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crystalninjaphoenix · 2 years

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Suit Up

A JSE Fanfic

SepticHeroes AU: Part 4

So this is the first part of this AU that doesn’t have a big fight/action scene in it, but hey, you have to pace yourself. Mostly, this part consists of Jackie realizing there might be something up with these weird strings from the last fight, getting a new suit, and meeting Schneep again because he’s worried his earlier injury has gotten bad again. Oh, also, I do talk more about Jackie being trans in this part, it’s actually a bit important. I’m not a trans guy myself, so if there’s anything inaccurate in my portrayal, please let me know so I can fix it :) Anyway, hope you guys enjoy ^-^

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On days like this, Jackie really wished he’d made his supersuit out of a lighter fabric. The thicker material it was currently composed of easily absorbed the heat of the sun, and left him sweating profusely. Hot days weren’t too common in the area, but they popped up occasionally, and every time they did he considered making a new outfit. One that was a bit thinner. But he could never decide to go all the way with that idea.

He’d been flying around the city for most of the afternoon, using the wind to keep cool, when he felt his phone vibrate. It was tucked into his boot—maybe not the best place for it, but he had limited options while wearing his suit, and he didn’t want to bring his backpack out today. Jackie stopped midair and pulled his leg to his chest, grabbing his phone from its semi-unsafe hiding spot. Chase had sent him a text: Hey do you want pizza for dinner?

Idk, we have pizza a lot, Jackie replied.

Well do you wanna cook? Cause Im working and I wont wanna after I get home.

Before Jackie could respond, he heard someone call out. “Windstorm! Hey, kid!”

Only a few people talked to him like that. Jackie glanced down at the street below, and saw a familiar face on the sidewalk, looking up at him. He waved, then dropped down to the ground, not quite landing and instead stopping a few inches above the pavement. “Hey, Ace. What’re you doing here?”

The detective folded his arms. He was out of uniform, wearing a button-up shirt and a trilby hat. “Waiting for you, actually.”

“Me?” Jackie repeated, surprised. “How’d you know I was gonna be here?”

“You fly down this street every time you go out to patrol,” Ace said casually.

“I do? Huh.” Jackie glanced around, noticing a nearby street sign. Wonder Avenue. That did sound familiar. “I didn’t realize. Should probably mix it up a bit.”

Ace made a noncommittal sound, neither agreeing or disagreeing. “So. You got accepted to the big leagues, then?”

Jackie brightened. “Yep! They told me right after I last saw you, actually. Remember that car chase with those guys in red ski masks?”

“Sure do. How’s it treating ya?”

“Good so far. It’s just a trial period, but it’s exciting, you know? I’ve been doing a couple tasks here and there since joining. Nothing much, just like, helping with their database records and reading some of the Super Laws in more detail. I really think they’ll send me on an actual mission soon, though!” Jackie grinned, then cleared his throat and resumed a more serious expression. “Anyway, did you want to talk to me about something?”

“Hm.” Ace leaned back against a lamp post, looking like he stepped out of a film noir. “Have you noticed the rising crime, lately?”

Jackie frowned. “Rising crime...I do feel like I’ve been doing more recently. A lot of, uh, robberies.”

“Unusual number of robberies, as well as random destruction,” Ace agreed. “It’s strange, huh? Well, I wanted to let you know something. We’ve caught some culprits. They’re all repeat offenders, been in for previous crimes. But a good chunk of them are saying the strangest things.”

“Like what?” Jackie asked.

Ace tilted his head back, peering at Jackie from under the brim of his hat. “They’re saying that they weren’t themselves during the crimes. That something was controlling them. A few even mentioned these weird strings, though there was no sign of these ‘strings’ anywhere. You know what this is about?”

Jackie dropped the last few inches to the ground. A sudden wave of cold overcame him. “I saw something like that,” he muttered.

“Oh?”

“Did you hear about the damage Glacier caused on Zeit Way last week?”

Ace nodded. “Yeah. You were there, weren’t you? But Glacier got away. Strange. I thought she was more of a burglar than a ‘destroy everything and grab the valuables in the chaos’ type of villain.”

“Right?! I was thinking that too while fighting her!” Jackie nodded. “It turns out, she had these weird strings on her wrists. They weren’t...normal. And after I got them off her, she went back to her old self, and told me not to touch them. She said that the destruction wasn’t her.”

Ace’s gaze sharpened. “That’s the same sort of thing these recent culprits are saying.” He paused. “What did these strings look like?”

“Uh, it was white. Thick as yarn, but not woven like yarn. They were sort of...stuck around her wrists. Not tied in a knot, just wrapped around them, but they didn’t want to come away when I pulled at them. Oh, also.” Jackie snapped his fingers a couple times, the sound muffled by his gloves. “They faded away soon after I got them off her wrists. It took some time, though. Maybe like...five to ten minutes.”

“That sounds about right,” Ace said, nodding. “The color changed with each account, but everything else matches up with what we’ve heard.”

“How did these villains say they got those strings?” Jackie asked.

“Most of them said they were jumped on the street, but some were called to a meeting for a possible job and ambushed there.”

“Job? What’s that mean?” Jackie was confused. “Like a heist?”

“Some of them. But some of these guys were henchmen.” Ace shrugged. “You know, the type who sell their services to big shot supervillains. When they get a gig working for one of these villains, it’s a job.”

“Ugh, right.” Jackie made a face. “Hate those guys. Very inconvenient. Luckily, the last time I dealt with henchmen was with Pathos, and he’s in jail now.”

“Luckily,” Ace repeated absentmindedly. “The point being, however they were approached, they were attacked by a stranger wearing black, and after this guy vanished, they said they had strings on their wrists.”

“God, I should’ve asked Glacier more about this,” Jackie muttered.

“So you don’t have anything else on these weird strings, then?” Ace asked.

“Nope. Sorry, man. Uh—I mean, detective.” Jackie shook his head. “But...this is going to be a problem. Can you...let me know if the police find anything?”

“Course,” Ace said. “Though you know, now that you’re part of the League, you have enough cred to drop by the station and ask for information.”

“Well, I’m not an official Hero yet,” Jackie pointed out. “You’re not required to give me anything.”

“Eh. That’s just a title. And the League is just an organization. But others put stock in it. Even if it’s not required yet, others who were a bit stingy before will trust ya a little more now.” Ace gave him a hard look. “Don’t be afraid to ask for help. That’s what we’re supposed to do.”

Jackie smiled. “Thanks, Ace. I’ll keep that in mind.”

His phone vibrated again, and he realized he’d been holding it loosely in his hand this whole time. Probably not the best idea. He glanced around, but luckily the few passerbys weren’t close enough to sneak a peek at his screen, and the cars were going too fast to notice. “Uh, ‘scuse me,” Jackie said, looking down at the screen. A new message from Chase read, You still there, bro? He looked back at Ace again. “Sorry, I gotta go.”

Ace nodded. “No, go on, kid. Good luck.”

Jackie nodded back, then took off into the air. He flew a little way down the street and turned a corner before stopping to rest on the edge of a roof. Sorry, something came up, he texted. Yea ill cook tonight, dont worry.

================

Later that night, Jackie was lying on his bed, listening to the police radio. He wasn’t planning on heading out again unless something urgent came up that the police couldn’t handle, but it was always a good practice to listen to the chatter. See what was going on in the city. After talking with Ace, he was paying a lot of attention to what crimes in particular were happening. Right now, the dispatcher was talking about someone causing chaos in the south part of the city by smashing up a bunch of windows. It reminded him of what Glacier was doing last week.

It was true, there was more destruction than usual recently. And he remembered a lot more robberies happening in the past month or so. Apparently a lot of the culprits claimed they weren’t in control. That there were these weird strings behind it all. What did this mean?

Was there a new villain in town? Jackie had never heard of a super with a power like this before. Mind control was not unheard of, and indeed, some of the most notorious villains could influence others’ thoughts. For example, Tenebros was a big-time villain still at large in the United States. They could make people susceptible to suggestions. Or Red Phantom—once you made a deal with him, you had to respond to his orders. But...strings? Were the strings the instruments of mind control, or were they just an indication of it?

Jackie shifted position, and winced. The movement had caused a sudden pain in his chest. That had been happening recently. What was it about? It reminded him of the time he broke his ribs as a teenager attempting to slow his fall for the first time. But he hadn’t broken his ribs recently. Maybe it was related to his injury a while ago from the fight with Spitfire Cat?

Ding!

Text notification. Jackie rolled over, first reaching for his regular phone, then remembering that was on silent and grabbing the Red Line instead. Sure enough, he saw a message from Leapfrog on the screen. Windstorm, how attached are you to your current supersuit?

Weird question. He responded, I guess pretty attached? I really like the design I’ve got going. Why?

We were thinking of sending you a new suit.

Jackie immediately sat up straight, turning off the police radio so he could concentrate on processing this new information. After what must have been a solid minute, he typed, A new suit? But I thought I wasn’t approved for much technology yet.

You’re not, but we can give you some basic upgrades. Do you have any suggestions?

“Holy shit, this is actually happening,” Jackie said to himself, a wide grin breaking over his face. He lifted off the bed in pure excitement and started hovering about a foot above the mattress. But he made sure to keep a calm tone of voice in his next message. I was thinking about that today, actually. If I could have a suit that was a bit more breathable, that would be great. Though it still needs to be streamlined for flying. And it needs to help me keep my, you know, figure. But keep the hood. I know it’s not that aerodynamic, but I really like the look of it. Also pockets. I need pockets or pouches or something.

A few seconds passed before Leapfrog replied, I think we can do that. Keep the design, change the materials. Can we add some bonuses to your mask, too? I understand it’s pretty basic now, we can give it some features.

Yeah of course! A suit with features?! That would be so cool! He’d heard all about the bonuses Heroes got in their LoH-made suits. Helmets to enhance mind powers, armor to protect you in a fight, retractable gloves for Heroes who had to use their hands—not to mention jetpacks. Well, that wouldn’t do much for Jackie, since he could already fly, but come on! Jetpacks! Those were cool in principle.

Great. We can send that over really quickly. It should only take about a week or so.

That quickly?! That was half as long as it took him to get clothes he ordered online. “Yes!” Jackie shouted, punching the air.

Unfortunately, that movement caused another spike of pain in his ribs, and he gasped, abruptly dropping back down to land on the bed. He might need to get that looked at. If it was related to the Spitfire Cat fight, maybe he could go see Chase’s doctor again, Schneep. He would know.

Jackie took a few more moments to adjust before replying again. Great! Looking forward to it. Then he set the Red Line down and laid back down on his bed. Even with the sudden rib pain, and the looming worry about those strange strings, he couldn’t keep a big grin off his face.

A new suit. An official League of Heroes suit. It was hard to believe it was real. But it was! And that was amazing.

================

The next few days passed agonizingly slowly as he waited for the new suit to arrive. His day job was a drag as he kept dwelling on what this suit might be like during work hours. He hoped they would meet his requests, but he tried not to get his hopes up. They told him he wasn’t approved for the big tech yet. But if it was able to keep him cool on hot days, he’d be satisfied. But at the same time, it would be really cool if he got something new...

At least patrol was able to distract him. Though that wasn’t always a good thing. After all, more action on patrol meant more crime taking place, and more innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire of said crime. His talk with Ace had made him really pay attention to the patterns and trends. He was right; the villains he was stopping now were being much more destructive than usual. One day, a pair of villains—not superpowered, but still wearing basic masks and costumes—broke into a jewelry shop in broad daylight by ramming their car through the front window. They then proceeded to smash up everything that wasn’t valuable before Jackie arrived on scene and they got into their car to flee. He flew after them, but lost their getaway vehicle as it went under a train overpass.

Every time he arrived at a crime scene, he tried to catch a glimpse of the villains’ wrists for any suspicious strings. Most of them were wearing gloves or long sleeves that hid their wrists, so he couldn’t get a good look until he caught them. None of them ever had strings...but, given how the strings had faded away after his encounter with Glacier, he was willing to bet the same thing was happening here. Especially since most of the criminals immediately started pleading as soon as they were caught—repeating that something was controlling them.

It was too much of a coincidence. There was no way all of them were making it up. He met Ace at the scene of the jewelry robbery and asked him to keep him updated on what the police found out after the fact.

On a different—but still serious—note, Jackie was having trouble breathing lately. And oftentimes this was accompanied by pain in his ribs. It ranged from a constant, dull presence to a sudden sharp flair, almost always after doing a lot of running and flying while out on patrol. It was really starting to worry him. The only possible cause he could think of was the injury from the fight with Spitfire Cat at that speech. So he asked Chase for Dr. Schneep’s number. It seemed like a good idea to get the same guy to look at the injury for a second time.

Jackie called him one day after work, while walking from the train station to the apartment. The phone rang for a while before finally being picked up. “Hello, this is Dr. Henrik von Schneeplestein,” said a distinctive accented voice.

“Um, hi Dr. Schneep,” Jackie said, a bit surprised by Schneep using his full name when answering what must have been his personal cell phone. “This is Jackie, Jackie Skye. I don’t know if you remember me, I’m Chase’s flatmate.”

“Oh yes, I remember you,” Schneep said. “You have also been talking with my cousin, yes?”

“Jameson? Yeah, we’ve been texting a bit. After that supervillain broke his shop window I happened to stop by and...yeah, we met and talked and stuff.”

“That is...ah, very nice. Really.” Schneep’s tone was a bit awkward, but genuine. “He needs people to talk to right now. Anyway, were you calling for something, or just to talk?”

“Right. Yeah, uh, you remember how we met because of that injury I got? Uh, I’ve been having, like, rib pain recently, and I’m worried it’s related.”

“Rib pain?” Schneep asked, concerned. “I suppose it could be possible. Hmm...I will make you an appointment with me. What is a good time for you?”

“Uh...I don’t know, afternoons usually. After three, that’s when I get off work.”

“Okay, okay...give me a minute.” The other end went silent for a bit as Schneep checked his schedule. “Okay. Can you make it at four tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow? Yeah, sure.” Jackie wasn’t expecting him to have an availability that soon.

“Do you remember how to get to the hospital?”

“Yeah, but I might not be as sure on how to get to your office.”

“Oh, do not worry about that. We have to use the exam rooms for appointments, anyway. Just ask for directions at the desk if the map does not make sense.”

Jackie nodded, despite knowing Schneep couldn’t see him. “Okay, got it. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“I will be seeing you, Jackie.”

The next day, Jackie spent a long day at work switching between excitement about the new suit and worry about the state of his body. He took the train to Greengate General, switching lines halfway through, and once inside the hospital he checked in with the nurse at the front desk and asked her where to go.

A few minutes later, Jackie was waiting in a typical hospital examination room, sitting in one of the plastic hospital chairs and idly looking at stuff on his phone. Mostly city news. Had to keep up with the local goings-on as a superhero. Soon, the door opened, and Jackie looked up to see Schneep walk in. “I am sorry about the delay, I got carried away with some business things,” he said, closing the door behind him.

“Oh, no, it’s fine.” Jackie put his phone away and stood up. “Uh...good to see you again. Thanks for making time for me.”

“Is no problem,” Schneep dismissed. He was wearing a white coat today, looking more like a typical doctor. “Now, you were saying you had rib pain?”

“Uh, yeah.” Jackie nodded. “Should I...? Do you need to do an X-ray or something?”

“Not yet, I want to ask some questions to clear things up.” Schneep also had a clipboard with some sort of form on it. He took a pen out of his pocket, ready to take notes. “You can sit down if you would like.”

“No thanks, I’ll stand.” Jackie bounced on his feet anxiously. “Shoot with the questions.”

“Okay.” Schneep nodded, scanning the form. “Is the pain localized, or is it all over your ribs?”

“Sort of all over, I guess.” Jackie vaguely gestured around his midsection where his ribs ended. “Also, I’ve been having trouble breathing.”

“I see.” Schneep made a few notes. “Is it present all the time?”

“No. Really only at, like, the end of the day. And when I—uh, work out at the gym.” Gym activity was probably equivalent to doing superhero things, right?

Schneep frowned. “Okay. Did it start recently?”

“I mean, relatively, I guess. Definitely after I got hurt at the speech that Spitfire Cat interrupted. I remember you said that his energy was also a bit solid, and there might be impact trauma, so I wondered if it was related.”

“That injury was only because of a graze, though, yes?” Schneep asked.

Jackie nodded. “Yeah. But maybe it was a closer graze than I thought.”

“That is a possibility.”

Schneep asked him a couple more questions about how the pain reacted when Jackie did this or that. When he finished, he clicked his pen closed and looked at Jackie. “Okay, I doubt your ribs are completely broken, you would be in a lot more pain and would not be able to walk around for long, let alone do exercise. But they could be bruised or fractured. Or it could be something else. We should do an X-ray.”

“Okay...like, now?” Jackie asked.

“Yes, now. The X-ray room is literally right down the hall and you are already here.” Schneep rolled his eyes, though Jackie didn’t think that gesture was directed at him.

“Is that...normal?” Jackie asked, still doubtful. “Because I’ve never been to a hospital that would allow that.”

“Well you went to shit hospitals, then.”

That got a laugh out of Jackie. “Okay, okay. Uh...will I have to take off my hoodie? Actually, no, I will anyway. It’s hot.” Sometimes he didn’t even know why he kept wearing hoodies all the time. He looked good in them, he supposed. “But what about my shirt?”

“As long as your shirt has no metal in it or anything else that would interfere, you can keep it on,” Schneep explained.

“Um...” Jackie hesitated. “What about...my, uh...what I wear under my shirt?”

Schneep glanced at him, his expression softening a bit. “You can say binder, Jackie, I am not bothered. And we will not tell anyone your medical details.”

“Oh great.” Jackie’s shoulders slumped in relief. “Sorry, I—I wasn’t sure if you—uh—”

“Jackie.” Schneep looked him straight in the eyes. “Let me be frank. I am bi. And I have good friends who are in the same boat as you. I have no problem with any of this, and honestly? If you ever have any doctors who do, tell me so I can take over your case and go punch that doctor in the face.”

Jackie laughed again. “Sorry. You probably know how it is, then.”

“I do, I do.” Schneep nodded. “But the same rules apply. As long as there is nothing metallic in the binder, you can wear it.”

“Huh. I don’t think there is.” Jackie considered this. “Yeah, I don’t think so. Unless there’s like, metal seams that make it tight.”

“I am sure there is no...” Schneep slowly trailed off. His eyes widened. “Jackie. Do you wear your binder all day?”

“Most of the day,” Jackie said.

“Give me a guess for the hours.”

“Uh...all through work and a lot of the time when I’m home so like...at least ten hours?” Probably more, honestly, but the way Schneep was looking at him made Jackie want to round down.

“Including when you exercise?”

“Yeah.” Jackie nodded. “Uh...why?”

Schneep dropped his clipboard and pen on the counter with a clatter. He then buried his face in both hands. “Ohhh mein Gott!” He groaned, voice muffled under his hands.

“Dr. Schneep? Are you okay?” Jackie asked.

A solid few seconds passed before Schneep lowered his hands. He walked up to Jackie and put both of them on his shoulders, gripping them tightly. “Jackie. Do not do that.”

“Huh?” Jackie blinked. “Oh, you mean wear it when exercising? I know, I shouldn’t do it, but—”

“Jackie! Do you not realize this?!” Schneep threw his arms in the air. “That chest pain is your own cause! You have probably bruised your ribs and all the rest of your insides at best! Wearing something that tight while exercising is the last thing you do!”

“Hey, what am I supposed to do?” Jackie protested. “I—I need to look—” He cut himself off. How was he supposed to explain everything? How when he originally thought up the Windstorm hero identity, he really, really wanted to be sure people knew he was a guy? How it was important to him that the public saw him that way, not only for his own self-esteem, but also because it was easy to hide his secret identity? After all, he was pretty open about his gender to people who knew him, but others might assume Windstorm was just born that way if he was clearly masculine.

“Oh. My. God, Jackie!” Schneep rubbed his eyes. “I understand, I really do, but—but holy shit. Do you want surgery? If you do, but cannot get it, I can help you pay—”

“No no no, you don’t have to do that,” Jackie hurried to say. “I can afford it, really, my mom is really supportive. But, like, if I do, it’ll take me like a week to recover, probably more, and I...I’ll be missing a whole bunch of stuff during that time period.” At this point in time, he was the city’s only hero. He couldn’t afford to miss a week or more. Even when injured in the past, he’d always managed to push through and go on some patrols. But he just knew surgery would make him stay home.

“You will miss all that stuff and more when you have to get emergency operations for all the damage you are slowly doing already!” Schneep pointed out. “They say in arts and building that you have to maintain equipment or it will break and force you to fix it eventually. The human body and mind is much the same! You are just hurting yourself even more long term!”

“I...you’re right,” Jackie said quietly. “You’re right. It’s just...I don’t want to...miss things I have to do.”

“You will miss it eventually,” Schneep warned.

“I get it. I...I really do.” Jackie paused. “Sorry.”

“Sorry?” Schneep looked at him, and then sighed. “You have nothing to apologize for. I really do understand. But for god’s sake, stop exercising in your binder. And take it off after eight hours. And if you want the surgery, get it sooner rather than later, so you do not continue doing damage.”

“Right. I’ll...I’ll look into it.” Jackie nodded. “So, do we still need to do that X-ray?”

“Oh, you are kidding me? Of course we do! Now more than ever. We still need to see what the damage is.” Schneep nodded towards the room’s door. “So. Down the hall.”

“Right,” Jackie said again. “Um...after you, I guess.”

The visit only lasted about an hour more: ten to take the X-rays, forty-five minutes for them to print, and five more for Schneep to rush to show them to Jackie and explain exactly what was causing the pain and shortness of breath. Turned out to be “bruised everything” after all, and apparently it was a miracle this hadn’t happened sooner, given how Jackie said he’d been “exercising” for a little under two years. Schneep gave him doctor’s orders to take a break for a little, and to not wear a binder when doing any strong physical activity anymore. Jackie promised to follow that advice, then headed out.

Well. It looked like he just had the rest of the week cleared. Maybe...maybe he should start looking in to the surgery. The rib pain had really shaken him, and he was starting to realize how right Schneep was. If his ribs were constantly hurting while out on the field fighting villains, he wouldn’t be able to work in top shape anymore. Villains might get away. Bystanders might be hurt. And that was the last thing he wanted. So, if not for himself, for everyone else, he had to do this.

And for himself, too. It would be really convenient to not worry about any of this and look amazing while doing all his hero stuff.

================

“Hey Jackie?”

Jackie paused his music and took off his headphones. He’d been making a sandwich for a late lunch when Chase said his name. “Yeah? Did you want one?” Jackie asked, turning to look at him standing in the hallway entrance.

“No, I’m good, they brought pizza to work,” Chase said.

“Hmm. You have a problem, man,” Jackie said. “I like pizza as much as the next person, but your blood must be 80% pepperoni by this point.”

“Hey, it wasn’t my fault this time. They brought free food, I wasn’t about to turn it down.” Chase laughed. “Anyway, I got an email from the building manager. He said you have a package downstairs.”

“A package?” Jackie straightened up. It was about a week after his text conversation with Leapfrog. Maybe...? “Oh sweet.” He dropped his sandwich-making supplies and headed straight for the door. “Be right back.”

“Take the elevator back up, apparently it’s kind of heavy,” Chase called as he left.

That statement was not an exaggeration. When Jackie went down to the mail room to pick up the nondescript cardboard box, he wasn’t expecting that heaviness. So it came as a surprise to him when he lifted it up by the attached handles and was greeted by a bowling ball’s worth of weight. He grunted in surprise and dropped it. Okay, better lift with the legs for this one. He crouched close to the ground, grabbed the handles again, and stood, heading over to the elevator. Yeah, he wasn’t about to take this up ten flights of stairs.

Opening the apartment door was a bit awkward, but luckily Chase heard him struggling and opened it for him. “Thanks,” Jackie breathed, walking inside.

“No problem,” Chase said, closing the door behind him. He glanced down at the package. “What did you get?”

“Uh, just some new gym supplies and stuff,” Jackie lied, briefly setting the box on the coffee table to catch his breath. “I don’t like to use the...the communal weights, y’know? Germs and shit.”

Chase raised an eyebrow. “I’d never thought of it that way. The manager wasn’t lying about it being heavy, then.”

“No, totally not a lie.” Jackie pressed a hand to his chest. His ribs were stinging in pain. Once again, he thought about Schneep telling him he was doing more long-term damage to himself. Every day proved him more and more right.“Do you want to try? Feel the weight?”

“Oh hell no, I can’t bend over normally, trying to lift something that heavy will break my spine,” Chase said, vigorously shaking his head. “Sorry, bro.”

“It’s okay, don’t worry about it.” Looking back down at the box, Jackie braced himself, then grabbed the handles and picked it up again. “I’ll just—just take this to my room.”

“I’ll get your door for you,” Chase offered, hurrying off ahead of Jackie.

A few minutes later, Jackie had the box sitting on the floor of his room, the door closed. Why was it so heavy, anyway? Well, time to find out. He grabbed a pair of scissors from a cup on his desk, knelt down on the floor, and used the blade to slice open the packing tape.

Opening the flaps of the box, Jackie was greeted by...a sheet of metal. He was confused for a second before he noticed the keypad and hinge. This wasn’t a box at all. Or, it was. But hidden beneath the layer of cardboard was a thick metal safe. That explained the weight. But it looked like it needed a passcode.

Jackie grabbed the Red Line from his dresser and sent a message to Leapfrog. Hey, I think I got the new suit! A metal box inside a cardboard box, right? Do you have the passcode?

Almost instantly, there was a response. Yes, that should be it. The code is 67458923. Tell me if you like the new features :)

“67458923,” Jackie repeated to himself, entering the code into the keypad. A green light flashed, accompanied by a mechanical clunk. He grabbed the edge of the safe door and swung it open.

The first thing he saw was a mask. Blue, with white lenses, almost exactly like the one he already had. But even at a glance, he could tell there were little differences. It looked thicker, the fabric sleeker. Once he picked it up, he felt a slight weight in his hand, and it wasn’t as flexible as he current one. Underneath the mask was a sheet of paper with the League of Heroes logo at the top. Jackie picked up the paper and quickly scanned it. They were instructions. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to call it a list of functions.

Once he’d read that over, he looked back at the new mask. He ran his fingers over the left side near the edge, and felt three near-hidden buttons under the fabric. Grinning, he put the new mask on. It settled perfectly on his face. Normally, his vision would be slightly tinged white from the lenses, but there was no noticeable difference with this one. Maybe a little darker, like sunglasses. He pressed the topmost button on the mask, and suddenly everything went green. He pressed the middle button, and the world became a jumble of red, yellow, green, and blue shapes. He pressed the bottom one, and things reverted to normal.

He was now equipped with night vision and infrared scanning.

“Holy shit,” he whispered to himself, grinning like a kid in a candy store. And this was just the mask!

The suit in the box looked pretty much identical to the one he was using now, but much like the mask, was sleeker. He could already tell how much this smooth fabric would cut down on air resistance when flying. But they kept the hood. It now had weights sewn along the edge to keep it from flapping so much in the wind, but it was still there. And the suit as a whole felt a lot heavier than ordinary fabric. It was thicker. After examining it for a while, he figured out it had a thin layer of armor, like a bulletproof vest. Well, not quite like that. It probably wouldn’t stop bullets, but it might stop a swipe with a knife, which was more than his current costume could do.

He had to try it on.

It took a bit longer to get on, probably because he wasn’t used to it yet. Other than that, it was surprisingly comfortable. Tight, but not uncomfortable. More like...snug. Like a heavy blanket. It was somewhat comforting. The belt worked the same as his last one, so no changes there. The gloves had some changes: notably, touchscreen pads on the fingers and not making his hands sweat as much. The boots were comfortable and supported his ankles, something he was glad for. He’d twisted his ankle several times in the past when landing. And, as he patted down the suit, he found it had pockets on the side.

“This is the best fucking thing that I own,” Jackie whispered, admiring at his reflection in his small desk mirror. Though...he wondered...

He took most of the costume off, made a small change, then looked back at his reflection, doing his best to get a view of his whole body. The small mirror could only do so much, but from what he could tell, there wasn’t much of a difference between him wearing his binder in this suit or not wearing it. “Witchcraft!” He gasped, then laughed. “Well, the doc will be happy about that.”

Wait, wasn’t he supposed to do something?

Oh right! He grabbed the Red Line again and sent another message to Leapfrog. This is perfect! I don’t know how you guys do it!

A minute passed, during which Jackie practiced jumping, hovering, and landing in the new suit. It all felt natural. Then, Leapfrog replied. I’m glad! It’s fairly basic given our usual standards, but once you’re a full Hero we can make you another one. If you want one, that is.

Honestly? Jackie was really happy with this supersuit. It met all his requirements and more. But who knew what the future held? We’ll see what happens when we get there. But this is really really good. Thank you!

Leapfrog started typing another message. The little thinking indicator stayed for a while before she finally sent it. Well, now that you have your new suit, we need you to do another task.

Of course. What do you want me to read this time? Jackie asked.

No reading, actually, Leapfrog replied. Something bigger, if you’re up for it.

Oh? Wait, maybe now that he had a new suit...he was finally going to see some action for the League? Trying to sound eager, but not excited, Jackie messaged, I’m always up for whatever! What is it?

Again, the thinking indicator stayed for a while, but this time the message was actually long enough to justify it. We’ve heard rumors that something will happen at the West SepTech location. Unconfirmed, but just in case, we’d like you to spend tomorrow night keeping an eye on the place for anything suspicious.

Something will happen? Like what? Jackie asked. Is this related to those new machines?

The Semi-Autonomous Machines? No, we don’t think so. But the rumors do say there might be a break-in and theft of some sort of technology they have in R&D there. Something about a villain who can hide easily. We’ll find out more. You might want to use your new night vision and infrared for this. If you’re up for it.

Tomorrow night? Yeah, no problem, Jackie said. He didn’t have anything else going on. Though if he was going to be out all night on stakeout, he might have to sneak out to avoid Chase asking him where he was going and when he’d be back.

Great! I’ll message you again tomorrow to tell you where to go and when to be there. You’ll be working with the SepTech security team, they’ll meet you.

Got it. Looking forward to it.

Jackie couldn’t stop smiling. They were asking him to do something more than read Super Laws and help with databases. They trusted him with a new supersuit. He was that much closer to becoming a real Hero! “Yes!” He pumped his fist in the air, jumping up and down a couple times.

Then, he heard a knocking sound from below. “Keep it quiet!” A woman’s voice said.

Oh. Right. He had downstairs neighbors. Jackie immediately stopped jumping, hovering in midair before gently lowering his feet to the ground. “Sorry!” he shouted at the floor.

He waited a few moments for another response, but got nothing. With jumping no longer an option, he picked up the pillow from his bed and hit it a couple times to let out the excited energy.

An actual mission! With a possible villain on the loose and a plot to stop. Who knew what technology they wanted or what they would do with it? It was up to him, the hero Windstorm, to foil their plans.

Well, maybe that was a bit corny. But the sentiment stood. He’d make full Hero before winter, he just knew it.

In his excitement about this, he forgot all about the more serious matters. Rib pain seemed far away, and those mysterious strings had completely slipped his mind. But both would return to the forefront of his concern sooner rather than later.

#jacksepticeye #jacksepticeye fanfiction #jacksepticegos #jacksepticeye au #septic egos #septic egos au #jackieboy man #dr schneeplestein #chase brody #brigid writes fanfiction #septicheroesau

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hankwritten · 2 years

Text

Windroses

Day 3 - Pen Pals Demoman/Spy, 1k

To any of you boyos still out there:

What’s a man got to do to hear from his mates every now and again? It’s been six months since the end of the robot wars and there hasn’t been a peep from not a one of you BLU sops! I really got to be the one to reach out? Bah, fine. It’s me, your beloved Demoman, trying to see how you all are, make sure you’re not dead without me watching your back. Making eight copies and scattering them to the wind, hoping at least some of the addresses I have are still good.

Don’t make a lad worry.

Demo

A Worried Lad

Don’t be offended if the others don’t reply: my information shows that none of them remained in New Mexico following the end of the wars, and likely didn’t leave alternate addresses. That being said I will do my best to forward the remaining copies. Our mutual friends are quite ostentatious, it probably won’t be too difficult to track them down.

Spy

Spy you old dog!

Of all the letters I expected to get, I never thought the only one would be you. That mail probably never even made it to the postman, did it? Ha! You saw something relating to BLU and thought ‘don’t mind if I do!’

What have you been up to these past few months? Personally I’ve been doing fuck all, and my Mum’s had about enough of it. I know I got the funds now to requisition any sort of tinkering materials, to hop on a flight and get a new demoman job anywhere I want, but I can’t find it in me to ditch this old place. I’d hoped reaching out to the team might jog my enthusiasm. So come on! Share some stories with your old mate.

Demo

My Old Mate

I assure you, there’s much easier ways to intercept mail than to stand outside your mailbox snickering and steepling my fingers together. In fact, most espionage is rather quite dull. That, and the fact that filling you in on my activities in an unencrypted letter would be extremely unsafe to my personage, means I do not actually have any ‘stories’ to share.

I am sorry if that comes off as harsh. I am having difficulty phrasing it in a way that makes it clear I am not opposed to continual correspondence, while still making it explicit that conversation on my end will be rather sparse.

The rest is up to your discretion.

Spy

Probably should have guessed that would be the case. How about instead of telling me what you’ve been up to, you tell me how you’ve been? I hope you’re looking out for yourself. Without me there, you’re probably constantly forgetting about your lactose intolerance, perpetually getting stomach cramps because eating stinky cheeses is a point of national pride for you or something. And wash that bloody mask! I swear, you’re worse than me at taking care of yourself, and sometimes the only reason I remember to shower these days is because Eyelander claims they can smell me even without a nose.

I did apply for a job today though. Small time thing, not mercenary work. Mum’s not thrilled, but at least it gets me out of the house. The initial gambit of these letters worked: thinking about you off on some marvelous adventure was just the kick in the pants I needed.

Demo

Odorous One

For the last time, I am not lactose intolerant. Cheese and I merely have a complicated relationship.

Unfortunately, my adventures have been far from marvelous lately. Without revealing too much about my movements, I will say that I am laying low for a little while recovering from an injury. It is nothing major, but backreading through your letters has lifted my spirits considerably, more than I ever thought it would when we began this correspondence.

It would please me greatly if you told me more about how you have been. What does this new job entail?

Spy

Tavish

I will be in Santa Fe two weeks from now. If it is not too forward, I have included a temporary phone number you may call, and we can arrange the exact details.

Spy

It was bloody good to see your face again. I tried calling the phone number again but got a disconnect, so I assume we’re back to letters only until we can meet back in person again. I hope you don’t mind me saying, but that day can’t come soon enough.

Until then, highlight of my week is settling down with a new letter of yours, getting filled in on all the sneaky glimpses that show what you’re actually feeling instead of that mask you put on. The metaphorical mask, not the literal one.

Happily Yours,

Tavish

I am sorry that those letters are the highlight of your week, for one because I am an atrocious pen pal and I pity your taste, and two because they will be ceasing for a period of time. I have accepted a mission that will put me deep undercover for a few months, and due to its perils I will not be able to send any messages in the meantime. This pains me more than I thought it would. I hope you will understand.

Fallen Far,

Marcel

When you said a few months I thought you meant three or four, then five rolled around I started to think ‘well he could have meant any number of months, right? If it was more than six months, he would have said.’ So at seven I’m breaking down.

If you’re alright, please let me know. I hate being so bloody worried all the time, when I’m not there, when I’m thinking of you facing all that alone. I know I’d be shit at spy work but at the same time I think to hell with it, and that when you left Santa Fe I should have just come with. It would have been easier to risk dying every day than to sit around wondering.

Please be alive Marcel. For the love of god. There’s so much I should have told you, in a time I’m starting to think of as ‘before’, when I was sure you’d see it, was sure you’d know.

Waiting,

Tavish

Marcel,

It’s probably foolish to keep sending these after all this time, but some part of me still hopes. I think you’re going to have such a nice little collection to read through once you bust out of whatever prison they’re keeping you in, escape that dark cave and come strolling out into the sunlight. I want you to know that you weren’t forgotten while you were gone. That I still thought of you every day.

Had eggs and toast for breakfast. Took the dog for a walk. They’re finally tearing down that foundry that’s been leaking lead into the water; for the best, but I’m still nostalgic for it sometimes.

However Long,

Tavish

#demospy #dnadvalentines2022

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butterflyinthewell · 4 years

Text

Important online safety message to minors.

I’m almost 40. I’ve seen some scary stuff online.

It’s a sad world that someone has to tell you to be more situationally aware of creeps, but I hope this advice helps you be safer online.

🗣

You don’t have to specify your age, but make sure it’s clearly known that you are a minor if an adult engages you online.

If it makes you more comfortable, you can put something on your profile like “I am a minor, 18+ please do not interact.” Add it to your posts too if you have room (it depends on the site). One unfortunate part of Web 2.0 social media is not everyone checks a profile before they retweet / reblog / share someone’s stuff.

If an adult keeps engaging with your stuff and you don’t want them to, it’s okay to block them.

Stay away from spaces adults have marked as nsfw, off-limits to minors or unsafe for minors. Chances are there is material in those spaces that you may not be ready for, or it will shock, offend, frighten, disgust and/or trigger you.

Some adults will pretend to be minors, and unfortunately I don’t know what kind of “tells” give away that they’re lying about their age, but I’m sure someone who knows more about that can reblog this and add that info.

Now, here’s what to do if a creepy adult starts creeping.

If their profile states they’re a MAP or NOMAP, block instantly. MAP / NOMAP means Minor Attracted Person / Non-Offending Minor Attracted Person. These people are pedophiles. Some of them identify themselves with the acronym PEAR or the pear emoji. 🍐 Be wary if you see this in someone’s profile info.

PEAR stands for Pro-Expression Anti-Repression. That’s something you apply to fiction, NOT reality. Fiction can be turned off, flicked off a screen, a book closed or otherwise disengaged from the moment someone doesn’t like it. Real life doesn’t work that way, and don’t trust anyone who claims it does.

It doesn’t matter if a MAP / NOMAP claims they’re getting “help” for their pedophilia or not, they should not be engaging you in any capacity.

If you engage them and discover they’re a MAP, disengage and block.

If an adult sends you anything that is sexually explicit, no matter the form, be it art, fanwork, videos, audio, roleplays, etc, screenshot it for evidence, block that person and tell someone you can trust.

Even nudity that is not sexual (this includes furry art with exposed genitals) should be treated as suspicious if an adult knows you’re a minor and still sends it to you despite being told you’re uncomfortable with it. They might be trying to desensitize you to the sight of nudity so they can show you more and more explicit stuff. Do as above; screenshot, block and report to someone you trust.

+ Part of the grooming process is the adult tries to reach you somewhere private, like DM’s or a messenger app and desensitize you to stimuli you would normally reject by exposing you little by little to it. Think of it as a twisted form of exposure therapy for phobias, but you don’t want this exposure. They want you to get curious and will up the ”intensity” of the explicit material.

The media itself existing is not the problem (unless the adult using it on you made it), the real problem is adult using it specifically to desensitize you into thinking that kind of stuff is okay in the real world. If an adult engages you, shows you media with questionable material in it and tries to tell you “see, it’s okay because it’s being done here” screenshot it, tell them fiction is not the real world and break off contact.

Most creeps stay hidden, so their blog may not contain a trace of anything weird, but when they engage you they send you all kinds of creepy adult stuff. An adult who is engaging you to groom you will use pretty much anything to try to make you think it’s normal and okay for them to do that to you. Remember always that it’s not. Remember the line between fiction and reality.

No adult should be sending a minor any pictures of naked people (or naked furry art with visible genitals) of any age no matter how innocent it seems!!!

If an adult sends you pictures or videos of themselves in their underwear, naked, showing their genitals or showing themselves doing sexually explicit stuff, screenshot the evidence, block them and report it to someone you trust.

If an adult asks you about sex toys or sends you info about them, that is really suspicious. Screencap, block and report to someone you trust.

If an adult asks you questions about your body, like what your hair ‘down there’ looks like, or how you’re developing, or if they ask if you touch your private parts, screenshot the evidence, block the adult and tell someone you trust.

If an adult asks you questions like “do you know what a (something sexual here) is?” or any questions that are sexually explicit or makes you uncomfortable, screenshot that crap, block them and tell someone you trust.

If you’re a creator and an adult tries to commission materials with nudity or sexually explicit stuff, refuse and tell them you’re a minor. If they persist, take screenshots, block them and tell someone you trust.

If an adult sends you violent or gory stuff and you don’t like it, demand that they stop and block them if they don’t. Screenshot anything they say if they keep doing it, and tell someone you trust.

If an adult demands you get on camera for them, do not do it. Screenshot the evidence, block them and tell someone you trust.

If an adult is threatening to reveal secrets you told them unless you do what they say(ie “send me a closeup of your private parts, or I’ll email all our chatlogs and your old naked photos to your whole school”). DON’T DO IT!! Screenshot the evidence, block them and tell someone you trust.

If an adult threatens to hurt themselves if you stop talking to them, stop talking to them anyway. This is especially true if they actually harm themselves and show you pictures or videos of it. That is a classic abuse tactic and it’s not your fault if they hurt themselves. Block them.

If an adult you blocked makes more accounts to keep contacting you, or starts showing up on other sites you visit trying to contact you, screenshot all the evidence and tell someone you trust.

If an adult (or anyone)tries to smear your name because you wouldn’t obey them, use any evidence you have against them in your defense and tell someone you trust about the situation.

If you run a blog talking about your abuse or experiences and an adult engages you to ask uncomfortable probing questions about the details of your trauma / abuse, be very suspicious and block them.

If an adult talks to you like you’re their special friend, or if they say you’re their very special friend, be very suspicious.

Acting like a sole source of kindness is one way an adult can groom a minor. They want you to feel like they are the only source of good that you can trust because they want you to gravitate more and more to them.

If you tell an adult you don’t like it when they swear while talking to you privately and they stop, but gradually start to do it again, be wary! An occasional oopsie slip or typo is one thing, but slipping in swear words when they know it makes you uncomfortable is suspicious. They may be testing your boundaries.

If an adult tries to set up an in person meeting, refuse it and talk to someone you trust about it.

If an adult (or anyone) tries to tell you that you should only trust them and nobody else, expects you to behave a certain way to be accepted, or if they act as if you’ve wronged them for trusting people other than them, that is a huge abuse warning sign. They are not safe to be around and you should break contact immediately.

If an adult compliments you in ways that makes you uncomfortable, break contact. A grown adult should not be telling a minor “you’re sexy” or “you’re hot.”

If an adult makes frequent comments about how mature and grown up they think you are, be suspicious.

If an adult learns you’re trans / non-binary and asks questions about your private parts or whether you plan to get surgery, be suspicious.

If an adult asks if you’re alone at home, say no even if you are.

If an adult asks if they can come visit you, say no.

If an adult asks for your phone number, don’t give it to them, no matter how nice or tempting they may be.

If an adult is making you uncomfortable in any way, it’s okay to block them and disengage.

Do not approach an adult with nsfw stuff you made. If they run across it in public on your blog that’s one thing. Sharing it with them in private can get both of you into trouble. Don’t do it.

🗣

Note: if you, a minor, did any of the above because you didn’t know better at the time, know that you are not a bad person. No adult should take advantage of your youth or innocence to hurt you.

🗣

To adults out there:

Do not approach minors with anything sexually explicit!!! This should not need to be said.

If you send something and find out they’re a minor after the fact, apologize and don’t do it again. If you think it’s proper to avoid any more private contact, do that. If you think breaking all contact period is proper, do that.

Make sure minors know you are over 18, whether it’s somewhere on your profile or tacked onto your posts. Something like “over 18, minors DNI” is helpful. I personally have my year of birth (1980) on my profile because that’s easier than changing a number every year.

You can’t prevent minors who fake their age to see naughty stuff from engaging with your stuff, but you can make it clear that you will not engage them back. And do not engage them. In fact, if you’re worried about that, block them when you discover them.

Private conversations with minors is okay, but make sure you tell them you’re not comfortable talking about something if they mention something sexually explicit. Even if it’s fandom related stuff, keep the conversation away from anything more than talking about characters dating or kissing or whatever.

If something you ship has an underage character, do not talk about it in private with a minor, not even if the character is aged up to adulthood.

Got nsfw stuff on your blog? Tag it that way.

I use “n s f w post” for stuff I want to show up in other related tags, “nsfw post” for reblogs, and “nudity” for nonsexual nudity like mermaids with bare chests or artistic nudes. Those tags are specifically for minors to blacklist or mute. (I don’t usually reblog nsfw artwork, but sometimes I post nsfw fanfics, create nsfw text posts or reblog nsfw text posts / fanfic. If I feel it’s nsfw, I tag it such even if most people don’t think it’s nsfw.)

If it’s fanfiction, I make sure the rating is listed and that it’s nsfw, and I try to warn for triggers as best I can.

If your blog or website features a lot of adult or violent content, mark it 18+ and tell minors to not interact.

If a minor approaches you and tells you a harmless secret, fine, keep it secret. You, the adult, should never approach a minor and tell them you will keep their secrets.

If a minor is expressing a desire to harm themselves or someone else, don’t keep that secret. Tell them to talk to someone they trust irl or put them in contact with a hotline or website where they can get help. Be supportive in talking them down from immediate harm, but do not become their therapist. (It’s tempting, you see a kid in trouble and want to help, but always be careful!)

If a minor tells you they’re being abused by an adult in their life, put them in contact a website or phone number where they can seek help. Be supportive and listen, but don’t become their therapist.

If you run a role play blog, state explicitly that you will not engage in nsfw rps with minors.

If you’re roleplaying with a minor and the story takes a nsfw turn, tell the minor you will not role play a sex scene with them no matter how much they want to. Either fade it to black with a time skip or bail out of the rp.

I say this because I forgot the age of someone I was rping with on AIM a long long loooong time ago and it got explicit, and they got in trouble with their parents for it. Their parents contacted me on AIM without their teen’s knowledge and reamed me out so hard I was scared for weeks. They were right to do so! I told them they were right, apologized profusely and swore to never rp with or speak to their teen on AIM ever again, and they agreed to those terms. I kept that promise. Any contact with that former rp partner was done in public, such as via deviantart comments or LiveJournal comments. It was a major learning experience for me and it stuck because this happened almost 20 years ago.

As an autistic adult I feel more like a kid with all kinds of adult knowledge and privileges (ie can gamble, drink, visit adult places) that most kids don’t have. I relate more to people who are younger than me, but that doesn’t give me the right to assume their level of knowledge or lived experience is equal to mine.

What I’m trying to say is always be aware of the age of the person you’re rping or speaking with!

Do not commission sexually explicit or violent stuff from creators who are minors.

Do not engage with a minor who sends you sexually explicit stuff. Tell them that’s inappropriate or you’re not comfortable with getting that from them.

It’s okay to agree with a minor that an adult celebrity or character they have a crush on is attractive or whatever, but if the celebrity / character is a minor or the minor talks about wanting to have sex with that character / celebrity, tell them that’s not an appropriate topic of conversation because of your ages.

This also applies to them sharing fanworks with you depicting explicit nsfw stuff. Deflect them and tell them it’s not appropriate due to your ages.

Do not ask minor for personal info like their school, phone number or address.

Don’t do any video chats with a minor unless they’re family or it’s a group thing like a Zoom event.

‼️ TAG YOUR STUFF APPOPRIATELY!! YES, EVEN STUFF YOU RESHARE!!

‼️ USE APPROPRIATE WARNINGS!! YES, EVEN STUFF YOU RESHARE!!

#online safety #grooming #abuse #safety #predatory behavior #antis #anti antis #pro shipping #purity culture #fanpol #online grooming #online predators #internet safety #internet grooming #web 2.0 #psa #signal boost #important #MAPS and minors should not interact because its too risky

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mycupoffanfiction · 4 years

Text

Hidden Feelings

Coco Cruz x Reader (smut)

Summary: Coco returns to his best friend when he needs some patching up, only for it to bring hidden feelings to light.

Warnings: Cleaning wounds, blood (not loads of detail), soft Coco, face sitting, oral (both receiving), choking, sex.

Word count: Approx 2700

Masterlist

A/N: Hi my loves! I really hope this didn’t come out too OOC for Coco 🙈 I’m a little nervous! This is my first time writing for him, so please let me know if there’s anything on his character I can improve. I kind of automatically went with it being soft since I feel like Coco would be sweet when he opens up to someone. Anyway, I hope you enjoy! 💖

You knew by now that sometimes it was best not to ask questions. You might have been silent, but Coco could see the emotions in your features, under the surface, perhaps louder than words could even express. He could see the worry in your eyes. He knew it hurt you when he arrived at your house in need of patching up, the scrapes and cuts, the bruises, the blood.

But it was part of what came with his lifestyle and you understood that, you never turned or pushed him away after seeing your best and closest friend like that and you never judged him for what he did. Of course, he could go to the club and the boys would patch him up, but coming to you meant he got to rest for a while. It meant he got to be with you for a little bit and Coco was comfortable with you, enough to let his walls come down.

You wiped a piece of cotton, soaked with medical alcohol over a cut, making Coco close his eyes and breathe in sharply. “Sorry.” You whispered, his wince pulling you from your thoughts. “No, corazon. M’sorry.” Coco sighed, shaking his head. Swallowing heavily, you gently worked the cotton against the dried blood on his forearm. “What for?” You asked quietly as you grabbed a new piece of cotton and soaked it in alcohol. “Puttin’ this on you.” Coco replied, making you shake your head, looking up at him with doe eyes from your position on the floor in front of him. “No, no apologies, Johnny.” And he sighed, deep brown eyes meeting yours, knowing that he couldn’t argue, not when you said his name so sweetly and looked at him like that.

Coco felt bad for coming to you, but he knew he could trust you, he had trusted you for years. It had been nearly three in the morning when he turned up and scared the life out of you when he let himself in with your spare key. Normally he’d call you to let you know he was coming, but his phone was wrecked and you wondered what on earth he’d been involved in to get him into the state he had turned up in.

Moving up his arm, you gently tugged at his kutte and pulled the armless leather jacket off him, folding it and laying it carefully on the back of the couch. “Holy fuck, Coco.” You gasped, seeing the extent of the blood that had soaked into his shirt and you became visibly saddened, this looked much worse than previous visits for some patching up and Coco knew it. “Some of it ain’t mine.” He said softly, trying to take some of the edge off the shock, but he knew it was useless by the way your eyes filled with worry. Tears threatened to spill and you blinked them back, but Coco had seen how shaken you were.

“You sure you don’t want me to call for help?” You asked, voice wobbling a little. Coco was about to respond with his usual nonchalant casualness, but he knew you needed some reassurance. “Got all the help I need righ’ here.” He smirked at you, his fingers gently brushing against your cheek, butterflies fluttering in your chest as you looked away from him and focussed entirely on trying to finish cleaning him up.

If you were completely honest with yourself, you had it bad for Coco. You always had, since the day you had met him. It has started as a somewhat unlikely friendship, but it didn’t make it mean any less and sometimes the lines between best friends and something more were slightly blurred. Barely there touches, lingering looks, sweet words exchanged here and there and the pet names he’d give you. Coco definitely had a strong reputation running with the Mayans, along with his history in the marines and a difficult family past, but somehow around you, he had found something peaceful and grounding.

Underneath the temper and the cold looks was a man with a sweet, gentle heart, whether he liked to admit it or not and the fact you saw that in him made you one of his most favoured people to turn to, to open up to. “Wha’s on your mind, huh?” Coco broke the silence and you looked up at him as you pulled his damaged shirt up to inspect the bruising and the gash on his side that he had managed, for the most part to stop bleeding with a piece of his shirt sleeve. “Just worried about you.” You told him, glancing up at Coco before gently peeling away the material he had used to secure his wound. It hurt a little, but he didn’t let it show.

He knew that your answer wasn’t entirely what was on your mind and he paused for a second as you began to gently clean up around the gash, brows pinched together as you concentrated, eyes swimming with worry. “That ain’t all, is it corazon?” He asked quietly, using the name affectionately and you stilled your movements, looking up at the Mayan with a soft expression, full of so many unspoken feelings, so many unsaid words. “No, but there’s better times to talk about that than when I’m cleaning blood off you, Coco.” You replied, barely above a whisper, the words almost caught in your throat.

It wasn’t long before you were finished with helping Coco get cleaned up and by the time you had bandaged up all of his cuts, stitched up and dressed the gash on his side, the sky was lightening a little as dawn broke. “You should get some sleep, Coco.” You told him as you gathered up your medical supplies, but he gripped your wrist gently, looking up at you as you stood before him. “Stay with me?” He asked softly. After a moment, you nodded with a sweet smile, quickly putting down the supplies and sitting down beside him, pulling your knees up as you glanced over at the biker.

“There’s somethin’ in your eyes, tellin’ me you got somethin’ to say chica.” Coco said, the words tugging at your nerves, pushing at each wall you had put up to stop yourself from showing the feelings that hid beneath the surface. You hadn’t hidden your feelings to protect yourself from him or his reputation, you knew Coco, you loved him, but you had put them up in fear of being pushed away, in fear of being told that he was unsafe for you to be around or that he simply didn’t feel the same way about you.

You tensed slightly next to him, though you relaxed slightly as he brushed his fingers over the back of your hand. He knew something was there, perhaps he had known for a long time that you had hidden feelings or maybe your sleepy state when he had arrived had betrayed your usual hidden front.

“Johnny, I-.” You cut yourself off, looking nervously up at him, getting caught in the warmth of his eyes. Coco gently trailed his fingers up your bare arm, a slight shiver rushing over your skin at his careful touch. He hummed at you, prompting you to continue as his fingers smoothed over your neck and came to rest on your cheek, the backs of his fingers brushing so gently against your soft skin.

You tried to get the words out, but your voice failed as you made your attempt. Coco’s touch was making your heart race and you felt an intense warmth billow up through you to your neck. Suddenly, it felt like showing him what you meant to convey was easier than relying on words. Slowly, you leaned towards him, eyes focusing on his lips before you met his gaze again and Coco smirked at you, drawing closer to you, his fingers curling around to support the nape of your neck while his thumb gently caressed your cheek. Your lips brushed against his and you paused for a second, breaths mingling until Coco tugged you closer, his lips capturing you in a slow, sweet kiss.

You melted into him, letting Coco take the lead as you followed, lips moving shyly against his. A low hum vibrated through him, sending a gentle shiver through you as you trailed your fingers over his bare chest, coming to rest on his shoulders. His tongue met yours with a gentle, warm touch that made you sink even further into him and Coco guided you closer so that you were straddling his lap, careful not to touch any of his wounds.

Parting from you slowly, the Mayan looked up at you as you sat in his lap, your eyes softening as the unsaid secrets became clearer, even if you didn’t say it out loud. “Fuck, baby, I need you.” He murmured against your lips, the words brushing softly against your skin, making you feel like you were dreaming. “D’you want me, querida?” Coco asked and it practically floored you, the way he spoke so lowly, his voice dragging through you and you whimpered. “I- fuck yes, Coco. I want you, I need you, I always have.” It came out as a whisper, turning into a soft gasp as his fingers slid up your sides, dipping below the hem of your shirt, pressing gently against your warm skin.

Soft, open mouthed kisses pressed against your neck, drawing you further into his grasp as he hummed against you. “Take this off, lemme see you, chiquita.” Coco’s words were hot and gentle against your skin as he tugged at the hem of your top. Slowly, you pulled the fabric over your head and let it fall to the floor, leaving your chest bare for Coco. “Fuck, you’re gorgeous.” He grunted out, rolling his hips impatiently into yours, tugging a soft mewl of pleasure from you.

“You always takin’ good care of me, lemme make you feel good, baby.” Coco whispered heavily, his hot breath against your ear as he began to kiss down your neck, warm fingers grazing against the curve of your chest, teasing your nipple between his fingers as he leaned down to close his lips around the other. Tilting your head back, you rocked against his hardened length, his jeans straining hard against it as he matched your movements.

“Lemme taste you, pretty girl, please?” Coco asked, looking up to meet your gaze, waiting for your response and your lips fell open. “God- please Coco.” It came out as a whine and the Mayan shared a look of smug satisfaction at your need for him. But really, he felt the same for you and he wanted nothing more than to feel and love every inch of you.

Coco laid down on the couch, beckoning you over to him, to sit above him. “C’mere, nena.” He spoke softly, helping you to slide your underwear off. Carefully, you rested your knees on either side of his head, Coco gripping your hips and pulling you down to meet his lips. His tongue slid through your folds and circled around your clit, making you moan out loudly. “Does that feel good, huh?” He hummed against your clit, the vibration sending waves of pleasure through you and you whined out a yes, Coco.

He teased you, bringing his lips around your clit as he circled the bud quickly, bringing you closer to your release. His fingers parted your folds while he focused his tongue on your clit, listening to your breathing pick up as he toyed with you, pulling your hips even closer to him. “I got you, let go for me, baby.” He hummed against you, his tongue moving lightly against your sensitive skin. Circling once, twice more and you toppled over the edge, his name falling from your lips as your release hit you.

He worked you through your pleasure, the want for each other hanging heavily in the air between you as you slowly pulled away, desperate for more of him.

“Take what's yours, querida.” Coco said, looking up at you through hooded eyes, shamelessly licking his lips of all you had to offer him. Slowly, you unbuttoned his jeans and Coco shifted uncomfortably, silently telling you to hurry up. Tugging off his jeans and underwear, you audibly moaned, leaning in to lick a stripe up from the back to the tip. Coco shivered, groaning in pleasure as you took him into your mouth and began to work him, your tongue flattening against him.

“Fuck, chiquita, lemme feel you.” He groaned, gently lifting your chin off his length with his fingers. The way you looked at him, drank him in like he was the only thing you needed, because in truth, he was the only thing you needed. You climbed over him so that you straddled the biker, a love filled, hazy look crossing your features as you sank down onto his cock, your eyes rolling in pleasure, lips parting and the want for you, the need in Coco only increased at the soft, gentle moan it pulled from you.

“Coco-.”

“That's it, baby.” He groaned, his hips thrusting up to meet yours with every movement, Coco bringing his hands down to your hips, guiding you along his length, fingers dipping into your soft skin as he brought you up and slammed his length back into you with a sinful groan on his lips. You might have been on top because of his injuries, but Coco was still in control and you loved it.

“Y’gonna cum for me again, huh?” He asked, feeling you squeeze around his length, your walls fluttering around him as he worked you towards your second orgasm. “M’gonna make you cum.” He grunted. Raising the arm that was the least hurt, he curled his fingers gently around your neck, Coco asked so gently if it was okay, a stark contrast to the sinful words and encouragement that had been on his lips a moment ago. “Yes, fuck yes, Coco.” You managed to gasp out, his fingers tightening on either side of your neck with a gentle firmness as his thrusts met your core.

The pressure from his hand made you feel hazy, a new warmth spreading through you. Jolting slightly, you felt a calloused thumb gently press against your sensitive clit, teasing you and circling in quick, tiny strokes. Coco basked in the desperate whines and gasps that came from you, edging him closer to his release. “Let go, I got you, mi amor.” He murmured to you, the sweet words reaching you through the heavy haze, pulling you down, down until you toppled over the edge. “Coco.” It came out as a gasp, an airy whisper as he worked you through your orgasm.

His name on your lips was enough to bring him closer, following close behind and he came with a low, heavy groan, his head leaning back in pleasure, panting heavily as you drew as much out of him as you could, a blissful shiver rising through the Mayan.

Slowly, you lowered yourself to rest against Coco, the sun now higher above the horizon, the warm early morning sun streaming through the gaps in the curtains, casting a soft, gentle light on you both.

Coco held you tightly against him, his lips pressing kisses to your forehead, his hands wandering your bare skin. He had wanted to tell you for so long how he felt, but Coco had been afraid that you would be scared to be with someone like him. There was so much he had done that he didn’t want to expose you to, but it didn’t matter what came with him, the past, the present and what came after, what mattered was that you loved him, beyond what lay on the surface and you brought him the happiness and peace he never thought he’d find in someone.

He hummed softly, noticing as you traced one of his chest tattoos with your fingers. “I love you, always have.” Coco murmured softly to you, sleep beginning to take over. He felt you squeeze him gently, so not to hurt him and you shyly looked up at the biker with a soft, bright smile. “I love you too.”

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lovee-infected · 4 years

Note

Congrats on finishing exams! I thought of a one-shot request that'll hug you in fluff. In TW, the end of his lab SR has Ortho almost begging Silver to let him use his body's features more and test things, essentially just wanting to play doctor. What about a cute situation with a reader (fem/neutral) who lets him play and poke around to try things out so he can make more use out of it? (Sorry if it's strange, just thought it sounded adorable ^^)

This took me a while to write since I had to translate Ortho's stories to get to know him better

I added some Idia condiment to it to so Ortho will be motivated to use his abilities to help his brother ♥

Someone like you

♦♥♠♣

"Okay , what are we gonna do now ?" you asked with a motivational tone , hiding your great nervousness . You were given the permission to keep Ortho for only an afternoon . Idia seemed pretty unsafe about letting you have him but since Ortho insisted , he gave up : " Be back by the sunset , okay ?" . Ortho has told you how shy and unstable his brother would be if he gets in a face-to-face conversation , so you tried to patch the whole thing up by phone . Honestly he seemed a bit strict on phone but you caught the yes , anyways , under some conditions of course : "No running , stay away from water , don't get into any arguments , avoid unnecessary interactions ," Idia had ruled . You promised to take your best care of Ortho but he didn't seem quite satisfied ; he probably just agreed because of Ortho .

Ortho didn't seem as cheerful as always and that worried you . He was drowning in his own thoughts that didn't recognize what you asked , making you repeat your question to pull him out of his daydreamings . Ortho then dropped his head and gave away a hum sound , probably thinking of something to do . He frowned a little putting a finger under his chin as if he was trying to remember something . "(y/n) ? " he asked , his voice filled with pain . " Yes ?" you answered , wondering if he's gonna talk about what was bothering him .

" My brother has been struggling with his studies a lot lately , he's a real genius , but he keeps on skipping classes and missing lessons , that's a worry . He was even close to getting kicked out of Mr. Crewel's classes for the rest of the year since he missed almost all classes this month , and now he isn't allowed to return to classes until he comes up with aj satisfying project or disquisition that changes Mr. Crewel's mind..."

Your eyes widened a bit at his words , it was this serious ? You knew that Idia was socially awkward for real but to fail him classes because of it...that wasn't something you would have expected .

" I'm so sorry to hear that , is there anything I can do ? " you asked , hoping there to be a way to help . Ortho nodded : " Yes please , I want to put my brother out of this obstacle and... need your help ," he crooned , eyes filled with pain now . You couldn't take him being this sad , that was the total opposite of what you brought him out for . "I'd try my best Ortho , let's save Idia ," you said holding his hand and giving him your best smile . " (y/n)... let's make my brother the best disquisition ever ! something that Crewel couldn't resist ," he declared , now with a hyped tone that proved how determined he was. You gave him a dried up smile while thinking of something to say . One one hand you didn't really know what might satisfy Crewel but on the other you couldn't say no to him , not that you motivated him yourself . " It's great Ortho but , since Ignihyde's the most high-tech dorm isn't it supposed to have the best and greatest scientific researches as well ? I mean comparing to them , my knowledge is pretty scanty ; wouldn't it be better if Idia himself does it ?" Ortho shook his head as a no : "He worked on plenty of great projects , from the history of magic to the rarest formulas of the strongest portions , but Crewel rejected each and every of them . He told brother that he lacked something that cannot be found through internet , that he needed something coming from outside of his room ,"

"I see..." you mumbled . " He most likely wants him to do his investigation out of the computers , to do it by being in direct contact with his environment , " you continued . Crewel really did want him to prove that he can get out of his room you thought , seemed a bit unfair but wise. Ortho now seemed to be really inspired by your words , he hadn't thought of Crewel actually having a purpose under his ask . He thought that the main problem was with his brother's researches not being good enough . " If that's why , then we can do it right now for him ! We already have whatever we might need for a great research and so he would no longer be rejected from his classses ! "

♦♥♠♣

" Plants...? " you asked , pretty unsure if this was going to help . It's true that Crewel wasn't looking for a strong yet totally online essay but it didn't enusre him liking one about flowers grown in Night raven college itself either . " Yes , flowers would be a perfect case since they're grown outdoors , just as Mr. Crewel wanted ! Also if we collect samples from them he can no longer claim that all those information were found through the internet , a real success ! " Ortho seemed pretty confident about his idea , but you couldn't let him do anything if that was going to be useless : " True , but doesn't he know everything about all plants here already ? After all they're all pretty exposed to anyone passing ," you said , but Ortho disagreed : " I've donemy research with that , Night raven's thousand-year old history had been through plenty of ups and downs , some rare species which are long extincted out there , remained here from decades ago , which proves that there are pretty worthy plants left here that Crewel would die to know about ; he would do anything to add new species to his collection . Also , it was only mentioned that Night Raven college has at least more than 250 unique plant species , which means that there isn't even any sure number or limit to them , that would be amazing , (y/n) ! No one has ever thought of doing it before ! We would be the first ones !"

You didn't know if that was a good idea or not , but you had to admit that you were impressed . This college surely did keep tons of mysteries within and you couldn't find any of them without a bit of risking .

" Fine Ortho , I'll take care of it then ," you said , preparing yourself for a long journey : " First , we'll try to collect samples from each specie that we see , then schedule each and every of them , submit details into a chart and finally , check the data with a reliable source to identify each and every of them , that would make a high-key strong disquisition ! " you told Ortho , making him nod happily and give you a tight hug : " Thank s (y/n) ! You're the best ! "

You hugged him back and then decided to start : Okay , first we need to get some small bottles , like the ones used in lab to keep magical materials , we shall go get so-" you couldn't continue as Ortho murmured : " Probe mode- open the toolbox " Suddenly three slides around his waist moved away and shelves filled with forceps , flacons , medicinal alcohol and tweezers , along with anything necessary for a professional sampler came out . You couldn't help but to be amazed , you didn't expect him to be this equipped .

" Seems like brother had optimized me to be in charge of investigations as well , he hadn't mentioned many of them before ," he giggled , fascinated himself facing how well prepared he was . " Wait , I guess we don't have to collect samples one by one , just as you said , Crewel already knows plenty of them . Let's just collect special ones ," he said before making strange sounds again : " Automated analysis -activate! - goal: identification of rare species -" He continued to make strange sounds as he analyzed the whole area , his body bizarrely moving on it's own and making weird sounds which each specie being identified : Primorose-sweet pea-Red valerian- borage-bluebells- woodruff-...

After about 5 minutes of analysis , his system got a new notification : " Error - Unknown-or-unrecognizable specie , located in five-o'clock position in a radius of five kilometers to south ," You two quickly went to the location as you were addressed , finding a small bush with a single blue-purple flower . Ortho gasped at the sight : "This is Eris's Orchid ! My brother had told me about them before ! These were told to be a symbol of bad luck back in my hometown , but brother said notto believe any of those words and that they were totally harmless . These flowers extincted in my hometown before my brother was born , I'd only seen old pictures of it . Brother will love this ! " Ortho's mechanical arms carefully picked the flower and placed it into a flacon and closed it . Ortho re-prepared his analysis sensors and said : " Okay ! One collected , way to go ! "

♦♥♠♣

Idia was stressed out , the two of you had to be back hours ago . Did something bad happen ? Could it bd that Ortho had problems with his gears again ? Where were you ? How could he find you now !?

" Brotheeeeeeeeeeeeer !! " Ortho's call for Idia broke the silence loudly before kicking the door open with his rocket leg and wrecking it .

"Ortho , I'd told you not to wreck the door with your- waaa aah- ! " he led out a terrified scrram as he saw the huge board the two of you were holding by hand . " Sorrrry it took so long ! (y/n) suggested we finish sticking everything before we could've lost any of them so we did ! Hope that nothing is missing ," he said , putting the board slowly down so it wouldn't get any damaged . "Wha-what is this ??" Idia asks with his eyes wide open . "Your alchemy project , brother ! Mr Crewel wanted you to give something that required direct contact with nature , so here you go ! Best project ever ! " Ortho explained happily . You could see the light shimmering into his eyes , a light that proved how excited and happy he now was ; just as you wished him to be

Idia was at a loss of words , staring at the board with his mouth open as if he wanted to say something , but no sound came out . His eyes run all over the huge board ; fascinated and shocked at the same time : "Y-you...you two did really did discover more than 100 of ancient species !? My- many of these were considered to be long ago extincted - even the Eris's Orchid ! " Idia replied . He had studied Night Raven being rich in Biodiversity , but this was far greater than his expectations , specially now that he saw you two finding them .

You were relived to see him appreciating your work , even though he was expressing it in a pretty odd way : " So...Idia , you think that's good enough ?" you asked . Idia slowly raised his head and stared at the ground , still too shy to make an eye contact with you : "It's... perfect ," Idia mumbled shyly . Ortho led out a happy shout as he saw his brother satisfied . He quickly jumped into his embrace and hugs him , making Idia lose balance . "O- ORTHO- NO-," Idia shouted before they both fell to the ground . You gasped at the sight : "My god , you two alright !? "

You helped them both stand up and then , it was Idia's turn to speak : " Th-thank you . Both of you . I couldn't imagine someone going out of their way to do such a thing for me..."

"No," you cut him off . You turned toward Ortho and bowed down a bit to be at the same height as him : "It wasn't me , it was all because of Ortho . It was his idea to look for forgotten species and study them , he was the one who could find them using his analytical power and his studies and well-updated datas enabled us to identify each of them , he is really amazing ," Ortho gazed upon you with his eyes filled with disbelief . "I know, " Idia agreed . "Ortho is special and surely way greater than many out there , including me . But he still has hundreds of undetected abilities , which are unknown to even me . Because of someone like you , he discovered more of his abilities and grow even greater , right Ortho ? " Idia asked . Ortho nodded and then , gave you a really tight hug : " Thank you (y/n) , you are wonderful . Because of you my brother now won't get in trouble and I am now more equipped and mighty to be there for him , you are the best ,"

You held your tears of joy back from falling , knowing that they may bring pain to Ortho since he didn't know how to cry . Even Idia now was smiling at you , he seemed a lot more comfortable with you now ; just as he was with Ortho . Your heart as well drowned in joy as you saw Ortho the way you wished him to be : Happy

#twst #twisted wonderland #twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #Ignihyde #ignihyde x reader #Ortho Shroud #Idia Shroud #Ortho Shroud x reader #Idia Shroud x reader #twst fluff #fluff #twisted wonderland imagines #twst Imagines #disney twst #disney twisted wonderland #twst fics #twisted wonderland fics

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missmentelle · 4 years

Note

Advice for college students now taking classes online? Study tips, helping to stay focused/motivated, etc? i hope you're healthy and doing well in nyc rn :)

I know that this is something on a lot of students’ minds right now - a lot of you are probably in online classes at the moment, and most of you probably didn’t get much advice for how to make the transition from in-person to online on short notice. Luckily, there are some things you can do to make this easier for yourself, and keep yourself focused even in these strange circumstances:

Make yourself a “classroom”. Have a space in your bedroom, apartment or house that is dedicated to schoolwork, and nothing except schoolwork, and log into your classes from there every day. This doesn’t have to by anything fancy - a desk in your bedroom, a corner of the kitchen table, part of the dining room table, etc, will do. Try to find a spot where you have good lighting, a comfortable chair and enough space to put your laptop or tablet and spread out whatever books and materials you need for class. Also try to choose a place where you won’t be disturbed; if you have family members that spend a lot of time in the kitchen, a desk in your bedroom might be a better choice. Set up a permanent station where you have everything you need, and do all of your studying there - physically compartmentalizing a “study space” in your home can help you get into “school mode” more easily.

Don’t study in your bed. If it’s at all possible, don’t work on schoolwork or watch video lectures in bed. Not only are you more likely to fall asleep while you’re working, but doing this teaches your brain that “bed” is a place for studying and academic work, which can make it harder for you to “turn your brain off” and fall asleep at night. Keeping school and sleep/recreation/TV watching physically separate activities is important for maintaining your focus.

Minimize your distractions. If you are watching a lecture on a video call, the only things that should be open on your device are the video call and whatever note-taking app you use. Everything else - social media, web browsing, videos - needs to be closed. Put your phone on “do not disturb” mode and put it in a drawer or out of your reach so you are not tempted to look at it. Shut your pets out of your room if you can, let others in your household know that you are not to be disturbed, and put on headphones to minimize any outside noise. With online classes, you don’t have the pressure of “my professor will be annoyed with me if I’m on my phone in class instead of paying attention” to keep you on-task, and so you need to be extra vigilant about blocking out distractions.

Treat your online classes like you would a real class. “Attend” every scheduled lecture. Be on time and ready to learn. Do the readings on time and participate in class discussions. Don’t schedule other activities or calls during your class time, and do your best not to oversleep. It can be easy to stop taking your classes seriously once they’ve changed from in-person lectures to video calls, so it’s important that you stay conscientious of that and make a serious effort to treat your classes just like you would if you were still on campus.

Communicate with your professor, and let them know if you are struggling or in need of extra help. The online classes most of you are taking right now are not typical online classes - they were thrown together at the last minute by professors who never expected to have to teach in this format. Frankly, everyone is just winging it right now. It’s possible that you will find your online classes disorganized, confusing or hard to follow, and if that’s the case, it’s vital that you speak up. If you aren’t sure whether old deadlines and guidelines from your syllabus still apply, don’t make assumptions - ask. If isolation is getting to you mentally, or if you have been forced to quarantine in an unsafe environment that it making it hard for you to focus, let your professor know. Your professors are human, and they understand that you might need extra accommodations or assistance to make it through your courses. We are living in extraordinary times, and sometimes extraordinary accommodations can be made for people who need them. Most professors are eager to do whatever they can to help their students, but they won’t know you need that extra assistance unless you tell them.

Keep using whatever study techniques were getting you through your regular courses, stay in touch with friends, and go easy on yourself - this is not an easy thing to go through, and having college and school stress on top of everything else is tough. Do the best you can, and forgive yourself if this isn’t your best semester ever. We’re all just trying to get through this and come out the other side. Best of luck to you!Miss Mentelle

#AnsweredByMM #Anonymous

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latexturkey61 · 3 years

Text

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Why Is Melanotan Illegal In The Uk?

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This is because MT1 is a weak stimulant of melanin in humans. Therefore, a greater dosage of MT1 is supposedly taken to attain comparable results. Dosages for MT2 are reported to range between 0.3 mg daily to 1mg per day butcaution is required as people might react differently as well as there is no other way of recognizing the precise strength of the product as it has been generated illicitly. One of the most typical method for Melanotan to be provided as a white lyophilised powder, in multi dose vials, which need dilution in the house. The diluents should be sterilized 'water for injection' or 'bacteriostatic water' and the liquified remedy stored in a refrigerator. Melanotan I is a straight, full length peptide, whilst Melanotan II is a shortened version. Both Melanotan and also Melanotan II promote a tanning effect; nevertheless there seem to be extra negative effects reported by customers of MT II, especially the enhanced sex drive and spontaneous erections.

The medication is utilized therapeutically in female-to-male gender reassignment andhormone replacement therapyfor men. The advantage for the individual lies in much less constant shots (typically when every 3-4 weeks). There are no known present healing uses in human beings for this medicine. Boldenone undecylenate is an injectableveterinarysteroid that exhibits stronganabolicand moderatelyandrogenicproperties. The undecylenateesterextends the task of the medicine significantly, to ensure that shots require to be duplicated only when every 3 or 4 weeks. A reliable dosage for physique-or performance-enhancing objectives usually falls in the variety of mg each week, considered 6 to 8 weeks. As here’s of the short-acting nature ofacetateesters, the total week's dose is partitioned into 2-3 smaller applications.

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It does have concentrated citronella, which is estrogenic, so do not utilize it frequently. Splashing garments is one point but beware regarding spraying artificial chemicals on your skin. Regardless of the spitting, I'm persuaded people still ingest too much fluoride with standard tooth paste. Also, the inflammatory substance "carrageenan" is present in a lot of and carrageenan can irritate your periodontals similar to SLS, so I avoid this and also suggest you do too. My book, Estrogeneration, has actually aided influence legislators to outlawconventional sun blocks in many locations having coral reefs.

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It obstructs the action of oestrogen that may make sure kinds of bust cancer worse. Those explore insulin would, therefore, be important to constantly stay awake throughout of the medication's impact, and additionally avoid utilizing insulin in the early night to ensure the medication will not be inadvertently energetic when retiring for the night. Intermediate-acting, long-acting, and biphasic insulins are made for subcutaneous injection.

Intramuscular injection will cause the medicine to be released also rapidly, potentially causing hypoglycaemia. read more to subcutaneous shot, the shot site must be left alone and also not massaged, to avoid the medicine from launching right into flow also swiftly.

Can you freeze Melanotan 2?

Tip 1 - Upon receiving the Melanotan 2 in powder form those vials which you don't mix with bacteriostatic water should be immediately placed in a freezer. Poland Melanotan online for this is the frozen powder last for several months before it begins to degrade.

DNP is just one of one of the most questionable medicines in use by body builders. This representative is not cost human usage throughout the world at this time, however is readily available as an industrial chemical. Among other points, it is made use of as an intermediary for the manufacturing of certain dyes, for photographic advancement, as a fungicide, in wood pressure-treatment to prevent decaying, and also as a pesticide. Although fairly incongruous with this listing of strong industrial/chemical usages, this chemical was marketed during the period of patent medication as a diet drug for people.

Early recommending standards for testosterone propionate required a variety of therapeutic uses. It was mostly applied to situations of male androgen deficiency, and also those concerns usually surrounding reduced testosterone degrees such as minimized libido and impotence in grownups, as well as cryptorchidism in teens and young people. Throughout the years these wide guidelines were narrowed by the UNITED STATE Food & Drug Administration, nonetheless, as well as by the 1980's, testosterone propionate was being greatly used only to male individuals. Testosterone cypionate is rarely utilized with women in medical medication.

They have fertility-destroyingchemicals like oxybenzone (also known as "benzophenone-3"). As well as did you see the 2019 study they finally did on sun block? " Plasma focus got to the [FDA's very own restriction] threshold within 2 hours after a single application as well as exceeded 20 ng/mL on day 7 [the limit is 0.5 ng/mL]" Alternatives !? Oddly, nonetheless, despite having +20% zinc, I have found that some significant brand names with extraordinary ingredient lists simply did not work for me - even with 30 minute reapplications. I've tested concerning 10 brands, one on each arm, throughout fishing expedition. Several provided me bad burns, especially when I included swimming. Charming Infant works excellent for me as well as doesn't make me appear like a white-skinned ghost.

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perspective-series · 4 years

Text

Zapped Perspective (3)

By: @arc852 and @hiddendreamer67

Warnings: Fear, panic, arguments, mention of treating someone like a pet, and feeling helpless.

First Chapter || Previous Chapter || Next Chapter

——————————————————————————————————–

Patton paced back and forth in the kitchen. It was already a half hour past dinner and Virgil should have shown up by now. But there was still no sign of the borrower anywhere. And Patton was starting to worry.

“Where is he…” Patton mumbled, looking around at Virgil’s known exits and wanting them to open.

“Is he usually this tardy?” Logan asked, sat on the kitchen counter same as always. He had been sat on this surface all day, and it was quite uncomfortable. Logan was unsure why Patton had not moved him to another room.

“No, never.” Virgil was usually really good at coming to see him everyday. Not that he was required to, of course, but that’s just how it’s been lately. “M-Maybe something bad happened to him.” Patton suddenly said with wide eyes.

“It’s possible, if he truly has been spending time in the walls.” Logan said, blunt as ever. “It can get quite dangerous. There’s a reason that method of borrower lifestyle has been abandoned.”

Patton shook his head. “No, Virgil said it was really safe...usually.” Still, something could have happened. “Oh no...what if another human found him?” Patton felt his heart sink at the thought. If that happened, there was little chance they would be like how Patton was.

“He may have been turned into the shelter then, you could call there.” Logan suggested. He wondered if Roman had done the same yet for him. Knowing Roman, he had probably called the federal government by this point.

Patton sighed. “I keep trying to tell you. I can’t do that because it doesn’t exist.” This was starting to grow tiring for Patton. Especially with the knowledge that Virgil might very well be in trouble.

“If you’re truly worried, you should drop this charade.” Logan said, getting tired and nervous himself. The borrower just wanted to go home and stop dealing with this lunatic. “Go ask on the street, see if he managed to get out and about.”

“I can’t do that!” Patton exclaimed loudly, before his eyes widened and he covered his mouth. “O-Oh, I’m so s-sorry.” He hadn’t meant to yell at the poor borrower.

Logan had flinched, and now slowly uncovered his ears. He took in the human’s demeanor, so stressed and filled with rising panic. Either he was a very good actor, or… this wasn’t a game.

“No, I apologize.” Logan said carefully. “I know you must be concerned for him.”

“I am. I just-there’s no way for me to ever find out if he’s okay if something were to happen and I can’t...I can’t handle the thought.” Patton spoke, tears starting to form.

“Oh dear, please do not cry.” Logan was uncertain how to comfort a human stranger, only knowing tactics that applied to Roman.

“S-Sorry, I’m just really, really worried.” Patton said, glancing at all the entrances again before sighing. He turned to Logan again. “M-Maybe you could go look in the walls to see?”

“I- “ Logan glanced back, uncertain. “I don’t think that would be wise.”

Patton deflated even more. “Why?”

“Because...I've never been in the walls.” Logan admitted. “At least, not until this morning, and that was only briefly when I awoke there.”

“Wh-What? Really?” Patton asked in shock. “B-But...how?” How had a borrower never gone in the walls before?

“I’m a domestic; humans have always taken care of me.” Logan rubbed his arm self-consciously. It was not a big deal, but to actually have to explain the process was a bit dimeaning.

“But...but humans don’t know that borrowers exist...unless a human found you when you were young?” Patton tried, maybe that was the case. That could explain the borrowers strange behavior.

“I have no idea where this region might be, but where I come from borrowers are no secret.” Logan had begun to hypothesize he had ended up in a rural town far from civilization that had somehow missed the memo. “The entire world knows of our existence.”

“Okay...Okay I don’t have Virgil here with me to back me up on this so...Okay, what evidence would convince you that the world doesn’t actually know you guys exist?” Patton asked.

“Nothing.” Logan said firmly. “I know my reality.”

“Well, so do I.” Patton said with a sigh. Suddenly, Patton had a crazy idea. One that might just work but would definitely make Virgil mad at him. He went back and forth on it, before taking out his phone and putting in the phone number for information. He put it on speaker and set it down in front of Logan.

“Hello, this is information, how can I help you?” A voice answered and Patton took in a deep breath.

“Hi, sorry to bother you, but do you know what a borrower is?” There was silence on the line.

“I’m...sorry? A what?” The lady asked, confused. Patton looked to Logan.

“A, a borrower?” Logan repeated, careful to speak up, feeling a bit unsure.

“...Is this a prank call?” The lady asked with a tired sigh. “We don’t tolerate those here.”

“No, ma’am, this is no prank.” Logan frowned, wondering if perhaps the term ‘borrower’ was regional. “Perhaps ‘Littles’ is more precise? We also go by ‘tinies’. The race of small, humanoid figures.”

“Okay…” The lady let out a large sigh. “No. Whatever you are talking about, they don’t exist. Now please stop this childish behavior. Good day.” And with that, she hung up.

Patton took his phone back. “See?”

“Well, perhaps I exaggerated by including the entire world.” Logan relented, but even he was biting his thumb from nerves.

“Come on! That’s pretty solid evidence right there.” Patton pouted. Were all borrowers just born stubborn?

“But that’s not logical!” Logan insisted, even if it did seem a bit extreme for a simple role-play experience.

Patton sighed. “Look, I don’t know what else to tell you. Borrowers are a secret and the only reason I know about them is because I found Virgil about a year ago borrowing from my kitchen.” He both smiled and winced at the memory. He hadn’t reacted...the best.

“I-but-” Logan stammered, attempting to form a coherent thought as his mind began to consider the possibility that Patton was telling the truth. “Where’s Lightwilde then? Where am I? Where’s Roman?”

“I...I don’t know.” Patton was sad to admit. “The internet says it doesn’t exist and the phone number you tried was wrong…” Patton looked at Logan. “And you really believe that you live in a world...where borrowers are pets…” Patton’s eyes widened.

“That’s it!” Patton snapped his fingers. “You must be from a different dimension!” This was just like the movie he saw a few weeks ago. If only he could remember the name.

“What?” Logan frowned at this declaration. Having read up on the theory of parallel dimensions Logan knew it wasn’t impossible, but still highly improbable. “How exactly would I have managed to travel dimensions without being conscious of it?”

Patton shrugged. “I’m not sure but...wait, maybe that’s where Virgil went! Maybe you two somehow switched places while you were asleep!” Patton grinned, that had to be it. His grin turned to a frown though when he remembered how Logan’s world was. “Oh, poor kiddo…”

“So you’re suggesting, not only did the most insignificantly probable form of dimensional occur… it occurred twice? And teleported us to the exact locations of the other individual?” Logan entertained that thought for a moment. “I...suppose there could be some amount of logic behind the concept of dimensions needing to retain the same amount of material matter to function…”

“Yeah! And think about it, it explains everything! Your address and Roman don’t exist here because they’re in another dimension!” Patton was happy to have figured this all out. But he quickly deflated. “But then...how do we get Virgil back?”

“And how do I return.” Logan said pointedly, noting the way Patton had only voiced a concern about Virgil.

“Huh? Oh, wait.” Patton looked at Logan confused. “You...want to go back? I mean, I get wanting to go back to a known human when you still thought you were in your world but...here, in this world, you don’t have to be a pet anymore.” Patton smiled gently. “You can be free like borrowers are supposed to be.”

“Borrowers are not meant to survive like this.” Logan shook his head. “It’s unsustainable, unsanitary, and unsafe. Wall thieves were just as dependent on humans, but with a known link of communication a borrower’s life expectancy and quality increases.”

Patton frowned. “I mean, all that might be true, but is that really worth giving up your freedom for? I’ve talked to Virgil about it and he’s always saying that he’d rather have his freedom then owned by a human. And he seemed to be doing just fine by himself, living in the walls and borrowing.” Patton explained. Could Logan have been brainwashed to think all those things? It was likely.

“The freedom you speak of is a lifestyle that was never mine; I’m giving up nothing.” Logan explained coolly. “While this Virgil remains stubborn, and you may not have put a title on your relationship, it’s clear he is already dependent upon you.”

Patton furrowed his eyebrows. “I don’t own him. And yeah, I may help him out here and there but I’m not forcing him to stay with me all the time. He still very much likes his freedom.”

“His freedom is merely an illusion of independence.” Logan adjusted his glasses. “Who exactly do you think he’s borrowing from, hmm?”

“Uh, me? The other residents in this building?” Patton answered.

“Exactly.” Logan said this as though Patton had proven his point. “He is still dependent on humans for all his resources, just indirectly. Not to mention, committing petty theft.”

Patton frowned. “It’s better than being a pet.” Patton repeated what Virgil had told him. “It’s better than being locked away in some cage and forced to do whatever a human says.”

“I think you misunderstand my dimension.” Logan felt the need to clarify. “Mental stability is not an issue- it does not feel enclosing to be under someone’s care, and Roman only ‘forces’ me to act in ways that are beneficial to the both of us due to my stubborn nature.”

Patton sighed, realizing his own assumptions must be right. “Kiddo…I think the world you live in has brainwashed you to think that. To be okay with it, because you’ve never known anything different.” He looked at Logan sadly. “But that doesn’t make it okay.”

“I am of sound mind.” Logan frowned, not understanding why Patton was so intent on convincing him otherwise. “Regardless of your thoughts on the matter, I like my existence there and I plan to return.”

Paton sighed, he supposed he would just drop the subject for now. “I feel so bad for Virgil...he must be so scared. Especially if he’s with Roman right now.” He looked at Logan. “Is Roman...nice? At least?” As nice as someone could be who had a person as a pet.

“Yes, Roman is...exceptionally kind.” Logan shook off the feeling of nostalgia that came over him, after less than a day already missing his human. “Virgil will be well taken care of in his company.”

Patton sighed. “I hope so.”

#gt #Giant/tiny #thomas sanders #sanders sides #infinitesimal!sides #au #borrrowers #human!patton #human!roman #borrower!logan #borrower!virgil #platonic #prinxiety #logicality #zapped perspective #part 3

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dustedmagazine · 3 years

Text

Dust Volume 6, Number 12

The Flat Five

It’s November, and the culture is telling us to be thankful again, at least from a distance. We’re a prickly, argumentative bunch here at Dusted, but I think we can all agree on gratitude for our health, each other and the music, good and bad, that comes flooding in from all sides. So while we may not agree on whether the best genre is free jazz or acid folk or vintage punk or the most virulent form of death metal, we do concur that the world would be very dull without any of it. And thus, seasonably overstuffed, but with music, we opine on a number of the best of them once again. Contributors this time include Bill Meyer, Andrew Forell, Tim Clarke, Ray Garraty, Jennifer Kelly, Mason Jones, Patrick Masterson, Jonathan Shaw and Justin Cober-Lake. Happy thanksgiving.

Cristián Alvear / Burkhard Stangl — Pequeños Fragmentos De Una Música Discreta (Insub)

Pequeños fragmentos de una música discreta by CRISTIÁN ALVEAR & BURKHARD STANGL

The acoustic guitar creates instant common ground. Put together two people with guitars in their hands together, and they can potentially communicate without knowing a word of each other’s language. They might trade blues licks, verses of “Redemption Song,” or differently dire remembrances of “Hotel California,” but they’re bound to find some sort of common language. This album documents another chapter in the eternal search. Cristián Alvear is a Chilean classical guitarist who has found a niche interpreting modern, and often experimental repertoire. Burkhard Stangl is an Austrian who has spent time playing jazz with Franz Koglmann, covering Prince with Christoph Kurzmann and realizing compositions that use the language of free improvisation with Polwechsel. This CD collects eight “Small Fragments Of Discreet Music” which they improvised in the course of figuring out what they could play together. Given their backgrounds, dissonance is part of the shared language, but thanks to the instrumentation, nothing gets too loud. Sometimes they explore shared material, such as the gentle drizzle of harmonics on “No5.” Other times, they find productive contrasts, such as the blurry slide vs. palindromic melody on “No6.” And just once, they flip on the radio and wax melancholic while the static sputters. Sometimes small, shared moments are all you need.

Bill Meyer

Badge Époque Ensemble — Self Help (Telephone Explosion Records)

Self Help by Badge Époque Ensemble

Toronto collective Badge Époque Ensemble display the tastefully virtuosic skill of a particular strain of soul-inflected jazz-fusion that politely nudged its way into the charts during the 1970s. Led by Max Turnbull (the erstwhile Slim Twig) on Fender Rhodes, clavinet and synthesizers with members of US Girls, Andy Shauf’s live band and a roster of guest vocalists, Badge Époque Ensemble faithfully resurrect the sophisticated sounds of Blue Nun fuelled fondue parties and stoned summer afternoons by the pool. Meg Remy and Dorothea Paas share vocals on “Sing A Silent Gospel” which is garlanded with Karen Ng’s alto saxophone and an airy solo from guitarist Chris Bezant; it’s a track that threatens to take off but never quite does. The strength of James Baley’s voice lifts the light as air psych-funk of “Unity (It’s Up To You)” and Jennifer Castle does the same for “Just Space For Light” during which Alia O’Brien makes the case for jazz flute — Mann rather than Dolphy — with an impressive solo. The most interesting track here is the 11 minute “Birds Fly Through Ancient Ruins” a broodingly introspective piece which allows Bezant, Ng and bassist Giosuè Rosati to shine. Self-Help is immaculately played and has some very good moments but can’t quite get loose enough to convince.

Andrew Forell

Better Person — Something to Lose (Arbutus)

Something to Lose by Better Person

Like any musical genre, synth-pop can go desperately awry in the wrong hands. The resurgence of all things 1980s has been such a prevalent musical trend in recent years that it takes a deft touch to create something that taps into the retro vibe without coming across as smug. Under his Better Person moniker, Berlin-based Polish artist Adam Byczyowski manages to summon the melancholy vibe of 1980s classics such as “Last Christmas” by Wham!, “Take My Breath Away” by Berlin, and “Drive” by The Cars, reimagined for the 21st century and set in a run-down karaoke bar. This succinct and elegant half-hour set pivots around atmospheric instrumental “Glendale Evening” and features three Polish-language tracks — “Na Zawsze” (“Forever”), “Dotknij Mnie” (“Touch Me”), and “Ostatni Raz” (“Last Time”) — that emphasize the feel of cruising solo through another country and tuning into a unfamiliar radio station. There’s roto-toms, glassy synth tones, suitably melodramatic song titles (including “Hearts on Fire,” “True Love,” and “Bring Me To Tears”), plus Byczyowski’s disaffected croon. It all creates something unexpectedly moving.

Tim Clarke

Big Eyes Family — The Disappointed Chair (Sonido Polifonico)

The Disappointed Chair by Big Eyes Family

Sheffield’s Big Eyes Family (formerly The Big Eyes Family Players) released the rather fine Oh! on Home Assembly Music in 2016. Its eerie blend of folk and psych-pop brought to mind early Broadcast, circa Work and Non Work, before Trish Keenan and James Cargill started to explore more experimental timbres and themes of the occult. Bar perhaps the haunted music box instrumental “Witch Pricker’s Dream,” Oh!’s songs cleaved along a similar grain: minor keys, chiming arpeggiated guitar, spooky organ, in-the-pocket rhythm section, plus Heather Ditch’s vocal weaving around the music like smoke. The Disappointed Chair is much the same, enlivened with a touch more light and shade, from succinct waltz “(Sing Me Your) Saddest Song,” to the elegant Mellotron and tom-toms of “For Grace.” “From the Corner of My Eye” is stripped right back, with an especially affecting guitar line, plus Ditch’s vocals doubled, with the same words spoken and sung, like a voice of conscience nagging at the edge of the frame. It’s a strong set of songs, only let down by the boxy snare sound on “Blue Light,” and on “The Conjurer,” Ditch’s lower register isn’t nearly as strident as her upper range.

Tim Clarke

Bounaly — Music For WhatsApp 10 (Sahel Sounds)

Music from Saharan WhatsApp 10 by Bounaly

The tenth installment in Sahel Sounds’ Music For WhatsApp series introduces another name worth remembering. In case your attention hasn’t been solely faced on the ephemeral charms of contemporary Northwest African music in 2020, here’s the scoop: Each month, Sahel sounds uploads a brief recording that a musician from that corner of the world recorded on their cell phone and delivered via the titular app, which is the current mode of music transmission in that neck of the woods. At the end of the month they take it down, and that’s that. This edition was posted on November 11, so set your watch accordingly. Bounaly is originally from Niafounké, which was the home of the late, great Ali Farka Touré. Since civil war and outside intervention have rendered the city unsafe for musicians of any speed, he now works in Mali’s capital city, Bamako, but his music is rooted in the bluesy guitar style that Touré championed. Accompanied solely by a calabash player and surrounded by street sounds, Bounaly’s singing closely shadows his picking, which is expressive without resorting to the amped-up shredding of contemporary guitarists like Mdou Moctar.

Bill Meyer

Cash Click Boog — Voice of the Struggle (CMC-CMC)

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Last year, Cash Click Boog made a few very noticeable appearances on other people albums (especially on Lonnie Bands’ “Shred 1.5” and Rockin Rolla’s First Quarter) but his own Extras was a minor effort. This Californian rapper was always a dilettante at music, but that was his main appeal and ineradicable feature: you always knew that he’s always caught up in some very dark street business, and he appears in a booth once every blue moon, almost by accident. He is that sort of a player who always on the bleachers, yet when they let him on the field he always does a triple double or a hat trick (depending on a kind of sport).

Voice of the Struggle was supposed to be his big break, the album in which he would expend his gift for rapping while remaining in strictly amateurish frame. Sadly, Boog has chosen another route, namely going pop. He discards his amateur garbs almost completely and auto-tunes every track. If earlier he was too dark even by street standards, now almost all the tracks could be safely played on a radio. The first eight songs are more or less pop-ish ballads about homies in prison, tough life and the ghetto. By the time we reach the last three tracks where Boog recovers his old persona, it’s already too late. The struggle remains but the voice is gone.

Ray Garraty

The Flat Five — Another World (Pravda)

youtube

The Flat Five musters a great deal of Chicago musical fire power. Alt.country chanteuse Kelly Hogan, Andrew Bird collaborator Nora O’Connor and Casey McDonough sing in Andrews Sisters harmonies, while NRBQ mainstay Scott Ligon minds the store and Green Mill regular Alex Hall keeps the rhythm steady. The sound is retro —1930s radio retro — but the songs, written by Ligon’s older brother Chris, upend mid-century American pieties with sharp, insurgent wit. A variety of old-time-y styles are referenced — big band jazz, country, doo wop and pre-modern pop — in clean, winking style. Countrified, “The Great State of Texas” seems, at first, to be a fairly sentimental goodbye-to-all-that song, until it ends with the revelation that the narrator is on death row. “Girl of Virginia,” unspools a series of intricate, Cole Porter-ish rhymes, while waltzing carelessly across the floor. The writing is sharp, the playing uniformly excellent and the vocals extra special, layered in buzzing harmonies and counterpoints. No matter how complicated the vocal arrangements, no one is ever flat in Flat Five.

Jennifer Kelly

Sam Gendel — DRM (Nonesuch)

youtube

Normally, Sam Gendel plays saxophone in a classic jazz style. You might have caught him blowing dreamy, airy accompaniments on Sam Amidon’s last record, for instance, or putting his own spin on jazz standards in the solo Satin Doll. But for this album, Gendel experimented with ancient high tech — an Electro Harmonix DRM32 drum machine, some synthesizers, a 60-year-old nylon-string guitar —t o create hallucinatory fragments of beat-box-y, jazz-y sound, pitched somewhere between arty hip hop and KOMPAKT-style experimental electronics. “Dollars,” for instance, laces melancholy, Latin-flavored guitar and crooning with vintage video-game blips and bleeps, like a bossa nova heard dimly in a gaming arcade. “SOTD” dances uneasily in a syncopated way, staccato guitar runs paced by hand-claps, stuttered a-verbal mouth sounds and bright melodic bursts of synthesizer. “Times Like This” poses the difficult question of exactly what time we’re in—it has the moody smoulder of old soul, the antic ping and pop of lush early 00s electronics, the disembodied alien suavity of pitch-shifted R&B right now. The ringer in the collection is a cover of L’il Nas’ “Old Town Road,” interpreted in soft Teutonic electro tones, like Cluster at the rodeo. It’s odd and lovely and hard to get a bead on, which is pretty much the verdict for DRM as a whole.

Jennifer Kelly

Kraig Grady — Monument of Diamonds (Another Timbre)

MONUMENT OF DIAMONDS by Kraig Grady

The painting adorning the sleeve of Monument of Diamonds is entitled Doppler Effect in Blue, and rarely has the cover art’s name so accurately described the sound of the music paired with it. The album-length composition, which is scored for brass, saxophones and organs, consists almost entirely of long tones that Doppler in slow motion, with one starting up just before another peters out. The composer, Kraig Grady, is an Australian-based American who used to release albums that purported to be the folk music of a mythical land called Anaphoria. Nowadays he has no need for such subterfuge, since this lovely album holds up quite well on its own merits. Inspired by Harry Partch and non-Western classical music systems, Grady uses invented instruments and strategically selected pitch intervals to create microtonal music that sounds subtly alien, but never harsh on the ears. As the sounds glide by, they instigate a state of relaxed alertness that’ll do your blood pressure some good without exposing you to unnecessary sweetener.

Bill Meyer

MJ Guider — Sour Cherry Bell (Kranky)

Sour Cherry Bell by MJ Guider

MJ Guider’s second full length is diaphanous and monolithic, its monster beats sheathed in transparent washes of hiss and roar. “The Steelyard” shakes the floor with its pummelling industrial rhythms, yet shrouds Guider’s spoken word chants with surprising delicacy. “Body Optics” growls and simmers in woozy synth-driven discontent, while the singer lofts dreamy melodic phrases over the roar. There’s heft in the low-end of these roiling songs, in the churn of bass-like synthetics, the stomp of computer driven percussion, yet a disembodied lightness in the vocals, which float in pristine purity over the roar. Late in the disc, Guider ventures a surprisingly unconfrontational bit of dream pop in “Perfect Interference,” sounding poised and controlled and rather lovely at the center of chiming, enveloping synthetic riffs. Yet the murk and roar makes her work even more captivating, a glimpse of the spiritual in the midst of very physical wreck and tumult.

Jennifer Kelly

Hisato Higuchi — キ、Que、消えん？ - Ki, Que, Kien? (Ghost Disc)

キ、Que、消えん？ - Ki, Que, Kien? by Hisato Higuchi

Since 2003, Tokyo-based guitarist Hisato Higuchi has quietly released a series of equally-quiet albums, many on his own Ghost Disc label, which is appropriately named. Higuchi's work on this and the previous two albums of his "Disappearing Trilogy" is a sort of shimmering, melancholy guitar-and-vocal atmosphere — downer psych-folk in a drifting haze. His lyrics are more imagery than story, touching on overflowing light, winter cities, the quiet world, and the transience of memories. As the guitar floats slowly into the distance, Higuchi's voice, imbued with reverb, is calmly narcotic, like someone quietly sympathizing with a friend's troubles. These songs, while melancholy, convey a peacefulness that's a welcome counterbalance to the chaotic year in which we've been living. Like a cool wind on a warm summer evening, you can close your eyes and let Higuchi's music improve your mood.

Mason Jones

Internazionale — Wide Sea Prancer (At the Blue Parade) (Janushoved)

Wide Sea Prancer (At The Blue Parade) by Internazionale

It’s been nearly half a decade since Copenhagen’s Janushoved first appeared in these annals, and in that time, a little more information — and a lot more material — has cropped up to lend some context to the mystery. The focus, however, steadfastly remains with the music — perhaps my favorite of which among the regular projects featured is label head Mikkel Valentin’s own swirling solo synth vehicle Internazionale. In addition to a reissue of 2017’s The Pale and the Colourful (originally out on Posh Isolation), November saw the release of all-new songs with Wide Sea Prancer (At the Blue Parade), 14 tracks of gently abrasive headphone ambient that carry out this type of sound very well. Occasionally there is a piano (“Callista”) or what sounds like vocals (“El Topo”), but as it’s been from the start, this is primarily about tones and moods. Notes for the release say it’s a “continuation and completion of the narrative set by the release Sillage of the Blue Summer,” but it’s less the narrative you should be worried about missing out on than the warmth of your insides after an uninterrupted listen.

Patrick Masterson

Iress — Flaw (Iress)

Flaw by Iress

Sweeping, epic post-metal from this LA four piece makes a place for melodic beauty amid the heaviness. Like Pelican and Red Sparrows, Iress blares a wall of overwhelming guitar sound. Together Michelle Malley and Alex Moreno roust up waves and walls of pummeling tone as in opener “Shame.” But Iress is also pretty good at pulling back and revealing the acoustic basis for these songs. “Hand Tremor” is downright tranquil, with wreathes of languid guitar strumming and Malley’s strong, gutsy soprano navigating the full dynamic range from whisper to scream. “Wolves” lumbers like a violent beast, even in its muscular surge, there’s a slow, anthemic chorus. Likewise, “Underneath” pounds and hammers (that’s Glenn Chu on drums), but leaves space for introspection and doubt. It’s rare that the vocals on music this heavy are so good or so female, but if you’ve liked Chelsea Wolfe’s recent forays into ritual metal, you should check out Iress as well.

Jennifer Kelly

Junta Cadre — Vietnam Forever (No Rent Records)

"Vietnam Forever" (NRR141) by Junta Cadre

Junta Cadre is one of several noise and power electronics projects created by Jackson Abdul-Salaam, musician and curator of the long-running Svn Okklt blog. As the project’s name implies, Junta Cadre has an agenda: the production of sound that seeks to thematize the ambiguities of 20th-century radical, revolutionary politics. The project’s initial releases investigated the Maoist revolution in China, and the subsequent Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s and 1970s. Vietnam Forever shifts topics, to the American War in Vietnam, and tactics, including contributions from other prominent harsh noise acts and artists: the Rita, Samuel Torres of Terror Cell Unit, Leo Brucho of Controlled Opposition and others. Given those names, Vietnam Forever is as challenging and rigorous as you might expect. Waves of dissonant, electronic hum and fuzz accumulate and oscillate, crunching and chopping into textured aural assaults; wince-inducing warbles and needling feedback occasionally assert themselves. Abdul-Salaam’s harsh shout cuts in and out of the mix. The tape (also available as a name-yo’-price DL on Bandcamp) presents as two side-long slabs of sound, both over seventeen minutes long, both completely exhausting. At one point, on Side A, Abdul-Salaam repeatedly shouts, “Beautiful Vietnam forever!” It’s hard to say what he means. An affirmation that Vietnam survived the war? That its people and culture endure? Or that the U.S. can’t seem to shake the war’s haunting presence? Or even a more worryingly nihilistic delight in the war’s carnage, so frequently aestheticized in films like Apocalypse Now (1979), Full Metal Jacket (1987) and Da Five Bloods (2020)? The noise provides no closure. Maybe necessarily so.

Jonathan Shaw

Bastien Keb — The Killing of Eugene Peeps (Gearbox)

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The Killing of Eugene Peeps is a soundtrack to a movie that never was, a noir-ish flick which winds restlessly through urban landscapes and musical styles, from the orchestra tremors of its opening through the folky group-sing of “Lucky the Oldest Grave.” “Rabbit Hole” wafts by like an Elephant Six outtake, its woozy chorus lit by glockenspiel notes, while “God Bless Your Gutters” conjures jazzy desolation in piano and mordant spoken word. “All the Love in Your Heart” shimmers like a movie flashback, a mirage of blowsy back-up singing, guitar and muttered memories. “Street Clams” bristles with funk and swagger, an Ethio-jazz sortee through rain slicked streets. What’s it about? Musically or narratively? No idea. But it’s worth visiting these evocative soundscapes just for the atmosphere. It’s a film I’d like to see.

Jennifer Kelly

Jesse Kivel — Infinite Jess (New Feelings)

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Nostalgia haunts the new solo album from Kisses guitarist/singer Jesse Kivel. Infinite Jess is full of that knowing melancholy of The Blue Nile, Prefab Sprout and The Pale Fountains that was so magnetic to a certain brand of sensitive young thing seeking to articulate their inchoate visions of a future steeped in romance and adventure. Think wistful mid-tempo songs wrapped in cocoons of strummed guitars, shuffling percussion and wurlitzer piano fashioned into a catalogue of adolescent radio memories. These tunes are topped by the understated sincerity of Kivel’s voice and lyrics which effectively evoke the place, time and emotion of his vignettes. The production suffers occasionally from a distracting reliance on too perfectly rendered tropes — overly polite drum programming, thumbed bass, blandly smooth electric piano — but the overall effect is oddly beguiling. Infinite Jess closes with a charmingly wobbly instrumental cover of Don McLean’s “Vincent” played on the wurlitzer that captures the poignancy of the melody and serves as a fitting epilog to the record.

Andrew Forell

Kyrios — Saturnal Chambers (Caligari Records)

Saturnal Chambers by KYRIOS

The corpsepaint-and-spiked-codpiece crowd are still making tons of records, but fewer and fewer of them are interesting or compelling. The retrograde theatrics and cheap pessimism can be irritating enough (I’d rather be reading Schopenhauer, thanks); it’s even more problematic when the songs can muster only the vividness and savor of stiff leftovers from the deep-freezer’s darkest and dankest corners. Still, every now and then a kvlty band that follows the frigid dictates of black metal’s orthodoxy creates a set of songs worth listening to. This new EP from Kyrios is super short, comprising three tracks in just under 10 minutes that pull off that neat trick: when it’s over, you want to hear more. Sure, the dudes in the band call themselves silly things like Satan’s Sword and Vornag, but the tunes are really good. Check out the churning strangeness of “The Utterance of Foul Truths.” Kyrios claims Immortal, Enslaved and Dissection as primary influences, and the band recognizes the stylistic debt they owe to Deathspell Omega (let’s hope Kyrios digs the twisted guitars and weird-ass time signatures, but passes on the National Socialism declaimed by that French band’s vocalist). Stuff gets even more engaging when bleeping and blooping keyboards vibrate at the edges of the mix, giving the songs a spaced-out vibe. “Saturnal Chambers”? Maybe Kyrios has met the astral spirit of Sun Ra somewhere along their galactic journeys into the heavenly void. He liked bleeping, blooping noises and gaudy costumes, too.

Jonathan Shaw

Matt Lajoie — Light Emerging (Trouble In Mind)

Light Emerging by Matt Lajoie

The second volume of Trouble In Mind Records’ Explorers series is, like its predecessor a cassette that comes concealed within a brown slipcase. Like many other discretely wrapped products, the fun is on the inside. This time, it’s a tape by guitarist who understands that toes aren’t just for tapping. At any rate, I think he’s managing his pedals with his feet. Most likely Lajoie has spent some quality time listening to mid-1990s Roy Montgomery. But since a quarter century has passed, he doesn’t just stack up the echoes. Sped-up tones streak across the surface of this music like swallows zooming close to that sheet you hung on the side of your barn the last time you had everyone over for a socially distanced gathering to watch Aguirre, The Wrath of God. Wait, did that really happen? Maybe not, but if someone were to make a fake documentary about the hanging of the projective surface, this music is suitably epic to provide the soundtrack.

Bill Meyer

Lisa/Liza — Shelter of a Song (Orindal)

Shelter of a Song by Lisa/Liza

Lisa/Liza makes a quietly harrowing sort of guitar folk, singing in a high, ghostly clear soprano against delicate traceries of picking. The artist, real name Liza Victoria, inhabits songs that are unadorned but still chilling. She sings with childlike sincerity in an ominous landscape of dark alleys and chilly autumnal vistas. She wrote this album while chronically ill, according to the notes, and you can hear the struggle against the body in the way her voice sometimes wavers, her breath comes in sudden intakes. But, as sometimes happens after long sickness, she sometimes strikes clear of the physical, achieving an unearthly purity as in “From this Shelter.” A touch of plain spoken magic lurks in this one, in the whispery vocals, the translucent curtains of guitar notes, though not much warmth. “Red Leaves” is earthier and more fluid, guitar flickers striking out from a resonant center, and the artist murmuring dreamily about the beauty of the world and its transience.

Jennifer Kelly

Keith Morris & The Crooked Numbers — American Reckoning (Mista Boo)

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It's easy to imagine Keith Morris as perpetually frustrated. His last album, after all, took on psychopaths and sycophants, and the title of his new release American Reckoning doesn't suggest happy thoughts. There's plenty of bile on these five tracks, of course, but Morris approaches the album like a scholar. The opening verse describes the US as “Machiavellian: the mean just never ends” before referencing Othello and Yo-Yo Ma (the latter for a “yo mama” joke). If Morris and the Crooked Numbers just raged, they might be justified, but they'd be less interesting. Instead, they use a wide swath of American musical styles to thoughtfully consider racial (and racist) issues in our contemporary society. “Half Crow Jim” turns a Southern piano tune into a surprising tale about the fallout from slavery. It's a sharp moment, and it highlights that the only disappointing part of this release lies in its brevity. Morris has said he has more music on the way, and if he continues to mix styles, wordplay, and cultural analysis, it'll be worth a study.

Justin Cober-Lake

Tatsuya Nakatani and Rob McGill — Valley Movements (Weird Cry)

Valley Movements by Tatsuya Nakatani / Rob Magill

In most percussion ensembles, the gong-ist is a utility player, charged with banging out a note once or twice per composition for drama and ideally not screwing it up. Tatsuya Nakatani works on a wholly different level, transcending the possibilities of this ancient, archetypical instrument with vision and an unholy technique. More specifically, his set-up includes at least two standing gongs, each about as tall as he is himself. He plays them with mallets, standing between, in blur speed rolls that range all over the surface of the instrument. The sound he evokes is distinctly unpercussive, more resembling string instrument glissandos than any form of drums, a full-on high-register wail of sound that he sculpts and roils and coaxes into compositions of incredible force and complexity. He also plays a bunch of other percussion instruments, little drums and cymbals which he layers on top of each other so that when he strikes one, the others resonate. It is quite an experience to see him at it, and if you ever get a chance, you should go. Here, he works with the saxophonist Rob McGill unfurling a single 40-minute improvisation at a studio in the appealingly named Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. McGill is an agile player, laying alternately lyrical and agitated counterpoints onto Nakatani’s rhythms, carrying the tune and threading a logical through line through this extended set. He finds frequencies that complement Nakatani’s antic, nearly demonic drum sounds and knows when to let loose and when to let his partner through the mix. The result is a very high energy, engaging adventure in sound that evokes a rare response: you wish you could hear the drums better.

Jennifer Kelly

Overmono — The Cover Mix (Mixmag)

Mixmag · The Cover Mix: Overmono

It’s a really weird time to be advocating for club music of any kind, but Overmono’s Everything U Need EP out recently on XL again showcases what the fraternal duo known better as Tessela and Truss do best: melding thoughtful percussion patterns with these airy, gliding synth melodies that work at home just as well as in the club (theoretically, anyway). It’s not just original material they do well, though; whether it was the Dekmantel podcast a few years back or their live cassette from Japan or this mix for Mixmag, Ed and Tom Russell also have a knack for pacing in their sets. This one features stuff from the new EP as well as three unreleased tracks (not counting the Rosalía remix, which remains one of the year’s most addicting) and names both old and new — listen for DJ Crystl’s 1993 jungle jam “Deep Space” sidled up next to Smerz’s new skyscraper “I Don’t Talk About That Much.” If that sounds like everything you need, lock in and let Overmono do the hard work. Truly, they do not miss.

Patrick Masterson

Pole — Fading (Mute)

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As Pole, Stefan Betke’s work has always been both comforting and disconcerting. The amiotic swells and heartbeat bass frequencies generate a warm human feel in his music despite their origins in serendipitously damaged equipment. Fading, his first album in five years explores Betke’s reactions to his mother’s dementia and reflects on the nature of personality, memory and soul. Building on his trademark glitchy beats and oceanic bass tones, the eight tracks echo a consciousness unmoored by the fog of unfamiliarity that smothers and distorts but never completely submerges awareness. “Tölpel” (slang for klutz) evokes impatient fingers tapping out the guilty resentment of the forgotten and the frustration of the forgetful. The title track closes with a woozy waltz punctuated by recurrent sparks. Fading is a deeply felt work; somber, reflective, stumbling towards understanding and acceptance, alive to the nuances and petty nettles of grief and above all beautiful in its ambivalence.

Andrew Forell

Quakers — II: The Next Wave (Stones Throw)

II - The Next Wave by Quakers

After eight years of silence following 2012’s self-titled debut, Stones Throw production trio Quakers (Portishead’s Geoff Barrow as Fuzzface, 7-Stu-7 and Katalyst) dropped the 50-track beat tape Supa K: Heavy Tremors out of nowhere in September and now, just two months later, are back with another 33-track behemoth that allows a litany of emcees to shine. Calling this The Next Wave is a bit of a stretch when you consider many of the voices on here are from guys who’ve been in the game for years or even decades (Jeru the Damaja, Detroit’s Phat Kat and Guilty Simpson, Chicagoan Jeremiah Jae, etc.), but even so, the dusty grooves and Dilla loops prove perfect foils for many of those who hit the mic. My favorite might be Sageinfinite slotting in with the organ grinder “A Myth,” but even if you don’t like it, everyone’s in and out quick. If you’re burned out on Griselda, give this a go for 1990s vibes of a different kind.

Patrick Masterson

Rival Consoles — Articulation (Erased Tapes)

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There are deep pockets of silence in “Articulation,” ink black stops between the thump and clack of dance beat, sudden intervals of nothingness amidst limber synthetic melodies. London-based producer Ryan West, who records as Rival Consoles, layers sound on sound in some tracks, letting the foundations slip like tectonic plates on top of one another, but he is also very much aware of the power of quiet, whether dark or luminously light. Consider, for instance, his closer, “Sudden Awareness of Now,” whose buoyant melody skitters across factory-sized fan blasts of whooshing sound. The rhythm is light footed and agile, pieced together from staccato elements that hold the air and light. Like Jon Hopkins, West uses the glitch and twitch to insinuate the infinite, chiming overtones and hovering backdrops to represent a gnostic, communal state of existence. “Vibrations on a String” may jump to the steady thump, thump, thump of dance, but as its gleaming plasticine tones blow out into horn blast dissonance, the cut is more about becoming than being.

Jennifer Kelly

Sweeping Promises — Hunger for a Way Out (Feel It)

Hunger for a Way Out by Sweeping Promises

The title track bounds headlong on a rubbery bassline, picking up a Messthetick-y blare of junk shop keyboards. All the sudden, there’s Lira Mondal unleashing a giddy screed of angular pop punk tunefulness, her partner in Sweeping Promises, Caulfield, stabbing and stuttering on guitar. In some ways, this band is straight out of late 1980s London, jitter-flirting with offkilter hooks a la Delta Five or Girls at Our Best. In others, they are utterly modern, lacing austere pogo beats with lush, elaborate vocal counterpoints. “Falling Forward” is a continuous rush of clamped in guitar scramble and agile, bouncing bass, anthemic trills breaking for robotic chants; it’s a mesh of sounds that always seems ready to collapse in a heap, but instead finds its antic balance just in time.

Jennifer Kelly

Martin Taxt — First Room (SOFA)

First Room by Martin Taxt

Sometimes a room is more than a room. In the matter at hand, it is a space that proposes a state of mind and a consequent set of experiences. It is also the score for a piece of music that extrapolate that state into the realm of sound. The cover of First Room depicts a pattern of tatami mats that you might find in a Japanese tea room. Martin Taxt is a microtonal tubaist and also the holder of an advanced degree in music and architecture (next time someone tells you that some good thing can’t happen, remember that in Norway you can not only get such a degree; you can then go ahead and present a CD that shows your work. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in our society.). This music takes inspiration from the integrated aesthetic of the tea ceremony, using carefully placed and deliberately sustained sounds to create an environment in which subtle changes count for a lot. The album’s contents were created by mixing together two performances, one with and another without an audience. Taxt and accompanist Vilde Marghrete Aas layer long tones from a tuba, double bass, viola da gamba and sine waves. Their precise juxtapositions create a sense of focus, somewhat like a concentrated version of Ellen Fullman’s long string music, and if that statement means something to you, so will this music.

Bill Meyer

Ulaan Janthina — Ulaan Janthina II (Worstward)

Ulaan Janthina (Part II) by Ulaan Janthina

Part two of Steven R. Smith’s latest recording project echoes the first volume in several key aspects. It is a tape made in small numbers and packaged like a present from your favorite cottage industry; in this case, the custom-printed box comes with an old playing card, a hand-printed image of jellyfish, an old skeleton key and a nut. And Smith, who most often plays guitars and home-made stringed instruments, once more plays keyboards, which enable him to etch finer lines of melody. The chief difference between this tape and its predecessor is the melodies themselves, which have begun to attain the evocative simplicity of mid-1970s Cluster.

Bill Meyer

Various Artists — Joyous Sounds! (Chicago Research)

Joyous Sounds! by Various Artists

It’s been less than two years, but Blake Karlson’s Chicago Research imprint has already made its presence known both in the Windy City and beyond as fine purveyors of all things industrial, EBM, post-punk and experimental electronics. There were two compilations released within days of one another toward the beginning of October, and while Preliminaries of Silence veers more toward soothing ambient textures, Joyous Sounds! is more upbeat and rhythmic (Bravias Lattice’s “Liquid Vistas” is a beautiful exception). My favorite track is Club Music’s “Musclebound” (not a Spandau Ballet cover, as it turns out), but the underlying menace of Civic Center’s “Filigree” and Rottweiler’s pummeling “Ancient Baths” sit alongside merely unsettling fare like Lily the Fields’ “Porcelain” well. If you’re not already aboard or just have a Wax Trax-sized hole in your heart, you have a lot of work ahead of you with this label’s consistently superlative output.

Patrick Masterson

Kurt Vile — Speed, Sound, Lonely KV (Matador)

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Given John Prine's passing from COVID-19 this year, the new Kurt Vile EP might be received as a tribute to the late artist, with extra significance coming from Prine's appearance here. Four years in the works, Speed, Sound, Lonely KV offers more than just tribute, though. Prine's guest spot (if you could call it that) on his own “How Lucky” certainly makes for a moving highlight, the two singers fitting together nicely as Prine's gruff tone balance's his partner's smoother voice. Vile also covers Prine on “Speed of the Sound of Loneliness,” and he adds “Gone Girl” by Cowboy Jack Clement as he takes further cosmic steps.

His two originals here complete the record, and, mixed in with the covers, draw out the lesson. Vile's entire EP blends the country influences with his more typical dreamy sound, the guitar work bridging the gap between a songwriter's backing and something more ethereal. Nashville, it seems, has always suited Vile just fine, and hearing him embrace that tradition more immediately adds an extra layer to his work. Putting a cowboy hat on his previous aesthetic puts him opens up new but related paths for him, and the five tracks here could play on either a Kris Kristofferson mix or a laid-back indie-rocker playlist. Either way, they'd be highlights on an endless loop.

Justin Cober-Lake

WhoMadeWho — Synchronicity (Kompakt)

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Danish trio WhoMadeWho — drummer Tomas Barfod, guitarist Jeppe Kjellberg and bassist/singer Tomas Høffding — make enjoyable indie dance music that suffers somewhat from lack of personality and a tendency toward a middle ground. That may be due to an effort to accommodate a roster of Kompakt-related collaborators including Michael Mayer, Echonomist and Robag Wruhme. While there’s nothing bad and some pretty good here, the individual songs flit by, pausing briefly to set one’s head nodding and feet tapping, before evaporating from the mind. “Shadow of Doubt” featuring Hamburg’s Adana Twins has the kind of driving bass that anchored New Order hits but also, unfortunately, the unconvincing vocals only Bernard Sumner could get away with. More successful moments like the eerie piano riff and jazz inflections of “Dream Hoarding” with Frank Wiedemann, the arpeggiated house of “Der Abend birgt keine Ruh” featuring Perel and miserablist Pet Shop Boys inflected closer “If You Leave” do stick. Synchronicity might work well on the dance floor, but it doesn’t quite sustain at home.

Andrew Forell

1 note · View note

thismightbeaterribleidea · 4 years

Text

FAQ

Hello! So, during a global pandemic and at the beginning of what will probably be a long and severe recession, at the age of 40 and with basically no knowledge of how automobiles work, I’m going to live in a van.

This might be a terrible idea. Hence, I’m calling my blog This Might Be A Terrible Idea.

If you’re reading this, I imagine it’s because you know me, so I’ll skip the introduction. I like a good FAQ, so let’s start there.

FAQ

Where are you going? Short answer: I don’t know!

Long answer: I’ll probably primarily split my time between Colorado/northern New Mexico, Maryland/Pennsylvania, and Florida. I want to stay as low-budget as I can and also avoid crowds during the pandemic. So whenever possible, I’ll opt for free, dispersed sites in national forests, state forests, BLM (which I now read as Black Lives Matter but here it’s the less-important acronym, Bureau of Land Management), state game lands, etc. I’ll pop into a developed campground every now and then to refill the water tanks, empty the portable toilet, and take a shower.

What kind of van do you have? In late June, I bought a 2007 Ford E250 with a high roof. In its first life, it was actually an Embassy Suites hotel shuttle, so when I got it, it had SO MANY SEATS. After it retired from the hotel biz, it went to a guy who owned a brewery and used the van for ski trips. Then he eventually traded it to a friend’s college-aged son in exchange for lawn-mowing work. This young man was actually going to make it into a camper too but didn’t have time, so he sold it to me.

I got the van for a very low price ($2000) because it’s really high mileage — almost 300,000. It also has a few issues: the dashboard, power windows, and radio only work sometimes. The doors are creaky and don’t like to close. There are splatters of paint (?) on the inside of the driver’s door. The air conditioning wasn’t working. And the interior is pretty beat up.

With help from my brother who actually knows about cars, I recharged the air conditioning. A new, functional instrument cluster is on the way. And the type of engine in this van (5.4L V8) supposedly has a reputation for being extremely durable. If I get a couple of good years out of this vehicle, I’ll be happy.

How are you going to afford this? A few years ago, I paid $4200 for an acre of land in the San Luis Valley, a few hours from Denver. I hoped to eventually put a little camper on it and make a very low-budget part-time home. But a few months after I bought the land, the county changed its rules to prohibit living in campers or mobile homes for more than a couple of weeks at a time. So the camper idea went out the window, and in June, I sold that land for $5000. This was my funding to buy the van and associated stuff. I’m going to try to keep the initial total cost of the van (vehicle, repairs, materials for the interior, solar installation) to about $6000.

I’m incredibly fortunate to be in a position where I don’t have to choose between my job and a weird nomadic lifestyle. About a year ago, I went full-time freelance as an editor and writer. So I’m self-employed and I work from home. I don’t even need the internet that much — aside from checking email, file downloads/uploads, and occasional googling for research and editing questions, I can be mostly offline. Also incredibly fortunate: the pandemic hasn’t affected my work, at least not so far.

I’ll have new and unexpected expenses: food will be more expensive, I’ll have to pay for campgrounds sometimes, the van will need gas and repairs and oil and new tires, and then I’ll want to make livability improvements (like insulation). But I hope that I’ll be able to cover all of that while still living within my means.

Aren’t you selling your condo? Why don’t you get a newer/lower mileage/already converted van? Yes, I am (fingers crossed that the sale goes through) selling my condo in Denver. But I also have no savings, no retirement fund, no emergency fund. And the recession is just getting started… the whole future seems pretty uncertain. I’d feel better if I kept as much of the condo money in the bank as possible, even if that means having a crappier van.

Don’t you worry about safety? Absolutely. I’m a worrying person. I worry a lot! But if I responded to those worries by not going anywhere alone, staying in only developed campgrounds, etc., then I’d have missed out on some of the best experiences in my life, and I’d never go much of anywhere at all.

To stay safe in a van, I’ll use the same approach I use for solo car camping. If a place feels sketchy, I go somewhere else. To avoid trouble from bears, I try not to get food on the ground, do food prep and brush teeth away from the vehicle, and keep the car doors locked when I’m away and at night. To avoid trouble from bros, I try to stay out of sight. I pick spots and set up my campsite so that people passing by mostly just see the vehicle and not me or my single chair or small tent. I have bear spray, which stays in arm’s reach when I’m out hiking and at night, and I have a sharp knife, which is always pretty accessible too.

In fact, safety is why I chose a van over a truck with a camper, which actually would have been preferable. If a truck ever had recurring or expensive mechanical problems, I could just get a new truck and put the camper on it — but with a van, I’ll either have to do the expensive repairs or get a new van and re-do the whole interior. And if I wanted to stay in one place for a while, I could take the camper off and just drive the truck around, saving on gas and wear and tear. But with a truck camper, if I were ever inside the camper and felt unsafe, I’d have to *go outside* and then get into the truck cab in order to leave. With a van, if things start feeling sketchy, I can just hop in the driver’s seat and go.

(Side note: It’s upsetting and frustrating to me that these safety concerns and choices are so linked to gender. Of course men also need to think about safety when they’re out camping alone, but I’m pretty sure I’ve had to think about it at least 200% as much as my equivalent 40-year-old non-threatening-looking out-of-shape single dude.)

If we’re talking about safety from non-sentient threats — bad weather, injuries, mechanical breakdowns, etc. — then I…

a) try not to get into situations that I can’t get out of — whether it’s a too-rugged road, a too-steep trail, or a spot that is likely to turn into a mud pit if it rains. I also think about whether I could walk to get help if I needed to. b) have some basic safety and first aid stuff. Tape, gauze, and a mylar blanket for me; jumper cables and a portable air compressor for the car. c) have a Triple A membership in case I need a tow.

The van came with a handy fire extinguisher strapped to the driver’s seat. To reduce the possibility of being unable to call for help if I get stuck somewhere, I eventually plan to get a cell phone signal booster.

The fire extinguisher or even my bear spray won’t keep me safe from COVID-19. But like I mentioned, I’m trying to stay as far away from crowds as possible. To cut down on contact when resupplying, I’ve got storage for 10 gallons of water (I’m actually going to expand this to 15) and plan to carry enough food for a month. Unless there’s a mechanical problem or breakdown (definitely my biggest concern), I should be able to drive coast to coast while remaining in a relatively firm bubble. The riskiest thing I’ll *have* to do is refuel at gas pumps, but I can pick gas stations that seem less crowded, refuel in smaller towns rather than busy highway rest areas, and go at quieter times of day.

Does your van have air conditioning? Nope! Well, it has the standard vehicle AC, but that only works while the van is running, and most of the time I’ll be parked. There are AC units that can go on top of campers and vans, but they use a ton of power: either you have to be plugged in to shore power at a campground, use a gas-powered generator, or have a million solar panels and batteries. I’m going to get a good roof vent and fan installed, plus maybe put some smaller battery-powered fans in the windows, so that will hopefully keep me from getting heatstroke in the summer.

Does it have running water? Nope! Right now, I have a portable foot-pump sink and a self-contained portable toilet. I plan to eventually build a nicer/bigger sink. I’m also going to order a collapsible tub so I can do sponge baths or use a solar shower (a black vinyl bag that heats up in the sun and has a hose attached). Swimming in freshwater lakes will need to become a bigger part of my life. I’ll probably be a little stinky at times, but people should be social distancing anyway, so if anyone can smell me, they’re way too close.

Does it have electricity? It will! I’m planning to have one large solar panel and a lithium battery installed. (For those who are curious, it’s a 315 watt solar panel with a 100 AH battery.) This will power the roof fan, my laptop, my phone, some plug-in lights, and eventually also built-in lights, the cell phone signal booster, and maybe a small fridge or cooler. The solar power system is going to outlast the van and will be easily switchable to my next vehicle.

Wait. “Maybe” a fridge? What are you going to eat? Ummm… I’ll figure it out? I eat like a scavenging raccoon, so I’m not too picky. I bought a bunch of freeze-dried legume-based soup and stew mixes from Harmony House, some high-protein shake mix from Huel, and I plan to stock rice, quinoa, peanut butter, oatmeal, hard cheese, packaged salmon and tuna, and dried fruit. If I’m driving, I’ll probably also keep an eye out for farm stands and grab some produce that will keep unrefrigerated for a few days. During the pandemic, I’ve been using support for local businesses as a way of justifying takeout or delivery once or twice a week, so I’ll probably keep doing that when I pass through developed areas.

Can you poop in your van? Does it smell? Yes to the first! I haven’t, um, tested it out yet. But after road trip in my sedan in May, when I had to go into a scary (no one wearing masks or social distancing) gas station in Colorado Springs, bathroom and hand-washing facilities for the van became a priority. Right now the portable toilet is just sort of hanging out in the open, but I’m going to build a plywood box to contain it. I did pee in it a bunch during my inaugural camping trip, and I’m happy to report that the chemicals I added to the tank made it not smell gross while also not producing an overwhelming chemical smell.

How will you get the internet? Unlimited data plan FTW! I recently figured out that I can use my phone as a mobile hotspot and connect to it with my laptop. It’s not fast, but it’ll do what I need it to. And I should be able to have connectivity even in more remote areas after I get a signal booster.

Won’t you get tired of living in a tiny space? Maybe. I do have some good practice, though. In the last decade, I’ve gone from living in a 700-square-foot condo (Denver) to a 400-ish-square-foot studio apartment (New Jersey; grad school) to my childhood room in my parents’ house (Maryland; post-grad-school student loan debt). Each time, I’ve gotten rid of stuff, even things it’s painful to get rid of: old books, childhood knickknacks, cassette tapes, drawings, horse show ribbons I remember winning, cutlery and glassware I got as housewarming gifts.

I also tend to feel really at home in my car. I’ve napped in my car, drafted novels in my car, had long and meaningful conversations in my car, had existential crises in my car, eaten hundreds of meals in my car. Car = house makes sense to me. And I hope to be staying in places where I have access to big and engaging outdoor spaces.

What will you do after you live in a van for a while? I have no idea. There are definitely things that I want to do — write fiction, build my career, be more involved with community/communities, get healthier, be a better human — but all of those things are geographically nonspecific. And everything both personally and nationally feels so up in the air. I could end up living in a van for a year, or five, or ten. I might eventually buy a house or a boat or a farm, or settle down somewhere (I don’t know where) in a more permanent way. But I’m not making plans for any of that, and I’m not making plans for an “after.”

I think that’s it for the FAQ! If you have any questions, let me know and I will address them in a later LFAQ (Less Frequently Asked Questions).

Also, please bear with me because I don’t really know how Tumblr works. If you want to start reading, start FROM THE BOTTOM.

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orlissa · 5 years

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You remember I said I blocked my aunt on FB? Since the story has been developing ever since, I think it’s time for a full disclosure.

Prelude: my aunt (the wife of my mom’s older brother, so at least not a blood relative) is a nasty piece of shit, who emotionally terrorized my mom throughout most of the 80s, basically robbed her of her inheritance, and thinks that I should not exist. She might even hate me for just existing, I’m not sure. I was mostly blind to this while my grandma was alive, because the two families (my grandma was living with us) tried to keep nice for her sake, and mom had been trying to keep up the peace for the sake of her memory since her death in 2015, but there have been cracks. Which have been grwoing steadily.

Fast foward to this week. Everything started with the new abortion law in Northern Ireland, which basically decriminalized abortion and gave the same right to local citizens as everyone else in the UK. However, the whole was terribly misreprepsented in Hungarian media, especiall on FB, where a bunch of people were going on how “it was the darkest day” and that now people would be aborting healthy, 28 week old fetuses on a whim (which is downright idiotic). I got fed up with this bunch, I made a post along the lines that “no, no-one is gonna abort healthy babies late into the pregnancy,” “you have to stop thinking about abortion in black-and-white because it’s a more complicated question” and “abortions has been around forever and will be, no matter what happens, so we either provide a safe, regulated way to do them, or force women to abtain them in unsafe, illegal ways.”

The feedback to my post was overwhelmingly positive. Some people even shared it. There was one guy asking me to back it up with sources, but the joke’s on you, pal, I’ve read more on the topic than you’ll ever have. As a subtle “fuck you,” I even listed Men Explain Things to Me as possible research material.

Then came my aunt. She wrote a very scathing comment on my post along the lines of “this is not the place to spew such views,” “she is disappointed in me and finds my views disgusting” and that “I lack life experience to have a view on this.” My immediate response was to delete and block her on FB. Not necessarily for this comment, it was more of the straw the broke the camel’s back. Just to be clear: she has never, ever commented or reacted to anything else I’ve ever posted on FB (my mom was especially furious, because my aunt started with “I respect the knowledge you’ve acquired in certain areas,” which is, once again, a subtle fuck you, and, furthermore, a lie, because she has never shown any signs of respecting any kind of my knowledge). I told my mom this, but she asked me to lift the block, so my aunt could see the response she got to her comment.

Because, oh, did she get response. I didn’t have to say a word (not that I wanted to reply to her comment. I know to rule: “don’t argue with idiots, because you’ll sink to their level, and they’ll defeat you with their routine”). Four or five of my friends went against my aunt, calling her out on stuff like that her comment was “a direct attack on my person” and “what kind of life experience is she talking about? She wants me to have been raped and fallen pregnant, or forced to carry to term a baby that would die soon after birth?”

My aunt should have kept her mouth shut at this point, but she didn’t. Oh, she didn’t. Instead she basically simply said “good night, ladies,” not addressing any of the points she has been accused of (I’d like to point out: basically none of my friends who came to my defense knew that she was my nasty aunt at this point, since we have different surnames). This angered my fiercest champion, who went and basically called my aunt a coward who picks battles but won’t fight them, and who is being super unfairl to me in the process.

In response to this my aunt wrote a whole litany. No jokes, an at least 1000 words long comment on her life story, in which she positioned herself as the long suffering, innocent martyr, bending some facts and outright lying about other stuff. My mom was snickering about it all the while (note: my mom was watching this whole ordeal from the sidelines, with a proverbial bucket of popcorn in her hands. I she didn’t want to get involved in the name of keeping the family peace, but she sent her love to all of my champions in private). My aunt even went on about how I wasn’t answering her (she didn’t ask any questions, and any response of mine beyond “yes, oh my mighty aunt, I see the errols of my ways now” would have just ignited her wrath, and would have been a not so subtle fuck you). Knowing full well things wouldn’t have gone this far if I hadn’t lifted her block as per as my mom’s request, I blocked my aunt once again, and also deleted my cousin, rendering the number of FB friends from that branch of the family to 0 (honestly, I have no desire of them ever seeing anything I post).

All the while my mom was periodically on the phone with her best friend and one of her cousins. The best friend specifically called us to rage about my aunt’s comment. The cousin, in her usual delicate way, simply stated that my aunt should go and fuck herself. Honestly, my post basically started a family war, most of the soldiers rallying behind me.

So, yeah, by evening I blocked my aunt again. This, along with my mom’s promise that nope, they’re not coming for Christmas ever again (oh, family Christmases is another story I love). But then this morning my mom told me that it appears so that my aunt deleted her on FB too (even though my mom didn’t say a word throughout the whole argument). We don’t yet know abou my cousin. So, yeah, right now a full-blown family cold war is going on :D

#personal

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romaniassexdungeon · 5 years

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Just Kids - Chapter 47

Pairing: HuttMol

Notes: Not a big, dramatic chapter. Just a HuttMol date. This isn't my proudest or best chapter. It's just pointless fluff, and not even that well written or important, sorry. But if you like cute dates, then that's enough. There'll be more plot next chapter. :)

Oscar - Hutt River // Mike - Molossia

Read on AO3

...

The main takeaway from the next meeting - Saturday morning at the end of the first week back - was that the website needed more attention. Messages had trickled to a halt over the holidays, like everyone had forgotten the site existed. It needed to be promoted everywhere, not just with posters that kept getting defaced. They needed to modernise. Everyone was to promote the absolute shit out of the website in every social media they had, if they hadn’t already. For Oscar, that meant doing nothing, because he had no social media accounts to post on. None at all.

It baffled Mike.

Even his mum was online, posting horrendous conservative memes about various minorities until he'd blocked her. He'd wondered why Oscar hadn't added him on anything. But at least it gave him the opportunity to read out what he considered his funnier tweets, on a variety of topics from American politics to BBC Sherlock. Except most of them went over Oscar’s beautiful, but Australian, head.

“Well you should watch the news more often,” he grumbled, putting his phone away.

“Why? I’m depressed enough as it is.”

“Fair enough,” Mike contemplated putting his arm around Oscar, but he couldn’t risk it. There was only a handful of old people on the bus, but anyone from school could get on. Or see from the street. He didn't want to get into a confrontation because it wouldn't be the one incident. It would continue for the rest of their school lives and drive them to the brink of sanity. And make things unsafe, worst case scenario. Even the best case scenario probably involved drama. Mike was a social vegetarian: he didn't do beef.

The house would be empty later. They could always kiss there.

It was a wonderful relief when they got off at the garden centre, and Mike’s mind was occupied with a squabble over whether or not they should get a trolley.

“Come on,” Mike whined, “my grandpa gave me so much Christmas money! I wanna get loads of stuff for spring! I don’t think he’ll be sending any more, not after what Mom’s gonna tell him.”

Oscar rolled his eyes. “Fine, but I probably won’t get much.”

“That’s okay,” Mike took a trolley and browsed the flower displays by the door, “you can help me plant stuff.”

“Doesn't look like there's much in stock, though,” said Oscar as they walked inside.

“Yeah, but the home decor section is gonna be fun. Winter stuff on sale.”

“I hate winter,” Oscar grumbled. Mike smiled at him.

“Me too, but I still appreciate the aesthetic. You know, I got really excited, the first time I saw snow.”

Oscar rolled his eyes, smiling. “Me too, but it gets old. I’m just a baby about the cold.”

“You’re my baby,” Mike mumbled, glancing around. No one heard. Oscar smiled at him, putting a little succulent in the trolley.

“One small thing,” he said, “and we can’t grow anything outside yet.”

“Yeah. I’m gonna stock up on seeds anyway, though. Never know when it’ll get sunny again.”

“How about never?”

“Hey, we can’t both be the pessimist here.”

“I don’t think you’re a pessimist,” said Oscar, “I mean, you can try all you want, but you’re nice and sweet and this little ray of sunshine. That swears. You’re grumpy, but you’re not cynical. You're too American to be.”

Mike smiled, despite himself, and loaded up on seeds. “Come on. Let’s look at the animals!”

He grabbed Oscar’s wrist, and dragged him over to the pet section. Oscar smiled and let him; there was little chance of finding anyone here. The only people remotely their age were small children with their parents, too distracted by a pen of rabbits to stare at some gay guys. Oscar and Mike decided to keep things platonic, though.

Mike awkwardly waited for the children to move on, so he could fawn over the rabbits himself. Oscar smiled, watching him. Charlie was always pestering Logan for a rabbit, but they weren’t allowed pets in their rented house. The rule broke both his brothers’ hearts, and Oscar’s too. He wouldn’t mind a rabbit. Or a cat.

Mike stared, adoringly, at the rabbits, then moved on to the guinea pigs. Oscar followed along, letting him ramble as he watched fat hamsters climb on top of their little wheel, only to fall into their thick bed of straw. He smiled at them.

Mike turned a corner, finding a menagerie of reptiles. He particularly liked the dopey geckos and tiny tortoises in their tanks. The snakes didn’t do much, but he loved them too. Oscar was less keen, but he watched Mike coo and fuss over them regardless.

When he’d had his fill, and moved on to the fish, Oscar spoke up.

“I’m gonna go look at the home living section,” he said, “I wanna get a new throw for my bed.”

“More?” Mike raised his eyebrow. Oscar’s bed was almost hidden by layers of blankets, all the Cooper siblings had them. And thick pyjamas, and hot water bottles, even with the heating cranked up. They hated the cold as much as Mike did, but Oscar was a lot skinnier than Mike and seemed to freeze over the littlest thing. And his hands were always cold.

“I can’t help it,” he mumbled, “I like getting new ones. They’re so soft when you just buy them, you know, before they go in the wash.”

Mike shrugged. “I- guess? You’re very cute.”

“Thanks, um, I’m gonna…” Oscar covered his face to hide his blush, and ducked off. Mike watched him go with a soft smile, then turned back to the fish. He fussed over all of them, trying to give every tank the same amount of attention, and the axolotl too. He wanted a pet so badly, even a tiny fish that didn't do anything, but now the Jones brothers weren’t getting money from their mother, they had to cut back on expenses. Get “real” jobs, in the twins’ cases. Alfred was handing out rather empty CVs, and Matthew had gone back to selling weed, not a real job but it made more money than one. It was keeping them afloat, along with support from their dad. He was a little skeptical of having two LGBTQ children, but accepted Mike all the same. It was more than a weight off for him.

He missed his dad at times. The man was gruff and cantankerous, and not quite in touch with his emotions, but he loved them, and could be fun to hang out with. Mike wasn’t one for fishing in silence most of the time, but it wasn’t so bad to get away from it all, just sitting by a lake, admiring the view and recharging.

When he found Oscar again, the trolley was half full.

“I got a little carried away,” Oscar admitted, fiddling with his hair. “Thought it’d be nice to redecorate.”

He’d bought a pair of fluffy cushions and a duvet set to go with his blanket, all a soft lilac.

“So much for not getting stuff,” he commented.

“I like stuff,” said Oscar, blushing.

“I noticed. Luckily, you might get some more stuff for your birthday.” If they were still together in three months. Mike hoped they were.

“Aww, you don’t need to,” said Oscar in a way that told Mike he would very much like to be spoilt for his birthday, and every other day too.

“I’m gonna,” Mike decided to get a set of string lights for his room, since they were on sale. Oscar decided to join him. Mike added some lanterns and a star ornament to the trolley, then grabbed some snacks. “For later,” he added.

Oscar made a face.

“You don’t have to have any, or get something you want.” Was this something they needed to talk about? Mike wasn’t sure it was his place, but Oscar’s aversion to food was getting concerning. Did he eat at home when Mike wasn’t around? Should he ask his brothers? Was it any of his business? He didn’t want to mention it to Oscar in case he got upset and that was that and they were done.

But he should say something.

But he didn’t want Oscar to dump him.

But the guy just didn’t eat.

Mike didn’t bring it up, like the coward he was, and just went to the checkout in silence. He’d talk to Oscar eventually, someday, or he wouldn’t forgive himself.

“I hope you didn’t have any other plans for the date,” said Oscar, a little more chipper once they were outside, despite the snow beginning to cling to his hair. “I mean, I’m kinda excited about sorting out my room.” He looked away. “If it sounds boring, we don’t have to, though.”

“Nah, it’s cool,” Mike nudged him, “I’m cold. And I like it when you’re excited.” Also, Oscar had mentioned his brothers weren’t home. He wondered what would happen, and tried not to let the bubble in his stomach distract him. Nothing was going to happen, most likely, so he should just calm down.

Stupid hormones.

...

“There, beautiful.” Oscar smoothed out his blanket, then continued to run his hands over the soft, fluffy material. His bed was neat and made up with the new things, the string lights wrapped around the bars of his headboard. His succulent was on his desk, named Mikey, whilst Human Mike watched him with a soft smile.

“You are,” he mumbled with a blush, then stood up to hug Oscar from behind. He sighed, kissing the back of his neck as Oscar's hair tickled his nose. Oscar reached a hand back around to squeeze him, and pressed himself against Mike. He wasn’t the warmest person, but Mike was happy to provide all the heat here, holding him tight.

Everything was perfect. He hoped he didn’t say anything to ruin it.

“I love you.”

Fuck.

Oscar paused. “You do?”

“Yeah, um, it might be a bit early, sorry,” he could feel sweat creep into his eyes. “I’m sorry. I just- I don’t know what I’m sorry. I mean, saying, sorry.”

Oscar turned around and kissed his sweaty forehead. “I love you too.” He kissed his nose. “And, yeah, maybe we’re being dumb teens who go on about being in love after two months, but it’s how I feel.”

Mike grinned, despite himself. Who knew what would happen in the future? Maybe, by next Christmas, they wouldn’t even be talking, but it didn’t matter. He was going to live his life, and so was Oscar, and they were going to make as many mistakes as they could. They were fifteen! They had miles and miles of life ahead of them, and they needed to make the best of it.

His mother was just one of many challenges he knew he’d be facing over his life, so he had to grab any happiness he could. Any memories to get him through the bad times. And Oscar was good for those kinds of memories.

“Wanna get under the covers and cuddle?” He kissed Oscar cheek.

“But I just made the bed,” he whined.

“I’ll make it again when we’re done.”

Oscar looked at him. “Done with what, exactly?”

“Kissing, nothing more,” he put his hands up, then slowly lowered them again. “Unless, you-”

“I don’t!” Oscar’s face softened. “I’m sorry, it’s a bit soon. I’m not ready.”

“That’s fine, baby,” Mike kissed his nose, “baby dear man.” Oscar huffed a laugh. “We’ll do things when we’re both ready and comfy.”

Oscar pulled Mike into the single bed, the two of them clinging together to save Mike from falling out. Mike pulled the new blanket around them both and kissed him. Then kissed him again, because Oscar’s lips were soft. Oscar smiled and kissed his nose.

“Say you love me again,” he mumbled, “I liked it.”

Mike grinned. “I love you.”

#huttmol #aph hutt river #aph molossia #hetalia #aph micronations #Hetalia Fanfiction #Hetalia fic #just kids

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