#it’s swb hours | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sofreddie · 2 years

Text

Unwind

Summary: Sam comes home from work and his wife is ready to help him unwind.

Characters: Producer!Sam x Wife!Reader

Warnings: Smut (Unprotected Sex), Fluff, Praise Kink, Breeding Kink

AU: Producer Sam (@spnaubingo)

SWB: Praise Kink (@samwinchesterbingo)

Fluff: Praise Kink (@anyfandomfluffbingo)

Kink: Breeding Kink (@anyfandomkinkbingo)

WC: 1279

Sam sighed as he walked through the front door of his comfortable home. It was late and he tried to be quiet in case his wife was already asleep. Being a producer had him working crazy hours and when shit went wrong - like it did today - it caused even longer hours.

He deposited the items from his pockets on the table by the door, hanging his suit jacket and loosening his tie as he kicked off his shoes. He hated having to suit up all the time, but it was an unfortunate requirement of his position. It certainly helped that his wife seemed to like the look as well.

As he unbuttoned the collar of his shirt, his attention was drawn across the room by the clearing of a throat. He stood tall, his arms dropping to his sides at the sight of Y/N. She leaned casually against the archway, a sexy little lace number barely covering her as she held a fresh martini in her hand.

She sauntered towards him on bare feet, taking him by the hand and leading him into the living room. Sam quickly removed his tie and overshirt, leaving him in a white under-tee and his slacks. Y/N gently pushed him to fall to sit on the couch, straddling his lap as she handed him the martini.

"You look stressed," she commented, pecking his lips before burying her face in his neck.

One of his arms wrapped around her with a sigh, the other sipping at the drink. It was times like these that he felt so damn lucky to call her his.

"Production got set back, costing thousands, all because of a damn typo," Sam groaned, downing his drink and setting the glass to the sides, bringing both arms down around Y/N.

"So you're gonna be busy the next few days," she pouted, running a finger down his chest.

"I know you hate the hours," Sam groaned, sinking further into the couch, hating seeing her pout.

"Shh," she urged, a finger over his lips before she removed it to kiss him soundly. "Just wanna take care of you," she insisted, kissing along his jaw and down his throat, "Help you relax. You do so much. For me. For everyone," she continued, kissing down his chest and attempting to wriggle from his hold to continue her path downwards.

Sam groaned, reluctantly releasing his hold on her, watching as she slid off his lap and to her knees on the ground. Her hands slid of his thighs, her thumbs cupping and teasing his already growing erection, bypassing it entirely to carefully unfasten his slacks.

She smirked as she slid her fingers under the waistband of his boxers, sliding them and his slacks down and off in one go. Sam helped, whipping off his shirt and leaving him completely bare for her. He loved the way she devoured him with her eyes, pure adoration and love as she took in every detail of him like it was the first time.

"So perfect, Sam," Y/N praised, Sam's eyes fluttering in response.

He loved when she praised him, especially when he had a day as he'd had. She always seemed to know just what he needed, how, and when.

"You're the perfect one," he mumbled back in response.

She leaned up, kissing him sweetly as she wrapped a hand around his half-hard cock. Sam moaned, tilting his head to kiss her deeper, introducing his tongue as he grew hard fast under her touch. She never failed to rile him up, even after all their years together.

"Wanna take care of you since you'll be so busy," she teased, her mouth ghosting along his shaft. He bucked his hips and she chuckled, flashing him a menacing grin.

"You're such a tease," Sam complained but remained obedient to her desires.

"Do you not want my mouth, Sam?"

"Want you to get naked and get your ass up here," he moaned, his hand bunching in her hair but not pulling her any which way.

She stood up before him and Sam jumped into action, leaning forward to strip her bare and kissing her everywhere he could reach. She ran her finger through his hair, making him moan and nuzzle into her stomach. When she tugged lightly he moaned, leaning back into the couch and bringing her with him.

His strong arms wrapped around her, finding their usual home in her soft curves. Her warm skin against his, her damp folds against his hard cock. She smelled divine and Sam couldn't get enough of her.

"Want you just like this," Y/N moaned, slowly grinding against Sam.

"Yeah?" he asked as he kissed along her neck, his hand still bunched in her hair, "Want me bare?"

They had talked about it, of course, having been married for so long already. But they hadn't yet taken that step to have unprotected sex, to make it happen.

Y/N shuddered at his suggestion, her hands bunching in his hair and tugging as she ground a little harder and faster.

"Yes," she hissed, "Want you to give me a baby, Sam."

With one arm wrapped around her hips, Sam lifted her enough for him to guide himself inside, slowly lowering her down over him until her thighs met his once more. They both sighed at the connection, their foreheads resting together as they adjusted.

"Feel so good, Sam," Y/N praised as she began moving up and down, "So big and hard," she moaned, tugging on his hair once more.

Sam gasped as she moved, always feeling like she was made to take him. His hands squeezed her hips, watching where they connected as she rode him with purpose.

"So good, baby," Sam groaned, his head thrown back against the couch as she increased her pace, "Not gonna last."

"Me either," she agreed.

"Go on then," Sam smirked, his hands helping guide her on his cock, "Come for me, use me to get yourself off."

"Fuck, Sam," Y/N rode him harder, his words igniting something within her. She gave all she had, feeling him climb with her. When his mouth encased a nipple and his thumb found her clit, she was gone for, coming hard around his shaft.

Sam growled, his arms wrapping around her as he spun with her, dropping her back to the couch. One hand on her lower back to tilt her hips, Sam pounded into her with abandon, eagerly seeking his own end.

Y/N wasn't sure if she was having a second orgasm, or if the first was still carrying on as she floated in absolute bliss.

"I'm gonna cum," Sam warned, wanting so very much to fill her with his child, but wanting to be sure she was truly ready.

"Come inside of me, Sam, please," she begged, her eyes locked on his. Sam groaned and nodded, thrusting a few more times before his mouth dropped open in a silent scream.

He buried his face in her throat as he came, his hips pumping to ride out his high as hers began to edge off. He pulled out of her carefully, his gaze automatically seeking out her folds and his cum dribbling forth from within.

"Filled me so good," Y/N praised, stretching like a cat, causing more of his cum to ooze forth.

"You're so beautiful," Sam happily sighed, leaning forward to kiss her with all the love he had, "So sexy and amazing. I'm so fucking lucky."

Y/N giggled as Sam kissed down her neck, nipping and praising her along the way. She hoped they'd be expecting soon, and all Sam's hard work would pay off for their future, as a family.

Forevers:

@sis-tafics

@lyarr24

@calaofnoldor

@hobby27

@spnbaby-67

@fangirlxwritesx67

@jarpad24

@flamencodiva

@donnaintx

@writercole

@waynes-multiverse

Sam Winchester:

@charred-angelwings

#unwind #spnaubingo #samwinchesterbingo #anyfandomfluffbingo #anyfandomkinkbingo #producer!sam x wife!reader #sam winchester x reader #sam winchester #reader insert #supernatural #spn

135 notes · View notes

carsthatnevermadeitetc · 3 years

Photo

What a difference 59 years makes juxtaposition of Ferrari 250 GT SWB “Breadvan”, 1962 & Ferrari 550 Maranello Breadvan Hommage, 2021, by Niels van Roij Design. The original Ferrari Breadvan was built to compete at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and other FIA World Sportscar Championship races. The Hommage was commissioned by a client of the Dutch coachbuilder. Like the original it will remain a one-off

#Ferrari #Ferrari Breadvan #Ferrari 250 GT SWB #Ferrari 550 Maranello Breadvan Hommage #Niels van Roij Design #coachbuilt #one-off #shooting brake #homage #1962 #2021 #What a difference

234 notes · View notes

thebardscipher · 7 years

Text

You know what season it is?

White Winter Hymnal and Six White Boomers season...

#my life #I've had white winter hymnal playing for more than an hour...#someone stop it before I get tired of it...#who am I kidding I won't get tired of WWH #Haven't listened to SWB yet because it's not quite december #I'll start listening to it after Thursday

1 note · View note

ibelieveinturtles · 3 years

Text

A Cat With Tentacles

Title: The Quantum Cat, Chapter 2 -

Collaborator(s): ibelieveinturtles

Square (letter, number, and prompt):

SWB: G5 - Goose the cat MPB: I5 - Chaos Samtember: 13. Cap!Sam

Pairing/Main Ship: N/A

Rating: T for swearing

Major tags: Sam Wilson, Goose the Cat, The Multiverse, The Quantum Tunnel, Not Endgame compliant, Everybody Lives (Eventually), Sam to the rescue

Warnings/Triggers: a little swearing here and there

Summary: Sam and Joaquin arrive at the Avengers Compound and find out what's going on.

Word Count: Ch 2, 1230

A/N: This is *mostly* unbeta'd but I hope to have it properly edited before I post it on AO3. I'll be posting all 7 chapters on Tumblr for as long as September 1st lasts around the world and on AO3 later. The reason it's going up on Sept 1st is because it is the only day that the Sam Wilson Bingo overlaps with Samtember :-)

Chapter 2 - A Cat With Tentacles

Sam was making small talk with one of the few Senators he actually liked when Joaquin alerted him that an incident was in progress at the Avengers Compound. He didn’t know what was happening, just that something was happening.

Sam excused himself from the ball, joining Joaquin outside where the two of them commandeered a helicopter belonging to some random socialite (in truth, she'd been quite eager to loan her transport to Captain America) and flown up to the Compound to find S.W.O.R.D. erecting one of their infamous tent cities at the front gate. It took them half an hour to find someone who knew what was going on.

“I don’t think I heard you right,” Sam said, staring at the tall, skinny man in the doorway of the nearest tent, “because I think I just heard you say that Fury’s cat ate the Avengers.”

“Er, that’s right. All of them,” Tall Skinny said. “The er, the cat. Probably not actually a cat though. There were tentacles?”

He didn’t sound very sure about it, Sam thought, but he had to make sure.

“Tentacles?”

There was no way in hell that the effort of keeping a straight face could possibly equal the feeling of dread Sam was experiencing right now.

“Yes.”

Sam stared a bit longer. Tall Skinny fidgeted under his glare, wringing his hands and pulling at his collar.

“I’m sorry,” Sam said eventually, “and who are you?”

“I’m Ian. Doctor Ian Boothby. I work with Drs. Foster and Lewis. Loki showed up about a week ago-”

“I thought Loki was dead?” Joaquin interjected.

“He claims to be a different Loki from an alternate reality,” Boothby said before returning to his explanation. “So, Loki showed up insisting he needed help with the multiverse and that Mr. Stark had a machine that could help. So after some, er, convincing... we came here to study the Quantum Tunnel and Mr. Stark thought it was a good reason to throw a party. And then Goose got into the hors d'oeuvres and, er- and got high. At least that’s what we think. It’s probably best if I just show you...” His voice trailed off as he turned into the dimness of the tent.

Sam followed, Joaquin close behind him, muttering under his breath about the cool setup. The tent was bigger than it looked from the outside, with an array of screens and computer consoles arranged around three of the four walls.

Dr. Boothby went straight to the large screen in the middle and tapped a few keys on the keyboard. The screen came to life, images of a party flickering across it.

“What am I looking at?” Sam asked.

“It starts in the top left corner,” Boothby said.

They watched intently until the footage faded into blackness and then the silence continued a little longer. Eventually, Sam found his voice.

“So. A cat with tentacles ate all the Avengers?”

“Not just the Avengers,” Boothby said, turning back. “It also ate at least a dozen support staff, several scientists, and a number of other Avengers-adjacent personages. We estimate between twenty and thirty people are missing. Everyone else was able to evacuate safely.”

“Ahuh. And how did you manage to escape? How come you’re still here?” Sam asked.

“Ah, well. You see, I was in the bathroom,” Boothby explained, his face flushing a dull red. “By the time I got out, Goose was mostly done.”

“Mostly?” Sam said, wondering just how long- nope, on second thoughts, he wasn’t going to think about that.

“Well, we thought it had gone,” Boothby explained. “Darcy decided to go see who was left - she was halfway down the corridor when Goose just- appeared! Out of nowhere! The last thing I heard her say was ‘Hit the damn emergency button, you fucking moron!’”

Joaquin snickered but Sam ignored him.

“Darcy?”

“Dr. Lewis. Dr. Foster was at the party with Thor, Loki, Mr. Stark, Ms, Potts, Sergeant Barnes-”

“Wait- Bucky is here?” Sam was surprised. While Bucky and Tony had settled their differences, Bucky didn’t attend the parties very often.

“Was here,” Boothby corrected him. “He's gone. Everyone’s gone. They've either been eaten or evacuated. It’s just me and Agent Klein left.”

“Cameron Klein?” Sam felt his spirits rise a little. If Cam was here then maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.

“Oh yes, that’s him.”

“Where is he?”

“Probably arguing with S.W.O.R.D. about jurisdiction. They think they have it because all the Avengers are gone but he says this is a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility and he’s the senior agent on site therefore he’s in charge.”

“I suppose I should go help him then,” Sam said, turning to leave the tent again.

“If I may interrupt?” The familiar voice of Friday emanated from a nearby computer. “It’s just that I’m getting a message from the Boss and he’s not very happy.”

Boothby’s face brightened. “Mr. Stark’s not dead then?”

“The Boss is alive and well and very loud about it,” Friday said, “but I’m only getting audio and even that keeps dropping out. He keeps saying something about ‘winter is coming and damned if I’ll be here when it arrives.’”

Sam blinked. “He’s quoting Game of Thrones?”

“It looks that way.”

“I wonder,” Boothby said, and whirled away, trotting across the room to a computer terminal. “Did anyone else have a comm or other means of communication on them when Goose ate them, Friday?”

“No one was wearing comms but I presume most of the staff had phones on their persons,” Friday replied. “Are you suggesting I attempt to contact people on their cell phones?”

“It can’t hurt to try, can it?” Boothby replied, tapping away rapidly on the keyboard.

There was silence while Friday attempted to make contact with someone other than Tony Stark.

“I’ve detected cell phones for more than a dozen people, however I’m unable to connect to anyone except the Boss and I’m afraid I’m losing him,” she said after some time.

“Damn,” Sam said. “What do we do now, then?”

“Well,” Boothby said, “I suppose we should rescue them?”

"Right. And just how are we supposed to do that?" Sam asked.

"Well, we were modifying the quantum tunnel for multiversal travel so we'll use that," Boothby said, still tapping away at his keyboard. “Friday, can you isolate coordinates for the cellphones you were able to detect?”

“Displaying them on screen now,” Friday replied.

They all turned to look as a dozen or so sets of coordinates rolled down the huge screen in the center of the front wall.

“They don’t look like any coordinates I’ve ever seen before,” Joaquin said.

“That’s because they’re for other realities,” Boothby said, followed by a soft, “Oh dear.”

“Oh dear? What the hell does 'oh dear' mean?” Sam demanded.

“Some of these realities are quite a ways removed from ours, in both time and space,” Boothby said. “I’ll have to make some adjustments to the Tech Suit you’ll be wearing.”

“The what that who will be wearing?”

Boothby turned away from the computer to look Sam in the eye.

“Someone needs to rescue them,” he said, “and as I’m currently the only person here who can operate the Quantum Tunnel, it won’t be me. Besides, you’re Captain America. Who else would we send to rescue the Avengers?”

#sam wilson #sam wilson bingo #samtember #samtember 2021 #marvel pet bingo #goose the cat #ian boothby #joaquin torres

16 notes · View notes

vintageclassiccars · 3 years

Photo

Ferrari 250 SWB Competizione.

At the 1959 Paris Salon, Ferrari introduced the short-wheel-base (SWB) Berlinetta as an out-and-out competition car.

The Paris car was based off a series of Interim models which were designed by Pinin Farina for the 1959 24 Hours of Le Mans. The final SWB version was drawn up in 1:1 scale at Pinin Farina, however the design remained uncredited and the bodies were manufactured at Scaglietti & Co.

www.classicdriver.com

#www.classicdriver.com

225 notes · View notes

sb-sratss-obsession · 3 years

Text

SWB vs. SRaTSS: Ep 1

STAR WARRIOR BISMARK (星銃士ビスマルク, SEIJŪSHI BISMARK) VS. SABER RIDER AND THE STAR SHERIFFS

1 "The Space Adventurers" (宇宙の冒険野郎) vs. 1 "Star Sheriff Round Up"

NOTE:

There are various ways to translate or transliterate Japanese. You might find the transliterations I used not always match the ones used in the subs. That’s because back in the faaar past some official transliteration were given and I’m using them. Also, occasionally, I used transliterations offered by Japanese fans which matched more the original intentions of the authors of the series. Anyway, for your own enjoyment, I’ve also written down the Japanese version of the names so that you can decide by yourself what you would prefer to use.

SUMMARY OF “STAR WARRIOR BISMARK” EP. 1 “THE SPACE ADVENTURERS”

Year 2084 (according to official sources).

We’re shown an image of Jupiter (木星 ‘Moku-sei’).

The camera then pans below it, to show a spaceship, Freighter 102 (貨物船 102 ‘Kamotsusen 102’) of the Earth Federation (地球連邦 ‘Chikyū renpō’), about to land on spaceport A (A基地 ‘A kichi’) on Ganymede’s southern hemisphere (ガニメデ星南部 ‘Ganimede-sei nanbu’). However, as Freighter 102 is about to touch the ground, the Deathculas (デスキュラ) attack it, completely destroying it.

We move to Earth (地球星 ‘Chikyū-sei’) at the Earth Federation Government (地球連邦政府 ‘Chikyū Renbōseifu’), where Secretary-General Charles Louvre (シャルル・ルヴェール事務総長 ‘Charles Louvre jimu sōchō’) informs 6 of his co-workers of how the Deathculas attacked Ganymede once again, leaving no survivors.

Louvre proceeds then to remind them how, 15 years ago (in 2069), an enormously heavily armed alien force called Deathcula attacked them and they had to fight for 48 bloody hours so, despite the heavy losses for their Solar System Federation (太陽系連邦 ‘Taiyōkei renpō’), they managed to strike a heavy blow to the Deathcula and chase them out of the Solar System. The Deathcula though have rebuilt their army and has began an invasion of Ganymede. Louvre thinks if they don’t strike back they might end up defeated.

Commander-in-chief Walter (ウォルター総司令官 ‘Walter Sō shireikan’) reminds him they lack sufficient military power, as they would barely be able to cover the outskirts of Earth. Chief of staff Hoffman (ホフマン参謀総長 ‘Sanbō-sōchō’) joins him saying they can’t deploy troops on Ganymede to risk leaving Earth undefended. Barboni (バルボニー) though counters if they don’t act the Deathculas will only expand further so they’ve to do something. Louvre says he’ll put into motion Operation Bismark (ビスマルク作戦 ‘Bismark Sakusen’). Walter agrees but asks who’ll be the one who will work as the main pilot of Bismark (ビスマルク). Louvre replies that he’ll be the son of the late ace pilot, Hikari Shinjirō (輝進児郎), Hikari Shinji (輝進児). Hoffman reminds Louvre Shinji should have been facing a hearing for disobeying trainers. Louvre replies the sentence hasn’t been decided but Barboni points out how Shinji left the training ground during the hearing and is currently missing. Before Louvre could reply he’s informed his daughter, Marianne Louvre (マリアン・ルヴェール), wants to see him for an urgent matter. Marianne explains him she found out Shinji is competing at the Mars 24H Race (マルス 24 時間レース ‘Mars nijūyon-jikan race’) on Ganymede.

We move again back on Ganymede, where Shinji, with his Road Leon (ロードレオン), is leading the race when Bill Wilcox (ビル・ウィルコックス), on his Arrow Striker (アローストライカー) cause him to lose control of his car. At Shinji’s protests, Bill warns him the other cars are going to surpass him. Shinji resumes running while Bill recommends him to win and, once he’s done racing, he’ll deliver him back to the Earth Federation and get a big bounty for it. Bill flies away and Shinji manages to win the race in 23:18:16:23, breaking the race’s record. Shinji enjoys his moment of glory.

At the spaceport two criminals are escaping. Cornered, they rip a little girl from her mother’s arms and use it as an hostage while the protesting mother is hit and falls on the ground. Although the 3 Airport security guards (空港警備兵 ‘Kūkō keibi-hei’) aim at them, they don’t know what to do. The criminals try to escape but someone shoots the gun the one holding the little girl was pointing at her head. The gun of the other criminal flies away as well and he drops a bag which contained white dust (or better drug). The Airport security guards secure the criminals then turn to see who shot, which turns out to be Richard Lancelot (リチャード・ランスロット) with his rifle, all while still being on the saddle of his robotic horse, Donatello (ドナテルロ). People wonders who he is, while Richard leaves with Donatello and lands in front of the Royal hotel (ロイヤルホテル). To the man who comes to take care of his horse, he informs him Donatello is of a noble line so he has to take good care of him.

Once in the hotel Richard introduces himself as a friend of the British Royal Family but he’s told there’s no free room. As he protests the room should have been booked in advance, he’s told the Champion insisted on having the presidential suite for himself. Shinji enters in the place right then, as people claps their hands at him and Richard is informed he’s the champion. He protests he made a reservation but he’s told the champion holds more weight than the royal family there. Richard doesn’t care and tries to rip the room’s key from Shinji. They start a tug war before being interrupted by Bill, who asks him if he has the prize money with him. Shinji recognizes him for the guy who interrupted his race. Bill aims his gun at Shinji and introduces himself. Shinji recognizes him for the head pilot of the Space Impulse squad (スペースインパルス隊のチーフパイロット ‘Space Impulse-Tai no chief pilot’). Richard too knows Bill as the winner of pilot contexts in all sectors and as an infamous bounty hunter (賞金稼ぎ ‘Shōkin kasegi’). In that moment Cristina (クリスティーナ) barges in, calling Bill and hiding behind him. Short after her father, Pedro (ペドロ), barges in, rifle in hands. He thinks Bill wants to take advantage of Cristina and flee to Earth. In response he starts shooting at Bill, causing him to escape, then he drags Cristina away.

Back to Shinji, he recovers his key and Richard informs him if things were to take a turn for worse he would have had Shinji’s back. They introduce to each other then Richard makes clear he wants Shinji’s room and that he’ll accept to share it, only if he’ll be the one getting the bed. The two walks toward the elevator, Richard informing Shinji he’s there on a mission by order of Her Majesty herself.

EPISODE BREAK

Bill is flying outside of the hotel, planning to capture Shinji as the honour of the Space Impulse squad is at stake. However, as he peeks at the windows, searching for Shinji, he hears a Deathcula spy (デスキュラのスパイ) talking to the phone, saying that the crew at the Ganymede garrison is throwing a party for the newly arrived from Earth and are all drunk so that’s the best moment to attack. He orders to send there all the mobile units but Bill recognizes him for a Deathcula and attacks him. He manages to walk out of the room, to end up fatally wounded and disappear, leaving only ashes, under Shinji and Richard’s gazes. Bill informs them it was a Deathcula spy. Richard explains how, according to the English government’s data Deathculas can disguise among humans by way of cell-restructure. As, when they’re in disguise, they require a lot of water, this might be the only chance to spot them among common people. Bill explains how the military base (警備隊の基地 ‘Keibitai no kichi’) is in danger as the Deathcula spy has contacted a strike force. Richard counters they’ve to warn the base and so Bill runs away to do so. Then he tells Shinji since the base will be warned they can relax so he’ll go take a shower while Shinji claims he’ll go to the front desk to take care of something… but as soon as Richard closes the door, Shinji runs away.

Meanwhile Richard leaves from the window, calls Donatello and uses it to fly toward the base. Shinji also, with the Road Leon, runs toward the base. Meanwhile the desk clerk informs Bill he can’t reach the base as the phone seems to be cut off so Bill too runs toward the base.

Shinji is the first to arrive as the attack is ongoing. Richard also gets there and starts destroying alien ships. Shinji joins the fight a bit clumsily. Though he destroys a good amount of ships ultimately is saved by Bill who complains they left without warning him.

Meanwhile Shinji meets Marianne, who expected him to come for help and who has brought there the Bismark machine (ビスマルクマシーン), which her father built and which Louvre wants Shinji to drive. Marianne climbs on the Road Leon and Shinji tells Bill and Richard to follow him. The group reaches Bismark, a machine designed and built by Federation’s Secretary-General Dr. Louvre. Marianne shows them how to get inside it and entrust the Center Console (センターコンソール) which control the Main Control System (メインオペレーションシステム) to Shinji and the Right Console (ライトコンソール) which control the Operation System (オペレーションシステム) to Bill. Shinji asks Richard if he can handle the Intelligence System (インテリジェンスシステム) to which Richard answers sitting in the left console (レフトコンソール) and replying the House of Lancelot (ランスロット卿 ‘Lancelot-kyō’) attained a pedigree as the head of the British Royal Intelligence Service (英国王室特別諜報部長 ‘Igirisu ōshitsu tokubetsu chōhō buchō’) for generations. Marianne takes for herself the Rear Console (リアコンソール) and realizes a Deathcula Giant Mecha (デスキュラ巨大メカ ‘Deathcula kyodai mecha’) is approaching them, so the group starts Bismark and makes it fly out of the base. Meanwhile the mecha has arrived and attacks Bismark. As they can’t manage to fight back Marianne informs Shinji in case of emergency he should press the red button in the middle. Shinji does and Bismark from a Spaceship turns into a Robot. The Deathcula mecha attacks again but now Bismark can defend itself and strike back until they destroy the enemy mecha.

Shinji, Bill and Richard are impressed with their accomplishments, then Bill asks Shinji if they can handle that beast on their own. Marianne interrupts him saying she got a message from Louvre, which says Shinji and Bill are to be designated as the handlers of Bismark. As she does she show them her Team ID Card (チームの身分カード ‘Team no mibun card’). When Shinji points out there’s a hearing against him, Marianne says they’ve taken care of it and Shinji is freed of all the charges and Marianne’s first goal in coming there was to inform Shinji of this. Bill is happy Shinji is the first bounty that escaped him. Richard informs them he too is part of the group, showing them his card.

The episode ends with the group looking ahead as Shinji tells the Deathcula to come face them.

HOW ALL THIS WAS ADAPTED INTO “SABER RIDER AND THE STAR SHERIFFS” EP. 1 “STAR SHERIFF ROUND UP”

One of the main drives of “Saber Rider and The Star Sheriffs” was to make Saber Rider (Richard Lancelot) the new team leader and main character. As a result, the beginning of this episode is completely redone.

Gone are the attack at Freighter 102 and all the meeting at the Earth Federation Government in which we were introduced to how humans were attacked by Deathcula aliens 15 years ago as well and Louvre’s decision to chose Shinji as the main pilot for Bismark.

This episode starts with a Saber Rider’s monologue presenting the series as if it was him narrating his adventures as Star Sheriffs and explaining us the setting. Among other things we’re shown the Outriders (Deathcula) attacking humans but the images aren’t taken from the attack at Freighter 102 but from other episodes in which the scenes had a more western look so as to give us a more western feeling.

The monologue is pretty long, so as to explain, instead than just show the situation, with a clear implication at black and white morality (Ramrod is a ‘Special FREEDOM Fighting Unit’ and ‘a PEACEKEEPING vehicle’, the Outriders are ‘bandits’ and ‘EVIL creatures’) and references to ‘positive themes’ (it was not Ramrod but the human Star Sheriffs who made the differences).

“It was not so long ago that we, Star Sheriffs, first assembled our Special Freedom Fighting Unit. We nicknamed him Ramrod, a peacekeeping vehicle shaped like a huge cowboy. We used him to protect the settlers out here on the New Frontier. We needed the Ramrod vehicle to help stop the lightning attacks of the Outrider bandits. They were evil creatures who crossed into our dimension and raided our Cavalry Outposts. They used battalions of Dimension Jumpers and Vapor Beings who moved freely from their world to ours. We thought that Ramrod was our only chance to stop them, but in the end it was not the Ramrod vehicle but the human Star Sheriffs themselves, who really made the difference. I should know, I’m their leader.”

We can also see how the setting is no more the Solar System and, more specifically, Ganymede, but the New Frontier, military bases becoming Cavalry Outposts.

We might miss it at the beginning but introducing the Outriders as vapour beings from another dimension is a convenient way for the series to remove death from the story. In fact later it will be revealed when hit the Outriders don’t die and turn into some sort of dark brown mush but vaporize and go back to their dimension.

Saber monologues goes on.

“I remember when it all began; my orders were to find Vanquo, an Outrider with ghostly eyes and a long pale face. I knew they were bounty hunters seeking him so I alerted the head of operation Ramrod, a very special operative named April. Her father was the leader of the Western Sector of Cavalry Command.”

We see some other major changes, the spy we saw in this episode is now given a name, Vanquo, because they plan to turn it into a recurring character in the American Only episodes.

April (Marianne Louvre) is now the head of operation Ramrod (Bismark), a role previously held by her father and a very special operative (whatever that means).

Eagle (Charles Louvre) moves from being the Secretary-General of the Earth Federation Government to the leader of the western sector of Cavalry Command. It’s worth to mention his name won’t be given in this episode.

Fireball (Shinji) won’t be part of their discussion. Since part of the goal was to make Saber Rider the team leader this ended up affecting Fireball’s characterization a lot. One of the most relevant changes was to turn him into just a civilian, unknown to Eagle and April (Shinji and Marianne were childhood friends).

With the introduction of April the story finally starts to use footage from episode 1 of “Star Warrior Bismark” but the atmosphere is completely different.

Where in “Star Warrior Bismark” Louvre originally wanted to put Marianne on hold as she shouldn’t have interrupted their meeting and she only came to him to deliver information about Shinji, in “Saber Rider and The Star Sheriffs” she seems to be free to march inside her father’s office to inform him of how they think a spy, named Vanquo, informed the Outriders about the existence of Ramrod, and of how she’ll leave for Yuma at once.

Eagle can only wish her good luck as here, his role is extremely minor and he exists more in function of introducing April.

Among the interesting things though, it’s worth to mention that, although April was meant to be more authoritative than Marianne (we should probably also remember Marianne is meant to be 15 while April is implied to be much older as she’s a seasoned Star Sheriff), she still calls her father ‘daddy’, with no regard for how they’re at work, while Marianne uses the very formal ‘Otō-sama’ (お父様) which is a very polite way to say “father”.

Saber resumes his narration to inform us about how both April and he reached Yuma at the same time while the Yuma Grand Prix is ongoing with a pilot nicknamed Fireball (Shinji) leading it.

They kept the scene of Colt (Bill) attacking him but, this time, it’s because he has mistaken him for Vanquo, the Outrider spy.

Among the other differences it’s worth to mention at the spaceport the criminals won’t hit the mother, we won’t see them aiming at the little girl’s head and one of the security guards will order to hold the fire. When they’ll get hit they won’t drop a bag filled with drug.

To underline how amazing Saber Rider is, the people now lavishes praises on his shooting ability, claiming only the LEGENDARY Saber Rider could do it, therefore recognizing him (while they wondered who Richard was).

As for Saber, instead than pointing out his robotic horse’s pedigree, now he will ask for a lube work and a lump of sugar for it.

At the hotel Saber will asks for a room, without claiming relations with the British Royal Family which makes clear how, this time, he hasn’t booked one first. It’s Fireball who has booked a room and the Desk Clerk doesn’t want to give Saber his room exactly for this reason. Saber insists, claiming the room should be given to him because his mission is important, and tries to steal Fireball’s key.

Colt interrupts them here as well, but this time it’s not to arrest Fireball but because he wants the room too. Colt doesn’t introduce himself, but he informs Fireball he’s searching for Vanquo.

As for Bonnie May (Cristina), apparently Colt only had a square dance with her or so he says.

Once Colt leaves, Fireball and Saber don’t introduce each other but Saber makes veiled threats and insists they should share the room. Fireball is forced to agree but, this time, it’s him who demands Saber will sleep on the ground. As they walk to the elevator Saber informs Fireball if he doesn’t find Vanquo the planet they’re on will be blown up to bits.

Back to Colt, they added a scene in which he wears his armour and then flies around the hotel to search for Vanquo, whom he overheard giving away Ramrod position. In short the attack is specifically directed at the frontier outpost because Ramrod was there, not because the defences were low due to the soldiers being drunk (the series will erase any reference to people drinking alcohol).

Once he’s hit, Vanquo assures he’ll be back and we get an explanation on how the shoot merely sent him back to his dimension by turning him into vapour because that’s what he’s made of. No mention of how Outriders need a lot of water, though this will turn out later in the series.

Saber complains since Colt shoots Vanquo, he can’t get from him the information he needed, at which Colt reveals what he overheard. While in the original they pointed out the base should be warned about the incoming attack, here none of them act as if they care the outpost will be attacked, Colt claims he has a bounty to collect, Saber wants to go take a nap while Fireball wants to go for a walk.

Of course they all care, with them racing to the outpost and Colt trying to warn it and discovering he can’t, same as in the original.

During the attack, of course Saber gets recognized by the soldiers and gets some extra scenes. They also add a scene of Bill aiming at a spaceship before shooting it and have Fireball run more around the place to reach Ramrod.

When Fireball finds April, as she now doesn’t know him, she wonders if he was sent there by the Star Sheriffs but Fireball never heard of them. April decides since he’s on a racecar he must be a pilot good enough he could be of some help. Before everyone will get close to Ramrod they’ll add another scene of Saber destroying an Outrider ship.

Then they’ll add a scene in which Saber declares he’ll take charge and the boys argue April would want them to do so. April states she’ll need the three of them when they’ll go in challenge phase.

Once inside Ramrod April explains the saddle units are interactive and then assigns the one for the land controls to Fireball (in the original he got the main control system). Colt decides he’ll get the quick drawn one (in the original he got the operation system) and Saber tells them the Cavalry Command taught him how to use the Maverick flight dynamics one (in the original he would get the one controlling the intelligence system). Fireball points out he never heard of the Cavalry Command either. April takes the rear saddle unit telling them she’ll give them instructions.

Again, Fireball says he never saw an Outrider mecha so he’s told that one is a Renegade Desperado Unit.

Later, when April decides Ramrod will have to transform, she implies everyone will have to push the red button and, since Saber is the new leader, they’ll have him give the signal on when doing it.

They added two lines which will be regularly repeated each time Ramrod transform.

April: Ramrod will now take navigational control.

Ramrod: Acknowledge April, navigational control on, Ramrod challenge phase, one. Head ‘em up, move ‘em out. Power stride, and ready to ride.

Although through the original series we have more than one transformation sequence, for “Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs” they decided to use only one so the one in this episode gets replaced.

They also show Ramrod only using his gun against the Renegade (adding an image showing Ramrod shooting while it was night!), when originally it also used the cannons on his chest.

It’s worth to mention through all the fight they added dialogues in which the boys described what they were doing when originally you could only hear background music during the fight.

The dialogue at the end is also changed.

Fireball is worried Outriders might come back, Colt seems to think they’ve defeated them forever, Saber informs them this is not the case and April explains them Saber knows what he’s talking about as Saber is a special agent of the secret Star Sheriffs and adds that they might need Fireball and Colt too, so she asks them if they want to join them.

Colt is interested because he wants a silver star but he’s told there aren’t many left since the Outriders took over the silver mines but we use these E.B.U., Electronic Badge Units. Saber adds it normally takes years to train a Star Sheriff but it’s an emergency so they’ll issue their E.B.U. right away. Fireball asks about his racing career and he’s told he’ll have to quit but who cares? Ramrod is the fast thing he could drive and she might even get silver stars for them. This sell the deals so the episode ends with Saber Rider resuming his narration:

“And that’s how all began. The bounty hunter, a racecar driver and a beautiful girl from cavalry command. Together we've made a commitment to the spirit of the frontier freedom fighters. Wherever danger leads us, wherever the people need us, that's where you'll find . . . the Star Sheriffs!”

“STAR WARRIOR BISMARK” & “SABER RIDER AND THE STAR SHERIFFS”: MY TWO CENTS ABOUT BOTH VERSIONS

So both versions chose an interesting way to start, SWB going with an apparent calm that gets broken by the attack and SRaTSS by presenting the story as the memories of his main character. However the info dump that follow is pretty long for both.

In SWB I’ll actually argue that ‘the attack of 15 years ago’ was something they could completely cut from the plot as it’s poorly developed through the series (it only serves to make a hero out of Shinji’s father, point out why Domes doesn’t want to join forces with the EFG and to explain why Hyuza has a cybernetic body all things that could have been accomplished differently) and the explanation of it is outright boring and the unpreparedness of the EFG sits ill with the fact they should have knowledge they could have been attacked again.

In SRaTSS the choice to go for a black and white morality with childish undertones insisting on the Outriders being ‘evil bandits’ serves poorly to the further developments of the plot that actually wants part of the Outriders to want peace and, therefore, not being evil.

On another note I get SWB wanted Shinji to look like a rebel but the whole thing of him having to face a hearing for disobeying trainers that gets completely brushed away because he’s chosen as Bismark pilot with Louvre listing as only reason to choose him he’s the son of the late ace pilot Hikari Shinjirō doesn’t really sit well on me. I would have appreciated it more if Louvre had pointed out how he’s an amazing pilot. What’s more, the whole Bismark team is insanely young (Richard is 18, Shinji is 17, Bill is 16 and Marianne is 15) which isn’t that rare in robot series that usually counts on genius pilots to explain the young age… but the young pilots usually have adults supervising them. Here the boys will rarely get adults supervising them… don’t take me wrong, they do handle things well but it seems a little unbelievable everyone was okay with pushing such a heavy task on such young people without adult close supervision (only Richard is of major age and only barely for crying out loud!) so I’ve to say I appreciate how SRaTSS raised ages so that Saber and April have finished their training and are therefore adults and there’s a general implication the same works for Colt and Fireball.

On another note though in SWB they had at least chosen the 4 pilots beforehand (although not shown during the reunion Richard and Bill were already designated as Bismark pilots, Richard even already having the Bismark Team ID Card), though it’s kind of ridicule they hadn’t formed them first, not even giving them a test drive of Bismark, while one of the biggest weaknesses of SRaTSS is that there were two vacant places on Ramrod as Fireball and Colt get recruited completely by coincidence and should have no idea how to drive a mecha. So it’s hilarious April asks Fireball ‘Did the Star Sheriffs send you?’ only for the truth being that the Star Sheriffs only sent Saber Rider despite Ramrod needing 4 pilots. But I’m running ahead.

While the first meeting between Shinji and Bill is visually cool the fact he almost caused him to crash and then let him go only to catch him later on feels like an excuse to show their abilities. In SRaTSS though, they made the scene even worse if possible. Why would Colt exchange Fireball for Vanquo? For a series that wants to badly to show the Star Sheriffs as examples of virtue they failed entirely to carry around this idea in this episode as the first thing Colt does is to put Fireball’s life in danger by flying too close to him and causing him to lose control of his car… and it’ll only get worse later on.

The race with Shinji/Fireball establishing a new record time though was a good idea instead to make sure we got what an amazing driver he is.

The introduction of Richard/Saber is good as well, though I’ve always found puzzling why they had him use his rifle which he normally hardly uses being much more a sword guy. The taming of the actions of the bandits is not a big deal in SRaTSS, if anything I found a bit annoying the remarking of Saber being a legend but okay, not a big deal.

The discussion between Richard and Shinji over the room at the hotel is clearly meant to be played for laughs in SWB, remarking how they’re young and based on a legitimate reason for them both to argue over the room. Bill coming to arrest Shinji made sense and it’s a good way to introduce the viewers to Bill’s abilities… though what doesn’t make sense is how Bill could aim a gun at Shinji and no one panicked and called the police (Bill hadn’t introduced himself as a bounty hunter). Pedro shooting at Bill without anyone calling the police is even worse as he could have hit someone else.

I’m not really sure if Richard is threatening Shinji to shoot him or if he’s threatening him to arrest him to collect the bounty as Bill wanted to do. I’ll go with the second option because it seems to make more sense in the narrative. I also like how Richard didn’t tattle out why he was there but remained vague. What feels a bit dumb is for Shinji to want to remain there like a sitting duck now that he knows Bill, a bounty hunter, is trying to arrest him.

SRaTSS didn’t really manage to adapt all this well. For start Saber is demanding a room he hadn’t booked, basically attempting to steal it from Fireball with the excuse he has an important mission. This doesn’t really help to paint him as a paragon of virtue. The fact that Colt comes in and does the same, pointing his gun at Fireball to force him to comply makes matter even worse… and it doesn’t help that, once Colt is chased away, Saber also threaten Fireball… and then casually reveals if he doesn’t find Vanquo the planet will probably be blown to bits, as if this wouldn’t cause mass panic in a normal situation.

SWB creates a huge coincidence when, by trying to arrest Shinji, Bill ends up overhearing a Deathcula spy and shooting at him just in front of Shinji and Richard’s room, who conveniently leave it just then. It’s not a big deal, but I’ve to say it works better in SRaTSS with Colt specifically searching for Vanquo and not finding him out of a lucky chance.

Both series uses the shooting of the Deathcula/Outrider to give us an info dump on their nature. I would say the one in SRaTSS felt better than the one in SWB but it might be just me (I mean, Richard randomly tossing in how the Deathcula can disguise himself as humans doesn’t feel natural and Shinji, who was being trained and is even chosen as Bismark pilot, not knowing Deathcula need water doesn’t really feel logical). On another side, despite the info dump feeling a bit odd in SWB, Richard sharing those info doesn’t feel bad, as he’s not revealing things that has to stay secret and anyway he knows Shinji and Bill are part of the army. In SRaTSS Saber informs everyone of how Vanquo knew about a secret defense system called Ramrod… with the result he informs Fireball and Colt, two civilians, of its existence as well.

However SWB recovers when it shows Richard worrying about warning the base and Bill running to do just so. This makes it acceptable they might claim there’s nothing else for them to do, with Richard pretending on not being interested because he doesn’t want to reveal to be a Bismark pilot. I’m not sure why Shinji would be doing the same but whatever.

SRaTSS instead doesn’t have them worrying about warning the base, with Saber merely acting as if he wanted to discourage Colt from going there and overall seeming disinterested in doing something and Colt pretending to be interested only in the bounty… why? To act as a cold person when in truth he attempts to warn the Outpost? But really, the worst deal goes to Saber who should have suggested warning the Outpost and had no reasons to hide the fact he rushed there. I mean he’s the ‘legendary Saber Rider’ why would he wash his hands clean of people in need of help?

The fight is not bad and I can understand SRaTSS attempt at putting more focus on Saber by giving him more fighting scenes than the ones he originally had.

However SRaTSS slips when they have to handle Fireball’s dialogues after he meets April. I’ve already mentioned how bad it was the series implies the Cavalry Command never worried picking up two other pilots for Ramrod but something that they really messed up were Fireball’s lines. Fireball doesn’t know who are the Star Sheriffs nor what’s the Cavalry Command or a Renegade Desperado Unit. Now, I get they tried hard to downplay Fireball so as to make Saber shine and he plays a stand in for the audience so as to pose the questions we would pose but they’re making him look like he lived under a rock up till that point. I mean, the existence of the Star Sheriffs and of the Cavalry Command isn’t secret and newspapers probably talked about how the Outriders used Renegade Desperado Units (and everyone else in the series know about them) so Fireball’s lack of knowledge feels really weird. I guess I should also mention nor Fireball or Colt ever heard of the legendary Saber Rider so really, this too isn’t played well.

SRaTSS added a lot of dialogues during the fight and one can have mixed feelings for them as they made the fight less dramatic and kind of more fun… so I guess it depends. On another way they give the feeling the team is… well, working as a team during the fight so this is nice.

The ending is pretty different in both series but overall I enjoyed both. I already spoke about my complains regarding Shinji’s charges being conveniently waved away as well as of how it was dumb not for the Cavalry Command not to have designated two more pilots for Ramrod so that Saber and April recruit in a rush Fireball and Colt without even a background check.

If I’ve to add something, a side of me appreciates the info about the Outriders getting the silver mines… though it feels a bit unbelievable as SURELY they didn’t have a single silver mine, did they? …but I wasn’t thrilled with the idea April, to hire Colt, suggested she could get a silver star for him… especially when it’ll turn out Colt is often blamed for his greed because a Star Sheriff may not indulge in his personal greed.

To sum it up… SWB starts on an interesting premise, depicting a colonized Solar System with far west elements and moving the war on Ganymede but it would have benefitted of some more work to smooth some corners and give it a more complex plot… though it’s also worth to keep in mind that the target audience was meant to be young, hence the boys young age.

SRaTSS had to mostly work with pre existing footage so they had to work around it… which was not easy at all since the footage wasn’t aimed to support story they had in mind.

The young age of the Bismark pilots required them to act in an often immature way that clearly wasn’t a paragon of virtue unfit of the more adult characters SRaTSS wanted to use and of the supposed high moral standards Star Sheriffs were meant to have.

Their efforts at downplaying Fireball to raise Saber up and at explaining everything to an audience that was intended to be even younger than the one of SWB often end up backfiring spectacularly… though the intended younger audience might not realize.

Still they managed to work out an interesting idea with intriguing elements.

As a result both SWB and SRaTSS give us two nice first episodes, with strong points and weaknesses. Neither is perfect but they’re both enjoyable and could be improved.

#Seijushi Bismark #Saber Rider and The Star Sheriffs #Saber Rider #April Eagle #Colt #Fireball #Richard Lancelot #Marianne Louvre #Hikari Shinji #Bill Wilcox #Eagle #Charles Louvre #Walter #Barboni #Hoffman #SWB vs SRaTSS

4 notes · View notes

brittababbles · 4 years

Text

Serenade

AN: So @tarrevizslas posted some headcanons about drunk calls from Pedro’s characters and it spawned a teeny ficlet in my brain. Hope y’all enjoy this; it’s so fluffy it’s almost gross. <3 SWB

Serenade - Whiskey x reader

You didn’t even bother to open your eyes when the phone rang, instead feeling around on the nightstand until the vibrating rectangle met your fingertips.

Whoever this was, it better be very, very important.

Squinting at the over-bright screen, you pressed unnecessarily hard on the little green circle, not really taking a good look at who was calling before holding the phone to your ear.

“Hello?” you muttered, your voice muted by drowsiness.

“There’s m’girl!” came a familiar voice on the other end of the line.

You paused. Your still mostly asleep brain was having trouble catching up.

“Jack? What’s wrong?” you managed to get out.

You heard him hum into the phone for a moment. Sitting up, you pressed the heal of your hand into your eyes and waited in trepidation. Jack wouldn’t call unless it was an emergency, would he? Not on a night this important

“S’nothin, sweetheart,” he said, his words slurring together enough to tell you he’d had one too many, “’M just out with Tequila and E-eh…Eggsy and Harry and…remembered how much I miss you.”

Okay, maybe a few too many.

“You miss me?” you asked, trying to keep the bemusement in your voice to a minimum.

Another lazy pause followed your question.

“Always do, sugar,” he drawled, “Always miss you when you ain’t on my arm.”

Before you could think of a good response to this, Jack’s voice floated back through the speaker, this time in a faintly wobbly tune:

“You may think that I'm talking foolish You've heard that I'm wild and I'm free You may wonder how I can promise you now This love that I feel for you Always will be But you're not just time that I'm killing I'm no longer one of those guys As sure as I live This love that I give Is gonna be yours until the day that I die Oh baby I'm gonna love you forever Forever and ever, amen As long as old men sit and talk about the weather As long as old women sit and talk about old men If you wonder how long I'll be faithful I'll be happy to tell you again I'm gonna love you Forever and ever Forever and ever, amen”

Somewhere in the middle of this, you’d set your phone on speaker phone and laid it on your pillow, snuggling back down into the satin pillowcase and listened to his rich, though vaguely out-of-tune serenade. Odd as this was, you found yourself smiling wide enough that your cheeks ached.

“Jack?” you cooed, interrupting as he took a breath to continue into the second verse.

“Yeah, sweetheart?” he asked, his voice bright with curiosity as he seemingly forgot that he’d been singing.

You sighed dreamily.

“I love you so much,” you murmured.

“Love you too, baby,” he echoed fondly.

“But… it’s 3 o’clock in the morning” you continued mildly

“Mhm,” he hummed, obviously not following.

“And we’re getting married in seven hours.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line, as if the exact proximity of your wedding had slipped his mind somehow.

“That we are, sugar. That we are,” he finally said.

“So please tell me you’ll be more sober by then?” you pleaded gently.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, sounding slightly less inebriated already.

You smiled tenderly at the phone.

“I love you,” you repeated, “Drink some water and get some sleep. I’ll see you in seven hours.”

“Can’t wait,” he purred.

“Goodnight, Jack.”

“Goodnight, [y/n],” he yawned in response, “I love you.”

“Forever and ever,” you quoted softly.

You swore you could hear him grinning as he answered.

“Amen”

#agent whiskey x reader #agent whiskey #agent jack whiskey daniels #kingsmen the golden circle #pedro pascal #swb writes

146 notes · View notes

stevemaclellan · 3 years

Link

An all-renewable electricity system is “both physically possible and economically affordable by 2030,” according to a new report from the RethinkX think tank, write co-founder Tony Seba and research fellow Adam Dorr in an early November post for Utility Dive.

“We are on the cusp of the most profound disruption of the energy sector since the advent of electricity itself over a century ago,” Seba and Dorr state. “The costs of solar photovoltaic power, onshore wind, and lithium-ion battery energy storage (SWB) have plummeted over the last two decades, and they will fall another 70%, 40%, and 80% respectively during the 2020s as their adoption continues to grow exponentially worldwide. The convergence of SWB now offers an electricity solution that coal, gas, nuclear, and other conventional energy technologies can no longer compete with.”

The new report, using a tool RethinkX calls a “clean energy U-curve”, looks for the best cost trade-offs between solar and wind generation, on one hand, and storage batteries, on the other, across different U.S. regions. “When we optimize the balance between the two, we find that the least expensive 100% SWB system will have three to five times more total generating capacity than today’s grid but require only 35 to 90 hours’ worth of batteries, depending on geography,” the two authors state.

#renewables #clean energy #environment #world

1 note · View note

samthoughtjam · 4 years

Text

Framing a Data Analysis Project

This post describes a data analysis project I'm starting as a means to sharpen the saw in the domains of data engineering and data science.

For this project I'll be working with the Add Health dataset. This dataset was generated by the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health study. This study is a nationally representative school-based survey for US adolescents in grades 7 through 12. The Add Health dataset includes survey data on the social, economic, psychological, and physical well-being of adolescents.

I selected this dataset to learn more about students that regularly engage in hobbies. In this achievement focused, hyper-competitive environment it seems like hobbies don't get enough attention as an activity that can help improve a student's overall well-being, especially in the difficult teen years. I created a codebook in Excel using the PDF codebook that accompanies the dataset. This codebook included questions that examine a student's engagement in hobbies and related activities as well as their current mental state.

An example of a relevant question is my codebook is, "During the past week, how many times did you do hobbies, such as collecting baseball cards, playing a musical instrument, reading, or doing arts and crafts?" Since many teens play video games I also added the question "During the past week, how many times did you watch television or videos, or play video games?". The possible responses to both questions include: not at all, 1 or 2 times, 3 or 4 times, 5 or more times, refused, or don’t know. I added other related questions and will constrain the set of variables included in my codebook later in the project.

As a second, related topic I am interested in examining happiness as it relates to students that regularly engage in hobbies. That is, I plan to explore the association between students that regularly engage in hobbies and happiness. Hobbies provide directed, engaged activities that help provide a sense of accomplishment so should impact a student's self-assessment on happiness. I've expanded the codebook to cover not only hobby and leisure activity questions, but also those pertaining to emotional well-being, such as questions on happiness, sadness, and depression. An example of a codebook question on well-being is, "You were happy?". The possible responses to this question include: never or rarely, sometimes, a lot of the time, most of the time or all of the time, refused, or don’t know.

To support my exploration of the association between regular engagement in hobbies and happiness in adolescents, I conducted a quick literature review to understand the contributions previously made in this area of study. To find relevant literature I searched on Google Scholar using two combinations of search terms: (1) adolescent happiness hobbies, and (2) adolescent happiness leisure activities. In the literature, leisure activity is often used as a term that includes hobbies. The search results were initially filtered to only include those cases where the full paper was available (viva open science). Of the remaining papers, only those that explicitly measured or addressed hobbies as part of the research were included. A number of papers just mention hobbies as a happiness influencer without establishing hobbies as a construct or measuring their impact. Finally, the paper had to be written in English to be included. After applying the initial filters I selected 24 articles to review, 10 of which met all the criteria and were selected for inclusion in this literature review.

As a construct there does not appear to be a rigorous agreed to definition of a hobby in the literature. Definitions of what can be categorized as a hobby varied somewhat across the papers reviewed. Most differentiated hobbies from other leisure activities like watching TV by defining them as skill-building or mind-enriching activities pursued for the enjoyment of the activity [1]. Examples of hobbies include arts and crafts, computer activities, reading, writing, and pick-up sports.

Hobbies often included the potential to provide opportunities for social growth as they can be done with peers. Often times hobbies are conducted without supervision. Hobbies tend to be voluntary, creative, often individual, and intrinsically motivated activities pursued in leisure time [1, 3]. Many hobbies involve skill-building, which creates a sense of competence or mastery. Hobbies tend to have clear rules and goals, or their approximations, and require an investment of time and energy to develop the skills needed to enjoy them [10]. Hobbies require active participation. Hobbies can provide intrinsic satisfaction that's similar to job satisfaction [9]. Several articles noted that hobbies can provide an experience of flow states or a feeling of absorption [1, 9, 10]. Freedom and intrinsic motivation are key elements of a flow state.

Despite being measured in a number of different ways, happiness has more accepted definitions than does a hobby. Happiness, or subjective well-being (SWB), refers to "the cognitive and affective evaluations of one’s own life" and is "defined in terms of global life satisfaction or perceived quality of life (PQOL), presence of positive affect, and the absence of negative affect" [2]. In the studies reviewed, happiness was measured using different self-reported instruments, and most adolescents reported being generally happy [5].

A number of PQOL instruments have been used to measure happiness. The EPOCH Measure of Adolescent Well-being was used in [3] and consists of a scale including five different positive characteristics: (E) Engagement, (P) Perseverance, (O) Optimism, (C) Connectedness, (H) Happiness[3]. The Fordyce Happiness Scale, used in [5], consists of one self-reported item captured on an 11-point scale, and three items assessing the percentage of time that a respondent feels happy, neutral, or unhappy. This study used Fordyce’s 11-point happiness/unhappiness scale to measure of the intensity and quality of happiness [5]. The Chinese Happiness Inventory was used in [4] to measure the perceived level of happiness which was composed of positive affect, a lack of negative affect, and overall life satisfaction [4]. Other self-reported happiness measures covered in the literature include (not exhaustive): the Positive And Negative Affect Scale (PANAS), the Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS), and the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) [7].

The literature reported a positive association between hobbies and happiness. Self-reported frequency of time spent on hobbies, as opposed to passive leisure like TV, predicted overall happiness [6, 7]. These benefits may be accentuated when the hobby is performed with other people [6]. In fact, the more time adolescents spent engaged in hobbies the more general happiness is expressed [3]. Generally speaking, adolescents that have hobbies are happier than those that don't [5, 7, 9, 10]. This general thesis appears to hold across cultures. For example, participation in hobbies has been linked to happiness among Chinese University students [4]. In this case engagement in hobbies was also correlated with lower depression scores and higher grades [4].

Conversely, adolescents that participate in unchallenging, undirected activities have been shown to have lower self-esteem and lower life satisfaction [3]. Adolescents that spent long hours working such that they missed out on hobbies and other activities that give rise to a flow state were more likely to experience lower happiness scores [8].

Time spent on hobbies and happiness both tend to change throughout childhood and adolescence with evidence showing higher levels of happiness among younger adolescents than among older ones [2, 5]. Middle school students ranked people and hobbies as the most important elements contributing to their happiness [2]. In early adolescence, their interest in hobbies shifts to material things. By late adolescence, their interests shift from material things to achievements as a primary source of happiness [2].

The research question is: Do students that participate in hobbies experience higher levels of self-reported happiness?

The aim of this research is to test the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1: there exists a positive correlation between the number of times a student participates in a hobby on a weekly basis and the number of times that student experiences happiness during the week

Hypothesis 2: students that participated in hobbies experienced happiness more frequently than those that did not participate in hobbies

Hypothesis 3: students with moderate to high levels of participation in hobbies (3 or more times per week) were happy more frequently than students with low levels of hobby participation (2 or less per week)

The main variable containing data on student participation in hobbies is H1DA2. The associated question is: During the past week, how many times did you do hobbies, such as collecting baseball cards, playing a musical instrument, reading, or doing arts and crafts? Possible responses to this question include: not at all, 1 or 2 times, 3 or 4 times, 5 or more times, refused, and don’t know.

The main variable containing information on student happiness is H1FS11. The associated question is: "How often was each of the following things true during the past week - You were happy?" A related variable is H1FS15. The associated question is: "How often was each of the following things true during the past week - You enjoyed life?" The possible responses to both questions include: never or rarely, sometimes, a lot of the time, most of the time or all of the time, refused, and don’t know.

References: [1] Steinberg, D. S. (2016). Hobbies And Organized Activities: Correlates Of Participation And Relations With Psychosocial Adjustment Among Young Adolescent Girls.

[2] Chaplin, L. N. (2009). Please may I have a bike? Better yet, may I have a hug? An examination of children’s and adolescents’ happiness. Journal of Happiness studies, 10(5), 541-562.

[3] Vuletić, T., & Krnjaić, Z. (2019). Adolescents’ Hobbies and Their Well-being. EMPIRICAL STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY, 17, 88.

[4] Lu, L., & Hu, C. H. (2005). Personality, leisure experiences and happiness. Journal of happiness studies, 6(3), 325-342.

[5] Ness, M. (2013). Happiness, daily stress and resilience in adolescents (Master's thesis, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Department of Social Work).

[6] Caunt, B. S., Franklin, J., Brodaty, N. E., & Brodaty, H. (2013). Exploring the causes of subjective well-being: A content analysis of peoples’ recipes for long-term happiness. Journal of Happiness Studies, 14(2), 475-499.

[7] Nawijn, J., & Veenhoven, R. (2013). Happiness through leisure. In Positive leisure science (pp. 193-209). Springer, Dordrecht.

[8] Manolis, C., & Roberts, J. A. (2012). Subjective well-being among adolescent consumers: the effects of materialism, compulsive buying, and time affluence. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 7(2), 117-135.

[9] Argyle, M., & Martin, M. (1991). The psychological causes of happiness. Subjective well-being: An interdisciplinary perspective, 77-100.

[10] Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Wong, M. M. H. (2014). The situational and personal correlates of happiness: A cross-national comparison. In Flow and the foundations of positive Psychology (pp. 69-88). Springer, Dordrecht.

1 note · View note