I Support Orbital Bombardment

Any theme to this blog is primarily unintentional.

[maikron]

Here's me trying to interpret how Danny's hazmat suit would look like if it were more realistic, based on my experience with biohazard PPE.

I feel like I also need to add a disclaimer to not use this as safety advice. Please follow your local health and safety guidelines prior to handling ectoplasm, ecto-contaminated materials, and/or ectobiological organisms!

[teapotofbees]

Oooh realistic hazmat

[tlirsgender]

(Kirk voice) as I lay there, pinned to the ground, hot sands burning against my skin... nearly Crushed below the weight of my. Firstofficer. And the gravity of this...... Harsh, ruthless planet itself. Fading in and out of consciousness ... Struggling. Forbreath. ... I felt his hips Roll and I thought to myself........ oh my god . He doesn't want to Kill me

[tlirsgender]

I was. Into it. To be clear ... I had already offered to . Assisthim. Inanywaythatican. But I don't suppose he wants to speak of this........ event

[tlirsgender]

I could have sucked him silly right then and there... after he told me what he needed. And we could have avoided this whole mess.. Computer. Erase. That. Personal log

[thetimetostrikeislater]

[autisticlittleguy]

"Grace Ryland is Rocky's dog" is such a funny fucking dynamic when you think about it

Eridians are further behind than humans technologically right? They dont have computers, relativity, quantum mechanics, etc. In fact, Eridians probably dont even know about the Big Bang because their atmosphere would filter out most of the cosmic microwave background radiation we use to detect it. On a human timeline, theyre anywhere between like early-mid 20th century. Rocky's basically a cosmonaut.

So the human civilization is pretty advanced from Rocky's perspective. Rationally he understands this. On a conceptual level he knows this to be true.

But at the same time... imagine youre one of the first ever cosmonauts to make it into space. Then you meet a 10 year old alien dog who cant do 2+2 without pulling out its calculator. It forgets everything constantly and has to keep notes everywhere, like it basically lives in Memento (2000). Also if it doesnt nap constantly it gets even stupider. And you somehow has to reconcile this with the fact that this dog has a better understanding of physics than your entire civilization does. Like the dog knows how the universe started.

[autisticlittleguy]

This isnt better from Grace's perspective btw. Eridians never developed computers, so all their ship systems are steered using basically the manual labor of 24 Eridians. Also theres no radiation shielding on their ship. Actually im pretty sure half the reason why Rocky is always busy fixing shit is because the radiation keeps frying all the onboard electronics, so hes always building and fixing and replacing components

Like imagine being a modern day sailor navigating the Pacific with GPS and strong hulls to protect against the raging ocean. And from portside you see like an honest to god viking ship. Except its made of some high tech carbon fiber material. But like, its still very definitely a viking ship. You can clearly see there's 24 oars along the hull where sailors are supposed to use to manually row their ship. Also the ship is leaking and theres like one little dude on board whos skittering around patching the holes constantly. Also this little dude is blind and doesnt know about water. Thats how insane Eridians look being an interstellar species without computers or radiation shielding.

Both of them thinks the other one is the completely ridiculous and absurd one and theyre both totally amazed at how far the other has come in spite of it

[segamascott]

okay so here's the thing about 50,000 people vs 1 ceo of a utility company

[segamascott]

technofascist surveillance state actually the have fun with ai was just them selling it to the public ☺️

[sniperct]

'It's like we don't exist': Nearly 50,000 Lake Tahoe residents face power loss as utility redirects lines to data centers | Fortune

Roughly 49,000 Lake Tahoe residents could lose 75% of their power after their energy provider said it's directing energy to neighboring data

NV Energy continues to be trash, I see.

[janmisali]

oh I know how to make a poll's results look like the letter E watch this

what is the rightmost digit of the number of responses this poll has right now? (it should be visible before you vote.)

0, 1, or 2

3

4 or 5

6

7, 8, or 9

Remaining time: 3 days 22 hours

[unyieldingsilence]

‎

[daggers-drawn]

All it means when people say “you’re speaking from a place of privilege” is that you’re likely to underestimate how bad the problem is by default because you are never personally exposed to that problem. It’s not a moral judgement of how difficult your life is.

[mrloveballad]

^^^^^^ read it. say it out loud. keep repeating it until you understand.

[okthatsgreat]

here's a quiz i made so you can learn what type of fanfic character flaw you would be <3333

[occasionalauthoring]

I've never been so betrayed in my entire cursed life. What.

[occasionalauthoring]

Look I have simply decided that this quiz dubbed me Bruce Wayne.

See: "the fanfic community probably found a trait about you that was slightly less than agreeable and elevated it tenfold"

Me and him are just in the same character-bashing boat.

[nerdpoe]

[caffeinewitchcraft]

Prompt: After a lackluster 1st year as a Hero, you’re ready to go rogue. The problem is that the new guy in the team is definitely onto you.

[caffeinewitchcraft]

That nerdy guy knows your secret.

You scan the briefing documents as your team leader, Mr. Subterranean, drones on. As usual, the pack of graphs and statistics look impressive. As usual, you seem to be the only one at the table who knows they’re wrong. Or, maybe, cares that they’re wrong.

“Crime is down in the 52nd ward by 30% as compared to 2016…”

You take the chance to glance at the nerd. He’s listening to Mr. Subterranean as attentively as you did when you first joined this team of the Hero Force. His hands are folded very nicely on the table and he’s watching Mr. Subterranean lie through his teeth with a very polite look on his face. His thick, coke bottle glasses sitting neatly on top of his black mask hide his eyes, but you bet he’s the only one at the table not daydreaming while the leader talks. He strikes you as a teacher’s pet.

Teacher’s pet glances at you through his peripherals. His mouth twitches, revealing a deep dimple, and then he refocuses on Mr. Subterranean. A chill races down your spine.

You’re not sure why you think he knows, but you’ve got animal instincts. If your brain is screeching at you that your plan is in jeopardy, it is.

What are you going to do about it?

“We can see marked improvement in commerce in Old Downtown thanks to the consideration and dedication shown by our new patrol routes…”

Because you’re watching the new guy, you’re the first one to notice when he raises his hand.

The heroes around the table go still. You’re a small team compared to some others, only five members in total including the leader, but heroes always seem bigger than they are. When all of you start staring at him, it has to feel like a hundred people are. The nerdy guy only sits there with a pleasant, mild smile on his face, one hand raised and the other resting calmly on the table.

“Yes…?” Mr. Subterranean sounds like he’s been asked to improvise after only ever reading off script. He frowns. “Did you have a question, Star Lad?”

See, this is why you don’t remember his hero name. Star Lad? Nerdy guy is infinitely better than anything with Lad in it.

“More of an observation,” Star Lad says. 

Mr. Subterranean blinks owlishly at him. “About what? The crime percentages? The patrols? If it’s not about either of those things, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to wait until the end of the presentation. As you can see from the pages in front of you, we have a very full schedule today. I don’t want to waste anyone’s time.”

You look down at the fabricated graph in front of you so he can’t see your face. Waste anyone’s time? That’s all he does. 

That’s why you’re going rogue.

You barely feel any remorse about it anymore, which is why you know tonight is the night you run away from all this. You’re all set up to siphon the entirety of Mr. Subterannean’s accounts into yours. You imagine that getting started as a vigilante will be pretty expensive. It’s only right that Mr. Subterranean, the reason for your sudden career change, pays for it.

Your instincts tell you that you’re being watched. When you look up, you meet Star Lad’s grey eyes. To your horror, he winks once before turning his attention back to Mr. Subterranean.

Oh, you think faintly, he definitely knows.

“I’ll be brief,” Star Lad says, eyes sliding from you to Angel at your side and then around to Flower Power. Could he have been looking around the table for reactions? You doubt it.

Mr. Subterranean inclines his head.

“When I first joined the team,” Star Lad says, “I was impressed. I’ll admit to some hero worship! To fight alongside Angel and Flower Power and Mr. Subterranean!” He starts to say something else and then quickly adds your name to list. “And the Shark, of course.”

Of course. Nobody finds your powers particularly impressive. Yes, you’ve got super strength and night vision and the ability to breathe underwater, yes, you’re able to grow fins and swim so fast, but nobody really remembers that when you’re stationed five hundred miles away from the ocean. Plus your insistence on being the Shark rather than Shark Person or whatever it was the Hero Force really wanted you to switch to basically means you’re persona non grata at HQ. About once a month, a Hero Force agent calls to beg you to change your name. You’ve never heard from the same agent twice.

“Yes, we remember your introduction,” Mr. Subterranean says. He’s visibly annoyed now, the wood table under his hands turning moist from his subterranean powers. “Moving on— “

“Then I was impressed by a meeting like this.” Star Lad beams at Mr. Subterranean as if he didn’t hear the leader speak. “Did you know no other team lead takes the time to collect data like this? To analyze their every action from fights to patrols? Other teams rely heavily on Hero Force analysts for that information. You’ve saved the Hero Force a pretty penny by insisting on doing the analyses yourself.”

“Well,” Mr. Subterranean say. He clears his throat and shuffles his papers. You bet there’d be a blush on his cheeks if you could see under his scuba-like mask. “It’s nice of you to notice. I spend a lot of time on these.”

“In fact,” Star Lad says, leaning forward, “you’ve saved Hero Force so much time and money, people can’t believe it! I mean, literally—“ his smile drops “—can’t believe it.”

Angel stops playing her mobile game, slowly lowering her phone to the table. Flower Power frowns and takes a closer look at her meeting papers.

Oh shit, you think. You knew Star Lad was here to bust someone. You just didn’t think it’d be the boss.

Mr. Subterranean either doesn’t get the insinuation or is a better actor than you thought. He nods. “Yes, yes, I’ve heard the same from the head of the Hero Force himself. But I don’t do it for praise. I do it because it’s the right thing to do.”

“Is that why you’ve refused to be audited?” Star Lad asks. He’s definitely not smiling now. In fact he looks very different from the nerdy newbie who got so excited to join the team. He looks like a Hero. “And why you cancelled your annual review?”

“A review would distract us from important work,” Mr. Subterranean says. He squares his shoulders, trying to look bigger, and waves as if to knock Star Lad’s question out of the air like a particularly annoying fly. “I send very clear records every month to Hero Force. It’d be a waste for an agent to do all that work again so I deemed an audit unnecessary.” He flips a page in his packet. “Now, as I was saying, while we’ve enjoyed immense progress in district 14, ward 8 needs—“

Star Lad half laughs, interrupting Mr. Subterranean. He looks around the table with his hands splayed in front of him. “You guys got it, right? I didn’t think I was being that delicate.”

“No, I got it,” Angel says. She looks like she’s going to throw up. Even her halo looks a little green as her light-based powers respond to her emotions. She shakes her head as if to clear it. “Boss, you refused an audit? That’s not how Hero Force audits work!”

“I don’t think that’s how any audits work,” Star Lad says generously. He flips his hands over in a sort of shrug motion. “It’s pretty common knowledge that you can’t just cancel an audit.”

Mr. Subterranean tries to meet each of your team’s eyes in turn to convey his honesty. When he meets yours, he grimaces. You can feel how your pupils have completely overtaken your irises as you watch him. He tries, “It wasn’t necessary—“

“I don’t have anything to do with this,” Flower Power tells Star Lad. She’s not like you and Angel, both heroes in your first year. She’s older, nearly 65 in an industry that kills people before they’re 30, and you know she only accepted this position as a form of semi-retirement. Any wrongdoing endangers her pension. “I swear.”

“You’ve all heard my analyses of the city,” Mr. Subterranean says. The wetness from his palms is spreading across the table like fungus. He casually leans forward to brace his forearms on the table, hiding the stains. “I’m sorry that I didn’t understand what an audit is, but the correct information has always made its way to—“

“Mr. Subterranean,” Star Lad interrupts, “did you really think the Hero Force wouldn’t be able to recognize a fraudulent report?”

Mr. Subterranean looks at him. Opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. “They’re not—“

“Your city doesn’t have a district 14,” Star Lad says. He taps the report. “Your city isn’t big enough to have multiple districts. And crime is not down. It’s up, actually. It’s very, very up.”

Mr. Subterranean stutters. “I guarantee that that is not the case. We have fewer super-powered villains here than there have been in a decade!”

“That’s not true,” Star Lad says. He turns to Angel. “Let’s ask your team. How many villains, on average, do you think a town this size should have?”

Angel’s clear green eyes dart to you and then away. “Um…four?” Whatever she reads on Star Lad’s face makes her flinch. “Six?”

You are very still. You and Angel are both new. Neither of you know the answer to Star Lad’s question, but you should. Flower Power and Mr. Subterranean should have told you. You’re getting the sense of blood in the water. Thankfully, it’s not your blood. When Star Lad looks at you, you have your answer ready. “We currently have five active, regular villains in town.”

“Mr. Subterranean, you reported two.” Star Lad flips his hand and a red file appears in front of him out of thin air. Emblazoned across it is the word CONFIDENTIAL. “I was sent here to verify your, frankly, ridiculous claims. I was expecting some fudging of the numbers or even a few battle exaggerations to make your mediocre leadership look more impressive than it is.”

You have to resist the urge to bite your cheek in an effort to keep a straight face. You’re transformed right now and even you aren’t invulnerable to the razor-sharp shark teeth.

“He’s been a competent leader,” Flower Power says. When Angel and you make sounds of disbelief, her mouth presses into a thin line. “Trust me, I’ve seen worse. I would have reported anything too extreme to the Hero Force.”

“Which is why, as of today, you are retired, Flower Power,” Star Lad says without taking his eyes off Mr. Subterranean. The room is getting suspiciously moist as your team leader’s composure cracks. “You’re excused.”

“What?” Flower Power shoots to her feet. “You can’t fire me because of a difference in opinion—“

“You are being retired,” Star Lad says quietly but firmly. He meets Flower Power’s eyes evenly. “Out of respect for your long career with the Hero Force, I am not going to go into the nuances of that decision in front of your team. If you would like access to the report that led to that decision, you are welcome to request it from the nearest Hero Force Main Chapter.”

“I will,” Flower Power says, chin raised. Whether she senses the losing battle as well as you or not, you don’t know. She turns on her heel and stalks from the room leaving the scent of roses in her wake.

You whistle under your breath.

“Where was I?” Star Lad takes the file out of the air and flips through it. “Right. I expected a lot of things when I began my investigation. I did not expect you to be—“

“So you’re a spy,” Mr. Subterranean says. He stands, bracing both hands on the table. “I should have known you weren’t one of us. From the moment you arrived—“

“I am an auditor,” Star Lad interrupts loudly. “Which I have made abundantly clear at this point, yes?”

“Yep,” Angel says. She shrinks back when Star Lad grins at her and Mr. Subterranean glares. You lean around her so you can meet Mr. Subterranean’s eyes. He glares at you for of all a second and then his eyes dart away.

Ha. 

“You didn’t announce yourself,” Mr. Subterranean says. The fungus - part of his power - is swirling across the table now, decaying the wood. On concrete, it makes the footing slippery. Good for stopping villains. In this room, it reeks. “You came onto my team with false pretenses. I’ll be filing a complaint with Hero Force.”

Star Lad is not impressed. He takes off his glasses with one hand and then folds them deliberately, setting them on the table in front of him. He’s still smiling. “You are, of course, welcome to do that, Mr. Subterranean. You will have ample time while awaiting your trial.”

Mr. Subterranean freezes. His suit - a pair of grey coveralls, like a miner - starts looking…moist around the collar. “Trial?”

Star Lad nods. “You’re under arrest,” he says. “If you’d quit interrupting me, I can finish reading your charges.”

Star Lad doesn’t sound like Star Lad anymore. Star Lad is the goofy newcomer who asks stupid questions and is always underfoot. Star Lad doesn’t know what to do with his big, gangly body and whose costume is always ill-fitting. Star Lad can’t sit as still as a predator, his grey eyes fixed to Mr. Subterranean as if considering whether or not he can swallow the other man whole. His voice isn’t dark with menace and his aura isn’t quite so furious.

Mr. Subterranean takes a half-step back and then stops himself. He swallows, hard. “I don’t have any charges,” Mr. Subterranean says with false bravado. “But you will when I report you for threatening a team leader.”

“Okay,” Star Lad says and stands up.

You and Angel lean back. Mr. Subterranean is braced over the head of the table, trying to look as big as possible, but Star Lad fills up the room when he stands. He’s shorter than Mr. Subterranean but broader and a lot more confident. Both you and Angel are at the opposite end of the room, but it feels way too close. Angel nudges your foot with hers. When she gets your attention, she deliberately looks at your hands, shakes her head, and then looks away.

Your nails - as sharp as shark’s teeth - are piercing the softening wood of the table. Carefully you pry them out. You stare at the grooves, your heart rate slowing and slowing as your fight or flight instincts war.

“You are under arrest,” Star Lad says, each word like a bit. “For falsifying mission reports, misleading critical Hero Force personnel and endangering rookie—“

Mr. Subterranean sneezes. It sounds like a kitten’s sneeze. He sneezes again and there are visible particles in it. After a moment, the droplets from the sneeze dissipate into the humid air and Mr. Subterranean wipes his nose.

You and Angel lean back further from him. Angel covers her nose with her long sleeve. Your costume is sleeveless so you don’t have that luxury.

Star Lad isn’t so squeamish. “Bless you.” He continues, “You are under suspicion of aiding and abetting various villainous elements in this city to further your public image as—“

Mr. Subterranean sneezes again.

You are very curious about that suspicion, but you don’t get to hear the rest of it. Star Lad blinks once, twice, three times. He presses a hand to his head.

“You are— you are under suspicion—“ He sinks back down into his seat. “U-under—“ He presses his other hand to his temple so he’s cradling his head. “Wh-what is happening to me?”

At your side, Angel is slumping down in her seat. Her breath hitches before smoothing into deep and even repetitions. Like sleep. But when you look at her face, she’s not sleeping. Her light-based powers undulate with sick fear, casting the room in shades of green and grey. She’s staring wide-eyed and horrified right at Mr. Subterranean.

Mr. Subterranean is smiling.

You’ve always found his smile unpleasant, though you’ve never been sure why. His teeth are a little crooked, sure, but so are yours (having four sets at all times will do that). His lips are thin but not nonexistent and his smiles always reach his eyes. That actually might be the problem.

There’s a feverish light in Mr. Subterranean’s eyes as he stands fully upright. He looms over Star Lad. The fungus creeps from the table and curls across the floor until even the walls are mildewing. “Think you’re clever do you?”

Oh my god, you think, my boss is a villain. You take care to stay slumped in your seat. There was something in Mr. Subterranean’s sneeze. Some sort of fungus that’s caused Star Lad and Angel to lose strength. You flex your fingers under the table, mouth dry as you wait for a similar effect to hit you.

“One thing I learned from Hero Force; don’t tell anyone everything,” Mr. Subterranean says. He drags a finger across the back of Star Lad’s chair and it creaks as rot eats away the varnish. “It’s why we have civilian identities, isn’t it? So that we’re protected. Safe. Able to do our jobs. I left out a few of my power’s affects when I filled out my Hero Force application.” His smile sharpens. “So that I can do my job.”

Star Lad is doing a wonderful job of not panicking. A muscle in his jaw flexes as he fights Mr. Subterranean’s fungus. He shifts in his seat, wiggling so that he can lean his head against the least rotten part of the chair back. “Lying on a Hero Force application,” he says through gritted teeth, “is a crime.”

“Who are you to decide that?” Mr. Subterranean says. He stalks around the table in agitation, eyes barely landing on you and Angel before he’s fixed right back on Star Lad. “I keep this city safe. I do. The crime percentages are wrong, so what? The number of villains is wrong, so what? I’m here. I lead my team. We fight and we win. So what’s the problem?”

“I am an auditor,” Star Lad says. He pants and then squeezes his eyes shut as if in pain. You see a tremor roll through him. “Y-you can’t do what you want.”

“But I can,” Mr. Subterranean says. He spreads his arms to show that the suit underneath his arms is very damp indeed. Drips of spore-laden moisture drip onto the ground. “I file my reports. I do my patrols. You said it yourself  - you had no idea the lengths to which I’ve gone until you saw my presentation! When Hero Force asks me where you went, I just have to say you lead my team on a training exercise and none of you came back.”

“S-Sir,” Angel says. She’s not doing as well as Star Lad. Her breathing is becoming more and more labored. “W-why?”

Mr. Subterranean clicks his tongue. “Sorry, rookie. Bad luck, I guess.” 

Angel whimpers.

Star Lad’s groans, back arching as he fights with all his might. His power flickers like falling stars all around him, but it doesn’t do anything. Wherever it flashes, it illuminates Mr. Subterranean’s particulates and whatever spore that has incapacitated the auditor.

A spore that, apparently, has no effect on you.

Mr. Subterranean steps towards Angel. His eyes flash as he stretches a hand out toward her, an ominous black fungus rising through the skin of his palm. “I’m sorry, but I can and will do more good for this city than you ever will—“

Angel’s light slips into a despairing blue.

You lunge over the table.

Maybe it would’ve been more hero-like to match Mr. Subterranean monologue for monologue. Maybe you should’ve warned him before you threw all 200 pounds of on top of him, teeth first. Maybe you should’ve  done a lot of things, but you didn’t and by the time you think of any of it, Mr. Subterranean’s head hits the opposite wall with a sickening smack!

“S-shark?” He stutters. His hands paw at your wrist where you’re holding his neck.

“The Shark,” you hiss through your growing teeth. Little drops of blood well up under the points of your nails where you’re using just a little too much strength. “Training accident? That’s the best you can come up with?”

Mr. Subterranean sneezes in your face. It’s disgusting and gross, but it doesn’t do anything.

“Sharks,” you tell him, “are immune to poison.”

“No, they aren’t,” he gasps.

You shake him like a rag doll. “If I say they are, they are.” You glance over your shoulder. “Yo, auditor. Am I allowed to arrest my team leader? I don’t think I’m a full Hero yet.”

Star Lad is slumped over in his chair. It takes him two tries to speak. “I—I deputize you to do so.”

“Great,” you say. You manhandle your team leader. He makes all sorts of interesting sounds when he tries to fight only to come up against your super strength. Somehow heroes always forget about your super strength. “I knew you were sketchy. This brings me incredible pleasure, sir.”

“Fuck you,” Mr. Subterranean spits.

There are a pair of power-suppression cuffs hanging from Mr. Subterranean’s utility belt. You grab them and click them on both of his wrists. They activate, flaring neon blue and Mr. Subterranean screams. As a physical power type, suppressing his powers is painful. You watch with interest as the mildew on the walls fades as he loses consciousness.

“Does this mean the mold lives inside him?” You let Mr. Subterranean fall to the ground. “Or is it a fungus?”

Star Lad coughs, sucking in a deep breath for the first time since he collapsed. He rubs at his throat. “How would I know that? He lied on his Hero Force Application form.”

The light in the room changes again to soemthing soft and pink as Angel calms down. She wraps her arms around herself. “Oh my god, are we his accomplices? I swear, I didn’t know anything about—“

“As rookies, neither of you bear any responsibility in Mr. Subterranean’s actions,” Star Lad says. He stands gingerly, testing his legs. “Unless either of you helped him hide villains from visiting heroes in order to defeat them himself at a later date?”

“What the fuck,” you say.

Angel presses a hand to her mouth. “Wait, I thought he had a second apartment for a mistress, not villains!”

“Could’ve been both,” you say. You watch Star Lad bring his mysterious sorcerer-like power to his hand and then dismiss it. “So what happens now?”

“I take Mr. Subterranean in,” Star Lad says promptly. He rolls his shoulders. “Both of you go home and wait for Hero Force to contact you. I assume you’ll be reassigned.” He eyes you. “You’ll probably go to San Francisco. Why didn’t you tell anyone you’re a shark transformer?”

You throw your hands up in the air. “I call myself the Shark!”

“Everyone in HQ thinks you’re being dramatic when you call yourself that,” Star Lad says. “You wrote superstrength and amazing teeth on your Hero Force Application.”

You bare all of your amazing shark teeth at him. “Which is true.”

He stares at you. “…right.” He sets about collecting Mr. Subterranean. His powers wrap around the other man’s arms and legs, lifting him into the air like a dead cow. “You both have options. Luckily we sorted those whole thing before either of you went rogue.”

“Whaaaat,” Angel says. Her halo shifts to a panicked orange color. “That’s craaaazy, I would never go rogue.”

“Yeah,” you say, bracing your hands on your hips. “What she said. Obviously.”

Star Lad shakes his head. “Right. Well, keep your noses clean. We’ll be in touch.”

He leaves the room, dragging Mr. Subterranean behind him. Both of you breathe a sigh of relief when the door closes.

“You were going to ditch too?” Angel asks.

“Big time,” you say. You fish your phone out of your pocket and show her the program you were going to use to drain Mr. Subterranean’s accounts. “I was going to rob our illustrious team leader first though.”

Angel pulls a pair of spark plugs out of her back pocket. “These are from his car.”

“So he couldn’t chase you?” You ask, impressed.

Angel looks at you like you’re crazy and pockets the spark plugs. “I can fly. He couldn’t chase me. I just wanted to ruin his day.”

You laugh. You didn’t know Angel was so funny. You sling an arm around her shoulders. “Let’s go get a drink, Angel. We can write a letter to Star Lad asking to be reassigned together.”

Angel wrinkles her nose but allows herself to be led from the room. “Star Lad. What a stupid name.”

You’re delighted. “Right?!”

You go to get drinks.

----------------------.

 thanks for reading! A bit of a long one but I had so much fun writing it!

If you’d like to see stories like this a week early, please consider supporting me on Patreon (X)!  It’s a “pay what you can” system that starts as low as $1 per month. I post every Friday and sometimes post Patreon Exclusive stories there!

You can also follow me on TikTok (X) which is the funniest sentence I’ve ever typed in my entire life!

Thank you, as always, for reading :)

[digitalkiddo]

If you're writing anything involving cons, scams, heists, or morally questionable characters who are very good at lying, here are some free resources I've been using for research. Saving you the "why is this in my search history" anxiety.

1. The FBI's Famous Cases & Criminals archive (fbi.gov/history/famous-cases) has detailed breakdowns of real fraud cases, Ponzi schemes, and confidence operations. The language they use is clinical and precise, which is perfect for getting the procedural details right.

2. The FTC Consumer Sentinel Network publishes annual reports on the most common fraud tactics in the US. Great for understanding how modern scams actually work and what makes people fall for them.

3. The Smithsonian's American Art Museum has a free digital collection of forgery case studies. If your character forges documents or art, this is gold.

4. Court Listener (courtlistener.com) is a free legal database where you can read actual court transcripts from fraud trials. Want to know how a real con artist talks under oath? This is where you find out.

5. The Internet Archive's collection of old newspaper crime sections. Search for "confidence man" or "swindle" in papers from the 1920s through 1960s and you'll find incredible real stories that would feel too dramatic for fiction.

Bonus: The Psychology of Fraud section on the Association for Psychological Science website has accessible articles about why people trust, how deception works cognitively, and what makes someone a convincing liar. Essential reading if you want your con artist characters to feel psychologically real.

Reblog to save for later. Your WIP will thank you.

[orteil42]

Wait, you were actually born in the 1900's? Thats so cool

i am going to eat my own entire skin

[idabbleincrazy]

Reblog if you were born in the 1900's.

[avoiding-claws]

[hyperlexichypatia]

Yeah, the fuck around century! Now it's the find out century!

[phantomrose96]

God's Favorite

Lucy wakes to the soft tapping of rain against her window, and she is God’s favorite. She knows this in the absent sound of her alarm, and she knows this in the yawning rumbles of thunder, and she knows this before she touches her phone alight to the notification screen.

8:43 am. Far from the 4:30 am alarm she’d needed to heed to make it to her flight. Her screen is awash with airline notifications.

She scrambles from bed. Her urgency is an apology. Lucy skips the shower and skips the hair washing and paints on deodorant before stowing it back in her carryon and calling her uber.

“Crazy weather,” her driver with the big mustache remarks. His windshield wipers swish through a river of rain.

“Yeah,” Lucy answers. She glances at her rumbling phone. She glances at the rumbling clouds. The road is clear. It shouldn’t be, not this route and not at this hour. A gas main broke somewhere up the highway that feeds this street. A freak accident. 2 injuries. It’s kept this road clear for just the locals since it happened. Lucy encounters no traffic enroute to the airport.

There are pockets of planes grounded across the runways, barely visible behind the sheets of downpour. They look like herding animals, herbivores, standing stock-still in brace against the weather. Lucy stares at them only a moment while the driver pulls her carryon out of the trunk. She grabs her jacket closed against the wind, and grabs her carryon handle, and thanks her driver. The rain does not reach her here, though the wind does.

Inside Lucy drags her bag past the help desks swarming with the orderly filings of people in disarray. Parents leaning too hard on help counters with kids pulling on bag handles. Hurried conversations and requests and arguments. The electronic boards are awash with deeply red DELAYED and CANCELED. The airport is choking. Lucy, who God loves, glides through security unimpeded.

At gate-side, Lucy finally looks to the large red board of DELAYED and CANCELED etchings to confirm what she knew without even checking her phone notifications. Gate A14. Her carryon wheels pitter and patter across tile as she walks, striding quickly, with apology.

When Gate A14 comes into view it is smothered with the weight of two or possibly three flights worth of people. There are people asleep clutching backpacks and curled on the floor. There is a four-year-old girl with her face buried in an iPad and a mother having a phone call whose clipped urgency infects Lucy. There is a man leaning over the counter to talk to the gate agent, and his hands pulse with each tensing of his fingers. “…to the hospital before she…” Lucy makes out, or thinks she makes out. She doesn’t hear the gate agent’s response, but she can read the defeated shake of her head.

Lucy’s carryon wheels clunk where the smooth tile of the terminal shifts to carpeting. She doesn’t think to grab a seat because there are no open seats. So she positions herself in a way to unmistakably say she is at the gate, threading between stagnant suitcases and kids splayed on the floor. Lucy approaches the rain-splattered windows, and like a conversation shy upon being overheard, the thunder recedes from her advance. The rain draws to a polite close. The clouds split along a seam and pull away, as if they were only ever a wave that had transiently crashed to shore. The sky is beautifully blue.

There is a stirring hopefulness in the air. Other passengers have pushed past Lucy to stand closer to the window and peer outside, as if their confirmation of the changing weather can convince the airline of what to do next.

The gate agent puts down the phone receiver of a one-sided call. She pulls the microphone close and with grainy clarity she announces, “Boarding for Flight A1874 to Detroit will begin in 10 minutes.”

On the walkway, through the gap between the throughway and plane, Lucy sees the puddles rising with steam. They throw the iridescent spectrum of a rainbow up into the sky.

In a backlog of hundreds of flights, Lucy’s is the first out across the runway. This is because God loves her. She only wishes It loved her in a way to fix her broken phone alarm.

…

In childhood Lucy had heard “God loves you” and “Jesus loves you” in the placative ways that Sunday School teaches its children. With jingles and crayon-drawings of sheep and shepherds and a decorated ornament, crafted each Christmas Eve.

Lucy had long since fallen out of it and had thought very little of her parents’ tepid god for the last 10 or 15 years.

It was last spring, 27-years-old, that Lucy had found her way out into the marsh. Mud sucking her boots and gnats plicking in swarm against her skin. Where she sat her tailbone in the muck and folded her arms over her knees and buried her face in her legs to cry. And cry. And cry. And there with the mugginess sopping her skin and the humidity coiling her hair, God decided It loved her.

It loved her with a parting of canopy for the robin-blue sky. It loved her with the chirp of cicadas. It loved her in the way a dog circles its owner and nudges a wet snout to palm, because It was here, and It would make her feel better.

Lucy’s seat is the window seat beside the man with the tensing fingers. He fiddles with a phone in his clutch until he locks it in airplane mode and stows it, to look at no more. Lucy wonders who this man knows in the hospital, and she wonders why God doesn’t love him more than It loves her.

…

In March, Marco breaks up with her over a plate of fish that is too dry. In the moment, Lucy wonders if it’s her fault, because of the fish. But that’s not it. The signs were there, in all the subtle and stuttering moments Marco had pulled away. Each little moment like a slightly missed step, on a staircase growing ricketier each month.

Marco leaves and everything is so quiet, to the point that Lucy thinks her own sounds are pretty stupid, and pretty embarrassing while she’s coiled snail-like and snottily-sobbing into her pillowcase. She thinks absently of how she has to wash the pillowcase now, and that’s fine, because she was going to wash her linens this weekend anyway. She sobs so hard she’s almost screaming. Oh, and kitchen towels. She’ll wash the kitchen towels too.

She’s alive enough the next morning to throw all her linens and her kitchen towels on the floor of the laundry room. And maybe Marco breaking up with her is fine, because his birthday is December 25th and who wants a husband whose birthday is the same day as Christmas?

Her doorbell rings. And somehow it’s Marco again. She opens it to him, and he smells like a wildfire.

“Sorry, Lucy, this is awkward,” and Lucy believes he means it. He’s clutching a jacket around himself for what looks like security more than warmth. His apartment burned down last night. A resident fell asleep with a cigarette lit and dangling from her fingertips. Unit right below him. All his stuff burned, or filled with smoke, or is now logged up with water. He’s been sitting outside on the cobblestone for the last few hours, watching the blaze, on the phone with insurance. His landlord hasn’t responded to him yet. He’s cold, and he’s smokey, and can he shower here maybe? Can he stay for just a day or two, maybe? Sorry. This is awkward. He has no family on this coast. He really has nowhere else to go.

“Sure.” Lucy lets in Marco who smells like a wildfire. She adds the towels to her laundry list because they will smell like a wildfire too once Marco has used them. When he is clean, Lucy asks him nice questions. He asks her nice questions back. She helps him figure out something strange on the insurance form. He starts cooking dinner before Lucy realizes he’d entered the kitchen, because she was busy with the linens and the towels.

Marco takes the couch and clean linens. “Thanks, again, really. I can pay you a few days rent, when I get the insurance payout.” It’s no problem. Lucy goes to her room and shuts the door. It’s warmer here with Marco again. She wonders how long he’ll stay. She wonders if it will be for as long as she thinks the sound of him breathing in the other room is a comfort.

Something twists in Lucy’s chest. She wonders why God loves her more than It loves Marco. Lucy wonders why God didn’t love the woman with the lit cigarette who did not make it out of the building.

…

In June Lucy is desperately throwing together the haphazard makings of a financial report. She meant to stay up late to finish it, and get up early to make it beautiful, but she’s had a cold for a whole week now and the new bottle of decongestant she grabbed wasn’t “non-drowsy” like she thought.

Her heart is beating, and she nearly twists her ankle with a misstep in high heels, and she almost loses her grip on the shoddy makings of a too-light financial report still warm from the printer. She can spin it, maybe, that it’s intentionally light and she’d simply wanted the esteemed and respected input from the executives in the room before she produces the truly polished report this evening. And when the eyebrows are raised and she is told the report is due now, maybe they will refrain from firing her on the spot since she is still the only one who can produce the report they need.

She pulls open the meeting room door as if she is not out of breath, as if her nose isn’t red from a thousand tissues. She takes her seat so hastily that she does not notice, until she looks up properly, and sees the CEO’s seat is empty.

No one speaks. No one acknowledges her entrance. Lucy hugs the warm binder to her chest.

The door latch clicks open, but Lucy knows it will not be the CEO. She heard the click of heels before the doorknob turned.

It’s his assistant with the lovely auburn hair that curls around her shoulders. Her suit is red and her eyes are red and she stands just behind the CEO’s chair. Everyone notices her in the way they did not notice Lucy.

She speaks. The CEO’s wife and daughter were in a head-on collision with a drunk driver 42 minutes ago. They’re in critical condition, and the CEO has gone to be with them. He asks everyone’s forgiveness and grace in this time. The meeting is rescheduled for tomorrow, same time, and he humbly requests if everyone in attendance can adjust their calendar to accommodate this. This is a big ask, he knows. The board will have questions, he knows. But these are extenuating circumstances. The assistant will help with any necessary reworking of everyone’s calendars. And Lucy, can you please deliver the report tomorrow? The assistant has a sympathy card, which she lays on the table along with a black pen, and she asks if anyone would care to sign it.

Lucy signs it. The card paper is so cold, compared to the warmth of the half-finished report squeezed tight against her chest. The half-finished report should have cooled by now, but God must know she’s cold and ashen-faced, and God loves her so much.

…

In July, Lucy is a perfectionist. Her mother swears she wasn’t always like this. Her high school best friend is surprised, when in town for a weekend and meeting up for coffee, by the way Lucy triple-confirms the time, and the place, and the way she wears two watches. Why two watches? he asks. Because the alarm on one watch might fail. What about your phone? The watches are the backup, if the phone dies.

There’s something off-putting in the way she talks, and the way she asks questions of him, and the way she exclaims in joy at every piece of good news he shares. Josiah glances behind himself, more and more, and it’s because Lucy stares back there like she knows someone else at the next table.

It’s all weird, and Josiah can’t help but pull away. But Lucy pulls away first, retroactively. She can always pull away retroactively, and declare to her four walls of her room how much she didn’t need that friend, like she doesn’t need Marco, or anyone else who God may drop at her doorstep like the dead bird bounty of a cat, happy to share with the person It loves.

Lucy finishes her reports early. She wiles away the sun at her office even in the summer finishing reports far before anyone could need them. She double-checks, every time. She triple-checks. Her boss pulls her into a meeting room and with hands folded on the desk, he asks if maybe she needs to take some time off. And instantly she declares to the four walls that no-one at the company is doing this to her. “I wasn’t implying that…” but she’s not looking at him when he answers.

In July Lucy returns to the marsh. She returns with stones she’s horded up and gathered in the trunk of her car. She walks through the boot-suckling mud and she weighs stones in her arms while she hurls them, and throws, and screams, and hopes one of them might strike God in Its snout.

“I HATE YOU!” she screams. She throws all her weight into a stone whose sharp edge nicks bark. She hurls one through the bushes and another into the leafy canopy above. She is sopping wet and the cicadas chirp at her. “I HATE YOU!! GO AWAY!! LEAVE ME ALONE!!!” She chucks a stone which lands in the sucking muck, capsizing like a ship beneath the algae.

She throws, and her gravity heaves forward, and her boots stay stuck in the mud. So she topples elbow-deep in the mud, spattered, soaking into her chin and her shirt and her jeans and her hair. She parts her lips and tastes the earthy wetness on her skin, coppery blood, split lip. The stones are all under her. She laughs. Lucy tilts her head to the sky screaming with laughter. Joyous to tears, with the wetness drawing rivulets down the mud on her cheeks. She laughs because sopping-in-mud-and-muck is NOT the state of something God loves. This wouldn’t happen to something God loves.

Lucy goes home. Lucy showers. Lucy does her laundry. And It crawls back into bed with her. Perhaps like a scolded animal, but perhaps It did not even know It was being scolded. Lucy cannot tell.

The wine stains came out of her linens today because God loves her.

[feminist-space]

[feminist-space]

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[feminist-space]

[baddywronglegs]

The people who insist AI is smarter than a human are doing their fucking damnedest to manifest that

[shrewreadings]

Не верите. Доверите.

Do not trust: verify.

[musiicpix3l]

Yes yes i know love is love. But they are still killing CHILDREN. over this.

[fluffmugger]

"Love is love" is a milquetoast cishet marketing phrase

Pride is a FUCK YOU to a society that wants us dead.

[phantomrose96]

Thinking about Edward Elric as the Amestrian Military's specialest little unfireable boy

State alchemists can be fired for underperforming. We know this up front from the likes of Shou Tucker. And this makes a ton of sense from the homunculi's standpoint since the state alchemists are sacrifice candidates, and the homunculi would want to cull the weakest candidates and focus only on cultivating the strongest ones who stand the best chance of opening the portal.

........Then there's Edward. Who's already opened the portal.

There's no need to cultivate him. No gamble taken on whether he's good enough to open the portal. He passed the final test already. Graduated 4 semesters early.

And as such, has a free pass to do Absolute Fuck All.

And I'm imagining how funny this is from like an outside perspective.

Some newish state alchemist who'd only ever read up on the stories of Edward Elric, ready and excited to start their career of being paid handsomely with endless freedom to research and travel and do anything they want in the pursuit of science... surprised and confused to find themselves put on probation their first month for things like "ignoring orders." Which is, as best they had thought, a famous Edward Elric pastime.

Roy showing a slight bit of stress about his yearly state alchemist report, and Ed just snorting and rolling his eyes at Roy because every year HE just hastily does his on the train ride over (canon in the manga, a travesty it was left out of the anime) and it gets rubber stamped. Ed not realizing that other alchemists' reports get genuinely scrutinized and torn apart while Ed is free to turn in whatever absolute bullshit he thinks of 36 hours ahead of time. One year his report was about whether alchemy could be done via dance (conclusion: no it can't) and no one cared. Roy WANTS to tell Ed there's some kind of unknown favoritism around Ed making him literally bullet-proof but Roy has no way to phrase this that doesn't sound like he's just in denial and mad at how good Ed's train-reports are.

Guy from the Internal Amestrian Affairs sector who's responsible for auditing other internal military personel for any suspicious activity hitting about 1 million red flags for Edward Elric, issuing a STRONG and URGENT recommendation to suspend the alchemist pending further investigation into things like "literal bunk-buddies with two members of the Xingese royalty (enemy nation)" and "spent $10,000,000 of his stipend on a librarian to make her re-copy (what he seemed to interpret as?) military records in some extremely transparent effort to unearth state secrets (it was a recipe book but he was literally asking her about state secrets)" and "literally has never once obeyed an order, ever, not even once in his career, and is on public record having said 'I do not care about the goals and protections of the Amestrian Military. I am in fact only pursuing my own interests several of which are diametrically opposed to the safety and well-being of the governing body of Amestris'"

The issued recommendation is intercepted before it even reaches its intended desk. President Bradley himself has taken issue with it and denies it before a single set of eyes has seen it. The President's veto stamp is a terrifying hammer, used rarely, and it is now sitting on the auditor's desk.

The auditor sleeps with one eye open from then on out.

[asteroidtroglodyte]

TIL the reason you don’t find much Lyme’s Disease in California is not because we don’t have Ticks, or Lyme Disease Vectors; but rather: because the Western Fence Lizard (if you live anywhere in California this is your regular Garden Variety Lizard) has adapted a passive immune response that makes their blood lethal to Lyme Disease Bacteria. Any Tick that feeds on one gets its gut cleansed of Lyme Disease as a side effect.

Fucking neat.

[iheartvelma]

There is a new vaccine going into Phase 3 trials from Valneva and Pfizer as well as a monoclonal antibody-based prophylactic treatment being researched at UMass!

[dragon-in-a-fez]

"the only cure for this weird disease is the special lizard blood" is a Star Trek TOS plot that escaped into the real world

[groshia]

Lee from the tea shop 🍵🍀

[mclennonyaoi]

i feel like those posts thatre like “REAL gay people don’t talk about yaoi discourse they go to gay clubs and do ket” are crazy like i understand they’re critiquing a hyper specific genre of online queer but babe they can do both… i know people who are ravers and are always on shrooms and read mcr rpf like i feel like we draw a big line between the online queer community and the in person one but that girls at gay bars have tumblr accounts it’s really not that seperate

[mclennonyaoi]

[mclennonyaoi]