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You know, it would be amazing if Hollywood learned the right lesson from the success of Nimona. Something like "Hey, maybe don't throw out a nearly done movie as a tax write off" or "people want queer stories" or even "don't be afraid to take some storytelling risks and be original" but you just know they're going to come away with some absolutely batshit takeaway like, "next time delete all the evidence and burn it to the ground so the gays can't make us look bad!"

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There is something comical about the fact that there are a whopping three living parents on Etheria that we know of, they are all dorky dads and Glimbow is hogging all three of them.

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An elite TIE pilot defector trying to outfly the ghosts of her past, Yrica Quell leads Alphabet Squadron from the helm of her X-wing with Imperial efficiency and skill. Nobody knows Alphabet Squadron’s prey like she does—because she used to fly alongside them. Lurking behind her steely gaze is a desperation for redemption, and the deadliest battle she faces may be the one inside.

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Hornet Ball, Chapter 5: Bittersweet

Up on AO3 now!

IRL, all Tomcat squadrons were either disbanded or transitioned to the Super Hornet.

"But Static," you say. "A Super Hornet sounds a lot like a regular Hornet, just with 'Super' in front of it."

Be that as it may, it was a SIGNIFICANT upgrade to the Hornet in almost every respect, and honestly wouldn't have still carried the F-18 name if it wasn't for weird things with how military acquisitions works. However, the Super Hornet mod for DCS looks bad, and I spend most of my time in the game in the non-Super ("Legacy") version of the Hornet, so the Horde has the misfortune to be the only Tomcat squadron transitioning to Legacy Hornets.

There's a reason you don't typically see people in squadrons led by their mom and aunt. However, this is a fic and I do what I want, and what I want is some fun family dynamics (and also fraternization) (the two are unrelated, there is no family fraternization), so... *waves hands dismissively* the Etherian Navy doesn't give a shit.

Pop stalls are relatively common and almost never cause any damage to the jet or engine.

Lonnie and Catra are running an exercise with the country they're nearby (which I'm picturing as "vaguely Australia"); "Wizard" is one of the airborne command and control aircraft from that nation. "Crown" (which I may have used before, maybe not) is one of the E-2s from the ship.

Ejection seats have gotten better over time, but they're still dangerous, and they're still a last resort.

Anyways, wild chapter, huh? Neat how quick things can go to shit :)

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for the first time...I feel...wicked.

|Commission for @/ya_girl_static on twitter|

Catradora AU based on the Musical "Wicked" which is in the works. I am SO excited for this fic.

Thanks for commissioning me!

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if that's an actual question, it can take off and land vertically, so when it's not moving forwards, it needs bigger intakes to suck in enough air for the engine instead of just letting a bunch of it get rammed in there.

why does the harrier jet have such big boobs

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Taking Control Rewatch/Analysis

After a lot of discussion, I've decided it's time to rewatch Taking Control, because it really does highlight Adora's and Catra's separate issues with each other, and shows that Adora, frankly, has very shitty habits when it comes to dealing with Catra.

NOTE: I am not, at any point, saying that Adora is abusive. She's not, but her approach to Catra in this episode just sort of sucks for a good amount of time, and it's all a result of how they were raised.

Let's just jump right in - Catra is clearly traumatized. We come off the theme song right into her having a nightmare:

And not just any nightmare - she's dreaming about Prime, and everything that happened.

So... off to a good start for her.

And then Adora comes in, and god help her she just wants to do whatever she can for Catra, but at that moment, even Catra doesn't know what she needs, and she's spent years dealing with Adora's "we can fix it" savior complex, so of course she does the one thing she knows how to do - gets angry and lashes out.

(It's also really important to remember that Catra specifically told Adora not to go to Prime's ship. "Don't come here, no matter what." She was ready to die on that ship, ready to die for the only thing that still mattered to her - Adora.)

Then, just like Catra, Adora falls back on old, Horde-learned habits - she gets angry.

An Not at a great move considering everything Catra just went through, and blatantly ignoring Catra's admittedly ridiculous request to just be dropped off on some planet. ("I said I'm going to take you home and that's exactly what I'm going to do.") Is it something Adora should indulge? No, of course not. Is the correct response flipping the mattress and throwing Catra on the floor? No.

And then...

"Why are you acting like this? We saved your life!"

Catra told Adora not to come back. She sent Glimmer away specifically to keep Adora from going to Prime's ship. She had already accepted her fate and planned to die or spend the rest of her life as Prime's mini-me, and she was at peace with it. The implied "we saved you, you should be grateful", is very Shadow Weaver-esque, while also saying Catra should be grateful for something she did not want.

Again, is Catra being reasonable? Of course not. She should've known Adora would come back for her, whether it was to save her friend or to be a hero. So of course she gets mad and yells back because she never asked to be saved, or given another chance at a life she didn't want.

"I thought things could be different this time but clearly nothing has changed."

And Adora is very, very wrong. A lot has changed. Catra has changed. But Adora's way of arguing with her hasn't adapted to catch up with all that yet.

And the kitchen scene. Oh the kitchen scene.

"I thought we actually stood a chance at fixing things this time, but after everything we've been through, she's still a stubborn brat!"

Well, Adora... you haven't actually tried to fix anything. You went in, tried to force her to talk when she clearly didn't want to, then yelled at her and walked out. You want her to be grateful that you saved her even though she had absolutely zero desire to live, and you kind of threw her out of bed.

"We all risked our lives to save her, and she can't even say thank you?"

How long has it actually been since they got away from Prime? I can't imagine more than twelve hours, since Darla is still in pretty rough shape and Entrapta is running around like crazy to fix things. That's less than a day to recover from being chipped, dying, being brought back to life, and adjusting to now having to live a life you'd given up. Catra's still trying to catch up with everything, and Adora is already harping on her about changing and being grateful.

And again, let me be clear - I do not think Adora is abusive or malicious. Frustrated, yes, because Catra is being stubborn, but not for the reasons Adora thinks. She's used to Catra acting this way, but the feelings are coming from a completely different place, something Adora hasn't taken time yet to understand. She's not just being stubborn, she's scared.

We also get Glimmer being the voice of reason in this scene, and that's so important:

"This is Catra we're talking about. Did you think she was instantly going to become a totally different person?"

Two things to note here: Glimmer, by this point, has spent a lot of time with Catra. Catra, who kept coming back to her cell to taunt her, but also stayed when Glimmer asked. Catra, who laughed when they talked about Adora and told her about being cadets in the Horde. Catra who saved her life. Glimmer knows Catra hides behind a hard exterior, and from the way Adora's acting, she can probably guess that she sent Catra right back into that after some very painful vulnerability.

Second thing - Glimmer says different person. Not better, not good, different. Catra's already proven she can be good, and Glimmer knows that'll come out when Catra is ready. But Catra's processing method doesn't run on Adora's schedule.

"I thought she'd at least try."

Again, Adora, you haven't given her a chance. Old coping mechanisms just aren't going to work here, no matter how hard Adora tries.

She also just really unintentionally has the worst timing.

This is the second time she's walked in right on the heels of a flash, and it's obviously not her fault, she doesn't know. It just terrible, terrible timing.

And this is where we get into some really dicey territory.

Catra had complete control of her body just ripped away from her. She's been violated in one of the worst possible ways. She's had almost no time to recover mentally. And now here Adora is, with someone Catra does not want to see, ordering Catra around and making demands.

Again, Adora isn't wrong per se. The chip needs to go. But Catra is in full defense mode, and Adora isn't helping. She's making it worse. She literally backs Catra into a corner and yells at her. It's really not a good look.

She's scared. Scared of the situation, of the fact that she has to face Entrapta, of the idea of living a life she had no intention of continuing. And she's scared of Adora. Because Adora is still acting the way she would have before Horde Prime, but Catra's not the same person anymore, and Adora hasn't seen that yet. She doesn't see it until Catra finally takes the hardest step and reaches out to her.

"Stay."

And finally, finally Adora sees. She sees Catra being vulnerable, asking for her. She realizes that maybe she's been doing this wrong. Maybe her old approach isn't right. Maybe Catra doesn't need the old Adora and her way of dealing with things. She needs comfort. She needs to know she's not making a mistake by letting Adora see her weakness.

Catra, meanwhile, has at least started to come to terms with things. She has this life, even if she didn't want it, and she's so tired of self-sabotaging. And when faced with the possibility of never seeing Adora again... she realizes she doesn't want it. She doesn't want to be alone anymore.

And they proceed with this new, tentative, weird dynamic. Catra forces herself to face the flashes the chip's been causing and use them for something good, and Adora supports her through it instead of arguing. It's new, and it's strange, but it works.

Rounding out to the end of the episode, it's really significant that Adora goes to Bow and Entrapta after the fight rather than back to Catra. She's finally recognizing that she needs to give Catra space, and that if Catra wants her, she'll come to her. It's a gamble that pays off.

The Point:

There's a lot going around about how Catra is abusive and cruel to Adora, but not a lot about how it goes both ways. Adora is the hero, she's supposed to be perfect, but she's not, and we see that as early as the first episode when she all but blames Catra for the way Shadow Weaver treats her. ("You are kinda disrespectful.")

It's a terrible consequence of the way they were raised, and it's really showcased in Taking Control, where Adora immediately reverts back to old habits and ways of dealing with Catra that don't fit anymore. It's only when she learns how much things have changed - when she truly sees how vulnerable Catra is - that she tries to adjust her own behavior accordingly.

Catra, in much the same way, learns that she can't just slip back into her old skin - her old habits, her old way of acting. It's not who she is anymore. So she takes a chance. She lets herself be vulnerable. And Adora responds positively. It's a huge step for both of them, and a turning point in their relationship. Now they really do have a chance to fix things, because they're finally on the same page.

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Ocon going into the pits every 5 seconds for a penalty and norris going into the pits every 5 seconds to keep his car alive

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The thing about being a Ferrari hater is that often you are rewarded with disasterclasses and broken cars to giggle and tee hee over

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What's your least favorite plane?

It’s a cop out but I don’t really have one IRL (though asymmetrical planes often displease me)

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Entrapta, thirsting over Hordak

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Hornet Ball, Chapter 4: Shadow

Up on AO3!

did I have the whole BRA vs Bullseye discussion just because I didn't want to replay a mission so I could get good measurements on what the second BRA call would've been? Yes. Yes I did. So you get to learn about bullseye coordinates today.

The lights you can see in the above image (which is also the one for the chapter) are formation lights; they give a lot of light out viewing head on, but get dimmer when you go to one side. Would they have been on during one of these flights irl? Maybe, maybe not, I've never gotten a great answer on when specifically they're used by themselves. But it looks cool and @rileydrawesandwrites is a massive sucker for the slime lights, as they're called, so you get slime lights.

Went ahead and pestered @catrasredemption about the state of multiplayer console-based video games around the turn of the century, and they were nice enough to have a chat about it with me, which is why you have a vague description of Adora's Samus getting her shit rocked by Glimmer's Pikachu in Super Smash Bros, instead of an even vaguer description of just something with a game.

Fun fact about swim calls: there are people with rifles whose job it is to stand on the edge of the ship and protect sailors from sharks.

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"Friendly" reminder not to ask authors about when they're going to update a story. It doesn't matter if it's been two days or two years. Authors are doing their best, and sometimes life can kick their asses. Asking is rude at best, and no one will ever appreciate it.

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Iconic Tumblr Blorbo : Round 1

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CAT!