#tech for writers

[shaham10]

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[petermorwood]

More on pre-electricity lighting.

Interesting to see this one pop up again after nearly two years - courtesy of @dduane, too! :->

*****

After experiencing a couple more storm-related power cuts since my original post, as well as a couple of after-dark garden BBQs, I've come to the conclusion that C.J. Cherryh puts far too much emphasis on "how dark things were pre-electric light".

For one thing eyes adjust, dilating in dim light to gather whatever illumination is available. Okay, if there's none, there's none - but if there's some, human eyes can make use of it, some better or just faster than others. They're the ones with "good night vision".

Think, for instance, of how little you can see of your unlit bedroom just after you've turned off the lights, and how much more of it you can see if you wake up a couple of hours later.

There's also that business of feeling your way around, risking breaking your neck etc. People get used to their surroundings and, after a while, can feel their way around a familiar location even in total darkness with a fair amount of confidence.

Problems arise when Things Aren't Where They Should Be (or when New Things Arrive) and is when most trips, stumbles, hacked shins and stubbed toes happen, but usually - Lego bricks and upturned UK plugs aside - non-light domestic navigation is incident-free.

*****

Here are a couple of pics from one of those BBQs: one candle and a firepit early on, then the candle, firepit and an oil lamp much later, all much more obvious than DD's iPad screen.

Though I remain surprised at how well my phonecam was handling this low light, my own unassisted eyes were doing far better. For instance, that area between the table and the firepit wasn't such an impenetrable pool of darkness as it appears in the photo.

I see (hah!) no reason why those same Accustomed Eyes would have any more difficulty with candles or oil lamps as interior lighting, even without the mirrors or reflectors in my previous post.

With those, and with white interior walls, things would be even brighter. There's a reason why so many reconstructed period buildings in Folk Museums etc. are (authentically) whitewashed not just outside but inside as well. It was cheap, had disinfectant qualities, and was a reflective surface. Win, win and win.

*****

All right, there were no switches to turn on a light. But there was no need for what C.J. describes as stumbling about to reach the fire, because there were tinderboxes and, for many centuries before them, flint and steel. Since "firesteels" have been heraldic charges since the 1100s, the actual tool must have been in use for even longer.

Tinderboxes were fire-starter sets with flint, steel and "tinder" all packed into (surprise!) a box. The tinder was easily lit ignition material, often "charcloth", fabric baked in an airtight jar or tin which would now start to glow just from a spark.

They're mentioned in both "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings". Oddly enough, "Hobbit" mentions matches in a couple of places, but I suspect that's a carry-over from when it was just a children's story, not part of the main Legendarium.

Tinderboxes could be simple, just a basic flint-and-steel kit with some tinder for the sparks to fall on...

...or elaborate like this one, with a fancy striker, charcloth, kindling material and even wooden "spills" (long splinters) to transfer flame to a candle or the kindling...

This tinderbox even doubles as a candlestick, complete with a snuffer which would have been inside along with everything else.

Here's a close-up of the striker box with its inner and outer lids open:

What looks like a short pencil with an eraser is actually the striker. A bit of tinder or charcloth would have been pulled through that small hole in the outer lid, which was then closed.

There was a rough steel surface on the lid, and the striker was scraped along it, like so:

This was done for a TV show or film, so the tinder was probably made more flammable with, possibly, lighter fuel. That would be thoroughly appropriate, since a Zippo or similar lighter works on exactly the same principle.

A real-life version of any tinderbox would usually just produce glowing embers needing blown on to make a flame, which is shown sometimes in movies - especially as a will-it-light-or-won't-it? tension build - but is usually a bit slow and non-visual for screen work.

*****

There were even flintlock tinderboxes which worked with the same mechanism as those on firearms. Here's a pocket version:

Here are a couple of bedside versions, once again complete with a candlestick:

And here are three (for home defence?) with a spotlight candle lantern on one side and a double-trigger pistol on the other.

Pull one trigger to light the candle, pull the other trigger to fire the gun.

What could possibly go wrong? :-P

*****

Those pistol lanterns, magnified by lenses, weren't just to let their owner see what they were shooting at: they would also have dazzled whatever miscreant was sneaking around in the dark, irises dilated to make best use of available glimmer.

Swordsmen both good and bad knew this trick too, and various fight manuals taught how to manage a thumb-shuttered lamp encountered suddenly in a dark alley.

There's a sword-and-lantern combat in the 1973 "Three Musketeers" between Michael York (D'Artagnan) and Christopher Lee (Rochefort), which was a great idea.

Unfortunately it failed in execution because the "Hollywood Darkness" which let viewers see the action, wasn't dark enough to emphasise the hazards / advantages of snapping the lamps open and shut.

This TV screencap (can't get a better one, the DVD won't run in a computer drive) shows what I mean.

In fact, like the photos of the BBQ, this image - and entire fight - looks even brighter through "real eyes" than with the phonecam. Just as there can be too much dark in a night scene, there can also be too much light.

*****

One last thing I found when assembling pics for the post were Folding Candle-lanterns.

They were used from about the mid-1700s to the later 20th century (Swiss Army ca. 1978) as travel accessories and emergency equipment, and IMO - I've Made A Note - they'd fit right into a fantasy world whose tech level was able to make them.

The first and last are reproductions: this one is real, from about 1830.

The clear part was mica - a transparent mineral which can be split into thin flexible sheets - while others use horn / parchment, though both of these are translucent rather than transparent. Regardless, all were far less likely to break than glass.

One or two inner surfaces were usually tin, giving the lantern its own built-in reflector, and tech-level-wise, tin as a shiny or decorative finish has been used since Roman times.

I'm pretty sure that top-of-the-line models could also have been finished with their own matching, maybe even built-in, tinderboxes.

And if real ones didn't, fictional ones certainly could. :->

*****

Yet more period lighting stuff here, including flintlock alarm clocks (!)

[nasa]

Hurry! You Can Catch a Ride to Jupiter with NASA

Well, at least your name can.  

One of the planet Jupiter’s largest and most intriguing moons is called Europa. Evidence hints that beneath its icy shell, Europa hides an ocean of liquid water – more water than all of Earth’s oceans combined. In 2024, our Europa Clipper robotic spacecraft sets sail to take a closer look…and when it launches, your name can physically be aboard! Here’s how: 

NASA’s Message in a Bottle campaign invites people around the world to sign their names to a poem written by the U.S. Poet Laureate, Ada Limón. The poem connects the two water worlds — Earth, yearning to reach out and understand what makes a world habitable, and Europa, waiting with secrets yet to be explored.

The poem will be engraved on Europa Clipper, along with participants' names that will be physically etched onto microchips mounted on the spacecraft. Together, the poem and names will travel 1.8 billion miles to the Jupiter system.

Signing up is easy! Just go to this site to sign your name to the poem and get on board. You can send your name en español, too. Envía tu nombre aquí.

The Europa Clipper launch window opens in October 2024, but don’t wait – everyone’s names need to be received this year so they can be loaded onto the spacecraft in time. Sign up by Dec. 31, 2023.

We hope you’ll be riding along with us! Follow the mission at europa.nasa.gov.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[leohtttbriar]

i know that uhura’s role in tos was written to be like a radioman (the guy in wwii movies who carries the phone on his back sometimes) meaning that the “communications officer” role evolved from radioman to linguist in the time since tos aired. but that makes uhura in tos really interesting with a retrospective read of her character, applying things novels and later iterations of her have fleshed out, because she doesn’t do any visible linguistic work in any tos episode. she does security and navigation and piloting and engineering which sort of makes her seem like a valuably flexible sort of many-skilled officer.

it was probably both enterprise with hoshi and the 2009 movie that really cemented the idea of “communications officer means linguist or at the very least polyglot” instead of it just being an uhura-quirk. uhura in the 2009 movie does a lot of engineering/operating work of comm equipment and is implied to speak a lot of languages on top of be able to interpret subspace “noise,” so to speak (like, there’s no way it’s radio. it can’t be radio. star trek takes place across distances of lightyears—when they say “signal,” i’m assuming it’s not radio). and of course strange new worlds has run with the linguistics angle and made it even more explicit that yes she studies linguistics, linguistics is a core part of starfleet academic infrastructure, to the point where whole episode plots are written around the act of translation.

the retrospective addition of this expertise to uhura makes what she is in tos a character even more focused on leadership and, idk, becoming something like a captain, because she doesn’t seem all that specialized. she’s more of a kirk-like character, or janeway or sisko, characters that have a specialized skill but have set it aside mostly to pursue some sort of command. obviously this wasn’t the intention of her character. writers of uhura have mostly just stumbled on the idea of her as a polyglot (according to wikipedia, first introduced in the novel uhura’s song, so) and been like “neat idea! makes sense! explorers need to learn languages!” and kept doubling down on that idea until we get to an origin-story uhura in snw that (wildly) speaks 37 languages, for whatever definition of speak or language, i guess.

what all this overthinking on my part has generated is this idea of uhura very much like a futuristic-captain aubrey or a captain sisko not nailed down to one station, hanging off the shrouds of a solar-sail ship’s rigging, looking beyond, in the most romantic and idealized version of an explorer. i think a lot of people read/write female characters as being more down-to-earth than the whimsical leader-on-the-sea or more nurturing than than the hardened captain-of-a-ship, partly why janeway and burnham are so wonderful to me. but it’s fun to imagine tos uhura being the exploring-captain archetype, amongst the political structures of the 60s. like the additions to her character over the years have solidified that romantic adventurer portrait of her in tos, when the idea of her in command would be the least welcome.

and the fact that she was shown to be excited about a solar sailing ship in snw, like sisko was in ds9 for that one episode, i think emphasizes this read of her—and that her character-journey in snw is going to be how she goes from bookish linguist to “hanging-on-a-shroud-on-a-sunsail-ship” looking out to “sea”.

[fairyroses]

The two-year anniversary of an event which shall not be named sounds like a good enough excuse to post this CX-2 Tech portrait that I drew back when season 3 was airing and all the CX theories were at their peak (I was so disappointed by the lack of a reveal that I never posted it back then 😔)

BONUS: for something happier, here's a post-canon TechPhee sketch that I'd still like to finish someday 💕

anyway Tech Lives™ GOODNIGHT 🤎

[darthkote]

hell nah star wars got me researching military tactics for creative purposes (fanfiction)

[copalcetic]

One of the things that strikes me, rewatching Rebels, is how often Kanan is the voice for negotiation and non-violence.

Yeah, he’s the “cowboy Jedi.” Yeah, he’s not unwilling to cause a little (or a lot) of mayhem when called for. But he’s also the one telling Sabine throughout “The Protectors of Concord Dawn” not to kill anyone (“You love making this hard for me,” says Sabine), and the one who confiscates Ezra’s lightsaber before sending him into the spider’s den in “The Holocrons of Fate” (“He’s gotta learn how to solve problems without it.”) His character arc in the show is learning to embrace the Jedi’s role as peacekeepers, and this is the legacy he wants to pass on to his students.

And so it’s notable to me how much they struggle to hold to that after his death. When I watch “Family Reunion and Farewell” I’m struck by how cold-blooded their plan is. The Imperial Dome has the stormtroopers garrison, sure, but it’s also an administrative center—it’s where the minister’s offices are, it’s where civilians go to work. And the plan isn’t just to destroy the Dome; it’s to deliberately lure all Imperial personnel to it using Protocol 13, and then kill them en masse. “All personnel.” Not just all military personnel.

It’s a very effective plan. It’s the sort of plan that would make Saw Gerrera proud. Luthen Rael would be impressed.

But when Sabine says “For Kanan” as she pushes the button, I find myself wondering: would Kanan actually have approved of this plan, if he’d lived?

[niobiumao3]

At the end of the day, killing off a character for a gut punch only works if you actually follow through emotionally, and S3 of TBB just didn't do that. I get it if other people think it did, but I won't ever be able to agree with that. We see no one find out. There's no memorial for Tech on Pabu or anywhere else, there's barely any mention of his impact on people. Nearly every mention of him was about how his skills were absent. It was a bad narrative beat of which no real use was even made except to focus on how it made things harder for them to do.

S3 remains a true disappointment to me, and I'm unlikely to ever be especially interested in it and its one billion dropped plot threads or the way Phee was tossed aside in favor of Ventress and how Tech's death wasn't engaged with in any meaningful way.

Will they ever walk it back and return him? I guess we'll see. It's happened before. (Echo, Gregor, Ahsoka, etc.) I have vague hope.

[mae-lou-ron]

Back to Sleep

Summary: After some bad dreams interrupt your sleep, you find some unexpected comfort in your beloved partner, Tech.

Pairing: Tech x gn!reader

Warnings: hurt/comfort, waking from bad dreams (no details), fluffy practical Tech in a newish relationship.

Word Count: ~800

A/N: AHHHHHH okay okay okay so the plot goblins absolutely infested my brain after I saw THIS ✨incredible✨ artwork of our darling Tech by @ghostymarni 🫶🏻 This is completely self indulgent because, well, I love him, your honor. I was also a little inspired by the scene in the episode of Schitt’s Creek where Alexis tells David about her breakup with Mutt and realizes she needs a hug 😂

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Hey, Tech?" you murmured into the room he was occupying.

Tech hummed softly in acknowledgment. "It is late and I am in the middle of repairs—what do you need?" he asked quietly, not looking up from his project.

You didn't take offense to his demeanor when interrupted; it was just how his brain worked. His mind never ceasing its search for information and solutions. Sometimes that meant extracting himself from your sleepy cocoon to pursue whatever pathway his incredible mind had opened up to him in the middle of the night. But when you didn't respond for a moment, it shifted his unwavering attention to you, immediately noticing your slightly disheveled state.

"I just…" You paused again. "Maker, this is so stupid," you muttered under your breath, unsure if Tech heard you or not.

There was no room for anxiety in your gut now that the mortified butterflies had taken over. Things were still fairly new with you and Tech. You appreciated that he wasn't one who typically relied on physical affection to convey his feelings—and neither were you, really, but right now you were still a human with a rattled nervous system.

You heard the sound of tools being set down gently and the quiet thump of his approaching footsteps.

Your face was burning with embarrassment. You weren't a child, clearly, you should be able to console yourself and go back to sleep, but you were here now and had his undivided attention. Something that made your chest flutter wildly whenever you had it.

The toes of his boots came into your view as he stopped in front of you. "Sarad?" Tech inquired, his voice softening. "Is something the matter? You seem… unsettled." He offered. The warmth he always radiated displaced some of the chill that had set into your bones, and you instinctively leaned forward into him a little more. "Did I wak—"

"I had a nightmare—" you blurted out, inwardly groaning. Your eyes flicked up to his briefly before focusing on the middle of his chest. “I woke up and you…”

"I see," he said softly after a moment, adjusting his goggles as he regarded you. "You were seeking comfort after your bad dreams had woken you?"

"It's nothing—I was just a bit anxious when I woke up, but it's… it's nothing," you said again, standing on your tiptoes and giving him a soft kiss on the cheek. "I'm fine, I really should go back to sleep…and don’t to stay up too la—" you rambled, still talking yourself out of whatever reason you had to disturb him. You took a few steps back the way you came, but Tech’s hands on your shoulders stopped you.

"Your heart rate is elevated," he said plainly, peering at you. "You are flushed and speaking more quickly than usual." Tech lifted the back of his hand to gently run along your heated cheekbone. "…and you are avoiding eye contact with me, so I can deduce that you are, in fact, not 'fine’, my dear," he said softly, his fingers trailing down your chin before he pulled them away.

"Do you want to tell me about it?" he asked genuinely. “I know that helps you sometimes,”

You shook your head, furrowing your brow. "It's just the same one I told you about," you confessed, biting the inside of your cheek, trying to determine yourself what it is you were seeking. His hand was back at his side, but you wished it was still caressing your face.

"I think I might need a…hug…" you said warily, as if you were unsure of the words that came out of your own mouth. "…or something?" You added, crossing your arms over your chest.

"Ah," he said, his eyes darting back and forth processing this information. He did that sometimes. You couldn't help but smile at seeing the brain you adored at work for you. "I understand," he added before walking back to his workbench—making it seem as though he didn't actually understand at all. You took a few steps in his direction as he pulled over a nearby chair and sat down.

Confusion was visible on your face. You told him you needed a hug, or something, and he immediately went and sat down? Possibly to continue the task you had just interrupted? But he didn't start working; he just looked at you expectantly.

"Come here, sarad," he said gently, shifting in the seat and patting his legs.

You smiled slowly, now understanding, and tiptoed over to him, gingerly taking a seat in his lap. He pulled you to him tightly, encouraging you to relax and lounge fully on him. He kissed the top of your head and ran his hand up and down your spine as you curled into the crook of his neck, inhaling his familiar scent of clean soap and mechanical ozone.

"This is nice," you sighed contentedly, feeling the tension in your chest releasing.

"Good," he quipped, brushing your face with his fingers again. "Rest. Fall asleep if you wish… I shall be here."

"Thank you," you murmured, curling your arms around his waist and closing your eyes. Tech's hands eventually left you to resume his task, but he pressed his lips into the top of your head every so often, reminding you he was still right there with you. His warmth and the steady thrum of his heart soothed you, while the sounds of his gentle tinkering and even breathing lulled you back into a peaceful sleep.

When you awoke, you found yourself back in Tech's bunk, but this time he was wrapped around you, snoring softly into your shoulder.

[alillttn]

You can't tell me IT guys are just sorcerers.

A "programmer" is a warlock able to command artificial beasts using a language most common ears and eyes can't comprehend. Some of these warlocks can even collaborate to create an artificial creature that can simulate intelligence appearing to surpass their creators and the "intelligence" to process new information that wasn't given to it. Some of these even communicate to humans using many of their common tongues in a spell apparatus known as an LLM.

An "engineer" (within the context of the human job classification of "Information Technology", specifically within the context of "hardware") is a type of blacksmith who creates and designs these artificial creatures. Although they have no mind, the "engineer" builds a body for them—a vessel of sorts. Depending on their expertise (and collaboration with "programmer" warlocks), some of them enable specializations in certain tasks, such as opening portals to other worlds via "video games", simulating heavenly bodies, solving complex mathematical equations, predicting the weather with good precision, and other uses for the human race.

A "web developer" is a variant of the "developer" warlock, specializing in creating spaces in the "World Wide Web", a network of "websites" (the spaces these warlocks make) in the Interconnected Network, or "Internet"

Note that taking up any of these roles requires a good understanding of the "electricity" and "electromagnetism" magic systems, medium-to-advanced knowledge of one or more non-common-tongue languages, and/or the ability to cast spells using said non-common languages, depending on the job specifications.

And to my fellow writers—if you really think about it, this world is downright magical. It just lost its magic for us.

"There are cathedrals everywhere for those with the eyes to see."

P.S: I'm not too into IT, so apologies if anything is misinformed and wrong

[inkybyl]

Would it be weird to post a very much under construction fanfic (TBB x Reader)? Like, I wanna finish it ofc but I don’t know if I will 😫🤔

It’s basically Rex asking the reader if she’ll do an infiltration mission (the classic ‘dressing up for a gala to get some information from the host’ type thing), and the batch are extremely overprotective & on edge the whole time 🤣

Edit: posted here!

[skellymom]

CLONE WRITER'S WALL OF FAME

Check out these talented fan ficer's!

PLEASE LIKE, COMMENT, AND REBLOG! They don't get engagement without it, and tell them how much you enjoyed their work!

READ BOTTOM OF THIS POST FOR CRITERIA TO BE ADDED TO THIS POST!

(Apologies if I've been following/mutuals with you for awhile and haven't put you on the list yet. Sometimes my brain and attention span gets lost...)

@sparks0918 and @ochsabird STAR WARS WRITING RESOURCES! Check it out!!!

@aerynwrites

@aggy72

@aknightreaderr

@anxiouspineapple99

@apocalyp-tech-a

@arctrooper69

@areyoufuckingcrazy

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@523rdrebel

IF THERE IS ANYONE MISSING, OR YOU WANT ME TO ADD A WRITER PLEASE MESSAGE ME! THANKS!!!

Ok, for clarity my criteria for CLONE CONTENT:

*Clone main character

*Clone supportive cast characters with a non clone main character

*Clone OC's

*Clones showing up SOMEWHERE significant in the fic. Not just one clone character who is in and out and the rest is non clone characters

Probably the ONLY exceptions that break the other above rules could possibly be the following (and PLEASE feel free to steal these ideas):

*Characters fighting for Clone Rights in the Senate, battlefield, another planet, etc where no physical clones are present, but their story is front row and center.

*Characters interacting in the story regarding the science or cloning actions of ANY of the Clone centered operations like on Kamino or any other planet, Hemlocks clone experimentation, shadowy cabal or Gov Tarkin planning something regarding the Clones, etc. where no physical clones are present, but their story is front row and center.

*I'm cool with ALL CLONE CONTENT TYPES: action packed, slow burn, mundane, clean, comfort, angsty, sad, heart breaking, tragic, cliff hangers, friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, lovey-dovey, soothing, happy, domestic relationships, platonic relationships, hot romantic relationships, smut (off all kinds), aromantic, asexual, non-binary/genderfluid/gay/lesbian/bi/omni characters or targeted readers, baby batch, young cadet batch, etc. Your imagination is the limit!

READERS: PLEASE READ THE TAGS AND WARNING ON THESE CREATORS FICS to make sure it's what you WANT to read! PLEASE BE DISCERNING DURING YOUR JOURNEY ON TUMBLR!!!

I am allowing some of the "problematic" ships.

AND BEFORE ANYONE COMES FOR ME, IT IS UP TO THE READER TO READ THE TAGS AND WARNINGS ON THEIR JOURNEY IN "THE EYEBALL ZONE" WHILE READING FICS AND LOOKING AT VISUAL CONTENT.

I WILL NOT POLICE ANYONE.

NOT A FAN OF CENSORSHIP.

WILL NOT KINK SHAME.

THESE ARE FICTIONAL CHARACTERS.

IF YOU HAVE A PARTICULAR BEEF WITH A WRITERS CONTENT PLEASE TAKE IT UP WITH THEM. AND, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE DO IT CONSTRUCTIVELY AND DO NOT HARRASS OR TROLL THEM.

I am only one person and cannot know what some people find offensive or not. Yep, it's the interwebs and there are some things that are gonna shock you...probably even shock me. I'll leave it up to you to make those decisions and control your own content consumption.

Thanks for understanding.

Also, if you suggest a creator, PLEASE make sure you spelled their Tumblr name correctly. Thanks for understanding!

PLEASE send me some love too! I created this listing to not just help people find creatives, but to PROMOTE MY OWN Tumblr account. So go check out my fics. It's called networking, baby! <3

[nasa]

Send Your Name to Jupiter

You’re invited to sign your name to a poem written by the U.S. Poet Laureate, Ada Limón. The poem connects two water worlds — Earth, yearning to reach out and understand what makes a world habitable, and Europa, waiting with secrets yet to be explored.

The poem will be engraved on Europa Clipper, along with participants' names that will be physically etched onto microchips mounted on the spacecraft. Together, the poem and names will travel 1.8 billion miles to the Jupiter system.

Signing up is easy! Just go to this site to sign your name to the poem and get on board. We also have a Spanish-language site where you can send your name en español: Envía tu nombre aquí.

The Europa Clipper launch window opens in October 2024, but don’t wait – everyone’s names need to be received by December 31 this year so they can be loaded onto the spacecraft in time. We hope you’ll be riding along with us! Follow the mission at europa.nasa.gov.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[kybercrystals94]

Eyes Wide Open

Read on Ao3 here!

Summer of Bad Batch 2024 | Week 2 | Prompt: Comfort Zone

Rated: G | Words: 2109

Summary:

“Did you know,” Crosshair says, conversationally, “that Hunter sleeps with his eyes open?”

A prank does not go as planned.

“Did you know,” Crosshair says, conversationally, “that Hunter sleeps with his eyes open?”

Echo huffs, “That’s impossible.”

“It’s part of his enhancement,” Crosshair says.

The sniper is lounging against the wall with the port Echo is scomped into, idly gnawing on a toothpick with his helmet tucked under his arm, rifle hanging uselessly in his other hand. Echo casts him a vexed glance. “Shouldn’t you be covering my six?

“I am.”

“With your helmet on? And your weapon ready?” 

“It’s an abandoned outpost,” Crosshair scoffs. “There’s nothing here.” 

“Well, then, can you at least stop distracting me? I’m trying to concentrate.” 

Crosshair snorts. “I’m giving you vital information about our squad’s dynamics.” 

“Sure you are,” Echo grumbles. 

“If you don’t believe me, ask Tech. He’ll tell you.” 

“Or maybe I’ll ask Wrecker.” 

“Sure.” 

Echo twists to look up at Crosshair. “You’re being serious? Hunter sleeps with his eyes open?” 

“It’s unsettling, but it’s true,” Crosshair says, shrugging. “But whatever you do, don’t tell Hunter you know. He’s very self conscious about it.” 

Echo narrows his eyes, watching for any twitch of a tell in Crosshair’s features. Crosshair stares back, unflinching, which means nothing. Of the Batch, he seems to be the most apt at lying. Turning back to his task, Echo says, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” 

“Fine by me,” Crosshair says with a shrug. 

<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>

“Echo told me something interesting,” Crosshair says, trailing after Hunter as they leave their meeting with command. 

Hunter isn’t paying attention, reading over their new mission parameters before Tech gets ahold of them. “Yeah?” he asks, absently. 

“He said he sleeps with his eyes open.” 

“Uh, huh.” 

“That’s it? Did you even hear what I said?” 

The ire in Crosshair’s tone makes Hunter look back at him. “What?”

Crosshair sighs. “I said, Echo told me something interesting.”

Hunter quirks an eyebrow. “Okay?”

“He said that he sleeps with his eyes open.” 

Hunter laughs. “What does that mean?” 

“It means he literally sleeps with his eyes open. Something to do with his cybernetics.” 

“He’s pulling your leg, Cross.” 

“I’ve seen it.” 

Now Hunter stops, turning to look at Crosshair dubiously. “You’ve seen Echo sleep with his eyes open.” 

“Several times.”  

Hunter considers this a moment, then regards Crosshair with a disconcerted expression. “You know, it’s kinda creepy that you watch Echo while he sleeps.” 

“I don’t watch him sleep,” Crosshair sputters. 

“That’s kind of what you just said.” 

Crosshair rolls his eyes and walks away, missing Hunter’s grin of triumph. It isn’t hard to annoy the sniper…but embarrassing him was a special kind of achievement. 

<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>

Echo almost asks Tech about Hunter, then he almost asks Wrecker. The issue is that if he caves to the surmounting curiosity, and it turns out this is some sort of prank…everyone will know he fell for it and he’ll look like a gullible dolt. Then again, Crosshair had seemed genuine. It would be a weird thing to lie about. What would he gain from it? (Besides the obvious prize of making Echo appear idiotic.) In the end, Echo decides that he’ll just have to verify the intel for himself, do some recon. How hard can it be to catch Hunter asleep and just…investigate.

Apparently, absolutely kriffing impossible. 

For whatever reason (further piquing Echo’s interest), Hunter always sleeps with his back to the room. To investigate would mean to lean precariously over the hyper sensitive clone. Like that’s gonna happen with Echo’s prosthetics and cybernetics whirring and screaming his location at all times. 

A standard week later, Echo still doesn’t know if Hunter sleeps with his eyes open, but he is almost positive the man has eyes in the back of his head. 

A rare stint on Kamino finds Echo sitting at the table, facing Hunter’s bunk, waiting and hoping that the clone tucked inside turns over in his sleep and finally puts this rumor to rest…so to speak. 

Abruptly, Hunter rolls over and pins Echo with a bleary glare. “What are you doing?” he growls, voice rough with sleep. 

Echo stammers, holding up a dark data pad as frail evidence. “Reading?” An internal smack to the forehead as he wonders why he posed his answer as a question.  

“You’ve been watching me sleep. Why?” 

“I’m not,” Echo protests. 

“You are,” Hunter insists. 

Echo squirms under the scrutiny, face aflame with embarrassment. “Just something Crosshair said…I was trying to figure out if it was true.” 

Hunter rolls his eyes. “Did he tell you I sleep with my eyes open?” 

Echo gapes. This can go one of two very different ways. Either Hunter admits that it’s true, or he tells Echo that he’s an idiot for believing a syllable out of the sniper’s mouth. Echo is not mentally prepared for either scenario. 

“Well, it’s not true,” Hunter deadpans. “Although, Cross told me that you told him that you sleep with your eyes open because of something to do with your cybernetics.”

Echo frowns. “Did you believe him?”

Hunter grins, flopping over onto his back and covering his eyes with the crook of one arm. “No, because I’m not an idiot.” 

“He said it had to do with your enhancement,” Echo defends himself, but that just makes Hunter laugh.  

“And you just believed him?” Hunter asks, still chuckling. 

Echo doesn’t want to dignify the obviously rhetorical question with a response, so he awakens his data pad with an irritable tap, and begins to sort through meaningless tabs hoping that Hunter will just drop it, and that he won’t tell Crosshair about any of it. 

“Ah, don’t feel bad, Echo,” Hunter says, still hiding half his face under his arm. “Cross messing with you means he likes you. You’re officially part of the squad. Getting harrassed by Crosshair is practically a right of passage.”

“Does it ever stop?” Echo mutters. 

Of course Hunter hears him. “No, but you get used to it.” 

Echo swears under his breath. “Goody.” 

A few minutes pass and Echo thinks that Hunter has fallen back asleep; however, the sergeant lifts his arm. “I have an idea to get him back…if you’re interested.”

Oh, Echo is very interested.

<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>

“You were right about Echo,” Hunter says, walking alongside Crosshair. 

Crosshair is pushing a cart of supplies from the armory. This is usually a task completed by Wrecker and Crosshair; however, Hunter had volunteered to go when Wrecker was occupied helping Tech with inventory counts…a task Hunter usually did with Tech. 

“What are you talking about?” Crosshair asks. 

Hunter glances around and lowers his voice. “About him sleeping with his eyes open.” 

Crosshair carefully keeps his expression from twitching into a look of surprise. “Of course I was right. Why would I lie about something like that?” 

“To make me a kriffing creeper like you,” Hunter says, bumping his shoulder into Crosshair. 

Crosshair rolls his eyes, remembering how this conversation went a few weeks ago. “I don’t watch him sleep!” 

“Fine, you don’t…but you were right! I couldn’t believe it. I asked Tech about it, and he said it is one of the side effects of his internal cybernetics. Sometimes Echo forgets to close his eyes if he falls asleep too fast.” 

That actually kind of made sense. Crosshair smirks. “You’re telling me this like I didn’t already know.” 

“I’m just saying, I’m sorry for doubting you,” Hunter says humbly. “It’s actually a good thing you told me. When I talked to Tech, he said that it is important that we close Echo’s eyes for him if he falls asleep with them open. They dry out and are painful once he wakes up.” 

Crosshair hums. He isn’t sure what he thinks of that. Maybe Echo should learn to fall asleep slower if drying his eyes out is that huge of a problem. 

Hunter claps Crosshair’s shoulder soundly. “Thank you for looking out for our squadmate. I know it’s been an adjustment incorporating Echo into the squad, but when we all put in the effort, it will be an even more seamless transition.” 

“Sure,” Crosshair mutters, feeling uncomfortable under the glowing praise. Hunter isn’t usually so flowery, and Echo’s adapting to the dynamics of Clone Force 99 hasn’t been that difficult. A few missteps here and there, but overall, the reg seemed able to keep up. 

Crosshair shrugs off the awkwardness of the situation and hopes he is never the one who sees that Echo has fallen asleep with his eyes open.

<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>

He isn’t so lucky. 

A standard week later, a mission forces them to travel twelve hours in hyperspace. Once the mission parameters have been established, the Batch disperse to do their own tasks. Echo announces that he is exhausted and is going to take a nap. He tells his new brothers that he does not want to be disturbed unless it is a matter of life or death. Then, he stretches out on the lower bunk, turns his back to the room, and is softly snoring a few minutes later. 

Crosshair is doing what he usually does on a long space journey: taking apart his entire rifle and putting it back together after polishing each individual piece. He is nearly done putting the rifle back together when Echo rolls over with a loud sigh. Crosshair glances up and freezes mid attaching one rifle piece to another. 

Echo is staring at him, unblinking. Well. Not at him, more like, through him. It’s terrifying. 

Crosshair glances at the cockpit where Tech, Hunter and Wrecker are. If he could get one of them to come back here, maybe they’d see Echo’s predicament and handle it themselves, Crosshair could claim not to have noticed. 

Another option is to wake Echo up. Crosshair isn’t scared of Echo, not even intimidated; however, putting an ARC on the warpath for disturbing his sleep seems like an unwise decision if Crosshair doesn’t want to face retaliation. 

The third option, the option Crosshair is loath to even consider, is to get up and close Echo’s eyes himself. Knowing there is no one around to hear him, Crosshair breathes out a whine, dropping his head back against the wall and sagging his shoulders. He really, really does not want to do this. 

Echo continues to stare. 

Unseeing. Unblinking. 

Just staring, staring right through Crosshair. 

With another hissed sound of disdain, Crosshair puts aside his rifle pieces and stands up. How does one even close someone’s eyes? You just prise their eyelids down? Won’t that wake them up? These questions plague Crosshair’s mind as he creeps forward, trying not to make eye contact with the sleeping ARC. It’s just so weird…

He stands in front of the bunk, sighs again, and kneels down, crouched on his heels. He reaches up slowly, hating every painful second of this. 

A hand catches his wrist and a voice says, low and cryptic, “Gotcha.” 

Crosshair does not scream. He will die on that hill. But the way his heart leaps into his throat and lodges there makes him fall backwards, landing hard on his tailbone. 

Echo is laughing hysterically, dropping Crosshair’s wrist as he sits up. A combination of the laughter and whatever thing made the unholy, panicked squawk draw the attention of the three persons in the cockpit. 

Hunter is grinning wide enough that Crosshair knows for an absolute fact that the idiot was in on the whole thing. 

“What were you doing, Cross?” Echo asks between gasps of laughter. 

Crosshair pushes himself to his feet and stands stiffly, arms crossed, wishing he had a toothpick to break between his teeth. “You know exactly what I was doing. It was a set up.” 

“What happened?” Wrecker asks, looking wounded at being left out of whatever Echo and Hunter found hilarious. 

“Echo fell asleep with his eyes open,” Hunter says, chuckling. 

Tech adjusts his goggles. “That is a condition known as nocturnal lagophthalmos. I was not aware Echo had it. Fascinating.” 

“He doesn’t have it,” Crosshair grouses. “Hunter lied to me.” 

Hunter looks shocked. “You’re the one who told me Echo had that.” 

“And you’re the one who told me that Hunter did,” Echo puts in, wiping tears from his eyes. 

Wrecker frowns. “Wait? So Hunter sleeps with his eyes open too?” 

“Neither of them do,” Crosshair growls. 

“Crosshair tried to trick Echo and I, so we got him back,” Hunter says, looking far too proud of himself. 

“So it was you that screamed like a prepubescent cadet?” Tech asks Crosshair with a grin. 

“I did not scream,” Crosshair says firmly. 

“Well, it wasn’t me,” Echo says. 

Wrecker is laughing now. “Wait, wait, tell me the whole story.”

Echo happily starts from the beginning. 

END

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[kayla-kloudz]

leif x nail tech girl? fluff or headcanons???

Leif x Nail Tech!Reader Headcanons

• Leif had no idea what a “nail tech” even was at first. "Nail... tech..?"

• When he sees you working on someone’s nails for the first time, he's stunned.

• “Wait... you're painting those? Like... for fun?”

• He pretends to be uninterested when you offer to do his nails, but five minutes later he’s sitting across from you like, “Okay but do something cool. Like blood. Or skulls. Or a tiny dagger!”

• He’s your most dramatic client. Wriggles too much, gasps at the curing lamp, and yells “IS THAT POSION” every time you use acetone.

• But still shows up every two weeks.

• 2 weeks becomes every week becomes twice a week until eventually he's there every day

• "Leif your nails don't have to be done daily" "I know"

• fascinated with your art like a puppy learning it has a tail

• He secretly loves having his nails done. It makes him feel both fierce and pampered. • His favorites are green chrome or black matte with glow-in-the-dark tips. He calls them his “kill nails.”

• If someone dares insult your work or disrespect you, Leif is ready to throw hands. No one talks down to his favorite nail artist.

• He’s terrifyingly protective.

• When you’re tired after work, he’ll wordlessly grab your hands and rub your wrists.

• You once made him custom nail art with tiny little runes and he didn’t stop showing them off for two weeks.

• “Look at these. My girl literally casted spells on my fingers.”

• Leif brags about you constantly, even when it's completely unrelated: “Oh, you’re a warrior? That’s cool. My girlfriend can draw a perfect skull on a pinky nail without flinching.”

• He loves when you experiment on him—holographics, jelly polish, themed sets. The more dramatic, the better. One time you did a set inspired by his eyes, and he got so flustered he couldn’t look at you straight.

• He says he doesn’t “do romance,” but shows up at your studio late at night with snacks, ready to clean your station while you vent about nightmare clients.

• He will 100% fight rude clients on your behalf.