#header under the dome

[andsewingishalfthebattle]

SiliNOT! Testing and Review

Since I run a lot of casting workshops, I've had several people in the costuming/maker community ask me my opinion on SiliNOT!, a relatively new product advertised as a budget- and eco-friendly moldmaking alternative to silicone, urethane, and other single-use materials.

I finally bought a couple of bottles to play with, so I did a test project. My experience and findings are below! (It's not a recipe blog, but if you want to skip the play-by-play and get to the TL;DR, it's under the big "In Summary" header near the bottom.)

First, if you aren't familiar with this material, SiliNOT! is a remeltable, reusable medium for making molds. Though its exact ingredients are not disclosed, it purports to nontoxic, food-safe, and compostable. It melts in a household microwave or double boiler and solidifies at room temperature (or in a refrigerator/freezer for faster results). The website is https://silinot.com/.

(I am not an affiliate, and have no connection to this company apart from having made one retail purchase from them. I just have a lot of casting experience and like trying out new products.)

The Positive Original

I’m still in the middle of a Vincent Valentine build, so I decided to test the SiliNOT! on his custom buttons. My original is a stack of various nonporous materials: an antique (probably Bakelite) coat button, an epoxy resin dome I cast using a mold I already had in my library, and some engraved Worbla’s Pearly Art for the raised detail. The button shanks won’t be added until the final casting, so the original can be mounted flat for the moldmaking process.

Sample Worbla on the left; completed button stack on the right:

The Mold

I built the mold container the same way I do for silicone pours, with the flat back of the button fixed to a styrene plate and a cylinder (actually a small paper cup with the bottom cut off) surrounding it for the walls. The lip of the cup is sealed all the way around with Monster Clay to prevent leaks.

Heating and Pouring

The SiliNOT! didn’t take long at all to heat up; I did maybe four or five 20-second bursts before it was completely fluid. The bottle does get rather warm, so hand protection isn’t a bad idea. If you have heat-resistant gloves, you can use those; I was working in my kitchen (yay for nontoxic stuff!), so I just grabbed an oven mitt with a silicone grip.

The melted SiliNOT! looks a bit like Luke Skywalker’s blue milk. It’s about the consistency of a yogurt smoothie and likes to pour in a thicker stream compared to silicone. While silicone can be stretched into a thin ribbon for delicate pours or chemically thinned with solvent for really tricky jobs, SiliNOT!'s viscosity is dependent on temperature and never seems to get quite as thin as silicone.

I’d automatically made my mold compact to conserve material (not really a concern with a reusable moldmaking material like SiliNOT!, but after using silicone for more than a decade, I’ve trained myself to be as efficient as possible), so the walls of my mold container were only about half or three quarters of an inch from my object. Because the target was so narrow, I found it difficult to accurately fill from the lowest area of the mold with the SiliNOT! The heavier pour also means more air can get trapped in or under the material.

Bubbles are one of the areas in which SiliNOT! is decidedly inferior to silicone. SiliNOT! has higher viscosity, so bubbles don’t want to rise to the surface without vigorous tapping, which can distort the mold edges or affect leveling depending on your mold container. The bubbles that do make their way to the surface are difficult to pop, even when poked with a sharp implement. Heat gun degassing doesn’t have much effect.

Since the bubble surface cools and skins over quickly, I actually had to use a tool and scoop some large bubbles completely out of the mold to allow the surface to level. Critically, the SiliNOT! is opaque, so you can’t spot bubbles clinging to the surface of your original. (This is why my first mold was a reject, and I had to repour. More on that below.)

Hardening

Once the surface had set, I carefully moved the mold into the refrigerator to cool faster. Here’s another area where some types of silicone can have an advantage: I typically use fast-curing Smooth-On products (because I always have random quantities left to use up after our casting workshops), so I rarely have to wait more than half an hour for a silicone mold to cure, regardless of its size or mass.

The SiliNOT! has to chill completely before handling, though, and discharging that amount of heat requires a fair amount of time even in a cool environment. My mold was pretty small, maybe 2 1/2” wide by 1” deep, and it still took around 40 minutes to cool completely. A larger, deeper mold could hold considerably more energy in the center, and might have to be left in the freezer for a couple of hours before use.

Demolding the Original

When the mold was completely chilled, I removed it from the refrigerator and popped it off the plastic plate I’d used for the base of the mold. The texture was very different from what I’d expected: Unlike other meltable materials (Monster Clay, et al.) that have a firm surface when cool, the SiliNOT! remains tacky, which means it promptly collects any debris that crosses its path. In my case, this meant I had to pick dog hair off the surface throughout the casting process (and I don’t want to think about what would happen if glitter had contaminated the work space).

I’d used a paper cup for my mold walls, which usually works fine with fast-curing silicone. But the SiliNOT! must have a high oil content, because the cup absorbed some of it:

Lesson learned; use only nonporous containers with this stuff.

The SiliNOT!! really wanted to cling to the edges of my original, so I had to go slow at first to avoid tearing the thin flanges of the mold off. However, it did demold nicely from the smooth surfaces, and preserved texture very well. You can see the Worbla pebbling and the engraving channels clearly in the mold (as well as some dust and dog hair, because I made the mistake of setting it down briefly):

Unfortunately, as you can see, a large bubble had stuck to my original and created a pit in the mold, so I decided to do a second mold pour. I figured I’d tear up the failed mold and put the pieces back in the bottle to remelt… and discovered I couldn’t. The mold would stretch and twist, but not tear. It also seemed to return to its original shape relatively faithfully. Here’s a video of me manhandling the mold:

As you can see, the SiliNOT! has much better stretch and recovery than many silicone products (there are silicones that stretch well -- some of the Dragon Skin products come to mind -- but they’re not typically marketed for moldmaking). This means it’s likely well suited to casting objects with moderate undercuts or oddly-shaped bits that need the mold to stretch during demolding.

You can cut the SiliNOT! easily with scissors, which is the recommended method for getting it back in the bottle when you’re ready to remelt.

Take Two

Using what I’d learned from the first pour, I did the second one inside a hard plastic ramekin. This gave me a bit more room to pour into the floor of the mold, reducing the bubble risk, and also eliminated the porous paper cup that had absorbed oil. I still had the issue with bubbles that didn’t want to pop, but there were fewer of them this time.

The ramekin made for a much cleaner mold, buuuuut there was ANOTHER BUBBLE right in the middle of the design. >.<

Take Three

Lather, rinse, repeat. Or in this case, melt, pour, chill.

This time I heated the SiliNOT! as much as I dared and did the absolute slowest, narrowest pour I could manage, giving the air extra time to escape as the mold was filled from the bottom. The risk with stringing out the pour like this is that in a thinner stream, the heat escapes faster, leading to uneven viscosity as the liquid fills the mold. I don’t think that’s a major problem for this particular piece, but it’s something to pay attention to as regards leveling and degassing, especially for larger molds that will take longer to fill.

The result of pour three:

/siiiiigh/ Well, at least the bubbles are smaller, this time. They may not show up enough to matter in the final cast. I’ll give it a try.

Casting

I had leftover workshop resin that was getting on toward the end of its shelf life, so I used Smooth-On Smooth-Cast 300 for my initial resin trial. It’s an opaque white resin with about a 10-minute cure time (the fast turnaround is why we use it for workshops).

Before pouring, I had to do a little mold cleanup where the SiliNOT! had managed to sneak under the edge of the Worbla (I think I’d loosened the corner of the star from prying it out of so many molds), but since the SiliNOT! stretches so well, it was pretty easy to invert it to get little scissors down into the bottom of the depression.

For the first cast, I didn’t use anything but the resin in order to get a baseline. Ideally I’d like to cold cast or dye the resin so I don’t have to worry about paint chipping, but since I’m doing a trial here (and need multiple buttons anyway) I figured some plain white extras wouldn’t hurt.

So, my first cast…

…smacked into a big problem, which I probably should have seen coming: The resin I’m using is a fast cure formula, which means it discharges a fair amount of heat as it's going through that rapid chemical reaction -- enough heat to melt the SiliNOT!, as it turned out. When I tried to demold it (after giving it a few extra minutes beyond label time to be sure it was done), the surface of the mold had melted to the resin and even embedded itself in a few places. It’s difficult to see the resin detail in the photos (my camera went into white balance panic mode with all the shades of white and blue), but you can see how pitted the formerly-smooth mold surface is.

In fairness to the SiliNOT!, the bottle does say that you should put the mold in the freezer for half an hour before casting high-temperature materials. But I assumed high-temperature material was something like candle wax or melted chocolate, rather than ordinary resin. (And the mold had just come out of the refrigerator.)

So, on to pour FOUR of the SiliNOT! mold…

Take Four

NGL, this is getting a little old. >.<

Fourth mold definitely needed some cleanup around the edges, and there are still a couple of tiny bubbles I can’t seem to get rid of, but it’s good enough for a test. (I’m starting to despair of using these for actual production, given how many times I’ve had to redo the molds because of bubbles...)

Deep in the recesses of my basement, I found some transparent epoxy resin with a 24-hour cure time -- much slower and lower-temperature than the Smooth-Cast. Since it cures clear, I went ahead and mixed in some metallic powder pigment on the off chance that I get a usable button out of this one. I had excess resin after mixing, so I poured that into my first mold, which has a bubble in the design but is otherwise fine. Two test pieces are better than one, right?

Results

Here are the results of the slow-curing resin out of mold #4:

Finally, a (mostly) clean cast!

As you can see, the detail reproduction is excellent -- certainly on par with the pulls from the silicone mold I ended up making while waiting on this set to cure (purely for time reasons; I couldn’t afford five days to cast the buttons using slow-curing resin, and with a silicone mold and fast-curing resin I could get them all done within a couple of hours).

However, you can also see a few spots where bits of the SiliNOT! embedded themselves in the final cast. Part of that may be due to design flaw in the original; I didn’t want to glue anything permanently to the antique button, and that resulted in a tiny gap between the button and the resin hemisphere. Silicone has enough strength to resist tearing out in that kind of area, but apparently the SiliNOT! doesn’t. The bits of mold around the outer edge seem to have stuck just to be difficult, as there was no structural reason for those to have become embedded in the resin. This means the mold could be damaged by successive casts, reducing its usable life and accuracy.

Still, the mold definitely produced decent results for a first cast, and a different shape might not have had as much of a problem with tearing off mold parts. The slow-curing resin is a bit of a limitation, but not a unique one (I use this same epoxy resin for any glass-clear casts I do, and only use the Smooth-Cast 300 for opaque items or things I need very quickly). I don’t personally use UV resin, but I’d be curious to learn how it performs with the SiliNOT!

IN SUMMARY:

Here’s the TL;DR on SiliNOT!

Pros

Cost effectiveness. This is the most obvious advantage of SiliNOT! over silicone; it’s (theoretically) infinitely reusable, and even with natural attrition/inevitable contamination from use, you can likely get over a hundred pours out of a bottle. That's a lot cheaper per use than silicone.

Non-toxicity. SiliNOT! is touted as food contact-safe, so you don’t have to panic if you get it on your skin or kitchen counters. While platinum-cure silicone is also relatively harmless (some varieties are labeled for food or life casting), other common moldmaking materials such as tin-cure silicone or urethane are not. (NOTE: Since the company is very hush-hush about what actually makes up the SiliNOT! secret formula, I do not know if it might release any vapors or fumes that would be irritating or harmful to pet birds. In general, I advise not doing any kind of casting around birds.)

Eco-friendliness. This is the biggest draw for me personally: Given the number of casting workshops I run and all the things I sell commercially, I have constant guilt about the amount of waste I generate for creative projects. In most areas of life I’m an aggressive reduce/reuse/recycler and try to use organic materials instead of synthetics whenever possible, so a mold that’s reusable and compostable is very appealing.

Ease of use. It’s honestly pretty hard to mess this up -- just microwave according to the directions and pour. No measuring, no A/B mixture, no concerns about chemical contamination from latex or sulfur, etc.

Shelf life. Unlike silicones, which have a shelf life of anywhere from six months to three years depending on storage conditions, the SiliNOT! purports to be shelf-stable. It's compostable, so don’t bury it in your yard, but otherwise it appears that it could be kept on hand for years.

Cons

Bubbles. Honestly the most irritating thing about this stuff for me. I’m used to being able to see bubbles forming as I pour, tap them to the surface, and remove them. The fact that I poured four molds of the same object and never once got one without bubbles is super irritating.

Stickiness. I’m not a big fan of the tacky surface texture, and while I haven’t done any cold casting yet, I can imagine that it would be very difficult to clean out any pigment or mica powder that got where you didn’t want it. I probably wouldn’t use this for any kind of cold casting that required isolated colored areas or changing colors between casts.

Set time. The SiliNOT! may take longer to cool than a fast silicone would to cure when dealing with larger molds, so it’s not ideal for projects with a really tight turnaround. (But cosplayers would never be casting something the night before a con, right? We always plan ahead and never, ever procrastinate!)

Library life. The SiliNOT! may or may not structurally degrade over time the way urethane, latex, and tin cure silicones do, but I noticed even in my very limited casts that it was prone to having tiny bits of the mold (particularly at edges) stick and pull off. While I keep most of my platinum silicone molds for years and reuse them, I don’t feel that the SiliNOT! molds would hold up to repeated casting, and they’re far more sensitive to ambient temperature, so they’re probably best used for short term only. (I also wonder about the possibility of oil leaching out in long-term storage.)

Comparative Ranking

Ranking it against other mold-making materials, I’d place SiliNOT! below platinum-cure silicone in terms of performance, but maybe somewhere in the neighborhood of urethane and tin-cure silicone. It's definitely superior to latex. (Though to be honest, I'd rank Play-Doh above latex. I hate working with that stuff.)

Factoring in cost and environmental impact, it beats out urethane and tin-cure silicone. I'm still not sure if I'd rank it above platinum-cure silicone, though... Silicone costs much more and isn't eco-friendly, but the performance and lifespan is significantly better, so it still makes more sense for some projects.

Alginate is another type of material entirely, but in some ways SiliNOT! is comparable to it -- both are more cost-effective than silicone, both are biodegradable, both are skin safe, and both have long shelf lives. But SiliNOT! is easier to use for beginners than alginate, which has to be mixed to the right consistency and has an extremely short lifespan once poured.

Overall, I would recommend SiliNOT! for:

People who want accurate, non-shrinking molds but don’t have the budget for platinum-cure silicone

People who are committed to eliminating waste from single-use materials, and are willing to trade off a little performance for a more eco-friendly material

Projects with smooth surfaces and no indentations/sharp edges/undercuts where bubbles might stick (e.g. cabochons; simple geometric forms)

Projects where you need only one or two casts of something, rather than many casts from the same mold

Casting oddly-shaped pieces around which the mold needs to stretch in order to demold

Use with slow-curing resins that do not generate much heat

I would NOT recommend SiliNOT! for:

Extremely complex or detailed pieces, or pieces with a lot of surface texture that bubbles might stick to

Two-part molds

Projects requiring many identical casts out of the same mold

Molds that you intend to add to your library for future or repeat casting

Use with fast-curing resins, melted wax, melted Monster Clay, or any other material that emits heat

Cold casting with precise color application

My Overall Opinion

It's... okay? I will almost certainly keep SiliNOT! in my toolkit for certain specific applications. It's MUCH cheaper over the long term, I love the idea of recycling mold material, and there are some projects for which it will likely perform very well (those listed in the above bullet points). I will also admit that three days of working with it does not constitute a comprehensive familiarity with the product, and it might be the sort of thing that you get better at working with after more practice. (Just learning how to eliminate bubbles would go a long way toward making me adopt this for more projects!)

However, I don't quite buy the "better than silicone" tagline. It's definitely more difficult to get a perfect result, and there are some projects for which platinum-cure silicone is always going to be more reliable (e.g. high-temperature casting, mass production, large-scale life casting).

For those looking for a recommendation of whether or not to buy, I'd say look at your project budget and the applications for which you're going to be making molds, and let those factors guide which mold material you go with. People doing some kinds of projects are likely going to find this a godsend, while those doing different projects would probably hate working with it.

[usafphantom2]

Victoria Cross for Lancaster pilot Squadron Leader Ian Bazalgette – August 1944

Header main image: ‘Beyond Praise’ – Bazalgette’s blazing Lancaster ND811, ‘F2-T’, with only one engine still running, skims the village of Senantes, France, before crashing on 4th August 1944. (Artwork: Len Krenzler)

Eighty years ago this month, in August 1944, an incredible and selfless act of supreme gallantry by Lancaster Pathfinder pilot Squadron Leader Ian Willoughby “Baz” Bazalgette resulted in the subsequent award to him of a posthumous Victoria Cross (VC).

Ian Bazalgette was born in the Canadian city of Calgary in October 1918, to parents of English and Irish background. The family always called him “Will” and in 1927, when he was nine years old, they all moved back to England. When the Second World War began, he was almost 21 and having volunteered for military service he initially served with the Royal Artillery, being commissioned in 1940, before transferring to the RAF Volunteer Reserve. After completing his pilot training, he joined 115 Squadron at Mildenhall in September 1942, to fly the Vickers Wellington twin-engine bomber operationally. In the RAF his nickname became “Baz”.

When he had completed 13 operations flying Wellingtons, Bazalgette and his squadron transitioned to the four-engine Lancaster and he flew a further 15 ‘ops’ against heavily defended targets in Europe, surviving some harrowing experiences, including a crash landing. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC), with the citation mentioning his “great courage and determination in the face of the enemy”. When his first operational tour was complete, he was posted as an instructor at No 20 Operational Training Unit, based at Lossiemouth in Scotland. Then in April 1944 he was ‘head hunted’ for the Pathfinder Force and joined 635 Squadron at RAF Downham Market, Norfolk, as a flight commander with promotion to acting squadron leader. He completed a number of Pathfinder target- marking operations in the lead-up to D-Day and afterwards.

A 635 Sqn Lancaster with the unit’s ‘F2’ code letters at Downham Market in 1944. This aircraft has the H2S radar dome under the rear fuselage and is fitted with the then secret ‘Village Inn’ radar-directed Airborne Gun Laying Turret (AGLT) equipment for the rear turret. Bazalgette flew Lancaster ED811 ‘F2-T’ on 4th August 1944.

On 4th August 1944, on his 58th operation, Bazalgette was the master bomber for a daylight raid against the V-1 flying-bomb storage caves at Trossy St Maxim, France. He was tasked with marking the target and controlling the Main Force bombing. Nearing the target his Lancaster, ND811 ‘F2-T’, came under heavy anti-aircraft fire; both starboard engines were put out of action and serious fires broke out in the starboard wing and the fuselage. As the deputy master bomber had already been shot down, with the deaths of all those on board, the success of the attack depended on Bazalgette. Knowing this, he pressed onto the target, despite the state of his Lancaster, and marked it accurately.

Sqn Ldr Ian Bazalgette DFC (far left) with his usual 635 Sqn crew (L to R): Geoff Goddard, Ivan Hibbert, Chuck Godfrey, Bob Hurnhall (who was replaced by Vernon Leeder on 4th August 1944), Douglas Cameron and George Turner.

After dropping his markers and bombs, Bazalgette’s crippled Lancaster dived almost out of control and bursts of ‘flak’ hit the nose of the aircraft badly injuring the bomb aimer, Flight Lieutenant Ivan Hibbert, whose right arm was almost torn off. The flight engineer, Sergeant George Turner, and the wireless operator, Flying Officer Charles “Chuck” Godfrey, dragged Hibbert from his position in the nose in a critical condition, carried him to the rest bunk, applied a tourniquet and injected him with morphine. The crew attempted to fight the flames inside the aircraft, but smoke filled the fuselage and the mid-upper gunner, Flight Sergeant Vernon Leeder RAAF, was overcome by fumes. Leeder was not part of Bazalgette’s usual crew, but had replaced Flight Sergeant Hurnhall for this sortie. Then the port inner engine failed and, with only one engine running, altitude could no longer be maintained. Bazalgette ordered those of his crew able to do so to abandon the aircraft, and four of them bailed out from low altitude. All four survived and subsequently evaded capture with the help of the French Resistance. Aware that his bomb aimer and the mid-upper gunner could not bail out and refusing to leave them, Bazalgette attempted to crash-land the burning Lancaster in a last effort to save them. He managed to put the aircraft down in a field near the small French village of Senantes, but moments later the Lancaster exploded and Bazalgette and his two comrades were killed.

Left: Sqn Ldr Ian “Baz” Bazalgette. Centre: Bazalgette’s medals. Right: The BBMF Lancaster flies in tribute to all who flew with Bomber Command during the Second World War and especially those who lost their lives. (Lancaster image: Lisa Harding).

In August 1945 Squadron Leader Ian W Bazalgette DFC was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for his heroic sacrifice in not abandoning his two wounded comrades who remained on board. The citation for his VC in the London Gazette included the words, “His heroic sacrifice marked the climax of a long career of operations against the enemy. He always chose the more dangerous and exacting roles. His courage and devotion to duty were beyond praise.”

LEST WE FORGET

@memorialflightclub.com

[sollucets]

loose gifs drop no alt text. just for fun, things that i've made that did not or could not go in sets / i wasn't fully happy with. some of these may pop up again if i find a use for them

taken out of the ems first set because although i think him being so excited is the cutest thing on the planet i can also acknowledge that it does look a little. um. do you see. anyway i felt weird about it lmao

my blog header in full; this gif is under 10mb but wouldn't upload to my header for some reason, so the header is missing some frames off this

before i decided my carousel junes ought to be just carousel junes i made a couple non-carousel junes. this is the only one that got exported; the quality (&coloring) is So questionable but she is so cute

both of these got scrapped because the banding killed me dead. i also don't think they're bright enough (which is a problem with the finished set too and the reason i never srb'ed it and thus it has 7 notes lmao)

another one i dropped. i don't like the quality + in the end the asymmetry of only having one purple one bothered me. i really like his shirt though

this is a perfectly fine gif i like it a lot i just don't have anything to put it in. look at their eyeeeeeees

these three all are old unreleased gifs from before i figured out my framerate problem. eventually i might remake the khatha set that those 2 belong to as i still think it's a good idea (khatha reactions to dome fainting)

[thatfurrylightelemental]

everyone look at this frigging header I had on my twitter it’s so funny

[gracesmusings]

The Battle

[ Fanart included in header was created by @upthehillart ]

Chapter 6/7

Book: Deathly Hallows

Pulled out of the memory, Harry slides down to the floor. Draco places a hand on his shoulder and waits patiently for him to collect his thoughts.

“Why did he never tell her? Why did my mom settle for someone who wasn't her soulmate? What about my dad? Did she deny the bond?” He spews question after question. Bending down, Draco places a finger under Harry’s chin, silently asking him to look up.

“First of all, your mum did not settle. She loved your father. She chose your father, and your father chose her.

“As for the rest, Harry, don’t you remember Soulmates 1? Muggle-borns typically do not have a voice that speaks to them. It would have been perfectly normal for your mum to never have heard a voice. And I can’t pretend to understand why Severus did what he did…” Draco gulps, thinking back to one of his training sessions with Y/N and Snape. Severus had been pinned to the ground and when Y/N pulled him back to his feet, Draco saw the burned flesh on his left arm. It was scared beyond repair.

In the memory they just watched, it was revealed that Severus and Lily were soulmates. They didn’t see Severus commit the treasonous act, but Draco assumes he severed the bond shortly before Lily’s sixteenth.

“And James?” Draco hears the building hatred in Harry's voice. “He should have known! He was a pureblood.” Draco shakes his head, “not all pure bloods have a soulmate, Harry.”

Harry squeezes his eyes closed and sighs. “You need to go check on Y/N.”

“She’s got it under control.”

Harry shakes his head. “Draco, you need to go.” Harry forces his voice to come steady so he can get Draco to leave. “She’s spent her life protecting you. She needs someone protecting her now. I’m fine. I’ll get the last horcrux and it will be over.”

Draco nods but something feels wrong. “Just please don’t do anything stupid.” He pleads.

Bellatrix cackles at the side, and the army begins to fire at the dome protecting Hogwarts. “When we enter, go get the children. Destroy anyone that is in your path.” Voldemort commands. “Yes, my lord.” Voldemort grips Y/N’s wrist, his long nails digging into her skin. “Return as soon as you free them. I want you right next to me.”

Pansy’s mother stands toward the middle of the troop, her eyes carefully trained on Y/N. The barrier falls and the Death Eaters flood Hogwarts.

Rushing to the Dungeons, Y/N pulls up her cloak, avoiding the gaze of her former classmates.

“Y/N!” A body slams into hers, sending them into the wall just as a rogue curse flies down the hall. “Draco? Oh thank Merlin, you’re all right!”

“I’m so sorry, they captured the Golden Trio and I couldn’t…” Draco gulps. “I couldn’t stand hearing Hermione being tortured like that. I had to do something! I know I screwed up but—“

Y/N hushes him with a finger to his lips. “You did not ruin anything. We all have to choose how we are going to fight and you choose yours. I’m proud of your Draco.”

“Let me help you.”

Y/N nods. “I may have something that you can do.”

Making it to the dungeons, she opens the doors. “Listen up!” The Slytherins go silent. Her name sweeps across the crowd in hushed whispers. “I will not tell you which side to fight on. That is your choice, but choose wisely. If you wish to leave, follow Draco. For the rest of you, if you choose to side with Voldemort, you are coming with me.”

A few students stand simply because their family is on Voldemort's side but the majority were in the army she has been preparing. She gives them a respectful nod before continuing.

“It’s going to be a rough night.” Her eyes connect with Blaise. “We are fighting against our friends.” She tries as best she can to prepare those shifting sides without giving away their loyalties to the few Slytherins still on Voldemort's side. “Your soulmate will be especially vocal. Even if you have found the voice, you might hear them again. Hear their warnings,” Y/N runs her hand over the silencer on her arm. “It might be the difference between life or death.”

Draco collects the students who wish to leave, and he turns to Y/N. She grips on to his hand. “I am on your side. You remember that.” “Be safe, Y/N.”

“Are we really doing this?” Theo breathes out a shaky breath, the Slytherin army trailing behind them. “We are,” Pansy grips his hand. “Together,” Blaise nods.

Leaning into Theo and Blaise, Y/N whispers, “I need you to take care of those not on our side. Take them to the far side of Hogwarts and either make them leave or take them out long enough that they are not in our way.”

Blaise smirks. “Been waiting for this opportunity for years!” Theo shouts the names. “Theo,” Y/N hisses, causing the boy to stop. “Make sure he doesn’t take it too far.” Theo nods.

Ten Slytherins follow the duo out of the Dungeons. When they are gone, Y/N turns around. “Tonight we stand together. We stand for Hogwarts. For too long the Slytherin name has been tainted with blood. Tonight we are taking our house back.”

Looking at Pansy Y/N takes a deep breath. “I need a moment with Pansy and then we will leave together. Make sure the corridor is clear.” The new Slytherin quidditch captain takes charge and leads the group out of the dungeons.

“What do you need from me?” Pansy asks, ready for anything. “Help me get this thing off.” Y/N unwraps the bandage on her arm, revealing the silencer. Pansy kindly ignores the deatheater mark which lies just below it.

Pansy works to quickly remove the bandage. She repeats the spell after Y/N, and for a moment nothing happens. Then Y/N’s knees buckle. Pansy wraps an arm around her keeping her from slamming to the floor.

Fred’s voice floods her head. All of the things that he was kept from saying are said all at once. Covering her ears, she cries out. Pansy holds onto her until she stops shaking and the overlapping words cease.

“I’ll be back, I promise.” Angelina tries to tug her arm away from George, a first-year attached to her other hand. “I have to get her out of here and I promise I’ll be back.” George pulls her into a kiss before letting her go. “Be safe.”

“Meet us at the Secret Passages in ten minutes.” “I’ll be there.”

George, Fred and Percy take off down the halls until they reach their assigned spot.

“The Deatheaters haven’t seemed to have made it to this part of the castle.” George voices. Percy nods. “Great, that will give me time to apologize.”

“We have long forgiven you for your existence,” Fred chuckles. “Yeah, it’s alright, Perc.” George laughs.

Percy purses his lips. His hands flex into fists before he takes a deep breath. “You idiots,” he scowls. Percy makes a joke about resigning from the ministry. Fred and George erupt in laughter. Percy smiles and begins to laugh as well.

“Fred, get down! Get down now!” The voice in his head screams. He barely has a chance to look at George before the wall outside of the Room of Requirements explodes.

“George!” Percy screams. “Fred!” His voice raw from inhaling debris. Moving to stand, he stumbles for his wand. “George, Fred!” He cries out once he sees a looming presence but when the fog clears from his eyes, he recognizes the faces of Augustus Rookwood. Raising his wand, he disarms and stupefies the death eater.

“Fred, wake up.” Soft hands caress his face as he fights falling asleep. Opening his eyes, he is greeted with nothing but the wall that fell on top of him. Everything hurts. Reaching a hand down to his thigh, he feels the soft slush of blood. His eyes roll to the back of his head as the pain takes hold of his body. “Freddie, stay with me. Stay awake. Help is on the way.”

Percy pulls stone after stone off of the pile. His voice screaming his brother's names. At some point Angelina joins him in his frantic search. “George!” Her voice draws his attention to where a single hand is visible. They both begin the tedious task of moving all the ruble. Using magic and manual labor, they finally find him. “George, oh he’s alive. Thank Merlin!” Angelina sobs. “Where’s Fred? Percy?” “I’m right here and we are going to find Fred.” Percy hugs his brother before he continues digging.

“I can’t feel my leg.” Fred tries frantically to wiggle his toes, but nothing. “It’s okay. Just focus on what’s around you. Can you see anything?” Looking around his head, he tries to sit up, but the wound on his thigh begins to bleed even more. “Don’t move, tell me what you see.”

Fred chokes back his tears and tries once more, this time staying still. “I see some light. If I can just move this,” he tries to lift his hands but nothing.

“Okay, now tell me what you hear.” Fred closes his eyes. “I hear you. I alway hear you,” tears roll down his cheeks, his eyelids get heavier, and his thigh seems to be numbing. “Tell me what you look like,” Fred pleads. “I want to be able to see you at least in my mind before I die.”

“Fred Weasley!” Fred’s eyes open in shock at her venom filled tone. “You are not going to die on me. Now tell me what you hear!”

“Fred!” “Feddie!”

“George,” Fred whispers. “And Percy,” he gasps, his breathing becoming uneven. “I need you to shout, baby. Yell, scream, and stay awake.”

Fred tries his best to fill his lungs with air and he shouts. Gasping, he clutches his thigh and shouts again. This time it’s followed by a strangled whimper. “You’re doing so good baby, one more time, please.”

His mouth falls open but he can’t hear if he says anything. “Don’t you die on me, Fred Weasley. You are not allowed to die. Not today.” Somehow, in his deleterious state, his soulmate's voice has morphed into Y/N L/N. Blinking his eyes, he tries to erase the figure, but that voice keeps coming out of her.

“Fred, come on, Percy! He’s losing consciousness!” She cries out frantically. “Thank you,” Fred whispers. Thankful that his mind has conjured up an image for the voice in head. Thankful that it is kind enough to choose Y/N as the model. Closing his eyes, he slips into the peaceful darkness.

The Slytherins part for Pansy and Y/N allowing them to lead the way. They form a protective barrier as they move to the courtyard.

The scene outside is nothing like the Hogwarts they know. The once joyful and vibrant grounds now are painted red with blood and reeks of death.

Y/N stops face to face with her former professor, the future headmistress. Neither raises their wands as she takes in all the children standing behind Y/N L/N.

Her shoulders slump forward, dark circles hang under her eyes, but she still grips her wand at her side ready to defend her children. “I sure hope you have a plan, Miss L/N.”

Eyeing the giant behind her carefully, Y/N goes to reply when a voice rings through her head; a voice that is not Fred Weasley.

Everyone except those marked with the dark mark falls to their knees. "I know that many of you will want to fight. Some of you may even think that to fight is wise. But this is folly.”

Blaise and Theo approach the group. “Give me Harry Potter. Do this and none shall be harmed. Give me Harry Potter, and I shall leave Hogwarts untouched. Give me Harry Potter, and you will be rewarded. You have one hour.”

Their marks burn with the signal to abandon the grounds. "You have fought valiantly, but in vain. I do not wish this. Every drop of magical blood spilled is a terrible waste. I, therefore, command my forces to retreat.”

The giant goes to approach McGonagall, but Y/N stops him. McGonagall struggles to stand. “The Dark Lord has commanded us to retreat.” The giant glares at the young witch before following the army of retreating Death Eaters. Offering her a hand, Y/N prays that her professor still believes in her. Without hesitation, McGonagall grips her hand and stands. “Go, do what you must, and return. No more students need to die.”

“In their absence, dispose of your dead with dignity. Harry Potter, I now speak directly to you. On this night, you have allowed your friends to die for you, rather than face me yourself. There is no greater dishonor. Join me in the Forbidden Forest, and confront your fate. If you do not do this, I shall kill every last man, woman, and child who tries to conceal you from me."

Reaching the edge of the forest, Y/N looks around at the crowd. Draco is missing as he blew his cover at Malfoy manor. Her stomach turns as she once again finds herself praying.

Voldemort’s voice stops at the end of their journey. She waits and waits for Fred’s voice to echo through her head. Looking over at Pansy, she knows that her friend is hearing the consoling voice of her soulmate. Her stomach turns, and she swallows the bile threatening to come up her throat. The memory of Professor Thompson’s final lecture comes to mind. “There are only a few reasons a person will stop hearing their soulmate. The obvious, of course, a horrendous act has been committed, a silencer, or the person has perished.”

There is a crunch under their heels as the walk of the scattered bones of a centaur. “Y/N!” Voldemort claps his hands together. Pansy’s arm brushes hers and Y/N discreetly squeezes her hand. Thoughts of Severus fight their way into her mind.

“I can bring you a serum and save you. You do not have to die!” She had fought and fought with her former professor, not understanding why his death was necessary. “I do not want to be saved.” He had told her. “I have lived my whole life without my soulmate and it is all my fault. I deserve every moment of hell that I have experienced because of what I did. I have done everything possible to right what I did wrong to Lily. I have given Harry what he needs to succeed and you will make sure he survives.”

“I see you have collected your army,” Voldemort steps towards Y/N, his hand reaching out to touch her. Mrs L/N steps forward, but her husband places an iron grip on her waist. “Where is Draco?” Y/N keeps her eyes on him as he traces a line down her cheek. “I was unsuccessful in locating him before your call to retreat, my lord.”

He hisses out a sigh. “He will come soon enough. After I kill his mate, he will have no choice.”

“What makes you so sure Harry will come, my lord?” One of the elder deatheaters asks.

Voldemort looks back at Y/N. “He will not let anyone else die for him,” she answers confidently.

A sick smile spreads across the Dark Lord’s face.

Y/N watched as the realization struck Harry that he has to die. She could practically hear Draco in his head scolding him for all his poor life choices that have led up to this moment. The thought only momentarily distracting her from the worry eating her away at her stomach. Again Fred does not come to console her.

The second their wands are raised, Harry’s eyes connect with hers and then flicker to Nagini. A silent ask.

Then he’s gone.

Voldemort demands that someone check to see if he is dead. Closing her eyes, Y/N prays that he survived like she and Severus had predicted. They had ensured that Harry had access to all Deathly Hallows. Draco, unknowingly, ensured that Harry possessed them all at once. “If anything can save him, it’s the Hallows.” Severus had promised her.

Stepping forward, she is stopped by Mrs Malfoy. She kneels to the ground and everyone holds their breath. Y/N’s heart thumps louder and louder. Voldemort growing ever impatient asks again if Potter is dead.

Y/N searches Narcissa's face for an answer but she gives none away. “He’s dead, my lord.”

The Death Eaters erupt in applause, but Y/N feels the defeated energy of her fellow students.

The journey back to Hogwarts took a toll.

Fred’s voice had been absent for over a year and she had gotten used to the numbing silence, but this is different. Her mind feels like a void. An all-consuming void.

Voldemort keeps her at his right-hand side. Her friends separated throughout the adult army. Her parents stand next to the Malfoys. And Hagrid, he trails behind. Harry Potter dead in his arms.

“Harry Potter is dead!” Voldemort shouts. Y/N fights to hear his victory speech but the void seems to be consuming her mind, her vision blurs, and an arm is placed on hers steadying her shaky feet.

“Nagini,” Pansy whispers. Fighting to escape the dark, Y/N nods. Focus! She shouts in her head. The horcrux had been released after Harry Potter had been defeated, Voldemort no longer afraid of losing the snake.

She watched as Nagini slithers around the middle of the battlefield. The dark spots in her vision only allowing her to see the snake she grips her wand and moves forward toward the snake.

But instead Neville Longbottom stands. And then another body pushes it’s way through the crowd and to the middle. “DRACO!” Lucius Malfoy scolds his son. For daring to join Neville. Ginny looks at her brother before stepping forward. Hermione and Ron join.

Voldemort walks towards the group and tisks and places the sorting hat on Neville's head.

“Y/N, are you okay?” Pansy asks. Y/N squeezes her hand as her vision slowing begins to return to her. The void in her mind gets smaller and smaller. “Hey, love,” Fred’s voice echos through her head. Her gasp is swallowed by the angry shouts of the opposite side as Neville Longbottom’s head catches on fire.

Draco lunges forward towards the sword of Gryffindor. Turning to look at Hagrid Y/N watches as Harry Potter rolls out of his arms.

And the fight resumes. “Are you okay?” Pansy looks over her with worried eyes. Y/N gives Pansy a nod before she turns to face Voldemort’s army. “Now!” Her shout causes all the Slytherin to turn on the Deatheaters.

And the battle begins, again.

All mistakes are mine ♡︎ I am trying to get back to writing. I would appreciate any feedback. Please just don’t be mean. I do not own Harry Potter. This is Fanfiction.

Likes are appreciated, Reblogs are loved, Comments are cherished!

Reposting (copying and pasting) is not allowed…

Thank you for reading 💋

Series Master List

[forcefully-awoken]

LOVE LANGUAGES

Kylo Ren x Reader

Summary: Kylo Ren doesn’t do romance, but he does enjoy a challenge

Rating: Explicit

Warnings for: Attempted sexual assault, my shit romantic writing, Kylo Ren doesn’t understand romance and neither do I.

Note: This was written for the Citrus Dome Lovers Day Literature collab.

Read on ao3 here. Header by the lovely Elmi.

Kylo Ren doesn’t do romance.

There has never been a need for it in his life, growing up the only couple he had truly seen in action were his own parents. The volatile relationship they had together, one moment embarrassingly in love and physical, the next a screaming match with random objects flying through the air. He couldn’t imagine attaching himself to a person like that, letting their emotions influence his own. No, there was no need for something as trivial as romance in Kylo Ren’s life.

That is, until you come along.

You trail behind Hux, of all people, taking diligent notes of whatever the General says on your data pad. You’re new to Starkiller, he can tell from the wide eye look you give everything as you pass by it, the way your head jerks towards him and then away when you realize he’s staring right at you. He doesn’t even know why he’s staring at you. You were, you are, irrelevant to him. He hardly gives you a second thought when you leave the room.

Until you collide face first into his chest. It’s the middle of the night, there’s no reason for you to be wandering the halls (there’s no real reason he is either, aside from a bout of insomnia, but he’s Kylo Ren and you are, well, you). You stammer out some pathetic excuse about the base being so big you get easily turned around. You’re nearly in tears by the time he takes as much pity as he can on you, barking out a short “Enough.”

You stop speaking immediately, even though he made no use of the Force. With your mouth closed he takes a moment to appreciate you. He lets his eyes drift over your form under his mask, and delights in the way you squirm under his gaze. You look so small like this, so soft in all the right places. You look so deliciously breakable.

“Come to my quarters,” he instructs you, wanting to see just how much you can endure under him. He turns, expecting you to follow but to his incredulous surprise he hears your voice calling after him.

“No, I won’t be going with you,” your voice is quiet, but there’s a certainty in it. Your tone leaves no room for debate, and before he can even get back to you, you’re gone. Moving around him and through the hallways, leaving him standing in your wake. It’s the first time someone has denied him in… far too long. He’s used to taking now, to everything to be one challenge after the next, none of them too strenuous for him to overcome.

But here you are now, a new little thing. Telling him no, walking away from him without so much as a second glance. It shouldn’t get under his skin in this way, but when he finds himself alone in his room again he’s consumed with thoughts of you. It wasn’t just your rejection, he realizes, but your outright dismissal of him all together. He was leader of the Knights of Ren, the Supreme Leader’s right hand, but you had acted as if he were some random trooper. It wouldn’t do, he decided, it wouldn’t do at all. He stumbles across an issue he’s never encountered before- how to talk to someone like you.

He’s had his fair share of beings across the galaxy, but they were paid for, or had willingly given themselves to him for a small taste of power. A means to a brief end, he couldn’t remember half the names or faces. There had been nobody exceptional. Until you. He doesn’t think Hux will take kindly to it if he offers you money, and while he doesn’t care what Hux thinks of him, the thought of it leaves a sour taste in his mouth, the victory would ring hollow.

It makes him think of the vague talks his father gave him as a child, when the old man would indulge just a little too hard. Han Solo was, by his own account, a scoundrel, leaving broken hearts in his wake without a care. The trend had kept up into Kylo’s own childhood, only the heart of a son is a lot harder to mend. It’s never been what Kylo Ren wanted out of life, and isn’t what he wants out of you. He banishes the memories from his mind, forces himself to focus on what’s right in front of him.

“Why did you say no?” It’s the first time he’s seen you alone in almost two weeks, always in Hux’s shadow. You’re taking notes on the bridge now, while Hux is off doing Maker knows what, probably something Kylo will have to correct later on. The only thing that matters to him now is standing next to you. He’s never been one for posturing before, but now he stands a bit straighter, puffs his chest out a little more to see if he can pull a reaction from you.

You barely spare him a second glance.

“I’ve heard tales about you,” You begin, voice so casual that someone might think the two of you are discussing the weather, “I’m not looking to be the next conquest of the great Kylo Ren. I’m here to work not to… dally with you.” It made sense, laid out in front of him like that, but it didn’t lessen the sting of rejection. He says nothing else but stalks off the bridge, grinding his teeth together.

It’s Phasma, of all people, who has the best advice for him. He doesn’t even approach her about it, the tall commander simply seems to know what’s on his mind. She finds him after a meeting, blocks the doorway so he can’t leave the room.

“You have to woo her,” Her voice is painfully flat, almost strained with how casually she’s forcing the words to be. He considers for a moment simply running her and then himself through with his lightsaber, but thinks better of it. The First Order would fall into ruin if Hux was the only one left. “Find out her love language, and approach it as you would a battle- with a clear strategy.” She saves him any further embarrassment by blessedly leaving him alone with his thoughts now.

He has to research what the fucking things are, something that galls him. He can’t remember the last time he had to do his own research on things, having briefings prepared for him for so long now. He finds out there’s five of these so called love languages (they sound like something his parents would have fought about). It’s easy, after that, to come up with a plan.

He starts with the easiest and most obvious- quality time. It’s easy enough to request your transfer. Hux sputters and complains but ultimately it’s useless. Now you shadow him to war councils, diligently typing away at your data pad with pursed lips. He watches you to see if any of the meeting makes you blanch, after all a meeting with the Knights of Ren is drastically different than what you might be used to.

You say nothing to him the whole time.

“Send your notes to me,” It’s a needless reminder- you’ve already sent them to him but he feels the need to condescend, just a bit. Your lips flatten into a thin line and you give him a curt nod. His own lips mimic yours behind his mask before he bites out, “Is there a problem?”

“Don’t interfere with my career,” Your words are quick and quiet, eyes staring up at him with a burning anger. He can feel it radiating off of you in waves through the Force, almost as fierce as his own.

“Duly noted,” is his only response, before you turn on your heel and stalk off without being dismissed. He should reprimand you for it, but all Kylo Ren can look at is the soft sway of your thighs as you go.

The next language he decides to test out seems easy to him as well, until he has to put it into practice. Gift giving is something that he thought would be almost laughably menial. It isn’t until he starts to think about it more that he realizes he comes up short in this arena.

While the conditions on Starkiller base aren’t luxurious by any means, the workers and troops want for nothing on it. There is hardly even a black market for contraband goods, with how tightly regulated the ship was. He selected the only thing that even made slight sense to him, given how cold it was on the base.

“Here,” He acosts you after a meeting one day, thrusting the bundled up fabric in your general direction. You take it with hesitant hands, unfolding it to hold it away from yourself as you eye it up and down. Your head tilts to the side and you bite your lower lip in concentration, something he’s seen you do more than once during particularly intense meetings.

“This is a sweater,” What it is is the only thing he thinks would be a suitable gift for the frigid planet base. It’s black, but the fabric is soft and warm. He thinks you’d look good in it as well, but he would rather talk to Hux than admit it.

“The base is cold,” He tried to keep any irritation out of his voice, the both of you know this fact already, “This will keep you warm.” He doesn’t wait for you to say anything else, already burning with humiliation. His strides carry him so far away so quickly he almost misses your quiet reply-

“Or you could.” When he turns back to you, you’ve already turned away from him as well, falling in with a group headed towards the residential area.

But the next time he sees you on a day off, you’re wearing the sweater.

The next love language he attempts to conquer gives him pause. Words of affirmation seems to be the stupidest thing he’s ever heard of. Of course anybody would like to be complimented, it’s in the nature of being. Mindless and meaningless compliments seem dull and almost insulting.

He could compliment you on your work, of course, though he suspects you’ve heard all there is to hear on that subject. You’re a quick and succinct note taker, he’s seen it first hand, but that doesn’t scream romance to him. On the other hand, being complimented on a skill you’ve clearly worked hard at is better than any alternatives.

This time he finds you before a meeting, situating yourself in the corner of the room. He’s noticed that about you- that you press yourself into the back of the room, so you can observe everything all at once. You stand up straighter when he walks in, an action he’s read is a positive sign. Because of how you position yourself you’re back into the corner of the room with him in front of you, blocking any way out.

“Your notes are good,” Fuck, it sounds even worse saying it out loud. Your face remains impassive but he continues on anyways, “They’re direct and to the point, but you never miss anything. You do a passable job.”

“Thank you,” Your reply sounds sincere, but your voice is so small it barely reaches his ears. There’s a hint of a smile quirking at your lips when you continue speaking, “My parents were both officers for the First Order. They taught me well.”

More people are trickling in so he wrenches himself away from you, ignoring the pointed stare from Hux as they both seat themselves. The meeting passes slowly, something about trade routes and treaties. Kylo is happy to have his helmet on now, his eyes never leaving your face as you type away.

“Do be so kind as to not break my assistant,” Hux says to him after, as they walk to their audience with Supreme Leader Snoke. It takes Kylo by surprise, the quiet steel in Hux’s voice. Neither of them say anything else, but Kylo nods his head in acknowledgement.

Hux’s words stick in his chest for the rest of the day. He had wanted to break you at first, wanted to crawl inside your mind and see what made you tick but this dance the two of you were doing was far better than any easy conquest. It was… interesting to see whatever barrier you had put up between the two of you come down slowly.

He’s quiet in his thoughts when he returns to his quarters, until a scream tears him back to reality. He hasn’t heard your voice make a noise like that before but he knows with surety that it’s you calling for help. Kylo makes quick work of finding you, cornered by two drunken troopers.

One of them has the sweater he gave you halfway off your body while the other is struggling to get your pants off. Rage rips through him like a storm, and with one violent sweep of his arm the two of them are flying off of you, hitting the wall with enough force they’re either dead or about to be. He turns on them with a snarl, ready to wipe them from the base and from memory when he hears you sniffle.

Turning back to you he can see now how badly you’re shaking, trying to wrap the sweater back around you. There’s tears streaming down your face, dripping down onto the floor beneath you.

“I-I’m sorry you had to see that,” You manage to get out, and his rage returns. For all his wrongs he knows you don’t need to apologize to him. When he tells you this your head snaps up so fast he thinks you might hurt yourself. It’s only when your eyes widen and your mouth drops open a little he realizes- he left his helmet in his quarters.

This time it’s Kylo who stands a little bit straighter, posturing under your gaze. He knows he’s an attractive man, and now you get to know that as well. He’s silent, letting you drink him in until-

“Can you take me home?” His heart stutters out a tango in his chest as he nods. You grab onto his arms, your hands so hot he can feel them through the layers he’s still wearing. Perhaps you meant for him to lead you back to your own quarters but you say nothing as he leads you to his own. You don’t speak when he closes the door behind you.

And you don’t speak when you grab the front of his shirt to tug him down, pressing your lips to his.

Whatever doubts you had before have been wiped away, as your mouth opens under his to invite his tongue in. You whimper when his large hands dig into your thighs, manhandling you up until your legs wrap around his waist. He walks you both to the bed, his mouth only leaving yours to dip down and suck a mark onto your skin.

He lowers the two of you down onto the bed, calling on all of his training not to simply tear your clothes off and rut into you like an animal. He’s worked for this, for you, for this reward.

But then you grind your clothed cunt up against him and he decides there will be time to savor you later.

He pulls back just enough for him to shed his clothes and watch you scramble out of yours too. Your eyes trail up his body ravenously, and his trail down yours in delight. You look better than he ever could have imagined.

You’re practically dripping when his fingers find your clit. He rubs a few quick circles around it, trying to get you just wet enough for him to slide into you. Your back arches off of his bed, offering your chest up to him. When he takes your nipple into his mouth you melt into his touch.

“Hurry up!” You sound as impatient as he feels, grabbing onto his shoulders to pull him closer into you. “Waited too long already!”

“Yeah?” He lines his cock up with your entrance, presses himself completely inside with one thrust. You don’t- can’t- answer him now, not if the way your cunt fluttering around him is any indication. He grips your chin, making you look at him and says, “Tell me you want me.”

“Fuck!” You moan out, shaking underneath him, “Wanted you since the first time I saw you!” His hips snap into yours, setting a brutal, punishing pace. Your nails bite into his shoulders, leaving little crescents of red behind. His hands twist at his sheets around your head, so tightly they rip a little but he doesn’t slow down.

He continues like this, driving you into orgasms until you’re sobbing underneath him. Even then he doesn’t slow down, not until your eyes are drooping, threatening to pass out on him completely. He pulls out quickly, cumming over your stomach and chest. Kylo collapses on the bed next to you, staring at the tremors that wrack through your body.

“Well, that was certainly worth the wait,” your voice is rough from screaming underneath him, but your comment brings a smile to his face. He gets to study you now, eyes tracing over the contours of your face, committing how you look now to his memory. You shift forward, delicately walking over to his bathroom to use the shower to clean yourself off. He knows he should too, but instead he simply lays on his bed and waits.

Once you’re clean and dry you dress yourself again, barely sparing him a second glance. Still he remains silently lounging on the bed. Finally you look at him, hands twisting nervously in front of you.

“I’ll see you at the next meeting?” You don’t even let him reply before you’re out his door, leaving him alone with another sting of rejection. Kylo slumps back onto his bed, but now his mind is reeling. Pulling out his own data pad he types a few inquiries into it before falling asleep.

————————————————————————

You try not to think about it all the next day.

You had hardly been able to sleep that night, body sore from the sex. It had been so long since you were with anybody, and Kylo Ren had been anything but gentle. You avoid looking at him during meetings, being the last one in and the first one gone from them so he can’t speak to you.

You manage to avoid him all day, making your way back to your room to hide away there until the urge to return to him passed. You stop in the doorway, taking in the flower on your bed.

A singular red rose waits for you, a note attached to it. You don’t have to guess who it’s from, though the note only says ‘For You’. You think for a moment about throwing it away, about putting in for a transfer, about getting the fuck off Starkiller before you can make any more poor decisions.

But then you think about the past few weeks, not just the previous night.

You think about the time, the effort Kylo Ren had shown for you. How he had saved you. How he hadn’t made a move until you did. His gestures had been a bit awkward but the meaning behind them seemed genuine. You take the rose and place it onto your desk, right there it will be the last thing you see at night, and the first thing you see in the morning.

Kylo Ren doesn’t do romance.

But for you he might give it a try.

[speedygal]

Now I know the header tank is in the nosecone, the flaps, the common domes, forward domes, the name of the Veloci(Raptor) engine, the Rvacs (Raptor Vacuum), the booster---but that just comes from me lurking in lounge, nasaspaceflight, and watching the construction every day of each Starship model either through livestream, by photos, or information from spacexlounge. Something I didn’t know a year ago. Why am I so interested? Because one day, Starship Superheavy will be my ride to Mars.

SPPPAAAAACCEEEE.

MAAAAAAARRSS.

One starship that I will be watching in the future will be my own ride being built long after the prototypes. Watching the progress it takes to become safe and reliable for the public to trust has been a roller coaster, being stuck between “Scrub!” and “Launch!” and “RUD!” as it stands on the launch mount during each test is a moment of anxiety but historical one at best.

In a way it’s like watching a vehicle of necessities being built in real time with a eye on it and doing something else knowing what stage of development it is in, what the parts are for the ship, and how long it is going to take to be finished. A aspect of this change that people didn’t get to do while waiting for their vehicles, let it be trucks, cars, vans, minivans, to be made in a way like Starship is. It’s a amazing luxury to have. I’ll know on the spot when it is ready to launch me and other passengers.

Pinned against the chair as Starship Superheavy departs the planet, by gravity, by the sheer force of the flight, my hands on the arm rests, watching through the window of the ship pass through various layers of the atmosphere until being in space and waiting for the booster to come back with fuel for the flight to Mars. It’ll be my first and only flight and it’ll count.  I’ll know the name of my Starship by heart by then, the flight number as well, ingrained in my psyche. Floating along in space headed toward a new planet, among the stardust, among the space dust, among the stars, under the cloak of space for hours, days, weeks!  Watching the stars stand out against the dark canvas outside in the vacuum of space.

Then to step foot on Mars in a spacesuit would be incredible and so thrilling and vindicating and groundbreaking all at once and so exciting I am on MARS. The PLANET. The PLANET that has had tons of movies made about it and will have a lot more about colonizing it, including television shows set on it about life on it, all about a barren lifeless a planet which is so far away from Earth.

Mars is a planet that people have dreamed about, something that was so impossible and only could be something that would happen in 22nd century only twenty years ago! It’s only a distant light in the night sky but it will be a full on feasible place for most people once colonization begins with videos from Starships that landed there. No climate change going to kill the planet in the future and make it a unlivable planet. Just a existence of living in a protected area for the remainder of my life and go out occasionally and be so happy that I am there, maybe scream, cheer, jump. "I LOVE MARS!" UNDER MICROGRAVITY

It’s just incredible. Right now, we cannot go to Mars and it is a unknown frontier that seems still so impossible and not of this century to happen at all but it will be of this century and it will be a known frontier in a few years. For me, it will be odd, arriving to Mars because it is a planet far away from Earth, a planet in space, a planet that I have never been to before but had only seen in photos and in movies. It will be even odd because I am on a entirely different planet that isn’t Earth. A planet that was once a star in the sky and now Earth would be the very same. Mars by then, would not feel like place that was known as a destination but too far away and felt like it didn’t exist.

That moment being there be a profound one of being there. Perhaps a moment of relief initially that whatever weather anomaly happens on Earth won't impact me. It's one of many signs that we're in the future. I recall reading my social studies book and seeing a  picture with "here, a miner doing some mining in a tight space" and I went, "hey, we're in the 21st century!" inwardly and boggled me that we were still mining and not using solar energy.

I also recall reading a article in school about old solar panels that were losing watts and the owner is like, “It still works Just the amount that I need.” and the articles arguing against using solar panels for day to day power usage. I very much recall while reading, “Why don’t they buy new solar panels?” I don’t know what happened to that person but I hope they got new panels and are happy with them giving them the energy that they need just like future colonists getting what they need from solar panels on Mars and only needing to replace them every few decades, scheduled, paid for by SpaceX.

Being on Mars would mean to me that we are firmly in the 21st century, ironed out that nobody would die on the way to Mars by accident, progressed as a civilization, gone where no person has gone before (well, asides to the people before me who arrived to Mars) and departed their cradle.  The day mass numbers of people go to Mars will be the day that is marked in Earth’s calendar as the day the baby left the cradle and didn’t come back after a few short hours that date will be known in History books, historical videos, historical digital pages, what not, the date that humanity got out of the cradle, hovered above ground then got a silo with wheels and buzzed off to other rooms, to other cradles, to other places.

Musk will be a fully renowned historical figure, highly flawed, but someone so instrumental along with other engineers and welders in bringing humanity to Mars but he will be known as the man who cut down the length of history making it would take to get to Mars, he may be revered, despised, but remembered all the same.  Being on Mars means the future is here, it is now, it is going to be tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that and so will humanity.

It’s insurance for our very survival even for the memory of humanity to linger on for eternity with dreams that came true for those who wanted to be the first round of people to be there. And someday, living on Mars won’t be amazing for a generation born and raised there, someday other planets will be in the spot of ‘I want to go there in Starship’ and that’s beautiful.

[hagleyvault]

In 2019, the Hagley Library was privileged to receive a donation of over 150,000 negatives from railroad photographer and collector Herbert Harwood Jr. The following is one of a series of posts featuring images from the collection. To learn more and see additional images from the collection, check the Hagley Digital Archives.

The majority of the negatives in the Harwood collection focus on the Northeast with Amtrak, Baltimore & Ohio, Pennsylvania Railroad, and New York Central being the companies with the largest cache of images. While leaning towards the northeast it is far from a regional collection. Nearly every major railroad company in the U.S. during the 20th century some representation. 

In a previous post, we looked at the B&O’s famous Royal Blue line that operated along the well traveled northeast corridor between Washington D.C. and New York City. The collection includes another regal and well-known passenger line that traveled the northwest between Chicago and Puget Sound for the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railway. The rail company was more commonly known as ‘The Milwaukee Road.’

The Olympian made its first trip across the continent in 1911. Under the headline “Palatial Train Pulls Into the City” the Anaconda Standard in Montana reported that the maiden trip of the line arrived in the morning and “was greeted at the station by a big crowd of people who expressed admiration for the splendid equipment of what is the finest train service ever seen in the West.” 

The “Olympian” operated until 1947 when it was replaced by the “Olympian Hiawatha” a streamlined modernized version of the passenger service.  Marketed as a tourist train -- see this classic promotional film from 1952  -- the line is perhaps best known for their unique Skytop observation cars designed by industrial designer Brooks Stevens (see below). Introduced in 1948, the cars were part of the Twin Cities Hiawatha that ran between Chicago and St. Paul and the long distance Olympian Hiawatha. 

The Milwaukee Road’s Olympian line ceased operations in 1961 becoming one of the first of the many famed passenger lines that disappeared in the second half of the century.

Header image: Milwaukee Road streamlined Hiawatha leaving St. Paul, Minnesota, 1945

Hiawatha display at Chicago Railroad Fair, 1948 (W.D. Edson)  

Hiawatha Skytop lounge observation car traveling eastbound through Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1949 (William D. Slade) 

Westbound Afternoon Hiawatha leaving Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1963 (Herbert H. Harwood, Jr.)  

Hiawatha Super Dome observation car in Chicago, 1971 (Herbert H. Harwood Jr.)  

For more information about these images and additional selections from the Milwaukee Road, check out the Harwood Collection in the Hagley Digital Archives

[localneighborhoodastronomer]

(Akashvani) Science of the Signs

Header Image Credit : Till Credner - Own work: Visual Constellations, a photographic field guide, CC BY-SA 4.0

I’m starting a post series about the night sky on this blog! I’m calling it Akashvani (pronounced AA-kAAsh-vAAnEE), which means ‘voice of the sky’ in Sanskrit and has been mentioned in many stories in the Hindu mythology. This post is the first one in the series! All posts in this series will be under the tag #akashvani or #sky talks on this blog.

Ever wondered what exactly is a zodiac sign? Does any science go into astrology? How are Chinese zodiac different from non-East Asian Zodiac? Then you are in the right place! Keep reading under the cut to find out more about zodiacs, and the path of the Sun, the moon, and the planets in the night sky! 

The Zodiac Belt - The Sun, moon, and the planets move in a certain path in the sky. Their motions are constricted to a band. This band is known as the Zodiac Belt and it is composed of 13 constellations. These 13 constellations, in order of appearance in the night sky (starting with Aries), are -

Aries

Taurus

Gemini

Cancer

Leo

Virgo

Libra

Scorpius

Ophiuchus

Sagittarius

Capricorn

Aquarius

Pisces

You may recognize the 12 bold ones as the 12 Zodiac signs! The Sun, the moon, and the planets move approximately through the center of this belt in a line called the Ecliptic, which gets it’s name from the fact that eclipses (both lunar and solar) happen on this line. 

Now, you may be wondering why Ophiuchus isn’t a Zodiac sign? The answer is related to the fact that ecliptic is a ‘line’, but not on a flat surface. Because Earth is round and the sky appears like a dome above us, ecliptic is on a sphere! And a line on a sphere isn’t a straight line at all, it is a circle! (Try drawing a straight line all around a tennis ball to find out!) 

To go around a circle, you need to turn by 360 degrees. 360 is a difficult number to divide by 13 isn’t it? But not by 12! So what astrology does, is it tries to divide the ecliptic into 12 equal parts and each of those parts corresponds to a zodiac sign. In this kinda division, poor Ophiuchus gets divided between Sagittarius and Scorpius but most of it lies in the Sagittarius section. These sections are also called ‘houses’ in astrology sometimes.

What is a horoscope? A horoscope is generated based on the position of planets, the Sun, and the moon in the Zodiac belt at the time of one’s birth. Position of the Sun during a person’s birth decides the ‘Sun Sign’ and position of the moon decides the ‘Moon Sign’. The calendar we follow (Gregorian calendar) is a solar calendar, which means its basis is the motion of Earth around the Sun. Which is why, most solar signs can be determined based on what month you were born in, without looking at a star chart. Moon signs are tricky unless you are following a lunar calendar, which is based on moon’s orbit around the Earth. Chances are, most cultures that emphasize moon signs traditionally follow a lunar calendar (like most South Asian cultures!).

What are the Chinese Zodiacs? This might need a post of it’s own and I might make one depending on the response to this post. The 12 Chinese zodiac signs are quite different from lunar or solar zodiac. They do not depend on the division of the ecliptic at all. Instead, they depend on the time JUPITER takes to go around the Sun! That, to me, is extremely cool. It takes about 12 years for Jupiter to go around the Sun. So the cycle gets divided into 12 parts where each part corresponds to an year (not a month!). However, the Chinese calendar is most definitely a lunar calendar and has nothing to do with Jupiter. We are now reaching the limits of my knowledge on this subject and I see this as a sign to stop this fairly long post. I do want to leave you with some questions about the Chinese zodiac system that I currently cannot answer and welcome people who know about this to add to this post if they can and want to. Why does the Chinese zodiac system use Jupiter instead of the Sun or the moon? The brightest planet in the sky is Venus not Jupiter. In fact, Jupiter isn’t that bright since it is so far. So what is the cultural reason behind it? Is their an astronomical reason for the ‘Zodiac of the Cat’ being the 13th disputed zodiac ‘sign’? The existence of a 13th sign, to me, sounds very similar to the Ophiuchus issue, but I haven’t found an astronomical reason for it. How did the Chinese find out that it takes 12 earth years for Jupiter to go around the Sun when most of the world at the time didn’t even know the planets were orbiting the Sun and not Earth? Please add to this post or send me an ask/message if you know!

I want to end this post on the note that a fair bit of science and math does go into astrology. This is the astronomy of the ancient times. Our ancestors could not have come up with this stuff without knowing how to draw a star chart or without knowing about spherical geometry or not knowing math. Accuracy was of utmost importance and precision was valued as these concepts were also going into making agricultural almanacs, a very important aspect for the society back then. However, the divination part of astrology does not have a basis in modern astronomy. That still doesn’t make the science part of it any less interesting and should most definitely be talked about more!

[transtech-zine]

Page 04:

CHARACTER BIOS

Cheetor – Supreme Commander

Not that long ago, Cheetor was an impulsive, speed-obsessed punk.  Then he was forced to step up as a squad leader during the Battle of the Sparks.  Now, for what he feels was merely being in the right place at the right time, Cheetor must face his most challenging role yet: leader of Cybertron.  He doesn’t doubt that he’s still the fastest cat on two or four wheels; it’s the responsibility of running a planet that weighs heavy on his shoulders.  After all, why should he and his team lead Cybertron just because they were the ones to liberate it?

Optimus Prime senses great potential in Cheetor, and has taken him on as a mentee – tutelage for which Cheetor is grateful.  While he chafes when Optimus oversteps his bounds and starts giving his team orders, on some level he’d like to be that cocksure rookie again.

Under Optimus, Cheetor has honed his Transcendence ability.  He no longer needs to dream to see a prophetic vision of the future; now his Transcendence allows him a flash of foresight.  Combined with his super speed, this makes Cheetor a dangerous and evasive adversary in any combat situation.

Optimus Prime – Mentor

The legendary leader of the Autobots.  Once, he singlehandedly ended the Great War by trapping himself and Decepticon High Command in the Millennia Dome, ensuring they would be suspended in time for all eternity… barring accidents.  Now, Optimus Prime finds himself on an unfamiliar Cybertron, surrounded by new faces and old enemies.  Allying himself with Cheetor’s squad of former Maximals, Optimus is committed to ensuring that Megatron’s forces do not shatter the peace that he has fought so long to establish.

After initial teething troubles, Optimus Prime has stepped out of the spotlight and into an advisory role, counselling Cheetor and the younger Autobots.  In this capacity, Optimus is a veritable fount of wisdom, with four million years’ worth of battle experience under his belt.  However, his charges sometimes find that his insight is more applicable to times of all-out warfare rather than the relative peace of Cybertropolis.

When called upon to battle, Optimus Prime is a force to be reckoned with.  Upgrades during the Great War have maxed out his abilities, giving him above average strength, speed, and firepower.  His Transcendence allows him to manifest hard light energy weapons, including his signature axe.

Transcendence

The Battle for the Sparks was the Maximals’ darkest hour.  Optimus Primal and his team had managed to seize control of the Grand Mal, the Vehicon Megatron’s stronghold, and with it the lost sparks of every civilian on Cybertron.  But they were outnumbered and outgunned, besieged by the Vehicons from all angles.  Primal retreated to the sparks’ chamber, where the spiritualist beseeched the Oracle – the supercomputer at the heart of Cybertron – to grant him the wisdom and strength needed to defeat Megatron and bring balance to Cybertron.  Speaking as one, the captive sparks granted the Maximals phenomenally boosted power and speed.  For a time, this allowed them to have the upper hand over their Vehicon enemies, but their newfound abilities faded when Megatron cut their connection to the Oracle.

However, part of the Oracle’s power still lingers within Cheetor’s team, beginning to manifest in ways they cannot control.  Optimus Prime recognises the effects; the ancient hero was similarly touched by the Oracle during the final phase of the Autobots’ war with the Decepticons.  Under Optimus Prime’s tutelage, each of the former Maximals can begin to harness that power and channel it into a unique special ability.

I wanted to bring some of Beast Machines’ sense of graphic design to the page layouts in this zine.  The font used for the headers is Neuropolitical, a wide font that screams 90s graphic design.  Rounded rectangles are used in this section, as they are on Beast Machines’s cardbacks.  The dotted and dashed lines in later pages are also from BM toy packages.

We start with a potted history of Cheetor.  Following Beast Machines’ finale, which feels like a definitive ending, the question is, what happens next?  The answer is: Cheetor gets anxiety.  It’s easy to write a story where the hero wins and becomes the king of the land, but to me there’s always the lingering doubt that swashbuckling heroism is transferable experience to governing.  Cheetor’s impostor syndrome is deliberately evocative of the G1 cartoon’s version of Rodimus Prime, including an episode where he gets to be young and reckless again.

There isn’t much of a close-up look at Cheetor’s head in extant Transtech concepts.  Notoriously, pictures of his toy prototype lack his finished robot mode.  As I’d intended to digibash said toy back into existence, I had to pick a pre-existing head to model his appearance on, so I chose his relatively obscure Titanium Series toy.  It’s not made clear in the credits, but I drew all the character profile art.

With Cheetor in the main hero role, Optimus Prime has to become a mentor.  This is patterned after the Robots in Disguise 2015 cartoon, where Optimus returns to life and finds himself at odds with Bumblebee’s leadership.

“Barring accidents” is a Doctor Who quote, for some reason.

At once stage I was committed to referring to the character as “Optimus Prime”, never “Optimus” nor “Prime” alone.  I’m glad I dropped that.

Look at me, retconning both Cheetor’s prophetic dreams and Optimus’ energo-axe into manifestations of the same ability.  It’s like poetry, it rhymes.

When my brother proofread an earlier draft of this zine, he fed back that Transcendence was quickly glossed over in the overview without ever being clearly explained what it was and who could use it.  I added this additional section in here; while not strictly a character bio, it does allow me a consistent three profiles per page.

EDIT: Just over a year later, the fan-run unofficial continuation of Ask Vector Prime here on tumblr would retcon Transcendence as a variant of Masterforce’s Chōkon Power, giving it the name Kijūchōkon, roughly meaning “Machine Beast Super Soul Power”.  Transtech is shonen now

[thisissoccer]

mexico vs france olympics 2021

What time is the Mexico vs France Olympics 2021?

4:00 am EDT The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games soccer match between Mexico and France will kick off at the Ajinomoto Stadium, on Thursday 22 July 2021 at 4:00 am EDT and 1:00 am PDT.

What channel is Mexico vs France Olympics?

Spectators had to wait an extra year for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, but the weeks-long tournament has now arrived. As usual, broadcast networks are going all-out with their coverage of the Olympics. ... Thursday, July 22.

Who won Mexico vs France Olympics?

Mexico had a fantastic start to in the men's soccer competition at the Olympics in Tokyo, defeating France 4-1 in its group stage opener Thursday.

Did Japan beat Mexico in soccer?

Saitama – An early burst of scoring gave Japan an emphatic 2-1 victory over Mexico in the Tokyo 2020 men's soccer tournament on Sunday night at Saitama Stadium, giving the host nation control of its own fate heading into Wednesday's final Group A game against France.

Mexico 4-1 France: as it happened Mexico off to a flying start at Olympics Having won the CONCACAF qualifying tournament, Mexico justified their dark horse status with a convincing win over France in Group A, courtesy of second-half goals from Alexis Vega, Sebastian Cordova, Uriel Antuna and Erick Aguirre.

Scroll down to see how the game unfolded and what the reaction to it was like.

Coming up next on AS English is another one of the potential winners of the title as Brazil take on Germany. Join the build up and live action now.

Gignac's muted celebration Tigres’ all-time top scorer, Andre-Pierre Gignac, was very apologetic after knocking home a penalty for France to make it 2-1. After playing in Liga MX for six years there is a lot of feeling there.

Maybe he was therefore happy when El Tri ran out clear winners.

Mexico keeping their promise They said it would be worth it and after their four goals they now feel rather smug about that claim.

France face South Africa & Japan next.

Mexico 4-1 France Mexico had seven shots on target and converted four. Clinical.

Stats via SofaScore

MOTM - Alexis Vega (Mexico)

The forward marked an impressive day with a fine header past Bernardoni in the France goal.

Mexico get off to a flyer at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics with a resounding 4-1 win over Les Bleus in their Group A opener.

FT: Mexico 4-1 France We're into the final 60 seconds...

Mexico 4-1 France Substitute Eduardo Aguirre buries a shot past Bernardoni to make it 4-1. Aguirre gives the France netminder no chance from a tight angle on the right-hand side of the box.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

MEXICO SCORE 4

Muani heads straight at Ochoa. It's only a half chance and an easy one for the 36-year-old between the posts.

Mexico make another change

OFF Martin

ON Aguirre

Mexico change

OFF Vega

ON Alvarado

Michelin shoots well over from distance. Definitely not a 3-star shot.

Mexico get ready to make another change.

MEXICO 3-1 FRANCE It's a super run and goal from the sub. Antuna drives across the box and lets fly off his left foot from the edge of the box. The ball smashes off the post and goes it to all but seal it for Mexico with just under 10 minutes remaining.  

ANTUNA MAKES IT 3!!! GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL MEXICO!!! Antuna shoots!

It's nearly 3 for Mexico! Antuna finds himself down the right, shoots across the France goal and it rolls just wide. Still 2-1 to Mexico.

Vasquez heads away a France cross from the right. Les Bleus have their tails up now after Gignac's penalty.

Double change for Mexico

OFF Lainez & Cordova

ON Esquivel & Antuna

Game on! There are 20 minutes left in Tokyo, plus added time.

Mexico 2-1 France Ochoa dives to his left. Gignac sends his penalty just under the keeper's arm. Ochoa will be disappointed with that one.

GIGNAC SCORES!   Gignac has the ball in his hands.

Gignac vs Ochoa

Muani is taken down by Montes in the box...

Penalty for France! ROMO!

Romo finds himself free 30 yards from goal, takes one look at the France goal and unleashes a long range strike that sails over. A third goal for Mexico would surely put this one to bed.

France continue to push. This time Le Fée drives a cross into the danger zone from the left wing. Ochoa springs off his line to collect.

Caci shoots!

The France full-back opens up his body on the right-hand side of the box, before curling an shot just wide of Ochoa's post. A good effort. 2-0

France change

OFF Nordin

ON  Kolo Muani

France change

OFF Tousart

ON Beka Beka

Gignac finds himself offside.

Mexico's forward finds himself in acres of space on the edge of the box and fires beyond Bernardoni to make it 2-0. A fine strike after a nice through ball over the top of the France defence by Rodriguez. France are all over the place. 2-0

Cordova doubles Mexico's lead! GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL MEXICO!!! Nordin shoots well wide for France. A poor effort by all accounts.

A super start to the second half for Mexico. France will have to lift their game now.

Mexico 1-0 France (Vega) It's that man Lainez down the right again. He turns France inside out before crossing for Vega, who makes no mistake with a thumping header into the net, giving Bernardoni no chance.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL MEXICO!!!

Cordova hits the post after a spectacular bit of play, taking it on his chest before volleying past Bernardoni. It's offside!

Gignac gets us underway for the second half!

The players make their way back onto the pitch for the second half!

And the first half comes to a close. A very interesting opening 45 minutes. France have failed to handle Mexico down the right, but it remains goalless at the break.

HT: Mexico 0-0 France

There will be two minutes added on at the end of the 45'.

Mexico's defence defend well as France look to break them down. Mexico regain possession and build out from the back.

France have had great success at international level (two World Cups, two Euros and a couple of Confederations Cups), but they have only been able to win the gold medal at the 1984 Olympics. Since then they have been absent without leave and they last qualified in 1996.

Nordin is fouled by Montes. It's a France free and a warning for Montes.

Cordova chance!  

The ball falls to Cordova on the edge of the box. He sends his effort just wide of Bernardoni's right-hand post.

France are having their spell of the half now after an impressive opening half an hour from Mexico. Vega had the best chance of the game, but Sagnan cleared off the line. Les Bleus have yet to conjure up any real chances but are beginning to get into it more.

Ochoa saves!

Nordin hits it well from just inside the box. It's going high into the top right-hand corner. The former Granada keeper gets a big left hand to the strike. The resulting corner is cleared by Mexico.

Gignac is fed, finally. Savanier picks the 35-year-old out with a fine ball. Gignac has his back to goal, spins on the spot and directs his header low to Ochoa's left. France are now looking to play narrow. 0-0

Mexico have been the better team in the opening 25 minutes. France's game plan hasn't worked thus far, with Gignac looking quite isolated up top.

Sagnan clears another Diego Lainez cross from the right. Sanchez and the Betis winger have caused France problems down the right since the get-go.

Mexico go so close again!  

Lainez does superbly well to get to the byline after a mazy run. Martin is in the box, he looks for the striker but the French defence stand strong. Mexico have really upped the ante.

Sagnan clears off the line!

It's the best chance of the game so far. Vega rounds two French defenders before sliding under Bernardoni. Sagnan is on the line to clear and it remains 0-0.

Michelin picks up the first yellow of the game for a late challenge. He can have no complaints about that one.

Sanchez flies forward from right-back to cross for Martin but his effort is blocked by Kalulu. 0-0

Savanier shoots!  

It's a poor effort from around 25 yards. Ochoa watches it as it goes wide and out for a goalkick.

Today's venue is the Ajinomoto Stadium in Tokyo, where Sweden defeated the USWNT 3-0 yesterday.

Thauvin picks out Gignac with a cross from the right but the experienced striker is unable to direct his header into the corner. More positive play for France.

It has been a lively start for both sides. Gignac is leading the line for France. Lainez of Real Betis will be looking to showcase his talents for Mexico, who are captained by the experienced goalkeeper, Guillermo Ochoa.

France, in all white, are playing from left to right as we watch it.

Mexico are wearing green socks, red shorts, and their famous green shirt.

We're underway in Tokyo!

It's Mexico vs France...

Group-stage schedule: Group A: Japan, France, Mexico, South Africa

22 July: Mexico vs France, Tokyo Stadium, Tokyo, 5pm local time/4am EDT

22 July: Japan vs South Africa, Tokyo Stadium, Tokyo, 8pm local time/7am EDT

25 July: France vs South Africa, Saitama Stadium, Saitama, 5pm local time/4am EDT

25 July: Japan vs Mexico, Saitama Stadium, Saitama, 8pm local time/7am EDT

28 July: France vs Japan, International Stadium Yokohama, Yokohama, 8:30pm local time/7:30am EDT

28 July: South Africa vs Mexico, Sapporo Dome, Sapporo, 8:30pm local time/7:30am EDT

Kick-off in Tokyo is just 20 minutes away!

France XI vs Mexico André-Pierre Gignac leads the line and captains France in their Olympics opener.

Mexico give short lesson on France!

France have played at the Olympic Games on 12 occasions.

Mexico announce starting XI for France clash This summer's Olympic tournament for under-24s Due to the 12-month delay to the 2020 Games, this summer’s men’s soccer tournament will actually be an under-24 competition.

This is because early last year, following the announcement that the Tokyo Olympics had been postponed until 2021, FIFA confirmed that the eligibility cut-off point originally established for the 2020 event would not be changed.

To compete in Japan, non-overage players must have been born on or after 1 January 1997.

What time does Mexico vs France kick off? The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games soccer match between Mexico and France will kick off at the Ajinomoto Stadium, on Thursday 22 July 2021 at 4:00 am EDT and 1:00 am PDT.

That’s 10:00 am CEST and 9:00 am UK time.

The 2012 gold medalists vs the 2018 world champions France have had great success at international level (two World Cups, two Euros and a couple of Confederations Cups), but they have only been able to win the gold medal at the 1984 Olympics. Since then they have been absent without leave and they last qualified in 1996.

France's rising stars haven’t travelled to Japan, as some of them already played at the European Championship and others have been withdrawn by their club sides, meaning that most of Sylvain Ripoll’s squad is full of Ligue 1 players.

Mexico U23 vs France U23 live: welcome Hello and welcome to AS English's live coverage of this 2020 Tokyo Olympics Group A  encounter between Mexico U23s and France U23s. Kick-off is at 10:00 CEST / 04:00 ET.

[jobsearchtips02]

Patrons use plastic bubbles to eat resumed dining establishments

Associated Press.

Published: May 28, 2020 at 11: 36 a.m. ET.

As restaurateurs around the globe look for to resume in-person dining amidst the pandemic, they wish to make it as safe as possible.

.

A guy and a lady show dining under plastic shields at a Paris dining establishment on Wednesday.

Thibault Camus.

PARIS (AP)– Dining at a table where each person is enclosed by a clear plastic guard may look and sound futuristic, however it might be one method for some restaurants to resume. It likewise may help out if your companion orders escargots, heavy on the garlic.

The prototype plastic shields are known as the “Plex’ consume,” and they resemble big clear lampshades suspended from the ceiling. They are being showcased momentarily at H.A.N.D., a Parisian dining establishment looking for a way to reopen its dining-room as coronavirus restrictions are unwinded.

As restaurateurs around the globe seek to resume in-person dining in the middle of the pandemic, they want to abide by social distancing guidelines while also attempting to act as lots of consumers as health and wellness measures will enable.

Some are putting mannequins at every other table to put some space between the actual consumers, like at Augustas and Barbora, a dining establishment in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius.

” We wish to fill the space with fun things,” stated owner Patrikas Ribas.

Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Simasius called the initiative a “perfect match of common spirit and imagination working side by side.”

In Hofheim, Germany, the Beef ‘n Beer is utilizing large teddy bears seated at some tables to keep diners properly spaced apart. They also ensure a comfortable, less-sterile environment.

At Amsterdam’s Mediamatic dining establishment, the owners have actually set up small glass houses that surround each table, served by waiters in protective guards.

While numerous dining establishments used take-out and shipment throughout the health crisis to keep creating a minimum of some income, such practices are less common in France, although Michelin starred chefs such as Alain Ducasse have begun doing take-out service.

Owners are seeking services that will coax back consumers while also alleviating their stress and anxiety about catching the virus.

Mathieu Manzoni, the director of H.A.N.D, said he thinks the plastic shields are a “pretty, more poetic” solution for restaurateurs who fear that social distancing could cut their capacity by half or more.

” There is a little a panic,” Manzoni said.

Makers of the Plex’ consume state they have gotten more than 200 preorders around the globe, including from France, the U.S. and Japan.

Designer Christophe Gernigon stated he got the idea after going to a shop in Bangkok “with three individual domes with chairs where individuals would sit and listen to music.”

He combined the concept with the big face shields that have multiplied considering that the pandemic began, although there is no filtering system to keep any infections from spreading.

Being French, there’s a version for more intimate dining, obviously: a dome that cocoons its residents in romantic seclusion from the remainder of the space.

Among other revamped dining establishments across Europe:

– At El Salamanca, a Barcelona beachfront restaurant known for paella, menus are gone and customers use their mobile phones to scan a QR code to consult what is on offer.

– Greek restaurants are utilizing salt and pepper sachets within shakers, and menus are either thrown away after each meal or are laminated and cleaned down regularly. Many waiters have face shields. Some tavernas have personnel in matching face masks.

– In the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod, a dining establishment on the banks of the Volga and Oka rivers has set up 20 plastic huts for couples. It is waiting for approval from authorities to open if it fulfills safety requirements.

– Italian dining establishments are using contact tracing. Restaurants are expected to reserve tables ahead of time and owners are keeping their contact info: If somebody subsequently reports screening favorable, the dining establishment can rapidly determine and contact those who ate there at the exact same time.

Some coffee bars in main Rome also are attaching trendy arched glass partitions to divide tabletops down the middle.

%.

from Job Search Tips https://jobsearchtips.net/patrons-use-plastic-bubbles-to-eat-resumed-dining-establishments/

[trilotechcorp]

New Post has been published on PBA-Live

New Post has been published on https://pba-live.com/pba-board-cold-on-quarantine-cup-proposition-inferable-from-immense-costs-dangers/

PBA board cold on Quarantine Cup proposition inferable from 'immense costs, dangers'

A PROPOSAL set forward by Barangay Ginebra colleague mentor Richard Del Rosario to organize an ‘Isolate Cup’ so as to rescue the 2020 PBA season has been put aside by the group board attributable to ‘huge costs and extraordinary dangers,’ sources told SPIN.ph on Friday.

In a nine-minute video posted on his YouTube channel, Del Rosario required a compacted gathering where the alliance will play a 17-day end round in addition to a season finisher under exacting wellbeing conventions just to complete the retired season.

Under his proposition, all individuals from the PBA family will experience fast testing and the individuals who tried negative of Covid-19 will answer to a group isolate office. The individuals who will test positive will be sent home.

The group isolate office, unmistakably situated close to rehearse rec centers or game scenes, will fill in as a preparation camp where they can hold two times every day works on during the 14-day isolate period, Del Rosario proposed.

Groups will be approached to follow exacting travel and wellbeing protocals during isolate, with housing to be carried by the group and food by the players.

The proposition got a support on Twitter from Ginebra mentor Tim Cone, in spite of the fact that Del Rosario was the first to let it out wasn’t great.

Del Rosario recommended littler exercise centers like the Upper Deck rec center, Moro Lorenzo Sports Center, Ronac Gym, Azure Residences, and Gatorade Hoops Dome as conceivable game settings to save money on rental expense.

He additionally proposed a four-game, seven-day seven days plan for two scenes, raising the chance of groups playing consecutive games under a packed calendar. Twofold headers will be played in two settings however in the middle of games, a period of two hours will be apportioned to sterilize the courts and hardware.

Sources, be that as it may, uncovered the proposition was at that point talked about by the alliance board during its keep going gathering on May 4 and a large portion of the individuals were cold on the proposition as a result of two factors: the huge costs required and the extraordinary dangers.

As indicated by one board part, the alliance evaluated that the sum that groups and the class should spend as far as housing, dinners, and different fundamentals over the pocket competition would be “like facilitating one significant worldwide competition.”

The expense of lodgings and every day suppers for the span of the proposed Quarantine Cup alone will be immense, the board part assessed.

Class authorities likewise question if any nearby government unit will greet the PBA company wholeheartedly, considering the characteristic dangers it presents under the current conditions.

Under Del Rosario’s proposition. just a skeletal workforce will be required in the real games in which each group can just have 12 players, two mentors, one physical advisors, and one group administrator.

There just should be three game authorities, two PBA authorities, three table authorities, four TV creation faculty, and two agents of the Games and Amusements Board and Department of Health in the setting during games, he included.

For the communicate, there will be a three-camera set-up however reporters will communicate the games off-tube or from the TV5 Media Center under a set-up like the one utilized by the system during the Southeast Asian Games a year ago.

Individuals from the PBA Press Corps can cover the game at the TV5 Media Center with meetings to be directed remotely under Del Rosario’s recommendation.

Notwithstanding, some load up individuals question if such a lean unit can regulate the games, bringing up that three arbitrators being tallied upon to direct all the games leave them powerless against “weariness and impact.”

In any case, the most serious hazard, they dread, will be in the qurantine office where one bargained administration work force may wind up contaminating a whole group, a source included.

Be that as it may, if such a competition pushes through, Del Rosario said the PBA will have the option to give occupations to day by day breadwinners of the alliance while additionally promising Filipinos to remain at home while having the option to observe live games.

[omousvarii]

to do this weekend: ( hopefully )

●  redo rules ●  new header ●  riverdale verse ●  under the dome verse ●  werewolf verse ●  pokemon verse ●  stranger things verse ●  25 drafts ●  few drunk asks left ●  continue married ask for @falsepsychiic ●  continue body swap ask for @falsepsychiic

[faygosmayhem]

Story Time #2- Final Fantasy & Me:Part 2

The Reason People Should Be Afraid of Clowns: 

I was gifted the PlayStation Final Fantasy Anthology at the end of the ‘04/’05 school year to celebrate my moving up in the world. On it was ported versions of Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI, which had originally been released in the US for the Super Nintendo as Final Fantasy III.

 I started out playing V a few days later. For some reason, it never grabbed me at all. I got through a good chunk of the game, then hit a troublesome boss and just stopped playing it. I still can’t remember anything about the game no matter how hard I think on it. Probably because it was overshadowed by what came next.

 After rage quitting FFV, I moved on to VI and never looked back. Similar to IX, I was automatically captured by the game’s easy charm and emotional resonance. The characters in that game are so multifaceted and I found each of them to be wonderful in their unique way. 

The one thing VI has that IX, unfortunately, does not is a fantastic villain. Kefka, the demented little fashion-challenged asshole, easily set the standard for things that make up the perfect villain to me. This guy had absolutely no motivation other than just wanting to watch the world burn, and is a key citation of personality traits you never, ever, want to encounter. 

Comical as he was, Kefka scared the ever loving crap out of me, much more than any horror game or movie I’ve experienced since then (with the exception of Silent Hill 2), and I freaking loved it. Of all the memorable aspects of FFVI, that maniacal laugh is always the first thing to come to mind. 

Me In The Spotlight, Losing My Religion

( readers with sensitive views on religion might want to avoid this part)

People always look at me like I’ve grown a second head when I tell them that a video game is the reason I became an Atheist. I agree that sounds a little extreme, but back in ‘05/’06 when I finally caught up to the rest of the world and got my hands on Final Fantasy X, it made perfect sense. 

For the first time, I wasn’t the one in my circle of three close friends to acquire the game first. That honor went to my friend Mikey (that is not her real name), who had just been gifted the game and a Ps2 of her own. The problem was that she didn’t have a memory card and couldn’t afford one (they were anywhere from 25-40$ dollars at the time), and called me up one day desperately begging to borrow mine after having had to play through the intro of the game all the way to leaving Besaid island for the third time because her mom kept shutting off the system.

 Of course I wanted to help her out, but this created a bit of a problem; I couldn’t lend her my memory card indefinitely because it would prevent me from enjoying my own games. The solution was for us to play through the game the first time completely in each others company. By that point we were used to getting through sections of games together, but this was the first (and last) attempt for us to play the entire game under the stipulation that the game could not continue unless both of us were there. So, naturally, I practically moved into her house for the summer. 

Things started out fun enough. We ruthlessly made fun of the game for hours on end. We shared laughs and frustrations with the game’s mechanics, had fun recording amusing cut-scenes and lines of dialog (we made a YouTube poop VHS before YouTube was even a thing), and were just generally loving life at that point. 

Then we get to fucking operation Mi’ihen. 

That section of the game floored us both. We had just finished learning about Constantine and Crusades the year previous in school and had commented earlier about noticing the reference, though I never thought the game would ever try to give such a direct example. 

For those in need of a quick refresher, Operation Mi’ihen was the part of the game where the Crusaders and Al’Bhed team up and try to use a new type of machina to defeat Sin. The operation fails, most of the people who take part are slaughtered by Sinspawn, and the Crusaders who survive are excommunicated by the church for going against the teachings, even though two of Yevon’s most prominent figures were on site to ‘Bless the Operation’. Operation Mi’ihen was the point in the game where the religious allegory really got heavy, and just kept getting worse from there. 

After that section was over we both needed a break. I finally went home for the first time in about two weeks, and spent the next few days recharging my batteries until I was comfortable picking the game up again. We went back to joking about the game pretty easily, though the tone didn’t exactly improve from there. The next time the game broke me was during the revelation of Yevon and the Final Summoning. 

The knowledge that the entire journey up to that point had been a lie, a pointless quest of willing Martyrs that were being deceived themselves hit me the hardest. During that part of the game I adapted traits of characters I hated the most. I was dumbfounded, whiny, frustrated, and unwilling to believe what was going on even though the evidence was being clearly presented. I was Tidus and Wakka combined, and at that point I hated myself for it. I came to really loathe Yevon and its real world basis. 

When the game finally ended, I spent a few weeks in quiet contemplation. My friend wasn’t religious, and never had been, and couldn’t understand the extreme negative reaction. I was young, and at the time unable to formulate and articulate enough explanation while my feelings were still so turbulent. I distanced myself from her for a time while I tried to work it out. 

All these years later I can finally put words to the metaphor I saw when I witnessed the end of the game. To save her world from Sin, Yuna sacrifices her fayth (the Aeons) and kills the dream (the Zanarkand utopia). The lie of Yevon is disbanded and the world enters an Eternal Calm. 

I couldn’t explain it at the time, but I felt it. After coming to terms with everything, I renounced my faith in the church. Playing Final Fantasy X wasn’t the only catalyst, there were plenty of real world instances and influences that had me questioning even before the game, but FFX was definitely the boiling point. 

X is the only FF game I’ve never been able to play all the way through more than once. I went back again after my friend let me borrow the game for myself in order to get through all the sidequests, but never progressed past getting inside of Sin. When the re-masters came out, I tried again and couldn’t make it past the Mi’ihen Highroad. 

Final Fantasy X was a very good game, but it is still probably my least favorite of the ones I’ve played. 

Horrible Feeling Redux- This Time With Fun Costumes!

I honestly don’t know why I bothered with Final Fantasy X-2 this time around. I guess there was a part of me that wanted to see if the fake world was dealing with the loss of Fayth better than I was. My first playthrough of the game took me about six hours, and I was left so angry I almost broke a controller. 

Once again, it took a chance encounter and consult of a guide for me to realize I played the game wrong, and that by only following the game’s main story points I had missed about 9/10ths of the content and that was the reason the game felt incomplete and pointless. With frequent trips to the EB Games across the street to re-check the guide I eventually was able to 100% the game and get the actual ending. 

I honestly don’t remember much of the plot, too much got drowned out in the endless repetitive mini-games and AP farming. I do remember liking the new characters, and that overall I was pleased with the re-visit to the world and how well the game handled the familiar while still being new enough to not feel like the same thing over again. I also must have watched that fmv of ‘1000 Words’ about a hundred times in that sphere dome (I had a file saved at the location so I could just watch it whenever). The take on the classic job system was interesting, but at the time I was a huge tomboy, and felt pretty offended that the game seemed to be trying to appeal to a female market by making the entire plot revolve around clothes. 

All in all, X-2 gave me peace with X. As much as I complain about it, I did end up liking it, though it was a game I could have done without. 

Ok readers, I know I promised XII with this part, but re-living the feelings of X took more out of me than I was expecting, so now it shall be lumped in with XIII, XIII-2 and XV. I do hope it’s as much of an experience reading it as it is writing. I’d like to hear some memories other people have with the series, if you have the time to share. 

Also, the header for X is a line from the song ‘Losing My Religion’ by REM. 

[akedocitydespair]

Introduction 2: Welcome to Akedo City

With a gentle bump to your seat, the flip back to the front of the pamphlet, the glossy cover catching your gaze.

You quickly finish admiring the official seal, continuing to flip through the pages until an energetic title catches your eye.

‘AKEDO CITY’

Saturated colors and bright print colored the page, an unseemly shift from the dignified appearance of the rest of your documents. Its chipper, enthusiastic tone seems like an additional stamped on side-note, contrasting the former posh description of your soon-to-be school. 

It is your ‘Introduction Seminar,’ as it was described. A recent addition to the curriculum of incoming freshman, with each incoming class experiencing something completely new. In that matter, it contrasts the well-defined and assured definitions of Kibogamine Academy; very little being spoken of it other than a promising first experience. If nothing else, the unknown is an exciting divergence, and knowing that it has been prepared by none other than the illustrious school of your future begets nothing but hope from you.

This Akedo City has some very high expectations from you.

Glancing back to the brightly color letters, you scan its contents.

We welcome you to the country’s greatest innovation! 

What’s this sparkling City all about, you ask?

Well, first things first, congratulations incoming Kibogamine students! It’s a pretty big feat to be accepted into an exemplary institution like Kibogamine Academy, having to be real super at something and all. I would know after all, haha!

So, you’re probably asking yourself what’s the deal with this boring-schmoring opening seminar? You’re supposed to be at the school going through the drab motions of recitation yet you’re dragged out as part of some off site symposium? What’s the deal?

Well, lucky freshman, we have something quite unexpected in store for you that promises to wipe that skeptical grimace right off those cheeks. We, the graduating class of Kibogamine Academy have been working on something really spectacular, something that’ll blow your socks clean off on sight. A metropolitan wonder that comes with all the technological innovations thought to be years off into the future. The 81st class of Kibogamine Academy presents to you...

**~AKEDO CITY~**

Cool name, right? ‘Think tank’-chan came up with the header. So, what’s Akedo City, and what’s so great about it, you ask? Well, for starters, the entirety of Akedo City is self-sufficient. Everything, from amenities to energy to travel is entirely automated and catering to our guests; innovation only possible with the efforts of the greatest students of the country! You’re welcome~.  (･ω<)☆

Upon entry, you’ll notice the innovations immediately, with automated service for everything. Robot butlers are chic, you know? From the modern to the previously unconceived, technology will be up to your ears and you’ll love every moment of it. Oh and yeah, ‘think tank’-chan thinks I should include a more academic description.

Akedo City is an upcoming project by Kibogamine students, set to release within the coming decade. An entirely self-sufficient city running entirely on green energy, the city itself has been reinforced against potential natural disasters to withstand catastrophe, ranging from high magnitude earthquakes to level 8 tsunamis. Technology and amenities in place are of a premium, affording luxury to those even with the more refined tastes, and climate control within the hermetically-sealed dome ensures optimal weather in any season. With this innovation of independent energy consumption and advanced fortification, coupled with its cutting-edge definitions of entertainment and luxury, the city stands as a model to revolutionize the standard of living, paving way for a plethora of utopias across the globe. 

Fine and dandy, right? Your feedback following this little adventure will be greatly appreciated, and will be taken into consideration to improve the city before its official debut to the public. Give us a good ‘ol five stars, and I’ll give you a kiss myself. Haha!

See you soon!

-81st Class of Kibogamine Academy

Reading through the contents, another jolt breaks your focus, as you upturn with the sound of the speakers through the bus. You can see it; a large obsidian dome, bigger than any structure you’ve seen in person. Now that you think about it, this was the structure that was all over the news, with Kibogamine keeping the project under wraps. There’s been a lot of gossip over what could lay underneath, but now that you’re gonna see it up close and personal, you can’t help but feel excited.

The robotic voice booms cycles through the speakers once more, and the daylight quickly cuts out as you enter through a tunnel.

“Now approaching Dome Alpha”