#he’s just an engineer trying his best

[haunting-your-local-ikea]

He’s just a crispy lil guy

[u3pxx]

KIM KITSURAGI - “Is that. My kineema.”

COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] - Something in him is about to break, *big time*.

EMPATHY - And it’s not going to be pretty, do something!

- DRAMA [Formidable] - Everything is fine!

- “Sure is.”

DRAMA [Formidable: Failure] - Surely he’s aware that he’s not the *only* person in the world who owns a Kineema?

YOU - “Is it really *yours*? I mean, plenty of people have their own Kineemas, right? Like working men, government offices, uh, firefighters I guess, maybe even animal control people? Exactly! A million different people who could’ve driven it into the uh…”

DRAMA - Pause, my liege! Ixnay on the Ineemakay!

YOU - “It could even be our *mysterious* joyrider!”

KIM KITSURAGI - Your frenzied babbling falls deaf to the lieutenant's ears. Instead, he approaches the broken vehicle, sunken in the ice. He moves with a caution and gentleness you haven’t seen him display before.

INLAND EMPIRE - It must be cold and lonely down there, in the icy water. Maybe he could sense its sorrow, calling to him…

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Easy: Success] - His hands, which are always stiffly placed behind his back, are trembling.

ENDURANCE - This is the shuffle of a tired, tired man.

HALF LIGHT - He’s going to do something drastic because of you. Oh god, terrible! You’re a terrible liar! You can’t look at this, you just can’t!

VOLITION [Formidable: Success] - It's not *you* who drove his kineema into the sea. You have plenty of faults, but this one is decidedly not yours.

KIM KITSURAGI - He kneels down with his head bowed, casting his face in shadow. He plants a hand on the ice to stabilize himself, squinting to get a better view of the motor carriage. “Detective, it says ‘57’ on it.”

YOU - Sweat drips down your brow, and you feel a terrible headache coming. “Maybe our joyrider has an affinity for that number?”

LOGIC - He's not stupid, he knows that it's not that.

KIM KITSURAGI - “57.”

YOU - “What about 57?”, you brace yourself.

KIM KITSURAGI - “Precinct 57.”

YOU - You wince. “Kim, look-”

KIM KITSURAGI - “When I woke up in the Whirling-in-Rags with no memory of what happened during the days before, I've taken note that something of mine has gone missing.” He grits his teeth. "A very. Important. Something."

He runs his hands over his face, messing his already unkempt hair in the process. Regret creeps up on his features. “God. Fuck. They’re going to fire me over this, they’re not going to hear me out.”

EMPATHY - Desperation settles in the lieutenant's tone. Sadly, you find yourself in agreement, even if you don’t want it to be the truth.

YOU - “People are more valuable than machines, Kim.”

KIM KITSURAGI - “Not people like me.” He rasps.

YOU - “…”

KIM KITSURAGI - Before you can say anything more, you fail to notice the lieutenant carefully walking onto the edge of the ice. He looks over the frigid water, a dizzying blue that mirrors and distorts his exhausted face back to him.

YOU - “Kim?”

KIM KITSURAGI - Seconds pass as he looks to be contemplating something. Out of nowhere, he casually takes another step where the ice ends and the sea begins. It happens all too quick for the lieutenant to even voice a call for help— if he even wanted to — his body plunging into the cold water before your eyes.

YOU - “KIM!!!!”

uhhh bonus stuff? sorry i have swap au brainworms pfttt

(im not sure what skills kim has at the moment so rn he only has narration as his inner monologue ok whoops, i would like to keep harry as the guy who thinks in dialogue trees so im still figuring it out pfttt)

also, this was done bc i wanted to expand on these old scribbles of mine, just like an idea, i just think that he'd be having an even worse time wheezes

[bruhstation]

the journey of gordon juniperus gresley (and still ongoing)

[terrorbirb]

Also I am VINDICATED that literally all bosses and p.e.s at my new job has said to me "wow you're good at this. This is the fastest anyone has picked this up. You'll advance fast if you actually stay here" Because I can spot design flaws that take like idk engineering sense? I just know what kinds of things are important in design.

So vindicated that I'm a good engineer. Vindicated that I held that company together. They can keep it going (because I set them up to be able to do that) but there is nothing to hold them together. I told the principals that what they'll lose with me is someone to make sure all the parts of the business work together and someone who can make holistic solutions, and that's what they're seeing.

The implication was always that I wasnt a talented engineer. That's what they thought from literally week two (which I know from sources). I wonder what about me made them think in two weeks I was bad at engineering 🤔 I wonder what about me made them think that when I was still learning things like who our customers were and being introduced to people 🤔 literally before I ever took on an engineering project 🤔 not sure! A mystery!

As I was saying in the 'think of things no one has thought of' business class: I have come up with industry standard systems. Is it small? Yes. But it was 100% my design with no co-designers.

[buildoblivionthenwewilltalk]

you know those posts that are like ‘what topic could you make a 5 hour video essay on lol’? yeah that’s me with the caves of androzani part three cliffhanger

[topnotchquark]

Behind F1's Velvet Curtain

This article by Kate Wagner on her INEOS sponsored trip to the Austin GP at COTA last year was commissioned by Road and Track magazine and then taken down. Presumably because Kate has was pretty staunch in her opinions about what was essentially a paid trip.

It is exactly the kind of thing I have wanted to read about the felt experience of the money business of F1. It doesn't get into technicalities and does not produce any spreadsheets for reference. It's just, her experience of the presence of wealth in the sport.

She starts off by talking about how she has been covering cycling and NASCAR for a while now and both of those, in comparison, are scrappier sports with smaller sponsors and cheaper tickets.

What I also especially loved was how fascinated she was with the cars themselves, and how they seem like a true marvel of human engineering. She almost described the cars like these alien beasts that came into this dimension out of nowhere and were being constantly monitored and dueled with to furnish wins and glory (and shareholder value for sponsors).

I think I always had an understanding of the weird myth making surrounding F1 and the kind of media attention it attracts, but someone like Kate (who I have loved reading for a while now) putting it into perspective really made it click for me. This sport thrives off of the kind of cocoon it has built around it and understands exactly the certain exclusiveness it needs to maintain to keep the story alive.

Anyway, give it a read, especially because Road and Track is trying to bury it to not piss off sponsors.

[t-u-i-t-c]

Back In Black

↳ Engine Sentai Go-Onger - Gunpei Ishihara - Go-On Black

[worthlessandembarrasing]

[bluebudgie]

Alright gw2 peeps, here's one for all of you with a lot of alts:

All your characters of the same class (e.g. all your rangers) are stuck together in an escape room.

Which of your "class groups" is off the worst and who gets the job done with no problem?

[jonahfagnus]

in other news im thinking about my (very very vague) portal jonelias au again

[ofmd-alsaurus]

.

[el-im]

funny how simple the line ‘do you remember what Buzz Aldrin said when he stepped on the moon?’ is compared to how much it fucks. the bitterness, the immensity. the ego... 

[feroluce]

I've been in the mood lately for Ingo never making it back, and Emmet and Elesa grieving his disappearance together. They're essentially that one picture of two exhausted characters holding hands like "we have a lot of problems that making out won't solve, but won't make any worse" haha.

Elesa goes to Ingo and Emmet's apartment because it's another anniversary of The Isekai and she's feeling lonely, and she knows Emmet will be even lonelier, so hey, at least they can be lonely together. She just lets herself in because Emmet gave her a key years ago and she's not really expecting him to answer. Sure enough, poor Emmet is already facedown drunk on the living room couch.

"Good morning, Elesa."

"It's afternoon."

"It is the weekend. It is fine."

"Emmet, sweetie, it's Tuesday."

And Emmet decides that yeah, ok, it's time to get up and try to clean up a bit, that's pretty bad, even for him. Elesa follows him to the bathroom and stands behind him to wash his hair while Emmet sits in front of her in his boxers (because it's not like it's anything Elesa hasn't seen before). The subject of Ingo inevitably comes up, and Emmet reaches up behind him and wraps his hand around Elesa's thigh, slides it up and squeezes and then just stops and stays there, says he doesn't want to think about that yet. Or rather, he's BEEN thinking about him this whole time, and he doesn't want to talk about it right now, wants a break from thinking for a little bit. Elesa decides that yeah, ok, she doesn't want to do this yet either, she'd rather just be distracted for a bit and lets him carry her to the bedroom.

When she wakes up later, Emmet is gone and his pillow is cold, so Elesa helps herself to one of Ingo's giant old sleep shirts out of his drawer, because it's nice to have him just that little bit closer. She goes and finds Emmet smoking on his balcony and he apparently had the same idea, since all he's wearing are pajama pants that match her shirt with little Litwicks on them.

Elesa sits on the concrete next to him and they do finally talk about Ingo a little bit, staring out at Nimbasa. Emmet rambles a bit about inheriting everything Ingo left behind, and how there wasn't a lot of legal fuss about it. He and Ingo couldn't be officially married obviously, but at least Emmet was his next of kin. Because neither of them wanted ANYTHING of theirs to go to their good-for-nothing parents. But this presents a problem now, because Emmet had never honestly thought the universe would be so cruel as to leave him without Ingo. He never thought he'd have to worry about finding another next of kin.

Elesa sits there nodding along, listening, handling it all pretty well until Emmet wraps it up with "-which is why you and I should get married" and she nearly drops her cigarette right in her lap.

"Emmet."

"I am Emmet, yes."

"That's the least romantic proposal I've ever heard."

"Hah, it is probably the only proposal you have ever heard."

Elesa sits there and thinks about it a while because Emmet knows he just kinda dropped a bombshell and wasn't really expecting an immediate answer anyway. But marriage does have a lot of legal benefits. And if something does happen to Emmet, Elesa won't have any legal pull to even make sure his and Ingo's affairs are handled well. She doesn't want everything they made together to be ruined, especially with how hard she and Emmet had to work to keep everything running when Ingo disappeared so suddenly. Emmet is in the middle of telling her some goofy story about how he and Ingo once nearly got caught making out in their office and Ingo was so embarrassed he couldn't face any of their employees for like an entire week when Elesa blurts out of nowhere "OK, let's do it." Emmet cocks his head at her. "Get married I mean, not make out in your office." "Oh! Right."

Elesa agrees to it, but only if Emmet lets her finally move in like they've been kinda-sorta-maybe talking about for the past year or two now. Besides just wanting to be closer to Emmet (because no, they're not romantic, they're more besties with benefits but she does love him), she also wants to be somewhere filled with Ingo's presence, too. And he was here more than anywhere else. Emmet decides he's fine with that, because as it turns out he hates living alone anyway. It won't be the same without Ingo, but he wouldn't want it with anyone other than Elesa now.

They shake on it, declare themselves Spouses with Benefits, and then just go back to staring at Nimbasa while telling stories about Ingo doing stupid shit. It's not really Good, but it's Better, and that's as close as they can get right now, close enough.

[hirokiyuu]

ive been thinking abt a helio/stratos swap recently and mostly just like. the reality of a vace+rex+nomi childhood friends trio in this au is so. man

[two-calicos-in-a-trenchcoat]

Love how me and my cousin don't really know how to talk to each other so we just play 8ball pool over facebook

[roseband]

...@ the rose release the rest of the dates for other countries so i can determine when i need to request pto