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#ppg beam
lune-redd · 2 days
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screw it, bored, lemme see y'all's takes on beam
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cartoonbudartz · 2 months
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Road trip gone wrong
Inspired by @lune-redd’s powerpuff girls AU! Thought this would be fun for a gag.
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askthe-ppgs-rrbs · 15 days
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i made a dexbrick fan kid just because (w/beam blossmom cameo @/lune_redd)
also sorry for the lack of answering asks schools kicking my tail
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segastarlight · 1 month
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beam!!!!
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bunch of doodles of @lune-redd's blossom fankid lol
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reiikobun · 5 hours
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I originally was supposed to draw Beam but then I got carried away and drew Blossmom too, oops! Designs by @lune-redd
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theangrycomet-art · 3 months
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Some doodles of Beam because his design is criminally cute.
Beam belongs to @lune-redd (check them out!)
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ace-reaction-images · 9 months
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The Orbitron
The Orbitron is a custom car built by Ed Roth and feared lost until its rediscovery in Mexico in 2007
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A second generation to Roth's original Beatnik Bandit, which was built in 1960, the Beatnik Bandit II features a one-of-a-kind fiberglass body with PPG lemon meringue pie paint, stylized Rat Fink designs on the sides, and chrome by Metal Masters of Salt Lake City, UT. 
Beatnik Bandit II includes many unique design features, including an electronic console which operates the digital instrument panel and other features such as a digital readout of the car's latitude and longitude. 
The lack of a rearview mirror is not a problem on this car. A "TV mirror" video monitor is mounted on the console with the actual camera mounted in the rear panel. The bubble top is also lifted electronically. 
Beatnik Bandit II was built entirely by Roth, who credits "Revelations from Father in Heaven" for his achievement. The car has been shown in major U. S. cities, including Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston, as well as in Yokohama, Japan.
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The Beatnik Bandit
Ed 'Big Daddy' Roth was an artist, cartoonist, illustrator, pinstriper and custom car designer and builder who created the hot-rod icon Rat Fink and other characters. Roth was a key figure in Southern California's Kustom Kulture and hot-rod movement of the late 1950s and 1960s The Beatnik Bandit was one of his first creations from the early 1960s. It was built from a 1949 Oldsmobile, the chassis was shortened 5 feet, the Olds engine was given the classic hotrod look with GMC blower and twin carbys, everything was chromed except the blower belt. The white interior featured single joystick, that operated turning, throttle and braking. The bubble top was created using compressed air to inflate a sheet of plastic into a dome in a pizza oven. On display at the National Automobile Museum in Reno
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Mysterion
Ed Roth built the Mysterion in 1963, he got the idea from the multi engine dragsters he had seen at the dragstrips. He combined two Ford engines, two transmissions, plus two welded rear ends for the foundation. It featured an offset headlight and the typical Ed Roth bubble top. On display at Galpin Auto Sports.
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The Road Agent by Ed “Big Daddy” Roth.
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Mysterion
Custom builder and artist Ed "Big Daddy" Roth completed the Mysterion in 1963. The bubbletopped custom featured a completely original fiberglass body and twin Ford big-block engines. The weight of the engines was too much for the frame to bear, and the Mysterion fell apart. Tribute versions have been built, including this precise replica from Galpin Auto Sports.
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The Surfink
The Surfink, created by Mark Glaz as a tribute to Ed Roth and Ratfink, features a large Ratfink figure atop a surfboard complete with a blown V-8 engine.
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The Orbitron
Built in 1964, the vehicle was powered by a 1955 or 1956 Chevrolet V8 and was backed by a Powerglide automatic transmission. The body was hand-laid fiberglass, hiding Roth's extensive chrome work to the chassis. The cockpit, set at the extreme rear of the vehicle in the manner of a dragster, was lined with fake fur and featured an 11-inch General Electric "1-Touch" portable television inserted in the console. Topping the cockpit was a custom-made, hydraulically operated Plexiglas bubble top. One of a series of ordinary doorbell push-button switches atop the hood activated the top from the outside.
Other mechanical features included a 1956 Chevrolet rear end, dropped Ford front axle beam, Buickbrake drums and early Ford brakes. The frame was handmade of rectangular 2x4 inch steel tubing. The engine was a leftover from one of Roth's 1955 Chevrolets, having been removed to make way for a then-new Mark IV big-block given to him by General Motors. It was one of the very few completed cars Roth deemed to be a "mistake" because he felt the car did not show well since the heavily chromed engine and most of the chassis were hidden. The Orbitron was, in fact, one of his few customs to have a hood. Reportedly, the hydraulically operated hood did not fit well due to rushed fiberglass work.
The vehicle's most distinctive feature was its asymmetrical front end with red, green and blue tinted headlamps. It was thought that the three beams when combined would produce an intense white light; the idea came from the then-new medium of color television.
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By Jerry Thompson - originally posted to Flickr as 2C7O4069, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5973582
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By Jerry Thompson - originally posted to Flickr as 2C7O4066, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5973591
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The Baja Bandeeto
Custom car builder and renowned painter Fritz ‘Spritz By Fritz‘ Schenck recreated with his bubble top roadster; the Baja Bandeeto.
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lonestarbattleship · 2 months
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February 18, 2024 Update from the Battleship Texas Foundation
"BATTLESHIP TEXAS UPDATE
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Battleship Texas at Sunset.
The last Dry Dock Tour date has been announced! They are filling up fast -book now for before this once in a lifetime opportunity is gone! https://battleshiptexas.org/plan-your-visit/
A quality control check was conducted on January 30th, 2024. Leaks were expected and the team has successfully located them. Several of the leaks were under the starboard after docking keel. To fix it requires removing the docking keel, fixing the hull, and installing a new docking keel. For structural support symmetry we are replacing the two after most docking keels. At this time we are only replacing the after two docking keels. We have a procedure for safely removing these blocks that will not structurally damage or compromise the ship.
Work will continue to ensure that Battleship Texas is leak free, right up until she goes back in the water. And keep working after that to keep Texas as internally dry as possible.
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Starboard docking keel removed and doubler plating being installed, after original steel was blasted and painted.
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Partially removed starboard docking keel.
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Cross section of docking keel -they are supposed to be hollow structures with a frame every four feet and their bottom is made of a heavy channel beam with teak in the channel. This docking is filled with mud from San Jacinto.
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The teak "shoe" of the docking keel -the teak is amazingly good condition. That's San Jacinto mud above the the teak.
The first restored 5"/51 gun has been returned to the shipyard. This is 5"/51 mount #13. The mount was successfully reinstalled on Saturday and the gun will be reinstalled Monday. The rest of the starboard side guns will be reinstalled over the next week or so, with the port side guns following.
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The gun for 5"/51 mount #3 being landed back on the dry dock, in preparation for reinstallation.
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The stand and carriage of 5"/51 mount #3 being brought into the air castle. All 9,000 lbs of it.
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The carriage and stand for 5"/51 mount #3 back in place, awaiting its gun and final bolting down. Yes those are the threaded rods that holds the mount -they are 24"-30" long.
Repairs to the ship's Aft Fire Control tower are ongoing. The windows, which were removed years ago, will be replaced.
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The pipe mullions and window frame strips are fitted in place and awaiting final weld out.
The deck drains on the port side of the foremast have largely been reinstalled, ensuring that water drains properly off the ship.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:
WHAT’S NEXT? - Battleship Texas will remain at Gulf Copper Shipyard for until her new home is ready for her. Additional steel work, removal and replacement of the ship’s deck, and superstructure/aft fire control restoration will continue. Painting the topsides!
SPLASH! - The ship will be put back into the water in early March.
PAINT! - Battleship Texas was painted in the Measure 21 camouflage scheme prior to deploying to the Pacific Theater during World War II. At this time Battleship Texas is the ONLY museum ship painted in this camouflage scheme and only one of two battleships in their WWII measure. Yes, the rest of the ship will receive a new coat of paint prior to leaving the shipyard.
HULL NUMBERS/NAME - The new hull numbers and name board have been extensively researched so each number and letter is not only the correct font, but applied in the appropriate position as it was in 1945. The numbers have been applied to both bow and stern.
ANTIFOULING! - The ship’s hull has been coated with PPG SIGMASHIELD 880 GF. Historically the ship would be coated with an anti-fouling coat that is red in color, but that coating is no longer needed as the ship is stationary and antifouling is not need to keep the hull free of marine growth for efficient movement through the water.
KEEL BLOCKS - Yes, the keel blocks supporting Battleship Texas can be moved. Each block is moved so the area atop of them can be blasted, repaired (if need be), and coated.
WHAT ABOUT THE RUDDER? - The rudder will remain where it is. Funding is best spent elsewhere.
WILL THE SHIP RUN AGAIN? - No, the ship will never be able to run under its own power again.
TOURING? - The Battleship Texas Foundation is working on new touring opportunities before the ship reopens.
REOPENING? - There is a lot to be done before the ship is ready for touring at its new home in Galveston, Texas. Reopening is projected to happen sometime in the later half of 2025.
Come on Texas!
To donate to the preservation and operation of Battleship Texas, please visit: https://battleshiptexas.org/
Support Battleship Texas by making a purchase through the ship's store: https://store.battleshiptexas.org"
Posted on the Battleship Texas Foundation: link
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dms-a-jem · 3 months
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Depeche Mode - Interview with Alan and Martin
International Musician and Recording World - Nov. 1984
Leaving their beginnings as wide-eyed Popsters behind them, Depeche Mode have become masters of the art of noise and the science of the studio. Adrian Deevoy had a rewarding chat with the Basildon-to-Berlin boys, Les Drennan took some great pictures.
Somewhere, off one of the corporate corridors in the labyrinthine complex we affectionately term Broadcasting House, a woman sits alone. Her job is to create emotion, tension and atmosphere. Her key to this process is a PPG system. Although this is heartbreakingly unromantic it is the ultimate argument for machines in the Machine vs Human debate. It’s also quite a nice little story.
Depeche Mode like this story.
“All the sounds for Life Of Earth,” declares Alan Wilder.
“All those little animals,” beams Martin Gore.
After four years Depeche Mode are pretty bogged off with being told that they make inhuman music. They quite rightly believe this accusation to be untrue. They might accept that their first two albums weren’t cataclysmic – catchy, melody blip-bops if you like your lager warm but nothing to telex home about – but they remain adamant that last year’s LP, Construction Time Again, this years singles People Are People and Master And Servant, and their latest album Some Great Reward are anything less than stirring. For in the last 18 months Depeche Mode have discovered, embraced and subsequently immersed themselves in sound. With the aid of producer Daniel Miller’s matchmaking Synclavier a strange love affair has developed between the band and sampled noise.
Alan Wilder and Martin Gore, the songwriters, seemed most smitten to a meeting between themselves, and a micro-Walkman was promptly arranged in a horrendously loud video wine bar where they both bawled unashamedly of their love for sound.
“I’ll take you through all the sounds on People Are People,” says Martin, eyes glazed, sparing the machine no blushes. “The bass drum at the beginning was just an acoustic bass drum sampled into a Synclavier then we added a piece of metal to that – just a sampled anvil type sound – to give it a slight click and make it sound a bit different. That’s the beauty of the Synclavier, you can edit sounds together to make what we call combination sounds. The main synth sound is the actual ‘synth’ sound on the Synclavier, that’s the one that plays the bass riff. But the bass sound is a combination sound too with part of it being an acoustic guitar plucked with a coin, which sounds very interesting when the two sounds are sequenced together.”
“There’s very little playing going on in People,” adds Alan, “virtually everything is sampled into the Synclavier. With the guitar sounds we altered them slightly once they were in the Synclavier because you sample in one note and then you can alter the length and dynamic of every note in the sequence for the guitar part so it will give expression, but it will still be completely in time. You can justify all the rhythms, you see, so that you can have articulation but it’s all in time.”
Getting back to the People Are People breakdown Martin unveils a short sampling anecdote: Love on a plane.
“I took a stereo Walkman when I was going on a plane from England to somewhere,” he begins. “I originally brought it along to take the takeoff but while the air hostess was doing her safety speech at the start of the flight I decided I’d tape that as well. But as she was telling everyone to ‘Check the instruction cards under your seat,’ the door flew open and all this air rushed in which made a real loud noise and everyone laughed. Anyway I looped the end of what she was saying and the laughter so it goes, ‘…tion cards ha ha ha ha …tion cards ha ha ha ha,’ which sounds funny but I used it in conjunction with a choir sound and it added a really nice texture to the bridge on People.”
“There’s a Synclavier harp sound in the verses,” contributes Alan, “and an ARP sequencer playing very fast in the chorus and there’s some Emulator sounds that we used for adding a few frills here and there.”
The three throaty clunks at the end of each chorus is in fact Martin’s throat.
“That was a combination sound,” says Alan. “First of all we sampled Martin going, ‘Unk Unk Unk,’ with his throat then we added a bell sound and a timpani to give it depth.”
“I felt a bit of a berk doing that,” admits Martin. But love’s a bit like that.
The vocal line, “It’s a lot… like life,” at the beginning of Master and Servant was yet more fodder for the Synclavier. As Alan explains.
“Firstly we got a lot of people singing the high, ‘It’s a lot,’ and then a low, ‘Like life.’ You don’t have to play one slower or faster than the other to get the octave either because you make a patch on the Synclavier keyboard for each part and then you play the parts in their natural pitches and both at the same speed which is very handy.”
The lead vocals on People Are People and Master and Servant (or M&S as us Depechies call it) on the 7” mixes at least, were pretty well the only sounds that weren’t sampled.
“The vocals,” explains Alan, “were recorded in a big room. That is the vocals were sent down through a PA into a big, live room so we could not only get a great big sound but so we could put effects on the vocal while it was being recorded and afterwards on the disk.
“Although we sample all the snare sounds,” he adds as an afterthought on live rooms, “we always record the initial sound in an ambient space. We like to vary the snare sounds a lot so we record all different acoustic snares in various rooms and we close mike them or mike them from a distance depending on the width of the sound that we require. Simmons pads? No, I don’t like them. After you’ve done all that fiddling around to get away from that factory preset sound you might as well have got a really good sound on the Synclavier. Simmons pads just remind me too much of that Howard Jones factory preset and Drumulator syndrome. Really boring ‘synth’ sounds. They’re just not interesting, they sort of scream ‘DX7!’ and ‘JP8!’ at you.”
The latest Depeche album boasts a myriad of sounds, less overtly metallic than the socialist sentiments that they reflected on Construction Time Again but just as fascinating. Love is all about contrasts.
“We don’t think that we overdid the metal-beating idea on Construction Time,” says Martin, “but we wanted to make this one less obviously metal sounds. We wanted a little more subtlety…”
So instead of belting skips they belted concrete.
“Yeah, on one of the tracks on the album, Blasphemous Rumours,” elaborates Alan, “we sampled some concrete being hit for what turned out to be the snare sound. All that entailed was us hitting a big lump of concrete with a sampling hammer…”
“…I’m sure they’re not actually called sampling hammers,” interjects Martin giggling.
“Anyway,” continues Alan, “the engineer / producer we use, Gareth Jones, has got this brilliant little recorder called a Stellavox which we use with two stereo mikes and it’s as good as any standard 30ips reel-to-real but this is very small and therefore very portable. So we just took the Stellavox out into the middle of this big, ambient space and miked up the ground and hit it with a big metal hammer. The sound was… like concrete being hit. I can’t really put it any other way.”
“Professional Walkmans are good for sampling too,” claims Martin. “Gareth has always got his out. On trains… at home. They’re good because they get a very impure sound that can often be really interesting. But if we want a very pure sound then we’ll take the thing, say a bit of scaffolding, into the studio and mike it up in the proper conditions and get a clean sound.”
If an equipment list had been included in the mentions on Some Great Reward, apart from pavements, buildings, bottles and old people being stapled together it would have incorporated a long list of toy instruments which Martin divulged as he became more intoxicated; by love of course.
“One morning me and Andy (Fletcher) went down to Hamleys, the toy shop in London, and bought as many toy instruments as we could find. Pianos, saxophones, xylophones and we took them all back to the studio and sampled them. One we used a lot was a Marina (?), a toy one, very strange, but after we’d sampled it, it was great. It sounded pretty terrible as a toy but when we took it down a couple of octaves it sounded really good.”
“People tend to think that if you’re using toy instruments then they have to sound whacky,” complains Alan, “but we put some to very good use because as soon as you sample them they take on a whole new quality and when you transpose them it puts them in a completely new context. Like the noises Martin was making with his throat, we only took those down a tone and it was unrecognisable as someone going, ‘Unk’, with their throat.”
But sampling, like love, isn’t all happiness and although Depeche have learnt to take the rough with the smooth, they found out the hard way. Alan breaks off in the middle of another ‘good combination sound’ story to tell how they were stitched up by a sussed, sampling percussionist.
“We were doing this combination with Martin doing his Indian voice combined with a bassoon type sound.”
“It was pretty ethnic,” says Martin launching into his Indian voice.
Alan ignores him. He has something on his mind that he’s not sure if he should tell us.
“I’m not sure I should tell you this,” he tells us, “but we got this percussionist in for the afternoon to sample his drums and the different techniques of playing them. We didn’t try to hide the fact that we were sampling him. We said, ‘We hope you don’t feel r*ped,’ and he agreed to be sampled literally just hitting one drum, once at a time. Anyway we sampled all his drums once, maybe twice. Now, the Musicians Union haven’t really caught up with sampling and this bloke had obviously contacted them when he got home because he gave us this bill for about 50 different sessions, plus sampling time plus a consultation fee. It was enormous and the stupid thing was that most of the sounds weren’t even as good as that (bangs two pint glasses together) and we only used about two for maybe two seconds each on a couple of songs.”
Another problem came when the band had to divide their recording time between Music Works in England and the 56-track, Solid State luxury of Hansa Mischraum in Berlin.
“There were all these builders in next door at Music Works,” moans Martin, “and we’d have the track running with us hitting skips and concrete and they’d be next door tearing a wall down and we couldn’t tell which was which. It was very confusing at times.”
Like love and marriage, sampling and timing tend to go together like the proverbial horse and jockey.
“Although it makes the whole process even longer, when you get into one you can’t really help but get into the other,” says Alan. “You can’t help, after you’ve been involved with sequencing for a while, noticing three millisecond or five millisecond discrepancies. So you end up time-shifting every sequence until it’s perfect. Then we got into consciously putting things slightly out of time. Like, for example, the choir sound on People again we used a combination sound of different choir sounds on different synths and then put them slightly out of time with each other. Like we took one sound from the Synclavier, one from the PPG and one was on the Emulator. Are you familiar with the Friendchip? It’s a time code reading clock that can monitor every single click output from all your drum machines and all your synths so when everything is going via the Friendchip you can adjust the feel by pulling something, say five or six milliseconds in one direction.
“The thing is so many things can’t play in perfect time anyway,” reveals Alan, “the Linn isn’t in time when it’s meant to be playing ‘drum machine’ perfect time without human error programmed in. It can go out by 20 milliseconds. We set an oscilloscope on several things to see how well they kept time. The one that came out best was the TR808 which only as a two millisecond shift. That’s better than the Synclavier. Rotten sounds though. But we actually ended up triggering stuff from the 808 just because it’s so tight within itself.”
“We always thought the 808 had a good feel,” chips in Martin before adding a bitchy, “even though Alan has a grade eight piano his playing is still incredibly out of time compared to the Synclavier sequencer… and even that’s out!”
All this and the Emulator II?
“Yeah,” admits Martin realising that his love has almost turned him into a technocrat, “the sampling time is about 17 seconds now, I think, and you can get more sampling across the keyboard, it gives better quality than the Fairlight and it only costs about seven grand which is a lot but it will be a big help to us live.”
And there’s a pianillow ballad, Somebody, to be sung love. Martin promises some. Kinda wonderful.
“We’re going to go for a completely human feel on that one. Just a piano played by Alan and Dave singing and Andy playing tapes on the Fostex X15. It’ll be very different.”
So the love for sound can take you backwards but what of the future?
“I don’t know,” confesses Martin, “the Synclavier can already go further than your imagination and they’re thinking of getting new software for that. Then there’s re-synthesis which might happen in a couple of years where you can take a sampled sound and change just tiny parts of it. It’s really impossible to say. Maybe we’ll just get the guitars out and make a Rock ’n’ Roll album. Who knows?”
…and somewhere, within the folds of Auntie Beeb’s ageing skin, a woman sits alone wrestling with a similar emotional predicament. Is she really in love with her PPG system is has it been David Attenborough all along?
Adrian Deevoy, November 1984 (some of the text is hard to read so transcribed to the best of my ability. Apologies for any typos)
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racketballz · 4 months
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I saw all those Powerpunk asks, so I’d like to present my take on names for the good-guy Rowdyruffs to the class.
The Readyright Boys (Cause they’re ready to do right or something. Idk I couldn’t come up with anything better)
First off is Branch, the leader man. I like this name because, in my head, it references the phrase ‘branching out’, as well as the saying ‘extending the olive branch’, which means to offer peace. Leaders should strive to be good peacekeepers, right?
Next up, Beacon, the heart of the team. This feels self-explanatory. Beacons are beams of light that guide people who’ve lost their way in darkness. Feels appropriate for a guy who’s supposed to fill a Bubbles-like role in the team.
Finally we have Buddy, the team’s own stubborn fighter. I’m a fan on this name because… it also begins with a B. I think it fits nicely into the category of names that your parents call you when they forget what your actual name is. Poor guy got snubbed. Not to mention that Buttercup’s name was originally going to be Bud (according to the wiki), and I wanted to pay homage to that.
You are a phenomenal artist btw. Thanks for keeping us PPG fans fed!
HAHA THESE ARE GOOD!!!!!! I especially like buddy hehehe
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lune-redd · 4 months
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Mom Blossom
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annieqattheperipheral · 7 months
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yohe's recap fri-sun. behind $wall so here u go:
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — It’s a pleasant, autumn afternoon in downtown Halifax. A bartender is shaking his head in the city’s bar district, telling tales of Nova Scotia’s favorite son while NFL games beam on background televisions.
The topic is predictably Sidney Crosby.
“He’s here all the time in the summer with Nate (MacKinnon),” the bartender said. “People never leave him alone. Sits here and signs autographs all night. He’s almost too nice for his own good, you know? But he’s just such a good guy. He just sits here and signs and signs, and just talks with everyone, and poses for pictures. People love it. You have to understand how proud of him we are.”
That much is quite clear.
Preseason games don’t typically receive much in the way of hoopla. Even Erik Karlsson’s exhibition season debut was met with thousands of empty seats at PPG Paints Arena on Thursday.
But this is different. Much, much different. The Pittsburgh Penguins are playing the Ottawa Senators on Monday in downtown Halifax at Scotiabank Centre and it’s a preseason game, only you wouldn’t know it by the buzz in this beautiful, seaside city.
As of Sunday, there were around 300 tickets available on StubHub. The majority of these are selling for more than $1,000. The average price for a ticket on StubHub is around $1,100, and the most famous Taylor in the building will be Crosby’s sister.
“It’s all pretty crazy,” said Ryan Graves, another Nova Scotia native.
Crosby and the Penguins arrived in Halifax late on Friday afternoon. They had a “team bonding” day on Saturday, which included a scavenger hunt and Crosby acting as a personal tour guide for his teammates, most of whom had never been to Halifax.
“I was definitely feeling the pressure,” Crosby said with a smile. “Wanted to make sure guys enjoyed it. It’s a great place. I’m really proud of my home and what it has to offer.”
Rest assured, the feeling from his hometown is mutual.
All across Canada, Crosby is understandably a national hero. He’s one of the greatest players of all time, an incomparable gentleman, scorer of the golden goal and captain of the greatest generation of Canadian hockey.
In Pittsburgh, Crosby is a civic icon. In a city that reveres its sports legends more than most, Crosby’s face will rest on the Mount Rushmore of Western Pennsylvania greats alongside the likes of Mario Lemieux and Roberto Clemente, singular artists whose character somehow exceeded their athletic exploits.
And yet, in Halifax, the affection Crosby receives is even more noteworthy if slightly understated, as is the custom of this province’s people. Like Crosby himself, the people here are polite and kind. Crosby always smiles when Nova Scotia is mentioned. Unfailingly.
When his name is mentioned around the proud people of Halifax, they smile in turn.
“Hard not to,” Graves said.
The Penguins practiced on Sunday morning only minutes from Crosby’s boyhood home at Cole Harbour Place. The small building was filled with hundreds of fans, who overflowed the venue for hours. Hundreds of others stood outside, patiently waiting for a glimpse of Crosby.
Graves grew up in Nova Scotia, albeit three hours away. He is the best-suited member of the Penguins to explain what Crosby’s appearance in the Maritimes means, and what his presence over the years has done for hockey in this region.
Some players from Nova Scotia reached the NHL before Crosby, but his arrival — and subsequent domination of the league — changed everything, according to his new teammate.
“You can just see from the reaction of the people,” Graves said. “You can tell what it means to this area, what he’s done. He’s the first one from out east that really had an impact on everybody. Sid was the first one to pave the way. The impact he’s had on Mac (MacKinnon), myself, (Ottawa’s Drake) Batherson … you know, you always think things are possible. But when you have someone that’s actually done that, it becomes more real. You understand the pathway that they took. It gives you someone to root for. Everyone loves him. Everyone. He’s an idol to a lot of people. Eight, 10-year-old kids love him. People my parents’ age love him. He’s had an impact on so many people. It’s really cool that the Penguins brought us here to do this.”
Some athletes like to cultivate the image of giving back to the community when, in reality, their contributions are far smaller than the accompanying hype. Crosby is quite the opposite. He’s well known to visit Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh on a regular basis, for instance, but is insistent that the media not chronicle these visits. It’s simply his way.
It was fitting, then, that Crosby’s day on Sunday was particularly full, even if he couldn’t hide from the media on this occasion.
After the Penguins practiced, Crosby returned to the ice. He participated in a hockey clinic for dozens of young Nova Scotian players, and he wasn’t alone. His good friend, Evgeni Malkin, joined him for the clinic. So did Graves. And so did the entire Penguins coaching staff, including Mike Sullivan.
“We all play because we love it,” Crosby said. “Obviously we have dreams of being in the NHL. Sometimes that works out, sometimes it doesn’t. Hopefully it gives them the belief that, just because you’re from a small town, you can make it.”
While Crosby, Malkin, Graves and the coaching staff were on the ice, the rest of the Penguins players were signing autographs and participating in Q&As with children and other members of the Nova Scotian community. Crosby also invited and spoke with families who lost their houses during the horrific wildfires that impacted so much of Canada earlier this year.
“This whole thing has been great,” Jeff Carter said. “Everybody knows what Sid means to the community here. And I think everyone understands how many things he does for people off the ice. It’s been a special weekend for him. He’s very proud of where he grew up. That’s obvious. I think it’s been special for him, yes, but it’s also been a really great experience for all of us.”
Graves said the hockey community in Nova Scotia is an underappreciated one and that he hopes events like this underscore how passionate this province is for hockey.
“It’s all just so cool to see,” he said. “People here love this sport. They’re crazy for it. You see when the world juniors are here, everything is sold out. The Czech and Slovakian game even sold out. People love it. It’s crazy. People love the players who are from around here, too. People around here are blue-collar, hard-nosed people. It makes it fun for them to root for a person like Sidney. When I was a kid, the Islanders came here once for a week of training camp. I thought it was the coolest thing ever.”
And with all due respect to the Islanders, they aren’t Crosby.
“I can’t even imagine what it would be like to have a practice with the Penguins in my hometown rink, the place I grew up in,” Marcus Pettersson said. “Man, would that be awesome. But with Sid, everything is different. And it’s all because of the kind of human being he is.”
The crowd buzzed throughout Penguins practice on Sunday, with the massive contingent of children chanting Crosby’s name throughout.
“So, you see how he’s worshipped here,” Pettersson said. “You see it right away. And honestly, it’s because of the things he does in the community even more than the hockey player that he is. People know he’s a great person, but they don’t even understand all of it, all of the things he does when people aren’t looking, the way he treats people. People are smart, though. They know. He wouldn’t be worshipped the way he is if he weren’t a great person. He sets that standard and that precedent every day. We’ve just been walking around town, and you start to see that people are proud to be from here because Sidney Crosby is from here. I think that tells you a lot.”
As the years have rolled on, Crosby’s bond with his head coach has notably grown stronger. It was only fitting that Sullivan played a big role in the big weekend.
“It’s a great tribute to the legacy Sid has built,” Sullivan said.
Crosby and the Penguins once played a preseason game in Halifax, back in September of 2006. Given that it’s been 17 years since the Penguins have been here, it’s a pretty fair bet that this could be the final time that Crosby skates before his hometown fans.
“It’s been nice,” he said. “I never thought I’d have an opportunity to do this. I had a lot of morning practices in this rink. I had dreams of playing in the NHL. I didn’t think I’d ever be here with our team, doing something like this. You just try to take it all in and enjoy it.”
Crosby is perhaps the most hyped prospect in hockey history. Even before he was drafted, scouts and others who knew him raved about his personality and his character. This, they insisted, was a boy who was different than the rest.
“He’s just the best,” Pettersson said.
Crosby’s last NHL-related event in his hometown was in 2016 when a parade with the Stanley Cup was held in his honor.
Troy Crosby shook his head when pondering the last time the hockey world descended upon Nova Scotia to witness his son.
“Halifax has changed a lot since then,” Crosby’s father noted.
The boy, who became a man, who became a hockey god, has never really changed at all.
His homeland is all the better for it.
“This is a weekend people are going to remember for a really long time,” Graves said. “To the people here, it’s everything.”
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askthe-ppgs-rrbs · 1 month
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There are many AU versions of the PPG and RRB, how would they react seeing another version of them or if not multiple versions of them?
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brick has had an unfortunate interaction with another alternate before
(my ppg ocs cameo?!)
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segastarlight · 1 month
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HAPPY (belated) BIRTHDAY BESTIE!!!!!!!!
@lune-redd
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cooliogirl101 · 2 years
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Ppg Naruto, Neji and Sasuke ( maybe along with itachi too) with canon Naruto, Neji and sasuke
Or canon Neji, Naruto and Sasuke with Reina, Kushina and Mikoto
Kushina and Naruto:
“Mom, mom, it’s okay,” Naruto said. “You don’t have to cry.” He gave her a wobbly smile. “I turned out okay, didn’t I?”
“Yes you did, and I’m so proud of you, but…but you shouldn’t have been all alone through all that!” Kushina hiccuped, both arms thrown around him. “Even if Minato and I couldn’t have been there for you, you should’ve had people…oh, I am going to kill Jiraiya—”
“Pervy Sage isn’t that bad,” Naruto defended Jiraiya weakly.
The look on Kushina’s face could have felled an S-rank ninja.
“Pervy Sage? Are you telling me that pervert— I swear to god, if he ever touched you—”
“No, no, nothing like that!” Naruto said hastily. “He just likes to peep on women, that’s all!”
Judging by Kushina’s answering expression, that really wasn’t helping Jiraiya’s case.
“It looks like I’m going to have words with your godfather,” she said, a tight smile on her face. Thank god she hasn’t listened to Minato and had asked Sakumo to be Naruto’s godfather instead. “But anyway, let’s talk about happier topics! How do you feel about ramen?”
The tight knot in her chest loosened a fraction at Naruto’s answering beaming smile. It was nice to know that some things, at least, never changed.
Mikoto and Sasuke:
Mikoto’s never been much of a crier. She’s well aware that on her team, she’s considered the unemotional one. The logical one. She’s the strategist of the group— it’s her job to make decisions without letting feelings get in the way.
Right now though, an alternate (sadder, lonelier, grief-stricken) version of her son in her arms, she can’t seem to stop crying.
It’s ludicrous and she hates herself for it, hates herself for not being able to make things right, hates the alternate version of herself for not being able to protect either of her sons, hates herself for not being able to take away Sasuke’s pain.
“I’m sorry,” she says, even though it’s her belief that apologies are almost as useless as tears. “I’m sorry for not being able to be there for you.”
She feels his hands settle on her back, pulling her into a hesitant embrace.
“You’re here now,” is all he says.
It’s not quite forgiveness, but…it’s a start.
Reina and Neji:
As he looked at the woman who was his…mother in another lifetime (and how strange, the concept of having a mother. He’d never known his), Neji felt something heavy settle in his stomach like a stone.
“Is…is something wrong?” He asked, hating how hesitant his voice is.
Did I do something wrong?
He’d been ecstatic— beyond ecstatic— to see his father again. To talk to him again. To hear him say he was proud of Neji, of the man and shinobi he’d become, that he was so happy to have him as a son.
Then he’d turned to Reina, and Reina…Reina had taken one look at him and her face had closed off, expression eerily blank save for the sudden coldness in her eyes.
Reina blinked, the ice in her eyes thawing as she turned back to look at him.
“What? No!” She exclaimed. “I was just—” Her eyes flashed, before she took a deep breath. “I was just…preoccupied by my thoughts for a moment. Forgive me.”
She smiled hesitantly at him. Neji studied her face carefully, unable to find any trace of that terrible, ice-cold fury from before.
“Let me start over?” She asked, voice gentle. “I’m Reina. You can call me Reina or Mom, whatever you’re comfortable with. I…I am so, so happy to meet you, Neji.”
Neji swallowed. There was an uncomfortable ache in his throat.
“It’s good to meet you too,” he murmured, tongue feeling heavy and awkward. He frantically tried to think back to Tenten’s lectures on social niceties and what you were supposed to say to people when you first met them. “Would— would you like to get lunch together?”
“I’d love to,” she said warmly. Neji felt his shoulders relax a fraction. “But first things first.” Her gaze drifted upwards. “How do you feel about getting that seal off your forehead?”
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