📺 Turn on your TV or you'll miss the chance to hear from the neighborhood's cheeriest bug! ☀
In her part of the show, she'd teach kids all different kinds of facts about the weather, why it is like this and what should they do, like how to tell it's gonna rain, sometimes would do little geography lessons which she sure knows a lot about!
Would most definitely advertise various stuff from Howdy's shop that would be useful for the weather she's telling about, like "a new neat umbrella and rain boots for the gloomy soggy days" or "a refreshing cold drink to help with the summer heat!"
You could call Daria quite the fashionista, she likes to pick her attire matching the weather, both in matters of style and comfort. She always makes sure that her neighbors are dressed according to the temperature and etc too, so for example, she better not catch you without your scarf when it's freezing outside- (would give you a lecture why you should wear one and will put her own on you lol)
(most of her outfits are made by my other oc Sunny, a shy tailor who's not big on very chatty and loud people, but him and Daria somehow get along really well!)
Definitely owns a ton of different sunglasses too, it's nearly impossible to see Daria without them.
Daria got into the neighborhood by a storm. Dragonflies are undeniably great at flying but not even they can always predict what they'll get into on their way! But don't worry, she got into trustworthy hands (or wings?-) of neighborhood's mail-bird Sean Gull, could it be love at first sight-
She's transfem, pan and polyamorous
Being overly energetic, Daria sometimes bumps into other neighbors , just not noticing they're standing in the way while she's deep in thought. Would be pretty apologetic if she makes them fall- It'd take her some time to remember where she was heading to too..
She'd also oftenly appear as a star guest at the regular human weather forecast or some scientific geography TV programs :D
(I'll prolly add up more info later as my burnout passes, have a lil doodle of her human ver instead lol)
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Blind Dates 2024: Capt. Marion Brennan, WAC
My second submission for this year's @blind-dates-fest! I'd love to introduce you all to Marion Brennan.
Fandom: Masters of the Air (2023)
The waiting was the worst part.
She’d been overseas for nearly a year now, and she could take everything else that came with the job in stride - the bloody faces, the vomit, the smell of piss and fear seeping out of flight suits, the way a boy tried to steady his shaking hands so that his buddies wouldn’t see that he was still scared. But the waiting was always fresh, always raw - and the fear returned anew each time the planes went up, and each time they came back down.
And when they came back down, she went to work. Except for today.
Marion surveyed the names on the large blackboard on the other side of the Operations Room, reading each one over as though she didn’t already know them all by heart. Her boys, day in and day out. Move them around, re-assign and re-group them, but she would know them even when their own mothers wouldn’t. Because I see them when no mother should - and hear the things no mother should ever have to hear.
Did you take any flak?
Did you see any chutes?
And was he on the radio?
What heading was that?
Tell me what the plane’s condition was.
What time was that?
"Why, it’s barbaric," one of the new women had said once, after watching a particularly grueling session in the interrogation rooms. (Marion had made the flight engineer tell his part of the story twice, blood already clotting his face from a wound under his helmet, his face white with exhaustion.) "Making them tell you all that all over again. Those boys have just been through hell and you make them do it twice?"
Out loud, she explained about accurate after-action reports, finding coordinates for downed airmen, establishing times of death and declaring Killed In Action status. But it was more than that. If I have to explain it, you’ll never understand, Marion wanted to say. They come in bloody and shaking and afraid, and when we are done they leave the mission with me, and my girls, and I let them return to the world unburdened.
And who will do that for them in Telergma?
She knew the whole base was on edge. It was one thing to send out a task force knowing that they would come back to you, that after eight hours inside the inferno there was something you could do to ease their way in the world by bandaging a wound or patching a wing or serving a cup of coffee. But this waiting? This was the worst sort of waiting imaginable, because no one knew what they would find there. Was there an ambulance? Hot coffee? A bed with clean sheets?
When you land there, who will count you in? Who is there to care?
“Captain Brennan.” Marion turned away from the ops board to see Colonel Harding standing in the doorway. He looked like he’d slept in his uniform - a first, for him. Army Air Corps COs didn’t just fall asleep on couches, and men from West Point even less so. “I didn’t think you took shifts in this room.”
It was a polite way of saying that she wasn’t where she was supposed to be - and he was right. Captains didn’t take night shifts in the ops room - even female captains, whom Man and the Army had decreed a somewhat lesser species. She tugged a little at her jacket. “I sent Sergeant Wilcox along to bed - the poor girl was nearly asleep in her chair and I didn’t think she was much use to anyone in that state. ”
Harding didn’t seem to think much of that. “That shift change was hours ago. Where was her relief?”
More bad news. Marion took a breath and braced for impact. “Sergeant Hastings has the flu, and Wilcox thought she could use the rest. She didn't want to leave the post unmanned. I told her to go to bed. I can answer a telephone as well as the next woman.”
She waited for the blow to fall, but it didn’t come. If anything, Harding looked...impressed. “That was kind of you, Captain.”
Kind! What a word. But Harding wasn’t made of stone. Everyone was worrying about this one, and he knew it. It was one of the things that made him a good leader - that he had his nose in the wind, as it were, instead of being unreachable in his office with his reports. Still. Kind wasn’t a word you were supposed to use for officers. “It was also against regulations,” Marion acknowledged, trying to be as matter-of fact about it as she could. “You can write me up for it tomorrow morning if you feel it's appropriate.”
Harding actually laughed at that, and she realized, belatedly, that it wasn’t a sound she heard very often. (And why should she? Most of the time they spent together was reviewing debriefing reports.) “Do I already have a reputation for being that much of a hard-ass, Captain?” He winced and paused. “My apologies. My language.”
And just where do you think I’ve been the last twelve months, Colonel? Curse as much as you like - I won’t break for hearing it. “I've heard worse, sir,” she assured him. “Regulations exist for a reason, and as the CO you're responsible for maintaining order and making sure your instructions are followed. Including watch rotations. It might be good to set an example. ” He looked impressed by the answer - possibly more than he needed to be. “My father was a West-Pointer, sir. Career Army, too.”
That, at least, impressed him where it needed to. “Is that so?” He studied her for a moment, processing this new information. “I can see that, now that you've said it. Is that how you got here?”
She nodded. “We moved a lot as a kid, and when I turned 18...Army life was all I knew. I started as a clerk, and worked hard, got a few promotions here and there, and when they let us put in for overseas assignments...” She let that hang for a moment, smiling as she thought about what she’d been spared because she hadn’t gotten what she wanted all those years ago. “I never did make it to Manila, or Maui, but maybe that’s for the best. Hamilton Field was about as far West as I got.”
She wasn’t in the habit of giving her life story out around the base - her girls needed a leader more than they needed a friend, and the scant four or five years she had on most of them was only good for so much, where authority was concerned. But it felt right that Harding ought to know a little something. After all, wasn’t he the one coming in with a reputation behind him, and the shoes of the former CO to fill? Everyone knew that he’d been at West Point, that he’d coached football, that he’d come to Thorpe Abbotts by way of Palm Beach and Spokane, Washington.
“And you still like the work? Little bit different than what you’d be doing at home.”
“Free a man to fight” looks different from here, that’s for sure. After everything she’d seen, everything she’d heard, she could say that much. “I do, sir. It’s important - making sure that the facts are straight, that we’ve learned everything we can before it fades out.” She had another thought, and paused, considering whether or not she should share. “I think they tell things differently, to a woman. They used to try and be more precise - cut around the edges a little wide so I wouldn’t see the bad parts. I think they know that we’re all used to it, by now.” I’ve been in every single op this wing has flown - turret, tail, and cockpit. I fly them in my sleep.
Harding nodded, considering all of it in that thoughtful way of his - a coach reviewing game-day footage to look for his next play.
There was some movement, at the door of the ops room - a woman coming in and realizing, late, that the person she was looking for wasn’t there. Marion spoke up. “Lieutenant Callaway, can I help you with something?”
The lieutenant's face was plainly guilty - a daughter caught sneaking in the front door with her shoes off - but she was trying valiantly to play it cool. It almost made Marion smile. "I was just...wondering if there was any news yet, ma'am. My shift's just starting and I ...thought I'd tell the girls, if we’d heard. Sergeant Wilcox said she'd tell me, if she...got news."
"Sergeant Wilcox was sent to bed," Marion replied. (Was that why she’d stayed on duty past her time? Because she wanted to be there to report out to Callaway?) "There's been nothing so far. We'll send a runner to Tower if we hear anything."
Callway nodded, obviously disappointed by this news and more unnerved than she had a reason to be, and she left looking a little shaken. Marion looked over at the Colonel and saw he was studying the lieutenant's exit with mild interest.
"Something there you think I ought to know about, Captain?" He asked, his expression thoughtful and vague.
Marion knew what he meant. A total ban on fraternization was impossible, given the confines of the base, but there had to be some separation of church and state, and making girlfriends out of her officers was a good way to undermine productivity. Still, if Cordelia Callaway had a beau, Marion knew she also had enough brains to keep it to herself, and she wasn't about to go spoiling that for her. She was a good egg, at the end of the day - maybe just the thing one of those fly boys needed to keep himself on the straight and narrow. "They all care a little, Colonel. I think it's impossible to live like this and not to." That's the strange thing about the army, isn't it? You get assigned to a place and suddenly you've got a whole band of brothers you never asked for.
Brothers, husbands, sons. Everything to everyone - one big, mad, teeming family.
Another noise at the door - Sergeant Dacre, a tiny mouse of a woman, nearly squeaked when she saw her CO and her supervisor in deep conversation, the lights half-off and the day just beginning.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, sir, I thought Sergeant Wilcox...”
“Captain Brennan was just leaving, Sergeant,” Harding said with a knowledgeable smile. (They were starting to teach that earlier - how to be a softer touch with the women. Marion could remember officers who would have shouted at Dacre to get her ass inside and moved her to tears.) “I don’t think we’ll need to do anything in the way of reprimands, Captain Brennan - for any of the business,” he added, being intentionally vague while Dacre readied her station. “But tell that Hastings girl she ought to get herself on the sick list, if she’s thinking she can just get out of work for a cold.”
“It’ll be the first thing I do, Colonel.”
The phone buzzed, and Harding swooped to answer it before Dacre could get her hand in. “Yes? Yes.” A visible sign of relief crossed his face, and she saw his shoulders relax. “Yes, very glad to hear it. We’ll look for those directly. Yes, thank you. Good-bye.” He put the phone back in its cradle and beamed. “Ground Control has them at Telergma. No details yet but - someone made it through.” He took a deep breath, still smiling. “I’ll get it out on the PA but you’d better tell Callaway out at Tower first. An officer doesn’t break her word.”
She almost smiled at him for that. The worst part, over. Now the details would come, but she could face that like she always did. “Of course, sir.' A pause, and - "I hope you have a good morning, sir.”
“And you, Brennan.”
Someone appeared with coffee, the room whirring into life as the day rotation came on board, and Marion took her leave, pausing at the door to look back at Harding, now studying the map with renewed enthusiasm.
Hughlin never made much of a father, she thought. All that waiting nearly did him in. But I think you’ll do just fine.
--
So that's Marion! She and the version of MOTA she inhabits can be perceived as being adjacent to the alternate history in my fic The Darkening Sky.
If you'd like to meet Cordelia Callaway, you can read more of my writing for her here at her tag on tumblr.
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