#Assembly Conveyor | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

cheekycheesecake01 · 11 days ago

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By The Ring

Rex Sloan x G/N Reader

18+ Minors begone! I have been rotting away for far too long and need to come back. So have my first angsty smut ever.

Summary: Rex always thought you and him were together, but to you, you guys were just a couple. Despite how awful of a partner you were, Rex always has the doubt in his mind that you do care, and you are his.

Warnings/Tags: Cheating from Rex's end, penetration but reader's genitals are kept vague. The reader is genuinely a p.o.s. reader is using Rex for sex, actively objectifies him, and doesn't care about anything else, and this isn't meant to romanticize objectification at all. I'm just practicing a new way of writing. Sex is dry af, dead bedroom, lots of angst, plastic love, literary devices cuz I'm a nerd💀, shattered relationship, hurt but no comfort yall, I'm sorry, it's 12:20 AM and I had a thought😭

You laid there bare while he slipped his way in. Your body is as hot as his charged molecules, but your moans are as loud as a dying kindle. His rough palm clutching your jaw to pepper kisses while you half-heartedly whimper. Moaning was a courtesy, not a requirement. Neither was cumming.

Moaning, begging, sucking, cumming.... it was never a requirement or a need... just formalities.

You knew from the start what kind of person Rex Sloan....or Splode.... was. A firecracker made in an assembly line designed to fizzle, flicker, explode, wow, and then tarnish to leave behind its tattered pieces. Its smell embedded into the ground and your clothes that stank of gunpowder. If there was one thing you loved about Rex.... it was his big personality. He was an ass, but he was always entertaining even in the more distasteful circumstances. He was the definition of fun and adventure.

Sometimes all you ever want is a little fun.

But too much of one's sweet indulgences will always leave a bitter taste in their mouths. Rex was a firework you loved to watch explode, fizzle, and flash vibrantly with all of his true colors. But what happens when the fireworks are too loud? What happens when the fireworks are too bold? What happens when the fireworks burst too close to your home? What happens when the fireworks are simply.... too much?

You dispose of them. Tuck them away into a closet until you get board and long to see their violent bursts again.

Rex was a skeleton in your closet. You didn't bring him up to family or friends--not because you were ashamed, moreso you didn't find it necessary. He was just a firework to watch until he fizzled away from your mind. His ambers always remained in your gyri for his body, for his face, and occassionally his personality.

But sometimes, you really wished he'd just stay in his place.

He thrusts faster into you, pounding, needy, desperate and depraved. What once felt so thrilling, so desirable, so irresistible, has become so.... so.... monotonous. It wasn't the sex that ruined things, it was him.

Assembly lines have changed the world forever. People gained jobs, capitalistic societies thrived, and consumers ate up every new appliance and car and cosmetic that released. But assembly lines were exploitative, coldly formatted to prioritize profit over people, and greedy.

Rex gained respect, Rex thrived in action-packed environments, Rex ate up every ounce of attention, and Rex.... was just a faulty firecracker designed to maximize your gratification until you decide to recall because he oversupplied, and you wanted more of him in ways that did not correspond to his ideas. Rex changed your world forever.

You couldn't care less about his job, his life, or his friends, not when he was inside of you. But now, that wasn't even enough because of course it wasn't. Rex could work in his place in line, tending to your conveyor belt for hours upon hours in a day, and you'll only ever pay him with half-hearted honeyed affirmations and the occassional peck on the cheek. Yet you'll still command more from him. You were as affectionate as Tyson Foods, or Apple, or Google, or Amazon, or whatever big wig corporation had a CEO with a warm smile and a cold way of life.

There was better than Rex. There always was and always will be.

If you desired, you could get a replacement by next evening.

Rex massaged your spot, whimpering and muttering: "Why.... why are you so quiet, baby? Is it not good enough?"

He sounded.... different from his usual cocky demeanor... scared. It was as though the entirety of his worth as a person, as a man, as Rex Splode, as Rex Sloan... rested between his thighs.

....

The fear that filled his body fueled his fiery passion further as he hoisted you up and pounded. This time, you moaned. An authentic, genuine moan that filled the room and gave Rex the validation he needed to gain that sense of machismo. The kind of masculinity that was as secure as the neglected mechanical cogs on a calculated conveyor belt. Rex was monotonous and loud, but by god did he have a use.

He slides out before slapping himself back in with a clap of flesh while he whispered....

"My baby.... my baby..." He huffs between steamy kisses and loud claps. His words synchronized with the sounds of his thrusts as he continued.... "You're my baby, say it to me...."

You bite your lip, not from pleasure--no, no, no, that candle put itself out long ago--but rather resistance, rebellion, apathy, reluctance, everything that Rex would define as "shitty." But you humored him, striking the match to light his fuse as you pant out, "I'm your baby, Rex. I'm your baby."

Rex was a firecracker you always set off when you wanted a show and you always made sure to set him off into a lake when he was too much. To bet on losing dogs is the very definition of insanity. But Rex places his stamp down and pays the price every time. He knows. He knows that what he's doing is wrong, seeing Kate behind your back, talking to Eve, touching other people, only to bury himself deep into you. He didn't deserve you. He knew that. But he loved you so, so much. You were perfect, affectionate enough to keep him coming, but distant enough that he could never worry about genuinely losing a bet. That was until he heard you laugh with him, not at him, or when you were so forgiving, and loving.... where did you go? You don't even look him in the eyes during sex.

But that night.... you did.

And it gave Rex the foreign feeling of butterfly houses populating with heat insulated.... he couldn't help but hiss at you through clenched teeth, "I wanna feel it.... you looking in my eyes when I come..."

To bet on losing dogs is the very definition of insanity. Deep beneath the depths of his hearth through the cracked stonework and sooted walls of his personhood, lied the burned letter he always sought to ignore.

You don't love him. He can tell by the way you always gaze at his body and dismiss his words, how you craved him for his looks and not his jokes, and how even after you drained him, you still commanded more. You never asked how he was doing, you just always focused on "making him feel better." Except he never did. But he loves you so.... for whatever reason, he does.

He loves you so much that he'll cry to himself over his infidelity even though you couldn't care less if he left you today. He hates himself for it but christ, he needs someone that's you but.... isn't like you. He stopped going after Rae, Kate, and Eve. He started seeking people who looked as close to you as possible. Some nights, he'd even pay a prostitute extra to let him call them by your name, or to dye their hair like yours, and so on. Or when he watches porn.... he always tries to find one where the bodies, the actors, and the sounds were as close to you as possible because he knows it will never truly happen. For once, sex was something that made Rex miserable.... how can he possibly enjoy you when he has to sleep knowing that if it weren't for his anatomy, you would leave?

If he can't make you stay with his jokes, or his meals, or his fireworks from charged coins, he only had one last thing.... his body.

He loves you so much that he actively bets on his losing dog. He sees you and he knows that you are bound to fail him everytime without trying because that's exactly your problem. You don't try.

You don't even care.

He could sit there in his car and scream how he loves you, but whether he screamed in the car alone, or screamed right there in your home you still left him alone. As long as he came back to bed bare, only then would you truly acknowledge him and hold him.

Finally, Rex reached his peak and lets go, only to make sure you reached yours, too. As you cum, it wasn't a powerful crash of waves, it was a poltergeist of pleasure that throbbed throughout your body. But Rex knew this was all he could do. He knows you're bored of him now.

........

In the middle of cuddling you, Rex finally snaps bitterly:

"Why don't you ever say my name when we fuck? You don't even look at me!"

But when he said that, he looked to see you scrolling away on your phone. Inattentive, careless, and inconsiderate as always. He bets on losing dogs.

Then he decided to tell you the truth....

"I've been seeing other people. Kate, Rae, Eve, and others." He confessed whilst firmly looking at you with those green eyes lit with determination; a faulty firework ready to blow up into the lake once more.

He sat there in silence, expecting you to get angry, cry, scream, or do something indicating that you do care about him.

When he is met with silence, he instigated further.

"You tasted her. Every time you went down on me, you tasted them, 'cause I ain't washing my sins, baby!" He exclaimed with bravado, he knew everything. He knew you were just putting on a front.... you do love him, you care for him, that you were worth losing every bet, that you were worth placing every bet down like a deranged gambler, that you weren't his losing dog, that you were his, that he'll break your heart, that he'll make you cry, and then it'll all be okay. He knew---no, he knows, everything. Even if you are dry and you can't keep up, he knows it'll hurt.

But it didn't hurt like he thought it would.

After he confessed his infidelty and clutched his plastic pride, all you did was roll over and tiredly mutter to him,

"Make sure you get tested tomorrow. I don't wanna have to take antibiotics 'cause of you."

And just like that.... you set him off and briefly witnessed his burst into the lake. He gets up, agitated and shouting at you, but you have long fell asleep. Realizing he was losing on your side, he went to the bathroom and wrapped his lips around the faucet before turning it on to the highest setting.

Through gargles, choked sobs, fizzled sorrows, and longing ambers being flooded by metallic water, he coughs up remains before pulling out the diamond ring in his pocket. It wasn't flashy, it was cheap, but it was a promise. The promise to be better, the promise to stay by your side, the promise.... to bet on another losing dog.

With a somber gaze that pawned off his emerald eyes, Rex places the ring onto the sink; ready to place down yet another stamp that's long dried after so many bets. The diamond was starting to yellow. He didn't hurt like he thought it would.... he told you the truth with the hopes of having your love at last, and all you did was reduce him to a urine sample. All Rex is left with a quiet place to scream how he loves you. He knows that the promise to stay by your side is a guarantee lose, but he's become nothing but a poor gambler.

So he fizzles into the bowl of the sink, and bursts into the lake... ready to work another shift in the assembly line that was your manufactured love. He'd bet on losing dogs anyday. He wouldn't have it any other way.

Because to bet on losing dogs, to fail by your side, to be stuck in your assembly line, was to know everything.

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immortalbumblebee · 5 months ago

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Chapter 20: Forged in Fire

So two chapters of this series passed 100 notes this week? Holy shit, guys!!! Thank you so much! I've been trying to find as much time for writing between finals, but this is probably going to be the last chapter I publish until the hoidays.

Thank you so much for y'all support. The likes and comments are really motivating.

Content warning for mentions of birth

Masterlist

Working at the factory had become excruciating since you got arrested. Well, it had always been a little excruciating. But it had been especially bad for these past few months once word had gotten out that you’d spent the night at the Enforcer HQ. Your pay had been considerably docked, nearly all your coworkers all but refused to interact with you, and all your supervisors would go out of their way to be right pricks to you whenever given the chance. Morichi had made it clear that you’d almost fully lost your job from the whole kerfuffle.

It was fairly easy to ignore when you were working, primarily just focusing on your work. Sure, your supervisors were bad, but no worse than the chembarons your sort were used to back home. No, what really made it insufferable were the moments between work, like in the dressing room when you could feel your coworkers eyes’ on you, hear their judgmental murmurings.

Finally shedding yourself of the annoyingly stuffy uniform, you couldn’t help but close your locker with a particularly loud ‘slam’. The room grew silent at this, which only worked to further irritate you.

Fuck this

Storming out of the change room, you didn’t even think as you made your way down the hallway and over to the catwalk that led you to the staff entrance. As you crossed the raised catwalk, however, you found yourself stilling as you passed over the main floor underneath. Down there, you could hear the high-pitched hum of the metal on the conveyor lines. Eerily familiar. As you watched the assembly line workers do their work, you found yourself focusing on the metal parts being put together. Long pipes and complex golden mechanisms. All being locked together and assembled until finally…the all too familiar shine of the barrel of an Encorfcer’s gun. Hundreds, if not thousands of them being pumped out of this factory every damn day.

You’d put the dots together after your arrest, when the Enforcers had stormed the fighting ring. The ringing had been too familiar, like a blacksmith recognizing his own maker’s mark.

Zeroing in on the cool, familiar texture of the metal, you couldn't resist the urge to lift one hand. A few pieces on the conveyor belt trembled briefly, then floated effortlessly a couple of inches off the ground. With a subtle flex of your fingers, the metal obeyed—curling in on itself with a sharp, satisfying ‘crunch.’ It was almost as if you were breathing—effortless, instinctive, and perfectly in tune with the world around you.

Shaking your head out of your thoughts, you let the metal fall thoughtlessly back onto the belt and went to continue on your way, didn’t even notice anyone around you as you began to march down the catwalk. That is, until you came crashing full-force into a tiny body. Colliding, you both stumbled back, the impact snapping you out of your daze.

“Oh!” Victoria exclaimed, jumping back. “Terribly sorry!”

“Oh my gods, no. I’m so sorry. I totally wasn’t looking where I was going.” You scan her over, but she looks fine.

“No, no. ‘ts my fault, really!” She waved her hands anxiously, her cheeks flushing. “Are y’alright, miss?”

“I’m fine.” You give her a little smile. “Thanks.”

"N' problem!" she says, just as a few of your coworkers round the corner. The moment they spot you and her standing there, their expressions shift subtly, but it's enough to catch your attention. You can practically hear the hushed whispers starting up behind you as they hurry past, heads down, moving with that practiced air of nonchalance—like they think the two of you are completely oblivious to the thinly veiled judgment they're broadcasting.

“Well now,” Victoria murmurs, “who pissed in their pond?”

“Sorry,” You sigh, lifting your hand to rub the bridge of your nose in annoyance. “Y’may wanna back off from me. Seems like ‘m bit of a social pariah at the moment.”

Victoria shrugs. “Like anyone ‘round ‘ere be given’ me the time of day, anyday? I’m the only foreigner workin’ here, lass. Heard you got yourself locked up?”

“It’s…a long story.”

Victoria seems to think for a moment, looks around (lacking any semblance of subtlety) then motions to the worker’s exit. “Wanna catch a smoke wit’ me?”

As she led you outside, you were immediately thrown off by the unexpected direction she took. Instead of heading toward the usual smoking section, she veered sharply in the opposite direction, heading straight for the bridge. Her pace quickened, and despite your curiosity, you asked her where she was taking you. Without even looking back, she waved you off, offering no explanation.

For a moment, a flicker of doubt crossed your mind—was this some sort of twisted trap? Were you walking into some elaborate murder plot? The thought lingered, but before you could give it more weight, she made a sharp turn down a narrow flight of stairs, just as the bridge came into view behind you. You had never taken this path before, and only now did you realize how easily you'd overlooked it. The steps seemed unremarkable, tucked away beneath the looming shadow of the bridge, as if they were meant to be ignored.

The descent felt oddly quiet, the rhythmic thud of your footsteps mingling with the distant hum of the city. After just a few flights of stairs, the air grew thicker with the scent of brine and decay. You reached the bottom and, as you rounded the last corner, the waters of Pilt River stretched out before you. A small, neglected beach lay before you, its shoreline littered with an unsightly amount of garbage. Old, rusted cans, plastic wrappers, and pieces of broken wood jutted out from the dirt, an unfortunate testament to the city’s disregard for this forgotten corner.

Yet, amidst the debris, something caught your eye. Set into the side of a nearby wall, nearly camouflaged by grime and neglect, was a large manhole. About as tall as Vander, if you had to guess. The rusted metal bars that covered the opening were more than big enough for a normal-sized person to slip right through.

“What…is this?” You asked Victoria.

‘M not really sure, to be frank.” She shrugged, wandering closer to the giant manholes. “When I first moved ‘ere, I took it upon m’self to find all the points o’ access t’ the water tha’ I could. Even if I can’ be swimmin’ in it, it’s nice just to be close to it y’know? But these…these stuck out t’ me.” She slipped right through the bars. “This tunnel in particular splits off, say, ‘bout half a mile out? Goes that-a ways,” she points off in the direction of the bridge, “righ’ under the river.”

You followed her lead, stepping easily through the rusted metal bars. The air in the tunnels was thick and stagnant, a foul mix of rotting garbage and something else—something eerily familiar. A few breaths later, the stench hit you like a wave, sharp and unmistakable—the pungent smell of Zaun’s mines. It was the same stench that clung to the clothes of the boys when they came home from work, the same tainted air that swept through the slums and left so many of your people sick every day.

"This... this is part of the Underground’s ventilation system," you said, the realization hitting you as the damp walls closed in. "It must have overlapped with Piltover’s sewage system somewhere along the way, when they were engineering the city. Seems pretty par for the course, doesn't it?"

Victoria wrinkled her nose. "Ventilation and sewage?" she repeated, sounding dubious. "That don’ 'ound righ’."

You stifle a chuckle. "Welcome to life on the other side of the bridge." You paused, eyeing the dark path ahead. "But... Victoria, you’re sure this leads to the other side?”

She nods. “Not far in, I’d wager, but it definitely be lettin’ out on the Promenade. Been there m’self. Tunnels could definitely use some serious upkeep though, I warn. There’ a pretty big leak a good ways in.”

“How many people know about this?” you asked, your mind racing with possibilities.

She shrugged nonchalantly. "Who else would I be tellin’, Lass?"

You raised an eyebrow, skeptical. "Then why show me?"

She shifted uncomfortably, casting a sideways glance at you.

“Well, if I’m bein’ honest…you’re the only one at that factory that treats me as anything more than a stupid immigrant that ‘an’t speak. And I figure, if you e’er need to…y’know, I just figure you’d ‘ave more use for this than me.”

Her words hung in the air, heavy with meaning. You felt the cogs in your mind clicking into place. A direct tunnel from the Promenade to Topside. The sheer scale of it hit you like a punch to the gut.

"Lady be damned." You muttered under your breath, shaking your head. The magnitude of what you were looking at was sinking in. You raised a hand and let it slide over the worn stone, feeling the miles of metal pipes buried within it. The structure was ancient, far older than anything you’d seen before. It would need significant repairs before being used for anything substantial, but the potential... The potential was enormous.

“Victoria…” you said, your voice low with awe. “You’ve got no idea how big this is gonna be."

Back at the apartment, you’re more than happy to share this news with the guys. You pulled out the old blueprints—dusty, frayed at the edges, but still legible enough to make sense of. They’d been tucked away for years, a relic from when one of you managed to snag them from Piltover’s archives. As you spread the paper across the table, the lines and markings revealed exactly what you’d hoped for: the tunnel on Piltover’s side was labeled as a sewage system, but further down by the shoreline, it merged seamlessly with the ventilation tunnel that led up into Zaun’s upper levels.

The room grew quiet as everyone leaned in, taking in the implications.

“How bad’s the damage?” Vander asked, his gravelly voice cutting through the silence. His brow furrowed with concern. “This girl, Victoria, said there’s a leak?”

You ran a hand through your hair, trying to recall every detail Victoria had mentioned. “I’m not sure exactly. The tunnels are old, and if there’s a leak, it could be a serious issue. But if I can get in there with Connol and some of the other factory folks, we can probably assess the damage and figure out how to fix it.”

Vander gave you a curt nod, but the expression on his face told you he wasn’t completely satisfied. He was always cautious, always weighing the risks.

Silco, ever the skeptic, leaned forward, his sharp eyes fixed on you. “And your source can be trusted?” His voice was calm, but there was a glint of doubt in his gaze as he scribbled something into the worn pages of his notebook.

You met his gaze, unwavering. “I’d say so. She’s Bilgewater-folk, like me and Ma.” You paused, considering the weight of your words. "I trust her. She wouldn't steer me wrong."

Benzo let out a laugh, breaking the tension that had begun to build in the room. He threw an arm around you in a rough, familiar gesture, his grin wide and infectious. “Trust a gutter fish to be all tricksy-like,” he joked, the teasing tone in his voice lightening the mood. “Good find, Fishie.”

“If we’re able to get this into proper commission, this could change a lot of Zaun’s infrastructure. What if we—” Silco’s words were abruptly cut off as the door to the apartment swung open with a loud crash. The sudden intrusion startled everyone, and you all whipped around, trying to make sense of the noise.

Standing in the doorway, panting heavily and struggling to catch her breath, was Niya. She was disheveled, her work clothes torn and streaked with dirt, as if she’d sprinted across the entire length of Zaun. Her eyes were wide, panic etched across her face.

“What in the blazes—!” Benzo started, his voice rising in surprise and confusion.

Niya barely seemed to hear him as she staggered into the room, clutching her side and gasping for air. “Felicia, she–fuck that was a lot of stairs-she-” She made a sudden gagging sound, her body curling inward as if she was about to collapse. It was clear that she was exhausted, and something about her frantic movements made your gut twist with unease.

“Fel? What’s wrong with Fel?!” Vander sprang into action, running over to help Niya further into the apartment as she continued to hack up a lung. The moment his hands were on her, however, the poor girl all but collapsed into him.

“The baby!” Niya puttered out. “Fel, she-oh geez-went into labour!”

The apartment broke out into panic, all four of you crying out in different voices.

“The baby’s not due for another couple months!” Silco’s voice broke out against the panic.

“Seven weeks, but yeah. I know.” Niya gestured to herself, her breath still ragged. “You think I would’ve run all the way over here if it wasn’t an emergency?”

You felt your heart sink as you moved quickly to support her, taking her into your arms, steadying her as she swayed on her feet. “Niya, where is she?” The urgency in your voice was impossible to hide now.

She wiped a hand across her face, trying to push through her exhaustion. “We were at her place. Had a playdate scheduled. My niece, Skye, she—” She broke off, coughing harshly, and then continued, “She ran to get Dr. Yan.”

“And Connol?” Silco’s voice cut through the room, sharp and demanding.

Niya pointed back toward the door, her body still shaking. “Already ran and got him from Heisen’s factory. He should be with her by now.”

Vander, already moving, was the first to gear up. As he laced up his boots, his expression hardened, a stone wall of determination. His voice dropped into that deep, commanding tone that everyone knew meant business.

“We need to move, now!” Vander’s words were quick, measured. “Min, grab the first aid kit, painkillers, any medicine we’ve got. Benzo, emergency water, towels, matches—now! Move it!”

The adrenaline coursed through you, making everything seem sharper, faster, like your mind was suddenly running in overdrive. Your heart beat heavily in your chest as you sprang into action. Your legs felt like they were moving on their own, each step pulling you closer to where you needed to be. You bolted and grabbed the first aid kit, not bothering to check what was inside as you threw it into an old duffle bag. Then, you started grabbing anything else you could find—rubbing alcohol, numbing ointment, gauze strips, painkillers, and any other supplies that might come in handy.

Benzo was already ahead of you, throwing on his jacket and grabbing the emergency water, towels, and matches, his usual lighthearted demeanor gone. His face was set, and you knew that under all the humor, he was as serious as Vander right now.

“We’ve got that shipment coming in from Noxus tonight.” Benzo mentioned, handing Vander the supplies. “But only one of us has to be there to do the hand-off. I’ll meet you at Con and Fel’s.”

You shake your head, handing Silco your duffle. “Two of us go, just to be safe.

Silco’s sharp mind was already calculating their best route, and you could practically hear the gears turning in his head. “Vander, Niya and I can take the path that lets up by Babette’s,” he said, looking over at you all. “If you take the route we take to Lou’s from the promenade, it’ll get you back to their apartment the fastest. Cuts through some of the alleyways, avoids main streets. You’ll be there in half the time than any of the main routes.”

Vander nodded, already moving toward the door. “Good, let’s go!”

***

The tradeoff had taken far longer than expected, and when you finally reached the apartment, Felicia’s piercing screams echoed down the hallway, sharp and urgent even from several doors away. Your steps quickened, Benzo muttering under his breath about the delay as the two of you pushed through the door.

Inside, the tension was palpable. Niya stood near the window, her arms crossed tightly as she glanced toward the bathroom door. The little girl at her side—her niece, Skye—clutched an old book to her chest, her glasses slipping slightly down her nose as she looked up at you with wide, curious eyes. On the bed in the corner, Violet sat perched beside Vander, her legs swinging back and forth as he played with her and an old stuffed rabbit. The moment you stepped inside, she spotted you, her face lighting up like a candle.

“Auntie Min! Uncle Benzo!” Violet squealed, leaping from the bed and barreling toward you.

“Sorry we’re late!” Benzo panted as he stepped over the threshold, ruffling his hair with one hand. “Damn traders wouldn’t stop haggling, and then someone got knife-happy.”

You shrugged off your jacket and hung it over the back of a chair. “I got them to agree to the original price in the end, didn’t I?” you shot back, giving him a sideways glance. “How’s she doing?”

“No major updates yet,” Silco answered, his tone clipped but steady. “But we haven’t had to call in an emergency ride to the hospital, so that’s a good sign—for now.” His eyes darted to the bathroom door before returning to you, his mouth pressed into a tight line.

Violet reached you, arms outstretched, and you scooped her up effortlessly, her tiny frame folding into your chest. She wrapped her arms around your neck and squeezed tightly, her happiness contagious even in the heavy atmosphere.

“Auntie Min, look what Uncle Vander gave me!” Her little hands grasped a little golden amulet tied to a thin black cord around her neck. It was a simple piece of jewelry, but you recognized it easily as a bracelet that Vander liked to wear to important events.

“Wow! Look at that!” You smiled, your eyes casting over to Vander with a raised eyebrow. “That was very nice of him.”

Vander, standing nearby with a proud smile, nudged Violet gently and stepped over to the two of you. He wrapped a secure arm around your waist, pulling you a little closer.

"Tell Minnie what I told you when I gave it to you, kiddo," he prompted, his voice warm and encouraging.

"Umm... if I'm gonna be a big sister..." Violet said really slow, her eyebrows all scrunched up like she was thinking hard. "I gotta remember to take care of them. And... this is gonna be a thing that helps me remember!". She leaned back just a little, her face lighting up with a wide, toothy grin as she looked up at you. Her excitement was so pure, so full of love, that it was impossible not to smile in return. That bright smile, filled with so much promise and joy, made your heart melt in a way nothing else could. You gave her a little extra squeeze and a kiss to the forehead before setting her down.

“You’re gonna be a great big sister, Luv,” Benzo replied, stepping in for a quick high-five that made her giggle.

“Is Dr. Yan in there with your parents?” he asked, motioning to the closed bathroom door.

Violet nodded, her bright pink locks bouncing with the movement as she pointed toward the door. “Mommy’s been in there a long time.”

“These things take time, little one,” Silco said gently as you brushed her hair back from her face. You could feel her energy, her eagerness, and a touch of nervousness beneath it all. She clung to you like a lifeline, her small fingers gripping your shirt.

From the corner, Vander cleared his throat, catching your attention. He looked calm but watchful, his hand resting on the children’s book he’d set aside. “Felicia’s tough. She’ll pull through,” he said in his steady, reassuring tone.

Benzo nodded, his jaw tightening. “She’s tougher than most of us, that’s for damn sure.”

The seconds stretched into what felt like hours, and the room seemed to tighten with anticipation. The low hum of voices behind the door grew, rising and falling in strange patterns, and then it happened—the crescendo of frantic, desperate cries, followed by an eerie, sudden silence. The apartment held its breath. Time itself seemed to stop. Everyone’s eyes were fixed on that door, waiting for the next sound, the next moment, but it was as if the world itself was waiting to exhale.

And then… the sharp, unmistakable wail of a baby filled the space, raw and full of life. It was a sound so powerful it seemed to shake the air itself.

“Oh, thank the gods…” Niya let out a long, relieved sigh, her head falling forward as if the weight of the world had just been lifted from her shoulders. Her shoulders slumped in exhaustion, the tension that had coiled in her body for so long finally unraveling. Skye gently placed a hand on her aunt’s shoulder.

Vander chuckled, a low, rumbling sound that filled the room with warmth. “It’s got a set of lungs, that’s for damn sure.” His voice cracked with genuine amusement, and he gave a small shake of his head, still eyeing the door as though waiting for the next sound, the next sign. Violet, unable to contain her excitement any longer, made a move toward the door. Her small feet pounded against the floor, eager to see her new sibling. But before she could take another step, Vander was there, quick as ever, sweeping her up into his arms with a gentle but firm grip. "Not yet, kiddo," he said, his voice soft but clear. "You’ve gotta wait for your parents to let you in on their own time. Okay?" Violet pouted slightly, her small lips curling into a frown, but she nodded, her eyes still trained on the door.

And wait you all did, for yet another set of long moments, Felicia’s cries now replaced with that of the infant. The rest of the group tried to busy themselves as best as they could—Benzo and Skye even began washing some of the dishes that had been left in the sink, their clattering almost a distraction from the tension hanging in the air.

Violet, content to be held by Vander, made faces at him, trying to distract herself. Conversations about business and idle chatter filled the gaps between those breaths, but none of it mattered. Not really. You couldn’t escape the waiting, the anticipation. Everyone in the room had been drawn into the same orbit, eyes occasionally drifting toward the door, hearts waiting for the next moment to arrive.

And then, with a soft creak, the door to the bathroom opened. The room fell utterly silent, as if the very air had been sucked out of the space. All eyes turned toward Connol, who stood in the doorway.

He looked dazed, weary, his face a mix of exhaustion and elation. His hand rubbed over his face, as if to wipe away the tension of the past hours. For a split second, panic flared in your chest—something about the way he looked, so tired and worn, unsettled you. But then he looked up at all of you, his eyes catching yours, and he smiled.

“It’s a girl!”

The apartment erupted in a wave of cheers and clapping, the tension finally breaking as everyone poured out their relief and joy. Vander and Silco both lunged at Connol, enveloping him in an enthusiastic embrace that was almost too aggressive for the moment, clapping him on the back hard enough to nearly knock him over. Connol, despite his exhaustion, laughed, wrapping his arms around them in return.

Violet, who had been playing with Vander, was suddenly all movement. She wriggled free from Vander’s grasp and darted across the room, her small legs carrying her quickly toward her father. Connol, still smiling wide, scooped her up into his arms, pressing a kiss to her hair and snuggling her closer to his chest. She giggled, the joy on her face as radiant as his.

“Are they both okay?” Silco asked, his voice a little rough with concern as he gripped Connol’s shoulder tightly.

“They’re fine! Perfectly fine!” Connol grinned, shifting Violet to his hip as he addressed the room. His voice was brimming with pride. “Yan wants to keep the baby in an incubator for a few days just to be sure, that’s where she is now. She might have a little trouble breathing, but…” He paused, looking down at Violet, then back at the others. “They’re both going to be okay.”

Violet’s eyes widened, her small hands tugging at Connol’s shirt. “Can I see Mommy now?” she asked, her voice filled with the kind of innocence and urgency that only a child could muster.

From behind the bathroom door, Felicia’s voice echoed out, soft but clear, though tinged with exhaustion. “You promise to be gentle and careful, sweetie,” she said. “Especially around the incubator.”

Yan poked his head out from the bathroom, his weathered face creased with lines that spoke of years spent helping others. He gave the room a reassuring smile. “The bleeding is minimal now, so long as Violet can handle a little post-birth gore,” he added with a knowing chuckle.

“I can handle it! I can handle it!” Violet exclaimed, twisting and wiggling her way out of Connol’s arms before taking off in a full sprint toward the bathroom. Connol watched her with a mixture of amusement and pride, a soft laugh escaping his lips. His eyes softened as he let out a long, weary sigh.

“Seven weeks early…” he muttered, his tone low, his hand rubbing his tired eyes. “I’ll admit, I was terrified.”

Silco, ever the steady presence, gave Connol’s shoulder another pat, his expression serious but supportive. “Yan’s practically delivered every baby in the Lanes for the past 20 years. They were in good hands,” he said, offering his usual reassurance.

“I know, but still…” Connol trailed off, his voice still carrying the weight of the fear he’d carried with him through the night. Then, as if a thought suddenly struck him, he turned his gaze toward Silco and Niya, who had been talking quietly in the kitchen. “Actually, speaking of being in good hands…” he started, his tone shifting to something more deliberate. “Fel and I were talking, and… we want you two to be her godparents. With Vander and Min being Violet’s, it just felt right, you know?”

Niya’s eyes widened in disbelief. She nearly squealed as she stepped forward. “Are… are you serious?” she exclaimed, her voice cracking with excitement. “Oh my goodness, Con! I don’t even know what to say!”

Silco, his usual calm demeanor never faltering, smiled warmly and extended his hand toward Connol. “I think I speak for both of us when I say we’d be honored, and we won’t disappoint. She’s in good hands, I swear it.”

Then, as Connol took his hand into a firm handshake, Silco paused, “Does she, uh…you know, does she have a name?”

Connol’s smile widened. “We talked about that, too. We were waiting to decide when she came out but,” he gave a nod, his expression full of love and certainty. “Powder. Her name is Powder.”

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yontromechatronic · 3 months ago

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The Industrial Workstations are structured and ergonomic settings that enhance productivity, reduce breakdown times, and minimize hazards in workplaces. Investing in an industrial workstation reaps more benefits over a period compared with costs carried at a time, leading to significant savings over time.

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the-most-humble-blog · 3 months ago

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youzicha · 5 months ago

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Normal Accidents

📖Charles Perrow, Normal accidents: living with high-risk technologies, 1984. Second edition 1999.

The Title

This is another example of a book that lives on its title, a great racket which works like this:

Find a proposition which many people would like to be true. E.g., Nations are fake and don't exist except in people's imagination. Victorian doctors used vibrators as a treatment for hysteria. Computer programming used to be gender-balanced and then male programmers took over. There's no way to run a nuclear power plant without accidents.

Find a catchy phrase that strongly hints at the proposition without outright stating it.

Write a few hundred pages of text: long enough that plausibly somewhere in there could be convincing evidence of proposition X, and someone would have to spend a whole day reading to find out whether there is or not.

Congratulations, you are set for life.

The Theory

The book theorizes that there is a particularly intractable type of accident which it calls “system accidents”. They are different from simple component failure accidents and happen in systems that are “complex” and “tightly coupled”. It classifies systems on two axes: a system is “linear” if each subsystem mostly interacts with one subsystem in front and one after (like an assembly-line factory) or “complex” if the subsystems all interact with each other, and it is “tightly” coupled if each subsystem immediately affects the other one without room for recovery.

Perrow then reads a bunch of accident investigation reports from different industries (nuclear, chemical, airlines, maritime, etc) and highlights interactions and coupling. The whole book produces this diagram:

From this we conclude… what exactly? Maybe that system accidents are important, and we should pay attention to them? Or slightly stronger, that there are more accidents in the upper-right quadrant than in the other ones? A big problem is that Perrow never says precisely what he is trying to prove and doesn't apply any objective measures. I would want to count the number of accidents in different industries, and compare the ratio of system/non-system ones, or compare the absolute numbers, but Perrow just relates a sampling of accidents and says that they are illustrative.

Whether these accidents really are good illustrations of "system accidents" seems to depend a lot on the spin he puts on them. The classification into complex versus linear seems very hand-wavy. In one example of aviation, which is supposedly complex, "even after bailing out … there was room for the unexpected interaction" because the pilot was hit on the head by the falling ejection seat. By contrast the mining industry is assigned the center of the linear-complex axis, and one example concerns a worker who walked under a conveyor belt—and got hit on the head. Basically the same accident can be glossed as interactive or not.

Or how about this airplane accident:

The next accident, an account of problems with a four-engine corporate jet, the Lockheed Jet Star Model 1329, is more prosaic, but it gives some idea of the world of corporate jets and involves a system accident, unusual risks, and a safety change that was responsible for killing eight people. The safety improvement involved new, solid state units in the generator control units and new wiring. The airplane was flight-tested after installation and one generator failed. Repairs were made. In the next test flight, all four generators failed at one time or another, and were manually reset during flight. [Two weeks later] The plane crashed a mile short of the runway […] The NTSB is not certain of the proximate cause of the crash […] The example strongly suggests a system accident

It is typical of the book: there are no statistics showing that system accidents are common, only isolated examples, and in this example he doesn't even know what caused the accident!

(Later in the book the level of rigor goes down even further. For accidents in space, instead of reading accident investigation reports Perrow says "I am drawing here on the immensely entertaining, and exceptionally perceptive book by Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff." Then for accidental war the discussion is based on Dr. Strangelove. And then he turns to DNA technology, which "appears to be complex in its interactions and tightly coupled, but I caution the reader that I know even less about it than I do about nuclear weapon systems." Thanks.)

But the actual central claim that Perrow wants to conclude is something even stronger than that systems accidents are common: he says that there is no way to prevent them. Thus the final chapter says that we should only accept complex-coupled systems if accidents have acceptably small consequences, and otherwise we must replace them with safer alternatives. In particular Perrow wants to get rid of nuclear power; the book started as an anti-nuclear pamphlet written after the Three Mile Island accident. But it seems quite hopeless to prove this impossibility by just reading accident reports.

So the book has much talk about catastrophic risk, but very few testable predictions. In fact, I could only find two. First, there is this paragraph about airline accidents:

With millions of operating years of experience, repeated trials, tests without catastrophic consequences, and considerable government support, the industry has been able to maximize the potential for technological fixes, including buffers and redundancies. Two engines are better than one; four better than two; the jet engine less complex than the piston engine; and of course the industry makes use of exotic new materials and instrumentation. System accidents in flying will remain, but they have been reduced substantially. […] The safety of both automobile travel and airline travel (and military and general aviation as well) has increased dramatically in this century, but since the 1960s and 1970s the safety curve has flattened out; we appear to be in the area where further increases are very hard to achieve.

It seems to say that airline accidents first fell quickly because we solved the issue of component failures, and now will fall no more because the rest is intractable systems accidents.

Second, there's this nicely unambiguous paragraph:

I would expect a worse accident than TMI in ten years—one that will kill and contaminate. […] There will be more system accidents; according to my analysis, there have to be. One or more will include a release of radioactive substances to the environment in quantities sufficient to kill many people, irradiate others, and poison some acres of land. There is no organizational structure that we would or should tolerate that could prevent it. None of our existing reactors has a design capable of preventing system accidents. Perhaps a safe one will be discovered—loosely coupled and linear—but I am doubtful.

Forty years later, there has not been any accidents in American nuclear power plants, so the analysis seems nicely refuted. The airplane accidents also did not come through. The trend in the 20th century was that the accident rate halved every 10 years:

And based on this data the same trend remained. From 1983-1989 to 1990-1999 the deaths per departure halved, from 1990-1999 to 2000-2009 they halved again, and from 2000-2009 to 2010-2017 it decreased even faster.

As it happens, there's a second edition from 1999 with a retrospective afterword, and it talks about how warmly the book was received while skipping over the fact that its predictions were wrong. It says “Commercial jet disasters are at approximately the same (low) level as in 1984, per departure” (no), and “of course we had Chernobyl”. But Chernobyl was not one of the American power plants whose incident reports the prediction was based on, and also it was not a systems accident. There was only one relevant subsystem, the core, and only one relevant parameter, the power output.

The second edition also adds a chapter about the Y2K problem, which could be "a test of the robustness and applicatory scope" of the Normal Accident Theory. While officials are optimistic, those Y2K plans are "fantasy documents" and there could be disaster whose "potential scale and scope dwarfs all other 'normal accidents' discussed in the book". (Notably one of the scenarios discussed in the book is a global nuclear war.) Having seen the actual outcome of Y2K, I think the robustness and applicatory scope comes across as well here as in the other cases.

Annoyances

So the theory seems dubious and the conclusions wrong, but that on its own would not make me write this long screed. What really gets to me is two annoying tics in the writing. First, constant smugness. The style matters because most of the book consists of summaries of accident investigations, and although they are supposed to illustrate his "normal accident theory", in practice he is mostly just writing descriptions without any particular theoretical angle. Of course I love reading accident reports too, but these days you can get all the pdfs you can read at the click of a mouse button, which raises the question what Perrow adds over the source material. And the main difference is that he thinks he is smarter than everybody else, and lets us know so through constant asides.

First, he is smarter than the reader. The first chapter, about the TMI accident, reassures us that it "will be the most demanding technological account in the book, but even a general sense of the complexity will suffice if one wishes to merely follow the drama rather than the technical evolution of the accident." Don't worry your pretty little head, Perrow is here to explain things. This tendency is even more annoying when he doesn't understand what he is explaining. He does not know what the word envelope means, and then projects his own confusion by saying that this aspect of flying has "poorly understood dynamics".

Second, he is smarter than the accident investigation board, and takes random snipes at them. A random board member in a press conference mentions a “remote possibility”, which Perrow jumps on. He comments that in marine accidents "the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) do what they can. But they can do little in this error-inducing system. […] It can happen. It is bound to. The recommendations are futile." I guess his methodology forces him to take this polemical tone, because all he is doing is reading accident investigation reports, so if he didn't complain, there would be nothing added by his descriptions.

In fact, he is smarter than just about anyone, and happy to share his observations even if they are not related to the accidents at all, e.g. “the approach to the Westchester Airport goes right over an interstate highway with one of those curious signs with the fruitless warning: ‘watch out for low flying aircraft’”.

I think this is a general hazard with writing about nuclear policy: both the pro- and anti-sides seem to have a lot of very smug people. I think for me the biggest takeaway from this book was that I should try to tone it down in my own writing.

The other annoyance is that Perrow never mentions any numbers, even in situations that really cry out for them. For example, there are many mentions of plutonium, in criticality accidents or when it was accidentally released from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. An article says “‘in all plutonium incidents to date, only a small fraction of the plutonium involved was released.’ That is like saying that in a war, only a small fraction of the bullets kill anyone.” A Titan ICBM can “literally go off with the drop of a workman’s wrench and possibly release plutonium”.

And beyond these local accidents, in 1964 there was a “cosmic” one: “Most of the failures of the space program have not been death-dealing, and if they were, they were limited to first-party victims—the astronauts or technicians. However, in three cases of failures with plutonium power packs, the risks are potentially catastrophic, since plutonium is perhaps the most deadly substance known to humans. … a navigational satellite sent up in 1964 that failed to achieve orbit when its rocket engine failed. It reentered the atmosphere over the Indian Ocean and distributed 1 kilogram of plutonium-238 about the earth.”

Like, at this point surely you’d want to know how many people were actually killed? From looking around on google a bit, it seems the 1964 satellite may have caused two hundred cancer deaths if you assume the cancer risk scales linearly to extremely small radiation doses. (And it prompted a change in policy to no longer let plutonium burn up in the atmosphere.) To me this kind of number seems essential to judge how catastrophic the accident is.

Another example where the numbers are lacking:

The price of electricity from nuclear power plants does not reflect the very large government subsidies, nor the costs of the unsolved problem of long-term waste storage, nor even the unknown costs of dismantling reactors after their forty allotted years, if they run that long. Had all these been properly considered in the 1950s and included in the cost, this book would have not been written because no utility would have ordered a plant.

This claim is not cited to anything. I believe that people were in fact considering this, but in any case the costs are now known: the long-term waste storage came to 0.41 cent/kWh and the dismantling to 0.24 cents/kWh. Meanwhile electricity prices have varied between 19 cents/kWh and 13 cents/kWh (in 2020 dollars), so the waste + decommissioning costs are a rounding error in comparison to other factors.

At some point he says that “you are good at counting while I (as I tell my quantitative colleagues) don’t count”, but really, you live like this?

Coal versus nuclear

Perry spends most of the book talking about the risk from nuclear power plants. But what is the alternative? In the introduction he says

There is no technological imperative that says we must have power or weapons from nuclear fission or fusion, or that we must create and loose upon the earth organisms that will devour our oil spills. We could reach for, and grasp, solar power or safe coal-fired plants

And then he doesn’t mention those coal plants again until the final chapter. But as he was writing, American coal plants were killing 30,000 people/year. Compared to the deaths from cancer, that corresponds to multiple Chernobyl accidents every year. Does he not know this?

Actually he includes a final chapter about “current risk assessment theory”, where he notes that fossil fuel plants kill a lot more people than nuclear power, but nuclear power provokes more “dread” and “the public’s fears must be treated with respect”. I feel this would be more convincing if Perrow had not spent an entire book trying to stoke that fear.

He gives a more operational description of “dread risk”: “lack of control, high fatalities and catastrophic potential, inequitable distribution of risks and benefits, and the sense that these risks are increasing and cannot be easily reduced by technological fixes”. I think this still doesn’t distinguish the coal pollution and nuclear accidents very well. Neither is controllable, the particulate emissions and the radioactivity both drift with the wind, the parties that take the risk and benefits are the same for both, and the “sense” that technological fixes don’t work is illusory.

Of course, nowadays we know that coal has has another drawback besides the particulate pollution, and this is mentioned in a single paragraph, literally in parentheses!

(One enormous risk which the industrialized nations may be facing is not considered in this book on normal accidents; eliminating this ill would require much more drastic measures than any of the above: This is the problem of carbon dioxide produced from deforestation primarily, but also from burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and wood. This threatens to create a greenhouse effect, warming the temperature of the planet, melting the ice caps, and probably causing an incredible number of other changes, most of them disastrous. If it is significant—the experts do not agree—we may have a few decades to handle this; but it may be too late. It is one of the strongest cards the nuclear addicts can play, though the enormity of the problem, by some accounts, would dwarf the capacities of nuclear industry. We would have to divert our energy and natural resources from much of industry and use it to build nuclear plants for the next generation to meet some estimates. Battalions of scientists, engineers, and operators would have to be recruited and trained, and so on.)

Conclusion

This book is frequently cited (I have even seen tumblr users refer to it), and I think it’s considered a classic, so I was very disappointed. Let’s mark it as another mistake of the 20th century and forget all about it.

#review #nuclear power

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