gaze set on him with an intent he can’t exactly pinpoint yet. “Don’t worry. If I was I’d tell you.”

Tech pauses, truly at a loss for a proper response.

“So you remember me?” He asks.

“Of course I do,” You say. Tech musters up enough courage in himself to look into your eyes, the first proper time this entire conversation. He wants to look away, out of fear of the sky falling on him if he stares for too long, but you’re tugging him closer again. “You and your brothers saved my life. You helped me get out. I mean… you’re probably the only reason I’m still alive.”

Tech slumps softened at your words. He’s keenly aware of the little, yet impactful effect he’s had on many people through the galaxy. Yet being told it directly… it’s a different feeling entirely.

Yet, he still feels foolish. Firstly, for being unable to make the connection between the two of you. Secondly, for succumbing to the paradox you wrap him in.

“I should’ve realized we were connected in that way,” he finally utters.

A soft noise comes from the back of your throat as you consider his words.

“Fate?” You ask, a teasing smile on your face. Something depravedly hoarse is choked out of his chest. Just how do you know what holds him up without truly understanding the turmoil it’s given him?

Tech just shakes his head.

“I don’t believe in fate.”

You shrug it off without a bother, and Tech’s chest constricts watching you do it so effortlessly.

“Coincidence, then.”

Tech shakes his head. 

“That’s not quite it,” he mumbles to himself, but it’s still loud enough that you pick up on it. Tech still has that nasty habit of going off on tangents no one cares to hear, and it rears it’s head again as he begins talking. “My entire philosophy is based on facts and logic, what can be proved. Fate can’t be proved.” However, you’re nodding along, seemingly unbothered that he’s gone off. “Coincidence is just a facet of existence. One could think it's two lives intertwined, but that implies fate already. Something higher above us, controlling everything. And there’s no way for me to feasibly prove it, so… how am I meant to justify such a phenomenon in my mind?”

“What phenomenon?” You ask.

Tech takes a deep breath, and sighs, swearing under his breath with a coarse voice. Is he really going to admit to something he can’t come to terms with in his own head? Come clean to his own vulnerability, his own contradiction, and hypocrisy to the prettiest person he’s seen in his whole life?

“Why I feel meeting you is fate, despite everything.”

It appears so. 

You look at him, as though you’re just as lost. Tech wishes you looked at him any other way, even if it meant you didn’t care. But the confusion doesn’t help his psyche. 

“I’m not sure,” you answer him truthfully. The weight of the unspoken words between the two of you hangs heavy. If Tech were a more spiritual man, he’d consider the palpable feeling of divine intervention that mingles in the atmosphere. Rather, he thinks it’s kinetic energy. Heavy gravity. Deep-rooted insecurity in the back of your minds. Nothing more.

Tech takes his time to search your face, eyes darting over your features as if trying to decipher a code written in the lines of your expression. His gaze lingers on your cheekbones, your jaw, the wrinkles your smile leaves, and your soft lips before they flicker back to meet your eyes – a silent plea for understanding passing between you.

As the seconds tick by, the world alongside him holds its breath, caught in the suspended moment between what is and what could be. If only Tech was different, someone else, perhaps, and he could remedy everything holding him back.

Finally, you break the silence.

“I’d be willing to find out with you,” you say, voice barely over a whisper, “What all of it means.”

Tech raises his eyebrow. Now that… isn’t an outcome he could’ve ever feasibly predicted. Though, he hadn’t been considering any proper options when the silence settled. For once, he isn’t overthinking, re-thinking, analyzing and predicting.

Tech is still in slight disbelief looking at you, so repeats your words.

“You’d like to figure out… together?” 

You nod.

“I’d like that a lot,” you explain, hands folding over your lap. They’d been fidgeting absentmindedly at your sides before, not too dissimilar from how he does. “If you’d like that, as well.”

Tech blinks, still stunned. Finally, is he able to acknowledge it in his mind; your eyes are beautiful, and so is your face. Everything about you is divine. And it’ll forever be true, whether or not it aligns with all he’s known previously.

“Then we shall.”

Both can exist.

You smile warmly, cheeks lifting in a gentle caress of joy. 

“I like the way you think, Tech,” you say.

Tech hums with a purse of his lips. 

“Most people don’t understand the way I think,” he says, and it’s true. Not many make the effort to understand him, let alone try to meet in the middle. “Or care to be patient when it takes me some time to understand others.”

You shrug, far too modest to regard yourself as such a person.

“I can’t speak for you, or how you feel,” you say, looking down to the fall below you. Your words are quiet, yet only hushed to the point that if anyone were around you, only Tech could hear. “But I hope I do understand you. And that I’m patient enough.”

You’re plenty patient, he wants to say, but his voice lodges in his throat. Instead, he gazes down like you do, taking a good look over the edge of the building. There’s less of a view for him down there, and certainly more of a view if he looked up at the sky, but truly, he’d rather admire the one right beside him.

”Tech?” You then say. Tech looks up at you to find you already looking at him. 

“Yes?”

You take a deep breath, hand reaching up to scratch the back of your head with a nervous tremble in your voice.

“There’s one more thing I can think of right now that I want, that I think you can help with.”

Tech tilts his head.

“What is it?”

With a final gulp, the words are spilling out of you in a sweet increment that disguises the weight of your request.

“Would you kiss me?”

Tech blinks before he freezes completely. He repeats your words in his head, once, twice, and a third time for extra measure. You just asked him to kiss you. Press your lips to him. Nothing more and nothing less. And all he can do is just… stand there. Dumbly. Idiotically.

Despite that, he’s able to move ever so slightly, pulled closer to you by that same feeling of a field of magnetic energy around him.

Tech's heart thunders in his chest, echoing the chaos that reigns in his mind. The request hangs between you two like a delicate thread, shimmering with unspoken longing and anticipation. He searches your eyes for any sign of doubt or hesitation but finds only unwavering trust and a glimmer of hope. Without a word, Tech closes the distance between you, one hand on your knee and the other placed over one of yours as he leans in to press his lips against yours, almost featherlight at the first caress. He’s never been one for romantic lyricism, but truly, time does seem to stand still as it witnesses the sight in front of it. 

You kiss back, reverent yet not greedy, and Tech hums into your mouth with relief that he’s not doing a bad job. You’re fidgeting slightly under his touch, one of your hands reaching to hold onto something and landing on his clad thigh. You don’t squeeze, nor grip, just let it rest there, letting it act like an anchor while you’re guided through the kiss.

His heart pounds in his chest, yet he isn’t compelled to abort the new situation. Rather, he’d want to lunge in headfirst. You hum into his mouth just as insistently, lips soft and touch tender, and Tech wonders if there’s anything else

But then he’s pulling away, licking his lip with a nervous gaze.

“Was that adequate?” He asks, bottom lip trembling in worry.

But then you flash that heavenly smile, and his body sedates under your warm gaze.

“It was exceptional.”

There it is. That sensation of divine fate. And then the feeling that rushes right after. It isn’t fear, no– rather wandering curiosity. Here you sit, lips mere centimeters away from his, a paradox to everything he’s ever believed, yet he has no wish to push you away in favor of the facts and logic he’s relied on to keep him company. He’d rather pull you in closer, tighter, and make you the exception– not even an exception, but a new addition to his philosophy.

No, Tech doesn’t believe in fate. But you’re his contrary.

[evileyedoll]

Dark Dweller

Depth dwellers unite, and swan dive in the Dark, Metal Masked Machines designed to always hit their mark.

obviously all of the cool energy tatoos carved onto the robots are so that they can be lights amidst an infinite expanse of darkness, duh. they were Made this way.

About the piece - I'm still feeling inspired by anglerfish and other deep sea creatures, I spent more time than usual adjusting the texture on this one to give the dark blue a sinking feeling, but it being this dark also means the turquoise can stand out more which I like. I didn't get the detail as intricate as I would like, but its cool that this feels like more of a full body piece than I usually do, theres a bit more posture here.

One aspect of my setting I want to get better at depicting is there being "Celestial, Skybound" robots, and "Terrestrial, Groudbound" robots - they are sisters, at once the same, and yet parallel. Sometimes I like to think of variants, like what would the Celestial variant of this Terrestrial one look like or vice-versa, and that leads to some of the more exciting designs to try.

The Celestial ones live in and explore space - their part of the Singular Empire probably looks like thousands of space stations. The Terrestrial ones live on the ground so they have more complex structures and cities, but the "ground" also has unexplored frontiers, locales and wildernesses that require specialised equipment.

I like the idea that the robots can be natural astronauts of sorts, they're robots so maybe they don't need to breathe, but maybe they might still need tools to travel and move around or interact with their environment. Recently in the limited spare time from work I've been thinking about what their tools and equipment could look like, given that setting lets me have all kinds of different explorers.

This ones "wings" are probably meant to be one such kind of equipment - maybe it's like a jetpack - the idea is in the setting that the machining (lol) and craftspersonship of tools have gotten so refined that the cyborgs can get equipment that looks "like themselves" from a competent enough smith, even if they have really ornate or unusual patterns or shapes. Maybe amusingly when theyre using something generic second hand it very obviously doesn't look "like themselves".

In the past I've drawn others with similar backpacks that have gatling guns or other equipment instead, like the wings are a storage platform or something (while still maintaining the silhouette of being wings). I've somehow lost confidence in giving them complex looking equipment in the years since then, and should find a way to get it back.

[deepspaceboytoy]

Wow these guys have really put in the work exploring the outer bounds of human creativity and expression. Star Wars and DnD? Truly what horizon could be left, what frontier is unexplored after this

[vladim-3d]

I believe that if you're one of those Web Revival folks, who make websites in Web 1 style, then you should fully follow Web 1's design philosophy. Do a research on it, there are actual books about it ("Digital Folklore" is my favorite one).

Take image backgrounds, for example. People pick classic choices because of nostalgia factor and because "that's how it was", but let's go beyond this passivity. Let's consider that you pick one of those animated starry backgrounds, because you believe that the Internet is still a vastly unexplored futuristic frontier, where each web page is own planet or asteroid hiding materials for your mind and your soul. Or how about one of those flowery backgrounds? The ones that look like wallpapers of your grandma's bedroom? Wouldn't it be rebellious to have a website that looks the American Midwest house, sitting in the middle of sterile corporate landscape?

If there is one thing to take from Web 1 revisionism, it's that its design choices were conscious and they reflected one cool idea: the Internet is the place, the web pages are homes. No matter how scrappy those homes looked like. This is post-punk at its finest, and you should totally take notes.

[tobiasdrake]

As a Sonic fan since as far back as i can remember, i don't care for the Sonic Movies. I didn't mind at first but learning that Paramount is Pro-Israel made me rethink a lot of Sonic's character in those movies. Sonic is one of my favorite characters in the franchise (along with Amy) so i can be particular about how Sonic is portrayed (i don't like IDW Sonic). I don't mind different takes but if you don't get him right where it counts i'm gonna complain. I also don't like Knuckles at all in the movies and Tails feels unbelievably tacked on.

I can understand that. I do like... well, Sonic 2, specifically. I think that one has more good than bad, though I'm less fond of Sonic 1 and the Knux show. But I do have my beefs with all of them.

Like. I love Jim Carrey's Eggman, but he's also definitely more Jim Carrey than Eggman. He's very entertaining, somehow managing to be even more of a cartoon character than the CGI anthro protagonists.

Knux is... complicated? Like. I think there's a lot of pushback in the Sonic environment right now against the idea of Knuckles as a dim-witted brute, because that was a popular portrayal for a while. Sonic Boom comes immediately to mind.

Sonic Movie Knux was hailed as a brilliant portrayal because they didn't play him as stupid, but instead focused on him as a proud warrior clan type. But also... they kinda did play him as stupid? It's just that they were making "Knux doesn't get it because of culture shock" jokes instead of "Knux is just stupid" jokes. Which is really just a different angle on the same thing.

I think Idris Elba's performance carried a lot of his reception. Also that a lot of his stupid moments are funny. But. Like. The complaint was never that he wasn't funny. Boom Knuckles is funny too. It still sucks to see him reduced to a comical goon.

Contrast his portrayal in Frontiers. Frontiers Knuckles actually gets to express his knowledge and expertise. He talks at length about Angel Island history and architecture, comparing them to the current environment; Things that would reasonably be within his field of expertise.

And then there's Tom....

...

...

...existing, honestly? I don't like Tom. He's here because Paramount has no faith in the Sonic IP to carry a film and thinks the audience really wants to see a relatable self-insert in order to be invested in the film.

You're not really supposed to be rooting for Sonic as "the protagonist". You're supposed to be rooting for Sonic as "my kid". The films are made from the P.O.V. of cheering from the stands while your ten-year-old hits a home run in his Little League game. You're meant to be proud of Sonic, not to relate to Sonic.

Which kinda sucks by itself but also the guy they think is a relatable self-insert to project onto? Is a smug white rural cop who yearns to be a Big City Police Officer and has conspicuously unexplored drama with his wife's sister.

Like, Rachel violently despises him for reasons that the films refuse to examine, because they just want to use her to make Sassy Black Woman jokes. And haven't really thought through how it looks when Maddie is married to a fucking cop that her sister ambiguously but firmly insists is the scum of the earth. The implications there went straight over the filmmakers' heads.

It's all just... There's a lot. They made bad decisions with Sonic 1 but managed to find enough success at the box office to justify sequels, and now those bad decisions are baked in. Paramount thinks that's what people want to see. They think people want a Knuckles series that's about another white cop with an alleged heart of gold battling the feds and confronting his personal family drama, guest-starring Knuckles the Echidna.

I like the movies enough to check them out. The second one was a fine enough "Turn your brain off and just look at the lights and sounds" film. I actually had a blast with the "Maddie and Rachel beat the shit out of a bunch of cops" scene that everyone hates. The fights between Sonic and Knux were a lot of fun. Carreyman and Stone steal every scene they're in.

But it is all very not-Sonic.

[constellationandcompendium]

Writeblr Intro

Greetings traveller!

About Me:

She/her, early 30s

PhD graduate working in heritage

British (obsessed with tea)

Also sings and crochets

Enjoys both Star Trek & Star Wars

Occasional NaNoWriMo participant

Fanfic writer of 15 years making the jump into original fiction (find my fandom blog @thetamehistorian)

Happy to take asks / play tag games etc.

Has a habit of designing covers rather than writing

Second attempt at this blog (main blog this time, cha cha real smooth)

Tends To Write / Read

Sci-Fi & Cyberpunk

Urban Fantasy & Fantasy

Historical

Comedy (this suprised me too)

Introducing My WIPS

A crime thriller with a touch of cyberpunk...

Featuring

Man with habit of doing wrong thing for right reason

Best buds to reluctant allies to ‘I would die for you’

That ‘I can’t believe you’ve done this’ meme

Conspiracies and double agents

Lots of angst and hurt (with some comfort)

Wholesome parent / child relationships

Summary

Solaris City has a problem. Whilst the metropolis flourishes, down below in the old mines the Undercity grows wild and dangerous, it’s people cut off from the prosperity above, dreaming of the sun and spreading Haze - an addictive drug.

Elias also has a problem. Working for the Bureau has cleaned his slate but he hasn’t cut all ties with those underground. Now there’s a girl hidden in his flat and something big has been uncovered that has his contacts in a flurry.

With two days to go to a vote on unifying the two halves of the city, and his friend Sebastien caught right in the middle, Elias has a feeling that it'll only take one domino falling for everything to come crashing down.

Work Page

First Draft Complete, If Messy (Mind the Plot Holes)

A sci-fi comedy of a ship of misfits...

Featuring

Puns for ship names (and just bad jokes in general)

Captain packing up the ship and all its crew because they can no longer thrive in this household

Overly social parents (please stop inviting my professor over to dinner)

Space worker unions (and aliens)

Learning self-worth and finding strength through working together

Found family

Summary

The United Earth Ship Archimedes patrols the border of charted space. Beyond it - the vast and unexplored reaches of the universe.

It’s an exciting prospect for Aster Kobor, newly graduated from the fleet academy and hoping to make her mark upon the stars. Unfortunately, it only takes a few weeks for Aster to realise that the Archimedes is nicknamed ‘the screw’ for a reason. It’s a ship for the rejects and misfits, those deemed unfit to serve in the frontier ships and command never lets them do anything exciting. Still, Aster is determined to make the best of it and, unbeknownst to her, her meddling Captain is about to give the crew of the Archimedes their chance to show command what they're made of.

Soon a bad reputation is the least of their troubles and, whether the crew like it or not, they’ll have to learn to survive in deep space - where their only certainty is each other.

Work Page

Currently Wrangling Vibes Into ~ Characters ~ and ~ Plot ~

A historical novel about determined women, trains, and winning a war…

Featuring

One woman’s obsession with the railways

Code breaking commuters

Breakfasts cooked on a coal shovel

Being accidentally adopted by an elderly fireman and driver duo

Occasional air raid for added ~spice~

Solidarity in the face of adversity and outdated systems

Summary

Bea had always been fascinated by the railways, but her dream of driving one of the locomotives always seemed out of reach. Working the trains is dangerous, dirty, and completely off limits to the fairer sex.

Then the war came and the men went off the fight. Answering the call to help, Bea and her fellow railway volunteers find themselves with an opportunity of a lifetime. Obscured from judging eyes by steam and smoke they shadow the veteran drivers and engineers, learning what they can on the job and hitting the library when they can't.

The trains need to run, they are vital to the war effort. All it would take is one rogue bomb, one mishap to take out a driver and the wheels stop spinning.

Or at least, that's what the station manager thinks.

Work Page

Currently Doing Research and Initial Planning!

[incorrect-mtg]

Flavor Text Highlights - Conflux

<- Previous Set | Next Set ->

Cool - Progenitus

The Soul of the World has returned.

Funny - Goblin Razerunners

Finding themselves in a new and unexplored world, they immediately set it on fire.

Worldbuilding - Fusion Elemental

As the shards merged into the Maelstrom, their mana energies fused into new monstrosities.

Emotional (Horror) - Unstable Frontier

The goblins went to sleep in Jund and awoke in Grixis. They’d never seen a zombie before. They would never see one again.

<- Previous Set | Next Set ->

[stephexmachina]

I can’t super think of any very meaningful Steph and Duke interactions. As the resident Steph expert, would you be able to help me out get a pulse on their dynamic?

The tragedy of this question is that there really aren't any. Steph was erased from continuity for much of N52, and while she was reintroduced around the same time Duke made his early appearances, they haven't majorly interacted in the entire decade since. Sigh.

They do have an established friendship in Infinite Frontier at least!! @a-bad-case-of-the-stephs (absolutely the real Steph expert here, everyone go follow her 🙏) very helpfully mentioned reading Steph and Duke playing mini golf together in one issue, and after a little bit of detective work I tracked it down to Urban Legends #3!! Steph, Duke, and Cass seem to have formed a little friendship trio. A cute idea, but it's not touched upon in any depth, and most of it seems to have happened off-panel.

It's a shame that DC seems intent on sidelining them both, because I can see their dynamic being super compelling!! Both are intensely driven people, both have been shaped by turbulent living situations, both had unconventional Robin runs that other Robins have tried to discredit—plus both are older sibling figures to Damian and have a close bond with Cassandra. So much potential there!! But alas. 😔

Overall their canon dynamic seems to be that of friends who hang out outside of vigilante work, presumably having become acquainted through Cass!! But there's nothing particularly remarkable about their relationship, and the details have been largely left unexplored.

I'm far from an expert on post-flashpoint events, though, so if any Rebirth experts have corrections or additions, they're welcome to take the floor!!

[mariacallous]

With U.S. President Donald Trump, many high-tech titans have decided that now—after their coffers overflowing—Americans don’t need much government. Leading the charge to dismantle it is Elon Musk. His role is especially jarring because Silicon Valley was built on the government’s largesse. A booming high-tech sector—one of the signature achievements of the modern economy—wouldn’t have happened without the administrative state that Trump is seeking to root out.

The history of Silicon Valley exposes the grave dangers posed by the war on government. The hazard is that as a result of this push, Trump succeeds in breaking apart the marriage between Washington and the technology industry that has helped make America great.

The road to high tech really started to be built during World War II. In 1945, Vannevar Bush, who had directed the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development during the war, captured the zeitgeist of the era when he published “Science: The Endless Frontier,” which offered a declaration of principle for the government supporting scientific education. The report, submitted to President Harry Truman, explained why government support for research was so important to national security and the economic well-being of the nation. “The pioneer spirit is still vigorous within this nation,” Bush wrote in the letter that accompanied the report. “Science offers a largely unexplored hinterland for the pioneer who has the tools for his task. The rewards of such exploration both for the Nation and the individual are great. Scientific progress is one essential key to our security as a nation, to our better health, to more jobs, to a higher standard of living, and to our cultural progress.”

Much of the development of large mainframe computing systems was born of defense needs. While mainframe systems were being built in the early 1930s, during the war, the U.S. Army and several other defense units developed the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) under the direction of Maj. Gen. Gladeon Barnes. Congress devoted massive resources (today’s equivalent of millions in current) dollars to the construction of what would become the first general-use computer. The most important initial function of ENIAC, which was completed in 1946 by University of Pennsylvania scholars John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, was its ability to provide cutting-edge calculations about the trajectories of weapons. Before the project ended, the government discovered ways to use ENIAC for a wide range of jobs, including advanced weather prediction and wind tunnel design. With funding from the Census Bureau, Mauchly and Eckert next worked on the Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC), resulting in a digital computer allowing for data processing and storage methods that were new and extremely beneficial to industry. With CBS anchor Walter Cronkite standing by, UNIVAC, which weighed a whopping 16,000 pounds, famously predicted early on election evening in 1952 that Dwight Eisenhower would defeat Adlai Stevenson by a landslide. A computer star was born. The machine would even appear on the cover of a Superman comic book.

Throughout the early Cold War in the 1940s and 1950s, the federal government poured resources into the production of knowledge. The GI Bill of Rights (1944) vastly expanded the student body by covering the cost of enrollment and more for veterans, many of whom were first-generation students. In 1950, Truman signed legislation creating the National Science Foundation, an institution that complemented the National Institutes of Health by aiding nonmedical science and engineering. Their shared mission was to “promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity and welfare; and to secure the national defense.” Eisenhower, a Republican, worked with congressional Democrats such as Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson to respond to the Soviet Union’s successful launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957 by building on this precedent. The National Defense Education Act (1958) financed student loans, graduate fellowships, and research funds. By the early 1960s, with substantial help from the government, U.S. universities were booming and considered to be among the finest institutions of learning anywhere in the world. As the Cold War kept heating up, one area where Americans were clearly ahead was on the campus.

Without the government-industry connection that emerged from this era, there would be no internet. While there may still be people debating whether former Vice President Al Gore invented the internet, there is no dispute that the federal government did. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), established in 1958, undertook high-risk, large-scale research, cooperating with private firms, that had the potential to produce enormous payoffs. DARPA was central to the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) in the late 1960s, which constituted the first advanced computer network. Much of the drive for the military had been the desire for a functional network that could survive a nuclear attack. ARPANET was the basis for the modern internet. The National Science Foundation announced a distinct section, called NSFNET, in 1986. The foundation connected five supercomputer centers and granted academic network’s access. The project was considered to have been the “backbone” for the creation of the commercial internet. Other notable computer innovations also grew out of this operation. DARPA dollars facilitated the Stanford Research Institute’s making of the mouse, a technology that made it easier for an individual without great technical expertise to interface with computers. In 1991, Congress passed the High-Performance Computing Act—legislation that Gore helped move—which funded a team of programmers at the University of Illinois’s National Center for Supercomputing Applications that helped vastly expand the internet. Marc Andreessen, one of the engineers who co-created Mosaic and Netscape, acknowledged in 2000, “If it had been left to private industry, it wouldn’t have happened, at least, not until years later.”

Indeed, Silicon Valley would not have become what it is today without the government. The DARPA-Stanford research partnership, as the historian Margaret O’Mara has brilliantly recounted in Cities of Knowledge and The Code, is a big reason why the university emerged as such a powerhouse in high-tech education and research. Government money fueled the transformation of a formerly sleepy region, which O’Mara reminds us would have once been improbable to imagine as a hub of big inventions and money. A series of Stanford leaders, including provost Frederick Terman, opened their arms to the federal coffers and shepherded the Stanford Research Park into its current incarnation.

Not only was Stanford built up with government monies, but many of the companies that have littered the landscape in northern California had Washington to thank. Fairchild Semiconductor, established in San Jose in 1957, took form with Air Force and NASA contracts. NASA’s ongoing investment in the integrated circuits that it and other companies produced allowed costs to become accessible and for the semiconductor industry to emerge. Federal dollars during the 1980s and 1990s that were tied to programs such as President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative—a massive laser missile shield that would protect the United States from nuclear attack, which critics derided as “Star Wars”—resulted in all sorts of computer innovations not envisioned by the administration’s plan. Though stories about Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak working out of a garage capture our entrepreneurial imaginations, the role of the administrative state continues to loom large over the entire region. “From the marble halls of Washington and the concrete canyons of Wall Street,” O’Mara writes in The Code, Silicon Valley was made by many hands. Other “cities of knowledge,” including Cambridge, Massachusetts; Philadelphia; and Atlanta, were similar beneficiaries of government.

The federal government has helped high tech in many other ways besides policies directly related to computers and the internet. Immigration reforms, for instance, that opened the doors to high-skilled foreign-born immigrants resulted in the arrival of people who helped build the computing products that the entire world depends on today. The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society helped a young Sergey Brin and his family obtain a visa to emigrate from the Soviet Union in 1979. With that, Google was born. Musk was able to finish his education at the University of Pennsylvania with a student visa and stay in the United States because of an H1-B visa. Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang immigrated with his family from Taiwan in 1978. The Small Business Investment Incentive Act (1980) provided valuable dollars to Silicon Valley firms as they struggled to make a name for themselves.

Indeed, Musk’s company Tesla benefited from government assistance. In 2009, a critical moment for the company, Tesla received $465 million in low-interest loans from the U.S. Energy Department that it used to construct the Model S. Electric vehicle tax credits have grown consumer demand for his and other vehicles. Federal research grants played a role in the different components that make up these cars.

The federal government and the high-tech industry have stood side by side for decades. And the high-tech story has happened many times over, often in some of what have become the country’s most conservative areas. In From Cotton Belt to Sunbelt, historian Bruce J. Schulman traces how the revitalization of the South and Southwest, ground zero for the modern conservative movement of the post-1960s era, was built on defense contracts and military bases. Reagan’s presidency, which pushed politics rightward, derived electoral profits from massive congressional investments made over the decades after the war.

While many agree on the importance of markets, the hand of government—sometimes hidden from view—has been equally essential to economic success. The history of high tech has revolved around a genuine partnership between markets and government, not one or the other. To destroy the partnership threatens to destroy what has made the U.S. economy great. Every American will be forced to pay the cost.

[ultimatevocalsonicsongtournament]

ROUND 2 - Pool #103

Rhythm and Balance vs. Find Your Flame

Reblog to help expand this blog's visibility so that we have more voters!

Listen to them in the following links:

Rhythm and Balance

Find Your Flame

Lyrics below!

Rhythm and Balance

(Oh yeah, hurry to the unexplored land Don't mind the steep slopes or any obstacles) Oh yeah, hurry to the unexplored land I'm not scared at all Are you scared of something? Oh yeah, hurry to the unexplored land I don't mind any walls or any obstacles Oh yeah, hurry to the unexplored land I'm not scared at all And I don't wanna hear you I don't wanna hear you (2x) Shadow, don't make me upset I don't wanna hear you Shadow, don't make me upset You are frightened of something Oh yeah, hurry to the unexplored land I don't mind any walls or any obstacles Oh yeah, hurry to the unexplored land I'm not scared at all I don't wanna hear you Shadow, don't make me upset (2x) Oh yeah, hurry to the unexplored land I'm not scared at all Are you scared of something? Oh yeah, hurry to the unexplored land I don't mind any walls or any obstacles Oh yeah, hurry to the unexplored land I'm not scared at all And I don't wanna hear you I don't wanna hear you…

Find Your Flame

We won't back down We won't (yeah, yo) I'm here to go beyond my limit, not to compromise And you can tell me if I mean it looking in my eyes 'Cause I've been waiting for my moment to strike So come close, let me show you what it's like, yeah You can try to stand in my path but you're gonna regret it I'll be the one who laughs last while I'm making my exit 'Cause this is only for the strong of heart, nod if you get it And no matter what the outcome, you better accept it I can cut right through steel, I can bury the pain So don't doubt for a second; just get out of my way You cheat and you steal, I'm not lеtting it go So take this as a lesson, 'cause it's all that we know Will the whole world know your name When we dance with destiny? I've been there, and I've seen it I'm never gonna stop believing You'll find your flame Oh, we can save the day (the day!) We won't back down We won't (yeah, alright) It's like I'm seeing double vision. Take a seat; I'm on a mission We got everything to gain (everything to gain, yeah) To become everything you're not, you just give it all you got And take the pleasure with the pain, yeah I can feel my fire awaken; no time for being complacent There's a dream on the horizon, you know we gotta chase it And when we get to where we're going, then we start the invasion Best me? Nah, you must be mistaken (hey) You know I'll turn you into rust, grind you right down to dust You thought you were the best; well, you haven't met us I'll bring the fire and rain, call me the hurricane I'm not letting it go, 'cause it's all that I know Will the whole world know your name When we dance with destiny? I've been there, and I've seen it I'm never gonna stop believing You'll find your flame Now here we go, it's the end of the show Hear them? They're calling your name 'Cause in the end, it's you and your friends You'll find your flame (go!) Now here we go, it's the end of the show Hear them? They're calling your name 'Cause in the end, it's you and your friends You'll find your flame

[gender-jargon]

[Image ID: The Revela pride flag by Gent (Gender-Jargon). The pride flag consists of nine horizontal stripes of the same size. From top to bottom, the stripes are navy blue, indigo, teal, light yellow, grey, light yellow, teal, indigo and navy blue. ./. End ID]

Revela: a gender identity related to self-exploration.

[PT: Revela: a gender identity related to self-exploration. ./. End PT]

Etymology

[PT: Etymology ./. End PT]

From English, "Revelation", shortened to "Revela". Coined by Gent (Gender-Jargon), June 2024.

The root word "revelation" was chosen based upon the many revelations that occur in the process of self-exploration; becoming informed of that self-exploration is an option, the realization that one desires to explore oneself, the journey one takes when exploring oneself, the things that one learns about oneself while on said journey and what that ultimately means to oneself.

Elaboration

[PT: Elaboration ./. End PT]

Revela is an atrinary, outherine/diastine gender identity. Revela can be considered autonomine, autoine, rahuine and/or quesinine depending on the individual.

For a Revela individual, self-exploration is an essential experience, highly central to one's identity, heavily involved in one's concept of their gender and often a perpetual pursuit. Revela can be used to describe anyone who considers self-exploration to be a gendered experience.

Simply, Revela is a gender about getting to know oneself and all that it entails. Revela is similar to Alithix and Rahugender, but with some differences:

Alithix is about the pursuit of authenticity. Rahugender is about self-actualization. Revela is about self-exploration. All three of these can significantly overlap, but ultimately, each are distinct.

Alithix is about being true to yourself, Rahugender is about becoming one's "best" self and Revela is about finding out who you are.

Pride Flag

[PT: Pride Flag ./. End PT]

The pride flag was created at the same time as the term by myself (Gent, GJ, 6/24). The pride flag consists of nine horizontal stripes of the same size. From top to bottom, the stripes are navy blue, indigo, teal, light yellow, grey, light yellow, teal, indigo and navy blue. The colors have the following meanings:

The navy blue stripes represents unknowability, mystery, boundless infinity and questions without answers.

The indigo stripes represents the vast frontier of the unexplored, knowledge that is not yet known and life's secrets.

The teal stripe represents the spirit of investigation, the act of learning, unfamiliarity and personal development.

The light yellow stripes represents burning curiosity, motivation, introspection and the process of questioning oneself.

The grey stripe represents the self.

[PT: The navy blue stripes represents unknowability, mystery, boundless infinity and questions without answers. The indigo stripes represents the vast frontier of the unexplored, knowledge that is not yet known and life's secrets. The teal stripe represents the spirit of investigation, the act of learning, unfamiliarity and personal development. The light yellow stripes represents burning curiosity, motivation, introspection and the process of questioning oneself. The grey stripe represents the self. ./. End PT]

The pride flag has it's stripes arranged so that the stripe representing oneself is central, with each stripe radiating away from the center symbolizing the journey of self-exploration.

[ty-bayonet-betteridge]

chapter 3 spreadsheet... horizontal is your chapter 2 voice, vertical is the new one you get in chapter 3. the red cells are bold unexplored frontiers of potential new princesses. can you even picture it... the smitten/stubborn princess... the cold/contrarian princess... the skeptic/smitten princess... so much potential

[inherlight]

Yamervas / Lore / Earnest but Callous

Early Yamerva migration history was not unique: they would migrate and settle with sistren of other tribes, primarily as chief hunters and warriors, or install themselves a settlement leaders. But with overall population growth they started to drift and scout unexplored frontiers for Meority, being first to map her Gorgeousness in details for future expansions, finding what already settled tribes couldn’t, and fancy far away territories where they can feel serenity without annoyance of sistrent tribes. Late in the Age of Crumbling Yamerva clans became migratory in face of the Hegemony threats (and even after its fall, for some time), but eventually progressing world rendered this lifestyle obsolete too. However, it is a tradition of some Herpi-Clans to vacate in vast steppe expanses of the Great Thigh Plateau or plaguelands of the Crus, to attempt a primeval-style journey and test themselves as true natural predators they are born – as the Hunters of the Night.

Yamervas have multiple rudimentary organs as if they had full-fledged wings at some point, hinting at natural long evolution of extraterrestrial origin, but at the same time they are missing other vestigial features crucial for flying like they never existed at all. Yamervas are the supreme example of a Blessed Evolution, enforced by Joyful and Gorgeous Meora to perfect our bodies in Her image.

And perfected they are indeed. Hunters of the Night – all their senses are refined to make them ultimate predators. From outstanding eyesight to superb hearing; flawless sound and voice mimicry for luring in their prey; thick skin is hard to cut, and rich with adipose tissue is keeping bare Yamervas warm at night; and don’t be deceived by lean petite bodies – they are highly muscle-dense and agile tools of death. Yamervas are sapient predators, and it is in their blood – to prey.

Even when Yamerva is not in the mood for violence, not many sistren dares to ill-woe one… when you do so – it is considered a bad omen, literally and figuratively… because they keep their grudges forever. No matter where you hide or how strong you are – they will find you, and they will not let you go unpunished.

Their only weakness is daylight, which causes itching discomfort under skin.

***

From the moment they seen first Jealous Beastiary, Yamervas found their true purpose, and it didn’t change since then. They breed bellicose Herpi-Clans through every land of Her body, be that for official eternal service in Fortress Cities of Southern Continent, or to become Rogue Jagers ignoring reprimands of Herquisition. Especially many Herpi-Clans live in Feet Republic, close to where parasitical Brood of the Crus still gnawing at Her plagued wound. Too, they join Fleet of Feet, to take on Sea Hunts, and even if predatory perfection of theirs bodies are less useful in the Ocean – it is compensated by modern tactics and technologies.

Surprisingly, unlike other predator-ilk tribes, Yamervas detest wearing trophies of killed Serpent’s Offspring and Heretics even after being purified. They believe that such things are fundamentally corrupted with Evil, and true warrior shall not embellish herself with something so disgusting or risk being tainted in spirit and body. They dislike hiding curves of own bodies in general, prefer to reveal as much as possible, but hide enough from those who do not deserve to see it. Yet most of all, Yamervas dislike sisters who do not appreciate sultriness of own body bestowed to them by Meora, and ruin it.

After all, Yamervas are very proud of their heritage and Exaltation, often feeling discontent towards Aspectless tribes, but putting themselves as high as above all tribes; prefer to surround themselves only with opulence and exquisites, allowing only the finest silk and purest gold to touch their skin, as they deserve. Once Yamervas claim hold on something, be that resources, territory, right for a marriage, or even ideas, they will demand and assert their claim for the rest of their life, for they have a vision of Meority and its hierarchy: Yamervas believe that Meora blesses only the strongest, most loyal, and stoic, and She seeses every deeds we commit. They don’t believe in defense for defenseless – you don’t deserve what was taken, if it was taken due to your own fragility. Even losing to being outnumbered is considered a weakness with no bother, because you were either too weak to allow your enemies unite, or too weak to overwhelm them alone. And so they see the War of Vengeance against the Serpent as a true meaning of our society and its progress, and lives of those who do not speak with the language of dominance are hollow and worthless – the weakest link in a great chain She forged to whip the Alleater. Yamervas believe that eventually we will face the Serpent ourselves, and we shall slaughter It then on place… and if we perish doing so, than we were too weak – unworthy of existence Meora granted to us.

Thus, Yamervas don’t like many moral and civilized concept and formalities from other tribes, almost insular, they see these as stupid and naive. All but lies is justified to attain results for Yamerva: be daring to do so, but not deceit about own past achievements – because truth is the result. Still, they can respect and honor agreements, be that personal promises or national accords, they do hold off their self-interests; but be wary, that breaking an agreement with them is considered an abominable insult...

***

Like many other egg-laying mammals Yamervas posses holistic way of thinking, accentuate on functional relationship of subjects. Culturally Yamervas are highly territorial, brash, haughty and possessive people; personally they are unsympathetic self-centered individualists, but with strong sense of personal accountability, owning all decisions they make – good and bad, though they believe themselves always be good.

As egg-laying mammals Yamervas have a decent (three-fourths) fertility rate of eggs; generally a single clutch incline to have two eggs, less often – three. However, they bear a demographic problem in female ratio.

As a result of a very low female population (in some periods it was as low as one to thirty) Yamervas manifests sexual dimorphism very expressively, aiding in greater chance of survival for females – they grow bigger than futales, with higher muscle density, stronger bones, and sharpened shrewd as a defensive traits. Alternatively, futale genitals are disgracefully small in flacid state, but in when erect they engorge proportionally large to female bodies rather than their own, which requires great amount of blood – a process very much physically weakening futales, preventing them from forcing female into mating when she not desires, and alike preventing them from refusal when she demands. As well is very much noticeable difference in size, ornamentation and coloration of plumage: it is visually regressive for females – where they are born with colorful feathers, but are getting dull or dark as they age, helping them to blend with natural environment; while futale plumage stays bright and vivid even when senile, which they continuously care to keep chicly for the female contemplation, thus loosing great tail feathers outside of moulting is considered a dishonor for a futale.

Matriarchy and polyfuwary is a common societal traits among Yamervas. Marriages are not arranged – they are earned. It is a propensity of futale to entice and convince female from another Herpi-Clan to be allowed into her harem as a Valkirya. With gifts of prosperity, by achievements of the Hunt, through show of strength and beauty – all to proof how valuable may be future progeny. Females may endorse a contender, but sometimes Yarl (Chief-wife of a clan) decides if this futale really worthy of a time and honor to join, and continue bloodline with her daughter (or sister); but on occasion it is for harem’s chief Valkirya to conclude if a new partner is deserving to share genes with their beloved. Though many futales get only a single chance to mate, unless future offspring will show themselves better than other’s.

Once bond is made and eggs are laid, it is likewise solely futales’ liability for safety and well-being of hatchlings, together as a solid clan. Physically and mentally female is protected and uplifted by her Valkiryas to ensure her biological longevity and fertility. With that, Yamerva females are forbidden from participating in personal scuffles and great battles alike, or better say – she will be stopped by their beloved Harem, who will not wary to use force if needed – it is a humiliation for a Valkirya to be banished from a Harem, but it is even greater ignominy to loose a Wife, and so one risk outweigh the other.

Of course, with so many spouses, the Wive has no time to tend them all everyday herself. She would find paramours from other tribes for her harems’ sexual relieve, temporal or permanent, for when she has no interest; sometimes she would allow her beloved to find personal concubines, unblessed with the Gift of Creation of course to prevent unwanted intertribe children, unless she desires more servants inside Herpi-Clan; or everyone’s pride simply will be restrained until she needs them. In many cases harem Valkirya assist each other, or the weakest omega will be subjugated for everyone’s relieve.

Under pressure of high competition it is not rare for young Yamerva futales to consider an alternative of joining Harem and look for a personal wife not among own, and of course sistren of subservient tribes are always glad to offer themselves to bear a child conceived from a seed of Eight Sacred Tribes, which Yamerva futales treat more like a despair from a lowborn. Anyway, after maturing a little bit more they are craving for a return to natural competition and earning honorable place as a Valkirya.