Obsessions

[itsallovernow]

Okay, so I may be a little obsessed with this:

Sharkrunners

You play in real time, and basically your boat putts around collecting shark data, but the fun part is that it's collecting data on actual Great White sharks that have been tagged by scientists.

So far, my boat (the Orca. Yeah, yeah. I'm sure there are a zillion Orcas playing) has yet to encounter any sharks, but I'm headed towards a Great White named Lucy off the California Coast, so I have high hopes for an encouter during the day. It will actually send a message to your cell phone if you have any encounter, but so far, I've managed to restrain myself from doing that.

Fortunately, today is relatively slow at work (an anomaly that will soon end, I'm sure) and I can catch up on some things and do a little time-wasting shark gazing, and possibly (maybe) a little writing.

In which case, I offer up the drabble prompt, as a way to give back for all of the kind concern and well-wishes for Georgie's escapades (and my ensuing panic) of the past week.

Give me a fandom, a character, and an object and I'll give you a drabble. Alternately, and non-fannishly, give me a date stamp and a place and I'll try and give you some sort of snippet.

Comments

[ainsley.livejournal.com]

If you can handle the constraint of sticking to S1...

Farscape, Aeryn, gun

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

At a certain point, she knows they're going to have to choose between food and ammunition.

Moya had been a Peacekeeper vessel. There are still random stores of weaponry and chakkan oil in different tiers, stashed in the former quarters of the officers, but she's scavanged most of what she could already. Much of what was left behind is old or decaying, the potency fading from the oil, weapons missing vital components.

They've already traded the bulk of the working weapons for supplies. It's only going to get worse.

Aeryn has a pile of weapons on a table in one of the bays that she thinks she can maybe strip down and reassemble, shifting bits between them to make a handful of functioning weapons. She wonders if Zhaan could increase the potency of the chakkan oil.

Mostly, she wonders when it happened that she started thinking this way, pulling together various components, stealing parts piecemeal to make a whole. Her training was clear - your weapon doesn't work, acquire another one. Your ship is broken, take someone else's.

And then she got here, and there was nothing to take, no one to subdue, no... options.

The first time her gun wouldn't fire properly, the first time her prowler made a noise like a cherian lion dying, the first time the soles of her boots wore clean through she got caught, she felt panic raw and roiling and acidy in her gut.

She'd stop and look, stuck in the face of these things that failed to work, to do what they were supposed to do. (Not unlike the moments with Namtar, when she raised her hand, saw her body - her reliable, perfectly trained body - failing to do what it was told, what it was SUPPOSED to do).

The second time the trigger had loosened on her pulse pistol, she discards it, foes in search of another one, ends up fighting with D'Argo about neglecting her chores for the day.

It's Crichton who'd finds her later, handed her the old pulse pistol and a role of stretchy, shiny tape.

"I fixed the trigger," he says. "The spring's worn out, but I cut it and it holds. It'll be tight, but serviceable."

She tilts her head, looking at the gun, unsure of what to think, then holds up the tape as a question.

"Things break," he says with a shrug, "that's a good temporary fix."

A few weekens since they'd been trapped in the Flax, and she remembers his willingness to repair, to fix, to hold things together by sheer will. She remembers telling him of her own training.

"Easier to take someone else's," she says, and wonders what he'll say back.

"Maybe," he says, "but you like this one. Fits your hand. You know it's recoil, the amount of chakkan it burns, the way it pulls one way or another."

"The point is to be ready for anything," she says, echoing a million different instructors.

He grins, stepping in a little closer and taps the nose of the gun. "Point's to stay alive, right? I trust your aim, but I like improving the odds."

She's not one to think abstractly, but as she closes her hand around the tape (hands that have mutated and returned, hands that have saved and betrayed her) she thinks of her own self as something that came apart and is being reassembled, finding new pieces that fit, springs that need tightening, triggers that require adjustment. The thought is disconcerting and she turns from it.

"I could help you," Crichton says, "Go through the stockpile, figure out what's usable."

She shakes her head. "No," she says, "I'll do it."

He looks vaguely puzzled at her refusal - like he always does - so she gave him something. "If I need help, I'll ask."

Apparently, it's enough. He smiles at her, eyes flicking down to her gun. "Yeah," he says, "you can always ask."

When he leaves, she sets up a target, wastes some of their precious chakkan oil firing, testing the mechanism. Crichton is right. The trigger is stiff, tight, but the gun fits her hand and she adjusts it effortlessly to compensate for the way it pulls to the left. When she holsters it, she feels better than she has in days.

[ainsley.livejournal.com]

This is totally fabulous, with great characterization. The way they slow-dance around each other meshes perfectly with canon, and duct tape is necessary to almost every endeavour.

[kixxa.livejournal.com]

I'm just glad that little Georgie is home and safe. Give him a pat for me, will ya?

Hee! And Sharkweek means I get to use my Jaws icon. *cue Jaws music*

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Georgie is getting lots of pats and lots of love and he's taking full advantage:)

And I love that icon. So Scary!!

[raithen.livejournal.com]

August 1, 2020. Grande Prairie, Alberta.