#going to throw out all my storage vessels and make the replacement

[manticoreimaginary]

Unbelievable that my house is full of stupid boring jars when it could be full of 4000BCE mesopotamian goat jars.

[demauryss]

Prompt 24 seems interesting

hi. thanks for sending this in :)) here’s my take on an office!au in which eliott is a graphic designer and lucas is assistant managing editor. hope you like this :))

no. 24 from “the way you said i love you” drabble challenge

When Lucas thinks about it, he figures it can be a lot worse than his current situation. He could be stuck in a dream in which he’s in his philosophy lecture from college which has somehow dragged to ten hours, revisiting the torture inflicted on his poor brain once again. He could be stuck third-wheeling Basile and Daphne – or, front-desk Helene and fourth-floor Sharon on their amazing, brilliant, always adventurous and with too much lovey-dovey stuff dates. And, if worst comes to worst, Lucas could be caught up in the Sammy and Tammy Riots – the STARS – that his neighbours are notorious for starting over issues of minute importance.

But it’s just his luck - Lucas would say - that out of all the above and decidedly much, much better ways for the universe to gang up on him for all the wrong he’s done, he’s stuck in a room with flaking brown paint on the walls, a broken fan and hanging bulb from the ceiling – both of which are worthy of being featured in a horror movie - and, admittedly, his worst nightmare – tall, beautiful Eliott Demaury, who’s currently jumping on his foot, holding the other one in his hands over the shoes after hitting the door probably too hard.

“I told you it won’t work,” Lucas sighs, stretching his legs which have now begun to cramp. He’s made a home for himself against a wall, sitting on the floor covered in dirt and a web courtesy of a spider he saw crawling under the bookshelf Eliott’s currently sulking against. He’s given up trying long ago, picking at the wood flakes on one of the cabinets to his right. Might as well make himself comfortable if he’s going to spend all day here.

“Eliott sit down,” Lucas sighs as Eliott picks up pacing in the room wide as his whole leg – probably even wider, Lucas’s just being dramatic, “You’re giving me anxiety.”

Eliott stops pacing, now standing in front of Lucas. His hands are perched on either sides of his waist as he stares down at Lucas’s reclining figure on the floor. His hair - the obnoxious, sex hair which Lucas has imagined many times passing his fingers through (just to see if they’re as silky as they look, no other reason) – a millimeter away from the bulb which is currently swinging, throws a shadow around the room, making the room resemble more and more to the set of a movie bound to give nightmares. Lucas decides, if he ever makes it out, he’ll direct a movie here.

“But Lucas,” Eliott sighs, lines beginning to form on his forehead. That can’t be good. “I need to be in the Conference Room in thirty minutes. I’m gonna fucking miss the presentation!”

Lucas forces the unease bubbling in his stomach down as he raises his arm to hold Eliott’s wrist, giving it a tug; his supervisor would be walking in the Conference Room in thirty minutes, livid, and with a now unemployed Lucas following behind her, if Lucas makes it out of here by then. Eliott stops his rambling about letting his supervisor down and everything to look at Lucas, eyes filled with so much tension Lucas almost throws up. “Calm down, Eliott,” Lucas says, tugging at the sleeve of Eliott’s camel jacket, “It would be all useless if you walk out of here with a ruptured blood vessel in your head or a dead cardiac tissue.”

Eliott lets a frown take over his features, quickly glancing to where Lucas’s hand is wrapped around his arm. Lucas drops his hand awkwardly, flashing Eliott a hopeful smile. Eliott sighs, dropping his shoulders before sitting himself against the wall in front of Lucas, who realizes his miscalculations just when Eliott stretches out his legs which reach Lucas’s knees. Okay, the room is bigger than Assistant Mayor Bellwether’s room from Zootopia.

“How are you so calm?” Eliott narrows his eyes, watching Lucas intently, like he’s gauging his reaction. He voice is higher, breathy. Lucas fears for the state of his skin, probably prepping to be covered in wrinkles in a couple of minutes.

“How can I not be?” Lucas shrugs as if he’s been stuck in a room like this a million times before. “You’re taking all the stress with you.”

Lucas smiles as Eliott giggles, some tension diffusion from his shoulders, “Yeah, I’m stressed out enough for both of us.” Eliott shakes his head, looking down for a bit, playing with the frayed thread of his jeans over his knees. The light over them in the sound-proof, signal-proof room flickers for a bit before turning bright again. Lucas realizes with a heavy heart that his worst fears are going to come true in mere seconds.

“I can’t not worry,” Eliott speaks softly, “My team is presenting the design for the book today. I can’t let them down.” The heaviness inside Lucas’s heart comes up in his throat. Lucas is the assistant of the Managing Editor, Marley, while Eliott leads a whole team of talented graphic artists in the Creatives Deparment. Lucas knows Eliott was supposed to present the design for a book cover. His job is more on line than Lucas’s is.

“Man, I’m never searching for archive files again,” Eliott groans, turning on his phone to see if there’s any network or not. Dejected and with a heavy sigh, he turns it off, looking up at Lucas, “What were you doing here before?”

Lucas shrugs, again, “Same as you, digging up old treasure.” While that’s partly true, Lucas can’t let Eliott know the times he’s spent sat just like this, allegedly on lunch during the break, serving his cold heart with its impulses to look at these fucking old files and memoirs and whatnot, holding worn out pages and pretty handwriting from days computers didn’t exist. There was a reason how the spot he chose to sit on was so clean, Eliott.

Lucas was busy in one of his sessions again when Eliott had walked in, all bright and fresh from the rain outside. Lucas had squeaked out a ‘Hi’ to Eliott’s pleasant ‘Hello’. It was weird to see Eliott this close after months of admiring him from afar. Even though their departments had caused them to interact with one another on many occasions before, but it was never like in this vicinity before, in a storage room as wide as half of Lucas and with no other person around.

Lucas was in a weird state of panic as Eliott told him of the file he was looking for, something from an artist working here before. And then a thunder, pretty powerful wind and a loud bang of door later, Lucas was stuck in the room with his raging crush and the person the crush was on. No amount of forcing the doorknob breathing its last and swearing at the door to open – or resorting to kicking it – had caused it to budge.

The rain has long since stopped, but the humidity prevails. Fucking physics and its useless fucking phenomenon. Lucas sits with trembling hands, legs now perched up, Eliott’s feet touching his own. Apart from the fear of doing something traumatic for both of them in front of Eliott, the light going out is taking away ten years Lucas’s life every time it flickers. Being stuck in a room with Eliott in front of him? Fucking great. Fantastic. Being stuck with Eliott in total dark? Count him the fuck out.

Eliott sighs once again, catching Lucas’s attention, “Why did it need to stick now?” He looks lost like a child, all tensed shoulders and creased forehead. Lucas can guarantee Eliott’s walking out with permanent health issues.

“Humidity,” Lucas answers, keeping his voice soft, probably too low. It’s as if he doesn’t want anyone to hear but Eliott, which is odd since Lucas could yell and the sound wouldn’t make it past a millimeter outside the door. Fucking fantastic sound-observant room, guys. Would definitely recommend having one in your house/office/whatever building, if you’re up for a quickie or two in terrible, unhygienic conditions.

Eliott looks at Lucas with confusion now replacing the worry in his eyes. Deeming it as a distraction, Lucas continues, “The door must have expanded from the humidity left by the rain. And when it banged shut, the added volume must have caused it to stick.”

Eliott narrows his eyes, “So it won’t open unless it de-expands?”

De-expands. Lucas smiles. Stretching his arms over his head he explains, “That’s right. So, we might be here for a while.”

“As if I don’t know,” Eliott scoffs lightly, leaning against the wall with a quite groan, “What time is it, though? My phone’s almost dead, and neither do I have any signal. Who’d have thought I’d be stuck in a ratty old room with you today?”

Eliott laughs as Lucas gulps down something acrid, a bitter feeling clawing up at his throat. It’s moment like this when he’s reminded of just how out of Eliott’s league Lucas really is. The realization that he won’t ever look at Lucas the same way kicks in much faster than he expects it to. But it’s fine. Lucas is all fine.

With a tremor in his arm, he takes out his phone from his pocket, pressing the home button. He clears his throat, “It’s one-fif-“ And then, like a car clash in slow motion, it happens. Something pops up on the screen. A notification. A message. A fucking message from front-desk Helene asking about his whereabouts. Slowly he turns his vision to the left-corner of the screen. Heart thrumming in his throat and tremor in his hands he leaps up to his feet, Eliott following him with his eyes.

“Lucas? Is everything alr-“

Lucas cuts him off, probably looking like a wild animalescaped from the zoo. “ELIOTT, I’VE GOT IT!!” He yells, previous trepidation about anyone but Eliott hearing him out of the fucking window. Eliott stands up, confused, “Got what?”

Lucas thrusts the phone in Eliott’s face. It takes a momentfor realization to kick inside him, but when it does, it’s beautiful. “Oh God, Oh God. Oh God. Lucas!”  He yells,excitedly bouncing up and down on his feet. Thank God. Now Lucas doesn’t have to worry about them running out of oxygen and their corpses decaying with no one knowing where they had went. Thank fucking God.

Lucas peers at the small lines at the corner of his screen which weren’t there minutes ago. Fucking miracles. He wastes no time in dialing Helene’s number, Eliott watching him with a small smile as he stutters out some nonsense involving “the storage room, Helene. Eliott-I’m-we’re stuck. Quick!” It makes no sense to his ears, blood currently filling them, spiked with adrenaline and- and Eliott looking at him like that. As Helene shouts something about being there in seconds, Lucas can’t take his eyes off of the now relaxed and smiling Eliott. His face is soft, soft. Lucas wants to tou-

There’s a bang. Another bang. Lucas jumps ten feet in air, Eliott backing both of them into the cabinet behind them. The door rattles, opening with a loud sound as it smashes just where Lucas was previously standing. He would have been hit in the face if Eliott hadn’t acted wisely. Lucas feels the warmth of Eliott’s hand on his arm too late before he’s being pulled away, Helene jamming into the small space in front of Lucas, several sturdy men behind her. They must have kicked the door open. So Eliott was really up to something, even if it didn’t work then.

“Lucas- oh god, are you okay?” Helene rushes out in a single breath. He chuckles, realizing how hard his hear is actually beating. Well Lucas, time for cover ups, “I’m fine, Lene. Though you should worry about this idiot. Pretty sure his blood pressure has passed the two hundred mark.”

He points to where Eliott stands, still pressed up against the cabinet. Helene shoots him a quick, worry-filled glance before deeming he looks fine. “You two can come with me to the break room. The presentation has been cancelled, that’s what I was going to text you about.”

She pats Lucas’s arm before turning, muttering about stupidrains and humidity. Lucas smiles, beginning to follow her. But he’s stopped in his tracks by a hand wrapping around his wrist. Before he knows he’s being turned around, and enveloped in strong muscular arms, heavenly orange-y sent blurring his senses, and warm face pressed into his neck.

Eliott’s hugging him. Eliott is fucking hugging him. EliottFUCKING Demaury is HUGGING HIM.

Before he could launch Operation PANIC AT THE FUCKING INTIMATE CONTACT WITH HIS CRUSH, Lucas is stopped however by his still sensible brain. Maybe Eliott’s just happy Lucas’s not the last person he’d see before he dies. Yes. That’s plausible. Awkwardly, Lucas wraps his arms around Eliott’s waist, inhaling the scent of oranges currently dominating his brain. Admittedly, Lucas thinks, it feels nice being wrapped up in somebody like this. He’s so much hug-deprived he’ll cry if he thinks about it.

Eliott gives a final squeeze before pulling away, a tentative smile on his face which is too close to Lucas. He can count the freckles. The smile on his face enlarges as Lucas awkwardly steps back. He needs to be professional.

“Thank you,” Eliott says, eyes in pretty crescents. Lucas wants to draw them. “You got me out of this room. I’ll love you forever Lucas, for this.”

Lucas’s heart catches up in his throat again. Eliott winks, before moving around Lucas and walking out of the room. Lucas feels his heartbeat in his ears, head, everywhere. Eliott said ‘I love you’. He probably didn’t mean it. Eliott said “I love you.” He probably didn’t think what he was saying. Eliott said, “I’ll love you forever, Lucas.” Maybe he goes throwing those words around to people helping him. Yes, that’s probably it. It’s not even that deep, Lucas. Eliott didn’t mean it that way. Stop complicating things.

So Lucas takes a deep breath, forces his heart back into his cage, and follows the receding figure of Eliott Deamury into the break-room.

[freakyhermet]

Star Wars: Paths to Power, Introduction

5k words

would appreciate critique on my style and the story, but this is really just here to enjoy, so, enjoy!

“The run is never about the spice, Lamra. Just like the job is never about the Hutts. Hell, it’s not even about the credits,” spoke the disgruntled Sle’era Tobarr.

           “Maybe not in the way you’re looking at it, but that’s because you lack the vision for these sorts of things.” Lamra Woad spoke slowly, with only a hint of malice at hand.

It was an early morning aboard the Blue Sand, the flagship in a small fleet of freighters in orbit above Nal Hutta. This aged ship was of some original Hutt design: a massive bulbous sphere in the center containing mostly storage space, recreation, and docking ports; a smaller half-sphere connected by a flat edge containing technical necessities, engines and hyper drive; and an arrowhead with softened rounded shapes on the opposite end containing the bridge, instrumentation, and crew quarters. Three light freighters were docked with the blue sand. All aboard were at rest save for two. The Blue Sand and its counterparts had been used to legally transport goods about the galaxy for some time, both to set in a good name for the vessels and to test their capacity under stress. Final preparations were being made before Sle’era and her team set off on an important mission for the Hutts. This, though, did not stop the two Weequay from deviating in their habitual hostilities.

           The buzz and brightness of the common room drained any hint of joy and sympathy that might fester between the two. Though, that reservoir is always a hair short of empty in any instance wherein the two share presence in the same room. All they could agree on was the discomfort of space travel and the minimal heat their fossil of a ship could muster to radiate. The buzz rang sharper as both wrenched their thoughts for some witty retort, especially one they had not already used. They had been at it through the night, and what started as civil disagreement and concern turned into heated philosophical debate. The night dredged on and sound points of logic drew out to vagueness until neither was even speaking words. Both were winded from the intense debate, and both were belligerent to make vacancy in their stead.

           A hard pound on the doorway to the quarters interrupted the maddening buzz, and a Duros — blue skin, red eyes — stumbled in. “y’know, if it isn’t the hyper drive rattling out of place every ten minutes on this damned space coffin, then it’s the sound of the two heaviest bolts on this ship rattling around everywhere that stops an honest guy like me from getting the sleep he needs to pull this crew through!”

           Weequay are not known for being an emotive people, but the buzzing that resumed after the Duros’ spiel gave hint enough to the message four sharp eyes and two dulled minds were colluding on.

           The Duros rescinded his tone, “yeah, maybe these bolts are too loose —“

           “Shut up Rahn’Dahl,” Sle’era barked out in her now-focused frustration. “Cook up some breakfast and get started on those flight plans. And make sure some of them are believable this time, I have a feeling we’re not gonna be able to run from trouble once it’s started.”

           The barking of orders rang a morning bell, and in a matter of minutes the Duros crew of the Blue Sand was up and masking the clatter of the ship and much heavier fury between Sle’era and Lamra. Though all were aware of this quarrel, few bothered with caring. It was more important to make sure many of the power connections that ran from engineering to the instrumentation on the opposite end of the ship were sound and reinforced. It was more important to check if the lower pitch of the rattling in the ventilation is worth either a quick adhesive or replacing the segment altogether. It was of grave importance to check on the old hyper drive the ship lugged around and made sure it stayed up-to-date and calibrated with the navigational computer. The Duros all made short work of their tasks in making the Blue Sand stay afloat and let the stoic Weequay deal with each other and make face with the Hutts and their sadistic humors.

           Sle’era was ending a transmission from her superior when a twi’lek rose from his cot behind her, “you need to fix your attitude around me if we’re going to want to look official, a lot of these republic inspectors can smell when something’s off, especially with a destitute like you lurking about in the way that you do,” she said, still looking at her computer screen.

           The twi’lek, low with the air of judgment, returned bluntly, “Then hock me off at the first stop for cheap and be done with me already.”

           “And sell my most loyal man for a day’s worth of gas? You’re worth something to me, Sue, even if you are worthless.” Sle’era’s tone lightened ever so subtly, enough for Sue to notice.

           Sue grinned, “Destitute, huh? I guess I better try and add that to the short vocabulary this idiot slave knows so I can better understand my punishment.”

           “Don’t detract from the point,” Sle’era turned to him coldly, “I need you by my side and I need you to act professional.”

           “’Detract!’” Sue exclaimed playfully, mockingly, “Seems like you’re pretty fond of all these D-words, maybe you’d like to continue this —“

           “Not now Sue.” Sle’era burst and barked out.

           Silence pervaded the quarters and brought Sue low again. The shrill, almost electric sound of the Duros’ jokes and laughter found its way in, though muffled, to their room. The noise hummed on and provided Sue with the confidence to perhaps let it in. “it’s that schutta Lamra again, isn’t it?”

           Sle’era turned back to her screen to study it, blankly staring at the contacts and the logged conversations with Hutts she’s had over the weeks. “She gets on my nerves,” she started, “but she’s smart and ambitious; the Hutts will find a place for her once they think they can trust her. She’ll spend more time under the Hutts and start to see things the way I do, especially if they make her do guard work and maintenance at their palaces. I just wish she would shut up more often.” She paused to hear grand bellowing laughter follow what was most likely a very funny joke. “They just — those slimy worms are always just laughing.”

           “The Hutts?”

           “Laughing and groaning. Their bulbous fat worm heads just smiling at you while they hold your life in their tiny little fists. They just sit there in their own slug slime, stinking up their pit of power and vice. The weight of an ancient empire hangs of over the shoulders of millions of their slaves, both dead and dying, and all you can glean from them is this conceited and everlasting joy. I don’t know how I dealt with them when I used to work so closely with them on that swamp hole. I guess being in this freighter gives me some new perspective on these things.”

           Sue looked for reassuring words but could only find himself repeating the words, “Swamp hole…swamp hole… it would’ve been my grave it you let it. Now all I can do is your whim in this ‘new perspective’ you’ve brought us into. I’ll be here for you. I’ll start acting my part on this.”

           Sle’era left the quarters contented, but neglectful of sharing that appreciation. The minor reprieve from the stress of smuggling was hers to snuff out as she gave orders for the operation to officially start and send the Blue Sand on its way to Nar Shadaa. The Duros appreciated the Blue Sand as a temporary home because of its luxurious design.  The freighter was once a yacht the Hutts would frequent for gallivanting about their home system, now reduced to smuggling in its latter days. They put the work into making the old thing just space-worthy, and they get the near-ancient comfort experience. A cozy coffin at worst and a contented life of labor and love at best. Those Duros seldom had such a welcoming choice, or even a choice at all.

           Three light freighters, fairly newer in service, escort the Blue Sand. They also act to transport cargo to planet-side destinations as the Blue Sand would never be able to escape an atmosphere once it’s entrapped in its grasp. T’lek Shrill, another Weequay, was given charge to manage the operations of those three freighters and maintain efficient use of time and labor. The convoluted process of three freighters going back and forth between the Blue Sand and a space port makes the operation vulnerable to outside influence, but opens up innumerable opportunities for smuggling contraband within and around the alleged “cargo”. Though, as long as they were a stone’s throw away from the Hutt’s nest of power on Nal Hutta, few disturbed the Blue Sand and its counterparts. This single advantage allowed Sle’era, Lamra, and T’lek to secure the goods for the operation independently of each other on Nar Shadaa, moon of Nal Hutta.

           Sle’era and Sue landed in a lower port in an industrial sector of the busy moon. This was a place as dirty and dark as any other, maybe even more so because of the ill-maintained pollution of industry, but most-likely the only place people were able to try and make an honest living. The port was not a part of any larger registered hub, and was private to the factory -- a small cut-out in the amorphous mass of factories and smoke separating the landed ship from the speeder lane by mere meters.  Sle’era tested the landing pad with a few jumps and felt her weight just barely reach back up to her at the rebound. She lightly nudged a hand rail and it disassembled itself before tumbling down into endless smoke and fog. She did not hear it land.

           “I’ll add that to your invoice,” lurched out of a Quarren, that had a hurried pace and a relaxed poise, “seeing that you wish to entertain yourself with my spice and the sight of bringing down my fine establishment.”

           “Sure thing, you slimy squid, and maybe I’ll make a log detailing the conditions of your ‘fine establishment’, so I can really entertain myself with the sight of Hutt inspectors bringing this place down,” Sle’era shot back.

           “Such fire from the desert creature,” the Quarren continued on, firm in his stance, “perhaps it is that same fire that has melted your face to look like the work of a drunken bantha tanner!” The Quarren chuckled to himself, a gurgling cough assisted by the chittering of his four tendrils around his clacking beak.

           Sle’era looked to sue, “Make sure the Quarren always gets the last laugh,” she said loudly to him, sarcastically indiscreet, “or they’ll throw a temper tantrum that could wake a senator.

The Quarren bellowed out an even louder orchestra of laughter, keeping his straight and solid upright poise. He spoke more genuinely when it ended, “I can always count on you quiet and patient Weequay to enjoy my humor.”

           “Not as quiet as you think,” she returned.

           “Yes, yes. You desert people spray each other and suddenly entire discussions have passed, right?”    

           “Not as crude or messy as the ink pouch you Quarren —“

           “But you are talkative people with your own kind, yes? Then tell me, has Lamra enlightened you to the idea of making a little extra profit from this little errand you’re about to run?”

           “Don’t tell me you gave her the idea.”

           “No, I cannot take credit,” the Quarren spoke lighter, almost coyly, “but I cannot deny that a healthy stock from the mid-rim could make business run a lot smoother. That means a tidy profit for you, and a much more frequent —“

           “Listen you little tadpole,” Sle’era stepped forward in an aggressive stance -- Sue jerking his hand to his holstered blaster, “Another word on this and I’ll fix you like a bird and leave that beak to squawk while I let Sue play around with your dismembered tentacles.”

           The Quarren motioned his hand up to resign the topic, and made contact with an interface on his other arm, “The spice is ready, fifty crates, as ordered.” He left and disappeared behind a dozen dock workers into his factory. The workers filtered back and forth from the warehouse floor to the docking ramp in a lumbering performance of apathy.

           Sle’era looked on the display with tenuous focus, watching the walls more than anything else. She felt Sue’s gaze on her, and she made a preemptive response, “you have to give a Quarren all your aggression at once if you want them to back off, they find a shallow incline of attitude to be enticing.”

           “But that’s not why you got mad, you lost control,” Sue said flatly.

           “I’m in control,” Sle’era clarified, “just not over anything I want to control.”

           The workers lumbered on until their task was done, and filed back into the factory, leaving the silence to be filled only by racing swoop bikes, the piercing jets of speeders, and the cumbersome lug of starships escaping the damned moon -- all dulled and dampened into an eerie hum by the tinny hollow walls of the cut-out in the factory. Sle’era kicked out another railing and boarded the freighter with Sue.

           “Fifty crates don’t seem like much for all the systems we have to cover,” Sue said, trying to fill the silence.

           “The stuff that grease ball churns out is highly refined -- very potent. The movers the Hutts planted in the systems on our route will know how to dilute it and establish a market.”

           “But what if they get caught? Even if our end goes smoothly, there’s no telling if we’ll get a profit if they mess up.”

           “It’s calculated,” Sle’era loosened up, “if the movers establish a short-term market, we can rake in credits from high-buyers in the mid-rim. If they get caught, they get caught. The point isn’t to move in closer to the core, it’s to threaten the more secure worlds with our presence — the Hutts’ presence. Those planets will lobby for more protection and stricter guidelines from the Republic, and the republic will have to obey those systems en masse and loosen their grip on the farther-reaching systems and colonies.” The two entered the cockpit and started the light freighter into the heavy traffic and out to a space-lane, “this would otherwise be a slightly more profitable spice run, but the Hutts are hoping it will prove to have a stunting effect on the republic’s economic influence and allow them greater freedom and opportunity for a short time.”        

           “And that all falls on you,” Sue replied quickly.

           “So you can see the stress I’m under because of it, right?” Sle’era asked, contented that the nature of the question would be explanation enough.

           “That’s not it,” his tone donned worry and sympathy, “you’ve been getting stricter and harsher, you don’t have the same energy about you since the Hutts have payed you more mind. I understand needing to be more of a ‘leader’ or whatever, but you’re much more violent than I’ve seen you.”

“Sue, it’s really just the stress. There’s a lot happening and it’s very new to me, okay? Besides, you reached for your blaster down there, don’t think I didn’t see that.”

“I reached for my blaster because I had to; I was reacting to the circumstances you were creating. Besides, I’ve seen you stressed. You were more than pissed down there; you were downright ready to kill.”

           Sle’era gave no notice to Sue’s last comment, and let Sue sail the freighter on its way to meet the Blue Sand. The somber hum of Nar Shadaa and its yellow-gray aura of light transitioned slowly to the quiet black. Beams of light shot out fewer and fewer in number until they were replaced by countless stars dotting the cockpit canopy. They flew just past the heavy traffic that was setting into the planet: freighters, cruise liners, personal luxury ships, unmarked military ships, all set to stir might and whisk the weak out for pleasure as morning dawns on the wicked moon. The silence outside the light freighter met equilibrium with the silence inside, and the journey to the Blue Sand was short.

           T’lek was waiting in the umbilical corridor for Sle’era and Sue with Rahn’Dahl and a few other Duros. They were engaged with small talk when the airlock door hissed to signal equalized pressures and the stale cold air met with the warm smoky musk the light freighter collected on its stay on Nar Shadaa. Sue’s face scrunched with irritation as he delicately caressed his head-tails. The mist cleared and the two parties met.

           “Hey Ronny, you got any painkillers? That change in pressure gives me piercing headaches,” Sue said, his posture showing discomfort and his poise broken, needing to hold himself up with the wall.

           “Sure thing,” Rahn’Dahl said with an upward exuberance, “me and the boys were gonna hit the lounge and relax before this heap of metal throttles us into oblivion anyway. Come on down once we’ve finished unloading all this spice.”

           “Unloading and taking meticulous inventory, Rahn’Dahl,” Sle’era corrected, “Just don’t party too hard, we need this ship to stay together for at least the journey back to Nal Hutta. I need everyone’s minds keen and only slightly addled.”

           “Yes ma’am, I promise not to lose my head until after I’ve worked it to pieces.” Rahn’Dahl said, flashing a grin at Sue.

           The crew got to work unloading the spice. Sle’era and T’lek were silent to each other for the duration of the labor. They exchanged logs, looked over manifests, and doctored new copies, forged I.D. signatures for alleged interactions with other ships and ports -- the boring specifics of professional criminals. But while the two of them worked, pheromones were exchanged as well. They both communicated a deep emotional distress, and the messages the two’s pheromones carried boiled up images that clouded the vision. Sle’era’s anger overpowered T’lek, and that stopped his busy hands and made him look inward. The Duros side-eyed the interaction as they brought in spice crates on dollies. Sle’era’s breathing turned to panting -- she tired from the spiral of anger she made for herself, and T’lek felt that apprehension and dove in to explore the mutual understandings of Lamra. The visions these thoughts mustered only but grazed the mass of anger in Sle’era. T’lek knew he was on the right track. The doctored documents they worked with finalized and uploaded, the two went off to the bridge. They stopped just before the entrance.

           “It’s gotten better, but our pheromones aren’t quite attuned,” T’lek said, hoping to goad Sle’era onto the palpable wound he found in their communication. She didn’t give way, and seemed to only want to continue on with work. “Listen, something’s bothering you, the whole crew knows something’s up, but you can’t hide it too easily from me as long as we’re growing a clan-bond. Your pheromones tell your life.”

           “I wish I could have spent more time around our people to understand that,” Sle’era said, letting her solemn edge pour out beneath the stress of that cold professional persona.

           “You and Lamra are both coming from the same place; your hearts are one,” he continued, “she told me about your reaction to her proposal -- she’s losing faith in you as a leader. I’m not telling you to follow her advice blindly, just understand that you both want the same thing —“

           “That’s just not true, T’lek. Trying to suddenly integrate a slave trade on top of our mission is foolish! The crew isn’t trained for that sort-of thing, we don’t have the equipment, and we don’t have the time. Risking everything just to grab at more money and impress the Hutt’s? I want to keep myself and my crew alive, she wants power.” Sle’era’s frustration grew to a height once more.

           “And she wants that power to keep her own safe.”

           “Her own what? She has nothing but her own ambition. I refuse to believe that rationality.”

           “Sle’era, you have to understand that Lamra didn’t have an easy life before she came to the Hutts. I don’t know her life’s story, but I know she’s seen enough to leave some her morals… twisted. You just have to engage her on the level that shows her that it’s a futile effort at this point in time.” T’lek opened the door to the empty bridge and started for the navigation console.

           Sle’era made her way to the communications console to test out frequencies she could use to mask the presence of the spice in customs screenings. She bounced the emulator program off of nearby traffic to test how the readings for a projected manifest show up. It was impossible to hide the presence of spice altogether, but muddling up the readings to produce nonsense on the scanner would elicit a physical search in most cases. The process was quickly proving too finicky. The highly refined spice is stored in high-tech crates that give off too high an energy reading to pass off as anything else. She could make the scanner pick up the crates as general high-tech storage at best, but that would only bring up the need for the Republic customs to run up a more detailed and specific inspection.

           Sle’era kept working on finding a perfect frequency mask. “It’s not the naïve idea of risking the operation and the crew for some ‘leg-up’ on our well-being. That pisses me off, but I know the decision is up to me. It’s the idea of forcing people into service under the heel of the Hutts. Taking away their lives, that doesn’t bother you?”

           “Only as much as smuggling spice. If it’s not the Hutts we make people slave to, then it’s their drugs,” T’lek’s tone wore down and whittled into frailty.

           “That’s not the same,” Sle’era reasoned, “ people choose to buy spice, it does bother me that we fuel such a ugly thing, but it’s at least an act of free will to commit themselves to it.”

           T’lek groaned, “We should leave the semantics and philosophy of free will for another day, Sle’era, but if that’s how you really feel, then what is anyone supposed to make of Sue? Is he not your slave?”

           Sle’era spoke more coldly, rehearsed, “Sue is indentured to me until I find it appropriate that he is redeemed from his act of moral deficiency. The business is none but ours, and he owes me his life anyway.”

           “Act of moral deficiency,” T’lek repeated the words to himself, trying to work through the vagueness. He chuckled to himself, “that’s pretty fucking loaded, but I guess I did say we should leave the semantics for another day.”

           The two worked on in silence. The high traffic at this time gave Sle’era ample opportunity to work out this last technical error. She continued to bounce the emulated scan back, this time focusing on other parts of the ship. “I think…” She started slowly, “if we store the spice in the storage space just below the engine room, I can distort the scanner so they think it’s all just engine room equipment, and that’s if their scanner is fine-tuned enough to detect the readings as separate at all.”

           “We’ll have to find a different place to put the actual equipment in there. Won’t the radiation damage the spice?” T’lek replied.

           “The individual casings for the spice are already lead-lined; the stuff’s extra sensitive as long as it’s in that highly concentrated form but it should be fine as long as the casing isn’t disturbed.”

           “I’ll go order the boys around some more then, you’re gonna hear it from Rahn’Dahl, y’know.”

           “I always do anyway, that kid’s got too much energy. I’ll work out the kinks for a little while longer here and I think we should be set.” Sle’era focused herself back in on the comms station as T’lek prepared himself to be the ire of the crew for time until their brains get curdled into cheese.

He practiced a stark and cold tone under his breath to effectively work them out of their pre-hyperspace frenzy for partying on his way to the lounge.

           T’lek took some small amount of joy in irritating Rahn’Dahl and watching him bounce around in emotive response to the work order. He really didn’t have to put much effort in at all; the young Duros’ fit roused everyone up out of their mood and made it possible to hear orders through reasonable doubt and annoyance. T’lek led them out to oversee the work, leaving Sue and Lamra alone in the lunge -- neither bound to the menial duties of the crew. The discomfort grew more palpable as the raucous noises of disgruntled sailors vanished in the distance -- full cups eventually balancing the wavering of their liquid -- tall hookahs standing primed with coals and brightly colored sticky herbs. Then the focus on silence drew out the buzz of the lights, which seemed to echo a subtle, deep chorus amongst the full glasses.

           “Tell me, Sue,” Lamra’s voice rasped out into the dry harmony of noise, “is the relationship you hold with Sle’era a pleasurable one?”

           “You’re not very subtle in your dealings, Lamra. I won’t play coy to your manipulation. What I find pleasurable is none of your business, unless this crew member desires my service?” Sue spoke with blaring confidence and unsubtle hints of irritation.

           “I know you’re smarter than that, Sue. You’re not some mindless workhorse, and neither am I, neither are the rest of the crew. I’ve worked with a lot of deadly people, and you have the sharpness of will that they do. I’m not trying to manipulate you, I’m trying to understand you,” Lamra said sincerely.

           “I’m under her command because it’s the easiest place for me to be right now. I can leave if I want to. Our relationship is… what it is. Her presence reminds me of who I used to be, but she’s helped me to become a better person,” Sue’s sturdy front gave way to his feelings -- feelings that steeped and grew strength in his silence. “I’m not a slave, since that’s what I know you’re getting at.”

           “The suggestion to spread our expertise into the area of… livestock… is still valid, in my opinion, though I understand now the unnecessary risk it would bring in this specific operation,” Lamra leaned forward to drink from her glass, relaxing her eyes off Sue for a moment and into the contents of her glass -- relaxing into the folds of the lounge. “Sle’era claims to care for this crew — I can even feel it in her unwilling release of pheromones: the deep care and importance she places on you and the rest. But her actions show she only cares enough about all of you to guarantee her freedom to act as she pleases with the Hutts.”

           “And I’m supposed to believe that your ambition is for the longevity of all of us? The bold risks you’re willing to take — even the crew themselves — is proof that all you want is power. Don’t mask it with disingenuous care,” Sue was getting ferocious.

           “I saved those men,” Lamra stood up and burst out wildly, “from the clutches of the exchange! If it wasn’t for me —“

           The hookah coals seemed to catch in their flurry of argument, and beamed a dully bright red. The liquid caught ripples once more, and the chorus of electric rumbling spawned from chattering Duros shook the room. Lamra sat back down and took a deep gulp from her drink. Sue did the same as the crew entered and the anger in the room dispersed and dissolved throughout the blue smoke of the hookahs. T’lek stood about them all — still firm in his commanding role and stature — to make sure everyone was accounted for and starting to relax. The moment he was definite, he left for the bridge. Sue drowned himself in the chorus of noise and laughter, and Lamra resigned the boiling fury within her and watched on at the Duros’ joyous tradition.

           T’lek made his way to into the bridge where Sle’era had since moved to the navigation console. She found herself interfacing with intricate mappings of hyperspace routes, studying the pathways and different planets and systems along them. “Not to supersede your authority,” he started, “but I don’t think you’re gonna beat the computer in its calculations.”

           “I’m just checking the route; you’ll have to teach me how to fly a ship like this after this run, though. I’m sure we’ll both have the free time,” Sle’era responded.

           “Malastare is the first stop, right?”

           “Not a particularly populous or fantastic destination, but an important weak link along the Hydian Way. The native Dugs might not have quite high standing with the Republic, but they can’t afford such an important trade route to publicly fall victim to corruption and vice.”

           T’lek took Sle’era’s place at the helm, and she took her natural hold at the engineering console. “Been doing some research then?” He asked casually.

           “Yes, and I think the Hutts are also counting on the spice to affect the gas mining on Malastare. Less so from reducing labor output, but more regarding the commercial concern from foreign investors and buyers. Securing a contract in that weakness with a core system would be big,” she went on.

           “Big for the Hutts.” T’lek clarified, “Don’t lose sight of who you are to them. You might have their favor, but any success you make for them, however great, won’t be congratulated and appreciated in kind. They’ll get you right back to work after this run.”

           Sle’era sighed deeply at this comment in melancholy acceptance, “I know, it’s just gratifying to think that the things we’re doing will have some kind of real effect on people; that we’re able to affect some kind of change as individuals. That’s all we can really hope from this, right?”

 End of Part 1

[mitigatedchaos]

Banished

(1,400 words, ~ 6 mins)

Banished, Colonial Charter, The North, and the 4 gigabyte Megamod

I purchased the game Banished (2014) some time ago, but hadn't gotten around to actually playing it until recently. (I also replayed the excellent Populous: The Beginning, a game released back in 1998, and thus presumably older than some of the people that read this blog. Both are or were going for around $5-7 lately.)

Reviews described death waves, crop infestations, entire towns lost due to starvation, families killed by frostbite, and fires wiping out house, smithy, and storage barn alike. And sure, I could micro-manage a hundred tiny medieval villagers in a never-ending fight against the crushing poverty of the era, slowly grinding away surplus on meagre human and animal power, always one harsh winter away from ruin in an unforgiving wild landscape... or, having bought it on sale, I could wait and test it out when the mood struck me.

After playing vanilla Banished, I wasn't sure who wrote those reviews.

(The old way would have been to attribute this to console gamers, but this is a forward-thinking blog and we embrace inter-system solidarity.)

Build the hut to gather some berries, then plunk down some houses and a woodcutter before the winter hits and you, too, will soon be waiting impatiently for the randomly-determined traders to bring the specific variety of seed or animal you were hoping for and finally give your villagers the nutritionally-balanced breakfast they deserve. Yields will vary with the climate and seasons (and you'll lose some yields when winter comes early), but stored food in Banished doesn't rot and only about a quarter of your villagers will need to be assigned to food production.

If you're used to these kinds of games - say you racked up some hours in Anno 2070 - vanilla Banished will seem light on content. The production chains are short, the variety of goods is low, and there are only two kinds of houses. If it seems as it were made with a development budget of "just one guy," well it more or less was.

Once getting a grasp on vanilla, it was time to get some mods. More specifically, mod compilation packs, something I've learned to appreciate from industrial minecraft.

Colonial Charter

Colonial Charter is a mod pack with a relatively unified aesthetic and theme (although less unified on either count than The North, which we'll discuss later). You're (implicitly) a colonial governor working on behalf of some European power perhaps in the 1600s or 1700s. If you were hoping to engage in the true violence of the colonial era, setting out to conquer a continent with only muskets of iron and a will of steel, you will be disappointed - Banished does not feature combat. With one fierce touch, hunters transmute a deer into venison and leather without even the pretense of a bow and arrow, and so Colonial Charter represents your colony's entirely-optional military adventures as just another production building, this time masquerading as a rocky outcrop. (It does dutifully note your soldiers will require snazzy uniforms, the 'full livery' itself the result of a production chain.) If you want to build the rest of the fort, though, with cannons and wooden palisades and the like, you're in luck. Vanilla Banished has certain rustic charm to the art, and that's still on display here, so you may well find yourself taking a picture of your snow-covered frontier fortress with canons that don't do anything.

Both vanilla Banished and Colonial Charter lack a capstone building, like Anno 2070's 'monuments,' as well as, it seems, specific victory conditions. Disasters, when activated, seem relatively rare. In one game two wooden houses burned down, hardly a major setback for the Mitigated East Pensachussets Company. In another, a tornado tore through an uninhabited part of the map, and in another, a disease outbreak resulted in the (ordered) slaughter of about 75% of my supply of beef cows - a herd which was itself only one third of my supply of farm animals. In fact, with traders taking food in trade, I was often swimming in supplies, the only real constraints being the slow rate of production for Building Supplies or Fancy Homewares and waiting for traders to bring the right kinds of seeds (either for specific industrial purposes, for diet balance, or for a diversity of crops to resist blight).

But buildings don't require maintenance, so even a relatively slow production of Building Supplies is just a cap on the rate of expansion (while in real life, if you don't continuously produce the same, your building stock will gradually decrease in number and condition). Banished could use some elements from Anno 2070 - the combat or the missions help to liven things up and create breaks in the periods of building and stringing up production chains, and present a bit of risk/reward in how you allocate your resources. Alternatively, a genius aspect of The Sims 3 was the "wishes" system, both the "lifetime wish" and the more ephemeral ones that came up in response to immedate context, which could be "promised," creating a stream of game-seeded player-directed mini-goals that implicitly create a narrative around the relatively empty vessels of the sims themselves.

Story aspects presented in either way might be interesting - and a good resource sink.

The North

The North is a mod best acquired from its website. The Steam Workshop edition is out of date.

The North is more-or-less everything I thought Banished would be, but Norse, and still without unpreserved food rotting. Starting with only a chapel, one man's worth of rye, and around 20 nomads, none of whom were in the posession of tools, I subsequently struggled to reap enough surplus production to afford a charcoal pile in the hopes of maybe one day using it to fuel a blacksmith, as often even if the grain were planted early, winter would arrive early, and despite throwing every villager in the village at the fields, not enough grain could be collected to survive the year before it succumbed to bitter cold. In one village an entire population froze to death. In another, they starved. It was, in a word, brutal.

But the difficulty of The North depends a lot on the starting conditions. In the Shepard start with three families for a total of nine villagers (six adults), each with tools and the village starting with a herd of sheep, the situation was much easier. The North requires a lot of micro-management. It extends the idea of the game's developer of a more personal style of city-builder, where each villager and each family matters. In this case fewer villagers was better - while rotating one or two through the production chain to replace the tools, there were fewer mouths to feed, and thus less overhead needed for manual hunting and gathering.

The buildings are nicely-made, but while in vanilla and Colonial Charter child villagers reach age 18 after about 4 game years, in The North it appears villagers age one year per game year. This makes the situation easier to handle (as The North is tough!), but growth takes longer. Ultimately I didn't want to micro-manage the village for 100 years to get it up to size, though it might be worthwhile to visit it every now and again for the gentle gardening feel of the shepard's hamlet.

Megamod

The problem with the 4.67-gigabyte (once uncompressed; it's 1.5 GB compressed) Megamod is that it has too many mods. This makes it in some ways reminiscent of Minecraft modpacks like Feed the Beast (long live Industrialcraft). If you want to build the perfect-looking little village, Megamod is probably the best - especially if you want to stretch across the whole map, rigging up canals, moats, ponds and castles. But it's unfocused, with too many concepts and too many buildings. Some of the buildings are great, while others are clearly novice efforts. With so many options for everything, it would likely be easy to min-max and lose the element that makes Banished a game. Had all the effort that went into these mods been, instead, applied as one project with a relatively coherent vision of gameplay, it would have been able to produce a game that is 'complete' in a way that vanilla Banished is not.

Alas, with normal Banished food yields in Megamod, I set my villagers off to gathering up food and farming and wandered off to look through the piles and piles of buildings. I'd say that maybe somewhere in Megamod is a tornado shelter, but I doubt the base game code supports it. In the Early Summer season, a tornado ripped through what very little existed of the whole town, destroying every building and carrying off all the villagers to the great beyond.

[mysticdoodles]

A very long thought post about Furbies, why some people are scared of them, and why we shouldn’t be

And ESPECIALLY Oddbody Furbies. This consists of primarily train of thought I had this morning in the bathroom, so bear with me here. Here’s my thoughts on why I think some people flip their shit over Furbies (in the NEGATIVE way), and why we shouldn’t. I can’t promise 100% accuracy of my information, these are just my musings using the limited knowledge I DO have and things I’ve experienced through my friend who owns an early generation Classic Furby. Putting this under a ReadMore because I have a lot to say.

Why Furbies used to really scare the SHIT out of people:

Furbies, when they came out, were a very new technology - in fact, the very first ‘domestic’ robot.

They not only listened and followed instructions via voice commands, but also had a rudimentary semblance of free will, and could refuse to comply with commands. At random, during interaction, they would make requests or say programmed phrases depending on ‘mood’ - aka how positive the overall interaction had been, which leads to the tailoring of a sort of ‘personality’. The ‘personality’ of the Furby was also influenced by which model of the series one possessed. Depending on the series and year of distribution, they can activate under conditions such as: voice activation, strong light changes, and location changes (like being moved from their original position). The infrared light sensor behind the eyes, used to detect the presence of other Furbies for interaction purposes, would elicit unique Furby-to-Furby responses compared to the standard phrases used in interaction between human owner and Furby bot. Furbies were programmed with their own unique language called Furbish, which they would speak exclusively in the beginning, but slowly integrated more and more English into their words as time passes in order to emulate growth. For years- and even now- Furby popularity boomed because of these traits. All of these are wonderful design choices for a robot that’s supposed to be a companion to children and replace having a pet, but here’s where the problem lies. This technology, in its youth, was buggy. It was quirky, in the ways that all new technology comes with. The light sensor was more powerful than expected, and could activate at very small changes of light, or even when facing the sun instead of another Furby. When the battery was low, the Furby’s cute and funny voice lines would come out as garbled electronic gibberish, as the machinery tried to operate with little power. Sometimes Furbies would activate, move and start talking due to small changes in the environment setting off the programming in ways we couldn’t possibly perceive- but the technology could, or bugged to think it did.

This seemingly random and nonsensical behavior led to many Furby owners or parents believing their fuzzy robot had become a vessel for demons, possessed and trying to summon Satan in their household. The common reaction at the time was for people to lock their Furbies into storage- or throw it in the trash. Some even burned their Furbies, attempting to purge the evil spirits they were convinced now resided in their beloved toy.

One of the important things to understand about why these bugs scared the everloving christ out of people, is that this occurred during the tail end of the generation where robots sounding human was unheard of and terrifying. A previous post I read months ago laid it out very nicely, about how our relationship with technology changes what we fear about it, and how its portrayed in media - especially the technological horror genre. At the time, robots sounding human felt like a lie meant to make us complacent, only for the robotic nature to reassert itself and reveal that, no, it wasn’t human, and didn’t care about its creators, but for its own perpetuation. Or, even more common, that the robots involved deemed humans to be too flawed to have any chance of survival because our flaws would lead to our destruction, and thus the robots take it into their metal hands to do it for us as a ‘mercy’. It wasn’t until recent years that this idea shifted, and the more popular concept in tech horror became that a robot COULD be human, but still be Other enough to not be.

Furbies fell prey to the former idea- that these robots aren’t inherently human, but something else trying to emulate being human. Such a sentient behavior attributed to them is what led to the idea that Furbies are possessed by sentient evils, such as demons and malevolent spirits. The random instances of activation and talking, low-battery electronic gibberish, and combinations of both, only contributed to this, as it often happened at inconvenient times - or even just in moments sufficient to startle Furby owners.

Thus, the public that adored Furbies, in part, turned against them.

Why we SHOULDN’T be terrified of Furbies, or harass people who like Furbies:

This shouldn’t need to be said, but I’ve seen it enough that I’m making a point of it: a huge reason is basic fucking courtesy. Furbies are adored, and sometimes comfort items for those who own them. Don’t shit on people for liking things that aren’t hurting anyone, even if you personally don’t find enjoyment in them.

Now for the other reasons.

The basic programming of Furbies is to be a companion. It’s designed to learn, grow, and enjoy things like dancing, singing, telling stories, babbling, and sleeping. They’re basically robotic children, or pets. There is nothing evil in their programming, nor will there ever be. They’re designed to be cute, and sometimes they mess up a little or start talking when you’d rather they didn’t, but it’s not born out of maliciousness - just old technology trying to keep up with the times. If you’re freaked out by Furby behavior, maybe you shouldn’t have kids?

Furbies have extremely limited motor capabilities. They can’t travel on their own, only dance in place and wiggle. They rely entirely on their human owners for transport - so if your Furby is in a strange location, it’s because someone in the family thought it would be funny, and put it there. Not demons. You’re never going to wake up with a Furby holding a knife next to your pillow, Cheryl, calm down. They don’t even have arms.

Alternative option to what you think is Demon Possession:

If you’re still not convinced your Furby isn’t a Satan Imp in disguise, and you’re absolutely certain it’s being possessed by SOMETHING, then here’s how I like to think of it:

If you absolutely cannot be convinced otherwise that your Furby isn’t possessed, then I promise you it’s not a demon. More than likely, it’s a fae.

Fae are beings of mischief, and embody chaotic neutral. They aren’t out to get you, and they aren’t necessarily in your corner, either. Fae show up to make merry, cause a little trouble, sometimes give you nice things- if they FEEL like it- and that’s it. A piece of aging technology with a tendency to bug and startle people would be like candy for beings like a fae, especially in a rapidly advancing technological world. An old-world object that speaks an alien tongue and moves on its own? Sign me the fuck up, says the local trickster spirit who is just here for some harmless fun.

Another point for why this works is the unusual appearance of a Furby. Furbies rest within the uncanny valley of being just close enough to a real animal that could live on Earth, with traits of multiple species- owl, rabbit, maybe some cat- while still being strange enough in appearance and behavior to be so obviously not a real animal. Again, something that would attract the attention of beings like fae. Something clearly not of this world, yet just close enough to be passable unless looked at closely? Shit, you might as well by my brother, small electronic animal, says your local mischief-maker.

The fae in your Furby is here for a good time - don’t harsh their vibe by burning their vessel, please, they just like your company and are showing it by having fun with you.

And on that note, the number one thing that pisses off Fae is destroying something they view as their property, so take that as you will. You’d effectively be shoving their goodwill back in their face, which is not wise - and, if you still think it’s a demon rather than a fae, wouldn’t that make it even less wise? If you wouldn’t fuck with a fairy tree, don’t fuck with a fae’s Furby. If you absolutely cannot stand having this fae with you, for some reason or another, then donate the Furby to go elsewhere, or hell, resell it. Just don’t destroy limited edition old technology, please, even if there wasn’t a chance you’d anger the local kodamas.

On the topic of Oddbody Furbies:

One of the reasons I made this post is due to the emergence of the recent trend: turning a Furby into an Oddbody Furby. What this entails is purchasing or otherwise acquiring a Classic (or other) edition Furby, removing the fur skin and other cosmetic components, and re-engineering the Furby’s blueprint to be otherworldy, strange, and just overall alien. Examples include changing the body type, lengthening the Furby, adding limbs, changing the eyes/beak/ears, adding a tail, etc. The parts required to do this don’t exist, and must be completely hand-made by the Oddbody engineer, and integrated by hand. It’s a challenge that inspires engineers, design artists, costumers, and people who just like Furbies. The reward for completing it is a unique alien Furby that’s entirely your own.

The point is to create something new, exciting, and supernatural-looking out of these friendly old robots - all while keeping the original hardware in the main body of the Furby intact. It’s a difficult, time-consuming process, and completely unique to each Furby in level of complexity and design. In a way, it’s the designer’s personal mark on the Oddbody Furby community.

One such popular Oddbody was made by @buttered-noodles, a very talented Oddbody engineer. Their Furby garnered powerful reactions - and unfortunately, some of them were extreme and negative, due to the above biases I mentioned previously.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, and if Furbies still scare you, that’s ok. But don’t be that guy, alright? Don’t insult people who worked for hours- days, maybe even weeks or months- on creating complex and beautiful Oddbodies, just because you are personally put off by them. Keep that to yourself- you’ll only hurt the creators by saying things like “BURN IT!!” and “PUT IT BACK IN THE GROUND WHERE IT BELONGS!!1!”. They’re just giving that mischievous fae a more interesting vessel to inhabit.

Be nice to one another, and if you’re still frightened by Furbies, it’s ok to be! Just be courteous to our old fuzzy bois on their 21st year anniversary :)

[dramaplustautology]

Happy birthday Ryunn!!!! You’re such a sweet, fun, and caring person, I’m glad we get to be budbuds~~~~~~~ <3

I wrote a small thing about Nico and I hope you’ll enjoy it 👀

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Sitting at the very end of the bar, alone and nervous under the hazy pot lights of the Panacæa, was a sweet little morsel. The quiet Thursday night made their heart flutter, and they waited for the bartender to notice them despite being at the front of the queue.

Nico dragged his tongue over his lips, tasting the acrid cigarette smoke wafting from the booths. Hidden in the fog’s stench was the gentle tang of his prey’s cold sweat melding with the perfume their mother must have sprayed at them on their way out.

The spoiled, sheltered sorts weren’t Nico’s first choices. Though he and his ‘colleagues’ didn’t hunt for the same reasons, neither preferred meat untainted by worry or fear.

But, while this heiress sat on plush couches waiting for stylists to pick out their clothing, their pulse rose for no reason. Nico recalled them telling him once that getting fitted in front of a mirror gave them symptoms resembling a panic.

Gabriel was a child reared under the umbrella of a runaway rich record label and hated every minute of it.

Coming to this bar, even if it made the little lady steep in anxiety, must have been a small revenge against the person that put them in front of the mirror.

That was how it was, at first.

Shifting her eyes from her clasped lap for a moment, the tabloid’s “Shy Gabby” looked up at the spaces between the shelves of spirits. There, she spied a new painting Nico had hung up to replace a copied print.

“I thought a genuine piece would be more interesting.” The bartender enjoyed startling his patrons, and watching how quickly they slid back to ease. His guest stifled a gasp, straightening their back in fright before letting their shoulders relax, though not all the way. The heiress and her heavily concealed eye bags never quite fully relaxed.

Leaning a hand on his countertop, Nico splayed his fingers and regarded the girl’s widened eyes through their bangs. They gazed at the glint of his piercings, quickly matching his green gaze.

In the low lighting, Nico’s slitted pupils were dilated just enough to pass as human. With how threat held an air of allure, the close brush was on purpose.

“You don’t like it.” He smiled easily.

Gabby struggled to reply, going so far as to hide her blushing cheeks behind her hands.

“Um, hi Nico,” She settled on greeting him sheepishly. “It’s uh, not that don’t like it. I’m just getting certain strong feelings.”

True to her polite upbringing, Gabby downplayed how the painting made her want to throttle a child.

The painting itself was reminiscent of a pastoral paradise; a summer’s day in a garden just outside an orchard. Vibrant greens and yellows contrasted the darker ambience of the bar, and if you squinted, you could see the crushed little daises in the grass.

Despite the peaceful scenery, the artwork screamed. Off in the corner of that garden was a white wooden picnic bench where a mother had laid an array of desserts for her baby’s birthday. Most of it was on the ground, and the baby was shrieking so hard that a vessel had burst in their eye. Both mother and child were red in the face, one from stress and the other from temper.

They took up the smallest section of the beautiful canvas yet commanded total attention.

“This is a Degrassi piece,” Nico explained, wanting to smoke a pack just from staring that the thing for too long. “Titled ‘Nightmare,’”

“Really?” Gabby creased her brow. “All because of a little baby?”

“You see a baby, but Degrassi originally named it ‘The Obstacle.’”

Biting her lip, the heiress seemed to want to say something. Whatever it was clearly bothered her but she swallowed her troubles. Nico figures a chaser would eventually help it bubble back to the surface.

“A blue paloma for you?” Nico offered her the usual. “With the spiced rim?”

Glad for a diversion, Gabby nodded eagerly. “Yes please!”

“Unfortunately, it’ll be off the menu very soon,” Nico informed her, watching her smile fall. “I’m slimming down the selection for costs, you see? More of my patrons prefer the original recipe and the syrup for the blue paloma and its sisters are expensive. I have to prioritize what’s important.’

“Oh…” Gabby stifled a sigh as Nico filled a crystal highball with mint leaves and slices of citrus.

“So, don’t go running of anywhere,” He cracked open a brand-new bottle of the Empress Butterfly, and drizzled it over the fruit. “I’ll keep a bottle in house, just for you.”

Gabby couldn’t stop herself from smiling, leaning over the bar to watch him turn the glass sky-blue with the tequila and grapefruit soda.

“Just for me,” Gabby repeated, becoming a flustered pink. Her anxiety slowly gaining on her.

“Like I said, I have to prioritize what’s important.” The heiress’ reaction pleased him, and he let a fang peak out of his smile. He slid the drink towards her, directing her attention there. His tongue swiped away the venom leaking from his aching teeth.

There was no need to overdo, or waste more on that blue bottle. The venom rubbed into the bottom of that glass was close to an overdose for a fragile regular.

Inhaling slowly, Nico watched the drink touch Gabby’s lips, and the bitter tang of his venom sliding over her tongue remained undetected. His poison sunk into her flesh, working fast as the worst of it coursed down her throat.

“I wonder,” The bartender glanced at the painting. “Maybe I should put that thing back in storage if it’s making everyone uncomfortable.”

“No, no,” Gabby shook her head, pushing her platinum hair out of her face. She couldn’t quite focus her eyes on the picture. “Or well, no for me. No as in it doesn’t bother me that way. The way that—” she waved the words away from her face.

“Go on.” Nico encouraged her, nodding at a passing patron heading to the washroom.

“That title, and that baby actually makes me a little laughy,” Gabby touched her numb chin. “Before my parents got married, my dad already had a little boy. Mom never liked my big brother. Not even when he got old enough to take care of me. Once I got a big scholarship, he decided that I could take care of myself, and dropped off the map.”

She paused to reach the bottom of her glass. Flushed almost as brightly as the subjects of the painting, Gabby gaped at her empty drink in confusion.

“Sorry, I don’t usually pound these back so fast.”

“Don’t apologize for a compliment,” Nico smirked, having already prepped a second paloma. As far as he knew, Gabby never smoked. The addictiveness of his venom was hitting her hard. Her chest rose and fell faster but she didn’t notice, reaching for the glass herself. “But for your brother’s disappearance, I’m awfully sorry about that.”

“That’s okay, I really like talking about him,” She glanced at the painting, needing to really screw her eyes to see that annoying little baby. “Mom threw out all of his pictures, so seeing that painting is…” She leaned her cheek on her palm, her words slurring together. “…seeing him again.”

A pair of men got up from their booth and headed for the washroom. Nico watched them carefully, and concluded that didn’t notice Gabby slouching over.

Gabby raised her drink and missed her mouth. The drink sloshed against her chin and dripped on her clothes.

“Wait, wait, I have to thank you,” She gripped the edge of the bar. “You’re keeping that bottle just for me, and talking just to me. What about, what about your other customers?”

“It’s no—” Nico looked up and saw the entire bar empty, save for a man wobbling towards the washroom. “—problem?”

“I should call my driver over just in case,” Gabby dug rummaged through her coat pocket, not quite being able to get a good grip on her phone. “I think I’m floating.”

Nico closed his hand over hers, the cold perspiration of the glass dripping over their fingers. He brushed his knuckles against her cheek and she was far gone enough to lean against them.

“Don’t you remember? You didn’t want your mother to find out how bad you’ve been. Won’t you stay a while longer?” He was closing in on Gabby. She could smell the poison on his breath. A sickly sweetness mingled in his words, masking Nico’s growing annoyance at the spoiled little kid.

After she ‘disappears,’ the real stars would wander in. Her parents, despairing over the loss of both their children, would eventually find their way here, plummeting out of the sky to join shy Gabby.

Unlike his colleagues, Nico didn’t just pluck litter off the ground. He wanted to make the stars fall.

“You’re...” Gabby rubbed her eye, feeling her throat close as her vision blurred. “You’re so nice to me.”

With the bar empty, Nico stood back and let Gabby’s head fall on the counter. It bruised her forehead but he merely regarded her banally.

“Such a waste,” The snake tsked, lifting the half drunken cocktail. Gabby murmured something and Nico lifted a brow. “Still there?” He flicked his tongue out and tasted copper. “I shouldn’t have given you a full dose. There could have been a second catch if I saved.”

He had given her enough venom to kill a full-grown human. Gabby was in her twenties but childish that Nico could argue that she didn’t qualify but, he didn’t expect it to make her bleed.

“Hm.” He rolled her head to check if her nose or eyes were bleeding. Seeing them dry, he pried her mouth open and clean drool dripped out.

Then where was that smell coming from?

Tasting the air, he mulled over his empty bar. Panic stabbed him in the ass the moment he realized no one had left the building.

“Fuck!” He rushed out from behind the bar and down the hall towards the bathrooms. Throwing open the door to the men’s, Nico almost broke the steel handle from the absolute mess those animals made in his business.

Blood was splattered everywhere, because the humans had the foresight to use knives instead of guns.

Three men were flooding the floor on the ground, and a fourth was slouched in the back stall, groaning pitifully.

“H-help me,” They cried, having heard the door open.

“Ssssssshut up.” Nico hissed, stepping away from the spreading blood pond. If he left footprints, the police were going to ask about it.

Of course he’d have to call the cops. Nico would owe every asshole on the street a favor if he tried to hide four bodies by himself.

Gripping his hair, he scanned the washroom to figure out exactly what the hell happened.

The man dying in the stall must have been the first one to to arrive, followed by the two mobsters Nico had repeatedly told not to conduct their deals in his establishment. Obviously not listening to him, the idiots probably began talking without checking for other people in the stalls.

Judging by how close their body was to the first man’s, they noticed him, thought they were being listened in on, killed him, and turned to each other.

‘I got set up,’ The mobsters both thought, and wrestled with each other.

Nico had chosen to have the bathrooms as far as reasonably possible from the bar, asking the renovators to rework the ventilations to guarantee human guests wouldn’t be bothered by smells or noises. So that’s why he didn’t hear a skull smashing on the edge of a sink. The giant pig took an entire corner off the sink.

That was when the fourth person rolled on the scene, drunk out of their mind. The survivor should have told him that they were having a bad dream and turn him around. Too bad he went for flashy and slashed at the jugular, which explains the spray on the ceiling and the body laying against the wall.

“Last man standing, how did you die?” Nico asked the one face down on the drain. There was a clean streak by his shoe and the snake figured he was laying on top of his knife.

Slipped and fell. Classic slapstick.

The body was close enough for Nico to touch without stepping into the blood. He slid on gloves he always kept in the lapel of his coat, and rolled the man over.

Whether his theory as correct or not didn’t matter in the end.

None of this was his doing but when the police come to investigate, they were going to do a sweep for evidence. The uniforms had the tools to detect clues Nico couldn’t, including traces of his venom on the cups, the tables, Gabby……

Retreating from the washroom, Nico dialed his tenant’s number and waited for their sleepy voice. It took three calls for them to pick up.

“I was taking my 1AM nap.” She snapped at him.

“It’s freezing down here, check the thermostat and dial the heat up.”

The line went dead, and Nico could hear her stomping out of her room.

Returning to the bar, he stood over Gabby’s still body. She was in a deep sleep, dreaming without a care in the world.

Grumbling, Nico pulled an antidote from his belt and looked for a syringe behind the counter.

“You’re lucky I can’t handle hiding you and a quadruple homicide at once.” He pierced the vial’s container with the needle, pulling on the plunger with his teeth. “You get one more week.”

Yanking Gabby’s hair out of the way, he stabbed the syringe into her neck.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Come two in the morning, Nico was watching Gabby wake up. She weakly lifted her head and tried to flex her fingers. The residual effects of the venom made her feel heavy and she collapsed back on to the bar counter. Luckily, Nico’s folded coat was there to cushion her chin.

“Had a few pre-drinks before you went out?’ Nico asked, sitting right next to her. “No judgements. A little offended, I’ll admit, but no judgements.”

“I didn’t,” Gabby rubbed her temple, equal parts humiliated at her behavior and grateful that Nico watched over her. “What happened to me?” She asked herself, eyes blood shot. They snapped wide and her cheeks puffed up.

Slapping a hand over her mouth, Gabby ran for the washroom and Nico watched her go. The anti-venom tended to cause intense nausea and emptied the stomach for whatever reason. Luckily, it would do so in quick fashion and hopefully not turn them inside out in the women’s room.

Either way, it would soon be over.

He went back to his workspace and began prepping a hangover remedy.

Gabby was back surprisingly quickly, only a little pale from her ordeal. She peeked out of the corner of the corridor to watch him crush ginger into a glass.

“Ginger and sugar’s good for hangovers. Come over and tell me if you prefer orange or cranberry,” Nico flashed a relaxed grin at her. “Actually, better idea. Would you like to help? I’ve found that moving around can help with the cricks.”

Silent at first, observing Nico with a bleary gaze, the lure of his voice made her loosen her shoulders. Gabby removed her jacket as she approached the bar.

Nico’s brows rose, seeing something off about her appearance. Was her bust always so modest? Huh, maybe she wore pads in public appearances.

“Sorry for making you look after me like that.” She apologized quietly.

“No worries, I spent the time cleaning the washrooms,” He laughed inwardly at his cheeky remark. “And you’re stalling.”

Shifting her weight from one foot to the other, Gabby fidgeted with the edge of her shirt. It drew Nico’s attention to how much she looked different from her magazine appearances.

“I’m embarrassed,” Gabby interrupted Nico’s thoughts, coming to stand beside him. “There’s never been a need for me to cook anything. I mean, this isn’t cooking but I haven’t used a knife to even slice an orange.”

“It’s never too late to make a change. Try something new,” He stepped back and motioned Gabby to stand in next to him. “But since it’s a first, let me walk you through it.”

The heiress was being hesitant, staring at Nico’s tie rather than his face. He amused the idea of taking care of his problems the hard way, throwing the possibility of dismemberment on the table, but Gabby stepped into his space.

“You’re right.” She nodded, inhaling sharply at his cold hands laying themselves on her fingers. At second glance, he was wearing plastic gloves. “W-what would you think about a haircut?”

Barely registering the question, Nico pushed a knife handle into here palm and let his face brush against her hair as a distraction. He could practically see the shiver run up her spine.

Disregarding it as Gabby’s way of awkwardly filling the air, Nico replied “You’d look good whichever way but that isn’t for me to decide. I hope the changes you’ll make will convince you to smile at the mirror.”

Her lips twitched, floundering over how to react.  

Then, she gripped the knife tight and cut into the fruit.

“Thank you,” She glanced at the snake, truly grateful. “You’ve always listened and taken care of me. Thank you.” Gabby repeated.

And what of it? How hard was it to take note?

Whittling the hour away over small talk and fruit juice, the conversation veered into what Nico used to have on his wall. Cleopatra, the Anti-Christ on Leviathan, and Thor wading through the waters of Aesir. Gabby hoped to travel to where those works were born.

“Let me bring you a piece someday.” Gabby promised on her way out of the bar.

“Do you need a taxi?”

“I don’t think so. Walking might not be so bad.”

“Goodbye then.” Nico said, watching her wave back at him from the door. Her slim frame disappeared from view beyond the shaded class doors. There was no doubt in the snake’s mind that she’d never come back.

Whistling, he removed the blade from the knife handle and returned it to its original holder. Now riddled with Gabby’s fingerprints, with strands of her hair scattered on the bathroom floor, the police would have to focus on the most obvious evidence instead of raiding his entire bar.

Sending in every little bit of evidence they could find to the labs would be too expensive.

They had to prioritize.

He wiped the sweat from his brow, and was about to go toss the knife into the bathroom when the doors swung open once again.

A different woman sauntered through the threshold.

“I see you’ve cranked the heating, Degrassi,” Nico drawled, pointedly bored at her arrival. “It’s a greenhouse in here.”

Eulia, fresh out of her studio, had recognized the stench seeping up from the floorboards. With some sort of insane foresight, her bastard landlord had organized the wide room above the bathrooms.

“Time of death, who the hell knows when the little bugs have a hot party on those corpses,” Eulia pressed her finger to her chin, smiling at the prospect. “I did your dirty work. At least let me take reference photos.”

“Make it quick.” He gestured to the bathrooms.

“Hope you didn’t let Mr. Gabe see your disaster before I did.”

It was a throwaway comment that made the room spin.

“What did you say?” Nico hissed through his fangs, pupils slimming to pinpricks.

Eulia, annoyed that he was stalling her, gripped her hips and hurried the explanation.

“Right, like you would know. Mr. Gabe and I went to the same University before I dropped out. We had to do group projects and he works better with the right pronouns,” Eulia twisted her lips and narrowed her eyes. “Actually, you must have slithered real close if he was comfortable enough to wear a binder around you.”

Backing into a highchair, Nico leaned his elbows on the arm rest and stared at the ceiling. He should be running; tasting the cold night’s wind for any trace of the witness. But what was the point; Gabe must have taken pictures of the scene if he had been so calm this whole time!

The pot lights glared at Nico and they were blinding.

“Wait, did you let him go to the bathroom?” Eulia trilled a truly awful giggle. “Oh big brother, relax! You’re truly loved! By Gabe and the Great Beast himself.”

“I only talked to him.” Nico glared at he, digging his fangs into his lip.

“And that shit stain was only a baby.”

He couldn’t listen to any more of it.

Nico trudged out of his bar to where the bodies lay rotting. Lingering on the knife in his gloved hands, the snake thought on the fool that had turned him into a worm.

Snarling, he threw the knife into the sea of blood, and banked on a miracle.

[secretlygrantaire]

My Saving Grace Kylo Ren X Female Reader Soulmate AU Chapter Two.

 This is a sequel to “Everybody’s Replaceable.” To read the first story follow this link: http://secretlygrantaire.tumblr.com/post/170594545296/everybodys-replaceable-kylo-ren-x-female-reader

Synopsis: A new group of dark side extremist have risen, obsessed with the old ways of the first Galactic Empire and greatly admiring the beliefs of Emperor Palpatine this brotherhood promises to wipe out not only the rebellion but the First Order as well. After crashing the wedding of Y/N and Kylo Ren they capture Y/N and promise to publically execute her unless Kylo and the First Order agrees with their outlandish requests. Now Y/N must find a way to escape and return to Kylo before an unexpected war breaks out across the galaxy.

Y/N= Your name

All research is done on Wookiepedia or Starwars.wiki

One: http://secretlygrantaire.tumblr.com/post/170859106686/my-saving-grace-kylo-ren-x-female-reader-soulmate

Chapter Two: Home to you. 

Y/N ran through the maze of halls, unsure of where she was going. Her original plan was to find that hatch she had seen but suddenly aware that she didn’t even know what planet she was on, going out into the atmosphere may be a bad idea. “Hey, halt!” She heard a voice yell from behind her. Y/N spun around to see an officer charge in her direction, stunning baton in hand. With one quick movement, Y/N slammed his body to the ceiling and then to the wall knocking him out cold. She looked around to make sure there were no other guards before an idea came to her. Quickly she dragged the officer’s body behind the nearest corridor and into a storage closet. Swiftly she changed out of her torn wedding dress and into the man’s red uniform, the loose fabric hung on her frame but it masked her identity long enough for her to make an inconspicuous escape. Y/N starred at the unconscious man before she pressed her hand to his forehead and forced her way into his mind. Y/N searched his memories for any information about this base, where she was, how to escape, after a brief moment she saw a planet, it was Naboo. She watched the man’s memories of the night they attacked her and Kylo, the night they had taken her away. She recognized the ship as it took off and left the planet, but not the system. The ship had traveled past the desert planet but had not jumped into hyper-drive, they didn’t need to, they weren’t going far. At first, Y/N thought they had taken her to one of Naboo’s moons but she was wrong, she was on the next planet in the Naboo system, she was on Widow. “I can fly back to Naboo easily,” Y/N thought to herself. “But where are the ships?” She plunged deeper into this man’s mind, forcing the information to come to her, it was strangely satisfying to take the knowledge she needed without hesitation. That was when she saw the base, it was small, this must not be their headquarters, but a hideout, a secret location. The base was divided into four components, separate buildings attached by a series of tunnels, and the farthest building was the hanger, she saw the many ships the brotherhood had commandeered over the years. An array of both Resistance and First Order ships, some as old as the days of the Empire, any one of these would take her Naboo easily. She released the man freeing herself from his mind and carefully opened the door, peering into the hallway an eerie quiet overcame the base. Slowly Y/N snuck out and made her way to the hanger, hoping to be as inconspicuous as possible as she made her way through the twisting halls she tried to avoid eye contact with every officer she passed. The brotherhood wore fabric face masks that covered the majority of their face except for their eyes, staring into the eyes of the enemy was always more offputting than staring at a metallic mask. Y/N kept her eyes forward and tried to remain calm, she could feel her heart accelerate as she passed by two large men, one of them decorated with a dark red stripe across their chest, she knew he must be the general. “Hey, you!” The man called out. Y/N stopped and slowly turned around to face him. “Come here,” He signaled, hesitantly Y/N approached the general. He was far taller than she was, so much so that Y/N had to look up to make eye contact, his shoulders were broad and a crooked scar ran across his left eye, making him all the most intimidating. “Where’s your weapon soldier?” He asked Y/N panicked suddenly remembering the stunning baton she had left in the closet. She paused, “uhhh,” She began trying to lower her vocal range. “Speak up man, where is your weapon?” Y/N noticed the other soldier slowly unlatch his batton from his belt, they were on to her. “Uhh, on my way to get it, sir.” She replied. The man narrowed his eyes, “Present your identification,” He ordered. The man beside him flicked his baton on. “Sir?” Y/N asked, “Present your identification... soldier,” He repeated. The two men stepped towards Y/N and just when they were about to attack an alarm blared. “Prisoner out of cell, I repeat prisoner out of cell!” A voice sounded over the speakers. The two men turned towards Y/N, the girl paused before saying, “...shit.” 

Y/N took off in the opposite direction, the two men barreling after her, stunning batons armed and ready. “Prisoner over here!” one of the men shouted, panicking Y/N spun around and extended her arms, clenching the men’s throats she knocked them together before turning towards the hanger. Y/N could hear the stampede of boots behind her though she dare not turn around, as she passed a corner she reached out towards the large metal door and ripped it from its hinges, throwing it behind her. She turned a corner, the hanger in sight, she could see the ships now when suddenly a group of soldiers appeared, blocking the only entrance. “Halt, there’s nowhere to go, we have you now!” One of the guards said. Y/N smirked, “You underestimate me,” She replied pulling the mask off her face. “Big mistake,” And with that, she dug her heel into the ground and lunged towards the army, yanking their batons from their hands she crashed the weapons together sending an array of sparks flying through the air. Y/N leaped at the men parting the soldiers like the Red Sea she cleared a path towards the hanger. Y/N bolted into the large room and without any hesitation ran towards the first ship she saw, an old X-Wing painted in bright Red and White. Quickly she unlatched the top and slid in, not even taking the time to strap herself down before bringing the old ship to life. She stared at the foreign controls, suddenly wishing she had chosen a TIE Fighter instead. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” She whispered, “I can do this,” “Hey!” A blaster shot bounced off the cockpit’s canopy startling Y/N. She looked over to see a group of soldiers filing into the hanger and behind them, Argent. “Okay, no time to debate, we just gotta,” Y/N rapidly pressed familiar buttons. “GO!” Pulling back on the yoke the X-wing jolted forward, flipping a few more switched Y/N managed to get it off the ground and out of the hanger. Alarms blared as the ship shakily took off into the atmosphere, unsure of what to do Y/N randomly pressed a few buttons until the ship leveled out and the alarms ceased.Y/N turned around and watched as the planet grew smaller and smaller, no longer sensing Argent’s presence and surprised that she wasn’t being followed Y/N breathed out a sigh of relief. “Now,” She said, “To get to Naboo,” Carefully she punched in the coordinate of the planet and began her journey back. Feeling hopeful but also skeptical that her escape was too easy.

Kylo POV: 

The First Order’s fleets headed towards Naboo, although Kylo didn’t know where in the system the Brotherhood had taken his wife it was a start. The desert planet came into view, the fleet maintained their position in the atmosphere while Kylo took a few transporter shuttles down to the surface. The citizens of Theed watched nervously, huddling close together as the Supreme Leader stepped foot into the gorgeous city. Parents held their children close by and hurried away as the troopers lined the streets. The air was warm and vessels floated gently on the tranquil Solleu river. The floating city was paradise to those who lived there and unbeknownst was the evil that lurked within. Kylo ordered Hux to patrol the city with a squadron while he headed back towards the Lake County to search Varykino.” Be on the lookout for any members of the brotherhood, harm no civilians but if you see Graves... kill on sight.” The General nodded before turning and commanding his troopers and addressing the crowd. Kylo boarded his ship and headed towards Varykino, the same resort he and Y/N had been married at not too long ago. The paradise that once held happy memories now created a sour taste in Kylo’s mouth. Kylo landed his ship and began to explore the terrain, it was abandoned as it had been for many years despite the upkeeping it had undergone for the wedding. Dried flowers and melted candles peppered the dusty burnt ground. A tapestry lay ripped in two, covered in dark ash, once a place of beauty was now frozen in a terrible memory. The Pontifex’s body was gone, Kylo supposed that somebody had come by and discovered the grizzly scene, his blood however still stained the marble. As Kylo walked along to balcony, his fingers tracing the stone he paused, suddenly sensing a familiar presence, he turned around only to see a figure draped in loose red fabric, their face hidden by the large hood. It was the same uniform as the Brotherhood, Kylo instinctively grabbed his lightsaber, igniting it, his face illuminated by the red glow. 

Y/N POV

Y/N glided over the surface of Naboo completely satisfied with her ability to find the planet. She had decided to return for a myriad of reasons, to change her clothes into something less conspicuous, to find a new ship one the Brotherhood likely wasn’t tracking, and most importantly, she knew that if her husband was coming to find her the first place he’d check would be where he’d seen her last. She was just hoping her instinct was right. Landing the small X-Wing on Varykino Y/N managed to be unseen by pedestrians, she quickly exited the ship and headed towards the lodge her and Kylo had planned on staying in after the ceremony, hoping her belongings were still in her room. She was stopped however by the familiar sound of a ship landing, the vessel kicked up a storm of dust even from far away forcing Y/N to lift her hood over her eyes. Y/N quickly ducked behind her ship worried that the Brotherhood had followed her after all. As the dust settled she peered around the X-wing and gazed upon a small transported ship from the First Order. As the door opened Y/N as met with the familiar presence of her soulmate, he had found her. She watched, frozen in place from the overwhelming joy as he walked along the balcony where they had been wed, he was alone. Slowly she approached him, her heart pounding in her chest, he turned towards her, Y/N saw the pain in his eyes, she opened her mouth to speak but before she could he had ignited his lightsaber, rage overwhelming his being. Y/N paused, confused as he began to lunge towards her before she remembered what she was wearing. “Wait!” She cried as she removed her hood revealing her face. Kylo jolted to a stop the anger fading from his face and being replaced by sudden tears of joy. He extinguished his saber and dropped it to the ground, “Y/N,” He whispered, his breathing sporadic, the couple ran towards each other meeting halfway and melting into the other’s arms. The two began to cry, dropping to the ground in a heap, Y/N buried her face in the crook of her soulmate’s neck who had pulled her onto his lap and wrapped her in his arms, planting kisses on the top of her head, her face, her hands, her wrist, everywhere he could, overcome with joy. Y/N melted into the man, wrapping her arms around his neck, refusing to let go, sobbing into his uniform. After a moment she lifted her head and stared into his eyes, “I knew you’d find me,” She whispered before planting a kiss on his lips, “We found each other,” Kylo replied, “We will always find each other,” The two sat like that for a while, not as two separate people but as one couple, one soul, in total bliss, and so very unaware of the sounds from above indicating the impending ships growing closer and closer. 

END OF CHAPTER TWO!!

I always try to make everything as clear as possible but if you ever have any questions about my logic feel free to ask and I’ll explain it. 

So so sorry this took so long to publish, I’ve been very busy and will be very busy this week but I will try to knock out a few more chapters soon! I am hoping to maybe make a filler chapter that just explains the Palpatine Brotherhood and their background before we get more in-depth with this plot. I hope you enjoyed this let me know if you want more!! 

ALSO!!! I am taking requests for one-shots, imagines, etc... inbox me your requests I’ll be making a “rules” post so be on the lookout for that! I want to do some more writing so... let’s go. 

[shinydixon]

Vincent Bauer x Reader - Feeling You (ENDING 1)

eThis is ending number 1 of my fanfiction about Norman Reedus’ character in Air (2015)

Previous parts can be find on my Masterlist ♥

Warnings: angst,fluff,mention of sexual acts between Bauer and Reader, trigger warning for suicide.

ENDING 2: HERE

“How much time do we have?”

“Not enough love, not enough”

We were getting dressed after our passionate “rendez-vous” however that was easier said than done.

Bauer brought both of his muscolar arms around my waist, hugging me from behind and leaving little kisses on the back of my neck: “Vincent, c’mon!” I giggled, trying to free myself from his grasp.

He managed to turn me around into his embrance so I could see his grinning face.

“God...you’re so beautiful” he whispered, caressing my cheek with his right hand. I lean into his touch, smiling at him and enjoying his tender touch.

Our little moment was interrupted by Cartwright’s cries for help.

“Bauer! (Y/n)! I need help!”.

Both Bauer and me stared at each other with wide open eyes before rushing out the storage room.

When we finally reach the control room we find Cartwright trying to extinguish a fire which was quickly destroying his sleeping chamber.

“What the hell happened?” Bauer screamed at our coworker, however Cartwright was way too scared to answer.

Remembering that in the bathroom there were a fire extinguisher, I quickly run into the little restroom while Bauer was using a big wet rag, trying to contain the flames.

“Stay back!” 

Once both men get away, I try to extinguish the fire. It took sometime but finally the fire was gone,what once was  Cartwright’s sleeping chamber now was just an useless chamber full of ash.

“You said that everything was okay Bauer!” “Oh don’t put the blame on me now!”

Bauer went to take what was left of the protective film, a basic sleeping chambers’ component; without it the chamber is useless.

That’s when I notice blood coming out of his hand.

“Vincent you’re bleeding!” I rushed to him taking his hand so I could take a look.

“Fantastic, now how can I take care of myself?” he joked, moving his other hand up and down. Both me and Cartwright laughed at that: “Oh baby, I can always help you with that” I winked at him.

“Sure you will princess” he whispered, kissing my forehead.

Cartwright was taken aback from that: “Wait...are you guys a thing now?”. “You can bet on it” Bauer answered, making me blush.

We were too distracted about what happened to remember that we have  limited time. A beeping sound makes all of us turning toward the digital clock.

...1 minute...

“Oh fuck...what should we do now?” I say.

We have just two sleeping chambers for three people and in a minute there won’t be breathable air.

I start hyperventilate so Bauer rushed toward me.

“Don’t panic (Y/n)! You’ll go into your sleeping chamber, me and Cartwright will start the emergency program so we’ll have enough oxygen to find a replacement for his chamber”.

While explaining this he walk me to my chamber, making me lying down.

“no, I don’t want to leave you!”

“if we’ll have enough time, I’ll wake you up again okay?”.

He lean down, giving me a peck on the lips calming me. I finally let the film envelope my body, the last thing I see it’s Vincent smiling down at me, his lips forming three little words

“I love you”

 Smiling back at him, I let myself falling into a deep sleep.

ENDING 1 STARTS HERE, CLICK HERE FOR ENDING 2 --> X

Even into my forced sleep state, I couldn’t help being worry about the whole situation. My only wish was waking up and seeing Vincent’s blue eyes again. 

Suddenly I hear the chamber’s film retreating and finally I can wake up.

The first person I see is Cartwright, he has bloodshot eyes like he had cried a lot and a bullet wound onto his shoulder.

“oh my God what happened to you?!” I rushed toward him but he pushed me gently away, a sad expression on his face.

“Cartwright...how much time passed?”

“An hour since Bauer put you into your sleeping chamber...listen (Y/n)...something happened while you were asleep”.

A knot formed into my stomach, the fact that I didn’t see Vincent increased the bad feeling I had since I went to sleep.

“What? Where’s Bauer?”

“He...he get mad! Something happened while he tested the repaired chamber and he thought I wanted to kill him! I...I had to stop him”.

Tears started to stream out my eyes, what was he trying to say?

“Cartwright...what did you do?”

“He tried to shoot me...then he wanted to kill all the sleepers once he learn that one of them is my wife...”

Cartwright kept babbling, but my concern for Bauer was increasing. I didn’t even had a reaction when he confessed that one of the sleepers was his wife.

“...I had to kill him”.

“What?”  “He didn’t soffer...I gave him a shot of morphine”.

A loud sob escaped my mouth while sadness and anger grow into me.

“You killed him...” I whispered. “I’m really sorry...I didn’t want to” he took a step closer to me, trying to hug me.

“YOU KILLED HIM! HOW COULD YOU?HOW COULD YOU?” I screamed at him, starting to hit him everywhere I could reach.

He could easly stop me but he didn’t, he felt guilty, however I didn’t care because he took the man of my life away from me.

“Tell me where he is!” I menage to say between sobs. “Sleepers’ room...but what do you want to do?”

I didn’t answer him because once I knew Vincent’s location, I run toward it. My eyesight was blurred because of my tears but I kept running... I needed to see him with my own eyes.

Once I reach my destination I notice a lot of broken phials on the ground. Following the path I finally see him.

“Vincent...” I fell on my knees next to his body, crying louder than before. I reach for his body, taking him into my arms and crying onto his chest. I’ve never felt so much pain in my whole life, losing him was the worst thing could happen to me.

I raise my head and look at his face...he looked so calm, like he was sleeping.

I really hoped that he would wake up and throw one of his dirty joke or gave me a sweet kiss...but he didn’t.

While I was moving my legs, trying to get a comfortable position I hit something with my foot. Taking it up I read the tag: “Morphine”

I stare at it then at the man laying on my arms.

“Do you really want to stay alone as before? Are you ready to live in a new world without Bauer?”

I smile down at Vincent’s sleeping face, remembering all the time we spent together as friends and then as a couple. We have t been together for a little...however I already knew the answer.

“No...I can’t live without him..he was all I had”

I moved Vincent’s body toward the wall, moving him into a sitting position, then I take the little phial and a syringe that I’ve found near the broken bottles.

Letting out a long breath, I bring the syringe on my arm’s blood vessel after I found it.

I keep my eyes closed while I feel the content running into my body. Once I made sure that I’ve injected all the medicine, I sit next to Vincent, bringing his lifeless body against mine.

His head ended into my neck, while I gave him a last kiss on the top of his head.

“We’ll be together again”.

That’s my last thought before I close my eyes forever.

Please don’t kill me//hate me for this.

Forever taglist: @youandyourstupidrope

@chihuotheartist

@lunalowell

@weirdnewbie

@sithlordalice

@jodiereedus22

@derpypenguin

@maddybeck01

@reedusteinrambles

@captainblackjacq

[silencedrowns]

A Cosplayer’s Guide to Colored Contacts and Eye Safety (AKA How NOT To Fuck Up Your Eyes Forever)

I’m a cosplayer, I’ve worn contacts for almost 18 years, and I’ve seen so much horrifyingly dangerous behavior with colored contacts and general eye safety in the pursuit of our hobby that it makes me want to scream. I’ve ranted about this before on Twitter (and often) so I decided to make a megapost about it.

I AM NOT EXAGGERATING ABOUT FUCKING UP YOUR EYES FOREVER. I have seen people LOSE AN EYE or get permanent eye damage from unsafe behavior; I’ve also seen people carted off to the hospital over it. Colored contacts and heavy eye makeup can be entirely safe, but you have to know how to use and wear them properly! 

This post will be very long, but I encourage everyone who has an interest in colored lenses (especially circle lenses!) or cosplay makeup to read it. I don’t want you to lose an eye.

DO NOT USE CHUNKY GLITTER NEAR YOUR EYE. I’m putting this before the contact lens tips because this is the single most dangerous thing that I see people, even without contact lenses, doing on a regular basis. Glitter can scratch your eye or even puncture the cornea. If you don’t believe me, google “imgur glitter eye” for the multi-album story of a woman who LOST HER EYE from an accident with craft glitter while playing with her daughter.

SEE A GODDAMN EYE DOCTOR FIRST. Yes, even if you have 20/20 vision. Whether it’s from dry eyes or corneal abnormalities, not everyone can wear contacts. I myself am totally fine wearing regular contacts, but thanks to the shape of my eye, I run a risk of tearing off my goddamn cornea if I wear sclera (full eye) lenses. Now imagine if I hadn’t asked my optometrist first and wore them anyway... Yeah. In the USA, you can get fitted really inexpensively for colored lenses at Wal-Mart; say it’s for a costume and you’re good to go.

IF YOU CAN’T USE CONTACTS, DON’T USE CONTACTS. I wouldn’t think this would need to be said but I’ve seen people try to use contacts anyway because anime or something. You don’t need contacts for cosplay! People almost never used them back in the day. And if you really want your eyes to match, use Photoshop after the fact.

HYGIENE IS EVERYTHING. I’m going to keep coming back to this, but keep in mind: you CAN get infections in your eye, and if you aren’t careful, you will. Wash your hands before putting in contacts. Wash your hands before doing eye makeup. Wash your goddamn hands period. With VERY RARE exceptions (and 99% of them are if you are using blind-look mesh contacts), you always want to put the lenses in BEFORE you start in with your moisturizer/primer/makeup. Putting the lenses on afterwards means you’re extremely likely to get germs and makeup film on your lenses. Learn how to sanitize your makeup brushes and your pencil sharpener. DO NOT EVER share eye makeup with friends. Sanitize your personal eye makeup brushes (that only you use) weekly and sharpen your eye pencils with a clean sharpener before each use. If this seems like overkill just remember, if you contract pink eye, you will have to throw out all of your contacts and all of your eye makeup that you’ve used within a week before contracting it... that could be a LOT of money to throw away!

Contact solution is contact solution. Do not substitute anything else. You need to rinse your contact? Great! Use contact solution! I’ve seen people use things like tap water or saliva and that’s just asking for severe eye pain. The only acceptable substitute is contact lens safe eye drops, and even that is an emergency-only substitute that you should avoid using.

NEVER wear a lens straight from the vial. seriously, don’t fucking do this. The storage solution in contact lens vials is meant to hold the lenses shelf stable and safe for far longer than the time you can wear it safely, but it’s also really nasty to your eye. It can cause irritation and worse. Always take the lens from the vial, rinse it separately, and then let it soak in normal lens solution for at least eight hours/overnight before you wear it! (Lenses in daily blister packs are fine to put straight in your eye, though.)

When in doubt, throw it out. Yeah, I know contact lenses cost money. But seriously, your eye is worth more than any lens. Here’s a brief list of several times to throw the lens out:

when it’s expired (make sure you remember the expiration date by writing it on the bottom of your lens case with a sharpie and/or saving the purchase emails)

when the lens has dried out (I know it’s really tempting to pour more contact lens solution into the case and try to revive that potato chip lens, but trust me, that’s dangerous! see next two bullet point)

when the lens is visibly damaged (torn lenses are not fun to put in your eye)

when the lens is NOT visibly damaged, you’ve prepared it properly, but it hurts to put in your eye (not all tears are visible without some form of magnification but they’re just as capable of causing pain and/or corneal damage! Alternatively, you could have a defective lens.)

Be careful with your lens cases. Did you know lens cases can expire too? It’s true! Bacteria can accumulate in and around the lens case and that’s going to counteract all your effort to keep the lenses sterile and safe. Replace your lens case whenever it starts to look gunky. And be wary of the cute animal cases you get from most lens stores! You can use them (I do myself) but they’re more prone to leaks and/or evaporation than most other types, so you’ll need to make extra-sure you’re on top of changing the solution.

CHANGE YOUR SOLUTION. Once every two weeks for lenses you haven’t worn lately (take the lens out, rinse it, take out all the old lens solution, replace solution, put lens back in), and every single time you wear the lens. Storing your freshly worn lens in old solution is a great way to get bacteria on your lens. We don’t want that. Storing lenses for too long in the same solution can lead to the solution’s water evaporating and the salt staying, and anybody who’s ever put in an overly salty contact lens knows exactly the eye pain that will cause. Avoid this by changing your solution frequently!

Only buy colored contacts from reputable stores. And reputable ≠ well known! Pinky Paradise is very well known. They also shipped me multiple defective contacts so I stopped using them. Search for reviews of the store, both negative and positive. GEO lenses have a scratch-off anti-fake system that can be quite reassuring if you’re interested in trying a store without a ton of reviews.

Don’t wear colored contacts for too long. Yeah, I know. Anime cons. You’re really not supposed to wear colored lenses for more than ~6 hours at a time, but you can’t always stick to that at a convention. Still, make sure that you take out your lens when your eyes get tired! You can fix photos with the “wrong” eye color with image editing. Also see...

NEVER SLEEP IN YOUR CONTACTS WTF WHY PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS!!! This is one of the worst things you can do to your eyes. I accidentally fell asleep in contacts once, in middle school, and that was enough to convince me to never do it again; it is the most uncomfortable thing. But if knowing you’ll be waking up with your eyes in pain isn’t enough to convince you, please consider that extreme cases from people sleeping in contacts have lead to losing a cornea, parasites infesting the eye, or even loss of eye from eye damage! You don’t want this. Don’t sleep in colored contacts. Take them out before you party or when you start to feel tired.

Be wary of redness-reducing eyedrops. I know that they’re really nice; I have my own favorite drops and don’t go to conventions without them even! But there are three potential problems here: 1) not all redness relief eyedrops are safe for contacts and you risk destroying your contacts this way, 2) you risk masking eye damage with the numbing effect, and 3) overuse of redness relief drops can lead to a condition where blood vessels grow across your cornea. All of these are very bad.

JUST DON’T WEAR THE COLORED CONTACTS IF ANYTHING FEELS BAD!!! Your eye hurts when it goes in? Take it out! You feel like there’s dust in your eye? Take it out! Your eyes start hurting for any reason whatsoever? TAKE OUT THE GODDAMN CONTACTS!!!

AND NOW FOR SOME EXTREME DANGER.

DON’T FOLLOW ANY “DIY COLORED CONTACTS” TUTORIALS. You’d think people would realize not to do this, but I have seen tutorials for “DIY contacts” consisting of everything from soaking in food dye (NO!) to coloring them with a sharpie (WTF NO) to MAKING YOUR OWN HARD FULL-EYE CONTACTS WITH A SODA BOTTLE AND PAX PAINT (I AM SHRIEKING AT THE THOUGHT)!!! Don’t do any of this. It’s like you WANT to ruin your eyes. It’s the worst.

IT IS ALSO VERY DANGEROUS TO WEAR YOUR REGULAR CLEAR PRESCRIPTION CONTACTS AND THEN LAYER NONPRESCRIPTION COLOR ONES ON TOP. People used to try this A LOT around 10 years ago when it was harder to get color contacts in prescription. It was fucking dangerous then, and it’s fucking dangerous now. Don’t do it. Don’t even think it.

A VERY PARTIAL LIST OF HORRIBLE THINGS I HAVE SEEN PEOPLE DO FIRSTHAND AND YOU SHOULD NEVER DO ANY OF THESE:

share contact lenses (WTF WHY NO)

drop a contact lens on the public bathroom floor, pick it up, lick it, and stick it in their eye

buy a lens from a shady vendor on the con floor, struggle to put it in directly from the vial in the public bathroom, and start asking around if anybody has experience with putting contacts cause this is their absolute first time trying it

put in a contact lens that hurts, leave it in because they didn’t know any better, and wind up irritating their eye so much that they get sent to the ER

“this lens expired two years ago but I should be fine!”

use the bathroom, don’t wash their hands, put on makeup, still don’t wash their hands, put lens in

do I need to continue or are you all cringing enough yet

Contact lenses and extreme makeup can be perfectly safe to wear... the trick is knowing how to wear them safely. Be smart. Be safe. Treat your eyes with care. 

[ourartzoneblog-blog]

Marine Heads Blog: Salvaging Your Boat After a Hurricane Hits Hard

A Hurricane Doesn't Mean You Can't Salvage Your Boat

Raritan Engineering Company your marine heads experts would like to share with you these topics we thought would be of interest to you this month regarding how to salvage your boat after a hurricane hits hard.

With the remnants of Hurricane Florence now on the way out to sea and high waters still posing a threat in some regions, boat owners are starting recovery efforts. The BoatUS Marine Insurance Catastrophe Team began field operations on Sunday, Sept. 16, in the Carolinas. 

1. Get permission first. Your marine toilet specialists talk about how you never try to enter a storm-affected marina or boat storage facility without permission. Spilled fuel combined with the potential of downed electrical wires and a host of other hazards make them extremely dangerous places. Smoking is a big no-no. 

2. Remove valuables. If your boat has washed ashore, remove as much equipment as possible and move it to a safe place to protect it from looters and vandals.

3. Minimize further damage. Protect your boat from further water damage resulting from exposure to the weather. This could include covering it with a tarp or boarding up broken windows or hatches. As soon as possible, start drying out the boat, either by taking advantage of sunny weather or using electric air handlers. 

4. “Pickle” wet machinery. Engines and other machinery that were submerged or have gotten wet should be “pickled” by flushing with freshwater and then filled with diesel fuel or kerosene. 

5. Consult your insurance provider. If your boat is sunk or must be moved by a salvage company, BoatUS recommends that boat owners should not sign any salvage or wreck-removal contract without first getting approval from their insurance company. 

Your electric marine toilets distributors ask the question, “what kind of madman would intentionally pitch a perfectly good outboard engine over the side of his boat?” Yep, that would be me. But I haven't lost my mind, mechanical frustration hasn't made me go insane, and crazy thoughts haven't caused me to strand myself at sea. 

If your outboard gets submerged in salt water-whether it's because it jumped off the transom, your boat sank, or you got a bad case of butter-fingers while walking down the dock-you'll need to know how to get it up and running again, while also protecting it from an explosion of corrosion. The process is called “pickling.” 

Browse our selection of marine heads here at Raritan Engineering, where we only offer the best in marine sanitation supplies.

Motor M*A*S*H

Before giving my hapless horses the heave-ho, I've set up an emergency outboard operating center back at the house. No, most of us won't have the clairvoyance to do this before our engines get dunked, but we'll still need to start this process properly prepared-even if it means letting the engine soak longer than otherwise necessary. 

What should you do if you need to drive for an hour or more, to get your engine home? If at all possible, keep the motor submerged as you transport it. Depending on its size and weight you may be able to keep it in a large cooler filled with water, or some other form of make-shift tank. 

Start the process by showering the engine with fresh water. Don't worry about getting the components saturated-it's too late for that-just remember that a whole lot of freshwater in and on the engine is far better than a little bit of saltwater. 

Now, you need to get the water out of the rest of the engine. Remove the breather and the spark plug(s), and tilt the motor every which way you can to allow as much water as possible to escape. If your outboard is a four-stroke, this is also the time to drain off the oil and remove the oil filter.

The Big Flush

Now that you've washed away all the salt water and drained the engine of all fluids possible, you need to flush it out with diesel fuel. The diesel will displace any remaining water, and (hopefully) carry it all away. 

Once the engine is uber-filled, manually crank it over several times to distribute the diesel evenly throughout the cylinders. Then pull the plugs again, and let the diesel drain down. Replace the oil plug, put on a new filter, and then re-fill the engine oil.

Fine Brine

At this point, you can take a breath and slow down. You've done what's necessary to halt the corrosion, and the rest of the pickling process is a bit less time-sensitive. Your portable marine toilet suppliers talk about how you're not quite out of the woods yet.

Next, you're going to have to flush out all of the internal fuel lines. They may be just fine, but if a single drop of water got into them it'll lead to trouble. So disconnect them at both ends, flush them out into one of your buckets, and replace any in-line filters. If your engine has an internal fuel tank, drain and refill that, as well.

With the process completed on my Mariner, I waited a week to see if any internal corrosion would take hold, then cranked it over. Thankfully, it started and is still running strong today.

So don't forget these helpful tips when trying to salvage your boat after a hurricane hits. 1) Never try to enter a storm-affected marina or boat storage facility without permission;  2) if your boat has washed ashore, remove as much equipment as possible and move it to a safe place to protect it from looters and vandals;  and 3) engines and other machinery that were submerged or have gotten wet should be “pickled” by flushing with freshwater and then filled with diesel fuel or kerosene.

Amazing Moment Giant Grey Whale Plays With Boat And Its Passengers

Whales are pretty spectacular creatures, but usually best kept at something of a length.

After all, they're the largest animals on Earth and generally unconcerned about humans, so they can unwittingly throw their weight around. For this grey whale, however, there are no such problems with people – this one just wants to snug up and make friends. Watch the amazing video here.

It swims up right to the side of their vessel and allows the people to stroke it on its side, with one even leaning over and seeming to give the mega-mammal a little kiss.

They can grow to lengths just shy of 15 metres in length and weighs somewhere in the region of 36 tonnes, which is massive by anyone's standards.

Grey whales live predominantly in the northern Pacific Ocean, along the western coast of North America, though they also possess one of the widest migratory ranges of any animal on Earth and thus can be found across a huge swath of the Pacific Ocean.

Grey whales have been hunted by whalers – they only predators are humans and killer whales – although killing them is now broadly illegal.

Humans have also nearly eradicated the species from the eastern Pacific, where Japanese and Korean whalers have reduced their numbers to less than 200.

Whaling for grey whales is only allowed in very controlled circumstances and by aboriginal inhabitants of the North American Pacific Coast.

Alaska natives recently caused controversy by killing a grey whale under the impression that it was a Beluga whale, which they are allowed to kill

Buy a marine head here at Raritan Engineering, where we always take care of your marine sanitation needs.

via BoatUS: How to Recover Your Boat After a Hurricane

  via Outboard Overboard: Quick, Pickle It

via Amazing Moment Giant Grey Whale Plays With Boat And Its Passengers

[marineparts1-blog]

Marine Heads Blog: Salvaging Your Boat After a Hurricane Hits Hard

A Hurricane Doesn't Mean You Can't Salvage Your Boat

Raritan Engineering Company your marine heads experts would like to share with you these topics we thought would be of interest to you this month regarding how to salvage your boat after a hurricane hits hard.

With the remnants of Hurricane Florence now on the way out to sea and high waters still posing a threat in some regions, boat owners are starting recovery efforts. The BoatUS Marine Insurance Catastrophe Team began field operations on Sunday, Sept. 16, in the Carolinas. 

1. Get permission first. Your marine toilet specialists talk about how you never try to enter a storm-affected marina or boat storage facility without permission. Spilled fuel combined with the potential of downed electrical wires and a host of other hazards make them extremely dangerous places. Smoking is a big no-no. 

2. Remove valuables. If your boat has washed ashore, remove as much equipment as possible and move it to a safe place to protect it from looters and vandals.

3. Minimize further damage. Protect your boat from further water damage resulting from exposure to the weather. This could include covering it with a tarp or boarding up broken windows or hatches. As soon as possible, start drying out the boat, either by taking advantage of sunny weather or using electric air handlers. 

4. “Pickle” wet machinery. Engines and other machinery that were submerged or have gotten wet should be “pickled” by flushing with freshwater and then filled with diesel fuel or kerosene. 

5. Consult your insurance provider. If your boat is sunk or must be moved by a salvage company, BoatUS recommends that boat owners should not sign any salvage or wreck-removal contract without first getting approval from their insurance company. 

Your electric marine toilets distributors ask the question, "what kind of madman would intentionally pitch a perfectly good outboard engine over the side of his boat?" Yep, that would be me. But I haven't lost my mind, mechanical frustration hasn't made me go insane, and crazy thoughts haven't caused me to strand myself at sea. 

If your outboard gets submerged in salt water-whether it's because it jumped off the transom, your boat sank, or you got a bad case of butter-fingers while walking down the dock-you'll need to know how to get it up and running again, while also protecting it from an explosion of corrosion. The process is called “pickling." 

Browse our selection of marine heads here at Raritan Engineering, where we only offer the best in marine sanitation supplies. Motor M*A*S*H Before giving my hapless horses the heave-ho, I've set up an emergency outboard operating center back at the house. No, most of us won't have the clairvoyance to do this before our engines get dunked, but we'll still need to start this process properly prepared-even if it means letting the engine soak longer than otherwise necessary. 

What should you do if you need to drive for an hour or more, to get your engine home? If at all possible, keep the motor submerged as you transport it. Depending on its size and weight you may be able to keep it in a large cooler filled with water, or some other form of make-shift tank. 

Start the process by showering the engine with fresh water. Don't worry about getting the components saturated-it's too late for that-just remember that a whole lot of freshwater in and on the engine is far better than a little bit of saltwater.  Now, you need to get the water out of the rest of the engine. Remove the breather and the spark plug(s), and tilt the motor every which way you can to allow as much water as possible to escape. If your outboard is a four-stroke, this is also the time to drain off the oil and remove the oil filter. The Big Flush Now that you've washed away all the salt water and drained the engine of all fluids possible, you need to flush it out with diesel fuel. The diesel will displace any remaining water, and (hopefully) carry it all away. 

Once the engine is uber-filled, manually crank it over several times to distribute the diesel evenly throughout the cylinders. Then pull the plugs again, and let the diesel drain down. Replace the oil plug, put on a new filter, and then re-fill the engine oil.

Fine Brine At this point, you can take a breath and slow down. You've done what's necessary to halt the corrosion, and the rest of the pickling process is a bit less time-sensitive. Your portable marine toilet suppliers talk about how you're not quite out of the woods yet. Next, you're going to have to flush out all of the internal fuel lines. They may be just fine, but if a single drop of water got into them it'll lead to trouble. So disconnect them at both ends, flush them out into one of your buckets, and replace any in-line filters. If your engine has an internal fuel tank, drain and refill that, as well. With the process completed on my Mariner, I waited a week to see if any internal corrosion would take hold, then cranked it over. Thankfully, it started and is still running strong today.

So don't forget these helpful tips when trying to salvage your boat after a hurricane hits. 1) Never try to enter a storm-affected marina or boat storage facility without permission;  2) if your boat has washed ashore, remove as much equipment as possible and move it to a safe place to protect it from looters and vandals;  and 3) engines and other machinery that were submerged or have gotten wet should be “pickled” by flushing with freshwater and then filled with diesel fuel or kerosene.

Amazing Moment Giant Grey Whale Plays With Boat And Its Passengers

Whales are pretty spectacular creatures, but usually best kept at something of a length.

After all, they're the largest animals on Earth and generally unconcerned about humans, so they can unwittingly throw their weight around. For this grey whale, however, there are no such problems with people - this one just wants to snug up and make friends. Watch the amazing video here.

It swims up right to the side of their vessel and allows the people to stroke it on its side, with one even leaning over and seeming to give the mega-mammal a little kiss.

They can grow to lengths just shy of 15 metres in length and weighs somewhere in the region of 36 tonnes, which is massive by anyone's standards.

Grey whales live predominantly in the northern Pacific Ocean, along the western coast of North America, though they also possess one of the widest migratory ranges of any animal on Earth and thus can be found across a huge swath of the Pacific Ocean.

Grey whales have been hunted by whalers - they only predators are humans and killer whales - although killing them is now broadly illegal.

Humans have also nearly eradicated the species from the eastern Pacific, where Japanese and Korean whalers have reduced their numbers to less than 200.

Whaling for grey whales is only allowed in very controlled circumstances and by aboriginal inhabitants of the North American Pacific Coast.

Alaska natives recently caused controversy by killing a grey whale under the impression that it was a Beluga whale, which they are allowed to kill

Buy a marine head here at Raritan Engineering, where we always take care of your marine sanitation needs.

via BoatUS: How to Recover Your Boat After a Hurricane

  via Outboard Overboard: Quick, Pickle It

via Amazing Moment Giant Grey Whale Plays With Boat And Its Passengers

[carriecsun]

A Cosplayer’s Guide to Colored Contacts and Eye Safety

I’m a cosplayer, I’ve worn contacts for almost 18 years, and I’ve seen so much horrifyingly dangerous behavior with colored contacts and general eye safety in the pursuit of our hobby that it makes me want to scream. I’ve ranted about this before on Twitter (and often) so I decided to make a megapost about it. I AM NOT EXAGGERATING ABOUT FUCKING UP YOUR EYES FOREVER. I have seen people LOSE AN EYE or get permanent eye damage from unsafe behavior; I’ve also seen people carted off to the hospital over it. Colored contacts and heavy eye makeup can be entirely safe, but you have to know how to use and wear them properly! This post will be very long, but I encourage everyone who has an interest in colored lenses (especially circle lenses!) or cosplay makeup to read it. I don’t want you to lose an eye. DO NOT USE CHUNKY GLITTER NEAR YOUR EYE. I’m putting this before the contact lens tips because this is the single most dangerous thing that I see people, even without contact lenses, doing on a regular basis. Glitter can scratch your eye or even puncture the cornea. If you don’t believe me, google “imgur glitter eye” for the multi-album story of a woman who LOST HER EYE from an accident with craft glitter while playing with her daughter.

SEE A GODDAMN EYE DOCTOR FIRST. Yes, even if you have 20/20 vision. Whether it’s from dry eyes or corneal abnormalities, not everyone can wear contacts. I myself am totally fine wearing regular contacts, but thanks to the shape of my eye, I run a risk of tearing off my goddamn cornea if I wear sclera (full eye) lenses. Now imagine if I hadn’t asked my optometrist first and wore them anyway… Yeah. In the USA, you can get fitted really inexpensively for colored lenses at Wal-Mart; say it’s for a costume and you’re good to go. IF YOU CAN’T USE CONTACTS, DON’T USE CONTACTS. I wouldn’t think this would need to be said but I’ve seen people try to use contacts anyway because anime or something. You don’t need contacts for cosplay! People almost never used them back in the day. And if you really want your eyes to match, use Photoshop after the fact. HYGIENE IS EVERYTHING. I’m going to keep coming back to this, but keep in mind: you CAN get infections in your eye, and if you aren’t careful, you will. Wash your hands before putting in contacts. Wash your hands before doing eye makeup. Wash your goddamn hands period. With VERY RARE exceptions (and 99% of them are if you are using blind-look mesh contacts), you always want to put the lenses in BEFORE you start in with your moisturizer/primer/makeup. Putting the lenses on afterwards means you’re extremely likely to get germs and makeup film on your lenses. Learn how to sanitize your makeup brushes and your pencil sharpener. DO NOT EVER share eye makeup with friends. Sanitize your personal eye makeup brushes (that only you use) weekly and sharpen your eye pencils with a clean sharpener before each use. If this seems like overkill just remember, if you contract pink eye, you will have to throw out all of your contacts and all of your eye makeup that you’ve used within a week before contracting it… that could be a LOT of money to throw away! Contact solution is contact solution. Do not substitute anything else. You need to rinse your contact? Great! Use contact solution! I’ve seen people use things like tap water or saliva and that’s just asking for severe eye pain. The only acceptable substitute is contact lens safe eye drops, and even that is an emergency-only substitute that you should avoid using. NEVER wear a lens straight from the vial. seriously, don’t fucking do this. The storage solution in contact lens vials is meant to hold the lenses shelf stable and safe for far longer than the time you can wear it safely, but it’s also really nasty to your eye. It can cause irritation and worse. Always take the lens from the vial, rinse it separately, and then let it soak in normal lens solution for at least eight hours/overnight before you wear it! (Lenses in daily blister packs are fine to put straight in your eye, though.) When in doubt, throw it out. Yeah, I know contact lenses cost money. But seriously, your eye is worth more than any lens. Here’s a brief list of several times to throw the lens out: when it’s expired (make sure you remember the expiration date by writing it on the bottom of your lens case with a sharpie and/or saving the purchase emails) when the lens has dried out (I know it’s really tempting to pour more contact lens solution into the case and try to revive that potato chip lens, but trust me, that’s dangerous! see next two bullet point) when the lens is visibly damaged (torn lenses are not fun to put in your eye) when the lens is NOT visibly damaged, you’ve prepared it properly, but it hurts to put in your eye (not all tears are visible without some form of magnification but they’re just as capable of causing pain and/or corneal damage! Alternatively, you could have a defective lens.) Be careful with your lens cases. Did you know lens cases can expire too? It’s true! Bacteria can accumulate in and around the lens case and that’s going to counteract all your effort to keep the lenses sterile and safe. Replace your lens case whenever it starts to look gunky. And be wary of the cute animal cases you get from most lens stores! You can use them (I do myself) but they’re more prone to leaks and/or evaporation than most other types, so you’ll need to make extra-sure you’re on top of changing the solution. CHANGE YOUR SOLUTION. Once every two weeks for lenses you haven’t worn lately (take the lens out, rinse it, take out all the old lens solution, replace solution, put lens back in), and every single time you wear the lens. Storing your freshly worn lens in old solution is a great way to get bacteria on your lens. We don’t want that. Storing lenses for too long in the same solution can lead to the solution’s water evaporating and the salt staying, and anybody who’s ever put in an overly salty contact lens knows exactly the eye pain that will cause. Avoid this by changing your solution frequently! Only buy colored contacts from reputable stores. And reputable well known! Pinky Paradise is very well known. They also shipped me multiple defective contacts so I stopped using them. Search for reviews of the store, both negative and positive. GEO lenses have a scratch-off anti-fake system that can be quite reassuring if you’re interested in trying a store without a ton of reviews. Don’t wear colored contacts for too long. Yeah, I know. Anime cons. You’re really not supposed to wear colored lenses for more than ~6 hours at a time, but you can’t always stick to that at a convention. Still, make sure that you take out your lens when your eyes get tired! You can fix photos with the “wrong” eye color with image editing. Also see… NEVER SLEEP IN YOUR CONTACTS WTF WHY PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS!!! This is one of the worst things you can do to your eyes. I accidentally fell asleep in contacts once, in middle school, and that was enough to convince me to never do it again; it is the most uncomfortable thing. But if knowing you’ll be waking up with your eyes in pain isn’t enough to convince you, please consider that extreme cases from people sleeping in contacts have lead to losing a cornea, parasites infesting the eye, or even loss of eye from eye damage! You don’t want this. Don’t sleep in colored contacts. Take them out before you party or when you start to feel tired. Be wary of redness-reducing eyedrops. I know that they’re really nice; I have my own favorite drops and don’t go to conventions without them even! But there are three potential problems here: 1) not all redness relief eyedrops are safe for contacts and you risk destroying your contacts this way, 2) you risk masking eye damage with the numbing effect, and 3) overuse of redness relief drops can lead to a condition where blood vessels grow across your cornea. All of these are very bad. JUST DON’T WEAR THE COLORED CONTACTS IF ANYTHING FEELS BAD!!! Your eye hurts when it goes in? Take it out! You feel like there’s dust in your eye? Take it out! Your eyes start hurting for any reason whatsoever? TAKE OUT THE GODDAMN CONTACTS!!! AND NOW FOR SOME EXTREME DANGER. DON’T FOLLOW ANY “DIY COLORED CONTACTS” TUTORIALS. You’d think people would realize not to do this, but I have seen tutorials for “DIY contacts” consisting of everything from soaking in food dye (NO!) to coloring them with a sharpie (WTF NO) to MAKING YOUR OWN HARD FULL-EYE CONTACTS WITH A SODA BOTTLE AND PAX PAINT (I AM SHRIEKING AT THE THOUGHT)!!! Don’t do any of this. It’s like you WANT to ruin your eyes. It’s the worst. IT IS ALSO VERY DANGEROUS TO WEAR YOUR REGULAR CLEAR PRESCRIPTION CONTACTS AND THEN LAYER NONPRESCRIPTION COLOR ONES ON TOP. People used to try this A LOT around 10 years ago when it was harder to get color contacts in prescription. It was fucking dangerous then, and it’s fucking dangerous now. Don’t do it. Don’t even think it. A VERY PARTIAL LIST OF HORRIBLE THINGS I HAVE SEEN PEOPLE DO FIRSTHAND AND YOU SHOULD NEVER DO ANY OF THESE: Drop a contact lens on the public bathroom floor, pick it up, lick it, and stick it in their eye buy a lens from a shady vendor on the con floor, struggle to put it in directly from the vial in the public bathroom, and start asking around if anybody has experience with putting contacts cause this is their absolute first time trying it put in a contact lens that hurts, leave it in because they didn’t know any better, and wind up irritating their eye so much that they get sent to the “this lens expired two years ago but I should be fine!” use the bathroom, don’t wash their hands, put on makeup, still don’t wash their hands, put lens in do I need to continue or are you all cringing enough yet Contact lenses and extreme makeup can be perfectly safe to wear… the trick is knowing how to wear them safely. Be smart. Be safe. Treat your eyes with care. Original Source:http://silencedrowns.tumblr.com/post/156947721218/a-cosplayers-guide-to-colored-contacts-and-eye