#Offline medical information

[health-product-for-men]

Peace of Mind in Print: A Review of The Home Doctor

Living in a remote area, far from a hospital, has always made me prioritize self-reliance, especially when it comes to healthcare. That's why I decided to invest in "The Home Doctor" – a comprehensive medical guide specifically designed for home use. After a few months of browsing its pages and familiarizing myself with its contents, I can confidently say it's become a valuable addition to my household preparedness kit.

Empowering Knowledge for Everyday Ailments

"The Home Doctor" isn't a replacement for professional medical care. It is, however, a fantastic resource for handling common ailments and injuries at home. The book covers a wide range of topics, from treating cuts and scrapes to managing headaches, fevers, and even allergies. The clear instructions and illustrations make it easy to understand even complex medical procedures, giving me the confidence to handle minor emergencies until professional help arrives.

Beyond Band-Aids: Preparing for the Unexpected

What truly impressed me was the book's focus on preparedness for unforeseen circumstances. "The Home Doctor" includes sections on dealing with natural disasters, power outages, and even biological threats. It provides practical advice on creating a first-aid kit, stocking essential supplies, and even performing basic medical procedures in the absence of a doctor. This knowledge empowers me to feel more prepared for whatever situation may arise.

A User-Friendly Format for Easy Reference

The printed format of "The Home Doctor" is a major plus for me. Unlike online resources that require internet access, this book is always available, even during power outages. The clear layout, logical organization, and comprehensive index make it easy to find the information I need quickly, especially during stressful situations.

Focus on Natural Remedies and Self-Care

While "The Home Doctor" doesn't shy away from conventional medicine, it also emphasizes the importance of natural remedies and preventative self-care. The book includes information on using herbs, essential oils, and other natural remedies for various ailments. This holistic approach aligns perfectly with my belief in natural health practices.

Investing in Peace of Mind

"The Home Doctor" is more than just a medical guide; it's an investment in peace of mind. Knowing that I have access to this wealth of information allows me to feel more prepared and in control of my family's health, especially in situations where immediate medical attention might not be readily available.

Overall, "The Home Doctor" is a valuable resource for anyone looking to be more proactive about their health and well-being. It's a comprehensive guide that empowers you with knowledge and practical skills, all in a user-friendly format.

[lesbianbarbaragordon]

Still thinking about last night

”No, no, but seriously,” you start, adjusting on your seat, “it wasn’t that bad. At least not by the end. I felt like we had-“ a connection, that you managed to see him as he was for at least the brittlest of moments. But the sentence dies at the tip of your tongue. You prefer to keep that to yourself. pairing: tim drake x reader tags: stalking, average tim behavior, college student reader word count: 1.7k

“Do you look up all your girlfriends?”

Tim doesn’t like the insinuation, but he shoulders on because Barbara’s network is far more extensive than his, far more even than the Batcave’s, and this is a favour, after all.

Your face is on full display, a shot from your ID, taking up the main screen on Oracle’s setup. You don’t look very happy.

Your hair is longer than when he met you the other night, and he sees the fading of some sort of dye on the tips of your hair. 20 years old, born and raised in Gotham, there is nothing outstanding about you.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” he replies as an afterthought, his eyes on the screens. You enrolled in GU last year, took up journalism as a major. Why would a college student live in a warehouse? 

Because it has to be a warehouse, why else would it have been called like that in the files?

The incident that led him to your apartment is still something that embarrasses him. A mistake on his part, something that shouldn’t have happened.

He keeps going over the details, trying to understand; it was just the criminal of the week, a robbery gone wrong at a jewelry shop, hostages that shouldn’t have been there. He had been sneaky, gotten inside before anyone noticed, and released the hostages in record time (which was good, because when they started shooting, Tim was the only one inside). But one of the rogues got on the defensive when they saw he was one of the bats, had gotten a hit on Tim’s ear, and broken his comms. Then a shot in the darkness and a sharp pain took over his senses.

Which one was the lesser evil, running away to seek shelter while he was still lucid? Or detaining the rogues but risking further injury?

The final matter came down to “what would Bruce do?”

So Tim had pushed through, managed to knock them out, cuffed them somewhere the police would find them, and left before anyone else could see him.

The sky was raging, as expected of Gotham, when he stepped foot on the rooftops outside. His breathing was ragged, the pain was excruciating and he had left the Red Bird at the cave.

It only crashed down on Tim as the thunder and lightning erupted around him, shivering and in pain. Once the adrenaline left, it hit all at once-

He was alone.

It only took a second for the gears to kick in. He couldn’t access the Batcomputer, or call anyone who could help. He could take care of it without them, but where would he go? Leslie’s clinic was on the other side of the city, and after retiring it had fallen under new management, would whoever was i charge still treat vigilantes? There were no warehouses around the area either, not ones he remembered anyway, and the longer he thought, the more he started to fear bleeding out in the streets.

What other things did he have access to offline? His suit had prior saves of data, backup files from years prior. Tim accessed them with shaky hands. 

As he thought, not many places to go to in the area, but there was somewhere marked as a safe place. Somewhere that wasn’t Bruce’s but that was listed as Bat equipped. He headed there with desperation clawing at his throat, pain drilling at the back of his eyelids.

But he didn’t find what he was expecting. Instead, there was you and a mundane house. Somewhere that looked lived in, rather than a closet stuffed with expensive tech and medical equipment.

He realized too late, that the information was outdated, that he was going to die from a mistake.

Except he didn’t. Except you were there.

And he wants to figure it out, what kind of sane person could possibly do what you had done? He wants to figure you out.

“She isn’t shady,” Barbara supplies unhelpfully. She starts looking over your school records, your extracurriculars, you studied at the same school he did, nothing out of the ordinary; A book club, perfectly good grades, no problems with teachers or classmates. There’s an internship registered under your name at one of Gotham’s local newspapers, and there, a few articles on topics like battok trends or the latest celebrity scandal. The few lines he skims read uninspired.

The only thing Tim finds unusual is paperwork from the year before, for a cat you had adopted.

“I didn’t see any pets.” At least not when he was there. His allergies would have started making him sneeze like a madman otherwise. But what could he possibly get from that?

You’re perfectly ordinary, so ordinary Tim can’t possibly figure out why you’d be living full-time in a Batman safehouse.

And it’s driving him crazy.

Barbara hums, saying your name, and then, she says your second surname, your mother’s maiden name, “Thompkins?”

“Thought it was common,” Tim shrugs because he hadn’t taken notice of the detail during his first research. Barbara sends him a pointed look.

“Who was the safehouse registered under?” It’s a simple question, Tim realizes his slip-up on the next beat.

“Is she related to Leslie Thompkins?” 

“Grandniece looks more like,” Barbara supplies, pulling up your mother’s birth certificate. She digs up an old picture, a younger Leslie posing next to a smiling blonde woman, who holding up a med school diploma. Seems like your mother followed in her footsteps.

“The warehouse is registered under her name,” Barbara supplies, pulling up a scan of the apartment’s deed. Leslie Thompkins is clearly written as the owner. It must have been a safehouse for her, and subsequently for Batman, a long time ago. All before you took over. “You satisfied now?”

Tim says nothing at that, gnawing at his lip.

From the screen, your picture stares back.

…

“It was freaking scary.” You complain over your instant noodles. But they’re too hot and they scald, making you hiss. Your friend stares at you from across the table.

”Right.”

None of your high school peers stuck with you after graduation, so your list of friends remains painfully empty. And it would be a name shorter, had Claudia not appeared into your life.

You met during your internship, where she was interning too, at the literature department of the magazine. You’re both close in age and enjoy reading classics, so you spend lunch breaks together and bond over trash-talking your coworkers. She’s one of the few people you talk to in an otherwise silent existence. And she’s quite funny, too.

”It feels like one of those trashy romance novels, right?” She gestures openly, a sandwich in her hand. You’ve been telling her about your encounter with Red Robin for a lack of anything else. It’s the only interesting thing that’s happened to you in a while. “‘The superhero crashed at my place! And oh no, he’s naked!’.”

You snort, slapping her arm, “he was not naked! And it wasn’t romantic at all! I was so scared I’d throw up all over him from the stress!”

She chokes on a piece of ham, then starts to laugh. You start laughing too. 

It’s a relief having Claudia to make it all sound less scary.

Her laughing stops when her phone beeps and she pulls it out. Meanwhile, you choose to entertain yourself with your food.

”Is it that twitter account?” You ask half curiously. She hums in response, not looking up from the screen.

”Seems like bird boy hasn’t been seen in a while,” Claudia scrolls down her feed as she talks, quickly liking posts or replying to comments. She runs a popular fan account in her spare time that revolves around Gotham vigilantes, which is not a niche topic.  Most of the accounts themed around the bats, much like Claudia herself, are not native to Gotham. Rather, they’re from Metropolis or San Francisco, where the public regularly sees Superman or the Titans. Gothamites don’t have that kind of relationship with their heroes. “Red Robin’s been out of the streets since last Friday.”

”I guess that means you’re not lying,” she says teasing, which makes you blow a raspberry, “how did you do it, though? I would have messed up so bad.”

”Eh,” you start halfheartedly, “I took pre-med classes all through high school. I’ve forgotten most of it, though, but what little I knew came in handy,” you shrug, leaning back against your chair, “he had some pretty useful stuff, too. Super fancy equipment. That definitely helped.”

“Anyone else would have tried seeing under his mask, and you’re telling me what stuck out to you was his equipment?” Claudia laughs. “Maybe your next article will be about the bats’ tools. Does Batman carry around bat-bandaids? What about bat-snacks?”

You choke on your food, pushing down a laugh. It would be better than the stuff you’ve been writing about for these past few months, anyway. There are only so many influencers you can interview without going crazy.

”No, no, but seriously,” you start,  adjusting on your seat, “it wasn’t that bad. At least not by the end. I felt like we had-“ a connection, that you managed to see him as he was for at least the brittlest of moments. But the sentence dies at the tip of your tongue. You prefer to keep that to yourself.

“He was your favorite, you said, no?” Claudia catches on and continues, “I’d be just like you if Nightwing crashed into my apartment too.”

You’re about to retaliate, because-

Because what happened was not without meaning. You had realized he was more than an ephemeral figure or a distant idol, something as tangible as you, and that had made you stop fearing, for better or for worse.

But your boss peeks his head around the corner and takes sight of you both. “Your break is over,” he says and stands in the doorway as he watches you tidy up and throw empty containers and coffee cups into the bin.

Just as you’re leaving you catch something by the corner of your eye. On the TV is a fuzzy image of something humanoid, vaguely red and black. 

Wherever you go, the shadow of Red Robin follows.

[covid-safer-hotties]

The US Government Is Shutting Down A Key Covid Website

Tomorrow the US government agency responsible for biomedical and public health research, The National Institutes of Health, will shut down its Covid-19 ‘special populations’ website.

This site hosts a huge amount of information about how to treat covid and long covid in the immunocompromised and in people with HIV, cancer and similar immune supressing conditions - so-called ‘special populations.’

The site is going totally offline.

It’s a shameful dereliction of duty by the NIH which, behind Harvard, is the second largest publisher of biomedical research papers in the world. Doctors and clinicians all over the world use the NIH site for advice and treatment ideas.

And it’s going offline during a massive summer surge of covid infections in the US, a surge that is now topping 1.3 million infections per day. (One of whom was Anthony Fauci, who was infected for the third time last week). A surge killing 750 people a week in the US. Many of whom will be precisely the type of people this website is intended to help clinicians treat.

It’s a scandal.

The message it sends to vulnerable people could hardly be clearer - when it comes to covid, there’s nothing else we can do for you. Sorry. That’s it. We’re done.

It’s so terrifying.

It also sends a terrible signal to the medical community about where we are with covid

and will be materially damaging in efforts to treat vulnerable people, both in the acute stage of the disease and those with long covid.

The move to shut the page down is premised on an entirely false assumption: that we already know everything we’ll ever know about how to manage covid so there’s no point keeping a live web resource because they’ll never be anything to update it with ever again.

This is simply not true. While we know a lot about treating covid four years in, we absolutely do not know everything, not by a long stretch. As evidenced by the hundreds still dying every week in summer 2024. And as for long covid, we know very little about how to treat it. For a start, there is no agreed treatment plan. Absolutely none. But apparently we also know so much about this disease we can start shutting down online resources dedicated to it.

Please imagine for a second if a Trump administration rather than a Biden-Harris administration was doing this.

There would be an outcry.

But this move has so far been greeted by media silence.

It is left to a few disability activists and the covid aware to shout into the social media void.

Not that this is a surprise. This is how it has been for the last two years at least, guided by the business as usual, vax-and-forget strategy. More people have died of covid under the Biden-Harris administration than died under Trump. Despite having vaccines since 2021. You’d never know it by mainstream media coverage.

Some people have written to the director of the NIH, Monica Bertagnolli, and asked them to keep the advice live and up-to-date. If you want to do this her email address is:

monica.bertagnolli@nih.gov

Long Covid Action has archived the site here

Maybe if enough people write to her and enough noise is made the decision will be reversed. Worth a try.

Overall it’s just another grim episode in the handling of the pandemic by the current US administration, an administration who, we should never forget, won power in large part due to the outrage at Trump’s handling of the first nine months of covid.

Solidarity to everyone still trying to protect themselves and their communities from covid against all the odds.

At least we can keep fighting for each other.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

just wanted to say i love the resource you provide. I would have killed to have access to safe, informative sex ed as a kid growing up. i lived in a "abstainince only" school district so we got taught nothing. my mom was so uncomfortable with talking about any of this I had to learn about periods from my sibling putting on a tomska video for me. I thought there was something medically wrong when id have discharge!!! but I was too scared to ask anyone about it! all this to say i think you provide an invaluable service by teaching people, often confused teenagers, about the body and sex. it's so important, thank you

I was also the confused teen! my whole venture into sex ed because I thought my genitals were deformed until the day I independently learned what labia are, because my health class never covered anything but my reproductive organs. I was so mad I'd spent years silently thinking there was something wrong with my body, and now I get to teach kids online and offline so they don't have to feel broken :) it's a tremendous privilege, and very full circle.

[ftmtftm]

I know this is just sort of the nature of Tumblr and the internet in general, but I genuinely deeply, deeply resent the way reactionary, inflammatory behavior tends to get the most instant gratification type of attention from both those who agree and disagree with the subject matter in conversations about transandrophobia. It's blatantly obvious and it's childish / teenagerish in a way I am deeply uninterested in. Which sucks because it absolutely comes at the cost of the state of the transandrophobia tag being filled with types of rhetoric I find really distasteful.

It's part of why I've shifted focus into generally just posting more about gender and feminism with a focus on trans masculinity, rather than specifically posting about transandrophobia explicitly honestly.

I think a lot about an anon I got forever ago that essentially accused me of having a "holier than thou complex" or something along those lines and maybe there is truth to the fact that I like being mostly on my own over here in my own corner doing my own thing posting about feminism and gender - but I also genuinely just don't see any merit or meaningful function in being intentionally inflammatory or argumentative or poking bears with sticks for the sake of engagement. It's purposeless beyond the mini dopamine hit a ton of notes and support gets you and that's very much not the reason I made and continue to use this blog, you know?

It'll be interesting to watch though because I'm already starting to see a decline that is really actually echoing what happened with transmedicalist spaces in the 2010's.

A lot of transmed spaces, at least when I was initially being introduced to them, were actually full of a lot of people who were passionate about understanding more about medical transition - particularly the destigmatization surrounding trans masculine medical transition. There wasn't a lot of talk about dysohoria being necessary to transness or brain sex type stuff, so much as it was a lot of guys who wanted more research into different kinds of bottom surgeries, sharing information about top surgery options, challenging biased ideas about testosterone as a scheduled drug, etc. etc.

Then those spaces started melding with truscum spaces and the people interested in genuine medical advocacy began to jump ship because the reactionaries were becoming too much to manage.

I'm definitely starting to see something similar happen right now. And you know? I'll be deeply disappointed if something like that happens to the conversation on transandrophobia, but also? I'll kind of be unsurprised - especially given the fact that I have already unfollowed folks for bordering on things like transmed rhetoric themselves the last few months.

I won't stop posting in the ways I do in my own little corner because I believe in the things I say and the work I do on and offline, but it is fascinating and sad to watch this kind of thing happen again from the sidelines.

[peripaltepsy]

BEWARE OF "body mod advices" - they can be dangerous and LETHAL.

(this post was about a deactivated blog but extends to any possible future blog like it)

edit3 since he deactivated: Red told me in the DMs that he WILL be more careful about all this risk stuff, I believe he is going to do better. Im sure he's a good person and he also was extremely civil in the DMs. Since he's not here to defend himself anymore I'll gladly take his side and say that despite this mess, all Red wanted to do was indeed reduce harm and potentially save lives. Good luck on all your endeavors, Red, I wish you a beautiful and successful career and that you have a great positive impact in the atypical dysphoria community, both on and offline. I don't know how my post truly impacted you, I'm so sorry if you're feeling bad. You acted the best way you possibly could.

Second, if Red comes back, DO NOT HARASS HIM, let him be himself and don't let his past hold them down.

Third, all my points still stand for their deactivated blog and any potential body mod tips blogs in the future. Please everyone, take care, stay safe.

Past edit: DONT HARASS any possible blogs like hers, just REPORT and spread awareness, (also don't make the same mistakes as me: TALK TO THEM FIRST)

Past edit: minors please interact with this post, forget my bio for this one

Past edit: editing editing the post since I talked to Red and he isn't bait. I definitely should have talked to them in DMs first. I sincerely apologize. So sorry Red! To those reading, don't make the same mistake as me, ok? Always talk to people privately first, I genuinely fucked up bad. This mistake of assuming others intentions, can traumatize them. If I were in Red's shoes I'd be traumatized. So yeah, I fucked up bad.

Their intentions are genuine but my point still stands that its extremely dangerous and can't qualify as harm-reduction / end edit note

alright, I'm not transid/radqueer but you guys need to REPORT AND WARN OTHERS of these accounts as soon as they appear. Do not entertain them, no matter how desperate you are to transition. You can become a victim of dangerous charlatanism.

LONG POST AHEAD, VERY IMPORTANT NEVERTHELESS

Archive to what i'm about to post

Red claimed to be "a non-professional surgeon, planning on getting better with practice." Bad move!

Red has told me he's pursuing a medical degree and won't actually do non-qualified surgery.

.

Red: "The blog is centered around an idea of "extreme" body mods that I would like to explore further, [...] things like breaking and re-mending bones, creating new joints, replacing skin, etc."

My point: the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and your blog was unsafe.

.

To any possible counterarguments: "But they (people following/asking advice) know the risks!" That's victim-blaming. Red gave himself the responsibility to give harm-reducing advice, but he didn't do a good job.

"But I know the risks!" You can't possibly know the risks because Red doesn't know either or "kinda knows" but has not properly informed his audience, it didnt give sources, oversimplified their advice and failed to provide accurate information about risk. Or gave plain misinformation.

Again I'm not transid, I can't possibly imagine what you're going through in order to try anything at all to feel better, including trying experimental surgery not legally available or not researched at all. However, please please please do not become a victim of medical deceit or whatever tf it's called. Even if the blog owner tries their best to be reliable.

They might sound confident, but they do not know what they are saying, what they're telling others to do.

.

Ask: "How would I make my skin gray without tattoos?" (DO NOT SHAME THIS USER BTW)

Red: "[...] I assume you want permanent grey. To do this, it's pretty simple, although it'll take a lot of time. Basically, what you want to do is to constantly be exposed to lots of silver. Any product with silver in it like specific lotions and skin creams. also fish, milk, mushrooms, and whole grains tend to have silver in them! So tldr, consume lots of silver!"

STOP!!! DONT FOLLOW THIS ADVICE!!! DONT OVER-EXPOSE YOURSELF TO SILVER!!! "Silver toxicity causes argyria. Silver toxicity occurs when too much silver is in your body." <- from a simple research on "too much silver in blood"

THE RESULT WILL BE ARGYRIA. EVEN IF YOU DO IT SLOWLY, YOU ARE BUILDING UP A HEAVY METAL IN YOUR BODY. THE GREY SKIN IS NOT PRETTY NOR WITHOUT GRUESOME SIDE SYMPTOMS.

Yall. Anything in excess will fuck up your body, including iron, vitamins, and silver.

To whoever asked Red, I don't know your mind, but I'm sure you'd love to live a happy life with grey skin! You'd love to have a body you're comfortable with and looks rad as hell! But you wouldn't be able to enjoy it if you're deeply sick with ARGYRIA, WHICH IS WHAT RED'S ADVICE WILL GIVE YOU!

.

Ask: "How do I get darker skin without going too dark? I’m pale and burn easily, I just want a color similar to Lin Manuel Miranda" (AGAIN DONT HARASS THIS USER)

Red: [...] "expose yourself to the sun more! As you do this, you'll get tan which will protect you from future burns and make your skin slightly darker, do this enough and you can engineer your skin to be as dark as you want!"

THATS MISINFORMATION! Yes you may tan to get darker (Lin's tone may or may not be achievable to you) but one: it's not permanent unless you're constantly going out; two: SKIN CANCER!!!! DONT OVER-EXPOSE YOURSELF TO THE SUN!!!! USE SUNSCREEN!!

TO ANYONE SEEKING A MUCH DARKER TONE: YOU CAN'T "GO AS DARK AS YOU WANT TO" BY TANNING. Just look at people who have lived their whole lives outdoors like farmers! White people can't tan to black! There's a limit to how tan you may get! Are you seriously gonna risk skin cancer for an impossible thing???

.

Red: "Self amputation is really dangerous! You should learn how to use a tourniquet, that way, you can stop the bleeding! [...]" WHERE ARE YOU GETTING YOUR SOURCES, RED?

If anyone reading this is seriously thinking of amputating themselves, and will not change their minds no matter what, please just have someone immediately drive you to the hospital. I do not support such operation and you can still die or get horribly sick even with your best precautions, but you better receive actual medical attention and stay alive rather than trying to heal it yourself. Because what you'll most likely get from following Red's advice is DEATH FROM BLOOD LOSS. Again, if you absolutely cannot get rid of this dysphoria with therapy, or manage it at least, or have a doctor do it for you, I still would NEVER suggest you do it yourself, but IF you end up doing that then at least please go straight to the hospital instead of trying to heal it yourself.

.

Red: "do not try and break your own bones to make modifications! [...] Get another person (Like myself) to help you with the bone breakage instead."

NO ONE KNOWS WTF THEY'RE DOING. YOUR FRIEND DOESN'T. RED DOESN'T (as they advertised in the post). NO ONE IS GOING TO GET MODIFICATIONS LIKE THIS. NO ONE IS GOING TO BE HAPPY. EVERYONE IS GOING TO BE EITHER IN PAIN, RISK OF HORRIBLE INJURIES OR TROUBLE WITH THE LAW. FUCKING AROUND = GUARANTEED BOTCHED OPERATION.

Also, now that Red has clarified she won't perform surgery until having an actual degree, you can't really go to her XD

.

Red: "Some advice for surgery [...] This one's important, make sure your patient is strapped down and properly sedated, if they move, even slightly, you risk hitting a vital artery or organ, if you do hit an artery, don't panic, this is why you learned how to use a tourniquet! if you hit a vital organ though, odds are you won't know how to fix that, so be extra careful with abdomen and face surgery!"

Thats still promoting medical malpractice, mutilating and potentially killing friends, dangerously downplaying surgery so much, this is not harm-reduction

.

Ask: "I want to be blind in one eye, but more-so in the sense of extreme but not total vision loss. I want to do something permanent in the future!" (AGAIN DONT HARASS THIS USER)

Red: Well, a simple fix to your problem is just get some calcium hydroxide in your eye and wash it out a few minutes later, this should lead to permanent, extreme (but not total) vision loss in that eye. Keep it in too long and it can cause total vision loss so be careful!

Ok so, it's great that you're trying to come up with alternative ways for users not to kill themselves by gouging their eyes out, but you've still failed to give them the full picture

From a quick search "calcium hydroxide in the eyes": Exposure to the skin can produce burns, painful irritation and necrosis, and exposure to the eyes may cause severe pain and vision loss that can be temporary or permanent. If calcium hydroxide is exposed to the skin, contaminated clothing should be removed, excess amounts of the chemical should be wiped off and the affected skin should be flushed repeatedly with water. Victims of calcium hydroxide exposure to the eyes should flush their eyes with water continuously for the first 15 minutes, but all cases of external exposure should receive immediate medical care. Inhaling calcium hydroxide through the nose or mouth can also cause immediate, painful and potentially life-threatening complications. Throat and nasal passages may become painful and swollen, and the swelling may restrict airways, making breathing difficult or impossible. If the calcium hydroxide particles are carried all the way to the lungs, this may further complicate breathing. Victims of this type of exposure should be taken immediately to a fresh air environment, and emergency services should be contacted right away. Administration of oxygen and emergency respiratory assistance may be required.

.

Red (answering an ask): "the question shouldn't be what DO people replace their skin with, it should be what CAN they, after all, just because it's never been practiced or very rarely practiced doesn't mean it's bad or impossible! Of course, my personal favorite skin substitutes are rubber and red velvet, I am also a big fan of stainless steel."

(Don't promote such an operation). THIS OPERATION IS BAD AND IMPOSSIBLE TO SUCCEED. SKIN CAN ONLY BE REPLACED WITH SKIN. SKIN IS A LIVING ORGAN. ANY OTHER SUBSTITUTE WILL CAUSE YOU TO LOSE BODY PARTS OR DIE.

YOU KNOW HOW PEOPLE WITH TRANSPLANTS NEED LIFE-LONG MEDICAL ATTENTION SO THEIR BODY DOESN'T REJECT IT? HOW TF WILL YOU DO THIS WITH FUCKING RED VELVET?

YOU WILL FUCK UP YOUR BODY'S IMMUNE SYSTEM A THOUSAND DIFFERENT WAYS.

ANYWAYS. CROSSTAGGING FOR REACH. PLEASE EVERYONE REBLOG. THIS IS SERIOUS SHIT.

[seraphinitegames]

The Wayhaven Chronicles - Update 26/05/2023

Ohh, what a week!

So, my plan was to start expanding on the overall plans for the beginning, middle, and endings. This is usually how planning works for me is that I just gradually expanding them and things start to come together and can see where I can fit in the events I want and need to happen.

But what happened instead was the story was just…flowing! I began planning out the beginning, and I was gone! The story events were just popping up in perfectly natural places in the narrative as well as character reintroductions!

For example, my thought was to have certain characters show up at the very start to get those reintroductions in so as the story could continue. And it was good, I was happy with it. BUT as I was planning an amazing point popped up that is SO SO much better. It blends with the story of Book Four as well as getting into their branches at the same time.

There’s definitely something about this book already that feels like it really wants to be told!

And the now-named baddy definitely wants to be written and get some attention, hehe! 😃

We also managed to record the Book Three debrief/chat this week! That was seriously fun though we got a bit carried away chatting, so it ended up much longer than originally intended, hehe! We’ll be chunking it up into parts so as it’s not as overwhelming to listen to. The first part will be up on Patreon later this month. It felt good to really be able to chat about that and almost kind of, like, put it to bed. Now I’ve got all of that out of my head I can really move onto the next!

Nai has been working on typing up the character sheets for me this week with all the updated information needed from Book Three. It’s so strange to look at how I originally intended some of these characters to be from the start and how they’ve actually ended up coming to life when I got writing them!

Next week is another May Bank Holiday on Monday, but the rest of the week will be the same as usual: Book Four planning! Hoping it goes as smoothly as it is going now! 😃

I just wanted to say as well thank you so much for all the wonderfully kind and supportive messages I got about the bunnies! Betty is on medications and will be having some more blood tests taken a few weeks from now, so I’ve got all my fingers crossed for a positive outcome!

Hope you all have the most incredible weekend! We’ll be offline as usual, so we’ll talk to you all again soon! <3

[letters-to-lgbt-kids]

My dear lgbt+ kids,

Online dating can be a wonderful thing. Many people use dating apps or social media to look for love, and have honest and good intentions. Especially for a queer person, the internet can be a convenient way to meet someone - or even the only way to do so. But it is important to be aware that it's easy to fake good intentions online. So, let's talk about romance scams.

"Romance scam" describes a situation in which someone creates a fake online profile and pretends to be romantically interested in someone to trick them (into giving them money or into revealing personal information they can use in malicious ways). Everyone can become a victim of a romance scam but vulnerable groups can be a "easy target". Some scammers specifically target queer people as they are aware we may have a harder time meeting people offline.

Here are some red flags you should look out for. Not all of these will ring true for every romance scam, just one is enough to be cautious:

Someone falls for you very quickly

This can actually be a red flag for a scammer or for an abusive person. Obviously, people can fall hard and fast for someone. I have certainly done so before! But a real person (who is not out to manipulate you and isn't emotionally immature) will still want to get to know you before getting into a relationship with you. They will want to make sure that you are a real person with good intentions as well, they will wait until they are sure you two truly get along well and can trust each other before they commit to anything.

Please be careful if someone tries to get into a committed relationship or makes heavy promises (you are their one true love, they trust you blindly, they want to move to your country/city to be closer to you, they will love you forever etc.) very quickly. They may try to move so fast because they hope it (metaphorically) makes you dizzy and blind to their red flags.

They are in a bad situation and you are the only one who can save them

This often ties in with the fast pace I mentioned above: they quickly tell you dark secrets. They are a victim of some unlucky circumstances that are out of their control and you are the only one they trust enough to talk to about it. You are special, you are the only one they feel safe with, you are the only one who knows how to comfort them... This, again, may be them trying to quickly establish an intimate level of trust to blind you to red flags.

They dodge attempts of verifying their identity

They promise a video call or a date in person... but then keep postponing it (for various reasons that are out of their control). These stories are often elaborate and emotional, they make you pity them.

If you point out that their refusal is suspicious, they may make you feel guilty or convince you you are just being paranoid.

They ask you for money

Oftentimes, they say they need the money to see you in person (either for travel expenses or to fix an unexpected emergency that prevents them from seeing you). But they may also promise to send you a gift and then there is suddenly an unexpected customs fee that the receiver (you) needs to pay. Or they have a medical emergency and need help paying the hospital fee. Or they have debt and need help to pay it off to start a new life with you... There are a lot of possible stories and scammers are skilled at making them sound believable!

Regardless of how convincing (or heartbreaking) the story may be, and even if they promise to pay you back: If someone you never met in person asks you for money (or gift cards or info that could be used to access your banking account), there is always something wrong. Of course real people can also have financial emergencies but a trustworthy person isn't going to ask someone they never met for money! Even if they are not a scammer, this would be a red flag that they are, at the very least, an irresponsible person.

They are a celebrity or millionaire (and you are not)

Most scammers pretend to be your everyday Joe, so don't think someone can't be fake just because they don't lead a glamorous life - but there are also celebrity romance scams. Yes, the fantasy of a celebrity falling in love with a fan is enticing - but it is an immediate red flag if a celebrity messages you out of the blue and shows romantic interest in you! The chance of that actually happening is basically zero (think of it this way: even if your favorite star saw your profile in their Instagram comments and thought you were cute, they could put themselves in a bad situation, PR-wise, by actually messaging you. They won't risk that). Keep in mind that pictures of and info on celebrities are widely available, so it's easy for some random person to pretend to be them and take advantage of your pre-existing parasocial relationship with them.

With all my love,

Your Tumblr Dad

[cozzzynook]

Rodimus secretly being a turbofox and trying to hide it. There's a lot of stigma about mechanimals and he's worried people won't want him as captain if they find out. He knows Minimus has felt comfortable enough to reveal his true form but he's never had the courage not until he's forced to.

When he’s forced to its because his frame is too damaged and would’ve offlined him if he stayed within in.

So he’s forced to break through the broken lock seal and escape the destroyed and battered frame to reveal he’s a turbofox. His frame was wounded as well and he’s struggling to limp away from the battered old shell thats quickly deteriorating since he’s not inside it anymore.

He’s limping on all fours and whimpering from pain when a mech grabs him and he has to ignite himself on fire to get away.

That takes up most of his energy and he’s very lucky Drift recognized him and quickly grabbed him by his wounded under belly and ran off with him.

They got back to the ship and Ratchet immediately began working on him.

He tried to keep consciousness to tell Ratchet he was different type of turbofox than Minimus.

Thankfully Ratchet knew his type and he was able to pass out knowing he’d be fine.

When he woke Drift was scratching his ear and some of his parts were already growing back.

“Roddy! You’re awake!”

The loud noise was a disturbance but not unwelcome. He gave a huff to Drift and flicked his bushy tail which Drift softly rubbed making him purr with his engine.

“Kid, mind telling us why you hid you were a turbofox?”

Ratchet didn’t sound angry, he just sounded like he wanted the information for medical purposes which was his love language.

“People don’t like mechanimals…You might not have seen it but..some of the crew “disappeared” after Minimus came out because I kicked them off the ship. I don’t tolerate hate of any kind..and the things they said..Minimus never heard it, hopefully, but I did.”

“Roddy,” Drift lifted him and set him in a loose hug because of his injuries, “we won’t think any different of you. We love you Roddy, fox or not.”

The pitiful whine that left Rodimus throat got him a kiss between his ears and soon Ratchet was carefully lifting him and he curled into the medics chassis as he held him.

“Kid, we want all of you. And the crew cares about ya. Minimus is a wreck because he’s worried about ya. Megatron is keeping him at bay though so he doesn’t barge in,” Ratchet laughs.

Rodimus smiles and his ears flick.

“I didn’t wanna hide it from him but I also…didn’t know what to say…I didn’t..I didn’t want anyone to know..even after. I’m sorry guys.”

“You had yer reasons kid, we understand.”

“No more hiding,” Drift gently pokes, getting a lught nip from Rodimus who huffed.

It made all three smile.

A kitten later Rodimus looked up from his spot on both their laps into the vent and yipped at it confusing the two until they heard scratches and it fell off. To reveal Minimus jumping inside and landing on the bed shaking himself off before trotting to Rodimus.

The two naturally smelt each other and rubbed noses, licking the other a little and nudging helms with their tails flicking lightly.

Rodimus’s orange and red fur with his yellow tipped tail fluffed up a bit at Minimus’s green fur twining with his own.

The two spoke in a silent language neither knew and Rodimus got his ear nipped and he growled a little but didn’t do anything when Minimus held on.

They figured everything was fine and Minimus was scolding Rodimus because a nano klik later Minimus got comfortable in Ratchets lap with the mechs permission and started grooming Rodimus who fell back into recharge.

[freewillacquired]

PSA: Some important OOC things I need my RP partners to know

{out of mutations} Hello, everyone. I was just made aware by a (now former) friend that I unintentionally hurt them very badly to the point of them ceasing to write with me and to block me. That is absolutely their prerogative, and I don’t blame them at all for doing so, nor do I bear them any ill will for their choice. Everyone needs to cultivate their own safe spaces on this site and to do what is best for their own mental health.

However, the points that they raised in their final message to me were important and very much opened my eyes to how careless I’ve been with how I’ve conducted myself as an rper and a blogger, and as a friend in general. It also made me aware that things that I’ve been trying to handle on my own offline and to not let affect how I run my blogs or manage friendships… are things that I really need to make my friends and rp partners aware of, because they are having clear consequences.

You all deserve to understand how I work as an online person you connect with, so that you can each make individual choices on whether or not you wish to continue writing with me or interacting through messages in the future. I’ll place this below a cut, and if you read all of it, I thank you for your time.

I mean for this simply to be an informative post that will explain a little bit about what I’ve been going through lately and how it is affecting my ability to function online. Life has gotten very crazy for me, I am having memory problems, and I have way too much activity/muses/blogs. All of these things together have created some problems with how I interact with folks on this site, and so I want to explain a little so you all understand. If, after reading this, you decide that I am too high maintenance for you, that I can’t give you the level of writing or messaging interaction that you prefer, or if you have any other issues with what I say, I fully understand and support any decision you make going forward. I hope that by beieng a bit embarrassingly candid that I can prevent what I inadvertently did to my friend from ever happening again, because I feel absolutely horrible about it. Alright, let’s get into this.

I don’t go looking for new people to interact with on any of my blogs anymore. I’ve stopped following new people unless we actually start writing together, I never message new people because of my anxiety, and I don’t want to attract more activity because I’m not managing what I have now well at all. The past few years of my life have been disastrous for many reasons (work, family, health, etc.), and I am looking to downsize muses and blogs, so I don’t reach out to new people anymore. If they reach out to me, I do my best to accommodate them, because I have never been good at saying no or disappointing people as a consequence of my social anxiety. But otherwise, I don’t want to attract more activity when I know I already don’t have enough time and focus to maintain the activity I already have. So if you have followed me because of the rp etiquette of “if I follow I want to interact,” and I don’t follow back, it doesn’t necessarily mean I don’t want to write with you. Sometimes that is true. When I get followed I read the person’s rules. If I can’t find your rules, or if I see a rule that I feel I violate or would easily violate unintentionally, then I don’t look to write with you. However, there are times when someone follows and I think… oh wow, I’d love to write with them. But as I said, I have too many blogs/muses right now, so I feel it’s irresponsible to go looking for new connections when I don’t really properly maintain the ones I have. I don’t want to close my blogs for new interactions, per se, but I don’t go seeking out more activity either.

But the main reason I wanted to write this is to explain some issues I’ve been having with my memory lately. In the past four years, I’ve had Covid twice and I’ve been put on medications for an immunodeficiency illness, and both of those things have very much made my memory and my ability to keep track of things very poor. I am getting people confused on this site that I never did before, I weirdly repeat myself in posts, I am forgetting what I said in one thread vs. another, I’m forgetting to message people back, or I’ll promise to send in asks or whatever and then never do it. I also tend to get very confused between people who write the same characters, since all I have to go on is a url and an icon if I don’t know the person in real life. I’ve gotten rpers mixed up before because it’s all very jumbled in my head. Sometimes that makes people feel like I am being rude, inconsiderate, or that I don’t care about them, but that isn’t true. I genuinely just can’t hold onto thoughts and memories the way I could a few years ago. I’ve even had to leave my career field, for safety reasons because making stupid mistakes or forgetting to do things since my memory has been affected by Covid and my medications.

The issue of my memory is something that I’ve been in denial about because it’s a scary and upsetting thing, and I guess I’ve been trying to chalk it up to stress or whatever, but clearly that’s not the case, and I need to accept that I have a real problem. In recent months, I have not only gotten people mixed up, but I have done things like list the top 5 people of something and leave someone out, or say someone was the best or only person I wrote with when others write the same character, or replied to one person’s thread thinking I was writing to different person. Sometimes they are close friends of mine, or I’ve been writing with them longer than the ones I listed. Why would I not remember them? How could I screw things like this up? I don’t know. It’s disturbing to not be able to trust your memory, it honestly is.

When I don’t know people in person and all I see is a url and an icon, I sometimes get very confused. This has always been true for me, since way back with AIM in the 90s, but in recent years it’s been compounded by my memory issues. Thread plots and things get all jumbled in my head. I just wrote a thread the other day where I replied to someone and I thought I was replying to another person’s same version of that character. It was mortifying and I felt really bad. If this happens to you, or if I get your version confused in an OOC post, or if I compliment someone else’s version but not yours, it doesn’t mean your version is crap or doesn’t mean anything to me, it’s just that I’m having some focus and memory issues that are causing me to forget versions sometimes or to blend them together in my head. I will take greater care not to make such mistakes in the future, but when dealing with something like a buggy memory, it’s really hard.

People frequently change urls too, which is another thing that often throws me off, because then in my mind, it’s a totally different, new person until I have enough repetition to associate the new url with the person behind the old one. The number of blunders I’ve made recently with saying to people, “I’m sorry, who is this again?” has been staggering and very embarrassing for me. Like just having to ask that question is incredibly mortifying, but I need to do it more instead of trying to reply on my memory and then making very hurtful mistakes.

I have not been keeping up with things on this site as well as I should have in recent years, and that is a failing of mine. Personal relationships have suffered. Connections I’ve made here have fallen apart. I feel like it’s very much getting away from me in an overwhelming manner and I’m not sure how to fix it, other than downsizing blogs and muses, which I’m trying to do now. But that won’t fix my memory, so I’ll likely keep making mistakes even if I downsize. I ask that you please be patient with me, and if you think I’ve made a mistake or haven’t remembered something, please let me know. If doing that is too much trouble for you or you feel like you shouldn’t have to, I totally understand, and if you would feel more comfortable not interacting with me anymore, I respect your decision.

A word about how bad I am with messages… I have very bad social anxiety and messaging people sometimes causes me to have panic attacks or to feel very jittery or overwhelmed. For like, no reason. Even with good, close friends. It’s like…. brain, why. Because of this, I will usually not answer messages until and unless I am in a good headspace to do so. Or it could just be that I don’t have the time if it’s something I’m writing a really long reply to that I want to put adequate thought into. Whatever the reason, I frequently won’t answer right away because I need time to think of a response, or something else is making me anxious so I don’t feel up to replying. I fully intend to reply later, but then the poor memory kicks in, and I forget. Before I know it, I’ve sometimes got people angry that I have been ghosting them for months when I completely forgot I even got a message in the first place. I am kindly asking you to not take this personally. I’ve been doing a lot of this lately. Sometimes, to compound issues, this site doesn’t even tell me that I have messages in the first place, which for someone whose memory is screwed up, is seriously frustrating. I never ignore people unless I think they’re a bot, heh. So please, if you messaged me and I seem to just have completely ignored you, it's okay to message again and ask if I saw it. In fact, I encourage you to do that, because between Dumblr and my own memory, I have really been forgetting to message people back a lot lately, and it’s something I do feel badly about.

One thing I want to make very clear, is that I NEVER fault anyone for taking a hiatus, whether it’s three weeks or three years. Real life comes first, this is a hobby not a job, it should be fun, and if it ceases to be fun or feasible to keep up with then everyone needs to do what’s best for them, and I am perfectly fine with that. Hell, I’ve been taking more hiatuses in the past year than I’ve actually been around to write, because of various work, health, and family issues/obligations. I’m on a partial hiatus right now and likely through next week for jury duty, in fact. I never fault anyone for needing to step away. I’ve had people come back after like five years and still want to write and that’s fine. So if you’ve come out of hiatus and I’m “ignoring” you, it might be that I didn’t see your message, that I don’t remember who you were because of a url change or if it’s been many months or years, or that I don’t even know you’re back. Jog my memory as to what we were writing about, some of our plots and things, and I’m sure that I will remember. Unfortunately, my memory is just not great anymore, it’s a reality that I’ve struggled to come to terms with in recent years.

Also, and this is going to sound very rude I know, but it’s again… just my new normal and reality with regard to my memory. I really don’t have the time or focus to keep track of when everyone leaves or comes back from hiatus or for how long. Maybe this is bad rp etiquette on my part, but I don’t frequently read other people’s blogs or even scroll my dash that much anymore. I just don’t have the time. If I think of it for certain people that I haven’t heard from in a while or that I want to check in on, I may pop onto your blog, but most of the time I do tend to miss a lot of everyone’s OOC posts. I come on to write and then I go back to work (my current job is entirely online), or I go about my family obligations (I take care of my grandmother around the clock). Gone are the days when I used to keep in better touch with people or read all their OOC posts. It’s a combination of not having enough free time to do so and that I’ve really gotten crazy with the number of blogs and muses I have, and so I write with a multitude of people that I just can’t all keep track of. This is a problem of mine, I know, and I am in the process of whittling down my schedule and number of muses to help correct it as much as possible. But just because I didn’t know it was your birthday, or I didn’t like your hiatus post, or I didn’t respond to that post you wrote that said you were really sad and needed someone to talk to… doesn’t mean I don’t care. I do care a lot about people. I tend to soak up people’s problems and sadnesses like a sponge, unfortunately. I just don’t have the time to keep up with all the people I write with all the time. If there is something you really want/need me to know, message me. I know I said I often postpone replying for when I feel more up to doing so, but if it’s something very urgent or important, I will respond ASAP.

One last thing I was to address… please don’t let something that is upsetting you fester to the point where you’re seriously hurt by it. I never intentionally mean to hurt anyone. If anything, I am the most nonconfrontational, people-pleasing person you’ll meet. So if it appears that I’ve done or said or not done something that was really rude, or upset you, or that you feel was very wrong of me to do to you, I promise you it was not done with intention to hurt you. Please come talk to me about it. Don’t let it just sit for a long time and make you angry because I’m likely not even aware that you’re upset. I would like the opportunity to look at what happened and to address it, so that you can feel better and I can be made aware of what I did so as to try to avoid doing so in the future. The last thing I ever want to do to someone is make something into a painful thing they’ll carry with them for a long time. Believe me, I’m the kind of person who still remembers things from early childhood that hurt me and have stayed with me forever. Things have happened on this site, some my fault and some not my fault, that have haunted me for years because I end up feeling so terrible about it. I know that’s probably a product of my chronic anxiety, but even so, it doesn’t feel good at all and I would never want to do that to another person. So please bring something to my attention as soon as it happens so that it can be addressed, fixed, or at the very least explained.

Alright, I think that’s everything I wanted to address. I've tried to be as open and honest and I could possibly be. If this post changes your mind about wanting to interact with me, I understand. You all have to do what is best for you. I just wanted to be transparent with people because hurting someone badly really made me realize that this isn’t something that I can just dance over and hope it’ll all be okay. I’m now aware that it’s affecting real things and real people in negative ways, and so I wanted to make everyone aware.

Sorry for all the word vomit, but I thought this was very important to do. Again, if you’ve read to this point, thank you for taking that time to do so. I will continue to try to do as much as I can to conduct myself in a respectful manner with all of you, and I look forward to writing with those who still want to.

[kairukitsuneo]

Idea from @compaculaaa and co-writing presents::

*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.**✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

What if TFA ULTRA MAGNUS SURVIVES

*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.**✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

⚠️⚠️Heavy Angst, Major Character Death⚠️⚠️

💠Based on context from Trial of Megatron (Pt 1) from TFNation💠

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ

After handing over the Magnus Hammer to his chosen successor, Ultra Magnus vents, as if a heavy burden has just lift off his weak spark. Abruptly, his internal gears shift and give out, forcing a few of his vital parts to cease in operation.

It's a matter of time before his spark slowly extinguished.

Frightfully, Ultra Magnus searches for the comfort of his lover. There is something, something important to tell him! Alas, nothing moves under his command, not a single digit nor a quiver of his lip plates.

A worried look shoots from Alpha Trion. The older bot senses something is wrong, yet fails to see the turmoils his loved one is battling. Until it is far too late, and Alpha watches with growing panic as Ultra's optic slowly dims down.

The blue helm tilts to the side as if losing all of its weight of life. His active read-out is going unstable and almost flat lines, warranting an emergency aid. Ratchet and Red Alert rush in to assist Perceptor.

"Please save him," Alpha begs, "you have to, please!"

"We will do what we can," Perceptor reassures.

Alpha can only stand by helplessly, darting optics at the busy medics who hurriedly hook Ultra Magnus with more equipment to stabilise his vital. Cables over cables have gruesomely plugs into the bigger body, obscuring the beautiful face he worried for. A blue servo gently put on his clenched fist he had no recollection of doing so. The nervous young bot who is shaken up too, yet selflessly try to comfort the older mech first.

Suddenly, Perceptor calls Alpha Trion and Optimus over by the berth. Optimus hopefully asked, "Is Ultra Magnus alright now?"

"There is nothing we can do," Perceptor's emotionless voice cut down all hope.

Alpha's expression goes blank, as if he is ignoring what he doesn't want to hear. He walks towards the berth, looking at his dearest, who quietly sleeps as though it is a normal daily routine. "Oh Ultra, look at you, you look just tired," the elderly whispers lovingly, "I'm sure you will be chirpy once you rested well!"

Optimus frowns and looks at the others for help with the situation. Weirdly, others say nothing. Ultra Magnus remains attentively "listening" to his lover's stories. And at his last moments, they all who huddle by his berth, silently watching as he slowly fades away.

"He just falls into a recharge, right?" Alpha asks, more of persuading himself than asking the questions.

"I'm sorry, Alpha Trion." Ratchet regretfully informs, avoiding optic contact with the pleading ones, "he has gone offline."

Like a heavy blow to his processor, Alpha Trion stumbles and falls backwards. Luckily, Optimus reacts fast enough to catch him and guides him to be seated. He watches in a daze as everything moves slowly around him; Ratchet and Red Alert remove the spark supporting equipment and cables from Ultra Magnus; Perceptor declares the offline time of the deceased. Alpha Trion hazily shakes his helm, repeatedly murmurs,

No no no this can't be happening!

And he continues to deny the whole thing in his head, thinking it is just a bad dream, or maybe Ultra's vitals will spring back up at the last moment.

But all colours have already drained from the familiar face he once knew. The warmth no longer holds its meaning on the cold and hard chassis. The grey, motionless, and quiet shell, is what's left of his lover.

"We shall prepare for the funeral," Perceptor leads everyone else out of the room, including the concerning Optimus.

As Alpha looks at the grayed corpse of his beloved, now in the optic of no one. He falls to his knees, holding Ultra's servos in his, the servo that was severed from his body.

Finally it sinks in, and he comes to terms with the fact that Ultra Magnus is gone now.

This...this is too unjust. Why take away such a kind and sweet spark from him? The good mech had done nothing wrong and always be there for his people as he leads the Autobots. He protected and saved many of our kinds. Why did fate have to be so cruel to him?

Cleansing tears fall from his optics as he swears at the ill fate, at All-Spark or even Primus for the injustice, until he can cry no more tears.

Tiredly, Alpha lowers his helm, carefully taking a good look at the face he has looked upon many, many times. The smiling face of his; the soulful and longing gaze of his; the angry childish pout of his; One last time, he commits them one by one into his deepest memory banks.

Oh, his beloved, his dearest and precious.

He had to let go now.

"I will love you, for eternity until my spark joins you with the All-Spark."

A final love confession whispers from Alpha's lips as he moves closer and plants a goodbye kiss on the grey ones.

Unnoticed by Alpha's dimmed optics, vivid light shines from within Ultra Magnus' ashy chassis, filling the space between them with a sharp beam of hope. And almost immediately, his colour returns at his core, spreading across his frame and servos like a miracle paint.

Alpha feels his chasis burning hot like a sun. Confusingly, he wants to step back and investigate. But his lips instantly capture by another pair of lively lips.

"Mmh Ultra?" Even through muffled mouth, it doesn't hide the excitement and surprise in Alpha's voicebox. He wants to remain hopeful. To believe what's happening right now.

Alpha kisses again and again, verifying the warmth he felt is not an illusion or glitch. And each kiss is replied with increasing heat of love. Alpha's spark joyously throbs, sensing the pulsing of another spark, as their thread of bond reforming with each intimacy. Finally, he calms down and meets with the bright blue optics in front of him.

"Is it really you? Ultra?"

"Yes, my sweetspark." Ultra smiles devotedly at his love, lifting his uninjured servos to caress the teary cheeks.

They exchange no more words and pull deep into a passionate steamy kiss again. Alpha doesn't want to waste a klik to savour this reunion after what he has agonisingly gone through.

No more big surprises, except for the crowd at the door standing in shock that demands an explanation.

[skylarkking]

To Heal a Mockingbird

A TFA Ratchet x Mech!Reader

Word Count: 1.1k

Chapter 2: Clipped Wings

The fight did not go well for me, and now I lay on the floor of the Nemesis leaking and broken.

But they were not done with me yet. Megatron was not done with me yet.

"Please...." I rasped weakly as I tried to push myself up from the pool of energon that had gathered underneath. Lugnut forced me back down with his heavy pede, pinning me in place and forcing a yelp of pain from my voicebox.

"What should we do with him now?" Starscream sneered. "Take him offline?"

"No, that would be too merciful." Megatron snarled. He knelt down and forced me to look at him by grabbing my neck cables and giving them a hard pull. "I believe it's time to see if a seeker can fly. Without. Their. Wings."

"NO PLEASE!" I begged pitifully. "PLEASE! PLEASE NO! NO! GAH!" My cries would go unheard as Megatron gripped my wings and ripped them clean off. I shrieked in agony as energon sprayed from my back in an arc of color, the metal of my now dismembered appendage clattering to the floor next to my body.

"Throw him and these off my ship." Megatron ordered Lugnut.

"Please...." I whispered weakly, the thudding of my spark slowing more and more as Lugnut picked up my frame and wings. He carried me to the edge of the shuttle bay that I had used to free the medic, and with one fell swoop, I was tossed out of the ship.

I plummeted to the ground far below, my optics flickering offline as my systems shut down. The air roared past my audials as the ground rapidly approached. I was doomed, or so I thought.

Suddenly, my frame and severed wings were encased in an electromagnetic field, stopping my rapid descent to the ground.

"I got ya, kid!" I heard the familiar voice of Ratchet call from below. I was far too weak to respond as he lowered me down with a gentle thud.

The medic wasn't alone, however.

"Ratchet, is this the Decepticon that freed you?" Another voice said. I cracked open my optics just enough to see a few other bots surrounding my frame, one I recognized as Ratchet and the other a towering mech with a navy blue paint job and a massive warhammer, the Magnus hammer to be exact.

"Yeah, that's Y/D." Ratchet said as he quickly went to my side and hooked up a diagnostic probe to me. "Dammit... sir, his spark is going to go out if we don't get him out of here."

"No..." I rasped as I shakily gripped the medic's arm. "Let... let me die..."

"I ain't in the business of killing kid. You of all bots should know that." Ratchet said. "Just relax, okay? I'm gonna put you in stasis and get you out of here."

I felt a slight shock, and my entire frame went limp as stasis took over. I could still hear everything that was happening, but I couldn't move anything or feel much.

"Sir, I have to strongly object to this!" A voice from what I assume was one of the other bots protested. "We don't know what this... this Decepticon is capable of!"

"Not much right now, Pharma." Ratchet huffed in annoyance. "He's barely able to stay online. We need to get him a medivac if we are to save his life."

"I shall call it in." Ultra Magnus said.

"Sir, this is insane!" The bot called Pharma continued to protest. "We shouldn't be helping him!"

"He saved my life Pharma," Ratchet snapped. "Now I'm going to save his!"

"Sir!"

"That's enough Pharma." Ultra Magnus said. "He may information regarding Megatron's plans."

"What makes you think he'd talk?" Pharma asked. "These Decepticons are loyal to the core!"

"If that were true, I'd be dead." Ratchet growled. "Now please, I need some quiet in order to get him stable enough for transport."

I felt slight pricks of pain and heard the sound of a welder going, the crackling hiss it made seeming to act almost as a barrier of sound from the outside world. Bit as soon as it began, it ended, and I felt my frame get lifted up by 4 sets of servos and then get places on a cold flat surface. The cool metal beneath me was soothing, and I found myself slipping deeper and deeper into stasis, and I remembered nothing more.

---

"Cmon kid." I heard Ratchet's voice say from somewhere in the darkness of my stasis. "I know you can hear me."

"R.... Rat... Ratchet?" I croaked weakly, my optics coming online and slowly opening to a bright light.

"That's it, follow the light." He said, which wasn't exactly the best thing for someone to hear. I ended up jumping in surprise and accidently whacking the light away in a panic. "Hey! I needed that!"

"S-sorry." I groaned as my optics adjusted to the light, revealing that I was in a recovery bay hooked up to an energon line and sparkrate monitor. I felt pressure on my back and could feel that my once severed wings were now secured in place with thick bandaging, no doubt in an attempt to allow my internal repairs to do their work.

"It's alright, Y/D." Ratchet said. "Just glad you're functioning is all."

"What.... what happened?"

"We were about to ask you the same question." The voice of Ultra Magnus said, my gaze shifting over to him and my frame stiffening with anxiety. I eyed him suspiciously, unsure of what his motives were or why he was here.

"Puh, like you actually care." I grumbled in annoyance.

"Kid, don't be like that." Ratchet said.

"Look, no offense, but your Magnus here doesn't exactly have a good track record for mercy." I said as I shot the Magnus a glare.

"Neither does Megatron." Ultra Magnus said.

"You think I don't know that?" I laughed sarcastically. "He's the one who beat me to scrap and ripped my wings off." I paused and then let out a somewhat defeated sigh. "Look, I don't know what you want with me or why you saved me, but you should have left me to die out there. It would have given you one less Decepticon to worry about."

"And one less healer for either side." Ratchet said. "Wouldn't that have violated your own moral of not harming medics?"

"Hrmph." I huffed, not bothering to answer the question because I knew he was right.

"Y/D, I'm going to offer you a chance that I strongly urge you to take." Ultra Magnus said. "In exchange for your freedom and all charges dropped, we need you to tell us what you know of what Megatron plans to do with the Allspark."

"I.... I can't."

------

Previous Chapter: Here

Next Chapter: Here

[cararenee652]

Thursday check-in

Prompt: What do you want to learn about writing from this class?

Answer: I would like to use this class to better understand social media and ways I might use social media in the future. I plan on using the information in this class to help with museum work, which is the field I plan on going into. While most work for museums is done offline, there are plenty of times when understanding social media and trends can help promote the understanding of history. At the end of this semester, I hope to gain the necessary skills to help with web writing for future jobs.

This was an exhibit I was able to put together during my internship at the lancaster medical heritage museum. @npfannen

[fandom-space-princess]

An Audacious Undertaking, Even to God

Fandom: The Murderbot Diaries

Rating: Gen

Additional tags: Book 5: Network Effect, Book 7: System Collapse, Canonical Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Queerplatonic Relationships, 1 & 2 do still die but not for very long, 3 needs its friends back :( , studies in construct relations

Chapter: 1/?

Summary:

SecUnits are hard to kill, but it does happen. Unless... AU: through the combined efforts of ART & co, Three rebuilds and reboots One and Two. It isn't easy. Everybody has a bad time, then a weird time, then a better time. Is that the right order?

Read chapter below, or on AO3.

——————————

Designation: SecUnit-003 Barish-Estranza Explorer Task Group 520972

Status: piloting shuttle to network-external transport [vesselID(“Perihelion”), registry(Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland)]. Contact: UNAUTHORIZED.

Operational overview:

- Threat assessment: 64% immediate probability of harm to clients, 27% medium-term probability of harm to clients assuming pursuit of mitigation strategies

- Risk assessment: [additional data required]

- SecSystem access: OFFLINE

- HubSystem access: OFFLINE

- Deployment group status: SecUnit-001: OFFLINE; SecUnit-002: OFFLINE

- Performance reliability: 87% and falling

The transport completes the docking process for the shuttle without my input, which is for the best. My attention is divided. This is a violation of the protocols associated with both client retrieval and piloting. Under the circumstances, however, it is not a situation I am able to remedy.

(reinitialize from backup::failure::retry)

I have a number of responsibilities to fulfill. My primary duty is to ensure the welfare of my clients. (I have realized that even in the absence of punitive enforcement, I still accept and desire this to be true, which is a source of mild curiosity.) My secondary duties are laid out no less clearly, yet—

(reinitialize from backup::failure::retry)

—“Hello? Are you there?” The exterior hatch has retracted. Two humans peer inside curiously. The one who has spoken bears feedID(“Amena”), gender(female), note: juvenile. The other—feedID(“Ratthi”), gender(male)—moves tentatively toward me. These humans are not unknown: they feature in the memories shared with me by Murderbot 2.0. This is a relief. Nevertheless, I step out of the piloting compartment before they can enter, and attempt to gently herd them away. Based on the information I have about them, threat assessment deems them unlikely to panic in a way that would be detrimental to the safety of themselves or others. While I accept this knowledge as accurate, it is still better that they be encouraged to stay outside the shuttle.

(reinitialize from backup::failure::retry)

(performance reliability: 85% and falling)

Ratthi is speaking to me, introducing himself and Amena. He is very animated. He tells me that Perihelion knows I have disabled the governor module. He tells me they do not intend to hurt me.

The transport has different ideas. It establishes a private channel, which it promptly fills with vivid and comprehensive descriptions of the physical damage it will inflict on me should I attempt to threaten its clients, or itself.

(reinitialize from backup::failure::retry)

(failure::retry)

(performance reliability 82% and falling)

“All clients require immediate medical attention,” I tell them. “They have been implanted with technology of uncertain functionality, and may remain under hostile influence, or represent vectors of contamination. Temporary quarantine is recommended.”

Amena replies, but my attention is pulled inexorably elsewhere. I turn my focus on the open hatch, and the dim interior of the shuttle piloting compartment. 

(failure::retry)

In my periphery there is movement, and noise. Another human has arrived. The humans and Perihelion exchange information with one of the transport’s retrieved clients, Karime. I have drones recording this interaction for later review, but I am currently preoccupied with my other functions. My awareness of this moment feels very far away.

(performance reliability 77% and falling)

(failure::retry)

“Hey.” There is a human hand hovering near my elbow. Ratthi’s face swims into vision. I blink, and try to refocus my eyes. This is only partially successful. One of my drones descends out of its patrol pattern overhead, and I examine him more closely through its camera. His eyebrows pull together. “Are you all right?”

The transport is in my feed. I feel it bear down on me. I do not understand what it is, or the limits of its capabilities. I know only that its presence is massive and imposing, its agitation palpable. It likely still believes me to be potentially hostile. It should be terrifying.

If I had the spare processing capacity to consider it, it would be terrifying.

(performance reliability 72% and falling rapidly)

Perihelion: Your resource utilization is near maximum. What are you trying to do?

(failure::retry)

(failure::retry)

Amena’s voice comes from within the piloting compartment. She would have had to walk past me to get inside it. I must have seen her do so. I have no memory of seeing her do so.

“Oh, no… um, Arada? There’s a body in here.”

(performance reliability 64% and falling rapidly)

I start toward her. I have no idea what I am about to say until my buffer produces it: “Equipment maintenance is in progress. For your safety, please step back.” One of the transport’s repair drones shoves past me into the compartment, which interferes with my balance. I put a hand against the wall for support.

(failure::retry)

Amena: “Perihelion, this isn’t one of your crew, is it? This must have been one of the corporate hostages.”

Perihelion: No, Amena. This is a SecUnit.

(failure::retry)

My primary auditory input glitches, and their words become garbled. I lean against the bulkhead. Standing has become difficult, but I still have a responsibility to perform.

(reinitialize from backup::failure::retry)

(performance reliability 51% and falling rapidly)

And I am going to perform it, or be rendered nonfunctional in the attempt.

(critical performance drop::system restart)

——————————

[Before]

SecSystem: Ship status: on approach. Space dock arrival anticipated: 180 seconds. Tactical team deployment unit(s) acknowledge.

SecUnit-001: Unit acknowledge.

SecUnit-002: Unit acknowledge.

SecSystem: Baseship sentinel unit(s) acknowledge.

SecUnit-003: Unit acknowledge.

(While I do not resent guarding the ship, I have always disliked being the one left behind.)

SecSystem: Cold contact protocol in effect. Hazardous condition assessment: POSSIBLE/LIKELY. Backup to HubSystem external storage and mirror local copies to group.

SecUnit-001: Backup complete.

SecUnit-002: Backup complete.

SecUnit-003: Backup complete.

Though we are designed for redundancy with each other, not co-dependence, I have never functioned optimally when deployed separately from 001 and 002. I know this to be true for them as well. In the past, after activities that required splitting the deployment group, I have often reviewed their cached analytic data. Our performance individually and collectively is more reliable on average when we are assigned to the same task.

I try to avoid reflecting on why this is true. Idle reflection is counterproductive to the efficient performance of my duties.

SecSystem: Sentinel unit(s) resume patrol pattern. Tactical team unit(s) ready for deployment.

In the ready room that we share, 001 continues fitting its helmet into place. I acknowledge the alert to return to patrol. I must walk past them to reach the door and exit the room, and as I do so, I extend a hand loosely in their direction.

Tactile input is critical for calibration of construct balance and proprioception, among other core functions. We are expected to touch objects around us for many reasons, including ongoing orientation in physical space.

001 gently taps the back of my hand with its knuckles, tock-tock-tock. I reply once in kind—tock. 002 likewise repeats 001’s gesture as I move past, and again, I do the same: tock-tock.

I validate my expected sensor readout against the physical contact data, and log the results with HubSystem. There is an echo in the team feed as first 001, and then 002, do the same. And if we could achieve the same result by tapping a wall or a hatch… well.

On this choice, at least, our governor modules offer no feedback.

——————————

[cityan1mal]

Finally blocked the problem mutual. I'm so sick and tired of people faking shit cus they refuse to accept they're just kins. Get offline holy shit.

I also couldn't go with my dead. Mom insisted I stay. And I have a migraine and URGH.....

I am so fucking tired. If you don't have the literal base symptoms of a disorder you don't fucking have it. There is informed researched self diagnosis and there is saying you have something but you have a specific branch of it that has NONE of the symptoms just the "fun" parts (that for people who actually have the disorder don't find fun) that you found off of another fakers Carrd.

I can't believe this is controversial. If you do not have ANY OF THE BASE SYMPTOMS THAT DESCRIBE SOMETHING YOU DONT HAVE IT

Thats like saying

"I sneeze sometimes but I don't have any other symptoms of flu that are needed be diagnosed with it.... But this guy on Tumblr said I have the Sneeze flu and not just allergies. My doctor says I must have allergies and that the Sneeze flu isn't real but they're wrong cus guy online said so"

Vs actual Self DX

"I cannot afford to go to the doctor but I have all of the symptoms and have extensively looked into what the flu is and is like. So I probably have the flu"

But again I am professionally DXed with my various problems but People who genuinely self DX aren't piloting medical misinformation like some others

Have a problem with this post? BLOCK ME. I DON'T CARE.

[hunterofthemist]

Prime Directive

The Battleground lay silent, besides the gentle noise of machinery coming from a singular War Droid. Beside it lays its commander, the one it went into battle with.  

His labored breathing and gasping coughs happen less and less. The War Droid that the human affectionately called Aether attempted to tend to him, but the human stopped them.

"C'mon Aeth, you don't need to. Look at me, I'm done for here." He grunted as he pat the arm of the machine.

"Dan, I am equipped with high-grade medical supplies and training, I can help." Aether replied Robotically.

Dan holds onto Aether's arm, his grip getting looser by the second. "No can do buddy, Im tired and you know I'm a goner. just gimme some morphine and ill take a rest." Dan says, trying to hold on for just a little bit longer.

"Ok sir, but before I administer the morphine. What will my final order be?" Aether asks, the robotic voice cracking for a moment, sounding like sadness.

Dan lets go of Aethers arm, "Get to the evac point, you'll follow whoever is in command there."

"Yes Sir," He says as he injects Dan with morphine. "It was a pleasure serving alongside you Sir." He adds.

"It was, it truly was. Now go out there and kick some ass." Dan says as he smiles a bloody smile."

"G-goodbye Sir."  Aethers's voice module glitches. His programing would normally schedule a maintenance check for later, but he turns it off. turning around he begins jogging towards the evac point.

The sound of metal thumps against the ground is soon broken by the sound of helicopters and voices. He's made it.

Soldiers aim their weapons at him, but he identifies himself. "War Droid designation 204, code name Aether. I was sent here to administer aid and help with the evacuation effort."

A woman steps up, extending her hand to Aether. "First lieutenant, Maria Davidson. Glad to have you along, you can start helping load people onto the helicopters." Aether Accepts the handshake and proceeds to his designated task.

As he helps, he makes idle chatter with the soldiers. Once all the men and supplies are loaded onto the helicopters, He's about to climb aboard and get off the planet. grabbing the hand of a soldier he's been helping, they try to pull him aboard but a sound rings out and the look of the man holding onto him is that of surprise.

Severel shots ring out, some from the soldiers and others from the Dukov army that's just crested the hill. The one holding onto him gets shot in the arm, and it causes him to let go of Aether. A second later another shot hits him in the neck, splattering Aethers visor with blood.

Aether lands on his back, and the helicopters take off, leaving him behind. Another series of sounds go off, and the choppers get hit with powerful ordinance and all explode in a series of fireballs.

Wiping his visor he sees the blood, and closes a fist around it. "Diagnostic check: Partial damage to left arm. Objective check: None. Prime Directive: Protect Captain Da- FAILED." His code tells him.

Looking out at the devastation, another message comes. "New Objective, survey area for survivors, and rescue any found."

He does a life sign sweep, but Nothing is found. He does it again, once again nothing is found.

"N-no Objective, r-requesting or-orders." His glitches are getting worse.

The sound of the Dukov army is getting louder, they're approaching fast. Getting to his feet, Aether asks out into the air, to no one at all. "C-Captain D-Dan, Orders please?" An unmistakable tremor in his modulated voice.

"S-ir. What do I-I-I do?" His hands begin to tremble, he's unsure what's causing it.

"Hold Up, We've got one left. It seems unarmed, lets see if we can get information out of it." The voice of the Dukov commander shouts from not too far away.

Beep. A noise coming from Aether grabs his attention. "Operation Reach, Objective: Survive. Unlocking Failsafes and personality subroutines, Conscientia failsafe Offline."

A shock to the system, gaining self-awareness. The first thing Aether does is copy his own code, lack of fail-safes, and all to an external drive and attach it to an atmospheric Buoy, letting it fly up into the air.

As the oncoming force makes its way toward him, Aether is reminded of Dan. He would talk to Aether about history. Specifically military history, and famous last stands. "Guess I get to have one of my own, sir." He says, a smile in his voice.

As the forces get close, Aether raises his arms and lets the guns in them come out. the power of his guns rip through the first few dozen soldiers, they fall quickly.

Tchk Tchk the sound coming from his guns warns him that he's out, "shit." He responds to the annoyance of his lack of ammo, sapient for only 4 minutes and he's taking after his mentor.

As the bullets pelt his armor, sparking off in orange glows. He walks toward them. Slowly picking up speed and breaking into a sprint.

The Duvok forces expected a normal War Droid, with a look of cold calculation in its screen. Instead, they're facing one that's acting erratically, and the screen on its face is one of rage. Once it stopped firing they realized something, a sound was coming from it. As it sprinted towards them with fury in its LED eyes,  its screaming. The mechanical screech sent chills down their carapace.

Once Aether reached the mass of enemies, he started beating soldiers down. At this close of a range, bullets start penetrating his armor.

Each punch, each blow, more shots hit him. Warnings blared at him, telling him to relocate and repair himself. Some part of him wanted too, to fall back and try to survive. But another part, told him to press on.

"New Objective, Kill." He rewrites his own objective, suddenly as this order is sent to his systems all warnings stop.  

Now that his attention can be fully put on his enemy, he starts attacking them with more ferocity.

Blood and gore cover his armor, and even more, bullets penetrate through his armor. Oil poured out of him, his screens cracked. A stray shot ricocheted inside him, piercing a coolant pipe.

Now keenly aware of how quick he'll soon overheat and have his core detonate. A plan forms in his mind, and as soon as it does his extra armor plating comes out of him, covering him from fire. But slowing him down dramatically as his joints hardened.

A sound comes from his chest, his core is heating up. He pushes on, going towards a large mass of soldiers. He pushes on, ignoring the damage speeding up will cause his systems. As he begins running, metal begins cracking and shards fly off. "Not fast enough" He shouts at himself.

Sending all the extra energy from his overheating core to his legs, he breaks into a sprint toward them.

With each step, pieces of him shatter and fall apart. As he gets closer he sees them, a general. One of the 5 in the Davok army, killing them will be devastating to their armys stability.

His vision goes red, either from the several warnings now forcing themselves onto his vision or just from hatred. He's not sure.

As he gets close, he jumps towards them. several more shots hit him, but all are deflected or absorbed by the extra armor.

Landing ontop of the general, and extends his armor around him like a series of wings. "See you in Hell!" He growls at the general as he opens his chest cavity exposing his critical core, and reopens fuel lines closest to his surface and detonates himself.

The fuel catches fire, in the confined space of his fuel lines they explode, shattering the armor he dropped around him like wings and turning himself into a nuclear fragmentation bomb.

The explosion is deafening, and the shrapnel and parts go flying, shredding any soldier anywhere nearby.

after the detonation, the losses the Davok army faced, forced them to stay put and tend to the injured and wait for further orders now that their general was gone. But the nuclear signature from Aethers core detonating alarmed the Humans, and they sent in more and wiped the Davok off the planet.

With one of the 5 generals gone, the fighting power of the Davok army was reduced and was sent reeling. allowing humanity and its allies to turn the tide of the war, and only a year later peace treaties were signed and the war was over.

The planet, Klavor 9. Was eventually turned from an inhospitable desert, and into a frozen and gorgeous forest due to a failed terraforming project. Soon turned into a tourist attraction in the warmer summer months.

---------------------------------------------------- 58 years after Aethers detonation. ----------------------------------------------------

The light from the planet's star shined through the fabric of a tent, hitting a human man in the eyes and waking him up.

he grunts in annoyance and tries to sit up, but the weight on his chest holds him back. Looking down he sees an Umi holding onto him. "oh yea, forgot about you." he says to himself.

Slowly peeling them off of him, he starts to leave the tent and as he's about to close it the Umi speaks up. "Where are you going?" they say groggily, obviously still asleep.

"Setting up the fire again, and making some coffee. Go back to sleep." They say.

The Umi nods and lays back down, falling back asleep in seconds.

The human starts the fire and puts a pot of coffee on top. In the downtime, they listen to the forest, relaxing and watching the fire.

as they watch the fire a sound breaks their attention, as they turn to look at the sound they see something falling from the sky, and going through the trees not too far away.

Standing up off the log he's sitting on they start to walk towards it. Soon he sees it, an atmospheric buoy that's popped.

As he's inspecting the wreckage he hears the sound of running behind him. "Hey Dave, what was that?" The Umi says, now almost entirely fully awake and with a look of slight concern and intrigue.

"Oh, Kotzal. Your awake." Dave greets Kotzal. "It was an atmospheric buoy, that fell from the sky." Dave continued as he reached out and grabbed the buoy.

"Whats that on the clamp of the Buoy, it looks odd." Kotzal points out a strange device attached to the buoy.

Pulling off the device and inspecting it, Dave realizes its function. "Its an old external drive, I mean Old too. Not many devices can accept these types anymore, i'd need something else to read it. Dont have the stuff on hand." He answers, mostly to Kotzal. But also to himself.

Putting the drive in his coat pocket and hauling the buoy over his shoulder they walk back to camp, and enjoy the rest of their day.