-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

This is the error I get when trying to get to your website, Bob.  Also, the banner at the top of the forums is AWOL.
I'll check again later to see if the problem persists (cause maybe you're updating/editing/doing something with it yourself), but I thought I'd mention it in case it's something wonky.

... I didn't think they were this bad.

From today's crop of "419" spams:

Quote:Dear Customer.
This is regard of your transfer valued of 1.8 USD which was release
through this moneygram to transfer to you.

I have no one to blame for this but myself, and the fact that I mainlined most of the Tera-verse stories over the last two weeks. This is currently without permission from Ms. Castle, mostly because I'm not sure if it'll go any farther, but for your consideration....

Quote:“Bonjour, Dr. Curry!” The grinning man with the French accent stood behind the ring of hard-bitten toughs, peeking around the shoulders of a scarred and dangerous-looking brute to look down at Arthur from where he crouched in the runoff from the water trap he had just escaped. “Still the excellent swimmer, I see.” He stepped into the ring of men – not too far, but just enough to be within arm’s reach of Arthur – and extended a hand. “The idol, if you please.”

Arthur looked up at the Frenchman. “Dr. Belloq,” he said, exhaustion from the gauntlet that he had just run in his voice, “I thought you had given up.”

“Non, Curry,” Belloq replied. “I simply required the right resources for the job.” He gestured to the dozen men surrounding them. Arthur could see that they were all armed, with blades and guns, and most of them seemed quite eager to use the weapons on him, should he give them an excuse. “Several of these fine gentlemen were in that bar last week. They were happy to work for me, if the price was right. The opportunity for revenge on the handsome red-headed man who had busted up their favorite drinking establishment was simply… dessert.”

Arthur groaned internally. He had never met Rene Belloq, but Dr. Jones had told him of the irritating French tomb robber (and his untimely end at the hands of the Nazis, on that little island in the Atlantic). His grandson, Simon, had certainly inherited his ancestor’s arrogance, as well as his lack of scruples. “This piece belongs in a museum, Belloq. Not in the private toybox of whoever happens to be signing your paycheck this week.”

Belloq shook his head, an expression of mock-pity crossing his features. “Poor Dr. Curry. So handsome, so athletic, so intelligent. The very model of one of these… what did the newspapers call you? An Orphan?” He grinned, and added, “It is a great shame that you have so little idea of how the world truly works. Now, give me the idol, or these gentlemen will have to get violent.”

Arthur looked down at the small statue that he still gripped in one hand. He had held onto it with a white-knuckled grip ever since he had retrieved it from where Sapito’s body had fallen, skewered by the deathtrap that they had avoided when they had entered the temple. Sadly, in his haste to leave and avoid the flood of seawater released by the trap they had not avoided, he had failed to avoid the trigger, and the spikes had caught him on the way out. With the rest of the ruin now under more flooded, the remains of the Central American treasure hunter would soon be fish food. Arthur would feel worse about it, if Sapito hadn’t tried to steal the idol for himself and leave him trapped to drown. 

It was fortunate that Arthur was difficult to drown. He had avoided the spikes and retrieved the idol, and made it almost all the way out of the temple when the water had caught up with him. The turns and twists of the passages of the underground ruin made it difficult to move quickly – to say nothing of the strange shadows that made the walls seem to sway and bend in nauseating ways if you looked too closely – and he hadn’t made out of the long straight tunnel at the entrance before the water had come rushing up behind him, driven by the narrowing of the passage into a pressurized torrent. Arthur had taken one glance over his shoulder and legged it, hoping to outrun the flood, but the water was up around his ankles and knees before he could get more than thirty feet. Throwing caution to the wind, he had dived into the current and body-surfed his way out.  Fortunately, he’d been raised on the New England shore, and had been swimming in the surf from the age of five.  He’d kept his head pointed toward the daylight at the end of the tunnel and held his breath. The surge had battered against a wall or two, but he’d been propelled out the cave mouth on a wave of water mostly intact. 

Unfortunately, it had left him at the feet of Belloq and his goons. Arthur looked down at the idol. It was about seven or eight inches in height, and its age could not mask the exquisite workmanship of the original sculptor, surprisingly delicate for something as old as it was supposed to be.  It represented a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers; a scaly, rubbery-looking body; prodigious claws on the hind and fore feet; and long, narrow wings behind. To Arthur, it seemed a thing of fearsome and unnatural malignancy, and it squatted on a block or pedestal covered with characters in a language that he did not immediately recognize. Still, it was worth study, if only because the island temple in which it was found had been all but unknown, nestled in a small coral atoll in the middle of the Marshall Islands, home to only seabirds and the occasional insects and shellfish.

“Come, Dr. Curry,” said Belloq, not unkindly. “It is not worth the pain these gentlemen would inflict. What was yours is now mine; the game is lost.”

“Indy told me that your grandfather used to say that,” replied Arthur, rising to his feet slowly. “It didn’t end well for him, you know.”

More as proof that I'm still working on this old thing, and have plans beyond the immediate future... Trying to straddle the line of 'Fuck yeah!', and 'Actually, that's just a bit creepy and uncomfortable.' In proper Eva fashion.

Quote:I stood in the street, half a kilometre from the Angel. It was framed by columns of black smoke and rising dust.

In Evangelion terms, that was close enough to spit in its face. My fists clenched tight around the control throttles, bracing myself. My stomach screwed tight against the incoming pain.

I knew it'd hurt. But I could take it. This is what I do. This was what I was trained for. Deep, ragged breaths fueled by raw blood-burning anger shook my body. This was power of hotblood. This was how it was done on TV. No more games. No more fucking around.

The Angel hoved implaccably towards me, a five story building dissolving to rubble beneath it as it passed over. That white, beaked face in the centre of it's torso seemed to stare at me, regarding this new threat standing in it's way, almost daring it to attack with the same disinterest it had shown every other defence it had met.

I glared at it, watching for the flicker if it charged it's particle flash.

The angel's razorfoil weapons unfurled lazily beside it, and I felt myself grin savagely. It had no idea what was about to happen. Poor fucker.

“C'mon. Do it,” I growled.

It waited, thinking. In whatever passed for an Angel's mind, could it have possibly considered it was being led into a trap? Could it be second guessing itself?

In the back of my mind, I could hear Misato second-guessing what I was about to do.

Katsuragi; “This isn't worth your life, Noriko!”

She was pleading. I glanced at the image, pausing a moment, stunned that she'd even think such a thing. There was fear in her eyes.

I opened my mouth to reassure her, to tell her what I was planning...

The words were punched from my mouth.

It was impossible not to scream, when I felt my chest ripped open. Myheart spasmed as my mind reeled from the pain and fury at being caught off-guard. But my mind cleared quick. Pain was nothing to an Evangelion pilot. I knew what I had planned. My arm was wrapped tightly around one of the foils, tieing us both together.

This was it.

All of my rage and hatred piled together, burning hot and bright and pushing me forward, hauling myself arm over arm along the taught foils. I could feel it struggling, feel the tugs and jerks as it tried to pull itself free, realising the mistake it made. Every little jerk sent new agonies through my chest, but I could take it. I was still breathing.

And I hoped to whatever God was watching that it was afraid, that it knew fear.

“Look what I caught!”

It was almost funny.

It turned away for a moment, trying to twist free. It failed. It turned to face me. Somehow, that beaked face seemed all the more desperate despite being formed from rigid bone. A flicker of light sparked in its eyes.

I lunged and drove my prog-knife right into its eye socket. The beam lanced hot past my ear, the scent of sizzling flesh tickling in my nose. Somewhere I was aware of an alarm or malfunction sounding itself out, but I didn't care.

Screaming, I hauled it by it's own foils over my head, swinging it like a massive kiloton chain-hammer through the air. It obliterated the shopping centre it landed on, a wave of dust and debris bursting out from beneath it. Shards of glass speckled the sky. Cars burst.

Grinning savagely, I pounced on top of it, straddling its prone body with my knees on the ground. I could feel it struggling between my legs, foils still twitching deep in my chest. My knife was still embedded in its face.

I was panting My heart was racing, threatening to burst from my chest. My whole body was shaking with raw adrenaline and I was hungry. Despite the LCL, I could feel my mouth water. Captain Ahab had caught his whale.

It's remaining eye flickered with power once more. Grabbing the knife-handle, I pulled it towards me, humming blade slicing deep. I drove the fingers of my free hand through it's eyesockets, feeling the charge of energy spasm up my arm. Gripping tightly, I tore.

It screamed. I felt every sinew snap in turn as I tore it's face free. Dark blood fountained from the wound, washing down my armour.

Grabbing the blade, I wrenched it free, before stabbing it deep into the wound. Once, twice, three times, grunting with the effort each time. Blood spattered in car-sized globules onto the surrounded street. With each violation of it's body, I could feel it twitch between my legs. Each stab in the chest send a shiver of agony through it's body.

For everything Kaworu had done to me. For the nuclear attack on the Tenth. For the future. For everything its kind had done to the world. For Hikari.

I wrenched its foils free from their sockets, leaving it powerless to defend itself.

Then focused on the core. I brought my blade up and stabbed it down. A bony shield slammed shut around it, trapping the blade tight between both halves.

“Why can't you just, fucking, die already, huh?”

I tried to wrench the blade free, hopping to split the shield like a clamshell. I cursed as the blade snapped at the hilt, already weakened by the abuse I'd given it.

There was only one way to get at the core now.

I plunged my arms deep in through the wound I'd caused with my knife and I tore it apart. Alien meat split and snapped and popped as I ripped my way around

And still the Angel lived. Somewhere, it knew what was happening to it. It knew it couldn't stop me. It was alone in the world, the only one of it's kind and it was dying. It was being murdered in the most brutal fashion imagineable and it was aware the whole time.

I was tearing it apart, ripping tendons and blood vessels free, exposing the edges of it's core. I wished it could suffer. I wish it knew what suffering meant was I tore it apart with my bare hands. I wished it could understand how much I hated it and its kind as it died.

It had long stopped struggling by the time I had both my hands on it's core. And I was laughing, savouring the moment, savouring the raw savage power of the Evangelion had unleashed. This was no machine. This was me. Forty thousand tons of anger and fury, of naked hate given vicious form. This was the true power of humanity, the true vision of the human soul and the savagery therein.

I screamed as I ripped it's core free, clinging entrails unwinding, stretching taught before snapping.

Maybe in some way, it saw me crush it into the ground, bursting it into a tsunami of thick red blood. The wave washed down streets, toppling powerlines, crashing through shopfronts and overturning parked cars before draining down into one of the craters the Angel had blown.

The ruin of its body lay beneath me, dead, as I stood up, towering triumphantly over it. Rivers of blood ran down my arms body, pooling at my feet. I could feel it trickling from my fingertips.

Hyuga; “The target has gone silent.”

All I could do was sit there shivering in the seat, carried along by some primal sense of elation and satisfaction.

Misato in the comm window was staring at me, mouth hinged open, not sure if she was supposed to be appalled at what she'd just witnessed or not. I smiled proudly at her.

That was vengeance.

The humble man asks
Wisdom flourishes where once
Ignorance grew wild
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

I just attempted to check out something at Studio Asynjor for the first time in what I realize now is way too long, and found that the site is completely gone.  And as I recall, Drakensis was hosting a mirror of it, but it looks like his site went down in 2008 and that copy's gone, too.  Does anyone know if it's been relocated somewhere else?
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

I sent you a message in Yuku email a few days ago; have you seen it?
Thanks.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

    Tom Rutley

    Appearance:
    
    Slightly under 6', broad-shouldered but skinny. Mixed race (white father, South Asian mother), skin tone best described as "Ambiguously Brown" with black hair slowly greying. Walks with a slight but noticeable limp.

    History:
    
    Tom is one of the older First Fen, born in Leicester, England in 1970. Joining the RAF in 1989, he went on to serve as a Chinook helicopter pilot in the Balkans, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Afghanistan before being seriously wounded in the line of duty and discharged in 2005. Finding himself at something of a loose end,(Tom will admit, if pressed, that he was probably having a mid-life crisis) Tom made the decision to go Up after inheriting the property of his late godfather and discovering a large stash of handwavium.
    
    In doing so, he took the unusual step of establishing a working relationship with British defence contractor QuinetiQ through an old comrade-in-arms who was now employed at the Ministry of Defence. This gave him the powerful advantage of unhindered access to European airspace in the spacecraft he was building.
    
    Construction of this craft took him almost a year, with the design being finalised in the autumn of 2007 but the first test-flights not taking place until the summer of 2008; his Cobra Mk1F is believed to be the first purpose-built Fen craft laid down.
    
    After flying across the Atlantic to pick up a passenger, and acquiring a hitchhiker in the process, Tom eventually reached Fenspace in early November of 2008 and entered the freight business. Initially he and newly-recruited copilot Barbara specialised in shipping fresh fruit and vegetables from Earth, but have since moved on to general freight and passenger work, sometimes as a sub-contractor for Hermes Universal Deliveries but also as an independent company (White & Rutley Ltd.) through one of the many bulletin board services for Fen looking for odd jobs. They've made a minor specialty of house removals, but will take most general freight jobs and even occasional Gondolier work.
    
    In 2011, Tom and Barbara were involved in a rather messy diplomatic incident when making a seemingly routine passenger pickup from a Canadian airfield and discovering four biomodded fenkinder in the company of a human trafficker and child pornographer. According to an official statement by the Canadian government, Tom turned the trafficker over to the local police and absconded with the fenkinder before they could be repatriated, and no further action was taken.
    
    However, at around the time he was leaving, a mysterious radio message from someone claiming to be a Fencraft pilot under fire from US fighter aircraft was broadcast over the International Distress Frequency; both US and Canadian authorities insist it was a hoax, but rumours persist that a Fencraft and the mundane military exchanged fire that day.
    
    A short while later, Tom and Barbara were caught up in a plot by Separatist extremists to turn an asteroid into a kinetic bombardment munition to be used against Earth. They were able to prevent it from being launched, although Tom was seriously injured in the process, and most of the conspirators remain at large. This incident would have caused a major stir if it hadn't been overshadowed by corruption scandals in the Sailors Armed Militia and the steadily worsening piracy and other lawlessness in the Belt. Nevertheless, the Convention did not forget, and Tom's testimony was a major part of the inspiration for the formation of the Hate Crimes Unit.
    
    During the Boskone War, Tom flew his ship in the assault transport role in concert with an Operation Great Justice taskforce known as Bravo Four One, made up largely of former British Armed Forces personnel recruited from the 'Danelaw. They fought a number of successful boarding actions and severely disrupted the thionite trade. (It was around this time that he and Barbara yielded to the inevitable and started dating.) He was rewarded for this service with a commission as an OF-5 Troubleshooter, assigned semi-permanently as OGJ liaison officer to the Extraordinary Events Agency, who swore him in as a Special Constable in recognition of his invaluable assistance against Earthside drug traffickers. Tom and Barbara have gone on to establish a reputation as the rare breed Troubleshooters who don't take their job title literally and go around causing unnecessary explosive mayhem in the course of carrying out their duties (Necessary explosive mayhem is another matter, of course.), which tends to get them assigned to any job where Space Patrol's ungrudging cooperation is needed.
    
    One of their first post-war assignments was the notorious "Fazbear Five" incident, which led to Tom and Barbara becoming surrogate parents to five bioroid fenkinder. As of 2015, the two of them are attempting to settle the question of whether baseline-humans and catgirls are interfertile once and for all.
        
    When not on the clock, Tom can often be found in one of Fenspace's many fine bars, with a glass of good single malt at his elbow. He's not the most outgoing sort, but with a little encouragement he'll usually turn out to have a good story to tell...
    
    Handwavium abilities:
    
    None. Tom is not entirely opposed to the idea of biomodding, but is holding off while he remains in overall good health.
    
    Mundane attributes and quirks:
    
    Fully qualified and licensed pilot in the 'Danelaw.
    Bilingual in English and Hindi, plus a basic working knowledge of German.
    Competent but not outstanding marksman, sufficient to pass Great Justice certification but not to win any awards.
    One of the very few First Fen to go to the trouble of getting a proper handwavium-handling license in his country of origin.
    Maintains a residential address in Scotland and remains domiciled in the UK for tax purposes, even if he spends relatively little time there.
    Politics best described as 'left-of-centre in Europe'. Voted Labour until the whole Iraq thing.
    Calm and level-headed under pressure, for the most part, but has something of a short fuse where certain touchy subjects are concerned.
    Detests the use of 'Mundane' and its derivatives in a derogatory manner, gets really annoyed when people accuse him of being fendane like that's some kind of insult, and generally wishes Earth and Fenspace would just stop squabbling already.
    Chronic inability to pronounce Mal Fnord's surname.
    Connoisseur of fine liquor and Real Ale.
    
    Affiliation:
    
    Tom usually describes himself as a Generalist, but privately thinks as himself as one of the Elite fen, who are sadly under-represented in the Convention. (That's ''Elite'' as in the space trading sim, not the SMOF.)
    
    Known Associates and Enemies:
    
    Besides Great Justice and the Extraordinary Events Agency, Tom maintains close ties to the Senshi through Tanith Curtis, who he met briefly and completely failed to recognise when he dropped those biomodded fenkinder off at the Moon Kingdom Memorial. Tanith found this both highly amusing and a refreshing change of pace, and the two of them ended up becoming close friends. He's also earned himself a place on the small and highly exclusive list of people Haruhi Suzumiya actually likes, partly for foiling that Separatist plot but also because he got her arch-nemesis yelled at by his wife.
    
    Speaking of which, Tom is unofficially persona non grata on Stellvia ever since he ran into Noah Scott in Meg's and told him exactly what he thought of his parenting skills vis a vis Agatha Clay, sparking an intense but inconclusive fistfight that ended with the two men deciding they were best of friends and going on a bender of epic proportions. Leda Swansen was not at all amused, especially since Inspector Aki turned out to receive their bail money in person. (The rest of the SMOF, on the other hand, thought it was utterly hilarious.)
    He is also a sworn enemy of both the Slans and the Tom Kratman fen. (Yes, they exist, and you'd be amazed how much overlap there is between the two groups.)
    
    Secrets:
    
    Tom is always rather vague about exactly how he got the leg injury that forced him out of the RAF, heavily implying that he took a bullet while hovering, lost control of his aircraft and collided with a building. In actual fact, he received his injury after his Chinook was forced down on a special forces insertion mission near the border, spending ninety minutes holding off the Taliban with a carbine after pulling his wounded and unconscious copilot from the wreckage. Tom was subsequently awarded the Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry and resourcefulness under fire, but this is something he prefers not to broadcast because he finds veteran-worship uncomfortable enough as it is. He also tends to gloss over the fact that it took him nearly a year of physiotherapy before he could walk without the aid of a cane on account of being rather violently allergic to pity.
    
    That 'hoax' broadcast was the real deal; Tom's ship was attacked by two F-16s from the Illinois ANG while inside Canadian airspace, and he shot one of them down and damaged another. Illinois state police personnel also crossed the border by helicopter to intercept the fenkinder before they could be taken Up. The Canadian government was not consulted about this beforehand and were extremely annoyed when they found out, and only allowed the incident to be hushed up because they were afraid of giving the younger and more hot-headed fen ideas. Tom does not like talking about this incident and prefers to pretend it never happened.
    
    Bravo Four One weren't ex-servicemen, they were serving SAS personnel on secondment to Operation Great Justice through a covert military assistance program. When not training OGJ recruits, their mission was to put an end to a Boskonian smuggling ring supplying British far-right extremists with thionite and weapons.
    
    Many of the charters he takes on the side are actually a cover for maintaining contact with confidential EEA informants in some of the less salubrious parts of Fenspace, and for facilitating the ocasional exchange of information that Her Majesty's Government would rather not be seen handing over through official channels.
    
    * * *
    
    Cobra Mk1F / G-ELTE
    
    Overall Length: 20 metres
    Wingspan: 30 Metres
    Mass: circa 15,000kg unloaded, depending on configuration
    Capacity: 12 tons of cargo or up to 16 passengers, depending on configuration
    Top speed: 800MPH in atmosphere or 0.07c in space on conventional drives, up to 0.21c with afterburners
    Armament: Varies
    Crew: 1 or 2 humanoids
    
    The Cobra Mk1F was the brainchild of RAF veteran turned First Fen trader and later OGJ Troubleshooter Tom Rutley, who found himself the proud but slightly bemused owner of most of the necessary parts and a large amount of handwavium after inheriting the property of his late godfather. The ship's name and design was taken from the genre-defining space trading simulator ''Elite'', but modified significantly for better aerodynamic performance. The result is a crescent-shaped 'flying wing' design which generates a surprising amount of lift. The engines are a combination of a constant-speed gravity drive and a fusion-torch 'afterburner' that functions as an acceleration drive. The latter is extremely powerful, and it's speculated that the ship could probably threaten Mayonaka's speed record if Tom were inclined to try. Unfortunately, the afterburner also uses such a ridiculous amount of fuel that pushing the ship to her absolute limit will drain her tanks dangerously low, and Tom considers 0.15c to be the practical upper limit.
    
    The presence of an acceleration drive and a surprisingly small radar cross-section for her tonnage makes the ship extremely stealthy when coasting with everything but life-support powered down. Tom and Barbra use these attributes to their advantage regularly on Troubleshooter business, as well as for improving their work-life balance after the third time they got called in on their day off.
    
    Tom's ship remained a one-off until 2013, when he happened to find himself aboard John Henry Station for an extended period on official business. Impressed by the rugged and versatile design, the engineers there offered him an undisclosed but rather large sum of money to license the design. Tom agreed readily, on the condition they consult BrabenSoft before using the "Cobra" name commercially.
    
    The result has been a fair to middling commercial success, appealing to Fen who are looking for a ship that's larger than a Bolithio-class shuttle but don't need -or can't afford- something the size of an OV-200 or an Adler. The basic design is quite flexible, albeit spartan, with two small passenger cabins and approximately 50 square metres of interior volume for freight. Crew quarters are limited to a single bunk in the cockpit area in this configuration. An alternative all-passenger version trades the cargo bay for up to sixteen cabins. Various other specialist Cobras including Search and Rescue, police and even fuel tanker versions are also available to order, and a variety of armament can be fitted according to the customer's specifications; most privately purchased examples mount either a 57mm coilgun or a 1MW laser, while military models have four underwing missile hardpoints in addition. Tom's original Cobra (He never got around to naming it, being an Air Force veteran rather than Navy, but he did manage to acquire the UK registration number G-ELTE) mounts a unique and barely PEPPER-compliant 114mm (4.5-inch) coilgun made from the gun barrel of a Royal Navy warship, which inspired the ship's Great Justice callsign, "Doorknocker".
    
    Ship quirks:
    
    In the mass-production version, engine performance will drop by 25% unless a pot of coffee is made at least once every six hours. G-ELTE, by contrast, insists on at least one mug of English Breakfast Tea every ''four'' hours, although it wasn't until Barbara first took her out single-handed that they figured this out.
    G-ELTE refuses to go through the start-up sequence unless the theme tune to Airwolf is playing. The mass-production versions seem to have escaped this quirk for the most part. (Although one Cobra whose new owner decided to play the Riptide theme as a joke when they carried out the first start-up sequence is now committed to doing it every time, which is exactly how it happened to Tom. Handwavium, it seems, has trouble grasping the idea that some things are only funny once.)
    This may not be a handwavium-related quirk at all, but any attempt at pushing a Cobra beyond approximately 800MPH at normal cruising altitude in Earth's atmosphere results in increasingly extreme vibration and loss of aerodynamic stability. This does not appear to be covered by the Slapstick Effect; G-ELTE was very nearly brought down by an asymmetric stall when Tom first encountered the phenomenon during an early test flight.

    * * *
    
    Barbara White
    
    Appearance:
    
    5'2'', remarkably curvy. Fully-furred catgirl.
    
    History:
    
    Born Robert White in 1981, Barbara was raised in rural Iowa to lower-middle class parents and developed a love of flying at a young age thanks to her Air Force veteran father. An idyllic childhood turned into a traumatic adolesence after her parents rather messily divorced around the time that Barbara was coming to grips with the fact that she wasn't gay, she was a transwoman. Nevertheless, she muddled through school and managed to qualify as a commercial pilot. With a steady and well-paying job and some savings to her name, she made the decision to begin the process of transitioning in 2007.
    
    That didn't go so well. Her father disowned her, she lost her job for assaulting a coworker who made a transphobic remark, and her insurance company came up with every bullshit excuse it could think of not to cover her for hormone replacements. Inspired by the Guacomole Incident and lacking any better ideas, Barbara braved the local Hackspace (who were actually really supportive and accepting) and acquired a small amount of Handwavium. It made the worst mixer for tequila ever, but nevertheless she woke up in her right primary sexual characteristics the next morning... just not quite her right species. (In her own words, "Totally worth it.") Her roommate panicked and called 911, and Barbara ended up fleeing towards the nearest airfield in hopes of stealing a plane and making a dash for the Canadian border.
    
    Instead, she found Tom's ship parked up waiting for a passenger on the last day before the ban on Fencraft in US airspace came into effect. He took her onboard, gave her a ride Up and eventually ended up offering her a job as copilot. The two became good friends, then awkwardly fumbled their way into a romantic relationship in spite of the fallout from Barbara skipping a number of important steps in the transitioning process, Tom's hang-ups with the age gap and the fact he was her boss and the Boskone War raging at the time.
    
    Despite being a civilian pilot with barely any firearms experience, Barbara adapted to the life of a gunship pilot and later Great Justice Troubleshooter remarkably well. She was on point during the undercover investigation at Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria, and had largely defused the situation by the time Tom forced his way in to provide backup. She's also adapted remarkably well to fostering a quintet of quasi-teenage bioroids, although she is also quite happy to remind Tom that this was his idea.
    
    Sooner or later, however, Tom will hopefully be able to remind her that having a baby was her idea.
    
    Handwavium abilities:
    
    Barbara is most of the way along the 'catlike' end of the catgirl bell-curve, with excellent night-vision and fully retractable claws, claws that are extremely sharp and will go through anything short of motorcycle safety gear. She can also purr, a fact that makes Tom very, very happy.
    
    Mundane attributes and quirks:
    
    Fully licensed commercial pilot on Earth.
    Qualified Expert with rifles and Distinguished with sidearms during Great Justice training.
    Unfailingly cheerful, good-natured and friendly, with a knack for smoothing the ruffled feathers of anxious or frustrated passengers.
    Not quite as good at the stiff upper lip thing as Tom, but like all good pilots she has the knack for keeping a cool head in a crisis.
    Becomes terrifyingly furious if she's mistaken for a stewardess.
    
    Affiliation:
    
    Barbara considers herself a Generalist with moderate Browncoat and Belter leanings.
    
    Known Associates and Enemies:
    
    Barbara is a moderator on one of the Interwave's largest LGBTQetc support message boards. (A petition once crossed Queen Serenity's desk to have her made an honourary Named Senshi, "Sailor Sappho". The only reason it didn't come to pass was that Parliamentary convention automatically vetoes any royal edict the reigning monarch cannot issue verbally without getting the giggles.)

I was browsing the Drifter Store and absently hit what I thought was a "Next Page" key and accidentally bought a Smilodon Tank. Argh... oh well. 
If you're unfamiliar with the Smilodon - it's the Drifter Store variant of the Mammoth, or Mastodon. The "UNTIL shuttle" also uses that body style, but it's a Mark 1 rather than Mk II vehicle. Instead of Red, Black or the UNTIL Blue-Grey, the Smilodon is more of a Desert Tan color. Mk 2 Tank with the expected stats. Just look up the other vehicles in the game if you want to see what it can do. 

The other vehicle was a surprise drop. I was using some keys I'd bought off of the Auction house to open some random Lock Boxes and got the following - an Adder Grav Bike. 
Again - it's a Mk 2 Variant. And if you want to know what it looks like before acquiring it, check out the "Wild Eagle" grav bike in the Zen Store. But imagine it colored green instead of white. Plus - it's a Mk 2 which is superior to the White Eagle (unless you upgrade it). 
I'll leave this notice up for a week to see if anyone wants either, then they go into the auction house (because I've got more than enough vehicles for my characters. Don't need any more myself.)
I don't need any compensation for these - they're free to any Legendary member who needs or wants them. But if there's no response in a week, off to the AH they go. That's next Sunday, Feb 7th 2015 to be exact.