#because he could have seen the 118 would function without him and he could leave without many regrets

[njwinterquartz]

Long ramble about thoughts on this and next episode and what it could be leading to. Hen and Buck on filling the role of captain. Schrodinger’s Eddie Diaz, is he staying or going? Stuff like that.



Hen Buck and the role of captain

I could see it being Buck because of the way they set up hen and him this episode. But also with hen I could see her being captain after overcoming this doubt about her ability to lead, if they choose to go that route. So I think they’re doing a decent job at giving both of them a solid route to being captain to leave us all guessing.

Like we’ve got Buck whose life kinda centers around his job, his friends and family are there too but as this episode showed they all have other things but he doesn’t really (*slides Tommy right next to Buck* I mean he could have something if the show lets it happen and isn’t a coward). Hen like she said has her family and kids she wants to go home to after work and is happy with being a paramedic, chim and maddie have their kids, Eddie’s not at the 118 right now that’s all I’ll say about that. And as we’ve seen he has qualities of a good leader but maybe not quite the experience with it that hen does.

While for hen this episode she’s shown she has the qualities of a good leader and is capable. But then at the end we have her saying she turned it down, which could lead it to being Buck becoming captain. But I also could see this next disaster being a push for her to reconsider and see how she is capable of filling the spot left behind by Bobby. Like she’s outside with Gerrard, while chim is trapped with Athena at the base and Buck and Ravi are trapped up high. So she could take control, since I think this episode kinda showed Gerrard at the battery fire as not being certain of what to do and the 118 took control from him.

I also get that the lines about her calling the chief to turn the offer down could be a done deal about her being captain and leave it for Buck. But still like this show is so whishy washy about what lines matter and what don’t and how exactly the lines are supposed to be meant as. So we’ll just have to wait and see.

Eddie

Eddie still could go either way, I think it could be more interesting if he helps the 118 at this next disaster like we know he will, but still ends up going back to Texas and takes the job there rather than going back to the 118. It’d give him another opportunity to make a decision and stick with it; moving to Texas, buying a house, switching cars, the whole thing just to work on making himself better for Chris and himself.

I could see the show making him realize he wants to come back and somehow move him back to LA. But not something I really wanna talk about because it’s simple. Like it’s straightforward, he goes to that disaster sees and works with the 118 and doing that makes him realize that he would feel the same working in El Paso. A cop out in my opinion but nonetheless an option they could take.

But I could also see Eddie going to help with this disaster and realize the 118 still works without him. Because of his comment about “could I have done something” in that argument with Buck makes part of me think he thinks he’s still needed at the 118 (not saying he’s irrelevant or replaceable to them, just that it’s not dire that he’s not there anymore). The guilt and grief I can get but still I think he needs to realize the 118 still functions without him. Bobby dying was something none of them could have changed. So I think him working alongside them and then realizing that he can move on with his life just like all of the rest of them will could be a good moment for him. To see he can have a new start.

Also like not really liking what they did with Eddie, like I get being angry, I get the grief and frustration. But like damn, there were other ways they could have gone about Eddie feeling like he should have been there. Not him getting angry and doing all that shit to Buck.

[survivingcollegeonefanficatatime]

Chemistry -- star was insanity.

get ready because here we go.

Sabine is smart as hell, she has a fundamental understanding of chemistry, math, engineering, and several other subjects. She was making weapons for the empire as a teenager, and she was good at it. Yeah it sucks but it also shows that she’s incredibly smart. Besides the fact that I do NOT believe you can make explosives (at least not the kind she makes) without some understanding of how chemistry works. Sabine is immensely book smart and you cannot convince me otherwise. 

She can probably balance a chemical equation better than I ever could. 

I have already established that Latin exists in this verse. (see previous pure insanity fic) and finally: yes there are some details from “every day gets brighter” but you do NOT need to read that fic to get this one, the only detail that matters is that Ezra has a ear cuff that’s attached to a ribbon that functions as a padawan braid. He wears it when in private but it’s also easy to take off to hide from the empire. 

*there are 118 named elements as of right now, I rounded up to 120 for this fic because its a science fantasy series and I wanted to leave some wiggle room for fictional elements, I’m not sure if I should count beskar as an element, the wiki says it’s an alloy, and I’ve seen at least 1 source that says it’s just a really high carbon steel alloy which… makes me incredibly curious about the lightsaber resistant properties of carbon. I’ve also seen it referred to as Iron. if it’s an alloy can it be artificially reproduced? I mean I’d imagine that it’s naturally formed on mandalore, but

Ok, ok, concept: what if Beskar is an alloy that’s really hard to reproduce, it’s a very high carbon steel (iron and carbon) but it’s unique because it forms naturally, and instead of only being mined the natural strains of Beskar were eventually reverse engineered and there’s like old myths about figures coming own and teaching the Mandalorian how to produce beskar. It would also be fun to imagine that any especially high-carbon steel can have lightsaber-resistant properties and that this is a HEAVILY guarded secret. It also means some ships' hulls are harder to cut though than others, depending on how much carbon was put in. 

Anyways this is a super compelling idea but I'm not sure if I like it or if I’m leaving it as “beskar is an element” lol. 

“What is this place?” Ezra asked, the crew had been resting on one of their common Lothal stops for a few weeks, and Sabine had disappeared for practically half that time. She’d finally invited Ezra to come with her, and he found an old rundown and abandoned farmhouse absolutely filled to the brim with various bottles and containers.

“It's my lab I guess.” Sabine replied, her voice was casual in a way that felt forced. Ezra thought he could feel an edge of awareness leak off her, but he still wasn’t very good at understanding the emotions he’d taste in the air. 

“Lab? Oh! It’s where you make paints, right?” he asked, Sabine nodded. Ezra hesitated for a few moments, he let his eyes trace over all the containers. Sabine moved to grab a small metal thing from a shelf, she pulled out a long rubber tube.

“Yeah, paints, explosives, stuff like that. Can you pass me the spark lighter?” she pointed to a shelf full of nicknacks. 

“I’m not sure what that is.” Ezra admitted, Sabine squinted at him. 

“It’s uh, it’s a metal loop with a cap on it, it makes sparks so I can light the burner or.. Whatever else I need to light, I guess.” she admitted “I’m not exactly doing this in the most efficient way but… it’ll work for now.” 

Ezra nodded, “so uh, what exactly are you making?”

“Black powder.” 

“And that involves fire?” Ezra asked as he shuffled through the shelf he’d been directed too. 

“Yeah, I need charcoal for it, so… burning ya know?” 

“Yeah….” Ezra trailed off.

“You have no clue.”

“I have no clue, but uh maybe you could teach me? About all of this I mean, it seems cool and it’d be useful, in case you ever need help.” 

“You don’t need to justify it to me, if you want to learn I can teach you, but we should probably start with the fundamentals.” Sabine laughed, as she watched Ezra dig through the shelf, he held out the spark lighter triumphantly

“The fundamentals?” Ezra asked

“Yeah, chemistry, engineering, stuff like that.” Sabine snatched the spark lighter from Ezra’s hands, she gestured for Ezra to follow. 

“I- uh, I’m-” Ezra stumbled along behind her, that sounded like a lot of stuff he didn’t have any background in. 

“Don’t worry, it’s not that hard when you get a feel for it, but you need to understand the basics of chemistry before you move on to actually making explosives, half of what I do is chemistry, the other half is engineering, it depends on what I’m making.” Sabine made her way over to a metal container surrounded by a tube. She attached the rubber tube she’d grabbed to it and hooked up the metal thing. 

“I’m not sure, can’t you just teach me to make the stuff?” Ezra asked, visibly hesitant.

“Put your helmet on.” Sabine ordered, Ezra obayed without hesitation, and Sabine turned a nozzle, then she held out the spark lighter and squeezed the handle near the area around the container. The air around the container caught flame. 

“It’d be far too dangerous to try to mess with everything without understanding what it’s doing, no, if you want to learn you’ve gotta learn all of it.” she gestured to the burning container beside her. “Come on this has to run for a few hours, let’s go over some of the basics.” 

“I don’t really know how much of any of this you're familiar with, so ask questions if you're not sure, ok?” was the first thing Sabine said, they were a short distance away from the fire, and both had taken their helmets off. 

Ezra laughed nervously “yeah uh I sort of stopped getting any formal education when I was seven and I don’t really remember much of what I was taught so…” he trailed off. Sabine shrugged. 

“Chemistry is both fairly simple and incredibly complex, it’s the study of matter and its properties, matter is stuff basically, pretty much everything is made of matter, anyways chemistry is fundamental to understanding almost all science fields, because it’s goal is to understand the way things work.” Sabine started Ezra nodded 

“That makes sense, I think I remember some of that, there are states of matter right, solid, liquid, gass? Like how water can be all of those.” he gestured to the air

“Yeah, and mater is made of atoms, which you can think of as the building blocks of the univeriverse, each atom is a specific element, and those atoms can join to form molecules, which can join to form a compound and then a mixture, you go from the most basic to the most complex. There are also more than three states of matter, like plasma and aqueous solutions, and a few others but they’re not really relevant right now, so don’t worry about it. You know what an element is right?”

“Yeah, an element is uh, I’m not sure how to explain it, it’s one thing, like oh! The atmosphere is made of a bunch of elements, but humanoids need oxygen especially to breathe properly.” 

“Yeah, perfect, and air is a good example of a mixture, there are types of matter, and we can divide them into homogenous, heterogenous, single elements, and compounds. It’s fairly easy to keep track of what’s what. An element is a pure substance with only one type of atom, and a compound has more than one type of atom, whereas a homogeneous substance has a uniform composition throughout. You can tell this because the prefix homo is Latin, and it means ‘same’ or ‘alike’ . Honestly, knowing Latin is quite useful when it comes to the sciences.”

“Oh great, another language to learn.” Ezra laughed, “I’ll put it on the list.”

“You have a list?” Sabine asked, Ezra flushed.

“I’m uh, I’m trying to get Kanan to teach me Dai Bendu, and Hera’s teaching me binary, I mean I wouldn’t complain if you, or Hera, or Zeb wanted to teach me your languages, but I know you’re pretty privet and Zeb doesn't seem to be interested in teaching it, and I havn’t brought it up to Hera yet. So..” 

“Oh, I’m pretty good with languages, I do know some Ryl, I’m not fluent, but we could learn together.” she shook her head “anyways, there are about 120* named elements, but only five elements make up the majority of most planets' crusts, and only three elements make up the majority of most humanoid bodies. Those elements are hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen, but there’s a handful of elements that are the most common for life, and you can remember them based on the acronym CHNOPS, which stands for carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen,  phosphorus, and sulfur. Oxygen is super important for most humonids as it’s got the highest concentration in the body.” Sabine took a breath and waited for Ezra to nod before she continued. 

“Everything has properties, these are traits inherit to something, a physical property can be observed without changing a substance, like color, oder, density melting or boiling point, and a chemical property can only be observed when a substance is changed so burning, which is different than melting because one is a chemical change and one isn’t. There are also intensive properties which are independent of the amount of substance, a gram of gold is going to have the same density as a kilogram, even if it has a different mass. Mass in this case is extensive. And substances can change, physical changes don’t change the composition, whereas chemical changes result in new substances.”

“That would be the difference between burning and melting again, right?” Ezra asked. Sabine nodded. 

“You can separate mixtures based on filtration, distillation or chromatography, filtration is as simple as it sounds, you can use a physical barrier to separate things, distillation involves using the boiling points of different substances to separate them and chromatography separates substances based on how well they adhere to solids. Heads up, we’re going to get into numbers now. Most things in chemistry are quantitative, so they have numbers attached”

Ezra groaned but nodded along.

“And now we get into units, SI units, or scientific imperial units are the basis for all science, I don’t think they were always called imperial units but even decades old papers use those units and refer to them as SI, I’m not sure what the original name was, I’ll have to ask Kanan if he knows some time. Anyways there are a lot of SI units, length is in meters, mass is in kilograms, temperature is in kelvin, time is in seconds, substances are measured in moles, currents are measured in amperes, and brightness is measured in candela, volume is often in cubic centimeters or liters, the good thing about SI units is they use prefixes, it’s a lot to remember but it can tell you how much of something is without needing to remember unit conversions. I’ll send you the chat I use for my calculations later.” 

“You still use a chart?” Ezra asked

“It depends, it’s a lot to remember, there’s no shame in needing to write something down, I don’t need it that often but it’s useful when I need it. Anyways, Density, here’s an equation you need to know. Density is mass divided by volume, it’s one of a handful of equations that can be made into a triangle.” Sabine pulled out one of her paints and moved down to the wall of the building she was using as a lab. She drew a large triangle, then divided it into three sections. The top was a single section and the bottom held two segments, in the top she painted an M and then in the bottom she drew a D on the left and a V on the right. “You cover the letter that represents what you want to do, if I want volume I cover the v and I’m left with Mass over density, if I want density I’m left with mass over volume, and if I want mass I get density multiplied by volume. Does that make sense?”

Ezra made a face “I never thought I’d be glad Hera and Kanan insisted on teaching me math when I first joined the crew.” 

“It comes in handy a lot more often than you’d expect.” Sabine confirmed, she grimaced at the reminder. Ezra had struggled though simple addition when he’d joined, and struggled with any amount of multiplication, it had just been another thing he’d had to learn to keep up with the rest of the crew. He still had trouble with division, but he’d been better at it than anyone expected. 

“Back to numbers, there are exact numbers which are given by definition, for example the ghost crew has six spectors, that’s an exact amount, but a lot of measurement tools are inexact or subject to user error, so weight, temperature, and a few other things are inexact. Exactness is definition or an exact count. Most measurements are rough approximations and that’s fine, the goal is to have a very low margin of error. This comes down to accuracy and precision, precision is a measure of how closely individual measurements agree with each other, and accuracy is how close individual measurements line up to what’s correct.” Sabine made a face then she smiled. She pulled out another of her paints and drew three targets on the wall. She took a step back and fired six shots into the same spot off to the corner of a target.

“I was nowhere near the center of the target, so my accuracy was poor, but all the shots were near each other, so my precision was high.” 

Ezra nodded, Sabine moved to the next target and sent off a series of shots, none hit anywhere near the center.

“That’s low accuracy and low precision, right?” Sabine nodded and stepped to the final target, where she hit every shot dead-center.

“High accuracy, high precision?” Ezra asked, “can you have high accuracy and low precision?” 

“No, because if you have high accuracy you’re already close to the target value.” As a demonstration Sabine moved back to the low/low target and sent a bolt directly into the center of the target. “If I wanted to have low precision I'd need my next shot to be nowhere near my first.” she took a breath and fired into the outside corner. “But that’s not accurate, so I can’t do that, if it’s accurate it comes with a certain level of precision already.”

“That makes sense.” Ezra nodded 

“And onto everyone's least favorite part, significant figures, these are important to scientific notation and I hate them. I understand why they’re used in theory. It's important not to overstate the accuracy of any answer we come to, especially when doing things in a lab environment. But they’re incredibly annoying. So here are the rules. All nonzero digits are significant, zeros between nonzero digits are significant, zeros at the start of a number are never significant, zeros at the end of a number are significant only if that number has a decimal point.”

Sabine took a step back and pulled out one of the paint pens she carried. She drew a series of numbers: 23, 50, 005, 24.056, 0.001, 12024, 1000, 5603, and 0.004603. Then she handed Ezra the pen and gestured to the wall.

“Which digits are significant?” she asked Ezra, groaning but approached the wall. 

“You’re just doing this to torture me.” he replied as he underlined both digits in the 23 “zeros at the end of numbers arn’t significant unless there’s a decimal point, right? So that means only the five here are significant?” he pointed to the 50, Sabine nodded, Ezra underlined the five, he did the same for the five in 005, then underlined all of 24.056, “and this has a decimal point.” he gestured to 0.001 “but zeros before the number starts aren't significant, so that doesn't count, and the next number has a zero sandwiched so it is significant.” He underlined only the one in 0.001 and the whole of 12024, then again only the one in 1000 and the whole of 5602, finally he underlined only the 4 right in the final number.

“Yeah, perfect. It’s not hard, it's just annoying to maintain. Especially when we get into doing math with sig figs.” Sabine groaned “don’t get me started on stoichiometry with sig figs, I swear…. Anyways, that’s for later, when you're doing addition or subtraction the answers are rounded to the least significant decimal, when you do multiplication or division you round your answers to the same number of digits as the measurement with the fewest number of significant figures. You should pay attention to the sig figs throughout but only round at the end of the equation.” Sabine wrinkled her nose but continued “so when you add, you line up your decimal place, and if you have 12.1 and 1.2353 you’d round your answer to one decimal place. If you're doing multiplication it’s not about decimals, it’s about the overall number of sig figs, so for 12.1 and 1.2353 you’d round to three sig figs.” 

“That seems… confusing.” Ezra admitted

“Yeah it’s not the best, but practice helps, just sort of keep it in the back of your mind, I’m not an imperial instructor, I won’t judge you if you want to leave your answers unrounded until you need to round it for whatever reason. Anyways we're moving onto another confusing topic, or at least it can be, dimensional analysis is going to be the basis for stokeomery. It’s how we convert one measurement to another. It uses ratios. If you have a measurement in imperial units but want to translate a paper written in the old republic or something using whatever unit of measurement is most common on whatever planet you're from, it’s very useful. I had to use it a lot to translate the Mandalorian standard measurement system, mand’tar* to imperial units. So if you see a lot of conversions on my notes that’s why.” Sabine snatched her paint-pen back from Ezra.

“Let’s say we have 115 mand’tar pounds, and we want to get it to imperial grams, we can draw 115 lb/1 and then multiply it by 453.6 g/1lb, this is because the conversion factor from mand’tar points to imperial grams is 154.6/1” she drew the question on the wall. 

“You’re going to run out of room on that wall.” Ezra said, Sabine shrugged 

“I can paint over it,” she explained. “Besides, it’s time to go over atomic theory, so Dalton’s atomic theory states that each element is made of small particles, all atoms of a given element are identical but atoms of one element are different than every other element, you cannot change an atom of one element into a different element, and following the laws of conservation you cannot create nor destroy atoms in chemical reactions, finally compounds are formed when atoms of more than one element combined, and the same compound always has the same ratios involved. Make sense?”

“Who’s Dalton?” Ezra asked.

“I’m not actually sure, I think we’ve just been calling the theory Dalton’s theory for so long no one actually bothered to write down who he is, I presume he’s some scientist who developed all this stuff long before interplanetary travel was even imagined.”

“That long ago? Really? It’s hard to imagine that there was ever a time like that.” 

“I know, but it had to have existed, it’s not like we could have made any type of starship fuel without understanding chemistry. So I guess there had to be something before we could travel the stars, I wonder what that was like.” 

Ezra shrugged “seems lonely, only one planet, only one species, no way of knowing what’s going on with the rest of the galaxy, but maybe it was better that way?” Ezra fiddled with the ribbon braid that hung from his ear. “I mean there’d be no empire, right?”

“Maybe” Sabine agreed “but there might be planetary empires, and planetary wars, I doubt even the confines of a single planet could make everyone get along, but that’s not really important right now. We’re focusing on the smaller particles that make up atoms, so Dalton whoever he was was wrong, there are smaller particles, the atom has a nucleus that has protons and neutrons, and there’s an electron cloud outside the nucleus. There were a bunch of prehistoric theories of how atoms work, they’re interesting but I don’t think they’re super necessary. It is interesting to see what ancient people thought of atoms. But the important part is that we eventually found that atoms are made of 90% air, with a nucleus and smaller particles. We can prove this by shooting alpha particles at some gold foil and looking at the patterns it makes. Anyways, protons have a positive charge, electrons have a negative charge, and neutrons are neutral.”

Ezra squinted “are electrons and neutrons backwards, it seems like neutrons should be negative because of the nu sound.”

��I can see that, but think neutral, not negative, protons are easy because they’re positive, and electrons you can remember because they cause electricity. Didn’t Kanan say something about force lighting, I wonder if that’s just using whatever magic you use to mess with electrons, that would make sense, but I also wouldn’t put it past the force to just… break the fundamental laws of reality.” Sabine made a face “you and Kanan break the law of conservation of energy on a daily basis” 

“I didn’t expect you of all people to care about that sort of thing.” Ezra said. Sabine made another face.

“It’s not that I care, it’s just… it’s impossible to plan around, chemistry is reliable, I know what reacts with what, I can plan for what to do if something goes wrong, and there are rules to it. I’m not one to like rules, but I like knowing what I’m getting into. I didn’t know what I was getting into with the imperial academy, I didn’t know what I was getting into when I-” she sighed “it’s just that I like knowing how things work. I can’t know that when it comes to your mystic nonsense, it just works because… it does…” Sabine shrugged “maybe we’ll see if the force can break any other fundamental rules of the universe later, that would be fun. Kanan says all things are possible with the force, I wonder if you could make some of my reactions more efficient.” 

“Maybe!” Ezra chimed 

“Anyways, protons are neutrons that have basically the same mass, we use a relative mass to describe them because it’s still an impossibly small number, but compared to an electron it’s a lot. Electrons technically have a mass but we don’t really take them into account when running calculations because it’s a lot to deal with. The atomic number determines which element an atom is. All atoms are determined by how many protons they have in their nucleus. This is why the number of electrons and neutrons can change for the same atom, but protons will not. It’s also why you can’t just change one element to another, it’s about protons. A neutral atom will have the same number of protons and electrons. The mass number is the number of protons plus neutrons. And you can find the number of neutrons by subtracting the atomic number from the mass number. An element with a different number of neutrons is called an isotope. Some isotopes appear naturally, and can be used to do things like radioactive dating. Some isotopes just aren't very stable. We use the average weight of elements, which is the isotope mass multiplied by the percent natural abundance, this can change depending on the planet or region of the galaxy, that’s why it’s always important to get a local periodic table** I’ve got one inside, it’s for Lothal, since we’re here most often we’ll just use that one.” she glanced over to the still burning fire. “Watch that for a second, I'm going to get it. I’ll show you how to do some quick isotope mass calculations.” 

Sabine disappeared into the tiny farmhouse and returned with a flimsi-poster she pinned to the wall. It was torn at the edges, there were flecks of color decorating the large sheet, and a few edges showed signs of having been burnt at one point. 

“Alright so let's say lothal has two naturally occurring gallium isotopes, one is 71Ga with an isotopic mass of 70.924750, and it has an abundance of 39.892% we need to find the other mass.” she took a breath and gestured to Ezra who blinked back at her.

“I’ll be honest I have no idea where to start.” he admitted

“Well, all precents must add up to 100, so we can subtract 39.892 from 100.” 

Ezra spent a few moments counting on his fingers before lighting up. “Oh! That’s 60.108 percent right? And it’s a percentage so it’d be 0.60108?” 

“Yeah, exactly, and we can get the atomic mass unit from the local periodic table.” Sabine pointed to the poster shed retrieved. Ezra examined it for several moments before he announced 

“69.723!”

“Exactly, so 69.723 amu = 70.9247 times 0.3989” she drew out the question on the wall, “pluss the unknown, multiplied by 0.60108. Then we just solve for the unknown.” she passed the pen to Ezra 

The blue-haired padawan started, uncomprehendingly at the numbers, Sabine knew he could do the equation, she’d seen him run though simple algebra with Hera and Kanan enough to know he understood the concept. Still, he hesitated. Then, a little nervously he wrote out 69.723 =28.293 + Unknown * 0.60108 then hesitated again. He counted a few times on his fingers before grimacing. 

“I’m not sure I can do that in my head…” he admitted “or at least, not in any reasonable amount of time.” Sabine cursed to herself and rushed back into the building, she returned with a small device. 

“Sorry, I forgot here” she shoved a solegot*** in his hands he flushed and quickly started tapping away at the device, he wrote down more numbers as he went. 

“The mass is 68.925, right? Do I need to worry about significant figures?” 

“A number from the periodic table is exact, and exact numbers don’t really worry about sig figs, but I’d round to 3 decimal places, that's sort of the default.” Ezra nodded at Sabine’s explanation but he still seemed a little flustered. He heals the soul and gets just a touch too close to his chest. 

“Now that we have the local periodic table here we should go over it. All periodic tables are organized in the same way, that’s based on the atomic number, which increases left to right. The elements are also arranged in periods which are horizontal rows, and groups which are vertical columns.”

“Chemistry seems like a lot to memorize…” Ezra grimaced. Sabine nodded

“Unfortunately, but there ARE ways to make it easier, you can remember groups because each vertical column is an element with similar properties, so we group elements. It’s easier to remember when you keep in mind that group 18 is all noble gasses, so they all have similar properties, if you just remember that the noble gasses are a group, then you remember groups are vertical, and if groups are vertical periods are horizontal.” 

“I’m not sure that helped but I’ll do my best!” Ezra replied 

“There are several groups, the alkali metals, the alkaline earth**** metals, chalcogens, halogens, and noble gasses, we don’t really need to remember all of them right now, but it’s good to know that they exist. Metals are all on the left side of the table, and they’re often shiny, head conducting and most are solid with few exceptions. Nonmetals are on the right side although they include hydrogen, they can be solids, liquids or gasses at room temperature. And some things are metalloids.” Sabine pointed to the periodic table, which had been color coated, she gestured to a dark line that separated boron and Aluminum and continued down in a stair step pattern. “This stair step helps you remember what’s a metalloid, starting with Boron, and then including all things that touch the line except aluminum, Polonium, and Astatine, these are metalloids. Sometimes they’re like metals and sometimes they’re like nonmetals.” Ezra nodded and Sabine continued “there are seven elements that are naturally diatomic, which means they naturally occur in groups of two. Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Fluorine, Chlorine, Bromine, and Iodine. It’s fairly easy to remember which ones are diatomic, you start at element with the atomic number 7, Nitrogen, and then draw a 7 sape on the table, moving to include Oxygen, Fluorine, and then down Chlorine, Bromine and Iodine. You know when to stop moving right because the noble gasses are not diatomic. And it ends at the same spot the metalloids end. Since this is only six elements you have to remember to include hydrogen.” 

“This is so much information Sabine.” Ezra groaned “I Don’t know if I’ll be able to remember it all.”

“I understand that, I studied this for years, Ezra, and I still need to double check half my equations, and I still stumble over naming my polyatomics. It’s a lot, and it's very dense, don’t worry if you don’t get it right away, we can go over it again. For now let’s move onto empirical and molecular formulas. An empirical formula is the lowest whole-number ratio of atoms of each element in a compound where a molecular formula is the real full formula. So CH would be empirical, but C6H6 is the real formula.” 

“Why is that necessary?”

“Honestly it's sometimes good to know the simplest form of the ratios,” Ezra nodded. “ions are charged atoms, so when electrons move they can make charges happen. A cation is positive, and an anion is negative.”

“Are actions positive because loath-cats are good?” Ezra asked, Sabine blinked

“You know what, yes, that’s why they’re positive, that’s a good way to remember it.” Ezra pumped his fist in excitement. “Anyways a cation is formed when you lose an electron, remember that electrons are negative, so when you lose an electron, you get more positive, and when you gain an electron you get more negative.”

“That makes sense, sorta like when a chopper comes into the room the whole room gets more annoyed.”

“If that helps you remember it then we’ll go with that. Metals tend to lose electrons whereas nonmetals tend to gain them. We can look at our chart to see what the charge of something is. The first two groups have a positive one and two charge respectively, then after the transition metals, it goes positive three, four and then negative three, two, one, and finally zero, this is with the exception of the metalloids and the bottom period only on the right-hand side” 

“Remember when I said significant figures were my least favorite part of this? I lied, it’s actually naming polyatomics. A polyatomic means many atoms. And Ion just means ‘has a charge’ so these are charged groups of mutable atoms. For example ammonium which is NH4+ or Sulfate SO4 2-” Sabine sighed deeply. “Let’s start with ionic compounds, these are a combination of a metal and a nonmetal, you can typically find the charge of the nonmetal and only the empirical formulas are written. Here let me show you, it’s easier that way.” Sabine pulled out her pen again, she wrote Mg2+ on the wall along with N3- “fto write this together you need to cross the charges. So it will become Mg3N2, you need to look at your local periodic table to determine the charges of a lot of elements. If it’s not in an empirical form, you need to divide it by the greatest common factor.” Sabine took a deep breath, she grimaced, and continued

“Ionic compounds are metals and nonmetals, molecular compounds are nonmetals and nonmetals, and acids are Hydrogen and an anion, Hydrogen is one proton, so it’s often referred to as just a proton, so if I say ‘proton’ and mean it as a single thing, it’s just hydrogen. When it comes to naming ionic compounds you write the name of the cation, if it can have more than one possible charge you use numerals in parentheses s Iron with a charge of two would be Iron (II), if it’s a polyatomic cation it will end in -ium, if the anion is an element change its ending to ide, if the anion is polyatomic just write the name of the polyatomic. When it comes to covalent or molecular compounds you need to know the prefixes, they’re all latin so keep that in mind, one through ten is mono, di, tri, tetra, penta, hexa, hepta, octa, nona, deca, if the first element is on its own you don’t include mono, the name of the element farther to the left in the table, or lower in the same group is typically written first. Does any of that make sense?”

“Um, a little?” Ezra asked, visibly hesitant, “can you show me what you mean?”

“Oh, yeah, CO2 is carbon dioxide, it ends in ide because it’s the second element, and it’s not a polyatomic, CCl4 is carbon tetrachloride, if the prefix ends with a or o and the name of the element begins with a voel the two successive vowels are typically changed into one, to be honest this is so much easier in mando’a since we already combine words a lot, we just simplify the process a lot.” Sabine shook her head and muttered a few chemical names to herself. “Anyways if you have PbCl2 it would be Lead (II) Chloride, transition metals MUST state the changes using numerals. Ionic compounds are metal and the nonmetal and ide, transition metals are the metal, the numeral and the non metal with ide at the end. Metals and polyatomics are metal and the polyatomic, so potassium nitride and if it’s a cationic polyatomic and a nonmetal it’s the polyatomic and nonmetal ending in ide, so ammonium iodide. Now we’re onto acids, which involves a lot of the previous information, as I said it’s an anion and a proton, if the anion ends in ide, so if it’s a single element then you write it as hydro element ic acid, so hydrochloric acid, which is HCl, if you see a proton in front then it’s probably an acid. If the anion ends in ate, which typically means it has oxygen in it, so chlorate is ClO3 and perchlorate is ClO4, those two are confusing but you can remember them because perchlorate indicates that it’s the highest oxidation state and in a lot of cases that just means 4, anyways those are element -ic acids, so chloric acid HClO3 or perchloric acid HClO4, finally if it ends in ite, which are polyatomics, like Chlorite ClO2 wic admittedly brakes the ate rule but still it’s good to know, then its ous acid, so Chlorous acid HClO2. We’re going to use an oversimplified definition of an acid for now, and it’s a compound which has one or more H+ ions and is bound to an anion. We might go back and modify this definition in the future but I’m just trying to give you the basics for now.” 

“Wait, do I need to remember all the names of all the elements?” Ezra asked “and what about polyatomics?”

Sabine grimaced “if this were a course in the imperial academy yes, you’d need to remember all of them. I have them all memorized, and I still have the list of polyatomics I was made to remember memorized, but for the most part you can figure out what it means remembering the rules I taught you, and it’s not like cheat sheets don’t exist, there’s no shame in using them.”

“It sure feels like there is. It takes longer”

“So what? You have your own skillset and I have mine, who cares that it takes you a little longer to do math, or that you have to check a cheat sheet, it doesn't bother me, don’t let it bother you.” she took a deep breath “I only have a few more things I want to go over today, then we can turn that fire off and see what we get out of it.” 

“Alright, sounds good,” Ezra replied. 

“We’re going over stoichiometry, which is basically just the conversion factor stuff we did earlier. It's a way to convert numbers from one unit to another. It's based on the law of conservation of mass, the one thing I don’t think your force breaks.*****” Ezra laughed “Even if it did, it doesn't matter right now”

“Yeah laugh it up, we’re talking about chemical equations, once again we’re sticking to an introductory level here so we just use an arrow to show which direction the equation is going, there are starting materials, or reactants on the left, and ending materials or products on the right, and you use addition to demonstrate mutable starting or ending materials. Chemical equations have to be balanced, I used to love doing this at the academy, it was fun.” Sabine then flushed, realizing what she’d just said. She didn't wait for Ezra to respond, and instead charged forward. “Ok, we have to have the amount of elements on one side of the equation match the amount on the other side, otherwise it breaks the law of conservation of mass. If you have CH4 on one side, that means you have one Carbon and 4 Hydrogen, you need to have one carbon and 4 hydrogen on the other side of the equation, this can get complicated if you are dealing with mutable polyatomics.” Sabne wrote out an equation on the wall, leaving ample space between each part of the equation _H2(g) + _O2(g) → _H2O(l) “let’s ballance this, on the left there are two Hydrogen and two oxygen, on the right there’s two hydrogen but only two oxygen, so if we want to have the same amount of oxygen on both sides, how many water molecules should there be?”

“Um, two? But then there’s not going to be enough Hydrogen?” 

“Exactly! So in that case we need two H2 molecules, the equation will end up as 2H2(g) + 1O2(g) → 2H2O (l)” Sabine explained as she drew out the numbers into the quotations. 

“Oh, hey what are those symbols you’re adding, in the parenthesis.”

“Those are the states of matter, the g means gas, and the l is liquid. We’ll also talk about aqueous, which means it’s something dissolved in water. Remember that water is considered a universal solvent. We can divide a lot of stuff into whether or not it can be dissolved in water. There are a few types of chemical reactions, combination reactions which as you can guess is just a combination, decomposition which is the reverse, and combustion reactions which is burning and always involves something plus diatomic oxygen which dissolves into water and carbon dioxide” 

“That means carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen have to be reactants right?” Ezra asked

“Yeah” Sabine agreed, “we’ve got to get into more of the math now, a formula weight is the sum of the atomic weights of all the atoms in a chemical formula, you need to check the periodic table for this, for sodium the formula weight is the atomic weight because it’s just one element but for water you need the weight of hydrogen times two and the weight of oxygen, when you add that together you get the formula weight. This will be useful for even more math later.”

“Oh joy, more math” Ezra groaned

“Were you expecting this much math when you asked me to teach you how I make explosives?” Sabine asked.

“Honestly, no, but I feel like I should have seen this coming.” Ezra said honestly, Sabine laughed. 

“We’re moving onto percent composition” Sabine said, and Ezra groaned, he had a lot of trouble with percentages when Hera and Kanan had started teaching him. “A precinct is just a part over a whole, so in this case the percent of an element is the number of atoms you have multiplied by the mass of the atom, over the formula weight of the compound multiplied by 100, so if we take glucose which is C6H12O6 and we want to find the percent of carbon, we multiply six by 12 Amu, to get 72 and then divide that by 180 amu and multiply it by 100 to get the percent which is 40% now if you want to find out how many molecules are in something we need Avogadro’s number, Avogadro is another prehistoric scientist, they determined that one mol is the amount of particles found in exactly 12 g of C-12, basically theres 6.02 x 10^23 atoms or molecules in one mol, this is also directly related to the atomic mass, for example one mol of H is 1.0079 amu which you can find in the periodic table. Molar mass, which we’ve been doing in atomic mass units, is also written as grams per mol, the formula weight is the same as the molar mass, so we’re going to be looking at the periodic table a lot. We can use this number to convert between grams moles and formula units. If you have grams of a substance use stoichiometry and the molar mass to convert it to moles, if you want to get to formula units you have to use avogadro’s number. If you have three grams of copper and want to know how many atoms you have we can do this.” Sabine searched for a blank spot of wall before she began writing, 3 g Cu x 1 Mol Cu/63.546 g Cu x 6.02 x 10^23 atoms Cu/ 1 mol = 2.84 x 10 ^22 atoms Cu, which we need to round, because the smallest amount of sig figs here was the 3 we end up with 3 x 10^22 atoms Cu.” Sabine tapped the drawing and Ezra stared at it for several moments before nodding. 

“We can also do something similar to determine the empirical formula, pay attention because this can get complicated. If we have an empirical formula we can assume there's a 100 gram sample, this isn’t necessarily true in practice, but for empirical formulas it’s a safe assumption to make, don’t make the same assumption for molecules. If we havE NO composed of 61.31% carbon, 5.14% hydrogen, 10.21% nitrogen and 23.33% oxygen, we can use that to find the empirical formula” Sabine wrote out the information on the wall. “First because it's empirical, assume the sample is 100 g, that instantly means all the percentages are simply weights in grams, which makes the equation much easier to use. Now you have to convert them into moles, if you remember going from grams to moles involves the atomic mass units or g/mols, this means you can multiply 61.31 g C by 1 mol C/12.01 g C and do the same to all the other elements 5.14 g H x 1/1.0079 g H, 10.21 g N x 1/14.01 g N, 23.33 g O x 1/16.00 g O, that will give you the moles of each element, then look for the smallest number of 5.105 mol C, 5.09 mol H, 0.7288 mol N, and 1.456 mol O, nitrogen is the smallest, decide all the mol numbers by that to find the ratio, so 5.105/0.7288 and so on.” Sabine passed the pen to Ezra, who took it and started tapping at his solegot

 “um, is it 7.005, 6.98, 1, and 1.99?” he asked

“Yes, but for this you have to round so it would be C7H7N1O2” Sabine explained, “in the case where you can't round because it’s exactly in the middle, you need to multiply it by a whole number to get the correct number. Now, we can also use this to determine a molecular formula, a molecular formula is a mutable of the number of atoms in an empirical formula, if you know the empirical formula and know the molar mass for the compass you can find the molecular formula by finding the mutable you need to get the right number. If the empirical formula is CH and it has a molar mass of 78 g/mol you can take the mass of CH, which is 13 and divide the correct mass of 79 by 13 to get six and then you multiply the equation by six to get C6H6” Sabine took a breath, she’d gone over a lot of information, there was still quite a bit to go, but they were getting to the end of the day. 

“Alright, we can also use ratios to compare different materials, this uses the chemical equation and something called mol ratios, if you have grams of one substance, and you want to convert it to moles use the molar mass, if you want to know how many moles of a different substance you get, you use the coefficients form the balanced equation, if you want to get to grams of the different substance use the molar mass again. If you want to find a percent yield which again as a percent is just a part over a whole, you need to find the theoretical yield, which is the maximum amount of product that can be made, that said the actual yield is often a little smaller because there is no perfection, to find this you divide the actual yield by the theoretical yield and multiply by 100, this also leads to limiting reactants which is the reactant present in the smallest stoichiometric amount, it’s what you run out of first, so let's say we have an abundance of one thing, we can use the ratio to determine how much we can produce. This is the last thing I want to talk about today so let’s go over it real quick and then we’ll be done. If we have CaCO3 + 2HCl → CaCl2 + CO2 + H2O” Sabine drew out the equation on the wall “which you’ll notice is a combustion reaction, we can find out how many grams of calcium chloride will be produced when 32.0 CaCO2 is combined with 11.0 g of HCl.” she began to draw out the equations,

 32.0 g CaCO3 x 1 mol CaCO3/100.08 g CaCO3 x 1 mol CaCl2/1 mol CaCO3 x 110.9 g CaCl2/1 mol CaCl2 = 35.5 g CaCl2 

11.0 g HCl x 1mol HCl/36.45 g HCl x 1 mol CaCl2/2 mol HCl x 110.9 g CaCl2/1 mol CaCl2 = 16.7 g CaCl 2.

“With that in mind we know that the 11.0 g HCl is the limiter because it makes less CaCl2,” Sabine explained. “Now, let’s go deal with that fire”

“Oh thank the force.” Ezra exclaimed. 

*Mand’tar: a word I just made up, a combination of mando (mandalorian shorter) and soletar (count) the literal translation would be Mandalorian count. 

Anyone else find great mumsnet from the fact that “imperial units” is the metric system in this fic, also yes, I am using american imperial units for mand’tar please laugh at me puting the american measurement system on the “guns/weapons are a part of our culture”, chaos and reckless Mandalorians. 

(Did you know some states are issuing ammunition vending machines that use AI fatal recognition to sell bullets? Please please please please get me out of this fucking contry) 

Did I just imply Americans are the natural enemy of the jedi??? 

**seriously imagen how much of a nightmare learning science would be when you need to think about the different percent abundances on different planets, or intergalactic genetics. Thank god they’re on a lothal run and I can just pretend the earth periodic table works. 

*** solegot is a counting machine, its translation in the mando’a dictionary says “computer” but I’m translating it to calculator. In this case I think mando'a tendency towards blunt definitions means they use the same word for computer as they do for calculator. 

**** earth as in dirt, there is no earth in star wars (as far as I know) 

Does anyone wanna come up with the names of polyatomics in mando’a? I do not but it’d be insane and super funny to do that. 

*****The force absolootly breaks the law of conservation of mass.

[softbuckismykink]

Like a Stranger (Finally Found)

X-posted on AO3

Summary:

Evan Buckley never wanted to be a guide. Opening up empathically fucks you up. It happened to his Dad, it happened to Maddie’s ex. That’s why he chose to be numb. And he’s doing well up until for some reason their Captain decided they need another member of the team. Something is wrong with that Diaz guy. Buck is not sure what but the moment he laid eyes on the guy, there a strange feeling blooming in his chest. It must be loathing he decided. Because anything else would mean his empathic suppressants are failing and he can’t have that.

Eddie Diaz figured if throwing himself in a literal war didn’t activate his sentinel genes then there’s a high chance that it will never happen and he made peace with that fact. That’s why he moved to LA with his kid, less people knowing he’s that Diaz. The one who did not live up to the family legacy. Everything is going so well until he joined 118 and met Buck, the cute young firefighter who without a doubt hates his guts, which is really annoying Eddie because he can’t seem to find it in him to hate the guy back because every time Eddie looks at him he can’t shake this feeling that he finally found home.

Notes: Okay before you start reading please be warned that I'm a slow writer with so read at your own risk. I might update this tomorrow or it might take me a while to do it. Also this is not the fic that I'm supposed to post today but I'm not done with my firstson!Buck AU yet so here's another fic instead.

Chapter 1: What is this Feeling?

“I looked at him like a stranger, someone I’d never seen before, and he looked at me like I’d been lost to him for a thousand years and finally found.”

― Emme Rollins

*****

Evan Buckley never wanted to be a guide. Because in his experience nothing ever good happens to guides. Opening up empathically fucks you up. It happened to his Dad, it happened to Maddie’s ex, Doug. Guides equals crazy as far as Buck was concerned.

His dad was a good father up until Buck was ten and his father came online after meeting his Sentinel. After that the guide center had his father sequestered in the facility for months. And when he finally was allowed to get out six months later it was to serve his high school sweetheart and wife of eighteen years divorce papers to sign.

Doug Kendall on the hand seemed like a nice guy, at first. Doctor, rich but unassuming. Then he’ll start to open his mouth and you’d know something’s not right with the guy. Buck met Doug well Doug was already an online guide so he’s pretty much already a douchebag when he met him, and maybe that’s just Doug being Doug but Buck can’t help but think Doug is the way he is because guide instincts fucked him up.

Buck was thirteen when he started feeling emotions that he knew are not his own. He’s feeling so much anger at being betrayed, emotions that he suspected came from his mother, because that was after his dad served her the divorced papers.  Buck was afraid of being taken away from his family, from his mother and sister Maddie; like what happened to his dad. That’s why he hid. He pretended not to feel other people’s emotions even if it’s suffocating him.  

Buck decided he won’t end up like Doug or his Dad. So Buck played dumb for the sentinel and guide pair that evaluated him in senior year in high school.  It was a standard screening interview that all seniors went through to determine whether they have either a sentinel or guide traits. Fortunately, he was able to fool them. The Sentinel and Guide Center were looking for potential sentinels/guides not completely online ones. Buck had developed a fool proof idiot façade to hide the fact that he’s an online guide. Back then there’s no DNA testing for it, since scientists have yet to isolate the SgA series gene, so it’s easier to skate by.  

By the time they had a more sophisticated way of screening for sentinel and guide genes, Buck managed to escape to South America to avoid detection. There he was introduced to a more effective way of hiding his guide nature: suppressant drugs, specifically, Emphazepam, or as the locals call it “Amansalocos” literally means “to tame the craziness” because that’s what guide instincts are, a bunch of crazy fucked up compulsions.

When Buck tried amansalocos, he felt absolute relief. Like he got so used to the noise that when it suddenly stop he felt overwhelmingly light. Gone were the suffocating feelings that bombarded him constantly. So Buck chose to drug himself up. Amansalocos are highly illegal in the US but Buck managed to find a discreet supplier by the time he moved back home. With the steady supply of guide suppressants, he’s able to go undetected by even the sharpest and skilled sentinel.

The only downside (because of course there’s a downside there’s always price to pay) of the drug was it while it shut down his psi receptors so he wouldn’t feel other people’s emotions, it also affects is own psi channels enough that he could barely recognize his own emotions. But Buck didn’t care about that, doesn’t need emotions. He is not like the typical guide who chose a job that needs them to use their abilities like a teaching or nursing. He chose to be a firefighter because it's easily the most unlikely job an omega would have. No need to use guide instincts, see the fire, put out the fire the rest is blah, blah. Or so he thought.

Sometimes he could feel an itch that needs to be scratched but pretty soon he figured a cure for that too. Sex. Lots of fucking sex. Buck doesn’t even care who with, he barely feels attraction anymore, so he’d have sex with anyone willing to do it with him. Sex allows him to feel pleasure despite his dull sensibilities. When ever someone touch him, kiss him, fuck him, Buck swears he could feel someone else's emotions echo in him. It's euphoric, that kind of feeling. So it really isn't surprising that Buck got addicted to it. He craves sex so much that it almost cost him his job as a firefighter. If it wasn't for Athena, a cop he used clash with on scenes, vouching for him and his abilities as a firefighter, he would have. So he vowed to himself that he'd keep his addiction separate from his work. And he managed to trudge on long shifts despite the cravings.

Then he met Abby and for the first time he wanted to feel something more than the dull fleeting intimacy his one night stands provide. Because he can see she’s special lady and she makes him feel safe and curious about life. For the very first time in his life he felt inadequate. For the first time felt that his inability to feel emotions a burden rather than a relief.

Buck thought about going off his guide suppressants for her.  She’s not a sentinel and she won’t be able to shield him from the suffocating feeling that would descend upon him the moment the suppressants wash out of his system but Buck thinks she deserves that kind of sacrifice, she deserves Buck being truthful to her.  It’s a  big risk though and he needs to think long and hard if he’s really ready for it. He tried skipping some doses, not long enough for the drugs to wash out his system, but long enough to have some of the effects wear off. Just long enough to test the waters so to speak.

Going off suppressants felt weird at first. Then it got worse. He soon realized that while he can manage being off suppressants while at home with Abby, working without suppressants is a freaking torture. He didn’t even manage to last one call. There car accident involving multiple vehicles, no one was seriously injured but still people’s emotions during an emergency situation like that can ran high and for an untrained guide empath it can be a torture. The moment Buck step into the scene he got knocked by wave of emotions it took him a while get his bearing. Thank god he managed to bring with him an emergency dose of empazepam. He dry swallowed the pill and luckily for him it takes only a few minutes for it to take effect. So he decided to keep taking the suppressants but maybe he could skip when he’s with Abby.

His new found system worked fine. He’s having an even more meaningful relationship with Abby. Then Abby’s mom died and by god Buck could feel the grief like it was his own. He tried to comfort her even though being around her and her grief is suffocating him. Buck thinks he owes her at least that much. Slowly they both heal. Though soon enough Buck felt Abby slowly pulling away. He might have only a bit of empathy left in him but he thinks even a mundane can sense when someone is on the verge of letting go.

Buck wanted to ignore it, wanted to just cling on to Abby tight. Because she’s the one thing, the one proof he could show the world, his friends, that he is not just Buck anymore, that he has a life beyond the confines of station 118. But reality is that Abby is an independent woman who is ready and eager to go out and discover the world. She won’t let anything or anyone stop her from going after what she wants. And Buck just wants her to be happy, so he said he’ll support her in whatever she wanted to do.

So the next thing Buck knew she already has her foot out the door, she said she’s leaving to find herself. But the end result is still the same though, he’s being left behind. Intellectually he knew Abby needs this, and that’s why he put up a brave front. He escorted her to the airport himself, when even letting her out of his sight hurts him. He just hopes she finds herself soon and comes back to him. Cause she'll come back, Buck will just have to wait.

He’s doing well up until for some reason their Captain decided they need another member of the team.

It was one of those days that he's looking for the slightest positive thing in his life to keep him going cause it feels like crumbling around him but he still needs to keep his head up because the team needs him to be functional. He knows that as much as he needs the team to be okay and happy, that they need him to be okay and happy too. He can't show up to work despondent and sluggish, because while the drugs suppresses his ability to feel other people's emotion it only marginally suppress his ability to project his own unto others. He knew from experience that him showing up with less than his usual cheery self would basically trigger foul moods amongst his colleagues.

Luckily for Buck, he has one thing that is going good today that he could focus on. He finally reached his weight goal and just in time for the submissions for the Hot Days, Smoldering Nights: Men of the LAFD wall calendar. So he came in to start his shift with a grin on his face like always, and goes on to brag about his achievements to his team, which he kind of knew they would just laugh at but exactly why Buck is acting like the way he is to keep the team's spirits up. Buck is reveling at his success in spreading joy to the team when Chim started to look past him to the locker room behind him.

"Okay, That is a beautiful man."

"Where's the lie? And I like girls."

“Who the hell is that?” Buck asked frown beginning to form.

“It's Eddie Diaz. New recruit. Graduated top of his class just this week. Guys over at Station Six were dying to have him, but I convinced him to join us.”

“What do we need him for?”

“He served multiple tours in Afghanistan as an Army medic. Guy's got a Silver Star.” So the guy’s a super star then, Buck’s not liking where this is going already. “Plus he’s a latent sentinel. It's not like he's wet behind the ears.”

Fuck really a sentinel, just what Buck needs.   Not.   This is bad. Sure Diaz is latent but Buck avoids sentinels for a reason. The fact that they are all (yes even his sister Maddie) sanctimonious know-it-alls. The only sentinel Buck was able to tolerate was his sister and that’s because he loves her and she took care of him when their parents practically bailed out on them. All sentinels are pretty much smug bastards, in Buck’s opinion. They get away with pretty much everything because of their so called talents. Even as a latent they get privileges of an active Sentinel just because of a quirk in their DNA.

“Come on, I'll introduce you to him.” His captain smiled as he said, “He likes to be called Eight Pack.”

“Wow. Silver Star.” Hen whistles clearly impressed, unlike Buck who just adds to Buck's ire.

“Better drop some more body fat there, butch.” Chim teased quite rudely, which on a normal day Buck would just roll his eyes at since he kind of treats the older man like a mix of a weird uncle/annoying big brother but today it's just throwing him off for some reason and he felt hurt by Chim's harmless comments.

Buck looked towards where the rest of his team is greeting the new guy, and his frown deepened.  Something is wrong with that Diaz guy. Buck is not sure what but the moment he laid eyes on the guy, there a strange feeling blooming in his chest. It must be loathing he decided. Because anything else would mean his guide suppressants are failing and he can’t have that.

[frontproofmedia]

The Fighter of the Decade 2010-2019: Part 1: Canelo Alvarez

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By Hector Franco | Senior Writer and Editor

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Published: December 30, 2019

The older you get, the faster time seems to pass by. It is sometimes hard to step back and reflect on how many changes the sport of boxing has gone through over the last 10 years.

And yet the changes that have taken place coincide with similarities with a new face. The same divisions that existed in boxing in 2010 are the same that exist in 2019 just with a different name.

Earlier this year, the Boxing Writer’s Association of America (BWAA) released its five nominees for the Joe Louis Fighter of the Decade award.

The nominees included Manny Pacquiao who won the Fighter of the Decade award for 2000-2009, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Andre Ward, Wladimir Klitschko, and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (53-1-2, 36 KOs).

BWAA Fighter of the Decade nominees: Joe Louis Fighter of the Decade nominees: Canelo Alvarez Wladimir Klitschko Floyd Mayweather Jr. Manny Pacquiao Andre Ward

— BWAA (@boxingwriters) December 16, 2019

Except for Pacquiao, Alvarez is the only fighter on that list that is still active and, more importantly, in his prime.

The Mexican fighter was recently awarded the 2019 Fighter of the Year award by both ESPN and Ring Magazine, giving him an advantage over some of the other nominees.

Looking back at Alvarez’s career over the last ten years, it is incredible to see the difference in how he was perceived when the decade started to where he is today.

In 2010, Alvarez was awarded the 2010 Prospect of the Year award from ESPN. At that time, Alvarez was considered more of a creation by Golden Boy to have a new Mexican idol.

This perception of Alvarez as being more hype than real would resonate with boxing fans for years.

After winning the vacant WBC Super Welterweight (154 lbs.) from Matthew Hatton in 2011 to become the youngest Super Welterweight champion in boxing history, he would go on to make six successful title defenses, including a victory over Hall-of-Famer Shane Mosley.

It wasn’t until 2013 where Alvarez began to earn more respect from even the most hardcore and skeptical boxing fan.

Alvarez took on what was perceived as the first real threat of his career when he took on New Mexico’s Austin Trout in a unification bout for the WBA and WBC Super Welterweight titles.

Against Trout, Alvarez showed new wrinkles in his game, showcasing upper body and head movement that took his defense to a new level.

Alvarez scored a knockdown in the seventh round against Trout and would go on to win a unanimous decision victory.

The win over Trout led Alvarez to arguably the biggest fight of his career financially against the undefeated Floyd Mayweather Jr.

At the time of the match, Alvarez was 23 years of age compared to Mayweather’s 36. The bout was also fought at a catchweight of 152 pounds for the WBA and WBC Super Welterweight titles.

Mayweather would give Alvarez the first and only defeat of his career, thus far winning a majority decision.

Mayweather largely dominated the bout in what many consider to be Mayweather’s best performance of the decade.

While no one would fault Alvarez for losing to an elite fighter such as Mayweather, the fact that Mayweather was awarded a majority decision instead of a unanimous decision has been part of a narrative of criticism that still follows Alvarez to this day.

One of the three judges for the Mayweather-Alvarez bout scored the fight a draw with a scorecard of 114-114.

While that scorecard was heavily criticized and lamented against, Alvarez, since the Mayweather fight, has dealt with criticism that the judges in his bouts seem to always favor him.

This fuels the narrative that Alvarez hasn’t earned most of his accomplishments the hard way, but that he was instead given opportunities because he was seen as the new potential cash cow for the sport.

Following the defeat at the hands of Mayweather, Alvarez would continue improving, however not without controversy.

In the summer of 2014, Alvarez took on renowned Cuban amateur standout Erislandy Lara.

When the match first took place, Lara was viewed as one of the most avoided fighters in the sport, giving Alvarez more credit than usual for taking on an opponent of his caliber.

The bout took place at a strange catch weight of 155 pounds and wasn’t contested for any official world titles.

The match itself was a tightly contested chess match with both men having their moments.

The controversial scoring would follow Alvarez in this bout as he won a split decision with two of the three judges scoring the fight in his favor with scores of 115-113 and 117-111.

The 117-111 scorecard from judge Levi Martinez gave Alvarez’s detractors more evidence that the Mexican idol consistently receives preferential treatment from judges.

Following the fight with Lara, Alvarez would fluctuate between Middleweight and Super Welterweight.

In the fall of 2015, Alvarez would defeat Puerto Rico’s Miguel Cotto for the lineal Middleweight title and WBC Middleweight title.

Alvarez put on one of his best performances of his career against the Puerto Rican winning a vast majority of the rounds using his upper body movement and his continuous improving counter-punching skills.

This portion of Alvarez’s career was consumed with the perceived notion that he was avoiding then unified Middleweight champion, Gennadiy Golovkin, who was undefeated and rated as one of the biggest punchers in the sport.

After the fight with Cotto, the public demand for Alvarez to take on Golovkin was at a fever pitch.

After facing massive criticism for taking on the likes of Amir Khan, Liam Smith, and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., a bout between Alvarez and Golovkin was finally announced.

The announcement was unique in that it took place in the post-fight interview of Alvarez’s victory over Chavez Jr. with remnants of the pageantry usually seen in professional wrestling events.

The first Golovkin-Alvarez match took place in September 2017 for the Middleweight crown.

Financially speaking, the bout was a tremendous success selling about 1.3 million buys from Pay-Per-View and generating one of the highest-grossing live gates in boxing history.

The action that took place inside the ring lived up to the hype; however, once again, Alvarez was subject to heavy criticism due to the judge's scorecards.

The match was scored a draw with one judge scoring the fight 115-113 for Golovkin, one judge scored the fight 114-114, and judge Adalaide Byrd scored the bout 118-110 in Alvarez’s favor.

The two men produced a great fight that was a commercial blockbuster, but the main storyline was about the 118-110 scorecard giving many the impression that it was almost impossible to win a decision against Alvarez.

This was compounded with a large vocal majority having scored the fight for Golovkin.

An immediate rematch was set to place in May 2018; however, Alvarez failed two drug tests for the banned substance Clenbuterol postponing the bout to September 2018.

By the time the rematch took place, there was visibly bad blood between Alvarez and Golovkin, who had a friendly promotion in the lead up to their first encounter.

The rematch turned out to be a much more entertaining bout than the first and somewhat less controversial.

After being out of the ring for almost exactly one year, Alvarez made the necessary adjustments to make the bout closer against Golovkin.

This time Alvarez would be awarded a majority decision victory with two judges scoring the bout for him with scores of 115-113 and one judge scoring the fight a draw.

While there were still plenty of fans and pundits that felt Golovkin deserved the decision in the rematch, it was acknowledged from all sides that Alvarez vastly improved from the first bout to the second.

Alvarez would then enter the DAZN era of his career, gaining victories over Rocky Fielding to win a minor title at Super Middleweight, defended his Middleweight titles against Daniel Jacobs, and won a title at Light Heavyweight against Sergey Kovalev.

To end the decade, Alvarez is the biggest box office draw in the sport, having participated in some of the most important fights of the decade.

Alvarez’s fight with Mayweather went on to sell over 2.2 million in PPV, including both Golovkin bouts and the Chavez Jr. match selling over 1 million in PPV. Even the fight with Cotto came within range, selling just over 900,000 in PPV.

The 2010-2019 timeframe was unique for the sport of boxing as social media grew exponentially in presence and importance. The divisions are still between networks like FOX and ESPN, but it is now more fragmented by streaming services such as DAZN and ESPN+.

The foundation of Alvarez’s career was laid down between 2010 and 2019. Alvarez leaves the decade at his absolute apex as he is now being ranked as the number one fighter in the world pound-for-pound by valid publications.

Alvarez held a record of 23-1-1 with 14 knockouts between 2010 and 2019, going 14-1-1 with eight knockouts in world title fights and a record of 16-1-1 with six knockouts against former or current world champions.

He is also only the second fighter to hold titles in three weight classes (160, 168, and 175) simultaneously, the fourth former Super Welterweight champion to win a title at Light Heavyweight and just the fourth fighter from Mexico to win titles in four weight classes.

Looking at Alvarez from 2010 through 2019, no other fighter has exhibited as much growth. Mayweather and Pacquiao could have both retired before the start of the decade and been placed in the Hall-of-Fame.

For Alvarez, the 2010-2019 decade stands as a testament to his will and persistent to never stop learning.

A wise man sees failure as progress, and now at just 29-years of age, Alvarez has all the characteristics of a veteran fighter who has been through and seen it all.

Out of all the nominees, Alvarez is the one that will have the most significant impact on the sport from this point forward.

There will be those who will always feel that Alvarez has been the beneficiary of special treatment from the judges and boxing commissions in general.

However, what matters most is what happens inside the squared circle.

The argument can be made that this past decade belonged to the redheaded kid from Guadalajara, Mexico, who proved to be much more than just a pretty face.

Notable Victories:

Sergey Kovalev KO11 November 02, 2019 - WBO Light Heavyweight Title

Daniel Jacobs UD12 May 04, 2019 - WBA/WBC/IBF Middleweight Titles

Gennadiy Golovkin MD12 September 15, 2019 - WBC/WBA Middleweight Titles

Miguel Cotto UD12 November 21, 2015 - WBC Middleweight Title

Erislandy Lara SD12 July 12, 2014

Austin Trout UD12 April 20, 2013 - WBC/WBA Super Welterweight Titles

Notable Losses:

Floyd Mayweather Jr. MD12 September 13, 2013 - WBA/WBC Super Welterweight Titles

(Featured Photo: Getty Images)

[rosiewaddell]

Mr. Nobody: The Universe in Flux

The essential philosophical claim in the film Mr. Nobody is paradox of choice.  There are an infinite amount of possibilities that could arise from that one choice; the entire plotline of our lives and the potentially endless different paths are reliant on one moment.  This prospective endless course of action in turn creates an inability to function, a sort of inability to make decisions.  Nemo Nobody’s entire retelling of his many different outcomes over the course of his life show not only this quest for making the right decision, but also the nature of time and the imagination.  In this twisted yarn of Nemo’s mind, a sort of lyrical fantasia, it isn’t the truth that keeps him alive, but his lies.

To summarize, The 2009 film Mr. Nobody stars Jared Leto as the 35-year-old incarnation of the title character, Nemo Nobody (“nemo” means “nobody” in Latin), whom we also meet at other life stages: age 9, age 15, and on Nemo’s 118th birthday.  As his 118-year-old self, he is the last mortal on Earth.  With the advent of what the movie calls telemerization, the world population now consists of quasi-immortals, each of whom has a personal lifeline to his or her own “stem-cell-compatible pig.”  Somehow, Nemo has the seeming ability to rewind time and correct past mistakes, and he also apparently splits, like an amoeba, into multiple versions of himself. Once he reaches adulthood, at least three different versions of Nemos exist simultaneously, with different houses, different kids and three different wives.  The story hops around chronologically as well as from one location to the next, with Nemo consciously inhabiting each role and version of himself all at the same time.

The film deals with these topics through the notion of reality through simulacra.  There are layers upon layers of reality in which Nemo exists simultaneously.  This can be seen throughout the film, starting with the moment at a dance, where 15-year-old Nemo either falls in love with Elise, who really loves someone else, or settles for Jean.  Alternatively, he also fell for his one true love, Anna, his step-sister and daughter of his mother’s new boyfriend.  But when his mother and her boyfriend split up, Nemo loses Anna until he’s 34.  When he’s 34, Nemo has a myriad of lives, including being happily married to Elise who dies in an accident, not being happily married to Elise, who is suffering from relentless depression, being married to Jean in a loveless marriage, finding Anna by chance in a packed train station, finding her with a husband and two kids, finding her and rekindling their love, then losing her phone number when the ink runs after getting wet in the rain.  The three women also all represent different things.  The union with Jean, though loveless, has brought him the most material success.   In his life with Elise, Nemo experiences the consequences of depression and despair.  Anna is the one true love of his life and the only one with which he experienced a passionate meaningful relationship.

We as an audience are aware of the concept of artificiality, that Nemo’s reality is one with a skewed sense of time and a lack of continuity that creates a dizzying disequilibrium.  We know there is an original somewhere, but the distinction between the two has broken down.  These different outcomes, such as who he ends up being with (Anna, Elise or Jean) and the endless possibilities that then arise with each woman all ultimately come from one moment in Nemo’s life.  That one moment for Nemo is at age 9, at a railway station, he is forced to choose as his mother leaves on a train while his father stays on the platform.  In one case, he manages to board the train while in another he stays with his father.  

So what does this all mean?  For one, it’s about that universal sense that life has passed you by, a sort of buyer’s remorse, and the longing for the nonexistent reset button that will allow you a second chance.  This is where causality, and the notion that many — perhaps infinite — different paths might coexist at the same time and the subsequent inability to function comes into play.  As 5-year-old Nemo describes, “The smoke comes out of Daddy's cigarette, but it never goes back in.  We cannot go back.  That's why it's hard to choose.  You have to make the right choice. As long as you don't choose, everything remains possible.”  Actions have universal consequences, how the past inevitably shapes the future in a very impacting way – every single choice, no matter its simplicity or complexity can make, alter or change a lifetime.

This brings up the question of whether paradox of choice may not be choice after all, but rather determinism.  Does Nemo actually have the possibility to choose?  Or are his ‘choices’ predetermined by whatever it is that occurs in his environment?  An instance of environmental factors can be found in Nemo losing Anna’s number because the paper he wrote her number on becomes wet from a single raindrop and therefore unreadable.  In other words, these conditions seem to force, or at least nudge, Nemo in the direction of a life without Anna; a circumstance that ultimately results from an unemployed Brazilian boiling an egg.  This, in conjunction with chaos theory, string theory and the butterfly effect all highlight the lack of control that humanity as individuals possesses.   

Finally, the concept that ties everything together is that of the nature of time: the fact that we cannot alter the past but can influence the future.  It is this particular characteristic of time, the fact that it moves only in one direction, that makes the free will versus determinism issue so difficult, if not impossible, to resolve.  If we could simply go back in time and see whether we would have behaved in the same way, regardless of the absence of any circumstances, we might have a much better understanding of the nature of free will and would appear to experience the ability to choose between different possible courses of action.  

In the end, Mr. Nobody poses the question does it even matter in the end what choice or direction we choose?  Is any of this even real?  “I don’t get it,” the reporter tells Nemo in frustration, after his narrative has, once again, contradicted itself.  “Did Elise die or didn’t she?  You can’t have had children and not had them.”  This film explains that absolutely nothing is certain – everything is pure imagination. It is like daydreaming: a single thought pops into your head and before you know it, you find yourself falling down the rabbit wondering what it would be like to be married to that guy you exchanged glances with in the crosswalk, growing old together and having grandchildren.  As Nemo came to understand at the end of his life, “Each of these lives is the right one!  Every path is the right path.  Everything could have been anything else and it would have just as much meaning.”

[njwinterquartz]

A sort of follow up to the post about Eddie doing exactly what the fire captain in El Paso was worried about. Inconsiderate ass move Eddie.

I need a short fic or blurb of a story about Eddie still leaving for El Paso and having a brief look at his first day at work there. Maybe a welcome party before shift. And him connecting with fire fighter gabby. Because I really don’t like the idea of what they did in the show of him just fucking over that station with his no warning choice.

I still think it would have been a more interesting choice for Eddie to still go to El Paso to work after that final disaster. Because he could have seen the 118 still functions without him, that leaving wouldn’t hurt them. That he can move on to something new without any worries.