Flying Free hover-text: Flying Free
‹‹ First ‹ Prev Comments(35) Random Next › Last ››

Discussion (35) ¬

  1. Neat picture.
    Great detail down to road texture.
    Thank-you.

  2. Great splash scene, I love how Gopi is smiling and
    Mist is hanging on for dear life with her wings back
    and clinging to Miral’s hair.

  3. Chryzopraz

    My opinion might be unpopular here,
    but why don’t they use helmets?

    • Jan

      The helmet thing has been mentioned back
      when Miral started her pilot education.
      The ears were somewhat ‘in the way’…
      That Gobi does not have that excuse is
      IMO not debatable 😉

      • Jan

        It should be mentioned (if not obvious) that I’m pro-helmet.
        My brother was pressed into an accident by some incompetent
        driver and without the helmet his head would have been
        cracked open by that concrete pillar he head-banged…
        (not to mention the road-rash he would have gotten by sliding
        along the asphalt…)

        • I’m pro-helmet myself.
          I just don’t think that it is a proper function of government
          to protect people from the consequences of their own decisions.
          In the Empire, if you want to ride without a helmet,
          anything other than liability insurance will cost you more.

          • The problem, of course, is that the average motorcycle head injury
            ends up costing someone over $1,000,000. And that someone is you
            and me. And just educating riders on the importance of a helmet
            doesn’t work, because everyone thinks, “I’m a better rider; it
            won’t happen to me.” Or, as one wag put it, “You can lead a horse
            to slaughter, but you can’t make him think.” To some extent, helmet
            laws protect society in general, and not just the motorcyclist.
            And I guess we could argue where the line between protecting the
            citizen, and protecting the citizenry in general might be.
            Because that’s the basis of libertarianism, right?

            I always wear a helmet. And I have good medical insurance.
            (The law in Texas is that if you’re over 21, you don’t have to wear
            a helmet, as long as you have sufficient medical insurance.)
            Well, I would, if my wife would let me have another two-wheel
            motorcycle, instead of the four-wheel one I current have for fun.
            But I DID wear one, when I rode.
            And I do still have two helmets in my closet.

            • I ride, and I wear a helmet, even in states where I don’t have to.
              “Protecting the public” can be, and has been, used as an excuse
              to limit citizens far too many times. No thanks.
              Freedoms cost, but it’s a price that free people have always paid.
              I like having a lathe and milling machine, even though they’re
              dangerous and could cause me injuries that are more expensive
              to treat than I can afford.
              I like riding a motorcycle, even though if I get into an accident,
              it could cost six figures for the repairs, even with a helmet.
              I like shooting sports, even though guns are dangerous to someone.
              I enjoy a lot of things that, if something goes wrong, could cost the
              public a lot of money.
              Let’s ban wilderness camping and mountain climbing, rescue efforts
              cost a fortune!
              And so it goes. Eventually we’ll all live in padded cells and travel
              inside nerf balls. At a safe 10kph, and only when travel is necessary.

              • There was a movie made years ago called “The Last Mimsy”
                about people in the future were so “protected” that they wore,
                for the lack of a better description, space suits. And because
                of that humans lost all natural defenses. In the movie a scientist
                sent back in time these teddy bears with the sole purpose of
                collecting human DNA to recover our lost defenses. It’s a silly
                kids movie, but it has a ring of truth.

              • We have this discussion on a regular basis with our New Zealand
                and Australian National T Bucket Alliance (NTBA) members. They
                have myriad hoops they have to jump through to drive a hot rod,
                things no American would stand for. And yes, their government
                says it is to protect the rodders, and the motoring public. So I
                know where “the societal good” argument goes, in both the short
                and long run. And that was my point; libertarianism requires
                individual responsibility, and requires the acknowledgment that some
                people will make bad decisions, and they may have to bear the
                responsibility for those bad decisions, foregoing a bail-out from
                the nanny state.

      • For sure didn’t exist when the Cats first got to Terra/Jerico,
        but I’d think some entrepreneur by now would have designed a helmet
        to accommodate Catian physiology, and maybe Dogishuan and a few of
        the other non-human Empire citizens. I don’t recall having seen any
        right now, but I’d bet the Navy has appropriate evac suits for them
        in case of catastrophic hull breach. And probably for doing regular
        maintenance or construction in null atmosphere too. I’ll assume they
        exist off-camera for now, until and if PC gets appropriate models to
        work with.

    • Adding a helmet over hair like hers is almost
      impossible when creating these images.

      • i love the “Anime Logic” of wearing helmets / hoods..
        how the character puts more hair than helmet
        (perfectly) into a helmet,, or.! takes off said helmet
        an no helmet hair.
        https://45.media.tumblr.com/8cadd5f995c4d2f1dee6a4140410ed83/tumblr_ms9xo6wlET1s079ezo10_400.gif

        • I had very wavy hair, I would gain about 3 inches of length if my
          hair was wet. Or riding without a helmet, it either had to be cut
          very short or be very long for it to lay down on my head. So going
          bald was more of a gift 😉

          • way back in the 70’s when i first started to ride,. we called it
            the cabin. but it was the grandparents farm,. we kids (17 an
            younger). were shipped there for the summer (free labor),. to get
            around 3 of us had motorcycles,. as kids we were “Required” to
            wear helmets.. none of the kids liked that,. so they broke, lost,
            threw away, or left ‘elsewhere’..
            after the military i let my hair grow long (about 3 feet),, so it
            went into a pony tail an helmet,. or i saw nothing trying to ride..

      • I would think the ears are the big problem,
        as was discussed long ago.

        • Yes, even in the early days during Miral’s training.
          The then Admiral Mistrial was talking about it with
          her newly minted civy assistant.

          • Didn’t Miral say even a beret was just too painful to wear?
            Maybe it’s more that just shape, they may have sensitivities
            around their ears that make any pressure painful.

            • You’re right, I forgot about that.
              Try barely touching a cat’s ear.
              It will get annoyed quickly.
              You will bleed slowly.

        • the biggest problem, is online models..
          i have at least 6 furry books with helmets..
          medieval to sci-fi.. one looks like a Russian
          padded tanker helmet with ear cutouts..
          then there is the “Hair”…
          the easiest way, is to remove the hair model
          and put on bald..

  4. I just deleted over 100 spam comments without taking the time to
    read them.
    If you left a comment that doesn’t appear here, I’m afraid that you’ll
    have to repeat it.
    In the future, if you leave a comment that doesn’t appear, let me
    know here in the comments and I’ll look for it before mass-deleting.

    • same.. when i mass delete,. i try an look..
      but i might miss one..

  5. Dastardly Dan

    Nicely done, sir!

  6. President Elect Toxic Deplorable Racist SAH Neanderthal B Woodman Domestic Violent Extremist SuperStraight

    I’m hearing Steppenwolf’s “Born to be Wild”.
    “Get your motor runnin’
    Head out on the highway……”

    • How’s it now?

      • Great! Now that song is stuck in my head…
        (stops humming it for the 3rd time)

        • At my age, my riding style is more “Born to be mild”.

  7. Okay, I saw the new vote incentive. Nice picture but other than
    it reminding me of “West Side Story” I totally do not get it.
    Head not working that great this morning.

    • It’s a play on my “Bad Bunny” comment Friday:
      “Not that there aren’t a lot of bad people in
      the Empire or it’s various kingdoms…
      (Bad Bunny!) But their stories are usually too
      mundane to be interesting, so I don’t tell them.”

      • Pffft! I mentioned that in the comments off
        the bat but PC wanted it to be the vote
        incentive before anyone else seen it. So he
        removed that part of my comment from Friday.
        I don’t blame him, it’s an easy joke to spot.

  8. oops! meant that for Bill.

  9. Sam

    Weird. I was seeing that this one had a music track. Clicking on the
    play did nothing. Signed in, and then the play button responded, but
    I couldn’t hear anything. That was a computer issue, for some reason
    the sound module didn’t load. Fine. Rebooted. Now I have speakers
    again, but the music track is missing for this episode.

  10. Sam

    And . . . as soon as I hit “Post Comment” the Play button is back,
    and it works just fine.

  11. Out in the boonies, looks like _not_ a blind curve,
    and traffic is much less after The Fall;
    still twitched a little at crossing the yellow line :}

    • Yeah, I screwed that one up. And I was so careful to keep
      her tires on the correct side of the line, too.
      Only…it wasn’t.

Comment ¬

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Skip to toolbar