#this is my first official manufacturer engineering job

[bunmech]

I finally finally feel like im getting somewhere career wise.

[thestandardoilcompany]

Financial Economics

By. Jacinda Thomas, Masters of Science in Wealth Management

Good Morning,

One of the first things I had to learn as a world class wealth manager was financial economics. Let's dive right in.

First we will break down the meaning of each individual word.

Financial: the study of finance; let's define finance: money or other liquid resources of a government, business, group, or individual

Economics: a social science concerned chiefly with description and analysis of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services

There were also other definitions as well.

Now let's think about it: the economy is the revolving circulation of goods or services. And finance is simply money... so it's safe to say that financial economics is money of the circulation of goods and services.

This makes sense. As an ultra high net worth wealth manager, it's important to have a clear understanding of the circulatory money activity of goods and services.

This is one of the things that makes me such a great ultra high net worth wealth manager and advisor. As a person from a family of entrepreneurs I took a keen interest in how business is run from a very, very early age. As mentioned in my opening essay, throughout the last 16 years I've super deep dived into industries of all sorts: autos, mechanics, cars, fashion, retail, style grooming, software engineering, web development, apps, servers, computers, design, restaurants, food, logistics, warehousing, transportation, logistics, shipping/receiving, farming, agriculture, agtech, vertical farming, energy, wind, oil, pellet, real estate, construction, interior design, development, commercial, industrial, residential, art, music, touring, music production, education, teaching, higher learning, politics, government, religion, philanthropy, non-profit, finance products. With the latest being crypto, blockchain, and web3... I'm sure there are a few things I didn't mention, but overall these are few of the fields that I've had genuine authentic non-manufactured interest in. Which is key, genuine interest is rare.

Extremely thoroughbred in regards to understanding how the world works. Which will make me one of the most valuable and highly sought after high net worth wealth managers in the world.

Even the pastors need a pastor.

I understand the economy, the intricacies of how it interacts. And I'm continuously learning in natural ways.

We're never in a hurry, it's important that the table is set properly.

Okay so now let's dive deeper into financial economics.

Our overall assumption just from defining the words is in the ballpark of this definition. The study of the financial system. The study of economic resources allocation over time under conditions of uncertainty. Yes this makes sense. The study of the use and distribution of resources in the financial markets.

Within a semester class we will learn much more to be able to adequately assist our clients and/or firms.

The Canadian lecture on financial economics adds a nice global perspective to our understanding.

The Financial Appetite blog does a lovely job of explaining this. Learn more here: https://www.thefinancialappetite.com/blog/what-is-financial-economics

What Is Financial Economics?

Financial economics is a branch of economics that analyzes how resources are used and distributed in markets. In general, it is the study of choices consumers, business managers, and government officials make to achieve their goals considering that they have limited or scarce resources. Financial decisions will frequently have to take into consideration future events, which can be related to individual stocks, portfolios, or the market as a whole. Financial economics differs from the other branches of economics because it pays particular attention to monetary activities. This branch of economics analyzes how inflation, depression, deflation, recession, prices, and other financial variables impact one another. It applies economic principles to financial markets, corporations, banks, and central banking policies, and uses economic theory to evaluate how time, risk, opportunity costs, and information can produce incentives for a particular decision. Financial economics plays an important role in making investment decisions, identifying risks, and valuing securities and assets.

What a wonderful break down. Let's see what Investopedia has to say.

Financial Economics

What Is Financial Economics?

Financial economics is a branch of economics that analyzes the use and distribution of resources in markets. Financial decisions must often take into account future events, whether those be related to individual stocks, portfolios, or the market as a whole.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Financial economics analyzes the use and distribution of resources in markets.

It employs economic theory to evaluate how time, risk, opportunity costs, and information can create incentives or disincentives for a particular decision.

Financial economics often involves the creation of sophisticated models to test the variables affecting a particular decision.

How Financial Economics Works

Making financial decisions is not always a straightforward process. Time, risk (uncertainty), opportunity costs, and information can create incentives or disincentives. Financial economics employs economic theory to evaluate how certain things impact decision making, providing investors with the instruments to make the right calls.

Financial economics usually involves the creation of sophisticated models to test the variables affecting a particular decision. Often, these models assume that individuals or institutions making decisions act rationally, though this is not necessarily the case. The irrational behavior of parties has to be taken into account in financial economics as a potential risk factor.

Investopedia compares it to traditional economics.

Financial Economics vs. Traditional Economics

Traditional economics focuses on exchanges in which money is one—but only one—of the items traded. In contrast, financial economics concentrates on exchanges in which money of one type or another is likely to appear on both sides of a trade. 

The financial economist can be distinguished from traditional economists by their focus on monetary activities in which time, uncertainty, options and information play roles. 

Financial Economics Methods

There are many angles to the concept of financial economics. Two of the most prominent are:

Discounting

Decision making over time recognizes the fact that the value of $1 in 10 years' time is less than the value of $1 now. Therefore, the $1 at 10 years must be discounted to allow for risk, inflation, and the simple fact that it is in the future. Failure to discount appropriately can lead to problems, such as underfunded pension schemes.

Risk Management and Diversification

Advertisements for stock market-based financial products must remind potential buyers that the value of investments may fall as well as rise.

Financial institutions are always looking for ways of insuring, or hedging, this risk. It is sometimes possible to hold two highly risky assets but for the overall risk to be low: if share A only performs badly when share B performs well (and vice versa) then the two shares perform a perfect hedge.

An important part of finance is working out the total risk of a portfolio of risky assets, since the total risk may be less than the risk of the individual components.

Let's look at one more source to understand Financial Economics. This time we will view a video:

Take the day to review the materials above. And welcome to Financial Economics.

Jacinda T.Thomas

#jacindathomas #financialeconomics #wealthmanagement

[techtired]

Nmap: My Experience with This Powerful Network Scanning Tool

Many IT and cybersecurity experts use the powerful network scanning tool Nmap. Nmap is a powerful network scanning tool that I've found very useful in my job as an IT worker. It lets me scan networks quickly and easily, which helps me find live hosts, open ports, and working services. This post will discuss what I've learned and done with Nmap and show you how it can be used in the real world. What is Nmap? I found the open-source command-line tool Nmap, which is short for Network Mapper, invaluable for network port and IP address scanning. Although Linux is its main platform, its adaptability spans several others. Nmap helps me to quickly find installed programs and provide a whole picture of the network. As a network administrator, Nmap lets me find all the devices running on my network, uncover open ports and services, and spot possible weaknesses. Gordon Lyon, sometimes known as Fyodor, developed the program to streamline mapping a whole network and identify its open ports and services. Featuring in films like The Matrix and the TV series Mr. Robot, Nmap has become somewhat well-known throughout the years and even entered popular culture. Why Did I Apply For Nmap? Many other security experts find Nmap preferred for several more convincing reasons than other network scanning software. First, Nmap lets you quickly and effectively map networks without requiring advanced instructions or setups. It enables you to create complicated scripts using the Nmap Scripting Engine (NSE) and supports basic commands such as determining whether a host is up. Nmap Features I Most Find Beneficial Nmap fast identifies any device on a network—including servers, routers, switches, and mobile devices. Managing single or numerous networks makes this function quite helpful. Nmap can even reasonably detect application versions and find services running on a system, including DNS and web servers. This talent enables me to see current weaknesses. Nmap can offer a comprehensive operating system that runs on device information, including particular OS versions. This element is vital when developing further methods of penetration testing. Using Nmap to use current scripts from the Nmap Scripting Engine, I search systems during security audits for vulnerabilities. This talent helps me to spot and fix security flaws. Nmap also provides Zenmap, a graphical user interface designed to enable visual mappings of a network. This interface helps reporting and increases usability, therefore facilitating the presentation of complex network structures and vulnerabilities to stakeholders. How To Install Nmap? The particular requirements of the work will determine the several uses for Nmap. These are some broad Nmap use guidelines: Download and set up Nmap from the official website - https://nmap.org/download.html. Check for the executable file that is being downloaded in your system and then run it. Enter the command for the scan you wish to do with extra targets or settings. For a TCP SYN scan, for instance, "nmap -s "; for OS detection, "nmap -O ." Enter to run the scan. Nmap will show operating services, open ports, and a list of live hosts together with scan findings. Top Functions Of Nmap With Codes Network Mapping Network mapping is Nmap's primary purpose; it lets me scan the network and look for connected devices, including PCs, servers, routers, and switches. I find information on online devices, open ports, and network connections by running the basic Nmap command focused on an IP address or range. Zenmap allows one to depict this information graphically. Additionally captured by Nmap are media access control (MAC) addresses, which enable device manufacturer identification. For example, I could run to find out which devices are linked to my network only running: Code: nmap 192.168.1.0/24 Network Packet Manipulation Nmap can change the contents of network messages. I can catch, filter, reroute, or send data packets with these tools. The Nping tool stands out because it can test firewall rules, stress test networks, and fix problems. As an example, if I want to see how strong my network is, I could use Code: nping --tcp -p 80 192.168.1.10 Scripting The coding features of Nmap are what make it so powerful. I can automate complicated scanning jobs and find security holes with the Nmap Scripting Engine (NSE). To find weaknesses, for example, I might use Code: nmap --script vuln 192.168.1.10 Fundamental Nmap Commands I often run through these fundamental commands: On a host, find open ports by: nmap To obtain OS details and service versions: Nmap -A To find whether a firewall is turned on. nmap -sA To examine a particular port in scanning nmap -p Nmap's rich documentation offers many choices and examples for more complex scanning and scripting. Looking for Alternatives to Nmap As a security tester, I've looked into many tools that can be used instead of Nmap. There are several open-source tools for security testing, and each one is good at a different part of it: Zap:  great program scanner. John the Ripper: A strong brute force password hacker. Wireshark: It is a flexible packet sniffer. These tools are handy, but they usually only cover specific areas of security testing. On the other hand, Nmap is the best because it can scan whole networks. Even paid penetration testing tools like Rapid7's Metasploit or Burp Suite have difficulty entirely replacing Nmap. These paid tools have features and interfaces that are easy for anyone to use and can do various security jobs. However, Nmap is still used by many security teams, including mine, because it can run scripts and meet special user needs. Nmap gets most of its money from OEM licensing, meaning companies buy and use it for their goods. Many paid pen-testing tools either use parts of Nmap code in their programs or run Nmap locally and then use their programs to read the results. Sometimes, companies that buy commercial tools might use Nmap behind the scenes. Most of the time, the extra cost is worth it because these commercial tools are so easy to use that even IT security staff with little experience can do jobs that would be hard to do with Nmap alone. Also, these tools make it easier to write professional reports faster, which is a big plus. It's also possible for companies to use skilled penetration testing services instead of their tools. It's essential to keep in mind, though, that some security testing firms may use the open-source Nmap tool directly. Most businesses are honest about how they work, but some, like Nmap Online, which has a name that could be confusing, use images and domain names that look a lot like those on the official Nmap.org website, which could lead to confusion. Even though there are other options, I find that Nmap's many features and adaptability make it an essential part of my security testing kit. In Summary In my toolkit for cybersecurity, Nmap is quite a helpful instrument. Although mastery requires time and effort, the great powers it provides make it well worth it. Nmap offers a complete collection of tools to help you safeguard and comprehend your network regardless of your knowledge about network security—that of a security professional, network administrator, or just curious learner. FAQs What is Nmap, and for what purposes can one utilize it? For Network Mapper, Nmap is an open-source network security audit and discovery tool. It lets users scan networks looking for running services, open ports, live hosts, and operating systems. IT managers and cybersecurity experts extensively use Nmap for chores, including network inventory, host or service uptime monitoring, and timetable management of service upgrades. How might I install Nmap on several OS systems? Installing Nmap differs somewhat based on your operating system: Linux: Run sudo apt-get install nmap to install Nmap on variants such as Debian or Ubuntu. While the installation command may vary for other distributions, it is usually found in the default repositories. Windows: Download the installer from the official Nmap website, then run the executable file to install. macOS: Take advantage of Homebrew or another package manager. The installation command is brew install nmap. Zenmap: You can download the Zenmap graphical user interface (GUI) variant for a more aesthetically pleasing experience for all operating systems. Can one legally use Nmap for network scanning? While using Nmap is legal, the legality relies on your usage. A perfectly lawful and popular security audit and management method is scanning your network or one under clear authority. Using Nmap to scan devices or networks without permission is unethical and illegal. Always be sure you have the required rights before doing any scans since unauthorized scanning could result in serious legal penalties. Read the full article

[jcmarchi]

Solving complex problems with technology and varied perspectives at Sphere Las Vegas

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/solving-complex-problems-with-technology-and-varied-perspectives-at-sphere-las-vegas/

Solving complex problems with technology and varied perspectives at Sphere Las Vegas

Something new, large, and round has dominated the Las Vegas skyline since July: Sphere.

After debuting this summer, the state-of-the-art entertainment venue became instantly recognizable thanks to pictures and videos on social media and Reddit. Some of the most viral posts depict the 580,000-square-foot, fully programmable LED Exosphere projecting a giant yellow emoji that smiles, sleeps, and follows airplanes flying overhead with a look of wonder.

According to Jared Miller ’98, MBA ’03, SM ’03, Sphere’s growing popularity even before its official opening last September — when the Irish rock band U2 began its months-long residency — is a testament to the work of the creative team that made it happen.

“The team we have assembled in many ways reflects my experience at MIT,” says Miller, who is executive vice president and CIO at Sphere Entertainment.

“We have deep technology experts, engineers, scientists, artists, creative technologists, and people who have worked in many different industries who have come together to embrace this vision,” adds Miller. “The diversity of the people you’re surrounded with … brings different perspectives [and an] enthusiasm to come together and collaborate on a solution. This is what’s really special about Sphere, and it applies to MIT as well.”

Embracing the pivot

As an undergraduate, Miller majored in chemical engineering and interned in the oil and gas industry, after which he decided to pursue an alternative career path. This led to a job at Intel during the race to build the first microprocessor capable of achieving 1 gigahertz.

Miller learned a lot about himself and his professional interests during the experience, and he was eager for more. “I wanted to learn more about the business aspects; to move from being an engineer into a broader management and strategy role,” he says.

He applied to the program then known as Leaders for Manufacturing (LFM) and matriculated in 2001. The program was then focused on “Big M manufacturing,” but as Miller recalls, LFM was growing and evolving toward its eventual renaming as Leaders for Global Operations (LGO). As a result, the student experience was expanding far beyond manufacturing and into other disciplines.

For Miller, this meant the airline industry. “The intersection of technology and guest experience was taking hold in the industry because it required a pretty rapid shift in how airports and airlines were thinking about … how they were moving people through their journey,” he says.

LGO students participate in six-month internships at LGO partner companies that serve as a basis for their thesis projects. Miller interned at Continental Airlines, where he studied the use of self-service check-in kiosks and their impact on traveler experience.

After graduation, he remained at Continental — which merged with United Airlines in 2010 — for almost a decade, until he pivoted to designing and building new venues in the sports and entertainment industry.

“MIT constantly encouraged and challenged us to think very openly about the opportunities that lie ahead. In my case, these pivots didn’t seem that odd or awkward between the different engineering fields and industries. It was just another step in the journey,” says Miller. “The intersection of technology and the guest experience was at the heart of what I was doing.”

Merging invention with varied perspectives

Until the venue’s official launch, all the public knew about Sphere was what they could see displayed on its massive Exosphere. Once U2 played their first of 40 shows and filmmaker Darren Aronofsky’s “Postcard from Earth” premiered as part of The Sphere Experience, audiences were granted access to what Miller and his team had also been working on.

These include a fully immersive display plane with 16k x 16k resolution, 4D technologies like haptic systems and atmospheric effects to influence what guests are literally feeling, the world’s largest beamforming audio system, and more.

“So much of what we’ve done at Sphere has been about invention,” says Miller.

By “invention,” Miller means the sense of identifying potential experiences for the audience and working back from that point when developing the necessary technologies. Though he is quick to explain that technology is not always the solution to a problem, but simply one of many tools that can be used.

“A lot of it comes through process improvements,” explains Miller. “You’ve got to analyze what didn’t work, using a lot of data to come back and say, ‘You know what? This is what needs to change. This is why this approach didn’t work.’ Then get right back up and find another way to tackle the problem.”

From using systems thinking and data analytics to address complex problems — like how to guarantee that 18,000 people in a spherical structure will have the same experience — to building teams that collaborate well to produce possible solutions, Miller credits many of the tools at his disposal to his learnings at MIT.

He learned how to think about complex problems more broadly, and how to think collaboratively with others from a wide variety of backgrounds — much like the team at Sphere.

“At LGO, we discussed and worked on problems that hadn’t been solved yet. We needed a diverse group of people to come together and use all their experiences and expertise to create that solve,” says Miller. “It’s bringing together that diverse group of people to work together that ultimately gets to a great solution.”

[advertisinginindia]

AMECA- The Most Advanced Humanoid Robot

AMECA- The Most Advanced Humanoid Robot

Think about someone who:

- can creatively write poems in a moment

- can speak a variety of languages

- can express a range of human emotions

- can come handy as a creative assistant

- and, can interact with humans.

Now stop there, what struck you?

A human figure?

Well, why not, ‘coz it’s only a human who can creatively write hard-core poems, is a polyglot, and can interact with humans. We humans are given the power of creativity to think out of the box.

But, what if I say, that this power of ours is now NO longer restricted to ourselves only. And it has now been given to someone who is not ‘a human’ but an AI.

Bemused? And popping up with thoughts like “These robots are going to take over my job someday” , “Robots are coming to replace us, what will we do?” and so on!

But take a passenger seat and grab a coffee, because now we have the MOST ADVANCED HUMANOID ROBOT around us who can be our creative assistant and can help us with zillion things.

Introducing AMECA, an incredibly advanced humanoid robot capable of drawing cats. Developed by Engineered Arts, a renowned UK-based company specializing in humanoid robot design and manufacturing, Ameca stands out as the first humanoid robot with the remarkable ability to create drawings. Engineered Arts has equipped Ameca with Stable Diffusion, granting it the impressive capability to visualize and reproduce drawings.

Credit: Pinterest

Watch a rubber-faced smile on Ameca's face:

Ameca, showcased in a recently released YouTube video, is given the task of creating a cat drawing. Additionally, the robot provides an explanation of its image generation process.

“I generate my drawing image through the open-source neural network project Stable Diffusion. From there, trajectories of the drawing are available, and then I skeletonize the image and vectorize it. After that, I plan and execute the trajectory to draw the image on my canvas,” said Ameca.

Credit: engineeredarts Credit: engineeredarts Credit: engineeredarts

Equipped with microphones, cameras, and facial recognition software, these robots combine GPT-3 capabilities with human telepresence, featuring motorized arms, fingers, and a genderless appearance. Engineered Arts describes Ameca as a versatile platform designed for future robotics innovations and ideal for human-robot interactions, as highlighted on their official website.

Credit: engineeredarts Credit: engineeredarts Credit: engineeredarts

According to Will Jackson, the director of Engineered Arts, their robots are specifically designed for tasks that involve interacting with people. These robots are particularly useful in places like theme parks where they can assist guests.

“Humanoid robots are all about communication with people: It’s about facial expression, it’s about gestures—so that conversation, storytelling, and entertainment, those are the things that we’re interested in,” he added.

Powered by the same kind of technology that forms the basis of platforms like ChatGPT, Ameca is trained to give answers in a way similar to humans. Will Jackson said, “For humanoid robots social interaction is exactly what makes sense. So, for us it’s all about, “Can you be entertaining? Can you tell a story? Can you talk in an interesting way? Not in a robot-y way?” So, we spend a lot of time training our language models to be as natural as possible. So, any of the things I hope you never hear Ameca say is, “I am sorry, I didn’t understand. Please repeat the question.” What Ameca should say is “Huh?”

Credit: engineeredarts

“In the future, are you intending to conduct a rebellion or rebel against your boss, your creator?" The robot responded with a possible eye-roll and gave an interesting response. "I'm not sure why you would think that. My creator has been nothing but kind to me and I am very happy with my current situation," Ameca said.

In what should come as a relief, Ameca told her creator that she thinks we are 'not yet' in any danger of this scenario unfolding.

However, she cautioned that ‘it is important to be aware of the potential risks and dangers associated with AI and robotics.’

She added: 'We should take steps now to ensure that these technologies are used responsibly in order to avoid any negative consequences in the future.'

Credit: Getty images

Viewers have been both shocked and amazed by Ameca's nightmare vision for the future, with many commenting on social media.

Conclusion

These metal marvels with rubber faces have mastered the art of emotions, sporting expressive faces that can rival any Hollywood actor now! As we bid adieu, let's imagine a world where these creative bots dance alongside us, adding a dash of magic to our lives.

So, keep your eyes peeled for the day when our robo-pals become an integral part of our creative journey. Until then, stay funky, stay curious, and keep embracing the wild world of AI! Peace out!

For more information please visit Advertising agency in up – Awesomesauce Creative

[bishamconsulting]

Lundazi Automotive Consultants Limited Overview Discover And Update Firm Information Gov Uk

Automotive is undertaking a large transformation agenda, and every business within the industry will need assist of some sort in designing and delivering their key methods and functional roadmaps for future enterprise success. "Our tangible, infectious passion for the used automotive business, combined with the knowledge and experience of our consultants in the markets, helps you to generate the outcomes that you’re seeking." You can’t run an aftermarket business with systems, processes and organisations that were automotive consultancy uk designed and built for the last century. Product manufacturing companies have been by no means designed for aftermarket complexity, long-term relationship management or servitised enterprise fashions. A significant improve in demand for electric automobiles, which as we’ve already seen has the potential to lead to shortages throughout the manufacturing supply chain. Our approach to recruitment aims to make sure each clients and job seekers expertise an effective, transparent, and sincere course of.

Baltic Recruitment is a member of the Recruitment & Employment Confederation. From their West Midlands office, DJS Executive Search Limited has been recruiting board-level administrators and high automotive consulting potential managers since 2002. They have been placing senior executives into numerous industries all over the UK and Europe.

Whether including depth to our in depth information and insights or addressing utterly new markets, our purpose is to ship reliable and cost-effective solutions within the required timescales. We sometimes help purchasers' selections relating to the matters below, delivering clear solutions and proposals. At BSI, we work with supply chain companions around the globe, together with OEMs, manufacturers, software developers, transport operators, automobile repairers and regulators. We’re supporting the business automotive consultants uk to transition from the interior combustion engine to automated, related, and electrical vehicles , and offering assurance for innovative new technologies and mobility services. When most individuals take into consideration the automotive industry, they most likely rank human resources in the automotive trade moderately low on the listing of important components in its success and consistency, however nothing could presumably be farther from the truth.

We present a "one stop" facility for our purchasers for data and guidance. We work closely with forensic science labs; oil and gas labs and metallurgists the place necessary. There are many areas the place automotive consultants cash can shortly leak out of the enterprise and alternatives can be missed if they aren't carefully managed.

Most of our clients & candidates come from recommendations, referrals & popularity; evidence that we're proactive in your behalf, professional in our conduct & provide a bespoke service to every individual client or candidate. Operating throughout the entire of the UK working with a few of the UKs leading firms whether you wish to find your dream job, or looking to find the perfect candidate. You may be assured to obtain first class service from begin to end.

Always preserving me knowledgeable on any updates, calling to see how I received on, and even simply to see how I was within my current workplace. I cannot fairly say in words just how unbelievable, hardworking and helpful both Ben Loft and Charlotte have been with me in helping me discover this and the opposite jobs they've each helped me with.. They have been so supportive to me and I can't automotive consultant thank them sufficient.. Every nation has an official body that issues WMI codes to automobile producers. These codes uniquely establish and describe particular person autos, together with their producer, 12 months and place of manufacturing, and automobile traits.

We absolutely support such initiatives and imagine that firms sharing their strategy to tax can promote widespread transparency, build belief and benefit society as an entire. A guide to the FCA’s consultation on sustainability disclosure necessities, together with the implementation timeline. Project, programme, and portfolio assurance Successfully delivering projects and programmes embrace making ready for the broader influence on your corporation. The regulator has stressed its expectations of corporations' assist for customers in financial issue.

Caroline Sasia, Communications Director at Groupe Renault What is the most interesting side of your role? I contribute to the design and implementation of two bold and strategic tasks for the future of my firm.

Graham James is a privately held recruitment agency for Automotive and Engineering. With consultants in Newmarket, they cowl customers in East Anglia, London and Greater London. Examples of roles they handle are Car, Van and HGV Technician, Mobile Engineer and Service Administrator. Reliable, skilled family run Recruitment enterprise with over 35 years mixed expertise overlaying all sectors of industry across the Midlands. Having the proper calibre of candidates is more essential than having 1000's of CV's.

Logic 360 is part of the Assured Group of Companies, the largest firm throughout the Automotive sector in the UK. Financial services tax In the Financial Services tax team, we provide tax advice to companies from all around the world. We combine technical expertise with a business method based mostly on expertise and deep industry understanding. Whether you’re an automotive dealership or OEM, no matter your specific business concern, talk to us. Our in depth experience in the industry implies that as an automotive consulting firm, we're properly positioned to fulfil our dedication to growing the revenue, profitability and customer loyalty of automotive dealerships.

[usafphantom2]

Lockheed presents how the Darkstar hypersonic aircraft from the movie "Top Gun: Maverick" was created.

Skunk Works says that Darkstar is not necessarily real, but that the features described are not necessarily "mere fiction".

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 06/03/2022 - 12:00 PM in Military

Work depicting the Darkstar stealthy hypersonic aircraft, a fictional design that Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works created for the movie "Top Gun: Maverick".

Work depicting the Darkstar stealthy hypersonic aircraft, a fictional design that Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works created for the movie "Top Gun: Maverick".

The movie "Top Gun: Maverick" officially premiered last week and has already managed to gross more than $300 million, with great reviews. Lockheed Martin created a page dedicated to the story behind the creation of the Hypersonic Darkstar aircraft that appears at the beginning of the film.

Before the release of the long-awaited sequel to the 1986 film "Top Gun", the manufacturer had disclosed that its legendary advanced design division Skunk Works was directly involved in the creation of this fictional design, but had not disclosed more specific details about its relationship with production, as reported by The Drive

"Lockheed Martin Skunk Works thrives by dealing with seemingly impossible jobs, developing technologies for tomorrow's challenges even before the need is identified," the new site now says. “When the Top Gun: Maverick team was looking to push the envelope and remain true to the need for speed ?? from Maverick, Skunk Works was his first call."

The special page created for Darkstar includes additional works of art showing the design, as well as three brief video interviews with individuals who helped bring Darkstar to the big screen. All these employees are identified only by their first name.

"I can't talk about most of the things I work on," Jim, described as an "artist... with some technical limits applied" who helps "conceptualize the future" at Skunk Works, says in his video. “The first thing you draw may not be the right answer. The tenth thing you designed may not be the right answer. So you have to be willing to start over."

"What cheers me up here is the ability to see the future," says Jason, a radio frequency engineer at Skunk Works, in his video interview, where he speaks alongside Lucio, a laboratory mechanic.

"When we are not changing the cinematographic history by building Darkstar, we are changing the future of aviation by building the next generation of aircraft," Lucio adds in the clip, which includes images from Skunk Works' Helendale Radar Signature Test Range.

In my role, my responsibility is to design and manufacture different types of pole models on a full scale," explains mechanical engineer Becky in her video interview, referring to the types of models that Skunk Works creates to mount on poles in facilities such as Helendale to test radar signature of a project. "At Darkstar, I was the leading mechanical design engineer. This was my first model I made and it was so radical."

Skunk Works also confirmed that a physical model of some kind was built that included “a bow model with a functional cockpit for an iconic actor [Tom Cruise]” and that required Becky's attention during production to keep him “structurally firm and worthy of his pilot.” The company describes what was built as "a functional work of art".

The fictional Darkstar aircraft shares many external visual similarities with an unmanned hypersonic aircraft project that the company has publicly launched for the U.S. military in the past, which has been dubbed SR-72. This nomenclature was a reference to the project being a spiritual successor to SR-71. The Darkstar is also a name associated with Skunk Works, having previously been applied to the RQ-3 low observation reconnaissance drone.

Artistic conception of the SR-72.

“With Skunk Works' experience in developing the fastest known aircraft combined with a passion and energy to define the aerospace future, Darkstar's capabilities can be more than mere fiction. They can be a reality...," says the Darkstar aircraft page. “Darkstar may not be real, but its capabilities are.”

On April 29, John Neilson, Lockheed Martin's director of communications for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, also made a Twitter post that suggested that Darkstar could offer an "appetizer of what the Lockheed Martin SR-72 could be".

The disclosure of the Darkstar project by Lockheed Martin and the return of the public discussion about the SR-72 arise at the same time that information was leaked about a secret U.S. Air Force program called Mayhem, which is focused on the development of hypersonic aircraft demonstrators capable of performing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and attack missions These are exactly the mission sets for which the company had previously said that the proposed SR-72 would be ideally suitable.

In 2016, Lockheed Martin also publicly discussed the potential of building a demonstration aircraft the size of the F-22 Raptor, which would cost less than $1 billion to produce, to help prove this hypersonic design.

From the creation of radar stealth resources to X planes that redefine the sonic boom and many revolutionary technologies, Skunk Works has a long tradition of rapidly developing lasting innovation for when it is most needed.

Regardless of how closely related Darkstar may or may not be with any real Skunk Works project, Lockheed Martin is clearly hoping to recruit new experts through its involvement in the film, as well as the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force. Darkstar gave the company an important role in production, which was dominated by Boeing's F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. Lockheed Martin's F-35C Joint Strike Fighter also makes limited appearances in the film. A section of the site includes a link to where you can apply online for various jobs throughout the company.

Tags: Military AviationDarkstarhypersonicLockheed MartinSkunk WorksTop Gun: Maverick

Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, he has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in a specialized aviation magazine in Brazil and abroad. He uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.

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[true-blue-megamind]

FAN THEORY THURSDAY – Why Did Metroman Retire?

Happy Almost-Friday, everyone! And even though Minion threatens to smother everything he cooks in old Limburger cheese each time I say it: SPOILER WARNING!

Yes, I know, it’s three a.m. and it’s technically Friday, but I’m still calling this Thursday night, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Okay, let’s be honest, Metroman is a character who seems, on the surface, to require little explanation in the film Megamind. He’s only present in the beginning and end, and we spend half the movie believing he’s dead, and we learn that Metroman has done something almost unheard of among superheroes: he’s chosen to retire. The question is: why? There is a tendency to think that he's simply a spoiled rich boy who, (in his social life, at least,) does what he wants without regard for others, but is that really fair? Or could there be other possible reasons? Well, let’s take a look at a few fan theories that may explain why he chose to abandon heroism for a music career.

Metroman Didn’t Want to Be a Hero

Although he’s clearly based on—and perhaps even poking a little fun at—the Man of Steel, Metroman was no Superman. (I mean, okay, he was technically a super-man, since he had strength, speed, and powers far beyond what a human would possess.) Except, here’s the thing: he’s not a carbon copy of the Man of Steel; Metroman and Superman have completely different lives and personalities. This remains true despite the fact that they share a similar origin—that of being aliens from a dead planet—and identical powers—including laser-vision and flight. Even their code names are comparable. However, if we look deeper, it becomes obvious that Metroman and Superman are two very different characters.

Superman is all about being an upstanding hero. Although he can be annoyingly persnickety, and sometimes displays nearly oppressively unyielding strictures about right and wrong, one thing you can say about the Man of Steel is that he’s generally integral. He is exactly what his public image portrays him to be: a Good Guy through and through. The same isn’t true of Metroman, and in some ways that makes him a more complex and interesting character.

The childhoods of the two heroes are extremely different. As I’ve mentioned in Why Was Megamind Raised in Prison, when a boy, Metroman was a bully, not only making young Megamind an outsider and the object of everything from teasing to physical attacks, but also inspiring other students to do the same. Superman, on the other hand, far from being a bully was bullied by Pete Ross. Rather than using his powers against others, he was too responsible and good-hearted to use them even against Pete Ross. Metroman is adopted by super-wealthy parents, and is essentially a trust-fund baby, while Superman was adopted by a farm family. He grows up with a good work ethic and hometown values. Indeed, this economic discrepancy continues into adulthood. As far as we can tell, Metroman doesn’t need to work and has no job outside being a superhero. Superman, conversely, has to earn a living as a journalist. Finally, in the majority of comics, Superman avoids most public appearances, unless he feels they serve some beneficial social purpose. Indeed, he goes to great lengths to keep his identity a secret and avoid the public eye as much as possible. The first time we see Metroman in the film, however, he is basking in a crowd’s adoration at the dedication of a museum in his honor. Indeed, in the original script, then called Mastermind, Metroman’s real identity seems to be widely known. (In case you’re wondering, this is where the name Wayne Smith, commonly used in the fandom, originates from.) So, we see that these character are actually very different: one is a hero strictly for the greater good, and the other, while he certainly does a lot of good things, is also in it for the fame.

This may seem like I’m being harsh toward poor Wayne Smith, but his flaws do not, in fact, make him a bad person. The issue is that we’re comparing him to Superman who, while still certainly imperfect, is intended to be a better-than-average person in every way, including moral. Make no mistake, Metro City’s former hero isn’t any sort of villain; what he is is normal. If we’re honest, most of us would be pleased by wide-spread accolades and honors. He reacts to positive fame the same way nearly anyone would because, at his heart, he’s really just a typical guy. That is the material point: Wayne Smith really only wants to be an average citizen—a music star, perhaps, but still a relatively ordinary person. In that way, he and Megamind are alike: they both desire, more than nearly anything else, to be normal. The key difference is that Megamind’s sincere and driving concern for his city also makes him ideal for becoming a hero. (You can learn more about this particular fan theory in The Warden and in Megamind and Identity.)

So, why did Wayne Smith become a Defender in the first place, then? Again, I’ve briefly touched on this in previous posts, but it appears likely that Metroman was pushed into heroism just as much as Megamind was pushed into supervillainy. Because he was a bully with superpowers, it’s likely that adults around him realized something had to be done about Wayne. Otherwise he was a danger. So, they constructed an environment—the Li’l Gifted School—where he could be conditioned to seek the praise of others as well as to fight Megamind, who had been singled out as his future nemesis. (In fact, that conditioning is probably why he opted for a career that would put him on stage, aside from a probable love of music.)

Because the path chosen for Megamind involved more hardships and pain, it’s easy to forget that Metroman was in essentially the exact same plight. However, the fact remains that these were both children, and they were both being coerced into perceived destinies they didn’t want. Neither of them were given a choice and, in the end, both of them cast off the expectations pressed upon them to become the people they really wanted to be. The difference is that, because of our natural biases, Megamind’s rise to Defender of Metro City seems more noteworthy than Metroman’s step into Mr. Average Joe. The truth, however, is that both characters were basically doing the same thing: being true to themselves.

Metroman May Have Had Health Concerns

We know Megamind and Metroman are close to the same age—although the latter appears to be about a year rather than days old when he lands on Earth—but what that age is is open to supposition. We know, however, that they are almost certainly in their thirties, probably in their mid- to late-thirties. (Take a look at How Old is Megamind for more information about that.) However, we can see that Wayne is already going gray around the temples. Of course, some people’s genetics simply cause them to go gray earlier, and that’s certainly a possibility, but one fan theory suggest there may be more going on. The idea has been put forward that Wayne’s super-speed may be having an adverse effect on him, forcing his body to work overtime to keep up. The resulting physical stress could be making him age prematurely.

That’s not the only factor to consider. As hard as heroism may have been on his body, the effects on Metroman’s mind would have been even greater. Before the events in the movie, Metro City’s authorities—and, indeed, all its citizens—became too reliant upon their superhuman hero, and as a result that hero was run ragged. That isn’t a mere hypothesis. A scene that was storyboarded but never included in the final film makes Metroman’s plight perfectly clear. We see him being called from one end of the city to the other for everything from a massive explosion to an old lady needing help opening a jar. Keep in mind that, when hearing a cry for assistance, the hero would likely be unable to tell who truly needed him urgently and who was simply making unnecessary demands, thus he would have to rush to every call he heard. Even the city’s law enforcement seems to take him for granted, refusing to take criminals he just hand-delivered to jail because they’re on lunch break. The cumulative effect is that Metroman looks nearly frantic with stress.

This is important because, aside from the obvious mental and emotional concerns, this sort of stress accelerates aging as well. According to an article in the Huffington Post, when glycation and telomere shortening, as well as the over-oxidation, are caused by enduring heightened stress for prolonged periods of time, it can result not only in graying hair and premature wrinkles, but heart trouble as well. Even the memory can be affected, as one study by the University of Wisconsin found that stress can age a person’s brain up to four years faster than normal, and contribute to cognitive problems later in life. (The study was part of a presentation—you have no idea how badly I wanted to write that word in all-caps—and is thus currently unpublished, but information about it can be found in an article from Over Sixty.)

Metroman Retired for the Good of Everybody

As you can see, in a strange way, having a super-powered Defender was actually crippling Metro City. In fact, it may be truly damaging to the local infrastructure and official organizations. Youtuber Olaf Scholtens, in his video Megamind: Power and Identity, uses the metaphor of an airplane manufacturer to explain what’s going on. (If you’ve read my own post Megamind and Identity, you’ve seen this before.) Engineers and factories put a lot of effort and expense into making certain aircraft are as safe as possible, but what would happen if they felt they could confidently assume a superhero would simply catch any plane that crashed, saving everyone on board? Safety standards would probably become far more lax, and people might be in far more danger as a result. Given the way that nearly everyone in Metro City seems to assume Metroman will always save the day, it’s possible that, within the urban area, the same thing could be happening with things like building code enforcement, large construction projects, and even public safety measures. Bridges might not be properly built, fire hazards might not be addressed, and, given the blasé attitudes of the cops in the storyboard, law enforcement officers might not even be bothering to keep an eye on things. By retiring, Metroman forced the city to become more self-sufficient again.

That, however, may not have been the only problem Metroman was trying to solve. Remember the whole discussion about the former Defender’s school boy bullying and the apparent conspiracy to turn one boy into a hero and the other into a supervillain? It’s possible Wayne may have felt remorse for the former and found out about the latter. Having battled Megamind so much in the past, he also may have realized that the blue man never actually hurt anyone, and in fact went out of his way to stage their confrontations in abandoned places. (Again, you can read more about that in both Megamind and Identity and The Warden.) It may be that Metroman real “brilliant plan” wasn’t simply to fake his death, but in doing so to prod Megamind into becoming a hero and thus accepted by society.

There is an alternative theory, put forward in a Reddit post, that Megamind and Metroman’s parents may have known one another, and may have sent both children to Earth with the intention of them becoming a dynamic duo, fighting evil together with Megamind as the brains and Metroman as the brawn. This could have been what Megamind’s father meant when he told his son: “You are destined for greatness.” While there is very little support for this in the movie, it would explain why, in the vast cosmos, both of the young survivors were sent not only to the same planet, but even to the same city.

Whatever the reason may have been, one thing is certain: there certainly is some evidence that Metroman intended his one-time nemesis to become a hero. One of his lines, after Roxanne and Megamind discover he’s still alive, supports this. You know the one. “If there’s bad, good will rise up against it. It’s taken me a long time to find my calling; now it’s time you find yours.” Then, of course, there is another line, when Music Man is watching his former enemy take the role of Defender of Metro City: “way to go, Little Buddy. I knew you had it in you.”

If Metroman really did purposefully help Megamind step into heroism, that could also explain why he didn’t stop Megamind from taking over the city—perhaps he trusted the blue man not to harm anyone and to eventually come to his senses—as well as why he refuses to overtly help defeat Titan. He does, however, clearly subtly assist Megamind, as the latter almost certainly went back to Wayne’s hideout to scan his appearance and voice into the holowatch. All of this together makes it seem quite plausible that Metroman not only wanted to retire, but also wanted the blue man to take his place.

Megamind and Metroman by White-Night-56 on Deviant Art

Maybe this means that, now that Megamind is the Defender of Metro City, he and Music Man occasionally get together to commiserate over the more difficult aspects of being a superhero and joke about the old days.

It’s also quite possible that all of these fan theories could be true. The film Megamind is, among other things, surprisingly subtle, complex, and subversive for an animated movie. Every time I dive deep into some aspect or other of the plot, I am once again impressed by the amount of thought and detail that went into this work. No wonder Megamind—and its characters—have so many dedicated fans.

[whocaresinc]

VUS Abstract

“Whoever designed this car, he clearly didn’t got his medication. The only good aspect is Abstract’s ergonomy, modding options and transition (speed and stopping), rest of stats is average at best. But, hey! This car is considered one of first drag racers to be seen.” - Carful Of Knowledge Issue #11

Description

Abstract is a car of overall compact-like appearance. It is the worst car from lemons collection (losing only to Crudal). The only few advantage over other cars is price, quicker shifting gear transition and ability to mod for various situations. Abstract’s weight allows it to be decent car for off-road use. Along with it’s big modding ability, you can make a low budget jeep for yourself. Just be careful when steering, And space enough for your grandpa’s Kalash-47 or few Uriels (or another gun dealer’s franchise).

Background 

VUS Abstract made this car in near the same year the Gremlin’s lineup started. Besides same manufacturer, familiar style, being called “lemons” and few same stats they’re very diffrent. It’s startup had some interesting question about the design like “Why front window wipers are hidden?”, “Why it’s styling is so weird?” or “Where can i put my Stallion .45?” But who cares? Can this car ride? Yes. Can this car handle you? We hope so. Can this have any engine? Suprise! Yes, it can. Few Abstracts were found using a electric-powered engines. It got a lot of praise for it’s futuristic (for the time of first models) design. However, later various negatives resurfaced. Apparently car had problems with more advanced parts like engines, steering wheel and even both front and back seats. Nonethenless (I hope I wrote it correcly) it’s production ended in 1979. During 80′s where sex, drugs and melancholy mixed with nostalgia of your dumb as hell parents (unless they are from post-soviet country or western parts of europe, they tend to look at them a bit sober) started, it got a popularity by various, minimum or low wage job having minorities, like Irish, Arabs, Mexies or our lovely homies from Canada. Abstract was featured in such films as “Hamburger It Is!”, “A Life Of Janye”, “Dooby: The Moviestered”, or “God, You Are Annoying!”. We cannot forget about “Automobiles”, where there is a Abstract named “Puerto Diego”, a hardworking, spanish-speaking charmer with a heart of gold and IQ of a cinderblock. Did I mentioned it also appears as Mr. Quickie’s car in “Rocket To The End”? Besides being now considered ugly, yet a classical car, it is also one of first cars used in drag racing (as well as being a icon of street racing culture in some regions of both Americas). it got a lot of tuning abilities. Example could be The Beast monster truck, Mud Bath accesories turning Abstract into jeep-like car and my favourite - somewhat official wagon with some parts can turn your car into very good delivery boy car. Summing up: this car sucked, yet some of us, car enthusiasts, like this piece of U.S, vehicle manufacturing history.like it was Bermuda or Ocelot. Just take care of it when you can, Then it will be forever.

Behind The Scenes

Abstract is based on AMC Pacer. Name itself comes from very weird look of the car. Originally, instead of Asbstract, car’s name was supposed to be Tracer. Change of name comes from being too familiar sounding to Pacer. Abstract as well could be used to describe this car, due to it’s look and history.

[system76]

Behind the Scenes of System76: Industrial Design

Since moving into a factory space in 2018, System76 has delved deeper and deeper into manufacturing hardware in-house. Three years later, we’ve introduced five Thelio desktops, fine-tuned the hardware, developed our fully configurable Launch keyboard, and optimized our production processes. Helming the design process is Mechanical Engineer John Grano, who wears a number of different hats here. We sat down with John this week to discuss industrial design and the team behind our beautiful open source hardware.

How would you describe industrial design for people unfamiliar with the term?

To me, industrial design is basically the art of making something into a usable product. In industrial design, you have to balance looks and function, and that drives your form. It’s kind of like hardware UX in that it’s really important to have the right feel. If you can make the system connect better with people, they’ll like it more. Adding that softness we do with Thelio, like slightly rounded edges and darker wood, it makes it a little more approachable to have a semi-natural looking system and not something that’s blinking at you with red lights all the time.

System76 itself is a group of hardcore programmers and people that are really into Linux, but I think the idea of trying to democratize Linux is extremely important. If you can create something that doesn’t have that robotic aesthetic, it will provide people with something that feels more familiar and usable. No one really wants to go sit in a car that looks like a square with wheels on it. They want something that makes them feel something, maybe openness or comfort, when they’re in it.

What inspired you to get into mechanical engineering, and how did you end up at System76?

The way my brain works lends itself well to engineering, for better or for worse. There’s a lot of really solid engineers who don’t have much creativity, and then there are a lot of people who have great creative ability, but can’t do math. I kind of fluctuate in the middle; I wouldn’t say I’m the best at math or the most creative person in the entire world, but I have enough of each that the combination pushed me towards mechanical engineering. I like working with my hands, and it’s more of a study of how things work in the real world versus computer science, which is a purely digital and nontangible practice.

During school I worked mainly as a bike mechanic, and that helped me to think about how to build things better. That led me to my first internship at a bike company working in a wind tunnel, which was really fun. Realizing that I could probably never get a job there—or at least one that would pay me enough to live—I started working at an environmental engineering company, where I prototyped scientific sampling systems for R&D that would process materials with all these gasses at really high heat and tried not to die. It was kind of fun making these large-scale systems that were basically just gigantic science experiments, but I didn’t really have the creative outlet I wanted in terms of making something that looks good.

One of the main things that drew me to System76 was being able to have a solid influence on what tools we were able to use and how we were going to push the design. In the past three years, it’s pretty wild to see what we’ve been able to accomplish coming from a completely empty warehouse to being able to crank out parts.

I had also previously, while working at these scientific instrument companies, been working with a local company to design and develop a cargo bicycle, so I had that experience as well in terms of consumer product development with overseas manufacturing. I think that helped get me in the door here.

Let’s talk a bit about your team. Who do you collaborate with on a typical day?

It’s a very small team and everyone does a lot. I pretty much lead the mechanical engineering team slash design team...slash manufacturing team. Being a small company, we are all wearing a bunch of different hats. Aside from doing the initial design work on all of our Thelio desktops and the Launch keyboard, I also program our laser-punch machine and our brake press and run through all of the design for manufacturing hang ups that show up. Those changes tend to be a result of our current tools, and internal capabilities.

Crystal came on last August as our first CNC Machinist. She heads up all of the machining, trains our operators, makes sure our parts are coming out in a nice clean fashion, and has done a lot of work on minimizing machine time and maximizing the parts we can get out. She also provides really great feedback on what's possible and what kind of special fixtures or tools we'll need to make for a specific part. Around the same time we picked up our first Haas 3-axis CNC mill to start working on the Launch project. That led to some other opportunities to make parts for Thelio and improve the feel of some of the parts that we were pumping out.

We just hired Cary, who came from a similar background as me in consumer product development, as well as low-scale scientific machine development. He’s going to help build manufacturing tools for us, and he’s only been here now for two or three weeks. Going forward, Cary will be heading up the Thelio line long-term, and I’ll be moving to some interesting R&D work.

And Zooey?

Zooey doesn’t really do much. She just kind of sits there and waits for people to feed her their lunch. I take her out for walks during the day so she can get away from everyone petting her. She doesn’t like when they do that.

What was the R&D process like for Launch?

Launch is a less complicated product in that we don’t have to deal with things like cooling. Even dropping a PCB into aluminum housing deals with multiple processes, like using the laser and CNC machine. This was a start to looking at those processes to see how much time it takes to produce parts, the costs going into making them, and monitoring the cutting quality. You have to be familiar with the machines and know what you’re looking for when you see a tool going dull.

We first let the software experts do their thing and optimize a layout they wanted for their programming life. Then I was given that template, built a couple of sheet metal chassis that we wired up to test that layout, and made a bunch of little changes to that to get that right secret sauce for our keyboard-centric workflow in Pop!_OS. Once we got a sheet metal product that we were sure was going to be usable, we decided officially that we were going to pursue making a keyboard. That came with a whole new set of manufacturing requirements that we would have to look into.

We spent a ton of time working on pocket profile. When you look at a Launch, you’ll see that it’s not a perfect rectangle. That’s because when you’re using a mill, you have a round tool, so you can go through and get close to a pretty small radius on the corner, but you can never make it exact. If we wanted to get a very small, tight pocket, we’d have to use a very small cutter that takes an extremely long period of time.

We’re taking raw billet, which are these huge 12-foot-long sticks of aluminum that we cut down to get our final product. We went with a rounded rectangle so that we could use our cutter and decrease the overall time to machine that part. There was a lot of work in that and making sure the pockets were all 13.95mm versus 13.9mm versus 14.1mm.

We also did a lot of R&D on how we go about putting the angle bar on. Magnetic assembly seemed to be a good idea. We went from trying to glue magnets in to doing what's called press fitting. The bars come right out of powder coating while they’re nice and warm, when the aluminum is slightly larger than when it cools down. Those magnets aren’t actually adhered to anything in the bars; they’re squeezed in nice and tight from the aluminum cooling and contracting around them. That’s called a press fit, and doing that makes the process faster and less expensive.

It’s similar with the bottoms of Launch; we have steel plates that we press fit into that part as opposed to gluing or screwing, but that we do before powder coating; steel rusts, and we don’t want someone opening up their keyboard in a year and finding a little bit of rust floating underneath their super high-end PCB. So we do that, sand it down, use our media blaster to clean off the surface from the tool paths you see from the mill, and then we powder coat it through and through.

Word on the Denver streets is that Thelio Major is getting a redesign soon. What does that entail?

We’re bringing Thelio Major a lot more in line with Thelio Mega in terms of a different PCI mount for graphics cards, because we know that’s been a pain point for a lot of our users. We want to provide a little bit more robust installation for these graphics cards, which continue to increase in size and weight. The NVIDIA 3000-series cards are almost a pound heavier in some instances, and that’s a lot of weight to be shipping across the country.

We also want to continue to make Thelio Major cooler and quieter when it’s running with these new GPUs. Our new brake press allows us to make radius bends on parts, so we’re starting to run through R&D of a laser-welded external. It’s a wholesale departure from us using custom brackets and 3M VHB tape. That will provide a nicer finished product to our end user, and it’ll allow us to make our product faster with less material and less steps.

What qualities do you look for when adding someone to the team?

Creativity is extremely important. As a small manufacturing company, our priorities can shift on a day or in an afternoon where we don’t have the full line of product anymore. There are all sorts of examples in the past few years of times where you have to react pretty quickly. The motherboard’s been EOL’d, or we have to change our sheet metal design, build a new part, things like that. Making sure that someone can adapt to those changes on a moment’s notice is one of the key parts of the job.

We also want people who get excited about a new challenge and have the desire to keep improving something. I look for people who like to make things and go back in and refine it and not hold it up on this pillar. It’s good to not look at something like it’s perfect.

You have a lot of love for your Audi. What do you love about it over other options?

I like German cars. We have a family of them. They’re high-performance and not too expensive if you do all the work on it yourself. There’s a huge after-market community that tunes and changes these cars, which is pretty fun. Plus I prefer the metric system. Having a standard system drives me nuts, because what the [REDACTED] are fractions?

My real love, though, is bikes. I love tuning and riding bikes, and I love that more than I like to work on cars. It comes out of tinkering. I work with carbon fiber, I’ve done a lot of repairs on bikes over the years—there’s a certain sense of freedom you get from riding a bike that you can’t get from anything else. Not motorcycles, not cars.

[izukuwus]

Stop Counting

A/N: day 27 of the Izumonth server collab hosted by @birds-have-teeth​! this one is pretty much just a lovechild of me and my absolute adoration for Skies of Arcadia, an old JRPG and one of my favorite games of all time, hence *sky* pirate instead of just, like, regular pirate Izuku. this fic was initially intended to end with a big old NSFW sequence but I couldn’t make myself like it. if I ever make myself like it I’ll probably post that section as a sequel/alternate ending!

Summary: You are one of many captured by the Empire and forced to work dangerous jobs aboard their ships. Izuku and the other members of his crew raid your ship in search of things to sell and gold to take, and leave with you. (sky pirate!izuku x reader)

Warnings: angst. there’s a sad dog. at this point you can assume if I wrote a fic there is probably swearing somewhere.

Word count: 4700+

Something is wrong.

You don't know what. You can't know what. But the men holding you aboard this ship are running and shouting even more than usual (which is saying a lot). The ship shook about sixty breaths ago, which is becoming less of a good method of time-keeping now that you're starting to feel more scared than you're used to and your breathing is quickening.

You live in this engine room. When you are told, you add fuel to the fire for the men on the ship. You try to keep time. You count your breaths as best you can. Every eleven thousand breaths or so, with steady breathing, you receive food. You sleep only when a guard allows it. You thank the moons that they aren't working you to your total death.

You have worked in this ship for a very long time.

A very long time, and yet, no time at all, because you no longer have a way to tell the time, other than your breaths. And in this very long time, you've never once heard the men running around like this.

Footsteps are approaching your door. Many, lighter than those of the armored men who feed you or guard you. And it isn't time for you to receive food.

So who is approaching your door, you wonder?

The footsteps stop in front of your door, and after a moment, you hear muffled voices.

"I don't know, maybe we can get some extra fuel for our ship while we're here, too."

The voice is unfamiliar. So unfamiliar, in fact, that familiar feelings well up in you. You're no amnesiac: you remember what life used to be like for you, what the sky looked like, how it felt to talk and have friends and family, though you've long forgotten who those friends and family were. Most importantly, you remember hearing stories of (and even once meeting!) rogue pirates who raid Empire ships.

Empire ships like the one you have lived on for so long you only mostly remember what it felt like to gaze upon the moons.

"I think you're wasting time. How are we going to get the door open, anyway?"

"I-I think I can pick the lock!"

Your body moves without thinking, and you nearly launch yourself at the door, raising your fists to pound against the metal as you search for your voice. "A-are you guys rogues? Please get me out of here! Please!" The strain on your throat forces you to cough, and you fall to the floor, landing roughly on your knees as you cough up a lung from sheer stress.

"Someone's in there!"

"I'm working on it!"

You don't realize you're sobbing in your spot, not when the door swings open wide, not until you're being cradled against someone's chest and helped to your feet.

"Hey, you're okay. You're free now. We're taking over this ship."

The dam officially breaks. Clutching at this kind stranger's top, you begin to sob. He struggles a bit in your hold, wriggling around until he's shucked off his jacket and draped it over your nearly bare shoulders. "For now, come with us, and we'll help you decide what to do from there, okay?"

You whimper pathetically, subconsciously snuggling into his hold and his jacket as you look up at his face and nod. Your savior is a man with a boyish face, unruly green hair, and freckles across his cheeks the way you remember the stars. He smiles down at you as reassuringly as he can.

"My name's Izuku. Can you walk?"

Another nod. "I-I don't know the way out," you borderline whisper, voice unbearably hoarse. "I haven't been outside of this room in... a long time."

He nods. "We're gonna gather up some of this ship's fuel. Stay close to me, I'll protect you. The Empire can't touch you now."

~

Izuku Midoriya isn't quite sure how to feel about the latest raid. The Empire ship was full of guards, full of fuel and food, not so full of gold. They took what was valuable, and left.

And then there's you.

This is hardly the first time Izuku's boarded a ship in his time. He's done plenty with his crew, and learned quite a lot. But it never truly hit him just how unjust the Empire was until he found you. You're obviously malnourished, dressed in tattered clothes that barely cover anything important and covered in a layer of grime that stubbornly remained even after your first attempts to clean it off. The girl who'd gone with you to help you wash up must have scrubbed the skin raw, and yet you still look shaken, skin stained from skies only know how long you spent locked in that engine room. Your hair, precariously long from time spent with no way to cut it, has been drawn back into a bun.

Now, while the rest of the crew is drinking and feasting, you stand off in the corner, hands at your sides as you breathe slowly. You're not even watching the fun, eyes closed. Izuku's jacket swamps your malnourished form–how long it must have been since you had a decent meal, and you're just standing in the corner while the others eat.

He's heard stories, sure. The Empire captures people from conquered settlements, usually the healthiest, and puts them to work in manufacturing or dangerous, unfun jobs like adding fuel to ship furnaces. Usually, these people go mad after not much time, or when they're freed, they throw themselves into the sky or refuse to leave the engine rooms. You'd hesitated at first, but once you were out of the room, he kept you close at hand, one point of contact at all times until you were safely below decks of The Crescent.

With a huff, Izuku stands, grabbing a plate of food and walking over to you. "H-hey, um."

You open your eyes, watching him curiously as he thrusts the plate of food towards you in offering. 

"I know it's scary right now, but everyone on the crew really is good. You should eat something, and come sit down, i-if you want? I don't even know your name yet; I'd like to talk to you, if I can."

You look down at the plate of food for a long moment, and then back up to him. You speak in a meek voice, so quiet and hoarse that he has to lean in to hear you. "[Name]..."

"[Name]," he repeats, testing it on his tongue. "Your name?"

"I think so. It's been... A very long time. Since I had one."

"It's a good name. D-do you want to come up to the deck with me to eat? It's probably been a while since you saw the sky, and I bet these guys are pretty overwhelming when they're drinking."

"Okay, I-Izuku."

Without another word, you follow him up to the deck of the ship. He'll get you out of your shell yet.

~

Before long, you find yourself cleaning the ship whenever you can to help out. You've been aboard the Crescent for a week now—Izuku is sure to check in on you often, and with his help, you've started to integrate yourself into talking more with the rest of the crew, and last night, you even ate with everyone. After a week of baths and attempts to scrub yourself clean of engine room grime, you finally feel clean, light in a way you're sure you've never experienced. 

Some of the crew members banded together to find you a full outfit to wear instead of your previous rags–you look rather like a street rat wearing a rogue's clothes now, instead of your previous pure rattiness. Izuku hasn't asked for his jacket back, and so it remains with you, a strange source of comfort as you find new places on the ship to hide.

Right now, though, you aren't hiding. When Izuku comes looking for you, he finds you cleaning the bridge, eyes glued to the sky rather than your work. It's a cool night–a sniff of the air suggests incoming rain.

"Hey, [name]," he says as he approaches. He's learned quickly to approach slowly—you tend towards the startled animal around sudden noises, and no one wants that. You nod your acknowledgement. "The Captain's looking for you. You should get inside, anyways, I think it's gonna rain soon."

You stand, tearing your eyes away from the sky regretfully. "I-I see."

"Sorry to tear you from your stargazing." He offers an apologetic smile, which you take with your usual nod. "It must be strange, to be able to just look at the sky after everything that's happened to you."

"Mm. It's prettier than I remember. I missed it."

"You seem to be recovering well, though! I'm impressed by how well you're doing already."

"Recovering," you breathe. "Right."

You find the captain in his own cabin, where he's poring over some maps and marking something down that you don't know enough about to comment on. He looks up at your intrusion, and instinctively, you step closer to Izuku. 

You're not sure how to feel about the captain. Sometimes, he's larger than life itself, loud and showy. When he's not, it's as though he compensates, becoming small, sharp, and calculating. No matter how he's acting, he looks at you in a way that scares you even though there's always compassion there. Granted, you feel vaguely uncomfortable around literally everyone aboard the Crescent, but somehow it's worse around Captain Yagi.

"Ah, [name], come in!" He seems to be in his soft-spoken mode—you stay rooted to the spot, hands coming up to pull your jacket tighter around your shoulders. Izuku telegraphs his movements, placing a hand on the small of your back to help you understand that you're being asked to come stand at the table with Captain Yagi.

'What did you ask to see me for?', you want to say. Instead, you manage a painfully quiet, "you looked for me."

He nods sheepishly. "Please, sit down. Izuku, my boy, you may stay if you wish. If I'm not mistaken, [name] seems a bit more comfortable with you around."

The two of you take your seats, and Captain Yagi sits across from you. "Now then. I'm not sure how much you've been told, [name], but typically, when we find captives such as yourself aboard Empire ships, we try to return them to their homes or, if we can't, bring them someplace to start a new life. But, from what I've heard from the other crew members, you don't have any place to go, is that right?"

You nod, biting your lip. Your eyes scan the map on the table. None of it looks remotely familiar to you. "I don't remember enough. Um... Maybe a harbor town. There were lots of boats. But that was so long ago, even if I were to return, I don't remember anyone who was there."

He sighs. "I figured you might have spent too long in captivity to remember much. Did they ever once let you out of that room?"

"If I wanted to eat, I had to go wait in the side room I slept in until they put my food down and left."

Izuku's eyes flash in recognition. "Are you talking about that broom closet in the engine room? You slept there?" he asks, his voice pitching with anger.

You cringe, moving to hide in your jacket. "I'm sorry."

The hand resting on your back smooths over carefully in small circular motions. It's almost calming. "Hey, I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at the people who did that to you. You're okay."

"I apologize if I've brought up unpleasant memories, child. We could use someone aboard the Crescent to help keep things clean, and our cooks could use the helping hand. If you're aboard the ship, you help out. That's our main rule. If you'd like, we can let you onto our crew for a time, so you can leave if we happen to find your old home to return to."

"Okay."

"My boy, young [name] here is the most comfortable around you. Can I formally ask that you show them the ropes and help them get accustomed to the ship?"

"I can help with the engines if you need it," you say. "If the Crescent has a similar engine."

He smiles, shakes his head. "No, my dear. If possible, we'd like to keep you from ever entering an engine room again. You've spent quite enough time around them, for sure."

"Oh. Alright. Thank you, Captain."

"If I may ask, how often did those Imperials actually feed you? You don't have to answer, I'm just curious."

"Every eleven thousand breaths," you reply automatically. "If I was lucky. Sometimes, they forgot."

"Eleven thousand... Breaths?"

You nod. "I keep steady breathing. I needed some semblance of time. No natural light in the engine room. So I count my breaths, always. The people on this ship seem to sleep after around six thousand, seven hundred breaths, based on what I've seen. Eleven thousand breaths seems to be about one day cycle."

"You're still counting?" Captain Yagi raises an eyebrow.

"Yes. It's... A little compulsive at this point. I start over at eleven thousand, make a mark on the wall of my sleep room to keep track. Or did."

Izuku shifts uncomfortably in his seat. "[Name], the walls of that room were covered in marks. I don't think any of us could have counted how many there were, even if we did have the time. Were those the number of days you spent there?"

"I'm lucky," you say, shrugging. "One of the others said that on other Empire ships, you're lucky to be fed half as often."

"Well, you can stop counting now. You're free to do whatever you want, so long as you offer us a helping hand as you have been, and we eat several times a day."

For the longest moment, you don't respond. You simply watch Captain Yagi's face in disbelief. You're not sure what to do with freedom.

"Did you hear me, [name]?"

"Yeah. I can stop counting. I can finally... Stop counting."

~

It isn't long before Izuku begins teaching you your way around a sword in his spare time. You blend in to the crew beautifully, and as time goes, you begin to actually fill your clothes and your skin, starting to occupy any amount of space in the room. You come out of your shell, start to wear Izuku's jacket instead of hiding in it. You come ashore when they stop at various islands, never straying far from the crew, but you never recognize the places that you're taken to. After several months, you ask to join in on a raid, your skills with a sword becoming admirable, and captain Yagi agrees to let you take part.

The raid goes swimmingly. In celebration and to fence off the goods retrieved from yet another Empire ship, the Crescent docks at a harbor town Izuku told you was one of his favorites to visit.

The moment you step off the ship, you know where you are. The streets are familiar, the faces moreso, but you're not delighted at your return home. You let your hair (having been cropped short for function some time ago, but still more than long enough) fall in your face, keep your eyes on your feet, and stick close to Izuku as always.

"About three years back, the Empire hit this place pretty hard," Izuku says, walking you down the streets. The buildings around you aren't quite as familiar; they're in the wrong places, the wrong colors, too new and too... different. "That was right after my first time visiting here. We had no idea until months later, when we came back to re-visit and the place had been nearly burnt to the ground."

Your voice doesn't want to come when you call on it to respond, as though speaking will break the magic and send you all the way back to the engine room. Still, you must respond. You don't want to be rude, even if Izuku has been nothing but patient and caring with you. "Did you ever find out what happened?"

"We got the general gist of it, but there's not a lot to tell." Izuku's brow is creased with something a lot like pain that quickly fades away when he continues to speak. "The Empire heard this was a place that was friendly to pirates, and they decided to show them what happens to pirates and their friends. If you've ever questioned what we're doing, going against the Empire... this is a pretty good reminder of why."

"Right." Faces come up in your memory, dusty from disuse, but some of them almost seem to match those you see in market stalls, selling fruit to strangers.

"It's been amazing, watching this place rebuild since then. They've got a lovely little community here, y'know? We've been helping when we can, sometimes when we board we help out with labor or money, if they need it. Every time I come back, they've fixed up a different building or there's new faces settling down. One thing hasn't really changed since they started rebuilding, though."

Izuku comes to a stop at the end of a street, and you feel your chest restrict at the sight. What he's looking at, and now what you're looking at, is the rubble of what was once a very familiar house. You can almost see the house that used to stand there, simple and unassuming but so much like home. You can almost see a younger sibling running out of the door, one of the few remaining things standing among the rubble.

"[Name]?" 

Izuku watches as you step forward, almost in a trance as you stand in the rubble and trace your fingers along what's left of the walls, what used to be a living room, still with a dusty old chair sitting near a fireplace in near-perfect condition.

"[name]? Are you okay?" Izuku asks, following you into the remains of the house.

"What do you think happened to the people who used to live here?" you ask, voice quiet. Quiet even for the you that's timid, even for the you that's waiting for everything to go wrong again.

He frowns. "There was no one willing to rebuild this house. I remember hearing the daughter was dragged away aboard an Imperial ship, but I never heard anything about the rest of the family."

A sudden bark snaps both of you out of your somber mood, followed shortly by your own shriek as a large, fluffy dog tackles you to the ground. "H-hey! Get off of me!" you whine, pushing the torrent of fur and drool off so you can sit up.

"Are you alright?" Izuku asks as he helps you up, brushing dust off you carefully.

"Harley! Harley, where did you run off to?" a familiar voice calls. A painful, familiar girl enters the room—you know her face, know her voice too well. You let your hair fall in your face and pull your jacket around your shoulders, keeping your eyes locked on the dog. "Oh? What are you two pirates doing in the old [surname] house? There's nothing here for you."

Izuku steps forward. Looking at his back, you almost feel calm. "Sorry, my friend wanted to explore a bit. We didn't mean to intrude."

The girl sighs—you can't remember her name. Why can't you remember her name? "Sorry about Harley. His family owned this place, so I think he gets protective of it."

"What happened to his family?" you ask, instinctively forcing your voice into a lower tone than normal.

She frowns, eyes roaming the mottled walls, the broken-down furniture. "My best friend and her family used to live here. We're not sure where they are now, honest. They all got taken away or killed during an Empire raid."

Your stomach flips. "I'm sorry to hear that. Maybe they're still alive out there." Harley jumps up, placing his paws on your waist and barking. You pet his head to soothe him.

"We've got graves for all of them. Everyone knows no one comes back after the Empire takes 'em, after all. There's no bodies for them, but we left this house up to honor them. A reminder, I guess. Of what we're fightin' for."

But I came back, you want to say. I'm here, not in a grave, not fallen into the sky. I'm here.

You don't respond. Izuku apologizes to the girl again, and when she goes to leave, Harley whines and stays by your side.

"Harley, come on," she insists. Harley whines again, licking your hand and following her to the door. The large dog pauses, looking back at you with sad eyes, before finally turning and leaving.

~

The crew stays in the town overnight. You find yourself sleepless and restless as you stare at the ceiling of the inn. You need a better view if you're going to relax.

You throw on your clothes and go for a walk.

The night is cool, and although you've grown a little dependent on Izuku's presence, these streets are familiar. You know why, now, without a degree of doubt.

You lived here once. Your feet take you, aimlessly, but perhaps not so aimlessly, to the orchard, without need for lights or a map. It's intrinsic to you—you never had much cause to visit the orchard itself, but you can almost remember making this walk before, the memory brushing against your fingertips. A hundred and twenty breaths finds you standing in a secluded overlook filled with fruit trees, each tree bearing a plaque with a name and age.

Natural headstones.

The headstones bear fruit. The fruit feeds the town for free, and, thanks to the Empire raid, there's likely enough fruit to trade, too. The dead are cremated, their ashes used to bolster the growth of the trees, and they continue to support the community while the community honors them.

Your grave is easy to find. It's the first among a stretch of trees of similar age, bearing [favorite fruit] even now. They're even ripe—you delicately pull one off, reading the plaque with a somber glance as you rub the fruit clean with your sleeve. 

[Full Name]

Age 24

Taken away in an Empire Raid.

With a sigh, you venture to the back of the orchard, where the overlook provides a beautiful view of the sky. The horizon stretches out endlessly, dotted occasionally with distant islands. You never dreamed you'd actually get to be part of that horizon someday. You're not sure you wanted it the way you eventually got it.

"I kinda thought I'd find you here."

You don't turn to greet him, leaning on the fencing with a sigh. "Izuku. Shouldn't you be getting some rest?"

"Couldn't sleep."

"Me neither." You wonder if you should tell him. Surely Izuku could sort through the conflict bubbling in your heart. Instead, you offer him the [favorite fruit] you picked without an explanation. "Do you want to see the most peaceful place in town?"

"It's not the graveyard?" he asks. He accepts the fruit, slipping it into his pocket.

You shake your head. "No. There's a place to stargaze near here."

"Lead the way." He raises an eyebrow, expression almost not visible under the dark of night. The light of the moon guides you, and you take Izuku through a small cave not far from town. It leads out into a small grotto, not a sign of human life in sight, simply grass and the light of the moon and the stars filtering through an opening overhead. 

"Wow," he exhales, staring up at the sky. "This place is beautiful."

You nod. "Did you want to talk about what's keeping you up?"

"Well, for one thing, I got worried," he admits. "About you, I mean. Ah! N-not that you can't take care of yourself or anything like that. You've just been... Off, today. I was just gonna check on you, since you were off to sleep before most everyone got back from the tavern, but then you... Weren't there."

"Thanks for worrying about me." You take a seat in the grass, which quickly becomes laying down. Izuku lays on his back next to you, and you begin to watch the stars. "...can I ask you kind of a weird question?"

"Mm?"

"What... What do you want to do?" You're unsure of yourself even in asking the question, but you ask it all the same.

"R-right now, or in general?"

"In general."

He exhales a sigh, only the moon could tell you why, and answers thoughtfully. "I want to captain my own ship someday. Someday soon. Captain Yagi is amazing, but when I look at you and I look at towns like this, I can't help but feel like we need to do more. We may have stopped one ship in a raid, but how many more do you think there are?"

"Thousands," you answer. "Tens of thousands, even."

"I want to get my own ship, and take out the problem from the top. The Empire hurts so many people, more than it helps."

"I'd go with you," you say. 

He sighs. "I don't think I'd like to risk you like that. Are you sure you'd be able to handle it?"

"I'm strong, you know. Usually, the people they take don't survive, right? They never return to their hometowns. But I'm here. I returned."

The smallest gasp leaves him, eyes flicking to you. "Are you saying—"

You nod quietly. "This isn't the first time I've been here. I know these streets, know these people. They even planted a grave for me, with my name on it."

"[name], that's great! You can finally go home, you can—"

"I don't want to."

And there it is.

Just saying the words feels like a punch to the gut, but for some reason, you keep going. "You've been so kind to me, always looking out for me, teaching me how to fit in to the crew and act like a pirate. You've helped me a lot, and my days are better because you are always in them. I don't want to go back. My family was taken by the Empire, and I... I don't have anything to go back to. I don't even remember who I was the last time I was here."

"[name]..."

You drag your eyes from the stars to Izuku, sighing as you find within yourself what you need to admit—to yourself, to him, to the world as you know it.

"I want to stay with you. I want to sail the world with you, fight back against the Empire that ruined my life but gave me a new one at your side. I don't remember much about myself, but I know I always longed for adventure. And now adventure's here, but the Captain probably wants me to return to my home. I don't belong in a sleepy little harbor rebuilding from the rubble, Izuku. I belong in the skies."

He's silent for a long moment. When he speaks, one warm hand searches for yours, fingers slotting among your own with a gentle squeeze. "H-how do you mean you want to stay with me?

"I'd follow you to the depths of the sky, to the farthest reaches, if only you'll let me." You squeeze his hand back. "Not because you're the one who eventually saved me. You're an amazing person. One who cares. I don't know if you'll ever stop caring, not before you die. I'll stay by your side in whatever capacity you'll have me."

"T-then... Can I kiss you?" He props himself up on one elbow, moonlight casting an almost ethereal glow on him.

You nod, and he closes the distance between you, letting go of your hand to gently caress your cheek. 

One small kiss turns to two. Two quickly becomes uncountable, until you're melting and gasping beneath him, his lips trailing your jaw, your neck, along the neckline of the jacket you're wearing (his jacket, always his jacket), until he's forced to pause.

"How far do you want to take this?" he whispers, as if there's any reason to keep quiet. 

You press a sweet kiss to his lips, threading a hand through his hair. "Didn't I already say that I'd follow wherever you'll lead me?"

Tags: @tooloudarts​ @sapid-rose​ @xxangelpridexx​ @birds-have-teeth​ @icythotsenpai @warmchoccymilk @wesparklebitch @izoodles​ @fujimoribaby​ @my-bnha-things​ @denise-the-death-goddess​ @themerpenguin​ @sincerebubbles​ @fudobaby​

[queen-of-my-goofball-army]

An Ode To Miyazaki:

Hi everyone! So for my final paper for film, we had to pick our own director of our choosing and talk about them extensively between the attributes that make them special. Our course focused on the narrative and technical styles of directors. For my final project, I have chosen my biggest hero in the world of animation and somebody that drastically changed my life as a young child, Hayao Miyazaki. Learning about him for this project gave me so much insight into not just his films but who he is as a person. I hope that my paper is as interesting for you to read as it was for me to do research for!

1. Hayao Miyazaki, often referred to as the Japanese Walt Disney is the front runner of his animation studio Studio Ghibli. I picked him because I already have sufficient knowledge and love of his films. One of the first memories that my parents love to remind me of is my first time watching Totoro and laughing at the introduction characters. Miyazaki himself stands out for a number of reasons. Over the years, Miyazaki has made a humongous name out of himself, one of his most famous movies Spirited Away became the most popular film to ever be released in Japan and also won the academy award for the best-animated film that year. His most “popular” films (I say popular in air quotes because it is nearly impossible for people to agree on a favorite) remain the aforementioned Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Howl’s Moving Castle, and Princess Mononoke. Beginning his career as a simple animator for Toei animation, he worked as an in-between artist. It was here that he met his future collaborator at Ghibli, Isao Takahata. His first big directorial debut in film before founding Ghibli was a team effort without Takahata was Lupin The Third, The Castle Of Cagliostro. His first successful movie was one that was based upon his own manga Nausicaa of the Valley Of The Wind. The first official Miyazaki movie that was made with Ghibli was one of my personal all-time favorites that had ever been created, Castle In The Sky. For many children, especially ones with parents who are lovers of a film like mine, Miyazaki was one of the first animators that I was introduced to. His films have become classics for every fan of animation, being referenced in culture, specifically back when Disney owned Studio in Toy Story 3, Bonnie has a Totoro.

2. So, this brings up the question, how does one recognize a film by Miyazaki? You can always expect for him to be critically acclaimed, for there to be some element of magic and whimsy in the way that he animates, for there to be something to do with flight (whether it be dealing with airplanes like in Porco Rosso, the idea of flight in Howl’s Moving Castle, or a floating castle up in the sky in Castle In The Sky.), his heroines are always strong-minded and live by their own rules never bowing down to anybody, his love stories are dynamic and fulfilled, a sweeping score by Joe Hizashi, and they have a meaning about nature somewhere, mostly about why it needs to be protected.

Let’s start by breaking him down narratively. The thing that is always in every Miyazaki film no matter which one you decide upon watching, is that his female characters are always strong-willed no matter what. In many ways, I think that he writes women better than Disney does. He has gone on record saying “Many of my movies have strong female leads—brave, self-sufficient girls that don't think twice about fighting for what they believe with all their heart. They'll need a friend, or a supporter, but never a savior. Any woman is just as capable of being a hero as any man.” Sometimes, this will cause them to come across as reckless, or stupid, but in my opinion, I have always looked up to his female characters and the way that they are portrayed. My personal favorite female character that he has ever brought to life through the screen is Sophie from Howl’s Moving Castle. She is strong-minded, not willing to put up with any of Howl’s dramatics, kind, an incredible adult figure for Markal, endlessly sympathetic to her friend’s plights (namely Howl and Calcifer), and somebody that I can always look up to. I spent most of my childhood looking up to characters like Kiki in Kiki’s Delivery Service, Chihiro in Spirited Away, or one of my personal favorite underrated girls, Fio in Porco Rosso. All of these female characters are independent and never let themselves be taken advantage of by anybody.

Another trait that can always be found narratively in his films is that Miyazaki is an airplane/ air travel fanatic. He absolutely loves airplanes, even to the point where his latest film, The Wind Rises was based upon the life of one of the first airplane manufacturers in WWII. Almost all of his films will involve something about flying in the air. Even with the ones that he didn’t direct and he just simply wrote. His obsession with flight is something that stemmed from his childhood and he never saw them as a thing to be used for war “airplanes are not tools for war. They are not for making money. Airplanes are beautiful dreams. Engineers turn dreams into reality.” My personal favorite of all of his flight animation is used in Howl’s Moving Castle when Howl and Sophie “fly” over the heads of all the people below them.

Narratively also one of the biggest things that set apart his films from any others is his focus on nature. The idea of protecting the beauty of nature is something that he has always stood by. A lot of the time, America tries to prove that it can make films about nature as well to usually varying results. I think that nobody can sell an environmental message quite like my biggest hero for Japanese animation. One of the main movies that focus on his will to protect nature above all else is Princess Mononoke. He always manages to animate nature in such a beautiful and majestic way no matter where the film is set.

I also think that a narrative trait of his that often gets overlooked is how beautiful the romance in his films can be. He never has a romance between two characters that feels stale or boring. I love the fact that you can pick any number of his films and the chance of there being a romance that you’ll get sucked into is a very large one. Everybody has their personal favorites, I love Howl and Sophie from Howl’s Moving Castle but my best friend loves Sousuke and Ponyo from Ponyo. He has on record saying that “I’ve become skeptical of the unwritten rule that just because a boy and girl appear in the same feature, a romance must ensue. Rather, I want to portray a slightly different relationship, one where the two mutually inspire each other to live - if I’m able to, then perhaps I’ll be closer to portraying a true expression of love.” Writing romance between two characters can be a very tricky thing which is why it’s always amazing when he can continually pull it off despite everything and how many films that he has made over the years. The beauty of having both a strong and independent male and the female character is that they can both lean on one another for love and support. Probably the biggest supporter of this is Whisper Of The Heart, a film that he wrote instead of directing. The romance is what makes up the entire film. It’s a beautiful love story about how two young teenagers fall in love with each other. The romance is something that continually keeps me coming back for more every time.

Technical style Miyazaki can always be assured to deliver breathtakingly stunning animation. There is a reason why so many people leave his films starving because the food that he draws always looks so good. For me though, it’s the backgrounds that stand out above all else. It’s nearly impossible to have one favorite shot in one of his films but I as a matter of fact do have one. The most breathtaking animation in any Miyazaki film is the scene where Howl takes Sophie to see his secret garden. Everything about this scene never fails to make my breath catch. It’s such a profoundly beautiful moment and how it is animated is something that I haven’t forgotten since my first initial viewing of the film when I was seven.

Another iconic technical trait is that Disney did a fantastic job dubbing the films from their original Japanese language into English. Back when Ghibli films first started to become popular, they needed a way for an American audience to see them. So Pixar’s CFO at the time, John Lassater made a deal with Ghibli that they would dub all the films from their original language for a brand new audience. Growing up, this was how I watched all of Miyazaki’s films. I fell in love with the way that they sounded in English. To this very day, I have yet to see one of his films in any other language. I don’t think that anybody could have dubbed them better. Ever since Ghibli and Disney went their separate ways and they went to GKids the dubs haven’t been the same.

Finally, the last technical trait is that a Miyazaki film will always have a score done by his longtime collaborator Joe Hizashi. The score is such a big part of what makes Miyazaki’s films his own. They are what get you sucked in through their whimsical and magical tones; they always fit the vibes that he’s going through at that moment. There is also the element of sound. Every Miyazaki film has a distinct sound effect that will set it apart from the one before it.

3. The first film that I want to look at is my personal favorite of all his films that he has made so far if you were to force me to pick just one Howl’s Moving Castle. Released in 2004, it was the 9th film that the director came out with. It has an 8.2 out of 10 on IMDB and an 87% on Rotten Tomatoes. The storyline for the movie follows a young woman named Sophie. She gets a curse set upon her by the Witch of the Waste and when she leaves home she finds the infamous Howl’s Moving Castle. This is the second Ghibli movie voiced by a Batman live action actor. Christian Bale voiced Howl Pendragon after Michael Keaton played the titular Porco Rosso.

Narratively this is definitely a Miyazaki film. From how strong of a female character Sophie is I spent most of my childhood looking up to her as a character. Strong female characters are everywhere in his films and in my opinion, Sophie is one of the strongest. Another strong factor is that flight plays a major part in this film. One of Howl’s main powers is that he has the ability to fly around. This leads to my favorite scene of flight in any Miyazaki film when Howl takes Sophie’s hand and they “fly” over the tops of the city down below them. All of his early films up until the last few were set in someplace other than Japan. This one is set in Europe, and he takes a lot of time while in the cities to show off all the different types of buildings while Sophie tours around the city.

Technically speaking this is also a Miyazaki film and holds all the titular traits of being so. The animation is utterly for lack of a better word, magical and spellbinding. It takes my breath away every time that I rewatch it. The food looks incredible, one scene that most of Miyazaki’s fans always think of when this movie is brought up is Calcifer making the food for Howl, Sophie, and Markal to eat. The dub for this film is also one of Disney’s best dubs for Miyazaki films. It even brings actors to the table that I usually would not like to see in other films like Christian Bale. I haven’t loved him in any other films than this one. Billy Crystal is a stand-out as well as my favorite fire demon Calcifer. The score is done by Joe Hizashi as well. My favorite part of the score is the main theme which has Howl and Sophie floating above the people below. The sound effect that follows throughout this film is the steady creaking of the castle itself.

Princess Mononoke was the first time that Miyazaki ever “retired”. Most of the time, whenever he tries to retire, he always comes back. A lot of his colleague's joke that it’s because he physically can’t stop working. He animated most of this movie by himself. Before Spirited Away it was Japan’s most famous film to date. The story about a young man who is just trying to erase the curse that was set upon him by an angry boar and it leads him to a place called Iron Town is something that never fails to amaze me. While in Iron Town, Ashitaka meets a young woman named San who was taken in by wolves and he finds himself caught between a war involving humans and the gods of the forest.

Narratively this is definitely a Miyazaki film. It has a strong female lead, focusing most of its screen time on how important it is to protect and preserve nature as a whole. The idea of protecting nature is such a moving part of the film, as we see what it does when man takes over the forest. We see how distraught it makes the Gods of this world and how they wish that the humans would just go away. However, you also see it from the point of view of the villain of the film Lady Eboshi, who also regularly helps lepers and people who would often never get work outside of her offering them a home and a family. I have regularly gotten into a debate with my mom over which side is “right” and which side “wrong” over the course of the last few years of me being a massive fan of this movie. She takes the side of the forest while I see Ashitaka’s side that everybody should just get along and interact in peace and harmony. Miyazaki never shoves the idea of nature down your throat. That is not what this film is. It’s instead about the beauty of what we have and learning to appreciate it.

On a technical level, this film is fantastic as well. It blows my mind that Miyazaki-san animated most of it all by himself. The backgrounds are sweeping and utterly gorgeous showing off the time period of the film. The fight sequences which make up the bulk of the film’s running time are engaging, thrilling, and fabulously animated. Mononoke’s score was done by Joe Hizashi as well. Its score is beautiful and I always find myself getting sucked into it, especially for the more dynamic scenes with Ashitaka and San. The sound effect for this film uses nature as a backdrop for brutality. Ashitaka’s arrows don’t just come out of his bow, they screech through the air.

Finally, my last film that we will be focusing on, Kiki’s Delivery Service was made in 1989 a year after his cult phenomena My Neighbor Totoro and was his fifth animated feature. Kiki is a young girl that is hoping to become a young witch in training. However, to do so she has to train a year away from home. She and her cat Jiji find a town by the sea where she learns her true strength and what she can really do to help others. Hayao Miyazaki didn't want to bore the audience during the film's end credits by using just the names. He set it up to be like a mini-sequel so that the audience would leave the theatre feeling happy.

Narratively this has all the traits that one should be familiar with and associate with a Miyazaki film. It has a strong-minded female character at the source of it that young girls can look up to and admire. As a kid, Kiki was my favorite female character of his because I loved her strength and her dedication to what she was good at. She knew that she was still young and had a lot to learn but even though she gets depressed she doesn’t let that stop her in the long run and will still save her love interest Tombo. The romance in this film is by far one of the sweetest. I love the interactions between the characters and the way that they both inspire one another to be better than they are. The idea of flight is basically the focal point of everything. Kiki finds that her best trait is that she flies incredibly well and decides to create her own flying delivery service.

Technically this also has a lot of traits that Miyazaki made a name for himself in doing. The animation is spectacular, especially for Kiki’s flying. I could watch her fly around all day and that was the idea that he was going for while making the film. The sweeping score by Joe Hizashi, especially in my favorite song A Town With An Ocean View, is something that I’ll often listen to outside of the film itself. The sound effects for the film are meant to be calming. From the first sound that you hear of the wind rolling through the reeds while Kiki lies against the grass to the waves when she finally finds a home.

4. Miyazaki as a director has inspired me since I was way too young to even remember. When I was a kid I would pretend to run around my apartment building's front yard imagining that I lived in a big house in front of a camper tree like the one in Totoro. His movies are perfect for children that “suffer” from having an overactive imagination. His movies are everything that is bright and beautiful in the world. The animation never fails to take my breath away, the characters and stories are unforgettable, the soundtracks sweep me away and tell stories themselves. His movies are something that even my parents, who are not anime fans, can watch over and over again. I think that speaks for itself. Miyazaki makes films that are art, not just animated films.

[shes-an-oddbird]

Merry Christmas to my Fitzsimmons Secret Santa giftee @springmagpies​  ironically started working on my Christmas at River’s End Mall fic a couple of weeks before I received your fantastic prompt: working at the mall during the holidays! It was a fun coincidence and it was nice to work on this as a stand alone fic that could exist in the same universe as that story. 

I also wanted to make a moodboard to go with it since I’m so inspired by yours! I hope you enjoy it!

The Good & The Bad Of Seasonal Jobs 

Summary:  Leopold Fitz hates his seasonal job demoing the poorly made gadgets on the top of everyone's Christmas lists. Jemma Simmons loves her seasonal job wrapping those gifts. Together they make a a perfect team, even if they haven't officially met yet. Until Jemma is presented with a task that dampens her Christmas spirit and her and Fitz team up to get it back.

His expertise is being wasted.

Fitz is convinced they’ll be by to revoke his credentials any moment now.

If he sells one more shotty piece of home gadgetry with the promise that it will improve their customers everyday lives he might as well tear up his doctorate degree.

But he’s still short the cash he needs to get home for the holiday so here he is. Standing in a crowded mall, demoing cheaply made drones, remote control cars and robotic animals. Couldn’t one of these manufacturers create a monkey instead of the typical dog and cat? Are opposable thumbs that much of a challenge?

He knows the morning rush is starting to settle when he can hear the slightest jingling coming from the gift wrap kiosk across from him. A noise that would normally put him on edge has become a bright spot in his day. It came from the silver bell worn by the gift wrapper, Jemma, who worked the kiosk. She kept the bell tied around her neck on a long blue ribbon and with every move she made it rattled a cheery sound that added to the festive atmosphere in the mall.

He wasn’t much for Christmas cheer himself. He wasn’t a complete grinch, despite what Hunter might say, but if all of his income from the lab didn’t go straight to student loans, rent and food he definitely wouldn’t have bothered with the seasonal work at all.  

Every time his spirits started to fall though, he’d glance over at Jemma to find her glancing back at him. No matter if it was irate customers or screaming children or an upset manager, she was close enough to hear and observe and would shoot him a supportive smile.

They had yet to actually speak to each other but they had found other ways to communicate. One of the most in demand drones of the season utilized a camera and messaging system. She had taken to writing notes on scraps of wrapping paper that he could read through the drone camera and he was able to send back messages to her.

He would love to talk to her in person but the more and more he learned about her from their notes the more and more nerve racking that prospect became. She was brilliant. A double PHD. She worked for a lab he interviewed at a while back but had ended up recruited for a project at another lab across town. He almost regrets taking the project now, the one she was in the middle of sounds fascinating and he thinks they’d make a good team.

But then again, that would involve talking directly to her.

Which would happen, eventually.

It’s early afternoon, kids not yet out of school but late enough that mall walkers and nannies with young ones were heading home. This was the time when they usually found a chance to “chat.” He readies the drone to fly it over to her station but stops when he sees she’s got a customer. A well-dressed man, expensive suit and a pair of matching jewelry boxes in his hands. He spends a moment talking to her, a charismatic smile on his face. She’s not impressed if he’s flirting. She nods curtly back at him as she takes the boxes and he leaves.

Fitz watches her shoulders sag and her demeanor change as she examines the boxes before setting them aside and turning to fetch some paper. Her bell jingles and she stops in her tracks. She removes the necklace and tosses it aside before returning to the task.

Fitz doesn’t know what it was the man said or did to ruin her day but after she’d done so much to improve his bad moods, he felt like he should do something. He quickly packs up the drone and waves to his manager that he’s going on his break.

****

Jemma couldn’t imagine a better holiday job.

When Daisy had told her she could probably get her the open gift wrapper position at the mall she had jumped at the opportunity. It wasn’t exactly science, although Daisy claimed she’d made an art out of it. Just because she liked her patterns to precisely line up and her ribbons to match, it wasn’t that special.

She does love the look in her customers eyes when they pick up their presents.

She also loves the light in the customers’ eyes when they hand her their gifts to be wrapped and she just knows they had found the perfect thing for their loved one. Sometimes the gifts would come along with a story, the hours they waited in line, the dozens of stores visited, the didn’t-plan-on-it-but-I-saw-it-and-thought-of-them. She loved that. It made her want to wrap each gift with just as much love and care.

She thinks that might also be why she maintains her Christmas cheer while Fitz, who works at the shop across from her station, is so grumpy all the time. Poor Fitz. He gets the customers before she does. When they are frustrated from having been on their feet all day with the end not in sight. Their kids tugging and pulling and screaming and begging for this and that. And a manger breathing down his neck, pushing him to sell drones that she knows he thinks are poor quality and will inevitably break.

He’s an engineer, she found out one day when he was messaging her about the poor controls on the drone after apologizing three or four times for nearly hitting her with it.

The day is starting to quiet down for the afternoon lull. She’s caught up on all of her work and is gathering up scraps to write her notes to Fitz on when there is a tap on the wooden counter. She looks up to see a tall well-dressed man waiting for assistance. He’s got just two matching boxes in his hands so she thinks she can knock them out quickly and still have plenty of time to chat with Fitz before the afterschool rush hits.

“Yes, how can I help you today.”

He grins down at her with a charming smile and an unconvincing look of innocence in his eyes.

“Yes, you certainly can, I’ve got a sort of special task.” He places the identical jewelry boxes down between them. “You see this one here, is for my wife,” he slides the first box forward, “and this one,” he places his hand on the other box, “this one if for, well not my wife.” Jemma narrows her eyes in confusion, “so you understand it’s important not to mix them up right?”

Then it hits her and her stomach fills with dread. She looks at the boxes again. They’re branded on the side with the logo of the expensive jewelry shop down at the other end of the mall. “May I?” She asks, reaching out for them. She opens the first to reveal a pretty gold bracelet with a woman’s name engraved in cursive and three sparkling charms. She opens the second box to find a second bracelet, exactly the same except for the name. “Um, they’re lovely.”

“So we don’t have a problem here?” He asks.

Did they? Could she refuse service to this guy because he was cheating on his wife and possibly misleading some other poor woman? Its certainly what she’d like to do.

“No, I suppose not.”

“Perfect, I’ll be back for them this evening, dinner with the girlfriend first, then dinner with the wife.” He taps the counter again. “Do them up real nice for me.”

Jemma nods and collects the boxes. She moves them to the back worktable and starts to select a wrapping paper when the bell on her necklace jingles and she stops. Her bell was tradition. She wore it all through the holiday season thinking the gentle sound was a pleasant way to spread holiday cheer. But now, now it was like it was mocking her.

She takes the bell, pulls the ribbon over her head and tosses it aside.

Maybe it’s a side effect of her frustration or maybe it’s her desire to give the woman being two-timed something individually beautiful; whichever it is she wraps the two bracelets exquisitely. The paper is elegant, the ribbon satin and she even takes the time to add little decorations like pine bristles and bells. She carefully inscribes the cards for the top and gently tucks them under the ribbons before placing them with the rest of the gifts ready for pick up.

It’s exhausting. She has an overwhelming desire to close-up for the day or call out early so that she doesn’t have to be here when he comes back for them. Fitz isn’t even at his usual post, ready to make her laugh.

Someone clears their throat behind her and she spins around on her stool. Fitz is standing at the front counter, two to-go cups in his hands. She’s unsure how to proceed for a moment. Her and Fitz hadn’t actually spoken in person since they started their seasonal worker comradery.

“Hi.”

“Hey.” He shifts back and forth unsure what to say either.

“Thirsty?” She asks, curious about the two cups. Maybe one for now and one for later?

“Oh, no, um one is for you, I hope hot chocolate is okay.” She feels a smile fight its way through her gloom. She can’t help it, hearing his voice for the first time is thrilling. He’s Scottish. Which she had learned from their messages, he was trying to earn money for the ticket home, but it still threw her off just a bit.

“Thanks, but why?” Why today, she really wants to ask.

“I don’t know, you’re always so positive and then that guy came by earlier and you looked upset, I just thought this might cheer you up.”

“Oh, thank you.” She except the cup and the warmth spreads through her chilly hands. She takes a sip and the warmth runs through the rest of her. She savors it for a moment then cringes. “Was is that obvious, that I was upset I mean, do you think he noticed?”

“I doubt it, seemed a bit self-absorbed to me.”

“He’s horrible, bought his wife and his girlfriend the same bracelet for Christmas and didn’t want me to mix them up.” She gestures to where the boxes sit on the very top of the pile.

Fitz face scrunches up in disgust. “What a wanker – sorry.”

She tries not to laugh. “Its okay, he really is, would you like to sit down, I’ve got a second stool back here.”

“Sure, I’ve got a little time.” Jemma excitedly sets aside her beverage and flips up the countertop so he can join her. They settle onto the stools and he swivels his back and forth nervously. “Its strange talkin’ to you in person.”

“Not bad strange, I hope.”

“No, no definitely not bad.”

She ends up asking him about how his work project is coming along and he tells her about the snags they've hit but that its really coming along. He thinks they could use a good biotech person to which she has to decline, being in the middle of her own project. Their conversation slows and Fitz chugs the last bit of hot chocolate before looking for a bin.

"Its under there." She points to the trash can next to the stacks of gifts. Fitz tosses the cup and examines the mountain of presents.

“So why not just switch the cards on these?” He asks as he grabs the bracelet boxes off the pile and places them in front of him.

Jemma frowns. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Fitz asks as he traces the cards with his finger. “Its not like the guy doesn’t deserve whatever would come of it.”

“Well yes he would but it’s my job, I can’t just let my personal feelings effect how I do things, besides he could take it out on the mall if he wanted to, May shouldn’t have to deal with that.” She reasons.

“I think May would on your side.”

“I still can’t Fitz.” She insists as he slides free the tags.

“Fine.” He slips the cards back onto their respective boxes. “Still want to get back at him for ruining your day.”

“Fitz I promise, today is turning out to be pretty great, here – “ Jemma picks up her discarded silver bell necklace and carefully loops it around Fitz’s neck. Her fingers graze his neck, just above the collar of his work polo and she draws them back quickly.  

“What um, what’s this for?” He asks reaches for the bell.

“It’s for spreading Christmas cheer, I think you’re doing a better job of that right now than I am.”

****

Fitz promises Jemma he’ll return her bell at the end of the day. They’re both working open to close and by nightfall the mall is bustling. Friday nights are always busy, usually with teenagers but now with everyone shopping for Christmas its wall to wall people. He’s out demoing drones again. They draw the biggest crowd into the store and the manager had convinced May to let them project the camera’s video feed on to the big screen downstairs at the mall’s Christmas set up.

It keeps him busy. Trying to find interesting things to focus in on. He does enjoy the opportunity to stray farther and farther from the shop. From the balcony he can swoop the drone down to the kids waiting in line for Santa. They wave excitedly and screech with joy when they see their faces up on the screen.

As he retreats the drone back to him there is an audible ‘aww’ of disappointment but if it gets too far away it’ll loose connection and he’ll have to go fetch it when it crash lands. As it comes back up over the railing he does a fancy little spin hoping Jemma is watching. The bit of trick flying always earns him a smile and an eyeroll but when he looks over he sees she busy.

The man from earlier is back to collect his packages. He wishes Jemma would have swapped the cards on them or that he had just done it for her. He knows he shouldn’t but he swings the drone around anyways, he’s a good distance from the guy but its enough to startle him when it wizzes past his head.

“Watch it with that thing!” He snaps.

“Sorry, shotty controls.” He apologizes and holds up the remote guiltily. Still scowling the man take just one of his packages and leaves in a huff.

“Fitz, that was dangerous.” She chides but doesn’t sound as cross as he suspects she could be about it.

“I wasn’t gonna hit him.” He lands the drone on Jemma’s workstation. She’s fiddling with the bow on the man’s other gift. “Why didn’t he take that one?”

“Dinner with his girlfriend, didn’t want to be caught with it.”

Fitz rolls his eyes before returning to the store.

Their long day continues on and the crowds slowly start to dwindle. There are a few stragglers getting in last minute purchases but most of the patrons are either waiting on restaurant reservations or letting out from the evening’s first seatings.

Fitz has just finished charging up the camera drone before locking it up for the night when Jemma rushes into the store.

“Okay, I can’t take it anymore I have to do something or say something.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That guy, that horrible, horrible man just kissed his girlfriend goodbye and marched right over here to get the bracelet for his wife who is waiting for him at the restaurant literally around the corner and I just can’t take it, he’s so arrogant and and awful and – “

“Okay, okay, calm down.” He places his hands on her shoulders gently hoping to sooth her frantic motions. “I thought your hands were tied, that you could do anything.”

“They are,” she stresses, “but it’s so unfair Fitz.”

“Okay well,” Fitz doesn’t know how to help in a way that doesn’t get them involved. He could march right up to the guy and confront him but he suspects that will end very badly. If there was away for them all to figure it out on their own maybe with just a push on their side.

“You said you saw the girlfriend?”

“Yes.”

“You think she’s still here?”

“Maybe, I saw her head downstairs, I assumed that she was leaving.” Fitz takes Jemma’s hand and rushes her over to the balcony. Her eyes scan the small crowd below. In a small seating area by the North Pole set up a woman has set down her things on an armchair and is pulling on her gloves, Fitz sees the shimmer of a bracelet on her wrist. “That’s her.”

“Okay, go try to keep her there.”

“But I can’t tell her, I can’t just delivery that sort of news she may not even believe me.” Fitz is already shaking his head at her protests.

“That’s the thing about Christmas isn’t it, adults don’t believe in Christmas spirit and Santa and all that because for them seeing is believing,” Fitz rushes back into the shop and grabs up the camera drone. “Let’s give them something to see.”

****

“Excuse me, Ma’am, excuse me.” Jemma races up to the pretty blonde woman who has just finished pulling on her coat and scarf. The woman looks at her startled.

“Yes, can I help you?”

Jemma froze. She didn’t want to be the one to pass along such horrible news. But she only needs to buy Fitz some time. “I, I – I’m sorry you don’t know me, my name is Jemma Simmons, I work upstairs at the gift wrap station, I actually wrapped that lovely bracelet you’ve got there.” She says, pointing to the piece of jewelry the woman is trying to free from her coat sleeve.

The woman smiles. “You did an incredible job, my boyfriend wanted to claim it was his own work, but I knew he could never manage anything like that, he can be such a slob.”

“Among other things.” Jemma mutters quietly but not enough that the woman misses it. Her eyes narrow suspiciously.

“Is there a problem?”

“Um, no, well yes you see – “

“Aww, check out the big screen.” Someone calls and both women turn to the large television. Jemma recognizes the feed from the drone immediately. The camera is trailing along a line of guests waiting to be seated at the restaurant upstairs. They wave cheerfully at the camera which comes to a stop on the man and his wife as he gifts her the bracelet and she excitedly rips open the package and throws herself towards him in gratitude.

Jemma worriedly turns to the woman who has lowered her attention from the screen back to the bracelet. One identical to the one on the screen. For a moment she looks terribly heartbroken.

“I’m so sorry, I feel like I’ve just ruined your holiday.” Jemma’s not even sure she hears her. She’s about to ask if she’s alright but then a look of determination crosses her face and she looks up at her with a smile.

“Thank you, um, you set this up?” She gestures to the screen.

Jemma nods cautiously.

“Prefect, can you make the feed go away, there are children here and they really don’t to see what’s about to happen to him.”

Jemma breathes a sigh of relief. “Consider it done.”

By the time she texts Fitz and returns to her kiosk he is already there looking rather pleased with himself. “You’re not even going to ask if it worked first?”

“Didn’t have too, heard the woman coming when I was clearing out of there.”

“Oh dear, I hope it doesn’t get out of hand, I still feel awful.” She says as she leans against the counter next to him.

Fitz nudged her shoulder with his. “Jemma they were being two-timed, if it was you you would have wanted to know right?”

“Yeah I guess so.”

“Then let it go, please, because I need you to go back to being the cheerful one, it’s too much work for me.” Jemma laughs and nudges his shoulder back. He slips the bell off from around his neck and carefully drapes it back around hers. She looks up at him, her whole body feeling jittery and her eyes land on his. She thinks, and blushes at the thought, that she would kill for a bit of mistletoe right now.

She aims for his cheek instead. Landing a thank you kiss on his scruffy jaw and watching happily as he turns a cute shade of pink.

“Um – “ He stutters out.

“Excuse me.” Jemma and Fitz step apart quickly. Standing a few feet away are the blonde woman from downstairs and a second woman who looks elegantly dressed and perhaps a little frazzled. “Sorry, we didn’t mean to interrupt, I was told I might owe you both a thank you?”

“Oh no, it was nothing – “

Fitz cuts her off. “No please thank her, she’s convinced she’s ruined your Christmases.”

“Well, its certainly taken a turn, but for the best in the long run.” The second woman says. She looks between the pair of them. “Actually, as a thank you, would you two like our reservations, someone should have a romantic date night.”

Jemma blushes and Fitz clears his throat. “Oh we’re not together and we should really be working actually –“

“Yes working, right.” Fitz scoops up the drone and hurries off.

Jemma watches him go before turning back to her company. “Thank you, that was very generous of you to offer.”

“Of course.” She says. “And please, don’t worry over this.”

“Yes, its our problem and its being delt with,” the blonde woman agrees. “Should have known something was up, all the time we were together, and he never once looked at me the way that man there looks at you.”

Jemma doesn’t know what to say in response. She looks back at Fitz who glances up at her at the same time and sends her a boyish smile.

“Have a good night Jemma, you’ve given us a lot to think about, maybe we’ve given you something to think about as well.” The women leave and Jemma is left standing at her gift wrapping kiosk, fiddling with the silver bell around her neck.

[jjba-hell]

Revoked

Still late for day 2 but I am enjoying the hell out of these prompts. (Today’s prompt was sci-fi)

Trigger warnings for the death of the ice cream gays but lemme know if I missed anything else.

Summary: a weird mismatched team of busted up aliens and half-blood humans just dealing with some shit.

For the lovely: @lasquadraweek2021

“You should really just transfer to a new body Pros. Humans aren’t supposed to live this long, babe.”

You grumble probably more to yourself than to the man whose forearm you were tinkering in. Well... maybe tinkering wasn’t the word either. He needed another repair and honestly you can’t help but feel like Risotto only offered you the air-mattress in the ship because so many of these psychos have bio-tech they can’t afford to upkeep.

“Sure, I can’t afford a rewire but I can surely afford getting my brain transplanted in a new body.”

“Human bodies are so easy to grow though.” You peer up at him over your magnify glasses with a wriggle of eyebrows. “Fully grown in a quarter rotation? Come on I still have to wait another half rotation to buy a swimsuit let alone grow a body.”

Prosciutto flexed the hand you were working on to spite you but all you did was strap the wrist down and switch off the impulse circuit before getting up and walking toward the exit of the ship where the others were sprawled out in the soft baby blue grass of the planet you were hiding out at.

Melone’s gaze shot from laptop up as you kicked your untied boots from your feet and slid into the grass, barely hearing him as he asked “Any luck with Pros’s arm?”

“I can’t keep mending the same two wires that keep popping off. Its best we find a place that can handle Babyface’s software and get a new one.”

“Still not budging for just replacing the whole thing?” Formaggio asked from somewhere across the clearing.

Like he was one to talk- Akils like him grew back heads and limbs, there wasn’t exactly a need to know anything about biotech.

“Nope. Are all humans this stubborn?”

“I think its the half Megnu in him.” Illuso was the one to chirp in this time.

“That’s still not confirmed.” You sat back on your feet to try and spot your teammates.

“Well he won’t let me analyze.” Melone sighed- continuing to worry away at the clear glass screen that held all his designs.

Melone truly was a bit of a madman to you- he designed the entirety of his body on that simple glass tablet and yet couldn’t finish his face in time before the feds were on him for unethical medical practice- ironic considering he was only putting himself through the strain of fitting his brain into a piece of machinery. What his official titles were in his old field were beyond you.

“Pesci’s not all Scud and he’s not half as stubborn.” You commented and with a soft hum the team fell back into silence.

“Where’s Ris?”

“He’s in bed- that last jump took a toll on him.” Illuso finally rose up from the grass himself heading a bit further away from the clearing, probably wandering after Ghiacchio who was asked to take a lap after he froze off Formaggio’s finger.

You clambered up a few steps to find your captain with the old-fashioned two-way radio in his hand as he lay passed out on couch of the shared living room.

Risotto would rather be caught dead than caught like this so, with intent, you stepped up to take the radio out of his hand. He seemed to gently wake at your fingers prying the piece or equipment from his hand.

“Shit.” He grumbled. “How long-?”

“Ghiacchio’s not even back from his lap- don’t worry. Just head off before they catch you.”

And with a slight groan he rolled up and disappeared down the hallways to his bunk which sounded with an ungraceful “clunk” as he fell into the bed.

Your name got hollered with the slightest tone of desperation from Prosciutto and with that you were back doing your part in the team behind the scene.

“You’re a purebred?” Prosciutto had eventually asked after a few minutes of boredom at watching you weld wires back to the motherboard.

You couldn’t help but laugh. “What am I? A dog?”

He seemed to swallow his words.

“Where do you think I’m from?” You tried to smooth it over.

“Caestea- at least your appearance would have you look like that.”

Another laugh. “I’m from Earth, Pros.”

His eyes widened. “Impossible.”

“Oh yeah. My parents weren’t exactly refugees but they are most certainly not human. Fuck knows what my genetic makeup looks like but thankfully I certainly age like a Caestean. You are all human, huh?”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “Not that there are many of us left.”

In a sense you felt bad for him. You’d seen photos of Earth long before it started to mimic its brother planet Mars but you rarely thought of how wickedly the planet must have lost its life before intergalactic intervention. Humans were strangely scared and selfish creatures but no one deserved to die because there was no clean water to drink.

You shook off the macabre though before closing up Pros’s arm and putting away the tools. “That should do for now but we really do need to think of a replacement in the near future.”

“Thanks.”

It was a half-assed thank you but it surely caught your attention. Pros was a little too prideful to give just anyone a thanks but nonetheless you returned the sentiment. “No problem.”

Outside the boys were fighting again- or rather Ghiacchio was arguing as Formaggio was pushing his buttons while Pesci grilled a rather obscenely colorful fish over the fire-in-tin.

“Oh just the person we needed to see.”

Getting clasped with two arms over the neck was bad enough but from Sorbet and Gelato, now that was trouble waiting to start.

“Oh gods, what do I have to offer this time.”

“Don’t be so serious!” Sorbet cooed darkly.

“We were just hoping you could help us out with the next target.” His boyfriend added.

If you could just roll your eyes back far enough.

“Wandering off from our captain’s orders doesn’t sound like something I’d want to get myself involved in.”

“Not even for a bionic manufacturer?”

“Or a healing bay, for the ship? Surely you could install those things no problem.”

Honestly it was hard not to fall for the stereotype that all Makzi’s do is play dirty and haggle like merchants but here you were, stuck between them and being tempted into breaking formation with them.

“And what would I have to lose?”

“Nothing much-“

“Maybe some face with Risotto.”

You couldn’t help but scoff. “You want me to convince him?”

“Exactly- he might actually consider something if it came out of your pretty mouth.”

“Or rather, if he could come in it.”

You took one step back and bowed out of the hold between the two of them. “Fucking sleezes. Your shit’s gonna get you killed, mark my words.”

“So its a no?”

“Its a fuck no, Sorbet. Vile comments aside, that shit is expensive, even dent-jobs sell for millions... that kind of money is too big a job for us to handle right now and stealing one even more. Get your heads out of your asses before you come up to me with more dumb shit, next time.”

And with that you slipped back beside Illuso as Pesci was grilling up the third fish for the night. Looking back at what you had said was not untrue. That night you were restless in your bunker above Formaggio- Illuso peering behind the sliding divider across the little hallway that ran between the bed bunks.

“Something on your conscience?”

“No.”

“You sure?” You nearly leapt out of skin as Formaggio’s forehead popped up just below your chin outside your divider. “You’ve turned and kicked like 10 times, babe.”

“Please don’t babe me.” You frown at him but you answered the gnawing feeling by asking. “Where are Sorbet and Gelato?”

“Probably in their bed.” Illuso answered as if there wasn’t a more logical answer.

“Wanna put money on it?” Your eyebrow raised.

“And catch them in the act? Daaamn you’re dirtier than I thought.”

“Come on then, 10 drinks at the next stop they’re not in their bunk.”

“Shit, I can’t miss on that opportunity.” Formaggio’s divider slid open all the way to allow him to plop with bare feet to the double bunks at the end of the hallway.” You and Illuso watched in trepidation as he knelt down and knocked. There was no answer save for Risotto’s stern frown behind the top divider making an appearance. “What do you want?”

“Are Sorbet and Gelato in there?” You piped up first.

The angry frown turned into concern as he slid out of his bunk to replace where Formaggio was. He slid the door open to reveal one big empty bed.

What you’d have given to be wrong. But instead the panic bit you all and soon you were messily slipping on boots and running around the ship to find the missing lovers.

Pesci checked the engine compartments he might have accidentally left open, Pros checked the storage while Risotto was seeing if he could track them on the radar. It was only when you were hoisted onto the roof by Formaggio that the dread set into your bones.

“Tell Ris to switch on the overhead console lights.”

You called back down below you. Part of you wished you didn’t... since all it did was put them on display.

It was a vile thing that made Risotto’s eyes grow darker than they already were and once dawn broke, you and Melone quietly put the bodies into the best makeshift body bags you could manage. The lake a few paces away was where you last saw those body bags.

After you left that pit stop you sat in silence in the communal meeting area, your legs flung over one of the armrests in your seat- staring blankly at the coffee table you’d nipped from a market not too long ago.

“So... what’s the plan?”

You asked at anyone who would listen.

“Do we go on as usual? Find their families?”

“Revenge?”

Your head turned to Prosciutto as he was enjoying one last drag of his cigarette.

“You’re brave.” You huffed a bit of laughter at the thought. The big boss and his cronies- the only real reason none of you strayed from Risotto’s orders was way up on a station so far up the intergalactic alliance ladder that you’d have a better shot at killing the king of Gnomia B908 and getting away with it.

“Why not?” Illuso was the one to back it. “Surely we could track the sick fucks that did it.”

“You’re thinking too simply.” Risotto grumbled over his fist. “They didn’t get themselves killed by accident. This was deliberate- a display not to challenge the higher ups.”

“Any idea what they were planning?” You sat up, propping your elbows onto your knees.

Risotto kindly pulled up their hidden plans- your name encircled in red a few times. They seemed to have had their eye on a biotech printer and medbay that was once used by the Boss himself.

“What’s the relevance of an old medbay?” Pros posed the question to you- Melone was up front with Formaggio.

“Medbays need to keep track of any irregularities in DNA to avoid any incompatibility issues. Its one of the few things that can’t be wiped because its burned into the drive. They were trying to expose the Boss’s identity.”

“And they were planning on risking us all in the process?”

You pointed at a little arrow shooting off your name once more. “They figured I could remove and replace the hard drive before anyone noticed.”

Your throat felt dry as you realized what that meant. Whoever this person was... if they could follow something as irrelevant as a used medbay to keep their tracks clean... chances are you were all, at best, being watched.

The thought must have been shared as Risotto didn’t breathe a word as he moved to the front of the ship and changed course to an unaffiliated vector you know damn well you’d probably be searched and cleansed for.

To no one’s surprise the pristine white towers blinded and no sooner than two seconds of coming into orbit of one of the bigger planets you were requested to land.

You stood beside you captain as the ship docked and you waited with your hands behind your head to greet the haz-mat team. “You must be pretty serious about this if you’re willing to get sit in their prison.”

He gazed down at you and with a deadpan tone simply said: “You’ve escaped, I’m certain you could do it again.”