A pinup of Rauda done by the lovely Gabsilla! I really love how well they showed Rauda's binding tape and prosthetic while keeping them looking sexy (diversity wins!) as well as making them look suitably enby. Also featuring pants like their cloak, ghost bear fuzzy slippers and an urbie in the colours of their Mad Dog.
On one of the few areas of flat terrain outside the Dropport, Jehan surveyed the preparations.
All three mobile sauna units - insulated trailers with benches and heating units, essentially - had been deployed in a loose arc surrounding the pit the Elementals had prepared.
They had begun with cratering charges, then cleared out the rubble, and finally smoothed the bottom through the judicious application of pulse lasers. Coolant trucks were already filling it with water to create a shallow pool.
On the top of the central sauna, a projector had been set up, directed at the smoothest section of the Dropport baffles, and the evening's entertainment loaded and queued. While they would not be getting through the entire series - the first run alone had something like two hundred and fifty episodes, each of them about an hour long - it was a rare Clanner who would object to watching 'Tails of Strana Mechty' and none of the First Helios had ever seen it.
He was looking forward to Isidora's reaction to Astrid's character.
On either side of the nascent pool, packing crates had been set up as makeshift tables, and more cratering charges had been used to create barbecue pits. Most of them simply hosted grills of whatever meat could be requisitioned from the supplies they had brought with, but some of his Warriors had tried their luck in the hills, and there were a few examples of the local game roasting.
The weather was giving cool but clear, and having cleared his schedule for the day, he settled his back against a step and watched as tanker after tanker delivered there loads of water, waiting for evening and the start of festivities.
"Battle Armor. No thank you. I prefer speed, mobility, and armor in a fight. I have quite learned my lesson about being outside of a cockpit in a combat area. I shall stay in my 'Mech and let the experts go rooting around indoors and in dark tunnels."
She remembered the imposing sight of the Blakist armor; the feel of armored fingers around her neck. "If another warehouse needs to be cleared by me then I will simply blow it up."
"Aff. I'm not afraid of a fight, but I prefer to be behind the controls of my Mad Dog as well."
Rauda rubbed their stump absentmindedly, half paying attention to both the conversation and the show. It was hot in the sauna (obviously), and they took a deep swig of their drink, trying to properly relax. They felt like they were drinking quick but, well, they doubted anyone gathered would be too put out if they left the sauna less than sober, so long as they did not make too much of a fool of themselves.
"I am sure you could take some... appealing shots in an elemental," they argued absentmindedly. "From what I remember of the arcade game... fans, many people are interested in busty women with helmets on, neg?" They shrugged. "Something about the anonymity? It is not what I look for in a pin-up."
"The racks of ribs seemed particularly appealing. I will have an entire one of those, Jehan, if you please," Astrid says.
She settles back, shifting her posture slightly to watch the show, chuckling at the ongoing conversation.
"I believe the appeal of the fully-armored soldier, is somewhat down to the air of mystery, in that anything one could imagine could be under the armor. And often, that imagined occupant will often be more appealing to anyone given to such fantasies. Luckily, at least for Elementals, the real occupants are quite often handsome and/or beautiful, which is why I suspect they have become the most depicted form of these armored soldier pin-ups," she chuckles. Then she looks at Isidora, curiousity in her eyes. "Though I imagine on Helios, there may be a market for the highly cybernetically augmented equivalent, quiaff?"
"Well there is no vow of celibacy to be a Hand, the appeal is deliberately less sexual. Unless a Wraith or Poltergeist, traits that are attractive to frails tend to be veered away from within our ranks, though that has changed some in the last few generations. Something that needs to be considered with you clansfolk is that you all tend to be almost supernaturally pretty or handsome, not just the Elementals."
"You would be surprised about the amount of pornography people request of me." Clarissa downs another mouth full of her beer, then quickly corrects. "Not with me as a subject, of course. I meant for me to acquire for them. Elementals and MechWarriors in those little skimpy things the Inner Sphere wears. Dragons having sex with cars is startlingly popular."
She turns her head towards Isidora, "The beauty comes from centuries of selective breeding and genetic engineering. It results in beauty, true, but there is a level of... Perfection in the pristine Trueborn which I always found slightly boring. They take a few scars to really marinate properly into something attractive, I believe."
Rauda paused with a bottle halfway to their mouth.
"Do you mean dragons..." they tapped their cheek absentmindedly, "like the beast? Or the heavy mech? Either way, I am... struggling to picture it." They snorted, the binder, heat and sake combination making the alcohol go to their head. They weren't drunk, far from it; but the mental image seemed far funnier than it had any right to be.
"Which wears the skimpy outfit? The Grand Dragon seems bustier than it's predecessors, quiaff? And with thirteen double heatsinks, it promises to surely handle itself."
As if realising they had been rambling about a scantily-clad mech, Rauda suddenly cleared their throat. "But, I agree. I too find a person with scars more interesting."
I have never played Solaris Champion and I have never used public LinkNet and that is the story I am going with, quiaff? But there are... many games with such errors. One shooter in particular has never seen a Mad Dog Prime and it malfing shows. You know who you are.
Been meaning to try this quiz with Rauda for a while, now! I think this is pretty accurate, although they're probably a little less dominant than this makes out; it's more bitey from the bottom, I think.
On one of the few areas of flat terrain outside the Dropport, Jehan surveyed the preparations.
All three mobile sauna units - insulated trailers with benches and heating units, essentially - had been deployed in a loose arc surrounding the pit the Elementals had prepared.
They had begun with cratering charges, then cleared out the rubble, and finally smoothed the bottom through the judicious application of pulse lasers. Coolant trucks were already filling it with water to create a shallow pool.
On the top of the central sauna, a projector had been set up, directed at the smoothest section of the Dropport baffles, and the evening's entertainment loaded and queued. While they would not be getting through the entire series - the first run alone had something like two hundred and fifty episodes, each of them about an hour long - it was a rare Clanner who would object to watching 'Tails of Strana Mechty' and none of the First Helios had ever seen it.
He was looking forward to Isidora's reaction to Astrid's character.
On either side of the nascent pool, packing crates had been set up as makeshift tables, and more cratering charges had been used to create barbecue pits. Most of them simply hosted grills of whatever meat could be requisitioned from the supplies they had brought with, but some of his Warriors had tried their luck in the hills, and there were a few examples of the local game roasting.
The weather was giving cool but clear, and having cleared his schedule for the day, he settled his back against a step and watched as tanker after tanker delivered there loads of water, waiting for evening and the start of festivities.
"Battle Armor. No thank you. I prefer speed, mobility, and armor in a fight. I have quite learned my lesson about being outside of a cockpit in a combat area. I shall stay in my 'Mech and let the experts go rooting around indoors and in dark tunnels."
She remembered the imposing sight of the Blakist armor; the feel of armored fingers around her neck. "If another warehouse needs to be cleared by me then I will simply blow it up."
"Aff. I'm not afraid of a fight, but I prefer to be behind the controls of my Mad Dog as well."
Rauda rubbed their stump absentmindedly, half paying attention to both the conversation and the show. It was hot in the sauna (obviously), and they took a deep swig of their drink, trying to properly relax. They felt like they were drinking quick but, well, they doubted anyone gathered would be too put out if they left the sauna less than sober, so long as they did not make too much of a fool of themselves.
"I am sure you could take some... appealing shots in an elemental," they argued absentmindedly. "From what I remember of the arcade game... fans, many people are interested in busty women with helmets on, neg?" They shrugged. "Something about the anonymity? It is not what I look for in a pin-up."
...Hafnar Ghost Bear, but that is okay, Hafnar Ghost Bear is one of those men who it might be considered a benefit to not know. His reputation runs as such: "The large, bearded man carried a battleax inside his 'Mech cockpit, learned Norse specifically so he could scream curses at his enemies over open comm lines, and dedicated his kills in battle to the Norse gods."
But Hafnar is noted as being of the Invasion era, and thus we are left with two possibilities surrounding his religious beliefs:
The Neo-Nordic traditions which would eventually evolve in Rasalhague were, in fact, also preserved in the Clans, or-
-(the funnier option) Clan Warriors exposed to Rasalhagic Neo-Nordic beliefs took to them like ducks to water, because quite frankly a religion wherein death in battle is both sanctified and rewarded with (in the major tradition) an eternity in battle, against fellow greatest warriors across time, fits so well that if they hadn't heard about it they would have had to invent it themselves.
Oh, my experience has very much been the latter. The Havamal is very much compatible with Zellbrigen and an eternity of glorious combat without ever being relegated to a solahma unit? What a promise.