#team rocket sweep

[thats-rough-buddy04]

Prepare for Trouble!! Make it Double!!!

Congrats to Team Rocket for winning

Thanks to everyone who voted! Wrightworth was second and Zukka place 3rd

I hope this was fun for everyone, I had fun even if I’m bitter about Soukoku! I plan to post a bunch of funny and nasty reblogs that I got tomorrow so look out for that

Also if y’all have some good poll suggestions comment them or reblog them cause I got a couple of ideas

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

See you next year

[lazorsandparadox]

I cant vote because i dont have a twotter anymore but i hope to GOD that james wins the most pathetic man poll. Howl deserves it more, but the winner goes against reigen and i think james has a better chance of beating reigen than howl because he appeals to the reigen fanbase more

[doberbutts]

just a random guy w no stake in this but yr guy also fully regurgitated israel’s/zionist lies abt the “””misfired rocket””” hitting the hospital as if there isn’t documented evidence of israel admitting to - wanting to do that - doing that - expressing joy at the fact that they did that. the israeli govt spent days saying they were gonna bomb a hospital, bombed a hospital, /said they bombed the hospital/, and then changed their story to “misfired rocket” among other things (not a single hamas rocket is capable of that kind of destruction…) when they got flack for it. and Avi has yet to retract that statement despite it being another blatant lie from the israeli govt.

& obv this is much smaller but when pointed out that what ngaiman said that was zionist (“israel has the right to exist”, which he reconfirmed was still his stance), avi doubled down on that…not being zionism. and said ppl only call gaiman a zionist bc he’s jewish (which.. sure some ppl do, but the claim that a settler colonial state (or any state, tbh) has an inherent “right” to exist, and specifically that Israel has a “right” to exist, is literally zionism. which avi seems to think is not.)

i don’t think he’s a zionist himself but he certainly repeating a lot of zionist bs uncritically

I literally just got an article this morning talking about the forensics going on regarding the hospital bombing, from CNN, citing multiple sources saying the same thing; that it was a misfired rocket originating from somewhere in Gaza and probably not intentional, with all parties with munitions denying that it was theirs despite the firing of rockets nearby from all of said parties. No shrapnel or casings have yet been recovered and until that is recovered there is no way to know for sure where the device was made or where it came from.

So unless you are leaning on the antisemitic claim that Jews control the media, either all of CNN's sources are wrong including the Palestinian ones, or he's literally just repeating what multiple sources have been saying as of this morning.

Also conveniently you're leaving out that he's also stated that it doesn't matter where the device came from, the targetting of hospitals and other civilian centers is abhorrent and an immediate ceasefire needed to be called the moment it happened. Weird how he's not praising it, he's stating what the forensic team on site is reporting, and he's stating that no matter who is at fault they shouldn't be involving peaceful civilians.

As for whether or not Israel should exist... where exactly do you want the Israelis to go? A significant number of them were born there, with ancestors that originated there, as Arabic people living alongside Palestinians. They do have just as much right to be there as Palestinians because they have common ancestry with Palestinians. Those that came from elsewhere largely were forcibly expelled as an act of genocide- "going back where (they) came from" means going back to somewhere that's made it plain they are not welcome and they'll be killed on sight. They went to Israel because they were told that was the only correct choice for them.

Also I think it is incredibly dicey to be wielding "Jews are inherent outsiders that need to go back where they came from" because that is an antisemitic statement that has echoed across history ANDDDDD I think it's uhhhh incredibly hilarious as afronative to hear fucking Americans saying this when we're on stolen land ourselves with a government that is still trying to wipe out the few indigenous people we have left and sweep its continued atrocities under the rug.

What's that saying about glass houses and stones? If you're on American soil and you're not indigenous, how about you go back where you came from? Oh? You were born here? You have a family history here? You have deep ties to the area and can't just uproot your entire life? It's a little more complicated than just getting on a plane back to Europe or Asia or Africa? Hmm. Interesting. Don't you know that makes you complicit in genocide? No no no, it doesn't matter that your family was fleeing genocide yourselves, or that your ancestors were forced to come here, or that you personally took no part in the ongoing political war being waged against the dwindling number of Natives we have left. You don't belong here. You need to be forcibly detained and expelled. Maybe even kept in a cage for a while until we figure out what to do with you.

Whoop. But that's the silent part you're not saying. You can call it Zionist if you want. But I think people need to think a little more critically about the actual logistics of what caused this problem in the first place, before firing off about it. Especially not when a lot of these talking points are at their heart incredibly antisemitic.

[andreabandrea]

I absolutely don't mean this in a bad way, but I think a lot about how Pokemon is a power fantasy for kids. And I know this is obvious because it's a game for children, but let me ramble.

Think about it: you can go wherever you want, knowing you're safe because your Pokemon will protect you. In the later games, you can dress however you want and express yourself freely. You can connect with nature and communities of friendly kids and adults around you. You can make a meaningful, positive impact on the world. You can stand toe-to-toe with adults who, in real life, would ignore or even belittle you because you're just a kid. (And, of course, you have superpowered pets that love you.)

I think about how in the original games, Brock and Misty are presented as kids/young teens and become friends with Ash. But, Lt. Surge presents a difficulty spike-- if you chose Bulbasaur, you can easily sweep the first two gyms with it, but now you don't have a supereffective match up unless you plan more. I think it's meaningful, then, that Lt. Surge is portrayed a big, scary adult man and military to boot. In the anime, he's presented as being condescending and intimidating toward Ash. But, you as the player are able to overcome this intimidating man through the power of your Pokemon. The same can be said for people like Team Rocket and Giovanni-- Giovanni's original sprite in Red & Blue makes it look like he's looming over you, sneering at you.

It can easily be forgotten by adult fans, but you're seeing this world through the perspective of a child. Giovanni looming over you represents how it feels to be a child, powerless, and face an adult who's cruel to you. But you defeat him at every match up.

Satoshi Tajiri would go on to say that Pokemon was inspired by his childhood, in which he'd go out and collect bugs. Miyamoto would say that the first Zelda game was inspired by his childhood in which he'd explore the local area and caves and so on.

It makes me sad to think that, as the world becomes more modern, more urbanized, and (as parents tend to see it, at least) more unsafe, this childhood that inspired these classic games become further out of reach for kids. When I was growing up, I lived in a suburb full of concrete. I couldn't walk anywhere, and even if I could, my mother was too anxious to let me just go around unsupervised.

This is why getting the bike is such a big moment in Pokemon-- you can go so much farther as a kid on a bike! But, I also could only ride my bike up and down my boring street before running into a major street full of cars going 50 MPH that would have murdered me instantly.

This isn't a doom post. I still believe that we can repair the damage that capitalism and cars have done to the world. But, I think that in times like this, it's more important than ever for kids to have access to these power fantasies, these escapes from a world that they have no ability to fix, but still suffer from regardless.

Ironically, I think that when I play Pokemon now, I play it to feel smaller rather than to feel bigger, the opposite of how I played it as a kid. Now, it's comforting to escape from work and stress into a world in which your only concerns are walking to the next town, catching a new Pokemon, and maybe fighting a gym leader. The same can be said of any piece of media that someone is nostalgic for, but I think Pokemon feeds into it well because its design is so baked in the experience of being a child.

When I'm playing Pokemon, especially when replaying an old game, I still remember things like only saving in Pokemon centers so that my character could sleep there in a nice building, or imagining them setting up camp if I had to save and quit on a route. If I had time, I would feed my Pokemon some Pokeblocks or etc. at my little 'camp' so they wouldn't be hungry (which is why I felt like the cooking and camping systems from SwSh were so real for me, haha).

I don't think that there's a 'wrong' way to play Pokemon-- I know people enjoy competitive Pokemon, and strict challenge runs, and stuff. And I can enjoy that, too! But, for me, Pokemon is about childhood, you know?

[raccoonfallsharder]

rocket raccoon prompt week ✷ day six bite ✷.⁺⋆˚₊

low-grade spice & fluff | no use of yn | gn reader | minific | word count: 2,266.

“That’s — a big frickin’ scar you got there.”

Your eyes flare wide and you twist in your seat so fast you nearly spin off it, staring at the stranger who has just hoisted himself onto the barstool next to you. Not because you recognize the voice — you don’t yet, though you will — but just because it’s such a personal remark.

And you’re a little bit sensitive about the scar, if you’re being honest. It’s something of a souvenir.

Then recognition clicks in. Because there he is: short. Covered in fur. Velveteen ears and a dark mask, and a plush ringtail that sweeps behind him. Eyes like red stars.

Cutie.

You stare at him, breath sucked right out of your lungs. He’s got hesitation scrawled and sprawled all over his face: ears flicking down and tail lashing once, nervously. His claws clink against his massive, nearly-empty stein of Xitarish whiskey. 

You tear your eyes away and stare down at the ring of pearly ridges stitched into your arm — like maybe there were answers carved into your flesh there all along, and you’d just never noticed. Or like each toothmark is a lodestar, and together the circle of them can help get you home. 

“Isn’t it rude? To comment on a stranger’s scars?” you breathe out, trying to buy yourself time as all the pieces begin falling together. 

He blinks at you, and shifts uncomfortably. “Uh, Jemiah.” He gestures at the owner of The Boot, who just so happens to be your boss. “Next drink’s on me.”

“Sure thing, Rocket,” Jemiah says warmly — far more warmly than you’ve ever heard from him before. 

You feel your eyes flare wide. “You’re Rocket?” you manage to utter, eyes scrolling up and down him again. “One of the people who bought this damn skull? The pilot — the Guardian of the Galaxy or whatever?”

Somehow he looks even more uncomfortable. “Guardians of the Galaxy. Plural. We’re — a team.”

You exhale slowly — measuredly — and try to loosen all the small feathers of confusion crowding up your head, downy-soft. And as you let go of all those wisps, adrenaline rushes in to take their place: the intoxication of suddenly seeing him. Meeting him — for real this time. Having a name to put with the memory. 

Your smile blows wide. You can’t help yourself. 

“The cutie has a team,” you murmur under your breath, and you feel the blood rush to your cheeks when his eyes sharpen on you. He shifts on his stool, but his shoulders relax a little, and the corner of his mouth twitches. 

“Don’t listen to him, Jemiah,” you call out. “His drink’s on me.”

Your boss ducks to hide his grin even as the cutie in question — Rocket, you think, with a pleased little grin — grimaces. “Wait—“ he starts.

You click your tongue and shake your head, cutting him off and grinning. “Not a chance. You bought this stupid skull out from under the Collector and made it a tolerable place to live? There’s no way you’re buying the drinks. I have to show my gratitude somehow.”

You drop your lids to half-mast and raise a brow, hoping he knows that you’re happy to show your gratitude in a few other ways as well. The risk of offering brings a nervous little buzz to your belly. 

As for him — well, you get the sense that he’s a guy who doesn’t let himself flounder very often, but right now his face is flickering between so many emotions that you can’t possibly catch them all. Shock, and then a brief flash of something like smugness, followed immediately by a flash of narrow-eyed skepticism — then a sort of uncertain hesitance, a brief twinge of humor, and finally, a cynical half-sneer. Then he starts right back at the beginning and does it all over again.

It’s fascinating.  

“Did you know,” you say slowly when Jemiah sets down the fresh drinks, “that I work here at The Boot?”

The stranger — no longer a stranger, you suppose; no longer just the cutie — no, Rocket pauses in his cycle of expressions, takes a slug of his new stein of whiskey, and shakes himself out. 

Where the hell does he put it? you wonder. The stein is as big as his whole torso, you think.

But he doesn’t seem buzzed at all. Instead, he casts you a measuring, sideways glance, entirely too alert for your tastes. 

“You don’t say,” he drawls at last, one brow raised as his spine eases a little more.

“Mmhmm,” you say mildly. “It’s my day off.” You pause meaningfully and take another sip of your own drink. “Didn’t used to get days off in Exitar. Or anywhere else on Knowhere, as a matter of fact.”

His eyes track your hands, and flick to your face. 

“Guess the difference is all thanks to you,” you tell him lightly, and tilt your glass toward him. “Here’s to the happy change in leadership.”

He studies you, and waits till you set your drink down again. 

“So. Uh. How long you worked here?” he asks — as if he didn’t already have at least some idea.

You grin into your glass. “Long enough to have developed a very strict set of rules for my survival.”

His ears flick. You’re glad he’s indulging you — playing along for now. “What’re the rules?”

You lean back. “I’m glad you asked,” you tease, and splay out one hand so you can count them on your fingers. “Number one. Avoid the Collector at all costs.”

He snorts. “Well, guess you’re not a complete idiot,” he mutters, and then slashes his red-amber eyes at you and flinches, like he thinks maybe you’re going to be offended. 

But you only wink at him. Not a chance, cutie.  “Number two. Never hide all your units in one place — or on one datacard.”

A smirk curls the corner of his mouth and his nose twitches.

“Three. Always lock your doors behind you. And four, Don’t walk home alone from the Boot.” The smirk slides off his face at that and his eyes flash, so you rush along to the next rule, hoping to lighten the mood again. “Five. Always get customers’ money before you hand them their booze.”

There you go. The little curve is back at the corner of his mouth, even if his brow is still furrowed — almost like he’s distressed. 

You lean sideways and nudge him with your elbow. “And finally, number six.” He looks up at you and his ears tilt, eyes locked on yours like glimmering red stones. You lean so close you know your breath will flutter in the curve of his ear, and you drop your voice to a whisper. “Don’t try to break up fights.”

The pilot rears back, nearly tumbling backward off his stool, and you reach for him before you both catch yourselves. Reeling your outstretched hand back into yourself, you instead gift him a reckless grin and turn to your drink once more.

“It’s not a comprehensive list,” you tell him pragmatically, “and it isn’t in any particular order, but it’s kept me alive this long.” 

“Oh, yeah?” Rocket says, and his voice is suddenly raspy and low. “Even that last one?”

The laughter surprises you, fluttering up behind your ribs and escaping between your lips, soft  and velvety and hushed. 

“I only broke that one once,” you tell him, lifting your glass to your mouth and half-hiding your grin behind it. You can tell your eyes are sparkling, though. “And it’s not like I ever regretted it.”

He makes a sound in the back of his throat. “Sounds like you got a story.”

“Mmm,” you acknowledge, and you keep your voice playful. “It was years ago, now. I knew all the regulars back then — well, I still do, but more of them were jackasses back in the day. And this guy comes in — someone I’d never seen before. Swaggering, carrying a cannon twice as big as himself. Maybe — three feet tall? A true Short King.”

He’s got his stein to his lips and he chokes on a mouthful of whiskey, sputtering. “A what?”

You ignore him, still casting him that teasing half-smile and raising an eyebrow. “He had pretty eyes, and I remember him being more foulmouthed than a landlocked Ravager.”

“Pretty — what?” 

“Keep up, Rocket,” you taunt lightly, tapping a finger to the air just an inch away from the top of his nose, and his eyes go narrow. Everything on his face is suddenly promising retribution, but you’re reckless with glee now.

And you’ll be happy to pay up if he actually comes to collect. 

“I told him that I needed payment up front when he ordered—“

“Get the money before you hand them their booze,” he echoes Rule Five, eyes still hunting you, and you nod with mock-approval. 

“You get it,” you say with a chuckle. “Anyway, his response was just to swipe another patron’s datacard right in front of me and hand it over.” You can still fucking see it: his challenging half-grin, one brow raised.  “I think I stared at him for a full thirty seconds, but this cutie just smirked up at me. Brazen as fuck.”

You laugh softly at the memory, and Rocket — who might as well be your new landlord, you’ve realized — grumbles something under his breath. 

“Anyway, I was kinda smitten,” you admit with a little curve in your mouth, still buzzing the inside of your belly. 

It’s the truth, too.  You’d never thought that raccoon can get it before, but there you were. 

And here you are. 

To your surprise, Rocket goes quiet at that. The pilot of the famous — or infamous — Guardians of the Galaxy, and one of the new owners of Knowhere: still and silent for a long moment. 

Maybe he’ll slip out of his chair and leave, you think, and the flutters in your belly twist in sudden regret. Maybe you’ve scared him off. 

But when he speaks, his voice is like crystallized maple syrup: rich and gritty, waiting to crumble and melt and scrub against your skin.

“He’s why you got into a fight?”

You weigh out your options here. What to say? You’d lost sight of the cutie thanks to his height and the constant surge of new customers, and you’d sort of forgotten about him in the moment, to be honest — though you’re sure you’d have remembered later, alone in your shitty little room — but then you’d heard the sudden cacophonous boom of his enormous augmented cannon. There’d been screaming and crashing, and you’d woven yourself  between the bodies toward the sound. Just to assess, just to figure out what kind of danger you’d been in—

Fucking B’darl — the worst of your regular patrons — had entered into view and suddenly hoisted the cutie right up into the air before slamming him down into the orloni fighting ring. 

You hadn’t thought about it — about anything, really — just thrown yourself through the crowd, toward the fighting ring. By the time you’d gotten there, B’darl had the cutie pinned to the miniature arena’s floor by the throat.  Both the orloni and the f’saki had cowered back, blood-soaked and wounded, from the sudden interference in their battle-to-the-death. 

Looks like you wandered outta the ring, the fucking brute had sneered.Time to go back to brawling with the other vermin, you little monster. 

B’darl had lifted his other fist, easily the size of your entire head.

My money’s on the f’saki, though. 

You’d surged between them without thinking, latching onto B’darl’s massive forearm, knocking his fist to one side.

You shrug. “It was worth it,” you tell Rocket mildly, and take another sip of your drink.

His eyes drop to the ring of teethmarks in your arm again. He opens his mouth to speak, and you cut in.

“My own fault,” you tell him. “I should’ve known the cutie could handle himself. I got in the way.”

You can still remember how his firelight-eyes had stared up at you from behind a mouthful of flesh and blood, stunned and maybe horrified, teeth sunk almost to the bone.  In a worse timeline, maybe you’d have tried to rip your arm away. But here, in this one, you’d curled around him instinctively. Protectively. 

And then he’d reached around you smoothly and snagged B’darl’s ion pistol, and you’d heard the gun go off as he’d squeezed the trigger, blind.

“My only regret is that I lost sight of him in the aftermath,” you tell him with a shrug. You try for a teasing smile but it suddenly feels strained, tense on your mouth. You’d been too flushed with adrenaline when you’d first started this conversation. Now, suddenly, the nerves are present: rattling and twitching behind your sternum. Your fingers shake a little and you clamp them onto your glass. “Didn’t even catch his name.” 

He doesn’t say anything, and you squeeze your eyes shut. When you finally get the fluttering in your vagus nerve under control, you hazard a look up at him. 

His eyes are on your forearm though: the circle of silken raised marks, just three shades lighter than the rest of your skin, and strangely — almost prettily — translucent. His finger reaches out: dark and clawed, his touch like warm leather. You go so still that you can’t blink, can’t even breathe as he paints a ring of warmth on your skin, looping the circlet of scars onto his fingertip like pearls threaded on a string.

The flutters are back, full-force. 

Slowly, Rocket drags his gaze up to yours, sunset-eyes glowing.  “Cutie works.”

@hibatasblog deserves so much more & better than this little ficlet but i am dedicating it to them anyway because they regularly call rocket "short king" and i cannot get it out of my head. deepest love to them & all their writing (please do yourselves a favor and check out their ao3 fics if you have not already)

look i just feel like (1) rocket is a cutie and if you say it in the right tone, he'll be flattered enough to not kill you and (2) there's no way he'd ever forget the stranger who jumped into a fight on his behalf — and probably got scarred for it — back before he met the guardians. which is when the og encounter takes place fyi. forget about the fact that i don't think we know if he had ever been there before gamora brought them along — i headcanon that where two or more lowlifes gather, so too there is rocket.

sidenote oh my god i literally cannot stop with the increasing wordcount. day seven (when i eventually get around to it) is gonna be SHORT. it's a promise/challenge to myself. anyway i think my writing quality peaked with machinery and i'm sorry this is so late

day five. machinery. ✷ day seven. home. rocket prompt week masterlist ✷ main masterlist rocket raccoon prompt week list

taglist ♡ @evolvingchaoswitch ♡ @glow-autumz ♡ @wren-phoenix ♡ @suicidalshitstick ♡ @pretty-chips

[riacte]

I think one of Aqua29's (H, Dave, False, Cub) best qualities is that they were an extremely forgiving and consistent team

(I know the MCC just happened, but my brain is going crazy right now and all the details are flying past my head but I hope you'll get the general idea.)

MCC's nature is that it is unpredictable. That's what makes it fun! The chickens, the weird lag (sometimes 💀), luck, sudden clutches, etc etc. But this unpredictability can sometimes mess up teams on a really good trajectory. One "bad" or "unwanted" game would kill a team's morale- I've seen that before.

In the midst of the MCC chaos, Aqua29 is very solid. They were steadily climbing up the ranks and kept their morale high. Even when they won one round of Dodgebolt, they convinced themselves to act like they "were losing". I forgot the English word for it but their mental states / attitudes were very consistent throughout the entire MCC. This helps them power through the unpredictability. Especially for MCC29, which is a well-balanced MCC and pretty difficult to predict (and the stats don't do False and Cub justice in this particular situation).

As I said before, Aqua29 is very forgiving. This allows them space to make mistakes and to bounce back. Dave felt pretty guilty over dying to speedbridging in Sky Battle and said he really usually doesn't do that, and while the loss of the team's best PvPer might be fatal in some other situations, Aqua honestly did fine. Their morale wasn't affected.

In Rocket Spleef Rush, sometimes a teammate would die "early", leaving two teammates behind, and it felt like they took turns dying early, which showed how balanced they were. Same with TGTTOS. Sometimes an individual teammate might get unlucky in a round of TGTTOS, but overall they all worked hard, and they could pull it back.

Battle Box would be another good example, in which they lost the first two rounds, adjusted their strategy, and then did better. Dave also apologised for missing the comms during the round against Purple, but like SkB, they progressed normally.

In Grid Runners, sometimes they placed bottom half in some rooms, but they steadily improved and cleared them faster- ending up in the last room in which H bossed everyone around and they got through it the quickest. There is a narrative: they learned from earlier "mistakes", had the room to afford making mistakes, and improved. Therefore, they rose up.

And Dodgebolt. Dodgebolt! All four of them are good at it. Of course, we have HBomb, king of Dodgebolt. Then Dave, confident PvPer. The two hermits, both great shots, have grown more confident in their skills. They all trusted themselves to the point they didn't need H to nudge the arrow in their direction- they just picked up the arrow if they felt like it. Cub did that, and he got his kills. Even if half of the team was taken out, or heck, even if it was a 1v3, they had enough skill to power through. All four of them were in good shape, felt great, and meshed well together.

In a way, Aqua29 are each other's safety nets. No one got top 10. Their placements were: 12th, 13th, 20th, 21st. Which honestly wasn't too far from each other. You won't really expect a team with those individual rankings to get second in coins, but they did. Even if False ended up losing the 1v3, her valiant efforts would motivate the team even more and I'm sure they would've won (even though a Cyan reverse sweep would be cool).

And it's this kind of stability and mutual support that powered them through MCC. They didn't get the finale they wanted (Survival Games), that was out of their control, but they squeezed themselves into Dodgebolt anyway. I won't deny that they were lucky- MCC is unpredictable, so luck is often a factor, but I feel they could weather a storm.

Aqua29 is a nice team to watch live. They always bring it back, and I'm not just talking about placements or coins, it's also their morale. This team is going up with Blue9 and Purple15 as one of the competitive hermit teams with best overall team synergy. They were very stable and encouraging of each other <3

[epicspheal]

hi cami! hope youre doing well! id like to ask.. have you seen that pokemon zensho is now fully available in english? i only found out recently lol. you can find it at mangadex! if you have, what are your thoughts on it?

Hi there @soulsilvers I'm doing well thank you for asking! Yeah, I actually didn't know that they full translated Pokemon Zensho until I got this ask, so thank you for alerting me to this I appreciate it! So of course I had to read it all last night! Link here for anyone who wants to read it! It was so cute honestly. First Pokemon Concierge, now Pokemon Zensho making me cry and I'm here for it honestly. Like you said on discord, it definitely is very rushed at only 9 chapters. I definitely would've loved to see it have a few more chapters to explore more about Red and Blue's friendship (well here called Ash and Gary) and going through the league (I always feel like the elite four part of the Kanto story always seems to get the short end of the stick). Despite it's rushed nature, it does make up for it in being the most true-to-gameverse adaptation. But what I appreciated the most was the details that were added were very grounded. Like the problems the gym leaders were facing felt real. It was cool to see how Giovanni became the way he was because it has been hinted at that he's not always been the ruthless Team Rocket boss but something made him that way. I've grown to like Lt. Surge a lot over the years and I feel like his arc was really wholesome too. Many people criticize Kanto for it not being particularly story driven (which to each their own, some people like story drive gameplay some don't, groups are valid), but to say it's completely devoid of story is false. The theme of Gen 1 besides exploration is relationships. It's why the key driver is the rivalry (and strained friendship) between Red and Blue. The orphan Cubone, Agatha and Oak, even Mewtwo's existence plays on the concept of relations in a subtle way. Zensho takes this concept and runs with it throughout as Red travels through Kanto. Much like Pokespe, Pokemon Zensho does a good job at bringing smaller but notable NPCs into the fold and it was done in a way that was not overbearing (looking at Marvin from SwSh Pokespe taking Hop's spot). It was cool to see the SS Anne captain and Game Warden get some more screentime. Also props for this manga low key making non-binary Bill canon! I know some people who read it may not like this version of Red not being "badass" in that he does earn some of his badges without actually defeating the leaders but I think the way it's handled here was okay. I think part of Red's character is supposed to be how he puts caring for others first despite being so talented at battling and I think it's okay that there are adaptations that don't just fall into him being a legendary battler who sweeps everyone. Even though this is a retelling of Red's story I would say if I'm honest this was really Blue's story. Blue got a lot of focus in this manga and outside of Pokemon Generations we don't really get to see into Blue's mindset. I appreciated as you mentioned on discord, how despite everything it did still focus on the fact that Blue was still Red's friend despite everything. It's not something that's focused on a lot in gen 1 adaptations. And of course the rest of the Oak family gets some shine too. This is probably my favorite portrayal of Oak in that it retains some of his flaws but humanizes him too (although I wish they had devoted some time to his and Agatha's rivalry). And Daisy...even with her limited screen time very much still shone especially with her calling out Professor Oak for his harsh words towards Blue. And then of course the revelation of what happened to Blue and Daisy's parents. Give those kids (and this Professor Oak) a hug. This is definitely my favorite of the four Pokemon manga I've read thus far and if we ever got a short miniseries for the Gen 1 games again I would hope it would take more of the Zensho approach and be game accurate while still expanding on little lore details.

[thetruearchmagos]

Find The Word Tag!

Thank you so terribly much for the Tag, @theprissythumbelina, and for giving me the kick I needed to return to giving my WIPs some prose! As usually's the case, most of these excerpts did not exist prior to the Tag, and may or may not fit into future parts of the WIPs themselves.

JINX

"Report, Green-One." Schmidt toggled on his headset, sweeping his eyes over the ruined townhouses as he spoke. "Town's secured, Captain, and with pretty light resistance. We need a wagon for two casualties, but if Blue-One can get here before sun down Al-Dyr will be as good as ours." "Don't jinx it for us, Lieutenant. Sit tight, we're on our way."

CALL

"Sound-Ops counts two frigates ten naut-miles northeast, Skipper, identifying most likely as Myrrh-class." And unfortunately for Evelyn, he was probably right on that. She shared a glance with Rob, standing over the fire control teams. Both of them knew one thing for certain; this close, there was no way in hell one of Carnivore's torpedoes would hit before their hunters' rocket launched charges started dropping all over them. Well, Captain. Your call?

INCH

Haneul clung tight to the ground, inching forwards at an agonising pace while the crack and pop of gunfire drummed down on her ears. When she reached the wall she rose just enough to crouch behind it, pulling out a grenade from her webbing, pulled its tab and waited three counts before she slung it over her shoulder. Two counts later it blew in a cloud of shrapnel and shock, and the gunfire paused for just a second.

FLEX

The 2nd Moorceel Lancers weren't very hard to find. Its armtracks and armoured transports littered the valley and the heights overlooking it, most of their carcasses turned west in battle, some east in flight. Their sheets of armour plate were flexed and warped from the catastrophic detonations of their vehicle's ammunition, and belching smoke. Once drab green hulls were now blackened by flame, and lined the road either side. Goyan suddenly felt slightly less safe, bunkered down within her own armtrack.

And that's enough writing for January, I think! /s

My Words are Pole, Bitter, Cold, and Heavy, and I'll be Tagging @athenswrites @hessdalen-globe @caxycreations @thatndginger @nerdexer @autumnalwalker @mysticstarlightduck and anyone who'd like to join!

[nix-writes-mcyt]

So MCC Twitch Rivals...

I loved it. I loved it so so much.

Spoilers under the cut

I was watching my guy Captain Sparklez and I knew they were a strong team, but my god I did not expect the event sweep. Especially after they won the first 3 games.

Was I impressed? Absolutely.

Also Jordans interview after game 2, super funny. Me and my fiancé laughed so much at that. (About the strat for the PVP games "If I knew that I'd be better at PVP" and him saying his team was carrying him despite being 2nd in his team ranking at that time and 3rd overall in the player rankings)

It was for the most part such an incredibly wholesome event and I'm very glad to have been able to watch the streams.

I'm just so proud of the Yellow Yaks. I was not expecting them to win, I was expecting a 3rd or 4th place finish but I'm so so proud of them all.

From their incredible start in Rocket Speef rush to their great communication in Grid Runners down to AntFrost's amazing finale to Sky Battle it was truly in my opinion 10/10

Also I'm impressed nothing completely broke with MCC or the Twitch Con setup honestly, and kudos to every player, announcer, interviewer, camera person and every other staff member for making the event what it was

... also that backflip from Jordan was pretty cool, just putting it out there. No one saw that coming

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Maximum Ride AU?

[This has elements of When the Wind Blows as well as Maximum Ride, because I know the original book a little better.]

• They look like six kids right now.  Six fun-loving kids out for a good time in the California fall, enjoying loaded fries and hot wings while crammed around a table at the sidewalk café.  They stand out, to be sure — they all have multicolored dye in their hair, Marco’s sporting a mohawk, Ax wears those wraparound sunglasses despite the cloudy day, and of course there are the bulky windbreakers slung over all their shoulders.  But they only stand out enough to get a second glance, not a third.

Don’t give them a third look.  They’ll notice, and you’ll be the one who regrets it.

Still, though, they look... If not normal, then normal enough.  Normal-adjacent.

• Of all the workers in the Sharing Institute, Dr. Aftran was always kind to them.  She was the one who let them into the outdoor enclosure even when they hadn’t earned yard privileges, the one who snuck candy bars into their cell, who “forgot” to turn off the television when their TV hour was over more often than not.  She was kind, and that was all she was... until Ax’s bidirectional vision implants didn’t take, until he came out as a null result.

Null results get put to sleep.

Dr. Aftran injected him, exactly on schedule, and his unseeing eyes fluttered shut even as he fought hard against the drugs.  But when he woke up, it was outside underneath an open sky.  And the rest of his flock was around.

They never do find out what happened to Dr. Aftran.  Maybe it’s better that way.

• The sidewalk café fills, empties, fills again around them as the afternoon passes, but no one kicks them out.  Their waitress initially shows interest in Ax — everyone always does.  But it’s Marco who finally catches her attention on purpose, whispering back and forth, scribbling something on a napkin that causes her to blush and lean in close.

Jake watches.  He glances at Cassie.  She glances back.

Ax doesn’t see their glance, of course, but he can pick up on the currents of the conversation just fine.  His knee bumps Cassie’s, a silent question, and she taps his arm once in confirmation.  Ax sighs.

It’s been like this, more and more lately.  Marco spending time with outsiders, turning away from the rest of his team.  Chafing at the need to go everywhere with five other kids his age in tow.

Too freakin bad. They go together. For Ax. For themselves. They go together, or not at all.

• Evening creeps up on them, and by now the café chairs are being flipped up onto fresh-wiped tabletops.  This is as long as they ever stay anywhere, so they’re full and content when they stretch to go.  Without discussion, they’re assembled at the lip of the canyon.  It’s nice to use this kind of natural formation — the dropoff makes it easy to get up speed — and Jake is just thinking how nice it will be to get going again, when...

“Where’s Marco?” Tobias’s voice is tight.

Rachel groans.  “This time, I really am going to kill him.”

They’re all modified: Rachel for strength, Tobias for skill, Jake for speed.  Marco for his lightning-fast calculation, Cassie for her ability to move underwater.  Ax’s modification didn’t take, but he’s scary smart all on his own.

So really, there’s no question of who will be chasing Marco down.  Especially not in that narrow canyon.

“Be back in a minute,” Jake says, and jumps off the cliff.

• Black-and-white wings, ten feet from primary to primary, unfurl from Jake’s back.  He’s not as beautiful as Ax, his pinstriped underwing and blue-gray back no match for that angel-white black-tipped plumage.  He’s nowhere near as large as Rachel, who once knocked a grown man clear through a wall with a sweep of her enormous brown wings.  But he can do this: rocket through a canyon at over 150 miles an hour, banking into turns so tight they’d kill any of the others who tried, trusting he can adjust in time even as the walls brush within inches of his feathers.  Luke Skywalker in the trench of the Death Star, Tobias often jokes while watching him.

Catching up to Marco is easy.

Getting him to talk is a whole other ball game.

They’ve been sitting there for a good fifteen minutes — fifteen minutes they can’t afford, not with half the Sharing Institute hunting them across the state — before Marco finally swipes a hand across his face, clears his throat, and finds something to say.

“Warren Worthington the Third,” Marco confesses at last, staring not at Jake but at the vireos hunting the canyon far below.  “That’s the name I gave her, when she asked.  Warren Worthington, and the phone number of a Domino’s pizzeria.  Only my name’s not Warren Worthington, is it.”

“Marco,” Jake says, trying to forestall the inevitable.  “Your name is Marco.”

“Marco,” he spits, “is something you call me.  My identity is Subject 1273-MRO, and my code name, the name my mother put on my birth certificate, is Icarus.  Fucking Icarus.  Because she knew I’d never, ever be able to eat at a café or flirt with a girl or have a life at all.  So it didn’t matter if she gave me the stupid fucking name of a guy legendary for how much he sucks at flying.”

“I know,” Jake says heavily.  “I know.”

“You don’t.”  Marco’s voice cracks.  “If you ever feel like giving up on the rest of us, you can always go find your normal-ass mom and dad and brother in their normal-ass house and...”  He spreads out his arms.  “Surprise, guys!  I didn’t kick it at birth.  Thanks for naming me Jake, and not Uriel or Vajrakila or Tinkerbell.”

Jake doesn’t answer, because Marco’s not wrong.  They know from the Sharing Institute files that Marco and Ax stole that Jake’s parents were all told they’d be signing up for an experimental drug trial during pregnancy.  That they’d agreed to be impregnated with genetically modified embryos.  That on the day of delivery, the doctor had been heartbroken to say newborn Jake had died in the incubator.  That the Sharing would very much like to keep the remains for study, and was terribly sorry for their loss.

“Marco,” Jake says.  An affirmation.  “Marco.  I know you guys decided I should be the leader or whatever, but I’m just a dumb scared kid like you.  I don’t know what’s going to happen, and I don’t know if we’re ever going to find someone we can trust.”

“Yeah,” he whispers.  “No kidding.”

“But Marco... I know I’m sticking with you guys no matter what.”  Jake shifts around, forcing eye contact.  “I know that.  Those people, they’re not my family.  That’s you guys.  We fly together, and I know that.”

Marco stands.  They haven’t solved any of it, not really.  This is all going to happen again.  They’re still freaks, still hunted.  But he nods, resolute.  “We fly together.”

And they leap as one.

• They find Tobias’s birth mom, from the stolen records.  She claims she doesn’t remember any of it.  Doesn’t remember being pregnant, doesn’t remember giving birth, doesn’t remember who might have knocked her up or when.  She says this all to their faces, not hesitating, not looking away.  There are scars on her forehead, scars on her scalp.  She doesn’t remember having a son, she says, she’s terribly sorry but she doesn’t remember.

• Jake dreams.  The voice doesn’t give itself a name, but it always tells him the same thing: he’s meant to save the world.

• David was their tagalong, their unwanted but tolerated kid sibling, their friend.  He could be annoying, and he never seemed to realize just how different his life was from theirs — he went home every night to a warm bed, he had a mom and dad, he had food that wasn’t protein mush.  But he went through the tests, the endurance exercises and the injections, right alongside them.  And his insider knowledge of the Sharing Institute saved their lives, on more than one occasion.

So when the creature — every bit as freakish as them, but with none of their grace and with joints that move hampered by pain — steps from the shadows and into the light, Cassie gasps sharply against the threat of tears.

David was supposed to be an entirely separate project.  He’s programmed with regenerative cells, has a life expectancy of over 400 years... and yet here he is, creeping forward on swollen knees that are powered by straining lungs.

“We have to go,” Jake says, when Tobias takes an involuntary step toward their former friend.  “We have to go now.  If he found us, then the Sharing’s not far behind—”

David lunges, mouth open, unnaturally long teeth aimed at Tobias’s throat.  Rachel body-slams him on intercept, the two of them rolling in a mess of feathers and blood across the filthy ground.

“Go!” Jake points to the sky.  Tobias takes off, whistling to guide Ax, and a second later Marco follows.

Jake grabs a fur-covered arm.  David’s wrist twists the way no human’s would, and he sinks claws into Jake’s skin.  Jake cries out in pain, but he slams his head forward into David’s face.  Jagged teeth tear open Jake’s cheek, his forehead, but David recoils from the blow.

Rachel rolls loose.  With overhuman strength she stomps down onto his stomach, until David jackknifes around her with an oof of pain.  She raises her foot again, but Jake catches her arm.

“We go!” he shouts.  “Together.  NOW.”

Whether it’s the sight of his bloodied face, or the sounds of the others hovering and desperately whistling for them to join, Rachel shakes the bloodlust.  She beats hard against the air, helping Jake to rise with her much larger wings.

Down below, Sharing agents are streaming across the ground.  Most of them are armed with rifles and tranq guns, but the man who dives forward to pull David into his arms has no weapons at all.  The flock takes off, and for now they get away.

• They find Cassie’s parents.  Michelle and Walter are gentle and kind.  They stitch the cuts on Jake’s face and Rachel’s arms.  They ask questions, like are you okay and how long have you been on your own.  They give the flock hot food, and soft beds, and something infinitely more precious that the kids all drink up like lizards in the sunshine.  But Cassie looks out the window one night, and she sees a girl who is not a girl standing at the edge of the woods.  They don’t stick around to find out if it is the Sharing, if David and his fellow trackers would settle for killing the horses or would murder the veterinarians too.

• Jake dreams.  The voice tells him again to save the world.  He replies, just as he always does: the voice can go fuck itself, because he’s only here for saving his friends.

• “Look,” Tobias says.  “Look.”

There are hawks hunting along the cliffs below.  They dive with sickening speed, pulling up short with crabs and trout in their claws. 

They swoop and spin around each other, wheeling and screaming.

“We’ll scare them away if we get any closer,” Rachel points out.

“So don’t get closer.”  Tobias perches so close to the edge of the cliff he threatens to tip over, relaxed and unafraid.  Happy, or as close as he ever gets.  “Just watch, and learn.”

• He scares the hell out of them, when he drops out of the sky the following evening.  Cassie screams in shock, but he’s back before any of them can get too scared.  He’s holding an ice cream cone he just stole clear out of some guy’s hand, seagull-style.

“What?” Tobias says, laughing, making a mess.  “I was just hunting.  It’s what birds do, right?  We hunt!”

Later Tobias shows Rachel what do to: wheeling close, wheeling far.  For a time they rocket along toward the ground, synchronous and breathless, wings half-tucked.  Then they split, and shoot apart, and wheel around again.  Courtship, the ornithologists call it, and there’s an ecstasy in the dance that no human can touch.

• They find Jake’s family.  It’s a temporary measure, they tell each other, they tell themselves.  It’s temporary.  But it’s better than a cave above a sea cliff, better than a tent in the woods.  It beats nesting in an unused clocktower or a moldy steeple.

Jake’s parents and brother are nice.  They’re conventional.  They’re upright and intelligent and suburban.  They sit the flock down in the living room, and they sip tea and make concerned faces and try to determine just how not normal their newfound son is.

There’s an uncertainty there, a hint of hesitation that Michelle and Walter didn’t show.  But Jake’s family is comfortable, is middle-class and law-abiding.

• So law-abiding, in fact, that Jake wakes up the following morning to a room full of Sharing agents and a rifle in his face.

If he had to guess, it was his brother who called 911.  One the cops who answered thought to contact the FBI.  Some FBI agent knew to call the Sharing, and to tell them to retrieve their lost property from the Berenson residence of suburban Carmel.

“RACHEL!” Jake screams.

She knows what to do.  There’s a crash from below, his parents’ picture window exploding out onto their lawn.  Three figures shoot toward the sky — Rachel’s enormous brown wings, Marco’s brown-and-white striped ones, and Ax’s angelic pinfeathers.  Rachel has blood limning the tops of both wings, Marco’s clutching Ax’s wrist in his hand, and they’re away.  They’re away. 

There’s no sign of Cassie or Tobias, but Rachel and Marco and Ax are clear.

Jake watches them go, hope tugging his heart toward the sky, even as the needle jams into his neck and the black drugs suck him down.

• Jake awakens in a dog crate.  Size medium.  Suited for dogs 90 to 120 pounds.  His wings are pressed against his sides with cramping force, his body twisted in a fetal position he won’t be able to uncurl from.  Ask him how he knows.  Better yet: don’t.

• “Marco?” Cassie says, sucking in a breath and coughing, the instant she’s awake.  “Rachel?  Anyone?”  She rolls, feathers scraping painfully on the sides of the cage, until she’s sitting on her knees with both hands pressed on the ground.  She can’t stay like this forever or her feet will fall asleep, but there’s a fundamental comfort to be had in hugging her own wings around herself.

“Cassie,” Jake says, quiet and dull, from somewhere to her left.  “Cassie.”

“Jake. Who... Who else?”

“I see Tobias across the way,” Jake says.  “I think it’s just us.”

Cassie closes her eyes.  Thank goodness.  They’re probably going to die here, the three of them, and there’s going to be a lot of horribleness in between now and then.  But at least Ax is safe, at least Marco and Rachel are free.

“Ax is okay,” Jake says, thoughts following the same path as her own.

It could be better.  Tobias tolerates crating the worst of any of them.  No one planned for Jake to sprout to six-one and over two hundred pounds during puberty when they mass-ordered cages this size.  She’s probably never going to fly again.  Nor are Tobias and Jake.

But it could be worse as well.  Null results get put to sleep.

• They all hear it when Tobias wakes a little later.  There’s silence, and then there’s the sound of thrashing so violent that the whole row of cages shakes.  Tobias is breathing in soft hoarse cries, shoving wings and knees and wrists against the bars with bone-breaking force.

“Tobias!” Cassie calls.  “Tobias, it’s okay, you have to calm down or —”

He’s making small desperate noises between gasps for air.  There’s a sickening thud as his head impacts the ceiling of the cage.  All six of them are claustrophobic — it’s the whole reason the Sharing ordered these cages — but it always hits Tobias worse to be confined.

“You have so many relationships in this life,” Jake says in rhythm.  “Only one or two will last,” and it takes Cassie a second to realize he’s singing.  “You go through all the pain and strife, then you turn your back and they’re gone so fast...”

Tobias has quieted, panting, listening.  Jake’s no great talent, and his voice is too low to do the song justice, but it’s something.

“Oh, so hold on the ones who really care,” Cassie sings now, joining in with Jake.  “In the end they'll be the only ones there.”  It helps her to sing as well, she realizes.  Forces her to breathe in rhythm, gives her something to focus on.  “And when you get old and start losing your hair, can you tell me who will still care?” she and Jake sing together, and it must be working because Jake’s getting louder and Tobias is getting quieter.  “Can you tell me who will still care?”

And then there’s a third voice — not Tobias, not the white coats — that joins them for the chorus.  “Mmmbop, ba duba dop, Ba du bop, ba duba dop...” they harmonize, off-rhythm but singing hard enough not to care.

“David,” Jake says quietly, in the pause before the second verse.

“Hi.”  He speaks just as softly.  He’s in the cage directly above Cassie’s, out of sight through the opaque floor.  He sounds bad, hoarse and wheezing almost as hard as Tobias was a minute ago.

“David?” Cassie asks.

He answers the question she didn’t put words to.  “What do you think?  The new modifications didn’t take.  Obviously.  I’m a null result.”

She thinks back to his swollen joints, his awkward gait, the teeth that didn’t fit into his mouth and the bone claws that split the ends of his hands.  Seeing them with new light now, beyond the horror of what his own family had done to him.

“David,” Cassie whispers helplessly.

“I should have come with you,” David says.

Cassie flinches.  They never asked him.  They figured he was better off here, and so when Aftran got Ax and Ax got Jake and Jake got the rest of them, they’d left David behind.  He’d known they were going to take any chance they could to get out, and he’d always warned them against it when the conversation had turned that way.  They’d thought, they’d thought...

“Your mom and dad were here,” Jake says.  “And anyway it doesn’t matter now.”

“They can’t!” Cassie blurts.  “They can’t, they can’t.”  It’s David.  He’s supposed to live forever; that’s why he was made.

“Plant a seed,” David sings, with desperate force.  “Plant a flower, plant a rose...”

“You can plant any one of those,” and now it’s Tobias joining in, then Jake, “Keep planting to find out which one grows.”

Cassie sucks in a breath through tears.  “It’s a secret no one knows,” she sings, because what else can they do, “It’s a secret no one knooooows.”

• The door slides open, sometime after they enter their second rendition of the song.  Marco’s mom stands on the other side.  Lab coat on.  Syringe in hand.  “I hear you’re awake,” she says.

“Can you tell me who will still care?” they sing, ignoring her.  “Tell me who will still care—”

“Stop it!” she snaps.  “All of you, stop it immediately.”

Jake lifts his head, red grid from the bars imprinted into his cheek.  “If you didn’t want us singing, shouldn’t have made us into birds,” he says flatly.

She draws in a breath, but they launch back in, louder and louder: “Can you tell me? No, no you can’t ‘cause you don’t know.  Can you tell me?  No, no you can’t cause you don’t know.  CAN YOU TELL ME? NO YOU CAN’T CAUSE YOU DON’T—”

Zzzzzztt-BAM!

The cages are electrified.  Would’ve been nice to know sooner, Cassie thinks as she clenches her fists and her jaw until the tremors wear off.

“Enough!” Marco’s mom shouts.  She twists the lock on David’s cage and wrenches open the door.

“No,” David moans, “no, no, please, I want my dad—”

He’s still uncoordinated from the shock; Marco’s mom easily drags him out by the hair and throws him to the floor.

“Don’t do this!” Jake shouts.  “He’s a person.  This is murder.”

Marco’s mom lifts her head, brushing hair out of her face.  “He’s a failed pet project of Mr. Visser’s, and it’s high time we eliminated him.”

“Please,” David screams.  “Please, I want to see my dad, please!”

“This won’t even hurt.”  Her tone suggests she has no idea what David has to complain about.  “You’ll be unconscious long before cardiac arrest sets in.”

David struggles for everything he’s worth, but the needle is large and unforgivingly sharp.  Marco’s mom slams it into his chest, not seeming to care where it lands, and depresses the syringe until it is empty.  She tosses it aside, breathing hard, watching David closely.

“Can you tell me,” Cassie sings, a thready whisper, barely there, “which flower’s going to grow?  No you can’t, ‘cause you don’t know.”

David is crying, already fighting for air with more than just exertion, but his eyes lock on hers.

“Can you tell me,” Tobias sings with her, that same tiny thread of sound, “If it’s going to be a daisy or a rose?  You say you can...”

David’s eyes slide shut.  His lungs empty, and they don’t refill.

• Tobias does his best to lose reality, after the white coats drag David out of the room.  He tries to retreat into the memory of flying through caves with Ax and Marco, their whistles bouncing off the walls to map the space none of them could see.  He should be more like those hawks, who slam the ground when they miss a strike but recover in seconds.  He should be more like the pigeons who get by with two toes and one working wing, still surviving just fine.  He should be like the mallards who never tire or slow, even after months’ worth of twelve-hour days.  Instead, he’s a fucking parakeet: ripping out his own feathers, unable to stop no matter how hard he bites down on his own fingers to punish himself for punishing himself.

“They have to feed us eventually,” Jake says with confidence.  “They have to give us water and space.”

“A bathroom would be nice too,” Cassie mutters.

“Exactly,” Jake says, hearty as a camp counselor.  “Exactly.  They’re going to let us out pretty soon now, you’ll see.”

Tobias would like to punch Jake’s fucking teeth in.

• There’s a scree of metal on metal, somewhere in the depths of the facility.  Jake tries to lift his head to look, but gets no response from his neck muscles.  He lost feeling in his lower legs a while ago. 

There’s a thud, quiet like it’s far away but powerful enough to rattle the room they’re sitting in.  The next thud is closer, louder, and this time the cage bounces off the floor.

WHAM.

That’s directly on the other side of the door.  Another WHAM, and the door visibly dents inward on its frame.

“Guys, be ready,” Jake says.

“To do what?” Tobias asks sourly.  But at least he’s talking.

WHAM.

The door crumples off its hinges.  Rachel stands on the other side, a firefighter-issue battering ram in her hands.  It has to be 200 pounds, but with all their enhancements it’s no real surprise to see her holding it easily.

“Step aside!” an unfamiliar voice calls from behind Rachel.  “Please, step aside.  The more footage we can get —”

Rachel moves out of the way, but goes into the room.  She stops long enough to press her fingertips against Cassie’s through the gaps in the cage door, but only for a second before she focuses on Tobias.  His fingers are bloody, his left wing as well, but he’s coherent enough to whisper her name.

The man who pushes into the room just after Rachel is a lot harder to explain.  He’s middle-aged, but has the kind of blue eyes and tall frame that suggest he used to be beautiful.  The strangest thing about him isn’t the makeup he wears or the way there’s something naggingly familiar about his face; it’s the industrial-size video camera perched on his right shoulder.  He points it around the room, pausing to zoom in first on Tobias and then Cassie.

Ax shoves into the room after the man, Marco brushing wingtips with him.  “Jake?” he says, lifting his head to listen.  “Tobias?  Cassie?”

“We’re okay,” Cassie says.  “We’re here.”

“Shit,” Marco whispers.  He’s peering through the door of Jake’s cage, lips pressed together.  “Shit, man, you are too damn tall.  Anyone ever tell you that?”

“‘S what I have you for,” Jake says.

Marco fumbles at the lock on the door.  Luckily they’re simple mechanical things, not requiring keys but only the leverage that comes from being outside.  “Okay,” he says.  “Okay, we’re getting out of here, I’m doing a guest appearance on Touched by an Angel, and we’re headlining for Leno.  Yeah?”

The door pops open, and Jake is sliding out from the sheer force of where his body had pressed against it.  Some combination of the shock and the dehydration and all the blood in his body deciding to rearrange itself at once gets to him.  The world goes black.

• Jake wakes up what feels like an eternity later.  He’s propped sitting up, his back against the row of cages, and there are several unfamiliar adults talking over his head.

Before he can go into flight-or-flight mode, Rachel crouches in front of him.  She’s peering close into his eyes, holding out an object that — once he finally figures out how to focus on it — proves to be a juice box with a picture of an apple on the outside.

“Take it,” Rachel says.  “Cassie already had like six and didn’t keel over, so it’s probably fine.”

Jake takes it, sucking gratefully at the tiny straw.  He looks over her shoulder at the guy who came in with them, and the three other people who are now filming that guy as he talks into a microphone.  “Who...?”

“Kept finding parents.”  Rachel jerks a thumb over her shoulder.  “Finally hit on a useful one, go figure.”

“Hello, Jake.”  The man crouches next to Rachel, holding out his hand.  “I’m Dan Berenson.  It’s an honor to meet you, son.  Nephew.”

Jake stares at the hand.  “Who do you work for?”

“NBC,” Dan says.  “National Broadcasting Comp—”

“What are you doing here?”  Jake’s being rude.  He doesn’t care that he’s being rude.

“We’re doing an exposé on the Sharing Institute.”  Dan gestures to the people behind him, presumably coworkers.  “It’s a very important project.”

“I brought helicopters from two other news stations while I was at it,” Rachel says.  “Just to be on the safe side.  One’s technically the Weather Channel, but whatever.”

The thought of her simply flying at the nearest two helicopters with cameras until they followed her is almost enough to make Jake laugh, in spite of it all.  He knows why she didn’t trust NBC alone — far too many companies and government orgs are in the Sharing’s pocket — but it’s a typically Rachel approach.

And here he’d thought Marco was joking about being on TV.

“C’mon.”  Rachel hooks a hand under Jake’s arm, helping to haul him to his feet.  “The others are outside.”

He shifts, tangling his feathers with hers, as they walk together.  She gets a wing around him and yanks him close, a few inches shorter than he is but still with that unmatched wingspan.  He lets her shove their shoulders together, bullying her way into his space, and doesn’t comment on how much her hands are shaking.

“Check this out!”  Marco spreads arms and wings when he sees them, taking in the vans and helicopters and dozens of camera operators on foot.  “That’s what I call a media circus, baby!”

“No,” Tobias is telling a woman with a paramedic’s uniform.  “No, I’m not going anywhere without my flock.  You take us all, or none of us.”

Lab coats are fleeing, Jake knows, taking what they can and running for it.  Ordinary Sharing staff members as well.  Any incriminating experiments the reporters don’t find in time will be put to sleep.

But it’s something.  It’s the whole world watching, from those hovering machines to Rachel’s dad with the handheld camera.

“He said it,” Rachel announces, chin lifted.  “We fly together, or not at all.”  She’s smiling, tears in her eyes.

Jake finds his gaze drifting past her.  There’s still smoke coming from the crematorium, dispersing slowly into the sky.

• Jake dreams.  There’s still work to be done, the voice says, and for the first time Jake thinks yeah, okay.

[gen4grl]

You kinda pointed out that he does a while ago so I'm curious: why don't a lot of people pick up on the fact Leon has a different, significantly more irritating personality in the anime? It REALLY doesn't seem to be a common take that he does but oh does he ever

ooooo hello and goodmorning :3

i actually think about that post bc i feel like i didn’t word it properly :o

i think leon in general has a very hit or miss personality especially with a fanbase that is so tainted with nostalgia rose coloured glasses. leon is canonically the strongest champ (compared to red i have no clue where he would stand) and despite this being clear as DAY and implied within swsh i think what made leon seem annoying and got him his rep is: 1. the anime amped his most “annoying characteristics” of being the “unbeatable champ” and how he constantly tells you and 2. showed this roided up version to more fans on a larger scale. i also think him sweeping the floor with alain and diantha then saying “oh i got lucky” did not help LOL. the anime literally ran on plot armour so im not sure why people are shocked he sweeped some oc ass character and a champion people constantly say is “the worst champion from the worst game” (diantha defence squad here!).

i think all of that makes anime fans think leons “full of himself” when i feel like most swsh enjoyers know, that isn’t true. i think he’s got a somewhat childish mindset (possible due to being in the champion light for most his life) and is constantly making sure others don’t have to worry about shit, and burdens himself with those worries. leon is the epitome of the “big brother” stereotype which is why i love him so much.

i think another issue is that leon requires a lot of filling in the gaps (swsh in general, so not an exclusive criticism to leon). giving a trainer the title “the strongest” is risky because if you don’t flesh out that backstory and just expect fans to agree, it’s gonna feel cheapened. i feel why most fans accept red to be the strongest is because we PLAYED as him as kids. we saw red go from being weak, defeating team rocket and becoming the first ever champion. so to see him all alone on mount silver with his perfectly rounded, insanely high levelled team - it feels good because we SAW him on the journey that got him there. we didn’t see that with leon so i guess the lack of relatability also adds to the dislike. i also think while leon and red are meant to kinda mirror eachother in terms of what they both represent, again, red has the relatability that saves him for most. the anime was the PERFECT opportunity to show and flesh out leons backstory but all they did was like a 5 second flashback via sonias perspective.

i think leon’s biggest character development comes from being obliterated (and possibly traumatised but let’s leave the headcanons out of this LOL) by eternatus, being manipulated by rose and then being beaten by gloria/victor. i always tell people if they wanna watch a more enjoyable leon to watch twilight wings. i feel as if all the miniseries (evos, generations, twilight wings, origins) did a WAY better job showing these characters in the actual game environment.

[pcktknife]

no but i agree with when polls have predictable outcomes it’s so frustrating…like sometimes ill see a bracket and there’s stuff way more deserving of making it far but because they’re up against like, link or team rocket or some other megapopular character, it’s an autoloss :/

thats the exact reason I made utenanthy + madohomu bonus rounds for my bracket cause I knew they'd probably sweep and even tho I love madohomu that's not fun for everyone else nor is it interesting. the fun factor is very important to me (u_u)

[indigosabyss]

[set during season 2, episode 11 - "Cornered"]

"My master demands a real champion!" The robot insisted, hovering at the sidelines of his three-eyed boss, who had just thrown Billy to the side.

M'gann gulped, trying to think of something new. Zatanna was down, so was Captain Marvel. It was just her and Conner and Bumblebee left here. And Mal, too, but... Yeah.

"Hey, bigshot!" A new voice cried out, and suddenly, several new presences registered on her psychic radar, ten feet ahead of them.

"You want a Champion? Well, you got six." The leader of the group announced, a young girl with a lightning bolt on her chest. All five of her teammates were standing behind her, dressed in wildly different costumes, but they were clearly a team.

Despero tilted his head, considering, and his robot intervened, "Master only fights one-on-one! If you could all wait your turnism, he will destroy you all in due time."

The girl frowned slightly, "Sure. Can we pick our first competitor?"

"My, you are good sportism! Go ahead." The robot agreed with condescending graciousness.

"Great. Nova, don't let him hit the ground."

That was all she needed to say before the boy wearing a black helmet with a red star rocketed forward, too fast to even comprehend that he was moving.

The bluish white blur of motion hit Despero in the gut, sweeping him off his feet and into the air.

Before he could hit the wall, the... Nova had made his way behind the alien, sending him flying in another direction.

This repeated, on and on, a one-person game of ping pong in the Hall of Justice.

"Great, now that Nova has him contained for now, we can figure out how to neutralize him." The girl with the lightning bolt told them, walking up to M'gann, "Normally, I would suggest throwing him into orbit because people who can stand up to Nova can generally survive that, but there's the matter of the force field-"

"I'm sorry, who are you?" Billy interrupted.

The girl's eyebrow twitched, "Ms. Marvel." She introduced tersely.

[lavender-verse]

Additional places Secret Husbands have fucked (not prev anon, yes I know I'm not on anon)

The pineapple (under water with conduit power)

Black Sands Island

Keralis' s6 base (while they were demise trapping it)

Scars landscaping shop

The 1,000 Diamond Challenge mine

Jrumbot shop

Scar's campaign balloon

Both teams locker rooms in the rocket pvp arena

Grian’s hidden base in Keralis' base

Mumbo’s base during HCBBS

Zedaph's base during HCBBS

The Big Barge Sweep (in the minecart during the ride)

The Panda Rescue minigame airplane

The vertical mine

The fish temple

LMAO HELPPPP

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

NASA's VIPER robotic moon rover team raises its mighty mast

NASA's VIPER—short for the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover—now stands taller and more capable than ever, thanks to its mast.

VIPER's mast, and the suite of instruments affixed to it, looks a lot like the rover's "neck" and "head." The mast instruments are designed to help the team of rover drivers and real-time scientists send commands and receive data while the rover navigates around hazardous crater slopes, boulders, and places that risk communications blackouts. The team will use these instruments, along with four science payloads, to scout the lunar South Pole.

During its approximately 100-day mission, VIPER seeks to better understand the origin of water and other resources on the moon, as well as the extreme environment where NASA plans to send astronauts as part of the Artemis campaign.

The tip of VIPER's mast stands approximately eight feet (2.5 meters) above its wheel rims and is equipped with a pair of stereo navigation cameras, a pair of powerful LED headlights, as well as a low- and high-gain antenna to transmit data to and receive data from the Deep Space Network (DSN) antennas on Earth.

The stereo navigation cameras—the "eyes" of the rover—are mounted to a part of the mast that gimbals, allowing the team to pan them as much as 400 degrees around and tilt them up and down as much as 75 degrees.

The VIPER team will use the navigation cameras to take sweeping panoramas of the rover's surroundings and images to detect and further study surface features such as rocks and craters as small as four inches (10 cm) in diameter—or about the length of a pencil—from as far as 50 feet (15 meters) away. Because the navigation cameras are mounted up high, it gives the VIPER team a near human-like perspective as the rover explores areas of scientific interest around the moon's south pole.

Due to the extremes of light and darkness found on the moon, VIPER will be the first planetary rover to have headlights. The headlights will cast a narrow, long-distance beam—much like a car's high beams—to help the team reveal obstacles or interesting terrain features that would otherwise stay hidden in the shadows. Positioned next to the rover's two navigation cameras, the lights feature arrays of blue LEDs that the rover navigation team determined would provide the best visibility, given the challenging lighting conditions on the moon.

In order to transmit large amounts of data across the 240,000 miles (384,000 km) that separate Earth and the moon, VIPER has a gimballing precision-pointed, high-gain antenna that will send information along a very focused, narrow beam. Its low-gain antenna also will send data, but using radio waves at a much lower data rate.

The ability for the antennas to maintain the correct orientation, even while driving, serves a critical function: without it, the rover cannot receive commands while in motion on the moon and cannot transmit any of its data back to Earth for scientists to achieve their mission goals. All that data is then transferred from the DSN to the Multi-Mission Operations and Control Center at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley, where rover operations are based.

Prior to installation on the rover, engineers put the mast through a variety of testing. This included time in a thermal vacuum chamber to verify hat tthe white coating surrounding the mast insulates as intended. After the mast's integration in the clean room at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, the team also successfully performed checkouts of its components, and for the first time sent data through the rover using its antennas.

VIPER is part of the Lunar Discovery and Exploration Program and is managed by the Planetary Science Division of NASA's Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. VIPER will launch to the moon aboard Astrobotic's Griffin lunar lander on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative. It will reach its destination at Mons Mouton near the moon's south pole.

TOP IMAGE....A team of engineers lifts the mast into place atop of NASA’s VIPER robotic Moon rover in a clean room at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Credit: NASA/Helen Arase Vargas

LOWER IMAGE....NASA’s VIPER robotic Moon rover stands taller than ever after engineers integrated its mast in a clean room at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Credit: NASA/Josh Valcarcel