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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 months

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Sympathy for the spammer

Catch me in Miami! I'll be at Books and Books in Coral Gables on Jan 22 at 8PM.

In any scam, any con, any hustle, the big winners are the people who supply the scammers – not the scammers themselves. The kids selling dope on the corner are making less than minimum wage, while the respectable crime-bosses who own the labs clean up. Desperate "retail investors" who buy shitcoins from Superbowl ads get skinned, while the MBA bros who issue the coins make millions (in real dollars, not crypto).

It's ever been thus. The California gold rush was a con, and nearly everyone who went west went broke. Famously, the only reliable way to cash out on the gold rush was to sell "picks and shovels" to the credulous, doomed and desperate. That's how Leland Stanford made his fortune, which he funneled into eugenics programs (and founding a university):

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/malcolm-harris/palo-alto/9780316592031/

That means that the people who try to con you are almost always getting conned themselves. Think of Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) scams. My forthcoming novel The Bezzle opens with a baroque and improbable fast-food Ponzi in the town of Avalon on the island of Catalina, founded by the chicle monopolist William Wrigley Jr:

http://thebezzle.org

Wrigley found fast food declasse and banned it from the island, a rule that persists to this day. In The Bezzle, the forensic detective Martin Hench uncovers The Fry Guys, an MLM that flash-freezes contraband burgers and fries smuggled on-island from the mainland and sells them to islanders though an "affiliate marketing" scheme that is really about recruiting other affiliate markets to sell under you. As with every MLM, the value of the burgers and fries sold is dwarfed by the gigantic edifice of finance fraud built around it, with "points" being bought and sold for real cash, which is snaffled up and sucked out of the island by a greedy mainlander who is behind the scheme.

A "bezzle" is John Kenneth Galbraith's term for "the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it." In every scam, there's a period where everyone feels richer – but only the scammers are actually cleaning up. The wealth of the marks is illusory, but the longer the scammer can preserve the illusion, the more real money the marks will pump into the system.

MLMs are particularly ugly, because they target people who are shut out of economic opportunity – women, people of color, working people. These people necessarily rely on social ties for survival, looking after each others' kids, loaning each other money they can't afford, sharing what little they have when others have nothing.

It's this social cohesion that MLMs weaponize. Crypto "entrepreneurs" are encouraged to suck in their friends and family by telling them that they're "building Black wealth." Working women are exhorted to suck in their bffs by appealing to their sisterhood and the chance for "women to lift each other up."

The "sales people" trying to get you to buy crypto or leggings or supplements are engaged in predatory conduct that will make you financially and socially worse off, wrecking their communities' finances and shattering the mutual aid survival networks they rely on. But they're not getting rich on this – they're also being scammed:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4686468

This really hit home for me in the mid-2000s, when I was still editing Boing Boing. We had a submission form where our readers could submit links for us to look at for inclusion on the blog, and it was overwhelmed by spam. We'd add all kinds of antispam to it, and still, we'd get floods of hundreds or even thousands of spam submissions to it.

One night, I was lying in my bed in London and watching these spams roll in. They were all for small businesses in the rustbelt, handyman services, lawn-care, odd jobs, that kind of thing. They were 10 million miles from the kind of thing we'd ever post about on Boing Boing. They were coming in so thickly that I literally couldn't finish downloading my email – the POP session was dropping before I could get all the mail in the spool. I had to ssh into my mail server and delete them by hand. It was maddening.

Frustrated and furious, I started calling the phone numbers associated with these small businesses, demanding an explanation. I assumed that they'd hired some kind of sleazy marketing service and I wanted to know who it was so I could give them a piece of my mind.

But what I discovered when I got through was much weirder. These people had all been laid off from factories that were shuttering due to globalization. As part of their termination packages, their bosses had offered them "retraining" via "courses" in founding their own businesses.

The "courses" were the precursors to the current era's rise-and-grind hustle-culture scams (again, the only people getting rich from that stuff are the people selling the courses – the "students" finish the course poorer). They promised these laid-off workers, who'd given their lives to their former employers before being discarded, that they just needed to pull themselves up by their own boostraps:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/10/declaration-of-interdependence/#solidarity-forever

After all, we had the internet now! There were so many new opportunities to be your own boss! The course came with a dreadful build-your-own-website service, complete with an overpriced domain sales portal, and a single form for submitting your new business to "thousands of search engines."

This was nearly 20 years ago, but even then, there was really only one search engine that mattered: Google. The "thousands of search engines" the scammers promised to submit these desperate peoples' websites to were just submission forms for directories, indexes, blogs, and mailing lists. The number of directories, indexes, blogs and mailing lists that would publish their submissions was either "zero" or "nearly zero." There was certainly no possibility that anyone at Boing Boing would ever press the wrong key and accidentally write a 500-word blog post about a leaf-raking service in a collapsing deindustrialized exurb in Kentucky or Ohio.

The people who were drowning me in spam weren't the scammers – they were the scammees.

But that's only half the story. Years later, I discovered how our submission form was getting included in this get-rich-quick's mass-submission system. It was a MLM! Coders in the former Soviet Union were getting work via darknet websites that promised them relative pittances for every submission form they reverse-engineered and submitted. The smart coders didn't crack the forms directly – they recruited other, less business-savvy coders to do that for them, and then often as not, ripped them off.

The scam economy runs on this kind of indirection, where scammees are turned into scammers, who flood useful and productive and nice spaces with useless dross that doesn't even make them any money. Take the submission queue at Clarkesworld, the great online science fiction magazine, which famously had to close after it was flooded with thousands of junk submission "written" by LLMs:

https://www.npr.org/2023/02/24/1159286436/ai-chatbot-chatgpt-magazine-clarkesworld-artificial-intelligence

There was a zero percent chance that Neil Clarke would accidentally accept one of these submissions. They were uniformly terrible. The people submitting these "stories" weren't frustrated sf writers who'd discovered a "life hack" that let them turn out more brilliant prose at scale.

They were scammers who'd been scammed into thinking that AIs were the key to a life of passive income, a 4-Hour Work-Week powered by an AI-based self-licking ice-cream cone:

https://pod.link/1651876897/episode/995c8a778ede17d2d7cff393e5203157

This is absolutely classic passive-income brainworms thinking. "I have a bot that can turn out plausible sentences. I will locate places where sentences can be exchanged for money, aim my bot at it, sit back, and count my winnings." It's MBA logic on meth: find a thing people pay for, then, without bothering to understand why they pay for that thing, find a way to generate something like it at scale and bombard them with it.

Con artists start by conning themselves, with the idea that "you can't con an honest man." But the factor that predicts whether someone is connable isn't their honesty – it's their desperation. The kid selling drugs on the corner, the mom desperately DMing her high-school friends to sell them leggings, the cousin who insists that you get in on their shitcoin – they're all doing it because the system is rigged against them, and getting worse every day.

These people reason – correctly – that all the people getting really rich are scamming. If Amazon can make $38b/year selling "ads" that push worse products that cost more to the top of their search results, why should the mere fact that an "opportunity" is obviously predatory and fraudulent disqualify it?

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/29/aethelred-the-unready/#not-one-penny-for-tribute

The quest for passive income is really the quest for a "greater fool," the economist's term for the person who relieves you of the useless crap you just overpaid for. It rots the mind, atomizes communities, shatters solidarity and breeds cynicism:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

The rise and rise of botshit cannot be separated from this phenomenon. The botshit in our search-results, our social media feeds, and our in-boxes isn't making money for the enshittifiers who send it – rather, they are being hustled by someone who's selling them the "picks and shovels" for the AI gold rush:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/03/botshit-generative-ai-imminent-threat-democracy

That's the true cost of all the automation-driven unemployment criti-hype: while we're nowhere near a place where bots can steal your job, we're certainly at the point where your boss can be suckered into firing you and replacing you with a bot that fails at doing your job:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/11/robots-stole-my-jerb/#computer-says-no

The manic "entrepreneurs" who've been stampeded into panic by the (correct) perception that the economy is a game of musical chairs where the number of chairs is decreasing at breakneck speed are easy marks for the Leland Stanfords of AI, who are creating generational wealth for themselves by promising that their bots will automate away all the tedious work that goes into creating value. Expect a lot more Amazon Marketplace products called "I'm sorry, I cannot fulfil this request as it goes against OpenAI use policy":

https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/12/24036156/openai-policy-amazon-ai-listings

No one's going to buy these products, but the AI picks-and-shovels people will still reap a fortune from the attempt. And because history repeats itself, these newly minted billionaires are continuing Leland Stanford's love affair with eugenics:

https://www.truthdig.com/dig-series/eugenics/

The fact that AI spam doesn't pay is important to the fortunes of AI companies. Most high-value AI applications are very risk-intolerant (self-driving cars, radiology analysis, etc). An AI tool might help a human perform these tasks more accurately – by warning them of things that they've missed – but that's not how AI will turn a profit. There's no market for AI that makes your workers cost more but makes them better at their jobs:

https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/

Plenty of people think that spam might be the elusive high-value, low-risk AI application. But that's just not true. The point of AI spam is to get clicks from people who are looking for better content. It's SEO. No one reads 2000 words of algorithm-pleasing LLM garbage over an omelette recipe and then subscribes to that site's feed.

And the omelette recipe generates pennies for the spammer that posted it. They are doing massive volume in order to make those pennies into dollars. You don't make money by posting one spam. If every spammer had to pay the actual recovery costs (energy, chillers, capital amortization, wages) for their query, every AI spam would lose (lots of) money.

Hustle culture and passive income are about turning other peoples' dollars into your dimes. It is a negative-sum activity, a net drain on society. Behind every seemingly successful "passive income" is a con artist who's getting rich by promising – but not delivering – that elusive passive income, and then blaming the victims for not hustling hard enough:

https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2023/12/blueprint-trouble

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

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kaythefloppa · 2 months

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Wild Kratts: Our Blue and Green World Trailer.

Underneath the cut for those who consider it to be spoilery, but we have a trailer for the one-hour special, Our Blue and Green World, airing April 1st, 2024.

The Kratt brothers disagree on what's better; blue oceans or green forests. Aviva takes on the role of referee to demonstrate how oceans and forests work together to make our living planet, just like Martin and Chris need to keep working together. It's up to the gang to get Martin and Chris back in sync in time to save planet Earth from Zach and Paisley's villainous plans.

This special was first mentioned back in May of 2023 during an interview with Martin Kratt heralding the show's premiere of its 7th season. The original title was Blue and Green: The Living Earth before it was chaned to our Blue and Green World. The episode will feature climates and habitats corresponding with the Kratt's "blue and green." With it, will come the introduction of new Creature Power Suits: The ones we have seen thus far in the trailer are Indri Power, Green Anaconda Power, and Blue Whale Power.

My thoughts:

HOLY SHIT THE BLUE WHALE SUIT

*calms down.*

Ok but I'm starting to see a weird pattern in the PowerSuits in this season. For some strange reason, they have to retrofit the wearer's mouths to match the ACTUAL anatomy of the animal the suit is based off of. They did it with the Wild Pony and the Mountain Goat Power Suit and both of them were.... ugh. Now they did it with the Blue Whale Suit and to be fair, while I hate that particular feature, it's not enough to make me hate the suit. In fact, I kinda like it more because of how silly it looks (Martin is the perfect person to wear this suit tbh). Still though, I wish they designed it like the Crocodile, Hippo, or Puffin Suit where the giant mouth is simply an attachment that doesn't move while the wearer speaks.

For those who don't know, Indris are the largest species of lemur in the world (alongside Diademed Sifakas). They are the only animals besides humans that can find and use rhythm using "wailing songs" to communicate. They're also critically endangered due to slash and burn of their habitats and poaching for their flesh as delicacies (yeah, very odd that Gourmand isn't here, but I digress). There's an estimate to be less than 10,000 left in the wild and are expected to have a population net decrease by 80% within the next 30 years... yeah, considering that they're endemic to Madagascar, not a very good sign. I didn't even know what an Indri was until reading the article, and if I'm not the only one who had no clue about these guys, it's probably definitely a good sign that they're getting some spotlight in this show.

The Indri Power Suit looks so goofy, but again, something about how silly it looks just makes me appreciate it all the more. I... weirdly expected it to be way bigger like the Puffin Suit, but again that's just me.

I am a huge fan of how they designed the snake-inspired Creature Power Suits in the show. But the Anaconda Creature Power Suit... holy shit.

LOOK AT IT /POS

Look at the markings! Look at the green! Look at the patterns, and the color schemes! Chris FINALLY got a green Creature Power Suit to activate! Our boi won! It's also a pretty clever callback to the Amazon special where Chris met the Anaconda (I really hope the Power Disc for this suit is green because god that would be so aesthetically pleasing).

Ngl, if the old flash games were still on the website, and this was one of the Power Suits I could earn for my character, I'd play it in a heart-beat.

I'm really interested to see the Zach/Paisley team up. This season already started to utilize her better by giving her another solo appearance, and now we're seeing a 1 on 1 team up with her and another villain. I was always gunning for a Paisley/Donita teamup but this works too. They're both very similar characters that can bounce off each other in similar, yet different ways (I actually headcanon that they're related - second cousins to be exact - because of those similarities). The final battle is gonna be kickass.

If you were to tell me without any context at all that this was a screencap from the upcoming WK feature film (that this episode is often mistaken for), I would believe you. Because HOLY SHIT! The linework, the lighting, the hues, AND the shading! I am becoming more and more grateful for the 2-year long hiatus - the animators needed time to cook and they fucking COOKED. For an extended TV episode, this is pretty damn impressive.

People don't talk enough about this, but fun-fact: A lot of the animators of this show had experience working for Disney. Erika Worthylake was one of the artists on this show, doing several beta designs for animals such as wild ponies and salmon sharks. In 2019, she was the lead designer for Anga, one of the new characters in Disney's The Lion Guard (which, much like Wild Kratts, was animated in Toon Boom). Ben Balistreri had collaberated with the Kratt Brothers and Luc Chamberland in 2007 to work on the show's pilot episode, creating several different designs for the animated characters. Ten years later, he became the executive co-producer of Tangled: The Series. Kendal Brouet, who animated A Creature Christmas, worked on The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder in 2022. Just to name a few. It's just a fun little thing that comes up in the back of my mind whenever the topic of WK animation comes up, and this instance of animation is so fucking good that I HAVE to talk about it, because I have MAJOR respect for these guys, and if there were ever moments in the show that remind me "Oh, this slaps," I just remember what these talented artists worked on through the years and it clicks together nicely in my brain.

According to Whrokids, this episode is gonna have a runtime of 58 minutes. I found this screenshot of someone who did far more searching and sleuthing for new episode content (they were the ones who found this trailer actually). I'm not sure how valid this particular screenshot is, but if this is the case, then this will be the longest episode of Wild Kratts in history, and will be the closest thing we get to a Wild Kratts movie (until the actual WK movie is released in theaters).

Fucking. Hyped.

#wild kratts #pbs kids #kratt brothers #martin kratt #chris kratt #wk season 7 #wild kratts fandom #wk #wk chris #wk martin #wild kratts creature powers #blue whales #indri #lemur #animals #I officially have a new reason for living thank you very much #2024 #This better not be an April Fools' prank I stg.

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doraambrose · 3 months

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fav comic writer & artist?

Hello! Thanks for the awesome question!

I'm not sure I have a FAVORITE writer, but here are some I do like:

Shawn Martinbrough took over for RHATO Rebirth for the last couple issues and us writing Redhood: the Hill, and I did really like his writing for RHATO, much better than Scott Lobdell

Gretchen felker-Martin wrote Jason's issue for Titans Beast world tour: gotham and it was hands down the best jason characterization I've ever seen since under the redhood despite him being a furry in it lol. She might be my new favorite actually

Geoff Johns wrote Batman: three jokers and I gotta be honest, for all its flaws (including some jason and Barbara), it'd probably one of my favorite series. The mix of the art, the exploration of chronic pain and trauma because of the joker, ugh so good.

Of course, I've got to give props to Judd Winnick for lost days and under the red hood. How jason was before he was retconned into being a sloppy stupid hothead, he was clever, cunning, sneaky, SMART.

An honorable mention is for suicide squad get joker, but definitely not my favorite

As for artists, me! (Just kidding) that's also hard to pick just one favorite, but I LOVE these artists

Dexter soy has such a unique way of doing comic art, but I just love it. He makes jason look his age and not, you know, a 50 year old Vietnam War vet. And I love the way Artemis was drawn as a strong, tall amazon woman with muscles and not, you know, skinny feminine woman like old style comics.

I also just LOVE Alex maleev for his work in suicide squad get joker. The people are drawn well, the color palette, it's all so visually appealing. And again, jason isn't 50. It seems like a lot of comic artists forget that most members of the batfamily are in their 20s

Jason Fabok gets a mention for his art in batman three jokers. It was beautiful. Same reasons too. I'm also a sucker for line art

Finally, one of my most favorite artists isn't even a jason todd artist but I wish he was. Bruno Redondo does a lot of the art for the newer Nightwing comics and I LOVE IT. The color scheme is so visually stunning, everyone is drawn so well, it's beautiful.

And call me a narcissist but I gotta add some of my own art in here lmao but thanks for the ask!!! This is very exciting for me and I love talking about jason todd as he is someone I've studied and read everything about for the last few years

I've reached my image limit so I might start posting my own art as well

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thesupreme316 · 8 months

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nick wayne x female reader??? just cute young couple shit please 🥺❤️

What It's Like Dating Nick Wayne (in my mind): Nick Wayne x Reader

Summary: A glimpse of dating Nick Wayne...

Word Count: 600

Supreme Speaks: DOUBLE UPLOAD HOES! Anyways, thank you to @hooks-martin for the request (sorry it took so long). Im doing a throwback to one of my first headcanon posts on here. please remember that you are loved and appreciated.

Warnings: none, not really proofread, fluffly boi

Taglist: @hooks-martin @wwenhlimagines @sheinthatfandom @cassie0sstuff

Okay so check it

This man is a sweetheart (I get big golden retriever vibes from him)

He’s constantly all over the place; just skipping around everywhere

He’s literally so sweet omg like I think he would just admire (stare) you and wonder how he got you to go out with him

Nick only looks at you with heart eyes

I think you would be his first real and serious relationship

Puts pressure on himself to do everything perfectly (tries too hard to be cool)

Plans all your dates to a T, if something goes wrong, he will blame himself to no end

“Nick, baby, it’s fine the collage is grea-“

“I’m a failure…I should have used hot glue instead of sticks”

As the two of you get more serious, dates will be at comfortable locations like at his or your house for movie nights or go to the park for a walk at night

Nick would finally understand that he doesn’t have to try so hard to impress or amaze you

Now he can just literally sit in a room and stare at you for hours and he’ll call that date (as long as you’re together)

But he would love to drag you to different places (especially to Walmart at 12 AM)

HE HAS A HIGHLIGHT STORY ON INSTAGRAM JUST FILLED WITH PICTURES OF YOU

Ranging from pictures of you two kissing or on dates to candid photos of you asleep…he has a big collection of those

Before you ask…NO…he does not do matching outfits or color schemes (unless it is all white or black)

He just finds them cringy

I can see Nick just giving you random things; little trinkets, presents, clothes, food, and things that you need

He’ll notice that you’re running low on something and just go out to purchase it

“How did you know I needed more toothpaste?”

“Well, I accidentally stepped on it and all of it came out…I also bought more mouthwash cause I accidentally spilled it.”

That man is a klutz outside the damn ring I promise you

Is a sucker for homemade items

If you made him a bracelet, he’ll wear it. If you painted him a picture, it’s up in his living the same day.

HIS LOVE LANGUAGES ARE PHYSICAL TOUCH AND QUALITY TIME AND GIFT-GIVING

Has to be touching you in some way (arm, neck, back, hell just holding pinkies will suffice for him)

Allows you to drag him around the store/mall

Nick will just grab you and bury his face into your neck

“Is this a new perfume?”

Notices little things that most people wouldn’t (like your hair parting, your scent, how you chew your food, angry habits)

Loves to see you in his clothes; is perfectly okay with you stealing everything he has

Is the type of spray his cologne on it as he feels like it really makes him claim you

If you’re a wrestler, he will practice with you…he just doesn’t trust anyone to treat you with care and respect

If not, you’re getting suplexed one way or another….be on a constant lookout

He doesn’t get mad at you…never…

If he does, he quietly and calmly talks about his problem…he will never raise his voice at you

Overall, having Nick Wayne as your boyfriend will never have a dull moment as you are constantly entertained and loved.

#aew #all elite wrestling #aew imagine #aew headcanon #nick wayne #aew nick wayne #nick wayne x reader #nick wayne imagine #nick wayne headcanon

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tentacledsnakelover · 4 months

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Wild Kratts Episode Ideas

We made it another year. 2024, specifically, January 3rd, 2024, marks the 13th anniversary of Wild Kratts, which first aired in 2011 with Mom of a Croc. I remember first watching the bros as a toddler with Zoboomafoo, and I have grown up with Wild Kratts, from kindergarten to college. I owe the bros for opening my eyes to how amazing the creature world is. To celebrate, I wanted to share some episode ideas I came up with:

Fish Hacking 101: Chris and Martin desire to master the hunting techniques of the mysterious tentacled snake. But to Gourmand, the obscure serpent is just another ingredient for his latest dish.

Yetis and Leopards: To keep the bros away while they plan a surprise party, Aviva sends the bros looking for snow leopards. However, they find the mysterious cats much quicker than expected, forcing Aviva to keep the bros away from the Tortuga by baiting them with a Yeti robot she built, but snow leopards are great hunters.

Upriver With a Paddlefish: During Tortuga maintenance day, Koki goes kayaking, when she is hit by a jumping sturgeon. Injured and with her creature pod busted, the brothers find an unlikely hope in another strange looking fish.

Inferno the Fire Hawk: While visiting Australia, the crew observe a black kite intentionally setting fires. Paisley learns of this too, and hires Zach to mind control the birds into obeying her.

Dot and Stripe's Big Day: The crew have successfully rehabilitated a pair of orphaned Malayan tapir twins. But the spots the crew have chosen to release the siblings in have each been claimed by older, tougher tapirs. Aviva gives the bros Tapir powers so they can traverse the jungle and find new, suitable territory for the twins.

Ice Day for Salamanders: In the most ambitious experiment yet, the brothers freeze themselves alive in Siberian Salamander Powers for a day. However, Paisley abducts the brothers, intending to auction them off to the other villains to finance her schemes.

The Perfect Mudskipper Name: Martin's attempt to ride a mudskipper lead to him loosing his suit, and a mudskipper merging with it, like Seven did. The now humanoid fish kicks the gang out of the Tortuga, and all efforts to get him out of the ship and the suit fail. The brothers must learn to fight like a mudskipper to win their ship back, and get the fish back to normal.

Parrotfish Beach: While at the beach, Martin chances across a parrotfish. Not having seen one of the vibrant fish since they saved some from Zach and Donita, the team get to work to make a new suit. Meanwhile, Paisley has decided to create her newest road right through the reef, using a monstrosity of a machine she calls, "The Colossus of Roads".

Nudibranch Bingo: After finding a Blue Dragon Sea Slug, the brothers head to the Philippines in a game to see who can find the most species of sea slugs. Unbeknownst to them, Donita has hacked their cameras, so she can find and collect the colorful invertebrates to use in her newest designs, having grown bored of regular gems and jewels.

Hagfish Day: After finding out hagfish have a day dedicated to them, yet barely anybody knows about them, the brothers take the Pulponaut to the bottom of the sea to look for the elusive slime eels.

Jimmy and the Silverback: While his friends go off with a Gorilla troop, Jimmy laments his fear getting in the way of his desire to explore. Fortunately for him, another troop comes to the Tortuga. Unfortunately, the bros, Aviva, Koki, and the first troop, get in trouble, and Jimmy must step up to save his friends, and the gorilla.s

What Big Teeth You Have: While diving, the brothers chance upon a den of Wolf Eels and their eggs. Soon though, the bros must take up the duty to defend the nest after the parents are injured. While their friends take care of the expecting parents, Chris and Martin must keep the eggs safe. But competition is fierce. Octopus and other Wolf Eels want the den, and the brothers must keep them away.

Do the Velvet Worm: The brothers are on a long overdue adventure to find the rare and mysterious velvet worm, who thrive in wet and warm environments. But Paisley's newest scheme threatens to destroy the home of the worms, and all the other creatures there.

Keeping up with the Hornbills: Chris and Martin seal themselves in with an expecting mother Hornbill so that they can document the process, but when Donita teams up with Paisley to collect animals from the forest she is destroying, the tree the bros are in gets tossed into the river.

Condor Crash Course: A malfunction of the Tortuga's new autopilot system causes the ship to crash at the end of the Andes Mountains, and the crew are stuck at the other end. Martin thinks they could traverse the mountains with condor powers, but the trick is to find the birds first.

Quetzals of Then and Now: Aviva tells her friends the story of how her grandmother obtained the feathers of the Corcovado family birdie in a massive creature adventure.

Four Kratts and Some Saigas: The brothers' sisters come to visit, but creature adventuring doesn't stop for family reunions. The crew get a call of a herd of Saiga suffering from a bacteria infection.

Vampire Deer: The brothers learn about Chinese Water Deer, which have fangs in lieu of antlers. But the investigation into these weird deer is interrupted by Donita, who wants to use the deer as material for her new line of formal wear: Donita's Deer-est.

24 Hours in Lake Baikal: From freshwater seals to special sponges, and even weird natural formations, the record-holding Lake Baikal has caught the brothers' interest. It has also caught the interest of Gourmand and Paisley, who team up to make sure the brothers don't interfere.

Queen of the Meerkats: Struck by how fierce meerkats are, Zach captures the head female and several others to use in his new line of "Zach-Tion Figure" toys. Chris and Martin must save the meerkats while their friends keep what's rest of the fragile hierarchy from falling apart.

Olm's World: The brothers realized they never got around to making Olm powers. They return to Europe to find the mysterious "human-fish", so they can figure out the secrets of the unique salamander, such as how it can live for so long despite being blind.

Jamming With Moths: While building more bat boxes for their friend Bite-Size, Chris realizes the Little-Brown Bat, and all the other bats, are struggling to catch moths. The team is spurred by curiosity to determine whether the echolocation of a bat is truly a fool proof adaptation.

Be the Bee Eater: Bee Eaters are disappearing, and Zach is behind it. He plans to mind control the birds and sell them around the world as insect catchers.

Jumping Spider Jubilee: The crew split up to find the most unique species of jumping spiders. They will meet hunters, dancers, and even one little spider who lives up very high.

Night with a Not-Lizard: Impatient to study tuataras, a miniaturized Chris injures his leg, and he must use his skills, and the powers of the Tuatara, to avoid rats and other hungry predators to get back to the Tortuga.

#wild kratts #martin kratt #chris kratt #wild kratts fandom #2d kratt brothers #kratt

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wispstalk · 6 months

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devotion

a piece i intended for summerfest ft. martin and baurus. ~1200 words

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Among all the charcoal hatches and smudges there is a void. Blank white parchment, the color of death, roughly in the shape of an open book. Baurus could suggest the Xarxes’ contents with scribbles, but the blankness is intentional: a reflection of his own ignorance. What wondrous secret revelations are contained in this tome, the viewer might ask— then look to the troubled face above it.

The sketch just looks unfinished. A little too high-concept, perhaps, for his technical skill. Still, he’s happy with how he rendered the play of candlelight.

Working with light and shadow is new to him, a practice borne of the luxury of time. Baurus’s strength is faces. He can capture defining features in a few quick sweeps. He can work off the sparest description. It was how he led the Hero of Kvatch to Mankar Camoran— for all the good it did them.

He does not think himself an artist. It was only ever a casual hobby, a childhood fascination with what makes a face unique and what makes them all the same. Only when the spymaster caught him sketching his fellow trainees in the barracks did this habit take on value. Swordsmanship and tireless strength, the spymaster explained, are the least of a Blade’s talents. One must also cultivate the craft of observation.

After the Simulacrum, the Emperor saw schemes taking shape in every shadowy recess. Uriel wanted no more mysteries in his court. Every secret meeting, every tryst, every whispered conversation in the back of the council chambers: caught by a dissecting eye. Every visitor whose interest in the galleries or gardens was a little too keen. The idea was that if a plot arose, there might be a face to put to it, a moment captured, something to trace and therefore some way to get down to the why beneath the how.

(For all the good it did them.)

Now his duties are simple: he stands there, and he keeps watch. Or he did. Martin asked him (politely, stammering a little) if he would please stop looming. The Emperor’s trueborn sons were loomed over from cradle to grave; to them, the Blades were backdrop. This bastard heir, this farmer’s foundling, is not used to it.

So Baurus took the offered bench. Through this little crack in his discipline, the urge to fidget crept in.

(It took the heir some time to notice, but once he looked up while Baurus was doodling on a discarded scrap of paper. Martin made no comment, but extra rolls of parchment and proper charcoal sticks somehow made their way up the mountain in the Hero of Kvatch’s pack.)

So, as if it is his duty, Baurus keeps a record of the still mountain fastness where all fate hinges. Caroline’s hair ruffling in the wind as she takes off her helmet during a patrol. The complex gnarls of the Grandmaster’s fingers as he reaches to place a pin in his map. The Hero of Kvatch whipping in or out of the temple like a storm, all motion blur and restless shadow. Fortis and Pelagius out training in the sparring yard, the arc of an arm, the glint of pale Bruma sunlight on blunted steel.

But there is one conspicuous absence from his growing collection of faces. Their whole reason for being here. The very center of everything, and Baurus just can’t get it right.

He looks again at the sketch, and its subject. Furrowed brows pressed in thick dark hashes, smudges of shadow beneath the eyes, the stippling of three days’ stubble, a lock of hair twisted around a finger. A beleaguered patch above his right ear is beginning to thin from constant tugging. The gentle candle-glow does nothing to soften the jaw’s taut lines.

It’s a good sketch, from a technical standpoint. It’s true to life. Baurus crumples it and tosses it in the hearth.

“Your Grace?” he says softly. A little louder now: “Your Grace.” Nothing. So then, “…Martin?”

The heir to the throne jolts as if he stepped on a lightning rune. He drags the heels of his palms across bleary eyes and makes a noise like Buh?

“I wondered…” Baurus clears his throat to stifle the flush creeping up his neck. “I wondered if you wouldn’t mind sitting for a sketch.”

Martin blinks around the room, then points to himself. Baurus nods.

A shaft of sunlight splits the great hall, pouring in from those insecure high windows that Jena is always complaining about. Baurus frames up his hands and squints through them, and places a stool just so. After Martin eases himself down on stiff knees, his grimace remains.

“Your, er, you might not want to hold that expression for so long,” Baurus suggests.

“Ah.” Martin prods at his face as if the whole arrangement is new to him. “The first imperial portrait, isn't it? You'll have to take some liberties, I imagine. It falls to you to make me look wise and distinguished and pious and, ah— lordly, and all those things I ought to be.” He throws a sly grin over his shoulder. “And handsome. That’s an order, Bladesman. At least pretend I’ve combed my hair.”

As Baurus marks out loose shapes in negative space, he recalls the last portrait of Uriel ever commissioned. The painter had taken great care to hide the emperor’s age but gave him a certain jowly dignity. All the gravity of his years. Baurus, who was bodyguard to a very old man, saw what the painter had captured only once: when Uriel passed through the Hero of Kvatch’s cell and looked, unflinching, into the face of his own death.

The ghost of Uriel’s youth takes shape on the page. The curve of the nose in profile, the set of the jaw. But Baurus is careful not to diminish that which is all Martin’s own. The darker hue to his skin. His terrible posture, from all those hours bent to his translation. The fall of his hair, uncombed.

Baurus saves the eyes for last, scratching out faint suggestions first and coming back to tinker. His challenge, his crowning victory, will be to capture the eyes, the way Martin Septim now seems to see through the temple walls and track down the jagged mountain slopes, as if he slices open the thin skin of the world with his gaze.

Baurus works quickly, out of habit. He holds up his board to show the finished product. “It’s nothing worthy of the Ring Gallery,” he says, by way of apology.

Martin flicks his eyes up from the sketch. “The Ring Gallery?”

“The corridor outside the council chambers. It holds portraits of all the Emperors past. The most famous works, at least.”

“Oh. In the White-Gold Tower.” Martin gestures for a closer examination of the sketch. “I think it would suit me well. Picture it: all these grand frescoes, my vaunted ancestors writ larger than life, and then..." He lifts the drawing high in the air and flicks his wrist as if to slap it against a wall, this tiny piece of parchment with its dashed-off sketch. Baurus can't suppress a laugh, and the heir gives him one of those vague distant smiles. Never does he show his teeth. Always he looks as if he is keeping something back. "I'd rather have it for myself, though. Is that vain?”

“Of course not,” Baurus says reflexively, though something small crumples within him— he had hoped to add this to his collection.

The heir studies him. Picks him apart, translates whatever he finds beneath the mask of duty. “Terribly vain,” he decides, and hands it back.

#tes oblivion #martin septim #baurus #ray writes

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spacefinch · 2 months

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Magic School Bus/Wild Kratts crossover masterpost

Basically, @daiohficblog and I have been coming up with lots of headcanons that cross over the shows.

WARNING: This post is by no means organized.

How does everyone know each other?

First of all, Ms. Frizzle knows everyone. So of course she would know the Kratt brothers and the rest of the WK team (Aviva, Koki, and Jimmy).

The MSB kids are introduced to the Wild Kratts team during a whale-watching trip off the New England coast.

Phoebe's uncle, Dr. Cecil Byrd, is a traveling ornithologist from Australia and often bumps into the WK team.

Creature powers:

The kids all have their own creature power suits (which Aviva made them for Christmas one year).

Color schemes:

Phoebe: Red

D.A.: Violet (different from purple!!!)

Carlos: Dark blue

Tim: Cerulean

Ralphie: Green

Arnold: Yellow

Wanda: Pink

Keesha: Fuchsia/Magenta

Other hc's

Carlos and Mikey's sibling dynamic parallels Martin and Chris's dynamic. You have the older sibling who likes to goof off and the younger bro with slightly more brain cells.

First creature power the kids used:

Carlos and DA: Peregrine falcon

Ralphie, Arnold, and Phoebe: Red fox

Tim: Pine marten

Keesha: Rattlesnake

Wanda: Bullfrog

Family/pets/whatnot.

Phoebe and Ralphie are step-siblings in this universe. They also have the most pets:

Brandy (a grumpy old tortoiseshell cat). Dr. Tennelli (Ralphie's mom) adopted her before Ralphie was born. Former stray.

Joxter, a black-and-white tomcat. Brandy's son. Adventurous, but also lazy (rather like his namesake from the Moomin books). Good swimmer.

Renee and Megan: Two red foxes, rescued from a fur farm. Renee has the "normal" reddish-orange coat, and Megan is leucistic.

Jeanette: An old border collie (female). Another rescue.

Loretta: A black-and-white Newfoundland dog. 6 years old.

Charlie: a piebald ball python. (Not sure whether Charlie should be a boy or a girl.)

Fang: a male red-kneed tarantula belonging to Ralphie.

HC's continued (not in any particular order)

Carlos is very arachnophobic-- so he tries to avoid spiders at all costs. However, most other "scary" animals (sharks, crocodilians, snakes, bats, etc...) don't frighten him.

Martin and Chris have become somewhat of "elder sibling figures" for the kids.

Wanda is the water-lover of the MSB gang. She brings her snorkeling/scuba gear WHEREVER she goes.

Phoebe and Ralphie (AKA the Terese-Tennelli siblings) like to visit Ralphie's uncle Brian at the lake to go fishing. It's the same lake where the "Bass Class" fishing contest took place.

Uncle Brian (Dr. Tennelli's younger brother) is an expert fisherman.

In the fishing contest before the events of "Bass Class," Brian won first place in the local fishing contest, and Gavin came in third. Fortunately, Brian is a lot nicer about winning and losing than a certain cheater named Zach.

The WK kids of Frogwater Pond (Gavin, Ronan, Jenny, Katie, Aidan, and Nolan) are in this AU, and they know the MSB kids. (Since they know Phoebe and Ralphie, who come to their forest every summer).

Carlos has two younger siblings: Mikey (one year younger) and Maria (three years younger).

Mikey is a computer/tech prodigy, and as such, often helps Aviva with her inventions. He also makes his own inventions (for which Carlos is usually the test subject). He uses a wheelchair to get around.

Maria is the math expert of her siblings. She is also deaf and uses American Sign Language (ASL) to communicate.

Mikey might not be able to walk, but he's good at a lot of things: fishing, kayaking/canoeing, playing the piano, and more.

Phoebe and Carlos (the most avid birdwatchers of the MSB gang) have developed a "secret language" composed entirely of birdcalls. One key part of this language is that anyone using it has a birdcall that stands in for their name.

For instance, Phoebe's bird name is the eastern phoebe's song, while Carlos uses the northern cardinal's song for his name.

They also teach the birdcall language to Martin and Chris, who use the calls of the purple martin and pileated woodpecker, respectively. It does not go well.

Phoebe might seem harmless, but she isn't. She's been taking karate classes since she was little, and if you hurt any animals around her, RUN. In fact, she's rather like her avian namesake: small and unassuming, but a fighter through and through.

Wanda is even more of a fighter-- leading to the bird nerds in both crews comparing her to a kingbird.

The Ice Cream Run is a time-honored tradition of both the MSB gang and the Wild Kratts team. Some details:

The best Ice Cream Runs are at night. Everyone get in the car/bus/Tortuga and head for the ice cream store.

You do not want to interrupt the Ice Cream Run. Under ANY circumstances. (The WK villains learned this the hard way.)

Phoebe and Martin bond over the fact that they share their names with birds. (The eastern phoebe and purple martin, respectively.

Any time either of them sees one of those birds, they'll send each other a picture of said bird with the caption "this you?"

Wanda can pilot the Cheetah Racer and the Amphisub and the Buzz Bikes. She is not allowed in the Tortuga's cockpit.

Carlos can pilot most of the underwater vehicles (the Amphisub and the Manta sleds), but he always crashes the hoverbikes.

Mikey usually helps Koki with system maintenance of the Tortuga. (At least in the early days, when he's still learning how to make computer programs without any bugs.)

How each of the kids handles being captured by any of the WK villains:

Arnold: Carlos shows up and frees him. (The two of them are rock bros, and rock bros always have each others' backs.)

Carlos: Annoying them with horrible puns and messing with their tech.

DA: Smacks the villains with her books.

Keesha: Also resorts to punching.

Phoebe: Fury of the bird she's named after.

Ralphie: Smacks the villains with his baseball bat.

Tim: Escape artist.

Wanda: Crowbar to the face. (Nobody knows where she got the crowbar.)

Wanda has only been captured once. After that time, none of the villains dare to capture her again.

Pretty much all the MSB kids (Arnold included) will resort to violence or trickery if they're captured.

Carlos might be the goofball of the MSB gang, but he can switch into serious mode very quickly-- especially when one of his younger siblings or friends is in danger.

MSB kids from oldest to youngest: Carlos, D.A., Wanda, Tim, Keesha, Arnold, Ralphie, and Phoebe.

There is a 6-month age gap between Carlos (born in October) and Phoebe (born in April).

By contrast, the shortest age gap is between D.A. and Wanda, who were born one week apart in November.

Carlos's favorite creature power to use is peregrine falcon power-- to the point where he always keeps a falcon feather with him.

Tim is the climbing expert of the MSB gang. Wanda is the swimming expert.

Tim is also the only person in the "I Injured Myself Falling Out of a Tree" club (which comprises himself, Phoebe, Wanda, Carlos, and Chris) who has never broken a bone.

Every now and then, Carlos (dinosaur nerd) will contact the Tortuga to tell them he's seen a dinosaur. They know full well that he means birds.

Wanda rescues her pet bullfrog Bella from a shady pet store while Bella is still a tadpole.

As in the "Hopes Home" MSB episode, Bella escapes and goes off to live in the wild. However, Wanda can't help but worry about her.

HC that Bella escaped to Frogwater Pond, and the kids there keep an eye on her.

The "Gets Swamped" episode of MSB is also canon to this AU. After the events of that episode, the swamp Carlos helped save is made a nature preserve in his honor.

Carlos and Wanda are practically adopted twins, and they share a brain cell.

Wanda technically has two brothers, but she doesn't get along with them very well. She argues a lot with her older brother Henry (they both get on each others' nerves), and there isn't a lot she can do with her younger brother William.

Martin and Chris have substitute-taught Ms. Frizzle's class a few times. It ends up being just as chaotic (if not more so) than the days when the Friz is there.

This is all I have. Will post more headcanons if I think of more.

#magic school bus #wild kratts #headcanons #crossover #need a tag for this crossover #anyone have any ideas?

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charles-leclerc-official · 2 months

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2024 F1 Livery Ranking and Design Analysis

My ranking(from worst to best) and analysis of the liveries of our 2024 grid! All of the cars we will see on the track have been revealed and I have thoughts.

Liveries in 2024 have been a very mixed bag, there are some improvements, some standouts, and some massive misses. Let's get into it!

10. Alpine

Alpine is, to put it simply, a disaster. Not only is the car mostly exposed carbon fiber, the color that is there is chaotic and not cohesive at all. It's trying to do way too much with too little space. The pink stripes they were going for might have worked if that motif extended to more of the car, but since they are just snippets it only adds to the discordant appearance of the car.

The color at is on the car isn't cohesive, there isn't really a flow to it at all. It's like they just threw color on where they could and gave up.

Obviously the biggest downfall of this year's alpine is the lack of color and the excess of carbon fiber. It doesn't stand out, and the color they did have isn't used in a creative or appealing way.

The one positive I have to say is that I do like the shade of pink they chose as the most dominant pink on the car, it's nice, if there had just been more of it we might have been going somewhere with this design.

I am trying my hardest to ignore the fact that they also lied to us in the teasers for this car. I am ranking based on what we were actually given, and what we were given is extremely lacking in color and design quality.

This livery is trying to do way too much with so little space for actual paint and the result is a very messy appearance that is left looking unfinished.

9. Haas

Haas suffers from a lot of the same issues as Alpine, namely the excess of carbon fiber. However they actually managed to work with what they were given and made a car that isn't so bad to look at, even if it is far from fully painted.

The large logo on the side pod is cool looking and creates forward visual movement. The red/white/black color scheme works with the pops of color nicely distributed. One of the saving graces is the color on the halo. The white and red accents are nice, and you could be tricked into thinking they meant for the car to be all black and the bare carbon wasn't just a weight saving tactic.

The top down view is actually really interesting, it looks like a stingray or something from above, unfortunate we don't get to see it from the angle that much. But this does highlight that there is an overall cohesion to the design. The stripes, the distribution of the red, and the angular logo create pleasing visual momentum across the car. The line-work carries the eye across the design, which helps it feel complete as opposed to unfinished chaos.

My favorite part is the white halo, it actually looks really interesting against the black of the car, almost like a skull. Don't think I've seen that before on an F1 car and I have to say, I like it.

This at least distributed the few colors they had across the car in a way that created a cohesive looking car, even if it is quite bare. I look at this and it isn't just visual chaos. Someone put thought into how they were going to use the limited space, and the results are as good as I could ask.

8. Aston Martin

Aston Martin is another victim to carbon fiber. At first glance you get excited to see color, but the way they incorporated the carbon fiber is very noticeable and it detracts a lot.

The colors on this car are great, a nice rich cool green with the lime stripe, no complaints there.

But the issue I have with this car is the way the paint meets the carbon fiber. It is such a jarring transition that it makes the car look like it's slowly drowning in carbon fiber. It's too distracting from the color that is present. It's clunky to the point of being lazy. Just saying "eh we'll paint the top of the car and hope for the best"

The biggest design flaw here is the fact the dark green does not go all the way down to meet the lime line. That lime line should be the division between the paint and the carbon fiber, it's a natural break in the design, but that's not what happened and it looks breaks the flow of the design.

I have very mixed feelings on this one, because I like the color, this livery gets an A+ for actually having some nice color on the car. Unfortunately this is weighed down by the clunky incorporation of the carbon fiber.

There are better ways to get away with bare carbon fiber and still have a nicely flowing design on the car, and Aston Martin stumbled in that department.

7. Stake/Kick/Sauber

I know I didn't think I'd be ranking this above the Aston Martin but here we are. I'll admit I am not the biggest fan of this neon green. However, I have to say that the actual design elements that Stake did are pretty good.

I admit that I have a hard time not thinking this looks like a Minecraft creeper car. The green is different and it is unique, I don't think we've seen a neon green F1 car like this.

This one isn't so much about the exact color but about how it's used. Keeping the green concentrated on the middle and then having the zigzag line swoop under the side-pod carries the color across the car. The only color being this neon green is also a very wise choice, any other color would clash with this bright neon green, so keeping the palette simple green/black/white is essential for this to work at all.

Furthermore this design is actually about as good as it can be with this green. Even if it were possible to be a completely painted car, having the entire thing be bright green would be worse. The line-work highlighting the edges of the car give the illusion of a neon sign, which is exactly what you want to do with a loud color like this, lean into it the natural way, and that's exactly what Stake did.

The green on the front wing is probably my favorite part, it just pops, and looks really cool from the front angle.

A major missed opportunity is the halo really should be neon green, but instead they painted the seat green. That isn't as visible, the halo highlighted in this neon green would be awesome, and I am not sure why they didn't do that.

Now the line work is pretty good, HOWEVER, that zigzag is a bit of a problem. Yes I know i said it creates movement, and it does, but that doesn't mean it's without issues. That line crates harsh 90 degree angles in places on the car where those angles don't exist. It's working against the natural flow of the body of the car not with it. This interrupts the overall look of the car and breaks up and otherwise easy to follow motif of the green lines highlighting the edges of the car.

What set them above Aston for me is the way they had the green spread across the car, with the lines creating flow. Yes there is exposed carbon fiber, but it isn't as glaring because of the color placement and lines. The Aston design almost draws attention to the excess carbon fiber, while this one distracts from it.

All this being said, that doesn't mean this car is the easiest thing to look at. They did the best with what they were given, but this isn't a car that makes me want to look at it for very long.

6. Williams

Williams is fine. It's not amazing, it's not committing any sins either.

There is more paint on this car than I was expecting and that is a welcome surprise.

This is a good simplification of last year's livery. Only two blues, and minimal line work. It's clean and simple. I like the royal blue they used, that is really pretty, especially on the nose. The navy though is way too dark. In a season with a lot of dark/black cars why would you go with a blue that is so dark on the car? Red Bull does navy too, but it's clear that's what it is. I think this might be a tactic to try to hide where the carbon fiber begins, but it kind of backfired.

Of course they kept the clever and iconic Duracell sponsor placement, I love this little detail because it's just such a fun way to include an advertisement on a car. That and the copper color does work beautifully with William's blue.

I like the criss-cross that the color divide creates mid car, that could have been jarring, but it isn't and it actually brings that little bit of added visual interest.

The gradient at the back to nearly black is the biggest problem with the coloring for me. That navy really needed to be different for this car to stand out.

From the front this car does look great, beautiful blue, fully painted. There are some missteps but they aren't awful. This livery is playing it safe, but it's overall pretty good.

5. Racing Bulls(VCARB)

Probably my most controversial placement. But hear me out, while at first glance this livery is good, it made one massive color design error that I cannot overlook.

That would be the color of blue they chose as the main blue for the car. Does it look familiar? Well I disliked this as soon as I saw it and there is a reason why.

This VCARB blue is almost identical to the infamous "blue screen of death" This is a blue that has been shown to be upsetting to people because of the negative association. Artists and designers stay away from it because it is jarring and people will dislike it on sight. Never use blue screen of death blue, at least not as the main color, because it's impossible to ignore.

I color sampled so you can see just how close they are. The VCARB blue is only slightly more muted, and it's not enough to save it. If you were wondering why you didn't like this blue, this is probably the reason.

There is a reason you never see this specific blue used in such large amounts.

I might have put this livery in the top 3, but this is a very basic misstep color wise that brands should know.

The other nitpick I have is that the stripes somehow don't create flow. Because they start and stop they create more of a static checkerboard effect when viewed from the front that I am not in love with. I don't think it's terrible though, more of a preference thing. The stripes on the side profile do work nicely, if only that sleekness carried when the car was seen from other angles.

Some highlights about the car: it is bright and fully painted, and the color additions of the red and white are nicely distributed and feel natural. This car does have a fully cohesive design. The white bull on the engine intake is the best part. It stands out beautifully and compliments the directionality of the VISA logo on the side pod.

I also love the color on the halo, the blue and the red really make it pop and that is another standout feature to me. Might be the best halo coloring on the grid if I'm being fair, I really love the use of the two colors on it.

Overall the layout of the car is great, the fact that it's fully painted is fantastic, if it were a different blue this would be an amazing livery.

4. Mclaren

Mclaren are going for a clear theme this year and it could have been a disaster, but I think it works!

This is the car that incorporates black into the livery color scheme better than any others so far (second only to Mercedes)

Orange is a tricky color to work with. Since they are going with full bright papaya having the black to contrast is the best way to lean heavily into this orange. Of course some of it is carbon fiber, but because the black is worked into the look, and the brightness of the orange is so prominent, it's the least noticeable.

Color on the halo! I do love when the bright colors are on the halo and they went there, which is a nice detail. They also did a similar look to Sauber with the coloring on the front wing, but that ribbing effect looks even better with the orange.

The large black diagonal stripe is actually great. It's angled enough to create that visual momentum we like to see on these cars, and it's not so big that it detracts from the color.

Another reason the black works here is because it helps the sponsors stand out, those would get completely lost if the entire car was that papaya. So this really is the best way to get as much orange, create contrast, while also allowing those sponsors to be clearly visible.

Two details that are great would be the little Mclaren logo on the very tip of the nose, and the orange kiwi on the rear wing. Both nice touches for the brand.

This car does look a little more lacking on color when viewed completely from the side, but that front profile and top and 3/4 profile are bright and they pop.

There are some black spaces that are clunky around the top of the sidepods, part of the halo and a few other small areas where it's clear they couldn't paint more. Just those little areas where it feels like they got 90% of the way done painting it then just stopped are what took this one out of the top 3 for me

3. Red Bull

I really am a little annoyed at having to put Red Bull here because I think if the Mclaren or the Aston had more/better color distribution they would have beat it. However this is a classic and there are some things to discuss.

Yes this livery has been the same for years, but let's get into the details.

It's sleek, painted, the color is clear and nicely distributed. This design hasn't changed much at all but there are some differences from last year.

First the sponsor placements are better, fit more naturally with the changes to the sidepods.

This is also probably the car that does look best with the matte paint, the navy is dark without making it look like it's black, or god forbid carbon fiber.

The reason this livery is so pleasing is the the two rich primaries of the golden yellow and red contrast with the deep navy. It keeps the color palette simple, allows for some very beautiful contrast, and keeps the livery colorful even though the main color is quite dark. The bright yellow nose reflects the yellow on the engine cover, and all of the red details create great pops of color.

The red and the yellow for this year's car are brighter, which is a welcome change, the brightening of the yellow is the most noticeable and the biggest improvement. Really helps bring the car to life.

The only real problem I have with this livery isn't so much the livery as much as the way it fits on the new car. The red bull on the engine cover is a classic part of the design. However since the engine cover and intake was redesigned for this new car, it's lower, so the bull is a little cut off and squished, you can't see all of the bull's legs or part of its face anymore. So in keeping with the same design they have sacrificed a little bit of clarity. This would have been solved by shrinking the size of the bull by a small margin, or moving the bull forward a little. Since it's the main brand I would have expected them to be a little more careful with how it's displayed on the car.

Side by side you can see how the changes to the engine cover drastically altered the way the bull is able to be displayed, and this is a downgrade, especially since that bull is such an important part of the car.

There is carbon fiber on this car. But it is very minimal and discrete. Red Bull does also have the advantage of being able to better hide carbon fiber because they go with such a dark body color to begin with, the places where it goes from paint to bare fiber aren't as noticeable.

If other liveries didn't have so many issues(especially with being fully painted) this would be lower. Unfortunately not this year.

Overall this is a good livery, why change what's working? The colors are brighter, and it's simple.

TOP 2

Okay, from here onward I don't really have any serious issues with the liveries, these are just beautiful and it comes down to small details and some personal preferences.

2. Mercedes

I didn't think I was going to love this year's Mercedes livery as much as I do, but here we are.

This is a gorgeous car, maybe one of my favorites from Mercedes. Silver is a tricky color to work with and sometimes they go too far with it, but this is closer to perfect.

First the nose design is gorgeous, the silver framed by the teal is just stunning. It serves to highlight the body of the car, brings back the "silver arrow"

And then we have the gradient from silver to black on the car. But the black isn't just blank it has the Mercedes logo artistically arranged there, it almost looks like stars. That is so clever and actually makes amazing use of black coloring.

The unbroken teal stripe framing the silver and tapering down the side pod is sleek, it carries the color across the body of the car, that is how you do it. Simple, elegant.

Then we get to that deep cherry red. There is just enough of it in little pops on the rest of the car to work with the main red on the air intake.

These four colors are balanced so nicely against each other, the pops of red, with the teal to frame everything set against the main black and silver of the body.

This car also stands out to me as one that looks different, but amazing from varying angles. The side profile is very different than the front, but in a way that makes you go "ooohhhh that's so cool".

This design probably has my favorite driver number placement and design for the nose of the car. It just fits so perfectly, like I cannot find fault with it.

It's sleek, it's got color, it's brought us back to that Mercedes silver. I think this is a worthy livery for Lewis' last year at Mercedes.

1 . Ferrari

Yes this is a Ferrari blog. Yes I am putting Ferrari at number one. Sue me. But I wouldn't put Ferrari here unless it earned it. This could have been awful, and if it was I would say so. I have my critic's integrity to uphold after all.

To put it simply - she is beautiful.

Ferrari delivered a gorgeous red car that incorporates so many details that celebrate the brand, they added richness to the color, reduced the amount of carbon fiber, and made a car that you WANT to look at.

There is a lot to love here, I want to start with the red. This shade of red is very different than last year, it's warmer, richer, deeper. And it makes the car feel more luxurious. It's a red worthy of the name Ferrari.

The difference is really noticeable. They deepened it to this gorgeous cherry red.

This red on it's own would be amazing, but the deep color allows for incredible contrast with the yellow and white lines. A brighter red would clash and not contrast well, but this red does it perfectly. It's also a warm red, so when placed along side the golden yellow that warmth is magnified and the whole color palette becomes cohesive.

Enough about the red let's talk about the stripes. Yellow and white, two classic Ferrari colors. Especially the yellow, that is Ferrari and it's nice to see it highlighted a little more on a car that is always classically red. The white adds more pop and highlight to it.

The of course the lines themselves are placed to give a beautiful visual flow across the body of the car. The lines create this pleasing movement for the eye, that wouldn't be there if the car was just one solid color.

And this is how you know the lines are placed well, because they create that movement when the car is viewed from the side AND from above.

And this brings me to one of my favorite details. The stripes on the rear-wing! It's just such a nice touch to continue the yellow and white line motif and add color to every part of the car. It frames the rear wing beautifully.

And the Ferrari name over that red with the stripes to cap it off, perfection.

Another detail I LOVE is the Italy tricolor on the front of the nose. The tricolor has been on the car before, but it's usually on the side, this one being a little bigger and front and center brings that Italian pride that is an integral part of Ferrari.

Another great front wing detail is the way the red from the body flows seamlessly into that flap is so satisfying. It really makes this look like one whole car that is all red and that is important for a Ferrari.

The carbon fiber on the design is hidden expertly, in the bathtub dips, which follows the natural curves of the car, and is an angle rarely seen. All of the carbon fiber is exposed at points on the car that cast natural shadow, so it would be darker there anyway. It makes the fact that it isn't painted far less noticeable, and thus it doesn't take away from the design by drawing the eye(unlike Aston Martin's approach)

The main reason I put her above the Mercedes is the bright color. This is a car that stands out on the track(Ferrari always does, and 2024 is no different) Also its line work is a little bit better, more three dimensional and it carries it's motif across more of the car.

It's red, it's sleek, it's rich, it's beautifully painted, it is Ferrari.

So those are all my thoughts and my ranking. Disagree? Feel free to let me know your favorite. I think there are details and colors to love on all of these cars.

I cannot wait to see them on the track in Bahrain!

#lucis essays #lucis f1 rankings #2024 liveries #i am a professional artist so I do know what I am talking about at least a little #formula 1 #f1 #scuderia ferrari

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8fwd · 3 months

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McLaren's 2024 Pumpkin Can't Be a Lemon

McLaren got the jump on everyone this year by being the first team to officially launch; while not a car, their 2024 livery. While not the most colorful F1 machinery McLaren has ever produced; I find myself missing their beautiful 2020 challenger, the new Papaya and Black scheme leads to a menacing almost Halloween vibe, while still being true to the modern McLaren brand of the Zak Brown Era.

And speaking of the brand, I cannot help but feel this surprise mid-january reveal was down to the fact that all McLaren factory racing efforts this year look to be standardized in terms of livery, and getting that first bit of F1 news out for the new year, and with their new ‘Whatever it takes’ mantra seemed like a no brainer if the cat was already out of the bag with the start of the Formula E season in Mexico a few weeks ago.

And on that new motto, I can’t help but feel this sense of confidence from every move McLaren is making right now. Compared to last year’s funeral of a car launch, where expectations were dashed and heads were hung low, the team feels excited and confident with every move they make.

Despite a slow start last season, 2023 turned into a beautiful year for McLaren, becoming the second fastest team on the grid post-summer break. Lando Norris continued to show brutal speed and consistency across races, and rookie Oscar Piastri showed exactly why he was worth all that fuss in 2022, all while avoid pitfalls we’ve seen other rookies hit in their maiden seasons

Now, after a grueling start and spectacular end to last year’s campaign, the Woking outfit looks to carry that momentum forward to 2024. And they have shiny new toys to try to help, like their brand new wind tunnel, freeing them from using TMG’s excellent, but outdated facility in Cologne. Combine that with new simulators to better help correlation before hitting the track with new upgrades, and McLaren’s new technical team looks to have the right tools to fight at the front.

While a shock Monza win in 2021 broke broke an almost decade long winless streak, and with a few close calls later that season, the 2022 ground effect regulations threw a wrench in the team’s recovery, and big promises came with reinvestment in the team that followed that disappointing first year of the new rules. And while 23 came good in the end, continued growth must be shown, even if the team isn’t immediately challenging for the title this year.

McLaren now needs to deliver, and keep showing that any upward ticks in form aren’t just solely the result of other teams missing their mark. They cannot repeat last year, and they also cannot afford to slid backward throughout the season like Aston Martin did last time out. If any team is to escape the F1 midfield, McLaren needs to not just show they’re ready, but show that they are capable of capitalizing on the new, more equitable F1 landscape.

#f1 #McLaren F1 #McLaren Racing #Formula 1 #F1 News #F1 Opinion #2024 F1 #F1 2024 #F1 Fandom #Original Content

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triskhellion · 6 months

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15 Shades of Red

Rated: Explicit (3.5k | WIP 1/18)

Relationships: Derek/Stiles, Stiles & Isaac, Derek & Malia, Derek & Isaac, The Family, background Boyd/Erica, Lydia/Jackson/Danny, Heather/Kira

Characters: Stiles Stilinski, Derek Hale, Isaac Lahey, Lydia Martin, Malia Tate, Talia Hale, Peter Hale, Erica Reyes, Vernon Boyd, Kira Yukimura, Heather, Cora Hale, Laura Hale, Matt Daehler, Braeden, etc.

Tags: POV Stiles, POV Derek, Graphic Violence, Mob AU, Spark Stiles, Omega Derek, Mob Boss Stiles, Mob Boss/Pack Alpha Talia, Creeper Stiles, Power Imbalance, Sharing a Bed, Touch-Starved Derek, Getting Together, Angst & Fluff & Smut, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Obsessive Behavior, Possessive Behavior, Blood, Kidnapping, Torture, Past Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Minor Character Deaths, Explicit Sexual Content, (Mostly) Bottom Derek/Top Stiles, Virgin Derek, Light BDSM, Praise Kink, Dirty Talk, Knotting, First Time Bottoming, Murder Husbands, Mpreg (in epilogue,) Happy Ending.

Summary: Derek is the 23 year old omega son of Alpha Boss Talia Hale, the only non-alpha born to the Hales in at least four generations. Restricted by his overprotective mother after a past kidnapping and misunderstood by the alphas and betas of the Pack, he longs for more than the boring life he's been consigned to and the suitors only interested in him for his name or body.

Stiles became the head of the Stilinski branch of the Gajoš Family at 19 after both of his parents were gunned down six years apart. With the help of a talented group of friends, the secret Spark with a newly powerful and disturbing Gift took down a slew of rivals to keep control of his territory in Beacon City. Now 21, the infamous Boss with a love for the color red is suddenly given an opportunity to bring the object of his affection, a completely oblivious Derek, into his Family as restitution for an unintended, but significant offense by the Hale Pack. He takes it.

Equiknots: Harvest & Hunter's Moon prompts: 18, Between, Corn Equal, Hunter, Knot, Sanguine, Spice, Super & Travel

Stiles

His cool, calm, and collected demeanor was at odds with the anxiety and anticipation roiling inside. Stiles learned years ago to school his facial expressions, to quiet the fingers that itched to drum on any surface, the feet to tap, or a leg to bounce. At least in public. There were the odd lapses, yes, but he couldn’t afford that today. He had to be the Boss, play the unbothered Blade of infamy.

Of course, the facade alone wouldn’t be worth a damn while in the company of werewolves, but he had other tricks up his sleeve. Or more accurately, hanging from a simple black cord around his neck; the thin, metallic, rune-marked disc the size of an old silver dollar resting flush against his sternum and tucked beneath layers of clothing. A white sleeveless v-neck under a long-sleeved red dress shirt, the shade of which he often used to signal his mood or the tone of the day’s business. (But not always, it wouldn’t do to be completely predictable, not to mention that circumstances often turned on a dime.)

Today he wore a vibrant scarlet, including a matching tie, with his signature charcoal gray 3-piece suit. Bold and triumphant for this was a momentous occasion. Stiles doubted he could’ve engineered a better opportunity himself than the one poised to fall into his lap. Hopefully literally in the not-too-distant future if he played his cards right.

And to think this had all been set into motion by sheer happenstance after more time than he cared to admit spent daydreaming trying to scheme up some kind of proper introduction over the past few years. But there was always some reason why it wasn’t a good time or likely to backfire if not cause a capital I Incident. There was also the part of him that would rather be able to keep his fantasy alive than risk the possibility of being shot down (and not only figuratively.)

But then eleven days ago his childhood best friend, Scott McCall, had been Bitten by Peter Hale.

The werewolf had been out of his mind at the time, drugged by a pretty face working for a rogue Calavera with some specialized strain of wolfsbane and made to go temporarily feral. An excuse for Hunters to “justifiably” attack the powerful Pack no doubt. Without his human side in charge to temper his ambitions — he was strong enough to become a Pack Alpha himself if he’d wanted to — the Left Hand of the Hales went looking for someone to Bite. His first Beta.

For some baffling reason he’d ended up going for Scott when he came across the veterinary student, who was entirely unsuitable for “the life,” walking with a date in the park. The terrified 21 year old managed to call Stiles just before he was actually attacked and when he was found by Isaac in some bushes soon after, bloody but healing, the Boss and Enforcer both knew exactly what was happening.

Isaac had been turned without consent himself several months before, but that Alpha had meant it as punishment for some slight, thinking either Stiles would turn on the new wolf or be killed by him. Instead he restrained Isaac with his power, threw him in a basement room, and slapped a silence rune on it. Then he made a concealment token to keep the change in status under wraps. They quietly figured it out with help from Alpha Satomi Ito, an old friend of Stiles’ mother, and once the blue-eyed wolf had learned enough control they took care of that asshole themselves.

It didn’t escape his notice that despite all of Scott’s issues with him following in his parents footsteps that it had been Stiles that he had called when his life was on the line. So it goes. They’d started growing apart after his mother was killed and the rift between them widened as they continued going through very different experiences. No matter how many times he tried to explain the concept of a power vacuum — that even if he, or previously his father, had wanted to run away from it all that more people would actually be hurt if they did so — Scott just couldn’t understand.

And so Stiles never even considered trying to bring him into to fold or tell him about Isaac being a wolf too. That he could find a pack here or that there were even ways to stick around without one. He called up Satomi and she had him on the way to some sleepy college town in Virginia within a handful of days.

Honestly, the whole situation was for the best for both of them. Scott could go be uncomplicated and enjoy his new lack of asthma with a laid back pack on the other side of the country and Stiles wouldn’t have to worry about him not being part of the Family, but possibly being targeted as an associate. There’d be no more sending anyone to babysit him from afar as he ambled about sketchy parts of Beacon City blissfully unaware of not being mugged either.

And so here he was. The Hales had contacted him apologetically once they realized what had happened and to whom and he’d let them stew for a few days before responding.

The barest smirk tugged at his lips as he observed the Alpha Heir, Laura Hale, attempt to discreetly scent his emotions, her nostrils flaring slightly as she feigned engrossment with the large painting taking up much of the wall behind his side of the table. The imagery of the Crooked Forest in Nowe Czarnowo on a misty morning was both deeply meaningful for him and an interesting conversation piece for the relatively few guests allowed within these walls. It would likely be quite some time before those gathered here returned again, if ever.

His amusement increased at the wrinkle deepening between her brows when she picked up nothing at all, huffing and turning to side-eye the short red-headed woman speaking with her younger sister, Cora, at the other end of the room. As far as those outside the Inner Circle of the Family knew (or Great Eight as Erica insisted,) Lydia Martin was the Stilinski emissary and responsible for any of their mage craft.

Dearest Lydia was indeed their emissary, his representative in matters both supernatural and mundane. She did also possess magic, though the exact nature of her abilities — that she was a banshee — was yet another closely guarded secret. But it was Stiles himself that created their magical implements, set their wards and, when need be, used his significant abilities to eliminate their threats.

The only people who’d witnessed him in action, enraged and eyes shining the rich burgundy of venous blood, were his most trusted Family and the soon to be dispatched recipients of said power. (The occasional innocent bystander didn’t count because their memories of the event would be wiped clean. He wasn’t entirely amonster.)

Aware of how requesting attendance by the entire Hale family, lowercase f, would seem an insultingly blatant trap he had sent a blood-spelled letter witnessed and effected by a Notary Mage. He, Isaac, and Lydia — the Head, the Hand, and the Voice of the Stilinski Family — had pricked their thumbs with the small ceremonial dagger and bled beside their signatures on the thick parchment, swearing that there'd be no violence against the Hales by them or those in their service, or with their foreknowledge, on pain of death.

For a span of 7 hours, equally before and after the meeting’s start time of noon, they could not strike. Unless the Hales attacked first, of course. They weren’t idiots.

Stiles still hadn’t been sure that they would come though, perhaps insisting on meeting in neutral territory instead. He would’ve agreed to that if he had to, but this made things so much simpler. More contained and less prone to erupt in violence or involve outside parties.

The Stilinskis and Hales weren’t formal allies, but they weren’t enemies either. Some minor altercations between underlings aside they had no quarrel with each other, even cooperating when their interests aligned from time to time or giving a heads up about some mutual rival.

The officiated blood-spell must’ve been enough for the Hale’s own emissary, Druid Alan Deaton to proclaim them safe enough even within another organization’s stronghold. The placid Black man in a forest green suit was currently observing everything from the sidelines and also keeping tabs on Lydia in particular. If he only knew.

In addition, they were allowed to bring a dozen soldiers with then; three were currently posted inside the room, two outside the door, and the other seven were split between the front and back entrances and on standby with their vehicles. He also knew, courtesy of his tech wizard, Danny, and head of security, Boyd, that the Steiner twins (jokingly referred to as Arts & Entertainment) were waiting with a small arsenal just beyond the property line about half a mile away in case things went south.

The heirloom oak and bronze grandfather clock chimed out the hour and the gathered werewolves turned to him expectingly, but he only looked toward the door and went back to reading the papers spread before him. With every minute after noon the tension grew and at 12:07pm Peter Hale finally broke the silence.

“Apologies,” he said, tone making clear that he wasn’t the one who should offer them. “But if we could start…”

Stiles raised an eyebrow. “Everyone hasn’t arrived yet.”

The four Hales looked at each other with surprise and discomfort. The druid’s gaze sharpened.

“You mean Derek and Malia? But wh—“ Peter began.

“Was the invitation not clear?”

“Yes, but they’re not really involved in this level of business,” said Laura, looking towards her mother as the Hale Alpha merely stared at him in silence.

Oh, I’m aware he thought disapprovingly, eyes intentionally flickering to the not-yet-18 year old Cora.

“Nevertheless, this matter affects them as well,” Stiles said, wearing what he hoped was a small, pleasant smile. “So if you could have them come per our agreement—”

“We would greatly appreciate it,” added Lydia, trying to soften the sharpness of his tone and keep things from devolving already.

The dark haired sisters shared an annoyed look as Peter sat tight-lipped in his seat. After several moments Talia broke eye contact and nodded to Laura. The Heir pulled out her phone and sent a few texts, snorting a minute later at the response.

“They said they could get here in about 25 minutes, but only by coming straight from the gym.”

Isaac looked over to him and chuckled.

“We promise not to take offense,” Stiles said, quickly banishing the thought of a flexing, sweat drenched Derek before it could fully form. “Refreshments will be served shortly in the meantime.”

He stood and nodded to Liam who’d been waiting near the entrance for any requests and the young soldier hurried to the kitchen.

“Excuse me while I attend to a few things in my office. Feel free to explore the library in the drawing room,” he said, gesturing to go through the archway on the right side and across the hall.

He walked over to Isaac on his way out. “Come get me when they arrive.”

Derek

He was at the power rack about to attempt a new single max low back squat when his and Malia’s phones chimed simultaneously. Always a good sign, Derek thought sarcastically as he let out a long sigh. What now?

His cousin, who had been racing on an elliptical nearby like an angry T1000 with John Connor in its sights, hopped off and grabbed her phone and water bottle as he continued to fume about the interruption, sure that his workout would be cut short.

Coming to the gym, like running beta shifted or blasting his music, was how he took the edge off the unmet needs and burned through the negative emotions that he lived with as a matter of course. The regular focus, control, and clearing of his mind also made it that much easier to mute the “outgoing” of his bonds and hide his interior world from the Pack’s scrutiny. Their well meaning, but frequently misapplied concern, especially his mother’s.

“They need us at the Stilinski meeting as soon as possible,” she said after reading the message.

Derek groaned and made a point of completing his lift, though his form was shaky in his annoyance. He’d heard of the letter “requesting” they all attend, but last night when he asked what time he should be ready to go he’d been assured that their presence wasn’t necessary. His presence, really. If she weren’t his usual bodyguard he bet they’d have taken Malia along. It wasn’t that he particularly wanted to go, but he resented being summarily excluded. Again.

Growing up, Derek had never felt like a stereotypical alpha and being months past his 16th birthday he’d been worried about presenting as a beta, who tended to take longer to reveal their secondary sex than alphas did. Not because he thought there was anything was wrong with betas, but because he knew what it would mean in his family. He didn’t want to be different. Othered.

Not once though did he imagine that he could be an omega. Between Hale genetics being what they were and the rarity of omegas in general (and male ones in particular) it was so beyond the realm of possibility that that particular fear hadn’t even crossed his mind. Then came that first humiliating heat.

Derek had been playing video games in the den downstairs when it started, not recognizing the first symptoms. Feeling just a bit off he’d taken a nap on the couch only to wake up a few hours later confused and burning up. Simultaneously very uncomfortable and extremely horny, not to mention damp where he’d never been before. It was frightening.

Ten year old Cora had wandered in to play with her action figures and been alarmed to see him sweaty and groaning and yelled that he looked really sick. Peter had been the first to investigate and after several moments of shock had started laughing and offered to find him a “knotty boy” in front of his now present and scandalized mother.

He’d ended up locked inside an interrogation room with an inflatable mattress and some sheets and a blanket. Laura ran out to hastily purchase some random toys for him and then put them inside with snacks and water, but no one came around to make sure he ate or drank for longer than was healthy. They hadn’t known better.

Every wolf born in the past four generations of the main Hale family, all 30 of the 37 descendants of his great-grandfather Desmond Hale who had presented before him, had been alphas. (So had the three since.) The only non-alphas in their bloodline had been the mates of those born Hales, mostly betas and a handful of alpha-alpha pairs. There were just two omegas over that time frame: the wife of one of his second cousins and a deceased great uncle-in-law.

His beta father, Aaron, had been “blamed” for the anomaly having had an omega grandfather as well as a baby brother and two female cousins in his family. He’d died from smoke inhalation saving a handful of strangers from a house fire several years before Derek presented and had been cut off from his family when he mated the infamous Talia Hale, so they’d had no close and trusted source of advice and firsthand information. Oh, they’d read articles and browsed web forums and asked Deaton (who was not at all well versed in the subject) about it, but his family simply hadn’t really known what to do with any omega, much less a male one.

They’d muddled through, but not without plenty of scars to show for it, mostly on Derek’s end. All of the times when they treated him differently and shouldn’t have, especially after he was kidnapped at 17 by a gang led by a supernatural-hating fanatic.

His mother had been overprotective before then, but when they got him back — bruised and traumatized, but before the worst had happened — he could barely take a piss without someone hovering nearby.

Derek was steered away from or outright denied any position that might put him “at special risk” as an omega, which was practicality everything of rank or actually interesting. He would not be trained to be Laura’s Second as was customary for the next born nor sent on missions or even errands. If he were more technologically inclined he could’ve worked his way up in Intelligence, but torrenting foreign tv shows and troubleshooting the wifi were about the extent of his abilities. Anything related to their less-than-legal operations were off-limits as well. Unsafe.

No, Derek’s contribution to the Pack was in “Procurement and Supply Management,” i.e. making sure that the Manor and their other private or commercial properties never ran out of pasta or printer ink or toilet paper and that the lights stayed on. He also sometimes floated around filling in for members in Document Control or Internal Mail or did grunt work for the accountants. Sterile and boring.

Conversely, the one area where they should’ve taken his omega status into account they regularly failed to do so. Acted as if the same level of physical bonding and affection they normally engaged in would be enough for him. At least some of the pack had learned that omegas required more, knew that intellectually, but habits being as they were it generally hadn’t been the case in practice.

After getting met with annoyed glances or told that someone would come by later and have them never show he simply stopped asking after a while. Cuddling with his sisters once or twice a week while watching movies or tv shows and the occasional touches from his mother had kept him going, but he’d been low to mid-level touch starved much of the time and occasionally worse.

Since presenting Derek always felt at least somewhat apart from the pack as whole. He’d been teased by Peter and the beta soldiers, Aidan and Ethan, who often accompanied him before Malia was of age. He’d overheard certain comments from several others and withdrew even further inside himself, becoming more and more skilled at locking himself away.

What was the point of letting on exactly how dissatisfied and disconnected he felt? Things wouldn’t actually change, there’d just be some grumbling and there-theres and attempts to fix him instead of the situation.

Things had definitely improved when Malia arrived and had been amenable to random cuddling, but he still held himself back from doing it as often as he wanted to in fear of being a burden.

No one had been more surprised that Peter had a child than the playboy wolf himself, an alpha coyote-wolf hybrid that had long since been abandoned by her mother. She’d been a hellion of a street kid, causing all sorts of mischief and lashing out while trying to survive, until one day she’d ended up hauled in before the crew leader in charge of protection.

There was something about her, perhaps certain notes in her scent or something vaguely familiar in her appearance or manner, that gave Finstock pause before delivering the standard beating — non-life threatening or severely damaging — for a shifter her age. The wild-haired Bitten wolf was eccentric and prone to randomly bringing up his lost testicle, but had an uncanny sense about things and kept order in the streets, neither too soft nor overly cruel. Inquires were made, fingerprints and DNA ran, and surprise, congratulations, it was a bouncing baby snarling 16 year old Hale!

It didn’t take long for her and the then 19 year old Derek to gravitate towards each other, coming from two very different upbringings, but both outsiders in their own way. Malia was trained up and when she turned 18 became his primary bodyguard and the rest was history.

“C’mon, lets’s bounce,” she said, poking him in the shoulder. “ASAP means ASAP.”

“ASAP also means no shower or change of clothes,” Derek growled, lamenting that Hale Manor was in the opposite direction. He could’ve been there as presentable and on time as everyone else, but nooo. The most he could do was towel off some and slather on the deodorant he had in his bag.

“They’ll just have to deal,” she replied, shrugging. Her lack of concern for propriety was one of the many things he loved about her, but the rules were different for him. Oh well, the only wolves there would be family so perhaps he wouldn’t get that kind of shit for it. Hopefully the Stilinskis had been informed in advance and wouldn’t take their appearance as a slight.

“I guess so,” he muttered, wiping the barbell down quickly before tossing the towel in the used bin. They headed outside and he unlocked the black Camaro in the spot upfront reserved for him. Sliding behind the wheel, he strapped in and started it up as Malia pulled up the directions on her phone. Here we go.

#sterek #sterek fanfic #equiknots #trisk #equiknots trisk

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justsome-di · 1 year

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Nobody Ends Up Dead in a Bathtub, Everyone Keeps Their Organs: Chapter 12

Summary: Alex is an ordinary, highly-introverted office worker. He clocks in and out and goes home to his little apartment he shares with his younger sister. He hasn’t dated in years. Until his co-workers set him up on a blind date.

The only issue is he and his date are not on the same page. At all.

While Alex thinks it’s a normal date, Damián is under the impression Alex is a client who paid to be there. No-so-quickly, they realize something is up. It’s all a prank. Damián is a sex worker Alex’s co-workers hired as a sick joke.

After reassuring that they’re both okay, Alex decides he wants revenge for both him and Damián. The plan is to use the stigma of sex work and start a 6-week, scandalous fake dating scheme with a big finale at the office Halloween party. Alex’s co-workers will be too horrified to try to prank him again. At least, that’s the plan.

You can also read this on AO3, or Patreon (patrons also get chapters a week early along with bonus content). If you’re enjoying the story and want to support me in other ways, I do have a ko-fi! Or consider dropping me a message in my inbox or reblogging this post!

Alex and Damián were set to meet Martin and his wife uptown at 6, and Alex was stuck in the worst dilemma anyone could have been caught in before going out to a new place with new people.

He had no idea what to wear.

His wardrobe and dressers were open and terrorized in his feat to find something that didn’t look like he was about to head to the office. But the thing about not leaving the apartment except to go to work was that a lot of his clothes were for work. He didn’t want a business casual ensemble, and he didn’t want to repeat his outfit from his last fake date.

He couldn’t believe his wardrobe was so barren. It was just a series of button-up tops of different colors and patterns.

There was one top—short sleeves, collar, dark blue with little white arrows up and down it—that he briefly thought looked nice. But after examining himself in the mirror a little too long, he thought it looked a little too casual. Short sleeves probably weren’t appropriate attire if the date was at some semi-swanky restaurant.

A pile of clothes on Alex’s bed grew with his frustration. Was he one of those helpless men who couldn’t get dressed? No. He took clothes seriously. He was just in a pickle at the moment. A new social situation called for a new outfit, and it wasn’t his fault he was so unprepared for it. He wasn’t going to let himself spiral so early in the evening.

Damián was just going to make the situation worse. No matter what, Damián was going to show up as handsome as ever, and sitting next to him, Alex was guaranteed to look mediocre.

But if anyone was going to have any advice on how to dress, it would be Damián who surely had an outfit for every potential social situation.

I don’t know what to wear, Alex texted Damián.

Wear whatever you’re comfortable in.

Alex wasn’t sure yet if Damián’s periods meant something passive-aggressive or if he was just a stickler for punctuation. He quickly scrolled through their previous texts. Damián always seemed to put periods and commas in the right spot when he wasn’t over-using exclamation marks. Okay. He wasn’t mad at Alex. Alex could continue.

What are you wearing?

A selfie was sent through in record time. Damián stood in front of a full-length mirror. He cut his own head off, leaving the focus on his long legs and lean torso. He wore a black sweater and black jeans with a dark, fur-lined jacket. It might have been denim, but Alex couldn’t make it out in the picture. It was so gloriously low-effort, but Damián looked really good in it. Really good.

Alex had to stop staring. He would see Damián in person soon. He didn’t need to commit the selfie to memory.

There wasn’t anything in Alex’s closet that was on the same level of casual-classy. He did, however, have a sweater his mother got him for Christmas a couple of years ago. It still had the tags on it. There was a faint smell of fake wood clinging to it.

When he had unwrapped it, his mother had immediately taken it from his hands and held it up to him. She said that the dark green was the perfect color for him. He was a winter—whatever that meant.

It was a little thin and more form-fitting than anything else he usually wore, so it had sat in the back of his closet with no hope of ever coming out. He didn’t like tight things. It was part of him knowing his limits as a truly mediocre man.

He looked at Damián’s picture again. He looked so nice.

Going by the bed in the background, Alex assumed he took the picture in his bedroom. It felt a little intimate. Alex looked closer. The room was impeccably clean and organized. There was a shelf on the wall behind him, though Alex couldn’t make out any of the books that were sitting on them. There was a plant with long vines dangling down, twisting and remaining full all the way.

So, Damián was incredibly put-together. He could keep a plant alive. And he read. Alex needed to read more. Maybe that would fix some of his problems. When was the last time he had even finished a book? Actually finish. Cover-to-cover. There were loads of books he had tried to read.

The Handmaid’s Tale because Alex wanted to be a good feminist. It was interesting, but he accidentally left it on the subway and never remembered to find another copy.

Great Expectations because he was supposed to read it in high school, and he wanted to try to redeem himself and his low English test scores from that semester. He gave up when he remembered why he had neglected the book in the first place.

One of those Warrior Cats books because Eve devoured them when she was young, and he wanted to know what she was talking about. He didn’t get them.

Brave New World because he once saw it in an article titled “100 Books to Read Before You Die” and Alex was more intimidated by the expectation of reading 100 books in a lifetime rather than the dense, hardback copy of the book he picked up at Barnes & Noble. It was horribly pretentious, he thought later, when he incidentally saw some dick pseudo-academics discussing it online.

Maybe he could make it a conversation starter with Damián. Ask for recommendations. Pretend like he wasn’t totally creepy and wasn’t investigating the background of his selfie.

Alex had to look back at himself in the mirror. Maybe the sweater wasn’t too bad now that he had it on. The color was nice. His mother was right. But he wasn’t sure about how it hugged him. Alex had been cursed with a pear shape, and he was never sure what he was supposed to wear.

“How do I look?” Alex asked, walking out and standing in front of Eve.

She was reading a book. Dammit. Everyone read but him. He had to find a book.

“You look fine,” she said, giving him the briefest glance over.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” She turned a page. Giovanni’s Room. Alex wondered what it was about and if it would be a good starting point for him. “I’m not doing this every time you have a date.”

“I’d do it for you if you had dates.”

Eve wrinkled her nose up and stuck her tongue out. Alex didn’t mean for it to be a dig at her romantic life, but he counted it as a petty victory.

Alex’s phone buzzed in his pocket.

I’ll meet you outside the restaurant?

Yeah. See you there!

A surge was going to happen soon. Alex could tell. Every 30-year-old in the city was about to go out before the young people started their parties and had their late-night dinners. He didn’t have the money to spare for both a date with Damián and surge prices to the restaurant and back.

“I have to go,” Alex said.

Their messages didn’t push Damián’s selfie out of view. Alex smiled at it. Even without his head, Damián was handsome.

“Don’t get mushy with your boyfriend in front of me,” Eve said.

Alex wanted to correct her. She deserved to know that there was no real boyfriend and that Alex was just as lonely as her. It felt like a nasty secret to keep from her.

“I’ll see you tonight,” he said.

“Whatever. Don’t get murdered.”

“Maybe I want to get murdered.”

“Then get murdered. I don’t care.”

Alex pulled his good coat back out of the closet. He could remember exactly how Damián’s hands felt on his shoulders when he helped him into it. It made his stomach flutter and his heart sink. He would prefer to never see the coat ever again. But it was worth it for another date with “Marcus.” Maybe he could get as many bittersweet memories tied up into it as possible to minimize the items that would be tainted by the scheme. And then he could burn the coat at the end of the month.

It was probably time to get a new one anyway.

Alex hopped out of his Uber 20 minutes later with regret in his bank account. If he had left earlier, he could have taken the subway and saved money. But that meant taking the subway.

He finished the commute on foot. He saved a whole dollar by having the drop-off point a few minutes away from the restaurant. It had been a financial tip he saw on Twitter followed by how to invest in the newest, most promising cryptocurrencies. The original poster didn’t appear to speak to a consistent audience. Alex had never followed him, but the Uber tip had stayed in the back of his mind ever since.

People were starting to flood the streets. Millennial couples were out in their best H&M and Target ensembles. Those who were particularly thriving weren’t out among those posing as people who needed to budget for nights in these parts of the city. They went to the even swankier places. Maybe they left the city altogether.

Alex walked down the block and turned the corner. He kept his head up to read every business sign he passed until, right in front of him, he saw a hanging sign jutting out over the sidewalk. It was minimalistic and rustic. Sweet Pine. Below it, thankfully, he saw Damián tucked away against the brick wall.

Damián didn’t look much better. His hands were tucked into his jacket. It looked like the wall was supporting his entire weight. Before he spotted Alex, he was frowning at the street, eyes not focused on anything. His head lazily followed some pedestrians who walked past him.

When Alex walked into his line of sight, he straightened and smiled.

“Are you feeling any better?” Alex asked, hoping it wasn’t too intrusive or personal. Or weird that he remembered that Damián wasn’t doing so well days ago. “Than you were a few days ago?”

“Loads.��

Damián took Alex’s arm which sent a little shock through all of Alex. He hooked his hand in Alex’s elbow. Together, they walked in.

The lobby was warm and packed with people. Alex immediately started sweating and prayed that he wasn’t staining his sweater. Hopefully, the color was dark enough to hide any damp spots. Maybe his mother had thought of that when she bought the sweater. She was practical like that. Alex wouldn’t put it past her to pick a sweater based on if it hid sweat well.

Damián seemed immune to the grosser side of body functions. Alex had never seen him break a sweat. Actually, right then, he shivered. His hands trembled on Alex. He had a hard time keeping the rest of himself still, making him tense and vibrating in his spot.

Alex gave the host their names, and she whisked them off to a table. Damián followed, his hand still tucked into Alex’s elbow but not watching where they were headed. He looked around the dining room. He watched the waiters walk by and looked at the other diners quietly sitting at their meals. Alex didn’t know what he was trying to see, but he looked only half-aware of it all.

“I’m Marcus tonight?” Damián asked when they were seated.

“Yeah. Are you sure you’re okay?”

Damián slowly turned his head to Alex. “What was that?”

“I asked if you’re sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine.”

“We don’t have to do this. I can tell Martin you weren’t feeling well, and we can leave.”

Damián shrugged out of his coat and laid it delicately over the back of his chair as if to say they were staying. Alex tried taking off his coat with the same poise, but his left arm got tangled in its sleeve. He didn’t have as much wiggle room as the slim Damián did, and he awkwardly pressed himself against the table while his arms stretched behind him. Finally, out of his wool prison, he laid it over the back of his chair.

He was still hot. Damián was squeezing his hands together, trying to get them warm.

Alex pushed his sleeves up. Hopefully, he’d cool down before Martin and his wife showed up.

Damián was staring at him. Fuck. He wore the wrong thing. Alex plucked his sweater away from his middle, self-conscious about how tight it fit. He should have just worn the dark blue top. He wouldn’t have been sweltering in the short sleeves.

But Damián was smiling at him.

“You look nice,” Damián said.

Oh. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

He looked Alex up and down. Alex’s face was burning. A waiter placed a glass of water in front of him, and he wanted to dump the whole thing over himself. Condensation was just starting to prickle up all over it. The ice shifted with clinks Alex couldn’t hear but still knew were there.

“Are you sure?” Alex asked.

Damián nodded. His eyes looked clearer. He was back with Alex. “I’m being totally honest. You are very handsome. I am very lucky to have people think we’re dating.”

God, how embarrassing. Damián was maybe the most attractive man Alex had ever seen in person, and he thought Alex was handsome? Or he was at least flattering him.

“Am I being too much?” Damián asked.

Fuck. Alex must have had his skepticism showing on his face. “No! Not at all!”

“Leo says I’m too much sometimes. He calls me ‘extra.’ Worse, he calls me extra and then asks if I know what being extra means. He thinks I’m getting old.”

“I think I was born old.”

Damián tittered. “I was worried about turning 30, but now that I’m 31 and, you know, wise and mature, I’ve come to peace knowing I’m not going into a nursing home anytime soon.”

“You’re only 31? I’m 33. I’m ancient!”

“No. No. You’re youthful and fresh. You’re only two years older than me.”

“I’m decrepit. I got one foot in the grave.”

They were falling easily into self-deprecating jokes that neither of them meant. Alex’s anxieties were melting away watching Damián curl forward and chuckle at the dry humor that most people didn’t get. He had only joked so well with Eve.

“No! We can’t be old.” Damián pressed his hand to cheek. “What happens when we’re 40?”

“I don’t know!”

Alex felt a little tug at the bottom of his stomach. He wanted to say how lucky they were to be aging. Queer people were only just starting to get old again. But he was sure that Damián understood that, too, and might have been biting his own tongue. It would kill the mood if either of them were to bring it up, and Damián was starting to look better. His eyes were brightening.

“Do I start Botox now?” Damián asked. He held one hand out, palm up and fingers limp.

“No.” Alex shook his head. He pushed forward into the dry humor. “Botox is a gateway drug.”

“A gateway drug?”

“It starts with Botox. Then you start getting all of this other stuff done. In ten years, you look like Versace.”

“Versace? Versace’s dead. That’s a whole thing.”

“No. The other Versace. The one that’s alive.”

“Donatella Versace? Be nice to her. She’s done nothing to you.”

“She has a weird face.”

Damián’s jaw dropped. “Rude! She’s been through a lot.”

“A lot of plastic surgery.”

Damián covered his mouth to hide his laughter. “Your queer card has been revoked. For hating on Donatella—she’s an ally, by the way—and for disrespecting a woman’s autonomy. I didn’t take you for a misogynist.”

“I still respect her! All I’m saying is, if you start Botox, there’s no guarantee you won’t get addicted to plastic surgery like her.”

“Maybe if you inherited a fashion empire, you’d be a little more sympathetic. It wasn’t even hers to begin with, and if you think about it, she’s probably always surrounded by models who are always 20 when she’s aging.”

“Okay. Fine. She gets a pass because she’s entrenched so deeply in beauty standards.”

“Also her trauma with her brother.”

“Okay, but you shouldn’t get—“

“Oh my God, wait, hold on,” Damián waved his hands, “I need to tell you this. There was a podcast about Gianni Versace’s murder, and they were saying that his killer had met him before he was murdered, and how they could have traveled in these same circles for a bit—“

“Versace got murdered?”

“Yes! Famously! Let me finish. It’s a whole thing.”

“Wait. Wait.” Alex held up his hands and wiggled happily in his chair. Damián looked fantastic. “We need to stay on topic.”

“What was the topic? I forgot already.”

“Botox.”

“Oh my god, don’t get Botox, Alex,” Damián said, with feigned earnestness. “You’ll start down a dangerous path of plastic surgery.”

It was so ridiculous. It shouldn’t have made Alex laugh, but he did. And Damián started laughing—actually laughing—with him.

“I don’t have plans for Botox,” Alex said. “I was warning you.”

“I’m getting so old, though. I might be getting wrinkles soon. We could try Botox together!”

They were straining themselves trying to keep their laughter quiet. They leaned in towards one another, their shoulders pressed together. The restaurant was so nice and there they were, giggling like children over a string of bad jokes.

But it was such a relief to see Damián perk up so quickly.

“Alex?”

Alex looked up. Martin was holding out a chair for his wife. She smiled at them as took her seat, arranging her long, blonde hair behind her shoulders. She was very beautiful in a plain sort of way. There wasn’t anything exceptionally attractive about her. No distinctive features. Her hair was straight and void of highlights or lowlights. She just looked welcoming and friendly.

Alex cleared his throat. “Martin. Hello.”

“This is my wife, Sam,” Martin said. Sam nodded her head politely to them. “Sam, this is Alex. And Marcus, correct?”

Damián nodded with a wide smile. He had settled into his character. “Correct. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

Martin’s cheeks colored. “Yeah. Uh.” He took his seat. “I guess I should start off tonight with an apology.”

Damián straightened. Alex held his breath. It was happening. Martin was turning over a new leaf. Damián was going to get a little respect, and they could still pull off the rest of the scheme.

Martin clasped his hands together and set them on the table. “I apologize.”

“What he means is,” Sam said to Damián, “he understands now that you have a very respectable and challenging career. And that it’s not funny to put someone in your position in the situation he did.”

“Yeah,” Martin said. “All of that. And I really do feel bad. The guys kinda forced me into it. Not to deflect responsibility or anything. I just—I wasn’t a fan of it from the start. I do really know that it was totally wrong.”

“Okay,” Damián said. “It sounds like you get it. I can find it in me to forgive you.”

“Thank you.”

“As long as Alex forgives you, too.”

“Oh.” Alex clenched his fists under the table. “Uh. I do.”

He didn’t. Not totally. That was why they were doing the whole scheme. He did appreciate the effort Martin was being forced to make, though.

“I, for one, think this whole thing is cute,” Sam said. “You guys made the best out of the whole thing. And it’s totally like Pretty Woman.”

“I’ve been thinking the same thing for the past two weeks,” Damián said. He turned to Alex. “You’re like a young Richard Gere.”

Alex shook his head. He was vaguely familiar with Richard Gere from the 90s, but the man faded from any recognition after that. “I’ve never seen Pretty Woman.”

Damián’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry. You what? This isn’t—hold on.”

He was being serious. He turned fully to Alex and held out a finger to him. Alex widened his eyes.

“You’ve never seen Pretty Woman? With Julia Roberts?” Damián asked.

Alex wanted to give him a sarcastic response, but he didn’t. “No.”

“I’m making you watch it. You and I can’t be together if you haven’t seen it.” Damián shook his head at Sam, who was clearly enjoying the false display of a flamboyant gay man. He knew how to play a straight, white woman. “He’s never seen Pretty Woman. Can you believe that?”

“I gathered,” she said.

Damián scoffed. “Anyway, yes, it does feel like Pretty Woman. And I love pretending like I’m Julia Roberts. Especially in her black dress. She looked so good in that.”

“She did!” Sam sighed. “You know, I really forced Martin to do this. I wanted to see you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I wanted to meet,” Sam lowered her voice, “a sex worker. I think it’s just the coolest thing.”

Alex could feel the sheet of ice slap Damián’s face. There hadn’t been all that much progress. This was a mistake. Alex should have saved Damián the misery.

Sam leaned over the table. Martin smiled nervously at Alex.

“Can I ask you a couple of questions, Marcus?” Sam asked.

“Sure.”

“What kind of sex work do you do? Like, do you have an Only Fans?”

Damián’s smiled tightened like a man who had been asked that question a hundred times.

“I do what I guess you’d call traditional work? I don’t,” Damián lowered his voice and glanced around, meeting Sam’s eyes when he turned back to her, “I don’t do porn. It’s not really my type of thing. I do know people who do it, and it’s a pretty intense gig. Too time-consuming for me.”

“Right. Right.” Sam nodded. “So, do you—I don’t know how this works—how do you find clients? Or how do they find you?”

Damián delivered the answer so perfectly that Alex wanted to jump from his chair and punch the air and high-five Damián.

A slow smile spread on Damián’s face, and he said, with great smugness, “Your husband knows. Ask him.”

Alex held everything in. He’d shake Damián’s hand later.

Sam, face red, leaned back. Martin turned his face to his lap.

“So,” Damián said, lacing his fingers together and laying his chin on them. There was a twinkle in his eyes. “I know where Martin and Alex work. But what do you, Sam?”

“I, uh, work in a, uh, marketing firm.”

Martin had his face turned down to the table. Sam couldn’t complete a sentence. The revenge was going to be great. And seeing Damián get a good jab in and have fun, all of Alex’s reservations were gone. He was going to enjoy his fake dates for as long as he got them, and he wouldn’t let himself think about how guilty he felt or how much he’d mourn them once he and Damián parted ways for good.

#Nobody Ends Up Dead in a Bathtub Everyone Keeps Their Organs #nobody ends up dead #writblr #writeblr #original writing #original fiction #my writing #writing community #lgbt fiction #queer fiction

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theresa-of-liechtenstein · 1 year

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it wouldn’t be the linda fairbairn extended universe without air caledonian! (enlarge for better quality. notes below)

(a320 illustrations provided for free personal use)

i spent almost eight hours total doing this and i do not regret a single minute of it 😮‍💨😮‍💨

the liveries

literally fought for my life with the clipping masks 😵‍💫

this is my attempt at a ‘retro’ livery which was sort of teased in late 2022

it combines a few elements that saw some vogue in the 70s (the cheatline, or the stripe running down the fuselage) and the hockey stick (the cheatline being carried up into the tail, which i…sort of did…to incorporate it into the saltire) combined with an element that didn’t really become popular until after the 70s (the ‘eurowhite’ color scheme that forced me to invert the saltire)

if caledonian’s origins can be traced back to regional flights in the very late 70s, slowly growing the fleet until acquiring the A320 to expand its range, i’d want it to have a sort of ‘retro’ looking livery. the original planes probably wouldn’t have been white, though. most likely aluminum

i used helvetica for the name of the airline on the side of the fuselage, which also happens to look very similar to the font of choice for philippine airlines. i did not realize this until after i’d exported it because my dad looked over my shoulder and commented.

this is their ‘redesign’ livery and the last one before the acquisition. i’d previously depicted a version of it back in 2021 but when i tried it for size parts of it looked so horrifying that i had to change it up a bit

caledonian has always existed in my head as some mix of ‘national carrier’ and ‘budget airline’ swinging a little more toward the latter for purposes of the lfeu so the bold color scheme and billboard style is honestly inspired by airlines like southwest (thank god they’re not shit brown anymore), easyjet (easy go… and thee air caledonian blueprint), and spirit (highlighter planes)

the saltire was literally me messing around with brushes and realizing like hmmmm. this actually looks pretty neat! now i know i’ve been saying air caledonian’s probably a budget airline, but as stated before, it’s also got some elements of the national carrier thing going, which is why i’m so insistent on the saltire motif

not to do with the livery but i also think since cal exists in that grey area they do have certain elements of a Not Low Cost Airline (like business class vs economy seats…i mean you’re not lying flat in any of these planes lol but you can have a kit if the pilots didn’t burgle the socks out of them) and that could have financially hurt them which would make selling out to swiss more appealing and less wounding that a ‘national carrier’ is being chopped. idk how this works though. im playing with airlines like dolls

the uniforms

i love designing uniforms. actually i love uniforms in general. i miss wearing a school uniform i did not have to think about what to wear on a daily basis. i could commit time to silly fanfiction and my meager attempts at making my own drawing style

qantas did not have tailored uniforms for differing body types until 2016 but this is fiction and the chief pilot of air cal is canonically a #GirlDad. we have tailored uniforms here. and a hat/tie variant. and a skirt option.

i reasoned since air caledonian is a scottish airline it should have formalized cold weather uniform requirements and i saw some rly cute pullover sweaters (think they were on easyjet pilots) so those went in

also the reason hats are required with the trench coat is for easy recognizability. this is indeed a policy at some airlines. martin crieff does have a point here.

oh also i darkened the jackets and trousers lol i just felt like it looked better

i think that’s all i wanted to say…

#em draws #cabin pressure #linda fairbairn extended universe #the post that’s like ‘i love how tumblr users play with jpegs like dolls’#except i’m tumblr users and the jpegs are fictional airlines

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corvarrow · 6 months

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Alright, I couldn't decide how to best present my thoughts about this art challenge, so here's just a summary screenshot to start with - if you would like to see the big versions with the lore you can check out my tag, and the actual list itself is here!

And without further ado, here are my thoughts on this art challenge and finishing it!

Things that helped me finish the challenge

Taking a break day (or two) a week – I have a day job so this was absolutely required to not burn out, lol

Having a theme – This was nor originally intentional, but keeping it worldbuilding related really helped me come up with ideas as there were several prompts where I was just coming up with nothing otherwise.

Small canvas size – These are all fairly small - it was a 6x6 pad. Originally thought it was going to be too small, but ended up being perfect. Since I opted to do full blown scenes I don’t think I would have finished otherwise

Limited Palette/Materials – I learned this from completing previous challenges, but the fewer decisions I have to make the easier it is to do these. This one happened to actually be ink (see materials section) but I have done challenge before with like, "single set of markers"

Displaying the Art – I didn’t like having a loose stack of completed pictures, so I bought a 6x6 photo album to store them in. This was a great decision as they look very cool in there I was very motivated to complete the set

Completion Stickers - Yes, I am 2 years old. I had a paper list where I was putting stickers next to each word as I completed it, and it was very satisfying >_>a

Stuff I liked

Able to practice a medium - Yeah by the end I was feeling way more confident with ink and different techniques (wet on wet, wet on dry, etc)

Got to practice scenes and lighting – I even fit in a ton of OC cameos

Posted all pieces regardless of quality - Although this was not my first list-based challenge it is the first one I posted ALL pieces for

Got some fun pieces to revisit later - There are quite a few I REALLY like for different reasons so it would be fun to do them again later, but spend more time

Kept a consistent quality for the whole challenge - It was tempting to "get lazy" at the end but I think I managed to keep the same general quality the entire time

Used up a bunch of pages in a sketchbook I’m not overly fond of by doing tons of thumbnails - To be quite honest, if I have a sketchbook I hate enough (because the paper is bad or whatever) I will often uh, dismantle them. 8Da; I am not overly fond of the one I'm currently using, but now there's only about 14 pages left so, I will persevere.

Stuff I didn’t like

Time commitment required - Even with the breaks, I was spending almost all evening for 5 weeks working on these, which was a little Much for me. I will have to rethink my approach to any future challenges.

Using WIP designs/Not being able to spend a lot of time on anything – There’s a couple pieces where I wanted to go a certain direction and had to go with Vibes rather than accuracy for the sake of getting it done….which is fine, some of them turned out nice regardless. However would have still liked to hammer things out a little more.

Materials Used

Artsnacks Inktober Box, with some modifications - Something you should know about Artsnacks, is that often the colored materials will be the brand shown, but the color you actually receive will be random. Luckily, I got an Orange ink. Unfortunately, I also have terrible luck with PH Martin’s Orange in that it always separates no matter how much I mix it, so partway through the challenge I replaced it with a Daler Rowney Flame Orange Ink. This is a VERY similar ink, the only difference I really saw was that when diluted a lot it leaned more yellow. Additionally I did not use the blue Faber Castel Pitt pen in the box. TECHNICALLY I could have made green for all those plant pictures, but I refused for the sake of keeping a cohesive Black/Orange color scheme

Ranger Craft-It! Heat Gun - I would not have been able to finish had I not been able to speed up the drying time with this thing, it is the best

Lots of background noise - My noise of choice was a mix between scary cave and cave diving stories, as well as the White Vault podcast, which is a fictional horror audio drama

Bonus Round: Number of OC Appearances

Tower: x4

Torch: x4 (one of them in his plantbeast form)

Cavi: x3

Mady: x1 (also the only non-sion in this list)

Team "New/WIP OCs" -

Aki: x5 (one of them as a doll)

Jas: x2

Aki's sibling (final name pending): x1 (as a statue)

#cvlostkingdoms #art challenge #art challenge thoughts #long post #my art #ink art #art thoughts

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dizzybevvie · 8 months

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ok quick rant/talk/infodump? thing.

this girl above us who’s standing like she desperately needs to piss despite that being her regular stance i guess?? that’s mabel martin*.

*mabel martin is also a podcast character or something. which is so sad because that means there is no tag for this mabel. anyways.

she lives in my brain now forevers. “why her? doesn’t she have only 3 canon appearances and is just Female Character there to have Boobs and Bad Posture?”

yes she is. but she is also *drumroll* RIDDLER SECRETARY *explodes into so many pieces*

(technically.) (also like, once, 30 years ago. i can’t afford to get more comics atm but i literally spent hours searching for any appearances outside of 2 shown comic panels and there are none.)

ANYWAYS. i’ve decided to pretend that she is not in fact a canon character, and i introduce to you: Mabel Martin, definitely not already existing OC who has the same job but with personality this time.

she’s smart, she’s got a great phone voice, and she’s so bad at quick math that she always carries a little calculator. she loves the color green, she can speak 3 languages, and she doesn’t like tying her shoes so she’s learned to run (or fight) in heels. in the daytime, shes Ms. Martin, secretary and general bookkeeper for (Detective) Edward Nygma. in the night, shes . still Ms. Martin but she assists her employer with setting up his various schemes, tricks, etc.

(it was at this point that lola began to feel a tinge of embarrassment, and so decided to end the ask and get back to watching good omens, or at least finish packing their backpack before their first day of school tomorrow.)

BCBSNSJSBSJS THAT NOTE HAS ME CREASING BUT I GET U. She has Legally Blonde energy tbh

#tbh i stsnd like i permanently need to piss too lmao #I cross my legs over eachother and kind of rock my weight between them so i dont fall over idk why #i dont even thunk about it its muscle memory #BUT ANYWAY AHHHHH ILY. I LOVE HEARING FROM U #chex tag #asks #beverly says stuff

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thesupreme316 · 1 year

Note

Warlord and the reader celebrating their anniversary

i GOTCHUUUUUUU

Wardlow and Fem!Reader Celebrating their Anniversary: (Wardlow x Fem!Reader)

Word count: 787

Genre: Fluff

Supreme Speaks: i know that I always say this but sorry for taking too long. shoutout to @hookerforhook for allowing me to write their requests (plz keep them coming). hope everyone enjoys this one. P.S. Remember you are loved and appreciated

Warnings: none i don't think, barely proofread

Taglist: @hookerforhook @hooks-martin @wwenhlimagines @triscillal @sheinthatfandom

Wardlow is a sweetheart and you cannot change my mind

A very strong, tall, delicious looking, smells good, funny, charismatic sweetheart indeed

In terms of yall getting together, he would have not stopped chasing you until you agreed to date him

(Then again if you rejected this man you are crazy and we need to talk-)

Throughout your relationship, he has been very hands-on and open about everything with you

I believe he would communicate very well with you

“Baby please don’t hate me but that couch does not go with the furniture”

“Babe, it’s the sims-”

Would think about you for the majority of the day

And would get you little trinkets while he’s on the road

He’s very protective of you and hates to be away from you for long

Always tries to get you to travel with him

Overall, Wardlow is grateful for you putting up with his schedule and the demands in his life and decided to treat you for the upcoming milestone

For the anniversary he would pull out all the stops

Breakfast in bed? With your favorite flowers? And the bottomless mimosas if you wanted? (or water if that’s your style)

OKAY HEAR ME OUT He would allow you to open one gift for every meal you two eat

So he has three big gifts for you in total

(and then he’ll eat you afterward if you know what I mean)

Wants you to wear a matching color scheme with him (his favorite color is black)

Would take you to a spa day cause he got certificates to use

After a nice back massage, he’ll take you out to lunch at your favorite place

DON’T THINK THIS IS ONE-SIDED

You gifted him with a map of where ya’ll first met and a transcript of your first words to each other

He said he’s gonna put it up in y’alls living room

“Is that Leo the Lion?”

He gives you a blooming flower box like this

I don’t think he’s into doing DIY by himself so he asked the girls at work to help him with the gift and putting it together

You nearly teared up as you looked through the memories together

“Oo babe! This is when you got chased by that-”

“I thought I took that one out -_-”

Although this is a nice gift, he saved the best for last

Hours later you got redressed cause he said “It’s a fancier place”

While y’all are matching again, he blindfolds you and takes you to the location

After stumbling in your heels (cause you can’t see or if you don’t wear heels that’s cool too), he took off your blindfold and you saw a beautiful table decorated with roses and pictures of the two of you hanging up by the tree branches in a garden

You awed and squealed as tears entered your eyes yet again

He leads you to the table where your favorite meal and alcoholic (or non-alcoholic) beverage awaits

While eating, you two discussed today and future plans, ultimately deciding today was the best anniversary ever

After you finished eating, you were given a dessert with the words “Marry Me?” on it

You looked up at Wardlow in shock as he got down on one knee with a beautiful ring in his hands

(girl if you weren’t crying earlier, you’re sobbing now as I’m about to get fluffy)

“Y/N, I truly love you. I cannot imagine my life without you, and I hope I never have to go on without you in my life. You have been my rock, the one person who keeps me grounded. Today, really cemented how I feel about you and how even after three years of dating, I still get nervous and butterflies when you just look at me. Babygirl, I am in love you. God, I’m so in love with you. You are the most caring, sincere, beautiful, and intelligent person I’ve ever met. Thank you for showing me how to love you unconditionally, with passion and purity. You will always be the best part of my life. I say all that to ask, Y/N Y/M/N Y/L/N, will you marry me?”

You quickly nodded as tears streamed down your face. Wardlow got up, put the ring on your finger, and kissed you as the hired photographer took pictures of you.

Hugging you, he kissed your forehead and looked up at the sky. You felt his body shake and looked down to see him shaking his leg, you laughed at him

“Does your knee hurt?”

“Yeah, a little bit.”

“Let’s book another massage, you old man.”

“The old man you’re gonna marry.”

Overall…Wardaddy is an amazing boyfriend who is gonna turn into a wonderful husband.

#aew #all elite wrestling #aew imagines #aew fics #wardlow #wardaddy #aew wardlow #wardlow imagine #wardlow fic #all elite wrestling imagines

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