#wip: rocket boosters

[keyboardandquill]

inspired by @bloodlessheirbyjacques but

Beck is a car guy in the literal sense in that she knows and loves cars.

Hawthorne is a horse girl if you count motorcycles as horses, which I 100% do

[badbugbotblood]

A gift for @king-candybug-backup and their WIP but already amazing fic called Kill Switch! This is my personal interpretation of the Sinistar antagonist who appears in it, which is why I've put this beneath a spoiler if you haven't read Kill Switch yet. :)

Some notes about the design!

Like some other fan-art pieces I saw, I chose not to incorporate the mishmash of weaponry Cy-Sinistar has added on to himself, as it would have been too complicated to fit into the bodyplan.

The arm blades and wings are fully retractable and made of hard-light.

The blocky, purple cerci were inspired from the purple pixels that blast off into space when Sinistar catches up to the player's ship and bites it to dust!

Each of Cynistar's walking limbs contains a built-in rocket booster. Cynistar can achieve VTOL either through the use of it's cybug wings or the four booster jets, but it's limbs are much heavier and more sluggish due to the added machinery.

When grounded, Cynistar is slightly slower than the average cybug when running and not well-suited to evasive maneuvers, but is hard to push around due to his increased weight and low center of mass. Kind of Ankylosaurus-esque.

Very snapping turtle-like mouth, but with his face being as flat as it is he doesn't have much reach when biting. Relatively easy to avoid getting chomped if you don't allow him to get in range, but the pressure his jaws can put out is devastating.

Much less whip-like when compared to KCB, and not capable of turning on a dime or tightly coiling up his body like KCB can.

Lacks graspers entirely (Sinistar never had thumb privileges) so is forced to perform pins with the ends of his limbs or pure body mass.

Not good at quick recovery from being turned turtle. The boosters can be rotated such to topple him back right-side-up with controlled thrust, but that process takes some time and luck depending on how accommodating the geometry of the terrain he landed on is.

Yes, he screams. Loudly. After all, he IS SINISTAR, AND BEWARE, HE LIVES!

primary inspirations include Porcellio laevis (smooth isopod, the kind that can't curl up on itself), Ankylosaurus (mass distribution and armor plating), tarantulas (gait), Cybugs (basic body plan and limb distribution), and naturally Sinistar himself (color scheme, head design, plate exterior).

[showstopperzz]

SYSLIST (WIP)

HOST

FREQ FRONTERS

GATEKEEPER

PROTECTORS

📼 jeff

👹 cæsar

🐦‍⬛ edgar

SOOTHERS

🎥 alex

HOLDERS

🕹️ mike

🔪 william

🧋 leo

🎯 dizzy

MOOD BOOSTERS

🍥 miku

SOCIAL

🌡️ richie

🍩/🛹 lulu

🚀 rocket

🦈 bella

UNKNOWN

🎈felix

🪓 toby

📹 vinnie

💎 rubi

note: dormant alters and littles are not included for convenience and safety

[nocek]

Just opened tumblr and I must say my first reaction was.... wait what...?!!!

And I'm still working on part of believing the numbers I'm actually seeing

Because holy shit dear ATLA fandom you've managed to make that Toph kidnaps Zuko for a roadtrip comic my most popular post ever in like 2 days and I'm like

Except with happy pterodactyl noises and with strong suggestion you all are the cutest and fluffiest coala sheeep and I can't even articulate how gratefull I am.

Thank you thank youthankyourhankyou THANK YOU ❤️❤️❤️

You've just given rocket boosters to my motivation to finish the next comic asap (and maybe finish other wips, i usually struggle with that 😅)

[avayarising]

‘Rest easy, son, you've had a busy day,’ says Obi-Wan. ‘You're fortunate you're all in one piece.’

Luke rubs his head, blinks up at him, and frowns. ‘Ben?’ he says slowly, wonderingly. ‘Ben Kenobi?’ 

And then ‘…Obi-Wan?’

Luke is not supposed to know that name. But Ben doesn’t show his surprise. ‘The Jundland wastes are not to be travelled lightly,’ he begins, one eye on the astromech droid wheeling itself out from under the ledge with a bip-whirr. ‘Tell me, young Luke, what brings you out this far?’

Luke doesn’t answer, just sits up slowly, leaning on Obi-Wan’s arm round his shoulders, still staring at him in utter shock. ‘Ben…’ he murmurs again. He looks around, seeming disoriented. Ben wonders if Luke still has a concussion. He hasn’t used the Force to heal anyone but himself for years. He reaches his hand out and touches his fingers to Luke’s forehead again, sends another subtle pulse of cool healing energy into him. 

‘Oh!’ Luke turns to him, and then smiles. Obi-wan lets his hand fall, wondering for a moment if Luke had actually sensed that. ’No, it’s all right, I’m fine, but thanks. Um.’ he rubs the back of his head. Then his eyes fall on the droid. Funny, thinks Ben. That droid almost looks like…

‘Artoo! Are you all right?’

Whirple wip wip whrriw! 

Luke laughs. ‘Good to hear it, old friend.’ 

Ben must have been mistaken. This was some other R2 unit. The Larses had obviously had it for a while, if Luke was calling it an old friend. Though why Luke had brought it out here…

Wriip wiribee bee?

���Yeah, I’m fine. I just… I don’t know…’

He watches Luke look around again. Then down at his right hand, tapping each finger against the thumb, running his left hand down loosely circled over his wrist. As if… 

‘Artoo…’ Luke says slowly, ‘what is the date?’

Brriw bleeple doople wip! Plinkety bdoo bip!

There’s a honking cry from down the canyon. Ben looks up at the overhanging cliffs. ‘I think we had better get indoors,’ he says, standing, and offering a hand to Luke. ‘The sand people are easily startled, but they will soon be back. And in greater numbers.’

Luke’s eyes widen, he stares – past Ben, at something he can’t see, or at nothing at all. He slowly closes his eyes, his head down. He breathes, once, twice, thrice. Obi-Wan feels him reaching out, querying the Force. Then he opens them again, a determined expression on his face. 

Luke stands swiftly, easily. His eyes are wide and he is holding himself poised, his head turning from side to side. ‘Uncle Owen!’ he suddenly gasps. ‘Aunt Beru!’

And then he leaps into action. Quite literally, launching himself over the rocks towards the speeder. Obi-Wan is about to steady him with the Force, and then realises that the Force is already swirling around the boy. 

‘Come on, Artoo!’ the boy calls, and as the R2 unit trundles towards the speeder, Luke turns his head towards a crevasse –

– and three separate pieces of a golden protocol droid scoop themselves up from it and land neatly in the back of the speeder. ‘Ohh my head! Where am I?’ it asks plaintively, and Luke chuckles. ‘Don’t worry, Threepio,’ he smiles. ‘We’ll get you fixed up soon.’

Obi-Wan’s head is spinning. Those particular droids…

‘Obi-Wan! I’m going to need you for this! Please!’ The boy is in the speeder now, starting it up, and Ben races to join him. R2D2 (and it is definitely R2D2) butts the side of the speeder, beeping plaintively. Luke smacks his own head with the heel of his hand. ‘Oh! Dammit, your rocket boosters are broken just now, aren’t they? I’ll lift you in.’ And he does, with the Force, quickly and gently without even waving a hand. The droid whirrups in startled glee. ‘I’ll fix those as soon as I can, little buddy, but we have a lot to do first!’

And they’re off, speeder gunning through the desert, and then Obi-Wan bites back a habitual cry of ‘Anakin!’ as Luke leaps straight out of his seat, steering and powering the speeder with the Force alone, and catches something small, silvery, that’s flying at them extraordinarily fast from behind. He flips, drops back down into his seat, and examines his catch, steering the speeder absently round a large rock without even looking while Obi-Wan presses himself back into his seat.

It’s Anakin’s lightsabre, pulled all the way from Obi-Wan’s hut, where it had been stored in a locked box in a locked chest. 

‘Huh. Haven’t seen this in a long while,’ says the boy, flipping it over and clipping it expertly to his belt. Then he turns to Obi-Wan. He’s not grinning and laughing, though, the way Anakin usually did when piloting anything. He looks grimly determined. ‘Sorry for the rush,’ he says, as the speeder flips almost sideways round a tall rock pillar. ‘We don’t have much time and I need to get back to the farm before the stormtroopers arrive.’

Obi-Wan really doesn’t know what’s going on. But there was only ever one person who could pull him around like this. He stares at the boy.

‘…Anakin?’ 

[power-of-ages-writeblr]

Some writing advice I’ve picked up over the years

Characters are supposedly 1/3 you, 1/3 someone you know, and 1/3 made up - experiment with the different faucets of your personality, as well as which traits would mesh well together into a typically functioning personality

A probable impossibility is better than a possible improbability - it’s more believable that aliens exist and that they like the taste of human sweets then it is that when a character turns on the television the news is telling them exactly what they need to know for the story to progress

Working on multiple stories at once isn’t automatically a bad idea - if you’re an absolute madman/woman/person, having many WIPs will work to keep you writing, because when you get bored of one project you can jump easily to another (especially if they’re set in the same universe or something)

Just because something’s consistent doesn’t mean it’s good - as Michael Bay’s Transformers series has shown us, it is possible to be consistently mediocre/bad to the point where internet reviewers can accurately predict down to a tee what’s gonna happen in the film without actually seeing it

The idea “write what you know”, whilst good advice, isn’t totally accurate - you CAN write stories about things you haven’t personally experienced PROVIDED you research the absolute fuck out of it, and talk to people who HAVE experienced it (trust me, you’re going to need their help)

People are really that weird, eccentric, and stupid in real life - I once had a friend pull his tracksuit bottoms down below his butt to mimic the “chav” style of wearing one’s trousers, then pull them down to his knees and proclaim he was “chav squared”, and then lose his balance and trip and fall flat on his face; and this was all during a school sports session!

As long as you stick to the rules your universe sets up, you can do whatever the flying fuck you want logic-wise - provided you either provide an in-universe logical explanation, or establish them from the very get-go, you can absolutely have giant elephants that use rocket boosters to fly through space (…or something equally outlandish)

Music while writing is situational - the right tune for the right scenario can be baller, but if you waste too much time deciding what track to listen to for every scene, you’re gonna take way longer than you need to to get anything done

Writer’s block is a constant state, not a tragic happenstance - ride the waves of inspiration when they come, but in the long run it is best to find strategies to overcome writer’s block in some capacity, because you’re absolutely going to be dealing with it a lot

A story is defined by two things: intention and obstacle - in a typically structured story, the audience will root for a character based on a thing they desire, and conflict will arise based on what circumstances or antagonists prevent them from reaching said desire

It’s possible to be good at more than writing - make your own moodboards! draw your own fanart! make your own headcanons! working on your stories and characters beyond your actual writing is one of the best ways to keep yourself invested, in my experience

Have an outlet for stress - I box and also play the drums! honestly this is more life advice for anything else but if you’re not happy with your WIP then a way to blow off steam can be pretty neato

(if this looks familiar to anyone - I made this post on me OLD blog before I accidentally deleted it (as you do xDD))

[gumnut-logic]

WIP lines

@tracybirds tagged me ::hugs you::  to do recent lines from my works in progress.

I have so, so many works in progress, so I’m only going to pick on the mess I created since I stopped writing The Hero in order to try to get my Secret Santa fic done on time back on the 8 Dec 2019. Yes, that is where the mess all started. There are five ::headdesk::

The Hero

I do not have anything new for this one. What is published is where it is at. So I will have to give you a little that you may have already read.

“He wanted to end this.” Virgil’s parched voice broke the sudden silence. “He tried to shove that down my throat so he could end it. He wanted to blow himself up as much as he was being driven to do the same to us. If he had a bomb in his head, don’t you think he would have found a way to set that off rather than kill all of us?”

We’ll Be Home For Christmas

Gordon pulled up the feed from the Raoul sea buoy network ring. A hologram appeared of the mother and calf with just enough detail for Gordon to point out the healing net injuries on the little one.

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, she was caught nasty.”

“Bastards.”

“Don’t worry, we got them. Hell, IR has identified the money responsible and we have our legal team in motion.” A polite way to say his beautiful girlfriend was wreaking havoc in a calm but final way only she knew how. He had no doubts there would be very little left of the Polominka guy by the time she finished with him.

And what was left would probably be swept up by Parker and deposited in the nearest trash can.

Gotta love a girl who knew how to get a job done.

“Gords, you with us?”

“Huh?” A blink. Sam was grinning at him as if he knew exactly what Gordon was thinking about. He glared at him.

It didn’t faze the man. “Penny for your thoughts?” That was followed by an outright snigger.

“Shut it, Samwise.” So he flushed scarlet, big deal. Idiot.

Thunderbird XL

The ride back was nothing like he remembered eight years ago.

The whole ship vibrated, the harmonic sinking into his bones and curdling his stomach.

Yeah, that’s all I’ve got.

Need

Which sprouted from Thunderbird XL. My muse would not sit still at the end of the season!

Time passed as it always does. Jeff Tracy showed no further signs of mental instability. In fact, he grew stronger. Scott introduced him to the Board of Tracy Industries and he slowly picked up duties in the business, lowering the demand on Scott’s time.

Their father was all the better for it to have a purpose outside of family, and Scott was better to have less work on his plate and actually get to bed at a reasonable time every now and again.

Virgil continued to hover like a worried hen. Scott watched him. Even Gordon sought out Scott on a couple of occasions, concerned for his engineer brother.

Their Dad was regaining his strength, yet Virgil didn’t seem to see it.

When the World Goes Boom

And here we have the current monstrosity awaiting attention ::sigh:: Not all of it is up on the archives as I’ve been slack, but it is up to Part 8 on Tumblr and a good 26,400 words long so far.

“John, there are discrepancies in the records of all fourteen remaining waste harvesting facilities.”

John looked up at her camera. “Exactly like the first?”

“In the majority, variations on a theme. It appears there is methodical thievery in progress.” A hologram appeared in front of him, numbers scrolling through.

John eyed them, rubbing his chin with one blue-gloved hand. Could it be that simple? Theft? “That is a lot of missing material.” He frowned. “Too much to hide easily.”

“I have searched for any suspicious transactions world wide. There are no indications of strain on any of the markets for these materials. If they are being sold, it must be in extremely small increments.”

She threw up another range of numbers.

“They must be storing it. That is far too much to sweep under the rug.” He pulled up a scan of the nearest waste recycling facility. It was in the middle of snaring the remains of a multistage rocket booster. It’s grapples were dragging the huge chunk of metal into a maw of a retrieval bay. Lights flickered on the operating bots darting around the capture.

John eyed it with a frown. Radioactive materials and precious metals. Alan had seen a single person in a space suit carrying something with a radioactive symbol on it. He did a few distance calculations.

“Eos, could you please do a scan of all the space junk within EVA distance of this facility. Look for radioactivity.”

“Yes, John.”

The next question was ‘how did that man not get blown up with Alan?’ Quickly followed by ‘how did Thunderbird Five not detect him in the first place?’

Oops, I was wrong...there is six. There is a fic that I have not archived. It doesn’t even have a title, but is 5,400 words long.

Untitled

“Thank you, Chief McCready. I will be in touch.”

“I look forward to it.”

She stared after the woman as she left the room, thoughts swirling in her head. She had no doubt, Lady Penelope wouldn’t tell her a thing.

But there were other ways,

Cass grabbed her comm and contacted an old friend.

I don’t have any new text for this as I had to freeze it there - last written 7 Feb 2020 after which I went down with an infected foot, decided I had too many WIPs and left it there. But I can say that the old friend that Cass was going to contact was Ned Cook.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed these quick snapshots into where these fics might be going. My priorites at the moment are Boom, Christmas, Hero and then the others if I can wrestle the muse.

Who knows what else will get started in the meantime :D

Nutty

(who goes back to work tomorrow, so my time goes back to minimal)

Tagging: I think lots of peeps have already done this and my memory is atrocious, so have at it if you will :D ::hugs you all::

[isaackuo]

Space Carrier VARUHARA WIP notes

Here's a WIP for a retro C64 video game intro. It's a hard Science Fiction setting, with unabashed retro tropes.

SPACE CARRIER VARUHARA INTRO SEQUENCE

VALHALLA EXTERIOR

Sasaki, flying a small scout Dauber, approaches the Valhalla. Valhalla is slowly spinning for artificial gravity.

Valhalla fires ball ammo from a railgun turret at the Dauber.

The Dauber absorbs the bullets into a large foam shield. This slows down the Dauber for final approach.

The Dauber enters the stern trap.

In the cockpit, Sasaki is exhausted and yawning.

VALHALLA HANGAR

Gori-Lieutenant: Late again, and running on gas! Do you want another demotion?

Sasaki-Lieutenant: Yawn ... Come on, Gori-Lieutenant, no one cares that much. I demoted myself.

Gori: What?

Sasaki: Budget cuts - when did we last _fuel_ the Vallhunds for CAP?

Gori: well, the boiloff...

Sasaki: ch! I can _fly_ in a Dauber ... yawn ... zzz

Gori: So serious. There's nothing out there.

Sasaki: ... my brother is ... zzz

Gori shakes his head, and lets Sasaki nap in the cockpit while he begins mounting boosters.

DEEP SPACE, VALHALLA IN DISTANCE

In the background of stars, a weird gash rips apart. A fleet of alien starships spill from the rip.

VALHALLA BRIDGE

Radar officer: C-Captain! Something is there! Umm ... 190km away?!? Octant 5.

Chiba-Captain: 190km??? How? Stealth? Or ...

Radar officer: Battleships! ... maybe ... Missiles!

Chiba: Battlestations! Condition red! Helm! De-spin, and aim cats for missile intercept!

Helm officer: Yessir!

Chiba: Weapons! N-Beams, target missiles!

Weapons officers: Yessir!

Chiba: Handler! Scramble all Vallhunds! 5 percent fuel!

Aircraft handler: Yessir!

Radar officer: Captain! The budget ...

Chiba: Time! It's _time_ we lack. Missile ETA is 80 seconds. Do you know how long it takes to fully fuel a Vallhund?

Radar officer: I don't know.

Chiba: Our alpha strike drill record is ten minutes.

VALHALLA HANGAR

Pilots and deck officers are scrambling, hurrying into cockpits and fueling the fighters.

Sasaki is still asleep, but Gori is hooking bridle lines to her Dauber. The Dauber already has two quad racks of boosters loaded.

Gori: Oy! Open bridle brakes!

Gori bangs on the Dauber's cockpit.

Gori: Wake up, Sasaki! It's a scramble!

Gori pushes to float back. The airlock door slides shut. The airlock is enormous compared to the Dauber, reflecting its small size compared to the Vallhunds.

VALHALLA BRIDGE

Chiba, looking at screen: What type of ships are they?

Radar officer: Type ... unknown. Radar emissions ... absent. No emissions at all ... wait. UV? UV or something.

Chiba: UV lidar, perhaps?

Radar officer: Maybe ... I don't get it.

Chiba: Damage report!

Damage control officer: Damage reports absent!

Chiba: What? The enemy has no n-beams? No beams at all, maybe? Missiles only?

Chiba: Missile status?

Radar officer: No change. Impossible to assess n-beam effects.

Chiba: Helm! Upward thrust, 30 mps.

Helm officer: Yessir!

Radar officer: Missile maneuvers! Upward ... 30 mps.

Chiba: So ... guidance unaffected by n-beams? No way. But what about the warheads?

Chiba: Weapons! N-beams target enemy battleships!

Weapons officer: ... Where?

Chiba: Identify any promising points at will. Use your own judgment.

Weapons officer: Acknowledged!

VALHALLA CATAPULT TUNNEL

Airlock chamber in the floor rotates to reveal the Dauber. Sasaki is still asleep, with her helmet lolling.

The bridle lines pull the Dauber up into the center of the tunnel, positioned for launch.

In the left side of the tunnel, a large digital count-down display shows 10, 9, -- on 8, the Dauber is accelerated down the tunnel at incredible speed.

In the cockpit Sasaki's helmet slams rearward, instantly waking her; the cockpit is vibrating like crazy.

VALHALLA EXTERIOR

The Dauber silently exits the starboard cat tunnel; the disposed bridle lines glint briefly with reflected sunlight at the same moment that a naval bridle would have splashed into the ocean.

VALHALLA BRIDGE

Handler: Dauber away!

Chiba: So soon!

Chiba holds mic to face.

Chiba: Hailing Dauber. Chiba-Captain.

Sasaki: Dauber here. Sasaki-Lieutenant.

Chiba: 14 missiles at 120km, Sasaki-Lieutenant. You see them?

Sasaki: Yes, I see them on radar ... and visual.

Chiba: Missile guidance seems unaffected by N-beams. We are firing on them with N-beams. Intercept and observe.

Sasaki: Acknowledged!

Chiba: Weapons! N-beams, target missiles!

Weapons officer: Yessir!

VALHALLA HANGAR

Vallhunds are still being fueled and supplied. Two Vallhunds, still attached to fuel lines, are being moved to the airlocks at opposite sides of the hangar. Those two visibly have no weapons mounted on their rocket rails.

DEEP SPACE, VALHALLA IN DISTANCE

The Dauber thrusts back toward the Valhalla with booster packs, first discarding a pair of boosters from the left rack, and then discarding a pair of boosters from the right rack. As the second pair is discarded, the missiles catch up to the Dauber.

Sasaki: Hailing Valhalla. Sasaki-Lieutenant.

Chiba: Valhalla here. Chiba-Captain.

Sasaki: You're firing N-beams at the missiles?

Chiba: Yes.

Sasaki: Neutron signature ... absent. No, minimal. Consistent with N-beam scatter.

Chiba: No way! They're not nuclear weapons? Observe closer.

Sasaki: Acknowledged ... I'm approaching a missile ...

Sasaki: What kind of missile is this? Unknown type. No obvious sensors or thrusters. No emissions. Permission to engage?

Chiba: Engage.

Sasaki: Acknowledged.

Sasaki opens fire with recoilless machine cannon. The missile instantly jinks hard upon impact.

Sasaki: So fast!

Sasaki continues firing upon the jinking missile, but it's very hard to hit

Sasaki: It's dodging! So hard to hit! No ... not dodging. _Reacting_...

Sasaki takes a break from firing. After a couple seconds, the missile thrusts back on course.

Sasaki studies the sensor readings.

Sasaki: What! No way ... 500 KeV gamma signature? Positrons?

Chiba: Positrons? Anti-matter warhead? What is this enemy!

Sasaki: Bullets! Ball ammo! It can work!

Sasaki resumes firing upon missile; it reacts with chaotic thrusts opposite the impact points

Chiba: Weapons! Railguns, target missiles! Ball ammo!

Weapons officer: Yessir!

Chiba: Sasaki-Lieutenant, disengage! We're firing upon the missiles with ball ammo.

Sasaki: Don't mind me! They're too hard to hit from a distance.

Chiba: Understood.

VALHALLA EXTERIOR

Railgun turrets fire streaks of glowing hot ball ammo toward the missiles

DAUBER EXTERIOR

Glowing ball ammo streaks from the Valhalla rain all around.

Sasaki fires upon and chases a missile, finally shattering it to pieces at very short range with a good string of hits.

Sasaki looks up at the Valhalla, having grown larger in view.

Sasaki: Damnit!

Sasaki stops firing and pilots the Dauber to physically grab a missile.

Sasaki: No reaction?

Sasaki thrusts toward another missile and physically throws the missile she's holding at the other missile. Both missiles explode spectacularly on impact.

Sasaki: Got it!

Sasaki flies toward another missile. This time, her Dauber's shield - luckily placed between her and the enemy fleet - glows hot.

Sasaki: Eh? UV? UV laser?

As Sasaki approaches the missile, a spot on the missile glows from laser fire before an explosive reaction thrusting away.

Sasaki: No way! Guidance was unaffected because guidance is absent! The missiles are dumb rocks!

Sasaki chases the missile to try and grab it, but it is dodging too well. The Valhalla is getting larger in the background.

VALHALLA CATAPULT TUNNEL

The airlock chamber rotates to reveal a lightly armed Vallhund. Its large size fills out the chamber.

The bridle lines lift the Vallhund into the tunnel.

VALHALLA BRIDGE

Chiba: Handler! Status?

Handler: We won't make it, damnit!

Chiba pauses in thought.

Chiba (into mic): Sasaki-Lieutenant, disengage. Avoid the blast radius.

Sasaki: No, I can still ...

Chiba: This is my final order, Sasaki-Captain.

Sasaki is shocked.

Sasaki: A-acknowledged.

VALHALLA CATAPULT TUNNEL

Vallhund accelerates down the tunnel.

Before it reaches the end, massive explosions erupt into the tunnel.

DAUBER EXTERIOR

The Valhalla zooms past the Dauber, VARUHARA visible on the hull momentarily as it shrinks into the distance. It is crumbled by massive explosions, albeit smaller than nuclear explosions.

The Dauber turns to face the empty place where the Valhalla was. The imposing enemy fleet becomes visibly apparent.

- - - - - 8< - - - - -

BACKGROUND TECHNOLOGY NOTES

The heavy carrier Valhalla is a solar powered spacecraft with hydrolox fuel and four main engines. It normally operates with spin gravity. In spin mode, only one engine is required for full maneuvering capability - it works like a spinning helicopter rotor with cyclic and collective throttling for maneuvering. When de-spun, it is desirable to have either the upper pair or the lower pair of engines functional.

Valhalla's main armament is six neutron beam turrets. Ion pulses drive neutrons via magnetized plasma wakefield acceleration. These neutron beams can fry guidance electronics and disrupt nuclear warheads, making them potent missile defenses. However, it is difficult to assess how much damage has been done to the target.

In the previous interplanetary war, the proliferation of N-beam defenses outmoded long range missiles. Large fighters armed with short range rockets proved more effective. Their large fuel tanks provided adequate neutron shielding to get past defenses. To improve range and endurance, carriers began incorporating catapults to launch fighters and railguns to brake returning fighters. Valhalla exemplifies late war carrier design.

Valhalla's space wing is dominated by Vallhund fighters - a post-war design. They use the same hydrolox fuel as Valhalla itself, maximizing range and delta-v thanks to high specific impulse. However, Vallhunds were designed for high intensity conflict, lacking insulation to mitigate hydrogen boiloff. Valhalla is currently operating far from supply lines, so the Vallhunds are rarely fueled up for operations. Still, this is not considered a serious problem, because any enemy will be detected from far away.

Another fighter type is the small Dauber scout. It's a pre-war design, dominated by its tail radar. It uses magnesium-aluminum/lox hybrid rocket boosters to maximize endurance, because they don't suffer from boiloff. For extended delta-v, multiple disposable booster packs are used. The Dauber's flexible limbed design has given it the ability to keep up with the times, despite a lack of N-beam protection.

Valhalla's catapults use a bridle line system. The bridle lines suspend the fighter in the tunnel. The shuttles are accelerated by linear motor electromagnets paired in series, guaranteeing that their movement down the tunnel is synchronized. This bridle system is more suitable than a less retro nose gear system, because the desired speed exceed speeds suitable for wheeled landing gear.

- - - - - 8< - - - - -

ADDITIONAL TACTICS NOTES

Captain Chiba's most obvious tactical error was fruitlessly trying to launch Vallhund fighters rather than the small complement of Dauber scouts. However, he's a veteran of an interplanetary war in which "There's No Stealth in Space". The possibility of an encounter without hours of advance notice was inconceivable. Under such unthinkable time constraints, it's natural to stick to practices that one has trained for. Even if Captain Chiba tried to push his crew into novel tactics, it would be unlikely to work as well as doing what they've trained for.

As it was, there was never a possibility of launching all of the Dauber scouts very quickly. They're considered auxiliary support for the strike fighters, so only one was ever launched at a time. As such, only one deck hand was comfortable with prepping a Dauber unsupervised.

Captain Chiba references "alpha strike" drill times, even though an alpha strike consists of fully loading and launching all Vallhund fighters. Why not reference a fast interceptor scramble drill? Simply put, they never drilled for such a thing. Late war carrier tactics revolved around opposing alpha strikes directly pummeling their way through each other. Holding back any of the space wing in reserve would only be a recipe for losing the battle. Concentrating a full alpha strike was the way to both maximize chances of victory and minimize fighter losses.

Conversely, the alien tactics seem puzzling. They only launch about a dozen missiles, and no fighters. Partly, this is because they are testing the capabilities of an unfamiliar enemy with unfamiliar technology. Also, it is because of an internal bet. The mysterious advisor to this invasion mission, Quartz Brooder, has bet the task force's commander that a mere 14 missiles would be sufficient to win the battle. The commander is incredulous, but intrigued enough to see how it goes. She knows full well that her fleet has overwhelming numerical superiority regardless.

Basically, Valhalla was doomed because the enemy had a greatly superior force and greatly superior information. If we include the knowledge of Quartz Brooder, the enemy had a very good idea of the weaknesses of the enemy and how to exploit them. In contrast, the human force had no idea such an enemy was even possible.

[keyboardandquill]

Hi type

Please give me your wips as highly specific candle scents (there can be more than one.)

Hi Sleepy! I don’t know much about candle naming so I’ll just vibe and see what happens.

Athenaeum is “Desert Morning” and is reminiscent of pleasantly earthy air, freshly blooming desert flowers, and has undertones of petrichor.

Rocket Boosters is “Salt Dunes” and somehow smells like the ocean, the desert, and a mechanic’s garage all in one.

Some unannounced WIPs:

Stasis story is “Stardust and Moonbeams” and smells a bit chemically, tbh, but not entirely unpleasant? I’m not a scent-ologist but it smells kind of like a book. But a nice-smelling book.

Space Salvager story is “Unidentified Flying Objects” and smells like mangoes for no other reason than I think my main character would really like mangoes if she ever got to try them.

Thanks for the ask \o/ 🥳

[keyboardandquill]

Happy STS! Do you have a fave way to start your wips? Or does it change with every project? @writingonesdreams

Hiya! Thank you for the ask @writingonesdreams :3

Most of my WIPs start with a fairly vague concept that gets refined as I talk about it with a bud or as I put notes into a doc. So often times I'll have a place to begin writing from if I decide to pursue it! I call them plot dumps and they can range from 700 to 2500 words but they provide a pretty useful idea of the vibe I want and the events that could happen. But, I'm also a discovery writer, so I'm happy to change elements of the story as needed until something takes shape in prose.

I think I've mentioned in a post before, but Athenaeum started with a mental image I had of a desert wanderer looking out over the ruins of a library! So I started thinking about how she got there, what the library was, why there was a wasteland, etc.

And Rocket Boosters and Other Things You Can Find in a Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland was borne out of me watching a gameplay trailer for the indie game Eastward. I didn't particularly have a solid concept for the story other than that, so I decided to try my hand at building some characters for the story first and that was a fun experience. :)

[keyboardandquill]

Tiny Scene Sunday ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ

caution, scars, desperate (bonus: valour) | Hawthorne and Beck :D ❤️

@bloodlessheirbyjacques ❤️✨👀

Jacques thank youuu!!! These have been PERCOLATING in my BRAIN for a long while so I'm glad to finally present to you a not-so-Tiny Scene on this beautiful not-Sunday :]

(CW: gunshot wound, guns, wound tending)

---

There's gauze wrapped around my middle when I wake up. I know this ache—the searing agony of a wound I could have avoided. I'm not sure what hurts more, this, or the fact that I could have prevented it had I shown just a little more caution.

Hawthorne knows it. He offers me a lopsided smile from where he sits beside me, apologetic, almost.

Running my fingers along the neatly-wrapped bandage, it takes my pain-fogged mind a few moments to comprehend what must have happened. Cal has no first aid training, nor does he show any inclination toward it. Yarrow, in her inexperience, wouldn't have been so tidy.

Which leaves Hawthorne.

"Let me know if they're too tight," he murmurs. He reaches out, his hand stopping short of touching me, and clenches it into a fist. "It's been a while since I've had to do that."

I take a slow breath and wince. This one's gonna scar. There's no way it won't. Yet another mark on the patchwork canvas of my body, another painful reminder of everything this world has come to. I glance over at Hawthorne again.

His hunched shoulders, his downcast face, the worried furrow of his brow—all of it is so opposite to the way he usually is, it leaves me craving... normalcy. (The fact that I so quickly took his loud presence as normal, I'll have to examine at a later date.)

"Hey," I croak. He's unscrewing the cap on his canteen before I can even get the next words out, bringing it to my lips to sate my thirst before I continue. "This isn't my first time getting shot, you know. I've built an immunity."

Expressionless, he stares at me for a long moment. "You're telling jokes. Now I know something's really wrong," he says, his somber tone belied by the twinkle in his eye. That's better. "Is that what the other scar was?"

The image of a terrified little boy flashes through my mind. His trembling hands hold a gun, point it at me. He's desperate. We all are. Somebody screams and he startles and his finger pulls the trigger and I double over and wake up wrapped up not unlike I am now.

"Yeah," I say.

"Did you get that one while committing unwise acts of valour too?"

The gun in my memory clatters to the floor. All I could think then was about how empty my stomach had been, how filling it with lead wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I came across that house in the middle of nowhere.

I breathe out a laugh. It hurts. "Not quite." Valour, after all, is a choice. And I didn't choose any of this.

---

thank you @bloodlessheirbyjacques I loved writing this!! It's been stewing in my mind for ages so I hope you enjoy <3

Tag list (ask to be +/-)

@wip-nook @ariskamalt @daltoneering @edgebug @ren-kenobi-wan @sp8sexual @ericaceam

[keyboardandquill]

Introduction

Hello writeblr community! I'm Jade, I'm in my 30s, I'm Canadian, and I've been creating stories for as long as I can remember.

I currently have two WIPs which you can find here (mobile-friendly links below under My Writing).

In addition to writing, I love to draw, make handmade stationery and stickers, and create RPGs and board games.

I follow back from my main, @jadefyre.

My Writing

I love writing sci-fi, especially anything to do with space or futuristic technology. Some of my favourite subgenres include cyberpunk, solarpunk, and apocalyptic fiction. I also enjoy reading or writing a good science fantasy story now and then!

Check out my current WIPs below!

Intro post for Athenaeum, a distantly-post-apocalyptic solarpunk science fantasy story about mending the world with the power of friendship and also the lifeblood of the planet or whatever.

Intro post for Rocket Boosters and Other Things You Can Find in a Post-Apocalyptic Junkyard, another post-"apocalyptic" story about a grouchy wasteland survivalist who gets saddled with a 12-year-old and two grown-ass men on a trip to the coast in search of a doctor.

I also write the occasional fanfic. :)

Resources

One of my goals in creating this writeblr is to create a series of "craft of writing" guides to help both new and seasoned writers get even better at what they do.

You can find various resources in my tag directory, linked below!

Or check out the tag #resource by keyboardandquill for my original content resources.

Tags

I try to keep everything as categorized in the tags as I can! You can check out my directory here (and if you can't access that page for whatever reason, you can also see it in post form here)

Asks/Being Tagged

Feel free to slide into my asks to tell me about your WIP! Really, you don't need an excuse. I love hearing about what other people create. (I'm also open to talking about my WIPs and OCs at any time if any of them happen to interest you ;D)

I'm also happy to be tagged in tag games (even if we aren't mutuals/haven't interacted) and am happy to participate in sending/receiving ask games too.

(Just a note: I can be quite slow to respond to asks and I'll do my best to get to them! Tag games are a hit or miss for me because sometimes they don't apply well to my WIPs or I don't have the spoons, but please don't let that stop you from tagging me :3)

[keyboardandquill]

WIP Intro: Rocket Boosters and Other Things You Can Find in a Post-Apocalyptic Junkyard

an offbeat sci-fi comedy

(Updated with new character and setting info as of May 11, 2022!)

It's been 10 years since the boringest apocalypse imaginable, and Beck just wants to collect salvage and tinker in peace. But the residents of Basin's Edge really need someone to go find a doctor, and it's not like Beck's gonna say no, right? Anyway, things go about as well as expected.

Rocket Boosters is about learning how to accept affection and tolerate people. Beck, a grouchy wasteland survivalist, gets gets saddled with a 12-year-old and two grown-ass men on a trip to the coast in search of a doctor and must come to terms with the fact that some post-apocalypses are not best survived alone.

Character info below the cut!

Main Characters

Beck is a cynic with a rigid moral code. She keeps to herself, and her intentionally boorish demeanour mostly does its job. Mostly. She finds herself in the wrong place at the wrong time and gets roped into helping the people of Basin's Edge after a raid leaves them without a doctor.

Although her personality tends to repel people, Beck's keen eye for social cues often puts her at the advantage in tense situations. If only she cared enough to intervene without being asked.

Yarrow is the most persistent twelve-year-old Beck has ever met. Despite Beck's repeated chastising and attempts to push her away, Yarrow sticks closer to Beck than Beck's own shadow.

She finds Beck's tactlessness charming and is determined to follow in her footsteps as a salvager. Oh, they also just met.

Hawthorne is nice, sweet, funny, caring, kind, and good with kids. Beck hates him. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to know a thing about surviving in the wastes, so obviously she has to escort him to safety so she can get him out of her hair.

He has an irrepressible smile and enjoys pushing Beck to the edge of her patience.

Calamus is almost as jaded as Beck, but is far more likely to stick around and watch from a distance with a proverbial bucket of popcorn when things get hairy. His background as the oldest son of a prepper family has given him unrivaled survival skills, making him an essential part of the team. Even if everyone else wishes he weren't.

He has a younger brother named Jamie who was injured in the attack on Basin's Edge, and who is the only reason Cal volunteered for this trip.

The Setting

Set in our nearish future somewhere around Nevada and California.

Ten years after city-dwellers left their homes en masse to set up shanty towns in the wilderness, only a few of these original settlements are still intact. Others set up and fall apart on a regular basis, threatened by lack of food, water, and protection against the roving, gun-toting Mad Max wannabes who plague the nation.

At least the roads still work.

Connecting most "major" wasteland dwellings is a network of relay towers used to boost radio signals—a rare commodity in a post-EMP world. Portable, working radios are worth more than their weight in gold, and some people will do anything in order to stay connected...

Daily Life

Year-round extreme weather makes existence in the so-called 'wasteland' difficult, but most find it preferable to living under the brutal thumb of martial law in the more populated areas.

Unfortunately, those populated areas are where one is most likely to find a doctor. Funny how that goes.

The longest-surviving settlements have the perfect combination of citizens: a good leader, people who know how to grow food, and people who can get a motor running.

Rocket Boosters Tag List

Ask to be added or removed! :)

@wip-nook @bloodlessheirbyjacques @ariskamalt @daltoneering @edgebug @ren-kenobi-wan @sp8sexual @ericaceam

[keyboardandquill]

keyboardandquill's resources & tags directory

It has come to my attention that my tag directory might not be accessible (literally) from the tumblr mobile app SO I am copying it over to a post which I will feature in my pinned.

This version last updated: May 08, 2022

---

resources

quick tips honing the craft resource masterlists drafting outlining character development plot development settings and worldbuilding editing and revising grammar help prompts

my writing guides

master list (with all links) core values series

my writing

wip: rocket boosters

character: beck

character: hawthorne

character: yarrow

character: calamus

character: theo

character: jamie

setting & events

wip: athenaeum

character: tagoni

character: wren

character: leilanie

character: ori

character: masha

setting & events

snippets rambling writing-related ask games

non-resource reblogs

other people’s writing writing memes inspiration motivation character art

writeblr meta

writeblr meta my answered asks my writeblr-related posts personal writing related posts writing humour

[keyboardandquill]

Happy WBW! Do you like creating AUs for your wips and worlds? Why or why not? Do you have faves?

@writingonesdreams

Occasionally, yeah! It's fun to explore the could-have-beens without derailing my story entirely. I don't have any particularly fleshed out for my current original WIPs, but I do play with an AU idea of "What if Rocket Boosters is actually in the same universe as Athenaeum?" because it'd be fun, I think. It wouldn't really change either of the narratives that much, and it might be fun to put a little easter egg somewhere in ATH just cuz.

I'll likely do more AU stuff the further I go, but even more likely is I'll exhaust all of my "canon" stuff first before I write any AU things, which is the same process I go through for fandom stuff :3

Thank you for the question!!

[keyboardandquill]

Hapoy WBW! What's your favourite world building bit in your current WIP? @catharticallysarcastic

Hey @catharticallysarcastic thank you for the fun question!

Boy howdy do I have a lot of worldbuilding in both my WIPs, so it took me some time to figure out my Favourite.

For Rocket Boosters, I think it's the Death of the Trillionaire(tm) backstory piece. I had a lot of fun figuring out what finally tipped people over the edge enough that his own private militia turned on him!

The answer is: an ostensibly well-meaning but ultimately self-serving act that Screwed Everything Up For Everyone. It has to do with a privately funded power grid upgrade that goes so horribly wrong that it causes a huge EMP, which leads to a nation-wide state of emergency, which leads to the National Guard being called and martial law being enacted, riots, revolts, and a country-wide lockdown.

All of that happened about 10 years before the start of the story. :)

For Athenaeum, I love the design of the main character's home city, Paredes, and the giant atrium that serves as HQ for the Greenhouse Project. It's shaped like a lotus flower, and it opens during the day so the solar panels on the 'petals' can take in energy and closes at night. It houses a garden sustained entirely by Source and cultivated by conduits who have specialized in botany and horticulture. This is where they are trying to create plants that will withstand the harsh conditions of the wastes in an attempt to bring life back to the barren parts of Terra Verde. It's been pretty slow going, but they make progress.