#haven't seen it for a long while

[ps-cactus]

[theokusgallery]

Why, hello there, Virgil. Long time no see!

[rainbow-arrow]

adrien not changing outfits in season six bc he doesn't know who he is vs. luka not changing outfits in season six bc he knows exactly who he is

this is fine. i'm feeling ways about this.

[peridots-pixiwolf]

[Start ID. A redraw of the official icons of the ten named slugcats from Rain World, arranged in two rows: Survivor, Monk, Hunter, Nightcat, and Gourmand in the first, Artificer, Rivulet, Spearmaster, Saint and Enot/Inv in the second. Each is drawn in roughly the same pose as in the original art and fitted with speculative interpretations of their biology, and the second image is a “dead” version of this. For example, all ten have slug-like rhinophores in place of ears, cuttlefish-like colorful eyes with strangely-shaped pupils, cephalopod-like beak "teeth", expressive barbels or oral tentacles at the corners of mouths, spiny radulas, and the frilly mantle fringes of sea slugs, though otherwise their faces are squishy, simple and mammalian-shaped.

Cream-colored Survivor and yellow Monk both share triangular, bicolored spots matching their eyes (which are tan and brown, and two shades of blue, respectively), small, bumpy fringes, and relatively neutral looks on their faces. Defensive-looking Hunter is mostly a dull orange-pink, though their blobby fringe is a more violent red and their back is purple and marred with lumps. Nightcat is navy blue and flecked with dots of yellow and teal, their rolled rhinophores are a lighter blue, and their shading fractures into stars in some places. Gourmand is almost uniformly tan, their wide, very ruffly white mantle fringe bordered by a spray of white spots, and their beak sticks out from either corner of their smile. Primarily red Artificer, snarling, has yellow markings of multiple sorts, a prominent yellow dewlap and their characteristic dark scar taking out a chunk of its face. Rivulet is a darker blue than usual, with long barbels, red gills and rings, countershading, and a cheerful expression, sticking out their radula. Spearmaster is purple with orange accents, eyes and spots, a large fringe and spines down their back. Saint’s green caryophyllidia are marked by small, yellow diamonds, and their long, thin radula extends far below them. Enot is decorated with mottled red stripes, blue patches, yellow stars, and an uneven and almost cartoonish imitation of blush, though generally the same deep blue as Nightcat, a passive or almost slightly smug look on their face and their rolled rhinophores out to either side.

In the second image, nine of the slugcats’ eyes are crossed out, indicating that these are death icons. They look fairly the same, with mostly expression differences. Survivor is caught in the beginning of a threat display, a karma flower sprouts from Monk’s side, Hunter is burdened with overgrowing, purple and blue rot, Nightcat’s rhinophores are pinned back, and Gourmand looks mildly disheartened. For the final row, Artificer bites its radula between small plumes of smoke, Rivulet drops their expression, Spearmaster looks very startled, Saint looks almost entirely the same besides half-open eyes and their markings greater in number, and Enot grins confusedly. End ID]

If you'll excuse the unusually lengthy ID: the arena meme introduced by @pansear-doodles at long last after a nearly year-long wip status (or, rather, finished a month ago today to honor my own first time playing it!)

Design notes and shout-outs under cut! :]

The following people are some of those who’ve inspired my designs most since I started this eight months ago (or just inspired me to get a little weirder with slugcat biology), among many others for sure, and I thank them for it–but this is simply to bring attention to artists I find cool, and in no way an obligation to interact or anything :]

> @saturncoyote , @carpsoup , @charseraph , @gallusgalluss , @bitsbug , @dopscratch , and @0hmanit (and a special mention to dddeerbo and hunterlonglegs, who’ve since deactivated)!

Survivor: Surprisingly the hardest to pin down the colors for, since nothing with its sibling's palette seemed to match up right (I did have to add in a little blue somewhere for Monk, the beginning of making it clear how much I’m simply going based off of vibes for the colors of scug innards). I consider them, Monk and Gourmand to be part of the same gene pool of slugcats, and even possibly the same colony even if the latter isn't really related, so took a bit of Gourmand's coloring and fit them in with their inspiration: Goniobranchus verrieri. They serve as a bit of an introduction to my ideas of scug traits (i find it really fun how many people have thought to add so many silly sluglike fixtures of biology completely independent of me, buuut here I’m mostly talking about species variation), and like in-game they’re pretty average! They, Monk and Hunter have a couple scars sourced from a piece of Joar's concept art that I'm failing to find, those across the bridge of the nose, under the eyes, and across the rhinophores, respectively, and my Survivor interpretation features many on the back of the neck, as a result of survived lizard bites.

Monk: Their coloring is primarily based off the fact that I associate them with blue fruits, honestly, a bit because I was compelled to establish a familiarity with Rivulet, and lastly inspired by the spots of Goniobranchus kuniei (and geminus, less important to me as one of my characters is a kuniei instead, but more fitting). Between the yellow + blue and the circular marking in the center of their face, they’re meant to bear a little resemblance to an iterator that shares similarities with the characterization I’ve given them, and similar coding of her sibling can be seen on Survivor’s markings around the eyes. As both a “default” slugcat and one whose campaign I haven’t played, though, I can’t say I have much more to point out about em.

Hunter: The whole rot thing made for a really fun time drawing them, and while the color change on their back is a result of this, it’s also an excuse to relate them to Babakina festiva, arguably my favorite sea slug (mostly for sentimental purposes). And to Spearmaster, a fellow messenger slugcat, and it serves as a gradient between Hunter’s pink and the “traditional” color of Rot seen in the DLLs. Aside from their affliction, they’d actually be the plainest in terms of design, as they don’t have any patterns or quirks of body type, just the red + purple and strange lumps + possible malnutrition. I can’t remember if NSH had created them in particular or just...caught + released or something, but it probably wouldn’t be strange for a lab-grown slugcat to be simple like that.

Gourmand: Like the two above, they’re rather plain in terms of coloring and adaptation, and like the two above, I find that fun. I decided it would be nice to avert the “all slugcats being of the same body type, and Gourmand’s out of place as the exception” thing by just...adding more fat to all of them, really. I did want to emphasize their sheer bulk even so, both fat and muscular (not like I couldn’t have still gone further with it, of course, but slugcat anatomy can be a little obfuscating sometimes, and they were intended to look rather plush considering personal size headcanons and therefore the lack of proper gravity), and the thick and flounced mantle looked like a good addition, as per their sea slug Glossodoris hikuerensis. Unlike Survivor and Monk, I didn’t attempt to hold their resemblance to any particular other character (which means a little less to balance out the “default gene pool” thing), so those are all the design notes I have for em.

Artificer: The second slugcat I’ve ever played, or finished the campaign of, my favorite for at least a long time, and the first thing I did was give them yellow accents, the shape of which have troubled me slightly (not quite like the spots or stripes of the others). They’re both a little more appealing and more explosive-looking to me, and considering how early on I played Arti, actually present in some of my older art. It does give them a little resemblance to Saint (completely intentional, two slugcats with strange relations to karma), as well as the fact that its radula is green for familiarity with one of its children (at some point it was going to have all-green markings, even!). I’m generous with their scars, partly because it was fun to overemphasize the one on their face and partly because it does seem like a reckless slugcat, on top of the dangers of its explosive abilities–I’ll probably just keep adding more forever. Mostly-red sea slugs aren’t too common, but Hexabranchus sanguineus works for sure. The ridged, yellow dewlap can expand for combustion purposes, or something along those lines. Arti’s where I began experimenting with a lot of the mildly-offkilter features seen in my interpretation of slugcats, as they’ve once again been a favorite from the start.

Rivulet: I've obviously given other slugcats spots, deeply enjoy the bubbly-soda markings of other peoples' slugcats, and thought seal riv would be cute. Despite not too closely resembling it, they've been government-assigned Hypselodoris bennetti, for color reasons and for a couple sentimental ones. Originally, the colors of every scug were meant to match up with the custom colors I gave them at the beginning of their campaigns, (though Arti, Gourm and Spearmy are the only three who actually apply here, since I've only played through half the slugcats: I gave arti the yellow as mentioned above, gourm brown eyes and spearmy light pink spears, furthered by the outskirts pearl accompanying me and that palette all the way to moon. Tolerance training for eternity in hell cause I already knew about the maroon pearl quest). I initially gave them the colors of the bi flag for fun... but with the limited palette of this image, I was left without pink for a while and decided to see how they'd look in red. I then realized how they now wonderfully matched Moon, and besides, red's a sort of camouflage in deep water! As a side-note, the difference between their eyes and those of others always bothered me a little for anatomical purposes, and the cephalopod eyes were probably influenced by this!

Spearmaster: Inspired as much as possible by @notyourfunnyman ’s wonderful spearmy: designed in a way that helps it fit in with scavengers, at least between the long sensory tentacles, big ruff, back spines and slightly thin/distended anatomy, a form of defensive mimicry. I always had annulate rhinophores in mind, for a little diversity sure, but mostly because the shape reminds me of radio antennae and communication towers (seems fitting for the comms array and being a messenger slugcat)! I started searching for a real-life slug to give them just by looking up their rhinophore shape...and was met immediately and coincidentally with annulate-topped nudibranchs that fit them more perfectly than I could've imagined: Flabellina and surrounding clades, I think Paraflabellina ischitana works very nicely. The orange was completely unplanned, but there wasn’t a place for light pink among the other slugcats’ palettes, and importantly it likens them to both Hunter and Seven Red Suns a little more.

Saint: I am very much a non-furred slugcat enjoyer, with respect to those who aren’t, so figuring out the only visibly furred slugcat was an interesting challenge. I’ve decided that they likely have other, milder adaptations for help in the cold, mainly just more efficient fat storage, and what looks vaguely like fur is instead a bunch of tubercles (called caryophillia, for the second reminder out of three). Their inspiration doesn’t have these, however, Miamira sinuata’s numerous yellow and blue spots (not to mention...whatever’s going on with that shape) and general effect of being the only really green nudibranch I could find were probably perfect for a strange green echo. Not pictured, but their beak-teeth are tiny and flat to make a surface for grinding soft food against with the lack of a functioning radula, which is tipped with a specialized spiny “grapple-hook” for better traction/grip (not to mention the numerous little teeth running down the whole thing).

(Best part of hiding this under a readmore means edits will be seen by all reblogs, I'm mostly sure, because I completely forgot to mention! The spots on their forehead are simple eyes. Their camera eyes appear closed in-game, I like to believe their complex eyesight is rather poor anyways or otherwise reason that they aren't seeing out of those, and while this was far from her REASON for attunement with the world, it does help compensate for mainly viewing it through a canvas of simple light and dark. This, and the fact that their swapped-out "fur" is not only to commit to a lack of hairs but contributes to sensory input!)

Nightcat/Enot: I guess you could say I found the “these two are technically the same person” compelling. (E.g. similar colors, both very strange and enigmatic, and Enot/Inv/Sofanthiel’s remark during the dating sim about getting removed from Arena Mode.) I doubt they’re the only two slugcats in their body, considering humans with DID tend to have more than a few (and I find it very funny that a slugcat bearing resemblance to Nightcat appears in Gourmand’s ending. They’re allowed in the colony and Enot isn’t </3), and I have to credit @faelingdraws ’s art for being what convinced me on it! Their design inspirations come down to trying to balance a few different ideas: making the patterns and palettes of both look oddly similar (special mention to the stars, since those are fun to draw), basing them off of Felimare sechurana and juliae respectively, using blocks of color with the same placement as in Enot’s official art, and specifically making Enot look...biologically reasonable and imperfect, whilst also clearly trying to imitate human displays of emotion (what with...the eyes and blush on that one piece of official art).

Lastly, here’s just a lineup with notes on body shape and size. Most of the nicknames (existing to give a little more space, that’s all) are obvious, and while I can’t remember why I shortened Nightcat to Nox, it is in honor of my friend by the same nickname :]

[chewyhanniebug]

one year since junhan dropped a guitar on his foot and had to perform sitting down 😭

but he still managed to do all of THIS plus one of my favourite gaebabz clips ever

[x, x, x, x]

[bogkeep]

was telling some swedish customers i studied watchmaking in [swedish town] and they asked why i'm working here and not in a watchmaker shop right now... come on... don't do this to me..........

[call-me-copycat]

Just trying to scroll through the "Aizawa x Reader" tag and I had to leave angry because someone used the tag to complain about shipping (-᷅_-᷄)

Not only that but they were making fun of someone's fic... The amount of disrespect, I'm fuming (。-`ω´-)

It was one of those ships that one would consider immoral or taboo, your typical "Deku x Aizawa" authors. This person decided to screenshot the authors fic and complain and call it gross and then called the MHA fandom toxic...

How old were they? 18. My age. I feel as though I've seen that behavior back in middle school, but not as an adult.

I'm going to make a complaint post later on, sorry about that (·︿· `)

[violentdick]

-source: Batman (1940) #20-

Weapon of Choice:

[fictionadventurer]

There's something about reading really great writing that's so relaxing. You can just sit back and let the words wash over you, knowing that you can trust the writer.

[thenweatefivesoups]

I would like to take a moment to talk about a Dog Man character.

This character is super popular. Some people hate this character with a passion. Some people think this character is adorable. Not many people think this character is very deep.

But I do, and I'd like to talk about him for a second.

Think you have a guess?

It's Li'l Petey.

You may not agree with me. After all, he's the kid-appeal character who loves poop jokes and diarrhea punchlines just for the fun of it. "He can't possibly be that deep!", you say.

But consider how he came into existence: cloned from the (so-called) world's most evilest cat, created to do nothing but heinous acts, and when he didn't fulfill that purpose and instead acted like himself, he was abandoned.

Not even a day old, and not only did he get abandoned by his only caretaker, he eventually found the strength somewhere to forgive him. And not only that, but claim that this caretaker is, quote "easy to love".

It takes a ton of compassion, a truckload of love, to forgive something as traumatic as that. And later, in Grime and Punishment, Li'l Petey encourages Petey to do the same to his father. Make no mistake, this is not because Grampa deserves it; rather, it's because resentment, as Carrie Fisher once put it, "is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die."

While Li'l Petey forgives those who did wrong to him, he does not redeem everyone. Sure, he reformed Flippy, Molly, and Petey, and attempted to do it to Piggy, but my main point is that he stopped trying to reform Grampa. He talks to him in For Whom the Ball Rolls about love being an action in addition to a feeling:

And then he visits Cat Jail in Fetch-22, thinking Grampa's changed. After all, if the most cold-hearted villains (Petey, Flippy) had good hearts deep down, couldn't his Grampa have one too?

But after the eighth book, other than a brief "good night" in Grime and Punishment, Li'l Petey completely stops interacting with Grampa. He doesn't even say a word to him in Big Jim Begins, despite the fact that they crossed paths multiple times. Why is that?

Because when they went to Cat Jail, he was tricked, knocked out, and the next thing he knew, he was waking up in a recycling bin.

You've gotta wonder if this gave him flashbacks. To when his life was hard, and filled with fright, after he suddenly became an unloved orphan. At the very least, this would have spooked him, especially since he ran home (this kid's a pigeon I'm telling you) and saw Grampa disguised as Petey, but no sign of his Papa.

The last thing I want to talk about is character development. Yes, even if it isn't as obvious as Petey or Chief, he did have some growth beyond what was mentioned earlier. Certainly more than Dog Man did (ha).

Initially, Li'l Petey constantly keeps his head in the clouds; Petey points this out in For Whom The Ball Rolls. He's a driving force of optimism and compassion, which sets him apart from other goofy kid characters, especially Molly. (I should right an essay about that too)

But Li'l Petey is kind to a fault. He invites his grandfather to his house to make his Papa feel better, and their house is trashed and eventually robbed. He convinces his Papa to visit him, thinking he can change just like those he reformed did, and they both got drugged. He leaves the house to save the world, and his Grampa leaves to end it. Ultimately, the end of Fetch-22 is when Li'l Petey finally stopped trying to redeem Grampa, instead opting to forgive him and move on.

In Grime and Punishment, Petey asks if he only fights when he's face-to-face with pure evil. Initially, Li'l Petey doesn't respond. But guess what happened three books later?

He did encounter pure evil. And obliterated it.

Contrary to popular belief, he's not always a pacifist; he's learned when to fight and when to use love over the course of the story. That kind of growth is very subtle and very underrated.

And that concludes my analysis on a Dog Man character who many find "annoying" and "pointless". And as this supposedly annoying, pointless character always says:

[skythesnake]

Having thoughts about Moash and the flack he gets, not as a person, but as a character.

Spoilers ahead for the whole stormlight archive.

To start, I hate him deeply for his person. I think he deserves eternal exile on Braize for what he's done. I fully align with the Fuck Moash mentality. That said, I genuinely like him as a character and for the role he plays in the story. I'm not a professional at literary analysis, but I do really like to deconstruct stories in the context of how it fits together. I apologize if I get terminology wrog and I would welcome a discussion, I'm curious to see rebuttals and agreements to my points.

Moash is a villanous foil to Kaladin's heroism. I’ve seen comments on the fact that he, the only one who seems to *keep* pushing on social change is the villain. I think that's almost completely incorrect, and it also ignores the ideology that Moash pushes. First, he isn’t the only one pushing for societal change. Kaladin may stop hating ALL lighteyes, but he, as a darkeyed man, gains some of the highest respect - which alone changes the dynamic at least a little. And he doesn't conform to the current ideals, which sets a precedent and an example to everyone else. Jasnah is also noted to be changing policy regarding slaves, and Dalinar wrote a whole damned book. This is slightly different from darkeyes vs. lighteyes, but the point of that power struggle is that discrimination based on an arbitrary fact - no matter how "good" your reason - is bad. Progress is progress. I want to make it clear that I'm in no way saying that it can't or shouldn't move faster. I'm not implying that people don't need to wake up and check their own prejudice. But I *am* saying that when you grow up a certain way, spend your whole life that way, it's hard to change, even if it'sjust because it'shard to admit when you've done and said some icky stuff, as Brandon Sanderson himself knows.

I also dislike the idea that Moash isn't the villain for having this ideology. Because, yes, to a certain extent, it's correct - wanting equality is important and good. But, the thing that I don't see acknowledged is that Moash doesn't want equality, he wants revenge, which means the conversation is entirely different. Would he be happier if there was equality? absolutely. But as he shows, time and time again, is that all he really wants is to make other suffer like he has. And I think it's important to acknowledge why.

Something that is conveniently forgotten by most people (including me, at times) is that extremism is Bad. You see this in the book with Kaladin's mentality of destroying himself to protect others, you see it in Shallan ignoring all her problems, and you see it, most glaringly, in the Skybreakers, specifically Nale's version. Moash /began/ with a deep desire to do what was right, to bring about justice and equality to those around him. But as he grew more bitter, that narrative twisted and turned into revenge. It turned into an equally bad idea that is VERY common in real life, "They have harmed Us and therefore They are bad and We are good." Which is the very thing that Kaladin has to overcome!

Another issue I see is that Moash isn't very nuanced. He's called flat, and boring, with only ome goal. I disagree for a few reasons. From an in-universe perspective, he is that way /intentionally/. At the end of his arc, when he's Vyre he is purposefully shoving progress aside. The reason he's so morally flat is because he actively chose to be. He answers every question with one answer and you can see that because when Odium's protection goes away, he has a crisis! He has a meltdown that results in him blocking it out in the same way. He cannot handle the idea that he might be wrong anymore and so after his magical protect is gone, he puts up mortal ones, which are in some ways, even tougher to break. But aside from that, he isn't flat in the beginning! He starts as a very human character, trying to get justice and ending up in the wrong situation. He laughs and chats with his friends, he develops a genuine connection to Kaladin and the flattening of his morality is completely intentional on his part.

From a writer's perspective, moash can't really be redeemed - which I see some discourse on - because he is a direct foil to Kaladin. He's a mirror villain, two very, very similar people who started at nearly the same place and grew in opposing directions because of how they reacted. Moash is a good antagonist to Kaladin because they are so similar. The only difference between them is that Kaladin looked at their broken world and decided he was going to fix things by helping them grow in a better direction, knowing that would take a long time, while Moash looked at their broken world and decided he needed to fix things by burning the whole thing down and starting over, because anything less would be too slow for him

I just got frustrated with seeing people dunk on how Moash was written without examining why he was like that, both in-universe and out. Yes, there are issues, like every piece of art, but I thought the way he developed alongside Kaladin was actually quite cool, and while I wasn't pleased with how things ended (I had to close the book and take a break when Teft died) I was satisfied with it, because it felt natural for things to come to that conclusion based on the paths they were both on.

[indigo--montoya]

Mel: Viktor isn’t answering my messages. Jayce: Allow me. Mel: I tried 6 times, what makes you thi- Viktor: *replying to message* Hello.

[typosandtea]

Vertibirds. 🚁⚙️🗡️🪽

So every wastelander and his dog know that the fallout 4 vertibirds crash more than settlements need help. But why is that? Here's my 2 caps on the matter. (Or: Bethesda doesn't understand aviation very well I think)

( So uh this is way longer than I expected, I was possessed🚁☢️:] )

TLDR: Horrific conditions for aviation, the difficulties of wasteland heavy maintenance, inexperienced pilots AND mechanics, and the WORST damn instrument layout I’ve ever seen

The Vertibird is designed as a fictional tilt rotor VTOL/STOL(Vertical/Short Take Off and Landing) aircraft which makes a ton of sense in the wasteland where suitable runways are rarer than hens teeth. One of Bethesda's primary visual design influences for the vertibird I suspect is the bell boeing v-22 Osprey.

This funky creature \/

This photo is from the Wikipedia page >Here< [ID: a photo of a v22 osprey aircraft in flight as seen from below and to the right, the aircraft is a medium tilt rotor aircraft with very large propellers, the aircraft is current in vertical take off or landing with the engines pointed straight up. The landing gear is extended, the aircraft is painted in air-force grey with the faint decal “marines” and the American army star on horizontal stripes and the squadron and registration barley visible on the empennage. The cargo and forward doors are open and a soldier is hanging out the front. End ID]

Now the Osprey has a bit of a reputation among people I’ve met who’ve flown in them, I've personally been told things like "if it's not leaking hydraulic fluid, that means you're out of fluid" and "its terrifying to fly in".

My screenshot. [ID: A screenshot of a fallout 4 vertibird, seen from front left in flight over bushland. the Player is manning the minigun and Paladin Danse is a Passenger. End ID]

Looking at the Vertibirds themselves we can make a few assumptions here.

The shape of the cowling and the noise they make indicates that the engines are some form of turboprop engine, likely requiring liquid fuel akin to Avtur(Aviation turbine fuel). Confirmed by the Instruments visible in the cockpit.

The most weight efficient way to move big parts is hydraulics so, they likely have complex hydraulic systems for wing positioning / AOA(Angle Of Attack) / engine angle. Likely also for landing gear since they have retractable gear in fallout 4.

That the BoS has modified them from the original design at least partially, allowing attachment to the Prydwen, likely other modifications too.

I strongly suspect that they have an APU(Auxiliary Power Unit) in the aft fuselage / empennage somewhere, since they have a massive air intake scoop on the top fuselage, they can self start their primary engines which either requires a ridiculous amount of electricity / amps or a source of bleed air. Bleed air is the most likely candidate for self start and is reasonably common on real turbine aircraft, APUs also allows for ground power without having primary engines running. Also confirmed by the instruments in the cockpit.

All of these points are well and good and common in aviation, even modifications (ie. STOL kits, survey aircraft, agricultural mods, skiis, ect). But modern aviation has some advantages that the BoS doesn't have: access to new off the shelf parts, proper verified documentation, proper test processes & facilities, and experienced personnel.

Don't get me wrong, I think Proctor Ingram is awesome, very knowledgeable and practically a miracle worker (especially with that one terminal entry about an engine failure field recovery she pulls off!!), but one chief engineer cannot maintain an entire fleet AND the Prydwen, she comments on how things are breaking often on the ship that she is very busy! Training of new engineers takes *years* to even get to basic level! Ingram can’t train anyone she is too busy keeping everyone in the air 24/7! So who is training all of these scribes? There must be a huge amount of time teaching and supervising even simple tasks! Even at their best the BoS wouldn’t be able to hope to be near the prewar standards of training! Even Ingram or other senior scribes would not be thaaaaat experienced, 10 years is not a long time to completely learn a new aircraft and implement systems & processes of maintenance. The point here is that there are inexperienced scribes maintaining these aircraft.

WOLRDS BEST CHEIF ENGINEER ❤️ \/

My Screenshot. [ID: A screenshot of proctor Ingram from fallout 4, she is standing in the Liberty prime control area. She is smiling. She is wearing her usual modified power armour frame. Preston is visible in the background with a clipboard and pen, he is wearing woody’s outfit from toy story. End ID]

Heavy maintenance in the wasteland, especially in an active combat zone would be an absolute nightmare, are the poor scribes doing overhauls on the flight deck?? Not really possible, so the BoS must have a ground facility at the airport somewhere. Also side note where is the rest of Boston airport? There is more to an airport than a terminal and 1 runway, where are all the hangars?? Likely underwater but still, no ruins??

Back to maintenance, aircraft need a huge amount of care, way way way more than cars do. light civilian aircraft IRL need a full inspection every 100 hours of flight time, which adds up incredibly quickly! For example if you have a one hour commute twice a day that’s MR(Maintenance Release) hours reached in 50 days! You legally cannot fly out of hours. And a service for small aircraft takes about 3 personnel / 2 days and that’s without any major repairs or ADs (Airworthiness Directives) to address! $$$$! Aircraft operating in adverse conditions also need additional maintenance, and coastal areas like Boston, are considered adverse conditions since the salt air corrodes aluminum and steel like nothing else! Corrosion untreated will damage your aircraft and if left too long can destroy the structural integrity of aluminum parts. The spars of aircraft are aluminum often!

My photo. [ID: The inside of a Cessna 172 wing trailing edge is shown looking inboard at the aft root rib, which is primer green, it is backlit by torchlight, the fuselage and a orange scat hose are visible behind it, it has 3 irregular shaped holes in it, 2 are by design but the third medium sized hole in the center of the image is eaten away by corrosion. End ID]

Vertibirds, between being shot at constantly and having a complex deign with a lot of precision moving parts will need a lot of repairs; moving parts means lots of upkeep, grease and inspections! The BoS by 2287 must have some sort of manufacturing back in capital, they cannot still be using old parts from the enclave after 10 years of maintenance, that’s a lot of grease, paint and hydraulic fluid!!!

The BoS must also have a refinery of some kind because Avtur is a refined fuel with some important additives like biocide. Manufacture and storage of fuel is very important since fuel contamination will bring down an aircraft! (and has multiple times IRL! :[ ). Water, microbes, and algae are real dangers to engines, with free water being the most common. Poorly sealed tanks or improper fuel storage combined with a incomplete or missed pre-flight inspection can lead to fuel starvation, since water is heavier than fuel and tank outlets are at the bottom of the tank. If you loose an engine on a twin, may God help you.

This image is from Concordia Bioscience >Here< [ID: A photo of a sample of pale yellow Jet fuel in a clear container, the sample is contaminated with water and microbes and has separated into layers with water at the bottom, then microorganisms, and then Fuel at the top, the image is labeled as such. End ID]

Getting to the most likely crash reasons now (finally), In my opinion that is inexperienced pilots and; a horrific instrument layout.

While there must be some lancers in the BoS that have been flying for the whole 10 years that they’ve had Vertibirds, I think that is likely the exception not the rule, even if they crashed a fraction of the time that do in game that’s still A LOT of downed aircraft!

Experience is only gained in practice, and unfortunately for the BoS they are (self-declared) at war so resources are thin and safe zones are thinner. I suspect that there are a lot of very inexperienced pilots without the time for the experienced pilots to really teach.

Linking to my final point, experience on an airframe itself is also important, you want to be familiar with your aircraft, even among a group of the same model aircraft they will each have quirks, like slightly different instrument layouts, slightly different handling/feel i.e. "this one flies heavier / slower" (at least that's my experience with smaller civilian aircraft) I imagine that the apocalypse did nothing for improving manufacturing tolerances!

FINAL AND MOST DAMNING POINT:

Experience can only help lancers so much when veritibirds have such a strange instrument panel layout:

My screenshot. [ID: a screenshot of a instrument panel from a Fallout 4 vertibird. it is slanted on a approximately 30 degree angle. End ID]

A bit weird looking yeah? For reference Pilot is left seat and copilot is always right seat, this applies globally even in right hand drive countries.

lets take a closer look:

My Screenshots. [IDs: Three screenshots of the same Instrument panel as above, but zoomed in using a sniper rifle scope to get a better look. The first screen shot is the pilots side, the second the center, and the third the copilots side. End ID]

All righty! So reading from top to bottom, then left to right we have:

On the pilots side: A Rotor%RPM gauge, a VOR(Very high frequency Omni-directional Range) indicator, a DG(Directional Gyro), a HSI(Horizontal Situation Indicator), and then a huge AI(Attitude Indicator),

In the center section we have: presumably light clusters (likely master warnings & cautions, gear indicators, and other status lights), a second VOR gauge, likely magnetic compass as they are usually top centre (though I can’t see it being at all accurate with all of the steel around!), the engine instruments cluster, and the APU status / control panel at the bottom. unsure of what the 3 clusters of horizontal buttons are suppose to be other than input of some kind?

In the Engine cluster: Torque%, XMSN(transmission) oil temp / pressure dual gauge, a gas producer % RPM gauge with small integrated single percent dial (like having a seconds dial on your watch for accuracy) meaning the engines have free turbines (compressor not attached to the power turbine), a dual load / fuel psi gauge, a dual engine oil pressure and temperature gauge, fuel quantity in pounds, a turbine output temperature gauge (the hottest part of your engine), and a clock.

On the copilots side: a second Rotor%RPM dual gauge, a third VOR indicator, Airspeed in Knots and MPH, a RMI(Radio Magnetic Indicator) which uses VOR and ADF(Automatic Direction Finder) on compass, a second DG, a second HSI, and a teeny tiny altimeter right in the outboard corner.

the 4 instruments on the lower copilots panel are completely unlabeled

some things of note that are from game limitations:

most of the engine instruments don't have needles at all

the DGs and the RMI use the same background asset, resulting in the DG wrongly having 'VOR' and 'ASI' on its face, DGs are self contained air driven instruments that work on gyroscopic precession, not any outside data input.

all of the instruments with a compass face all say north despite this vertibird not quite facing north.

the AI is showing wings level despite this vertibird being crashed and on a ~30 degree angle

there are not engine controls at all not even flat assets, only flight controls.

There are a lot of instruments here and most of them are reasonably OK read individually, BUT there at least 1 key instrument missing and the layout outs emphasis on completely the wrong things:

WHERE IS THE VERTICAL SPEED INDICATOR(VSI)????? That's a pretty important gauge in a VERTICAL take off / landing aircraft!!!!!!!!!! It's one of the basic six pack!!! how was it omitted??? Speaking of the six pack why is there only one ASI and Altimeter?? and why are they tiny and ON THE COPILOTS SIDE ONLY???? the altimeter is LITERALLY the furthest instrument from the pilot in a vertibird, it should be right in front of the pilot!!! the easy to miss altimeter would make IFR(Instrument Flight Rules) flying incredibly dangerous! Also why are there four VOR based navigational instruments? VOR IS GROUND BASED NAVIGATION!!! unless the BoS has rebooted the multiple ground beacons for them to navigate from that's THREE dead instruments taking up space on the panel! the RMI is slightly more useful as ADF can tune to commercial radio frequencies, though these would need to be strong!

These poor inexperienced lancers are having to look all over the whole unnecessarily crowded cockpit for basic information that should be right in front of them, causing reaction delays and possible confusion. That delay could be the difference between whether or not they are flying home today.

-> Bethesda doesn't understand what half the instruments do and while they did a good job with most of the assets, in their quest to make it retro-future / visibly different from actual aircraft, they have completely destroyed any use of logic in the layout.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for reading! Here’s a video of me yeeting Danse with the ‘Get out of my face mod’ as compensation haha

My Video. [ID: a video capture from fallout 4 in first person. It is night and is at oberland station facing the water treatment plant. The player is wearing power armour and the HUD is visible. The player is very close to Paladin Danse, he turns away from them and they shove him with the voice line “stay out of my way”. Danse flys a long way away while rag-dolling. The Gamer’s laughter can be heard while Danse is flying. The player follows Danse’s fall with the crosshairs. The player then walks backwards. End ID]

[federfleisch]

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron was my favorite movie as a young kid, I watched it so many times I wore out the VHS tape

[antennatoheaven]

my thoughts on The Murderbot Show:

idk man

‎

[assiraphales]

it's so funny that i have you on one side shipping zolu and a mutual on the other shipping sanlu. feels like i'm in the middle of a war i don't know anything about and everyone is winning

you are walking down the streets of a very peaceful verona