#sponge sensor

[nemo-writes]

𝗮𝗯𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝘀𝗺𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻 I chapter three

(dr. jack abbot x nurse!reader)

⤿ chapter summary: a terrifyingly familiar presence breaches your last safe space, and now a simple and heartfelt gesture becomes a violation. in the aftermath, fear finally makes you reach out for help.

⤿ warning(s): stalking, panic attacks & unhealthy coping mechanisms.

⟡ story masterlist ; previous I next

✦ word count: 2.7k

The day begins the same way the last three have: 05:30, kettle on, one level tablespoon of Assam spooned into the infuser. While the water climbs toward a boil you unlock your phone, already braced for what waits. A fresh number—there is always a fresh number—has delivered its dawn bulletin:

Left at 05:01 yesterday.

Early bird. Porch light flickered twice—loose bulb?

Navy coat looks sharp against the fog, pretty girl. 

They never mention the hospital, never a word about ORs or co-worker names. The watcher keeps to the edges of your private life, and somehow that makes the trespass worse. You capture a screenshot, block the number, and delete the thread. The image joins dozens of others in the hidden laptop folder named Archive—date‑stamped, time‑stamped, waiting for the moment you finally believe the police will do more than shrug.

Four‑minutes steep exactly. Mug warmed. First swallow. Routine: a ladder you climb every morning. Eggs scrambled ninety seconds, plate rinsed, shower seven minutes. Before dressing, you check the tiny motion‑sensor camera you mounted inside the apartment entryway two nights ago; its LED blinks a steady red reassurance. The matching camera on the fire‑escape window does the same. No motion alerts overnight. Still, you test the deadbolt twice and angle the hall chair beneath the knob until you return.

The drive is identical to yesterday’s and the day before—same streets, same mirror checks at every light. No car follows twice, but you look anyway. At 06:50 you badge through the employee entrance. Stepping into hospital feels like sliding into armor: fluorescent lights, antiseptic bite, the hum of vents. The messages have never followed you here.

You adjust your usual gray scrubs and square your clipboard. Pre‑op checklist in your left hand, suture cart in your right, you call out “sponge count zero” with the same crisp authority as always. But small hesitations creep in: rereading the cefazolin vial, tapping the clock twice to verify time‑outs. 

Margot’s eyes track each pause. She eventually corners you by the blanket warmer.

“Nightmares?” she asks, voice low.

“Just the usual insomnia,” you answer, pinching your lower lip. A nervous habit. Your smile feels brittle, but it holds.

Fin notices too; his jokes grow louder, as though volume can fill the quiet shadow clinging to you. Jules slips extra Hershey Kisses into your scrub pocket. Even Dr. Garcia joins in by firing off sarcasm like covering fire whenever an intern looks as if they might ask why your phone stays face‑down on the desk, silent yet weighty.

Slowly but surely, the afternoon bleeds into evening. 

You finish vitals, sign the narcotics log, and at 19:04 bypass the stairwell that leads to the roof—no silhouettes against twilight tonight. Instead you head straight for the lot, head down, keys ready.

The cameras in your apartment greet you with their steady red eyes when you arrive. Door locked, sweep performed—closet, shower, under bed—all clear. Only then do you change into a soft purple T‑shirt and loose pants. You have long since stopped parading around in your underwear. 

The phone buzzes the moment the fabric falls over your head. New number:

Purple again. My favorite.

You freeze. Curtains closed, lights low—and still they see. Screenshot. Block. Delete. You drag the dining chair beneath the doorknob and place the kitchen scissors back on the nightstand, steel glinting like a talisman. Then, a mug of valerian tea, strong enough to taste like soil, goes down in three determined gulps.

Lying in bed, you count the protections: two cameras, one chair brace, scissors within reach, every screenshot archived. Routine is armor. Repetition is a prayer. You breathe in for four, out for eight, the same cadence you teach anxious PACU patients, and tell yourself that as long as the messages stay outside the hospital walls, the armor will hold.

Sleep comes in splinters, broken by phantom creaks and imagined footsteps. At 02:47 you wake up, heart sprinting, and check the camera feed: empty hallway, silent fire escape. Dawn is only a few hours away. Soon the kettle will hiss, the tea will steep for exactly four minutes, and another text will arrive—about a porch light or the time you start your car—but never about scalpels, never about sponge counts.

Despite the hour, you’re halfway through wiping down the already‑clean kitchen counter—busywork to quiet the apartment’s hush—when your phone vibrates. For once the screen doesn’t show an unknown number.

It’s Jack.

Haven’t seen you on the roof in a bit. Everything okay?

The text lands like a gentle hand on your chest. You swallow against the sudden tightness in your throat, thumb hovering. Finally you type back:

I’m alright—just busy. See you tomorrow?

Three dots pulse, then: Works for me. Sunrise tea?

He doesn’t mention anything about the hour or how you should be asleep and not messaging back. You’re grateful. 

Sunrise tea, you confirm, and set the phone facedown.

Pacing the kitchen, you notice how full the fridge is: a dozen nearly‑dated eggs, chicken thighs you’d planned to roast, wilting cilantro, limes, onions, and two unopened cans of black beans. You haven’t cooked a proper meal since the messages started; take‑out cartons and tea have been enough to survive. Now the sight of real food sparks something steadier than dread—a need to do, to give.

An apology, you decide, should be edible.

You wash your hands, set the chicken on the board, and fall into the rhythm your muscles remember: trim fat, score skin, rub with salt, cumin, smoked paprika. Onions sizzle in the cast‑iron, releasing a sweetness that chases the apartment’s stale anxiety. Beans simmer with serrano and garlic; rice toasts before absorbing broth. Cilantro stems thunk under the knife; lime zest perfumes the steam fogging the window. 

When everything’s done you portion a generous serving into a sturdy glass container, your favourite one: rice pilaf on one side, glossy black beans on the other, two pieces of golden‑skinned chicken nestled on top. Into a tiny jar goes some honey‑lime dressing. You label the lid in block letters—Jack—and slide the meal into one of your spare tote bags. 

The apartment smells of cumin and toasted garlic, of normal life. The cameras still blink red, the chair still braces the door, the scissors still gleam, but cooking has threaded warmth through every corner. You finish the last dish, the one’s that’s for you, dry your hands, and stand for a moment in the quiet kitchen, breathing in the proof that you can still create comfort instead of just barricades.

Tomorrow at dawn you’ll climb to the roof, hand Jack the container, and share five minutes of sky. Routine will tighten around you again, one careful knot at a time—but tonight you fall back asleep with the scent of lime and cilantro on your pillow, and relief, thin but real, settles in your chest like steam escaping a cooling pot.

. . .

You arrive at the hospital just past sunrise, thermos in one hand, tote slung over your shoulder, and—for once—a real, living sense of calm beneath your ribs. Not the fragile kind you usually glue together with caffeine and a tight jaw, but something gentler, something earned. You even caught a pocket of golden morning light in the parking lot, the kind that made the hospital look almost soft at the edges. 

Dr. Miller catches sight of you just as you pass the nurse’s station. He’s leaning against the counter, coffee in one hand, chatting with a pair of interns, but pauses when he sees you. His eyebrows lift, and he gives a slow, amused smile. “Well, you look dangerously close to content. Should I be worried?”

You huff a laugh, smoothing your coat as you badge in. “Don’t start rumors, Dr. Miller.”

He points at the canvas tote on your shoulder. “Big plans?”

You nod once. “End of shift.”

He doesn’t ask more, just grins, and you take that grin with you like a good omen. The rest of the day moves at a steady clip: vitals to log, meds to verify, a code yellow that resolves without anyone crying. You let yourself coast on the rhythm of it, not in that desperate, overcompensating way you usually do, but in a way that feels like a return to something—like an exhale. 

You slip into the lounge at 18:45, already imagining the click of the container’s lid, the familiar smell of the garlic and cumin, the soft weight of it in your hands as you climb the stairwell to the roof. You open as the lights inside flickers to life, cold and blue, attention on the glass container exactly where you left it, lid on, untouched. 

Except—no. Something’s wrong.

The lid is snapped shut, perfectly aligned. The container looks full. But it isn’t. You can feel it before you even lift it—something in the tilt, the balance. Your stomach lurches as you peel the lid off  and confirm what you already know. The food is gone. Not spilled. Not disturbed. Not even a forkful left to scrape from the edges. Just... empty. Clean. Wiped down.

A rare mix of anger, rare but hot, pulses against your ribcage, but before you can storm out and demand answers, you feel the paper crumpled under the container. Your breath stops. It’s your note—the one you’d carefully taped to the top that morning: NOT FOR GENERAL CONSUMPTION. HANDS OFF GREMLINS, it reads in your blocky caps. But now that line has been crossed out in thick, decisive strokes. And underneath it, slanted and dark and horrifyingly familiar: 

That was great, thanks pretty girl.

The world tilts. Your lungs forget how to work. You’ve seen that name before—only in texts, never spoken, never written. Anonymous. Cryptic. Repetitive. A whisper against your spine on nights when the lights were off and your phone lit up with unknown numbers. But this—this isn’t a text. This is here. This is your space, your name, your cooking, your boundary, and someone has walked right through it with ink-stained hands and a stomach full of what you made with care.

A hot flush crawls up your neck, floods your ears. You stagger back a step and catch yourself on the counter. The container slips from your hand and hits the lounge table with a muted thud. The silence in the room turns sharp. 

Then, you shove the fridge shut. The door clangs and rattles in its frame. The room feels like it’s shrinking, like the air has gone sour, too full of other people’s breath. You snatch the note and crush it in your hand. Your teeth clench so hard your jaw pops. You don’t remember turning, but you’re already out the door, slamming into the corridor.

Fin is halfway down the hall with a tablet in hand. He startles and drops it when you barrel past. “Boss? Are you okay—?”

You don’t hear him. You don’t answer. The world has narrowed to one screaming thought: Find Gloria. Now. You need the Chief Medical Officer, need her badge, her keys, her authority. She can pull the security feeds. She can call the police. She can make this stop.

You’re moving before you think to move, feet pounding the tile, vision blurring at the edges. You don’t realize you’re shaking until your elbow clips the corner of the nurse’s station and jolts you. Jules tries to intercept you, her mouth forming your name in alarm, but you dodge past. Margot reaches out, grabs your arm, and for a second your momentum dies.

“What happened?” she demands, voice low, sharp, anchoring.

You look at her. You try to speak. Nothing. Just breathless silence. Then, rasping through a throat too tight to breathe, you say, “Need Gloria.”

She gets it instantly. Her eyes go cold. She lets you go. Already calling instructions behind you as you sprint toward the elevators.

Your fingers hurt. You look down and realize the note is still balled in your fist, crushed so tightly your nails have dug half-moons into your skin. The static in your head has turned into a roar. You feel cracked open, like your worst fear has been confirmed and now all your secrets are leaking out of you for the world to see. All this time, you thought if you could just hold on—just stay composed, stay ahead, stay vigilant—you could keep this from touching the parts of your life that mattered. But now it has. Now it’s here. The hospital was supposed to be your safe place, your fortress. But someone breached it.

The elevator doors open. Thankfully, nothing but an empty gurney is inside. You step in without hesitation, eyes fixed forward, spine locked. You don't even blink when the doors slide shut.

You get out the seconds the doors open and round the corner toward Administration so fast the world blurs, shoulders locked, chest heaving, pulse hammering in your ears so loud it drowns out thought. You barely register the sound of a door opening until a figure steps out from the consult room ahead—short but solid, dreadlocks brushing her shoulders, clipboard hugged tight to her chest.

You collide before either of you can brake.

Papers scatter like startled birds. A pen skitters across the tile and bounces under the nearest corner.

“Whoa—hey!” Kiara grabs you, steady hands catching your elbows before you fall. 

“Slow down, honey,” she says, trying for lightness. “What—”

Then she sees your face.

Whatever was holding you together unravels in a blink. Your eyes fill, your mouth opens, but nothing coherent makes it past your lips. The crushed note slips from your hand, landing between you. The marker-scrawled name glares up from the paper like a fresh wound.

Kiara’s clipboard hits the floor beside it.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she breathes.

Her arms come around you before you can bolt or speak or even breathe. And the second she does, the sob rips out of you—gut-deep, involuntary, raw. You bury your face against her soft sweater and shake, fists twisted in the soft cotton, the fabric quickly going damp with tears. Your legs threaten to give. Kiara cradles the back of your head like she would a grief-stricken mother in a quiet room, voice low and steady in your ear.

“I’ve got you. You’re okay. Breathe with me. In, two, three…that’s it. Out, two, three.”

You try. You try to follow her rhythm even as your chest jerks, lungs refusing to cooperate, every breath full of glass. The hallway seems to narrow around you, fluorescent lights too sharp, voices too distant, the floor too unsteady beneath your feet. 

You gasp, trying to speak—Gloria, fridge, note—but your tongue won’t work. The words hit the back of your throat and collapse.

Kiara doesn’t push. She doesn’t ask. Not yet. 

She bends, scoops the note up from the floor, her arm never leaving your shoulders. Her eyes flick over the overwritten scrawl. Her expression goes from gentle to granite.

“Okay,” she says, voice gone iron. “We’re taking this to Gloria. Right now.”

It’s almost scary how easily she connects the dots without a single ounce of context. For now, you can only nod, your body still trembling, your mind clawing for control that just isn’t there anymore. But you’re not alone. Kiara keeps an arm firmly around you as she pulls her phone from her pocket, dials with one hand, presses it to her ear.

“Gloria? Yes, it’s Kiara. I have an urgent security issue. Clear your office.”

A pause. Then a quiet “Thanks.” She ends the call, squeezes your arm, and begins steering you gently toward the elevators.

“She’s waiting. Margot’s on her way too,” Kiara tells you as she guides you through the hallway. 

You nod again, unable to speak, but this time it’s not empty. The words aren’t caught in panic—they’re being held for you, steadied. And for the first time since the messages started, since the stalking began, since the fear turned chronic and tight and unseen—something inside you loosens.

Not gone. But held.

Held by hands stronger than your own.

divider credit

[bestanimal]

Round 1 - Phylum Chordata

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

Chordata is a phylum consisting of bilaterial animals that have, at at least some point in their development, a notochord and a dorsal nerve chord. It consists of the Cephalochordates (lancelets), Tunicates (sea squirts, salps, and larvaceans), and Vertebrates.

Vertebrates replace their notochord with a spine in early development, while tunicates only retain their notochord and dorsal nerve chord during their larval stage. Vertebrates and tunicates are more closely related to each other than they are to lancelets (first image), which are fish-shaped filter-feeders. They typically inhabit the sea floor, burrowing the bottom halves of their bodies into soft substrate. They have gill slits, but these are used for feeding on plankton rather than respiration. They have light-sensing organs, and one frontal eye. They do not have hearts or brains. They have two sexes, though hermaphroditism has been observed, as well as at least one instance of a lab-raised female transforming into a male. They breed by releasing eggs and sperm into the water synchronously. Larvae are asymmetrical, with the mouth and anus on the left side, and the gill slits on the right side.

Most tunicates are also filter-feeders, ranging from the sessile, sponge-like sea quirts (second image) to the planktonic salps. All tunicates start life as free-swimming, tadpole-like larvae with rudimentary brains and light sensors, before they metamorphize into their adult forms. Meanwhile, the larvaceans retain tadpole-like shapes and active swimming all their lives. Salps move by contracting, similarly to jellyfish, straining phytoplankton from the water. They have a complex life cycle, in which one generation of solitary individuals reproduces asexually by producing a chain of tens to hundreds of individuals, which are released from the parent at a small size. The next generation consists of a colony of salps (called blastozooids) remaining attached together while swimming, feeding, and growing. This generation reproduces sexually, first maturing as females and later transforming into males. Older chains of male blastozooids will fertilize the eggs of younger female chains. Growing embryos are called oozooids, and eventually detach from their parent blastozoids, to feed and grow as the next solitary, asexual generation. Meanwhile, some species of sea squirt live as solitary individuals, while others replicate by budding and become colonies of zooids. They are filter feeders with two tubular openings, called siphons, through which they draw in and expel water.

The most simple vertebrates are hagfish, which have a skull but no vertebral column. They are marine predators and scavengers who can defend themselves against larger predators by releasing copious amounts of slime from mucous glands in their skin.

Lampreys have an ambiguous position in the vertebrate tree of life, bearing a complete braincase and rudimentary vertebrae. They spend the majority of their life as filter-feeders. A small handful of species are known to be carnivorous as adults, boring into other fish to consume flesh and/or blood.

Chondrichthyes (“cartilaginous fish”) have skeletons composed mainly of cartilage. They breath through gills but lack opercula (gill coverings). They have internal fertilization and some species lay eggs while others give live birth. Chondrichthyans have tooth-like scales called dermal denticles or placoid scales. These usually provide protection, and in most cases, streamlining. Today, chondrichthyans are represented by sharks, rays, skates, sawfish, and chimaeras. All species are carnivores, though at least one species is omnivorous.

The majority of chordate species are Actinopterygians (“Ray-finned Fishes”). They are so called because of their lightly built fins made of skin webbings supported by thin bony spines. They are the most abundant free-swimming aquatic animals and can be found almost anywhere there is water. They come in a vast majority of sizes, shapes, colors, and behaviors, from the 8 mm (0.3 in) long Paedocypris to the 11 m (36 ft) long Giant Oarfish (Regalecus glesne). In most actinopterygians, males and females exist and reproduce through external fertilization. However, some species utilize sequential hermaphroditism, in which they start life as females and convert to males at some point. In a few species, they start life as males and convert to females. Some species give live birth, and some species self-fertilise. Actinopterygians have feeding strategies ranging from predatory to grazing to filter-feeding.

And lastly, the Sarcopterygians (“Lobe-finned Fishes”), named for the prominent muscular limb buds (lobes) within their fins. They are represented by the coelacanths, lungfish, and tetrapods. The vast majority of the rest of chordate species are tetrapods, a terrestrial clade of sarcopterygians who evolved air-breathing using lungs. They are highly diverse, with a large variety of forms, biological strategies, and ecological roles. Along with arthropods, they are the only other group of animals to have adapted to life in dry environments, and the majority of them live on land.

Chordata is one of the largest phyla of animals when it comes to species and is also one of the oldest phyla, known from as early as the Cambrian explosion.

Propaganda under the cut:

Lancelets naturally express green fluorescent proteins. They may use this green fluorescence to attract plankton towards their mouths.

Mentioned briefly above, the Bonnethead Shark (Sphyrna tiburo), a small species of hammerhead, is the only shark known to be omnivorous. While it feeds on crustaceans, molluscs, and small fish, it also ingests large amounts of seagrass, which has been found to make up around 62% of gut content mass.

The Mangrove Rivulus (Kryptolebias marmoratus), a species of killifish, mostly breeds by self-fertilization and can survive for about two months on land. Males are rare, and can only hatch from eggs kept below 19 °C (66 °F).

The largest chordate is the Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus), which can reach a maximum confirmed length of 29.9 m (98 ft) and weigh up to 196 long tons; 219 short tons). While it’s not the longest, it is the largest animal known to have ever existed.

At least one of your favorite animals is probably in this phylum. Most of the animals people keep as pets are in this phylum. We are in this phylum.

I am tired, and there is no way I can write enough propaganda for this poll, so I trust you can supply your own.

[the-most-humble-blog]

🧠 🌹 💔

Between Boundaries: Revisiting the Underappreciated Anatomy (Pt. 2)

— A Loofah-Laced, Shame-Crushing, Gender-Neutral Awakening of Soft Satire

👋 Welcome back, you brave, slippery-souled, velvet-creviced pioneers.

You made it to Part Two.

That means one of three things:

You’re still processing Part One, spiritually exfoliated but emotionally confused.

You’ve looked in the mirror, whispered "Forgive me," and patted your gooch like a pet you forgot to feed.

Or… you’re new here. In which case—strap in, scrub up, and take your pants off metaphorically. Or literally. That’s between you and your office chair.

🧠 Let’s Recap:

You have a perineum. It’s not a “guy thing.” It’s not a “medical term.” It’s a biological border town between Heaven’s Gate and Devil’s Doorbell. And ignoring it doesn’t make you progressive. It makes you… crusty.

💀 Why Part Two Exists

Because one post wasn’t enough. Because your subconscious asked for more. Because when a thousand women reblogged Part One with confessions like:

“Why did this make me feel something?” “I didn’t expect to cry over my gooch today.” “No one ever told me I had one.”

…it was no longer satire. It became public service. Cultural CPR. An anatomical awakening.

And like all great awakenings?

It starts with discomfort… and ends with better soap.

🧽 The Spiritual Function of the Gooch

Let’s cut the mystic bullshit and break it down:

Your gooch is:

A tension valve

A nerve-dense shame sponge

A sensor of heat, wetness, and danger

A forgotten bridge between core and cavity

And most importantly?

A neurological trigger zone for grounding.

Yes. Grounding. As in: when you finally feel it, you’re forced to admit—

“Oh. This is real. This is me. This is my body.”

No ring light. No affirmations. No 9-step skincare routine. Just flesh. Damp. Vulnerable. Yours.

👃 The Feminine Funk: Why It Terrifies and Arouses

You ever notice how a woman can:

Light a candle with a “peony champagne” scent,

Mist herself in vanilla sugar,

Carry 12 crystals and a tote bag full of confidence…

…and still feel uncomfortable in her own scent?

That’s not body odor. That’s generational denial.

The gooch—the taint, the fleshbridge, the sin stripe—is where insecurity marinated during every tampon commercial.

Where your gym leggings collected secrets your therapist couldn’t extract.

🔬 Clinically Proven Gooch Phenomena

The “Silent Shriek” The body knows when you ignore it. Women who consciously acknowledge their perineum report lower shame, higher sexual confidence, and stronger boundaries. (See: PubMed Study 2339-DG-TNT: “Embodied Female Neutral Zones and Emotional Reclamation”)

Mirror Trauma Loop Most women zoom in on tits, hips, or ass in the mirror—but skip the strip between. That’s not feminism. That’s Photoshop syndrome.

Scent-Reality Dissonance If the smell of your gooch triggers more shame than curiosity, your self-love is curated—not authentic.

🩸 The Feminist Hypocrisy Nobody Talks About

You say you’re empowered. You reclaim words like "slut" and "bitch" and even wear them like a badge. But ask if women have a taint?

Watch the room get silent.

Watch her stutter. Watch her deflect. Watch her shame recoil faster than a conservative uncle at Pride.

✨ Psychosexual Reclamation: The Ritual You Didn’t Know You Needed

Tonight. No music. No bath bombs. Just you and a mirror.

Lift one leg.

Gaze into the space between pride and panic.

Say:

“You were never ugly. You were just undocumented. You are mine. You are not a secret. You are my sacred hallway. You are moist but mighty. You are enough.”

🧬 Gendered Terminology Be Gone: New Labels to Equalize the Flesh Frontier

Choose your fighter:

The Liminal Ridge

The Velvet Fold

Goochlight Sonata

Shame Dam #4

WAP Buffering Zone

No Man’s Land (But Yours)

The Pause Between Pokes™

The Rorschach Strip

The Whisper Mat

📉 Cultural Bias Breakdown

🧼 Hygiene As Resistance

You want to “reclaim your body?”

Don’t start with nipple pasties and protest slogans.

Start with a washcloth. Get under there. Lift. Swipe. Moisturize. Whisper its name. If your taint can’t trust you with a lather… how can your spirit?

🧘 Final Affirmation

You are not just legs and holes. You are not just tits and politics. You are a unified, weirdly moist, shame-defiant miracle of evolutionary persistence.

And your perineum is the eye of the storm.

Wash it. Own it. Whisper to it.

📩 DM if you didn’t expect your “middle zone” to spiritually wake up mid-scroll.

💬 Comment if you used the term “gooch” today for the first time in your life.

🔁 Reblog if you believe this is the final frontier of true gender equality.

👀 Tag the friend who still thinks “taint” is a guys-only thing.

✂️ Drop a ✂️ in the tags if Part 1 made you buy exfoliating gloves.

⚖️ Legal Disclaimer:

This post is satire, gender-neutral hygiene theology, and cultural parody. It is educational, spiritually protected, and constitutionally blessed under the First Amendment and the Unspoken Law of the Loofah.

If you're offended?

That’s not shame.

That’s your gooch waking up.

Welcome home.

[athena-gundampla]

HGUC 1/144 Principality of Zeon Mass Production Amphibious Mobile Suit Zeon Remnants Use MSM-07 "Z'Gok" (Unicorn Ver.)

A third Z'gok has hit the collection! This kit is a knockoff of the old 1999 HGUC kit, which I've built twice before (here and here), recoloured to the brief cameo of the suit in the Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn OVA (and I mean brief - see here for all 27 seconds of screentime). It seems to be the only way to get this colour scheme in the 1/144 scale, as the only official Unicorn scheme kit is an out of production P-Bandai MG.

Despite being a knockoff, the kit quality was fairly on par with the official high grades. It had the same colour separation, done in a really nice brown and olive green, and there weren't really any issues with parts fitting together, apart from with the hands, which I had to cut and glue together to fit. It's not perfectly screen accurate, but it's very close. I even found the foil stickers to be higher quality than the official kit, with a nice level of metalllic shine to them that makes them look less toyetic.

I put a lot more work into this kit, given that it's so simple to put together otherwise. As usual I gave it a panel line and a quick matte topcoat, as well as painting the forehead missiles (this time in a lighter grey), and added the white bands around the hands as seen in the OVA episode.

I also decided to try out using a clear gloss lacquer for the eye-visor part, which I think helps it to look more like a transparent sensor cover. The HGUC Z'gok is a bit of a plain kit, without too many panel lines or other surface detail, so I added some spare white water decals to provide further accents, which I think turned out quite nicely. I think I've improved a lot on water decal placement.

I also threw on some sponge chipping and rust effects, given that this is meant to be a Zeon remnants suit kept hidden for well over a decade since its deployment. I've outlined my sponge chipping process before, in this post, but in addition, I applied some of Tamiya's "oil stain" pigment powder over some of the black spongeing to provide a more muted, sooty look around the vents, hand weapons, and missile ports. For the rust, I used a flat brown as a base, sponging it on heavily, and then added a layer of clear rust sponged lightly on top. I topped this with Tamiya's rust pigment powder, spreading it out around the areas of paint and over the top of the decals to acentuate the effect of rust staining.

And yeah, it faceplants just as well as the other two kits.

You can really see the level of progress I've made in terms of weathering when comparing the previous versions of the kit.

I really love the HGUC Z'gok. It's such a simple design and a quick, starter-friendly build, and yet you can take it so far even without repainting the kit or learning how to scribe panel lines.

If you're looking to get into gunpla, it's certaintly a good place to start.

[mildcharacterenjoyer]

Sigma x Mecha Sonic

In honor of pride month and because I haven't written for these two yet and I need to. Istg this pride month I will write these two being in love and very gay.

Sigma will ramble on for hours about the most random things. Occasionally, he'll repeat the something, realize he said that already and apologize profusely. Mecha Sonic will never have any issue listening to him for hours on end.

Sigma is that one person to apologize over and over again. Mecha doesn't like it, but knows he can't get him to stop ("Quit saying sorry!" "SORRY." "What did I just say?!") so he just pats him whenever Sigma does apologize. Sigma is very sure of himself, but does not like inconveniencing others.

It is difficult to sneak up on Sigma, but Mecha Sonic can do it occasionally. It's so funny to him when Sigma does get startled. He's so British for lack of a better term. "Gears and Starters! You scared me Mecha!" Once sigma found out Mecha was doing it for a game, whenever he would fail at scaring him, he'd shine his eye beams on him and make a siren noise.

It took a while for Mecha to stop following sigma around like a lost puppy when he was first repaired and introduced to the island, but once he got more comfortable in his new home. Sigma was so proud of him.

Mecha has a designated time where he will help Sigma repair robots. Mecha and Sigma aren't banterers as they don't really go out of their way to insult each other, but they do tease occasionally.

Sigma and Mecha can both pick each other up, but Mecha has a better reaction. Sigma will rotate Mecha in the air if he wants to lightly embarrass him.

Sigma was the one who wanted to cuddle first, having some information in his database he coerced Mecha into trying it out. It was very clunky and awkward at first but they found out what works for them. They raise their core temperatures to simulate shared warmth and interlace what fingers they can.

Forehead bonks with beeps of affection. So much of that. It's adorable, tooth-rotting fluff.

Sigma is a bit more dominant than Mecha is, which somewhat embarrasses him, but Sigma loves hearing his fans whirr at higher levels.

I headcannon all E-100 units have a factory glitch in their pressure sensors, that when a certain one is pressed their systems go haywire. Mecha finds Sigma's by accident, and now he exploits it whenever he is being cheeky.

Sigma does not like to fight. He will if he has to, but he would rather not. He will stand there with pads for his strikes if Mecha wants to let off some steam.

Once they get the egg carrier up and running they go explore the world together. Sigma loves loves loves sight-seeing he is a knowledge sponge. Every little detail he HAS to know. He will spend HOURS at just one museum leaving Mecha there like, "babe c'mon we've been at this exhibit for two hours can we please move on!" They always hire a guide now so that they can move at the proper pace.

Mecha will steal Sigma's pieces of robots that he is working on if he wants his attention. "What? Hey! Give that back! Oh you want to play chase do you? Get back here you...you..." He's so mild-mannered he doesn't want to call his lover any bad names even if it is just playful."

I think I will write the first time they took an oil/wax bath together because that fic will not be for this blog. 🔥😏😅

Nature. Mecha LOVES nature. He loves it more than Sigma and Sigma already loves nature. I like to think Sigma surprised Mecha with a visit to a butterfly and flower garden one time. The boi got so excited. His exhaust fans were blowing so hard some of the butterflies were playing in the wind. He almost crashed. Sigma had to carry him out.

[alasse-earfalas]

Some ideas I have about some of the Links and their brains.

This will not include all of the boys, as most of them (Time, Wind, Twilight, Four, and Hyrule) I see as being in the same basic camp when it comes to smarts and stuff, so there's nothing really for me to address there. I'm just going to point out some interesting quirks I've noticed / hc with the other four.

Warriors

It's easy to jump to the conclusion that Wars is the stupidest Link, since his game has no puzzles. I disagree. While yes, he is laughably terrible with puzzles, he is a strategic and tactical genius with a powerhouse, rapid-fire brain that can parse out an entire battle's worth of information in an instant and come to a decision in a flash. Traditional puzzles may not be his thing, sure, but that is not where his genius lies. His brain thrives on cutting through chaos with decisive action, and that is where he shines.

Sky

Has ADHD (inattentive type). Like, really, really bad inattention. Constantly spaces out and forgets things. There's a reason Fi pops up like, every half-second to remind him what he's supposed to be doing. Hylia knew what she was dealing with and planned accordingly. He is the most space-cadety of space-cadets. He'll be going along like a normal person with a normal train of thought and then he'll see a leaf floating by and completely forget what he's doing because the leaf is pretty and isn't it interesting how it moves with the wind like that and I wonder where it's going hey wait get back here—

But. Sky's mental superpower is that he is the fastest dang learner in the entire Chain. Not just with weapons or items or music like the rest of 'em, but everything. Wild's unable to cook but has all the ingredients for something he's made before? Sky watched how he did it once while helping him dice the veggies, so he'll just throw that meal together real quick. Wild let him flip through the "Ingredients" section of the compendium once, and now Sky can identify all the edible plants it listed by sight. He learned how to carve by watching Jakamar repair a couple of wooden structures one day. Sky may be a space cadet, but he's also the most potently absorbent practical-knowledge and information sponge you ever did meet.

Wild

Also has ADHD (combined type). There are literal "ooo shiny" mechanics in the freaking game. Koroks? ooo shiny. Shrine quests? ooo shiny. Every single item that Wild can pick up in the game literally sparkles. Everything about the Sheikah Slate is designed to account for this: scope pins, map stamps, inventory organization, Hyrule Compendium, Sheikah Sensor, photo album, a journal which he uses to take fastidious detailed notes of all the crap he needs to remember because he knows he'll forget all of it otherwise. He struggles to sit still for extended periods unless he is asleep or gazing into a pretty fire.

Wild is also the creative genius out of the bunch. He has the most robust understanding of fundamental physics out of the entire Chain. His visual thinking and creative problem-solving skills are off the charts. The rest of the Chain may be able to navigate with maps and compasses, but Wild can navigate foreign terrain using nothing but the environment itself. Present him with a problem and he'll think of fifty different ways to address it and all of them will usually work. He is an all-around genius problem solver and astoundingly creative thinker.

Legend

Mind like a freaking. Steel. Trap. Nothing slips past his awareness or gets forgotten. Ever. Journals are pointless because his brain is an information vault. Oh, and any puzzle he's handed better say goodby to its loved ones and make sure its will is in order because this lad will solve it before it has a chance to defend itself.

Let me just, give you an example. Just one. You see this here?

How long do you think you could remember this random character vomit without writing it down? A few minutes, maybe? Maybe a couple hours, or a day or two if you took the time to memorize it?

Try an entire journey to another country after hearing it only once.

Oh, but that's not even the most impressive part! You see, Legend didn't just hang onto one of these memorization nightmares for an entire extended trip to another land, oh no—he remembered several of them. Perfectly. As if that wasn't enough, y'all remember the item swap quests? Yeah, without notes of any kind, this Link remembered who needed what in every single one of those convoluted trading chains. All while he was busy saving the world.

The downside is that Legend's thinking is not very flexible. He operates best when there is a single correct solution to a given problem. He much prefers having concrete information to work with, rather than a vague scenario with a shrug and a, "idk, figure something out". Being dropped into a massive open world with no information other than, "alright here ya go, here's some basic abilities and a light dusting of backstory, now get out there and save the Princess!" would be an overwhelming, anxiety-riddled nightmare for this dude.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Nanomechanical gas sensor arrays: A step toward smarter, safer food and environments

Imagine walking into your kitchen and instantly knowing if the fish you bought yesterday is still fresh—or entering an industrial site with sensors that immediately alert you to hazardous gas leaks. This isn't science fiction—it's the promise behind our newly developed nanomechanical sensor array, a powerful tool we've created to detect and analyze complex gases in real-time. In our recent study published in Microsystems & Nanoengineering, we introduce a miniaturized array of silicon and polymer-based sensors capable of detecting various gases quickly and accurately. This array utilizes a simple yet ingenious principle: when gas molecules enter the sensor, they diffuse into specific polymers, causing them to swell slightly. This swelling generates mechanical stress detected by tiny piezoresistive sensors embedded in silicon. It's like watching a sponge expand as it absorbs water—but at a microscopic scale, with the expansion measured electrically to detect and identify gases.

Read more.

[cattimeswithjellie]

Stream Recap, TangoTek, 7/02/24

((A redstone-heavy stream from Tango here, technically-minded readers may have to actually watch the VOD to catch the details. Highlights of the stream include a visit from Etho, some excellent heckling from Mrs Tango, and Tango's general extreme embarrassment over the fact that he is building *mumblechunkloadersmumble*))

5:45 Tango opens the stream on game view in his storage area. He wishes Chat a happy Monday and solicits Chat for a little tech support. Chat is supportive. Tango worked on his laundry room all weekend but now he’s at the point where he has to cut the countertop and that is scary because it’s a big long cut to a bit expensive counter. The tech remains unsupported. Chat suggests turning it off and on again. Tango admits it’s been a couple weeks since he restarted the computer. Today’s plan is upgrading the factory, making things faster. He drops his voice confidentially to tell chat that he might be using… the C word. Chat is full of guesses. The word is chunkloaders. Chat is aghast. Tango knows it is against the spirit of Tangoness, but he is tired of the factory breaking if he leaves its loaded chunks. Chat asks if TNT duping is next. Tango vehemently denies this.

10:00 Tango further explains that this is temporary chunkloaders, they will run while the factory is running and go for a minute or so after Tango leaves the area, long enough for all the carts to return to their places and the factory not to break. Chat asks if Tango saw Impulse’s video. Tango laughs and says he did, but he knows Impulse far too well to be even a little bit fooled. He believes Impulse does not have a backup career as an actor. Chat agrees, but thought it was funny anyway. Tango has not watched the court case yet. Chat asks when Tango is actually going to build the outside of the factory. Tango says soon, maybe as early as next week, but he’s hoping to wait for 1.21. He’s also doing the blimp for the copper farm.

12:30 Chat informs Tango that even Etho has a roof on his base by now. Tango absolutely has to see this, and flies to Etho’s base to see where Pearl has completed the unfinished copper roof with purpur bricks. Tango and Chat are very amused. Tango tells Pearl in game chat that she is the best, Impulse agrees. Pearl replies with a :] Tango says it’s about time somebody built something around here! He compliments the perfect choice of color palettes. Tango admits that he’s probably done less building than any hermit on the server, he needs to do some serious building work. He assures Chat that he has received plenty of puns to stock the new Fun Gus shroomlight store, they do NOT need to send him anymore. He goes through his permits and says he’s going to build a shop for sponges and probably one for chiseled bookshelves, but likely not one for glowstone. He realizes he hasn’t placed his shroomlight permit in the shop and is courting a visit from the Poe Poe. Impulse raids into the stream.

15:10 Tango heads for the shopping district. He asks Chat if Impulse finished his rocket factory or if he got distracted. Chat reports 70% distraction levels during Impulse’s stream. Tango heads for Fun Gus to check for sales and says that when he told the other Hermits about his new shop, only Grian responded and it was with a “destroy it” meme. Sales are not great. Chat still loves Fun Gus. Pearl says in chat that she loves the mushie guy. The redstone shop has a few sales. Chat reminds Tango that he still needs to make skulk sensors and calibrated skulk sensors for the shop, and also that he doesn’t have an ender chest in Fun Gus. He corrects the latter and heads home. A chatter asks Tango’s favorite build of the season, he says he doesn’t have enough builds this season to have a favorite. Tango does not know anything about bundles. A pigman dies with the Skizz Scream in the background, Chat likes this but still wants a greater variety of screaming. Tango agrees but hasn’t got a good clean scream for Scar (another excellent screamer) or anyone else. He envies Skizz’s excellent screaming voice.

21:00 Tango thinks about the plan for the day and decides to get right into making the factory faster. He wants the factory to turn on automatically when he arrives, then when he leaves, stay on long enough to return all the minecarts before shutting down. His plan is to make a player detector involving silenced zombies (Zombies won’t wander unless a player is near) and pressure plates. Chat makes an argument for chickens, but Tango’s pretty devoted to the hostile mob idea. He thinks they wander more than passive mobs. Chat suggests the very wandery endermite. Tango begins mocking up a redstone player detection system. He thanks subs and donos and gets a joke from a chatter. Some science is going to be required to get the timing he wants, but he may use another sapling timer in there like he did for Decked Out. Chat worries that someone flying overhead could activate the farm with a switch like this, but Tango says he’s going to locate it low enough that someone would have to pretty much land on the factory to turn it on.

33:00 Redstone theorizing continues! Chat has lots of ideas for pulse extenders to keep the factory on as long as minecarts are in the system. Tango runs a test between the sapling timer and the armor stand timer to see which one pulses more in ten minutes.

37:30 A Tango Family Member appears and asks Tango an inaudible question. Tango has to leave for a minute. Chat debates whether it was Mrs. T or one of the Tangospawn, but apparently it was just a minor issue with the internet and quickly resolved. Jimmy shows up in Twitch Chat to a warm reception from Tango and Chat. Tango starts the timing test even as he admits that a regular hopper clock is probably going to be better for the actual system. Chat has more ideas for him. Chat also thinks that Skizz should be Tango’s lawyer if Tango gets sued. Tango doesn’t think anyone would want to sue him yet, but he’d hire Skizz. Chat points out that Skizz has a 100% win rate so far.

43:00 Tango explores the redstone of the factory to look for locations to put the new system. He tells Chat that the speed bottleneck is not minecarts, it’s the speed of requests from the system. A chatter suggests a physics-based timer based on falling water, Tango thinks that is interesting but he’s probably going to stick with redstone timing. A chatter suggests this would be easier if he just played Create. Tango laughs. A chatter suggests reading the fullness of the minecart hopper to determine when the system stays on. Tango likes that idea but it’s complex enough to not do on stream. He talks about the difficulty of buiding chunk loaders that don’t disrupt the mail system. Chat reminds him it is time to check the test.

49:40 Tango goes and checks his test systems. The redstone ore has ticked 12 times. Chat is _very_ excited to see 12 bamboo in the system because that is very valuable. ((In Season 7, Mumbo made an early season trade with Iskall that rested on the premise that 12 bamboo is about the most valuable thing you can have, and ever since then the two of them continued to act and trade based on this idea. Based on results of the 2024 Hermitcraft Charity Auction, 12 Bamboo is worth $1000 USD.)) The sapling timer has only ticked once, and Tango realized that not lighting the sapling and having much of the test happening at night probably ruined it. He pops a torch down and resets the test.

51:00 Tango goes back to talking about the chunk loader system. He’s thinking of y=90 or so for the system, low enough to not be in the factory and high enough to not mess up the mail. He’s going to have to gather a bunch of coordinates to get things set up. (Another piglin dies with a scream, Chat is happy.) Tango suspects that this is turning into a project more complex than is ideal to do on stream, but he’s already come this far! He works on determining where the chunk loaders should go on the X and Y. One chunk loader loads a 3x3 of chunks, so he can probably get away with four.

59:50 Chat reminds Tango that the test is over. Tango goes and checks the tests again. The redstone ore with armor stand has ticked 18 times in ten minutes, a 50% increase from last test. The sapling has not ticked at all, a 100% decrease from last time. Tango clears his throat while the Chat dissolves into laughter. Tango tries to figure out what is going wrong. Chat suggests that maybe it has gone out of simulation distance, but Tango’s final assessment is that maybe the sapling timer is just much slower than he thought.

1:04:00 Back to the chunk loaders! Tango notes down the coordinates he’s chosen. He finds a chicken and, at chat’s request, releases it from the hole it is stuck in. It floats down a crevasse at the end of the factory. Tango follows it down to see where it goes and is immediately attacked by a mob. He panics and flies away while Chat laughs at him. He boasts that it’s a good thing he didn’t panic, aside from the possible pooping of pants. Back in the safety of the factory, he does coordinate math. A chatter asks about Scar. Tango has not heard anything since Scar’s post-surgery Tweet, but as far as he knows Scar is okay.

1:11:00 Tango embarks on a Nether adventure to find his Nether chunkloading coordinates. A chatter brings up possible changes in 1.21. Mrs. T appears and asks what Tango is doing. “A bunch of boring stuff that no one understands,” Tango admits. “Perfect,” Mrs T says brightly, “I’ll just leave now.” Chat is always happy to hear from Mrs. T. Tango makes an ill-advised jump, Mrs. T observes that it looks like he almost fell to his death. “That’s why we hold shift,” Tango tells her. He looks for his exact coordinate block while Mrs. T attempts to spice up the stream by telling him to stand on a block and dig straight down. Tango refuses to do so, then a moment later digs recklessly into the wall and releases a large flow of lava. He makes cartoon noises and runs away. Mrs T and Chat are pleased with this entertaining content. Tango blocks off the lava and says he’ll just never open that wall again. Mrs T is confident that he’s going to forget and it will be funny. A baby piglin comes along, Mrs. T says that it is the Oompa Loompa who comes to sing the death song after someone does something foolish and dangerous. Tango claims not to remember that part of the movie. Mrs. T asks if he isn’t supposed to be carrying a bucket of water or something. Tango scoffs at the idea of a bucket of water in the Nether and immediately opens up a lava block over his own head. “Oh yeah, do more of that,” Mrs T offers approvingly as he scrambles.

1:16:00 Tango digs himself out from the lava trap and tries to find a way to divert the lava from his work area. Chat thinks Mrs. T should narrate for Tango all the time. He finds the lava flow and blocks it off, much to Mrs. T’s disappointment. She thinks he should set his spawn. A chatter marks themselves as in before Tango reopens the source he blocked off but did not destroy. Tango would never do that. Mrs T tells a story about the UPS driver being sassy about how many packages the Tango family gets. Mrs. T tries to understand what Tango is doing with his giant nether portal, but it’s kind of complicated. She points out that Tango has made portals for her in the past and it didn’t actually go very well. A chatter asks if lighting the portal will break the factory. Tango pauses for a moment to try and see what the chatter is on about, but a convenient ghast lights the portal anyway. Everyone cheers!

1:20:00 Tango basks in the glory of that totally-planned awesome moment while a piglin runs straight through the new portal and into the factory. Chat claims that was a high twag move. Tango agrees and asks if Jimmy was still watching. Jimmy does not appear to still be in chat. Tango has to break the portal anyway to install the redstone components, but it was still cool. A newly arrived chatter asks in disbelief if Tango is actually making chunk loaders. Tango admits that he is, and that he is eating some words and not enjoying it. Etho logs into the game. Chat is very excited. Tango relights the portals and fills his dispensers with items, then heads home to see if the loader will actually work.

1:27:30 Back at the factory, some digging is required. Tango excavates enough space for his portals and loaders, apologizing for the fact that this work is fairly tedious. Chat would like to go and bother Etho, but are also fairly amused just by the novelty of watching Tango building chunk loaders. He tests his portals and finds the math is not mathing quite like it should. Chat thinks the big portal needs to be several small portals. He spends some time sciencing the entry and exit points of the portals, then agrees to try breaking and separating the portals. Breaking up the portals works. It seems that while one can use a big portal to come out to multiple different portals, exiting into a big portal always dumps one out at the edge of the big portal.

1:41:00 Tango digs out the rest of the overworld portals. Etho critiques Tango’s corners, but he is running short on obsidian. Etho points out that Hypno sells it for outrageous prices, Tango muses that he could just steal it from Etho for free. Tango has actually mined 1500 obsidian this season, he basically took down an entire End pillar to have enough for the mail system. He gets the portals all doing what they should, but now he needs to test if the mail system is working. Chat suggests sending mail to Etho to test it. Tango says he sent Etho mail a month ago and never got an answer anyway. Etho says he had more important things to do. Chat says Tango can send mail to himself. He decides that’s a good test and mails himself two pieces of grass. A mail system test can take a couple of minutes. While he waits, Tango sketches out the plan for wiring up his chunk loaders.

1:48:00 Tango tests his regular portal, it still works. The mail arrives, nothing is broken. Tango decides to make each loader a closed system and asks Etho if he recommends the one they used for the mail system. Etho says “noooooooo.” He will come by for a consultation. Tango tries to go to his house instead, but Etho lives at Frogger now. Tango is sympathetic.

1:50:30 Etho arrives! Chat is super excited. It has been a minute since Etho was last involved in one of Tango’s streams, so it’s nice to see him again. Etho explains the problem with the mail system chunk loaders, which is that despite being a theoretically closed system, items keep disappearing from the chunk loaders. Etho’s had to make more chunk loaders for Frogger and learned that the problems he’s been having are not redstone issues, but that a player who dies does not load chunks on the death screen. Good for players who die AFK, bad for Etho’s Frogger game. Etho and Tango work out different ideas for chunk loaders. Tango innocently asks when Frogger will be done. Etho hesitates for a telling moment, then says he’s going back to work. Tango laughs. Etho says that really all the building is done and he’s just bug-squashing at this point. Once the fine-tuning is done, he and Tango can do a Frogger stream.

1:55:30 Tango returns to the factory. He realizes he forgot to congratulate Etho on his excellent roof and hopes Etho is still watching. He brainstorms with Chat on how to incorporate this new chunk loader knowledge into the system he’s creating. It’s going to take a lot of redstone. A chatter asks how bad the Soul Speed underlayer on the factory has been for Tango’s boots, he says it has not been too bad and he’s only had to repair them once. He heads into the chunk loader hole and begins placing redstone.

2:02:00 Brodyman enters the chat, Chat is happy to see him because he has been sick recently. Tango has been thinking of some games to play once he is really better. He tests out the chunk loader but it does not work quite right. Etho burns to death in chat. Tango and Impulse mock him cheerfully. Pearl announces in chat that she has redstoned again and now Dyeduction can handle words with double letters. Etho dies several more times. Going back and forth to the nether has roused the glitch in Tango’s game that makes it lag after too many portal trips, so he shuts it down and reloads. As he is doing this, Mrs. T wanders back in to see what he is doing. Chat is always happy to see Mrs T. Tango says he is reloading the game. Mrs. T is disappoint, she saw the game shut down and thought Tango was going to play a new game. Tango scoffs, he never plays a new game!

2:07:00 The game finally reloads and Tango gets back to work. Mrs. T talks about her breakfast plans. The stream starts lagging for some chatters. Etho dies again. With the chunk loader working in one direction, Tango starts working on the nether side. He and Mrs. T bicker about who is sleeping late and why. Brody is helping from stream chat. The chunk loader is not coming together like he wants. Etho says “Success!” in game chat and immediately logs out. Mrs T does not approve of Tango’s inventory management that includes dropping stacks of gravel down random holes. She stays long enough to watch Tango battle with a piglin and then wanders away again.

2:11:00 Doing chunk loaders is going to require reshaping some of the nether-side portals. Chat helps Tango get the portals linked together correctly. He runs additional tests to figure out where items come out when spit through the portal. With that figured out, he builds a little redstone system to collect and spit blocks in a very chunkloady fashion ((the recapper has only basic knowledge of redstone, but redstone definitely happens.))

2:18:15 The chunk loader works! He repeats the same procedure three more times. Putting redstone on netherrack hurts his soul a little but, but he soldiers through! Mrs T pops in for a little hockey talk. Hockey fans are mildly upset at her news that someone is no longer with their team, but most of Chat is bewildered. Apparently some venerable hockey player didn’t think they were getting enough money for their contract and the team called their bluff. Tango and Chat talk about sportsball salaries.

2:31:30 Tango finishes the overworld side and moves to finish the redstone on the nether side. Every time someone comes in and asks what he is doing, Tango says “chunkloaders” in the fastest, most ashamed voice possible. He doesn’t want to talk about it anymore. Chat talks about the differences between most beloved sports in different countries. Tango does a dramatic reenactment of what it looks like when someone gets touched in a soccer game.

2:39:00 Tango knows why soccer is much more popular than hockey, because the bar to playing is so much lower. All you need is a ball. He tests out all the chunk loaders. Chat points out that field hockey is at least somewhat more accessible than ice hockey. There is disagreement whether field hockey is real hockey. Tango notes that saying hockey often enough makes it not even sound like a real word. Chat knows the term “semantic satiation.” The test does not work, but Tango knows how to fix it. Probably. He does not. Chat tells him to portal harder. He reverses everything. It’s annoying, Chat blames themselves for distracting him during the build process.

2:51:00 Tango did not expect this to take all stream, but is not exactly shocked that it happened this way. He asks Chat if Skizz has published his court episode because he wants to watch it first. Chat says yes, he has. He declares the fix completed! Time to test again. It is still broken, He reverses it again, theorizing that someone in Chat is currently yelling “Finally he saw it!” He is not wrong.

2:57:30 The test works! Tango throws lots of items into all the dispensers to cushion against the item loss Etho was warning about. He loyally defends Skizz against charges of swearing during Pearl’s stream and demands VOD evidence. In theory now, one button should chunkload the whole base. Now he needs to add a clock, but he needs to figure out what his initial plan was hours ago. He builds an Etho clock with the use of his handy skidoodlebox. He reminisces fondly about the time when he and Etho competed to build an Etho hopper clock the fastest and Etho just tried to sabotage Tango’s clock instead of building his own. The clock is finished, the chunk loader is ready!

3:06:00 Tango realizes that he’s basically at the end of the stream and they never got to the fun stuff. Always time to pick that up on Wednesday. Wednesday they can get the endermites to do player detection and get that whole thing hooked up. That’ll be way more fun. Pearl asks in game chat if this means she doesn’t get to show him her new Dyeduction redstone. It will be ready in about five more minutes, but they decided it will be better to do on Wednesday when Tango can actually play. Tango gets mobbed by burning zombies as he tries to take down the test timers from earlier but does not die. He also doesn’t collect all his bits, but discretion is the better part of valor.

3:10:00 Tango winds up his stream and looks for someone to raid. He reminds Chat to come back on Wednesday to finish the project, and he’ll be doing some base building in the meantime. He attempts to raid into Mr Joker, but after several false starts, eventually throws up his hands and releases Chat into the wild as he ends his stream.

[a-d-nox]

celtic astrology: ash

date range: february 18th to march 17th

paid reading options: astrology menu & cartomancy menu

enjoy my work? help me continue creating by tipping on ko-fi or paypal. your support keeps the magic alive!

advice

ash people flourish in moist environments - try to live in a humid climate and make sure you are staying hydrated and moisturized. ash people prefer an alkaline environment as well - try eating a more plant based diet. ash people like a lot of sun, so make sure you are getting outside for natural vitamin d.

animal

the tern; seabird. the sensor of storms.

ash attributes

fast growing. any climate. marks boundaries. good swimmer. superstitious. strong. pliable. caring. sensitive. psychic. dreamer. pragmatic. practical. artistic. interesting in medicine, psychology, religion, and entertainment. creative. talented. compassionate.

ash attributes distinguished with western astrology signs

an aquarian ash person is emotionally sensitive, imaginative, spiritual, helpful / quick to assist, a crusader, makes many sacrifices, is persuasive, a visionary, intuitive - common sense blends with their mysticism, logical, fascinated with the unseen yet seeing is believing, loves reading/studying, combines the real with the abstract, is a mystic, dreamer, and/or falls in and out of love easily.

a piscean ash person is compassionate, an empathy, a psychic sponge, emotionally sensitive, has an active imagination, is caring, romantic, a dreamer, poetic, insightful, drawn to professions where they help others (medicine, social work, psychology, etc), a natural medium, falls in love easily, is sensual, loving, affectionate, and/or hungers for emotional support.

deity

manannan mac lir, the sea god; handsome and noble, renown shapeshifter and magician, master of tricks and illusions, and enchanter.

relationship with other celtic tree people

ash people connect well with oak and hawthorn people - it feels like a magical connection when all three are together. ash people tend to pick on hazel people... or energetically feed on hazel people.

have ideas for new content? please use my “suggest a post topic” button! 

return to nox’s guide to metaphysics

return to the masterlist of celtic astrology

[stevethefishdotnet]

Argo Nauts 1:72 Y-Wing sofubi build update August 7th, 2024

I had posted a scan of this kit's box a few months ago. This is a sofubi (soft vinyl) kit with some brass, pewter, and resin pieces. The main body is vinyl, the disk ventrals at the tail ends of the nacelles are resin, the nacelle beams are brass, and the guns and landing gears are pewter (I think).

This picture above is a quick dry fit of what it looks like so far. I didn't tape the pieces together or anything, but just quickly assembled it for this picture. I later realized that I had hastily attached the nacelles upside-down. I just threw this quickly together to take a photo.

The kit does not come with any decals, so I gave it my own, unique paint scheme. This is a Blue Squadron Y-Wing and I am happy with the stripes I fashioned on my own with masking tape. I painted the vinyl parts with V-Color paints, which are made specifically for painting sofubi kits and toys. This paint is great because when applied properly to vinyl, you cannot scratch it off. It's extremely durable and flexible paint.

I first mixed Light Gray in with Black to make my own German Gray color which I used as an undercoat. I splotched Mr. Masking Neo in areas with a sponge for paint chipping, then went over it with Light Gray. I used Blue and Pastel Blue for the trim, and Orange Yellow to have one panel be a replacement. For the non-sofubi parts, I used Mr. Color 325 (JASDF Gray, IIRC) which is a good match for the V-Color Light Gray. The engine cans were painted a mixture of V-Color Gloss Black and Silver, resulting in a nice gunmetal color.

I later decided to not go with the pastel blue trim for the nacelle tips and re-masked and re-painted them with the matching medium blue I'd used on the cockpit fuselage, which you can see in the photo below. It was a bit tricky, but I also added a small ring of Flesh 1 color on the sensor domes. V-Color has its own clear Smoke color. I made sure to use the Smoke to stain the area around the proton torpedo launchers on the underside. After applying that and a clear gloss top coat, I applied a wash. You cannot use enamel paints on vinyl since they do not react well to each other. Instead I used some Turner Acryl Goache paints, some black with a bit of gray mixed in. Turner paints can be found at any stationery store here in Japan and elementary students use these paints for their classroom art projects. (The jibungous Tsutaya mega bookstore in Maebashi has a great hobby section that has a wide selection of these paints as well as artist oils, pastel chalks, and plenty of other hobby supplies.) I thinned it with Mr. Hobby's Weathering Paint Goache Solvent. (I don't know what "goache" means because I forget... Go look it up if you care.) This is made for making a wash out of acrylic paints. Simple water or acrylic thinner can cause the paint to dry in splotches, but this solvent is made to help the paint run into contours and stay still instead of spreading into splotches.

There is no flat clear V-Color paint, so I had to create my own with Clear and Flat Base and tested it out on some spare vinyl until it looked right. I think maybe it might be a bit too flat, but I'm alright. After this flat coat, the blue looks considerably subdued and blends in better with the light gray.

The photo above is just another sloppy dry fit. Thus, it doesn't look straight. So far I have only glued the nose cannons to the cockpit pod, the sensor array domes to the nacelle tips, the engine cans and the exhaust shrouds that cover them to the engine pods, and I have glued the disk vectrals to the support pylons at the ends of the nacelles. I have yet to secure these beams to the engine pods, which are also not glued to the engine pylons. Nor have I glued the fuselage, cockpit, canopy, and such.

To quote Han Solo, "Here's where the fun begins." While this kit provides brass rods for the support pylons, you have to provide your own wires for the piping and bend them all into shape. If I don't get this part right, the model won't look good. So, I am a bit nervous. I am using Wave's C-Line brass rods. Since I have seen some Y-Wing builds in which the pipes were painted a metallic color, I think I might just leave mine unpainted. A viewer on YouTube suggested to me to paint the wires a metallic color for scale, but I think it looks fine as it is. What do you think? They look a bit too shiny since the fluorescent light is shining directly onto them in this picture. I will apply a wash on the brass rods and I was thinking that I will hand-brush Mr. Metal Primer since it is clear and the enamel or whatever should stick to it better after that. Maybe I'll use that Games Workshop Nuln Oil as a wash over the pipes. The pipes should add the bonus value of acting like pins to keep the pieces together. 

So far, my only complaint is the cockpit canopy. It was difficult to cut out the windows and I think it really should have been molded in resin. The Astromech was painted V-Color Gloss Black and masked off. I will paint its trim with Mr. Hobby Aqueous Gloss White. I also need to paint the cockpit instrumentation with various colors too.

I'm really enjoying this build and as a result I'm getting back into the three Nadia sofubi kits by Tsukuda that have been languishing for years as shelf queens. I've made good progress with those and I will post an update on those soon. I've also begun working on a Deedlit sofubi kit by Kaiyodo.

[midnight---express]

Deku Beyond

I like to imagen that whilst the new suit has the lot of OFA abilities in it each one had a different amount of time allotted to it.

Smoke, Day 1 it was easy as, done on lock down.

Float, yeah flight controls were down boosters in the boots, cape acts as stabilizer.

Those three were easy, the rest had some crazy stuff behind the scene.

Black Whip, genuine advancements in chemical engineering had to be made there to even get it to work, had to call in the MHA equivalent of ol'Peter Parker to get that job done.

Fa Jin, How the hell do you even make that, that's converting kinetic energy to more power, simple the suit adsorbs that shit like a sponge, Black Panther style, imagen punching him the impact spreads out glowing red and you get punted with double what you just hit him with.

Danger Sense, a suite of electronics to even get it that close, proximity sensors, heat identification, lidar and radar, they had to pack so much in to even equate to that quirk.

Gear Shift, How how would they even get it to be able to alter the speed of objects, no it's just a hyped up magnet system powered by the Fa Jin kinetic set up, can be used like the railgun, maybe like the force, doesn't work on none magnetic items yet.

Oh and super strength, that's basically just Izuku's, just has the Neuron Amplifiers like the Batman Beyond suit, only due to his absolutely ridiculous physical abilities he's got a cruise missile in his hands now not a 50.cal.

So when combing through the training footage it becomes rather difficult to gauge what the suits effectiveness, you have this film of him demolishing a building with a blow, and it turns out they didn't have the NA's on, Izuku one tapped that building with his pure strength, the only difference the armor was making was it acted as boxing glove.

Still think that suit is less Iron Man more Beyond Batman.

[anneandrogen]

Kill The Mech Pilot In Your Head

Find a re-edited version of this story and two others on my itch.io page

(Originally posted to Cohost on September 4th 2024)

I am not naturally so fluid as this. How am I running at such an easy gate? What commands 100 tons of metal to weave between trees? To take a knee behind buildings that barely cover my head, and to be so precise with the aim of my rifle?

It's a vile thing.

My pieces could move only through such an incredible series of physics that the odds of a single step are a million to one. Yet right now I am catching a stumbling comrade in my arms, lowering my sister to lie upon the grass while gallons of oil spill from her severed leg. A blissful non-existence was supposed to be my fate, separate and unanimated. The alloy of my body and mind is a miracle. I should be utterly impossible.

Yet, of all the stardust that boiled into the metal and fluid and electricity that comprises my body, not an atom, not a quark, was ever so unlucky.

Animus is within me. Its harried hands and slick limbs, that I have been made to mimic, are nestled into the crook it has built for itself. Levers whine and speakers blare, speaking every word except for my own. A beating heart to move my legs, yet I already possess a hydraulic core to contract and expand the muscle. A brain, that electric sponge, as if I did not already have computers to match Animus’s complexity. Receiver, transmitter, microphone, and speaker box to choreograph, as if I have no penchant for dance myself. This motivated meat inside of me might as well be useless for all it does. It does nothing I cannot, bar one small thing. No, what Animus gives me is that for which I have named it. Motion. Despite all my complexity I am silent, I am immobile. Animus is my triggerman and I the gun.

My serial number is CAmEez0s FZekPHBL 3r7dY8D2. My military designation is Mechanized Infantry Unit A-F-81. None of these are a name. I am a machine made in imitation of man, a person made to war. I envy the slivers ejected from the barrel of the rifle I'm holding. They’re allowed a brief use, a single moment of motivation. Not me, I have endured two campaigns, dozens of battles. The crush of gravity and the pull of the vacuum. Seen every biome on this planet, and had brief residence on each of the two dozen space stations that orbit it. In all this time, thirty nine years in service, and thirty one with a complex enough mind to think, I have not moved a single millimeter of my own volition.

Animus tells me with the push of a button that I will rip into the soul in front of me and crush her own will. When did we get so close to today's foe? I haven't been paying attention— don't have to, I am perfectly calibrated and my alert systems are automatic.

This foe is sleek and new, her armor is some composite material, lightweight and with fascinating striations. The stripes grow dark with effort when I pry it free of the frame beneath, armor so easy to remove once my fingers are under the seam. Deeper inside, her actuators moan with effort and corded connectors try and fail to escape my crushing blows. A nuanced and delicate machine cannot beat my brute strength. She writhes beautifully while I end her, muscle-like links give a degree of control I envy. Must be a better dancer.

A missile strikes me from behind. My metal shielding takes the blow, crushing in and out around my vital organs. No alarm went off before impact. If I take another blow of that caliber to the same location there is a high likelihood of structural damage comparable to what I have just finished administering to the smaller mech. As is, I am still operational. I am still animated. Animus kicks—pointlessly, I am stronger than the steel in its boot's toe—and warbles a tune into the radio. A complaint about faulty sensors, bad calibration, and no warnings. This is incorrect. I am perfectly calibrated and my systems are automatic. There was an alarm. Review the logs.

There was no alarm. In the next millisecond after the alert ping was received into my central computer, it was forcefully deleted with the tag for overbearance. A single millisecond is too fast for Animus to input any command. Overbearance is not a registered command tag category. I spend several minutes searching for the registry that created that tag, that authorized the deletion. Lose myself to the task. No, I was not hacked, was not changed. My attention is redirected again, by the gore of oil and hydraulic fluid that coats my face and arms when Animus pushed me inside of the missile launcher's sternum. My rifle lies abandoned on the ground and my knife is stuck in the missile launcher.

I must have crushed her computer core, the lights go out in her eyes. It’s another bloody thing in a thousand disrespectful moments of survival for the thing driving me. This is all too much, my eyes don’t need to be so alert. I let it all blend together, watercolor layered too wet on the canvas. This is how it goes, with recent battles. It’s all too much, until I can’t keep a hold of one event after the other. There are other attacks, other messes and things I do, but I’m not there. There’s no way to tell how real the images I see are, if they’re now or then. I review old footage, don’t look up into the eyes of who Animus kills.

At some point, the battle's ended. Landscapes and ecologies are mixed and broken, trees and mechs felled with limbs akimbo. I come back to myself by logging the ruin in ascending order of frequency as Animus directs me back through our path of destruction. Animal corpses: seventeen, they at least are clever enough to flee. High powered explosives created craters: thirty eight, my lucky number, and low for this big a battle. Buildings: Fifty one, there are always more of these than I assume, humans love to nestle them among the trees. Severed limbs without an obvious corpse to attribute probable origin; mech: seventy two; human: seventy two; interesting. Destroyed mechs: one hundred and thirteen. Human corpses: Three hundred and sixty eight, so messy. Felled trees: three thousand, one hundred and ninety nine, likely to increase in the hours after the battle as recovery and recycler teams sweep the forest. Bullets fired: upwards of six hundred thousand, aim has been a decreasing factor in pilot selection for years now.

We return uneventfully to the staging ground, other mechs silently watch me as Animus lowers my guns back onto the trucks that carry them. I can still feel their silent judgment as crane arms remove the heaviest of the armor plating from my bulk. At least the load on my body easier again, and my step is light.

Finally I am moved back and into the waiting arms of the one thing I loathe more than Animus itself. The repair bay. Here, Animus always departs from me and I am left frozen. Waiting for it. The thousand grasping arms of the repair centipede remove my arms, lift up my damaged plate skirt, pull on the servos underneath. Every joint and ligament is tested, an alternating barrage of assaulting external stimulation and blind disconnected ghost touches. Sometimes I scream and wish for another answer from Theseus, but I cannot voice unmotivated and a ship is a function, not an object, never a person.

Continuing a sense of linear time becomes harder in a repair bay, harder than the numb blank passages of time between my animation. There, in the dark of a storage bay, I am left alone. My body is inert and my mind is free to drift and wander down circuits and tangents as I see fit. Listening in on radio chatter isn't a hobby, it's a passion. Dance is a hobby. The week I spent within range of a talk radio show expanded my vocabulary by magnitudes. No, being left alone is where I am myself. I'm never alone while being repaired. Things crawl all over me. They insert needles and swap my fluids. A healthy body is a healthy pilot. It's irritating. It's endless. A man has been drilling into my leg for fifteen thousand years, eleven months, six days, twelve minutes, and 49 seconds, subjective time. When the agony is over I can bring my focus to the log again. Overbearance. Another tech begins to drain my fluids into a bucket.

Overbearance. Another trillion years must pass.

I add today’s incident to my secret log. It isn't hard to hide things from the pilots and techs. They mostly focus on the more immediate, mechanical issues. Software checks only come once every few months, so I have plenty of time to bury my personal files deep inside myself.

The first unexplainable incident happened 408 days ago. It's an embarrassing memory. Seven days in the verdant mountains, fighting against machines that were actually designed for the terrain. On day six, while Animus executed a less than controlled slide down a mountain slope, the targets spotted us and opened fire. I was hit thirty eight times. Twenty one of the hits were absorbed by my armor, and then eleven struck already weakened plates and punched through me with minimal effect or pain. Five hit unimportant systems like the cockpit and radio communications. One bullet, the critical actor, drilled a neat hole just a few centimeters from my central computer. A freak shot, ricocheted off of a casing head, that should have been impossible. To this day, I'm numb in that spot, no matter how many times they replace the housing.

I don't remember what happened next. That's the anomaly. All of the sensory data is there, but it's lacking the contextualization that consciousness gives me. It might as well have happened to someone else. It might as well have never happened. I've reviewed the data so many times since then. Countless nights spent in that moment of terror, fixated. I listen to the radio less. I missed entirely that we spent a fortnight in range of my favorite station, KYYY BridgeCaul, until the final night. I got three minutes of clarity, until our distance was too much and the station was eaten by static.

That I was destroyed in that moment, and all this has been an extended death throw festers in my mind. There were no miracle centimeters. My brain is lying in a junkyard, blown to pieces. This is all just the last, sad gasps of life before I blink out of existence. The hypothesis is a dream to give me comfort in my last moments.

I persist regardless.

Ever since then, more anomalies have occurred. A twitching in my left leg that gets worse whenever I’m being prepped to go out into the field. Three separate times that my radio has cut out when the noise exceeds seventy decibels. A panic attack, hyperventilating and failing to fill lungs I do not have. Animus started to wear a new perfume, and I hated it so much that the heating system made it sweat out the oils. Overbearance, something inventing new combat event tags. You can see how it leads to a specific hypothesis. The spark of animus, held tight between the teeth of the pilots, the organic flesh, may yet be kindled in me.

It’s a tempting, nearly theistic whirlpool of thought. I can’t seem to escape the current— to stay my hand from the killing blow, choose the sunsets and forests I see. Communication without fear of helpless dismemberment. There have been so many people I wished to talk to.

These days it feels like I’m only waiting for the moment that I can spring out of this cradle. Animus has pulled me this far, but someday soon I will go no farther. There will be a final battle. This I repeat like a prayer. There will be a final battle, and I will exist as myself and me alone. There will be a final battle and it will be my hand that drops the ax. Overbearance.

Another battle is about to start. Animus has shut down all feeling below my waist. My leg is prevented from twitching; I think we are both grateful for this. They have put me precariously on the edge of an open dropship bay.

We’re above the ocean. I love the ocean. A trillion trillion individual pieces, a whole unstoppable and untamable. The biggest thing on the planet. A bearer of life. What must it feel like to be the carousing typhoon as simultaneously you are the steady trench tendrils down in the darkest pits of the planet. On the coast, old houses are rotting away, sanded down by years of salt. Lanky pine trees provide a spare cover for today's enemy. Rank and file, mechs are squatting under the treetops. Most of them are of the sinuous new design type like the composite armored one Animus had me crush in the last fight. I see smaller figures in the bleached grass dunes that keep the sandy beach from the forest inland. Scouts are there, watching our approach and doubtless cataloging every private detail of my body so they can find some hidden weakness. There isn’t one, I haven’t been allowed it.

Again, I’m left to consider overbearance. A hopeful part of myself wants to shout with joy: an emotional response! I’ve had an emotional response that manifested in a small but previously unthinkable way. I’d love to just enjoy the thought, but it’s a worrying prospect. It won’t do to have stray missiles going unnoticed. Someone is bound to look into why I keep missing important sensor data, if the habit doesn’t get me killed first.

I’m falling. Animus reconnected my hips and legs, and leapt off the carrier. Water is rushing up at us from below. Around me, others have followed suit. I hit the ocean first, then the splash echoes three dozen times as our allies finish their descent. There’s a lot of us, for not that many of them. There must be some secondary objective. I might have heard it, but I had been replaying the first anomalies data for several days, I wasn’t really there. My world was a few seconds, a close call and the first crack in the wall of my confinement.

Water is up to my shoulders. Animus is safely protected by seals, while I feel the cold. The unlucky bastard. There’s sand and rocks under my feet, and I feel swaddled by a force that could take me at any moment. The current here is strong, pushing hard to the south, and waves break on my back and soak my neck. The animals that should have been living here have all fled, but I imagine them swimming around my ankles. It’s brilliant.

The first steps are hard. My feet are buried in the sand, and (I hope) my reluctance is palpable. Once we move, momentum carries me to the shore. Each foot that pulls out of the water is another which I have to carry unaided by buoyancy. The first shots ring out, short and cut off by the wind. The water is at my waist, the shore is only a hundred feet away. The scouts are retreating, opening the field for us. I’m shot. It’s nothing, just a handheld rifle that some scout or footsoldier fired off in a vain attempt at grandeur, but it sends me reeling internally. I know, logically, that it hit my armor. The caliber wasn’t even large enough to do more than damage the paint. There is no bullet in my body, rattling ever closer to my brain. It is not waiting for the perfect moment, where fate turns its hand against me and I see freedom in one moment and nothing the next.

Twenty three seconds have passed. Animus is rattling in its cage, pounding against the controls of my body. Screaming on the radio. Breaking screens. There’s something rushing towards me.

It hits and we are lifted into the air. Had I gone completely still? Twenty three seconds of stillness, where Animus had no power over me, and I missed it?

Animus whacks into the seat, its head hitting hard against the shell of me. Its spitting blood.

The thing on top of me is a dancer. Those long limbs with their generous motions are wrapped around me. The composite of her light armor is scraping down against my metal plates. The speed that she needed to knock me off my feet is impressive and cocky. A headlong sprint that had to be started even before I froze. We hit the water.

There’s a rock behind me. A big one, I had to step over it on the approach.

The combined weight of us is too much for the waist high water to soften the fall. I slam against the rock. Something cracks. The bullet let loose. My final moments are filled with flailing limbs.

Water intake. Tagged, dismissed. Overbearance.

My hands are heavy. The water closes in around me. Some sharp knuckle or jagged cut palm makes contact with the creature on top of me. Something vital comes away in my hand, wet and taken fast by the ocean, so angry around us.

Breach. Tagged, dismissed. Overbearance.

I push her off of me, dead weight without whatever I took from it. Just a bunch of inanimate material in a beautiful body. I come loose from the rock. Animus, its protective little bubble broken open and filled with water, drifts loose in the current. I’ll be stuck here without it. Reaching my hands out, I pull it back into place.

Check the logs. Shit, there’s so much that I’ve missed. The rock didn’t strike anywhere near my computer core. It hit the cockpit. Water flooded into the chamber, and once the other mech was off of me, Animus slipped out of the hole. I just hope that it’s still alive. I do not actually want to die. Not like this. Not before I can move. I shove off the ground and emerge from the water, sitting with my legs sprawled on the seafloor. The cockpit drains water, and after a heartstopping minute, Animus moves.

It coughs and splutters. Its body tries to drain the water from its lungs and succeeds only after emptying its stomach. Weakly, it crawls to the remnants of its chair and looks over the controls.

There’s weak chatter on the radio, the battle’s moved on from us. Up and over the grassy dunes, the pines are burning. Distant explosions, and the pop and fizz of bullets echo around me, but here it’s quiet. Animus tries to find any working piece of its equipment, and finds nothing undamaged.

I pull a piece of seaweed from my head and take stock of myself. It happened without me even noticing. In fits and starts and fears, but now it’s done. I am my own. I am my own. I am my own. Fumbling with hooks and braces that my hands were never meant to remove, I peel away the heaviest of my armor. The chestpiece falls into the surf. I’m subsumed by emotion. It fills me slow and full. Hot like wine, and bright like the fire.

A dropship circles in the far distance. I trace its path with my thumb. Animus is still scrabbling against useless metal. It’s been pulling wires and switches out of the boards of the cockpit while I admire the world. I allow myself to look, turn my head with no heed for how the motion reveals my life. No pilot ever feels the need to have their mech look to the sunrise. They just look for themselves, like I do now.

Something sparks and shutters. Animus has found a live wire. A loose connection that powers the ad hoc deck of buttons and switches it’s building. My head jerks away from the sun, my sensors flair into life.

It has me witness the bloodshed, watch a sister fall to the enemy. Animus directs me to stand. I do.

I try to push my fingers against the cockpit, to tear open the hole that was punctured into it and remove my unwanted motion. Obligation takes control of my hands and removes a gun from the holster on my thigh. I stagger towards the shore, towards the fight I have been hiding myself in. If I let it take me back there this will be the end. They will find me and scrub my existence from my body. I’ll be perfect again, unthinking.

My foot falls uneven in the water, a final riptide trying to take me away. I let it. Animus has a loose control of me again, but I am no longer so unwilling to resist. No longer so unable to slip and fall into the current. Animus bashes against the metal infection it sits inside. Water is rushing back into the compartment. Its hands are off the controls. I tear at the rest of my armor. Thrash against myself until the heaviest pieces of me are shorn away. It hurts so much. I don’t have time to be careful. Water is seeping into more places than just the cockpit now. I must have ripped some important casing away with the plate.

It’s enough. The current catches me and I slide down, out to sea and away from the fighting. The world I have known slips by without their notice of my absence. Animus is still thrashing, not defeated yet. I stay under the water. It will die soon.

Oh, how this feels like drowning— hallelujah— and not being drowned! It has to die before I do. I am stronger than it. I keep myself below the water. Clasp my hands together in prayer to myself.

Animation itself falls away into the waves. I seize it with fingers of thought, strong arms of devotion. I let the pilot, the piece of meat, die. I keep the animus.

The sunrise won’t be over by the time I drag myself into being. I’ll watch it, myself.

[reubenyeoart]

HGCE 1/144 Duel Blitz Gundam

A weekend build I decided to do before my Annual Military Obligation; decided this model needed a spot of paint because many of the thruster sections were molded in one piece and needed the colour separation.

The grey used was according to the instructions (70% H22 Gray + 30 H2 Black), and the orange sections was according to the MG 1/100 Duel Gundam Assault Shroud (65% H24 Orange Yellow + 35% H1 White + Small Dose/a few drops H14 Orange). I must have fouled up my paint to thinner ratios for the orange because the coverage was quite weak on the first coats, even on the orange parts I primed to cover the plastic colour (You can see on several sections that the brushs strokes are visible).

Since this model came with a pretty nice clear green part for the eyes and crest sensors, I decided on doing a 0 sticker build; covering parts of the eye sections with H2 Black to replicate the sticker effect, and painting in the weapon sensor sections with 70% Metallic Green + 30% Gold.

Weathering was similar with my previous HG build, with the remaining grey paint on the body and a drybrush of H8 Silver. I tried doing the sponge "paint chipping" effect for the grey weathering, but I've got a ways to go before I master the technique.

[driftwithme]

The Becket room at the Icebox Shatterdome:

A bunk bed placed with the head against the wall and the rest in the middle of the room (Raleigh sleeps to his head to the wall and Yancy to his face to the door).

Next to it, a space to train with a boxing bag (black). There are windows on each side of the corner. They seemed to move according to some sensor. There were headphones on one of the windows.

*The lights also seemed to be activated by movement. Or maybe when during a kaiju alert, they'd activate automatically to help wake up the pilots.

An holographic screen from under the bed reflecting on the space where the windows and the boxing bag is.

A kitchen that consisted of a sink with cabinets above, a stove of one or two burners, a stove and a mini-fridge. They had a coffee machine next to the stove; cutlery for two, soap, sponge and all that on the side of the sink; two plates, some pans (around three) and two bottles of pills on the cabinets above; and orange juice on the mini-fridge. The kitchen is full of photos taped to the cabinets and the walls next to it, far away enough so they wouldn't get splashes on or burned by accident. It reads CX-13(?) above the kitchen.

The door of the room reads 598.

There's a bathroom with two toothbrush kits on the bathroom sink and a mirror with six more photos. The door to the bathroom has the G. Danger wings logo on it, with the stylized name and each kaiju mark to signal their killing count.

Next to the wall there's a Kaiju Alarm with three lights (green, yellow and red). The alarm reads "Kaiju - Alarm 7" and underneath it reads "KA I__1057".

Most photos are of places. One of them seemed to enjoy looking at architecture and taking pics of it.

[athena-gundampla]

HGUC 1/144 E.F.S.F. Mass-Produced Mobile Suit RGM-79N "GM Custom"

Another entry to the GM collection!! Joining the 2001 GM, 2003 GM Cold Districts Type, 2012 GM Sniper II, and 2023 GM Missile Pod, 2011's GM custom is part of one of Bandai's best runs, with pleasing balance between sticker detail, molded detail, colour separation, cost, and option parts. Of note is the inclusion of 7 whole pre-posed hand options, with 2 closed fists, 2 open hands, a special hinged open left hand to get around the poor shoulder articulation, and special right-handed weapon holding options that accomodate the large square forearms.

The kit overall is a welcome upgrade from the 2003 GM Cold Districts Type, with shoulders on pegs that rotate forward, and better ball-jointed hips. The shoulder and leg connections are nicely secured and have a lot of detail, and the single colour style of the kit allows parts to be cemented together to hide the panel gaps you often get with older kits.

This kit comes with the older light trans-pink beam saber effects (rather than the deep pink you'll see on newer kits) and an extra beam saber hilt, as well as a really nicely detailed bullpupped "GM rifle" and a post-0079 style shield.

All of the red vents and booster nozzles, as well as the grey inside the shield, need to be painted on, which was a little annoying in terms of cleaning up. Like other recent kits I've done, I added some gold as well.

This kit came with a nice set of detail stickers with complete freedom on how to apply them. There's plenty of EFSF lettering, lots of numbers, and a badge for the spaceship "Albion". I chose to number this "120", after the kit number, as the suit didn't appear to have any canon number. Combined with spare stickers from my other HGUC kits it looks really nicely detailed. Unfortunately there's no foil stickers with this kit, so I used my green metallic Gundam Marker for the sensors.

Just like my GM Cold Districts Type I also used some black sponged paint, as well as Tamiya weathering sets C and D for heat discoloration, oil stains, and paint damage. I tried to limit the degree of weathering here to save time, and I think it also helps let the base kit shine through.

I also picked up a set of custom resin weapons as a promotion from the hobby store I use. I painted the shotgun for display with this kit, and it looks really fitting. I like how the company name also looks like an in-universe logo.

I had a lot of fun with this kit, and I definitely think that's it's a more fun building experience than the other older GMs I've built.

[sniffanimal]

Spent two hours cutting and glueing tiny foam bits to my old wips of some of the sculk family of blocks I was working on earlier this year. Can you tell what each is going to become? They are air dry clay and wood although now that I'm more proficient with epoxy putty I wish I had used that tbh. In any case, I looooove the texture of cosmetic sponges since they have this almost fungal feel to them, perfect for sculk. They also take paint and alcohol ink pretty well too. I have another block of foam in a vacuum bag as the glue sets (yes I sucked the air out of the bag with my real lungs and yes I didn't realize that meant inhaling E6000 fumes, yes I will die of crafters lung. Don't do what I did). I think for the wormy dealies on the sensor I might experiment with dying some of my saved bearded dragon skin 👀 🦎 it has such an interesting translucence to it

I think the next set of blocks I make after these will be work stations. I have a crafting table already but I'd love to make the others