#The Engineer's Wife

[elation-station]

the town bisexuals are at your door it is time for you to pick a bride

#ngl lads i am not happy with this one lmfao #been going thru it so just a doodle #anyway so these are just design ideas #penny is this mousey little woman i see as actually kinda tallish but the kind of tall person who does everything to not appear so #maru is just hot tbh she my engineer wife #really tried something with her face and hope it doesnt look horrible #leah is tall as well and you know shes ripped under that shirt #she'll carry you over the threshold and paint your ceiling like the sistine chapel and dedicate it to you #i am not happyy with how haley came ouuttt she deserves better #like i couldve drawn her beautiful hair good but instead i just didnt. whatver #emily still the love of my life its been established #i cant see abigail as a romantic option ngl i perceive her as an impish quasi teenager who likes getting in trouble #i would be her parent figure and give her life advice and bring her to the mines to fight monsters together #anyway peace #sdv #stardew valley #abigail sdv #emily sdv #haley sdv #leah sdv #maru sdv #penny sdv #stardew valley bachelorettes #art by op

[0straycat0]

A lil obscure spoovy/engiemedic comic i made from an idea that has been rattling around

Yknow yada yada something about moving on and finding someone else

#tf2 #team fortress 2 #tf2 fanart #science party #spoovy #tf2 engineer #tf2 medic #tf2 spy #tf2 heavy #0art0 #heavy and his future wife

[laesas]

RamKing + Venus Flytrap || by kinnbig

#HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO VENUS FLYTRAP ON AO3!!! Happy 1 Year of fic posting to my very cool and very smart and very talented wife!!! #My Engineer #RamKing #Perth Nakhun #Lay Talay #KingRam #tumblr user kinnbig hiiiiiii #ram myen #king myen #myen #bee.gif #we are SO BACK babyyyyy #if you havent read it!!! go do that now!!!!! please!!! its just!!! lovely!!!!!! and perfect!!! and linked in the description hehe #Your mission should you choose to accept - is to gently bully darcey into finishing the rest of that series #by leaving soooo many nice comments on the fic that she has to complete it hehehe #also big thank u Rissa tumblr user divorcedmalewife for being so so niceys about my idea and being the bestest sounding board hehe #I suffered more than god to get the colouring lookin pretty on these bad boys but OH it was worth it!!! #it's what ramking and my lovely wife DESERVE <3 #also did anyone notice the photo frame and ram and king staying saturated in the photo frame while everyone around them fades??? did you??? #do u see the visual metaphor of it all #do u understand #I'm insane about them forever thanks for asking #I love themb #flashing gif cw #lgbtedit #thai bl #thai bl edit #ql edit

[tailsdollsnewlife]

Soldier and Pyro(my interpretation) doing some good old fashioned mud wrestling

#Engineer's concerned for his wife #team fortress 2 #tf2 #tf2 pyro #tf2 soldier #tf2 demoman #tf2 zhanna #tf2 engineer #tf2 medic

[eyeofnewtblog]

Just had a really weird job interview that actually made me think about my childhood…(I said I was independent and resourceful and was asked to provide examples)

My dad bought me my first car, but as soon as I had my drivers license, he told me I was grounded until I knew how to change a tire and change my own oil. I was grounded for about a week. The only help he gave me was showing me where the owners manual was and a few forums about my specific model of car.

My dad, while I was getting my permit to drive, required that I drive him up to the local Indian reservation for casino night (he would keep $150 in his right pocket and as soon he was out he would leave, he kept the winnings in his left pocket and as soon as he was $300 up we would leave) also he tried to teach his most mathematicalally challenged child how to count cards at black jack? Not a successful enterprise. I barely passed high school chemistry.

When I was twelve there was a cross continent moving situation that required my dad and I to move ahead of my mom and middle sister (this is the time he lit the stove on fire from trying to fry bacon…) after the stove incident, he dug out the recipe cards his mother had made for my mom when they got married, shoved them at me, along with the cordless 1990’s phone and said “I’ve dialed your Aunt Rock, (his older sister) Daddy wants biscuits and gravy, make her walk you through it.”

That’s how I learned to cook; having my aunt on speed dial and I would tell her what was in the cabinets, she would make a list for me to give to dad, and then she would walk me through the recipe. As I cooked it.

As a teenager, my dad knew that I was capable of cooking exactly what he wanted (IE exactly what his mom and big sis cooked while he was growing up) and as an adult I’ve had to actually learn to enjoy cooking as an actual experience and process and not just “what I was told”

When I was 21 my dad spent about $700 on brand new parts for a car I owned that was falling apart…I spent my 21st birthday drinking beer on my dad’s driveway tearing apart my van to replace rotors and brakes, while my boyfriend at the time and dad sat back and did nothing while calling me a great little grease monkey.

Honestly, I’m still not sure if I’m proud or humiliated by that, but the grease monkey comment came from the bf and he didn’t last much longer…

I don’t know. Obviously I didn’t make myself quite this vulnerable when I was in the actual interview, but it feels good to be vulnerable after the fact?

I just feel like my dad gave me a lot of tools to figure shit out for myself, and being resourceful is actually a really great quality. Feeling? Idk.

Being resourceful gives you independence.

Because any problems that come up? There’s either a YouTube tutorial, a blog, or SOMETHING available as a resource. And if you’re out of internet service???? There’s literally a book in your glove compartment somewhere telling you what to do.

#humans are space orcs #independent action #be your own Prince Charming #he’s stuck in a tree go rescue him #my dad is a hot mess #no idea how to cook #it’s okay he’s got three daughters.two sisters.and a wife #what kind of engineer needs to distract himself like that

[morskisir]

warm ups that turned into a whole ass doodle page. fem fortress galore

#tf2 #fem fortress #fem scout #<- my got damn wife #fem spy #fem sniper #pyro #fem engineer #fem soldier #fem demo #nishart #eye contact

[ruthlesslistener]

Wanderer's Journal (pt. 3)

Now, as is inevitable with me, I am compiling the info on the Higher Beings, starting with the Pale King.

Here's the bit that states outright that PK was an accomplished civil engineer! I love that the Queen's Station apparently barely disturbed the environment too, likely out of deference to the White Lady. Additionally, the Queen's Station links the areas of Hallownest that allied with the King (Fog Canyon/Greenpath, the Fungal Wastes, Dirtmouth), which is a cool tidbit that I didn't notice until now.

Wyrm moment. It's fun to note that the White Palace as we find it in-game is not in this book, as a mortal would not have been able to enter. Very fun to learn that PK was once an 'unfathomably large' wyrm though (at least according to mortal bug standards!), and that it seems the dev notes on him gaining a gender after he transformed into his kingsbug form did stick around into canon, though of course that could just be because the narrator did not know that he hatched out of the wyrm (Bardoon does, and still uses it/its for the wyrm in-game, but that's not super important, I just think it's interesting worldbuilding).

We also see some of the Pale King's cowardice and willingness to omit the truth to get what he wants here, with him running from his sins and lying about what strips mind from bugs in the Wastelands. We know from Quirrel's comic that it's not him who does it, but if it keeps worshipers in without him having to resort to conflict? Jackpot.

Here's WL, and a mention of Dryya + Radi's puppet. Kinda amusing how WL apparently has no problem with visitors, but then again if I were a very powerful root goddess then I likely wouldn't really care about passive intruders either.

Aaand here's Radi! I find it curious that the glyphs seem to be made by the Moth Tribe, yet are clearly soul totems when we see them in game- maybe they changed from Radiance's power to the Pale King's when they made their conversion? Because they're certainly from the Moths, given the winged nature and the fact that their language seemingly has been stricken from record- though I should note that Ellina cannot read the Pale King's writings, either. I also can't help but feel sorry for the Radiance here, longing to be remembered, even if she did go ham with the genocide in canon.

And now the Grimm Troupe:

I have nothing else to add. I just love how they're hanging out and having fun. Ellina doesn't seem at all afraid of them, so perhaps it's just Elderbug who dislikes them setting up shop in his quiet little town.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

#hollow knight #hollow knight lore #hollow knight meta #wanderer's journal #the fact that pk was a civil engineer who made the queen's station specifically so that it didnt disturb the environemnt... #ough #he loved his wife #the pale king #troupe master grimm #the radiance #the white lady

[hearties-circus]

I want everyone to know that this is how faye talks to people

[Milk: he/star/it, faye: he/she/they]

#al art #al ocs #tf2 #team fortress 2 #tf2 oc #tf2 engineer #tf2 spy #milk tells axel about this and ze takes the opportunity to say that faye calls zir 'captain sexy' #< this is not true but when asked faye 100% plays along #i just think ppl should know that faye abruptly deciding to call milk wife was probably the tamest thing she couldve decided on #milk #faye

[slumbergoblin]

Hi Mei :)

#pmatga #my art #pmatga oc #mei lián #“I have been drawing Mei.” #“What?” #“I have done nothing but draw Mei for 3 days.” #well- it's when she was in her 30s^^;; #also when she and Betrayus were first interacting! Betrayus initially did not like her! #he wasn't used to someone actively trying to seek out and get to know him. so he was just his usual #“grr I don't like talking to new people and I'm always grumpy blah blah blah” <- paraphrasing #I really need to just. write everything I can about her down and then just slap it here because I feel like I haven't conveyed who #she really is and how she acts as a character. I feel like she's still too empty on a surface level in my drawings #but in my head she's /way/ more fleshed out #like she's an engineer. she has 3 younger siblings. she's a hard worker (to the point where even betrayus tells her to take breaks). #she's the person who makes betrayus open up and see the world in a better light! she had such a huge influence on him and helped him grow! #I just don't want her to be 'this is betrayus's wife! and that's it!' you know? I /need/ there to be more #but alas. it is hard for me to write u_u #uuuoohh I forgot I have to draw her motorcycle too..... uwwahhh... #also notes: I didn't draw her shoes on the full-body on the left. and I didn't actually 'color' her clothing on the full-body on the right #I grey-scaled it. but never went through with coloring it

[m3th-m3th-m3th]

My beautiful wife😍

Mwah

2023Nov 2022Jan side by side

Bonus sketches

#team fortress 2 #tf2 #tf2 fanart #tf2 engineer #maid outfit #tf2 spy #mike’s sketches #my wife #cutie patootie hehe #I love him #my beloved #my love

[watchmakermori]

rereading The Bedlam Stacks: my feelings six years on

until recently, I'd only read The Bedlam Stacks the once - back on release, within the span of a few days. I'd enjoyed it at the time, though not nearly as much as my beloved Watchmaker, so I thought it was time to go back to it and see how my feelings on it have changed.

back in 2017, I recall enjoying the first third of the book a lot, finding the middle section a bit slow, and thinking that the ending was a bit sudden. Having reread it again, my thoughts are similar in some respects - I still think that the pacing is strongest at the beginning, and hits a sluggish section once Merrick gets to Bedlam. My feelings on the ending are complicated, because part of me thinks that it's missing something, but part of me thinks it has the best conclusion of any Pulley book so far.

Bedlam is a difficult book for me to critique. There is so much that I love about it, so many isolated scenes and concepts that stick with me, and the prose is fresher and more beautiful than I remembered. The scene where Raphael turns to stone for 70 years is so beautifully, horrifyingly handled. The markayuq are a haunting, fascinatingly original concept. Merrick and Raphael, while hitting a lot of the classic Pulley duo tropes, stand out in many other ways - the fact that their romance is only implied, and left somewhat ambiguous, is actually a novelty against the context of her other works. They also feel more...mirrored than other Pulley pairings? Most of her romances seem to thrive on difference. Differences in class, in race, in intellectual standing, in physical strength. And obviously Raphael and Merrick have some of that, but they're also markedly similar in a lot of ways. Even though Merrick doesn't have Raphael's strength, he does have the memory of being a much stronger and healthier man. Both characters have a past of physical violence, and they are both shown to be capable of it in the narrative itself, as with when Raphael shoots the passing traveller and Merrick strangles Martel to death.

Their relationship to disability is also similarly mirrored, because both of them are haunted by old versions of themselves. Raphael is watching himself turn into a markayuq, feeling himself lose time and mobility, knowing that his transformation is impending and inevitable. Merrick also knows that he will never again be the man he was before his leg injury; he has to adjust to it, to work around it and accept that it has changed him. The acceptance of inevitability is a really interesting theme in Bedlam, which feeds all the way through Merrick and Raphael's central friendship. They don't really get the best of anything - they meet under bad circumstances, for less than a month, and they will never have enough time together due to Raphael's condition and a thousand other factors. But that doesn't mean that their friendship isn't worth something, that it isn't immensely precious.

So there's a great deal that I love about Bedlam on a thematic level, but I do think that the actual plotting of the book is quite weak overall. There are lots of isolated scenes that I love, but the connecting tissue is somewhat thin. The middle of the book involves a lot of waiting - waiting for the snow to clear, waiting for Clem to return, waiting for Raphael to tell Merrick the truth and take him beyond the salt line. Merrick does not have a great deal of intentional impact on the narrative, so it does often feel like you're sitting around waiting for the plot to come to him.

That's not to say that the plot needed to be bolder or bigger. It didn't need to focus more on the search for quinine. Honestly, I don't think high-stakes drama is one of Pulley's strengths - her forte is small interpersonal conflicts between select units of characters. In Watchmaker, the conflict and stakes don't really come from the lurking bomb threat or the police investigation - it's about Thaniel struggling with his own desires over the impulse to do the 'right' thing. Grace represents a more conventional path for him - a wife, a house, a future with children, and the money to look after his sister and nephews. But Mori is who he actually wants. And those warring desires come into greater and greater conflict as the story moves from beginning to middle to end. Thaniel's goals are not static.

But in Bedlam, there isn't that same sense of escalating tension and raising stakes. Merrick has his reservations about Raphael and whether he is dangerous, but ultimately, those reservations don't really change the decisions he makes. So much of what happens feels like it was always going to happen, which means that a lot of the tension feels somewhat...inorganic. Intangible. There isn't even the threat of discovery for most of the book, because Raphael knows exactly why Merrick is in Bedlam and Merrick makes no attempt to hide the truth. He keeps quiet about the threat of the army, but even if Raphael had discovered it sooner, it doesn't feel like it would've materially impacted how the story played out.

So it's a hard book for me to articulate my feelings on. The themes and concepts and characters and isolated scenes are excellent, but the story feels - just slightly - like it is less than the sum of its parts. At times, it seems more like a series of episodic events than a narrative, even if those episodic events are still deeply enjoyable.

But the ending is immensely powerful. The melancholy and the joy of it. The simple devotion of Merrick being there when Raphael wakes, 20 years later, with a cup of coffee - which was what Merrick had gone to make when Raphael first went into stasis. It is simultaneously an act of mundanity, and also an act of incredible loyalty and dedication - and love often does shine brightest in those small moments of devotion.

A while ago, I was lamenting that Pulley only ever gives us happy, cosy endings rather than something more tragic and bittersweet, but I don't think I was actually accurate on that. The conclusion of Bedlam is desperately sad, for all its loveliness. Because while Raphael and Merrick are reunited, we can't know how long they will have together. The story denies us that knowledge, that closure, by ending just as Raphael laughs.

I'm so glad I reread it. It is a bit of an odd fish next to all of Pulley's other works, and that makes me appreciate it much more with retrospect. This reread also reminded me, on a more general level, of everything I love about Pulley's writing - the sublime weirdness and the quirky characters and the nonchalance with which she handles speculative elements. For all her flaws as a writer, nobody is doing it like her, and I truly cannot wait for The Mars House.

#the bedlam stacks #natasha pulley #i do love her books because they always give me so many THOUGHTS #what's notable about pulley is that her actual broad arching plots do not tend to be what I remember about them #I don't remember a lot of the sprawling political stuff in pepperharrow #but I DO remember the aching internal conflict of thaniel desperately worrying that mori is not what he thinks #the smaller personal drama is where her books REALLY shine #so I think her work is at its best when she leans into that #as with watchmaker. the dramatic climax of grace engineering an explosion has barely half of the weight #of thaniel steepleton leaving his wife on his wedding night and going to kiss keita mori

[terrorbirb]

The hr guy is printing covid denial stuff on the printer and it's annoying if only because all of the rest of the office are engineers who I actually know, due to discussions, are very on board with covid is real and we should get vaccinated.

#totes bro #i told him awhile back that i was literally a filter engineer before and masks do work #because they cant......not work..... #and he said 'people dont wear them right' to which i said that doesnt change the effectiveness of the mask itself #so i uhm #will wear a mask if i ever need to have a face to face conversation #the discussions literally were 'we need to go home or wear masks and avoid nicole because her wife has heart issues' #which i didn't even tell them we needed that. they just were like empathetic and care which ♥️ #my wife was in the hospital like 3 weeks after i started #oh they also told me we should take the opportunity to go shopping on our public holidays because no one else has mlk off #which ♥️ for thinking of my wife. you never met her #those are the p.e.s that decided it so.....their word goes

[motsimages]

I love Trip because he is like a young O'Brien. He is just a simple village boy who likes machines. Ideally, he would have gotten married to that first girlfriend he had and that would be it but for some reason, probably foolish youth, he thought that joining Archer to travel around the galaxy was a fit for him.

The series wants to make a sex symbol womanizer of him but he is just not interested 98% of the time, à la O'Brien. The two of them would be besties because they are basically the same person.

#star trek #star trek: enterprise #star trek: ds9 #trip tucker #miles o'brien #Just picture him in the garden repairing whatever engine came around for a hobby #and his wife bringing him lemonade

[megamindsupremacy]

I just watched Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker and I’m gonna be real there was a solid fifteen minutes in the middle there where I seriously thought this was another evil Tim Drake universe

#mads posts #batman #Tim Drake #Batman Beyond #not in the joker Junior sorta way #like how terry thought he was using his civil engineering job to blow up the city #I was really like goddammit Tim not again you need to calm down #also #Tim has a wife and kids?? #HARLEY has GRANDKIDS????? #good for them ngl

[recovering-vamp]

Wives <3

#I forgot blades hair and freckles but I’m too wobbly to fix it so. have this doodle anyway #t4t love #fat character #fat positive #trans character #trans #nonbinary #cryptidart #blade #fern #wife guys #they both do a lot of gazing lovingly at one another #and blade does a lot of daydreaming about his kitties #fern also loves the kitties they are just too busy daydreaming about mechanical engineering or. whatever #nerd shit

[t-u-i-t-c]

The One You've Been Waiting For

↳ Engine Sentai Go-Onger - Miu Sutō - Go-On Silver

#engine sentai go-onger #engine sentai go onger #go-onger #go onger #miu sotou #sotou miu #miu suto #suto miu #super sentai #tokuedit #please do not repost #umbrella.edits #umbrella.posts #umbrella.gifs #gifs.toybwf #my wife my girl my beloved miu #i love her so much <3